Beginnings
I pray every day for my family, my country. The only way this Nation can restore the good things for a good people is through divine intervention. We’re so much fractured as a society that many people who aspire to political office and manage to win become actors to our problems rather than workers to solve them. To know that peace and liberty is a state of living truth in life where we can work and build a future for our children drives me to ask God for His intervention. I am also in the sin of impatience, doubt, and questioning—those negative ideas human beings are by nature afflicted with from the deep inside of many of us. I know it is wrong and as much as I try to push the doubt and worries away from me, the more strength they gain permanently fixed within my bones, sinew and electrical impulses of life, and in areas that are most dangerous, my mind and soul.
I must always know that I fall short of the glory of God and as much of a sinner as anyone. I am as weak of a human like so many others and must fight every day to be strong in the faith and to work harder to stay in the right ways to pray, and serve God, and get on the path He has set out for me to walk. I want everyone to be able to open the door and step outside to walk in life safely and happily. We should never have to fear other people, our government, or any man-made physical and verbal insult to our hearts. I am not driven to stop people from being or doing what they want to do as long as what they do is not hurtful to anyone else. God gives me the words He wants me to use through His holy spirit.
As much as I want government to stand down and stay out of our way, I also respect differences in beliefs and lives. It is for me, a mere soldier in the masses of people who share a similar philosophy to make an effort to educate those who are open to being educated. Not particularly talented in this calling, it is still a calling. The clouds that were forming near El Paso demands nothing less than a full-on effort and so we fight with words and information, the only alternative and answer to violence.
We have to defend ourselves in the final analysis should we be physically attacked and that horror is upon us still. Nothing new in history, and nothing better than what has been used before, the blue camp has some in their number who want us dead. It’s that simple. There’s no talking to them no reasoning with those who have their blood up to hurt and kill based on a terrible raising and an absolutely false narrative being taught to them substantially over years of Marxist indoctrination. The word tragic doesn’t do justice describing the problem the Marxist indoctrination actually caused for all Americans.
I remember the events, some terrible events, some horrible storms between the people of this Nation. God help us, it’s been a number of years of waste. The storm was gathering after only a short while under a new Constitution.
*
In Atlanta several police officers and demonstrators were injured but none life threatening. In Seattle, there was a particularly nasty incident involving the defecation by a couple of young protestors on an American flag. The incident caught the attention of two veteran bikers who happily engaged the two for a different kind of discussion—and left behind a couple of bruised and bleeding protestors. But they hadn’t changed their minds about anything. They just didn’t want to be caught by such rednecks again. In Washington D.C. the police managed to keep the throng at bay, resorting to a show of force and little else.
In Boston, the city council vacated for the expected protest—some members undoubtedly planned to join the group of BLM and Antifa numbers in order to gather as protestors near their own offices. One violent incident occurred near the airport where a group of delegates from nearby southern Vermont began by throwing eggs and possibly rocks at a van with a Trump bumper sticker. The problem was the van was filled with construction workers who didn’t take kindly to the assault. The protestors were left bleeding and semi-conscious near the fountain where they tried to run away once they realized their mistake. Across the country, Portland was on fire every night. It was Marxism expressed by the match.
In Los Angeles, the protest was larger than any other location. It brought out a number of arsonists and others who had larceny on their mind. The march turned toward the heights and every shop and store along the way as the fires started. Many of the citizens living in the Heights quickly brought out their arms and formed a defensive line. The residents had nowhere to go—and no way to leave if they wanted to. Every major artery became jammed with regular traffic, ambulances and fire response vehicles from every station within a thirty mile radius of the outskirts of the city. Someone fired the first shot from the high ground. Others followed as they stood their ground and tried to desperately turn the destroyers away. Most of them tried shooting over their heads but soon leveled the weapons of every form and caliber into the onrushing crowd
There was return fire into the middle-class, upper-class neighborhood lines of vehicles and barricades hastily erected to mark their territory—their highly taxed property. Soon there was an exchange of gunfire that sounded like a small battle between armies. No one was safe regardless of motive for being there. Not every protestor meant to destroy and not every homeowner meant to kill. But as it began happening people were in a contest for life. More than one home was overrun because a timid homeowner couldn’t believe what was happening or refused to believe it was happening. The owners suffered the consequences of having peaceful hearts when an angry heart would have better suited the situation.
The Heights became the tragedy, the match perhaps for the fire to ensue across the land, the beginnings of politics taken to the extreme for full vent, full expression—a kind of final debate.
The hill was littered with the dead and dying. Homes taken by some of the protestors where scenes of pillaging akin to a battle scene of the Middle Ages became the new look of the Heights grounds and streets, done over the dead bodies of their former inhabitants—those who wouldn’t or couldn’t resort to violence to defend their homes.
In faraway Charlotte, New York, Miami and Charleston, the protests grew on news reports of the violence in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The crowds were coming out and gathering. Working people in the southern areas took notice and began planning their own response. Many were veterans and had participated in the Gathering of Eagles in Washington D.C. in March of 2007 when the anti-war movement planned a protest to mark the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. The event in March was peaceful and restrained. It was a time when each side respected the other’s right of assembly and free speech.
In the summer of 2020 things had changed.
Everything had changed.
People were ready to fight.
There were some skirmishes in many cities that would prove to be harbingers of more and far worse was coming in its dark storm of hate.
The police filled their jails quickly. People began fighting in jail.
The President was seriously contemplating martial law and mobilizing the military to control the cities. Posse Comitatus is still the law of the land and using the military to police domestic action cannot be taken lightly and must be fully justified or he risks impeachment. He sadly heard reports of anger and boiling in almost every city of every state—certainly the large ones where media exposure was guaranteed to spread a message.
There was no time. Something had to be done quickly and effectively or order would not be restored until God only knows how many would die, how much would be destroyed, how deeply America would suffer the cuts of hate and violence between the left and the right. Those in the center would have to choose sides in most large cities. Those in the center across the land in small communities and in rural areas would have to wait.
*
After his teleconference and several hours, Sam answered the door to his home. Two men in suits were standing on his porch and proceeded to identify themselves as police officers. He opened the door and had both of them come inside. He nervously waited for them to tell him why they were there.
Cheryl had died from an injury. She had been struck in the head by a brick that was thrown at her car by a protestor in downtown Nashville. Sam reeled in mourning over the insane loss of his loving wife. He was in a mental and physical state he recognized only as something he had never before felt. It was difficult to walk a straight line. He worried about his daughter, Anne.
His life had suddenly become one he didn’t recognize. He felt as if he was outside his own body and unable to return. He tried to think of her as being at peace and in heaven but it didn’t help him. He was also unable to channel the anger welling up inside of him. He wanted to get to those who killed her.
Gun shops across the country were open for extended hours and selling out their inventory. Sam left the hospital for a while. He didn’t know where to go or what to do—his tears were constant. He went into one of the shops downtown and bought a rifle, another pistol and several boxes of ammunition. He couldn’t think of what else to do at this moment of such deep nothingness.
He packed it all away in the trunk of his car and returned to Anne. His baby cannot die! She must come out of this horror alive and well. Surely God, let Anne live… let me keep my daughter, please.
*
I and millions of other people use the internet to track what is happening. We are of different points of view. As quickly as the cars and trucks were overturned in Atlanta, we stopped trolling and posting on their sites and they stopped trolling to post on our sites. We became on-line communities of one mind talking to each other about the events and not hearing any voices other than our own—out of self-interest, self-defense.
Both sides only visited sites long enough to learn of any plans the other side was making. Some even posted that “was to learn what our enemies were up to every second of the day.” I saw the boiling. I was yet to be convinced. In every group there are those who take the opportunity of a protest or use an incident to justify their own larceny—and murder if one is of a mind to kill.
The rational systematically became irrational with each passing hour. The impossible became possible. The Nation was at war within itself. I had the feeling our time has passed much like Rome’s—an old but applicable cliché. Our country seems to have withered under its own weight of a grand idea gone bad, turned to social science that didn’t work anywhere except in the textbooks. We’ve grown too dependent and needful of a government that can’t possibly deliver what is expected. The left is certain it is greed, bigotry and judgmental religion. The right of which I’m part knows it is the want of socialism—which quashes initiative and freedom—at the core of promises made by politicians and not kept.
The left is on the march. The right intends to stop them in mostly their own way—elections and legislation. There are takers. There are givers. There are workers. There are those who do not work. There are those who do not believe in personal property rights and those who believe it is their right to defend property to the death. Like two giants on the same path, they move toward each other but not to be conciliatory. They move toward each other for a fight and neither will yield to one side of the pathway for the other to pass.
I see an article that reports the murder of several college professors who had gathered for a regularly scheduled and well known meeting of progressives. It’s a horror! It’s a detestable, evil shame. I read another article that chronicles the rampage of a group in San Francisco who began sniping to kill anyone they saw in the Castro district—true hate expressed. Another blog reports the murder of ministers in Alabama, New York, Massachusetts, and Tennessee. And those tragedies were only the start.
People have decided to not leave others alone. Things had gone too far and now it was no longer a country of live and let live. It has become a country divided again—nearly as it was over a hundred and fifty years ago. This time the battle lines weren’t so certain and no standing armies were organized to fight this fight. This was a fight for the mind. All I can do is pray that somehow the Nation would heal.
There is a societal movement in the direction of banning speech. There are words that if used can or will cause one to get fired. There are politicians who are right now working to impact the relatively free market of media—who desire to force opposing points of view regardless of whether the opposing point of view attracts an audience sufficient to provide advertisers value for their advertising dollars.
Sometimes I think we’re not as free as we think we are—are we to be forced to listen or watch someone whose ideas are the opposite of our own? I don’t believe anyone can be forced to watch anything still I wonder if the day of such an effort isn’t that far off—or that farfetched. I don’t know how this could be done—and doubt anyone has thought of it yet—actually being forced to listen and see propaganda akin to the communist reeducation camps of old.
The only way to do that would be to eliminate all sources of information and allow only carefully prepared venues. These days that means control of the internet as well as the airwaves, not a likely event. Still there are undoubtedly some people who would do that if they could. We have learned from even recent history there are people who would happily take away sources, fire their space, equipment—and kill opposing voices.
*
“I’m not going to take this!” Sam said to the air. “Someone knows exactly what happened down there. Someone threw those bricks. Someone are dead,” he said through desperate anger, hate, and loss.
He left the church building and walked with several friends who had come to the memorial service for Cheryl. Gaines shook his head and couldn’t think of anything to say. It was a terribly sad day for everyone he knew at Daley Electric. The collection taken up and the flowers were not enough. Nothing could have been enough.
“Take it easy, Sam. Let the police do the work. Besides, there’s no way you can find out who did that,” Harry said.
“I won’t know until I try, Harry. Don’t even try to cause me to think I can’t do something. It’s not your business. Don’t you know what is happening? We’re at war and for all we know we could be shot at in this parking lot—because we came from church. I’m telling you it’s happening at other places.”
“Everything will stop. It always does. The police will get it under control and we can get back to making… ” he said and stopped. “Sorry, Sam, I’m not going to argue with you. Let me know if I can help in some way.”
“I’ll think about that, Harry. I don’t want to involve anyone else in this.”
“You might not have a choice, Sam,” Tom said his first words since leaving Cheryl’s casket.
“I know.” Sam dropped his head.
“We’re on our own right now.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I will help you, Sam. I’ll be at your place tomorrow night… and Gaines, I want to talk to Freddie tonight. He might know something about the people who were close by the scene.”
“I really don’t think…’ Gaines said, addled.
“I just want to ask him about it—and maybe your daughter. You told me what they have done before. I’m not saying they were even there but we have to start somewhere.”
“They were downtown. They told me before they left and I haven’t heard from either of them since.” Gaines began to cry. “I don’t know where they are or what happened to them, Tom.”
“I trust they are all right,” Tom said, confident that Gaines child and her boyfriend would have left as soon as they saw things turn violent. He knew them enough to know neither would tolerate violence. Either that or they were part of the hundreds presumably safe in jail.
*
“What’s happening? Who are our enemies? Do the enemies of the United States include more people than the jihadists? Are we set against each other and them? Where do people come from who hate their country? Why do some people hate us so?”
“We’ve been a country of massive exploitation and harmful capitalism, don’t you see?” The progressive blogger began to answer my posts.
“Most of what you say is that you hate what we stand for and what we do in foreign lands. What would some have if it were not for US investment? You and they accuse the United States of killing innocents while waging an illegal war in Iraq and elsewhere. Most of your side would not have us fight for our defense. Many would not have us fight for the cause of freedom—a notion that some honestly feel is nothing but a fantasy—an old-fashioned word that means nothing to them as it relates to their individual lives. Many do not see the United States as a free country but rather as oppressors for corporate interests. How about you—do you think it is right to defend this country?” I wrote.
“I see no reason to become part of a military-industrial complex whose primary goal is making money on the death of innocents. We should be using all of the money for our own people and for the people who are starving in the world. Greed and materialism is killing us!” He responded.
“Our society as a consumer society—we all pretty well know that. Don’t you have a television set and a car? Now I think we are one people that seems inexorably tied to a natural slide because of the sheer gravity of our attempts to be all things to all people. We are certain to consume each other as we do goods and services. It has begun. Everyone is at fault and no one is at fault.
I’m convinced that education in basic economics and civics would have helped our society avoid the troubles. I think sound, factual instruction in those subjects would have been nearly as helpful as serious bible study—where the New Testament clearly defines our role to be lovers and not haters, to be forgiving and giving and not vengeful and selfish. It seems too late for our society to benefit from those—half the population do not seem able to learn economics and civics anymore and some other half do not believe the bible is anything but a collection of mystical, superstitious stories.”
“Keep your holier than thou attitude away from me—I don’t need it as long as there is discrimination of any kind. The government should be spending more for schools but your side tried to keep them from getting the funds needed. Your bible is nothing but a series of fairy tales—and bad ones at that. Don’t lecture me about education. Most of you redneck ass-holes don’t even finish high school. You’re too dumb. Dumb enough to elect the chimp.” He answered.
“I know you resort to name-calling and generalizations. You already know I have been to school too and earned a Master’s degree.” I wrote, feeling like an amateur for resorting to this particular fact.
“I know only what you claim—but that doesn’t make it true. Why are you on this site? You’re full of shit.” He kept it simple.
“I’m trying to inform people but I guess that’s a futile exercise.”
“Don’t bring your ideas—none of which are original I’m sure. You sound like your using Republican talking points. Get an original idea of your own! You ought to try thinking for yourself. What do you think you’re doing?” He wrote.
“Firstly, I don’t use talking points from anybody—unlike your kind who probably get them and organize all of this spew over C-Span, letters to the editor and what have you… and I go about my business and declare opposition from time to time to what I consider terrible ideas that must come from bad teaching.”
“Are you nuts? Can’t you see what is happening? No, I’ve been to good schools and I made the dean’s list in college almost every semester! You have no facts, only feelings and you’re wrong!” He claimed.
“I remember a recording that got out which had a high school teacher ranting in his classroom to a captive audience of young people about how terrible President Bush is for the country. I have come to know that many teachers do the same kind of thing behind our backs. In the teacher’s case, he seemed to enjoy the attention. I do not think it occurs to him that what he did was wrong, out of place. I’m very sure he doesn’t think what he said was wrong. Of course, he has the right to think whatever he wants to think. He doesn’t have the right to tell high school students what he thinks about any issue outside of the course he is being paid to teach.” I argued.
“He did nothing wrong. The children should learn the truth about the chimp—your side would never give them the information.” The progressive wrote.
“Most of the people from the left side of the political spectrum—your side—never seem to feel they are wrong about anything and never admit to mistakes. To be so cock-sure about everything must cause an ecstatic sense of self. There are many teachers who voice a great deal of hate for the United States and the past, the Iraq war. There are many like him and being misguided or wrong doesn’t occur as anything that could possibly relate to them. I don’t think the war is wrong in a moral sense.
I do think we went into Iraq with a military handicapped by politicians. The fact we went into Iraq to free people clearly makes the intentions of the American public right. It is nonetheless a horrible thing. It is deeper than sad. It is the worst thing any Nation can resort to after all else has failed.” I wasted time on the keyboard.
“You’re terribly naïve or a liar. Which is it?” He wrote.
“I know what the truth is—more than I can say for you.”
“You don’t sound like you’ve ever seen a college classroom. I bet you haven’t. Why don’t you go to school to learn something about truth and facts before you get on the net and spout all your crap?”
“I’ve been there and now my child will be going one day—but to what I don’t know. I’ve learned about college professors who teach socialism and never have a kind word to say to their students about our system or religion—or whatever the conservative topic, the sujet of the day they decide to force feed paying students. One gets the feeling that future leaders may have a different view of what freedom means if left to that which they learn in many college classrooms. It’s a pity.
How some people who are surely as intelligent as they are can come to the conclusions they come to is beyond my ability to understand. So I don’t try to understand them. Instead of trying to understand them, I try to counter their ideas as much as I can in the forums available to me. Presently the fight is a fight of ideas expressed at the polling booth. I wonder if peaceful arguments won’t someday be replaced by violence. It seems inevitable.” I wasted more time on the keyboard.
“It is all about power to the people, ace! You don’t understand them because you lack the intelligence to understand them.” He went bumper sticker like.
“You can’t seem to discuss any issue without insulting me. What you say doesn’t matter to me,” I answered and was feeling weary and tired of the conversation with one who would probably never change.
“What’s the matter—can’t take it? You people sure can dish it out but as soon as anyone questions you about your world view you want to take your ball and go home. We are going to take the country back from you retards,” he insulted me again.
“Given the rhetoric, it seems an ever escalating problem—going back to examples from your adolescent means to solve disputes, violence could be a next development. Is that what you’re saying? People are, by and large, locked in a set of behaviors they learn early. I can tell you learned little beyond the sixth grade. I can almost see it coming. It is almost inevitable because a number of people like you have taken inaccurate, wrong information to heart—and have come to live according to the false words of others as a religion. Religion of any kind, including the secular progressive religion, can cause people to hate if false teachers teach it is right to hate. Hate is the prelude to violence. Can we agree on that much?” I offered these thoughts to him even though I knew it would most likely never register with his thinking.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I have to leave soon. It is clear I’m not getting anywhere with you. Why don’t you go crawl back into your cave?”
“Fine—have a good day anyway. Is there anyone else who wishes to engage?” I posted out into cyberspace.
“I will—I’m misanthrope here. You people are killing the earth. Why don’t you want to take care of mother earth? I am sure I can safely assume where you are with the environment… lol.” She surprise me by taking up the debate on line.
“I see and hear many environmentalists put forward dire warnings. I watch you people sue people over the private use of land. I see your kind nest in trees on behalf of gardens that trespassers grow on someone else’s property. I read where many of you say global warming requires taxes to be raised—what the hell? Where does that come from?”
“We should change people’s behavior through taxes—and any means necessary! The earth is in the balance! Don’t be a Neanderthal!” She wrote.
“You’re wrong, so wrong. Stealing our money on account of bad science is nothing but stealing money. You want socialism and I wished more of you would just admit it. You believe as a kind of primary tenant that most industries and power companies are causing the earth to suffer—and you make horrible predictions of the effects of sea levels rising. Yet, I don’t hear much more than wind, water and solar power put forward as alternatives to burning fossil fuels—or nuclear power.
I guess those of us who enjoy gas burning vehicles are the worst kind of sinners to most of you. You try to make us feel guilty for using lights, charcoal, campfires and toilet paper. I’m not buying what you’re selling, misanthrope. We are even made to see something as dumb and simple as using plastic bags for our groceries as a bad alternative. The people who earn their living making these plastic bags probably wouldn’t agree.”
“And I don’t believe you! Goodbye,” she quickly ended our discussion.
“I’ll pick up the slack here. Misanthrope probably had to go to a meeting your side don’t want the people to do. I know about your kind very well—you’re all about using and abusing people and things aren’t you?” Someone else had picked up to use the insults and lies.
“No, I think I’m pretty much a normal person. I go about my own business and leave people alone. How about you—what do you do?”
“I sue people like you. I’m a trial attorney in Birmingham and have been on this site for three years. Never in my time have I seen such poor arguments. You can’t win a debate so you call people names.”
“I haven’t called anyone names as far as I know. It sure has come my way though. I also know about trial lawyers, their value and abuses. Hardly a day passes when another frivolous lawsuit has not been filed against a person or company (companies are the best source of money). Of course not all lawsuits are frivolous and sometimes must be used because the party that either or all—abused another, stole from another or maliciously injured someone must be made to accept responsibility. The trial bar is a necessary group of lawyers. The trial bar also has members who sue for anything real or imagined—the latest harms made up or contrived whether it be chili, service, hiring and firing or slips and falls. Lawyers have caused the health care crisis in terms of costs. Lawyers have caused the price of insurance, good and services to be higher. They have most often enriched themselves at our expense.”
“I’m happy you approve of us! God help us if you don’t approve! Where are you from?”
“Nashville, Tennessee now—a red state you know,” I answered proudly.
“I could have guessed that about you, redneck. You were saying a bunch of stuff that is not real. Do you always lie or is this just you today?” He wrote what I’ve seen or heard many times before this day, with these people.
“Everything I posted has been true about your type and the Democrat party that supports you, lawyer. What do want to know from me?”
“You have nothing I need to hear from you, really. You’re part of the corrupt GOP. I’m sure of it and so I do not need to hear anything from you. Why don’t you talk to the cronies who are bought and paid for—I’m sure they’ll listen to you, you little dumb-ass. Snicker, snicker.”
“And I think what conflict would we enjoy if it weren’t for special interest groups—like you lawyers who don’t give a damn what else the Democrat Party stands against? You have to pledge to be pro-choice which is nothing but pro-abortion. You support unions—and they’re attempts to even remove secret balloting, illegal immigrants to use up our resources and occupy every emergency room across the country for colds and flu, gays and their agenda of political correctness, collectivism, and indoctrination, Socialists, peace marchers and anarchists… all kinds of anti-Americans.
They all contribute to your show, lawyer. Most of us aren’t part of any of these groups as we watch them affect public policy—or try to affect public policy. We are left a defeated Nation of apologists for anything and everything. Dare speak truth to this power and you’ll be beat up, sued like you say and if you happen to believe in individual responsibility and hold an office of some kind, they will marshal forces in order to work to defeat you. The ACLU surely does sue and causes plenty of damage. They started as a Communist group you know.”
“I believe in working to protect freedom—sure. I don’t have time to explain the ACLU to you today. Come back again and I’ll extol their virtues to you if you’re willing to learn something. Since that seems to threaten you, goodbye, I have more important things to do.”
“I’m sure you will. Goodbye. Have a nice day,” I wrote.
I’m very close to giving up on my efforts at reaching common ground with these people. I have benefited from many of them over the years when they actually have facts to share—something becoming rarer as each year passes—and learned a great deal more about the government and politics beginning with the Mondale campaign. I enjoyed our mutual agreement on racism of the past—the ungodly damnable character trait of so many. And we often agreed on support for people who need help and the importance of government living up to its contracts made with the American people.
Giving up is something my parents never taught me—but they did teach me to leave those who choose to be ignorant in the dust of my feet. I’m almost there and I am there, depending on the day I’m asked. It does seem futile. I must be willing to listen but there’s little offered by the left that hasn’t originated from nonsense and lies. I’m so tired of lies. In 2007, Hillary Clinton admonished the President at the time for cronyism over his commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence, a political use of the justice system for which there would be many more to come juiced by the Democrat party.
*
In Los Angeles, the battle continued with sporadic gun fire near and inside the Heights. The attacking force had dwindled to fewer than fifty who remained. Twenty-four homeowners and visitors had been killed and left to rot where their bodies laid tore open from bullets and knives. Most of the attackers returned to the bowels of the city to find what they could find in the stores and shops that had been tore open for the take.
Herman Gonzalez kept his family inside one of the more modest homes on the edges of the neighborhood, guarding them by keeping vigil with his rifle. He had views from three of the four sides and alternated checking for movement in each window. He was like most—and felt it was another riot that would end soon—that life would return to normal within days less a few shops and with more suddenly made vacant lots. Lives altered, lives destroyed, and lives taken would be forgotten sooner than the residual black soot from the fires would finally not be seen in those vacant lots.
Power had been lost. There was still running water and cellular telephone service. He didn’t know his neighbors and was unable to reach them to learn of their fate and circumstances. The police attempted to move into the area but were unable to maintain a presence. Every officer and auxiliary officer was working. Retirees had been called back to help and many responded to duty and were set to work in the dangerous environment as was the rest of the department.
The burned out police cars remained behind as did several officers who were taken when they first arrived. The riot squads were stretched across south Los Angeles and other points where some anarchists knew to be easier pickings. Many were fired on from the masses—untrained snipers hiding behind anything they thought could protect them. By the fifth day many officers were either killed or wounded. There were media estimates of hundreds of rioters dead in the streets an over estimate as is the case for media reports that cause even more anger and hate. As the police fired back, there were some people caught in the firefight and killed or injured either by the rioters or the police. Community organizers never waited for the investigation—for them, the violence and death toll was always the fault of police.
Herman didn’t know the extent of the destruction but he knew his wife and children were only as safe as he could provide for them. It should be over soon, he thought. Surely, it will end. My God! He promised himself that he would move his family as soon as he could when things got back to normal. His son was fifteen, his lovely daughter was only fourteen and neither of them should see this awful display of human evil.
Maybe in the countryside we can live in peace. I don’t care if it’s a trailer on block—anywhere will be better than this worry. He noticed several men walking at an angle toward his home and the one next to it. He watched them with his rifle at the ready.
As he watched for anyone coming to his home, Herman wondered when the trouble would pass. He wondered when the strangers would return to where they came from—downtown, maybe south LA and most likely from other cities. They need to go back to their homes, he thought. The only reason they’re here is to enjoy some looting opportunities amidst a dangerous form of party, a terrible way to express themselves. Hate is the worse human weakness allowed to run free with no stops, no barriers, they have no conscience at work within them and nothing to hold them back.
There’s plenty of hate to go around. Hate is hurtful—always. Hate kills. Herman hated the fact he had to guard his home. He hated the fact there were people who hated him simply because he had been resourceful and disciplined enough to save and avoid too much debt. That and his faith in God were the only things that made him different from many of those who gathered at the courthouse earlier.
He noticed a trio of strangers carefully approaching his block, using damaged, riddled cars as protection but moving in his general direction. They didn’t appear to have good intentions—nor did they remind him of anyone he’d seen in the neighborhood. He might have to make the gravest decision of his life soon. It was a decision he never looked to make, never wanted to make. It was a horror. I don’t know if I can… shoot someone? God in heaven, I don’t know.
Soon they would be close to his family and the very thin walls of his small rancher bought with savings five years before the troubles—painted wooden walls surrounding the space where his son and daughter do their homework, where he makes love to his wife, where a few hours of peace was his every day after the commute and work day.
*
In Nashville Sam and Tom visited Gaines’ home where they asked Shelley if she knew where Freddy was—how to reach him.
“I’m not seeing him anymore, dad… why are these men asking me about a former boyfriend?”
“There has been an awful thing, Shelly… I work with them and we all want to find out what happened down there,” Gaines said as he dropped his head. “There were some terrible people involved…”
“Yeah, I heard it all got out of hand.”
“Yes, it did, Shelly,” Sam spoke up. “My wife was killed.”
“So, you’re the one who… I’m sorry, so sorry for your loss, sir. I can still reach him. Do you think he had anything to do with it?”
“No, but he might know who was nearby—and give us a start on trying to find the ones who threw the bricks.”
“I’ll call him and ask if he and Jasmine can meet us somewhere if you want me to… I don’t know if he’ll come.”
“Tell him I’ll buy their dinner or something, anything, Shelly. I have to start somewhere. I’d appreciate your help.”
“Sure, mister… “
“Adams, Shelly. His name is Sam Adams.”
“Okay, Mr. Adams. I’ll try to reach him right now.”
“Thank you, Shelly. Thank you, Gaines.”
She called the cell number she was still able to call up on the phone’s memory and waited for an answer. One of her babies started crying in the background. She knew Freddy could still have the phone that she gave him months ago. Nonetheless, she was surprised when he answered. The dinner was arranged for that night away from the dangerous downtown area where the courthouse was still surrounded by thousands.
Across the country every police and National Guard unit were out in force. There were not enough of them to control every section of every city where the leftists sat, stood or milled around in close company. The fires and violence was causing most of the protestors to remain congregated together out of fear. Fringes of both the left and right were looking for targets of opportunity whether they were buildings, cars or people involved in looting and arson. The left fringe was setting the fires. The right fringe was trying to fight them and stop them by force. Mini-battles were making both sides of the debate take actions unprecedented, unknown—on a scale within the shores of America never experienced by any generation short of the lead up to the Civil War.
The Nation is on the edge of a kind of collapse—or something that had never happened before. It will never be the same as it was. Ignorance reigns now as millions closed their minds and took up bats and guns. Waiting, watching, hoping it would happen and a few hoping it would not happen. It seemed the time had come for most men and women to take a stand.
Herman Gonzalez tried firing shots over their heads to scare them away as they reached his small yard. It didn’t work. The trio of strangers ducked and took cover but stayed. One of them shouted out, “If you have any women inside there with you that you’re messing around with—we’re here to do it right.” Herman heard them laugh and knew he would have to stop them because they would surely rape his wife and daughter. He couldn’t let that happen-the core of his responsibility as a father and husband was to protect his family. He would have to use all the deadly force he could muster.
They’re probably high on something and don’t know what they’re doing, damn-it. They’re going to make me kill them—and I will. God forgive me!
*
The news report broke quickly across every major network and cable channels. Taking up time from the almost constant coverage of the riots, protestors and counter measures being taken in the effort to restore order, the murder of a senator was broadcast as a breaking news story. Someone had taken the senator out when he arrived at his compound in the Hamptons. It was clearly an assassination. It was clearly a horrific murder; his head was little more than a pear size bloody stump. The senator was struck once from two-thousand yards with what was speculated to be a .50 caliber round fired from a sniper rifle by an unknown assailant.
The country would be in mourning over another assassination in a political family who had not already had suffered tragedies like very few had been seen before in the country of freedom. The police were covering the entire peninsula and mainland searching every vehicle and person within a twenty-five mile radius of the murder scene. A young woman was found dead in his car as he was beginning his career in government but that case went away decades ago. She would have been exactly seventy-seven years old the minute the bullet struck the man who was never questioned about her death.
Now, it appeared the troubles included shooting politicians. Whether his murder is an isolated act or part of a broader effort was unknown. Every politician was placed under the guard of secret service as soon as it could be arranged. Every elected representative to Washington was tracked by the US Marshal Service to verify their location and get the guards activated. Until law enforcement could determine the level of danger, the federal government had to mobilize every resource available to protect the congress and other officials considered to be at risk.
The senator likely didn’t hear a sound as his right arm and one-quarter of his upper torso and head were tore off with the shot that killed him instantly. The small crowd of friends and family who were with him didn’t know what happened to the senior senator. No one noticed any movement but did hear the report of the rifle from the direction of the ocean. Those near him ran to his body but everyone in the entourage could immediately see he was killed. Frantic, terrified, a nightmare unlike any one of them had ever experienced. The crimson gore splashed nearby the lifeless body and left no doubt that all of them were in immediate danger and could be taken next. Most took cover and waited.
The speed boat left the position it had docked near the tiny island made up of rock and made its way five miles out to sea before navigating southward. Two men occupied the craft and one was smiling widely while the other focused on driving the boat, watching for radar indications of any possible police, Coast Guard or other boat to remain well out of range of intercept or sightings.
At the same minute of the hour another scope was sighting of another liberal senator who was taking his walk at home with his wife. In Washington D.C., single observers were stationed around the U.S. Capitol Building watching for movement in and out of the structure. The killers were waiting for any representatives—to identify the progressives regardless of party. Although each had a short wave radio which could easily be monitored when the channel was found, they nonetheless manned their post long enough to report sightings of a target of opportunity.
One report was all each could expect and each man knew it was likely he would be arrested on the spot before he could possibly leave. It was a sacrifice the murderers were willing to make for the sake of taking the country back in their view. Addresses were known and several were being watched from a distance waiting for word. Another senator, this one from Massachusetts, never knew what hit her as her right arm and head were also tore away from the rest of her body with one shot.
That black day saw six political assassinations, presumably by the extremists of the right-wing, a dangerous mindset, fraught with lack of heart and conscience. The news was broadcast in concert and each network essentially provided the viewers with the same message. The country was in a state of war within itself. There was a group or groups taking advantage of the chaos across the country. People were being killed for their political beliefs. It was reported that these perpetrators had crossed the divide to insanity. Whatever it was, it was certainly evil and not the way to cause change.
Suddenly in the late evening, the New York Times building was bombed and much of it was destroyed without warning. The news outlets evacuated their buildings immediately upon hearing of the terror—now expressed with the most violent means possible. Bombs kill men, women, and children without differentiation, without conscience, without waiting. Another terrible act that caused the Nation to shut down. The media were out of control and began blaming every Republican and half the Nation for producing this evil group.
The left began to fight back with more force. Guns appeared where usually there were few or none as churches and conservative politician offices and newspaper buildings were being shot into by quickly passing vehicles. Some of those within the groups of BLM, Antifa, La Raza, ELF, ANSWER, and others were beginning to mobilize their forces. There had to be a response and it had to be as deadly as that being used against them. The blogs were crashing one after another due to traffic as were the websites of the right. People were becoming more isolated then they ever knew since most households brought in a computer.
The Nation slipped past the verge and descended into an unknown arena of darkness quicker than could have been anticipated. That is the place where the darkest spirit of man waits. Only a split of peoples could possibly resolve the issues between blue and red to stay out of the dark.
*
I try to go about my business and work as if everything was normal. We are still running two strong shifts. The fabrication department is taxed to make the parts in order to keep pace with demand. Our sales are projected to be higher than ever—record setting financials this quarter and beyond. Dealers are ordering as many firearms they can with the cash on hand and extended credit—all of them are trying to capitalize on the current tidal wave of fear gripping nearly every household. Guns and ammunition are flying off their shelves as quickly as they can partially stock them.
I hate the fact that some people are shooting at each other. It is my view that an evil claw has set loose to destroy the country. It’s no longer a left versus right problem—it’s murder and anarchy reaching out, swirling toward us all in its effort to take ever more ground and consume ever more people. I’m sickened by the murder of a senator and others because the supreme act is a cowardly act and no one deserves what happened to him. It’s a horror but I have a job to do and need to carry on praying and hoping for peace in the country and justice for those guilty of such heinous crimes. I’ve pretty much given up debating on line as I know few or no minds are changed. The indoctrination many suffered through their youth has been set hard as if it were a cast that held them firmly trapped in stone.
I’m surprised at the inability and worse in some cases, the unwillingness, of most cities to establish order. People on both sides of the political spectrum have had enough and are literally putting their bodies and minds on the line in a very public way. I wasn’t surprised at the Democrat antagonism toward law enforcement at the very time when large cities needed them the most. Innocent men, women, and children were being slaughtered for nothing but human waste. Evil has a strong presence everywhere and anyone is subject to being murdered at any time. We are fighting each other with whatever means is necessary to win battles in the streets. I don’t know what will happen or how far it will go before it stops.
The new rage in my view will be people doing exactly the opposite of what the doomsayers and takers of the left try to force on us. Is that not always the result? In my view it is a part of human nature to rebel. When leftist ideals become the status quo, many people will rebel as the left has always been in the mind to do and the result will be violent and devastating. They talk about it and legislate it but in the past have largely maintained a lawful orientation until the Supreme Court has had to put them—and us—back in line with Constitutional principles (I hope). This has changed dramatically and now there are war zones in the large cities brought about by the lack of enforcement and the no bail catastrophe brought by Marxist prosecutors and liberal judges.
I don’t know how long they’ll be operating this way, virtually outside the law and expressing their peculiar brand of misplaced views all over the place on the internet and with more or less a compliant and partner media in newsprint and cable television. I don’t know how long the right will stay within the current law in the battle against collectivism. Our system—the very system many on the left and many on the right detest—is set up to keep the peace. Our founding however was the result of a people yearning for liberty from oppression.
The new revolution could be the right fighting against the left and the left fighting the right. It could come to actual killing—those on the left and those on the right taking up murder as part of the action, an evil thing born out of a desperate strategy. The next Civil War could be the red state people versus the blue state people. Sadly, no one is immune to hate as the same virus of the mind can spread quickly—and often based on nothing but rumor. I have seen and heard a lot of hate from some on the left—and frankly from some on the right—until we all become nothing but a dangerous swirl together, scrapping in the political arena all the time until one day, only one is left standing. I know which side I’m on and I know which side systematically uses lies, distortions, feelings, desires, and drugs to manipulate people for power. Both sides accuse the other.
Both sides are guilty of wanting what they want for a living space. Sides will be drawn on that basis and that will be that. It’s happened before. It can happen again.
Older people will be left in the middle without a voice, without a chance. The infirmed won’t have a chance. People of faith won’t have much of a worldly chance. The workers won’t have a chance. Our economy won’t have a chance. Men and women on both sides will suffer. Our families will suffer. Our Nation will suffer. The world will suffer. People and families will die.
It seemed the story of the next Civil War may be near unless something could be done, a change in the landscape of the Nation seemed a desperate alternative if it could be done in some way. It began as a slow boil in the sixties—perhaps it is already closer than we think and the next level of escalation will begin out of a violent boil we’re close to seeing now. There is a persistent divide in the country and it is becoming more filled with vile, destructive revulsion and pure hate. It is the leftists versus the right-wing. It’s the traditionalists versus the modern or new way of thinking—both sides guarded and often infiltrated by those with poor judgment about what is right and wrong.
Liberals seem to hate conservatives as people and feel like they hold things back or do not deliver goods and services to them that they feel they deserve. Conservatives typically hate the policies the left produce that doesn’t make sense and are destructive to our Nation, but make the effort to not hate people. Many fail in this character trait so important to a civilized society. Hate is destructive and enjoys its place near the top of a hierarchy of sin. I’m sure it is a terrible but it’s also terribly difficult to avoid.
Many liberals feel getting goods and services is their right and there is no end to the stream. They see conservatives as greedy people who are racist or simply selfish. One presumes—and often hears actual demands—that many of the left wants things “free.” The typical answer is the money should come from the rich paying more in taxes—with a fuzzy definition as to who the rich includes—usually from the “television liberal,” which has little more grounding in any philosophy than what he or she has learned from a movie and sitcom portrayals of conservatives, usually portrayed as boorish villains, and of course, act out the part of the bad guys, the protagonists, practically all the time.
In much of the media every conservative is the villain. Every liberal is the sensible hero. This set up is the easy copy, the easy sell—guaranteed to move your story, your film and your sit-com. The astute and educated liberal knows the fact is that to accomplish their collectivist goals, a major shift in income is required—from every producer who earns a wage or salary to everyone who doesn’t. This is the idea of fairness to radical leftists.
Many on the left feel it is their right to promulgate war, death, and destruction over what they consider to be false notions of nationalism. Most leftists feel we could be a better society if we shared more at home and quit spending resources for arms that kill others. The coming war may not mimic the horror of 1861 where lines of troops faced each other across fields and in forests. It’ll probably be something very different but it promises to be another war. The hate is more intense across a broader spectrum of the population who feel genuinely threatened, each side thinking freedom is being threatened by the other.
The right has always looked on the left with suspicion. Now it seems it is plainly justified. Most on the right feel the defense of the country—their families and peace—are best protected by an aggressive willingness to use force to kill an enemy. Most conservatives have learned and come to understand that collectivism is by definition, a failed system of governance. Most conservatives believe the pie of prosperity is not of a static size, but rather always expanding and can include all who have a vision, work hard and make the effort to be successful.
Many conservatives see the left as a collection of haters of everything they believe in for good living, including for many (God). The left sound and act as if they hate more conservative people simply because many have faith and all have beliefs that run counter to the left’s belief in the supremacy of man. Given that we all fall short to the ideal and fail as human beings along the way in character issues, it’s easy for some on the left to find a kind of sick humor in examples of faith inspired people who do wrong and have caused harm to themselves and others. The left enjoys using examples of what they call hypocrisy when it is nothing more than sin—a state of failure no one on earth lives without along the journey.
There is a momentum of hardened enmity growing, capturing many minds, making more people very slow to forgive and never to understand. Cancel culture arrived and began to destroy people for their beliefs. This activity took a more rigid form and was able to achieve more successful results following the election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency. The progressives had a target to identify and isolate and run the propaganda up every hour of every day. People’s livelihoods were stripped away for not marching to the leftist’s orders of the day. It was and remains one of the most destructive elements ever devised by mankind short of killing that found its way into society and corporate boardrooms.
Many on the right view the left as more or less a collection of people who laugh at others who believe in God. Their humor is shallow and their words are quickly forgotten. But the stain of ridicule—the squeezing of our freedom of religion remains inside many people whose faith drives them—and causes the sin of hate for Christians who are not to hate. Resentment based on experience with many on the left leaves growing distrust based on their humor, books, editorials and lawsuits—much of that has the effect of less freedom of expression. Many conservatives believe the government must be smaller to make certain there is the most individual freedom possible—and we are the freest in the world. But we cannot remain the freest for even another generation given all that is happening with legislation and within the courts.
The United States seems to be willingly sliding into a place of less freedom though—every year another legislative session is held to pass more laws. Most conservatives know the left would change nearly everything that provides them with a sense of pride in the country. Many conservatives hate the ideas of the left as much as the left hates them personally. On both sides, emotions that began as dislike and turned to hate was initially for the ideas—now it had become personal and the hate from both sides are for each other personally.
We may not be smart enough to deal with the divide in our society in peaceful ways. Once the problem of mass identification is solved, all hell may break lose if bitter and angry people are left to use their own device—empowered and free to express their discontent by eliminating enemies within our borders. What could happen next is the tragedy of America. Men, women and children will die.
It could begin on a college campus. It may start at a political rally. Church attendance could be the first targets—an easy pick. Martial law would be declared. The National Guard may be too small. The Army and Marine Corps may be more or less unavailable because of deployment to other violent places where civilizations and United States interests are at risk. Tepid use of the armed forces where the internal security of the United States is at risk—where the west is fighting the east and the south may be fighting the north again, and where murderers from the inside and outside still desire to kill Americans will reveal themselves in the confusion. Those who feel they are freedom seekers will fight those perceived to be freedom takers. No one may be safe in the grocery store. If there is an ultimate contest—after the initial explosion, there may be no grocery stores open. It’s red versus blue. Its ideas and convictions versus ideas and convictions.
I have decided to not waste too much time with leftists on the internet. They are moving their hate toward the mobilization of other methods, from riots and fires to weapons and a willingness to use them. I must prepare for that rather than argue with people who have chosen their way. We have stopped talking to each other. We angrily shout at each other.
*
“We were both near the courthouse with Antifa… I have no idea who did that to your wife.”
“I had to ask you, Freddy. Tell me about some of the leaders of this protest and how I can find them—just want to talk to them.”
“I really don’t them but I’ll be glad to give you the program—there are a number of contacts on it.”
“Thanks…” he said as he took a folded program Freddy had in the car he and Jasmine drove to the restaurant. “Please call me if you hear anything else.”
“Okay. I will. The dinner was good.”
Once in their car alone, the young couple drove back toward campus.
“What an old fart,” Freddy said as he popped a couple of pills held in a bottle over the cracked and worn visor of the old compact.
“Yeah, who does he think he is? He can go to hell if there was such a place,” she said and laughed. “I don’t care anything about his bourgeois wife who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Screw him.”
The car they drove carried a number of bumper stickers that identified them as leftists. A small group of men who described themselves as patriots spotted the signs and began following them. Freddy didn’t notice as he steered with one hand and tapped his thigh with the other to the beat of the music they played through an inexpensive CD player a friend of Jasmine’s wired in for them in exchange for two Viagra pills and a few others. The couple never watched the news although they knew downtown had become a dangerous place. They planned to avoid going anywhere near where many of their friends were holed up and fighting off the effects of tear gas.
As Herman struggled to actually pull the trigger in Los Angeles toward intruders nearing the door of his home, the car carrying Freddy and Jasmine in Nashville was stopped by a battered older pickup truck that had abruptly pulled in front of Freddie and stopped suddenly. Freddy hit the back of it and cursed out loud, “what the hell is he doing?” he shouted. “Dumb ass-hole! Son of a bitch!”
A dark sweatshirt hooded man quickly approached the driver door and looked in on the couple. He didn’t say a word. He wore dark glasses even though it was past nine at night. Freddie almost urinated on himself when he saw him get his face close to his window.
“What are you doing, man?” Freddy asked angrily. “You cut me off and slammed your brakes, man. What were you thinking?”
Jasmine sensed danger. “Freddy, don’t…”
Three more men appeared from behind them. There were no police anywhere around and no obvious witnesses on the block. Jasmine wet herself. Freddie suddenly realized something was very wrong with the whole picture and stopped talking. He tried to put the car in gear and back away from the larger van but couldn’t escape. A second truck behind him was nearly on his back bumper. He and Jasmine were trapped.
The call that persistently came over many sources including the internet had mobilized both sides of the political confrontation—the right had its reactionaries to start hunting although for many they weren’t sure what to do when no one was shooting at them. In the Heights above Los Angeles there was no doubt what they had to do if they meant to remain in place. They had to defend their homes. In downtown Nashville and other cities the reactions were less clearly defined.
The man appeared to be dangerous, tough—a fighter—as he stood next to Freddy’s window.
“I guess you’re a smart-ass Communist, aren’t you man?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about… you’ve wrecked our car.”
“In case you didn’t know, man, your side is at war with our side.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I want the police to come here,” Freddie said as he turned toward Jasmine. “Please call 9-11, Jasmine.”
As soon as he got the words out, his face was slammed hard enough to cause bleeding from his ears and nose. He felt his head was in a vice. The pain wracked him speechless. He was afraid to try to say anything else for what it may cause and for what it may invite from the angry stranger still standing at his window to do to him and Jasmine.
As quickly as the attackers showed, they were gone. One punch, one strike with an open hand—must have been enough for them. Freddy thought about what the man said and drove away as fast as he could. I’ve got to remove those bumper stickers,he thought. No, wait a minute. I have a right. How dare anyone attack me for my beliefs! They have no right. Still, something is happening and there’s no point in inviting trouble. I don’t need that. I don’t need the hassle. He held several napkins that were in the car to his nose to stop the bleeding.
He switched off the CD player and tuned into a radio station. That’s when he and Jasmine heard about the second assassination. Damn! The world is coming apart. Maybe the guy was right. Damn. He got Jasmine and himself back to campus as quickly as he could negotiate the traffic. There was safe haven there where the loonies were all on the outside. Jasmine thought it certain the murder of the senator will not stop the evil and there would be others. She wept alone and at the same time with millions.
In Los Angeles, Herman shot once in the general direction and was not quick enough to shoot again. The intruders made their way inside where one of them knifed him, plunging a long blade into his chest, paralyzing him for a few seconds before he lost consciousness. His wife was taken by all three of them and then his daughter was taken by two more that arrived following them.
After most were finished with the woman and the girl, many in the group rampaged through the house, taking any money and small valuables they could find. Herman lay dying. On the way out, one of the intruders put a shot toward his head. The killer smirked with delight undoubtedly over killing one of the pigs. He had been taught to hate the Chicano and white man as much as some whites have been taught to hate the black man. But the shot missed Herman and only grazed his face and head as the projectile buried itself in the floor under his neck. His son was not as fortunate and took three shots into his chest and stomach. They had killed him after the half-hour of the Gonzalez family’s’ slow descent into the darkness where others live.
Herman’s attack and his son’s murder would not be covered by the media more than a single matter-of-fact line. His wife and daughter’s rape and beatings would be mentioned as a footnote item with little reporting what happened and no reporting of the description of those who did the crime. The viewing public knew the likely demographic of those who did all of this, but it was only one family out of many and not newsworthy more than one thirty second mention. There were more important and sensational stories to capture the audience.
The highly placed political killings occupied so much air time as every guest tried to make sense of what was happening while thus far little mention was made of the rising violence across America in her cities. Los Angeles was but one location of frustration and hate boiled over to action. The network affiliates were cautious about their reporting the troubles, most still holding fast to the belief there was some justification to the riots. The story was that due to police heavy handed tactics and the large number of arrests—people were upset and moved to show their frustration. Los Angeles had become a dangerous place because of a “sense of oppression.” One anchor used the term racism to describe one of the “main elements fueling the fires of discontent.”
The left had planned a series of private meetings of those trusted and willing—the anarchists who posted and received some of their information through websites were the most likely soldiers in this new kind of war. Members of Antifa were also bound to be represented in larger numbers of their membership since violence had been their primary mode of operations. The Fascist group could fill in some numbers from the most radical elements including those who thought the North American continent was Mexico’s and only stolen by the white European man in centuries past.
Their targets would first be empty churches, fired up after dark. Later they planned assaults on churches when services were scheduled. Other targets included corporate America, headquarters and large plants—a coordinated effort to bring the economy down and cause the haves to suffer at the hands of the have-nots. To them it was justice, finally justice. One of the first churches to be torched was Saint Peter’s, the Gonzales family’s refuge of faith. The parish priest, Father Templeton was injured but survived the flames in a futile attempt to extinguish the blaze started with Molotov cocktails. There had been too many of them thrown into and around the old wood.
Why in the hell is this happening?
*
I prayed we would stop this and go about our business without hurting any other individual for the sake of ideas, positions or convictions. Sure, ideas and convictions become a problem when they’re enacted and put into law to burden or advantage a segment of the population—usually that is what happens it seems. Someone benefits, others lose something when bills are passed and made law.
As I consider the dangerous situation we’re in, I ask why we are at this place of hate and violence. Who has the right to take life? Who played God and killed the senator? Who has the right to take property? There are people on both ends of the political spectrum who feel they have the right to take and kill. The few insane from each end of the spectrum now are in the process of realizing perhaps their favorite fantasies of political action. The country had gone mad. The internet had precipitated the insane on both sides to come together in numbers extremely dangerous for the Nation.
Throughout all of recorded history, man has fought and killed people of different tribes, different kingdoms, and other Nations. History is marked by practically continuous conflicts over land, treasure, and religion. It is within the hearts of man as much as love and compassion is in its varying levels of each individual. There has always been those people whose envy and greed drives are much larger than their level of love and compassion. It is true, still.
The time to split was upon both sides and two years late.
Andy Huddleston's Blog 