... A WRITER WRITES ...

"I'll take our freedoms and a higher murder rate over repression and 'safety' any day of the week and twice on Sunday."

Like, uhh ... did anybody ever teach you to Think ?? ... Did you never take a basic course in Logic ?? ... Do you always mix Oranges with Platypus's when you attempt to make a point ??

Forty-odd years ago -- back in the Age of the Clutter Family killings -- a pack of Very Schmart Social-Scientists concluded that "murder rates" do not go Down ... and are NOT affected by the Death Penalty (!!)

What a Lie. Killings & Crimes of "PASSION" (a lesser %) may not be affected. Such can be measured quantifatively ...

Crimes & Murders of "GREED", however, are an animal of a different stripe. These infractions ... cockroaching on a 7-11 clerk at 3 in the morning would come to a bulleting halt ... IF the (Drug-Free) miscreant understood with 100% certainty that packing a threating pistol under such circumstances would mean the Cleaving of One's Islamic hand or in another example ... the Stoning to Death of an Judean adulteress in Good Old Jerusalem.

Amerika is infested with Criminals in part due to Mary Jane -- in part due to the ACLU's wholescale inability to intelligently grasp 'perspective' - - in part due to political appointed Judges who are True Believers in the whimpering promises of Willy Horton & Co. - - in part due to the NRA's wholescale inability to intelligently grasp 'perspective'

- - in part due to a Psycho-Logical infatuation with World Wrestling Federation Time-Killers - - in part due to Stallone/BruceLee/KillBill AirHead Flicks - - and in part due to a National Mania for Video Games that Shatter "THEM" to Smithereenies !!

.... but China's low rate of N'er-Do-Wells has very very much to do with its cultural abhorance of Barbarism ... based on a centuries old Confuscian Mindset of how the World Works ... and far less to do with the CSP (Chinese State Police), the MSS (Ministry of State Security) or the PLA (People's Liberation Army) ... all entities filled to the hilt with humorless Super-Paranoids in charge of a Billion-Plus impoverished & disgruntled paupers.

Much of the Yuppie Wealth that CBS & Time Magazine "sells" the dimwitted American public is on display in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, et cetera. But the Invisible Masses out in the Hinterlands are simply not as Newsworthy as the Jetsetting Minority.

I felt far safer walking around on dark empty streets of Beijing at 3 a.m. than many streets in the broad day light of say, Tokyo, Athens, Frisco, or ..... Brooklyn .. for that matter. The Chinese have night bench sleepers in spades. All shades of Black market goods are sold openly downtown.

Americans are justified in feeling that the Death Penalty is a poor track to take in bringing down the murder rate. Okay, fine; but there are a hundred destitute countries at the U.N. who owe us Big Time in Foreign Aid.

... It would be a simple matter of trade to write some of this Debt off by sending abroad those in our neighborhoods who persist in conducting Murder & Mayhem against their Fellow Americans. YOU could feel safer walking around Brooklyn at 3 a.m. ... AND ... we would be saving $$ Millions in Prison color TV set purchases, etc.

Bottomline ?? .... We welcome your participation & contribution to the Family of Americans .... BUT ... if you prove to be a REPEAT OFFENDER ... killing, raping, pillaging, or cockroaching off your neighbor ....

... then ... after say, Three Strikes ... Bye-Bye, we lift your Citizenship papers ... and allow a Mexican or Panamanian in to take yer place.

We'll even throw in the cargo ship steerage ticket to say, Angola or Uzbekistan or Ulan Batur or Myanmar or Beijing or whoever the heck wants to make a Quick Buck by dealing with your nonsense. A Prison Tour innitiation at their wharf may teach you to behave yourself. They're unlikely to provide color TVs.

... since everybody this season seems to be voting in all the wrong-which-ways ... i will offer up a few Classics for the thread's judges & connisewers to ruminate over.

1) "TREE-FROG BEER"

[cactus country - circa 1968-71: Robert Crumb; brewer]

2) "BILLY BEER"

[dixie - circa 1977-79: Billy Carter; brewer]

3) "BACKWASH"

[off-campus housing - 1976: Senor Soup & The Buds; brewers]

While "TREE-FROG" was reputedly the No. One Greatest Thing to have been spawned out of The Sixties .... few of the debauched lemmings who combed & scoured every saloon & truck-stop liquor shop in the American Southwest were reportedly ever able to crack one open.

The notorious yet short-lived "BILLY BEER", on the other hand, could be found in all 50 States --- including a palace & few dens of inequity in northern africa, where it had to be smuggled in on account of alcohol & fun-in-general being frowned upon by the zygotian rumblings of Soon-to-Be Jihadists.

I stored 3 cases of "BILLY BEER" in a series of garages over a nearly a 2 decade span of time; sensing that beer-scientists in the 21st & 22nd centuries would one day marvel over the beveridge that once raised high-browed eyebrows & embellished the rosewood mantels of the very finest pubs in all of Georgetown. But alas, as a Carolina Senator might say; ... "While the Spirit is Willing, the Flesh is Weak" - - and - - in time - - like sodden clumps of Sand in a Glass -- the Waters passed on along and, one can imagine, made their way back out to Sea ... all drunk up ... with nothing left to survive but ... a Legend.

With regard to the lesser famed, & shorter-lived "BACKWASH" brand of nativist homemade brew .... well ... the aroma somewhat exceeded the quality of its flat-body. But one needs to remember, some blokes prefer such to the headiness of a full-bodied specimin. The most redeeming aspect of Backwash-brand was the eye-catching label which sported a thick-tongued, lapping, salivating Great Pyranees with its name "FIDO" painted across its neck-caskette.

KAMPAI !!!