Bill Malcolm has grown potatoes, onions, asparagus and other veggies in his garden in Marlbrook, Worcestershire, for eight years. Unfortunately, in the past four months he has been burgled three times. Thieves stole £300 worth of garden tools. (That’s not weight, that’s British currency.)
So Mr. Malcolm erected a wire fence with a row or two of barbed wire on top. To discourage thievery.
A professional thief could make short order of the fence. But our English gardener figured that it wasn’t the pros who had stolen from him. So he proceeded.
And then came the Bromsgrove district council, which ordered the gardener to take down his fence . . . or have it be taken down by force of law.
Why?
The local government was afraid it might get sued by a thief who scratched himself on the barbs of the wire.
The fact that the thief would have been in the wrong, for trespass and for intent to steal, that didn’t matter to the council. They were only afraid of being sued.
They gave friendly advice to Bill Malcolm: Not to leave his tools at his garden, in the shed, but to take them home with him.
If you think this is idiotic, I haven’t told you the punch line. That same government, a few weeks before, said not to lock sheds, in case burglars damaged them while breaking in.
It’s nice to know what government is for, eh? That is, insanity.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “Barbed Logic”
Why is it government & courts want to punish those who try to live by the law, but want to also punish anyone who tries to protect their property & or their person?
If a thief hurts themselves while committing a crime, it should be deemed as a cost of their illegal business & the consequences are theirs to deal with, not those innocent parties they intended to harm!
This has already happened in California (where else), and not just recently. A county government, which shall remain unnamed, refused to put up barbed wire atop the chain-link fence of the county vehicle maintenance shop and parking area, because the thieves and vandals, who lived in the adjoining government subsidized housing area, might get injured while committing their crimes and sue the county. And not one government official has drafted a bill at the county or state level to prohibit law suits for injuries sustained during the commission of any crime. Of course, as could be predicted, the pilferage and thefts and other vandalism continue. I guess not enough residents are aware of this situation to raise a ruckus.
The problem is not the thieves, the local government, or the farmer. The real problem is the terrorism of lawyers who are willing to sue anyone to make a buck. There are too many lawyers in America. Parade Magazine reported that there is a lawyer for every 337 American citizens. It also reported that in Washington, DC there is a lawyer for every 14 residents!! The Supreme Court justice Scalia has said that there are too many lawyers in our society. Imprimis, the Hillsdale College publication printed a lecture entitled “The Threat From Lawyers Is No Joke”. The U.S. Senate has 60 lawyers of the 100 Senators. This is a supermajority. The House has 37% of its members lawyers. The Supreme Court, or course, has 100% lawyers. Both Obama and his vice president candidate are lawyers. If Obama wins, the Executive, Judicial and Legislative Branches of our government will all be controlled by lawyers. We need to stop electing lawyers to public office and then stop using tax money to support law schools.
In less than 50 years the American Constitution will be a dead letter and the United States of America will have ceased to exist, as we know it. The Constitution has already been ignored in many ways. A Declarations of War is the sole function of Congress but since WWII there have been NO declarations of war by any Congress, in spite of the fact that America has fought Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, both Gulf Wars and the Balkans. Congress has only to exercise its Constitutional power but it refuses to do its responsibility to declare war or to stop a war because it is too “controversial”. The Constitution states that national elections are to be held on the first Tuesday in November. Now, the EPA, an unelected, appointed part of government, is making laws and threats with the stated future approval of an Obama presidency. The Constitution assigns the responsibility of protecting the borders of America to Congress. The alien immigrant invasion has not been stopped by our government. Voters have already lost control of our government and the powers that be will not allow us to get them back without a fight, possibly a revolution.
Sixty of the 100 U.S. Senators are Lawyers, the Supreme Court [of course] are all lawyers.
The Senate’s distribution of lawyers follows:
Alabama——-2 Indiana———-1 Nebraska———-1 Tennessee—-1
Alaska———2 Iowa————-1 Nevada————1 Texas———2
Arizona——–1 Kansas———-1 NewHampshire—1 Utah———-1
Arkansas——1 Kentucky——-1 N. York———-2 Vermont——1
California–—0 Louisiana——–1 N.. Carolina—–1 Virginia——-2
Colorado—– 1 Maine————0 N. Dakota——-0 Washington–0
Connecticut–2 Maryland———1 Ohio————–1 W. Virginia—1
Delaware—–1 Massachusetts—2 Oklahoma——–0 Wisconsin—-1
Florida——–2 Michigan——–1 Oregon————2 Wyoming—–0
Georgia——-1 Minnesota——-2 Pennsylvania—-2
Hawaii——–1 Mississippi——2 Rhode Island—-2
Idaho———-1 Missouri———2 S. Carolina——1
Illinois——–2 Montana———1 S. Dakota——–1 Total = 60 lawyers
Only 6 of the states have no lawyers in the Senate.
In an Obama Administration, both President and Vice President are lawyers. Thirty seven percent of the House of Rep. are lawyers. The Washington Times publishes Capital Contacts which gives the training of all elected officials in the Federal Government. Thus, three of the branches of Government are or will be 100 percent lawyers with the House tending in that direction. We are not a nation of laws and legislation. We are a nation of lawyers and litigation.
The Amoral Majority
Americans who are voting for change in the form of liberal candidates are certain to get it. But is it the kind of change our families need? If the keys to Congress are placed squarely in the hands of the current leadership, imagine what our future could hold. The Fairness Doctrine, a bad policy that was abolished in 1987, would likely be reinstated to regulate the views of U.S. broadcasters. Although it would muzzle free speech and drive talk radio into an era of opinion neutrality, this leadership has already called for it. We can also expect the passage of a full complement of “hate crimes” laws, which would clog the legal system with lawsuits that criminalize how you and I think and what religion teaches. Third, Sen. Barack Obama is on the record stating that his first priority as president would be to pass the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), obliterating every state and local law that protects the unborn, including parental notification, conscience protections, bans on taxpayer-funded abortion, and much more. Under FOCA an individual who tries to limit abortion could be sued. This could mean anyone from state and federal legislators who work to pass abortion restrictions to pro-life protestors. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Left has already announced its plans to roll back the Defense of Marriage Act and repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” If the last two years are any indication, this nation will be in for a total policy makeover.
Additional Resources
NY Post: Dems Get Set to Muzzle the Right
Catholics Groups Corrupted, by George!
If it seems odd that a handful of Catholic organizations are supporting a pro-abortion candidate like Barack Obama, Catholic League President Bill Donohue says we need only to look at their list of contributors. In a surprising twist, it seems liberal financier George Soros has been pouring money into Catholic groups that are painting Obama in a favorable pro-life light. According to IRS records, both Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance have benefited by the tens of thousands from the unlikely partnership with the MoveOn.org founder. Donohue, who exposed the link, said, “The reason Soros funds the Catholic Left is… [because] they all service his agenda… to make support for abortion rights a respectable Catholic position.”
Here’s another impossible headline that might issue from the pen of any zany, unscrupulous tabloid fabulist: BLOGGER TREATED AS CRIMINAL FOR POSTING WEB LINK TO CITY AGENCY!
Not a concoction, I’m afraid…
Catching Wild Pigs
One day while the class was in
the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who
kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt.
The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The
student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been
shot while fighting communists in his native country who were
trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new
communist government.
In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and
asked a strange question. He asked, ‘Do you know how to catch
wild pigs?’
The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch
line. The young man said this was no joke. ‘You catch wild pigs
by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the
ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the
free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a
fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming.
When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn
again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to
that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all
four sides of the fence up with a gate in The last side. The
pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the
gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.
Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run
around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon
they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it
that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for
themselves, so they accept their captivity.
The young man then told the professor that is exactly what
he sees happening to America . The government keeps pushing us
toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the
form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for
unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments
not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc.. While we
continually lose our freedoms — just a little at a time.
‘A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.’
– Thomas Jefferson