Monday, November 21, 2011

Why You Should Not Vote For Any Presidential Candidate

What happened at U.C. Davis has made international news and made us look like a third world dictatorship. I personally am not very happy with that. Here is something else to consider, how many presidential candidates have said anything about what happened and I don't even care what position they took, here is why you cannot vote for them, because they have yet to take a position on what happened. They are waiting to see how it will effect them in the polls.

Our politicians have no opinions, they only think about what will get them elected. Even the idiots Gingrich and Cain have not come out with strong support or any comments that I can find on what happened at U.C. Davis and they both oppose the Occupy movement, they are cowards. Come out and say that this is how our citizens and students should be treated if you believe it. Prove to us that you are capable of firm and decisive decisions regardless of the effect on your popularity. If you actually believed what you say you do then you would say that, "While I may not agree with them, I will defend to the death their right to say it". Isn't that what the Tea Party was about Mr. Cain or was it just about taxes moron?

I have no political affiliation so don't think the Democrats are any better. Where was the President during all this, where are his statements. If you can't comment on this how can we listen to you berate other countries for doing the same. You lack all moral authority Mr. Obama.

People might think that this post is about the Occupy movement; but, it is not, it is about the lack of honest, selfless political leadership in this country. It is about asking ourselves the same questions we ask of other governments.

No Big Deal, Not My Fault, I Made a Mistake, What Now

An open post to Lieutenant P of the U.C. Davis Police,

I am writing this as if I were talking to you, perhaps you will find it and perhaps you will not; but, it is going to be good advice to both you and other police. Firstly, my father was a highly decorated law enforcement officer and many of my friends were either in intelligence, law enforcement or the military. I myself work for the government. If you had worked for my father, it would not have been for long.

I don't know what you were thinking when you so casually pepper sprayed those students; but, it sure didn't look like you cared about their well being. My guess is that you thought you were doing your job, exercising the authority of the state. You do work for the state of California's University system. I read that you were trained in the use of pepper spray; but, that doesn't mean you are supposed to use it.

As you walked out to the small group of people sitting in the quad you probably thought the most important thing was to remove them for not listening to authority; but, you were wrong. Your first and highest priority is to the citizens and not to the university authority figures. It is claimed that you have two awards from the university for your actions in the past. It is possible that you have protected in the past and did not understand your number one allegiance is protect others even more than enforcing rules. Lots of people get that wrong.

I wrote earlier about the incident, my focus was more on the media; but, I did predict what would happen next. Your name and face and address and phone number have all been released on the internet. I do not agree with what has been released; but, I expected it. One way or the other it would have gotten out eventually. You are no doubt concerned about you and your family and probably should be, I would be. When I was a child, criminals targeted my family. I feel sorry for your children, should you have any, having to experience what I did. The difference is, my father was targeted by criminals.

You have a couple of choices. You can leave and hide, find a place where you are not known or is supportive of such tactics; but, do you really want to live in a place full of right wing militia types? The second choice is that you can attempt to stay. Because of the publicity, there is a good chance that the university will throw you under the bus even if you were following directions. Nope, don't expect help from the university. You might think the police union will support you; but, then what, you stay on knowing that everyday the students hate you. That does not sound like a good idea. You might go out on stress, then you can be an example and a reason for people to go after the pension benefits for all state police. Bottom line is you are going to be used by everybody with any agenda and you put yourself in the situation.

I will make a different recommendation. Make a public statement and tell the truth. If you truly thought what you were doing was right, whatever the reason, then publicly announce it. If you thought you were right; but, truly now believe you had overreacted, then say that; but, don't say it if it isn't true. You showed no courage when you sprayed them; but, you can show it now.

You might think this will all blow over; but, it will not. It will lessen; but, things will never be the same for you at the university. Now, if you truly do believe that you were wrong, you have an opportunity for redemption. Come out, say why you did what you did, why it was wrong and that you are going to dedicate your life to being a example and mentor to other police officers to tell them that acting with aggression on the people you are supposed to protect is wrong. Tell them where you went wrong and how things should have been handled. By the way, when it is peaceful protest the correct response, if people's lives are not being threatened, is for disengagement. You are supposed to leave and then come back in plain clothes and talk to the people, it is a community approach to policing.

This should also be a lesson to all people who should be honored to be responsible for the security of the citizens. Think about all the information that you have on citizens, they have the same on you. Lt. P, they will no doubt hack your phone and your internet. There is the chance that they will release your browsing history. I say this so that you have a chance to protect your information.

My opinion is that none of your information should have been released unless and until the university had the chance to either deal with what happened or put out what I expect from them, a watered down explanation. In everyone's lives there are moments of truth, the first one for you was when you chose to douse the students in the manner that you did, the next one is in how you deal with the consequences of your actions and the truth is, the whole world is watching.

The first step, if you do believe your actions were wrong, would be to invite the students who you pepper sprayed to meet with you in person so that you can see how it effected them. That could be very tough to do; but, it would show some sincerity and remorse. It was your job to make the students feel safe on campus, I assume you have seen the videos, would you feel safe if you were them?

You are no doubt getting a lot of advice and hate. Advice from those who love you and hate from those who don't know you. Worse yet, you are probably getting support from people who don't know you at all and just like to see people "put in their place". Think for yourself, decide if what you did is right, if you would feel the same way if it was your family and friends.

This is an opportunity for you to grow and learn a whole lot about yourself and how society should work. It is my prayer for you that you make the best choice and understand that it is your privilege to protect others from authority, not abuse it.

Tags for Pastor Carol Daniels

I noticed that along with a spike in readership, there was also increased traffic regarding the good Pastor Carol Daniels. For whatever reason, and it is beyond me, my little blog is one of the highest when you search for information regarding her. When I wrote the original it was just a one time post; but, words tend to have a life of their own. Because people continue to be interested I have gone back and attempted to tag each article that I wrote regarding her just to assist the reader.

I did a search for her name myself and did not see any new information; but, if anyone ever has any I would appreciate it if they would leave a comment so that I can check the article and leave a post and link for those who come here. As always, my prayers and thoughts go out to her family and friends.

In case you are not familiar with using tags, at the bottom of each post is a place where I can post a label also referred to as a tag. It is the subject matter of the post. If you find any post with a tag and want to read more articles tagged on the same subject, you click the tag and all articles that are similarly tagged will appear.

Health Benefits of Pepper Spray"

As the chancellor of UC Davis said that the police were sent because of health concerns for the students, I decided to look up the medical benefits of being sprayed in the face with pepper spray. According to Wikipedia:

"The US Army concluded in a 1993 Aberdeen Proving Ground study that pepper spray could cause "[m]utagenic effects, carcinogenic effects, sensitization, cardiovascular and pulmonary toxicity, neurotoxicity, as well as possible human fatalities. There is a risk in using this product on a large and varied population".[13] However, the pepper spray was widely approved in the US despite the reservations of the US military scientists after it passed FBI tests in 1991. As of 1999, it was in use by more than 2000 public safety agencies.[14]"

Now if I read that correctly some of the health benefits include death. I don't really see that as very beneficial. I mean even if you believe in assisted suicides for the terminally ill, those kids looked sicker after being sprayed then before. Obviously I am being sarcastic; but, they make it so easy. The truth was that the University didn't want the kids occupying the campus so why lie. I would have a lot more respect if the chancellor had said that the university did not want to be disrupted and that the officers had overreacted.

The chancellor's answers were just stupid and politically aimed and it failed. If the chancellor thought the officers were using pepper spray as some sort of vaccination against disease then maybe she would be willing to stand in the quad and prove that it is a good form of vaccination by being sprayed in the face herself. If she is so stupid that she believes that there are health benefits to being pepper sprayed then she does not deserve to run anything and should be removed.

The students were protesting the fact that their tuition had doubled in the last seven years. I went to a website that showed the salaries for people working for the university in 2007 or 2008 and it said that the head coach of the football team made over $2 million a year. It was amazing how many working for the university were making around a million.

The way the universities look at students anymore is purely business. The universities promote the kids taking out as much in loans as possible in order to pay the administration and faculties salaries. The UC system was theoretically created to educate Californians; but, out of staters and foreign students pay more so the Universities have been letting more in with fewer Californians being accepted even though our taxes pay for the system.

UC Davis chancellor says student safety dictated tent removal

This article is from the Sacramento Bee. UC Davis chancellor says student safety dictated tent removal.
Is that what was on the officer's minds, they were trying to protect the health of the students by shooting industrial strength pepper spray into their faces? Are there no nurses or doctors on the campus that could have given the kids physicals, it seems more sensible. If I am not mistaken the police were also carrying weapons that looked like paintball guns, maybe they were really advanced medical equipment; but, it didn't look that way to me.

Now if we can cut through the spin and lies, we all should be able to figure out what happened. Around a dozen students decided to pitch tents on their campus in support of the Occupy movement. The University did not want it to spread, ordered it's removal and the officers came with an overwhelming show of force in order to make an example of the students in order to intimidate others to not participate in further occupations. That is a much more likely scenario than that they came to protect them from the flu or whatever nonsense.

Rather than sending in the campus police with weapons and body armor, maybe the Chancellor could have walked down to the encampment and talked to the students and worked out something where they could have camped during the day and returned to their dorms at night. Certainly something could have been attempted rather than sending the police to break it up. The Chancellor is probably very well paid, I would have hoped she could have come up with better answers.

Spike in Readership

I am off this week, sort of, and slept till noon. It was very nice to just lay in bed. When I woke up I logged into my e-mail accounts and then checked the blog. Since yesterday I have seen ten times as many readers as normal. The number one post that people read was about Ms. Rothschild complaining about the Occupy movement. I have no idea why as no comments were left.

Now, to tell you the truth I don't really care who she is, I haven't been impressed by her articles or condescending approach. From the comments left on her article at Huffington post, a lot of people found her annoying. In the end, she misses the biggest point of all, how should society be organized so that we have a decent life for as many people as possible. That is what philosophers have questioned for thousands of years.

We have become a world of very educated people with some being very good at taking advantage of the system to benefit themselves at the expense of others. We do this on a national level and on a personal level. The idea was that someone should be compensated based on how much they contributed to society and that we should protect people who could not contribute. It was based on morality and not just money.

There are those who talk about the "job creators", okay what if we compensated people based on how many jobs they created rather than the value of a companies stock. That would change how CEOs operated (this is an example, it would not be as easy as it sounds).

Here is something to consider just for the fun of it. Many police departments were given stimulus money to "create jobs" and they used this money to hire police and buy supplies. Wouldn't it be nice to know how many jobs were created by the police buying pepper spray. Maybe the cop from Davis felt he was creating jobs by spraying the kids with pepper spray, I mean you have to use it up to justify buying more. Maybe the cop thought of himself as a job creator.

It sounds completely ridiculous because it is insanity. It takes the human element out of how our society is organized and should function; but, that is what happens when it stops being about people and is just about money. Hey, this may not be my best post ever; but, I am still drinking my first cup of coffee.

Ms. Rothschild offers nothing on how to improve the world, status quo seems quite alright with her; but, the status quo is failing at every level of society. The world has become bankrupt on an international, national and personal level because people have ceased believing in a greater morality than just personal gain.

U.C. Davis's chancellor is calling for a 30 day review of what happened and has put the two officers involved and the chief on administrative leave. That means they will be paid for not pepper spraying people, I mean working. It means that the Chancellor is now a job eliminator. I am okay with that, those officers need to find new jobs.

Now knowing a bit about politics, there are only so many ways that the investigation can end. Lets consider them. First, they find the officers guilty of abuse of power and fire them. Second, they find the officers guilty of overreacting or some nicely worded justification. If that happens the cops could stay at UC Davis where they will be under constant risk of whatever or they are transferred to another campus. If that happens then everyone at the new campus will feel they are being threatened. Perhaps the officers will be allowed to retire; but, one of them it said was relatively new.

Now another possibility is that the officers are not disciplined other than being sent for retraining or sensitivity training or whatever, that is not going to please anyone. Here is the problem, the investigation will not be about if the officers were guilty, it will be about finding a Public Relations answer, not about fixing what led to the situation.

As for the individual officers involved, I bet they are having a bad week. While the officers may not have thought anything of what they did at the time, I would hope that rather justifying it to themselves they would sit back and ask if what they did was morally right. I would hope they would ask them how they would have felt if it was their family that was pepper sprayed. At some point they will be interviewed and their answers will determine how people respond; but, true rehabilitation does not happen in a day. Maybe they will be given jobs in the prison system because so few care about how we treat prisoners, just consider the L.A. County jails problems.

I find it interesting that the governor and the mayor's have not said anything about what happened at the university. They don't have much to say because there is a good chance in their minds that we might need more pepper spray in order to stop the Occupy protests.