Posted on 03/03/2014 2:32:03 AM PST by servo1969
My readers may or may not have heard of squeegee people. Those of you who haven't need to hear about them. This is especially true if you spend much time traveling by car, particularly in big cities.
Squeegee people will approach your car in traffic in some major cities holding a squeegee in one hand and a cup in the other hand. They will start cleaning your windshield without securing your permission. When they are done, they hold out their cup expecting to be compensated for their "work." But paying them isn't optional. It's required. Anyone who refuses gets the side of his car keyed with the metal frame of the squeegee. It's a form of extortion that street people learned from politicians who shake down corporations they later accuse of representing "powerful special interest groups."
The solution to squeegee people is pretty simple. You must keep a firearm in your car at all times, especially when driving through a densely populated urban area. My weapon of choice is the Taurus Judge. My ammo of choice is the Winchester PDX1 self-defense round.
Of course, just having a gun in these situations helps. Chances are, you'll never have to use or even brandish it. This was true of a friend of mine who had an encounter with one of these squeegee people just a couple of months ago. The man approached the car, cleaned the windshield, and then held out his cup waiting for his “tip.” Then things took an unexpected turn.
My friend responded in a way that would have made fans of the movie Grand Torino proud. He held up his left hand in the shape of a gun and dropped his thumb to mimic the dropping of the hammer. The Clint Eastwood imitation worked. The man withdrew his cup, smiled, and quietly went on his way.
Notice that my friend, who was indeed packing heat, didn't have to draw his weapon. He just calmly let the man know that he had one and that he wasn't going to allow some punk to extort money from him under the threat of keying the side of his car using the metal portion of the squeegee.
It was just another crime that didn't happen and another insurance report that didn't have to be filed. And who wouldn't be happy about that? I think some of you already know the answer.
Because I so loved hearing the story of my friend's successful encounter with the squeegee extortionist, I decided to share it with another professor here at UNC-Wilmington. The professor is one I've previously spoken to on the issue of guns. We have opposite opinions on the issue but we also have a very good relationship. Accordingly, I feel comfortable planting a stone in his shoe from time to time.
His reaction to the story surprised even me. It was one that speaks volumes about the worldview our kids absorb every day in the secular progressive academy. This was his word-for-word response: "But the squeegee people have to eat. It's what they have to do."
For those unable to decipher the remark, there are two important propositions expressed in those two sentences. Here is the rough translation:
1. Criminals are products of their environments wholly lacking in free will.
2. Crime is not caused by criminals but is instead caused by ordinary citizens who refuse to share scarce resources with those who are less fortunate.
These two propositions pose two distinct problems for people who espouse them. They follow in no particular order of importance:
1. When we deny free will we do more than just explain away people's bad acts. Unfortunately, we explain away their good acts, too. If the absence of free will means that people cannot be blamed for committing a crime then it means that people cannot be praised for conformity. Nor can they be credited for major achievements such as earning a college degree or building a successful business. Remember: You didn't build that!
2. If free will is lacking among those you seek to defend, it is also lacking among your enemies (including your political opponents). We've all heard the adage that if guns were outlawed then only outlaws would have guns. Were the government to criminalize all gun ownership, gun owners could claim that their crimes were not freely chosen. Like the squeegee people, the gun owner would be a helpless automaton forced to take matters into his own hands because others refused to share scarce resources. In this case, it would be the fault of government agents who refused to share their guns with the average man on the street.
If there ever comes a day when the government bans gun ownership altogether, we really are going to have to take to the streets. I would suggest taking squirt guns and empty cups and targeting every Prius as well as every vehicle that has a COEXIST bumbler sticker.
Of course, I hope that day never comes. In the meantime, maybe we should consider limiting squeegee ownership to those who work for the government. After all, the constitution is silent on the issue.
“Anyone who refuses gets the side of his car keyed with the metal frame of the squeegee.”
That’s a new one to me. The ones I’ve seen (admittedly only a couple in my life), threw their bucket of filthy water on the windshield if they didn’t get some spare change. Nasty, but less serious than a key job.
As for the prof’s argument - bleah. So much nonsense in that notion (they only do it to earn a living), I wouldn’t know where to begin.
Used to see this in France a lot. Same thing but little Algerian kids then.
In NYC they were called “squeegee monkeys” until the PC police stopped that; then Rudy Giuliani got rid of them anyway...
I was in a car where the driver simply stopped a few hundred yards from the red light and simply waited until it was green; much less confrontational.
The problem is the prof’s thinking, and that he is a prof.
Under DeBlasio-Wilhelm, they will be back soon.
I carry...every day.
This is NOT a defensive shooting situation. To even threaten someone with a hand gesture could cost me my permit.
It's more of an insurance claim situation.
“To even threaten someone with a hand gesture could cost me my permit.”
So....in your state “to brandish” includes imitating a gun with your fingers. A lot of kindergartners are looking at some hard time!
“Check you later.”
;^)
I agree with sonofagun: even simulating a gun in those circumstances shows a defective mindset, IMO. I suppose these days it could even be construed as assault. In any event, the “threat” did not rise to real danger except possibly to the paint.
TC
I am a woman who had a squeegee encounter of my own several years ago in Baltimore. I was stuck at a light on a late afternoon in summer. I shook my head as the fat kid dipped his squeegee in the bucket and approached my car.
He shrugged and laid the squeegee on the windshield of my little Geo Storm anyway. The streak of water rolling down the glass looked as if it had come out of a mud puddle.
I had the windows up, but I bellowed, “Get away from my car!”, and he did step back, fortunately. If he had not, I was prepared to gun through the red light.
These days, I am sure such thugs are emboldened, and I would get the Reginald Denny treatment. But I do not drive in Baltimore City anymore.
I knew one individual who came up with a great solution to the squeegee people. Since he rarely used his windshield washer, he asked his mechanic to replace the dual heal with a single spray, and point it to the left side of the car.
Thus, whenever a squeegee guy approached him, he would give him a long squirt of dollar store perfume. “Eau de Stench”, he called it. He said you then had to leave promptly, because their first reaction would be to kick your car.
Trivia bit about Charles Bronson. As a teenager, he worked in a coal mine, earning $1 per ton of coal mined. In the process he became extremely muscular, and he learned an unparalleled bar trick.
He would insert his thumb and small finger into a shot glass, and spread them enough to pick the glass up. Then he would spread them further, to break the glass.
Not "brandishing". Brandishing specifically relates to a weapon.
Intimidation does not.
IC 35-45-2-1...
(c) "Threat" means an expression, by words or action, of an intention to:
(1) unlawfully injure the person threatened or another person, or damage property;
In this circumstance, the threat would be a felony.
If you carry, you need to be very careful with your conduct.
The squeegee kids in New Orleans that I saw back in the ‘90s were usually polite, too - but there were a few that branched-out into carjacking. One of them was shot dead by a visiting Houston cop, IIRC.
I prefer the .410 Dragon's Breath for the carjackers. Nothing focuses the mind like being on fire. Collateral damage also appears minimal.
You’re quick! That’s the first image that came to my mind after the “Grand Torino” reference.
Didn’t he do that stunt in “The Mechanic”?
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