Two types of Americans

 

We’ve come to believe that there are two types of Americans: Republicans and Democrats.   While this divide is a handy way to become angry, it is far easier to divide Americans into: Those who believe everyone is like them and believe anyone who isn’t should be, and those who believe that no-one is like them and everyone should be free to be who he/she wants to be.  The first category seems to be what we hear from our political parties who are pushing fear and anger at “the other guy” and insisting that you have to adhere to the entire agenda of the party or you are a disloyal American.  It is this divide and conquer attitude that has poisoned our system of government.   By pushing agenda’s that are never going to be accomplished like stopping abortions or taking all the guns away  just inflame those that aren’t intelligent enough to realize that both these are impossible and only increase the hate.

America was settled first by the conformist groups mentioned above.  The example of Savannah shows how that worked out:  the original colony operated quite well up until their shoes wore out.  Having no shoe makers in their church they were forced to let some Jewish shoe makers live with them in order to have shoes.  Most of this Country’s accomplishments have been made by people that were non conformists.  We need to dial down the hatred towards those that are different from us.  E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one!

Gun violence solution no one wants to talk about

 

With households owning a record number of guns it may be time to stop thinking about easy answers to the gun violence problem and look at what may be a long term partial solution.  I would suggest that we make firearm safety training a requirement for all 13 year olds.  Many people get a gun and then get the idea that they can hit anything they aim at.  After all that’s what all those folks on the screen do where firearm training now takes place.  Included in training would be testimonials from both victims and perpetrators as to the many problems the use of a gun causes.  It would also discuss all the relevant laws and safety procedures necessary to safely own a gun.  Those that successfully show that they have learned these basics would get to a firing range and get to shoot both long guns and hand guns.  This would show them how difficult it is to hit a target, much less a bull’s-eye.  While this may not stop gang shootings, it may, at least, stop the shooting of innocent bystanders.  With luck it would discourage people from wanting to own guns.

Do We Trust our Police?

 

As an old white guy who lives in the neighborhood, I’ll be happy when I can drive down 38^th St again.  As someone who remembers Charley Stenvigs response to the “race riots”, I don’t see any significant change in tactics through the years:  throw enough money at a problem and it will go away.  We continue to ignore the elephant in the room that isn’t going away: TRUST.  White people can trust the Mpls. Police to keep troubles out of their neighborhoods and only seem to care about that.   There are many law abiding people who know who is doing the carjacking and shooting and are afraid to speak up.   How can minorities trust police who?

1.       Look different from them.

2.       Feel that the neighborhoods they work in are too horrible to live in themselves.

3.       Approach them with their hands on their guns.

4.       Stop them on pretenses to find out how they can harass them.

5.       Have officers who have beaten them and insulted them or their acquaintances retained on the force with no consequences. 

6.       Are paid so little that they have to moonlight to live the financial life they desire.

7.       Are not held to higher standards of behavior than the average citizen.

I would suggest that we don’t need more police, we need better Peace officers.  We now have about 10 officers per neighborhood.  I believe we could get by with 5 Peace officers per neighborhood if they lived in the neighborhood.  We also need Peace officers walking a beat in several business districts.  You can’t develop trust without getting to know someone.  It’s extremely hard to get to know a cop who   comes in from the suburbs every day, heavily armed, only leaves their car when other officers are around only to go back at the end of the day. Let’s get rid of our occupying military force and replace it with caring Peace officers that are paid a professional wage.

Some comforting thoughts

 

As our politicians continue with their ‘divide and conquer” strategies that seem to provoke fear anger and hate, I thought it would be useful to point out some simple truths the campaigns are ignoring. 

1.      Eliminating Roe V Wade will not stop abortions.  They’ve taken place for centuries and a change in law will only change how/where they are done.

2.       No one can take “all the guns away”.  There is no way to do this without issuing search warrants for every location in the country.

3.       Taxing, Spending, and Compromising are the most important functions of a politician. Any politician that says otherwise doesn’t understand the job.

4.       Only those who don’t believe in democracy will try to suppress the vote.

5.       Capitalism, Socialism, Communism and Fascism are all failed 19^th century ideas that have been proven failures in their purest forms.  These words are only meant to provoke fear now.

6.       Our Country was founded on principals that were adopted by Christians, but established long before the birth of Christ.  Many of our founders had a profound dislike of Christianity.  Ethan Allen stated that money was much better spent on whiskey than on church.

One of our countries principal problems are the people that vote on only one issue that will not change no matter who is elected.  Please consider the whole candidate.

When will we call stupid by its' name?

 

I was pleased to see that after 3 years the media is finally using the term “liar”. I am still wondering when they will start using the word “stupid”.  The GOP has done an incredible job of getting the 50% of the population of below average intelligence to vote by scaring them.   For example: Trumps latest ad shows Joe Biden telling a lie in 1987.  They had to go back over 30 years to find this when we can go back about 10 minutes to show Trumps latest lie.  Does anyone actually believe that abortions are going to stop just because we toss doctors and women in jail?  How are “they” going to take the guns away and live to tell about it? The intelligence of the Sturgis bikers is obvious with the lack of helmets.  Trump boaters with wakes big enough to swamp other boaters is stupid boating.   We’re seeing truth in the old saying that ‘If you’re going to be stupid, you better be tough”.  It should be obvious that we have to get out the intelligent vote in order to counter the ignorant.  I’m reminded of a Nelson Mandela quote: “The world is not divided by religion, race, or sex; it is divided into the intelligent and the ignorant.  The ignorant divide the world by religion, race and sex.”

Minneapols Police Reform

 

As a forty year resident of South Minneapolis I am continually amazed at the way that people that don’t live in Minneapolis seem to know what’s best for policing in our city.  We have many ‘carpetbaggers’ that spend their work day in the city and then go home, including most of the police force.  They have all seen the 3^rd burn down, but haven’t seen the hundreds of residents cleaning up after.  They don’t interact with the many different cultures that are represented in the City and are threatened by many of them.  I rely daily on people that don’t look like me and happen to think that’s one of the best points of living in the city.  These carpetbaggers are afraid of the City, thinking they will be shot here.  The truth is that if they don’t come here to buy drugs, and don’t stay until closing time, this is an extremely safe city to be in, if you’re not black.  The burning of the 3^rd, gave those cops a taste of the fear they have instilled in the Black community for decades.  We have seen so many bad cops reinstated by arbitration that is imposed on us by the state, that there has to be something very bad, (George Floyd), for a cop to suffer any consequences for mistreating our citizens.  Our current force consists largely of these carpetbaggers that have no respect for the different cultures represented here.  Again the State says that this occupying army is what we must have policing us.  The vast majority of police our legislators have experience with are very good officers, that are not in Minneapolis’s force, and can’t really believe that the force here can be so bad.   Please let the City reform the police effectively for the sake of City residents by realizing that the force differs from the Pequot Lakes police force.