A lawsuit filed by the city of Charlottesville, businesses and neighborhood groups was resolved July 12 after Jason Kessler — an organizer of the Aug. 12 “Unite the Right” rally — became the final defendant to sign a consent decree that requires him to use his “best efforts” to discourage coordinated, armed activity at any future rallies in Charlottesville.
The immediately obvious bit of irony was that these groups are agreeing to take positive, definite action. Presumably to enforce laws. The Charlottesville police, on the other hand…
Standing nearby, an assortment of Virginia State Police troopers and Charlottesville police wearing protective gear watched silently from behind an array of metal barricades — and did nothing.
And you know what… sure, you do, since you’re a TZP reader. The police aren’t required to act. Pretty much at all.
Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine in United States federal law that shields government officials from being sued for discretionary actions performed within their official capacity, unless their actions violated “clearly established” federal law or constitutional rights.[1] Qualified immunity thus protects officials who “make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions,”[2] but does not protect “the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law”[3].
But private groups, with no law enforcement powers, are?
“Depending on the situation, if a business with fewer than 50 employees fails to ‘provide a safe refuge for a child who had physical injury inflicted upon him or is in imminent danger of such injury until authorities arrive,’ the business would be subject to penalties to be determined by the commissioner of the state Office of Children and Family Services.”
Please note that this is in response to the killing of a kid, by a Dominican Republic-based gang, in which the store owner did take in the kid, called 911 for official help…
And the official help failed to turn up in a timely fashion. Why not? They have no legal obligation to do so.
But the bodega owner will. Just like the Charlottesville protest groups. But not the Charlottesville police.
In New York City, it’s tough to be lawfully armed, unless you’re wealthy or politically connected. If Charlottesville politicians have their way, it would be the same there.
But you just might be legally responsible for enforcing laws. While unarmed. At this rate, the powers that be might as well make the citizens legally responsible for proving the — armed — police with donuts.
Guess again, bozos. You’re giving us that many more reasons to never disarm.
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Gradually setting aside their fundamental belief in Torah, and longing for Geula, many Jews focused on secular, social action, to satisfy their ingrained drive for Tikkun Olam. After many, many centuries of exile, poverty, suffering, and death, many thought the Enlightenment (and the Jewish variant; the Haskalah) was the correct path. Perhaps, they thought, ‘this’ was the way to bring about the coming of Moshiach?
For all that I pen many of the columns here, I am not a Jew. Faith comes hard to me; even a belief system that has successfully maintained an identity for thousands of years. Nonetheless, I admire the strength of will that maintains in the face of adversity, and I see things that have happened to Jews as a cautionary tale; what has been done to one group — the Shoah, for instance — can be done to any other group, if they do not stand fast. And I admire the Maccabees for… standing fast.
Nor am I a scholar. But allow me to make a go of it.
Tikkun olam: “repair of the world”
Repairing the world, as best I understand it, meant helping, making wrong things right, fixing. In short, being part of the greater community.
Without abandoning the Jewish community.
It seems to me that tikkun olam has been twisted into forcing the world into Orwellian right-think, including the modern practitioners’ own minds. Not repair, but forcible redesign even of that which works. Which means they are abandoning thousands of years of faith that sustained their ancestors through tribulations difficult to contemplate.
Faith is hard. I think many modern, liberal Jews found it too hard, and gave up faith for form, in favor of conformity. Forced conformity, so they don’t have to work too hard at that either.
What then will sustain them now?
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills.
Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
July 4th, American Independence day when we think about the resolve of American patriots, give thanks for their foresight and courage. We review what they went through and the tools that made victories possible.
Washington & Guns, lots of guns. Good plan.
And both of those things, Washington and guns were lacking in Poland on July 4th 1946. Poland has been in the news a lot as of late. For those that don’t know it, July 4th was the anniversary of the 72nd anniversary of the Kielce pogrom. No, no, the Kielce pogrom occurred after WWII had ended. Kielce
Kielce was occupied on 4 September 1939 by the German army. Approximately 24,000 Jews lived in the town, a third of all its inhabitants.
…..
On 31 March 1941 the Kielce Ghetto was established. Jews from the surrounding villages were forced to move into the ghetto.
The ghetto liquidation took place from 20 – 24 August 1942
…..
In March 1943, during a selection in the Kielce camp, the SS killed all Jewish doctors and their families, and in May 1943 a group of children. After the May selection the Germans established several work camps.
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After the war around 150 Jews left their hidings and returned to Kielce. They found a place in their former parish hall, waiting for a possibility to emigrate to Palestine.
…..
In June 1946 they were accused of having committed a ritual murder on a missing Polish boy. On 1 July 1946 a furious crowd gathered round the building and on 4 July 1946 they killed 42 Jews. (At least, most likely more. ~S)
…
Until today historians discuss who provoked this anti-Jewish riot. Many inhabitants participated in the pogrom and around 100 people were arrested by the communist police; among them people who did not participate in the crime but being known as anti-communists.
Still today some people suspect that the pogrom was provoked by communists for eliminating opponents of the new regime in Poland.
Because Communism is a G-dless “religion” for one thing. Because they were coming back to reclaim their property for another.
If only they had some warning that their “neighbors” were going to “suddenly turn on them” they certainly would have been better prepared to defend themselves after all they had just been through. If only law enforcement had know ahead of time, they could have been prepared to defend the Jews like the brave British Constables (pppffffttt) did in 1929 Hevron massacrei. From the Jewish Virtual Library
The Jews had no adequate means for self-defense since the police had confiscated the few pistols among them just one day previously. In this pogrom, the largest attack on Jews following the Nazi era, 60–70 Jews were murdered, including children and pregnant women, and around 100 were injured
And this is all just in Kielce! I recently read a book called Defy The Darkness by Joe Rosenblum. Joe lived in Poland prior to WWII, he went through several concentration camps and survived as well as saving others. And he will very well tell you what it was like living in Poland before, during and after nazi occupation. He will also tell you what it was like living in more than one concentration camp, and how he managed to survive. He also survived surgery by the infamous Dr. Mengele, who actually did operate on Joe, despite him being a Jew, to save his life. As to the German people not knowing what was going on? Pffftt, he told what it was like being on one of those death camp marches when they were being marched through German towns. It’s also interesting that Mengele didn’t believe any of the bad stuff said about the Jews. He thought they were brilliant people who had done nothing wrong to the Germans.
But why were so many Polish Jews sitting ducks? Well, at one time Poland had the greatest tolerance and acceptance of Jews. History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the Partitions of Poland which began in 1772, in particular, with the discrimination and persecution of Jews in the Russian Empire.
Another reason is some refused to see reality, they refused to accept it, even as they were on their way to the death camps. This is another article well worth reading, it’s not long either.
On one occasion, my grandfather told me, his unit of partisan fighters blew up a railroad bridge and waited in ambush. When the train eventually approached and was forced to stop in order to avoid plummeting into the canyon depths, the partisans charged aboard and killed all of the Nazi troops who were manning the cars. Afterwards, the partisans opened a passenger car from which they had heard the sound of people talking excitedly and crying. Inside was a group of Jews dressed in their finest clothes and grasping suitcases filled with their possessions as if they were on their way to a long vacation. The Jews on board were shocked and apprehensive about the strange-looking people from the woods who had attacked their train and killed all of the Nazi soldiers, initially refusing to believe that their liberators were Jewish themselves.
Yes, no doubt the Polish people had the highest regard for the Jews living among themselves.
No doubt, but in the radio show Phantom Nation the host points out,
Many Poles lost their lives trying to help the Jews. Yad Vashem has honored almost 7 thousand Christians, but out of a country of 35 million in 1939, that’s not that many people . Of the 3 million Polish Jews that lost their lives, 200 thousand were murdered by at least as many Polish Christians, not nazis. The Polish nation has a history of violence against the Jews. Bibi can’t see the serious anti-Jews acts, he thinks with a nice statement they will love us. For Poles, WWII was about the nazi aggression to Poles, they have not room for what the Poles did to the Jews. The host points out Bibi’s exceedingly weak response to Poland’s new laws.
It’s really a good program, you can listen to the whole show.
Joe Rosenblum also looked very Aryan, that’s how he managed to work on a farm, survive and help support his family.
And today?
Poland’s official anti-Semitism, basically, you’re forbidden to suggest Poland had anything to do with the slaughter of Jews. Do so and you get a fine and jail time.
Historian Prof. Jan Grabowski, author of the book Hunt for the Jews, sparked public outcry in Poland when he determined that more than 200,000 Jews in Poland were murdered directly or indirectly by locals and that most citizens of the occupied state stood idly by, even when they understood what was taking place…..
Nowhere in the program is there mention of Polish assistance, complicity, or even acquiescence in the atrocities committed against the Jews in Kielce. Indeed, from the program it is difficult to guess who, if anybody, murdered Jews in Kielce, as it appears the entire Polish population was busy assisting them.
So basically, academia decided rather than look at what really happened, they would just celebrate the minority event of some of the righteous helping Jews and ignore how many Jews were killed by their fellow Poles. As you can tell, academia planned the event. Let’s ignore the tragedy of what happened to the Jews and just talk about the few that may have tried to help.
It would be easier to accept that Poland is no longer this way if they weren’t trying to force people to stop discussing and learning history, because those who ignore it, or cover it up? Are doomed to repeat it.
iThe third speaker was Uri Arnon of Bar-Ilan University who spoke about the British perspective. Arnon displayed many documents from both British and Israeli archives to prove that the British mandatory authorities were complicit in allowing the massacre to happen. One document alluded to British police officers changing their stories to match a pre-concocted alibi as to how they failed to protect the Jewish community. Arnon also detailed the mistreatment of the survivors following the massacre who were forcibly deported to Jerusalem and denied access to return. From Conference & Memorial for 1929 Hebron Massacre This whole article is well worth reading.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills.
Back in February, The Zelman Partisans tried to spread the word about that outfit. They suckered the Virginia Citizens Defense League’s Philip Van Cleave into an “interview” which left him so uncomfortable and suspicious that he tried to warn the world. I saw that, and looked into FFT and figured it for a scam.
Since much of “First Freedom’s” message involved Israel, I sent a warning to TZP leadership, thinking we might be a likely target (if FFT even heard of us).
Other individuals and groups tried to spread the word. Apparently to little avail.
And why do I bring this up now, months later?
Perhaps you’ve about actor Sacha Baron Cohen’s “documentary series” in which he suckered folks like former VP Dick Cheney (autographed a waterboarding kit), Senate candidate Roy Moore, and former AK gov Sarah Palin (met a fake disabled vet).
Tobias said she was approached via email by “First Freedom Television” to take part in a docuseries exploring shared security interests of Israel and the United States.
Yes, we now know who was behind the scam. The scam which we warned of six months ago. If only they’d been paying attention. Perhaps Sarah Palin should subscribe to the TZP newsletter.
Perhaps you should as well, if you’re not already.
A young high schooler, “a volunteer with Students Demand Action” and “MFOL Chicago Organizer,” wrote a column the other day in support of gun control.
I know my voice is not the most important. Yet, I am at the meetings, the rallies, and the summits for a reason. It is to hear the survivors, and it is to expand on my perspective. The world won’t change if we don’t listen to each other, if we don’t have tough conversations, and if we don’t vote. Don’t wait until it’s your school, family, or neighborhood to fight this fight. Too many have.
As I have done before, I contacted Ava Uditsky with an offer to pen a column for The Zelman Partisans; to reach an audience that might otherwise be inaccessible to her, a chance to persuade us to her way of thinking. Specifically,:
Ms. Uditsky,
Good afternoon.
I ran across your column, “What I’ve Learned As A Teen Gun Reform Activist,” July 11, 2018, and wanted to offer you an opportunity to pen another, to reach — and perhaps even persuade — an audience you might not normally reach.
I am with The Zelman Partisans (http://zelmanpartisans.com/), a Jewish pro-RKBA group. As you would expect, we generally oppose gun control laws as violating rights as well as being ineffective. I am giving you a chance to state your positions and policies, including how you would implement effective laws, with an eye towards swaying our readers and members to your point of view.
Ideally, we would learn something from you, and you could benefit from our knowledge and opinions, as well.
I can assure you that our readers tend to be polite and knowledgeable in comments, and the occasional drive-by troll attempting personal attacks is dealt with swiftly, since that is rude — at best — and not conducive to an honest exchange of ideas.
You can contact me at bussjaeger@zelmanpartisans.com regarding this matter.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger
Writer, The Zelman Partisans
zelmanpartisans.com
She declined.
Thank you for the opportunity. However, I feel that although I would absolutely love and appreciate the opportunity to have a productive exchange of ideas with your readers, the site is not the right place for me to do so. I would not feel comfortable placing my name and image in a place that I feel has inappropriately attacked Fr. Pfleger. In addition, I do not feel that the questioning of Mr. Hogg’s graduation status was appropriate either.
I believe the reference to Father “Snuffy” Pfleger is this column, in which it is mentioned that Pfleger called for political opponents to be “snuffed out.” I do not believe TZP has addressed Hogg’s graduation status, so it’s likely she refers to a post on my own — unrelated — personal blog. I’m flattered that she researched me.
This makes it appear that Miss Uditsky wishes to align herself with a man who calls for the elimination of his opponents, and thinks it inappropriate to question the legal status of a person calling for more laws for everyone else. I hope she’ll reconsider both.
While I hoped Miss Uditsky would write something for us, based on past experience, I didn’t hold out a great deal of hope. Gun controllers seem to prefer echo chambers and allied media outlets. (In contrast, TZP’s weekly newsletter always includes news of the victim disarming factions, and I have offered many — fact-based — columns to such outlets… all of which have been declined. Declined… declined… declined…)
A key goal of March For Our Lives is to engage with people who disagree with us in order to educate the misinformed.
Perhaps a key goal of March For Rights Violations is “to pretend we’re willing to engage, to look better to ill-informed supporters, while avoiding real engagements which would inevitably prove us wrong.”
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills.
I’m still researching this guy. I’m not overly thrilled with some political stuff in his background. On the other hand, the LA Times says this:
Kavanaugh appears to support broader gun rights under the 2nd Amendment. In 2011, he filed a 52-page dissent when the appeals court, by a 2-1 vote, upheld a District of Columbia ordinance that prohibited semiautomatic rifles Kavanaughand magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The judges in the majority, both Republican appointees, noted that several large states, including California and New York, enforced similar laws.
But Kavanaugh said the ban on semiautomatic rifles was unconstitutional because the weapons are in common use in this country. “As one who was born here, grew up in this community in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and has lived and worked in this area almost all of his life, I am acutely aware of the gun, drug and gang violence that has plagued all of us…. But our task is to apply the Constitution and the precedents of the Supreme Court, regardless of whether the result is one we agree with as a matter of first principles or policy,” he wrote.
Maybe. But to the LAT, anything short of full support for outlawing all firearms (except, somehow, the criminals’) looks like a rabid, pro-RKBA radical.
“Brett Kavanaugh is basically John Roberts 2.0, a product of the Bush Administration and the conservative legal elite,” says Dan McLaughlin of the conservative “National Review.”
Joy. Another “conservative” who, once on the bench, acts as if wholely owned by the Democrats?
On RKBA, Kavanaugh appears to be acceptably constitutionally-minded. On other issues, like taxes, he’s weaker in terms of individual rights. We’ll simply have to wait out the confirmation process (which will be quite a circus; possibly even more so than the usual SCOTUS nomination).
Just remember that Kavanaugh has been nominated by a man who ran on a pro-RKBA platform, then directed the DOJ to regulate/ban inert plastic accessories as machine guns in crazed contrast to reality, opening the door to a “machine gun” ban on virtually every repeating firearm in existence.
If only I could ask questions of Kavanaugh in confirmation hearings.
Do words have meaning?
Will your decisions be based on the constitution as written, or as interpreted under the latest fad for imagined fairness in outcomes?
If one must demonstrate “standing” by being damaged by a law before filing suit against it, must one wait to be shot before exercising self-defense?
Does due process matter? Does due process still matter in ERPOs”?
That’s a start.
What questions would you like to hear during the confirmation?
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills.
This past Saturday, Rev. “Snuffy” Pfleger (so named for calling for gun store owners to be “snuffed out,” a crime by anyone else) led thousands in a protest of the Interstate highways in Chicago to protest violence. Car violence, one might assume from the location.
You’d be mistaken. They were protesting “gun violence.” And the drug war, for jobs, for free money, and “a plan to improve schools.” I suspect culling the stupid by wandering into expressway traffic will do more to improve schools in the long run, than any formal “plan.”
But, basically, they were protesting “gun violence” by inconveniencing folks who aren’t committing it, in an area where it doesn’t much happen compared to certain, specific neighborhoods. Go figure.
Perhaps they were merely “raising awareness” of gun violence. So they have to bring it to the attention of those not committing it; the criminals already know.
Or maybe they’re cowards.
If Father Snuffy wants to impress me, he should organize a march into the neighborhoods infested by the gangs and drug criminals who are committing the “gun violence” (mostly against each other, their competitors). They can walk arm in arm and protest the Adidas Boys, Black Disciples, Crazy Gangsters, Latin Stones, assorted Vice Lords, and a few dozen other known gangs. Inconvenience those people, Pfleger. If you have the guts.
Go for it, Rev. March into those neighborhoods and call out the armed gangbangers. Threaten to “snuff out” a few of them and see what happens. Experience the violence inherent in the system first hand. You might want to leave your wallet at home.
Ah, but maybe Snuffleupagus doesn’t know where to find them. After all, his fellow marcher Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson (and why is the PD participating in — endorsing — an unlawful act?) doesn’t seem to be able to locate the bad guys.
Allow me to assist you, Snuffer. Or, more specifically, let ChicagoGangs.org do the cops’ job: names, locations, descriptions. Everything you need to identify the violence-prone neighborhoods and responsible gangs.
Go tell the violent criminals to stop the violence, and let the innocent be.
It’s time for Pfleger to put up, or shut up.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills.
Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
James D. Williams, 41, and Alexis T. Handelman, 21, are accused of three armed takeover bank robberies in a three-week period, according to a statement from the FBI. They are both residents of Bartlett.
Just another bank robbery in Chi-town, right? Why am I bringing it up?
Because these two were… geniuses
Leading up to the robberies, Williams stole an AK-47 rifle and rented different vehicles, according to the FBI. In at least one of the incidents, he attached stolen license plates to a vehicle he’d rented.
Ah! Planning. He put some thought into this. Right?
But I have to wonder about the phrasing of this line in the article.
At least one shot was fired during the Aurora robbery, but no injuries were reported, Aurora police said at the time.
I’m guessing that only one shot was fired. Take a look at this security camera picture.
Notice the distinct lack of a magazine in that rifle. Oops. Probably couldn’t figure out the rocking insert for an AK-pattern, and just said the heck with it. It being Chicago, the bank clerks apparently didn’t notice. “Look! Evil gun! We surrender.”
Down in these parts, the would-be victim would have simply kicked their butts. And gouged out their eyes.
That’s why the victim disarmers insist on more laws for we who didn’t do it: to provide safe workplaces for idiots.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills.
One of the facebook groups I belong to will have members that from time to time post links to some pretty egregious anti-semitic posts on facebook or twitter. I know this is shocking considering how many people I know that have done nothing more than post a news article to a crime someone from the religion of pieces has committed and have been put in facebook jail. Usually a violent and bloody crime by the way. So this member posted about 20 links to different facebook accounts. Pretty much all of them had the same thing. A graphic with a knife dripping blood, and a prayer, which, could be translated from Arabic. The gist of the prayer is oh Allah, come a kill all the Jews, let the streets run with their blood, yada yada yada. Being a sensitive soul, I took offense. So I did what everyone else was suppose to be doing with this, we reported it. Wish I had taken a screenshot of it for you, but I didn’t intend for it to become part of a column. The post is now gone happily, but sadly for my multimedia portion of the column. Love those graphics. To my utter shock and amazement, yes I am kidding, facebook said “We reviewed your report of XXXXXXXX” it apparently doesn’t violate their community standards and is not hate speech and they suggest I just block him. Fine, how’s about I use a Centurion tank, s’ok?
Now, why did this rather unsurprising incident wind up in a column? Would you like to know what does trigger facebook’s delicate sensibilities and violate their hate speech rule? The Declaration of Independence. America’s Declaration of Independence.
The Liberty County Vindicator had been posting excerpts of the Declaration of Independence daily leading up to July 4th. The first nine posts were published without a problem. The 10th post, which included paragraphs 27 through 31 of the Declaration of Independence, was deleted by Facebook.
According to Casey Stinnett, The Vindicator’s managing editor, the paper received a notice from Facebook that said the post “goes against our standards on hate speech.”
Hate speech, ok, so praying to Allah to kill all the Jews and blood run through the streets like a gully washer isn’t hate speech. What is?
“While The Vindicator cannot be certain exactly what triggered Facebook’s filtering program, the editor suspects it was most likely the phrase ‘Indian savages,'” Stinnett said in the statement. “Perhaps had Thomas Jefferson written it as ‘Native Americans at a challenging stage of cultural development’ that would have been better.”
He blamed the incident on an “automated action.”
“The removal of the post was an automated action,” Stinnett wrote. “If any human being working at Facebook were to review it, no doubt the post would be allowed.”
Casey, you have far more faith and trust in facebook than I do. Because I think if the monitoring team had realized it was The Declaration of Independence, they would have gone back and taken down posts 1-9 as well. Harumph, they do after all, have their standards.
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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