The Pullman police have gotten plenty of bad press as of late. I don’t think there’s any point in repeating what has gone on and what has been said about them, as anyone in this area is probably well aware of it all, and anyone reading from afar could just insert their own prejudices against cops everywhere into the blank if they don’t happen to know the details.
I want to write about what the Pullman PD do right, and as fate would have it, this involves two incidences I have been personally involved in within only days of each other. I’m going to share with you my recent experiences with our local law enforcement officers to remind everyone – fans and critics alike – that we really do need these men and women in uniform, and that we ought to appreciate them more than many seem to.
The first incident occurred just this past weekend. Basically, my roommates and I were throwing a pig roast at our house, an event for which we required a small admission fee of all guys who joined us (women got in free). A few arrogant, entitlement-minded narcissists attempted to crash the party. I caught them and threw them out, but they returned with friends of theirs and refused to leave. Right before my roommates, guests, and I commenced with beating these idiots into pulp, the Pullman PD arrived and trespassed them from our property at our request and left us to enjoy our party. Though admittedly somewhat frustrating (because I think a lot of people out there deserve/need a sound beating), this outcome was best. It’s all thanks to our local police forces.
The other incident occurred just this evening. Long story short, my roommates and I stopped an attack on a young woman by her ex-boyfriend near our house. Within minutes, a Pullman PD officer was here to assist her and interview us. While he was doing this, another officer had caught and detained this young woman’s attacker in another part of town. If there is justice, he will be in prison; this is not the first time he has attacked the poor girl, as she told my roommates and I.
The Pullman PD are frequently called many names, accused of being racists, of only picking on students partaking in relatively benign behavior while ignoring real crimes, etc. It would be obviously wrong to say that they do not sometimes make mistakes, but too often it seems that their human errors are all that they are given credit for, and frequently their errors are blown out of proportion in shameless attempts at exploiting unfortunate events for personal or special-interest gain. My examples to the contrary are admittedly few as they are personal examples, but it is obvious that many more of a similar nature exist in the memories of others. I offer my few positive experiences to remind everyone that, despite a lot of the local lefty rhetoric against our officers, they are essentially good people – people who can make mistakes, like any of us, but who rise to the occasion and do good works, sometimes at risk of personal injury and even death, when they are called upon to do so, and all for our benefit.
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Showing posts with label Conservatism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservatism. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Victor Davis Hanson: The Post-west
I found this great read elsewhere on the web. Given current discussions taking place here at Palousitics, I found this piece timely:
April 13, 2007
The Post-west
A civilization that has become just a dream.
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
I recently had a dream that British marines fought back, like their forefathers of old, against criminals and pirates. When taken captive, they proved defiant in their silence. When released, they talked to the tabloids with restraint and dignity, and accepted no recompense.
I dreamed that a kindred German government, which best knew the wages of appeasement, cut-off all trade credits to the outlaw Iranian mullahs — even as the European Union joined the Americans in refusing commerce with this Holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic, and thuggish regime.
NATO countries would then warn Iran that their next unprovoked attack on a vessel of a member nation would incite the entire alliance against them in a response that truly would be of a “disproportionate” nature.
In this apparition of mine, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in Syria at the time, would lecture the Assad regime that there would be consequences to its serial murdering of democratic reformers in Lebanon, to fomenting war with Israel by means of its surrogates, and to sending terrorists to destroy the nascent constitutional government in Iraq.
She would add that the United States could never be friends with an illegitimate dictatorship that does its best to destroy the only three democracies in the region. And then our speaker would explain to Iran that a U.S. Congresswoman would never detour to Tehran to dialogue with a renegade government that had utterly ignored U.N. non-proliferation mandates and daily had the blood of Americans on its hands.
Fellow Democrats like John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, and Harry Reid would add that, as defenders of the liberal tradition of the West, they were not about to call a retreat before extremist killers who behead and kidnap, who blow up children and threaten female reformers and religious minorities, and who have begun using poison gas, all in an effort to annihilate voices of tolerance in Iraq.
These Democrats would reiterate that they had not authorized a war to remove the psychopathic Saddam Hussein only to allow the hopeful country to be hijacked by equally vicious killers. And they would warn the world that their differences with the Bush administration, whatever they might be, pale in comparison to the shared American opposition to the efforts of al Qaeda, the Taliban, Syria, and Iran to kill any who would advocate freedom of the individual.
Those in Congress would not deny that Congress itself had voted for a war against Saddam on 23 counts — the vast majority of which had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and remain as valid today as when they were approved in 2002.
Congressional Democrats would make clear that, while in the interests of peace they might wish to talk to Iran, they had no idea how to approach a regime that subsidizes Holocaust denial, threatens to wipe out Israel, defies the world in seeking nuclear weapons, trains terrorists to kill Americans in Iraq, engages in piracy and hostage taking, and butchers or incarcerates any of its own who question the regime.
In this dream, I heard our ex-presidents add to this chorus of war-time solidarity. Jimmy Carter reminded Americans that radical Islam had started in earnest on his watch, out of an endemic hatred of all things Western. I imagined him explaining that America began being called the “Great Satan” during the presidential tenure of a liberal pacifist, not a Texan conservative.
Bill Clinton would likewise add that he bombed Iraq, and Afghanistan, and East Africa without congressional or U.N. approval because of the need for unilateral action against serial terrorism and the efforts of radicals to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
George Bush Sr. would in turn lecture the media that it was once as furious at him for not removing Saddam as it is now furious at his son for doing so; that it was once as critical of him for sending too many troops to the Middle East as it is now critical of his son for sending too few; that it was once as hostile to the dictates of his excessively large coalition as it is now disparaging of his son’s intolerably small alliance; that it was once as dismissive of his old concern about Iranian influence in Iraq as it is now aghast at his son’s naiveté about Tehran’s interest in absorbing southern Iraq; and that it was once as repulsed by his own cynical realism as it is now repulsed by his son’s blinkered idealism.
I also dreamed that the British government only laughed at calls to curtail studies of the Holocaust in deference to radical Muslims, and instead repeatedly aired a documentary on its sole Victoria Cross winner in Iraq. The British, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish foreign ministers would collectively warn the radical Islamic world that there would be no more concessions to the pre-rational primeval mind, no more backpeddling and equivocating on rioting and threats over cartoons or operas or papal statements. There would be no more apologies about how the West need make amends for a hallowed tradition that started 2,500 years ago with classical Athens, led to the Italian Republics of the Renaissance, and inspired the liberal democracies that defeated fascism, Japanese militarism, Nazism, and Communist totalitarianism, and now are likewise poised to end radical Islamic fascism.
Europeans would advise their own Muslim immigrants, from London to Berlin, that the West, founded on principles of the Hellenic and European Enlightenments, and enriched by the Sermon on the Mount, had nothing to apologize for, now or in the future. Newcomers would either accept this revered culture of tolerance, assimilation, and equality of religions and the sexes — or return home to live under its antithesis of seventh-century Sharia law.
Media critics of the ongoing war might deplore our tactics, take issue with the strategy, and lament the failure to articulate our goals and values. But they would not stoop to the lies of “no blood for oil” — not when Iraqi petroleum is now at last under transparent auspices and bid on by non-American companies, even as the price skyrockets and American ships protect the vulnerable sea-lanes, ensuring life-saving commerce for all importing nations.
I also dreamed that no columnist, no talking head, no pundit would level the charge of “We took our eye off bin Laden in Afghanistan” when they themselves had no answer on how to reach al Qaedists inside nuclear Pakistan, a country ruled by a triangulating dictator and just one bullet away from an Islamic theocracy.
…
And then I woke up, remembering that the West of old lives only in dreams. Yes, the new religion of the post-Westerner is neither the Enlightenment nor Christianity, but the gospel of the Path of Least Resistance — one that must lead inevitably to gratification rather than sacrifice.
Once one understands this new creed, then all the surreal present at last makes sense: life in the contemporary West is so good, so free, so undemanding, that we will pay, say, and suffer almost anything to enjoy its uninterrupted continuance — and accordingly avoid almost any principled act that might endanger it. [emphasis added]
©2007 Victor Davis Hanson
April 13, 2007
The Post-west
A civilization that has become just a dream.
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
I recently had a dream that British marines fought back, like their forefathers of old, against criminals and pirates. When taken captive, they proved defiant in their silence. When released, they talked to the tabloids with restraint and dignity, and accepted no recompense.
I dreamed that a kindred German government, which best knew the wages of appeasement, cut-off all trade credits to the outlaw Iranian mullahs — even as the European Union joined the Americans in refusing commerce with this Holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic, and thuggish regime.
NATO countries would then warn Iran that their next unprovoked attack on a vessel of a member nation would incite the entire alliance against them in a response that truly would be of a “disproportionate” nature.
In this apparition of mine, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in Syria at the time, would lecture the Assad regime that there would be consequences to its serial murdering of democratic reformers in Lebanon, to fomenting war with Israel by means of its surrogates, and to sending terrorists to destroy the nascent constitutional government in Iraq.
She would add that the United States could never be friends with an illegitimate dictatorship that does its best to destroy the only three democracies in the region. And then our speaker would explain to Iran that a U.S. Congresswoman would never detour to Tehran to dialogue with a renegade government that had utterly ignored U.N. non-proliferation mandates and daily had the blood of Americans on its hands.
Fellow Democrats like John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, and Harry Reid would add that, as defenders of the liberal tradition of the West, they were not about to call a retreat before extremist killers who behead and kidnap, who blow up children and threaten female reformers and religious minorities, and who have begun using poison gas, all in an effort to annihilate voices of tolerance in Iraq.
These Democrats would reiterate that they had not authorized a war to remove the psychopathic Saddam Hussein only to allow the hopeful country to be hijacked by equally vicious killers. And they would warn the world that their differences with the Bush administration, whatever they might be, pale in comparison to the shared American opposition to the efforts of al Qaeda, the Taliban, Syria, and Iran to kill any who would advocate freedom of the individual.
Those in Congress would not deny that Congress itself had voted for a war against Saddam on 23 counts — the vast majority of which had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and remain as valid today as when they were approved in 2002.
Congressional Democrats would make clear that, while in the interests of peace they might wish to talk to Iran, they had no idea how to approach a regime that subsidizes Holocaust denial, threatens to wipe out Israel, defies the world in seeking nuclear weapons, trains terrorists to kill Americans in Iraq, engages in piracy and hostage taking, and butchers or incarcerates any of its own who question the regime.
In this dream, I heard our ex-presidents add to this chorus of war-time solidarity. Jimmy Carter reminded Americans that radical Islam had started in earnest on his watch, out of an endemic hatred of all things Western. I imagined him explaining that America began being called the “Great Satan” during the presidential tenure of a liberal pacifist, not a Texan conservative.
Bill Clinton would likewise add that he bombed Iraq, and Afghanistan, and East Africa without congressional or U.N. approval because of the need for unilateral action against serial terrorism and the efforts of radicals to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
George Bush Sr. would in turn lecture the media that it was once as furious at him for not removing Saddam as it is now furious at his son for doing so; that it was once as critical of him for sending too many troops to the Middle East as it is now critical of his son for sending too few; that it was once as hostile to the dictates of his excessively large coalition as it is now disparaging of his son’s intolerably small alliance; that it was once as dismissive of his old concern about Iranian influence in Iraq as it is now aghast at his son’s naiveté about Tehran’s interest in absorbing southern Iraq; and that it was once as repulsed by his own cynical realism as it is now repulsed by his son’s blinkered idealism.
I also dreamed that the British government only laughed at calls to curtail studies of the Holocaust in deference to radical Muslims, and instead repeatedly aired a documentary on its sole Victoria Cross winner in Iraq. The British, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish foreign ministers would collectively warn the radical Islamic world that there would be no more concessions to the pre-rational primeval mind, no more backpeddling and equivocating on rioting and threats over cartoons or operas or papal statements. There would be no more apologies about how the West need make amends for a hallowed tradition that started 2,500 years ago with classical Athens, led to the Italian Republics of the Renaissance, and inspired the liberal democracies that defeated fascism, Japanese militarism, Nazism, and Communist totalitarianism, and now are likewise poised to end radical Islamic fascism.
Europeans would advise their own Muslim immigrants, from London to Berlin, that the West, founded on principles of the Hellenic and European Enlightenments, and enriched by the Sermon on the Mount, had nothing to apologize for, now or in the future. Newcomers would either accept this revered culture of tolerance, assimilation, and equality of religions and the sexes — or return home to live under its antithesis of seventh-century Sharia law.
Media critics of the ongoing war might deplore our tactics, take issue with the strategy, and lament the failure to articulate our goals and values. But they would not stoop to the lies of “no blood for oil” — not when Iraqi petroleum is now at last under transparent auspices and bid on by non-American companies, even as the price skyrockets and American ships protect the vulnerable sea-lanes, ensuring life-saving commerce for all importing nations.
I also dreamed that no columnist, no talking head, no pundit would level the charge of “We took our eye off bin Laden in Afghanistan” when they themselves had no answer on how to reach al Qaedists inside nuclear Pakistan, a country ruled by a triangulating dictator and just one bullet away from an Islamic theocracy.
…
And then I woke up, remembering that the West of old lives only in dreams. Yes, the new religion of the post-Westerner is neither the Enlightenment nor Christianity, but the gospel of the Path of Least Resistance — one that must lead inevitably to gratification rather than sacrifice.
Once one understands this new creed, then all the surreal present at last makes sense: life in the contemporary West is so good, so free, so undemanding, that we will pay, say, and suffer almost anything to enjoy its uninterrupted continuance — and accordingly avoid almost any principled act that might endanger it. [emphasis added]
©2007 Victor Davis Hanson
Saturday, April 7, 2007
The Mormon Question
This letter appeared in yesterday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:
What concerns me most, however, is when I see such religious bigotry among conservatives.
We conservatives believe in tradtional American values: hard work, individual liberty, self-reliance, free enterprise, patriotism, and faith in God. That faith in God is not limited to theology. There are Jewish conservatives, Catholic conservatives, Protestant conservatives, etc.
A recent Gallup poll on presidential candidate preferences brought forward some troubling issues.
Conservatives are widely accused by liberals as being racists. Yet the Gallup poll found that 92% of conservatives would vote for a black presidential candidate versus 95% of liberals, a statistical tie. So much for that old saw.
However, 75% of liberals would vote for a Mormon candidate versus just 66% of conservatives. Overall, 72% of Americans would vote for a Mormon candidate and 24% would not.
Compare that with 67% of liberals who would vote for an atheist, while only 29% of conservatives would vote for an atheist.
Proof that some prejudices die harder than others is that overall, Americans have grown vastly more supportive over the last 70 years of virtually every type of non-traditional presidential candidate (Jewish, black, Catholic, or a woman) except for a Mormon.
Some of this disparity, no doubt, comes from the unease that some Evangelicals, who comprise a sizable portion of conservatives, have about Mormonism. As an Evangelical, I admit LDS beliefs are somewhat of a mystery to me.
Prominent conservative blogger and talk show host Hugh Hewitt has stated that Evangelicals should not withhold votes for a candidate based purely on theological disagreement. He fears that if Christians attack someone like Mitt Romney for his faith, it won't be long before secular liberals attack Christians on similar grounds. In fact, that is what we are seeing in Moscow now.
We, as conservatives, must not step into that cesspool. One of my favorite movies is "Gettysburg," based on the Michael Shaara book "The Killer Angels." There is a great line in the movie that goes:
Ronald Reagan focused on what united us when he spoke of America as the "shining city on a hill." Let us not dishonor his legacy by focusing on what divides us, as the leftists do.
Since first arriving in Moscow, to start school at the University of Idaho in 1961, I have always been proud to say I live here. The cultural, religious, ethnic, and racial mixture of our residents has made life here both interesting and pleasurable. Vera White's INK column (March 30) disturbed me. She identified Mike Hoffman (A mystery solved) as "Christ Church member Mike Hoffman."Nothing more clearly demonstrates what small-minded, ignorant, intolerant bigots the coterie of Moscow liberals are than their crusade against Christ Church. Even liberal columnists like Tom Henderson and Jim Fisher of the Lewiston Tribune rail against this bigotry. It makes no one take them (or their causes) seriously.
In this diversified community I was shocked. Would you refer to city supervisor Gary Riedner as Catholic Church member Gary Riedner, or City Councilwoman Linda Pall as Jewish? I hope this reference was not malicious. I, for one, would appreciate her being more sensitive to others regardless of their religious differences, in her future commentary.
Rick Beebe, Moscow
What concerns me most, however, is when I see such religious bigotry among conservatives.
We conservatives believe in tradtional American values: hard work, individual liberty, self-reliance, free enterprise, patriotism, and faith in God. That faith in God is not limited to theology. There are Jewish conservatives, Catholic conservatives, Protestant conservatives, etc.
A recent Gallup poll on presidential candidate preferences brought forward some troubling issues.
Conservatives are widely accused by liberals as being racists. Yet the Gallup poll found that 92% of conservatives would vote for a black presidential candidate versus 95% of liberals, a statistical tie. So much for that old saw.
However, 75% of liberals would vote for a Mormon candidate versus just 66% of conservatives. Overall, 72% of Americans would vote for a Mormon candidate and 24% would not.
Compare that with 67% of liberals who would vote for an atheist, while only 29% of conservatives would vote for an atheist.
Proof that some prejudices die harder than others is that overall, Americans have grown vastly more supportive over the last 70 years of virtually every type of non-traditional presidential candidate (Jewish, black, Catholic, or a woman) except for a Mormon.
Some of this disparity, no doubt, comes from the unease that some Evangelicals, who comprise a sizable portion of conservatives, have about Mormonism. As an Evangelical, I admit LDS beliefs are somewhat of a mystery to me.
Prominent conservative blogger and talk show host Hugh Hewitt has stated that Evangelicals should not withhold votes for a candidate based purely on theological disagreement. He fears that if Christians attack someone like Mitt Romney for his faith, it won't be long before secular liberals attack Christians on similar grounds. In fact, that is what we are seeing in Moscow now.
We, as conservatives, must not step into that cesspool. One of my favorite movies is "Gettysburg," based on the Michael Shaara book "The Killer Angels." There is a great line in the movie that goes:
Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one a time.I will judge Mitt Romney by his policies, his words, and his actions, not his church membership. To do otherwise would be to engage in the petty snobbery and elitism that the PARDners do with Wal-Mart.
Ronald Reagan focused on what united us when he spoke of America as the "shining city on a hill." Let us not dishonor his legacy by focusing on what divides us, as the leftists do.
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