Tuesday, Plaxico Jeffrey Burress left to serve two years in prison for shooting himself in the leg.

New Yorkers, do you feel safer now knowing that Plaxico won’t be catching footballs in Giants Stadium anymore?  Are you sleeping better knowing he’s off the streets?

Leftwing mayor-for-life Michael Bloomberg made an example of Mr. Burress, intending to teach his minions—formerly free citizens—in New York a lesson about gun possession but instead they got a lesson in state tyranny.

How does a man go from catching the winning touchdown in a Super Bowl to sitting in state prison without hurting anybody?  Without even intending to hurt anybody?

What purpose is served by taking a productive human being who poses no danger to anybody else and ruining his career, ending his freedom, and wrecking his life?

Welcome to the world of the nanny state, where leftwing politicians are forever trying to take us.  When the ideals of the state replace the rights of the individual, the end result is tyranny and injustice, always and inevitably.

We can only surmise about why an NFL player would carry a gun stuck in his pants:

On January 1, 2007, Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was shot and killed in a drive by shooting.

On November 27, 2007, Washington Redskins free safety Sean Taylor died from a gunshot wound by thieves who came to his house because they knew he was a rich NFL player.  (His wife and child were spared because they hid under a bed.)

On September 2, 2008, Jacksonville Jaguar offensive tackle Richard Collier was shot and paralyzed outside an apartment building, ending his career.

On November 25, 2008, three days before Plaxico decided to carry an unregistered gun to a nightclub, his teammate Steve Smith was robbed at gunpoint in front of his own home.

You can see where a rich young NFL star might feel a little paranoid and worry about his safety.

According to newspapers, Plaxico hired a consultant to help prepare him for life in prison.  He’s probably getting ready for that first conversation with his new cellmate:

So whaddaya in for, man?

Robbed a bank with a buddy, accidentally killed a guard, I’m in for life.  What’d you do?

Shot myself in the leg.

Plaxico Burress is in prison today not because he’s a danger to society, but because Bloomberg wanted to enforce an idea.  Liberals love to enforce ideas, either by passing laws outlawing competing ideas or by passing laws outlawing the expression of competing ideas.

We shouldn’t have to learn this lesson over and over again.  We’ve had a whole century of world wars and totalitarian despots to serve as examples.  Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao—you can’t name them without shuddering for the millions of people murdered and enslaved.

And what did all these thugs have in common?  They were leftwing statists.

(That’s right: Hitler was a leftie, although you won’t learn this from your history professor.  The left is very good at scrubbing inconvenient facts from college curriculums so generations of students have been taught that Hitler was a rightwing dictator in spite of the fact that “Nazi” is short for “National Socialist German Workers’ Party.”  Leftie professors find it awkward having all the big-time 20th century despots on their side.)

Another thing leftwing thugs have in common is their tendency to subvert the election process.  New Yorkers voted for term limits in 1993 and again in 1996 but that was no hindrance to Michael Bloomberg.  Once he butted up against the limit, he simply had the city council pass a resolution allowing him to run for another four-year term… à la Hugo Chavez or Manuel Zelaya.

No sense putting the idea to voters—he already knew what they thought.

The United States of America is supposed to be a nation of free individuals and our founding document guarantees the right to own a gun but mayor-for-life Bloomberg doesn’t agree with that concept so in 2006 he pushed for the draconian New York gun law that has Plaxico Burress locked away behind bars.

If Plaxico had shot himself two years earlier he wouldn’t be in prison right now.

In almost any other place in the United States, owning an unregistered gun isn’t a felony.  In some places it’s actually encouraged.  Too bad he didn’t shoot himself in Texas.  In Texas you can shoot other people and not go to prison—just ask Dick Cheney.

I guess the lesson here is to stay out of places run by liberals.

Trouble is, the whole nation is being run by liberals now so where do we go?  The federal government now restricts free speech during election campaigns, tells car companies what kind of cars to build and mortgage lenders what kind of mortgages to write, recently told Humana that it can’t talk to its own customers about the effects of healthcare legislation, wants to tell radio and television stations who to hire and what to say, and is even trying to outlaw organic farming for God’s sake.

Maybe Plaxico's cellmate will be one of those dangerous organic farmers:

So whaddaya in for, man?

Grew a carrot without the proper permit.

It’s like we’re all living in New York and you have to wonder who will be the next victim they use to teach the minions a lesson.

One thing is for sure: if the guy who won a Super Bowl and got a tickertape parade isn’t safe, nobody is safe.



From Reno, Nevada, USA

September 26, 2009 - Somehow I got on your subscriber list. I don't know how. I don't think I put myself on it but then again, I've done other things I don't recall either. So I've been getting your emails. I thought they were spam/virus and always deleted them. Til today. I gathered up my courage and took a peek. Hmmmm. Not bad. Not bad at all. And from G.R. no less. I like your stuff. So I'll keep my name on your list. But do me a favor. Kindly reciprocate by subscribing to or following my blog. (http://www.boomerpie.com/) Thank you and have a pleasantly biased day. - Boomer Pie, Grand Rapids, Michigan

J.P. replies: Not only have I subscribed to your blog, here it is posted for all my loyal readers—all three of them—to see.

September 25, 2009 - Those are great questions J.P. Those of us against the war on drugs have been wondering the same thing for years. How can our society justify so many personal marijuana users sitting in jail and having their lives ruined? Who were they threatening? Who were they hurting? Am I any safer because a recreational drug user is behind bars? Before you answer yes, remember that a lot of users try to grow their own so as to avoid having to buy it from a dealer, but that often times is considered worse. It isn't the issue itself. Most people will agree with your opinion, or mine, and disagree with the others, even though fundamentally we are talking about the same issue. Until the hypocracy ends, our society will always be segregated and we will continue to argue and argue and get nowwhere. - Jay, Grand Rapids, Michigan

J.P. replies: I agree with everything you say, but I can tell you don't expect me to agree.  Because I despise the left, you expect me to be a "Republican" with all the baggage that goes along with that label: supporting mandatory sentencing, the war on drugs, etc.  Statists are statists, whether they call themselves Democrats or Republicans.  During the campaign last year, I despised John McCain almost as much as I despised Barack Obama... after all, the law that ended free speech during election years is called McCain-Feingold, not Obama-Fiengold.  Notice that when Bush called the two candidates to Washington last September to consult about the financial crisis, all three agreed that the government should send our money to rescue rich thieves on Wall Street.  These people all have the same lust: to control you and me.  The gun laws in New York and the drug war are just excuses they use to satisfy that lust.