chris dorner | Tom Mullen Talks Freedom

TAMPA, February 13, 2013 – “Are you to be happy, while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? You can blast my other passions; but revenge remains, – revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die; but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. I will watch with the willingness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict.”

While far more eloquent, one cannot help but see the parallels between the declaration of war upon Victor Frankenstein by the monster he created and Chris Dorner’s erratic “manifesto.” Dorner’s entire story parallels Mary Shelley’s classic, with tragic results and ominous foreboding.

Like the monster, Dorner was “created” by the military-police complex. They may not have endowed him with life, but they made him into the trained killing machine that was both willing and able wage war upon them. Dorner felt wronged by his creator and swore to avenge himself, willing to exact that revenge both upon those he had self-pronounced “guilty” and upon innocents whose suffering or death would cause the guilty pain. Like Shelley’s demon, Dorner’s life ended in fiery death (more like the movie than the novel).

Shelley’s characters are more sympathetic than those of Dorner’s tragic story. The monster suffers years of real torment before resorting to the murder of Frankenstein’s loved ones, including his brother, an innocent child, and his young wife. The reader still doesn’t condone the murders, but at least sympathizes somewhat with the murderer. Not so with Dorner. Although some or all of his accusations against the LAPD may have been true, it is impossible to either understand or condone his disproportionate response.

The government falls short of Shelley’s title character as well. Unlike the targeted members of the LAPD, Victor Frankenstein does not cower in his house under paramilitary protection. He hunts the monster he created alone, unafraid to confront him, without endangering innocent bystanders. He also understands and admits that he was wrong to create the monster in the first place. In contrast, the military-police complex shot three innocent people in its panicky response and will likely push to be even more dangerously armed and empowered as a result of this tragedy.

If the parallel to Shelley’s story stopped with the LAPD or even the law enforcement community in general, it would not be so ominous. But this little morality play is not simply a warning to law enforcement to “be careful who you train and what you train them to do.” It is a metaphor for our entire society.

As Anthony Gregory reminds us, “We are all Branch Davidians Now.” We are all subject to being monitored and hunted by drones, searched without warrant, kidnapped and detained without appeal to a judge for a writ of habeas corpus, and even summarily executed without a guilty verdict or even a jury trial. As Emma Hernandez and Margie Carranza can tell you, we may not even be the subject of the monster’s wrath but still be destroyed by its fury.

The monster’s reign of terror isn’t limited to our personal safety, either. It claims ownership of our property as well, taking what it deems it needs and letting us keep what it does not need…today. It claims the authority to tell us what we may and may not ingest into our own bodies, what activity we are allowed to engage in and what it prohibits as “unsafe,” what terms we make in voluntary contracts with others and what terms we may not, even if both parties agree.

It dictates the way in which our children will be educated and medically cared for and threatens to seize them from us if we do not comply. It then sends them on military missions thousands of miles away to kill or be killed by people who have never attacked us.

It is even more terrifying because it does not know it is evil. Most individuals who make it up believe that they are serving the public. Some cops join the force because they relish the license to bully, but most do not. Likewise for most soldiers. Rhetoric aside, I do not believe Barack Obama or George Bush are evil people.

On the contrary, an empowered state with the active or passive consent of the people makes good people do very evil things. Preemptive war, preemptive law enforcement, preemptive government in general – in other words, violence against the innocent – all become morally justifiable under the sacred mantle of the law. How easily we forget Thomas Jefferson’s warning that “the law is often but the tyrant’s will.”

The all-powerful state is a monster and we are its Frankenstein, whether we’ve actively taken part in creating it or simply stood idly by while others did so under our noses. We would be wise to dismember it now, before we meet the same fate as Shelley’s tragic hero.

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

TAMPA, February 11, 2013 – It would be the hilarious stuff of satire or black comedy if it were fiction, but it involves real people and it’s tragic.

Police officers in pursuit of one of their own gone bad shot 71-year-old Emma Hernandez in the back after opening fire on her newspaper delivery truck. Hernandez’s daughter, 47-year-old Margie Carranza, sustained a hand injury. Police apparently mistook Hernandez’s blue Toyota Tacoma for murder suspect Christopher Dorner’s dark-gray Nissan Titan. The two women were not warned or ordered to stop before the shooting.

“No command, no instruction, no warning. They just opened fire on them,” said Glen Jonas, who is representing Emma Hernandez, 71, and Margie Carranza, 47, in possible legal action against the Los Angeles Police Department.

These are the “public servants” that we are supposed to rely on to defend us against violent crime after we surrender our natural right to keep and bear arms. That obviously begs the question, “Who is going to protect us from the public servants?”

These are by no means the only circumstances in which you have good reason to fear the police.

In the fantasyland inhabited by gun control advocates, the use of firearms is delegated to police, who somehow defend innocent victims against violent criminals even in absentia. The victim need only dial 911 and the police will “respond within minutes.”

This is so preposterous that the effort shouldn’t be necessary, but let’s walk through the thought experiment nonetheless. Three criminals break into your home. They may be armed with guns, knives, or just superior strength and numbers. You have no firearms, so you dial 911.

Assuming that your attackers stand motionless for the “minutes” it takes the police to get there, they are thwarted just before killing or maiming you by police who burst through the door and dispatch them with pinpoint accuracy, perhaps even shooting a perpetrator who is holding a gun to your head. Those not killed by the police drop their weapons and surrender. You live happily ever after.

That might play well on a movie screen, but out here in the real world, exactly the opposite will likely occur.

First, even if the cops “respond within minutes,” it’s too late. They responded within minutes at Sandy Hook. They responded within minutes in Aurora, Colorado. Ten minutes is too long. Two minutes is too long. If you are unarmed, two minutes after you are attacked by a violent criminal, you’re dead.

Do the math.

If the cops do arrive at your home or place where you are attacked before you’ve been killed, your problems might just be beginning. As Will Grigg reminds us, the first priority for police responding to a 911 call is “officer safety.” More often than not, the officer attempts to secure his or her own safety at the expense of yours.

Charlie Mitchener learned this the hard way when he called 911 to report a break-in at his office. When the police officer arrived on the scene, Mr. Mitchener dutifully informed her that he had a firearms permit and was carrying a firearm. The officer responded by handcuffing and disarming him, to make certain “we were all safe.”