05Nov05

From the Washington Post, sent by a friend on the East Coast:

"When Debra Bolton, 45, was pulled over by police in Washington, DC, she told the officer the truth: she had a glass of wine with dinner. He arrest ed her for DUI. A breath test found her blood-alcohol was .03, well below the .08 percent legal limit, but the charge stuck. 'If you get behind the w heel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in DC, said Dennis Fair, the arresting officer. 'We have zero tolerance. '

Area defense lawyers know about this 'rule,' and usually sug gest their clients plead guilty and accept 'diversion' programs, but Bo lton fought the charge. After four court appearances, it was dropped, but the Department of Motor Vehicles then moved to suspend her license anyway. 'Our burden of proof is lower than the court's,' said a DMV spokesman. 'Not enough evidence for them may be enough evidence for us.' The DMV eventually decided not to suspend her license, but instead give her a 'warning.'"

Comment: There has been much talk of "activist judges," but activist police chiefs and DMV bureaucrats are worse. Though unelected, they have decided,

in essence, to manufacture new law and enforce it as though it were the law of the land, even though no legislative body ever even voted on it. Traffic safety, nor any other kind of safety, has anything to do with it. They see

DUI laws as yet another way to maximize their income. All roads in DC have

thus become "toll roads."

This is not law enforcement. This is harassment, harassment of decent citizens who have disposable incomes and are unlikely to fight back. The C ity looks upon them as "easy money." Instead of protecting citi zens, they prey upon them.

Local politicians may seen no harm in this bit of officially-sanctioned larceny, but they are the ones most responsible for the deteriorating level of respect paid to all police, and the entire body of law to boot. When citiz ens find out about this kind of sleazy thievery and the seedy attitudes at uppe r levels of the police department that engender it, they begin to regard all police officers as little more than petty criminals, and who can blame them ?

The Metro PD, it seems, has forgotten who is working for whom!

/John

05Nov05

Why France, and all of Western Europe, are destined for exciting times, fro m a friend and student who is a French citizen:

"Our 'leaders' set us up for the out-of-control riot ing going on in France right now.

It began when I was still a teenager. North African Arabs, mostly from Fran ce 's former colonies in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, began flooding in under the auspices of a vaguely-defined 'work permit' system. Al l were Muslim. They gladly took low-level jobs that didn't interest native Frenchm en, who were mostly Christian. Naturally, these people stayed and had families. As I was leaving for college in the USA, French politicians were already frettin g about what to do with the progeny of these recent immigrants, who, as in th e USA, were accorded full, French citizenship by virtue of being born in Fran ce.

No attempt was ever made to integrate them in French society. For the most

part, they worked hard but were relegated to living in ghetto/suburbs (no ' inner-city' in France; it's the 'outer-city=80=99). This new segment of French society had a higher birthrate than the average for the rest of the country, and, in no time, grew to represent a full, ten-percent of the population. As time went on, Arabs from the other parts of the Middle East, now including black Africans, also began to arrive, in order to join what they saw as a g rowing colony. Radical versions of Islam began to take root!

France's economy is bad. It's been bad since the end of WWI. Unem ployment is at ten percent, and you can guess whom most of the unemployed are! Add to the explosive mix our expansive, Socialist-style welfare system that, like yours, dooms generation after generation to social immobility. Our suburbs

were left to rot. Police now refuse to patrol vast expanses of Muslim-controlled real estate.

From the point of view of the government, be it the Marxist left of the confused right, the French state is still about career politicians, and thei r children, controlling power forever. It is not, nor has it ever been, abou t personal freedom and free enterprise. 'Those people' (try saying t hat with an arrogant sneer, and you'll get the idea) weren't important, so long as thei r votes could be reliably purchased with welfare payments.

So, this large segment of our population, who were never given any incentiv e to assimilate, HAS NOW STOPPED WANTING TO ASSIMILATE! It has been radicalized by extremist clerics who find devout followers among the unempl oyed and the 'on the dole,' simmering with anger over slights, both r eal and imagined. They are demanding complete, political autonomy, in effect, their own natio n within France's borders, a radical, Muslim foothold right in the mi ddle of Western Europe! One unsettling consequence is a 'brain drain, =99 as our best and brightest are becoming frightened and getting out.

France, in the meanwhile, has no leaders. What it has a political =80 ruling class' that lives only for the continuation of its own benefits and powers, and passes laws accordingly. Nothing is going to get better.

In the USA, you are not as vulnerable to this type of problem, so long as you don't turn Socialist, as we did. It is the welfare system that permane ntly alienates and segregates newcomers. Immigrants are assimilated and integrated into American society, because it provides the incentives and opportunities for success through your capitalistic economy. The welfare sta te provides only for permanent stagnation and marginalization."

Comment: And so many in America think Europe is so cool and trendy. They need to go over there and see for themselves!

/John