January 15, 2009

 

"...All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that

    good men do nothing..."

 

                                   - Edmund Burke

 

 

To All,

     It's strange how some advice is timeless in nature....

 

Refuse To Be A Victim:

     Case Number PA063042-03 was called in front of Judge Daniel Feldstern in Division 132, down at the San Fernando court house last Friday morning.

 

     The various attorney's for the defendants had spent a good while discussing beforehand with the Deputy District Attorney as to the next course of action, which largely seemed to revolve around the DA's office sending over a "settlement" offer regarding a case related to a good deal of stolen property. One defendant at least may have been on parole, which seems to explain why his attorney was fairly interested in such an offer in the first place.

 

      I sat in the back corner of the viewer's section of the court room, waiting for the gears of justice to start grinding.

 

     Omar Sanchez, Mario Ascencio, and Charles Monteroso were finally lead into the court room, shackled together like fish on a stringer.  They were garbed in blue coveralls, and seemed to exhibit varying degrees of awareness as to what was going on.

 

    One defendant was smiling, a look the kind of which one would find on a guy behind the counter at an auto parts store. Another looked as clueless as Antonio Villaraigosa would likely look like at a service rifle regional shoot. The third looked angry, kind of like someone upset that he got caught in the first place.

 

     Judge Feldstern methodically explained to each defendant the nature of the morning's hearing, their rights to a preliminary hearing, and asked them if they understood those rights (They at least answered in the affirmative). He then told them that they were next ordered to appear in his court on January 26, and or January 28, depending upon the settlement negotiations between their attorneys and the District Attorney's office. With that they were sent back through the door they came in, accompanied by the bailiffs, and the court moved on to the next case. I left to return to work, and mark the calendar for the next hearing date.

 

     One would normally think that such a mundane hearing is of no import beyond that it is a part of the story concerning being  robbed of some $ 5000-$ 6000 worth of personal property from my truck parked in my own driveway (My house had been burgled back in July as well, making this the second time in 2008 that the ole homestead had been "hit"). Or that some of the personal property stolen involved a kit box containing reloading dies and a few rounds of fixed ammunition used as bench standards for reloading purposes (I am not holding my breath waiting for the Deputy DA to add possession of ammunition charges to the case).

 

     Rather, the import of case lies more with the attitudes of certain close friends who felt that it was akin to foolishness to go down and be in the same court with the alleged criminals. Especially when there is a decent chance that said denizens may be back out on the street post-haste due to the state's current fiscal limitations.  

 

    This sentiment on their part made me wonder if the criminal classes, and their urban facilitators within the Los Angeles political machine, had not won the battle of intimidation that is required to keep good men and women held down as victims in their own communities.

 

    After all, it's not like I can personally identify them as being involved in the burglary (In a way they did that for themselves, by somehow hanging on to a number of pre-printed "condor/lead bullet" presentations that just happened to have my name on the lead page when they were arrested.). 

 

     But if folks are generally too frightened to be involved in simple auto-burglary cases, then what does it say about how they would react in more serious circumstances?

 

     Many of us know about the ability, and the limits, of when one can use deadly force when protecting life in a life-threatening situation. And some of the same friends who counseled non-involvement have expressed in the past a desire to have the deadly force option when needed.

 

     But as proven in localities across the Fruited Plain, it takes but a small amount of indifference, or fear, to let criminals decide that good men will do nothing at all for any type of transgression. This not only leads to increasing crime rates, but also leads to a diminution of that whole body of civil rights of which as Second Amendment Rights activists we are dedicated to upholding.

 

     I do not think that it requires bravery so much as a sentiment towards civic duty to turn up for this kind of court case. Recognition of bravery is better reserved for soldiers on the battlefield, police in an armed standoff, or firefighters knowingly climbing up high rise stair wells that may not be there a moment later.

 

     But perhaps it might be worth it to to start recognizing that the kind of "grit" that seems necessary to stand up to robbers, crooks, charlatans and, yes, certain politicians, needs to be encouraged more widely. Otherwise, LA and a host of other US cities might end up resembling Tijuana, Paris, London, or even Mogadishu. Maybe it starts with standing up to the little crimes, and then dealing with the grander thefts as confidence is gained. Ultimately, with the right attitude and the right self-empowerment, we might just be able to hold on to the Republic for a while longer.

 

Link at:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/columnists/When+dealing+with+punks

+there+time+liberal/1165503/story.html

 

 

Lucy In The Sky With Footballs:

     Andrew McKean writes in the print edition of the February 2009 edition of Outdoor Life about being "hornswoggled" after a fashion over wolf repopulation in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Private Environmentalist Playground.

 

     It seems that McKean is upset over a judge's ruling that halts the delisting of the gray wolf in the Rockies. Said delisting, at the instigation of environmentalists and their legal teams, apparently prevents the hunting of gray wolves and otherwise managing them in such a way as to limit their impact on elk, deer, and cattle.

 

     Yet veterans of the East Mojave Preserve in California could have easily explained that the preservationist movement will do and say anything to divide and conquer, so long as the ultimate result is to turn control of valuable Western public and private habitats over to anti-hunters. Quail hunters and cattle ranchers were promised no adverse impacts to their activities in the East Mojave early on, so as to limit their opposition during the key early hearings. Suffice it to say that later rulings closing road access and guzzlers have had an adverse impact on hunting access and opportunities

 

     It does no good for McKean to mention the wolf-hunting policies of Canada and Alaska, where wolf populations do not seem threatened by the additional pressure of human take. Facts do not seem to count much when environmentalist ends justify any means necessary.

 

     One can only wonder when editors and hunters like McKean will wake up and smell the caffeinated morning beverages when it comes to the actual intentions of the preservationist movement. It will only be when those like McKean finally come to realize that the so-called environmentalists are truly opposed to such animal management methods as controlled hunting will there be a start to the actual work of safeguarding our hunting tradition. Until then, they will be hard put to remove the Charlie Brown stigma they have so recently acquired.

      

 

Going For It:

     The Center for Biological Diversity announced in a December 9, 2008 news release that they have notified the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management over their intent to sue unless said agencies make changes to land management rules that affect California condors and desert tortoises.

 

    Apparently CBD feels that such currently permissible activities as mining, grazing, ranching, hunting, and off-road vehicle recreation are all inimical to the existence of 2 critters currently subject to recovery programs in the American West.

 

    While desert tortoise programs have lead to decreased desert road and hunting access, as well as reduced training flexibility at Fort Irwin, additional restrictions that seem to be on the environmental wish list seem to threaten the condor's very existence alongside the activities Center for Biological Diversity finds unacceptable.

 

    For instance, the current "10(j) flock released in the Vermillion Cliffs area of the Grand Canyon is heavily dependent upon the foraging of dead livestock (sheep and cattle) throughout Northern Arizona and Southern Utah.

 

    If grazing is prohibited in BLM lands in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, then the "biomass" available for condors to use for food will be restricted (condors throughout the American West are heavily dependent upon anthropogenic food sources, not wild food sources) to private land operations. The potential for the seizure or "taking" of private land sheep and cattle operations go up, while the total area of condor foraging goes down. This does not sound like a policy that will lend to the long-term survival of the condor (nor does it sound healthy for ranching and grazing operations as well.).

 

    In addition, the inclusion of off-roading as a negative impact on condors belies the negative impact on disabled Americans, who might find that the roads they could use to access BLM lands open to those not constrained to wheel-chairs would be closed for the foreseeable future. ADA activists as well as the nation's off-roader communities might just have something to say about this particular turn of events.

 

     Suffice it to say that the CBD is "gunning" to knock out all other uses of NPS and BLM land in a move designed to obtain total practical control over large sections of the American West. If not halted soon, environmentalist radicals will have obtained a power over land and land use never envisioned by even the most intractable of land barons from the late 1800's. Stay tuned.

 

 

Link at:

 

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2008/az-strip-12-09-2008.html

 

 

 Respectfully,

 

 

Anthony Canales

SFVMC-NRA