Do All Lives Really Matter?

All Lives Matter! Right? Hmmmm, not so fast. I have been following the social media posts and happen to tally additional posts by the same people that claim "All Lives Matter." I noticed a peculiar pattern. It would seem that people who post All Lives Matter have very strong opinions that are quite the opposite.
For example, many people that claim All Lives Matter are against Gay Marriage. Kind of seems odd that we would discriminate against the right to marry. They also support the Republican National Committee Platform rejecting gay marriage. Some of the people posting All Lives Matter have a peculiar pattern of restricting the rights of individuals to live freely. So the question is, do All Lives Truly matter, or just those that seem similar to our own moral judgments and character.  

Here is another question for those who post All Lives Matter. If you reject religious freedom, how do we justify that All Lives Matter? It would seem some Conservative Christians posting All Lives Matter would prefer to keep this mantra for those who accept Jesus Christ in their lives. For the rest, well you can spend an eternity in hell based on your personal choice to worship, or not worship as one feels is morally correct for themselves.

Some people would like to control how we go to the bathroom in the All Lives Matter movement. The posts are quite hurtful, and demeaning. Again, Do All Lives Matter?

The idea of Immigration, both legal and illegal seem to bother a lot of All Lives Matter folks. Especially those who are unemployed or generally unhappy with their life. . It seems strange that a country with strong roots to immigration is intolerant to immigration. Again, for those that believe in turning a blind eye to refugees and immigration, do All Lives Matter?

It is disingenuous to post or support All Lives Matter, when we restrict the rights of individuals to live free of discrimination and policies that restrict the rights of Individuals. Maybe it is time to reexamine the hurtfulness of All Lives Matter, and allow the Black Lives Matter movement to have their context to the phrase, without white people feeling they need to have a moral equivalent.

What We Could Have Learned About the Dallas Sniper

If we are going to use robots in police standoffs, we should use them for impairment and not killing a citizen of the United States. It is more important to have the person alive to study cause and effect than to kill an individual out of revenge.
A kill limits us to learn why tragic events happen. In the case of the Dallas shooting, it would have been a great opportunity to question and learn from the shooter what made him become the person that shot and killed 5 officers. This was not a typical profile. The shooter was a 2 time Afghan soldier and someone that worked with people with disabilities. Something drove this young man to the brink of madness. Unfortunately, we may never know what happened.
More importantly, with all of the Veterans Affairs problems, it is important to study such an individual. He obviously had mental health issues. And, there is a very scary coincidence that the shooter was from Dallas Texas.

Remember the movie American Sniper. The movie ends without explaining how Chris Kyle's life ended. Chris Kyle came home only to be shot and killed by another Veteran of Foreign War Eddie Routh.  Routh killed Chris and his friend Chad Littlefield. It would have been very powerful to explore the events that unfolded that day.

We may never know how coincidental the two tragedies were in comparison. However here are some details of Routh's life:

He was admitted to the Veterans Administration hospital in Dallas for the first time in July 2011 and diagnosed with PTSD. Doctors prescribed a raft of antipsychotic and anti-anxiety drugs, including Risperidone, a powerful antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia. Meanwhile, he steadily self-medicated with alcohol and marijuana. In September 2012, police picked him up walking down the road, incoherent, and he was brought to the VA hospital, suffering from what psychiatrists there called a major depressive illness and psychotic delusions. He was again given medication and discharged. He would seem better for a time, and he even found a girlfriend, Jennifer Weed, whom he had met online. They briefly lived together. She later recalled that he sometimes talked as though he had, in fact, seen action in Iraq, saying: "I've killed before, and I'll do it again." On Jan. 19, 2013, he had another psychotic episode, holding Weed and her roommate prisoner in their apartment while brandishing a knife until police arrived, and he landed at the VA hospital once more. But after a five-day stay, he was released again.

Routh's mother, Jodi, had pleaded with the VA doctors not to release her son. Exhausted and running out of options, she turned to Chris Kyle. His two kids attended the elementary school where she worked, so when he came to pick up his children, she approached him as a last resort. She said that she had heard he was spending a lot of time helping other veterans with disabilities and PTSD and told him about Eddie's deepening crisis. He promised to reach out to her son.

Hopefully, a closer examination of the Dallas shooter will give us insight into the Veterans returning home from modern warfare. Did the VA clinic in Dallas again play a role in the returning veteran not getting services they need? We need to transition from revenge to finding answers. It is hard to have empathy for anyone that commits such an act, however something acted as a trigger. We need to find out what caused such a young man to shoot and kill the 5 police officers. The best way to honor the men and women in blue is to help learn how to avoid such tragedies in the future.

Texas Open Carry Laws - Are We Safer?

The tragedy in Texas has many tales yet to be told. However, one is quickly emerging about the impact an open carry law can have on public safety. Gun Control advocates have said that open carry laws will save lives. Gun carrying advocates have sited singular examples of people saving lives in the workplace or isolated settings as a reason for open carry laws.

Texas has an open carry law that includes pistols and rifles. It is legal to carry an AR15 or a pistol for all to see. However, did the law cause confusion in Dallas during the tragedy that killed 5 police officers and injured police and civilian? The police originally thought they found the shooter, only to realize in the confusion it was someone else that handed in their rifle to police because he was a part of the Black Lives Matter movement. A smart move on his part, as he could have been shot during the confusion. The fact that multiple people carried weapons in a public area may have caused confusion for law enforcement.

The law's intent is that society is safer when we allow people to carry weapons. However, in a state like Texas that is approaching one million open carry citizens, confusion could be a part of mass shootings as many people will be packing heat at public events. It will be hard for police to sort out who is the shooter versus who is a civilian with an open carry weapon. It also puts a target on openly carried weapons, versus concealed weapons. The original intent of the law was that open carry would discourage people from trouble, however we may soon learn that open carry can also create troubles for law enforcement and citizens alike.

The Curious Case Of Hillary Clinton

Remember Edward Snowden?  He leaked classified documents on a private email server. He knew the consequences would be dire. Snowden fled the country to avoid decades in prison. Do you know who referred to him as a traitor who has “blood on his hands” for his leak of classified documents? Yep, Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton was given a slap on a wrist. She was called careless. She is not the first government official to have “carelessly” handled secret information. However she is the first to be given such leniency. There is a danger with such actions by our government, as many citizens will feel that the judicial process has two tiers of justice. One for the commoner, and one for the ruling class.

Lets look at some of the criticisms objectively. Some critics reflect on Watergate. How can we seek the resignation of a President that had 18 minutes of tape that are missing yet Hillary was given a slap on the wrist for 30 thousand missing emails. Other site David Petraeus as an example of hypocrisy. His career was destroyed for sharing confidential information by email. He was fined 100.000 and given probation for his actions. He was a four star general.

A former CIA Director had to resign back in 1996 for storing classified documents on his personal computer. He was also taken to trial and plea bargained a misdemeanor for his actions. Ironically, he was pardoned by his friend, then President Clinton during his last day in office. The Clintons have a pattern of forgiving friends, similar to how the Hillary was forgiven under a current Democratic sitting President.

The most important aspect to the FBI decision is moving forward, lower level employees of our government will be held to different standard. They will be reprimanded, fined, and even taken to court for lesser crimes than Hillary Clinton's careless behavior. This will be a problem that will haunt the Democratic Party for years if not decades, as citizens will remember the two tiers of justice that the Democratic Party looked the other way when it came to the Clinton decision by the FBI.

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