Not Made For This World

When I see how wonderful life and the universe that is around us, I cannot deny there is a God.  When I see the abject evil, the depths of depravity, I cannot deny there is free will.  We were made to live forever as creatures in a perfect world.  We creatures destroyed that perfect world, by our free will,  but we did not lose immortality.  We live in an imperfect world, designed for immortality, so we are not made for this imperfect world, but for a prefect world.  We are made for eternity after death, where we will experience perfection.   If we live as though we belong in a perfect world, in spite of living in the imperfect world, then we can expect and eternity of perfection.

Anyway, that is how I understand it.

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Dee Harkey: US Marshall/Anarchist

The Wild West was fairly anarchic, and rather productive:

According to U.S. Marshal Dee Harkey, the reality of the old West was order without law, society without state. It was anarchy in action.Dee Harkey was ninety-two years-old in 1958. At his home in New Mexico, the former lawman gave an interview to Monk Lofton just two weeks before he passed away. Harkey set the record straight about the old West. He also expressed the unease he felt for his own role in transferring the responsibility of law from the individual to the state.

I've made about a half-dozen arrests, citizen arrests, because I am a pacifist and a anarchist.  I don't think there should be police officers.  One these that always surprises me, is how people generally  accept being arrested.  It is like kids who push things until they are stopped.  I've had to get physical, but certainly I'd be no match for the PCP-laced berzerker, but that is why God put the invincibly ignorant among us who would simply kill the mad dog.  And then honestly say killing is wrong.  "Was that killing you just did wrong?"  "Yes, but he is dead." Or something like that.

There is necessary and sufficient violence among us without the state to deal with the bad guys.

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U S A Criminal Justice

A man who commits a murder is proven guilty thirty years after another man was sentenced to life.

Now, of course, this would all be simplified if the state had executed the innocent man, so now it is an embarrassment.  Like all those videos showing cops murdering people now. Martin Stroud is the prosecutor who railroaded the innocent man.

Marty Stroud admitted in a letter published in a Louisiana newspaper last month that he was to blame for putting Glenn Ford behind bars in 1983

OK...  so... (Glenn Ford is the victim.)

In the letter, Stroud admitted that he was to blame for mistakenly putting Ford behind bars for the fatal shooting of a jeweler, despite no murder weapon or witnesses placing him at the scene.

'In 1984, I was 33 years old,' he wrote. 'I was arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself. I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning.' 

Mistakenly?  Is that what we call it?  This is an otherwise unheard of event?  OK.. so what to do?

'Glenn Ford should be completely compensated to every extent possible because of the flaws of a system that effectively destroyed his life,' Stroud wrote.

'The audacity of the state's effort to deny Mr. Ford any compensation for the horrors he suffered in the name of Louisiana justice is appalling.' 

Ah, it is the systems' fault, not the individual whose actions are immune from prosecution.  Martin Stroud had nothing to do with this right?   Maybe, just maybe, if prosecutors were answerable for fun-time career-enhancing false prosecutions, there would be fewer executions and incarcerations of innocent poor and minority.  Just maybe.  Martin Stroud did nothing wrong, it is the system!

If Martin Stroud III actually had the slightest concern about what he had done to the man, he would take everything he gained in the last 33 years and give it to the man he personally railroaded up the river, and not condemn the taxpayers for not kicking in to cover up Strouds' malfeasance and personal aggrandizement.

But that ain't gonna happen.  This is America.

We need truth commissions, not government prosecutors.

Update:  Today, this -

The government has identified almost 3,000 cases in which FBI agents may have given testimony involving the now-discredited technique. So far only about 500 of those cases have been been reviewed.
Some 268 of those involved FBI examiners providing expert evidence in court that pointed to the guilt of the defendant – of which 257, or 96%, included false testimony.
Most shockingly, at least 35 defendants received the death penalty, 33 of which were the subject of false FBI testimony. Nine of the prisoners were executed and five died from other causes on death row.

Something like 90% of cases involve plea bargain with no trial, so figure about ten times as many people falsely convicted, but no chance of review since they admitted guilt to avoid a life sentence.

Truth commissions.

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USA War & Jesus

An interesting article on sniper-worship, with a summary I've long suspected:

I’m a Christian, but I don’t go to church. Americans have made modern Christianity almost synonymous with war and the US military. I’m not alone in avoiding churches for exactly this reason. I can’t stand sitting through sermons on the myth of American exceptionalism. American Christianity has lost all moral authority and now suffers the intellectual backlash for its pro-war rhetoric. What thinking person wants to belong to a church that places greater moral weight on petty vices than the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

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The Afflecks Owned Slaves

Ben Affleck, from an old American family, has ancestors who owned slaves.

Oh.

And he asked for and received censroship of this fact.  W T F ?!!??

It is never the facts, it is always the cover-up.

Ben Affleck persuaded the producers of Finding Your Roots to edit out details of how his ancestors were slave owners even though it was a breach of PBS editorial rules.The new Batman star, who supports a number of liberal causes, objected to the ancestry TV show airing how his distant relations were racist, leaked Sony emails reveal.

So what?! If you are long term American, your family probably owned slaves, if you were the right people.  Here is a bill of sale for some slaves my ancestors auctioned off.  On Christmas Eve.



Hell, the Spiers were so tied up in slaves court cases got involved:

1808
Spiers v. Willison, 4 Cranch 398, 8 U.S. 398, 2 L.Ed. 659(U.S.Ky.,1808)(Rebecca Willison, claimed title to the slaves under her grandmother, and at the trial offered parol proof that the grandmother, while Kentucky was a part of Virginia, had given them to her by a deed, which  was lost. By the Virginia act of assembly, no gift of a slave was valid unless in writing and recorded. Court Held:  parol evidence may be given of the existence of a deed of gift to show the nature of possession which accompanied the deed.)
Ramsay v. Lee, 4Cranch 401 (Mem), 8 U.S.  401, 2 L.Ed. 660 (U.S.Dist.Col.,1808) In Virginia, in 1784, no gift of a slave was valid unless in writing and recorded, although possession accompanied the gift.

Back to that bill of sale...  the Spiers were rich and connected.  A man's sins unto the third and fourth generation...."  We were wiped out four generations after that.

I teach my kids two lessons:

1. Don't worry what crimes your ancestors committed that were "OK" at the time, what crimes are YOU committing now that are "OK" at the time?

2.   Don't fool yourself, all you gain will be lost if it is crime-based.

Update:

Affleck has not learned his lesson:

Affleck said he hopes that, if anything, the PBS controversy would keep the issue of slavery in the national spotlight.
“We deserve neither credit nor blame for our ancestors,” he wrote, “and the degree of interest in this story suggests that we are, as a nation, still grappling with the terrible legacy of slavery.”

Nice diversion, Ben.  The question is not slavery in your case, it is integrity.   The controversy is that you were given the censorship you requested. And now the brand is shot, knowing that the raison d'etre of the show is contrived.

Again, Ben, what crimes do you engage in today that are "OK" today, but will be appalling in the light of cold history?  Think ben, think!

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John to Soldiers

Luke 3-14

14Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”

But then -  see the difference?

King James Bible

And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English

And soldiers were asking him and they were saying, “What shall we do also?” He said to them, “Do harm to no man, do no injustice and let your wages be sufficient for you.”

American King James Version

And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said to them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.

Douay-Rheims Bible

And the soldiers also asked him, saying: And what shall we do? And he said to them: Do violence to no man; neither calumniate any man; and be content with your pay. 

English Revised Version

And soldiers also asked him, saying, And we, what must we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither exact anything wrongfully; and be content with your wages.

Young's Literal Translation

And questioning him also were those warring, saying, 'And we, what shall we do?' and he said unto them, 'Do violence to no one, nor accuse falsely, and be content with your wages.'

If you read the Commentary on the passage, it seems to say how to behave outside of actual war, since most soldiers in history are rarely in actual battle.  In essence, these conditions cannot be met, therefore...

Further, as people cannot pay for the wars we advance, we are visited with violence to collect the money.  Extortion may have been a common problem, but I think it is contrary to the whole culture of violence of a standing military.

http://biblehub.com/luke/3-14.htm

And not to put too fine a point on it, eventually soldiers arrested and executed John the Baptist.

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Irving Berlin Song about Bombing Berlin

In the good old days, they made no bones about taxes going to fund the escapades of the billionaires:



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