No, but considering they counted death on a motorcycle as covid deaths a couple places, I can't really discount it either.
I'm just talking about the normal kind of guys I work around and the fear of having covid.
some of us have allergies you know.
I am forced to ride on a top comment because I missed this whole post as I was in New.
This one is my forte, as I was an atheist, and one no longer.
It was mere human philosophy that led me to Christ.
It isn't a matter of simply "without God all is permitted". Voltaire was not as witty as he probably thought he was.
I would say "without God, nothing is permitted".
Why? Look at any society not touched by a God. They aren't many but there have been a few. Absolute power by a few with power over everyone else. Nothing permitted but what the self-established God-King says.
The freedom of the West are the ideals of the West, and they sprang from Christianity. Long before that, the pantheon of Gods the West worshiped did little to stop tyrants from making any rules they chose. But Christianity set rules in stone, put down in books, and when even the Roman Catholic church took it too far with indulgences and the like, it sprang forth the Protestant Reformation.
Laugh at all of it if you will, but if you are an atheist have you seen the end of the tunnel as I have, philosophically, to see the end of existence, the blackness and nothingness and meaningless of what it is to be human without a creator or purpose? Because it is there, even if you want to ignore it.
Yes, we can all agree on religion as a means for having a moral compass to adjust society and thus we have relative rules to live by. Eureka, we have society.
But as individuals, looking ahead, philosophically again. What do you see without a God of some kind? What is the end road? Nothingness. No end, because the beginning was an accident. No creator? No meaning?
So why even have a society at all?
Oh well it was some greater race of life put us here and is watching us. Ok, that is a creator. Any way you slice it.
Oh, well it's a simulation. Still creators.
Well, life is seeded throughout the universe, and life is a part of the universe...ok where did the seeds come from?
Life is chemistry, and it must come forth under the right conditions (I believe this because it best describes our observations) so life was inevitable.
Ok, so why do you have any right over me and why cannot I just make you my slave if I have a bigger gun. Because it is wrong? Says who? Where does right and wrong come into it? What is that? Your idea?
There are many universes and...ok this is lazy science that is actually metaphysics (which religion falls under) posing as science.
"Big Bang!". That's not an answer, it's a partial explanation of a tiny portion of the inflation event we still do not know how to fully explain but probably happened in someway similar to how we see it did but are still missing some things about it, but still does not answer what came before either this mythical singularity or the expansion or bang itself. Just kicking the can down the road to a point in the road we cannot see so we make the excuse that we "can't see it".
Ultimately, something came from nothing at some point. Time started at some point. Mass/Energy started somewhere.
The Metaphysical questions are where did those come from. The Supernatural (which simply means outside of Nature, and Nature means observable natural phenomena) is just an expression for what we don't know and cannot directly observe, including multiverses.
And if we are in that realm now, where we question such things beyond the scope we can make experiments to test, then I ask, what comes next? Heat death or the big snap or whatever theory? And then, in such a universe of accidental interactions, what is life itself? Has it any meaning? And if not, why follow a single rule we have made for ourselves?
So a few can figure out a few things about a universe destined for one type of death or another while most of the rest could care less and die for no reason thinking they led good lives, defined by people who died a thousand years earlier?
Atheists have to be the most obtuse and also selfish people on this planet. Or just stupid and don't realize it. It's one of those.
I'll take arguments about this God or some other God and rules about God and this or that. But completely disallowing for some kind of creator figure without some kind of explanation at all and the monumentally stupid explanations for it that use dogma like multiverse theory but pretending that is science is just the type of boorish bullshit I simply cannot take.
That's how it works.
But it's not about words. Even a man with no tongue can accept Christ. It's about the heart.
There is a tendency for evil hearts to never accept God. But a truly repentant heart, God will see. Especially desperate men tend to blind themselves from God. But yes, he could be forgiven. Even Hitler could have been I suppose, though I doubt he ever repented.
There are times where it is important for us to realize that what goes on in this world is not the ultimate of importance. There is a far longer realm within which we will exist and we are here only to be weeded out by our own deeds. Not the original plan, but it's the current one and good enough.
But at the same time what happens here does matter because it effects what happens next. The United States has been the greatest force on Earth for spreading the message of God's love.
If you are an atheist, I am sorry, I was one once too. A sad, dried and dusty road of philosophy that leads to.
It's a combination of everyone actually doing the hygiene they were told to do for half a century and nobody going to the hospital for fear of getting covid. So most flus are "nah man, I'm fine, never felt better, please don't take my job away".
Of course they will try that. And the video evidence clearly shows he continuously kept trying to goat this guy. And the jury will see that and then see him shoot the guy and be appalled.
He's not going to get a good defense attorney, because as soon as a good defense attorney sees the video, they'll know the jury will see it and won't take the case. It's indefensible. Even the "not a real security guard" stuff a good attorney could deal with. But there is too much video. No good attorney will take this. For any amount of money.
EDIT...I had better point out the prosecution going for 1st degree might be an opening. A good defense might argue for second degree. I hope the prosecution knows this and applies charges properly before the actual trial. I'd have to look at 1st degree in Colorado, but usually that means pre-meditated. I think there is a real case for it, but second degree is a slam dunk so I would go for that instead, in any jurisdiction. It's still a hefty charge.
Spez 2, not to say you cannot prove 1st degree considering the situation in most places. It doesn't have to be pre-meditated. If they can prove the whole thing was some setup for the camera, even if they didn't mean for an actual killing to happen, that can still be 1st degree, because it proves the whole escalation was intentional.
Still second degree is safer and easier and puts the guy away for a long time.
That's my point. He was itching for it. In his mind he is a patriot for whatever thing he believes in. Could be communism. Could be one of a dozen bizarre ideologies floating around with made-up complicated names some asshole taught him to believe in.
Some day he is going to figure it out. Some day he is going to figure out he murdered a good guy.
I do not put this lightly, and I will even say I put it as a warning to all of us. Don't lose sight of our principles. Our principles founded in blood at the birth of our nation, guided now by a Constitution written by the leaders left over from that fight.
Because the wellspring of our own willingness to fight and sacrifice and all of it, is exactly what these commie bastard professors have tapped into with guys like this.
It may repel you to read that, and think "nah he is just some idiot sick guy", but no. A patriot is a patriot. Whether he is good or evil depends on who and what he is patriotic for.
Objectively, without a doubt, the Constitution of the United States of America, the American People, and the belief in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, the belief that all rights come from God and not Man, and that within each man exists a Manifest Destiny (not some weird floating woman heading west) to be greater than what he (or she) came into this world as, and that all men (and women) are created Equal, that all shall be equal under the law, that all shall be assessed by their character and not their race or creed or color, and that America as Founded is a great nation, a shining beacon on a hill, a place that can always be better, and will always be made better because it is made by people who strive always to be better and that the American People are a Family, and when you believe in patriotism and love of your American Family, there is no room for hate in your heart, is something you believe and are patriotic about, then you are a good guy. Every phrase is positive. Nobody is blamed for anything in any of those statements. It is all about being good as a person, and spreading that goodness wherever you go and with everything you do.
If you are patriotic about destructive ideologies that are manufactured by intellectuals to conserve power for an elite few. Well, you are a bad guy. And at some point you are destined to realize it. Because if you are the one doing the killing or the violence in its name, you will eventually be tossed aside. Because at no point were you destined to inherit any of the rewards. Those who work for evil always find out, before the end.
Barring freak accidents I suppose.
To himself? Sure.
Until you die, the only person you really have to admit you are wrong to is yourself. And the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner is yourself.
Not a problem for crazy people, or psychos or absolute nihlists perhaps (or they lead us to believe). But for someone sane, who believes in right and wrong, but gets right and wrong mixed up and figures it out? Oh that's hell. Hell on earth.
Even a good man, trying to do good as a cop or in the military does a terrible accident, no matter what a jury somewhere says, he makes himself guilty and worthless in his own head for life.
Imagine the same but you were the bad guy and now you know it.
Yeah admitting it to yourself is the real on-earth jury. And what your mind does with it is your judge. And how you live with it for the rest of your life is your executioner.
And that isn't even getting to how God handles it later.
Man, women in the fashion and hollywood sphere change hair color like they change their underwear. I have no way of knowing. That could be Melania, I just can't tell. The second picture just doesn't look like her at all.
I'm not trying to pick a fight with anyone, just really curious about this picture. I want to know everything about POTUS is all. I mean if you think about it, someday, they will do more documentaries about him than they do constantly about Hitler. And his documentaries will have happy endings!
A sauteed mushroom in butter on a steak is something I can handle. I will say that upfront. It's about 99% of mushrooms in any other form, including a big raw one that makes me want to puke. Moving on.
I will tell you a third thing I believe is true, so you do not give up hope. The California Model can't work forever. The Democrats know that. Which is why they are very much in a rush to use the model nationally and change all of the rules. They know eventually Californians will figure out the whole local election thing and basic Civics 101 and replace them all with Republicans, and not just a governor or random congressman.
It's a temporary thing. But right now, California is still solidly under local Democrat control. So there is no way to get a free and fair national election. In local elections, people are close enough to each other to know that if someone is hated and they win, they will riot. That doesn't work forever at the local level.
This is where I believe God takes charge.
It's like this. There are many of us on here that have had to take lives for one reason or another. Some of us deal with it hard, some not as hard, but the vast majority we weren't out to get anyone or kill anyone other than in the scope of combat or just doing your job or something like that.
The typical criminal murderer is a shitberg and it effects them a certain way, and some don't care, some are happy about killing, some are just nuts. Some may feel bad, but they got themselves into that situation, at least knowing something about what they were doing.
Then you have a guy like this. Killed for a cause. A cause that he will eventually learn was completely ridiculous. Astroturfed. Based on total lies and gaslighting.
Guess how he gets to deal with it. Plus being in prison for it.
If that isn't some heinous justice, I don't know what is. It's hard enough for righteous people who kill to deal with it. But to be completely fooled into it? Damn.
I will tell you two things that I believe are true.
The first is that I believe there is a good possibility that most real voters in California, even by a slim margin, will vote for President Trump in the election.
The second is that it will not matter because the level of political corruption in the state of California has reached such heights that no amount of voters actually voting can overcome it. The system has been rigged by enough local officials that any real evidence of fraud can easily be erased and never traced.
California has been a test bed for turning a Republican state into a single-party Democrat state for about 30-35 years. And it worked. It's had bumps in the road to get there, but it has finally worked. All local elections of any consequence are completely controlled by the state Democrat party, and without a full investigation by federal forces, will never be found out or stopped.
The fact that California didn't have to "outright cheat" in 2018, when NY, NJ, and several other states did, and were under scrutiny, proves that the "California Model" works. And when I say "outright cheat"...they cheated, just you can't find it on the surface like the other states.
If I am wrong, I will eat a full mushroom. I don't mean the psychedelic thing. I mean actual mushroom. I despise mushrooms more than anything, so that is about the closest to "eating crow" I can think of. And I think the sauce of CA going for Trump would make it taste like eating a steak.
It was a joke, as I am a Buckeye. And I hate that college in Ann Arbor.
Consequently, as much as I have been in Columbus lately (I even traveled through there about 10 hrs ago but am back in DC again), I didn't see a lot of Biden signs there. Mostly Trump. I didn't exactly drive around the tOSU campus, where I am sure there are biden signs, but everywhere else it's Trump flags and signs and literal Trump cut-outs.
Not bad for a Democrat town.
Same reason some apparently thought I was and downvoted. They don't read enough into a comment to form a fully informed opinion. I didn't even downvote you myself. But then I usually only downvote right before hitting the deport button, so it's rare anyways. If I disagree with someone, I prefer to argue it out. Clash ideas and see what the best thing is that rises out of the clash.
No no no no, you are asking ENTIRELY the wrong question.
The number one question right now is "Who at News 9 Denver said he was hired from Pinkerton"?
If the answer is it was their official spokesperson or someone of that level, then it completely implicates the news organization at a CRIMINAL level. Which is yuge. Because it is an intentional lie which shows intent to cover up something.
Most organizations would disavow the whole thing, claimed their employees acted irrationally and then fire them or put them on some sort of bogus leave. But they went with "he was a Pinkerton man".
Why? The answer only matters if some official at 9 News was who said it, not one of the low level idiots involved in it.
Maybe your wording confused me a bit, but I have been trying to correct several people when it comes to this particular incident, because some people are focusing on the "it was just mace" idea, and that is a deadly, deadly trap to fall into. If you compare to the Kyle Rittenhouse situation, the Left can (and did) make the argument that nobody shot at him (which there is still question about) thus he had no right to use deadly force against skateboard guy, or "shoot me guy", and initially against "Lefty", even though he clearly had a gun himself.
Specific local laws in some places exist because people made dangerous arguments such as "the attacker was unarmed so you should not be able to use a gun on him", regardless if the attacker was twice his size and could have pummeled him to death, or could have thrown dirt in his eyes, stole his gun and shot him instead.
The crime is in the aggression. I am trying to warn people to steer away from arguing that the minister shouldn't have been shot because "it's against the rules in some despot Democrat run city to use a gun unless someone shoots at you first". That will be used against you in an argument, and perhaps to change the laws in your own local place eventually.
No, the argument is, and always is, and always will be no matter who has what politics, who is armed with what, and whatever the outcome, that the aggressor is the criminal and the person they attack or initiate violence with is the self-defender. Period. Full stop. End of.
Don't make dangerous arguments that come back and hang you later when the role is reversed.
And at the end of the day, we all have a God-given right to defend ourselves. We don't always know what someone is throwing or spraying at us or what they are capable of doing. So deadly force is always "authorized" in real life, when you are being attacked by an unknown person with unknown intentions and capabilities. ESPECIALLY when there are other unknowns around.
Even a handful of dirt can kill you, if you are blinded for a few seconds and someone takes your gun.
Spez: Also the Zimmerman case comes to mind. One guy punched him. He only used his gun once his head was being beat against the pavement. Are you supposed to wait until your head is being beat against the pavement? Or is there a certain amount of punches before you can use your gun? Do you see how utterly ridiculous it is to make the argument that "depending on your local laws" is?
Self-defense is not about local laws. It is about acting within seconds, untrained because normal people are not trained, in a way to protect yourself, and there is no jury on the Earth who can somehow tell whether or not you felt "in mortal danger".
The only common denominator that can be proven (or not disproved) is that someone attacked you. After that, nothing can by any natural law say you cannot use a gun, a rock, mace, or a banana in your attempt to defend yourself.
Yeah I had to go through Toledo a few times. If you took that route east at some point along Lake Erie towards Cleveland (or west in the opposite direction), you might have come on that town where it's like completely decked out in Trump signs and flags. Was really cool, I wish I could have taken a picture. I wish I had remembered the name of the town. There were probably hundreds of signs in that town alone, and I don't think there were a hundred houses where that small highway cuts through it.
I will say that nothing makes you love and appreciate this great nation more than a road trip like you took. I've taken several, and even though the drive can make you weary, and there are always some idiots on the road, and traffic, and construction, it's still a beautiful land and a beautiful people. I've been to a lot of places on this planet, and there truly is nothing like the United States.
I've been driving a lot myself and mentioned this a few times recently. About 7 different states East and Midwest, different routes. I couldn't keep a tally per se, but I can confirm, it is overwhelmingly Trump signs, and the big thing for me is flags. I think all of the Trump flags are a bigger deal than little yard signs. You gotta spring for a flag and set it up to display it. And there are TONS of them out there.
So I can only confirm what you saw here.
Also, I don't know where in MI you went, but I actually saw Trump signs all over Detroit. I didn't expect that.
I feel you man. I think the speculation comes from a source of compassion, one we all have whether we like it or not. A desire to believe that someone was mistaken in their actions.
I don't hold onto any belief that this guy will see the error of his ways and someday repent.
But what I do know is that forces he doesn't even comprehend right now are who is what drove him to do something evil. He may not be evil, but he did an evil deed, and he will be in prison for a long time for it.
What I think many of us want to know is, who are the really evil people behind all of this, and how can we take them down?