Minor Thoughts from me to you

I write to White Christian America. Who are we? As we read the Palm Sunday, Passion Week and Easter narratives, who are we? Where do we fit in the story?

We default to thinking of ourselves as the Disciples. We are the heroes of the story. We are the ones who walk with Jesus, who treasure His words, who fear the Romans and the corrupt religious establishment. We are the persecuted and the ones discriminated against.

As I’ve listened more, I’ve heard the people of Black Christian America say, “Jesus is a Black man”. I didn’t understand what they meant. Jesus didn’t have black skin. He may have had darker skin than me (that’s not hard to do). He may have looked like a Middle Easterner. But he wasn’t black.

But this isn’t a statement about skin color. (Black Hebrew Israelites aside.) “Jesus is a Black man” is a statement about society, culture, and status. It’s about where Jesus fit in the context of His world and how He was viewed and what people thought of Him.

In the Roman Empire, Judea was a cultural and economic backwater. It was the home of malcontents, criminals, and rebels. It was trouble. Anyone who came from Judea started off at a disadvantage and had to work twice as hard for respect. Just ask Herod.

If Judea was a cultural backwater, Nazareth was the cultural backwater of Judea. Jesus came from the cultural backwater of a cultural backwater. No one outside of Judea respected Judeans and no one in Judea respected Nazarenes.

Jesus surrounded Himself with unsavory people. People who were illiterate and crude. People who made a living cheating others. People who made a living doing dirty, smelly jobs. People who were criminals.

Then He had the audacity to travel around telling everyone that they were doing life wrong, believing wrong, living wrong.

Let’s put Jesus into our context. He was a poor, Black man, from West Baltimore. He was tatted up, wore his hair in cornrows. He was friends with rappers, drug dealers, street prostitutes, and con men. He wasn’t just surrounded by them, he made them part of His inner circle. Have you seen The Wire, the men from the projects? That was Jesus.

Who are we? We are the White, well-to-do people who despise the inner cities. We consider them dirty, dangerous, unsavory, full of crime and moral degeneracy. Not only do we refuse to live there, we often refuse to travel there and fear the people who live there.

We certainly don’t want any of those street thugs telling us that we’re wrong about our mostly deeply held beliefs and need to make drastic changes. We don’t want to hear about our wrong view of history, our wrong views about poverty and money. We don’t want to hear that the nation we’ve created and love and defend is wrong, and that we are culpable for much of the suffering in our world. We don’t want to hear some Black man telling us that the way to paradise and eternal life is to give away all our wealth to the people like Him, and then follow Him.

We don’t want to hear it. Jesus is a Black man and we are White Christian America. We are the religious leaders. We are the High Priests. We are the Roman oppressors. And we’re not following Jesus, as his faithful disciples. We are the synagogue rulers and political leaders who are worried about the troublemaking, rabble rousers from the inner cities. We are the villains of the story.

Fellow White people! Lend me your ears! Mekka Okereke, a Google engineer and a bonafide Black man, has been incredibly generous with his time and has explained some of our history to us. Throughout the month of February, “Black History Month”, he took a timeout from Black history to talk about White American history instead. He posted threads almost every day, tackling one topic at a time.

These post threads are for White folks who don’t know their own history. White folks like me. I learned a lot from Mekka last month. I’ve collected all 22 threads and I’m making them easy to find for all of my pasty compatriots who missed them the first time around. Come and learn.

Here’s how Mekka kicked things off, on February 1.

Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !

You know the drill by now. I don't like talking about Black history. Americans know Black history. I want to talk about white American history. In other words, racism, and the erasure of both positive achievements of, and injustices suffered by, non-white people. That's what people don't know.

I'm not ready to talk about Black history. I want to talk about white US history.

Here we go.

February 1:

Try this: Ask your white US friends what the statue of liberty celebrates.

Now ask your Black friends. Or French folk of any color.

February 02

Q: "Why don't Black people build any generational wealth? Newer immigrant groups seem to be doing just fine? Must be a lazy and shiftless people!"

A: Because for most of US history, white folk have intentionally destroyed the wealthiest Black neighborhoods in the US and stolen all the wealth.

Greenwood. Allentown. Seneca Village. Rosewood. Freedmen's town.

February 03

Q: Why do Black people see racism in everything?

A: A few years ago, European tech entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky asked some very good questions in good faith. He asked why San Francisco and Madrid were different in so many confusing and awful ways. I answered each of his questions. Please verify each and every answer with a skeptic's keen eye.

Here we go...

February 04

Do you know that in the US, a Black 11 year old is 10 times more likely to die by drowning, than a white child?

In a nation that ignores racism, folk believe that this is because Black folk "Don't swim well."🤦🏿‍♂️

It's 2023, and there are still folk that believe Black kids drown due to race, not racism.

February 05

Q: Why do so many Black folk call Abraham Lincoln a white supremacist? He freed the slaves! Why don't Black folk have pictures of Lincoln up in their house? Are they ungrateful?

A: Because Abraham Lincoln was a white supremacist, and one of the worst kinds. He was an "I know Black folk aren't inferior, but hey man, it's an 'us or them' thing, and I choose us to be in the superior position."

February 06

The US loves soldiers and veterans! Virtuous! Service! 🇺🇲🦅

The US hates homeless people. Lazy! Dirty! Want a handout!

But... ~1 in every 20 US homeless folk is a Black or hispanic veteran. 🤷🏿‍♂️

In the USA, the phrase "support our troops!" is a euphemism that does mean military jingoism, but doesn't mean supporting all of our troops.

February 07

Q: Why are Black neighborhoods so often high crime neighborhoods? Must be a lawless people! Violent! Thieves! Predators!

A: There is no such thing as a "high crime neighborhood." The whole concept is entirely made up based on our notion of what we consider a crime.

You may be thinking:🤔 Wait... What?! Not true! A high crime neighborhood has more drug use and sales, theft, and even murder!

February 08

Q: Why do so many Black people refuse to sing the US national anthem? I'm sorry, but that seems unpatriotic to me. Plus, the Whitney Houston version is amazing! Why don't you like Whitney Houston? Whitney!

A: Because more Black folk know the true history of the anthem, and some can't get past the racism.

February 09

Q: Why do Black kids not do well in school? Is it because their dads are uninvolved and uncaring parents? Bill Cosby and Herschel Walker told me that, and they are good and wise men that we should listen to! It's Black dads' fault! Boo Black men!

A: No. Black kids only do poorly in school in extremely racist countries.

February 10

Q: Why are Black people in the US so much more likely to die in traffic accidents than white people? Are Black folk more likely to drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs (DUI)? Is it street racing? Are y'all just bad drivers?

A: Hmm. I'm stumped! No one knows the answer to why this happens! Just kidding. It's racism. It's always racism.

February 11

Q: Why do Black folk commit more crime? I hear you on "wage theft should be a crime too" and all that... but if we look at convictions for murder, sexual assault, and drug possession, Black folk just commit way more crime! Those are facts!

A: Black folk are convicted more. Black folk are many times more likely to be wrongfully convicted. Because racism.

February 12

Q: Why are so many Black folk early adopters of tech like Uber and Amazon? Sometimes this willingness to try new tech early backfires on y'all, like the whole crypto scam. Tech companies don't always love you back. So... why so eager? Is it because of Deltron 3030 and André 3000? 🤔You're... you're going to say racism aren't you?

A: Yep! Racism. And go ahead and add Sears to that list of "technology" companies.

February 13

Q: Why don't Black folk like things like rodeos, country music, and cowboys! But why are so many Black folk Dallas Cowboys fans? Could we use the Dallas Cowboys to introduce Black people to country culture?

A: You might mean "re-introduce." 1 in 5 wild west cowboys was Black. Almost all of the original cowboys were Black.

(Texans all like "I know this one! I'm getting an "A" today! Finally! Our time!"🤣)

February 15

Q: Why do Black folk get so upset when people ask them if they live in this neighborhood? I saw a Black stranger in my building and I just asked him if he lived here and can I see 3 forms of government ID, and now I'm the racist? How? I voted for Obama! Twice! Why are Black folk so sensitive about this?

A: Racism. This is a legacy of slavery and ethnic cleansing. Seriously.

February 16

Q: Why do Black folk just assume that many supporters of Trump, Reagan, Nixon, etc are racist? That doesn't seem fair. Why do 90% of Black folk vote democrat? Why aren't more Black people "free thinkers?"

A: Racism. Black US folk know about the "Southern Strategy," and what Reagan, Nixon and their advisers said about us. They know the origins of the Alt-right. Many white US folk don't.

February 17

Q: Why is it OK for Black folk to like the Black Panthers, but white folk can't like the klan? Black supremacy is just as bad as white supremacy! Why the double standard?

A: Black folk know white US history, so they know that the Black Panthers were not Black supremacists.

(At this point, half of the Black folk reading this just involuntarily said "COINTELPRO!" out loud).

February 18

Q: Why does it seem like so much of the anti-Asian hate that I see on TV and in newspapers is done by Black people? It seems like Asian folk should be legitimately afraid of Black people! Why does it seem that way?

A: Racism. Most Asian hate attacks are done by white folk. Asian folk are significantly safer from Asian hate, when they are around Black folk.🙂🙃

Newspapers lied on us.

February 19

Q: Why is so much Black music about violence and misogyny? I'm not racist, but I think Black culture is just more violent. Why does it seem that way?

A: Racism. Rap, trap, and drill, are only the most popular genres of Black music listened to by white people. The most popular among Black folk is R&B, almost 2X as popular. Violent rap is mostly for y'all.🤷🏿‍♂️

https://www.statista.com/statistics/945163/leading-music-genres-african-american/

February 20

Q: Why were Black folk so happy when OJ was acquitted? To be honest, it feels disgusting. Why does it seem like you're happy he got away with murderer?

A: Racism. Black folk did not like OJ that much. In fact, many Black people think he did it. Black folk didn't "celebrate OJ." Black folk celebrated the hope that a brutally unjust, evil, and racist system, could be defeated at all.

February 21

Q: Enough about racism for a second. Take a break! I'm worried about gender issues in the US too. For example, why is the gender pay gap in the US so large? It's one of the worst in the OECD!

A: You know why. Racism! In the US, the pay gap between white men and white women, is smaller than the pay gap between white women and Black and Latinx women.

Earnings and wages - Gender wage gap - OECD Data

February 23

Q: Not everything is racism! E.g. Black folk die young because of high BMI from their bad diets! That's on y'all! Don't hate on Lululemon leggings or khaki pants! Hate yourself! We're only trying to help you! How is this racism?

A: Black people in the UK have higher BMI than white people, and live longer than white people.🙂🙃

BMI is racist, and used to justify racism.

February 25

Q: Why does it seem like Black folk don't contribute much to society or science or history? Most inventions are from Europeans? Why does it seem this way? Don't cancel me!

A: Racism. The lie of white supremacy requires that we pretend that white men are the only people that ever invented anything or contributed to society.

America is a dream given form. It was built by men who only saw the dream through a glass darkly. They couldn’t see that it would one day apply to someone other than White men with a certain level of wealth. They couldn’t see that it would one day apply to their wives and daughters. Or to the “merciless Indian Savages” that they battled on the frontier. Or even—horrific thought—to their slaves, their slaves’ wives, their slaves’ daughters.

America is a dream given form. It was never a perfect realization of the dream. And we never can fully realize the dream, unless we’re willing to acknowledge the yawning chasm between the dream and the actual nation that the Founders built.

I can celebrate the red, white, and blue knowing of America’s flawed past. That doesn’t sap my fervor. But I can’t join in waving the flag and chanting “U-S-A”, when those with the biggest displays and the most fervor are the ones doing the most to deny the reality behind the myth.

“Making America Great Again” will take us back to a time when we were further away from realizing the dream than we are now. I cannot join their celebrations when doing so endorses their limitations for the country that I love.

When I celebrate Independence Day, I celebrate by both looking back and looking forward. I see America as it was, and I mourn for all of the mistakes that we’ve made. I see America as it could be, fully realized, welcoming and respecting everyone who shares the dream of liberty, equality, and opportunity, regardless of wealth, culture, religion, sexuality, national origin, or education. The dirt-poor, gay Guatemalan who just arrived, given as much preference as the White, middle class Christian, whose family has been here for 200 years.

For this Independence Day, I turn to the poem that’s come to signify patriotism to me. Let America be America again—the land that never has been yet—and yet must be.

Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.) O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe. (There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”) _Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?_
_And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?_ I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed! I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years. Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.” The free? Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today. O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where _every_ man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again. Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America! O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be! Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

This article—and this passage—has lived in my head, since I first read it, nearly 4 years ago. If you’ve talked politics with me, I’ve likely mentioned it at least once.

A Jewish theologian once asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. Jesus responded by giving his own twist on the Shema.

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

How do American Christians hear, understand, and follow Jesus’s words? Let’s check in with some good, Christian, God-fearing folks from rural Alabama.

God, Trump and the meaning of morality — The Washington Post

Linda nodded. It wasn’t just Muslims that posed a threat, she said, but all kinds of immigrants coming into the country.

“Unpapered people,” Sheila said, adding that she had seen them in the county emergency room and they got treated before her. “And then the Americans are not served.”

Love thy neighbor, she said, meant “love thy American neighbor.”

Welcome the stranger, she said, meant the “legal immigrant stranger.”

“The Bible says, ‘If you do this to the least of these, you do it to me,’ ” Sheila said, quoting Jesus. “But the least of these are Americans, not the ones crossing the border.”

To her, this was a moral threat far greater than any character flaw Trump might have, as was what she called “the racial divide,” which she believed was getting worse. The evidence was all the black people protesting about the police, and all the talk about the legacy of slavery, which Sheila never believed was as bad as people said it was. “Slaves were valued,” she said. “They got housing. They got fed. They got medical care.”

Luke tells of a situation in which another theologian quoted the Shema to Jesus, as the qualification for gaining eternal life. Then he wanted Jesus to praise him for how well he was following this commandment and asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” That’s when Jesus busted out the story of the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan.

When Jesus finished telling the story, he asked a question of his own.

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

When it comes to being Jesus’s people, there is no distinction between neighbors and American neighbors. There is no distinction between strangers and “legal immigrant strangers.” These good, Christian, God-fearing folks from rural Alabama don’t know their Bible and don’t know the love that Jesus taught, lived, and died for.

If “they will know that we are Christians by our love”, what are we to make of this rural, Alabama church that only shows love to people like them, and that disdains and fears everyone else? What are we to make of the great mass of American evangelicals who live like them, love like them, worship like them, and believe like them?

The Council was caught off guard by our request and asked if they could talk it over before making a decision.

We waited for two weeks before getting the final answer. They initially thought that we were overreacting to seeing an American flag or two in the sanctuary. Their feelings changed after finding photos of last year’s service. Seeing the photos reminded them of how over the top the display was. Several of the people on the Council had also been uncomfortable when they came into church that Sunday morning.

After looking at the photos, reviewing our written request, and talking it over, the Council came to the same conclusion that we did. They made a decision that future services can acknowledge patriotism, but will be much more restrained. Only one or two flags in the sanctuary. And while we won’t sing patriotic anthems, the Lutheran hymnal does have some approved patriotic hymns that the worship leaders can use.

We didn’t hear the Council’s decision until Sunday, after attending the Memorial Day service. We didn't know what to expect when we walked in, and were pleasantly surprised by what we didn’t see. There was only one flag in the sanctuary and it was tucked into a back corner. We sang a patriotic hymn, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. We had a short video commemorating those who died in uniform. And that was it.

Best of all, the message was based on John 17:20-26 and focused on the need for all Christians to be one, free of divisions, so that the world will know that God sent Jesus to show God’s love to everyone, everywhere.

Last year, I walked out of the church on July 4th Sunday. When my wife and I walked into church, we immediately noticed the explosion of flags around the organ and piano. We both did our best to ignore it. She was more successful than I was.

I hit my breaking point when we started singing “My Country, Tis of Thee” and I saw that the background of the slide had a soldier saluting the flag. I walked out and skipped the rest of the service.

For the past year, we’ve been talking, on and off, about that service and how much it disturbed us both. We weren’t sure what to do about it, but we knew that we didn‘t want to go through another service like July 4, 2021. I definitely didn’t want to walk into another patriotic service that I’d just have to walk out of.

We finally decided to do the most obvious thing and talk to church leadership about it. We wrote down our concerns and the reasons for them, then worked with a friend to turn it all into a specific request. We joined the May meeting of the Congregational Council and read it to them.

Our Request

We would like the Council to keep the church free of patriotic symbols and imagery, around July 4th and every other week. Without casting aspersion on those who put up the flags in the past, who almost certainly thought nothing of it, we feel that such symbols and imagery are blasphemous here.

Jesus told Pontius Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world. It’s separate from this world and it’s above every earthly power. Every nation ultimately bows to Jesus. When we allow American flags and imagery to force their way into the church, when we allow patriotic songs to replace religious songs, it’s inarguable that America is intruding on God’s space and demanding our allegiance!

A pastor that I learned from in college referred to Christians as ambassadors for God. That we are the presence of God in our daily lives and should demonstrate God’s first importance everywhere we are. That’s stuck with me ever since. You’re not gonna see the British embassy putting up American flags on July 4. They represent Britain first, last, and always. Christians should take that as a hint.

The Church should be the vanguard of the Kingdom of God, and not aligned with any race, ethnicity, or nationality. The Sanctuary should be a true sanctuary, where all believers regardless of background or national origin or earthly loyalty can worship together free of national divisions.

What Scripture Says

Isaiah welcomed the foreigner to God’s House and said it was “a house of prayer for all peoples”. Jesus said he would gather all the sheep into His flock and “there will be one flock, one shepherd.” He told Pilate, “My kingdom does not belong to this world” and “my kingdom is not from here.”

Paul echoed this, multiple times. For him, it was a theme that followers of Christ became something new, something set apart from their original heritage and loyalty.

To the Colossians:

“you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God … you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved and free, but Christ is all and in all!”

To the Corinthians:

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

To the Galatians:

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

In 1 Peter, the author also says that people who follow Christ have become a separate nation.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

In Closing

For a very long time, I’ve thought of the church as a place where God’s people can worship as one, setting aside our other loyalties for an hour or two. Speaking bluntly, when I walked in last July 4th and I saw our church bathed in patriotic decorations, I felt sick to my stomach. Consciously or not, RLC was betraying its mission and allowing God’s House to be turned into a pep rally for America.

We would like the Council to keep the church free of patriotic symbols and imagery, around Memorial Day, July 4th, and every other week of the year.

While talking to the Council, I paraphrased the Scripture passages that had shaped our thinking. After talking to the them, I emailed the request to everyone and included the unabridged passages.

Isaiah 56:6-8

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath and do not profane it
and hold fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar,
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.
Thus says the Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel:
I will gather others to them
besides those already gathered.

John 10:16

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

John 18:35

Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

Colossians 3:1–17

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

… you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved and free, but Christ is all and in all!

1 Corinthians 10:31–33

So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage but that of many, so that they may be saved.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Galatians 3:27–29

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

1 Peter 2:4-10

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:

“See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

This honor, then, is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very head of the corner,”

and

“A stone that makes them stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.”

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.

Revelation 5:9–10

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to break its seals,
for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God
saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;
you have made them a kingdom and priests serving our God,
and they will reign on earth.”

Revelation 7:9

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

Up next: How did they respond to our request?

Steve Eder and David D. Kirkpatrick writing, for the New York Times, on newly elected prosecutors who have a less chummy relationship with the local police department than their predecessors did.

some prosecutors reviewing old cases were elected with the support of the police unions.

“I don’t define myself as a progressive prosecutor,” said Fani T. Willis, a Democrat who was elected district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., last year with police union backing. “I just define myself as doing what’s right.”

Since taking office in January, she has begun reviewing 50 use-of-force cases and seven death-in-custody cases going back to 2016 that her predecessor had not addressed; she has so far landed indictments in 13 of them. Six officers were indicted in November for a jailhouse death in 2018. They had allegedly shouted that it was “Taser Tuesday” as they tortured and killed Antonio May, 32, arrested for throwing rocks at a building.

“There were too many cases where nothing had been done,” said Ms. Willis, noting her office had also cleared more than 20 officers. “Where there is no courage, nothing happens.”

∞

I can't possibly say this better than Rachel Elizabeth Cargle did, two months ago, in Harper's Bazaar.

Black lives did not matter when they were inhumanely transported like livestock from Africa. Black lives did not matter when they were lynched by the hundreds at the hands of the KKK. Black lives did not matter when they were attacked by dogs as they protested for equal rights.

With the weekly news cycle seeming to, without fail, include the death of at least one black boy at the hands of the police, or the body of a black woman being thrown to the ground by local law enforcement, or a black child being manhandled by the services meant to protect them, my heart sinks as I cling to the desire that black lives will matter.

…

If a patient being rushed to the ER after an accident were to point to their mangled leg and say, “This is what matters right now,” and the doctor saw the scrapes and bruises of other areas and countered, “but all of you matters,” wouldn’t there be a question as to why he doesn't show urgency in aiding that what is most at risk? At a community fundraiser for a decaying local library, you would never see a mob of people from the next city over show up angry and offended yelling, “All libraries matter!”—especially when theirs is already well-funded.

This is because there is a fundamental understanding that when the parts of society with the most pain and lack of protection are cared for, the whole system benefits. For some reason, the community of white America would rather adjust the blinders they’ve set against racism, instead of confront it, so that the country can move forward toward a true nation of justice for all.

…

My personal message to those committed to saying “all lives matter” in the midst of the justice-driven work of the Black Lives Matter movement: prove it. Point out the ways our society—particularly the systems set in place to protect citizens like police officers and doctors and elected officials—are showing up to serve and protect black lives. Illuminate the instances in which the livelihood of the black community was prioritized, considering the circumstances that put us into less-privileged spaces to begin with. Direct me to the evidence of justice for the bodies discarded at the hands of those in power, be it by unjustified murder, jail cell, poisoned water, or medical discrimination.

These are the things that must be rectified for us to be able to exhale. Until then, I'll be here, my black fist raised with Black Lives Matter on my lips.

∞

America's police force is idealized and mythologized in a way that blinds people to the reality on the ground. America's police departments are almost entirely lacking in accountability and in desperate need of reform. Some are fine. I'm not here to praise the often praised, because it distracts from the vitally important task of fixing what's broken. If that statement bothers you, then I ask you to consider whether you have an idealized view of the police that distorts your sight and blinds you to the evil that is done in the name of law and order.

Many Americans think our police forces are largely made up of Officer Friendly. He is someone who is dedicated and selfless. Someone courageous, even heroic. Someone highly trained. Someone who serves the community by upholding law and order. Someone who seeks justice. Someone who daily puts their life on the line to enter an urban warfare zone of lawlessness and crime.

What if that stereotype is too optimistic?

What if too many officers are undertrained, lacking the knowledge necessary to tame their fears and deescalate tense confrontations? What if a few others are cowardly bullies who use force to hide their fear? Or are thugs, who react to verbal aggression with physical aggression? What if those officers enjoy wearing the uniform because they enjoy exercising power over others? And what if too many officers create the conflict that they're trying to prevent, because they've been told to view those around them as enemies and they act accordingly?

Individual members of America's police forces have spent the last week revealing the truth about themselves through their actions. Don't assume that every clash with protestors was instigated by the protestors or that the anger the protestors feel is unjustified and easily dismissed. For the past 7 days, the bad actors among America's police forces have chosen to display the contempt that they have for law and order. Watch their behavior with an open mind. Please.

Jordain Carney, writing for The Hill:

But Democrats are powerless to stop Trump’s nominees on their own after they went nuclear in 2013 and lowered the 60-vote filibuster for most nominations to a simple majority. Republicans followed suit in 2017 and nixed the 60-vote hurdle for Supreme Court picks.

​I said at the time that destroying the minority's political power of obstruction was a short-sighted move that would come back to haunt the Democrats. And I'll say right now that Republicans following suit over Supreme Court nominations was equally stupid. How many Progressives would like to have that power back, both right about now and over the last 2 years?

∞

I've been growing and evolving my religious beliefs and political positions over the past 15 years. I may have changed the most in my attitude towards the American military and the hero worship that American evangelicals have for our military. I grew up in a conservative household, in a Navy town. I was surrounded by active duty and retired members of the military, both in my extended family and among my friends' parents and my parents' friends.

Our church was typical of many. Every July 4th, we'd celebrate America and its armed forces. Representatives from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines would carry their service's flag down to the front of the church, as the service's march was played. The American flag would be prominently honored as well. Every Veterans Day Sunday, we would ask all members of the military to stand, to be honored for their service. I thought this was only just and right, as America was a Christian nation and these men and women protected us and helped to enact America's will and — by extension — God's will.

That's all changed. I can't abide churches mixing the worship of God and the worship of American military might. Christians are citizens of the Kingdom of God. Our first allegiance should be to God. If He is a jealous God, as we say He is, we shouldn't be bringing other powers into His church, to praise, honor, and venerate. God's house should be holy — set apart to God and God alone.

I've also become a peacenik. I no longer see American military might as a good thing and I no longer see the demonstration of American power as something to desire. Violence is violence and we should always mourn it and do everything we can to prevent it. In Foundation, Isaac Asimov's character Salvor Hardin says that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent". I'm idealistic enough to believe that's true. I haven't become a full-fledged pacifist, but I do believe that we should avoid military force unless we've truly exhausted every other solution and we have no choice.

In that light, I read Brian Doherty's recent article for Reason.com, "No More Vietnam Syndrome". Here, he's talking about the results of America's military efforts since 9/11.

After September 11, 2001, the U.S. military fully re-entered the world stage. The last 17 years have seen a variety of wars, quasiwars, and ongoing interventions with a mix of shifting rationales, from revenge for the attacks to spreading peaceful democracy in the Middle East to targeting specific bad actors to simply helping our Saudi allies as they work to reduce Yemen to a charnel house. None of these more recent efforts have worked out well on a geopolitical level. Meant to end Islamic terrorism worldwide, our post-9/11 warmaking multiplied it. A 2007 study by NYU researchers found that the average yearly number and fatality rate of terror attacks rose by 607 percent and 237 percent respectively after we entered Iraq in 2003. If you exclude violence in that country, the increases were still 265 and 58 percent; most jihadis in subsequent years were radicalized by the invasion itself.

Meant to crush Al Qaeda, our interventions have expanded its breadth and numbers; meant to create stable democracies in the Middle East, they've helped reduce Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen to the same sort of chaos that bred the terror in Afghanistan that began this whole bloody, pointless process.

…

These various post-9/11 foreign policy failures have cost our debt-riddled nation at least $1.5 trillion in direct costs, according to a recent Defense Department report, and more than $5 trillion in ancillary costs—such as interest and future veterans expenses—according to a 2017 analysis by the Watson Center at Brown University. In constant 2018 dollars, the Defense Department will spend this year in excess of 50 percent more than it did in 1968.

But the more hideous cost—especially poignant for those who remember the cries of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"—is in lives. That same Watson Center study estimates that there have been 370,000 deaths from direct war violence since 2001; 200,000 civilian deaths; and over 10 million people displaced by the harm to property and municipal functionality. Alas, this human and social misery is obscured by consistent, deliberate use of bloodless rhetoric. American foreign policy professionals and pundits somehow manage to look at our costly failings and the world's suffering—all that money, all that death—and think the answer is that the U.S. military should have done more, and smarter, and harder.

…

If only the lessons of Vietnam, or even of Iraq, would actually stick. We can't expect the aftereffects of this century's foreign policy sins to be short-lived. Laos still suffers dozens of deaths a year because of 80 million unexploded bombs left behind by the Vietnam War. The casualties of our drone wars may be their own variety of unexploded ordnance, as generations grow up in the literal and figurative shadows of insufficiently discriminating robot death machines in the sky, courtesy of the United States.

As a Christian — not as an American, but as a Christian — are you proud of these results? Can you truly look at them and say that America was "doing the Lord's work"? I can't. I supported the Iraq War in 2003, but I don't support it now. There is nothing to cheer in the ongoing military operations in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Syria, and in Yemen. And there's certainly nothing Christian in what the U.S. military is doing around the world today. Let's stop pretending that there is, let's stop treating Veterans Day as a church holiday, and let's stop confusing patriotism with religious devotion.

Thanks to Craig Pittman, at the Tampa Bay Times, for this very Florida story.

Florida’s best-known industries include citrus, seafood and selling tacky souvenirs to tourists. But there’s one booming Florida industry that hardly ever gets a mention from the Chamber of Commerce folks.

Mermaids.

All over the state there are now scores of women — and a few men — who regularly pull on prosthetic tails and pretend to be those mythical creatures made popular by Hans Christian Anderson and Walt Disney. Some do it for fun, but quite a few are diving into it as a business, charging by the hour to appear at everything from birthday parties to political events.

"This mermaid industry has just skyrocketed. It’s crazy," said Eric Ducharme, aka "the Mertailor," whose Crystal River-based business is making high-quality tails. "I don’t know if it’s a fad, or if it’s here to stay."

To judge how crazy the mermaid business is right now, consider this: Ducharme. a Lecanto native, sells his custom-designed tails for up to $5,000 each. He’s working on 80 of them right now, each designed to match the customers’ personal measurements.

∞

As we prepare to celebrate America's Independence Day, it's important to stop, reflect, and remember what it is that America stands for. Shikha Dalmia, writing for Reason.com, offers a hint.

For months now, the Trump administration has been literally kidnapping children from parents arriving at the border in search of asylum and sending them off to prison-like detention camps thousands of miles away. In one particularly egregious case, authorities seized the 7-year-old daughter of a mother fleeing violence in Congo. Without offering her any explanation, they dispatched her little girl to a Chicago camp while holding the mother in San Diego. The mom wasn't being punished because she was trying to sneak in illegally. She presented herself to immigration authorities exactly as she was supposed to and even passed an initial screening to determine if she had a "credible fear" of harm in her home country. It took the ACLU four months of dogged petitioning before the distraught mother and the traumatized daughter were finally reunited.

In another case, an 18-month-old boy was taken away from his Honduran mother, who arrived at the Texas border. She showed the authorities copious records to prove that she was in fact the infant's mom, but they didn't care. They ordered her to place her baby in a government vehicle and drove him away to a San Antonio facility while she wept helplessly and her terrified son screamed inconsolably. She herself was detained in a facility in Taylor, Texas.

The administration pretends that these are isolated incidents but, in fact, a _New York Times_ investigation a few weeks ago found more than 700 cases of parents and children separated just since October, including 100 under the age of 4. The ACLU has filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the parents.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

(Addendum: Yes, I'm aware that this article is 2 months old. It's still a good introduction to this particular horrible policy, for anyone who's been living under a rock. And I like the way Shikha Dalmia framed the issue.)

∞

Shamane Mills, writing for Wisconsin Public Radio.

The federal government is trying to get people to eat better with updated Nutrition Fact labels on packaged foods, and one change to the label would specify added sugars.

But those who keep bees and tap trees are fighting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposal, and the federal agency may go back to the drawing board.

The FDA proposal is designed to educate consumers about how much sugar they eat. But producers of honey and maple syrup say a label with the words "added sugars" is confusing — and misleading — because they aren’t adding anything.

One such producer is Kent Pegorsch, president of the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association and a commercial beekeeper in Waupaca.

"We objected to the wording which was misleading consumers to believe that we were adding corn syrup or other sugars to our product when in fact we weren’t, it was just naturally occurring sugars that were already in the product," Pegorsch said.

Wisconsin ranks fourth in maple syrup production and 12th in honey production.

The FDA received more than 3,000 comments on its labeling proposal, most from honey and maple syrup producers. The proposed label changes were debuted in May 2016 by former First Lady Michelle Obama and the comment period closed June 15.

"This is (the) second comment period based on feedback they received during first comment period. I unfortunately have a feeling the FDA is close to putting this into the regulations, and they’re really not going to clarify this any further than possibly allowing us to add a footnote on the label explaining what added sugars actually means. I don’t foresee a big change coming," said Pegorsch.

The FDA said in a constituent update that it "looks forward to working with stakeholders to devise a sensible solution."

This is the sort of thing that gives government regulation a bad name.

∞

The New York Times provides an apocalyptic headline for this article by Julie Bosman. In reality, this is a story about one specific, rural school closing, with some notes about other tiny, rural schools that have also closed.

Lola was among the last students to attend Arena Community Elementary. After classes let out last Monday, the school was shuttered permanently by the River Valley School District, whose administrators say that unforgiving budgets, a dearth of students and an aging population have made it impossible to keep the school open. For the first time since the 1800s, the village of Arena has no school.

Arena Elementary is the second small rural elementary school in two years to close in the district, nearly 300 square miles of rolling pastures and dairy farms in southwestern Wisconsin. The one in the neighboring village of Lone Rock closed last spring. The district now has just one open public elementary school, in Spring Green, nine miles away.

…

Administrators say they hardly had any choice.

The numbers are there for anyone to see: The River Valley School District graduated 105 seniors this year, and expects only 66 kindergartners to start school in the fall.

…

Residents worry about what will happen to Arena, population 834, without the school. There isn’t much else on this two-lane stretch of Highway 14: a gas station, a cheese outlet, a cafe called Grandma Mary’s, beloved for its Friday fish fry and beef stroganoff.

But the reality of rural life in the Midwest, school officials say, is that younger people are fleeing. They want Starbucks and Thai restaurants, plentiful jobs and high-speed internet, and when they start families, they want schools with amenities and big, thriving athletic programs.

“In any small community, anywhere in this country, our kids grow up and move away,” said Mark Strozinsky, a River Valley school board member. “They go to college and get a job, but it’s not here, because the opportunity is not here. So who’s left here? Grandma and Grandpa.”

…

Two schools in the Portage school district in central Wisconsin closed several years ago after enrollment declined sharply, the district administrator, Charles Poches, said.

“You can’t have four teachers for 40 kids,” he said.

As the public face of the district, Mr. Poches said that he bore the brunt of residents’ fury at public hearings.

“It was hell,” he said. “We’d have 50 people, some who didn’t even have kids there but had gone to school there. They felt it was part of their community. It was very traumatic.”

…

Melissa Schmid, whose 10-year-old stepson, Evan, completed fourth grade this year, said she wished she had fought harder to keep the Arena school open. When the time comes for her 1-year-old daughter, she and her husband have decided to send her to school in a different district to spare her a long bus ride.

She worries about the value of their house. New people aren’t moving to Arena much anyway. But they definitely won’t now.

“We basically have a bank and a cheese factory,” Ms. Schmid said. “It’s not going to be a growing community.”

Communities are born, grow, mature, decline, and, eventually, die. This article tugs at the heartstrings, but it's not clear to me why we should try to stop what's happening, to make rural America great again. I understand how the existing residents feel. But the hard truth is that people increasingly prefer suburban and urban lifestyles to rural life. No amount of nostalgia or outside financial support is going to cause this rural district to grow again.

∞

Dan McLaughlin wrote this, at the end of a blog post for National Review. And I'm quoting it, because I particularly liked the sentence that I bolded.

Lee was no hero; he fought for an unjust cause, and he lost. Unlike the Founding Fathers (even the slaveholders among them), he failed the basic test of history: leaving the world better and freer than he found it. And while he was not responsible for the South’s strategic failures, his lack of strategic vision places him below Grant, Sherman and Winfield Scott in any assessment of the war’s greatest generals. We should not be building new monuments to him, but if we fail to understand why the men of his day revered him, we are likelier to fail to understand who people revere today, and why. And tearing down statues of Lee today is less about understanding the past than it is a contest to divide the people of today’s America, and see who holds more power. That’s no better an attitude today than it was in Lee’s day.

Much of today's political fighting is cloaked in the language of justice, morality, and virtue. But it often feels more like gleeful displays of dominance than it does sober exercises in judgment. The end result may be good — removing statues that honor seriously flawed heroes — but the process can create bitterness and resentment rather than healing and unity.

On the subject of Vice-President Pence's unwillingness to be alone with women other than his wife, I think Sarah Skwire makes a very good point.

It’s a cliché, but a true one, to note that the real work of many professions gets done at the bar or on quick lunches or dinner grabbed with a colleague, outside the formal constraints of official meetings. When that cliché is true, and to the extent that it is true, precautions like Pence’s, that cut women out from that kind of social interaction, also cut them off from at least one route to success.

Sauce for the Goose

I wonder, then, whether Pence and others who guard themselves in this way would consider extending their prohibitions on such private meetings with opposite gender colleagues to colleagues of the same gender. In other words, if Mike Pence won’t allow himself to meet with female colleagues for a casual private dinner or drink, then perhaps he should consider disallowing interactions like that with male colleagues as well.

I think, at a minimum, that considering that possibility will tell us a lot. If your immediate reaction to that suggestion is to think that it would be unfairly restrictive to men to tell them not to go golfing alone with the Vice President, or join him for an impromptu cheeseburger, or take advantage of a quick trip on a private jet in order to get to know him better and pitch him a few ideas…then maybe that policy is even more unfair when it is applied only to women.

If it is unreasonable to think that a woman’s career is damaged because the VP won’t meet with her privately, then it is unreasonable to think a man’s career would be damaged for the same reason. If it is not unreasonable to think that such restrictions damage a woman’s career, then Pence owes it to his female colleagues and constituents to ensure that their male counterparts don’t have better access to him than they do.

It is, at least, worth thinking about seriously.

∞

Megan McCardle makes a good point about people's increasing desire to "win" at politics, by any means, at any cost.

What’s most worrying, however, is that intelligent people are discussing this stuff. Over the last decade, we’ve spent more and more time on these sorts of procedural hacks. Filibusters to prevent judicial nominations -- and parliamentary maneuvers to weaken the filibuster. Debt ceiling brinkmanship -- and whether Obama could mint trillion-dollar platinum coins to get around it. We have become less and less interested in either policy or politics, and more interested in finding some loophole in the rules that will allow one party or the other to impose its will on the country without the messy business of gathering votes and building public support. It started with the courts, but it certainly has not ended there.

Each procedural hack slightly undermines the legitimacy of the system as a whole, and makes the next hack more likely, as parties give up on the pretense that winning an election confers the right to govern, and justify their incremental power grabs by whatever the other party did last.

​> ...

What matters is not who started it, or the last outrage committed by the other side. What matters is who ends it. Unfortunately, while both sides quite agree that it needs to end, they also agree that it should end only after they themselves are allowed last licks. As long as both sides cheer their own violations while crying foul on the other side, the escalation will continue -- until we no longer have a political system worth controlling.

​I've long believed that the most important thing isn't whether you win or lose in politics. The most important thing is to have a system of rules and to strictly abide by those rules, whether or not it gives us the win we want. Increasingly, at all levels of politics, we're choosing to throw out the rule book in favor of winning. In the short term, it appears to give us what we want. In the long term, it's going to destroy the entire concept of American government, with results that no one will like.

∞

Charles C. W. Cooke offers a quick primer on America's expansive free speech tradition. When I think of American exceptionalism, this is one of the areas that comes to mind.

As the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled, under American constitutional law there is simply no such thing as “hate speech.” In Texas v. Johnson, the Court confirmed that “the government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable,” thereby echoing the insistence of a lower court that “the First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane.” Indeed, as FIRE’s Sean Clark noted in 2006, the government may not prohibit much at all:

The First Amendment allows you to wear a jacket that says “Fuck the Draft” in a public building (see Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15), yell “We’ll take the fucking street later!” during a protest (see Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105), burn the American flag in protest (Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 and United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310), and even give a racially charged speech to a restless crowd (see Terminello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1). You can even, consistent with the First Amendment, call for the overthrow of the United States government (see Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444). This is not a recent development in constitutional law—these cases date back to 1949.

It is worth remembering that Madison did not believe that his Bill of Rights was necessary to protect speech at all. Because the Constitution is a charter of enumerated powers, he argued in Federalist No. 10, Congress enjoys no capacity to censor the press in the first instance and does not therefore need to be prevented from doing so:

Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power.

∞

I find the entire situation in Ferguson to be infuriating and frustrating. I'm furious that a police officer got into an altercation with a young, black man and shot and killed him. I'm furious that the police department's first response was to suit up and bring out the tactical military gear. I'm furious that MRAV's, sniper rifles, and grenade launchers are considered appropriate tools for America's civilian police force.

I was frustrated that it took 3 nights of standoffs, tear gas, and rubber bullets before Missouri governor Jay Nixon decided that something was wrong and relieved the police of responsibility for Ferguson. I was elated when the Missouri State Highway Patrol was given responsibility and responded by leading protestors through town, listening to protestors, and being photographed hugging protestors instead of pointing guns at them.

I was confused when I heard that protestors, on the very first night, had reacted to the shooting by looting and trashing a local convenience store. Looting, in general, confuses me. Who does that? Who responds to a tragedy by saying, "Screw it. I'm mad and I'm going to respond by beating up this other innocent bystander."

Make no mistake, that's what looting and vandalism is. It's violence against the innocent and the uninvolved. Most stores that are looted are owned by local community members. They're staffed by local community members. They provide goods, services, jobs, and incomes to local community members. By destroying them, you're destroying local incomes, services, jobs, and wealth. You're depriving the owner of a livelihood. You're depriving the workers of an income. You're depriving the people who live and work near that store of the services that that store provided.

I've heard that protestors are claiming that they looted because that was the only way to draw attention to their cause. That's stupid. Protest marches, sit-ins, and rallies draw attention to your cause. Practicing non-violent resistance draws attention to your cause and generates sympathy from those watching. Looting and vandalism is a senseless act of violence and rage directed against those unfortunate enough to be located too close to the scene of tragedy. It's violence for violence's sake, responding to injustice by multiplying injustice.

So I was frustrated and angry when I heard that the night of calm in Ferguson was followed up with a night of renewed fighting and renewed vandalism. I was angry when I heard that the police stood back and allowed the looting to happen, forcing store owners to defend their own businesses. First the police over responded by armoring up and acting worse than most occupying forces. Then they under responded by allowing thugs to destroy community businesses. I'm angry because they don't understand—and can't perform—their own jobs.

I want justice in Ferguson. I want the police officer responsible for the shooting to be arrested and tried for murder, treated the same as any other civilian assailant. If a jury determines that his actions were justified, he can walk free and resume his job, the same as everyone else. If the jury determines otherwise, he can suffer the penalty, the same as everyone else.

And I want the looters to be arrested, charged, and tried as well. Their actions are neither necessary nor useful. They're criminal and should be treated as such.

One final note. I've seen people on Twitter questioning why second amendment anti-tyranny gun nuts haven't had anything to say about Ferguson. As one such nut, here's my response.

The citizenry of Ferguson absolutely have a right to own weaponry sufficient to defend themselves from criminals, whether vandals or an overreaching police force. The police force certainly seems to have given sufficient provocation for these Americans to justify an armed response. It was just such provocations, in Boston, that ultimately led to the War for Independence.

That doesn't mean that now is the right time for an armed response or that an armed response is the wisest course of action, at this time. I won't absolutely advise against it, and I won't absolutely advise it. I'm not on the ground in Ferguson, I don't know all of the facts, and I don't have the knowledge to speak wisely about the situation.

But the citizens of Ferguson, as citizens of the United States, have the right to assemble, to speak, and to petition for redress of grievances by any means necessary, either First or Second Amendment. But they don't have the right to claim that violence against local property owners is one such means of redress. That's why I'm increasingly angered with, and frustrated by, both sides of this standoff.