A century ago, Germans would have executed a public official like this. Fifty years ago, she was “just doing her job.”

Hmm…

The guy brought a gun to a flashlight fight. against a drunk opponent.

Here’s the problem. The SECOND the BATF agent pulled his gun, he eliminated all other options. His hands were now fully occupied, and his only option was to shoot.

That’s the fucking problem.

On a tangent, “Bob” -

“Basically… the guy was drinking massively and came at him with a good sized metal flashlight.

Realistically? A guy with a .29 BAC is no match for any remotely trained individual. I would have that guy on the ground in 2 seconds. (I’m trained in boxing) And I’m a fat assed old guy.”

You are obviously not qualified to comment on the matter, either in the practical use of force or the legal problems associated with it.

An untrained man can kill you with one good blow from a solid flashlight (a trained or lucky man can do it with empty hands), drunk or not. The person who pulls the trigger has to weigh the value of Mr. Flashlight’s life vs., at minimum, the risk of getting whacked on the head, and *then* having his weapon taken and used to do who knows what. That’s not even taking into consideration other parties present. Your “boxing” training doesn’t mean a damn thing when it comes to something like this. Go get some relevant training, then some experience dealing with belligerents looking over the sights of a gun, then come back and tell us you’re going to let some drunk idiot swing a maglite at you while you’re trying to hop in your car and drive a third party to safety.

I’m no fan of the ATF, and it really sucks to be that guy, but when you start something you get to deal with the consequences. That’s a justified shoot, law enforcement or not.

People seem to think the bureaucracy is inefficient. The truth is that it is terribly efficient at one thing: growing government power.

So its not a matter of the president being unable to control the political machine. Its that the machine is so precisely calibrated to growing executive power that none of them see any reason to fuck with the controls. Just let it run and rake in the rewards.

Remember, if any government policy, agency, or activity, seems hopelessly backwards to you its most likely because you ascribed goals to it that it never had. Like if you think of public education as a means to educate children, then its not very good, but if you consider it as a conditioning device to get children to abandon ideals and reason in the face of petty bureaucrats, then it is remarkably successful.

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/star-chamber-106287528.html

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes!

Good point. Of course, God made everything, but he didn’t make marijuana. At least not for humans to smoke. Except that contradicts Genesis when God gave man dominion over all the creatures of the Earth. Maybe the devil made marijuana.

I can understand how religious people would look upon rational people as aliens from another planet.

Thanks Tom, but that’s not my construction. I’ve heard/read it so many times now I’m not even sure to whom to attribute it. I know Butler Shaffer has written it many times too. Let’s just call it part of the public domain.

The guard guards guard guards. Who polices the police? The police police police police. And who polices the police police?

At a conscious level, I think they have rationalized it that the WoD is ‘too important’ to take the risk that someone may become addicted. I do not know how they can decide this is relevant for a terminally ill patient, but they do.

I suspect there is also an element that still believes that the pain people suffer is part of “God’s Plan” and that we should not interfere with that.

More and more, I am of the belief that the President of the United States is not really in control of the giant federal bureaucracy, and whoever is in control is turning this country into a police state. They alone are above the law, and if not they change the law in the middle of the night.

Who is guarding the guards?