Primitive Christianity Revived, Again
Tags:
I've done my own idolatries and self-deceptions, hence have no reason to accuse anyone of falling into such a condition. To observe and conclude, that is another matter.
Is this the sort of experience of Jesus that came to GW Bush to encourage him to bomb Iraq? -- or an experience of the man who once died on a cross because of his public denunciations of the outward injustices and oppressions perpetrated by the secular and religious rulers of his day?
Does he now regret the outward stands that made him a hero to his poor contemporaries, a dangerous agitator to his comfortable enemies?
I think we've agreed that opposite sides of this conflict feed into one another.
I don't get the feeling you understand that no number of "community organizers, social justice warriors, and political agitators" could move people to risk their lives if the people nominally protecting them weren't armed, dangerous, and bent on inflicting their wills in a high-handed manner.
This is a familiar, frequently recurring kind of incident in San Diego, where producing a monthly tabloid on poverty issues for a few years forced me to look into several such incidents, plus a conference (including police spokemen) on such shootings, which occasionally happen to whites, but almost always strike the significantly smaller Hispanic and black populations -- a conference which showed there was a long history of inappropriate shootings in which the officers received no criminal penalties and whatever effects they might have had on an officer's career were buried (by law) in procedural confidentiality -- while efforts to establish civilian control of police forces continued to be vigorously opposed by well-funded campaigns by high-ranking sheriffs & police departments.
Some police are psychologically shattered by the death of one bystander (even when the shot was fired in an entirely justified circumstance.) Others will join in shooting one unarmed man tens of feet away rather than call for assistance in talking him down. The man I know of in that first situation -- quit the force soon afterwards. Nobody knows what happens to the others.
It is very dangerous to call for police help in quieting anybody mentally disoriented; far too often the subject falls victim to 'suicide by cop.' I remember one time visiting a suicidal friend (who had admittedly troubled the police department, and his friends, a great deal over the years) and being told by a cop who'd also responded: "Maybe we should just let him do it this time."
It's not a job that always brings out the best in people; and while police spokesmen will often say that an officer's most useful weapon is his mouth, guns get used far too often -- and the ear can be very much neglected in an occupational obsession with maintaining 'authority.'
© 2023 Created by QuakerQuaker. Powered by