Joe 'Bear'den. "If it only saves One (Bears) Life..." - Granite Grok

Joe ‘Bear’den. “If it only saves One (Bears) Life…”

Progressives of all party stripes love to tell us from one side of their mouths that government needs to do these things for the good of the people while from the other side insisting that their detractors are insane fear-mongers for thinking it (whatever the thing we need to do is) will ever escalate to the absurdities opponents claim.

I'm here from Massachusetts Dept of Environmental Services to inspect your yard for bear bait.  Please curl up into a ball on the ground.
I’m here from Massachusetts Dept of Environmental Services to inspect your yard for bear bait. Please curl up into a ball on the ground.

As proof that the progressives are full of whatever it is they are shoveling, I give you Massachusetts.

Seventy-six year old Richard Ahlstrand heard a disturbance in his yard at his home in Auburn Massachusetts.  His first mistake? He went to investigate…

Reason:  (c/o Hot Air)

Richard Ahlstrand, of Auburn, Massachusetts, faces criminal charges after encountering a bear in his back yard and shooting the damned thing to avoid being mauled or eaten. Specifically, as noted at Reason 24/7, he’s charged with “illegally killing a bear, illegally baiting a bear, illegal possession of a firearm and failure to secure a firearm.”  All of these charges, once translated from Massachusetts to American, seem to stack up to outrage that Ahlstrand didn’t make his yard completely inhospitable to animals that are rarely seen in the area, and then investigated a suspicious noise with a weapon in hand rather than cower under the bed. Worst of all, he actually defended himself when he encountered danger.

In Massachusetts if you find someone stealing from you, you are not allowed to engage them, particularly if they are from the government.   It only follows that having bird seed is no different than parking your truck in the driveway.  If a thief wanders by and sees your truck, and decides to take something out of it, your job is to watch them do it, and call the police.  If they attack you, your job is to run away and hope they don’t chase you and beat you or kill you so that you won’t need someone else to call the police for you because you can’t.

I guess this same rule applies to Bay State bears.  If a bear attacks you run away.  Actually, that’s wrong.  According to some lines of thought, you are supposed to curl up into a ball and cover your head which makes a hell of a lot more sense because in Massachusetts that is the preferred method of public engagement (with any level of government) in a progressive State.   But it didn’t start out that way.  If you recall, Massachusetts is rumored to be the place where liberty fought back against a tyranny that sent its officers to eat out its substance  (Thank Natures God they were not bears); fought back with the preferred military style weapon of the time.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts circa 2013, an old guy,  scared for his life and property, shoots an angry bear on his property where no bear would typically be, and what does Massachusetts do?  Do they say, “‘Good shot old man”  or, “wow that was a close one.”  How about, “must have been stressful, you feelin’ okay?  I guess we’d best keep that bird seed covered, eh?”   No.  They take the bears side and he  gets arrested on multiple charges.

And any minute now Joe Biden could start talking about the need to restrict the use of everyone’s guns because it could save one bears life.  Screw the old guy with the gun.  Even if it was a shotgun.  No reason to shoot that bear, not even through the door.  Besides, doesn’t the second amendment have the word bear in it?   There’s got to be some shadow of a penumbra or something at work there.  Just give me a minute and a few “open-minded” judges and we’ll fix this.

And should he expect an IRS audit for the last seven years worth of returns?  Did he have kids?  Is he a grandfather?  Will Child and Family services be doing an interrogation of his children or grandchildren to see if there is a history of abuse?  Was he married or divorced?  Lord help him if he voted Republican.  That’ll get him a massive media enema.

Sure.  We’d like to laugh.  But this is the political culture we live in now.  Big brother is out there to keep us cowed and the regulatory state with its deficit funded super-powers will not tolerate any act of self defense or self responsibility.   In the progressive paradise that is modern Massachusetts that is a crime.  But it wasn’t always that way.

What was that I said earlier about escalation of absurdities?  Yes, history holds many lessons, which is probably why progressives would rather you not bring it up.   But that fact of the matter is this; if you don’t stand up now, even for the tiniest assault on your liberty, you’ll be too busy curling up into a ball later to do anything about anything.

 

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