The Portland Police Should Go on Strike

Men and women of the Portland Police department I know a lot has been asked of you in the last year but I ask for one more act of courage on your part, it is time to go on strike.

 

You are beset on all sides by people who wish you harm. Politicians are willing to throw you under the bus to fuel their political careers and to grab national headlines.

 

International activist groups and lawyers prevent your arrests from resulting in justice rendering your valor and virtue wasted.

 

Gangs of violent anarchists attack you indiscriminately without repercussion.

 

Corporate media, only interested in a headline, provides cover for your enemies, cutting you off from the real public support that you need.

Patriots, back the blue, brothers and sisters who took the oath to protect the constitution with you, and peace loving Americans will stand with you. We are thankful for your service and respect the difficulty of the job you do, but we are now asking that you do one of the most difficult things a person with your type of character could do, stand down.

 

I am not asking you to stand down forever nor am I saying stand down so people can get hurt, I am saying stand down in order to help the communities for which you love and sacrifice for daily. To help restore the rule of law, to ensure that the law is applied equally to everyone, to serve justice and peace.

 

I know that you have families to feed, mortgages and rent to pay, and bills that are due and that a strike is asking a lot of you. I wish I could offer you security and promise that everything will be okay but I cannot make any such assurances and remain honest.

 

What I do know is that you can either make a stand for justice now and go on strike or continue to serve injustice and have to look into the face of the communities that once called you friend as they view you with anger and fear.

 

At the end the choice is yours, the future is uncertain and you stand at a crossroad. History is rarely made in a clap of thunder but through the individual decisions we all make every day. This decision is yours, what kind of future and life do you want? One where you survive simply by getting by or one where you struggle for something better? Will your children be better served by a check paid to you out of their future liberty or by your sacrifice now to secure the light of liberty?

Enough is Enough: What Are You Going to Do?

The police are being told to stand down so that people the mainstream media call mostly peaceful protesters can riot and loot.

The mostly peaceful people cheer on the minority, actively encouraging, condoning, and providing cover for their actions. The mob has taken away your right to have a say. They boldly claim they are speaking for you, the people, as they set fire to the court house or pull down a statue.

They do not speak for me.

But what do we do? Normally I would say elect new people, go out and vote, get involved in your local party. While those things are still important, this is not a normal time.

The police we have entrusted to keep the peace have been handcuffed and are now being beaten savagely as we look on. We now have a choice, do we stand by and watch as these guardians of peace who have stood between us and the most depraved manifestations of our nature are systematically taken apart or do we pick up the responsibility abandoned by those elected officials entrusted with authority and restore peace and order?

It seems like an easy choice, but it is not as easy as you’d think. You will not be cheered for picking up responsibility, in fact by lifting this cross you will be attacked. You will suffer.

You will be called violent when someone punches you in the face. You will be called an extremist as you call for unity. You will be branded racist for loving your country. You will also be tempted.

Tempted to claim the power being used against you and wield it for good. But good fruit cannot grow from a poison tree. Both the suffering and the temptation seek one thing, to strip away your responsibility, because it is in this responsibility that you find meaning.

It is in this responsibility that you make yourself worthy of the suffering of life.

The streets have never been so crowded yet so empty. People shouting empty phrases into the air, conjuring demons out of brothers and making saints out of lies.

Calling people out does not reach their heart, it only causes them to utter false apologies in a misguided attempt to please a monster that feeds on outrage and misery. The apology, instead of satisfying the monster, only sends it into a frenzy as it justifies the outrage (inherent in any apology is an admission of guilt) and means the fruit of misery is ripe.

Our elected officials drop everything to meet the demands of the rioters but you peacefully gather at the capital in the thousands only to be shooed away with a pat on the head. I am just as guilty of this as anyone else. I post things online, I write my blog, I talk with friends and coworkers and we are all full of ideas of what ‘they’ should do. Then we go back to work, go home, and carry on with our lives.

We say things like, oh it’s Portland, if they would ever come to my town they would never get away with that. Then they come to your town, destroy your statues and loot your businesses. 

You then say, yeah but if they tried that at my house they would never get away with it. Then they show up at your house and burn the American flag on your front porch. You weakly say, well if they break into my house they would never get away with it. 

But it’s too late, they have already gotten away with it. Your house is on fire, the police are not coming, the fire department is not coming, and your neighbors are not coming. You are alone in your burning house and you wonder, why didn’t someone do something? 

All the while you never realized that you were someone, that you could have done something, but each time you were called you hesitated. As your community, your state, and your country burned, you turned on Call of Duty and ignored Duty’s Call. Each hesitation, each ignored call, etched onto your very being until hesitation became habit and inaction became your virtue. 

So what can you do? I’ll admit honestly I have no clear answer for that question because I do not know you. I am not going to lie to you like a politician and say I have all the answers for you and if you support me all your worries will go away. That is a question you are going to have to answer for yourself.

First recognize four things. 

One, work within your circle of influence. This means understanding what you are actually capable of doing. You probably can’t get elected governor, but you can vote. You can always extend your circle of influence and work up to getting elected governor, but chances are for the majority of us, that is outside of our current abilities.

Two, understand there is not going to be one magic solution. Simply changing the school system or the tax code will not fix everything. Lots of things need to be done, do not focus too heavily on any one thing or believe that if only X would happen then everything would be better.

Three we are currently in a culture war not a political disagreement or violent revolution. You cannot win the battle if your army is on the wrong field.

Four, you as an individual are needed right now. Not you as a member of a group (gun owner, male or female, or Trump supporter) but you as the unique individual with your own talents, interests and abilities.

Lastly if you know of any of these events, statue destruction, flooding of a school board meeting to read scripted ‘comments’ trying to cancel someone, or occupations, please bring it to the attention of the rest of the community. Then get up and go use your voice. Don’t get into shouting matches, physical fights or call people names but stand up tall with courage and honor.

PS. I am starting to organize people in my local community here in Oregon to do something I think is pretty cool. Looking to organize mostly young people to become the leaders we need but also looking to build a community. If you are interested, everyone is welcome, reach out to me on Facebook or in the comments of this blog, thanks!

Courage in the Face of Coronavirus

 To say this virus and lock downs have created a lot of uncertainty would be an understatement. Daily through media, mainstream and social, we see video after video and article after article of how bad things are, how bad things could get, and how bad it has gotten in other places in the world.

On top of that we have governments releasing PSA’s accusing us of being murderers if we dare to leave our homes. All this generates a large amount of fear. Frankly if you are not afraid on some level I would think you were not human.

Yet in the presence of all this fear and uncertainty it is not how we feel that matters but how we act. Do you give in to your passions and allow the fear to dictate to you how you should behave? Or do you pick up your reason and struggle with those passions in order to live virtuously with courage?

Locked Down

To many of us the thought of being locked in our homes screams as a violation to our fundamental natural rights. No one can force us to stay home in a free country. This understandably could be seen simply as the excuse for petty tyrants to finally come out of the woodwork.

We also worry about once this is over and this line has been crossed, what is to stop something else simply being called an emergency and forcing us to stay home, say on an election day? In the face of these lock downs we must act with courage.

We need to understand that most Americans will not tolerate this for a long period of time. That our elected representatives will always have to run for reelection and that the true power of our Republic rests with the people. We will comply with these stay home orders but must courageously voice our opposition to them and demonstrate our dedication to that opposition once this pandemic winds down.

Reopening

We will reopen at some point and when we do it is understandable that people will be afraid to leave their homes and return to their lives. This is a natural feeling because we have been told that there is an invisible enemy lurking behind every tree, living on every surface that can not only infect and kill you but will infect and kill everyone you ever loved as well.

We need to understand that even for something as serious as the Coronavirus this feeling has been blown out of proportion by media outlets trying to sell ads and get click, by politicians trying to push pet projects through attached to relief bills, and by social media personalities trying to gain fame and attention.

Once we do start to open again we must act with courage, especially those of us who are young and relatively healthy. Go out to eat, go to the beach, and go out to our parks. While we should learn from this virus, we must not fundamentally alter our way of life. Once we do that we have made the choice to live out of fear and not from a place of courage.

Courage Itself

Courage is a virtue, one that in our modern risk adverse world we are rapidly losing. Too often do we allow mobs of people on Twitter to dictate to us what we should think or how we should behave.

But courage is not a virtue without limits. An excess of courage is foolhardiness and a deficiency of courage is cowardice. Yet to the cowardly the courageous seem foolhardy and to the foolhardy the courageous seem cowardly. So how do we judge if our actions are courageous, cowardly or foolhardy?

Our courage must serve our happiness. This is not the modern version of happiness, which is more closely related to pleasure than happiness. Instead happiness here means the positive feeling you get from doing something meaningful and good.

An example of this is as things open up and grocery stores get crowded again, you go grocery shopping for your grandparents and deliver the food to their house. The virtue of courage is a fine line and one that moves constantly. Something that is courageous one day could be foolhardy or cowardly the next day.

Practicing courage every day will etch that habit into your character and allow you to act with courage when called upon to do so in stressful situations. So I urge everyone to act with courage in the face of this terror known as Coronavirus. They do not call America the home of the brave for nothing, now is our chance to earn that title.