Free Republic

To all of your Law Enforcement and LE Families, please accept my apologies for offending you. That was not my goal.

But you have to realize that policeman are people too. Criminals are equal opportunity employees. They come in all shades, all degrees, and there are some in every industry.

I very much am grateful for police. They are very important in a civilized society. Unfortunately, like everyone else, they do things they shouldn’t — and due to their role as armed officers, someone usually gets killed when they mess up.

It is true that the hiring procedure for policemen is much more strict then McDonalds. But then, power tends to corrupt so some of that is offset.

It doesn’t take lot of searching the news to verify that this is a real problem, a problem which you must realize needs addressing.

It is easy to search the news and compile a long list of non-law enforcement people committing crimes. It’s just as easy to do so for police. That doesn’t mean that all policeman are bad, as a matter of fact, most are good. But that doesn’t mean that the problem doesn’t exist.

If you are (or are related to) a good law enforcement officer who obeys the same laws himself as he enforces on others and values the lives of others as his own, then THANK YOU. You are a vital asset to our society.

Also to all you law enforcement personnel, what is your take on the question of whether the life of a policeman is intrinsically worth more then that of a normal person? Whether such a belief is good or not, have you noticed that belief to seem common? Do you think it’s good or bad?

Good night. I must get rest.

~Jesse

Said MrJesse: If he just stood there with his hands up, they'd shoot him for disobeying orders.

Said Lancey Howard: You're not serious.

So you would have just stood there with your hands up, ignoring repeated orders of "DROP THE GUN DROP THE GUN?"

I wonder if that's really what you'd do. The problem is, and they know it, as long as the gun is still in your holster, you could grab it and fire it before anyone could respond.

~Jesse

Do you really think that was the best thing possible? Moving your hands to within inches of the gun?

They told him to drop the gun. How's he going to drop the gun without moving his hands to within inches of the gun?

Policemen get very edge when you don't do exactly what they tell you when they tell you.

~Jesse

Ambush? Why would you say that?

Well, 3 guys waiting outside with drawn guns for someone to walk through the door, right or wrong, sounds like an ambush. What's the difference between that and an ambush?

My point, which you seem to have missed, is that there was enough LE to give the perp the benefit of the doubt.

I'm sure it's not because you are biased against the police.

I'm not biased against Police in general. I'm concerned with abuse of power in all forms of government. It's just that Law Enforcement is crucial because their the ones who carry the guns, and end up shooting people.

~Jesse

You’re really dragging one up from the past

Oh, is the lawsuit all finished? Or is it still going on?

~Jesse

In the same position if they said drop it, I would drop whatever was in my hands put my hands over my head and not move. Don't say anything and listen.

Sounds good, if you had time. It seems, according to the 911 tape, Scott had less then 2 seconds between the first command and being shot. It's hard to say just how a policeman will respond to disobedience however well intended -- remember, he only has fractions of a second to think as well.

Also, the human brain has built in delays for everything - and much longer delays for things that take thinking. Have someone hold out a rubber eraser and drop it, and hold your hand around but not under the falling path and try to grab it when you see it fall. If your hand is right under theirs, you won't be able to grab it. It will fall right through your hand before you can get the signal through your brain to close the hand! (Try it. It's a great party trick.)

Follow signs restricting carriage of guns (like the ones posted at the front of every Costco).

I've never seen any no-guns sign on any Washington Coscto, so I guess not all costco stores have them. But I agree, it is a good idea to respect private property owners desires when on their property (which is what going shopping is.)

~Jesse

Police shoot people for disobeying orders?

If the order is to drop a gun, and the perp has a gun, police just might shoot him. What else would they do? Tackle a man known to have a gun? Or give the perp more time to think of his next move?

~Jesse

I've been wondering for a while if there's a general belief that the life of an innocent policeman is intrinsically worth more then the life of an innocent civilian.

Has anyone else noticed this?

I mean, come on. 3 policemen, waiting in ambush with guns drawn. They should be able to protect the crowd against one armed bad guy. But no, it was THEMSELVES they were protecting -- which is fine -- but at least they could have waited for SOME form of aggression from Scott before dropping him dead. And at least they could have given him at least ONE option to not get shot.

Now I agree that anyone who carries concealed should make absolutely that it's 100% concealed 100% of the time when in public, just because there are stupid people out there. But whatever Scott did do, it wasn't worthy of the death penalty.

I think Mosher's problem was that he wanted to reduce his perceived chance of being shot from 5% to 0% even if he had to kill someone to do it. And that, my friend, stems from believing that the life of a policeman is intrinsically more valuable then the life of an ordinary human being.

.... believes popular TV shows such as Extreme Couponing are to blame for the recent thefts.

Maybe I'm being picky here, but wouldn't it be the theves that were to blame for the thefts? I would like to see a coupon carry off a newspaper stand. ha ha :-)

~Jesse

For Pete's sake, just give the defendant a dog too! ha!

According to the group, firearms account for a third of all deaths from injury among teenagers and more than one in five deaths from injury among people ages 1 to 19.

....

“There’s no political agenda — we’re talking about the safety of children,..."

Ahh, ha ha ha. No political agenda, huh? But you can tell by their dishonest "statistics." Numbers may not lie, but, well, you know, liers use numbers.

One in 3 teenage deaths are from firearms?! I've known of plenty of youngsters even locally who died from other causes, like drug overdose, car crashes (teens and cars are a high risk factor,) boating accidents, cancer, infection, pneumonia, suicide -- but from gunshots? I mean of course it happens, it just doesn't seem to come anywhere near the bulk of causes. But maybe I just live in a saner part of the country.

I notice they do use the key phrase "deaths from injury" -- so maybe they are saying that drugs, car wrecks, drowning, poisoning, suicide, and cancer aren't injurious. But what sort of skewed mentality is that!

~Jesse

Said Farmer Dean: Gore’s just pissed that the global warming gravy train is coming to a halt.

Well, you know, Gravy gets pretty thick when it gets cold. That's why the gravy train is grinding to a halt - the gravy is getting cold.

~~

I always wondered if it was really global. Now I'm not even sure it's warming.

~Jesse

“Either a hand-held suction device or a suction machine gently empties your uterus,” according to the Planned Parenthood site.

It's not very gentle on the baby.

~Jesse

if I were the judge - I would award the little girl a boatload of money for her medical expenses, plus punitive damages. I would have removed the girl from this mother’s care and appointed a guardian to investigate the best home to place her in.

It is possible, I suppose, that the mother is sorry, and is a fine mother. (I only read the article posted on FR, so I don't know all the details.) But I do agree - the girl is the victim moreso then the mother. The money should definitely go to the girl. However, that isn't likely to happen since she's not the one suing.

~Jesse

Said Kelly4c: I have been blessed with a beautiful and delightful grandson whom I love more than life itself. My daughter was young and unmarried when pregnant. I told her abortion is not an option. I explained my past. I took a life in my youth, but who knows, maybe I had a hand in saving another very precious one.

Now replies Jesse:
That is a beautiful post. Way to go both in sharing with us and with your daughter when she was in the time of decision regarding the baby inside her.

And you bring up a very important aspect which is often overlooked. We often cite the negative reasons for not getting abortion such as "Don't get an abortion because it's killing a human life." but we often forget to also mention the positive reasons - like how precious a child is (and especially a grandchild:).

(I don't intend to suggest at all that one's own children are any less precious, but I suspect that a young woman unhappily pregnant is probably too stressed out to think too much about how precious a child is. But by the time her own kids have kids, she's got a better handle on life and can really enjoy her grandkids!)

Keep up the good work,
~Jesse

Said TheBattman: I am aggravated that there is no finger-pointing at the women who CHOOSE abortion in the first place - are they not just as guilty?

Then replied CitizenUSA: I can't speak for all of the women, but certainly a lot of them simply don't understand the gravity of what's going on....

Now replies Jesse:
I agree with both of you. I argue that abortion meets all the requirements for first degree murder. Anyone, mother or other, who intentionally kills with premeditation another innocent human life has committed first degree murder in reality (but not legally due to a judge making a ruling.)

However, Citizen brings up a good point - ignorance. Let me back up slightly: What if someone drives over a cardboard box, after being assured that it only contained trash, but to find out later it had a live child in it. Was driving over the cardboard box without checking inside a dumb thing to do? Absolutely. Probably negligent manslaughter, if the driver should have known it was possible that there was someone in the box. But, it's not murder.

Now back to the topic at hand, young people are pounded and pounded with the idea that a fetus is just a collection of non-viable cells. They say that a fetus is not a human life, even though it is both human and alive.

So there is a heavy burden also on those who know the truth, and either lie to young people, or don't tell them the truth.

And that's what is so great about Freerepublic -- is the discussion can be had, and the word can be spread, and individual lives can be touched with the truth.

The Abortionists, however, do know the truth, and always carry the full guilt for what they do.

To those of you who (or who's wives) have had abortions, please do not despair. Christ paid with his blood for the greatest sin possible, that you may be forgiven, you have only to ask. But please also do not waste the past: Share with your children and your friends the truth to help prevent them from making the same mistake, and being haunted for life. Even though Christ forgives us, often our actions still cause us suffering for the duration of our life on this earth, but God can use those experiences to help others, and I think by helping others we ourselves are often helped as well.

~Jesse

PS: I was pleased to see that an FR article is currently the top hit for Abortion First Degree Murder on Google.

Now I have a question - what the heck does privacy have to do with having your baby murdered?

I suppose all murder's like to murder in privacy.

~Jesse

Yeah, it's definitely greener this year then normal for the North Olympic Peninsula. Things are growing like crazy. There are rumors that the snow packs in the local mountains won't melt in time to hike to my favorite Goat Lake, however.
~Jesse

Me, at Goat Lake, with a pretty big fish

...They were used to test flavor enhancers.....

Okay, please can someone explain how you use kidney cells to test a flavor enhancer? That doesn't even make sense.

Do you throw the kidney cells into the can of pepsi and ask'em how it tastes? Or maybe if the cells are still alive after 45 milliseconds, then they know it tastes good?

Or maybe the new flavor enhancers are deadly to the kidneys, so rather then killing a whole person by testing the new drink on them, they throw in a few kidney cells and if they live then they say the new flavor enhancer is safe?

Ohhh okay, I just did a quick google search. See Here for the company that does the research. Basically,they use "isolated human taste receptors" so that a machine can taste different random chemicals and tell how they would taste to a human.

But to use innocent first degree murder victims for this -- much less murdered babies -- is sickening.

~Jesse