Category Archives: Victimless Crimes

It seems that the stoner comedy might be an artifact of the past. Weed is being legalized across the United States, and the subversive style of Cheech and Chong is now decidedly mainstream. Conversely, America has done the barest minimum to correct the decade long catastrophe that is the War on Drugs. Its the worst of both worlds, with mainstream corporations benefiting from looser regulation, but the same victims still suffering punishment from a victimless crime thats no longer even a crime anymore. What is to be done with that complex situation? From all of this baggage rises: a silly comic book one-shot!

Cover by Scott Koblish

BRIAN POSEHN, GERRY DUGGAN & SCOTT KOBLISH reform Voltron (metaphorically only) from their days on Deadpool (also not appearing) to tell a true story and lost chapter from our nations sad and failed war on drugs.

The year is 1985. The First Lady decides to crush Northern California cannabis farmers and deploys the biggest tool in the armed forces: Scotch McTiernan (collectible first of many hilarious appearances). If it weedswe can kill it. Scotch puts his boots on the ground in Humboldt and does what he does bestbut what happens when he gets high for the first time?

This one-shot has it all: laughs, tears, heart, actionplus, an activity page! A portion of the proceeds from this comic will be donated to organizations dedicated to helping casualties of Americas immoral drug war.

At the top I want to say that I admire Secret History of the War on Weed for being a one-shot. Theres not really enough substance here to sustain an ongoing, or even a miniseries. So I think it takes admirable restraint to realize that youre just working on a goof that would be overstaying its welcome in more than 50 pages. Because thats mostly what Secret History of the War on Weed is, a goof.

This is the story of a cartoonishly aggressive US soldier discovering the joys of marijuana consumption and becoming a warrior for a new cause. Scotch McTiernan reports directly to a parody of Nancy Reagan, fights mutants and dinosaurs, and mostly talks in dad jokes. The first full sentence we hear out of him as hes pumping a dinosaur-man full of holes? Iguana blow your head off. Thats about the caliber of what we are dealing with here, both for better and worse.

The art occupies a similar space. Scott Koblish is probably best known for his Deadpool comics, and thats the energy here. Nothing is ever meant to be taken very seriously. The art is sort of a parody of the excesses of the 90s. It also works if played completely straight as an action comic. Simple horizontal panels are interrupted by splash pages. When the bullets fly, the panels slouch at a chaotic angle. Its perfectly calibrated action-comic stuff.

And as an action/comedy parody, Secret History of the War on Weed basically works. Most of the jokes made me groan, a few made me laugh, one made me laugh like a maniac. Thats a pretty good ratio for a single comic issue. Of course, humor is subjective, and if Garth Ennis comics make you flinch rather than smile, that will probably be the case here. You need to be able to laugh at a stupid guys head being reduced to a fine mist.

Where this light one-shot threatens to get interesting is every time it gets political. Im talking less about SNL-style political parody and more about real political humor. Having the authority represented by a leathery old conservative woman is low hanging fruit. But calling out the actual War on Drugs for its combination of racism and ineffectiveness is kind of bold. On one page you will read the creative team sending funny little notes to each other, then you will turn the page and learn about a stat like how many Americans are in jail for weed crimes in states where it is now legal. Then youll get a full-on Swamp Thing parody where the Protector of the Green focuses on a particular green thing. (Its weed.)

But then you might remember- Swamp Thing has already grown weed in a comic. It happened in Hellblazer #63 (cover dated 1993) where he grew John Constantine some magic herb for his birthday. Its the kind of joke that would be absolutely funny if it was any more absurd than the real thing. And its hard to take a position where you are lecturing about morality while churning out jokes that were daring 30 years ago.

Thats a harsh criticism, and it brings us to a central and very difficult question when assessing The Secret History of the War on Weed. Is this comic smug? Are these creators punching down and expecting to be lauded for it. Thats a subjective question, and maybe some people are sensitive or repulsed by stoner humor. But for this critic at least, Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn come across as humble, good faith jokesters. They want to celebrate 4/20 with a bunch of old-school jokes, and they want to acknowledge the injustices that they hate. What they created was a good-natured comic that lands on the right side of taste, but never finds anything new to say. And maybe thats OK. With stoner culture going so mainstream as to practically disappear, its fun to be reminded of simpler times.

Final Verdict: 8.0 A corny goofball one-shot that gestures towards some deeper themes.

See original here:

The Secret History of the War on Weed #1 - Multiversity Comics

Leo Morris

Im so old that I remember when the Establishment set the rules and rebels tried to break them. Now, we seem to be embarked on a great experiment in which the former rebels are in charge and determined to get rid of all the rules.

Sometimes, I think the experiment is to see how outrageous the elimination of norms can get before the public stops going along and says, Enough!

It makes me wonder what the next big push will be for. A few come to mind:

Plural marriage. This is the easiest one to predict because were already so close. Loving vs. Virginia merely extended the traditional right of marriage to mixed-race couples. Obergefell vs. Hodges nullified the traditional definition of one man, one woman by extending the right to same-sex couples. Since that limitation was removed, there is nothing to prevent marriage from being expanded to cover almost any living arrangement. Using the logic and language of Obergefell, try to argue against, for example, the right of a bisexual to enter into a marriage with both a man and a woman. It cant be done.

The right to die. To avoid the perception that this is an attempt to clear the decks of aging baby boomers with their costly medical needs, we will be instructed not to use the terms euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide since they have acquired such negative connotations. Instead, we will be treated to essays on such topics as personal autonomy and the right to say goodbye with dignity.

So long to the First Amendment. This part of the Bill of Rights is clearly too problematic in a modern, pluralistic and diverse society. The so-called right to free speech fosters hateful and hurtful commentary, and the free exercise of religion clause is too often used to justify actions obviously designed to thwart the majoritys needs.

The end of federalism. Speaking of the majority, the limitations placed on the will of the people by the Constitutions misguided efforts to limit power have to be eliminated. Federalism must be replaced by a pure democracy in which a vote of 51 percent always carries the day. Also needed will be the removal of confusing edicts coming from different levels of government. One set of rules from the central authority will suffice.

Redefinition of crime. The reason this country has so many lawbreakers is that it has too many laws. First, we must scrap all victimless crimes, such as prostitution and the use of all drugs (not just marijuana). Then, any so-called property crimes must be examined for the root causes that might lead the victimized to strike back at the privileged. This movement might well be accompanied by a call for the:

Elimination of prisons. Incarceration is clearly an archaic practice that does not work just check out the recidivism rates. Once we have reduced the number of criminals to a manageable few, it should be possible to place them in halfway houses scattered throughout various suburban enclaves. The neighborhoods used for these rehabilitation units will be chosen by lottery.

The citizenship faade. It is finally time to examine this barrier to full participation in all that America has to offer. It is not enough to erase the artificial borders that surround America and lobby for giving voting rights to anyone residing in the country. A human being is a human being, and each one should have the same universal rights as any other. Once we set the example, the rest of the world will surely follow.

What is child abuse? The only reason children are traumatized by loving relationships with adults is that we treat it as something shameful instead of a learning experience on the way to adulthood. We should follow the wisdom of the ancient Greeks, whose open approach to this dynamic was so much more civilized than modern societys attempts to vilify it.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. In fact, the Next Big Thing might be something weve never even dreamed of. The only certainty is that, once it appears, it will almost overnight become the most important topic on the agenda and to oppose it would be to risk being shunned as a reactionary enemy of all that is good and decent.

And if you think this whole exercise is preposterous, overly cynical or a misguided attempt to be humorous, you have not been paying attention.

Leo Morris, columnist for The Indiana Policy Review, is winner of the Hoosier Press Associations award for Best Editorial Writer. Morris, as opinion editor of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, was named a finalist in editorial writing by the Pulitzer Prize committee. Send comments to [emailprotected].

Here is the original post:

OPINION: Beware 'The Next Big Thing' - Daily Journal

IT is striking to note the spurious argument that because there is war in Ukraine this means that the Prime Minister should remain in office and not be replaced.

This is a man who has broken the law, the first Prime Minister in office to do this, as well as lying to parliament. History highlights that on numerous occasions we have replaced the Prime Minister in wars we have been directly involved in.

For instance, in May 1940 Neville Chamberlain resigned after the failure of British efforts to liberate Norway. In December 1916, at the height of the First World War, Lloyd George replaced Herbert Asquith. More recently, Mrs Thatcher resigned in November 1990, with Iraq invading Kuwait in August of that year, which led to the Gulf War.

READ MORE:Nicola Sturgeon: Douglas Ross using Ukraine to defend Johnson is 'lowest of the low'

Add to this changes to Prime Ministers during the war in Afghanistan, the Second Boer War, the Second Opium War and the Crimean War. Changing a Prime Minister in a time of conflict is clearly not unprecedented.

Those who make the law cannot be seen to be breaking the law and it is scarcely credible that Mr Johnson, who has now lost the final fragments of any moral authority he did have, can carry the confidence of the country and remain in office.

Alex OrrEdinburgh

I HAVE squirmed repeatedly as Unionists defend Boris Johnson on the grounds that an illegal party is trivial compared with the bloody war in Ukraine.

Firstly, the whole mechanism of government will be available to deal with the ramifications of the war, and the PMs part is comparatively minor, in fact given Johnsons legendary laziness and lack of preparation its probably negligible. But secondly, and far more importantly, the Tory drinks parties were not victimless crimes as has been implied.

READ MORE:Douglas Ross denies 'cynically using Ukraine' to defend law-breaking Boris Johnson

An ordinary member of the public, breaking the rules, risks harming and maybe causing the deaths of a few acquaintances. A senior politician breaking the rules risks much more: a public loss of belief, replaced by nihilism, and ultimately a large amount of avoidable mortality and morbidity. Its a crime of reckless endangerment of millions of people.

Derek BallBearsden

WHAT a dreadful shambles that is Westminster. The odious Boris Johnson supported by his dumb and dumber Scottish rep Douglas Dross.

Johnson has lied, misled parliament, broken the ministerial code, the first PM in office to break the law, he is at the root of the cronyism and PPE scandal that has lined the pockets of his millionaire buddies.

READ MORE:Douglas Ross 'destroys credibility' with car crash BBC Scotland interview

The cost-of-living crisis is in the large part due to him and his business vultures who put themselves and their wealth first and enforced Brexit on Scotland.

Johnsons MPs are standing by him but that does not mean that our SNP MPs need to join the eejits they should stand up for Scotland and refuse to work with him. Come home and lets start the campaign for our self-determination our independence. Scotland deserves better than being dominated by a bunch of self-serving numpties.

Jan FerrieAyrshire

WHY are individuals and the the media overlooking the fact that Johnson lied to parliament which, when exposed, calls for an automatic resignation of the perpetrator? Shouldnt the Speaker be taking action to implement parliamentary standards?

Douglas Ross claiming that Johnsons presence is essential while the war is raging in the Ukraine is nonsense. Surely a party with an 80-seat majority could find a better replacement, even one who doesnt tell porkies. Johnsons handling of the run-up to the war did nothing to enhance his attempt at statesmanship.

Mike UnderwoodLinlithgow

SO here we have D Ross, who on the basis of what were then merely allegations publicly called for Johnson to resign or be sacked. Now with actual guilt being found and confirmed by Johnson, D Ross says Johnson must stay because of Ukraine. At first the logic of this was beyond me, then I saw his logic!

Clearly when dealing with a pathological lying populist in the Kremlin, the UK needs a lying populist (or two) in Downing Street!

The criminal and Unionist party are a disgrace lets throw them out here in Scotland and lets get Scotland out of the UK, which is run by pathological liars and now criminals!

Rab Doigvia email

THE widespread use of the name BOZO almost sounds like a term of endearment these days. Following Tuesdays confirmation of party fines, may I suggest the name is henceforth changed to BOOZO? At least, being more apt, it cant easily be misconstrued.

Bruce MogliaBridge of Weir

DOUGLAS Ross suggesting this is not the time to remove a Prime Minister who has been found out only serves to promote Mr Rosss cowardliness. It is not only the party that is over political careers are hanging by a thread. Voters only have a short time to wait for the opportunity to give their verdict: the local elections are looming on May 5 and a clear message should be forthcoming.

Catriona C ClarkFalkirk

IF the lying Prime Minister will not resign, surely one of the Queens final acts should be to summon him to Buckingham Palace and insist that he resign to uphold longstanding protocols. Does this also mean that Ian Blackford can call him a liar in the House of Commons without fear of contradiction?

Steve CunninghamAberdeen

Read more:

War has never been a reason not to replace a UK Prime Minister - The National

Hey guys, I'm back again amd like I promised the day before, I'm going to share a tutorial on how to make money without carding knowledge and initial capital. All you need for this method to work is just good old social engineering skills.

For those who missed Method 1 - 3 click on my profile to see them all https://www.reddit.com/user/strobya/ I decided to do this tutorial because over the past few days, I've received messages from people who have been asking me to send them some startup capital. First of all, I have to let you guys know you need money to make money even in fraud. The only thing I can do is to teach you how to make money, I'm trying to help the community so stop stressing me by trying to guilt me into sending you money. If you need some bread, you have to work for it. I'm already doing too much by sharing these tutorials for free.

So this tutorial is targeted at those who don't have enough capital to start carding, you can easily use these methods to make from $1000 to $3000 every few weeks or more depending on how much effort you put.

I must reiterate, if you really serious from making money from fraud, you have to know you have to spend some money on some things like cc, rdp, and many more but this particular tutorial does not need any of those things.

Carding and fraud is an art to me, this is my life, this is what I live for. I'm not your average carder, I take this serious and the way people invest time into their jobs that's how I invest time into research and my fraud. I remember last year when my US stripe accounts were getting burnt easily by stripe I moved to Europe briefly just to try my hand on European stripe because US stripe became saturated on Alphabay and my sojourn to Europe paid in 5 figures. So I take this serious and if you want to make money from fraud, you have to take it serious too.

Let's get down to business,

This tutorial focuses on scamming using instagram or facebook. No carding skills required and everyone can easily make some good money from this with no prior knowledge just this tutorial.

Right now I only card institutions and do victimless scams but when I was building up my startup capital for carding payment processors, this was what gave me money and here it is.

This method is fairly simple so here it goes.

I came up with this method when I read a news online about how a couple bought a rare breed A Tibetan Mastiff for over $120,000 from an Instagram seller then I sat and thought about this and figured out with some tweaking I could really start hitting hard.

Here are the step by step guide.

1, Create an Instagram account for dogs or cats, example catloversden, catsarebeautiful, cutedogsofig. etc

2, find picture of cute dogs or cats on Google and upload to your new page daily and build the page up by following cat lovers on Instagram especially old couples. Don't buy followers, you have to build your page by following genuine animal lovers, Your target should be to get up to a thousand or more followers in your first week.

3, after the first week of posting pictures of cute dogs or cats and getting your followers up to a thousand or 2. From the second week, find a picture of a cute rare and expensive cat or dog then post on your IG that it is for sell. You will get up to 5 interested persons who want to buy. You can also say the dog or cat is up for adoption and needs any home and when you get messages from many people, ask them to send you some money for transporting the cat or dog and some other money for insurance etc

4, Send them your paypal or bankdrop or a and tell them to pay by cash deposit or transfer into your account. Once 3-10 people pay you block them from your page and turn your page to private for a week then resume again after they move on.

I know this might be little confusing but when I was doing this I was cashing out over $5k each week and I have lots of IG accounts I've built up and cash out from every week. I stopped doing this because I got into bigger fraud like carding stripe and venmo which are victimless crimes.

I have over 5 accounts on IG with lots of followers that I built up over the past year.They are properly aged and I haven't used them to cashout since last year because I shifted my focus to stripe.

This method is really easy and no way you not going to make at least $3k before the month ends. Ask me any questions if you are confused about something.

The hard part is always building the followers on IG or getting likes.

For those that want the easy way out and don't have the time to build up IG pages. I have 5 IG accounts that I aged last year that I stopped using because I moved to other things. I can sell this accounts to anyone interested. I do not know how much so make me an offer for any of them if you're interested. Of course I'll send proof I own any account I'm selling.

Once you get the logins, change the password, I'll send you a picture of an expensive cat worth around $3,000 and you'll make a post and say it's for sell. You'll get interested buyers immediately and then you use your drop or paypal to cash out some times you can get 5 people to pay for the same means more money for you.

I'm currently not doing this method right now for those that might ask, because I moved on to stripe which is victimless cos stripe, paypal and all those big corporations will be fine no matter how hard we hit them

Watch out for part 5. Paypal method. Many people have been asking for a paypal method, so watch out for part 5 of my tutorial soon, how to make clean funds that don't chargeback into your paypal or venmo.

Message me on wickr with questions and offers for the IG account.

Wickr strobya.

You can also setup a new fresh IG and build it up but getting this established cats account I have would guarantee you a big cashout before the month ends.

I promise everyone, as long as you're not lazy and willing to put in some effort, there is no way you wonT start making good money from fraud after my 10 tutorials is up. So keep reading and dont forget you cant make money if you just read these methods and dont start. The time to start is now.

Read the original post:

Method 4 How to make $1k-$3k without any carding ... - reddit

Organized retail crime costs retailers $700,000 for every $1 billion in sales, on average, according to NRFs 2021 National Retail Security Survey, and 57 percent of respondents indicated a rise in ORC during the previous year.

These are not victimless crimes; they jeopardize employee and customer safety and disrupt store operations.Theyre also not non-violent customers, employees and community members are traumatized by these incidents. News headlines around smash and grab thefts at national retailers in major cities show that organized retail crime continues to be a serious problem. ORC continues to be a gateway crime to more serious crimes and often has ties to transnational crime rings.

And its not a new problem: NRF surveys show that organized retail theft has been a growing problem over the past five years. The brazen, targeted and coordinated activity occurs in communities across the United States.

Over the past eight years, several states have worked to keep non-violent criminals, or those with minor misdemeanor offenses, out of the U.S. criminal justice system. Diversion programs and other job and economic development programs encourage these individuals to become productive members of society.

NRF PROTECT 2022

Join us for the most important retail security event of 2022 as NRF PROTECT returns in-person.

States have also changed laws regarding the amount of bail assessed to minor offenses, increased felony theft thresholds and worked to remove non-violent offenders from the prison system in the hopes they do not become career criminals or fall into a life of more violent crime.

Some district attorneys, law enforcement officers and state legislators even communicated that they would no longer be tough on non-violent, victimless or seemingly minor offenses. In an effort to help locales meet criminal justice reform goals and free resources to go after more violent and serious offenders, those apprehended were often quickly released due to the non-violent and unimportant nature of these property crimes.

The result is that criminals can recruit people to steal inexpensive items in great quantities with no fear of retribution or prosecution.

Incidents of organized retail crime were rising before 2020, but the pandemic upended peoples lives in countless ways. Many lost their jobs. Communities restructured how we lived, shopped and worked. Retailers raced to safely stay open and serve customers by increasing innovations like delivery, curbside fulfilment and buy online, pick up in store. Customers flocked to these convenient and safe ways to shop, wearing face coverings as required in stores and shopping centers.

Unfortunately, these innovations also attracted enterprising criminals looking to exploit gaps in security and take advantage of opportunities to quickly resell merchandise online, on street corners, in black markets and even back to the retail supply chains and stores they stole from. Criminals organized flash mobs or smash-and-grab incidents through social media and apps, which spawned more copycat incidents.

A perfect storm for organized retail crime emerged and the results of that storm are being captured on mobile devices and shared via social media and news stories across the country.

While ORCs financial impact is considerable, the impact on employee and customer safety is even more important. These crimes not only affect retailers bottom lines with asset loss and store operation disruptions; they have become increasingly violent jeopardizing the safety of employees and customers.

The costs for security budgets for retailers have grown significantly in recent years partly due to these retail crimes. Retailers continue to revisit their policies and shift strategies to fight and prevent ORC-related incidents. NRF supports their efforts through advocacy and opportunities to convene the retail industrys leading professionals in loss prevention, asset protection and cybersecurity.

NRF encourages states to update the definition of organized retail crime with sufficiently serious criminal penalties. States should act to define the crime of "organized retail theft" in criminal law to specify those thefts involving two or more participants, an intention of resale, and include increased penalties for those specific violations.

Go here to see the original:

Meeting the challenge of organized retail crime - NRF News

Every year, Canadians contribute to their communities by paying taxes.

Public tax dollars pay for critical investments in our schools and hospitals and for a host of other benefits for both the elderly and our children.

The money we pay builds the neighbourhoods we live in and takes care of the people around us. However, every year many construction contractors and builders selfishly and criminally refuse to pay their fair share. Does that seem right to you?

According to the Ontario Construction Secretariat, our governments lose up to $3.1 billion in revenue due to construction contractors not paying their fair share of taxes. They lose an estimated $1.1 billion in general taxes, $656 million in CPP contributions, $18 million in Employer Health Tax, $119 million in employment insurance, $340 million in WSIB payments and $832 million in HST revenues.

For governments at every level, finding the required financial resources is key to our ongoing ability to deliver much-needed health care, education and infrastructure investments. Stamping out tax fraud in construction is a crucial tool in enabling us to collect such financial resources. Just think of the services and investments which could be paid for with the extra $3.1 billion that would be available each and every year if everyone paid their fair share.

Tax fraud within the construction industry takes many forms.

It can be as simple as people paying cash for home renovations or, as is extremely common now, the misclassification of workers as independent contractors.

These practices lower the general contractors income and payroll tax responsibilities and allows them to avoid tax and CPP/EI/WSIB contributions. This goes on with every trade across the entire industry, including floor covering installers, tile setters, painters and decorators and carpenters. Unfortunately, the underground economy is growing.

It is sometimes assumed that practices like paying cash or misclassifying workers are victimless crimes but workers vanishing into the grey economy has led, in the worst cases, to human trafficking and serious disregard for the basic health and safety of workers, resulting in deaths in some cases.

We have seen examples of all of these phenomena in recent years and, in fact, one of the biggest human trafficking cases in Canadian history, the Domotor Case, was a result of these practices right here in Ontario.

We at the Carpenters Union are determined to do something about this.

Construction companies engaging in tax fraud, such as by not classifying their workers properly to avoid their tax obligations, result in two severe consequences, economic inequity and worker vulnerability.

Economic inequity results from the unfair advantage gained by employers who do not play by the rules by improperly avoiding taxes. This hurts industry competitors but it also hurts the general public as well.

Now, when governments collect taxes to pay for infrastructure or social security, the average citizen has to contribute more to make-up for the amounts not contributed by the construction companies.

This means that as spending increases with our economy bouncing back from the COVID-19 pandemic, honest and hardworking taxpayers are hurt the most.

Additionally, by committing tax fraud, contractors are putting the lives of their workers at risk. Paying construction workers off the books or as independent contractors makes employers less accountable and jeopardizes basic safety standards on jobsites.

Workers can often be cheated out of their pay and forced to work long hours, under horrendous conditions, at jobsites that simply are not safe.

This can include, not being paid overtime or other required premiums or not even being paid at all in the worst cases. These are just a few examples of what is going on in Ontario right now.

This underground economy is large in size and broad in scope.

However, whether someone is being paid under the table to paint the inside of a house or human trafficking is taking place, both are crimes and should not be tolerated in Ontarios construction industry. Quite simply, all forms of tax fraud are theft and when contractors engage in tax fraud they are stealing from the rest of us.

While tax fraud is not an issue that can be resolved overnight, there are tangible steps that can be taken to begin eliminating these toxic practices on our jobsites.

The implementation and enforcement of a fair wage policy by both the Ontario and the federal government needs to happen now and these policies need to be applied universally to all builders.

This is a solution that the City of Toronto adopted over 100 years ago to ensure their workers were not discriminated against by contractors failing to pay fair hourly wages, vacation and holiday pay, along with certain basic benefits.

Torontos Fair Wage Policy ensures the ethical treatment of workers and holds employers accountable through oversight and enforcement by the citys fair wage office.

If the federal and provincial governments adopted these practices it would greatly reduce the employment vulnerability that many workers face and help eliminate unfair competition between contractors. We need to take a stand against tax fraud and show our support for those who build our province.

The Carpenters District Council of Ontario is leading the way against tax fraud in the construction industry and will be promoting Tax Fraud Days of Action from April 11 to 16, as seen on our website http://www.notaxfraud.com.

With a long economic recovery and large levels of uncertainty ahead, it is important that contractors pay their fair share, to ensure critical infrastructure can continue to be built and our economy makes a strong comeback.

For more information also see http://www.stoptaxfraud.net.

Mike Yorke is president of the Carpenters District Council of Ontario. Send Industry Perspectives comments and column ideas to editor@dailycommercialnews.com.

Read the original post:

Industry Perspectives Op-Ed: When contractors engage in tax fraud they are stealing from the rest of us - constructconnect.com - Daily Commercial News

True feminism is the belief that all people should have equal rights, equal opportunity, and equal command of their own destiny. Unfortunately, there are factions of the feminist movement that do not truly hold to that definition but rather hate men, see them as inferiors, or even wish to see them hold fewer rights than women.

Just as the feminist movement has two sides to itone valid and one vile, Id argueso too does whats known as the mens rights movement, which is sort of a parallel advocacy movement for men.

I recently decided to tackle this movement on an episode of my show, BASED.

According to one of the largest advocacy groups within this sector, MensGroup:

Activists (in this movement) argue that society has become biased and sexist against men. They also argue that men face discrimination from the media, government, and Supreme Court for being male. Mens rights groups fight against custody laws that favor mothers over fathers, violence against men, false rape allegations, disproportionate male prison sentencing, and conscription. These are some of the inequalities mens rights groups strive to address.

Anyone who cares about individual liberty, equality before the law, and limited government could surely find much in that paragraph to agree with. But admittedly, this feminist had a hard time giving the mens rights movement the time of day for many years.

The reason is simple: large swaths of this movement have been co-opted by men who really do just hate women, want to bring back the oppressive societal structures of the past, and even excuse horrors like rape and domestice abuse. These subgroups of the movement include the incel community, components of the alt-right and white nationalists, trads that want to force their social conservatism on others, the pick-up artist community, and the Men Going Their Own Way movement.

These groups do not believe in equality and their members are often consumed with bitterness and resentment. Its a shame that theyve been able to co-opt the mens rights movement to an extentbut as a libertarianI know the feeling. Our movement is no stranger to liberty-despising people trying to co-opt it and corrupt our message.

So, lets get back to the valid side of the mens rights movement and the concerns they elevate.

As a woman, it can be hard to feel sympathy for men sometimes. Im just keeping it real. It often feels like there is so much we have to overcome even to this day, and a lot of the talking points used by the mens rights movement can sound like an excuse for sexism or thinly veiled desires to oppress women.

But when you step back and take a look around, it actually becomes pretty clear that while women may still have a lot to overcome, men really arent doing well in our society lately.

In fact, recent research has found that in 91 of the 134 countries evaluated, women faced fewer net disadvantages than men based on metrics that included literacy, primary and secondary school enrollment, years one could expect a healthy lifestyle, and life satisfaction.

Women are now more likely to go to college, more likely to graduate college, and more likely to obtain a graduate degree. Men, on the other hand, are 3.88 times more likely to die by suicide than women. They have higher rates of substance abuse. They are substantially more likely to have a dangerous job and to die on the job. Their average life expectancy is five years less than women. 19 percent of men are classified as having a gaming addiction. Porn addictions are up. 34 percent are overweight.

The list could go on, but you get the picture. As a whole, there are a lot of men facing very serious issues in our society right now, and when they talk about them, theyre often met with derision.

While there are always elements of self-responsibility that must be emphasized when it comes to these matters, anyone who cares about liberty should care deeply if the state is putting policies into place that hurt peopleespecially when those policies disproportionately hurt one group of people more than others.

You should care about people when theyre hurting. You should especially care when the government is hurting people in your name and with your resources. And you should also recognize that hurt people often hurt people.

The growth of the alt-right and some of these hate groups within the mens rights movement is evidence of that. The fact that single white men are the most likely demographic to be a mass murderer shows that. The fact that men make up the majority of murders and murderers in general, shows that.

So if we want to actually stop misogyny, sexism, and the growth of malicious groups that are preying on hurting, disaffected people, the best thing we can do is start to show up and show sympathy and, hopefully, even free-market solutions for their problems.

Lets break down some of the top issues the mens rights movement is trying to elevate.

Men make up almost 80 percent of all murders worldwide. In the US, their homicide rate is almost 10 times that of females. Theyre also more likely to be victims of other crimes too, like drug-related crimes and gang-related crimes. And though they experience far lower rates of violence for things like domestic abuse and rape, they do experience that kind of violence too.

In response to these crime statistics many will point out that men are also far more likely to be perpetrators of violence than women, leading to their involvement in more violence against them. And this isnt incorrect. Men commit 90 plus percent of murders based on one global study, and intimate partner violence remains the biggest health threat to women. But I want to reiterate what I said earlier: hurt people hurt people.

The dichotomy you have in your mind of victim and perpetrator as mutually exclusive categories rarely exists. They are almost always one in the same because violence is cyclical in nature. Most people are first victims of violence many times over before they themselves become violent, and then they are met with more violence from our system.

And no one is ever safer for it. If we want to get serious about violence we have to get serious about trauma interventions and violence disruptions, programs that largely take place outside of policing and do the real work of stopping cycles of violence. These are serious criminal justice reforms that we should all be supporting. And the best thing about them is theyre local, often less costly than our bloated policing system, and take a more limited government approach to crime. Thats the policy change that needs to take place.

But theres a societal change that needs to take place here too. Namely, we need to stop diminishing violence against men. It is not ok for your partner to harm you - physically, verbally, or emotionally. Abuse is abuse. And men who find themselves on the receiving end of it should get the same sympathy and support from their community as women do.actually thats not even saying much. Women also often do not get all that much sympathy either.

Our society needs to be better on this all around. Stop asking people why they didnt leave and instead ask how you can help. Stop laughing at the antics of abusers and instead intervene, speak up, let them know others are watching them and wont excuse their behavior.

These two issues are somewhat intertwined if you think about it, so well combine them here.

The US has a massive over-incarceration problem driven by wrongful convictions, prosecutors pushing everyone into plea deals, and a whole litany of actions being made into crimes by our lawmakers that are victimless, non-violent offenses no one should be in jail over.

Despite making up close to 5 percent of the global population, the US has more than 20 percent of the world's prison population. And since 1970, our incarcerated population has increased by 500 percent.

Under this system, men are over 8 times more likely than women to be incarcerated in prison at least once during their lifetime. Now, some of that is correlation given the violence rates among men we discussed above. But certainly, they are also more likely to go to jail or prison for things no one should be locked up for as well.

They are also more likely to be victims of wrongful convictions, which is a pervasive problem in our system.

Weve discovered over 2,500 wrongful convictions in recent years, and thats just the people whove been able to get the external resources they need to plead their case. Of those, men are far more likely to be wrongfully convicted, and black men, in particular, are the most impacted, with a rate that is 7 times higher than that of white people wrongfully convicted.

But while men are more likely to be incarcerated and more likely to be wrongfully incarcerated, it is not because women are falsely accusing men of crimes left and right.

More than half of all wrongful convictions are due to government misconduct. Shocker. That would include police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct, judicial misconduct, corruption in the labs, and general mistakes.

The misapplication of forensic science is responsible for 45 percent of wrongful convictions, false eyewitness identification in 70 percent, false confessions in 25 percent of cases, and jailhouse informants in 19 percent. (The percentages add up to more than 100 because wrongful convictions often have multiple causes).

For these reasons and more, it can be difficult to garner an accurate understanding of crime data. But when it comes to false accusations of rape, experts believe the range is between two to ten percent of reported rapes. Most rapes are never reported. In fact, some studies show as many as 60 percent of sexual assaults are not reported.

While wrongful convictions and false accusations are terrible, some use this data to say that rape isn't a real problem. But this is the wrong conclusion.

The truth is, rape is an under-reported problem. Why? For one, because cops arent going to do anything about it. We have thousands of untested rape kits theyre literally running out the clock on. Two, given the fact they're unlikely to even get their rape kit tested, the downsides to reporting rape and abuse often far outweigh the positives.

The mens rights movement is 100 percent correct here.

Throughout most of our history, only men have been eligible for the draft and its wrong. And this isnt to say that women should be drafted in the name of equality. The draft is wrong full-stop. Conscription is immoral. No one should be forced to go fight, kill other innocent people, lose their limbs, risk their lives, and potentially lose their sanity to fight in the banal, vile wars governments create.

The draft should be eliminated. This is a no-brainer. No one should be subjected to it, ever. But the fact that theyve done it to men and not to women is a clear violation of the 14th Amendments equal application of the law. Abolish it.

Having a strong father is one of the greatest gifts Ive ever been given. My dad has always made me feel secure, provided for, and deeply loved. He is entirely irreplaceable in my life. I would be a drastically different person without him. I truly cant fathom moving through the world without the security of knowing he is behind me. And yet, this relationship is something our courts rob children of every day in this country.

Women initiate close to 70 percent of all divorces. And while there is no single reason divorce happens (there are many societal struggles we can currently point to that make women more likely to leave), there is one big governmental incentive we can point to that may also contribute: which is that, when women initiate divorce, the odds are stacked in their favor.

Currently, only a handful of states encourage family judges to set custodial standards for parenting at 50/50. Though, encouragingly, there are many states currently considering legislation to make this the norm.

In many places, fathers have to beg the courts to give them custody, even when the kids or the other partner wants it. Family courts routinely consign one parent, usually the father, to mere visitor status in their childrens lives. Typically, non-custodial parents see their kids four days per month, plus a few hours one night per week, plus a few weeks during the summer. That usually works out to between 14 percent and 20 percent of the time. That sounds traumatizing.

Keep in mind that the loss of a parent is one of the most horrific events a child can suffer. And there are multiple ways to lose a parent.

It is really creepy, weird, and sexist to assume that one parent has innately better parenting skills because of their gender or that kids are somehow okay with less exposure to one parent because of their gender. How is that okay? What science is that based on? None in the psychology field.

In fact, statistics show that kids with two parents are more likely to do well in school, stay out of jail, stay away from drugs and alcohol, avoid teen pregnancy, avoid depression, and, as adults, be gainfully employed than are their peers with a single parent.

It cant be emphasized enough that this system doesnt just hurt men. It really hurts kids. A study that examined 150,000 arrangements conclusively found that children in joint physical custody suffered from less psychosomatic problems than those living mostly or only with one parent. Those kinds of mental health impacts have life-long consequences and yet we continue to let our courts operate recklessly in this regard.

The consequences of these decisions also weigh heavily on men. Non-custodial fathers are eight times as likely to commit suicide as are fathers with children. As leading authority Edward Kruk of the University of British Columbia has written, parents with equal parental responsibility post-divorce have better physical and emotional health, and less stress, resulting from the sense of purpose and personal gratification associated with active parenting; the highest levels of depression occur among adults who have a child . . . with whom they are not living.

Barring any incidents of abuse of neglect (with ample supportive evidence prior to the divorce) kids should be split 50/50. This is a no-brainer that states should immediately seek to rectify. Anything less is inhumane and has long-term, harmful consequences for all parties involved and therefore society.

Furthermore, once the custody split is agreed upon it should be permanent to create stability for the child and for the parents, barring, again, some evidence of abuse or some other unforeseen major life events that would necessitate one parent to take on more of the burden.

Ultimately, we need public policies that prioritize co-parenting and that put the financial burden for divorce on the shoulders of those who initiate it while ensuring the childrens needs are met.

To the men in my audience who are suffering one of the injustices or societal shortcomings we discussed today, I want to extend my sympathy. I want you to know you are valued and you are needed in our society, and Im so sorry for the voices in our culture that seek to strip away your humanity or diminish you to a caricature.

Know that this feminist is fighting for equality and justice under the law for you just as I am for women. My hope is that we can see each other's mutual goals, come together, and form an alliance that will create a better society for all of us.

Read the original:

A Woman's Take On the Men's Rights Movement | Hannah Cox - Foundation for Economic Education

The Vendome Cafe windows in the morning Wednesday, March 23, 2022. Vendome Cafe was broken into in February 2022, and they see some vandalism and victimless crimes in their area. (Photo by Alejandro Melgar/LiveWire)

A February break-in at Sunnysides Vendome Caf comes amid a recent increase B&E crimes in the Hillhurst and Sunnyside communities.

The caf manager and its owners say they have customer and employee safety in their minds.

Break-ins of both commercial and non-residential properties combined were at 22 and 6 in Jan and Feb 2021, respectively. The number more than doubled in Feb 2022 at 15.

Vendome Caf has been operating in Sunnyside for 11 years. They're apart of the Teatro Group.

The perpetrators pried open the back door. Two people entered, ransacked the business, and took off with the caf's safe, according to Katrina Brodie, Vendome general manager.

It's jarring to know that people can invade what you think of as a safe space, said Brodie.

It was a really frustrating event.

Brodie said they've replaced the back door. Theyll also be installing motion sensor lights to detract people from entering the premises.

Last year, Vendome was broken into and more valuables were taken.

They stole cash, they stole product as far as liquor goes, and then technology like tablets and iPads for using restaurant systems, said Teatro Groups Chief Operating Officer, Matthew Batey.

The Teatro group, and Vendome as a whole, want to make sure that their customers feel safe and comfortable in their spaces. They also want to reassure staff, who have been unnerved by the event.

It feels personal. You feel violated, said Batey.

You arrive to work to see your workspace all trashed, and broken glass everywhere. That's unnerving for people, especially in a business that employs quite a few younger people, students and the like. That's pretty unsettling.

The business has a community of regular customers that make up the Vendome Caf family, said Batey. Vendome regulars have helped liven up the location. A flower planter outside at the corner of their business has been under the care of 91-year-old Dorothy, who has been visiting Vendome ever since they opened.

One of the things that we love about [Vendome Caf] is that it is such a community, right. I mean, that restaurant, it's a little hub.

The restaurant also sees frequent vandalism, Batey said, describing them as victimless crimes.

Somebody walks past, you know, they break all the flowers, they ruin the plantings, they do all that sort of stuff, said Beaty.

It appears to be one of those victimless crimes, even though it's quite a significant thing for that person.

Hospitality involves caring for people and attending to people, Batey said. They understand that people that participate in acts against a business or person may be in a challenging situation where they are forced to act to survive.

While feeling for your fellow person, it becomes even more challenging to be motivated to be part of the solution when it continues to come at your peril, and people are stealing from you. You know, that's personal. And that's tough to deal with.

Like Loading...

Originally posted here:

Sunnyside caf hit by theft and damages in second incident - LiveWire Calgary

I am one of those drivers who waits until the tank is running on empty before hitting the petrol station.

Dont @ me I have tried and failed to be more organised and, yep, I know its bad for the engine but Ive always been a bit of a fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal and Im too old to change now.

So when I stopped at the garage the other day, I was incandescent with rage when I noticed it was 1.69 a litre.

I got back in the car and said to my daughter, I bet the petrol thieves are swinging into action.

Lo and behold, later that day, Police Scotland fired out a warning that fuel thefts were on the rise across Scotland.

This is really not cool at all. While were all struggling with rising fuel costs, energy bills and food prices, some have it much worse than others.

So you can be sure the domestic thefts are probably hurting those who can least afford it.

I hate thieves. Its the one so-called low-level crime that makes my blood boil.

Its rare someone steals out of need most of the thieves Ive met take because they want something someone else has and they dont want to work for it.

Theres varying degrees of thievery the lowlifes who are too lazy to get a job and see it as easy money, the deviants who get a kick out of entering someones home and taking all their mucky hands can carry, the thieves feeding an addiction, whether its drugs, alcohol or gambling, and the professionals who carry out multi-million-pound heists.

What about the guy who used his last 50 to fill up his tank so he can get to work and wakes up in the morning to find its all gone and hes left explaining the situation to an angry boss who doesnt care about his personal circumstances?

Social media is awash with appeals for stolen bikes and quite often they belong to kids whove saved up their pennies or got it as a gift.

All too often the bikes are later found abandoned and destroyed by moronic neds who cant help but use their sticky fingers for vandalism either.

Thieves, in my experience, have no moral compass or boundaries and lack the characteristics that should prevent them from taking stuff that doesnt belong to them.

Confession: I once stole a pencil from a shop aged around seven or eight. I was so consumed by guilt, I told my friend I was going to take it back and tell the shopkeeper.

She persuaded me that to do so would mean a severe punishment so I threw it away in the hope I could just forget about it.

The Daily Record and Sunday Mail have always been at the forefront when it comes to reporting crime in Scotland.

But did you know all the ways you can stay informed of the top crime and courts headlines?

We share live crime news and exclusive court stories as well as features and columns on historical cases, keeping our readers informed and updated across the country.

But I couldnt and I confessed all to my grandparents who decided the mortification and discomfort I was feeling was punishment enough and would cause me to think twice in future. It did.

Now, my crime wasnt life-changing, it didnt cause the business to collapse and the only person who felt truly impacted by my actions was me but thats not the reality of low-level crimes.

Most crimes are not victimless. Shoplifting costs the economy billions, someone invading your private space is a violation that can have a tremendous psychological impact on the victim, leaving them fearful in the one place they should feel safe and secure.

Poverty is often trotted out as a reason for acquisitive crimes but thats just an aspersion on those who have very little and an all-too-easy catch-all to explain why greed and envy motivates most thieves.

Lets not get me started on legalised theft thats a column for another day.

In the meantime, nicking some petrol might seem like a small-time crime and not worthy of police time or condemnation but small crimes lead to big crimes and where do you draw the line?

Staying on the subject of cars this week, who agrees that drivers who deliberately go slow should be targeted, fined and penalised as often as speeding drivers?

Cops spend a lot of time, money and resources targeting the boy racers, the speeders and the fast cars but Ive rarely heard of anyone being done for being too slow.

Youre sitting on the motorway doing 70mph, you go to overtake and realise youre behind a Sunday driver on the outside lane doing 40mph and refusing to move across.

This happened to me earlier this week on the M8.

I was four cars back, the rain was lashing and the three cars in front of me were braking, speeding up, slowing down and frustration was in the air.

Not for the first time, I felt uneasy seeing how easy a pile up was in the making as the wacky races unfolded before me.

If youre too scared to drive at 70mph on a motorway, you really shouldnt be behind the wheel at all.

So Captain Slow, move over or get off the roads and let the rest of us get to our destinations safely but quicker.

What do you think?

My jaw dropped when I read last week that Denver police are investigating after someone stole a box containing human heads from a truck.

They said the box was being transported for medical reasons when it was targeted by thieves.

Two questions: Have they discovered how to transplant heads and why on earth would a thief want someones heid?

Mind-boggling and creepy.

Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here .

See the rest here:

Fuel thefts might be 'low-level' crimes but they aren't victimless - Daily Record

(Adobe Stock Images)

Once upon a time, in a not-so-far-away kingdom built on folklore and fantasy, the citizens believed things.

They believed a legend that their esteemed founders once cast a spell on a piece of paper, called it the Constitution and bequeathed unto them liberty and justice for all. They believed they could dream of equality and make it so. They believed in the American dream. They believed in America. And dreams. And magic.

To be fair, it was easy to understand why these people believed in fairytales. In a beautiful land of make-believe where human traffickers are fashioned into demigods and fiction is preferable to the truth. But, while time, science and reality eventually washed away most of these false notions, the people of this unreal utopia held on to one particular myth as if it were handed down from the heavens.

They believed in the police.

How policing worksor that it works at allis one of the most fantastic but persistent pieces of American fiction. This false notion is so commonly accepted that the premise is rarely contested. According to the tightly spun historical yarn, police protect people from danger, solve crimes and prevent chaos. According to this longstanding legend, they selflessly walk the thin blue line, risking their lives for you and me. Sure, they sometimes kill people. But, without these brave guardians of safety and pursuers of justice, thered be anarchy. As the saying goes: You cant make an omelet without breaking a few eggsmostly the brown ones.

Therefore, anyone who criticizes the current system of law enforcement must hate law and order. It is a political reality. Anything else is absurd, which is why, during President Joe Bidens first State of the Union address, he included the one line that he knew would garner bipartisan support.

We should all agree that the answer is not to defund the police, he explained whitely. Its to fund the police.

Who could argue with that? It seems so reasonable and noncontroversial, even the performative, fiscally conservative Republicans agreed that more money is the answer, responding with exultant applause at the presidents attempt to lop off the head of the radically insane defund the police movement. In America, money makes things happen. And, if money is good and police are good, giving police more money is great. There is just one thing wrong with this magical math:

It does not work.

According to facts, research and actual data, not only is pouring taxpayer money into policing an exercise in futility, it is the one thing we know doesnt work. If there is one thing we can be sure of, its that funding the police is absolutely not the answer.

Heres why.

While we can have a debate over whether defunding the police works or what it even looks like, we should first acknowledge why this topic of conversation even exists. This increasingly popular talking point that a fistful of dollars will magically cure two centuries of bad police policy is a response to defund-the-police movement rhetoric seeping into the political discourse. However, aside from the politicians, police officers and people who make bodycams, the majority of Americans either want police budgets to decrease or stay the same.

A year ago, an Ipsos/USAToday poll found that 57 percent of respondents supported funding the police at the same level it is now, barely edging out those who want to redirect funds for social services. A June 2021 Harris poll found that 57 percent of the people surveyed would like the police presence in their community to decrease or stay the same. And, according to an October survey by Pew Research, most Americansregardless of race or ethnicityprefer that spending on law enforcement either decreases or stays the same.

In all fairness, just last month, Politico found that Americans believed that increasing funding for police departments would decrease the violent crime rate, which seems like a perfectly reasonable conclusion, except for one thing:

Bigger police budgets give cities the ability to hire police and everyone knows that more cops equal less crime, right?

Not so fast, my friend.

While it may seem like common sense, one of the biggest debates in the field of criminal justice is whether or not enlarging the size of a police department translates to lower crime rates. For decades, scholars have acknowledged that local crime rates cannot be predicted by officer strength and police budgets, the New York Times reports. Sometimes a boost for policing is followed by a drop in crime; sometimes it isnt.

In some cases, the presence of police merely displaces crime, pushing it to places where the cops arent patrolling. In other cases, the so-called crimes that are being prevented are traffic violations and victimless crimes. And while a recent paper found that one additional police officer in a city would prevent between 0.06 and 0.1 homicides, the authors also found that the rise in law enforcement personnel results in more low-level arrests that disproportionately affect Black citizens, including disorderly conduct, drug possession and loitering.

Even when laws are broken, officers usually dont catch the culprits. Most criminal acts are not reported and almost always remain unsolved. In fact, only 2 percent of serious crimes ever result in a conviction. In the last quarter-century, theres only been one year when police solved 50 percent of violent crimesin 1999, the first year of one of the most wonderful administrations in historywhen Cash Money took over for the nine-nine and two thousand.

Its why researchers note that literature has not generally supported an association between levels of police presence and crime rates, calling it, one of the best-kept secrets in modern life.

Still, theres a good reason you shouldnt worry about criminals roaming the street:

The proliferation of social media, cable news and the availability of information might make it feel more dangerous but, when it comes to murder and violent crime, Americans are still living in one of the safest periods in decades, according to FBI data.

Although violent crimes increased by 3 percent in 2020 (the last year for which we have statistics), the violent crime rate is half as high as 30 years ago. Yet, according to Gallup pollsters, most people believe that crime is rising in their neighborhood. While many attribute the recent rise in homicide rates during the pandemic to defund the police rhetoric, sociologists, criminologists, and yes, even the police understand that crime is a socioeconomic phenomenon. Instead of murderers checking cable news and Google Trends, perhaps the unprecedented spike in crime rates has something to do with one of the most significant unemployment spikes in history.

But, as long as we are living in this gingerbread world where the law is applied equally, crimes are solved by badge-wearing gumshoes and math matters, what would happen if we shoveled more money into police coffers?

A few things:

Theres one other thing that proves the myth of increasing funding to police departments:

According to the Council on Criminal Justice, per capita police spending nearly doubled over the last four decades. In 1982, state and local police expenditures averaged nearly $5,000. Were now averaging over $10,000 per citizen. We are already giving the police more money.

Yet, with all this money, body armor, cameras and posturing, why havent police stopped shooting Black people in the face? Why havent police complaints dropped dramatically? Has there been an increase in crimes being solved? Have traffic accidents gone down? Has the perception of safety gone up?

No, it hasnt. Because the world is not made of myths or fictional counternarratives. The problem with policing is real. Police brutality is real. The only fake thing in this entire equation is a desire to shut down progress and criminal justice reform. Or maybe, the people who constructed this copaganda counternarrative want us to die. Perhaps, more dead Black bodies are the only way they can live happily ever after

With liberty and justice for all.

Michael Harriot is a writer, cultural critic and championship-level Spades player. His book, Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America, will be released in 2022.

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, and Android TV.Please download theGrio mobile apps today!

Read the original:

The false fantasy of funding the police - TheGrio