Amidst the insanity surrounding the George Floyd debacle are calls to literally defund the police.  We are no longer in the “Fuck the Police” zone apparently. We are just going to make them go away by identifying a small glitch in the system that allowed them to continue getting paid for so long.  Let’s fix the glitch.

This is my review of Pinkus Münster Alt

Of course when they say “defund” they don’t really mean that.  Defund now just means the same thing as “reform”.  Defund is such a crazy way to put it, and they don’t really mean that; that’s crazy talk.  They aren’t crazy; this is the radical left, after all.  They’re supposed to be the “smart” fringe lunatics with degrees that end with the word “studies”.

But how would it turn out if they really meant it?  Let’s ask the Harvard professor that operates in the intellectual dark web space as the credentialed fellow that “sticks his head outside his bubble to state the obvious”, Steven Pinker.

“As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin’s anarchism. I laughed off my parents’ argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 a.m. on October 7, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 am, the first bank was robbed. By noon, most of the downtown stores were closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order. This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters (and offered a foretaste of life as a scientist).”

Pinker’s ivory tower account of the “Montreal Night of Terror” appears in line with the archives the CBC conveniently left for us.  He overlooks a few underlying factors that may add a little bit of context to the situation.

  • The late 60’s in Montreal was the scene of Quebecois Separatist movements.  Separatists that planted bombs the police were often called upon to respond.  One could argue Montreal wasn’t exactly Pleasantville during that time and asking to be at least be paid the same as police in Toronto (where there was no separatist movement), was not unreasonable.
  • Murray Hill, for whom the riots are named, is the name of the limousine company who’s property was burned by the cab drivers.

Search engine image result for “Murray Hill”

The cab unions at the time were upset Murray Hill had an exclusive right to pick up arriving passengers at the airport with the limo and bus services.  The cabbies were locked out by a monopoly and obviously held a grudge.  Earlier in the year the cab union protested at the airport, resulting in them burning Murray Hill buses.  This sort of thing was not new, and the police were aware the union was on their way a garage owned by Murray Hill but only stopped a provincial police car trailing the convoy of taxicabs.  The police strike only further enabled a grudge that was already violent, it was not the impetus for the violence.

Keep in mind, this took place over the course of a single day before the Mounties and Army showed up to restore order.  If not for the city government empowering a monopoly at the airport most of the violence was petty property crimes.  Had they remained on strike, it is entirely possible the local businesses could adapt to the situation through the rooftop Korean method or by hiring private security.  In many developing countries, private security is common because many local police and indeed the governments are too corrupt to be trusted by everyone.  In practice, it will likely be a patchwork depending on the economic circumstances of the property owner.  For most people, it might simply mean a resurgence of the 2nd Amendment.  For others, it might look like the town in Mexico I regularly vacation.  There the local resorts employ private security on their grounds, and the neighborhood of beach houses that rent out on VRBO all pay another company to provide security for the entire neighborhood.  I simply pick up a parking pass from the real estate office that facilitates the rental, show security the pass at the guard shack, and they let me in.  They have a couple guys diving around the neighborhood as well.  Its the setup many neighborhoods are likely to develop, and one many gated communities in this country employ today.  If you are going into town you are on your own, which is fine.

At worst, it probably looks like South Africa, which compared to other parts of Africa doesn’t seem all that bad.

 

 

 

This being a German beer means it is traditionally made, in accordance with the recommendations of Medieval.Top.Men.  Altbier is a style popular in Germany during the summer months.  It is somewhat Kölsch like but with a little more body and not without a very slight sour taste.  Sometimes it is served with a fruit syrup, which given how light and fruity the beer is does not sound terrible.  It winds up being very light, and refreshing but otherwise not particularly remarkable.  Pinkus Münster Alt:  3.2/5