Saturday, June 28, 2014

A Little Bit Of LInkage

It has been an interesting week in the news and on the web.

Lots and lots of stuff on the militarization of the American police force. The ACLU a very large and comprehensive report, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing. Now the ACLU is often on the wrong side of issues, although fewer than I used to think, but they are on the money here. I haven't read the report but I have read some excerpts and have it saved for later reading. Radley Balko put together a nice summary here. Even the normally "law and order uber alles" publication National Review has been getting in on the increasing alarm, check out Barney Fife meets Delta Force, in spite of the silly and kind of insulting title it makes some great points including some on an issue I am greatly concerned with, namely that the increased militarization via the transfer of military grade weapons to local police departments is a subtle but real violation of the prohibition on a standing army in our community.

Attention hound Frank Schaefer is back in the news. For a guy who seems to loathe his father's legacy he sure milks it for all the attention it garners him. After being "defrocked" by the United Methodist for conducting a "marriage" ceremony for his son and his male partner in an uncharacteristic show of spine by the UMC, the decision has been reversed and Mr. Schaefer has been reinstated as an elder in the church. He was interviewed on NPR's Here & Now and was simply crowing. Tellingly it was all about him, how he will "never be silent again", as if he has ever been silent about anything, and how his reinforces "his" ministry. I don't see how a) Methodists who take the Bible seriously can stay in the UMC and b) how the UMC survives very long into the future. Whatever happens we can be sure to keep hearing from Frank as long as he says the sort of stuff the media wants to hear.

Matt Walsh has a great post on illegal immigration, Isn’t it mean and hateful to deport illegal immigrants? His best point has to do with the hypocrisy of appeals to caring for children by people who generally celebrate the murder of children:

Yes, the children. It’s always funny (in a morbid, nauseating kind of way) when progressives pull the “THINK OF THE CHILDREN” card. Apparently, in their view, it’s immoral to refuse children entry into the United States, as long as they’re attempting to enter through the southern border. However, if they wish to enter through their mother’s birth canal (a southern border of its own, you might say), we can not only refuse them, but suck their brains out of their skulls and incinerate them for fuel.

Perhaps we should think of babies as ‘birth immigrants’ and then they’d be protected from murder with the same fervor that we protect born children from being put on a bus and brought back to their families in their home countries.

Illegal immigration is another issue where those who generally advocate for the most sinister and diabolical institutions known to man all of a sudden become ‘compassionate’ and ‘empathetic.’ But this compassion and empathy is just a mask they wear to cover up the fact that, in truth, their hearts are numb to human suffering, which is why they feel nothing as millions of dead children pile up beneath their feet.

Personally, I do feel great compassion for these kids, but the law can’t be put to the side for them. Besides, maybe they’re better off elsewhere. We don’t exactly treat children with humanity and respect in this country.

I have an idea: let’s concentrate on granting human rights to our own kids before we worry about granting citizenship to kids across the globe.


Yeah, that.

The American Spectator asks the question, Is There Really An Epidemic of Mass Shootings? The answer may surprise you.

There are more but I am too lazy to link them now....

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