I’ve been staring at this blank
page for the last few days. I’ve felt an urge to write, but the words have
alluded me. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, I am from New York City,
after all, it’s just that I have too much to say and I am not even sure where
to begin.
Now I know some of you will
immediately want to know why I am not writing my
latest book, but I promise you, I am. I just needed to get this off my
chest.
The problem probably started
where it always does, on Facebook. I’m not exactly sure what we did before FB,
but I vaguely recall that it was a much more productive time. My quandary exists because I have what can best be
described as very eclectic friends, who have posted a wide range of responses
to the Orlando terror attack. What saddens me is the fact that there has even
been a ‘wide range’ of responses.
In just over forty-eight hours I
have heard some of the following diatribes play out in social media:
- The attack in Orlando was a hate crime.
- This has nothing to do with moderate Islam.
- We need to ban these senseless weapons of war.
- The police responded slowly because it was a LGBT club.
Let us set the record straight
right from the beginning. This was, first and foremost, a terror attack
committed by radical Islam. Anyone who wants to muddy the waters by mincing
words is being disingenuous. When some try to claim that this was a hate crime,
they are attempting to minimize the significance of what occurred at the Pulse
Nightclub. While hate certainly played a role in the attack, it was part of a
much larger picture that many are attempting to gloss over: Radical
Islam.
This attack was carried out as a
direct result of the theological beliefs of a particular group. Unfortunately,
for some strange reason, a large majority of our politicians, pundits and
ordinary people refuse to accept this. If I had a dollar for every time I
heard: “These acts don’t reflect moderate Islam…” I’d be living on a tropical
island, without Wi-Fi access, in a perpetual state of bliss.
The question then is: What is
moderate Islam and what do they believe?
The answer to this question is
one that many do not want to hear. They want to believe in this illusion that
there is a moderate world that just chooses to remain quiet, yet when you pull
back the thin veneer, you see a world that doesn’t seem all that different from
the radical.
I see you in the back, waving
your hand like a maniac, and yes, I know you know a Muslim who is moderate……
and I know a lot of Catholics who live their lives quite differently then what
is taught in the Bible. Hell, I used to be one of them. I was even an altar boy……
stop chuckling. The fact is that there is a big difference between calling
yourself something and actually being engaged. I am talking about those who
actually believe in and follow the teachings of the Qur’an.
In considering political rights
and civil liberties, the vast majority of countries in the Middle East are
simply not free. At least not the ‘being free’ which those of us, here in The West,
think of. I am often amazed when I see groups, who identify themselves as
feminists or members of the LGBT community, come out in support of moderate
Islam, yet in the majority of those Muslim countries they would face severe
penalties and even death for their beliefs. It’s tantamount to seeing a ‘Jew’s
for Hitler’ sign.
The simple truth is, that even in
moderate Islamic countries, the penalty for being homosexual is: prison,
punishment and / or death. I’m not talking about Iran, or one of the other hardline
countries, but the moderate ones like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. If you
are lucky enough to be a lesbian in Kuwait you get a free-pass, but males are
still breaking the law…… don’t ask, I scratched my head on that one as well. These
moderate nations have even used their influence to block advancements in LGBT
rights at the United Nations.
Unlike the west, which enjoys a separation
between politics and religion, the Muslim world does not. For some unknown
reason, many people don’t understand or accept that theology is the driving
force in Islamic government. Islam is not just a religious belief system, but a
legal system as well. Sharia law is the religious legal system governing the
members of the Islamic faith. And therein lies the real problem.
The lives we enjoy in western civilization
are in direct opposition to the Muslim world. They don’t believe in our values
and they don’t respect that we recognize individual rights.
In the United States we have the
1st Amendment right to freedom of speech. It means that I don’t have
to agree or even like what you say, but you still get to say it. What I find
extremely funny is the fact that all of the real cutting edge comedians and
Hollywood celebrity types have a field day mocking Jesus, yet those same folks
are nowhere to be found when it comes to mocking Muhammad. Ever wonder why? That’s
because death threats don’t seem to lose any of their significance when they
come from moderates.
The Avant Garde folks
over at Charlie
Hebdo decided to push those boundaries, it didn’t end well for them.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have
a problem with Muslims. In fact, I’ve had the pleasure of working side by side
with many of them during my career. I respect them, but I also understand that
we have very different belief systems. If my path took me to a country where
Islam was the rule, then I would act accordingly, but here in the United States,
it is not, and that is what has always made us great.
Unfortunately for us, it seems
the principle of America being one great ‘melting pot’ has been forgotten. Instead
of people coming to here to become Americans, we have more and more people
coming here who want to change us into something resembling what they left.
In 1907, President Theodore
Roosevelt made a speech regarding the assimilation of immigrants into American
culture. It was true then and even truer now:
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes
here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall
be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to
discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.
But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American,
and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any
man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at
all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but
one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for
but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Why is this important? Because
America is different.
Contrary to what many
ill-informed people believe, we are not a democracy, but rather a
constitutional republic. What this means is that we are a country where the
officials are elected as representatives
of the people, and must govern
according to existing constitutional law which limits the government's
power over citizens. It is sometimes referred to as the rule of law, not man.
Why is this significant?
Because in a democracy, that is a
political system in which the majority enjoys absolute power, the majority can
vote to impose tyranny on themselves as well as the minority opposition. Simply
put, without the constraints of The Constitution, the majority can vote to
elect those who will infringe upon our inalienable God-given rights.
Thomas Jefferson referred to this as elected
despotism.
This brings us to the 2nd Amendment
and the current argument that certain
guns need to be banned; for our own good.
You might not like guns and that
is your right, but you simply don’t get to choose that for me. That might not
sit well with you. You might be one of those enlightened folks who believe that, by simply getting rid of all the
guns, the world will be one big happy family and that is within your 1st
Amendment right to profess, but I also have my 2nd Amendment right
just in case you are wrong.
It’s like that old adage: Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually
end up plowing for those who didn’t.
The truth is that we cannot
legislate morality.
I’m truly sorry for the loss of
lives in Orlando, but if anyone believes that the sole responsibility for what
happened resides with a mechanical object, I suggest you seek some immediate help.
In over two decades in law enforcement I have had a front row seat to man’s
inhumanity to man. In his desire to kill another, man has no limitations. I
have seen baseball bats, hammers, steak-knives, cars, ropes, broom-sticks,
machetes, rocks, handguns, dogs, arson, poison,
swords, rifles / shotguns, explosives, and planes, along with a few I have
probably forgotten, used to kill other human beings. This absurd belief that, by somehow removing
one item from the inventory list, we will somehow be able to bring peace to
modern civilization is not only patently false, but extremely dangerous.
We look for simplistic answers to
complex questions that we don’t want to address,
Let us take the 1994 ‘Assault
Weapons Ban’ as an example. This was supposed to cure everything. In fact,
after the Orlando terror attack, many are calling for its re-instatement. The
truth however is much different than what the politicians and pundits would
lead you to believe. A number of academic studies determined that this ban had
little to no effect on gun violence and that the re-institution of the ban
would have no significant merit.
Now granted, when we have an attack
like this, it does seem to grab the headlines, but is it the gun or the person
wielding it that is the real problem?
There’s the complex question that
no one wants to address.
Whether it was Adam Lanza, Nidal
Hassan, Jared Loughner, Dylan Roof, James Holmes, and now Omar Mateen, each had
clearly observable mental health issues that went unreported / unaddressed.
These issues should have precluded them from having access to any firearm. In
essence, they were already breaking the law long before they ever pulled the
trigger. Unfortunately, society does not
have an answer for mental health issues, so they look to shift the blame to
something else and that is most often guns. Guns can be banned and restricted.
Politicians can pass more laws and the media can sing their praises, at least
until the next shooting.
You know, it is kind of
ironic. After every terror attack I hear
the admonishment that we shouldn’t judge all of Islam because of a few bad
ones. When we have a mass shooting, the mental health community is quick to
remind us that we should be wary of stigmatizing the many, in an
attempt to stop the few. Yet if the NRA, or a responsible gun owner, protests,
they are quickly attacked as being evil.
We don’t want to fix the problem;
we simply want to pass the buck.
Which brings me to my final
thought: Blame the police.
It seems that our men and women
in law enforcement have become the political piñata when all else fails. To aggressive, not aggressive enough, too
militaristic, ill-equipped, and the complaints and accusations just continue to
flow, ad nauseum. They speak of them in abstract, as if they are some foreign entity
brought in to punish them.
I have a question for those who
enjoy bashing the police: just where exactly do you think they come from?
In over two decades of law
enforcement I worked with people from every walk of life: Heterosexual,
Homosexual, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, White, Black, Asian, Hispanic,
and the list goes on. The NYPD is comprised of well over fifty thousand
uniformed and civilian members which covers the entire spectrum of the
population of New York City.
We are not aliens, recruited from
some distant planet, and brought here to subjugate the people.
We are the people.
We have just chosen to be that
thin blue line which separates the innocent from the evil in the world.
One of
the best analogies I have ever read was Lt. Colonel David Grossman’s On Sheep, Wolves, and
Sheepdogs.
Simply put: We hunt the evil that you pretend doesn’t exist.
This vilification and dehumanizing
of law enforcement is done for one purpose and that is to pretend that the
underlying problem is someone else’s fault.
I read a 2015 New York Times article
that outlined a series of seventy-three (73) fatal police shootings, over the
course of a 1 year period, from August 2014 to August 2015, throughout the United
States. While the story strives to paint a picture of cops killing unarmed people, I could not help but note,
that in all but three cases, the shootings where the end result of what started
off as some type of criminal activity.
Look we have to be honest about
things. Cops are not rolling down the streets of Chicago’s South Side doing
drive-by shootings. Nor are they pulling up at playgrounds and schools to pop off a few rounds for giggles. In my
twenty-two year law enforcement career I never worked with a cop that put on
his gun belt and said ‘God, I hope I get to cap
someone tonight.’ Yet, if you listen to the media and all the activists, you
would think this nation was being patrolled by brutal mad-dogs Hell bent on
killing everyone they encounter.
It should come as no shock to
anyone that there are criminals in the world. If you engage in criminal behavior,
eventually you will cross paths with law enforcement. There are unintended
consequences of actions. Does that mean you should be killed for breaking the
law? Of course not, but if it is 2 a.m. and you are coming out of a home, that you
just burglarized, and you quickly reach into your waistband, as the cops
approach you, there is a very good chance you are going to get shot. If it
turns out you didn’t have a gun, well what can I say? Your mother raised an
idiot.
I’m reminded of the Michael Brown
case in Ferguson, Missouri. Here is someone who just robbed a store, then
assaulted a police officer, while attempting to get control of his firearm, and
then after running away, turned and charged back toward the officer. He was
shot and killed.
The media and the political activists
attempted to paint this picture of a mad-dog cop who gunned down an innocent
child. The fact that the innocent ‘child’ was 6’4”, weighed 294 lbs., and had
drugs in his system at the time of his death, seemed to somehow get lost in the
translation.
- Crime 1 – Illegal Narcotics
- Crime 2 – Robbery
- Crime 3 – Assault / Attempted Robbery
- Crime 4 – ?
Well, let’s just say that I don’t
think he was running back to surrender.
Remember, “Hands Up – Don’t Shoot”
was definitively proven to be a lie by eye-witnesses who testified that they
believed Wilson’s life was in danger and that he fired in self-defense.
I’m sorry, but these are the unintended
consequences of a criminal behavior.
Did Darren Wilson get up that
morning thinking he was going to kill someone? No.
Did Michael Brown get up that
morning thinking his illegal actions would lead to his death? No, and that is
the problem.
We have turned a corner in
society where we are abdicating personal responsibility. We are living in a new
world, where it is always someone else’s fault for our actions and more and
more people are buying into that premise.
- Bad grades in school: The teacher is at fault.
- Choose to pursue a useless degree program in college and now you can’t find a job when you graduate: Greedy capitalism.
- Engage in bad behavior: The U.S. is a brutal police state.
I understand the allure. Let’s
face it, who wouldn’t want to enjoy all the benefits, but none of the responsibility
for ones actions? But this is the real
world. The politicians and activist’s
lie to you, the media paints a narrative they want you to believe, but
ultimately it is up to us to search for the truth.
In the aftermath of the terror
attack some are claiming that the police were at fault, that they were slow to
respond because it was only a LGBT
bar.
I was not there so I won’t
comment on the tactics that were used, unlike some self-proclaimed experts who
jumped at the chance to promote
themselves. I will say that the moment Omar Mateen took hostages inside the
club, and claimed to have explosives that he was going to strap onto the
hostages, the entire situation changed.
Imagine the headlines Sunday
morning had the police immediately entered and he detonated a bomb killing
countless people. The press would have crucified the entire police department
as well as the mayor and everyone in city government.
The problem with Monday morning
quarterbacks is that, in most instances, they have never actually played the
game, but have the luxury of being right 100% of the time. This causes them to
think they are smarter than the people who actually do the job. Sorry Skippy, but
you don’t get the right to judge me from your living room, twenty-four hours after
the incident. You want to play Mr. or Mrs.
Expert? Then I suggest you put on a uniform and get some skin in the game.
You might find that the BB gun, which
looks so obviously fake, under the brilliant light of the TV cameras, looks a
helluva lot more realistic at 1 a.m. when it is being pointed at your face.
In law enforcement this is
called: damned if you do, dead if you don’t.
To the members of the LGBT
community, don’t think for one second that the cops in Orlando did things any
differently because it was a gay
club. We don’t play games like. You needed help and they came and I can state
with almost absolute certainty that in the group of cops who responded that
morning a number of them were also members the LGBT community.
We are not the enemy, we are you.
The real enemy is the politicians
we have elected. They don’t want to be bothered addressing the real problems
and finding actual solutions; that would take honesty and require actual work
on their part. They count on our ignorance and drive the wedge of division
between us. One day soon we will have to wake up and realize that we
are not Republicans or Democrats, but Americans. Only then will we be able
to finally fix what is truly broken.
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