What Justice is to be found in the passionate rejection of the process for attaining Justice?

RedState's Ben Howe has been catching some flack for his tweets on the #Ferguson issue, which he's ably summed up in an article entitled: "Why I Said I’d Have Shot Michael Brown in the Face". If you find that too provocative of a title, you should read it yourself, he defends his position well and needs no help from me.

But if you've got a moment, I'd like to ask you a couple questions myself. It won't take long.

Do you believe that Justice is something most likely to be attained by a methodical presentation of evidence and deliberated upon by a disinterested jury of peers? Or do you think that 'justice' is what the more vocal and passionate demand as satisfaction, and which everyone else must be compelled to agree with as well?

If you believe that the Judicial process is a Just process - not an infallible guarantee of determining THE Truth of what happened - but as being the most just process, the path most likely to achieve a reasonable and justifiable conclusion about what may not ever truly be known; if so then you'll have to concede that the decision of a jury of 12 citizens, who, after hearing extensive testimony, considering evidence, deliberating carefully upon it, concluded that Officer Wilson's shooting of Michael Brown was not an unreasonable action.

Not because he one was a policemen, and not because of the race of the dead person, but because that that was the conclusion most supportable by the facts.

If, on the other hand, you believe that the demands of the more vocally aggrieved are what society must appease, if you believe that those who are so sure that they know best, should have the power to punish those who disagree with them, if you believe that the passionate certainty of some confers upon them the ability to Just KNOW what other mere mortals can have no direct knowledge of; if you believe that intimidation and the threat of violence, actual violence, assault, arson, destruction of property and the violation of everyone's individual rights are justifiable because a few claim to know best and that everyone else must agree with them or else be subjected to invective and cast out... then you will conclude that 'Justice' can only be served by those who agree with you, and that those who disagree with you must suffer the consequences of their opinions.

If you align yourself with the second, congratulations - you are fascist fodder and your time, your rise, and your fall, is coming.

If you align yourself the the first, but quietly allow the second to parade on by without speaking up, then congratulations - you will be the first to be consumed by the second group.

If, on the other hand, you are one of the few who have bothered to learn the lessons of history, but are living in a society where such lessons were discarded from the educational system a century ago - then congratulations and pull up a seat, for we are very likely going to be stuck living through the lessons of history that everyone else seems so intent upon dooming us all to repeating.

Cheers.

So tell me America, you feeling fundamentally transformed yet?

After the #Ferguson Grand Jury decision, a unanimous decision[NOTE: I mis-heard the verdict tally at the press conference, there IS NO WAY to know if unanimous or not. My apologies.] by - it shouldn't need to be said but does - white and black jurors, who actually heard and deliberated upon all of the evidence, they concluded that there was not enough evidence to charge the police officer with wrong doing.

Auto parts store looted and burned

A short time later President Obama came out and said:

"First and foremost, we are a nation built on the rule of law. And so, we need to accept that this decision was the grand jury’s to make. There are Americans who agree with it, and there are Americans who are deeply disappointed, even angry. It’s an understandable reaction."

Understandable?! To Friggin' WHO?! Did any of those who 'are deeply disappointed', have any rational reason whatsoever for feeling that way?

Better yet, did they have any, ANY, basis for presuming the police officer to be guilty, but for the fact that he was white, and his assailant was black? Do you know what that's called? RACISM, that's what!

Walgren's looted and burned

And what were these 'disappointed' thugs upset about? 'No Justice, no peace'?

Justice?! For WHO?! The Grand Jury sat for an unusually long period of time, heard all of the evidence, and determined that justice would be served by not bringing an indictment against the police officer. Just how in the hell is it 'understandable' or a means of furthering 'justice' to demand that the officer be killed, for doing what the Grand Jury could not find fault with?

And where in the hell is the Nat'l Guard in ‪#‎Ferguson‬?! Our Gov. Nixon, putz in chief, declared that people's lives and businesses would be defended - How?! Where?! One of the primary reasons why we have a government, is to maintain law and order - we all saw endless loops of Nat'l Guard troops being trucked in to the well-to-do town of Clayton - where in the hell are they?!

Ferguson's business, Ferguson's people, Ferguson's property and livelihoods are not being defended! WTH Governor!

This poor neighborhood, its businesses are being burned & looted, and even for those that might manage to go untouched (somehow), this is Thanksgiving! The Thanksgiving shopping period is here, which they'd probably pinned their hopes of salvaging what the earlier riots damage had done to them - what are they going to do?! Most will likely be closed. And the businesses that served them will have certainly have their earnings reduced as well.

Little Caesar's Pizza looted and burned

What do you think is going to happen to their employees? To their families? To their kids? What do you think is going to happen to this community after all of this?

Every damn last one of you who've posted your idiotic 'hands up don't shoot' and 'no justice no peace' B.S., Every damn last one of you who've been supporting and egging this agitation on to this inevitable point of violence... let me put this clearly: You are scum.

How despicable.

When President Obama was elected he famously said that we were days away from:

"fundamentally transforming America!"

So tell me America, look around today, not only at Ferguson MO, but Oakland, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Washington D.C. and all air traffic diverted away from St. Louis - take a good look and tell me:

Are you feeling fundamentally transformed yet?

Police Car set aflame

So you tell me America, does this fundamental transformation seem more like Progress, or Regress to you?

From Ben Howe:

I'm sending this to the New Black Panthers as a Christmas card. pic.twitter.com/hwuKYcBHUb
— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) November 25, 2014

Undocumented Power

I listened to the President's speech. I listened to the responses to it. I didn't hear the real problem being identified as a problem on either side.

Here's the problem:

The problem isn't immigration, legal or illegal. The problem is a Govt that is supposed to be bound down by laws to protect and defend the Individual Rights of We The People for which "...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...", and which is instead seizing hold of the power that we've given them and ignoring those laws that bind it; exercising the power that we've given them in opposition to our laws; exercising the power that we've them without even the pretense of respecting any restrictions or limitations upon their ability to exercise the power that we've given them.

When those we've given power over our lives to, promise to use power in pleasing ways if... we'll just... look the other way... and let slip our lawful restraints, they leave us with no way to restrain them with laws again, we leave ourselves with no way to prevent their using their power over us in ways that we do not find to be so very pleasing. When that's accomplished, then "As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn", they'll eventually use that power in ways that we'll find to be utterly horrifying.

That's the problem. And yes We The People, I'm looking directly at you.

"Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another. This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates."John Locke - OF CIVIL-GOVERNMENT BOOK II, CHAP. XVIII. Of TYRANNY

"... in questions of power then let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."Thomas Jefferson

"...There are Church-quakes and state-quakes, in the moral and political world, as well as earthquakes, storms and tempests in the physical. Thus much however must be said in favour { 250 } of the people and of human nature, that it is a general, if not universal truth, that the aptitude of the people to mutinies, seditions, tumults and insurrections, is in direct proportion to the despotism of the government. In governments completely despotic, i.e. where the will of one man, is the only law, this disposition is most prevalent.—In Aristocracies, next—in mixed Monarchies, less than either of the former—in compleat Republick's the least of all—..."John Adams, A Defense, Boston Massacre

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams

“It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” Samuel Adams

“If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experiencd Patriots to prevent its Ruin. There may be more Danger of this, than some, even of our well disposd Citizens may imagine.” Samuel Adams

Veterans Day - Soul Food

I've posted these three poems for Veterans Day before,  and rather than respond to the gutter filth at salon.com, I will instead, with heartfelt thanks, post them again, as soul food for our Veterans,

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903
Invictus
OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


Ralph Waldo Emerson (1837)
The Concord Hymn
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We place with joy a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, --
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.


John McCrae. 1872–1918
In Flanders Fields
IN Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.