Are you ever too old to stop a mugger? Not if your mobility scooter is ready to go.
This conclusion is informed by the example of 92-year-old Eileen Mason, who was with her 75-year-old friend, Margaret Seabrook, when a mugger tried to make off with the contents of a scooter basket.
The two British great-grandmothers were returning from a lunch club in Wiltshire as the thief approached and targeted the older of the two.
When he grabbed Eileen Mason’s arm and reached for the bag, she shouted “Oh no you don’t” — at her maximum volume.
“I put my scooter into accelerate and turned really fast,” she told the UK Telegraph. “The next thing I know he was on the floor. I thought ‘my gosh.’ Something in me just told me to turn so I squeezed the accelerator and turned and he went flying. He was so evil looking.”
If you like this story, don’t miss the ones about the grandma who used a handbag to stop a jewel-store robbery, or the grandma who trapped a burglar in a shed.
Margaret Seabrook says they want their experience to teach people “not [to] leave things on display in their baskets.…”
That’s one lesson — don’t make yourself an unnecessarily tempting target. But the other thing is be prepared … to defend and evade.
If somebody is gearing up to rob you, be ready to stop him. At least, if you can do so without too much risk to life, limb, or liberty.
Two hundred forty years ago, the situation was dire. In the Virginia Colony, not too far from where I live, representatives to the Second Virginia Convention were debating the problems they were having with their “masters” in Britain — and the more dangerous, violent situation that was developing to the north.
Several days into the convention, Patrick Henry spoke. His speech was rousing. And it changed minds, concluding with the famous words “give me liberty or give me death!” — an ultimatum quite stark indeed.
Mr. Henry was for action, and waiting no longer. Addressing himself to the president of the convention, he said, “Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on.” And they had done a great deal, engaging in
- petitioning
- remonstration
- supplication
and, Henry went on, had even “prostrated ourselves before the throne.” And they got worse than the cold shoulder for all their efforts. They got the brush-off, the turn of the cold robe. Along with troops of occupation.
Hence the need for serious action.
Then, Americans were wrestling with the world’s most powerful nation: the British Empire. Today we again face the world’s most powerful empire: our own.
A federal regime similarly out of control in terms of spending and debt, arrogance and corruption, intrusiveness and incompetence. As if dictated by a know-it-all king of old, or a cabal of insiders acting as oligarchs.
Then it was a far-off Parliament; today it is our own far out-of-it representatives … duly elected.
We are engaged in a sort of class war, insiders vs. outsiders, and it is the insiders who are bringing the country to the brink of collapse.
The biggest difference between 1775 and 2015? We haven’t done all we can. There is much more to do. And possibly even succeed before the doom of another financial collapse, sovereign debt crisis, or … worse.
It often seems a Herculean task, but as Mr. Henry implored, “Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.”
Let’s join together to give ourselves, our loved ones, and generations hence liberty.
I don’t know if Juan Williams is right about who qualifies as America’s most influential thinker on race. But I hope he is.
In a Friday Wall Street Journal op-ed, Fox News’s liberal-leaning political analyst and author of Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (1998), argues that our country’s most important influencer of thought on race is neither some current and trendy academic writer nor our current president (or his outgoing attorney general). Instead, it is none other than Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
While more famous figures of African-American descent have dominated the news talk shows and airwaves and popular consciousness, Justice Thomas has gone about “reshaping the law and government policy on race by virtue of the power of his opinions from the bench.” While previous African-American racial activists and thinkers have striven to defend the rights of black people, Justice Thomas, “the second black man on the court, takes a different tack. He stands up for individual rights as a sure blanket of legal protection for everyone, including minorities.”
Opposed to “perpetual racial tinkering,” Thomas has marshaled Frederick Douglass’s words to make his case: “What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.” And justice, in Clarence Thomas’s judgment, does not entail a constant rescue-worker attitude towards minorities, or other disadvantaged folks. It requires nothing other than equality of rights before the law.
And perhaps some hard work on the part of the disadvantaged.
Hats off, then, to Juan Williams for recognizing the importance of Thomas’s common sense contention that “black people deserve to be treated as independent, competent, self-sufficient citizens.”
Iraq War vet Daniel Gade is a lieutenant colonel, professor of public policy, and triathlon competitor with a message for fellow veterans: disability pay may be doing you more harm than good.
Having lost a leg in combat himself, he submits that he is a messenger somewhat harder to dismiss than some others would be.
Professor Gade criticizes how the government puts vets with relatively mild problems in the same category as those with true disabilities, and gives them incentives to stay out of the job market.
An example is the Individual Unemployability program, which treats veterans rated as at least 60 percent disabled as if they are 100 percent disabled as well as 100 percent long-term unemployable. Demonstrating that level of disability and unemployability to the satisfaction of the government means a bump in monthly benefits from $1,200 to $3,100.
“It’s a trap,” Gade insists.
He is working with private donors on a pilot program for vets. His idea is to give grants to develop employment skills rather than to maintain unemployment. Participants must forego any attempt to increase their disability pay by seeking a higher disability rating.
According to one soldier who gave the professor’s pitch a hearing, the government’s system to help vets “is just ‘Give me the money, who cares about anything else.’”
Gade’s proposal, on the other hand, “says go out and work, be productive, feel good about yourself. There is where we do well. If we don’t have a mission, we don’t do well.”
More important than which party controls the U.S. Senate, or which nine people don Supreme Court robes, or even who will be elected president of these United States come 2016, is something much more within our individual and collective control: what you and I do to protect and advance liberty.
From this date — January 1, 2015 — forward, let us never wait for a political savior to ride in on a white horse. We cannot wait.
And we don’t have to.
In fact, only through “We the People” taking the leadership role can a pro-liberty agenda be established. Politicians won’t do it for us, not consistently.
Yet, the few might follow our good lead.
And we can hopefully make all politicians respond to the issues that define the future of freedom.
Starting right now, as president of the Liberty Initiative Fund, I ask you: join me in placing a three-plank pro-liberty platform on state and local ballots and, thereby into law and government policy across the country, between now and November 8, 2016.
Hold government accountable. Pass term limits in more cities and states. Fix out-of-control public employee pensions. Enact ethics reforms.
Fight crony capitalism. Create a voter check on public subsidies. Protect citizens from eminent domain abuse. Open up business entry.
Protect our liberties. Clean up law enforcement with measures that stop the highway robbery known as civil asset forfeiture, require police to wear lapel cameras, and mandate independent prosecutors in fatal or violent incidents involving police.
We can create better government, a freer marketplace and a safer society.
Gandhi said: “We must become the changes we seek in the world.”
I say, “At least, let’s put our changes on the ballot and give them a fighting chance.”
There will never be a patronage army for liberty. But there is you and me. And since we agree . . . we might be able do something about it.
We’re strong enough to start.
These battles appeal to libertarians, conservatives, liberals, progressives.
I’m reminded of Patrick Henry’s 1775 “Give Me Liberty” speech:
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? …
Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
Mr. Henry was talking about cataclysmic historical forces, the defeat of the world’s foremost empire. So are we, in a way.
This nation of shopkeepers, the common folks with common sense and common decency, must again battle the Empire of Big Government. And let me advance the notion that we are up to that awesome task.
Every New Year’s Day I reflect on the words of author and politician, Marianne Williamson, who in her book, Return to Love, wrote:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Let’s work together to make 2015 the year we helped create an America more free. Call me (571 – 659-2320) or email me (paul@libertyifund.org) if you want to take action in your city or state.
Oh, wait! Don’t call me today; I’m watching college football. But please call me (or email) tomorrow, Friday, Jan. 2, 2015. If I’m busy, or talking to someone who dialed me a minute earlier, leave a message (that’s just, ahem, common sense) — I’ll call you back.
Let’s take charge and usher in change together, at the grassroots, this year.
Last February, between Bath and Bristol, the A431 suffered from a “landslip.” (I assume that’s Brit-speak for “landslide.”) With the road closed, folks on either side of the slide had to drive around “the long way.”
The government body responsible for the road said the repair wouldn’t be finished till the end of the year.
So one commuter, businessman Mike Watts, took matters into his own hands. Contracting with the farmer who owned the adjacent fields, he built a road parallel to the old one. And, with the apparent blessings of the road authority, set up his 400-yard toll road to make up the difference. A private, pay-for-use “traffic revision.”
He charges £2 per trip for a car, and just celebrated his hundred thousandth car. He’s well on his way to recovering his costs.
Unfortunately, those costs have included some payola demands (er, fees) from the government.
On mises.org Matt McCaffrey lauds the success of this private road venture, making the point that, yes, private enterprise can build roads.
But we all knew that. Private roads, turnpikes, toll roads — they were once quite common, and could become common again. This is the first in a century in Britain, though.
What this story demonstrates? Let another enterprising Brit, 19th century sociologist Herbert Spencer, explain it: “Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its actions to meet emergencies … the law-made instrumentality lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances at its habitual rate.”
Professor Gade 
