Friday, December 24, 2010

"We're Fighting A War": Civilian Disarmament and the Martial Law Mindset

Bonfire of the liberties: Chinese police incinerate "illegal" guns.















Denver resident Shawn Miller is accused of several acts of criminal violence. On one occasion, he and an associate beat a pedestrian, leaving the man with a broken knee and a permanent physical disability. In a second assault, Miller and another buddy beat a disabled Iraq war veteran so severely --using both fists and clubs -- that he briefly "flat-lined" as EMTs treated him.


The facts in those cases are not disputed, yet Miller has not been charged with a crime. However, he is being sued by Jason Anthony Graber, one of his victims. In light of Miller's documented history of criminal violence, the plaintiff's attorney has demanded that the assailant not be permitted to bring a firearm while being deposed.

Miller protests that this is an unconscionable act of "oppression." With the aid of the Denver City Attorney, Miller -- an Officer with the Denver Police Department -- has filed a petition with the U.S. District Court seeking a "protective order" allowing him to be armed during the depositions.

The Department's Operation Manual requires that officers be "armed at all times" -- a provision that poses some interesting challenges for officers who choose to bathe, assuming that there are any who do. "Requiring a uniformed or non-uniformed police officer to disarm when he is compelled to give a deposition at an attorney's office, or at any other unsecured location, presents a significant officer safety issue," whines an affidavit provided by Lt. Dikran Kushdilian of the Denver PD.

Attorney David Lane, who is representing Graber, quite sensibly insists that some precautions must be taken in deposing people who are "defendants because they have acted illegally and violently toward others in the past."

The Denver Police Department has a well-earned reputation for brutality and corruption, and Lane has deposed more than a few abusive cops, and those proceedings "can get very contentious. When I'm cross-examining cops about their misconduct, past and present, they get angry, and I don't wish to depose angry people who have a long history of violent behavior while they're wearing a gun strapped to their waist."

Lane demands that the deposition take place in a setting in which neither side is armed. Denver's municipal government demands that the examination should take place at the federal Courthouse, where Miller and other officers in similar cases "would surrender their weapons to the custody of the U.S. Marshall [sic], and would be unarmed during the deposition."

In other words, it's not quite the case that Denver officers have to be "armed at all times"; the critical issue is the preservation of the government's monopoly on the "legitimate" use of force in all circumstances. Lane should counter Denver's demand by offering to permit Miller to carry his firearm to the deposition, while specifying that he and his associates would also be armed. The official response to that counter-proposal would be instructive.

Leading lambs to the slaughter: "Toy Gun Bash."
While Lane most likely wouldn't choose that approach, he is sensible enough to recognize that the State's agents of armed coercion are the most dangerous element in society, and prudent enough to act on that understanding.


Owing to the tireless efforts of the organs of official indoctrination, a large portion of the public assumes that the opposite is true, and as a result can be easily convinced that only those commissioned to commit violence on behalf of government can be entrusted with the means to do so.

A splendid example of this deadly agitprop is offered by the "Toy Gun Bash," which was first inflicted on Providence, Rhode Island seven years ago by the criminal clique running the municipal government.

Each year around Christmastime, children living in Providence are compelled to line up and feed their toy guns into the maw of the “Bash-O-Matic,” a device described by the Boston Globe as “a large, black, foam creature with churning metal teeth and the shape of a cockroach spliced with a frog.” In exchange for feeding their toy guns into this recombinant monstrosity, each child is given a substitute toy that is deemed to be suitably "non-violent." They are also forced to endure a harangue regarding "the dangers of playing with guns, real or fake."

Maintaining the monopoly: Burning confiscated guns.
 The Providence event, continues the Globe, is "a version of the gun buyback program in which adults trade firearms for gift certificates.”

In fact, gun “buyback” programs are a form of what Dr. Edward J. Laurance of the UN’s Register of Conventional Arms calls “micro-disarmament” — or, more to the point, civilian disarmament.

The expression “buyback” assumes that government has a monopoly on the use of force, and that only duly authorized agents of officially sanctioned violence should be permitted to own guns and other weapons — and thus the State is taking back from Mundanes a privilege to which they’re not entitled.

Gun “buyback” and turn-in programs are a common feature of military occupations, both here and abroad. U.S. military personnel in Haiti, Somalia, the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan have employed that tactic (as David Kramer notes, this helps the occupiers to acquire a useful hoard of “drop guns” that can be used to frame innocent people  as “terrorists” or “insurgents"). The same approach was used to disarm American Indians as they were cattle-penned on reservations.

Over the past decade, UN-aligned activists in several countries have staged events in which guns confiscated from civilians have been destroyed, a ritual sometimes called the “Bonfire of the Liberties.” This is in keeping with UN-promoted dogma (expressed most forcefully in its 2000 agitprop film Armed to the Teeth) that the only “legal” weapons are those “used by armies and police forces to protect us,” and that civilian ownership of firearms is “illegitimate.”

The UN’s campaign for civilian disarmament -- which, just like matters of national disarmament, is assigned to the world body's Office for Disarmament Affairs -- was inaugurated in 2000 as part of the “human security” agenda promoted by then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. In late 1993 and early 1994, Annan -- who at the time was head of the world body’s “peacekeeping” operations -- presided over the disarmament, and subsequent annihilation, of roughly 1.1 million Rwandans.


Annan was actually an accessory before the fact to that genocide: Informed in early 1994 of the impending slaughter by Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian officer commanding UN peacekeeping troops, Annan ordered Dallaire to pass along his intelligence to the same government that was planning the massacre.

Dallaire, who had been ordered to disarm the future victims, was ordered not to raid the government arms caches that were later used to carry out the murder rampage.

Most of the killing was carried out by machete-wielding mobs acting as government subcontractors. But it would have been impossible to butcher hundreds of thousands of armed people, nor would the mobs have been able to round up and annihilate the targeted population without the active support provided by the regime’s armies and police forces — you know, the armed agents of state violence who were there to “protect” those who were hacked to pieces.

Children should learn what happened in places like Germany, Cambodia, and Rwanda (as well as places like Sand Creek and Wounded Knee) when people willingly surrendered their guns to their rulers — but a government school classroom is no place for lessons of that kind.

One of the cases used to promote the Toy Gun Bash in Providence actually underscores the reliably fatal consequences of a government monopoly on force. The Globe points out that as children were herded toward the Bash-O-Matic, they were told the cautionary tale “of a 14-year-old boy who police nearly shot after they confused his air pistol with a real gun.” For rational people, this incident illustrates the compelling need to disarm the police, rather than swipe toys from innocent children.

The same schools that use DARE programs to recruit children into the Pavlik Morozov Brigade consistently force psychotropic drugs on children who display unfortunate symptoms of non-conformity. This principle applies to the issue of firearms: In the name of “Zero Tolerance,” children are routinely punished for such supposed offenses as bringing toy “weapons” to school (including -- I am not making this up -- candy canes), improvising them from school supplies, or even drawing pictures of guns, yet they are routinely encouraged to write letters to members of the imperial military who are “serving our country”  by killing people who have done us no harm.


Those who insist that religion has no place in the government-run school system aren’t paying attention: The entire purpose of “public” education is to catechize youngsters in the worship of the Divine State. Rituals like Providence’s Toy Gun Bash serve a sacramental function; they are the equivalent of a child’s first communion in the government-sponsored church of collectivist self-destruction.

 While the little lambs are taught to be docile, submissive sheeple, the Regime is honing the lupine instincts of those supposedly tasked to protect them.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal recently described how recruits at the Metropolitan Police Department Academy are indoctrinated into perceiving the world as a 360 degree battlefield, where they are perpetually under siege and should be prepared to employ lethal force without hesitation.

"When you put that badge on, there are people who want to kill you," intoned Officer Wil Germonsen, who -- like a large and growing number of local police officers, has a military background.

The Review-Journal plays an extended riff on the familiar, fatuous, and entirely false assumption that law enforcement is a spectacularly dangerous occupation:

"After some time on the street, the recruits will never see the world the same way. They'll always be on guard -- carrying a gun on duty and off, checking out fellow shoppers at the grocery store, thinking about those worst-case scenarios while having dinner with the family. It's like a switch that flips on and never turns off...."

"I believe every single recruit here, when they put that badge on, they are warriors," insists Germonsen. "We're fighting a war."

What this means, of course, is that the state-created armed tribe to which Germonsen belongs is an army of occupation -- primed to kill, given broad discretion in the use of lethal force, and trained to consider all of us who don't belong to their tribe as potentially lethal enemies. Some way had better be found -- and pretty damned soon -- to de-fang those wolves in sheepdog disguise.  Meanwhile, it would be wise to do what we can to avoid placing ourselves at a potentially fatal disadvantage when dealing with those who belong to the Brotherhood of Sanctified Violence.

                                                     UPDATE: Bringing the War Home

"Many law enforcement officers called up to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan are finding it difficult to readjust to their jobs once home, bringing back heightened survival instincts that may make them quicker to use force and showing less patience toward the people they serve," reports the AP

A report compiled last year by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance "warns that the blurring of the line between combat and confrontations with criminal suspects at home may result in `inappropriate decisions and actions — particularly in the use of ... force. This similarity ... could result in injury or death to an innocent civilian.'"

The Imperial Military makes increasing use of Guardsmen and Reservists whose "civilian" job is domestic law enforcement, and domestic police agencies increasingly recruit from the ranks of combat veterans. As noted above, police recruits are being trained to consider themselves "warriors" on a battlefield, rather than peace officers. We really should dispense with the illusion that contemporary law enforcement is anything other than the domestic branch of a seamlessly integrated military apparatus. (h/t The Agitator.)

                                   Second Update: Seattle as a Battlefront

Courtesy of commenter QB we see the following video of 27-year-old Seattle Police Officer Ian Birk gunning down John T. Williams, an artisan who was carrying a carving knife and a block of wood. No more than four seconds pass between Birk's demand (it wasn't a lawful order, because Williams was threatening no one) that he drop the knife, and the first of several gunshots fired by the officer. The entire encounter lasted roughly eight seconds.

Williams had a troubled past, but was not known to be violent. He had some emotional problems and, most importantly, was functionally deaf -- which meant that he couldn't hear the demand that he drop his knife -- which was closed when photographed by crime scene investigators, despite Birk's claim that it was open at the time of the shooting.

A peace officer in this situation would have taken at least a little more time to resolve the situation without drawing his gun, let alone discharging it. But, as we've seen on numerous occasions, contemporary law enforcement officers are on a war footing, which means that their default setting is "overkill."

It's worth noting that one of the officers who responded to Birk's "shots fired" report tells him that he did the "right thing" -- even though the official review subsequently ruled that the shooting wasn't justified.


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Dum spiro, pugno!





29 comments:

  1. Birkenstock as Lefty MongtardDecember 24, 2010 at 1:34 AM

    If only we could get rid of guns a golden kumbaya singing oprah watching utopia would commence. Officer Friendly will protect us there is no need for guns. Mommygov will save us there is no need for guns. *Hint* (sarcasm)

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  2. I say that if our overlords feel guns are such a threat to the peace then they can first disarm themselves. Hmmm? That's called "leading", no?

    Good to point out, and something I've felt needs to be fully investigated, that there is a correlation between increasing abuse on the public and the number of goose-stepping sturmtruppen feeding from the police troughs.

    Will, not on topic, but I've been searching and searching for a past article you did on the Bush family connections with Mexico and the drug trade. Help me out and post me a link. I read this some time ago and even mentioned it to a friend but I can't lay my mouse on it.

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  3. Regarding Denver police, I have the following story to relate (which may be of interest only to me):

    I was doing a "Where are they now?" search online recently, and one of the people for whom I was looking was a guy named Tim Scudder, who was a criminal justice (sic) major and a roommate of mine in college. I thought it was interesting that, when I typed "timothy scudder police" into the Google search box, this link was at the top of the list:

    http://tinyurl.com/2g498a6

    I don't know whether this is the same guy, but it would be a darned shame if it was. If it is the same guy, then all I can say is, he was a good roommate back in the day (twenty years ago), but apparently something happened in the intervening period... or maybe I was wrong about him all along.

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  4. Police Brutality: Deaf Woodcarver Murdered By Cop - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjv-jma8ECk

    Despicable.

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  5. Long Beach, CA police ambush of unarmed man:
    http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/long-beach-shooting-douglas-zerby/
    For fifteen minutes the Long Beach Police watched Douglas Zerby sitting on an interior courtyard stoop playing with a toy gun. They never announced their presence. There was no danger to anyone. They never announced their presence. There were at least five police officers there. Then, after fifteen minutes, two or three of them opened fire with shotguns and pistols. There was no warning, and no command to drop the weapon. Apparently his first notification that the police were present was to be shot dead.
    (...)
    Actually it was not a toy gun-rather a garden hose nozzle:
    http://losangelescriminallegalblog.com/2010/12/police-fatally-shoot-douglas-zerby-for-holding-water-nozzle.html
    Police officers killed 35-year old Douglas Zerby of Long Beach on Sunday after receiving a 911 call that the man was sitting on a porch with a small gun in his hand, as stated through the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Yet it turns out that the police officers were mistaken and that Douglas Zerby had no weapon in his hand. The man was reportedly intoxicated and was carrying a garden hose nozzle with a pistol-like grip.

    Two Long Beach police officers took aim and opened fire on Douglas Zerby before asking the man to drop the item that was in his hands. The Los Angeles Times reports that the family of Douglas Zerby is now considering taking legal action against the Long Beach Police Department because they say that the police department failed to follow correct procedure when they opened fire.

    "Our brother was killed for no reason," Eden Marie Biele, his sister, told the Los Angeles Times. "We're outraged. You can't get drunk in the city of Long Beach and not get shot? You're trying to do the responsible thing and not drive and you get shot? Is that standard protocol? They didn't wait for backup, they just shot him."
    (...)

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  6. NOT a good idea to have any links to any Stevens Media-Righthaven organs, such as any of the Las Vegas papers (where the LV Review Journal is in the forefront). Stevens media is using Righthaven to sue just about anyone who even posts a link to one of their organs--and you also use a quote from it!

    Will, I just hope they don't sue you the way they are suing Drudge!

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  7. will,

    i think you missed something that just occurred to me. did not the other cars have a dash cam? where's that video of when those cars pulled up?

    and i hope someone gets with the lady who yelled, "he didn't do anything."

    rick

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  8. The militarization of police that resulted from Tricky Dick's War on Drugs was bad. The recruiting of police from the ranks of those who have been both trained and coached to kill at the slightest provocation and even less justification is far worse. But the proverbial icing on the cake may be the abuse of anabolic steroids and related substances by the porcine platoons. There have been rumors for many years that pigs in the North Eastern US have been beating and killing citizens while in the grips of rhoid rage, now the Newark Star Ledger (in the guise of nj.com) has documented the epidemic abuse of those drugs by members of New Jersey's Premium Porkroll. First article in a series begins here: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/strong_at_any_cost_legal_cases.html
    Note that this is just what was uncovered after the unexpected death of one doctor. Be assured that the true scope of the problem will turn out (assuming that such a story cannot be buried at even this advanced stage) to be nationwide.

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  9. Mr. Grigg & Readers,

    I am NOT trying to play Devil's Advocate here - those who have read my previous comments will know that.

    However, if you want to understand what is going on in America, including police brutality and corruption of all kinds, it is EXTREMELY important to know of the Milgram Experiments. Wkipedia has a very clear exposition:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_Experiment

    One paragraph from Milgram's conclusions:

    "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."

    The experiments were conducted at the time of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, and were designed to test ordinary people's capacity for evil. Its results are fascinating.

    As the Russians say: "The Fish Rots from the Head Down." When you have evil people at the top of an organization, such as the Presidency, or a corporate CEO, or a media mogul, the entire organization reflects the evil of its head person and/or the small group of like-minded evil people he collects about him.

    What the experiments did not answer was how to stop the process, once it starts. It tends to feed on itself, as the whole society and the social contract become rotten and corrupt, and the scum rises to the top of the pond.

    America elected George H.W. Bush as President in 1988, a man who was ex-head of the CIA, the most powerful and evil criminal organization the world has ever seen. Everything that has happened since then in America reflects the effects of that choice.

    (Continued...)

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  10. (Continued...)

    Moreover, American policy since 1967 has been subservient to that of Israel, a nation which has elected as Prime Minister a succession of criminal killers - Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Shamir, Menachem Begin, and Ariel Sharon - all of whom were leaders in the Irgun, The Haganah, or the Stern Gang, terrorist organizations which murdered thousands of people in cold blood. Their victims included British, Arabs, and even many hundreds of Jews, who were killed in cold blood solely for propaganda purposes.

    Given the type of people America and its puppet-master Israel have chosen as leaders, the destruction and corruption of our two societies, and their descent into inhuman cruelty and violence, is inevitable.

    In a sense, those who blame "The Jews" for all our woes are right, in that Israeli leaders have been a succession of servants of Satan, and America is in thrall to the policies of that "Shitty Little Country."

    Observe how our national policies have parallelled: Pre-emptive wars; Torture of non-combatants: War crimes against innocent civilians; Conquest and occupation of other peoples' lands; Mass revenge on entire conquered populations for isolated acts of resistance. First one of the two coutries tries a new twist on viciousness; shortly thereafter the other country follows.

    Julian Assange has revealed that the USA has recently (under Obama, no less,) provided nuclear fuel to Israel, in total violation of the NPT, which Israel has never signed, and permits no inspection of its facilities. Yet the USA and Israel both scream abut Iran, which has signed the NPT and permits inspections, and has not attacked another country in 200 years. I cite this only to show how joined at the hip is the criminal leadership of both our countries.

    What we are seeing in America, of which Mr. Grigg holds up isolated examples, is a descent into barbarism, a fracturing of society, and a return to the law of the jungle.

    While this has happened before, and humanity has recovered, the scary thing this time is that now this is accompanied by cluster bombs, Apache helicopters, microwave weapons, aircraft carriers, Aegis guns firing 6,000 rounds a minute, Trident submarines, biological weapons, ICBM's, cruise missiles, and nuclear weapons - the most horrible and magnificent means of mass murder that the stupendously creative mind of man has ever invented.

    Personally, I have my doubts as to whether the human species will survive. Perhaps 65 million years from now, the descendants of the dolphins will be digging up our fossilized bones and puzzling over what drove our species, and some 2/3 of the present species alive, to extinction.

    - Lemuel Gulliver.

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  11. Mr Grigg,

    Check this out when you get a chance. I just stumbled across this CSPAN interview with Gary Webb. A lot of issues besides the obvious CIA drug connection are brought up, such as Osama Bin Laden becoming an enemy of the US after Gulf War I.

    http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/09/gary-webb-on-dark-alliance-cia-contras.html

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  12. Lemuel,

    the answer to your question--how to stop the rot, is found in the bible. there is more than one way to skin this cat. the rot will either be stopped from above, below, or from outside.

    the one thing we must always bear in mind about what we are going through, is that perhaps what is going on is God's will. after all, if these things do not happen, He becomes a liar.

    do not take that to mean that He is ordering this evil.

    we also need to remember that these events are pulling us closer to God as those who conduct these evils grow away from God.

    kinda sucks, but this world ain't are resting place. it's just a pit stop.

    see you in montana,

    rick

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  13. The shooting in Seattle was found to be unjustified....by other cops. Not all cops are bad or out to shoot people at the drop of a hat. There are far more good cops than bad ones. I've come in contact with hundreds if not thousands in my life time and none of them shot me.

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  14. Relatively few cops are depraved human beings. The system, however, is laden with perverse incentives that encourage and protect depraved official behavior.

    Since this shooting wasn't justified, it's an act of criminal homicide. Is Ian Birks in jail, or out on bond? As far as I know, he's still on paid vacation pending a full court inquiry into the shooting in a few weeks. In similar circumstances, a member of the wealth-producing class would most likely be held in jail without bond.

    The reason this shooting occurred is because a member of the punitive caste saw a Mundane carrying a knife that was considered to be a weapon. The knife was closed, and Williams wasn't threatening anyone.

    If Birks was in some sense entitled to gun down Williams because he didn't drop his "weapon," wouldn't any citizen be similarly entitled to gun down Birks or any other police officer who refused to relinquish his sidearm? All acts of criminal homicide should be treated equally.

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  15. I have always heard "when a man becomes too sorry to work, he can always join the police"

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  16. We need to demilitarize law enforcement in the USA and severely punish police officers that violate the any right of citizens. Police have a tough job but if they violate the constitutional rights of the people they should be jailed and/or punished. This is beyond outragous, it is criminal. If this type of thing continues or is not dealt with properly, people will lose faith in the police. They are suppose to protect and SERVE us - not shot us in the streets like this poor man. God rest his soul.

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  17. Rick in Montana,

    Thank you. I agree, there are two factions (I hesitate to call them forces or powers because those words are misleading) in the universe, God and Satan. The Holy Spirit is full of love and light, is humble and self-effacing, while the spirit of Satan is dark and proud and self-aggrandizing, and seeks power over everything. When we look at the behavior of ordinary people, or of the hard-hearted rich, and the politically powerful, if we look with a clear eye, we can see which side they serve.

    Why does evil exist, if God created the whole Universe, including Satan? Consider: We cannot resist the power of evil with more power. Satan is too powerful; he will suck us into his game and crush us, if we resist his power with our own.

    Rather, we must place our trust in God, and God's love. Total love does not resist evil; it bends before it, causing evil to find nothing it can conquer, nothing against which it can exert its power.

    God is only love. Satan cannot conquer God because God refuses to enter into battle with Satan. God says to Satan (I am paraphrasing here, this is not literal) "I love you, Satan." And Satan goes insane with his lust for conquest. Satan is the one who suffers, not God. In the exercise of power over others, there is no love. In the giving others their freedom, there is love. That is why God has given us the freedom to choose to serve Him, or not. Because He loves us.

    This is why evil exists. God will not try to conquer it - how can the essence of pure love possibly enter into that fight? That is why we have free will. The moment we abandon pride, self-aggrandizement, and lust for power, and turn to God in love and humility, God will receive us with open arms (figuratively, again.)

    Every one of us has a choice in this life we live: Serve God by becoming godly, or serve Satan by becoming satanic.

    Satan is the Lord of this world, and will reward his servants with all the wealth and power of this world, but our life is very short, and I never saw a rich man take a single penny with him when he died. And all the power of emperors is gone when their flesh rots, their teeth fall out, and their tongue is silenced. Nobody fears a dead tyrant. And every servant of Satan knows in his heart that he will lose every penny and all his power, the day he dies. What a fearful and terrible way to live a life.

    It is far, far preferable to serve God, and accept His gifts as gifts - His to bestow, His to take back - and regard nothing in this world as ours, for in truth nothing is. It is all His. Dominus Providebit: God will provide. "Behold the lilies of the field; not even Solomon in his glory was arrayed like one of these. Not a sparrow falls but God knows it, and ye are of more worth than many sparrows." We may never have material wealth, or material power, but we will have a wealth of love in our hearts, and power over our own concscience and over our own behavior, and that is the greatest wealth and the most essential power in the universe. We will sleep well at night, with a calm heart and clear mind, and at the end death will come as a friend and not a robber.

    Pity those who serve Satan. What a pitiful bargain they have made. Jesus said: "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Our soul is eternal. Our body is temporary and soon dies. "Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where moth and rust do not corrupt, nor thieves break in and steal."

    - Lemuel Gulliver.

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  18. Wow. When you say he gunned him down, that really describes it. A non-aggressive person was walking down the street. A man starts screaming behind him. The victim walks toward him with a pocket knife and is slain where he stands. If the victim were a family member of mine, I'd have to get even if justice wasn't properly served, and in this case it probably won't be. Mr. Grigg, I hope you'll update regarding what happens to Ian Birk.

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  19. Will said: "The system, however, is laden with perverse incentives that encourage and protect depraved official behavior." Then lets focus our attention where it will do the most good instead of bashing cops in general.

    Will said: "If Birks was in some sense entitled to gun down Williams..."

    Who is saying that? It is very easy to arm chair quarter back while watching a video of an incident that didn't even get on video. Was he responding to a call from someone about a man with a knife, were they threatened? Did he stab someone? Do you know or just assuming a cop saw a guy walking around with a closed knife and decided to kill a citizen today?
    I am not arguing the fact that there are bad cops, there are bad people in all walks of life.

    Please don't fall victim to "cops are bad" when in reality it isn't so.

    My Dad was a cop, a chapter leader in the JBS and later in life was a speaker across the US for the American Opinion Speakers Bureau. He spoke on the dangers of federal control of our police and the lies in the media.

    Most cops believe in the Constitution and Bill of rights, believe it or not their jobs depend on following them. I've known many cops in my life and many of them former military. They are stand up citizens and help people everyday.

    Please be careful not to make blanket statements about all cops, they have a tough job to do and when 911 rings they put their lives on the line for whomever is on the other end. Daily.

    Support your local police and keep them independent.

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  20. Please liberate your mind from the bondage of trite and outdated slogans. Our "local" police aren't "independent" of anything other than local accountability. They are local outposts of a centralized, militarized leviathan.

    Until we recognize and act on that fact -- which means, among other things, setting aside sepia-tinted nostalgia for the fondly (mis-)remembered and long-dead era of Officer Friendly -- things are not going to get any better.

    The system as it currently exists has to be dispensed with. And one of the major problems therein is something you imprudently consider to be a benefit -- namely, the fact that the population of supposed peace officers is heavily populated with former military personnel.

    I don't think Ian Birks is a particularly depraved human being; he was acting on the basis of his training, which is suitable to an army of occupation rather than a civilian corps of peace officers.

    He should be treated as a criminal suspect, just as any other citizen in similar circumstances would. Instead, he most likely will face some kind of administrative sanction. This is precisely because of the assumption that he has a special entitlement to use lethal force in circumstances where similar action by mere Mundanes would not be considered lawful.

    You admonish me against making blanket statements in the same sentence in which you wrap police in the glittering robes of selfless righteousness: "... when 911 rings they put their lives on the line for whomever is on the other end. Daily."

    If I'm in trouble, dialing 911 would be the last thing I would do. Here are about 200 reasons why:

    http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=%22Grigg%22+%22never+call+the+police%22&btnG=Google+Search

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  21. Will, you said "Relatively few cops are depraved human beings."

    I invite you to spend the night at the Birmingham Jail and see that 100% of the cops there are totally depraved "human beings."

    You don't even have to commit a traffic violation to get pulled over. You just have to be in the wrong neighborhood (white) or come under the eye of a lurking predator cop who just wants to have a little sport.

    I was stopped for being in the wrong neighborhood (black), albeit a middle-class neighborhood, blacks on one side of the through street and whites on the other side. Since I committed no violation, I was stopped for "suspicion." Since he had the right to silence, I never knew what I was suspicious of. I was 55 at the time with $200 worth of groceries in the trunk. My license was expired, so the car was towed, I was handcuffed and taken to jail, where I was thrown to the ground for asking a cop why I was there. I had to pull up my shirt and bra to a she-male; I guess she thought I had hidden a valid license there. It all went downhill from there.

    My brother was stopped in the wrong neighborhood; he was lost and looking for the freeway. The she-male cop made no pretense of why he was stopped: "What are you doing in this neighborhood?" Then she saw an "open" container, or, rather a closed and empty flask on the floor that belonged to an old guy my brother often takes to work. Then they found cocaine and paraphernalia, and told him he was going away for a LONG time. Those charges were dropped because there was no cocaine and no paraphernalia. No matter. His car was towed and he was taken to jail. He had been to a bar but wasn't drunk and no test of any kind was given him. At the jail, he overheard the she-male talking to the police chief on the phone. One of the things he heard her say was "No, I didn't pull him over just because he's white." Luckily for him, he has a friend who knows a lawyer, and wants to handle this for him. As in my case, they never showed my brother the tickets they wrote up. I don't have high hopes that a lawyer can help him, because the wicked prosper at our expense.

    To Anon, who knew hundreds, maybe thousands, (maybe millions!) of "good" cops, (good because they didn't shoot him?), I say you are dead wrong, or maybe just a cop-loving groupie.

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  22. One last thought: have you noticed that when you come in contact with people who have a lot of dealings with the police, they treat you like mangy dogs? This includes people at car impound lots, doctors in emergency rooms, suspicious pharmacists (because of the Drug "War"), etc.

    For example, I fell over a TV set on the floor and skinned my shins badly, and the next day, my ankles swelled to the size of baseballs. It was then I went to the emergency room. The doctor said "So you fell over a TV set and skinned your shins; that makes sense. But your ankles swelling up has nothing to do with that. What REALLY happened?" I didn't know what he meant and couldn't fathom his suspicion until I realized he must have thought I had taken a drug overdose that causes ankle swelling. Good grief.

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  23. Just one more thing. Really. In times of war, we are told we must sacrifice some freedoms for the sake of blah, blah, blah.

    "It is obviously impracticable in the federal government of these states, to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all: Individuals entering into society, MUST GIVE UP A SHARE OF LIBERTY to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty was encreased by a difference among the several states as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests." From Washington's Letter of Transmittal to the President of the Continental Congress, Sept. 17, 1787.

    Every bad thing goes back to George. When a Lincoln lover is reminded that Lincoln ignored the constitution by suspending habeas corpus, they are quick to point out that he had "precedent," that being Washington's putting down the Whiskey Rebellion.

    And who encouraged us to think of the constitution in terms of religious reverence?

    "“The Unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main Pillar in the Edifice of your real independence; the support of your tranquillity at home; your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity in every shape; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize…you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity…"

    ““This government… has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its Laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty… The very idea of the power and the right of the People to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to OBEY the established Government.” That's from Washington's Farewell Address.

    Notice the new fedgov is responsible for your prosperity, your safety, your liberty and your lives. That being so, you should think of it as the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity.

    My favorite paragraph contains the most hated words ever spoken about people who think they are free: Respect for its authority, compliance with its Laws, acquiescence in its measures, and duties owed only to the govt… The very idea of the power and the right of the People to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.”

    You must be compliant, acquiescent, do your duty and most importantly, be OBEDIENT.Not to God, but to the govt.

    And remember, Dull George didn't even like or trust us. He wrote to John Jay "Experience has taught us, that men will not adopt & carry into execution, measures the best calculated for their own good without the intervention of a coercive power.”

    Why do the wicked prosper and live long?

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  24. Speaking of police, has one anyone noticed over the last 15 years how both county and city of have become 'law enforcement centers' instead of County Sheriff or City of so and so Police.

    I'd like to know how that happened and why. It has too much of a paramilitary feel as opposed to a civilian system.

    I've noticed this in Texas over the years; not sure about other states.

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  25. Bullcrap!

    There are NO GOOD COPS anymore.

    IF there were, they would be arresting and citing their criminal colleagues for violating the civil rights of the citizenry and their oaths of office.

    But, they don't. They line up behind and cover up for them!

    Nope, there are NO GOOD COPS in America anymore.

    I'd be happy to retract this statement as soon as I see evidence that they're really working to clean up their ranks.

    In the meantime, I remain, locked and loaded.

    Diamondback

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  26. sth_txs said... "law enforcement centers".

    Your eyes do you justice. This, from my own first hand observation, is certainly going on in Texas. Elsewhere? Probably the same sort of thing but its shameful that the one state that likes to beat its chest, and pontificate about the Alamo, whores itself regularly for its Federal johns. A state that nurtures the nuts we've been dealt with cannot be trusted with your freedoms. Just keep your head down and head for the hill country.

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  27. Spot-on, Diamondback! Let us hope that more and more of "us, the great unwashed" wake up and realize the plain truth of your observation.

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