Shooting
- Thread starter ProdigalHorn
- Start date
While the Declaration of Independence is an important document and every American should learn/know it, I am of the opinion it should not be controlling in any fashion over constitutional interpretation as the Constitution is the actual compact among the people, states and federal government. I feel though that most Americans think the Declaration of Independence should always be considered. Another problem I have with considering the Declaration of Independence in constitutional interpretation is that it was a Jefferson baby and Jefferson was not involved with writing the Constitution (for better or worse). @Mr. Deez your thoughts?
I understand the problem with the argument. The opponents of the Bill of Rights made a similar point. That's why the 9th Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights - to establish that though some rights were codified into law, they are not a complete list of constitutional rights. Other rights are implied.
Had the Bill of Rights been defeated, then the judiciary would have defined what was and was not an individual right according to what the judges thought was important. Keep in mind that virtually all Supreme Court justices are products of Harvard, Yale, or Stanford law schools. Those law schools are not teaching their students to respect the right to bear arms. Hell, I went to Baylor Law School, and our faculty was at best indifferent to the right to bear arms. If it wasn't codified, the overwhelming majority of judges today would have absolutely no respect for it at all. A national firearm ban would be perfectly constitutional. Personally, I think that would be a bad and dangerous thing.
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I agree. I wasn't trying to make the DOL the law of the land. But truths that are self-evident drove them to do what they did. Their conscience was shocked by certain things (and maybe they just wanted to be in charge but that doesn't sound quite as noble) and the reaction to these things was common to all men.
Too bad they didn't feel the same about slavery but that's a different thread.
Mostly agree. I wouldn't reflexively jump to the Declaration of Independence to apply the Constitution. They were written by different people under different circumstances and 11 years apart. However, if the issue was one in which the Declaration could legitimately provide guidance in interpreting the Constitution, I wouldn't avoid using it, and I'd be pretty reluctant to apply the Constitution in a way that would put it into direct conflict with the Declaration.
I was not calling you out. I have been seeing a lot DOI discussion lately in general and this just brought up a stray thought. I have talked to some people (not on hornfans) that have been over-using the DOI in my opinion. I appreciate the response.
I will say I do not believe the founding fathers just wanted to be in charge (not even Alexander Hamilton). Most, if not all, were very patriotic to the British Empire before the problems really began. I also do not think they would have produced the Constitution and its beautiful separation of powers among the branches, states and people if it was really just about being in charge. Nowadays we are led by people (in both parties) that mostly just want to be in charge and that turns out a lot different than the Constitutional Convention.
That is fair. Thanks for the response!
This sums it up very nicely.
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Joe Fan
10,000+ Posts
Brit stats from 2017 show they now average one machete attack every 90 minutes (15 per day)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5609593/One-machete-attack-90-minutes-UK-streets.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5609593/One-machete-attack-90-minutes-UK-streets.html
Looks like 15 attacks per day by Muslims with machetes.
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
That doesn't seem plausible. Anecdotally, I spent 2 weeks in London in February and never felt threatened.
Did you spend your time in the Muslim slums?
"On Monday, Miss Rudd promised an Offensive Weapons Bill, which will ban online knife sales to under-18s and make it illegal to possess so-called zombie knives, with long, serrated blades with a maximum four-year jail penalty."
LOL...last paragraph of the article. Yep, banning knives must be the logical next step, but it doesnt even address the machete issue. Better make a comprehensive bill and ban anything that could possibly be used to cause bodily harm.
Even guns are easy enough to make that banning them only means criminals will be making them in their basement while law abiding citizens won't be. Banning knives is hysterical. I guess some day we'll all be living in 10x10 cells with padded walls and metal will be banned.
Joe Fan
10,000+ Posts
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
The ones where they are all walking around with machetes? You'll need to point them out and I'll check em out next trip.
Camden is pretty ethnic and i had no issues there.
ProdigalHorn
10,000+ Posts
Now that the name-calling and posturing has moved on to other things, the media has pretty much stopped asking questions about what actually happened and why. The reason for that is likely that a lot of the issues at Broward and many schools right now stems form the Promise program, which exemplifies pretty much everything that's wrong when bureaucrats and ideologues put their heads together to "fix" a social issue.
But hey... at least our schools don't "feel like prison." Or something.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/04/10/sperrybroward_art.html
"
“Their program is a lie, and it doesn’t work,” said Lowell Levine, a father with grown children whose Stop Bullying Now Foundation in Lake Worth, Fla., has received several dozen complaints during the past few years from parents whose children were repeatedly beaten and bullied by fellow Broward students, who suffered few or no consequences.
As a result, some parents have sued the school district for failing to protect their children from violent attacks. At least one survivor of the Feb. 14 shooting is filing a lawsuit citing the district’s lax discipline policies.
Levine said he alerted Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie’s office about the flood of complaints regarding school violence in 2015, two years after its leniency program, called PROMISE, was put into effect. (PROMISE stands for Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Supports & Education.)
“But he refused to meet with me,” said Levine, who has been consulting with survivors of the Parkland shooting. “I was told they had it under control and that they didn’t need any outside advice.”
Runcie’s office did not respond to requests for comment regarding Levine’s claims.
Runcie and the Broward school board have agreed to hold a community forum Wednesday to address growing concerns from parents and students about the role the PROMISE program played in the shooting and overall school safety.
“The PROMISE program has failed us, and discipline hasn’t been allocated the way it should have been,” parent Donald Eckler told the board during a public meeting this month. “We’ve shut off communication between the school board and the police agencies that impact these students.”
That new discipline policy took effect in 2013. It was at the vanguard of the Obama administration’s efforts to address the “school to prison” pipeline. Beginning in 2009, it opened hundreds of investigations or sued to force districts to adopt lenient discipline guidelines. This push was formalized in a 2014 “Dear Colleague” letter to the nation’s public school superintendents and board members that not only discourages student arrests, but holds districts liable for the actions of school resource officers.
After meeting with Obama officials in the White House, Runcie persuaded the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and Fort Lauderdale Police Department to agree to stop arresting students who committed misdemeanor crimes the district deemed “nonviolent” – including assault, theft, vandalism, drugs and public fighting. This included multiple offenders such as Cruz. Law enforcement agreed for the most part to let school officials handle such delinquents through two counseling programs: PROMISE and the Behavior Intervention Program.
Runcie argued that diverting minor offenders from jail to “restorative justice” counseling and other positive behavioral interventions would help close the academic "achievement gap” by disrupting the flow of black students into the so-called “schoolhouse to jailhouse pipeline.” Though African-Americans made up about 40 percent of the Broward student body, they accounted for more than 70 percent of juvenile arrests in the county."
But hey... at least our schools don't "feel like prison." Or something.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/04/10/sperrybroward_art.html
"
“Their program is a lie, and it doesn’t work,” said Lowell Levine, a father with grown children whose Stop Bullying Now Foundation in Lake Worth, Fla., has received several dozen complaints during the past few years from parents whose children were repeatedly beaten and bullied by fellow Broward students, who suffered few or no consequences.
As a result, some parents have sued the school district for failing to protect their children from violent attacks. At least one survivor of the Feb. 14 shooting is filing a lawsuit citing the district’s lax discipline policies.
Levine said he alerted Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie’s office about the flood of complaints regarding school violence in 2015, two years after its leniency program, called PROMISE, was put into effect. (PROMISE stands for Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Supports & Education.)
“But he refused to meet with me,” said Levine, who has been consulting with survivors of the Parkland shooting. “I was told they had it under control and that they didn’t need any outside advice.”
Runcie’s office did not respond to requests for comment regarding Levine’s claims.
Runcie and the Broward school board have agreed to hold a community forum Wednesday to address growing concerns from parents and students about the role the PROMISE program played in the shooting and overall school safety.
“The PROMISE program has failed us, and discipline hasn’t been allocated the way it should have been,” parent Donald Eckler told the board during a public meeting this month. “We’ve shut off communication between the school board and the police agencies that impact these students.”
That new discipline policy took effect in 2013. It was at the vanguard of the Obama administration’s efforts to address the “school to prison” pipeline. Beginning in 2009, it opened hundreds of investigations or sued to force districts to adopt lenient discipline guidelines. This push was formalized in a 2014 “Dear Colleague” letter to the nation’s public school superintendents and board members that not only discourages student arrests, but holds districts liable for the actions of school resource officers.
After meeting with Obama officials in the White House, Runcie persuaded the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and Fort Lauderdale Police Department to agree to stop arresting students who committed misdemeanor crimes the district deemed “nonviolent” – including assault, theft, vandalism, drugs and public fighting. This included multiple offenders such as Cruz. Law enforcement agreed for the most part to let school officials handle such delinquents through two counseling programs: PROMISE and the Behavior Intervention Program.
Runcie argued that diverting minor offenders from jail to “restorative justice” counseling and other positive behavioral interventions would help close the academic "achievement gap” by disrupting the flow of black students into the so-called “schoolhouse to jailhouse pipeline.” Though African-Americans made up about 40 percent of the Broward student body, they accounted for more than 70 percent of juvenile arrests in the county."
My wife is an elementary school teacher here in the Greater Austin area and, even tho they are not involved in the PROMISE program, there is no discipline available to teachers to curb bullying here, either.
Mrs. Deez taught and later become and instructional coach in the area before we moved overseas. She says teachers are losing the power to discipline altogether. It's not just the rules against it. It's professional and social pressure. Obviously, corporal punishment is out of the question, but they're being discouraged from taking away things such as recess or doing anything that embarrasses or shames a kid. (Obviously, the last thing we'd ever want to do is to "judge" somebody.) A teacher nowadays has almost no tools in her shed if a kid is really bad.
And of course, if a teacher or principal really does punish a kid for acting like a punk, the parents of the kid almost always take up for the kid and attack the teacher or principal. It's pathetic and terrible for the kid. Other than full blown physical or sexual abuse, I think that's one of the worst things a parent could do to their kid.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Phil, I was going to write the same exact thing except I had to experience it as a parent. From I can tell, it is the upper class kids who have never been disciplined that are the biggest problem.
The school will tell you they have a 0 tolerance policy and that there is help available. But when something happens to you child, there is nothing that either can do or will do. It's sad.
The school will tell you they have a 0 tolerance policy and that there is help available. But when something happens to you child, there is nothing that either can do or will do. It's sad.
ProdigalHorn
10,000+ Posts
That's kind of where we are in society in general now, not just with school. This is only loosely related, but the issue with the guys who got arrested at Starbucks is pretty revealing. We don't know what happened or if more was done that made the situation more severe than it was, but the long and short of it apparently was that the store has a typical "no loitering, buy something or get out" policy, and the manager believed (right or wrong) that these two guys were in violation. She asks them to leave and they refuse. Her only option at that point is to call the cops or do nothing. And the expected outcome was that she do nothing - the Starbucks CEO has now said on record that these guys weren't doing anything that should have warranted calling the cops. OK, so now what? You asked them to leave and they said no. Well ok then, guess we're done now!
Although I'm generally unsympathetic to the plight of the modern black civil rights agenda, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Starbucks here either. The problem with what they did is that they applied what at least looks like a double standard. People hang out in Starbucks all the time, but then a somewhat thuggish looking black dude does it, and they suddenly start caring about a "no loitering" policy.
That's how you lose a race discrimination case. Company managers don't testify, "yep, I don't like blacks." Lawyers don't usually find smoking gun e-mails of him dropping n-bombs. What often happens is that the manager has some rule that he largely ignores, and then he gets aggravated with some black guy and decides to enforce the rule against him. That's how companies lose.
Do I think this is really a race issue in the sense that the manager is a closet David Duke fan who would put up a "no coloreds allowed" sign if he could? No. I think it's a situation in which he thought the guys were scary and a little sloppy looking and didn't want them hanging around his coffee shop. He'd probably do the same thing if a scary and sloppy looking white guy came in there. However, nobody's going to entertain that degree of nuance, and he should know that. The men were black and weren't doing anything to hurt anybody, and he called the cops and had them tossed out and humiliated. That's all anybody is going to care about.
And of course, Starbucks prides itself on being "woke," so the self-flagellation has begun. Link. It won't get a lot of airtime, but I'm sure a donation to the National Action Network and/or Rainbow/PUSH (Al Sharpton's and Jesse Jackson's respective extortion rackets) are being put together right now.
also anecdotallly ...
I used to make fairly regular trips to London back when I was on the "big iron"
at the major crew hotel in Kensington, there was MOST DEFINITELY a direction from the hotel you DID NOT GO ... and some of us were even British crew so we could actually blend in until we got a block/so that direction from the hotel. Then it was like we were in a different country.
Sad what has happened in Blymie town. I went back to Domestic just over 2 years ago. I expect this condition hasn't "improved," especially with the current mayor.
While not the degree of this in our little rural one-stop light town ... it has regressed this direction. My teacher wife can attest. She's been unemployed (by choice) the last two years availing herself as a substitute at her convenience. She accepted a "full time" sub on behalf of a new mother. Two weeks into it "I can't go back to that"
Happy Happy Happy.
I was glad to have my wife back when she stopped teaching. Yeah, she's "one of those" ... and it consumed her.
and here is the problem ... and the what I think is the reason the "victimization disorder" (everything that happens to me is because I'm being victimized due to something out of my control ... and race is a good one) has been renamed "white privilege" from outright racism.
Since the late 60s, all who aren't in private school/homeschool have a very consistent degree of availability to a primary education. Since the 80s and increasingly into the 2010s ... the amount of opportunity availed SPECIFICALLY to minorities ("scholarship") combined with the aforementioned ... has obliterated the entire notion of being "held down" because of race.
In fact ... minorities are being held above everyone in de facto reparation, really.
So ... since that has become the unquestionable reality to even the most staunch BLMer/et al ... something else has to be targeted to underscore the continuing reality that most poor are racial minorities. The reason MUST be something called "White Privilege" and this one is more ... nuanced ... as you say @Mr. Deez ... because it's a general condition which is actually a double edged contradiction.
We're supposed to accept a white male has "privileges" no one else has but we're not supposed to stereotype! LOL
We are exchanging the truth for any lie we can conjure and trying to articulate THAT into real truth. It's not going to happen, but by hook or by crook, we're going to try.
Get woke, indeed ... but there's only one Way, One Truth, and One Life.
The Bible said this was gonna happen.
ProdigalHorn
10,000+ Posts
True, although when I do it, I usually buy something. When I don't, I fully understand that if it gets crowded or a store clerk notices it, they have the right to ask me to leave. And if a store clerk told me "you need to buy something if you're going to stay," there's only one right answer to that. Well... two if you include "leaving" as an answer.
I'm not speaking from a liability standpoint because obviously you can make that argument that you just made. But it may well be that particular store does enforce the rule religiously. We don't know that. And as someone I heard pointed out, it's not like this store was in a location where they didn't see black people coming in all the time. So it seems like if this were an issue of racism, this would be coming up a lot more. If it's true that they're selectively enforcing the policy, and that can be shown to be true, then there's a case. But I don't think you can start with the assumption that "if they had been white, no one would have said anything." Maybe that's true, maybe it's not.
I've been asked to leave a pancake house after I used it to do some paperwork. I was a paying customer, (pancakes, yum) and had tipped the waitress $30 since I had hogged a table for a couple of hours.
Never once did I think to call the police, or get angry. In fact, all I felt was kind of sheepish for being asked politely to leave. I assumed the staff wanted to vacuum, re-fill salt/pepper shakers, syrup, etc.
As many have stated, cell phone videos will be the end of civility. We get a snapshot of the after, or the middle, and people make judgements on that one bit of information. I have no idea what transpired prior to the police arriving, or, how the black customers treated the police once they arrived. For all I know it could have all been a set-up, with the guy who said, "they did nothing wrong" part of the plan.
I hate that I am becoming more and more skeptical of these incidents. But I have a feeling this was a bit more than 2 black men, innocently sitting at a table with their computers, quietly waiting for their business partner to arrive.
The saddest thing is how quickly Starbucks caved and gave them the royal treatment. This opens the door to all sorts of behaviors, and i guess we have to live with them lest we be branded racists.
Never once did I think to call the police, or get angry. In fact, all I felt was kind of sheepish for being asked politely to leave. I assumed the staff wanted to vacuum, re-fill salt/pepper shakers, syrup, etc.
As many have stated, cell phone videos will be the end of civility. We get a snapshot of the after, or the middle, and people make judgements on that one bit of information. I have no idea what transpired prior to the police arriving, or, how the black customers treated the police once they arrived. For all I know it could have all been a set-up, with the guy who said, "they did nothing wrong" part of the plan.
I hate that I am becoming more and more skeptical of these incidents. But I have a feeling this was a bit more than 2 black men, innocently sitting at a table with their computers, quietly waiting for their business partner to arrive.
The saddest thing is how quickly Starbucks caved and gave them the royal treatment. This opens the door to all sorts of behaviors, and i guess we have to live with them lest we be branded racists.
There's also the angle which sounds like the Daniel Caffey argument ...
You say Pvt Santiago was to be transferred for his own safety. and had orders to be on the 0600 flight from GitMo to Andrews
Yes
You say that your men always follow your orders.
Yes
You told your men Pvt Santiago wasn't to be touched
Yes
Why would it have been necessary to transfer Pvt Santiago on the basis of his own personal safety if your men always follow your orders?
....
If Starbucks only hires people who uphold their values, and their values are one of inclusivity of all ...
Then why does the entire chain of stores need to be shut down in order to train staff/employees about racial sensitivity???
----
btw ... I LOVE "A Few Good Men" but understand it was another hollywood effort to denigrate the heart/soul of the US Military generally and the USMC in particular. The character played by Tom Cruise was precisely what Nickelson's character declared he was. It was a tragedy ... but the code is solid. "Santiago's death while tragic probably saved lives." BOOM.
You say Pvt Santiago was to be transferred for his own safety. and had orders to be on the 0600 flight from GitMo to Andrews
Yes
You say that your men always follow your orders.
Yes
You told your men Pvt Santiago wasn't to be touched
Yes
Why would it have been necessary to transfer Pvt Santiago on the basis of his own personal safety if your men always follow your orders?
....
If Starbucks only hires people who uphold their values, and their values are one of inclusivity of all ...
Then why does the entire chain of stores need to be shut down in order to train staff/employees about racial sensitivity???
----
btw ... I LOVE "A Few Good Men" but understand it was another hollywood effort to denigrate the heart/soul of the US Military generally and the USMC in particular. The character played by Tom Cruise was precisely what Nickelson's character declared he was. It was a tragedy ... but the code is solid. "Santiago's death while tragic probably saved lives." BOOM.
I have basically said this exact same thing to my wife for years. Big time liberal director making the entire USMC and military look like evil clowns.
Back to Starbucks...
I agree with you about the reasonableness of asking non-customers to leave, and I agree that this is almost surely not a racial thing. I am very skeptical of the suggestion that the no loitering policy is truly enforced on a consistent basis. If I walked into a Starbucks with sloppy, greasy hair, had plumber's crack, and generally looked like a bum, I think they'd make me leave pretty fast. However, if I went in there looking smooth like lotion - wearing a "trial suit," shined shoes, clean shaven, nicely combed hair, and generally "looking respectable," I think it would be very different.
I think they'd let me stay a lot longer before even approaching me. Why? Because I'd "look important." In addition, I don't think I'd get, "Sir, you need to leave if you're not going to order something" for quite awhile. I think I'd get a lot of, "Sir, is there something I can get for you?" And I think my response would get a lot of deference. If I said, "Not right now, ma'am. I'm waiting for somebody," I think I'd get, "well, let me know if I can get something for you." I might eventually be asked to leave, but I could drag that out for a long time.
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