By Ken Gulley
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
Rahm Emmanuel
As Democrats, and some Republicans, quickly jump to flex their authoritarian muscles during this unprecedented pandemic and economic crisis; Democrats have also been quick to push forward the old idea of nationwide mail-in elections for state primaries and Federal elections. (1)
In the name of “public safety” of course.
You’ve probably come across it.
With Bernie Sanders seriously contending as the Democratic candidate for President in the past two elections seasons, champions of Socialism have crawled out of their parent’s basement to declare their love for all things Socialism. In doing so, they have declared that all things that glitter is obviously not capitalism.
Covid 19 has presented government with a plethora of different challenges, a principal one being how to track and determine real cases of this virus.
Yesterday news broke of a 17 year old boy in LA County who had died. The media jumped on the case as a death attributed to Covid 19 but that information has now been placed on hold seeing that the teen suffered from a number of complications prior to being infected. The US mortality rate for those infected is hovering around 1.4-1.5% (or 0.5-0.6%) more than the yearly viral influenza.
The topic of the week, and no doubt, the topic anytime we experience such heinous tragedies like the one that took place at a Parkland HS in Florida, is the issue of guns. No doubt, any loss of life is a tragedy, but losing 17 at once in a place where we Americans send our young ones is completely unacceptable.
Since that incident, new agencies have rolled out mountains of articles with lofty and emotional rhetoric but very little facts concerning the truth behind gun control’s success or lack there of. In fact much of the debate is centered around emotional responses as opposed to finding practical things that will truly work.
Introduction
Here it is, and I will do my best to keep it short.
I don’t excuse bad policing or racist policing for that matter. As an officer, getting rid of those in our ranks who operate in such a manner is beneficial to the society and to good police officers alike. I also know from experience how important it is to put aside our bias or prejudice in favor of a clean slate. It’s taught in academies nationwide and its reinforced daily on each and every call for service. It’s something civilians also must be mindful in examining police actions.
A Note to the reader
Let me start off by saying this. The loss of life, good or bad and guilty or innocent, is tragic. As men, it obviously pains us more when the loss of life is of the innocent rather than guilty. God finds both equal saying, “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls” (Proverbs 17:17) and “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 18:23).
This past month, we got to witness the violent deaths of two men at the hands of Law Enforcement Officers. Emotions quickly took over for many people, damning the slayings and calling for revenge. Such emotional responses do nothing good for the cause of Justice. Such responses only allow the perversion of Justice as facts are lost in the cloud of fiction and assumptions become the ruling reasons for actions.
Inconvenient Truths
Life presents a myriad of challenges. When we first enter the world, the first obstacle we all experience is taking our first breath in our new womb-less world. If we could process it, we would almost immediately discover that this world isn’t built on fairness and equality but rather competition & survival. Some time ago, a savvy scientist labeled this observation, “survival of the fittest.” For man, life is no different than it is for the beast if you ignore man’s ability to reason. But there in lies the problem, man can reason.
PR(OOF) 