calimary
calimary's JournalOh we've already done that. Tried it. It only worked for the hour or so the speed trap was there.
That would be a viable option IF there were enough cops. Which there aren't.
Go ahead and nay-say. Assume from the beginning it won't work and it's no use and blah-blah-blah. I accept that, human nature being what it is, speeders won't come to a complete stop, and people sitting on the sidelines will nay-say and go to the default position of discouragement. So the answer is - might as well just do nothing. Correct?
Well, NOT FOR ME. If I can't make the speeders and reckless drivers in my neighborhood all come to a complete stop, at least I can work to make sure they're forced at least to SLOW DOWN. And it does make a difference.
True enough. All we get is a very small consolation.
The best thing about ronald reagan? He's dead. Wish his policies were, too.
So then let's just get rid of all the stop signs.
Because people don't always stop for them. Law-doesn't-work, don't-need-it, unnecessary, bad-guys-won't-stop-anyway, blah-blah-blah.
I live on a reckless street. People speed. Residents, gardeners, visitors, contractors, you name it. There's total disregard of speed limits, or safety, or common consideration for the neighbors here. They speed like crazed demons. We have had our side mirrors sheered off, our parked cars side-swiped, nannies pushing baby strollers have to dive into the bushes to escape oncoming racers. The offenders are always going too fast for anybody to get a license plate number. They're never caught. I've had to replace TWO side mirrors, myself, because nobody stopped to apologize or exchange insurance information to fix my car that they just scraped up. We have old people living on our street who don't move fast. We have dog walkers and babysitters. We have children on roller skates and skateboards and scooters, chasing bouncing balls out into the street, bicycle-riders - and a whole bunch of other people who literally take their lives into their hands simply attempting to cross the street. It's freakin' RIDICULOUS.
It's a canyon road, with a pretty straight shot and no significant curves, from the big main street from which it stems - all the way to the top of the dead end, some two miles up. Until recently there was ONE and only one stop sign way up at the 1.8-mile mark, and all of us farther down have been plagued by the speeders, nonstop. (Indeed. Pardon the pun). FINALLY, after years of lobbying, petitioning, bothering our city council person, bothering the municipal traffic control people, bothering the local cops to come out and write speeding tickets, we FINALLY got one in our section of the road that many people mistakenly view as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
And guess what? They still don't stop. Knowing this, and realizing how many scofflaws there are, what's the point in having stop signs - if people will just ignore them or roll through them? They don't work, 'eh? Those stop signs don't prevent those reckless drivers and speeders from speeding, and they don't make those drivers come to a stop.
HOWEVER, they DO slow down. They slow down enough - even if just a little bit - that the little old lady a block farther down, or the nanny with the 2-year-old twins, or the mom with her five-year-old and their dog, and others like them, actually do have an extra second or two - to get out of the way, and up onto the sidewalk to safety. IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE. Even just that little bitty second or two.
Now, to apply the logic that the gun nuts love - "more laws won't work," "people will still be able to get guns," "you can't stop people who want to get a gun..." "useless, useless," blah-blah-blah...
Well, okay. Understood. Human nature being what it is, indeed we will NOT stop everyone who's hellbent on getting a gun - any more than erecting a stop sign on a speed-road will make speeders come to a complete stop. We will NOT stop every bad guy or nutcase from getting a gun. BUT WE CAN - AND WILL - SLOW THEM DOWN. WE CAN SLOW DOWN THE FLOOD OF WANTON GUN SALES. We can make it even just a TINY bit harder to get a gun, or more complicated, or more problematic, or more inconvenient, to get a gun. We can increase the discouragement factor. And maybe last year, if there were ten mass shootings around the country, perhaps this year, there'll be eight or nine. Maybe instead of 3000-some-odd people who get killed by gun violence PER MONTH in this country (it was described as the equivalent of a 9/11 EVERY MONTH), perhaps it'll be 2500 next month. Or 2000. Maybe ten more children will be alive. Maybe five more families will not have to bury a loved one a week before Christmas. Maybe even ONE OR TWO fewer mothers and fathers will cry themselves to sleep every night for the rest of their lives. And maybe if some nut cases are STILL hellbent on mayhem, they'll turn to a knife or something else, like that perpetrator did at Lone Star College yesterday. And yeah, there were victims. People were injured. But no one died. And it wasn't dozens of people mowed down in the space of a few heartbeats, either.
Guys - SERIOUSLY. Let's take a page from the anti-choice crowd. They're incredibly sneaky, shrewd, and resolute. Once Roe v Wade came to be, they began, slowly, steadily, and systematically, to try to slow it down, chip away at it around the edges, weaken it, block it, hobble it, IN ANY WAY THEY COULD, to put an impediment or other complication or difficulty in its path. Since they couldn't stop it or get rid of it outright, they opted for the erosion strategy. Kill it with a thousand little bitty cuts. Pick away at it year after year after year, while also wearing down the opposition because they never stop and they never give up and they never go away. And 30 years or so later, look at what they've been able to accomplish! Yeah, the right to choose is still on the books - kind of. But so many little holes have been poked in it by now that in many states it wouldn't stay afloat for two seconds, and for all intents and purposes, it's pretty much undone. In more and more states Roe v Wade has been whittled down to a mere technicality.
GUYS - WE NEED TO TAKE THAT APPROACH AS WELL - against wanton access to ANY AND ALL guns including mass-murder weapons. I don't care WHAT the NRA talking points are. THESE are the REAL Weapons of Mass Destruction. And they do NOT belong in civilian hands. And we the vast majority must no longer be held hostage to the bullying of the NRA and a dwindling number of crazed paranoiacs.
(Cross-posted in GD)
So then let's just get rid of all the stop signs.
Because people don't always stop for them. Law-doesn't-work, don't-need-it, unnecessary, bad-guys-won't-stop-anyway, blah-blah-blah.
I live on a reckless street. People speed. Residents, gardeners, visitors, contractors, you name it. There's total disregard of speed limits, or safety, or common consideration for the neighbors here. They speed like crazed demons. We have had our side mirrors sheered off, our parked cars side-swiped, nannies pushing baby strollers have to dive into the bushes to escape oncoming racers. The offenders are always going too fast for anybody to get a license plate number. They're never caught. I've had to replace TWO side mirrors, myself, because nobody stopped to apologize or exchange insurance information to fix my car that they just scraped up. We have old people living on our street who don't move fast. We have dog walkers and babysitters. We have children on roller skates and skateboards and scooters, chasing bouncing balls out into the street, bicycle-riders - and a whole bunch of other people who literally take their lives into their hands simply attempting to cross the street. It's freakin' RIDICULOUS.
It's a canyon road, with a pretty straight shot and no significant curves, from the big main street from which it stems - all the way to the top of the dead end, some two miles up. Until recently there was ONE and only one stop sign way up at the 1.8-mile mark, and all of us farther down have been plagued by the speeders, nonstop. (Indeed. Pardon the pun). FINALLY, after years of lobbying, petitioning, bothering our city council person, bothering the municipal traffic control people, bothering the local cops to come out and write speeding tickets, we FINALLY got one in our section of the road that many people mistakenly view as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
And guess what? They still don't stop. Knowing this, and realizing how many scofflaws there are, what's the point in having stop signs - if people will just ignore them or roll through them? They don't work, 'eh? Those stop signs don't prevent those reckless drivers and speeders from speeding, and they don't make those drivers come to a stop.
HOWEVER, they DO slow down. They slow down enough - even if just a little bit - that the little old lady a block farther down, or the nanny with the 2-year-old twins, or the mom with her five-year-old and their dog, and others like them, actually do have an extra second or two - to get out of the way, and up onto the sidewalk to safety. IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE. Even just that little bitty second or two.
Now, to apply the logic that the gun nuts love - "more laws won't work," "people will still be able to get guns," "you can't stop people who want to get a gun..." "useless, useless," blah-blah-blah...
Well, okay. Understood. Human nature being what it is, indeed we will NOT stop everyone who's hellbent on getting a gun - any more than erecting a stop sign on a speed-road will make speeders come to a complete stop. We will NOT stop every bad guy or nutcase from getting a gun. BUT WE CAN - AND WILL - SLOW THEM DOWN. WE CAN SLOW DOWN THE FLOOD OF WANTON GUN SALES. We can make it even just a TINY bit harder to get a gun, or more complicated, or more problematic, or more inconvenient, to get a gun. We can increase the discouragement factor. And maybe last year, if there were ten mass shootings around the country, perhaps this year, there'll be eight or nine. Maybe instead of 3000-some-odd people who get killed by gun violence PER MONTH in this country (it was described as the equivalent of a 9/11 EVERY MONTH), perhaps it'll be 2500 next month. Or 2000. Maybe ten more children will be alive. Maybe five more families will not have to bury a loved one a week before Christmas. Maybe even ONE OR TWO fewer mothers and fathers will cry themselves to sleep every night for the rest of their lives. And maybe if some nut cases are STILL hellbent on mayhem, they'll turn to a knife or something else, like that perpetrator did at Lone Star College yesterday. And yeah, there were victims. People were injured. But no one died. And it wasn't dozens of people mowed down in the space of a few heartbeats, either.
Guys - SERIOUSLY. Let's take a page from the anti-choice crowd. They're incredibly sneaky, shrewd, and resolute. Once Roe v Wade came to be, they began, slowly, steadily, and systematically, to try to slow it down, chip away at it around the edges, weaken it, block it, hobble it, IN ANY WAY THEY COULD, to put an impediment or other complication or difficulty in its path. Since they couldn't stop it or get rid of it outright, they opted for the erosion strategy. Kill it with a thousand little bitty cuts. Pick away at it year after year after year, while also wearing down the opposition because they never stop and they never give up and they never go away. And 30 years or so later, look at what they've been able to accomplish! Yeah, the right to choose is still on the books - kind of. But so many little holes have been poked in it by now that in many states it wouldn't stay afloat for two seconds, and for all intents and purposes, it's pretty much undone. In more and more states Roe v Wade has been whittled down to a mere technicality.
GUYS - WE NEED TO TAKE THAT APPROACH AS WELL - against wanton access to ANY AND ALL guns including mass-murder weapons. I don't care WHAT the NRA talking points are. THESE are the REAL Weapons of Mass Destruction. And they do NOT belong in civilian hands. And we the vast majority must no longer be held hostage to the bullying of the NRA and a dwindling number of crazed paranoiacs.
AND they want our money. It's all about the MONEY.
I have called Heidi Heitkamp's office several times to complain.
I always say some version of this - to any of these bastards who try to tell me or infer to me that because I don't live in their state or their district, my wishes don't count.
"Well... yeah, maybe I'm a Californian, and my reasonable expectation for representation presumably stops at my state line. HOWEVER, my MONEY goes from COAST-TO-COAST.
MY MONEY goes to ANY STATE, and ANY DISTRICT towards which I direct it. And your (Senator/Congressmember) boss has NO problem asking for OR accepting MY CALIFORNIA MONEY. So, frankly, as long as that condition persists, YOUR BOSS works for ME, TOO. YOUR BOSS represents ME TOO. And therefore YOUR BOSS ANSWERS TO ME, TOO. And if not, I AM GONE." (Translation - if your boss accept my money, regardless where he/she is actually from, I OWN HIS/HER ASS. And if he/she refuses to do what I want, then he/she can forget about seeking campaign donations from me EVER AGAIN.)
I do not hesitate, especially in other states where I know I've sent money, either through ActBlue or the DNC, or the DCCC, or the DSCC, or directly to individual campaigns, to point this out. In Heidi Heitkamp's case, I point that out rather forcefully. FINE, she represents North Dakota. I don't care if she represents Timbuktu. If I gave her money, and had a hand in getting her into that Senate seat, then her ass is MINE. And she damn well better do what I say as her underwriter and financier. Otherwise I will NOT be bankrolling her campaign ANY LONGER.
NOTE: I can tell you for a fact that what I consistently get back in response to this is one or more versions of the following:
"You're not the first person I've heard that from, today."
They are INCREASINGLY aware of this on the other end of the phones and emails and tweets in those local, regional, and national offices.
May this kind of reception greet him EVERYWHERE he tries to go.
EVERYWHERE! I want protestors coming out of the faucets in every bathroom of every hotel room in which he's booked. I want them jumping out of his cup of coffee every morning. I want them looking back at him from EVERY mirror he glances into. I want protestors in EVERY window, hounding him til he breathes his last. Like piles of gum under his shoes. I want him hobbled by this, unable to take a single step, from coast-to-coast AND beyond our borders. Until his last miserable day on this planet. And then we'll follow his damned carcass to its grave where the worms and microbes can get at him and have their way with him on our behalf.
Not a SINGLE HOUR of peace for you, you bastard, for the rest of your detestable life.
Maybe they just couldn't take the heat.
If true - EVEN MORE HEAT is required!!!!
TOLL FREE Capitol Hill switchboard numbers in my sig line below:
Welcome to DU, notgoinback!
Glad you're here!
I have a friend whose mother was sufficiently well-connected that she was invited to a very chi-chi private reception for reagan while he was president. I don't remember how far into it the reception occurred - but, I seem to recall it was sometime during his first term. She said she was absolutely thunderstruck by what she witnessed. She said she watched Nancy leading him around the room, hooked pinkie finger-to-pinkie finger, and that he was visibly "a doddering old man." I remember her saying how she felt so shaken and disturbed by the sight of it.
Love the rough-'n'-tumble!
I tend to be all over the place - as the "mouthing-off" muse moves me.
Because I am an insufferable bloviating schmuckette! 
OMG!!! Somebody commenting on there referred to this ding-dong as "Caribou Boobie"! ROFL!!!!!
It gives me great pleasure to think of her future - when her looks fade and not even her fawning worshippers can look at her anymore.
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Current location: Oregon
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 81,220