By Doug Newman – email me
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Posted at Daily Paul.
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The same soullessness which characterizes North Korean border and prison guards is now metastasizing among American law enforcement authorities.
Dictionary.com defines “legalism” as: “strict adherence, or the principle of strict adherence, to law or prescription, especially to the letter rather than the spirit.”
This word comes to mind as a result of two tragic stories I have read recently.
In 2009, Wayne Ables of Cordova, Tennessee, was pulled over for expired tags by Deputy Micah McNinch of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department. Ables was driving his 83-year-old mother to the hospital as she was having severe difficulty breathing.
McNinch called for an ambulance. According to this article: “After 11 minutes, the emergency vehicles arrived. The driver had pleaded with the officer to escort them to the hospital a mere five minutes away.”
Ables’ mother died there.
McNinch was suspended by the sheriff’s department for one day without pay.
Last Wednesday, at the corner of 21st Avenue and Federal Boulevard in northwest Denver, Harley, a 14-year old Labrador mix was hit by a car. This happened at 8:30. At 8:45, police called Animal Control, who did not arrive on the scene until 10 p.m.
Ross Knapp, a neighbor who tried to help the suffering and dying dog, was threatened with arrest.
Read what Harley’s owner had to say here. And also read here.
The risks we run when we entrust human and animal life to the state are often fatal. The police are the most dangerous segment of the state. And they do not even have to shoot a person or animal for their actions to bring about death.
And if you think the state truly cares about human or animal life, I leave you with this.
By Doug Newman – email me Follow me on Facebook. Posted at The Daily Paul. If you would like to post this elsewhere, please just link to this URL, as I update my articles rather frequently.
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There is just so much wrong here.
Police responded to a domestic violence call at the home of George Hitcho in Freemansburg, in northeastern Pennsylvania.
It was bad enough that Officer Robert Lasso pointed a stun gun at Hitcho’s dogs. It is even worse yet that, according to Hitcho, Lasso pointed a gun in his face.
Said Hitcho: “He tried to kill my dogs and pointed a gun in my face,” Hitcho said, according to the documents. “I do not care if you a cop or not …Unbelievable.”
According to this article: “Freemansburg Police Chief George Bruneio testified he saw Lasso, 31, struggling with the animals and yelled at the nine-year police veteran to shoot one of the dogs.”
I am sick of hearing all the time about police officers “struggling” with dogs and using this as a pretense to shoot them. Mailmen, UPS and FedEx drivers and utility meter readers get barked and snarled at every day, and when do you ever hear about any of them shooting dogs?
A jury convicted Hitcho of first-degree murder. Hitcho is being sentenced to death.
Northampton County District Attorney smugly proclaimed: “I think the jury’s verdict sends a high affirmation that police officers are off limits.”
This story is from 2012. Hitch announced in January that he will get a new attorney and appeal this death sentence. Let us pray that he prevails.
If Hitcho or anyone else doesn’t have the right to shoot back when they feel their life is threatened, then none of us have any rights. Period. Why even bother with a Second Amendment? It doesn’t matter if the person you feel threatened by rocks a blue uni and mainlines donuts and tax money.
This story is sad from beginning to end. (And, no, I am not happy that Lasso is dead.) The police are the business end of the government and they are totally out of control. It does little good to moan and groan about recklessness in Washington, while at the same time ignoring what is happening on the streets of your own town.
“I know (Bush, Dole, Dubya, McCain, Romney, … JEB) is not all that conservative, but this election is THE MOST IMPORTANT election in American history! This election we can’t afford to stand on principle and support a pure conservative. We can’t survive another four years of (Carter, Mondale, Clinton, AlGore, Obama, Obama 2, … HILLARY), so we’re asking you JUST THIS ONCE to hold your nose and vote for the candidate who will keep the evil monster demon out of office. We’re only asking you to compromise THIS time to save our country from destruction. You can vote for a constitutionalist NEXT election.
“We promise. Just like we did last time – and because we’re sure the Democrats are not going to run another socialist demon NEXT time, so it’ll be okay to vote your conscience then.”
By Doug Newman – email me
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Posted at Daily Paul.
If you would like to post this elsewhere, please just link to this URL as I update my articles frequently. Thanks!
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Bush 41 gave us:
• Higher taxes
• Bigger government
• $1 trillion in new debt
• Unprovoked war
• Gun-free schools
Bush 43 gave us
• A budget $1 trillion larger than Bill Clinton’s last budget
• $5 trillion in new debt
• No Child Left Behind
• Medicare Part D
• Unprovoked war (All that was necessary after 9/11 was a letter of marque and reprisal.)
• Warrantless searches and spying
• TSA
• Torture
• Rogue police
• Guilt without trial
But this is all lost on legions of Bush groupies across America. All they care about is the fact that his name is Bush and that he is not Hillary.
If this is all they truly care about, why wouldn’t they just get behind nominating Jeb’s daughter Noelle, the one busted for crack possession? She fits their two key criteria.
By Doug Newman – email me
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Posted at Daily Paul.
If you would like to post this elsewhere, please just link to this URL as I update my articles frequently. Thanks!
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You can’t make this stuff up.
Now, it appears that merely having a Colorado license plate constitutes probable cause to have one’s car searched for marijuana. Read what happened here.
By Doug Newman – email me!
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Posted at Daily Paul.
And if you would like to post this elsewhere, please just link to this URL, as I update my articles rather frequently. Thanks!
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There is just so much wrong here.
Winters in Rockford, Illinois, are by nature very cold. This past winter was downright excruciating.
Pastor Dave Frederick of Rockford’s Apostolic Pentecostal Church responded to this by doing as commanded in Matthew 25:40-46 and opened the doors of his church to the city’s homeless. Up to 50 people would sleep at the church some nights, getting blankets, pillows and warm meals.
Enter the Rockford zoning authorities. As the above Alternet article states:
“Now, the city’s homeless will have to find other arrangements. As Rockford’s WIFR 23 News first reported, last week city officials told the Pastor that using the space as a shelter breaks zoning laws. His options include spending a lot of money on renovations or spending a lot of money — $300,000 — to buy a new building.
“The only other shelter in town, Rockford Rescue Mission, is often full and doesn’t allow alcohol and drugs, so people who drink or do drugs can’t go there anyway.
“‘Everybody that left is back out on the street,’ says Thomas Stirling, who volunteers at the shelter. ‘It still drops below freezing at night. It’s a really sad thing.’
“Pastor Frederick says that they’d found people under bridges, on park benches, and that’s likely where they’ll return. ‘What are they going to do? Go back to that bridge? One man is getting a tent and going into the woods.’
“Given that the woods, park benches and the undersides of bridges likely do not meet zoning requirements for shelter either, the city’s official explanation has raised suspicions. The Pastor thinks they’re using the zoning law as a pretext to disperse the homeless from the area.”
Unintended consequences, anyone?
An act of Christian charity is punished by the iron fist of the state. And it is not just the left-wing economic regulatory state that is doing damage here.
The article goes onto say:
“Laws that ban sitting or lying down in public, camping, and panhandling enable police to move the homeless out of the nice parts of town. Going after groups who feed or shelter the homeless can serve a similar function, preventing them from assembling in certain spaces.”
How many of these people will at some point in the future be harassed, abused or worse by the police, who are second only to the military as the right’s favorite agency of the state?
When will Christians realize that the true battle is not between right and left, but rather between the state and the individual?
God’s very First Commandment reads in part: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” – Exodus 20:3
I have written several times over the years on both of my blogs that, at some point, the state always winds up saying: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. And even if you do try and do the Christian thing, I will punish you anyway.
The ultimate expression of the state-as-deity can be found in North Korea. And while Rockford is certainly not North Korea, excessive state power is being wielded there in a most unchristian manner.
Come to think of it, excessive state power is always unchristian.
By Doug Newman – email me
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Posted at Daily Paul.
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Lee Greenwood is full of it.
By Doug Newman
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Posted at Daily Paul.
If you would like to post this elsewhere, please just link to this URL as I update my articles frequently. Thanks!
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From the article: “When you have someone who’s suicidal we never know how they’re going to act or what they’re going to do when we contact them, so of course we always take extra precautions when dealing with people who are in crisis or suicidal,” Sgt. Chris Amsler said.
I guess now “extra precautions” includes summary execution.
In 1996, I called 911 to report a friend who was openly contemplating suicide. The cops visited his house and talked to him without any extracurricular drama. Times have changed.
Update: this tragedy happened in late May in Virginia.
I have nothing good to say about Westboro Baptist Church. They are hateful, gratuitous, unfeeling and an overall horrible representation of Christianity. They just may be the single most hated organization in America. One would hope that Phelps’ demise means we will never hear from them again.
However, no one takes them seriously. They have zero influence outside their small community of maybe 100 members.
And for this reason they cannot be considered the worst church in America. Just exactly what church might qualify for this dubious honor, I do not know.
Perhaps it is the First Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale.
There is a far more disturbing trend at work in the contemporary American church: the lust for perpetual war. The most blood thirsty warmongers in America are those who say they worship the Prince of Peace – Isaiah 9:6 – and who absolutely insist that they are “pro-life without exception.”
The fallout from Westboro Baptist was a lot of absolutely unnecessary emotional hurt. There is simply nothing good or Christian about this.
Blasphemy!
The fallout from the wars that so many evangelical Christians so mindlessly glorify includes, among other things: mutilated bodies and minds, widespread killing and dying, mass devastation, torture, spying, suspension of civil liberties, drafts, internment camps, and excruciating taxation and ruinous debt.
And then there is the nuclear fallout about which so many Christians are oh so nonchalant.
War is a horrible, horrible thing. It is bad enough that America cannot stay out of it. It is even worse that the biggest constituency for war can be found among people who claim to worship a Guy who said “Blessed are the peacemakers.” – Matthew 5:9.
How did this happen?
As the Scriptures prophesy, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:” – Amos 8:11
In the 28 years that I have been a Christian, I have noticed a pronounced decline in how many Christians actually read their Bible on a regular basis.
If they actually read it, they would find zero basis for supporting America’s current wars. They totally confuse contemporary America with ancient Israel. America is not ancient Israel, the United States military is not a divine institution and the American president – no matter who holds the office – is not God.
God’s support for ancient Israel was conditional on her obedience – Deuteronomy 28. Because of sin and rebellion, God would ultimately allow Israel to be overrun by numerous hostile empires. If God did not unconditionally support Israel, what makes anyone think He would unconditionally support a nation whose name does not even appear in the Bible?
When Jesus said “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:” – Matthew 28:19 – I don’t think He meant for America to bomb the crap out of countries that haven’t done anything to us and kill thousands of innocent people.
When the Bible says, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” – Romans 12:18 – it does not mean that every time some guy with some name that you are too dirt lazy to learn to pronounce in some country that you cannot find on a map passes gas the wrong way, that Christians should demand another war!
Jesus preached peace, love and forgiveness. To hear it from the Evangelical Right nowadays, you would think He was a god of war, conquest and empire. To be sure, Jesus preached armed self-defense – Luke 11:21, 22 and 22:36. However, He never instructed His followers to initiate force for political or any other ends.
When Satan himself offered Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world”, Jesus rejected the offer – Matthew 4:8-10. How, then, can a “Christian nation” be any sort of “superpower”? Before God, all nations are “as nothing” and “less than nothing” – Isaiah 40:15-17. There is no biblical basis for America or any other modern nation having God’s favor, much less being “exceptional”.
NOT CHRISTIAN!
If 19 Americans committed some horrific crime overseas, would that justify an endless war against America and the mass killing of Americans? If Uncle Sam secretly harbored a terrorist mastermind in some cave in Idaho, would that justify an endless war against America and the mass killing of Americans?
“The exceptional, indispensable, arrogant, self-righteous United States government does not need to ask anyone. Washington speaks not merely for itself. Washington represents the country chosen by history (and the neoconservatives) to speak not merely for itself, but for the entire world.
“Whatever Washington says is truth. Whatever Washington does is legal, in accordance with both domestic and international law. When Washington invades countries and destroys them, sends in drones and missiles, blows up people attending weddings, funerals and children’s soccer games, Washington is practicing human rights and bringing democracy to the people. Whenever a country tries to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the country is engaging in terrorism, al-Qaeda connections, human rights violations, and suppressing democracy.”
Oh, now, THIS is spreading the Gospel.
Let me repeat: “When Washington invades countries and destroys them, sends in drones and missiles, blows up people attending weddings, funerals and children’s soccer games,”
Westboro has done myriad despicable things and funerals, but they never bombed one.
Let me add this: If you speak one critical word about the U.S. military, then you hate America and you hate God too!
This is just as unintellectual as saying that if you disagree with Obama, you are a racist.
America, **** YEAH!
For Jesus, of course.
TOTAL DISRESPECT!
This, tragically, summarizes the worldview of far too many evangelical churchians. I don’t say “Christians” because there is nothing Christlike about this. It ought to be viewed with the same level of contempt as the antics of Westboro Baptist. It in no way advances the Cause of Christ.
And please don’t lecture me about “supporting the troops”. I totally support them. I want to end these wars now and bring them all home now. You don’t support the troops by keeping them in perpetual wars that have nothing to do with national defense.
In a constitutional world, militaries serve a most valuable purpose: defending the borders, shores and airspace of a nation. Like any segment of the government, they must be kept on a very short leash. When you view the military as some sort of divine institution, and when you turn a blind eye to its excesses, you invite domestic tyranny.
Throughout history militaries have been instruments of domestic tyranny. This is why the Founders warned against them. Jesus was nailed to the Cross by Roman soldiers. It was British soldiers who harassed the colonists to the point of provoking the Revolution. Should gun confiscation be attempted in America, Obama will not be the one at your door. It will be a cop or a soldier.
Cops in America used to be a minor annoyance. Now they are an occupying Army. And, just like the military, their biggest cheerleaders can be found in churches. How many pastors are speaking up against the onslaught of police brutality we are seeing on the streets of America?
Is this how Jesus would have us act? Is this the fruit of the Holy Spirit? Does any of this spread the Gospel? Does any of this honor our True King?
Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount not at some Taj Mahal of a megachurch, but to common simple people in a forgotten backwater of the Roman Empire. He taught us not to rule from the top down, but to serve from the bottom up – Luke 22:24-28. He taught us to influence the world with the Great Commission – Matthew 28:18-20. For the first few centuries of its existence, Christianity was an outlaw religion and Christians were ruthlessly persecuted.
How anyone reads the New Testament as a license for war, conquest, imperialism and mass bloodshed absolutely escapes me.
I used to be a rabid warmonger and militarist myself, even after I became a Christian. And then I realized, over time, that my views were in no way supported by the Bible.
(For what it’s worth, I am also a retired Naval Reservist. I started boot camp 31 years ago this coming Friday. I started questioning how the military was being used at about the 10-year mark.)
It is easy to condemn Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist. It is much harder to acknowledge the real-world implications of the wars that so many influential churches glorify.
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Please take some time to read this article and this article by Chuck Baldwin. Also, here are my thoughts on American troops and PTSD. And if you want a real kick in the teeth, read Laurence Vance’s articles at LewRockwell.com.
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Sure enough, Westboro didn’t miss a beat. On Friday evening, 20 members protested outside the Lorde concert in Kansas City. The most notable aspect of the whole event were counter protesters who held up this sign.
In 2009, Wayne Ables of Cordova, Tennessee, was pulled over for expired tags by Deputy Micah McNinch of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department. Ables was driving his 83-year-old mother to the hospital as she was having severe difficulty breathing.
Food for the Thinkers
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