StanleyWheeler

I had some pithy thoughts that produced a witty phrase. I didn't write it down. I can't remember what it was. I know it wasn't, "Nobody is interested in your politics when you're coming through the broken window with your arms wrapped around a flat screen TV." I read that--or something like it--somewhere else. If I remember correctly, my thoughts had to do with the irony that protests against the lock down were discouraged and law enforcement was to enforce lock down and social distancing restrictions, and curfews were strictly enforced for reasons of public health, but mass protests and gatherings nominally against police brutality are encouraged and should not be obstructed in any way. While people trying to run business and support themselves and their employees were arrested and jailed, rioters and looters run amok with impunity. Funeral gatherings are restricted, and church services are prohibited for reasons of public health--except for a service for a victim of police brutality.

The mask has come off. The public safety wizards have been revealed as horses of a different color. The flying monkeys of social justice have irreparably damaged property, businesses and human life in their frenzy of destruction. We've seen the man behind the curtain and his name is The Great and Powerful Political Agenda. He's a humbug and a very bad man. Let's use our brains as well as our hearts, find our courage, click our heels together, and get back to Kansas. End the farce and march America toward the principles of freedom and liberty upon which it was founded. Back to work. Back to the protection of property, and economic and social freedom.

I've also been intrigued by the idea that some cities plan to disband their police forces. That's a proposal to throw the baby out with the bathwater--along with the tub, and burn the whole house down. There are endless terrible potential outcomes from that course. The very best that could come of such action would be:

Here endeth the rant.

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Enough belaboring the obvious. I've got other dead horses to beat.

Clamorous Harbingers is finished at 124,000 words and change. I've proofed it once. I will proof it again before I make it available on Amazon. I still have to come up with the book description.

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Fun Fact: 
By early 1775, militiamen were training in many of the colonies. Charles Lee, in a rebuttal to many who warned against war with Britain, called the redcoats "the refuse of an exhausted nation." He insisted that Americans "are accustomed from their infancy to fire arms," as well as being skilled with spades, pickaxes, hatchets, etc. Thomas Jefferson wrote at the time, "[F]ear ... is not an American art." The British leadership decided upon war. Nevertheless, the ministry did adopt the North Peace Plan, which would have abandoned parliamentary taxation of America in return for a pledge that the colonies would raise the revenue to meet their own defense and other governmental responsibilities. However, London would decide the amount of revenue with quotas assigned for each colony. The colonies would only get to decide the kind of taxes to impose upon themselves. The plan's purpose was to divide the Americans. While preparing the plan for the public, Lord North sent 3,500 more troops to the colonies, and directed General Gage to use vigorous force to seize the leaders behind the Massachusetts protest. Many dissenters in Britain argued against hostilities. General Gage warned that armed rebellion could only be suppressed by a very respectable force of regulars, and he requested significant reinforcements.

On April 19, 1775, Gage began a plan with two objectives. He sent troops to capture John Hancock and Samuel Adams who were thought to be in Lexington, and which would then continue to Concord to destroy stocks of rebel weapons and powder. He expected to have his troops back in Boston by noon.