My heart is heavy, for a lot of reasons.
I wasn’t there for either the Minnesota shooting or the Baton Rouge incident. I don’t know why that young man in Dallas decided, in his own words, to hate white people, especially white police officers. Most of my career, I’ve been a police reporter. While I have seen, written about, and covered the trials of bad cops — I really can’t think of a single person behind the badge I wouldn’t trust with my family, my life, or my property.
The Minnesota case looks screwed up, even without the desperate narcissism of the girlfriend. A couple years from now, I wager she’ll have a reality show.
Baton Rouge? I guarantee you I can fire the right handgun from a pants pocket. Media reports say that suspect had a criminal history; online records bear that out. Indeed, he couldn’t even legally own a firearm. That does not give the cops the right to execute him, if that’s what happened — but it gives the official pre-investigation explanation credence.
Then came Thursday.
I have no problem with any group exercising their constitutional right. Police are there for traffic and crowd control, and for the safety of the protestors. Let’s face it: today there are idiots on every side of the fence, on top of the fenceposts, riding the stringers, and in the postholes. That was proven Thursday – not to mention in other towns on Friday, and Saturday. I doubt you could have a bunny-cuddling rally without worrying about some crackpot these days. But the right to protest does not trump the right to free travel on a public street.
Five cops were killed from ambush, and seven more injured, after being told to play down their tactical appearance (ie, no military firearms, heavy equipment, riot gear, etc.) They are told to weaken their position and defensive capability, to help maintain calm in a volatile situation. The cops were not as well prepared as they could have been – and they paid for it.
Then, despite the bad guy’s manifesto, statements to the police negotiator, and social media footprint — the leftwing apologists blame guns and the police. Of course.
I’ve been a victim of crime. Three of the five times, the suspects were black. One was Latino. Twice the suspects were eventually arrested, charged and convicted. Twice, there was never an identification of the suspect. Once, the suspect was convinced to drop the property he had stolen, and run before he could be eaten.
The guys who were trying to rape a teenager in my backyard on a hot July afternoon more than two decades ago — they were black.
But I do not automatically assume every person of color is a criminal. That’s ridiculous.
Crime, like sin, has no color. But if you allow your community to tolerate sin, regardless of your color, street address, faith, or preference of Splenda over Sweet’n’Low — you are guilty of that sin. You are, if you prefer, guilty of that crime.
You bear the blood of the innocents — whether everything starts with a bad traffic stop, an absentee father, or a mother who didn’t breastfeed long enough — when you allow a crime to occur, you are guilty, as an individual and as a community.
And that “you” means we.
I am as guilty in the eyes of God as anyone.
When you allow bad people to do bad things, you are guilty, whether through your choice of political candidates, support of social platforms that encourage sin, or simply your choice not to get involved. When you have the courage to speak up, to reach out, to try — you’re part of the solution, even if your attempts are rebuffed.
We need the courage to call sin what it is — a crime against God, colorless, which manifests itself in crime against society.
But we find excuses. We want someone tangible to blame. We want something we can wring our hands over, and that politicians can promise to fix.
We don’t want to take the responsibility – an equal share, on every side, for different reasons—for what we as Americans have allowed to happen.
We’re Americans, people. All of us who were born here, or who forswore allegiance to other countries in favor of the greatest one on Earth. We are all better than this.
Until we as a people realize this fact, I intend to keep praying for the men who will stand up and be the fathers God tells them to be, even those of us with no kids. I’m going to pray that God shields those who shield us from the rabid wolves in our society, who seek fame, fortune and five minutes of media glory whilst dancing in the blood of others.
I am going to call down folks who play the race card on either side — quietly and gently, but firmly. Shrieking and namecalling by either side is what’s gotten us to this point, so that cops are afraid to go into black neighborhoods, and black folks are afraid of cops. If your feelings get hurt, well, it wasn’t my intent, but my father always said: if your feelings are hurt by the truth, maybe you need to sit down and think a bit.
If I am stopped by a law enforcement officer, I am going to comply in accordance with the law. If I see a cop in distress — which I pray never happens again – I will loudly let everyone know I’m on his or her side, and try to help.
Right now, our country is in trouble – I don’t mean just because we have no good choice for president this fall, or we have embraced any number of philosophies that go against the very grain of both our founders and our faith. I ain’t even that worried that much about the folks who hate us because we’re free, those poor souls whose false prophet and evil leaders teach them we should be killed.
Our country is in trouble, because tempers are short, people are stupid, and we’ve turned our backs on God.
We have embraced, allowed, financed and endorsed sin in some of its most evil forms, and I’m afraid those sins have come back to haunt us. The Bible says the sins of the father shall be returned unto the son through the seventh generation – but the Bible also says we have the ability, in every generation, to break that cycle.
I ask you, folks, please – lift our country, lift those who wear a badge, and lift those who have turned their hatred toward those badges.
We can stop this foolishness, people. I know we can.
Dang it, we’re Americans.
We’re better than this. We’re not better than each other – but we’re better than what we have become.
There’s no reason for more cops to die, nor should innocent people die, because a cop was scared he wouldn’t go home tonight, or because he was a bad apple. There is no reason to turn a thug into a martyr.
I am not saying “love conquers all,” or some such foolishness as that. It doesn’t, leastways here on earth.
But we, as Americans, can conquer anything—if we’re willing.
We’re moving into the third generation of every American being officially equal in the eyes of the law. It’s time people of every color, of every uniform, of every neighborhood, realize that.
We’re all Americans, and we’re better than this.
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