Update no.1005

 Update from the Sunland

No.1005

12.4.21 – 18.4.21

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

 

            To all,

 

The funeral service for Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was held on Saturday afternoon, 17.April.2021, at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.  It was a modest affair by British standards due to the pandemic precautions in effect in the United Kingdom.  The weather, at least in the vicinity of Windsor, was as close to perfect as anyone could expect—a beautiful day.  The ceremony was a fitting sendoff for a noble life well lived.

 

I have been watching the Derek Michael Chauvin trial, or at least parts of it, as much as I have been able to do.  Closing arguments are scheduled to begin this coming Monday, and then the case goes to the jury.

The defense counsel attempted to create a sliver of doubt in the mind of at least one juror by throwing a pot of spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick.  We can only hope the jury in toto is smarter than the defense thinks.

The hard cold reality is once George Floyd (or any arrestee or detainee) was restrained (in handcuffs behind his back), those police officers had an obligation—a duty—to protect George Floyd (or any other restrained citizen) no matter what his medical, mental, emotional, physical, or combination of conditions.  It does not matter a hoot whether he had a heart condition or was jacked up on drugs, those police officers failed, and failed miserably, to perform their duty.  If Chauvin had stopped and rendered aid as soon as Floyd stopped moving, he might have got away with a minor disciplinary punishment for violating department policy and training, but he did not do so.  No, he did not.  There is no doubt in my little pea-brain that Chauvin murdered George Floyd and deserves to spend substantial time in prison contemplating the errors of his actions.

Hopefully, the verdict is delivered swiftly.

 

Stop resisting police officers!  When a police officer tells you to do something, do not mouth off!  Do not object!  Follow his instructions precisely.  That police officer is trying to keep you and himself safe, while he sorts out whatever the instigating issue was.

The police often do not know anything about the person they stop, or question, or detain.  Conversely, no citizen can know what any Law Enforcement (LE) officer is dealing with at any moment.  It is the solemn duty of LE to preserve the peace and enforce the laws established by the State (local, state or federal).  When a LE officer instructs any of us to do something, let us respect the extraordinary and vital job LE is charged with performing on our behalf.  All of us should be grateful for what they do on our behalf.  Further, we should all feel an obligation to help LE when we are able to do so.

When you fail to comply with LE instructions, the officer has no choice but to view that resistance as a threat; s/he has no way to know why you are resisting.  S/he must also assume the worst since s/he has way to know what any particular person is thinking or what his motives are.

 

There have been so many mass murders in the last few months that it is beyond my capacity to offer observations.

On Friday, the 16^th, a disgruntled former employee shot and killed eight innocent people at the FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana.  What makes this particular event more noteworthy than the others is the boy’s parents notified police and the FBI in March of last year that their son was potentially violent.  With a warrant, LE confiscated a shotgun to prevent him from injuring himself or others.  Unfortunately, according to Press reports, he had at least one legally acquired AR look-alike rifle.  The system, such as it is, failed to prevent the acquisition.  Eight people died as a consequence.  The perp took his own life before the incident was over.

At 02:30 [S] CST, 29.March.2021, a 13-year-old boy in Chicago was killed by a single shot from an LE officer’s pistol.  The stop-frame video capture recorded at the instant the shot was fired shows the boy with his hands raised and empty.  A similar frame just a few seconds earlier appears to show a pistol in his right hand.  A pistol was found in close proximity to where the boy died.  We do not yet know the association.  What is notable with this one is the fractions of a second an LE officer must decide and react.  The officer had multiple reasons to believe the perpetrator he was chasing was armed and dangerous.  He had absolutely no way to know the perpetrator’s age, ethnicity, or other details, and he had to react to the exigencies of that instant in time.  That police officer did NOT enjoy the benefit of stop-frame video and seconds of detailed analysis.  At the end of the day, a 13-year-old boy can kill you just as dead, just as a 6-year-old girl can do.  My generation saw the potential in Vietnam.  Another generation saw it in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If you do not want to be shot by police or military, do not do threatening things.

 

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a loosely structured political protest group that formed in 2015 to publicly illuminate incidents of police brutality and violence against citizens with dark skin pigmentation.  I have not written much about BLM or their activities, but the time has come.

The right has chosen to vilify BLM as some ultra-left, radical, violence-prone organization somehow determined to break down the fabric of this once grand republic.  The right shouts, “All lives matter,” or “Blue lives matter.”  What the right’s incantation of opposition fails to recognize or acknowledge is two centuries of state-sanctioned or at least state-condoned slavery—the subjugation and oppression of an entire race of citizens simply because of the natural pigmentation in their skin.  You have but to watch any one of myriad video clips of excessive use of force by LE, often the instrument of oppression.  This is NOT to say that some of those citizens with dark skin pigmentation helped to escalate the situation by their resistance, defiance or non-compliance.

BLM is not the problem and is in fact a symptom of a much larger societal issue.  Slavery became constitutionally illegal when the “loyal” states ratified the 13^th Amendment (1865).  But alas, those states, so inclined, chose to ignore the U.S. Constitution and passed multiple laws that became known as Jim Crow laws to oppress citizen simply due to the natural pigmentation in their skin.  Those laws remained in force until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Unfortunately, the Constitution and the law were not sufficient to overcome the inertia of segregation, oppression and racism.  The U.S. Supreme Court has multiple rulings involving race, not least of which were Brown v. Board of Education [347 U.S. 483 (1954); 17.5.1954], ending segregation on the basis of race, and Loving v. Virginia [388 U.S. 1 (1967); 12.6.1967] [175] that declared laws against inter-racial marriage were unconstitutional.  The laws and court ruling are but a mere fraction of legal actions by all three branches of government to end institutional racism.  Regrettably, institutional racism is in the hearts and minds of men who were taught the hatred of racism by their parents, perpetuated over many generations.  Racism is with us to this very day, and it is not confined for the former slave states—once referred to as the Confederate States of America.

Yes, BLM is very necessary and quite appropriate.  We need BLM to help us see.  It is time for me to go on record, I support what BLM is doing and must do.  Institutional racism, well actually racism in all its ugly forms, must end and must be confronted everywhere and however we see it.  Racism is the denial of a citizen’s unalienable rights simply because of his skin pigmentation, as such, it is illegal, unconstitutional, unethical, immoral, and otherwise just flat wrong.  The [person who shall no longer be named] supported the racist ideology for political gain and that makes him de facto a racist; there is plenty of other evidence to suggest he is himself a racist as he was taught by his parents.  So, yes, I fully support BLM, and I encourage them to continue their protests against racism in all its forms.

 

On Tuesday, 13.April.2021, President Biden announced the withdrawal of last remaining troops from Afghanistan in coordination with our allies.  The president publicly stated that four presidents (two Republican, two Democrat) had shepherded the war in Afghanistan, and he would not hand it off to a fifth.  On one hand, I laud the president’s courage in taking this important step, and yet, I hold some trepidation regarding the wisdom of the action.  Iacta alea est!  Time shall tell the tale as whether this is a wise decision.  I shall remain optimistic . . . until I have reason not to do so.

 

In the category of really rich (he said with utmost sarcasm), Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia announced she was going to form an America First caucus within the House of Representatives.  Unfortunately, the self-professed QAnon believer should have paid attention in school.  She continues to display her ignorance.  America First is hardly a novel or original thought.  The America First Committee (AFC) was established on 4.September.1940, with many notable politicians, citizens and believers espousing isolationist sentiments and policies.  The AFC was very influential in the political arena until the 7^th of December 1941.  Like her hero, the [person who shall no longer be named], she floated a nonsense idea, and when it did not gain traction, she rescinded her suggestion.  This is not the first of her brain-farts, and it will not be the last.  Unfortunately, we must endure her nonsense as we endured the [person who shall no longer be named].  And so it goes.

 

            Comments and contributions from Update no.1004:

Comment to the Blog:

“‘Evidence-based problems’ abound, but politicians don’t think that way.  Winning is everything and the means of winning are a matter of group ethics.

“I am not a moderate.  Perhaps those who would address the ills in this nation should give up trying to make deals with the devils that caused them.

“I don’t see the 2^nd Amendment resulting from distrust of government.  The people who wrote it were themselves the government.  It came about because the new United States had no standing army.  The Founders surely knew the potential for insurrection.  After all, such things had been attempted in their recent history, hence the clause about “a well-regulated militia”.  However, those who would commit insurrection were present then and now.  They are inching closer to success ever since Reagan.

“I am very close friends with a retired professional whose career was in mental health institutions.  Doing something useful about mental illness sounds far easier than it will ever be.  Also, check for evidence of mental illness diagnoses in the specific incidents.  One point people who deal with mental illness would like to make is that few of them are ever dangerous.”

My response to the Blog:

Yeah, the “win at all costs” mentality is an anathema in a civilized, law-abiding nation.  Group ethics, yes, but to me, it is more tribal, more primal than group dynamics.  We must get beyond this nonsense.

Now, there is that.  Nonetheless, they are still citizens.

Thank you for expressing your opinion.  Unfortunately, I do not have the time to go reconstruct the evidence in the founding documents.  Yes, absolutely, a “well-regulated militia” was an effort to avoid a standing army, which in itself was considered a potential threat to the sovereignty of the government.  Yes, the forces of insurrection were present two centuries ago and remain present today.  Those who have power seek to retain power; thus, the white supremacy movement.

Yes, again absolutely, the vast majority of those afflicted with various degrees of mental illness are not violent and do not commit crimes, set aside mass murder.  However, mental illness pops up in many of these events, e.g., Sandy Hook, Aurora, Parkland, et cetera.  I could argue Las Vegas, Blacksburg, Orlando, Columbine, and others are in that category as well.  Like all such issues, we must be very careful not to emotionally over-react and penalize all mentally ill individuals to find the few prone to violence.  The most obvious one of the lot was Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of Sandy Hook; he clearly had diagnosed mental illness that remained untreated despite his mother’s desperate attempts to find help to treat her son.  She knew the signs were not good but could not find help.

Lastly, as a reminder, I am NOT focusing my thoughts on the mentally ill in the matter of appropriate firearm regulation.  I am only arguing for balance.  Mental illness is a root cause; firearms are not.  We must deal with the triage and treatment of mental illness in a balanced approach to dealing with a tragic, horrific, and catastrophic societal issue.  Balance!

 . . . Round two:

“What you’re describing as ‘more tribal, more primal’ IS the group dynamic.  What I mentioned was group ethics, which is part of group dynamics.

“Citizenship has nothing to do with political strategy.  Trying to respect and make compromises with the people whose actions destroy the country is irrational.

“Certainly, any mass killer has a mental illness, but they cause a small segment of firearm deaths and make up a tiny fragment of the mentally ill.  I would like to see much more attention and money spent on mental illness, but that’s no way to address firearm deaths.  Let’s put our efforts where they might have some effect.”

 . . . my response to round two:

OK.  I cannot argue with that.  It is all about definitions, I suppose.

Here is a relevant point of debate.  Again, definitions come to play.  If you ask those people you accuse of destruction, they will say that is exactly what they are striving for—saving the country.  If you (in the general 2^nd person plural sense) believe this once grand republic is reserved for only white, protestant, educated, property owners, then you will see “saving” in a very particular way.  Discrimination often by law and often violently imposed goes back long before the Revolution and Constitution.  We fought a civil war and lost hundreds of thousands of citizens in the name of state’s rights and discrimination in the worst possible form.  Why are the followers of and believers in the [person who shall no longer be named] invariably carrying American flags (even Confederate flags, among others)?  They are wrapping themselves in that notion they are saving the nation for white supremacy, Jim Crow, and their notion of proper social conduct.  Arguably, the Charleston shooter was one of those “patriots.”  These forces of discrimination, segregation, domination, and oppression must be overcome as they have been since before the Founding.  So it is today.

Yes, I can agree with that.  Further, I will argue that homicide (other than for self-defense) is a degree of mental illness (or perhaps malformation [i.e., parental]).  To me, causing any injury to another person is disrespect for the rights of another human being.  Again, to me, reckless driving is no different from firing a bullet into the air; it has the potential to injure someone.  Yes, agreed as well; the vast majority of mentally ill or disturbed individuals are not and never will be violent or injurious of others.  We cannot and must not penalize or stigmatize all of those people because we are trying to find those few among that lot who are or have the potential to be violent or injurious of others.  I readily acknowledge the process of filtration and triage of the mentally ill is very complicated and demands a sophisticated system of checks and balances to protect the rights of the majority while identifying the threats to public safety.  Inaction in the face of that complexity is simply unacceptable.  I am with you; I would like to see much more attention to and spending on the treatment of mental illness.  Some of that is public awareness, i.e., educating all citizens of the symptoms, the processes, and means by which we identify and properly treat the Adam Lanzas within our society.  “Don’t ask, don’t tell” has never been the proper thing to do.  I do believe we are in agreement on this matter.

 . . . Round three:

“Most people believe most of what they say, no matter how insane it seems to the rest of us.  That doesn’t change anything.

“We agree on the importance of treating mental illness, but I doubt its effectiveness as a means of reducing firearms deaths.  Perhaps mass shootings, but not deaths overall.”

 . . . my response to round three:

I confess to a bit of a chuckle upon reading your first sentence.  You are, of course, quite correct in your observation.  We see the phenomenon in spades to this very day.  Far too many of our citizens ignore facts and evidence to justify their beliefs.  Absolutely, selective belief changes nothing . . . except 74 million of them voted for the bastard.  That is not a trivial reality.

Perhaps you missed an important implied part of my statement—the key word triage.  In more a familiar medical context, hospitals have rules that requirement them to report evidence involving crimes of violence, e.g., gunshot or stab wounds, contusions consist with violent struggle, and such.  The same should be true for those trained to evaluate mental illness and specifically the potential for violence.  Mental health professionals must be compelled to report observations associated with any propensity for violence or the attributes of violence.  In the case of Adam Lanza, I think there was sufficient evidence to warrant state intervention and treatment.  I have and will continue to argue similar evidence was available in the cases of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, among others.  Qualified observers like schools, hospitals, clinics, EMT professionals, and even law enforcement should have the means to record observations to build a profile.  I can argue that there was sufficient evidence to institutionalize Adam Lanza, and short of that, to remove firearms from his residence counter to his mother’s rights to possess firearms—general public safety and the common good.

 

Another contribution:

“Indeed Cap. No spring here as yet-you know what will happen the sun will shine again and we will all be complaining about the heat!

“Covid, non-essential shops opening, the crowds are barmy, personal spacing etc. forgotten.  Not a good start.  Again we shall see.

“Have a good day mate-

“Shopping this morning, we travel in an almost empty bus provided by the supermarket-free!”

My reply:

Nature of the beast, my friend.  We tend to want what we do not have, so it is with the weather.

Giving up on societal protections too soon is an invitation to an infection spike.  We see the same phenomenon here as well.

Wow, a free bus to the supermarket is unusual.  Take advantage of the generous provision while it lasts.

Even though we are fully vaccinated and inoculated against the COVID19 virus, we must remain protective and cautious until the virus is defeated.  We are not there yet.

 

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                  :-)