WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

The six words in the heading of this article represent the final six words of the US Pledge of Allegiance, words that most of us learned in the 1^st grade as children.  These are words that I’ve repeated at least 1000 times throughout the course of my life, they are words that both my parents taught me to believe in because, as they put it, as a child born in America, you’re entitled to all of the benefits that being an American entails.  For most of my life, I rarely questioned my place in America because deep down I know that this really is one of the greatest countries ever; however, I have also come to know that we have some truly hateful people in this country and unless the rest of us stand up to the haters, the day is not far off when we’ll rip this country apart at the seams. 

One month ago today, a young black man was gunned down by a Neighborhood Watch person as he walked home from the store in a neighborhood where he was visiting with his father and once again we were all reminded that  if you’re black in America, “Liberty and Justice for All” cannot be taken literally.  Ask anyone black about justice, and they’ll tell you that when looking for justice in America, you’ll find “Just US”.  Does anyone believe that had a 16 year old Caucasian child been murdered by a person of any race under these circumstances that the person would not have been arrested?  Not only would that person be arrested, he would most certainly be found guilty of murder and sent to Death Row, and God help the poor bastard if his face is black!

 As tragic as the Treyvon Marshall murder is, I submit that there is a much larger issue surrounding this tragedy that needs to be examined.

As much as we hate to talk about race in this country, the situation that led to Treyvon’s murder was clearly racially motivated.  I’m not saying that George Zimmerman is a racist, because I’ve never met the man, but we all know that he reacted the way that he did because he stereotyped a young black man as being out of place in his neighborhood and, thus, he had to be up to no good.  This is not something, however, that’s unique to this case.  Black men of all ages are singled out in this way all across America every single day, and now it appears that it’s no longer enough for a black man to be harassed by the police if he appears out of place, now ordinary citizens have that right as well. 

All of my life, our government has gone all around the world telling others about basic human and civil rights.  We’ve condemned other countries for the persecution of their citizens and told them how they should be more like America.  It’s long past time that we take our own advice and live up to those final six words of the Pledge of Allegiance.  Since the very start of our country, black people have served this country in every capacity, and made un-measurable contributions to the society as a whole.  Yet, there are those who refuse to live by six simple words written in 1892 and recited by every American school child for more than a century. 
 I believe in America and its justice system, so I am hopeful that George Zimmerman will get (legally) what he’s got coming.  I find it hard to believe that a person who goes out of his way to initiate a confrontation with someone, even after he is warned not to, by the police, could then kill someone’s child and get away with it.  No matter what happened once he confronted Treyvon Martin, had he stayed in his car and allowed the police to get there and handle things, Treyvon Martin would be alive today. 

It is important that we all live by those final six words of the pledge, and encourage others to do so as well.  I am fortunate enough to have many friends both black and white who treat everyone they encounter with dignity and respect, but we all know people who don’t.  We all know who the haters in our world are and it’s time that we stop ignoring their behavior.  It’s time for the sane among us to “Take Our Country Back” from the hate mongers and idiots who have hijacked civility and common decency in America. 

I’m just sayin

IS OBAMA NOW RUNNING THE NFL?

We all know that president Obama and his democrat friends are for wealth redistribution, but until yesterday I didn’t know that they had taken over the National Football League (NFL).  The league yesterday issued a statement saying that the Cowboys were being assessed ten million against the salary cap while the Redskins would be assessed Thirty-Six million for violating some unwritten rule against paying players too much money in 2010 which was supposed to be a uncapped year.  Two other teams were also hit with minor (about 1.5 million) in fines for the same violation.  While fans of the other 28 teams might view this as justice, Redskins and Cowboys fans now have something in common in that we see it as Wealth Redistribution.  That’s right; it’s redistribution of wealth in its ugliest form.

The Cowboys and Redskins are the NFL’s two most valuable franchises, and their owners have bucked the system over the years to find ways of find ways to pay their players more than anyone else.  Now it seems that the other owners have decided that it’s not fair to have the rich teams be able to afford the best players.  Jerry Jones spent a billion dollars to build the new Cowboy’s stadium, and trust me, having seen it, it was worth every penny; and despite whatever faults one can find with Dan Schneider, the one that can’t be said about him is that he hasn’t spent like a mad man to try and make his team better.  These two owners (of the two premiere teams in the NFL) have done more in the last 10 years to make the league great than the rest of the owners combined, now find themselves the victims of the kind of jealousy that is running amuck in our country. 

Just to make sure I’ve got this right, we now have rules in our country that say that if I can afford a BMW, Mercedes or Cadillac, and my neighbor drives a Hyundai or Yugo, I should drive one of those as well?  I think not; I earned my BMW and dammit I’m going to drive it.  Truth be told, if my neighbor is walking I don’t really care, but  Of course if he needs a ride, I’ll give him a ride, but I’m not giving up my Beamer for him.  If your coworker can only afford to live in apartment, does that now mean that you should sell your nice single family home in the burbs so that your coworker doesn’t feel bad?    

I’m sure that you get the idea by now but just in case let me spell it out.  I like many people who are a little better off than most feel for people who are not and thus I give lots to my church and to charity, but it is neither, fair or reasonable that you should take what I’ve worked hard for and give it to someone else.  I’m not saying that poor people don’t work hard, but I am saying that I’m not responsible for their lot in life!  If you want more out of life, educate yourself and do what most wealthy people do, work harder, give up the luxuries early in life so that you can have more later in life.  Learn to save and invest and believe in Life Long Learning.

The Obama administration’s theory of Tax the Rich makes no more sense than the NFL’s punishment of the Cowboys and Redskins. 

No matter how you slice it, you can’t make life equal by punishing those who work hard, study hard and do better in life or sports!

I’M JUST SAYIN

AMERICA’S PERMENANT CRIMINAL UNDERCLASS

When I was growing up, we were taught that sometimes decent people make mistakes and commit crimes.  We were also taught that if you make that mistake, or commit a crime that once you paid your debt to society, all was forgiven and you could once again be considered a good citizen.  I remember the days when criminals went to jail and came out in a few years with a GED and if they were there long enough possibly even a college degree.  I’m not really sure how long ago the things that I was taught and observed changed, but they definitely have and we need to to ask ourselves is our society better off today than we were all those years ago?  Our justice system has been converted from a place to rehabilitate criminals to a for profit institution in which there is no incentive to rehabilitate those caught up in the system. 

In my view, we put people in jail and make every effort to ensure that they come out worse off than the day they went in, their only education opportunity these days is in how to come out a better criminal.  In most cases their right to vote is revoked, ensuring that they have no chance of participating in our democracy, yet they have paid their debt.  After we make sure that these folks can’t vote, we have to make sure they continue to commit crimes, so that we continue to feed our for profit justice system by asking if they’ve ever committed a crime on every job application.  If a person has been convicted of a crime they have virtually no chance of finding a decent job once released; so what do they do? They return to a life of crime and continue to feed the monster that is our for profit justice system.

Please understand that I am not now, nor have I ever been soft on crime.  I just think that if we continue to create this permanent criminal underclass, our country will continue to become less and less safe.  While some don’t worry because they see this underclass as mostly minorities of various races, nothing could be further from the truth.  Today the underclass comes in all races, sexes, shapes, and sizes and they are getting younger and younger by the day.  How many times have you watched the news and seen a criminal who looks like he or she should be at a pajama party or ice cream social rather than taking a gun to school or shooting a classmate or perhaps even committing a robbery of some sort? 

For those who think I’ve lost my mind, consider the following; it cost us over 30K per year to keep someone in prison, while the average cost to educate someone is around 9K, so even in the short term, it’s less costly to educate someone than it is to keep them locked up.  There are people that deserve to be locked up and never let out, but more than half of the people labeled felons in our country are low level drug dealers and petty thieves who’ve committed what are widely considered non- violent crimes by law enforcement.

 Given the cost, it makes no sense to continue to punish people like this once they’ve served their time and repaid their debt to society.

I’M JUST SAYIN