I'm going to give too. I want to see it approaching $2m. I want him able to defend against not just the criminal but the civil garbage that is undoubtedly coming his way. I would like to see his defense fund so big they shutter at the thought of taking it on.
I know the NYC subways well. No one wants to be stuck in a subway car with someone making violent threats and otherwise acting erratically. No one should have to accept that circumstance. Unfortunately, police can’t be everywhere and most people, unlike Daniel Penny, are not willing to get involved. However, I can assure you, that Penny’s fellow passengers were relieved and grateful that he stepped up - not as a vigilante, but as a fellow passenger who has the ability and courage to offer assistance. It is tragic that Jordan Nealy died, but it’s not Daniel Penny’s fault that Nealy was allowed to be on the streets or that he died being subdued. I have no doubt that Penny expected to hold him and turn him over to the police and had no desire to hurt him.
Alvin Bragg is a communist demon. He is zealously prosecuting Daniel Penny for the same reason that he is *not* prosecuting violent criminals: to demoralize the regular people and get them used to living under a communist dystopia.
as a nyer with the upper-body strength of bernhard goetz, who has watched many psychotic breakdowns while sealed inside a subway car, i completely agree.
May 16, 2023·edited May 16, 2023Liked by Chris Bray
Excellent piece. Redefining words doesn’t simply change their meaning, it has the power to redefine our society. Which is why their new meanings are so strictly policed by those who seek to leave us in ruin.
The long-neglected (what a shame!) healthy kind of shame seems to be getting its long-overdue hour in the limelight, here on stacks! Wish this vital attention spills over far & wide 😊🤸
Remember the msm discourse continuum Chris expertly named a piece or two back? All this word-redefining business sits firmly on the “deadly poison” tail(*. Vigilante framing is gobsmacking stomach-churning jaw-on-the-floor level crazy. And vile.
--
(* the other end being “empty calories”. Though it never hurts to fire up a Doc Brown’s DeLorean, and head out to revisit the captivating quarters of Tell Me How This Ends 😊
The political class has become a bizarre, sinister, crackpot mix of weaponized sanctimony and crusading infantilization. They'd be funny if they weren't so dangerous.
It’s amazing how the media simultaneously places absurdly outsized importance on certain words (the wrong pronouns are literal violence) while showing a level of carelessness towards the accuracy of other words that would fail a grade school vocabulary test.
The entire point of the Left’s language game and hammering action-takers is to infantilize society and emasculate those with clear historical vision. If we’re unwilling, or just unable to return societal institutions to competent hands, the risk is not decline, but having to learn Mandarin a mere 78 yrs after avoiding German lessons.
Excellent. This highlights a point that most people don't see: The police are not there to protect you and I; they're there to protect the criminals from us.
Without a police force citizens will make their own justice as they see fit. This is why it is so stupid for our "elites" to degrade the rule of law. Eventually people decide there is no rule and we're back to the old ways.
i always have to explain to my non-sicilian friends that either the govt has a monopoly on violence (as in a police dept) or else you may have to pay protection money to men who laugh at the idea of law and "rights" (or carry your own piece and be prepared to use it).
it is scary how easy it is for people to forget some of the basic facts of civilization. (yes, i know, facts are an oppressive white-supremacist construct) lol
Individual policemen and policewomen want to protect us and to stop the bad guys. That’s why they go into policing. However, they, like Daniel Penny, shouldn’t have to face prosecution if they hurt one of the bad guys in the course of their job and they always should have the benefit of the doubt.
Your more humorous articles have saved my sanity more than once, and I love them, but I also love these. The information is great and it answers a question I had the other day . . .
I read an article by Kat Rosenfeld on The Free Press or UnHerd, one of those, about Neely, Perry, and the state of policing and mental health in general. I tend to find her relatively down to earth, and the article for the most part was, but it ended with something like "and if we don't solve these problems, we're going to get *more* vigilanteism." By "more" she meant that Perry was a vigilante. And I thought to myself, "Self, that's not what that word means--stepping in to save a subway car full of people from a violent lunatic because there are no cops around." So thank you for reinforcing that I was right.
While I think you are right that this is part and parcel of the idea that "You can’t help other people — you don’t even work for the government!" (eloquently put), it will have the added benefit that if Perry is found not guilty, which he very well could be as you are allowed to defend yourself *or others* and what he did while it can be fatal, is also regarded as an acceptable way to restrain people (and he had help doing it), but if he is found not guilty, a certain group of opportunistic race vultures in this country can say, "Vigilanteism is illegal and look that evil white man got a way with it, killing that poor helpless black man who just wanted to do his Michael Jackson impression, and I know he was a vigilante because the talking head on TV told me so, so white supremacy *is* real and I must vote for the party that won't put up with this."
Today Yahoo has a headline story about how threats against LGBTQIA++ are increasing, and a prime example they gave of those violent MAGA types was the people celebrating the Nashville shooter who killed Christians. It was DEMS who celebrated the shooter. That story got so twisted right away, with the shooter and all the shooter's supporters being portrayed as the victims, that the Dems don't even know who the shooting victims were. It's remarkable.
And that's the whole point, that they twist it so people don't know the reality. We all have our silos and our blinkers, but the group of people who used to be so proud of being open minded are the most obstinately ignorant these days. Strange times.
No doubt they pull the “increasing numbers” out of their ass to write a ‘story.’ The media have not been held accountable for fabricating statistics for freakin’ decades!
Chris, you seem to want the left to make sense and behave responsibly. Well, they don’t, and they won’t. It’s like expecting a chicken to suddenly fly: ain’t gonna happen.
I I feel sorry for Penny. I feel very sorry for Neely. But what is going on here on the left has absolutely nothing to do with either of them.
Agree with your sentiment but you should change chicken to pig...my wife has chickens that fly. Unfortunately for them when they do they tend to end up in my dogs mouth. Now my dog , he is most definitely a chicken vigilante... judge, jury and executioner.
At some point people will realize that rampant crime isn't a byproduct of socialist and communist governments but an intentional feature. Without crime, people stop believing they are victims and the entire ideology starts to crumble.
It’s also a well-honed revolutionary tactic: flood the streets with crims and crazies to get the public to beg for more heavy handed police/government controls and/or a new “fair and enlightened” Marxist government altogether.
True. The old communist bloc states (I hesitate to write "real communist" for fear of the true scotsman) were harder on crime than the US has ever been.
Citizens “granted” certain rights and responsibilities to others as an effective and productive way to deliver various services for the benefit of the community. When the parties that were “granted” these rights and responsibilities fail to effectively or productively carry out these functions the citizens have the authority to take them back and carry them out themselves. This is particularly true of public safety responsibilities.
My son is a platoon leader at Camp Lejeune and a bunch of guys in his company know Perry, spoke to him last week and said he is doing pretty good all things considered.
We also contributed to the legal defense fund. It’s encouraging to see it is over $2 million at this point.
Praying Bragg gets his ass handed to him either by the grand jury, failing to indict, or at trial with the jury failing to convict.
the "garden hose at my neighbors house" was a great example, Chris - you are the best at putting these situations in layman's terms for folk like myself.
Nice historical review. The last thing the Commies want to see are brave men and brave women solving their own problems through whatever means are necessary. Rugged individualism is kryptonite to collectivists. We don’t know yet the entire story of what exactly went on in the subway car, so a degree of caution is warranted at this point. But we do know people felt threatened and based on the criminal history of the deceased, they had good reason to feel that way. One thing many people seem to not understand or don’t want to acknowledge is that once somebody engages in a stressful aka dangerous physical conflict there is a predictable series of physiological changes that happen. It’s not a movie where the secret agent chokes out the henchman and then suavely drinks a martini. This is life and possibly death. It may literally become mortal combat. Most people are working at a reptilian brain survival level at that point. You can’t instantly turn it off. That’s one reason why you don’t start stuff with strangers. You don’t know who you’re dealing with and looks can be deceptive. I’m general, I’m of the mindset that we could solve a lot more problems with a little more bravery. Notwithstanding all of the above, this mentally ill man should have been in an asylum, not roaming the streets. His death is a result of the failure of liberal policies.
Most people have never been in a real fight, ever. Hence all the stupidity. Being in a real fight for your life leads to a clearer perspective on life:
If it's a game, we have rules. If it's for real, the only rule is win or die.
"So the reframing is remarkable, and it’s important to notice what it’s meant to do: any act of personal initiative against a crime, a threat, or a serious act of social disorder is vigilantism. The implication is that passivity is your duty, you should always allow professionals to handle a problem entirely"
This "advice" also flies directly in the face of American law, which is CLEAR AS DAY that police HAVE NO DUTY to keep you safe. If Neely had pulled out a knife and started slashing people, police in the next car could sit and watch it happen with no repercussions.
In his account, Lozito (victim) pinned Gelman (perp) to the floor, disarming him. Howell (police officer) then emerged from the booth, tapping Lozito’s shoulder: “You can get up now,” he said.
“By the time he got there, the dirty work was already done,” Lozito said.
Gelman was convicted in the spree — which left his girlfriend, her mother, his stepfather and a pedestrian dead, and five others injured.
Lozito says a grand-jury member later told him Howell admitted on the stand that he hid during the attack because he thought Gelman had a gun.
An angry Lozito decided to sue the city for negligence, arguing the cops should have recognized Gelman and prevented, or reacted more quickly to, the assault.
The city routinely settles such litigation but is playing hardball with Lozito, insisting his demand for unspecified money damages be tossed because the police had no “special duty” to protect him or any individual on the train that day.
“This "advice" also flies directly in the face of American law, which is CLEAR AS DAY that police HAVE NO DUTY to keep you safe. “
True.
“In the 1981 case Warren v. District of Columbia, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that police have a general "public duty," but that "no specific legal duty exists" unless there is a special relationship between an officer and an individual, such as a person in custody.
The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that police have no specific obligation to protect. In its 1989 decision in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, the justices ruled that a social services department had no duty to protect a young boy from his abusive father. In 2005'sCastle Rock v. Gonzales, a woman sued the police for failing to protect her from her husband after he violated a restraining order and abducted and killed their three children. Justices said the police had no such duty.
Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that police could not be held liable for failing to protect students in the 2018 shooting that claimed 17 lives at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida”
May 17, 2023·edited May 17, 2023Liked by Chris Bray
I first came across the idea a couple decades ago. One of my friends was very badly hurt at the 1999 Seattle protests while police stood by and watched. He lost his case (along with the others who filed)
And by the way:
https://www.givesendgo.com/daniel_penny
I gave. By the time I got there, it had cracked the million-dollar mark, so I only gave twenty bucks. But a good symbolic action in any event.
I'm going to give too. I want to see it approaching $2m. I want him able to defend against not just the criminal but the civil garbage that is undoubtedly coming his way. I would like to see his defense fund so big they shutter at the thought of taking it on.
$2.5m and counting!
The excess after representation is going to a mental health advocacy organization. I really hope they pick one carefully.
I know the NYC subways well. No one wants to be stuck in a subway car with someone making violent threats and otherwise acting erratically. No one should have to accept that circumstance. Unfortunately, police can’t be everywhere and most people, unlike Daniel Penny, are not willing to get involved. However, I can assure you, that Penny’s fellow passengers were relieved and grateful that he stepped up - not as a vigilante, but as a fellow passenger who has the ability and courage to offer assistance. It is tragic that Jordan Nealy died, but it’s not Daniel Penny’s fault that Nealy was allowed to be on the streets or that he died being subdued. I have no doubt that Penny expected to hold him and turn him over to the police and had no desire to hurt him.
Everyone in America would choose a subway car filled with
Daniel Penny's
over a subway car filled with Jordan Neely's
Alvin Bragg is a communist demon. He is zealously prosecuting Daniel Penny for the same reason that he is *not* prosecuting violent criminals: to demoralize the regular people and get them used to living under a communist dystopia.
imho it's persecuting...not prosecuting
as a nyer with the upper-body strength of bernhard goetz, who has watched many psychotic breakdowns while sealed inside a subway car, i completely agree.
"Defund the police!"
"Okay. We'll police our own communities."
"Vigilante! Murderer! Fascist! Racist!"
It's a productive conversation.
🗨 Nation demands action, promptly arrests man of action.
(h/t Mike Solana of Pirate Wires)
Excellent piece. Redefining words doesn’t simply change their meaning, it has the power to redefine our society. Which is why their new meanings are so strictly policed by those who seek to leave us in ruin.
Exactly so.
The most powerful tool for control is to turn courage into cowardness through public shaming.
The irony is that the difference between cowardness and courage is separated by what a person has learned by experiencing shame.
A coward has no shame because they have learned nothing from it.
A person of courage has learned, from "healthy shame", that it is far worse to be a coward than to be shamed.
Give this young man a "W" for courage.
The long-neglected (what a shame!) healthy kind of shame seems to be getting its long-overdue hour in the limelight, here on stacks! Wish this vital attention spills over far & wide 😊🤸
👌 Come Back, Shame. You've been gone so very long. --> markbisone.substack.com/p/come-back-shame
👌 the goldilocks zone of shame --> boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-goldilocks-zone-of-shame
Remember the msm discourse continuum Chris expertly named a piece or two back? All this word-redefining business sits firmly on the “deadly poison” tail(*. Vigilante framing is gobsmacking stomach-churning jaw-on-the-floor level crazy. And vile.
--
(* the other end being “empty calories”. Though it never hurts to fire up a Doc Brown’s DeLorean, and head out to revisit the captivating quarters of Tell Me How This Ends 😊
The political class has become a bizarre, sinister, crackpot mix of weaponized sanctimony and crusading infantilization. They'd be funny if they weren't so dangerous.
They're funny AND dangerous. Floor cleaner and dessert topping, y'know?
A classic! From the days when SNL was still funny.
“… crusading infantilization” you are SPOT ON!! Thank you for that!
It’s amazing how the media simultaneously places absurdly outsized importance on certain words (the wrong pronouns are literal violence) while showing a level of carelessness towards the accuracy of other words that would fail a grade school vocabulary test.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’
The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
(Sorry couldn't help myself!)
The entire point of the Left’s language game and hammering action-takers is to infantilize society and emasculate those with clear historical vision. If we’re unwilling, or just unable to return societal institutions to competent hands, the risk is not decline, but having to learn Mandarin a mere 78 yrs after avoiding German lessons.
Excellent. This highlights a point that most people don't see: The police are not there to protect you and I; they're there to protect the criminals from us.
Without a police force citizens will make their own justice as they see fit. This is why it is so stupid for our "elites" to degrade the rule of law. Eventually people decide there is no rule and we're back to the old ways.
i always have to explain to my non-sicilian friends that either the govt has a monopoly on violence (as in a police dept) or else you may have to pay protection money to men who laugh at the idea of law and "rights" (or carry your own piece and be prepared to use it).
it is scary how easy it is for people to forget some of the basic facts of civilization. (yes, i know, facts are an oppressive white-supremacist construct) lol
Old Norse proverb:
"Justice rests at spearpoints' end"
They knew. We must re-learn.
Individual policemen and policewomen want to protect us and to stop the bad guys. That’s why they go into policing. However, they, like Daniel Penny, shouldn’t have to face prosecution if they hurt one of the bad guys in the course of their job and they always should have the benefit of the doubt.
Your more humorous articles have saved my sanity more than once, and I love them, but I also love these. The information is great and it answers a question I had the other day . . .
I read an article by Kat Rosenfeld on The Free Press or UnHerd, one of those, about Neely, Perry, and the state of policing and mental health in general. I tend to find her relatively down to earth, and the article for the most part was, but it ended with something like "and if we don't solve these problems, we're going to get *more* vigilanteism." By "more" she meant that Perry was a vigilante. And I thought to myself, "Self, that's not what that word means--stepping in to save a subway car full of people from a violent lunatic because there are no cops around." So thank you for reinforcing that I was right.
While I think you are right that this is part and parcel of the idea that "You can’t help other people — you don’t even work for the government!" (eloquently put), it will have the added benefit that if Perry is found not guilty, which he very well could be as you are allowed to defend yourself *or others* and what he did while it can be fatal, is also regarded as an acceptable way to restrain people (and he had help doing it), but if he is found not guilty, a certain group of opportunistic race vultures in this country can say, "Vigilanteism is illegal and look that evil white man got a way with it, killing that poor helpless black man who just wanted to do his Michael Jackson impression, and I know he was a vigilante because the talking head on TV told me so, so white supremacy *is* real and I must vote for the party that won't put up with this."
Today Yahoo has a headline story about how threats against LGBTQIA++ are increasing, and a prime example they gave of those violent MAGA types was the people celebrating the Nashville shooter who killed Christians. It was DEMS who celebrated the shooter. That story got so twisted right away, with the shooter and all the shooter's supporters being portrayed as the victims, that the Dems don't even know who the shooting victims were. It's remarkable.
And that's the whole point, that they twist it so people don't know the reality. We all have our silos and our blinkers, but the group of people who used to be so proud of being open minded are the most obstinately ignorant these days. Strange times.
No doubt they pull the “increasing numbers” out of their ass to write a ‘story.’ The media have not been held accountable for fabricating statistics for freakin’ decades!
Chris, you seem to want the left to make sense and behave responsibly. Well, they don’t, and they won’t. It’s like expecting a chicken to suddenly fly: ain’t gonna happen.
I I feel sorry for Penny. I feel very sorry for Neely. But what is going on here on the left has absolutely nothing to do with either of them.
Agree with your sentiment but you should change chicken to pig...my wife has chickens that fly. Unfortunately for them when they do they tend to end up in my dogs mouth. Now my dog , he is most definitely a chicken vigilante... judge, jury and executioner.
True!
At some point people will realize that rampant crime isn't a byproduct of socialist and communist governments but an intentional feature. Without crime, people stop believing they are victims and the entire ideology starts to crumble.
It’s also a well-honed revolutionary tactic: flood the streets with crims and crazies to get the public to beg for more heavy handed police/government controls and/or a new “fair and enlightened” Marxist government altogether.
True. The old communist bloc states (I hesitate to write "real communist" for fear of the true scotsman) were harder on crime than the US has ever been.
🎯
Citizens “granted” certain rights and responsibilities to others as an effective and productive way to deliver various services for the benefit of the community. When the parties that were “granted” these rights and responsibilities fail to effectively or productively carry out these functions the citizens have the authority to take them back and carry them out themselves. This is particularly true of public safety responsibilities.
My son is a platoon leader at Camp Lejeune and a bunch of guys in his company know Perry, spoke to him last week and said he is doing pretty good all things considered.
We also contributed to the legal defense fund. It’s encouraging to see it is over $2 million at this point.
Praying Bragg gets his ass handed to him either by the grand jury, failing to indict, or at trial with the jury failing to convict.
the "garden hose at my neighbors house" was a great example, Chris - you are the best at putting these situations in layman's terms for folk like myself.
Nice historical review. The last thing the Commies want to see are brave men and brave women solving their own problems through whatever means are necessary. Rugged individualism is kryptonite to collectivists. We don’t know yet the entire story of what exactly went on in the subway car, so a degree of caution is warranted at this point. But we do know people felt threatened and based on the criminal history of the deceased, they had good reason to feel that way. One thing many people seem to not understand or don’t want to acknowledge is that once somebody engages in a stressful aka dangerous physical conflict there is a predictable series of physiological changes that happen. It’s not a movie where the secret agent chokes out the henchman and then suavely drinks a martini. This is life and possibly death. It may literally become mortal combat. Most people are working at a reptilian brain survival level at that point. You can’t instantly turn it off. That’s one reason why you don’t start stuff with strangers. You don’t know who you’re dealing with and looks can be deceptive. I’m general, I’m of the mindset that we could solve a lot more problems with a little more bravery. Notwithstanding all of the above, this mentally ill man should have been in an asylum, not roaming the streets. His death is a result of the failure of liberal policies.
Most people have never been in a real fight, ever. Hence all the stupidity. Being in a real fight for your life leads to a clearer perspective on life:
If it's a game, we have rules. If it's for real, the only rule is win or die.
Best essay I’ve seen on what happened and is more likely to happen in the future I’ve read.
"So the reframing is remarkable, and it’s important to notice what it’s meant to do: any act of personal initiative against a crime, a threat, or a serious act of social disorder is vigilantism. The implication is that passivity is your duty, you should always allow professionals to handle a problem entirely"
This "advice" also flies directly in the face of American law, which is CLEAR AS DAY that police HAVE NO DUTY to keep you safe. If Neely had pulled out a knife and started slashing people, police in the next car could sit and watch it happen with no repercussions.
https://nypost.com/2013/01/27/city-says-cops-had-no-duty-to-protect-subway-hero-who-subdued-killer/
In his account, Lozito (victim) pinned Gelman (perp) to the floor, disarming him. Howell (police officer) then emerged from the booth, tapping Lozito’s shoulder: “You can get up now,” he said.
“By the time he got there, the dirty work was already done,” Lozito said.
Gelman was convicted in the spree — which left his girlfriend, her mother, his stepfather and a pedestrian dead, and five others injured.
Lozito says a grand-jury member later told him Howell admitted on the stand that he hid during the attack because he thought Gelman had a gun.
An angry Lozito decided to sue the city for negligence, arguing the cops should have recognized Gelman and prevented, or reacted more quickly to, the assault.
The city routinely settles such litigation but is playing hardball with Lozito, insisting his demand for unspecified money damages be tossed because the police had no “special duty” to protect him or any individual on the train that day.
“This "advice" also flies directly in the face of American law, which is CLEAR AS DAY that police HAVE NO DUTY to keep you safe. “
True.
“In the 1981 case Warren v. District of Columbia, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that police have a general "public duty," but that "no specific legal duty exists" unless there is a special relationship between an officer and an individual, such as a person in custody.
The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that police have no specific obligation to protect. In its 1989 decision in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, the justices ruled that a social services department had no duty to protect a young boy from his abusive father. In 2005'sCastle Rock v. Gonzales, a woman sued the police for failing to protect her from her husband after he violated a restraining order and abducted and killed their three children. Justices said the police had no such duty.
Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that police could not be held liable for failing to protect students in the 2018 shooting that claimed 17 lives at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida”
I first came across the idea a couple decades ago. One of my friends was very badly hurt at the 1999 Seattle protests while police stood by and watched. He lost his case (along with the others who filed)
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattlenews/slideshow/seattle-history-1999-wto-riots-protests-look-back-213494.php
Edit: If anybody cares, (and at risk of spoiling my article) here's the case:
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/474/634/561277/