Chicago: Let Them Carry....

I’m sharing this, not to politicize a tragic situation, but because the laws that led to this truly anger me.

Chicago has done everything in its power to limit access to firearms by its residents.  They have to travel outside of Chicago to lawfully purchase one or practice their shooting skills.  A concealed pistol license is nearly impossible to obtain.  And yet, gangbangers are able to get firearms with relative ease.  There are areas where CPD doesn’t go unless absolutely necessary, not that they - or the numerous gun control laws implemented by Chicago - can actually prevent anything.

It doesn’t matter that, if true, most of the guns obtained by gangbangers come from outside of Illinois.  WISHING that wasn’t true doesn’t stop or prevent anything, and with CPD pulling back from troubled areas, primarily communities of color, preventing law abiding citizens from protecting themselves is nothing short of criminal.

It’s time for Chicago, specifically, and the State of Illinois in general, to recognize that its gun control policies and laws have failed miserably - communities of color are paying the price.  THESE ARE RACIST POLICIES, as gun control has been since day one.

Chicago, Illinois, LET YOUR PEOPLE EXERCISE THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/05/17/8-year-old-shot-lawndale-romio-mikey-dollaz/?fbclid=IwAR2JCdvH0Hyx-gCP9CpG5PP8eGN8v8xwFxOmbaLKPDlpiKEqOo8VDSAS4UM

Robert F Kennedy Banned From Instagram...

USA Today proclaims, “Instagram removes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over false COVID-19 vaccine claims.”  According to Instagram, owned by Mark Zuckerberg/ Facebook, Kennedy is a purveyor of false information because he shares “... claims that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured... The claim that the coronavirus was man-made or engineered has been debunked,”

In point of fact, the human origins of the coronavirus have NOT been debunked.  Rather, alternate hypotheses positing a natural cause of the virus have been offered; this is NOT the same as debunking claims “... that the coronavirus was man-made or engineered“.

Here are some of the problems with the claim that there is no human origin for the virus.

First, debunking the claim of a human origin for the virus would require access to the raw research data; the Chinese government has staunchly denied access to this data.  Instead, it has continued to provide only data that 1) backs its own claim of a natural origin for the outbreak and 2) shields it from any responsibility for the initial outbreak.  The fact that the virus originated in the Wuhan province in close proximity to the only Chinese level 4 virology lab in the country, one that is known to carry out military biological weapons research and development, is well documented.  Whether the coronavirus was developed as a weapon and released, a naturally occurring virus that was accidentally  released from the lab, or a virus that has been around for thousands of years and only recently made a jump from animals to humans cannot be disproved without access to the raw data.

Second, the W.H.O. is the source of the research that 1) argues that the coronavirus CANNOT have been developed as a weapon and 2) argues that China is largely innocent with regard to its spread.  This is problematic for at least a couple of reasons.  First, as they have themselves admitted, they have been denied access to the raw data.  Without that data, it is impossible to exonerate the Chinese military/government.  Second, and almost importantly, the W.H.O. has been well-documented to essentially function as a mouthpiece, an apologist, for the Chinese government in its efforts to save face regarding its role in the release and spread of the coronavirus.  The following is just a sample of the respected entities that have documented this symbiotic relationship between the W.H.O. and the Chinese government: the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, Deutsche World, The Voice of America, Politico, Foreign Policy, the Brookings Institute, Institute Montaign, Bloomberg News, the Carnegie Endowment, the list goes in.  ALL have documented the enormous, outsized influence exercised by China over the W.H.O. in general, and specifically as it applies to the coronavirus.  A few months ago, our own State Department finally publicly acknowledged the probable role of China in the release and spread of the virus and the probability that it had been intended as a biological weapon.  This aligns with conclusions drawn by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (associated with both Israeli intelligence and NATO) that there IS reason to suspect a Chinese government link to the virus, including the following:

“•scientific papers with incoherent data/findings

•unexplained gaps, inconsistencies, and contradictions

•meaningless and twisted chronologies

•illegitimate non-transparency

•elimination and distortion of records and databases

•obscuring and possible destruction of existing viruses (including the index virus) and genomic material

•pressure put on disobedient scientists, physicians, and officials

•disappearance of key persons

•expedient interchangeability between military/defense and civilian institutions (and other entities).”

Third, believing that the Chinese government has no culpability with regard to the coronavirus requires believing that they are, well, believable in the first place.  The Chinese account regarding the origin of the coronavirus has changed several times. Initially, they claimed no knowledge of the virus, when, in fact, they spent the first few months doing everything in their power to prevent word of it getting out of China (just as they did with the SARS virus, which ALSO originated in China, a few years ago).  Then they insisted that it must have found a way to jump from animals to humans.  Then they alleged that, in fact, the virus was a bio weapon developed by the US and introduced into China via US service personnel who had been deliberately infected and then sent to China during a goodwill event.  

Fourth, individuals associated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the very lab believed by many to be the source of the virus, tried to get the word out to the rest of the world.  They were shut down, imprisoned, eliminated by the Chinese government - but word still went out via dissident websites.  Eventually, some were publicly acknowledged by more mainstream news sources, although the Chinese government and the W.H.O. have done what they can to play down their warnings.

If the Chinese government truly wants to prove their innocence, then they will make the raw data regarding the origin of the coronavirus available to be reviewed.  Until then, the idea that the coronavirus, at worst, began as a bio weapon - an idea that I happen to share - at best was accidentally released from the lab, will continue to persist.

One Last Thanksgiving Day Thought....

 From those of us who have to work this Thanksgiving day to those of you who don’t:

STAY HOME AND ENJOY YOUR TIME WITH YOUR FAMILY!

If it isn’t medically necessary, don’t go to a business.  The sales can wait.  Those of us who are required to work because of corporate greed envy your time to relax and enjoy.

To those in the military, those who work as first responders, law enforcement, medical, thank you for being away from your families today.  I wish it weren’t necessary.  Your sacrifice is appreciated.

Happy Thanksgiving 2020....

 

Michigan Thanksgiving 2020....

 I have seen some who profess to be Bible-believing Christians state publicly that they intend to violate the guidance issued by the MI state government and have their large Thanksgiving Day gatherings.  Some of the same people have stated that they will defy masking and social distancing orders as well.

What follows after my remarks hasn’t changed in the 2,000 years that have passed since it was written, and I quote it here in the version claimed by some to be God’s only true Bible to take THAT argument away.  

I will also note at the outset that the passage that follows has no exemption for a society in which governing power derives from the people.  Like it or not, agree with the outcome or not, the people of Michigan spoke.  A governor and other officials reflecting that voice were elected to positions of authority; they, in turn, appointed other officials in accordance with Michigan law.  So until such time as they are a) removed from office via vote or impeachment or b) it can be clearly demonstrated that their orders require us to violate scripture or are proven to be illegal, as believers we are OBLIGATED to obey.

You may not agree with the health department orders or the officials implementing them; heaven knows I don’t.  But I will obey them because they don’t require me to violate scripture; THAT is the test of whether I must disobey.  This post is written specifically to those who claim to be born again Christians, who claim to believe and obey the WHOLE Bible, to the ones who have placed their US citizenship ahead of their heavenly citizenship and forgotten that they are ambassadors of HEAVEN, not the US, and that HEAVEN’S laws supersede man’s laws. Our rights may have been given by the creator, but they can also be LIMITED by that same creator.  And sometimes, as He told us through the apostle Paul in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, He requires us to put our rights aside for the sake of others.

This is one of those times.  

As He commands us through the Apostle Peter,

“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims... Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. 

“Submit yourselves to EVERY ORDINANCE OF MAN FOR THE LORD’S SAKE: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and NOT USING YOUR LIBERTY FOR A CLOKE OF MALICIOUSNESS, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king,” 1 Peter 2:11-17 (KJV), emphasis added.

I may not agree with the health department orders or the officials implementing them, and I may not like that they deny me the opportunity to gather with loved ones that I already see seldom enough during the year, but as for me and my house, we will obey this scripture, and as a result, we will obey the orders and guidance issued by the state government.

Kyle Rittenhouse: NOT A Hero....

To preface, I sell firearms for a living, an occupation I take VERY seriously.  I know the applicable firearms laws in play in this situation; I work with them on a daily basis, and I have stopped numerous transactions that would have violated those laws.

Rittenhouse was a minor in possession of a firearm when he killed those people, end of story.  He could not legally be hired to protect business property, as he says was the case, because he is a minor.  He could not legally carry the loaded firearm in public as a minor unless in the company of a parent/legal guardian, which was not the case.  He violated Wisconsin and federal firearms laws regarding firearm possession.  He gave money to a third party to purchase a firearm on his behalf that he could not legally purchase/own himself - a straw purchase, and a federal felony.  As an aside, unless the friend who made the illegal purchase said something to the dealer at the time of purchase indicating that he was buying the firearm on behalf of an ineligible party, there is no way the dealer could have possibly known and is innocent of any wrongdoing, end of story.

His friend, 19 year old Dominick Black, who says he bought the firearm in Wisconsin on Rittenhouse’s behalf has admitted to violating federal law.  He executed a straw purchase, lying on a federal form, buying the gun on behalf of and receiving payment from an individual he knew to be unable to legally purchase/own the firearm himself; this is a federal felony carrying a $250,000 fine and a 10 year prison sentence.  He aided and abetted a minor to own/possess/carry a firearm in violation of both Wisconsin and federal law.  He has finally been charged with two state felony counts of supplying a minor with a firearm leading to death; he should also be facing federal felony charges relating to straw purchase and lying on a federal form.

If Rittenhouse had been protecting his own home or a business owned by his parent that evening using a firearm purchased/possessed by that parent, this would be an entirely different story.  As it is, Rittenhouse and his friend should both be facing both state and federal firearms charges.  He was not a hero, and he gives those of us who ARE lawful firearms owners a bad name.

PS: even though Rittenhouse was declared not guilty in a kangaroo show trial that the prosecution and judge did everything to throw, I still maintain that Rittenhouse is a murderer who should be facing federal firearms charges.

An Open Letter To The Editors Of Mlive/Grand Rapids Press

You have now published a few articles regarding the call to defund the Grand Rapids Police Department. I am disappointed to see that your reporting smacks of a singular point of view. 

Most significantly, you detailed the number of emails and calls received by the mayor’s office/city Council demanding the defunding or even disbanding of the Grand Rapids  Police Department, yet not a single word has been said regarding the number of communications those offices have received opposing such measures or even supporting the GRPD.

For the first time in our city’s history we have a black chief of police. Chief Eric Payne has shown himself to be a man of integrity and deep concern for this community. He has only been in his office for a short time; certainly not nearly long enough to enact the kinds of reforms he believes necessary to address the concerns raised by our minority communities.

In the interest of fair and balanced reporting, Mlive has a moral and ethical obligation to do a better job reporting not just on the calls to radically alter or even eliminate our police department, but also the communications the city government has received SUPPORTING law enforcement.

I suspect far more people in our community - including a majority of those in the black community - support our police department, even support strengthening our police department, than those who advocate defunding or even eliminating it altogether.  This would be in line with a recent Gallup poll (on which Mlive never reported) indicating that an overwhelming majority of blacks - EIGHTY-ONE PERCENT - want police to maintain OR INCREASE the amount of time they spend policing their communities.

I don’t believe anyone will argue against the need to reform law enforcement.  I have been saying for many years that we need to get law enforcement off the “war on crime” footing that began with the North Hollywood bank robbery and return to the days of “TO PROTECT AND SERVE”.  ALL communities would be better served with the return to that gold standard of policing.

In the meantime, Mlive has a moral and ethical obligation to provide more balanced coverage of this issue, to report not only on the calls to radically alter law enforcement, but also on the calls supporting maintaining, even strengthening our police department as well.  Your job is to report, not inflame.

“Christians” Defying Executive Orders....

This message is specifically to those who call themselves Christians.  I don’t like or want to wear a mask in public any more than the next person.  With my claustrophobia and some breathing issues, wearing a cloth or surgical style mask was a daily exercise in fear.  And while I have a doctor’s note excusing me from wearing one, I found a work around.  Still, given a choice, I would rather not wear one.

But here’s the problem:

“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king,” 1 Peter 2:13-17 NASB.  

The KJV renders verses 13-14 this way:

 “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.”

I hear a lot of people who call themselves Christians saying they will not comply with the executive orders issued by our governor. Like it or not, agree or not, under Michigan black letter law, specifically MCL 10.33 and MCL 30.405(3), passed by duly elected Michigan legislators and signed into law by the duly elected governors in power at those times in accordance with the Michigan State Constitution, determines that failure to obey an executive order is a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine and/or 90 days in jail. I would like you to take a moment to think seriously about how that attitude squares up with God’s clear instructions through Paul.

I don’t like it, but I will comply until such time as her directives instruct me to violate God’s Word.

When the Governor Sanctions Confrontation — and Violence?

A statement from Gov. Whitmer’s press conference on 7/9:

“... Human behavior is the thing that is going to determine what direction we’re headed in. We [the government- added] will do everything we can to encourage the right choices. But at the end of the day, it’s on ALL OF US [emphasis added] to do our part, to educate the people around us, whether it’s in the store or it’s in our household, or it is in our neighborhood or in our workplace. We’ve got to implore one another to step up and to do the right thing. And Michiganders are smart. We’re tough. We can figure out how to do it politely, but also forcefully because it’s on all of us...” emphasis added.  

We have already seen incidents in which those not wearing masks have been driven out of places of business, even threatened with violence, by their fellow customers.  Now the governor says it’s on EACH OF US to COMPEL the appropriate behavior, “the right thing”, FORCEFULLY?!

That’s either a really bad choice of words, or the governor has just sanctioned such behaviors.

Time to Retire the Pledge of Allegiance....

I grew up beginning each school day reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.  I knew it, I believed it.  It embodied what I hoped America would be.

Sadly, I have come to see that, more and more, the lofty ideals it contains have very little correlation with the realities of America, especially in recent decades.  And if we do not return to those ideals, then it is a lie - and it should be relegated to history.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.”  Our states are not united in any way, shape, or form.  We are a loose federation of self-serving states, each one intent on pursuing it’s own interests and agendas - and the good of the nation and the Constitution be damned.  And no, I can think of no more appropriate way to characterize that outlook.

“And to the Republic for which it stands.”  The account is given of a conversation between Benjamin Franklin and Mrs. Powel of Pennsylvania:

“Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”

“A republic,” replied Franklin, “if you can keep it.”

The Founders strenuously resisted setting up a democracy.  They recognized that democracies all meet the same fate: they devolve into struggles between factions and die.  Thomas Jefferson said, "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Benjamin Franklin observed that “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.”  And Alexander Hamilton, lionized in the musical, Hamilton, stated, “It has been observed by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved, that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” 

The idea of a Republic, based on Constitutionally defined principles and God-given rights protected from government intrusion and infringement was the goal.  It wasn’t perfect.  It initially incorporated compromises that were intended to be short-term, that were enacted in an effort to hold the fledgling Republic together.  The Founders were fully cognizant of its shortcomings.  That’s why they built in mechanisms by which laws - and even the Constitution itself - could be changed to eventually protect the rights of ALL of our citizens.  The incorporation of the amendatory process was the poison pill for the institutions of slavery and misogyny.

Instead, the citizens of our country have overwhelmingly chosen the tyranny of democracy.  Our schools and universities incorrectly teach and promote the misconception that we are a democracy.  The warning given by Hamilton (who, by the way, was an elitist who bought slaves on behalf of his family and was far from being the abolitionist the musical portrays him to be) has become a reality.  In its quest to be a true democracy, this country is destroying itself.  The Republic is dead.

“One nation.” We are not one nation, we are a conglomerate of many nations and interests, each intent on serving itself and imposing its will on others.  Once upon a time, those who came to America did so with the idea and intent of becoming as American as possible.  They gave up their native languages and learned english.  They learned new cultural norms. And they encouraged their children to fully adopt their new identity, to become AMERICAN.  They personified what Teddy Roosevelt wrote in his essay, “True Americanism”: “... We do not wish German-Americans and Irish-Americans who figure as such in our social and political life; we want only Americans, and, provided they are such, we do not care whether they are of native or of Irish or of German ancestry. We have no room in any healthy American community for a German-American vote or an Irish-American vote, and it is contemptible demagogy to put planks into any party platform with the purpose of catching such a vote. We have no room for any people who do not act and vote simply as Americans, and as nothing else...” That I am of german and dutch ancestry is incidental to the fact that I am an AMERICAN, yet this country has turned that idea on its head.  We are not “one nation”, we are a collection of nations in which everything comes before -American: german-american, mexican-american, asian-american, african-american, the list goes on.  And every flag, linguistic, and ethnic designation takes precedence over the idea that we are, first and foremost, Americans.

“Under God.” This is self evident.  We have declared ourselves to be a secular society.  Humanism is the religion of America.  Religion has no place in the public arena.  The ten commandments are removed from court houses.  Religious sculptures are removed from the public square.  People who declare themselves to be “Christians” divorce themselves from what they claim to believe in order to vote for individuals who in no way, shape, or form exemplify God’s values, arguing that we don’t elect a “pastor-/theologian-in-chief”.  Yet we continue to invoke God’s blessing on the USA.

“Indivisible.” Do I really need to say more about this?  We are divided and fractured along every conceivable line.

“With liberty and justice for all.”  While we have come a long way in this regard, we have far to go. Discrimination is an ever-present factor in our society.  Delivery of justice is arbitrary.  We are far from achieving the goal enunciated by Teddy Roosevelt in his essay: “... We believe in waging relentless war on rank-growing evils of all kinds, and it makes no difference to us if they happen to be of purely native growth. We grasp at any good, no matter whence it comes. We do not accept the evil attendant upon another system of government as an adequate excuse for that attendant upon our own; the fact that the courtier is a scamp does not render the demagogue any the less a scoundrel...” It is an indisputable fact that blacks were brought here as slaves, that laws have been promulgated over the years to keep them “in their place,” and that they were exterminated in large numbers when their usefulness ended.  It is an indisputable fact that chinese were brought here as indentured servants to build our railroads, work canneries in Alaska, and man our laundries.  When a section of the railroad was completed in the Snake River canyon, hundreds of chinese workers were herded into a cave and its mouth was dynamited.  It is an indisputable fact that, in no small part, our nation’s infrastructure and wealth was built in the back of slaves and indentured servants.  And it is an indisputable fact that many who call themselves “Christians” have coopted, contaminated, the message of the Bible to justify their treatment of minorities.  We have and we continue to deny justice and liberty to all.

There are many things that I am NOT saying here.  There is simply not time or space to cover everything, so please don’t PRESUME that you know where I stand on an issue based solely on what I have said here; you will likely be wrong. But it has become painfully evident to me that the Pledge of Allegiance has no correlation with the realities of life in America.  It is time to stop pretending otherwise.