I have been into the idea of defunding the police for 20 years now and when talking to people I have noticed a recurring theme. It seems the most criminal-minded individuals are the ones who most vehemently support the police. In my early years, in one of my more heated arguments, someone was trying to tell me about how awful criminals were and how we need more police and I responded by listing all the crimes I’d seen him commit. He gave excuses and acted like they weren’t really crimes…
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Anarchism Quotes
In 2020 I finally decided to stop identifying as an anarchist. My reasons are complex. I still hold a lot of the same values as before but I label them differently. Here’s a bunch of quotes I picked up a number of years ago that I felt apply to anarchism at least in some way even if the people who said them aren’t anarchists. This list has been sitting around for years. I’m probably not going to do anything more important with it than put it in a blog post…
Read MoreDear Senator
I am a wealthy white male. I own three homes in Pittsburgh. In my spare time I write books and novels which can be found on Amazon and I’m currently building a personal data organizer application and hope to build an application development business, most likely in Pittsburgh in the coming few years. I am also a police brutality survivor who has been struggling with the trauma from that event for half my lifetime. 20 years ago I watched a police officer frame a pale white man for resisting arrest,…
Read MoreLaws don’t Protect Consumers
I found this page the other day on Huffington Post about Seattle banning ride share apps. Basically, there are phone applications used to connect riders with drivers and are allowing people to save a lot of money on rides around town. I have never used one of these but have friends who rave about them. Seattle, apparently is a testing ground for these kind things. It seems to be working out well for Car-2-Go as well as the companies listed in the article as well as my friends who use…
Read MoreResisting Arrest is a Contrived Charge
This article is not about Justin Bieber but it is titled The Persecution of Justin Bieber. I just had to post this because I think it’s a simple and straightforward explanation of something I’ve long believed: that resisting arrest is a contrived charge, used by the police to persecute anyone who has normal human instincts. You should probably read that article first before this one, since I think it does a better job than I did here. I have twice in my life had a police officer point a gun…
Read MoreCrime is not Logical
For this post, again, the word ‘crime’ is loosely defined to include obvious crimes, and does not include things like marijuana, j-walking or software piracy. — — — — — — Someone pointed out about my recent article, 22 Ways Religion Promotes Crime, that I am making an unfair assumption that crime doesn’t pay, therefore assuming that crime is not logical and that logical-minded individuals are less likely to commit it. I’d like to take this opportunity to present my evidence that, with a few exceptions, crimes like murder, rape, burglary and assault, are not…
Read MoreA New Perspective on Pro-Choice
So I am adamantly pro-choice, but I have a few serious objections to the standard pro-choice rhetoric that we see these days. My main issue is with the lies we’ve been telling. I see two important questions surrounding abortion: 1) at what point does life begin? and 2) at what point does a human become a person? The first question seems scientific, and is very simple to answer. By any definition of life that I’ve ever heard, it begins at conception. That’s the point when the human begins its growth…
Read More22 Ways Religion Promotes Crime
75% of America is Christian. 75% of prisoners are Christian. 10% of America is Atheist. 00.2% of prisoners are Atheist. – Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1997 — — — — – In “The New Criminology”, Max D. Schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without religious training is about 1/10 of 1%. W. T. Root, professor of psychology at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said “Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character,” adding that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers are…
Read Moremore pro-choice ideas
This is the second part to an article I wrote a long time ago called A New Perspective On Pro-Choice. It goes something like this… There are other arguments that for some reason are totally overlooked, maybe because they’re difficult to explain, or just sound cheezy or nerdy or because so many people believe that God will solve humanity’s large-scale problems for us so we don’t need to worry about them. 1) Babies take resources. The baby will grow to be an adult who will use even more resources. These…
Read MoreAmerican Criminals
I’d like to say something about all the “low-life” criminals in America: Television, movie, software and music pirating on the internet has provided low-income homes access to entertainment that would otherwise be mostly out of reach. Online pirates have forced the media industry to keep their prices competitive. For that, I thank you. Without drug dealers, society never would have learned of the medicinal benefits of marijuana, and thousands of patients would be suffering needlessly. For everyone who enjoys marijuana or uses it as medicine, we owe criminals a little…
Read MoreWhy Some People Oppose Civil Rights Laws
I’ve seen Ron Paul getting attacked for his view that businesses should be allowed to discriminate and the government shouldn’t intervene and enforce anti-discrimination laws. When you first read this, it sounds awful. Your gut reaction is to think he doesn’t support equality, and that he won’t stand up for minorities, and I totally understand why it would seem this way. However, I’ve been opposed to these kind of laws for a good decade now, though I have not been vocal about it because I think there are far more…
Read MoreHow to Re-Invent Crime Prevention
6 ways to upgrade police, 17 crime prevention ideas and 7 anti-crime concepts This image from: http://mudcompany.thecomicseries.com/comics/148/ My plan is to continue adding to this page as I come up with new ideas. If you can think of anything I’ve missed, please leave a comment and I may add them. Police are not the enemy: Any move to “defund” the police should make the promise that if we need to lay off any officers, we must guarantee them paid college education, job placement services and moving expenses as part of their…
Read MoreIncrease Mental Health Funding to Stop Violence
Quick Fact Sheet to give credibility to a logical approach of addressing & correcting Mental Illness to Reduce Crime Rates. A friend of mine made this fact sheet after reading my Pittsburgh City Council Speech. I cannot take responsibility for this work but I’m very happy with it. Importance of Supporting Transfer of Funds — Kalin’s experience with avoiding calling the police is a common sentiment among Americans. Having to choose between being in danger or putting a friend at risk of a life-long criminal record is a heart wrenching example of why…
Read MorePittsburgh City Council Speech July 15
My planned defund the police speech for Pittsburgh City Council meeting on July 15, 2020 https://pittsburghpa.gov/clerk/council-meetings Good evening. I’m Kalin Ringkvist. I’m a software engineer, real-estate investor, and police brutality survivor. Through my 41 years I have seen over and over again, law enforcement being counter-productive to actual crime prevention. If you take the time to genuinely listen to people who have been harmed by police, you will have no choice but to conclude that police are driving people to commit more crime, not less. When I was in my early…
Read MoreMy Night in Jail
My Night in Jail So much knowledge about criminal justice corruption gained in one night I stood at a counter in the back of a high-volume fish and chips restaurant breading cod when the kitchen manager, Rob, grabbed me and invited me to smoke a bowl in the outside storage area. I normally did not smoke pot at work, however I would usually make an exception when my boss insisted. I left the fish sitting on the table and we headed out to the porch and sat down on a couple plastic…
Read MoreAll My Police Interactions
All My Police Interactions A brief history of my life when it comes to the cops My first ever interaction with the police happened while I was pooping in a library bathroom in third grade. I left my backpack outside the stall. The librarian came in, saw my backpack but not my feet under the stall door. She had a meltdown thinking it was a bomb and called an officer who happened to be nearby. The cop talked her down until I finally had the nerve to speak up and tell…
Read MoreMy Police Brutality Story
My Police Brutality Story First I’ll start with a trigger warning. I include bloody details. But please remember: I did not get a trigger warning before watching this. Certain details have been changed so that the exact time and location can’t be identified. The quotes are certainly not precise. I did my best to recreate my experience as accurately as I could but I am well aware of the problems with human memories, particularly with intense experiences. That’s all I can offer. Around the year 2000 I went to a…
Read More35 Ways Criminal Justice is Counter-Productive to Peace on Earth
1. The concept behind criminal justice is that there must be consequences for wrongdoing, that we must punish people in order to discourage them from doing certain actions. However, this same concept is used to motivate many types of crime. Murdering your wife for cheating on you, for example, can seem perfectly acceptable under our standard concept of justice, because adultery can cause a partner tremendous pain and people feel there must be consequences for causing such pain. Vengeance; or, as the criminal sees it, justice. 2. Criminals often commit…
Read MoreChanging Our Views on Criminal Justice
Changing Our Views on Criminal Justice Here I go again, babbling about criminal justice I’ve spent a lot of words attacking the concept of criminal justice, as many anarchists and other peace-advocates have, exposing the corruption and ineffectiveness of the police and prison systems. However, we also need to try to focus on a vision for the future, and how our world would work without these systems, as I think many who don’t understand just let their imaginations run wild and just see a Mad Max world where everyone is just running…
Read MoreWhat if there’s a Better Way?
What if there’s a Better Way? I have a few questions for my fellow Americans and human beings… What if our core attitudes about criminal justice are deeply flawed and have not served the long-term interests of a peaceful and prosperous society? What if the hatred and fear toward police and government is a predictable consequence of those organizations infringing on people’s rights? What if teaching people to live their lives based on legal and illegal is also teaching them to ignore right and wrong? What if being overwhelmed with laws…
Read MoreThe Officer Did Nothing to Hurt Me
A poem about not police brutality The officer did nothing to hurt me that night. I looked like someone who had stolen a DVD player. It’s easy to argue that I was not harmed, that I’m just being a baby. I should be thankful he realized I was the wrong guy. I should be thankful I’m not black. They have it much worse. I should be thankful I didn’t flinch in fear. I’d probably be dead if I had. The officer did nothing to hurt me. He did not hit…
Read MoreHow a Two-Minute Interaction with the Police Changed Me Forever
Even standard procedures can have consequences I was walking home from a Halloween party. I think it was 2002. I knew it was illegal to ride a bicycle after drinking. I was already terrified of cops and not taking any chances. A cop car pulled up about two car lengths behind me as I walked on the sidewalk, shining the spotlight on me. I looked over my shoulder, but kept walking. The car then followed me at walking pace, about two car-lengths behind me for several blocks, shining the spotlight…
Read MoreWhy We Need Friendship and Religion Licenses
Our personal lives are not properly regulated. This was my attempt at satire. Please do not take this seriously. I often hear the argument from libertarians and anarchists that our government should not have authority over our marriages. I think getting laws out of our personal relationships would be a disaster. That legal document means something to many people. The government stamp makes the relationship official. Without that, what reason would people have to stay married? Divorce would skyrocket, but we would have no way of knowing because nothing would…
Read MoreDestroying Lives Based on Time of Day
The rampant discrimination you’ve never heard of. Someone sent this around an email chain today, kind of as a joke about wanting to only work half days. This is an article about “decision fatigue”, the idea that if you make tons of decisions in a day you just kinda get worn out and your brain just doesn’t want to keep going. It’s an interesting idea, but my point has nothing to do with this. Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? — NYTimes.com. The article is talking about a parole board in Israel who…
Read MoreCriminal Justice Extremism
We tell ourselves our system is better but we’re just as cruel. A woman is caned for violating Islamic sharia law outside a mosque. From BBC news. After reading a few articles recently about some extreme acts of criminal justice, I decided I needed to write another post examining the fundamental attitudes that allow humans to feel so justified in bringing others intense suffering. The first is about a 14 year old Bangladeshi girl who was lashed to death for adultery. The next is a story from Ireland about police threating to…
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