Tag: rule of law

Being a Good Ninja

Halloween is almost upon us. Such a fun excuse to dress up as something or someone else for tricks and treats. I’m so blessed to be able to experience this day through my grandchildren now. Oh, I know adults can dress up too and party, party, party. But you can’t beat the anticipation of a child during this “holiday”.

My grandson will be a ninja for Halloween this year. In fact he has actually stated that he wants to be a ninja when he grows up! Not impossible these days when you consider that he can start karate classes at his age of five. But honestly I think Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers have more influence over this decision than any career ninja he’s met in his short life. I personally acquired my first degree black belt at the age of forty. It takes a lot of determination to get that far!

Everyone can develop good ninja skills.

Occasionally I will make an off handed remark to someone that I have ninja skills. This happens usually when someone doesn’t realize I’m near them or when I unsuspectingly respond to a person’s body language. What are those skills? I believe they are quite similar to my black belt skills which reflect a redirected proactive defense approach to life rather than a direct attack method. All ninjas know how to attack, but good ninjas know that you should never try to put yourself in a situation where an attack is necessary. Awareness of your surroundings, of the people around you, and of your own training is the best test of the stealth needed to overtake any precarious situation. The good ninja prepares and practices these awareness skills constantly.

Are there bad ninjas out there? Certainly! I’m watching them now destroying the streets and buildings of France. These “ninjas” believe that the governing bureaucracy is against them and they attack their own surroundings as if it is their duty to all citizens. They have been stealthily organizing to make their strike! They are aware of the system vulnerabilities initiated by the undisciplined bureaucratic processes. The chaos these bad ninjas unleashed will be difficult for the good ninjas to overcome…Unless the good ninjas are fully aware of their fundamental training skills. All the tools exist in the Western Pillars and Cultural Values of:

  • Individualism and Autonomy: Emphasis on individual rights, personal liberty, and moral accountability over collective conformity.
  • Reason and Rational Inquiry: Reliance on logical argumentation, empirical evidence, and critical thinking to derive ethical rules.
  • Universalism: The belief that fundamental ethical standards and human rights apply equally to all rational or human beings.
  • Rule of Law: The principle that laws should govern society through a constitutional framework rather than the arbitrary will of leaders.
  • Social Contract Theory: The idea—explored by thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau—that legitimate moral and political rules arise from an implicit agreement among individuals to form a peaceful society.

The bad ninjas who are acting out on the streets of France absolutely hate Western cultural norms, but these norms are what keep a free society from devolving into tyranny. We all must be good ninjas in these times of chaos and practice our Western cultural norms constantly against any bad ninja behavior. Not unlike the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fighting against the evil Shredder and heeding the advice of their beloved Splinter.

May we all grow up to be good ninjas 😉

We Are All Vulnerable

Almost anyone in this world can be exposed to some form of vulnerability. You don’t even have to know that you are vulnerable in order to be taken advantage of by someone or something. We know this because the internet is full of phishing scams. It can be incredibly difficult for some people to actually know that a threat is present especially if their health or safety is compromised.

We have all probably heard a terrible story about a person being scammed out of their money because they trusted an email or text. This might have happened to a person you know in which case you might also understand just how awful the person felt after being scammed. The solicitation seemed so true and the scenario so honest that it didn’t feel right not to act on it. In the age of technology all of us must be aware of our vulnerability. But technology is not our worst threat.

The greatest scam happening in our country today is being perpetrated by government officials who exude misguided empathy. Think about the time when many cities implemented sanctuary policies for their immigrant population. How long after this did we discover that many immigrants who had been arrested for crimes had been given lenient punishment, arrested for another crime, let go again, wash, rinse repeat? Not only is the general population at risk for crimes against them but so are legal immigrants who typically live among these criminals. I understand the thinking behind the sanctuary policy was to encourage immigrants to come forward to report crimes against them, however when you combine this policy with the other policies that reduce the punishments for crime these sanctuary cities have left everyone vulnerable to the perpetrators.

But what about the vulnerability of the criminals? Didn’t they resort to criminal behavior because of the inequalities in our country? These questions are the misplaced empathy that liberal and progressive leaders cannot seem to solve with their new policies because the two forms of “vulnerable” populations (perpetrators and victims) are not able to help each other achieve justice…Leadership has failed their experiment. This is also true for the homeless, the mentally unstable and those who are drug addicted. No one can be helped therefore everyone is allowed to suffer. Asylum seekers suffer, the legally settled migrants suffer, the impoverished suffer, and the population at large suffers. No individual is immune because even the wealthy and well connected lose their empathy in this game of politics as the perpetrators eventually come for them.

So what can be done? Easy. Follow the federal and state laws that were put in place before the sanctuary cities decided their own laws. Disbar the Soros funded DAs who ignore or reduce criminal charges. Impeach judges who play politics with the law instead of implementing the law. Our representatives in Congress have the power to make this happen, but will they? If not then we the people must hold elected leadership accountable. We may be vulnerable, but we don’t have to be victims of their abuse of power.

The “Liberation” Generation

In its truest sense liberation means the setting free of someone or something. We can understand that animals raised in captivity are often unprepared for their liberation when they are released back into the wild. Treating an animal in this way would be cruel. Captivity has given the animal food without it fighting for food and a home without searching for its appropriate hiding/nesting place. The animal’s instincts for survival have been deteriorated.

In a political context liberation can be referred to activities connected with removing the disadvantages experienced by particular groups in a society or removing a tyrannical government. I don’t think the current generation truly understands what a disadvantage is these days.

Those who seek liberation related to a political context are often called activists. They are acting on behalf of a particular cause so as to make the “world” a better place. Think of climate change or voting rights. But is making the world a better place a form of liberation? Who determines what is “better”? This is why we have democratic process. If we don’t have democratic process then activists would be imposing tyranny by mob rule or worse.

It’s okay in the United States to organize a group to bring awareness to a problem or cause. It’s against the law to bring that awareness by implementing force or destruction. But perhaps thwarting the law is an act of “liberation”? It is NOT!

States or cities declaring sanctuary, penalty systems removing bail bonds, employers hiring low wage “workers” and foreigners remaining in the country after a visa has expired are all methods of thwarting the law. What I find interesting is that all of these methods have few ways for the ordinary citizen to combat them because it is often the elected officials who have implemented them. The only way to hold them accountable is to elect new officials who demand that these actions stop and that existing laws are followed. Few states or cities that thwart existing laws seem to care about the unintended consequences of their actions. Though their actions “liberate” some people, these actions can create victims of other people. This is the real disadvantage.

Our society must get back to the work of recognizing the actual victims of violence and crime by giving them sincere justice. Liberation cannot mean that perpetrators have more opportunity to commit violence and crime by being given lax punishments which effectively turn them into wild animals trying to survive in civil society. Perpetrators need a form of captivity to be rehabilitated, and sometimes they should remain in captivity.

Which way will you go?

As I process the horrible assassination of Charlie Kirk, I can’t help but think that all of what I just wrote in the above paragraphs is connected to this incident. The killer was literally living in their own cage of mental anguish and fear of the “other”. Liberating themselves from their cage meant ridding the world of differing beliefs and the open expression of them. Charlie did not fear other beliefs and opinions. He was open to them and debated them head on…Charlie did not hate or use violence. Instead he used the liberal ideals of individual civil rights and liberties expressed and guaranteed in our Founding Principles.

The demons of Socialist/Marxist ideology have been uncaged. This type of “liberation” must end. As the prominent Christian minister and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” This quote reflects biblical principles found in verses like Matthew 5:44 and Romans 12:21. These verses encourage loving your enemies and overcoming evil with good, which aligns with the core message that only love can counter hate. How sad that he was assassinated too.

Speaking your mind with compassion is true liberation. We must act wisely to preserve this fundamental right.

Sadly, We Forgot

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and consolidated several agencies, including the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, into the newly formed ICE. This is Federal law. Can Congress change this law? Of course it can…but it won’t. Just like it won’t change immigration laws. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 and our current immigration laws go hand in hand. The Act tightened immigration policies in order to never repeat what happened on 9/11.

We forgot that the people who overstayed their visa twenty-four years ago were able to manipulate our systems in order to carry out the worst terror attack ever on our own soil. Twenty-four years is enough time for a whole generation of Americans to not understand the horror of that day.

Our federal government is responsible for our homeland security. It had egg on its face when security systems before 9/11 were so lax that the communication between the agencies failed to identify abuse by a terrorist threat. Foreign individuals conspired and organized the attack on 9/11 by accessing the means necessary to infiltrate airport security, flight training, and flight crew access…The tight measures we now experience to travel by plane continue to this day because of it. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act, passed by the 107th Congress and signed on November 19, 2001, established the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

In 2021 the new Administration under President Biden redirected Border Patrol duties to handle the influx of immigrants that were crossing the border into the United States from every possible unsecured access point. It doesn’t matter how the news media spins the narrative…The border was porous and the number of crossers were extremely high to the point where Border Patrol were acting as processors and not enforcers. Catch and release had to be used because there was no way to build enough containment facilities for the large numbers crossing each day. And while Border Patrol was acting as an intake agent it is certainly clear that they were not acting to find those illegal migrants who were crossing undetected.

The undetected illegal immigrants who crossed our border are the problem and there are many!! They could be the worst of the worst and DHS would not even know that they are in our country. These worst of the worst can conspire to commit another terrorist attack. Thankfully the current Administration has not forgotten what took place on 9/11. Our State Department will use every lever within their authority to find and control any threat to the American people.

Yet many in the Democratic leadership announce wholeheartedly that our ICE agents are out of control and must be stopped. Stopped by whom? Ideological radicals and anarchists roaming wildly wherever federal agents are doing their work? We have already seen guns being used against our ICE agents. This behavior is what is out of control, and it could get worse. We must not forget how radical ideologies beget terror. Never again is now!