My Life Without Bullet Wounds

It is a known fact that I have never been shot by the police nor by any other law abiding citizen.  One reason for this part of my life is that I never put myself into a situation where a police officer might feel the need to shoot me, and I never broke into a person's home, attacked them, or otherwise made someone feel for their life in such a way that then needed to shoot me.  I am actually proud of this fact.

Have you ever noticed that most people with bullet wounds from police officers and law abiding citizens actually received them under circumstances whereby they challenged someone in a way that normal law abiding people never act?  I mean, they punch someone or beat them.  They use a weapon of blunt force and intimidate their victim.

I submit to you that most people who get shot by police and law abiding citizens were probably doing things they never should have done in places they never should have been.  I do not say that it is not a free country, but let us face it, if you want to punch someone in the face for no reason other than to intimidate them or more likely to take their property, then perhaps getting shot might just be on your bucket list.

When dealing with a police officer, who would actually try to run or worse, to punch them in the face?  If you obey laws, can you conceive of punching a police officer, hitting him with a stick, or even yelling at him to make him angry?  Personally, I would not, and it is not because I am afraid.  I choose not to do it because what point would it prove?  Even if I were right, who would believe me?  I would end up with a ticket or even in jail for being a jerk.

When you find yourself in a bad situation, why not simply answer a question or two from a police officer instead of punching him in the face or hitting him with a stick.  I certainly do not recommend kicking him or otherwise causing physical harm to him.  What is it about people who having been shot by a police officer or a law abiding citizen always say they themselves were unarmed?  Unarmed but left the person with the gun having a bloody and swollen head.  As the perpetrator of the beating, you think beating your victim with your bare hands is harmless, but the victim's head does not agree.  To the victim, he has no idea when you might stop or when you might grab his gun if he has one.  To the victim, it kind of makes sense to pull that gun out and use it to defend what life he has left before you beat it out of him.

Police officers are targets.  They can make a legitimate traffic stop and unwittingly be shot and killed by the driver before they even realize what happened, so as a police officer, every action against their person might be life threatening.  I submit to you that if you physically attack a police officer with so much as a finger, you willingly take your life into your own hands.  If you end up with a bullet wound, you really ought not to complain.  Further, if your relative is the idiot who attacked the police officer, you are no different than the family and friends of the BTK Killer who said, "We never knew.  He was such a nice guy."  Remember, no mother of a child molestor would believe that her son would do such things as touch little boys and girls.  In effect, you have the same outlook as the parent of a child molestor in believing that your relative is not capable of doing anything violent or bad at all.  Of course, unbeknownst to you, it probably is not the first time that your son hit someone in anger.  After all, he just took the giant step of slugging a police officer.  Were you born yesterday?  Wake up.

A Wager on Employability

I always hear that I should feel sorry for homeless people and that I should be compelled to help them out.  To this, I do not necessarily disagree with the concept but with how the concept might be applied.  For instance, one way to help might be to volunteer at a soup kitchen or to donate food to a local food bank.  A totally different way to help might be to pass a law requiring everyone to give "equally".  Hmmm.....

What if the unemployed individual does not want to be employed or if the homeless person does not want to have a home, and how can we tell the difference between the individual who wants no responsibility and the one who needs help to get back on his or her feet?  If someone wants no help at all, then how can the help you provide actually result in the end product that you desire?  Said differently, if a person likes to be unattached to a home or a job and if you enable that person to accept a check every week or month with the expectation that the person will get a home or a job at some point in the future, then what expectation have you set, and is it really attainable?

I wager a bet that I could make a final success out of any homeless or unemployed individual in the country as long as they meet two criteria.  First, they have to be willing to take any job and hold it until they reach retirement age, no matter how petty, insignificant, and boring the job might be.  Second, they have to have a clean criminal record with no moral turpitude.  Find me someone like this without a home and a job, and I guarantee they will not be lacking for long.  To the rest, let them be held accountable for their choices.  Is it my responsibility to ensure that drug addicts, felons, and all out irresponsible people can eat at my expense?

I do believe that certain people ought to be assisted who are altogether unemployable by no fault of their own; however, how this assistance might be distributed is up for debate.  People with physical disabilities so severe that they cannot achieve employment ought to have choices, and by physical disabilities I mean blind, deaf, paralyzed, amputees, brain damaged, those with Downs Syndrome, etc.  Also in this group are those with mental illness so severe that they cannot even think straight, but they have to be bonified and verifiable.  It is for those without choices to whom real assistance should be given for they are the ones who are truly helpless.  Show me a system that supports only those incapable of helping themselves, and I can stand behind it.

Failure and Success

If you don't like to fail, then do something you can win.  If you like to win, then try to do it more often.  Usually, it is more entertaining to do things you enjoy than to do things that you don't.  In the end, distasteful things do not taste good, and painful things hurt.  So try to win and feel good and eat tasty food.  Life will be more enjoyable.

Thought on the Israel Crisis

Having served as a Marine, and continuing to be one to this day, it never ceases to amaze me the amount of second guessing that non-war, long hair, hippie type people vocally demonstrate about those in harm's way.  They do so from the comfort of their air conditioned home knowing that their own home would never be bombed by an aggressor.

What is worse is when a historically persecuted people defend themselves in the only manner they can, these American arm chair quarterbacks swing into action in an effort to demoralize the underdog while rationalizing the actions of the instigator.

Before stepping into an argument that you know little about, you should realize that everything being done is similar and the same to what we, as a country, have done in defense of our own offensive capability, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc.

The death of civilians in any conflict is unavoidable, especially when the enemy chooses to conduct operations in populated areas.  Research the number of civilian deaths in any conflict in the history of mankind before accusing a lawful government of genocide, especially when the citizens of that lawful country were actual victims of genocide in gas chambers, firing squads, and who knows what other sick and atrocious things they encountered.

We have no responsibility to support that country's efforts, but neither do we have an obligation to support the other side simply because a news outlet chooses to select those pictures engendering the most emotional reactions.  They do so because it directly translates into viewership which in turn positively affects ratings.  Those ratings in turn convert themselves into higher dollar value of commercials to sell to corporate America.  In effect, your criticism serves to persecute Jewish people to the benefit of corporate America.  Yes, that's you, driving up ratings so that media executives can afford private yachts.

Let there be no mistake, I stand with Israel, as one who served and as one who has knowledge of that type of combat.

Socialists and Pedophiles

Socialism is a political/economic system expounded upon and delineated within a book called "The Communist Manifesto" written by Karl Marx.  As a child, I learned that Communism was bad.

In today's society, if you refer to a socialist as a communist, they dispute your meaning and challenge your reasoning, but the socialist philosophy comes from the book "The Communist Manifesto".  Is a pedophile not a sex offender but merely a lover of children?

Think about it....