Sometimes reasonable people must do unreasonable things.
The title is a paraphrase of something Marv Heemeyer said. If you’re unfamiliar with that name, it’s the guy who built and used the “Killdozer” to go after people who kept screwing him over in Granby, Colorado. The Lore Lodge on YouTube did a great video on some of what’s been missing from the popular narrative you should check out.
In the heart of things, though, you’ve got a guy who wanted to be part of the community; to contribute and be treated fairly as any person has a right to expect. The problem was, he wasn’t. The “good old boy” system there took issue with him because he bought property that someone else, someone connected, wanted and things went downhill from there until Heemeyer engaged in his rampage.
Which hurt no one, by the way. The only fatality was himself.
But the truth is that you can only push people so far before they start pushing back, and if you push them long enough, their pushback won’t be for just one thing, but a long history of abuses. I’ve touched on how the attacks on Christians could go, but it doesn’t stop there.
See, I came across this bit from Hot Air today, and I found something interesting, but not surprising. See, an auto repair shop called Popular Mechanix has a problem. An arsonist who has been arrested numerous times but keeps coming back to cause problems with the shop. And, frankly, enough is enough.
It’s not that the city is doing nothing. They do arrest and charge Perez Perez every few months, it’s just that the city isn’t stopping him or even discouraging him. He’s committing many more crimes than he’s being punished for and the city can’t deal with it. So dealing with Perez Perez has fallen on shop manager DJ Meisner:
“It feels like the Wild West,” said Meisner about the city. “I try not to give into the doom spiral narrative. But they are doing nothing to dissuade me of that notion.”…
In 2022, Meisner said he was putting out blazes weekly and even installed a ladder he bought from a hunting website to get a better vantage point from the fence line. He placed extinguisher devices on the fence, but they have proven useless and have been swallowed up in the fires.
In October, an early morning fire broke out in Popular Mechanix’s backyard, growing into a large blaze that destroyed two of the shop’s cars and scarred surrounding trees. One of the cars exploded because it was full of gasoline.
In January the police recommended charges against Perez Perez for the November arson (the one caught on video). Supposedly the DA reached out to the company this week, but does anyone think it will matter? Perez Perez might go to prison for another six months. Then he’ll be back on the street and Popular Mechanix will be left to do its best to protect itself from him. And of course, he’s not the only agent of chaos in the city.
The shop’s owner, Andrew Gescheidt, says it feels like he’s being pushed toward becoming a vigilante. “I feel like I don’t want to become a vigilante, but the universe is saying you have to do it yourself,” he said. He vowed he wouldn’t go out and hit Perez Perez with a wrench but added, “Bureaucracy is not helping us.”
Again, the police show up, arrest him, he goes to court, gets a sentence, then comes out and does it all over again. There’s a restraining order against him, but that’s just a piece of paper when all else is considered.
What Gescheidt is articulating here is that he, a reasonable man, is starting to feel like he needs to do unreasonable things.
Let’s understand that you cannot use lethal force in a situation that isn’t reasonably perceived as a life-or-death situation. Bottles of urine and rocks should qualify—both can kill people, after all—but California’s prosecutors would likely disagree. That means Gescheidt attacking Perez Perez in any way, even when you and I might believe there was a threat of grievous bodily harm or even death, he’s likely to be the one to go to prison.
But unless something is done, you’re going to see some kind of vigilantism in San Francisco. Writer John Sexton teases that you have to become Batman to live in San Fran, and he’s not entirely wrong to do so.
The thing is, though, anyone can be pushed far enough. There’s a point where anyone stops being docile and law-abiding. Sure, you can push them pretty far if you’re gentle about it to start with, but even then, sooner or later, you risk crossing the Rubicon and that person unleashing hell.
In a civilized nation, we expect criminals to be punished. We expect at least some response that looks like justice. Since the system is run by people, we can accept that mistakes are made so long as they’re rectified as quickly as possible, but we still expect meaningful action.
Someone revolving through the jails to return and continue to unleash havoc isn’t justice. It’s not remotely like justice, and if it keeps up, someone will decide justice has to come from somewhere else.
Clearly, the police can’t do it.
But it’s not limited here, either.
Right now, the left is, once again, losing their freaking minds. They’re firebombing Tesla dealerships because they don’t like Elon Musk. They’re acting as if they’ve been pushed too far when no one has pushed them anywhere. They’re the ones doing the pushing.
At some point, someone is going to say enough is enough and take action.
Should that happen, it’s entirely possible it will inspire others to act. Reasonable men and women must do unreasonable things, and it’s usually unreasonable men and women who push them to do them.
Stop being unreasonable and things will settle. Fail to do that, and, well…consider yourself warned.
