Episode 158 - Migrants Mad Everywhere and New Zealand Gun Buyback

Taking guns away in New Zealand, will it really make people safer?  Ebola spreads in The Democratic Republic of Congo and Migrants are angry everywhere.   Coming up on the Hot Zone.

 

Italian police have evicted migrants and others from an abandoned former school on Rome's outskirts in the latest operation to empty occupied buildings of squatters.

 

Residents set fire early Monday to mattresses and other garbage to form a barrier and prevent riot police from entering the building. But authorities doused the blaze and proceeded with the eviction.

 

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has championed a crackdown on migrants, said Italy had "no tolerance" for anyone who illegally occupies abandoned buildings. He said the structure was dangerous and put women and children living there at risk.

 

City hall officials said they were providing alternative housing for the nearly 200 people affected.

 

In Paris illegal African migrants are demanding the same rights as French citizens and recently occupied the Pantheon.  Police in Paris have removed scores of people who invaded the famed monument where many famous French figures are buried, in order to press their demands for residence papers.

 

Police moved into the monument hours after Friday's occupation began and evacuated the occupiers who are illegally living in France and demanding a meeting with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

 

Some members of the group identified themselves on Facebook as "Black Vests", and members of a group called the La Chapelle Debout, a reference to the sector in northern Paris teaming with migrants without shelters and homeless.  And of course, when they were denied, they set up the all too familiar cry of "racist."  

 

Both at home and around the world, we're seeing that word used against anyone who stands for the rule of law.  Paris doesn't care what race these lawbreakers are - they only have a problem with the fact that these men are breaking the law.  When did it become racist to expect people to be law abiding?  I don't know.  But it's the same here in the states.

 

President Trump is getting lots of flack for his decidedly unpresidential twitter habit.  Not wholly undeserved, mind you - in my opinion the best thing he could do for his 2020 chances would be to give up his twitter account.  Nevertheless, he's being pilloried by the left for a new rule that will require migrants to claim asylum in the first country they enter after leaving their own, though I'm sure some 9th circuit court judge will strike that down soon and call it, too, racist. 

New Zealand just completed it's first gun buyback since the horrific mosque shootings back in march which left 51 dead and another 49 wounded.  Now New Zealand is not a hot zone - on the contrary it's normally one of the safest places on earth.  But I hope you'll indulge me as I point how how what's happened there since the shooting won't make that country - or any other - any safer than it was before.  If anything, it's probably more dangerous.

New laws went into place there recently restricting the kind of weapons used in the mosque shooting.  The government set aside millions of dollars to buy back these weapons, and if my arithmetic is right, they are paying over $1500 per gun for the few firearms being turned in.

Now you need to understand something about New Zealand - they have a very, very homogenous society.  So pretty much everyone has very similar morals, values and worldview.  So if they decide to make changes to their country's laws, it's a pretty straightforward process.  Also, the country is so safe that the idea of firearms for self defense is pretty unheard of.  Still, a gun buyback is probably the least effective way of making the country's citizens safer...I mean really... who can imagine criminals turning in their weapons?  Normally the people who turn in guns are those who inherited them or who could use the cash...sometimes to buy better guns.  Listen to some of those who were involved in the buyback.

[Interviews]

It's clear listening to these guys that New Zealanders have a different mindset when it comes to firearms than most gun owners in the United States.  Liberals here like former presidential hopeful Eric Swalwell have been advocating for massive compulsory buybacks here...and the results have been so underwhelming as to be downright ridiculous.

Liberals aren’t just attacking the second amendment.  They want to fundamentally transform the very culture that has made America exceptional for most of our history.

Excuse me while I rant a little...The deep hatred progressives have for American values continues to rear it’s ugly head in so many places.  The left has become more and more unhinged as they continue to fulminate under the Trump administration.  Everything Trump says or does is one more log on the fire of their hatred.  I’ve often said that America is really two countries with vastly different values trying to inhabit the same space, and you only have to look at the news on any given day to get a sense of just  how mutually exclusive these two groups of people can be.  If you feel like everything you’ve ever known to be good, honorable and just is now being called terrorist, deplorable and corrupt, you are not alone.  

I spend a lot of time overseas.  I see first hand what it’s like for people living in countries like Germany and Austria where you are literally prohibited from defending yourself.  You are basically expected to simply lay down and die if there don’t happen to be any police around when a criminal decides to attack.  

I’ve been to Sweden, where you can be arrested for having an opinion the government deems to be "unkind". 

I’ve been to Honduras, where if you are robbed the last place you go is to the police, unless of course you want to be robbed again.

And I’ve been to Somalia, home of a certain congresswoman who loves to hate on America, where the only law is that of whichever warlord can bring the most terror and suffering on the people.  Believe me, that’s not a place you want to live.  Somalia is one of the worst places on the planet.  

[somalia package]

Somalia is looking to hold it's first real elections in fifty years in 2020, and that's a big deal, because it's been a failed state for nearly all of living memory.  I was there when they re-wrote their constitution, and was pleasantly surprised to see that they were committed to enshrining the right of their people to defend themselves.  But when you see how lawless that country truly is, you can understand why when people come from places like that to, say, Italy, they're likely to attack and destroy when they don't get their way. 

 The rule of law is one of the most important factors in a stable civilization, however, and you have only to spend a day in Mogadishu to get a real appreciation for that.  So this is what I don't understand about Ilhan Omar.  She seems to be vehemently against just about any American authority.  Whether it's the border patrol or the pentagon.  Here she is attacking the DOD for dropping bombs on terrorists.

[ilhan omar]

Here, the police  and the military are held to a very high standard of integrity, and while justice might not be perfect, it’s SO much better than the rest of the world that most Americans can’t even imagine the kind of corruption that is common elsewhere.  So where is the benefit to our country for representatives who grandstand like this?

One of the signs of this enormous divide in American culture is how literally everything becomes politicized.  This has created a socially toxic environment where people can’t even stand to be in the same room with someone who holds different views than they do.  Where employers feel pressured to take a political stand on every issue, from abortion to guns to same sex marriage.  This is not what a healthy culture looks like.

 In a saner and more civil time, back when I was a child, people tried to get along with others out of a common sense of simply being American.  They used to say, “hey, it’s a free country.” And let people believe what they wanted.  But then the left decided that America didn’t have problems, America WAS the problem. This depraved worldview made them become the very things they accused America of being.  They accuse America of racism while forming racially exclusive hate groups.  They accuse  America of fascism while using fascist tactics to violently oppose anyone with whom they disagree.  And they accuse you and I, people on the "other side", of literally murdering children.  One thing is for sure, the left’s hate-filled worldview has no room for one thing:  Irony.

 

Okay, stepping down off my soapbox now.  I try not to indulge my opinion too terribly often on the podcast, but the events of the last few months, and the absolutely vile rhetoric being served up by both sides of the aisle makes me think maybe we need to step back a bit and just reflect on how truly exceptional are these United States of America.

That's all for today folks.  Thanks for being here.  I know I always ask you to like and share the podcast - but really, please like and share it, because you doing so could just make the difference in this thing really taking off.  All right.  I'll see you back here tomorrow on the Hot Zone.