But who watches the watchmen?

In America, we have a system of laws designed with the intent to uphold personal liberties, generally. When one breaks one of these laws, they are arrested by the cops. But what happens when it's a cop who breaks a law? More often than not, the other cops cover up for him and any incident is merely swept under the rug. And when an officer with morals goes "hey, that's not right," guess who faces consequences for their actions? If you guessed the cop who broke the law, it pains me to say, but you are mistaken. It is often, in fact, the righteous cop who gets the shaft.

In 2003 in Kansas City, an on-duty cop tried to pass a guy on his way to pick up his prescription on the right alley on single lane road. The guy sped up and wouldn't let the cop illegally pass and the two cars collided. The officer drew his gun, and threw the guy on the ground. It was 100 degrees or so. When he lifted his face off the pavement, the officer interpreted it as resisting arrest, or so the story goes, and then he whaled on the guy currently being shackled. He was then charged for causing the car collision on account of the officers finding a marijuana pipe in his car. He was acquitted, but not before he had sustained brain damage.

The cop assigned to investigate was told to cover up for the on-duty agents "because you know what happened down there." But he didn't. He conducted a thorough investigation and was then fired for doing his job. Meanwhile, the guilty cop continues to work in the same department, and the guy he accosted now has brain damage and severe emotional issues. How about them apples?

Unfortunately, that type of story isn't the exception, but rather the rule.

In 2008, 10 rookie cops viciously beat up a cab driver. The only cop punished in the end? The one who tried to break it off.

What kind of justice can we expect from a system that punishes only the morally righteous?

Justice for the Children?

As Jared Lee Loughner, the Tucson shooter who shot Judge John Roll, Gabrielle Giffords, her Gabe Zimmerman, 9 year old Christina Green, and a great many others, is being currently prosecuted, another case begins to unfold about a shooting which took place way back in 2009. Being prosecuted is Shawna Forde, a lady who is never without a gun on her. She is the head of a group that calls themselves the Minutemen American Defense. If you'll watch the interview here, she'll state that her group is meant to keep third-world illegals out.

At one point, she and her group got a tip-off about there being a drug dealer of sorts. So, naturally, her group, consisting of her and two other men, armed up on weapons, and went over to the house at 1 in the morning. They knocked on the door impersonating the police force. Raul woke his wife, Gina, the two went to open the door, taking care to avoid waking up their sleeping daughter, Brisenia (because the puppy was not allowed in her bedroom, she was sleeping in the living room with the puppy). As Flores opened the door, he was told by the tall man that if he moved, he would be shot. As they were coming in, he asked to see their badges or identification. Upon hearing this, the tall man shot him in the face, then shot Gina twice, once in the leg and once in the chest. She pretended to be unconscious and heard Shawna say "There's nothing here. We've hit the wrong house." At this point her 10 year old daughter woke up crying and asked about her parents. She was then shot twice in the face. One of the shots was from point blank range. Gina waited until they had all left before dialing 9-1-1 and retrieving one of her husband's handguns. In the middle of the call, Shawna came back into the house and a gun fight broke out.

Shawna is currently being tried for the double murder.

Wanting a better life: A felony punishable by 5 years in prison.

Just last week, Kelley Williams-Bolar was judged guilty of tampering with the records and stealing 30k's worth of money from the taxpayers in the region.

What had happened? She lied about where her two daughters lived, and said that they lived with her father, which was within the district of a significantly richer public school than the district they actually lived in, with the poorer school. To compare: New Trier and Evanston High. Evanston is not poor, from what I know, yet when you compare it to New Trier, it is perfectly understandable, the desire to send your children to the better school, to the New Trier, not to the Evanston.

But she lied. And she was caught. And the jury voted guilty on two counts of tampering with the records and sentenced her to 5 years in prison for sending her kids to the better school. The judge reduced her sentence to 10 days in prison, 2 years probation, and 80 hours community service.

She was only a few credit hours away from receiving her teaching certificate. She was working with special needs children. Now the state can arbitrarily decide to deny her the certificate because she is a convicted felon.

Reduction: What can we truly do without?

Just a few days ago, Rand Paul, the Republican Senator of Kentucky, proposed a bill, found here. The Cut Federal Spending Act of 2011, as it will be known should it pass, will do exactly what it sounds like - drastically. The cuts Paul will be making will include the standard cuts any Tea Party member suggests - complete defunding of the Affordable Housing Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He also plans to completely defund the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and all Department of Education programs, as well as capping the Pell Grants at roughly 16.2 million. Nearly every department of government will receive severe cuts - except Social Security. He's said that he'll leave that alone this fiscal year.

Note: I've read through a lot of discussions and replies to this bill, and a lot of people seem to not be understanding this: What he's doing is he's cutting the federal governmental spending. Just because the federal government no longer spends tax revenues on a certain service, say the regulation of public education. Public education will still continue, with minimal affect, except that some schools will not be receiving federal funding. Public education would then be regulated by the state government entirely, as opposed to being regulated by the state for the most part.

We're in debt? Worry not, we'll spend more money and improve the economy!

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama gave the traditional State of the Union Address (transcript found here). In it, he talked about a great many things, not the least of which was the tremendous budget deficit the government currently has. He proposed freezing annual domestic spending for the next five years, which would result in a total save of roughly 400 billion dollars over the next decade, or about 40 billion per year. I'd say that's fantastic, but then I remember that the government spends roughly 3,500 billion per year. So while I'm not saying it's a bad plan, it's nowhere as good as Obama made it sound, when he said that this will bring "discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president." Sure, that sounds lovely, and all that, but it's mostly irrelevant to the fact that the US is still spending about 1 trillion more money than it brings in every year.

Then he mentioned freezing some paychecks for a couple of years of government employees, as well as several tens of billions of dollars from the military budget. Which, while not a bad thing, is simply not enough. Then he talked about the past and how the government had increased spending manyfold to compete with the Soviets during the Space Race, and how doing so had "unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of jobs." Perhaps it had improved the economy, but it had also left the problem of national debt unaddressed. What use is it to build your wooden floor and walls when the very foundation you built it upon is crumbling? Attempting to increase government spending by investing in "biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology - an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people." What Obama plans to do is to spend even more money in an attempt to one-up the rest of the world. I believe such a plan is folly. Even the new jobs would be pointless, since their paychecks would just be added to the national budget. The American economy can survive a 9% unemployment rate for a little bit longer. I do not believe the American country will be able to survive the increasing mountain of debt that's building up and being ignored. Increasing the number of government positions and government contracts can only cause more harm in the long run.

Meta Blog Post

During the year thus far, I'm afraid I have not been very diligent in keeping up my regular blogging. Nevertheless, I can tell the difference between a post I made in the beginning of the semester and posts I began making throughout the semester but were instead saved as unfinished drafts that I never got around to perfecting, and posts that I have deemed perfect enough and published at the end of the semester. I have noticed that I am now drawing up assertions based off of evidence, instead of previously searching for evidence to back up my assertions. A subtle difference, but a very telling one. I certainly hope that in the upcoming semester, I will be able to stay on top of things and keep my blogging to the high level of standards that I require it to be.

Of the all the recent blog posts, the one I feel most proud of was this one. I explain what happened in clear terminology, provide plenty of evidence for everything I say, and refer to a previous post. I also engage my readers with some questions of opinion that are by no means easy to answer.

Bad things happen to good people. Why? The victims of Jared Lee Loughner's insanity

This is a question many people have asked. The more pious ones will reply that it is all but a part of God's will and/or that god works in mysterious ways. The more cynical ones will tell you that there is no reason, God is dead (and we have killed him), and that to believe anything else is sheer utter naivety. Ask a Buddhist and you'll hear of one of the Buddha's more famous teachings, one that goes something along the lines of 'Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.' There are as many different answers to that question as there are stars in the sky, I have listed but some of the more common ones I have heard.

I've been keeping updated on the developments of the Gabrielle Giffords and Jared Lee Loughner story as they've been released. Gabrielle Giffords' condition is hopeful at the moment, despite the bullet having gone through the side of her brain typically associated with communications and such, she is able to respond to basic communications so early after the tragedy. I personally believe that she will make a full recovery within time, mayhaps not soon enough to continue serving on this term, but I believe she will be able to make a return to politics, if she so chooses to, by the time the next election rolls around.

So at the very least, Giffords has not received the worst of the shooting. Alas, but would I could say that for the others. There have been 6 (about three table's worth of students in our classroom) deaths so far.

1. 9-year old Christina Taylor Green, who had recently been elected to president of the student council, had wanted to stop by and see a real politician. She had spoken earlier of planning on becoming a veterinarian but she also had an interest in politics. It is note-worthy that she was born on 9/11, and to quote her father from an interview he gave in a voice that often broke, "She was born on 9/11. So she came in on a tragedy and she went out on a tragedy. Those nine years in between were very special. We're all going to miss Christina. We were four people. Now we're three. All I can say is we're going to be strong for each other. And we're going to honor Christina because she was a beautiful strong little girl. And we're going to remember all the good things about her." She was the grand-daughter of the former manager, Dallas Green, of the Philadelphia Phillies.
2. Gabriel Zimmerman, 30 years old, was Gabrielle Gifford's long-time political aide. He was her community outreach director. Engaged to be married to a nurse, he also had a Master's degree in social science. He was one of the first ones to be shot by Jared Lee Loughner during the tragedy. Accounts report of how he was helping elderly citizens with their Social Security checks right before he was fatally shot. This was not an unusual past time for the man, who was much respected amongst the community. He was known to listen to people who came in for help, help as much as humanly possible, above and beyond any call of duty, and then give them money for a cab ride home. His life goal was nothing but to help people as much as he could.
3. Dorwin Stoddard, 76 years old, was a former construction worker who died protecting his wife, Mavanell, by pushing her down and shielding her with his body from the crazed gunman. She was shot in the leg, but she'll survive. Stoddard, however, took a fatal bullet to the head. He often volunteered as his church, offering his services and experiences as construction worker to do repairs and maintenance if ever needed to, without any hesitation. He also organized the church's benevolence committee, which was a group that helped those less fortunate then them. Instead of just writing checks and handing them off, they would go meet with them in person, and find out exactly how they could help. Dorwin and Mavanell were regulars at their church, and were avid travellers, leaving in April and returning in October. They had been to all 50 states as well as 28 countries.
4. US District Judge John McCarthy Roll, 63 years old, had stopped by to visit his old friend the congresswoman, on his way back from Church, on his way home to continue his weekly ritual of washing his floors when he became a part of that cruel statistic. He started his lifelong career in 1972 as a mere county bailiff, before becoming a county and the federal prosecutor, and finally a state judge in 1987. Four years later, Bush the father nominated him to the US District Court where he loyally and fairly served until his unfortunate death. He served the state and the country, not himself, as seen by his selfless decision to verify a controversial $32 million lawsuit made by a group of illegal immigrants against a rancher [he held them at gunpoint and threatened to turn his dog loose on them upon catching them crossing his property; they later sued him and the Judge Roll allowed the lawsuit to become a case, the rancher ended up having to pay them $77 grand], he received so many death threats that the US marshals had to put him under protection for several weeks.
5. Dorothy Morris, 76 years old, was with her husband visiting the woman they voted for when they were both shot. George Morris currently is in intensive care. They have two daughters who live in Las Vegas, and they moved to Arizona after George retired from a lucrative piloting career. The two have been together for their entire adult life, being high school sweethearts.
6. Phyllis Schneck, 79 years old, also perished just yesterday. She was not very politically active, but she mentioned to her daughters that she agreed with Gifford's stance on controlling the border, and her children guess borderline security is why she attended yesterday's lethal event. She was an avid reader, and actually collected and organized National Geographic magazines by the Dewey Decimal System in the comfort of her own home, so her children would have quick and easy access to research for school reports. Her cooking was a community legend, and she often contributed to church fundraisers with both cash and objects to sell. She had two daughters and a son, who collectively have seven children, one of which even has their very own child.

As you can see, each of those shot was a good and contributing member of society. They were fundamentally good people who did good things. And yet, this tragedy happened to them. Why? How could a kind and benevolent god let such things happen? Nay, we are taught that God is all-powerful. How could a kind and benevolent god do such a thing?