When it really happens: SHTF...

Might do...:lol:

In any case, Saturday has been a great day.
I went out early for a couple hours of fast walking. Made 14 km and, once back home, I found a WhatsApp message from the president of our shooting range for handguns. Range open and we could all go.
So I called him and got to know, that the chief of police, who he called on the phone, told him all ranges were open and that, since we are considered athletes, in the “country of bureaucracy” we were entitled to go where we could practice our sport.
Plus, our range is affiliated to the Italian Olympic Commitee, so there was absolutely no doubt.
Last, and most interesting info, he said that police and carabinieri had been instructed by the higher echelons, not to harass the population.
Only blatant trespassing has to be addressed and punished.
Lacking the government, the other public officials seem to be starting to apply common sense.
That made my day.
So, I went to the range and shot well, enjoying every second there.

High school is going virtual for the week after Thanksgiving. Not sure why, if anyone gets infected on Thanksgiving, it will take a week for them to show symptoms. All sports at the high school level on hold for the same time period.

We have been given a voluntary stay at home advisory and one of the stupidest things they've done yet. They stopped alcohol sales on Thanksgiving eve. I simply cannot fathom what they think this will accomplish. It's one evening. I guess they don't want a bunch of drunks going to grandma's house the next day because when you're drunk, you are 1000 times more infectious.

Just received per WhatsApp the new regulations for our region. Everything has been shut down again. No sports, no restaurants and bars (it was already so), no visits to other households if not strictly necessary, no stay on public soil without face cover...and so on.
I did very well to seize the opportunity and go shooting Saturday. Carpe Diem!
But in general, I'm quite upset.
I want to be given general rules of behaviour, not prohibitions. As long as I follow the rules, I should be allowed to do whatever I please.
Little dictators springing up everywhere here...
One more thing I can't stand anymore. As it happened in March and the following months, suddenly I meet Carabinieri and city police every time I am out in my small village.
When burglars start pillaging whole blocks, they never have men and resources to be out, but now that it's the honest citizen who need to be oppressed, they are all about.
I don't blame the men out on the streets, but those who give them those orders.
If there's something that gives a really democratic and free person the itching, it's things like these.
I wore the uniform myself, with great pride and dedication. I really hate it to feel uneasy when I see uniforms on the roads...
That is a really "great" accomplishment of the idiots ruling our country...

While we have many layers of police, the majority of them have already refused to enforce anything they consider un-Constitutional. The Governor only controls the State Police and even they have reservations about some of the things but they also are somewhat restricted because they can arrest and charge someone but the local district attorney's have also said they will not enforce these laws so the State Police can file but they will be ignored. Obviously it can mess up your day especially if they decide to take you into custody. Not likely unless you make an *** of yourself and tick them off.

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Originally Posted by Aragorn243

Obviously it can mess up your day especially if they decide to take you into custody. Not likely unless you make an *** of yourself and tick them off.

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This is where the citizen must really work on themselves.
You must try to keep in mind that it is not the man in front of you who is oppressing you, but his "masters".
The only thing is that sometimes even the best officer says the wrong thing in the wrongest way to the wrong person.
I imagine myself in one of those days... I guess everyone of us can understand what I mean, one of those days where you are intimately upset. Where maybe lots of tiny things have gone wrong, someone has got you nervous...you're just at the edge of your capability of keeping calm. For many or even no reason, you're just so. And right at that moment comes an officer who strokes you against the grain...
The more the tension rises, the more everybody must be careful interacting with the police and the police with people.
A colleague of mine, who has been a policeman for quite a few years and still is co-operating with them as a volunteer, showed me the internal guidelines sent to the police chiefs and to the government by our national chief of the police.
He admonishes all his men not to act following reports from other citizen, especially for things happening in private homes. To be extremely careful and not fine as long as the behaviour was really completely out of tolerable, to be as comprehensive as possible with older people and also with kids. Lots of such very good and very common sense instructions. What I liked most, however, is that he reminds his men, and so also the government, that it would be a good thing to have all the new regulations checked by our constitutional court, because there are plenty of doubts about lots of topics concerning the Covid-regulations. That the Police is still subject to the Constitution and not the government.
A ray of sun...

Since when is it ok for a governor, or anyone, to declare what is essential and what is not? In California you can go to a strip club, but not a church, Michiganders could go to isle 4 in Lowes for soap, but don't you dare walk over to isle 9 where the seeds are. "Growing your own food spreads the virus dontchaknow!" Where are equal protection lawsuits? 10th amendment? "You can only go to the big grocery store, not the small one and certainly not the outdoor farmer's market!" There is no checks and balances when the whole bureaucracy is in on the game. The virus may be causing a pandemic, but it's this kind of BS that's causing the panic.

Why am I more worried about rioters (sorry twitter/facebook, I meant to say protesters) burning down my house because of my Gadsden flag out front than I am about this virus? Well, if I wasn't, I would probably be a bit more willing to listen when they say "Virus no big deal...wait big deal...but certainly no masks - makes it worse...wait yes masks...but no school, no seeds, no church,...but strippers hell yeah!"
"Show me your papers! No papers? Your kids can't go back to school then". My kids haven't been to school since last Feb.

That's my vent. I'll stop now. Stay safe everyone.

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Originally Posted by ssgross

Since when is it ok for a governor, or anyone, to declare what is essential and what is not? In California you can go to a strip club, but not a church, Michiganders could go to isle 4 in Lowes for soap, but don't you dare walk over to isle 9 where the seeds are. "Growing your own food spreads the virus dontchaknow!" Where are equal protection lawsuits? 10th amendment? "You can only go to the big grocery store, not the small one and certainly not the outdoor farmer's market!" There is no checks and balances when the whole bureaucracy is in on the game. The virus may be causing a pandemic, but it's this kind of BS that's causing the panic.

Why am I more worried about rioters (sorry twitter/facebook, I meant to say protesters) burning down my house because of my Gadsden flag out front than I am about this virus? Well, if I wasn't, I would probably be a bit more willing to listen when they say "Virus no big deal...wait big deal...but certainly no masks - makes it worse...wait yes masks...but no school, no seeds, no church,...but strippers hell yeah!"
"Show me your papers! No papers? Your kids can't go back to school then". My kids haven't been to school since last Feb.

That's my vent. I'll stop now. Stay safe everyone.

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Pretty much my feelings. General rules and no further interference in people's lives. No-one can tell me what is important, essential, worthy to me. They can only tell me what I need to do to be able to do something I want to do. Once I follow the rules, the rest is only my business.
But that's pretty difficult to make clear to people who consider themselves democratic and enlightened people only because they say so. Curiously enough, also here it's the "snow whites" who would deprive you of all of your freedom like they feel fitting. We were prohibited to go to mass, but we could go to the governing party's festival, where thousands of people gathered without any police controls. Broadcasted on tv, but no trouble. By the way, they are the same that ran around flying red flags until a few years ago. Now they prefer to show the rainbow flag, but keep the red t-shirt under the parka... And they are soooooo humane, sooooooo democratic. Until you share their opinion. If you dare dissenting...
I dissent.

I think the worst part of this thing is no one is playing by the same rule book. No one has figured out what will help and what's just control. Every single area here spoken of is doing something different...we aren't doing anything the way you all are. Different, so, ineffective.

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Originally Posted by Aragorn243

I simply cannot fathom what they think this will accomplish

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Sure you can.
Control.
I fear for our country.

In all my extra free time locked away at home, I finished reading Madison's journals on the convention, and many of the debates in the first congress. Makes me furious. They knew then, and blatantly expressed, that the real enemy was power, corruption, money, control. They hoped that "checks and balances" would put some teeth into the document to allow general good nature to check the bad apples (there is some British example here of Cromwell executing the authors of the first British constitution?). I don't think they imagined that a bueracracy itself would be so corrupt as to usurp their checks and balances.
Policy isn't law. But our bureaucracy seems to have no problem treating policy from unelected dept. heads as the same as law. The "check and balance" here isn't supposed to be the courts, which refuse to hear the case many times anyway, but the legislature. Pass a law if you want me to follow your rules....edicts from some unelected basement official aren't laws. The only bodies that can roll back executive authority are legislative. They, after all, gave the executive bureaucracy all of its extra "emergency" powers to begin with.
There are some pretty great things that Madison recorded...quotes from Washington who was president of the convention and the like - makes me laugh and cry at the same time on almost every paragraph.