Tag Archives: Compassion

News

If you defend your home from armed intruders in the UK, you get arrested

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Story here in the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Officers were called to Vincent Cooke’s house in the affluent Stockport suburb of Bramhall, just before 8pm on Saturday following reports of a break-in.

Mr Cooke, 39, a married father of one who has run a number of small courier and logistics companies, was relaxing alone in the detached interwar property when the two intruders struck, Greater Manchester Police said.

His wife Karen, 34, and 12-year-old son returned home during the incident but escaped unharmed. Police said that during the break-in Mr Cooke was threatened and one of the intruders, Raymond Jacob, 37, of was stabbed.

Mr Cooke, who is one of five children, was being questioned on suspicion of murder on Sunday night.

I thought the response of the police was interesting – self-defense is murder:

“Clearly this is a serious incident in which a man has lost his life and at this time we believe the dead man was one of two men who were attempting to carry out a burglary at the house.”

The other suspected intruder fled in a small white Citroen van. Police last night confirmed a second man had been arrested in connection with the incident.

On Sunday afternoon relatives of Mr Jacob, of Northern Moor, Greater Manchester, laid flowers outside Mr Cooke’s home.

One read: “To my baby boy who will always be my baby boy. I will miss you, but never stop loving you. Mum.”

Last night friends and relatives also left tributes for Mr Jacob social networking websites.

“Still doesnt feel real, cant believe your gone we will all miss you,” said Danielle Leach on Facebook.

Just to be clear about the facts, here’s the UK Sun.

Excerpt:

Two knife-wielding intruders burst into the home of company director Vincent Cooke, 39.

Burglar Raymond Jacob, 37, is believed to have been stabbed with his own knife.

Mr Cooke was later arrested in Bramhall, Cheshire. His wife and son fled the house unhurt.

Isn’t the mother’s reaction interesting? It’s not unexpected coming from the feminized UK, though, where no one is responsible for anything they do. In fact, the one who judges and refuses to bail others out is the bad one. How mean! Defending your home from armed intruders! Just let them kill you! After all, the government already takes your money, so why not not ban self-defense so they take your life as well?

This is not unusual in the new Harriet Harman-onized UK. It happens all the time.

Consider this story from the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Miss Klass, a model for Marks & Spencer and a former singer with the pop group Hear’Say, was in her kitchen in the early hours of Friday when she saw two teenagers behaving suspiciously in her garden.

The youths approached the kitchen window, before attempting to break into her garden shed, prompting Miss Klass to wave a kitchen knife to scare them away.

Miss Klass, 31, who was alone in her house in Potters Bar, Herts, with her two-year-old daughter, Ava, called the police. When they arrived at her house they informed her that she should not have used a knife to scare off the youths because carrying an “offensive weapon” – even in her own home – was illegal.

Jonathan Shalit, Miss Klass’s agent, said that had been “shaken and utterly terrified” by the incident and was stepping up security at the house she shares with her fiancé, Graham Quinn, who was away on business at the time.

He said: “Myleene was aghast when she was told that the law did not allow her to defend herself in her own home. All she did was scream loudly and wave the knife to try and frighten them off.

You can read more about how the 1997 ban on handguns in the UK doubled violent crime in the four years after the ban at Reason magazine. Similarly, in the United states, legalizing the concealed carrying of firearms resulted in dramatic declines in violent crime. But that is just common sense. The more people who own guns and can defend themselves, the less crime there will be. But I think that the feminized state is just hostile to men acting in their traditional role as protectors, and they don’t like the idea that anyone is judged for doing evil things – like criminals.

The left, feminism and “equality”

And I can tell you what’s behind this. The secular left believes in equality. So if one person has money, and another doesn’t, it doesn’t matter what their personal decisions were. The poorer person should be allowed to take things from the richer person, and without getting hampered by laws and “self-defense”. That’s their view. That’s why they are soft on crime and release criminals early instead of punishing them. And this doesn’t just apply to criminals – this attitude goes right into the education system (“we need to make sure that families have no choice except the public schools, that way all the children will be equal”) the day care system (“we need to nationalize day care so that all the children are raised equally instead of by their own mothers”) the health care system (“we need to nationalize health care so that chaste men who are saving for their future marriage and children can pay for the abortions, sex changes, breast implants, contraceptives and IVF”), and so on.

I think Christians need to be especially careful with this compassionate impulse for “equality”, and consider whether equality might not make achieving Christian goals like liberty, marriage, and family more difficult. I don’t think it’s good for families to vote for higher taxes and bigger social programs that make men unnecessary as providers, protectors and leaders. All the responsibilities of the man to provide, protect and lead morally and spiritually are being handed off to the government, via police, schools, etc. That’s wrong.

Replacing men with government is bad for children – you don’t want to make it easier for women to not prepare to be mothers and wives, to not be careful about choosing the right men for marriage and parenting, and to not perform as wives and mothers once they are married in order to support men in their male roles. And that’s not my opinion – single motherhood by choice is known to increase child poverty and child abuse. And I don’t think that replacing men with government helps God any, either, since fathers are important for passing religion on to kids. You don’t serve God by undercutting his goals just because it feels good to you. You serve God by delivering results. His goal is not for you to feel good, but to do good. I recommend that anyone who votes based on feelings read more economics to find out what really works, and what strengthens marriage and family.

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News

Woman who strangled newborn baby given suspended sentence with probation

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Scheming unborn baby wants to be a judge when he grows up
Scheming unborn baby contemplates becoming a judge

From Yahoo News. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

An Alberta woman won’t be going to prison for strangling her newborn baby with her thong underwear.

Katrina Effert, 25, wiped away tears as an Edmonton judge ruled Friday she can serve a three-year suspended sentence with probation.

Effert was 19 when she secretly gave birth in her parent’s basement in Wetaskiwin, south of Edmonton, in April 2005. She then tossed the baby’s corpse over a fence into a neighbour’s backyard.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Joanne Veit said the public naturally grieves for the dead baby boy.

“But Canadians also grieve for the mother,” she said. “This is a classic infanticide case — killing a newborn after a hidden pregnancy by a mother who was alone and unsupported.”

Effert was twice convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 10 years. But the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled earlier this year that the murder conviction was unreasonable and substituted one of infanticide.

Medical experts testified Effert had a disturbed mind when she killed her baby.

The Crown has already asked the Supreme Court of Canada to review the case.

Prosecutor John Laluk said Effert deserved four years in prison because she showed no remorse for her crime by lying to police and initially blaming her boyfriend for the killing.

The maximum sentence for infanticide is five years, but Veit said prison time is rarely handed out for such offences. She said the wildly inconsistent stories Effert gave police were actually “painful evidence” of her mental imbalance at the time.

As part of her probation, Effert must notify officials if she becomes pregnant again so she can receive assistance and counselling.

Veit described Effert as a person of good character with no prior criminal record who spent nearly six years living under restrictive bail conditions.

More from the judge from Life News.

Excerpt:

But part of the ruling that also has pro-life advocates troubled is Judge Veit’s decision that Canada’s acceptance of legalized abortion entitled Effert to kill her child. Judge Veit ruled, according to multiple media reports, that because Canada allows abortions it reflects how “while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.”

“Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant’s death, especially at the hands of the infant’s mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother,” said Veit, who said that, while what Effert did was “very grave,” there were no aggravating factors. Prosecutors said the aggravating factors included how Effert initially lied to police about whether she was a virgin and how she initially tried to blame the father of the child for her actions.

“I am of the view that those actions, along with the action of throwing her baby’s body over her back fence, are painful evidence of Ms. Effert’s irrational behavior as a result of her disturbed mind,”the judge said, according to the Sun News Network. “In summary, this is a classic infanticide case – the killing of a newborn or a justborn after a hidden pregnancy by a mother who was alone and unsupported.”

Ultimately, the judge rejected prosecutors’ call for a four-year prison term, saying the suspended sentence is “just” in the case.

At times like this, I think that it is a good thing for us to consider what it takes to make a judge like this, to see whether it might be possible to make one by having a plan. That way, instead of having a judge who opposes protecting unborn on the bench, we can have one who supports protecting the unborn instead. So how do we make our own judges?

How to make a judge

Let’s take a look at the judge’s credentials and see why she was picked to be a judge.

Details:

Born September 9, 1942 at Brantford, Ontario. Education at University of Ottawa; London School of Economics. Chair, Alberta Securities Commission 1977-81. Appointed judge of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, and ex officio member of the Alberta Court of Appeal, June, 1981. Appointed deputy judge of the Superior Court of the Northwest Territories, August 21, 1991. Appointed judge of the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada June 7, 1990.

Wow, she is a smart lady – she has a good resume, too. I don’t think that too many people have qualifications like hers. Making a good twin of her would be pretty tough to do, and there are no guarantees of success.

Here are some steps that I would recommend to Christian parents if they wanted to have a better than average chance to make a judge like this judge.

  1. The Christian man, when single, should study in a tough field, even if he hates it, like computer science.
  2. The Christian woman, when single, should study in a tough field, even if she hates it, like computer science.
  3. Both of them should work at jobs that pay well, even if they hate them, and save their money in preparation for their marriage.
  4. They should get married, and then she should stay at home to homeschool several children.
  5. They should try to be as frugal as possible so they can afford homeschooling, private schools and college tuition.
  6. They should teach their children about all the different areas in the world where the truth of Christianity or Christian values are being attacked by different ideologies and speculations, in this case, by feminism and abortion.
  7. They should analyze the skills and talents of each of their children, and try to lead them towards fields where they can have an influence on the world for truth and for goodness. The main criteria is not what the child wants, but what the child can do well, and what serves God the most. What the child wants is a factor, but not the main factor.
  8. One of the children might go on to become a judge.

Might this work? It seems to me that it is more likely to produce the judge than the alternative view, which is not studying hard topics, not taking hard jobs, not being frugal, not having a stay-at-home homeschooling mom, and not saving up college tuition. I don’t think it would be fun or easy, but it is the good and loving thing to do, if we care about what happens to little babies.

I remember taking second year calculus back when I was doing my undergraduate degree in computer science, (I also have the Masters degree in computer science), and I was crying because it was so hard for me to understand it. I failed my first calculus test in that class, and ended up with a B as a final grade. I remember that my Dad felt very badly about how hard it was for me, and he would keep bringing me tea and snacks and he would try to encourage me and drive me to my night classes and pick me up afterwards – even though he hated driving at night.

I graduated with highest honors. I was the first one in my family – a family of immigrants – to go on to graduate school, and graduated with a 3.9 GPA. But when I was crying, and there was no one to help me, I felt very sad about it. You do what you have to do, not what you want to do. And as a result of that suffering, I now have the money I need to pay for Christian scholars to come out to churches and universities where my friends have organized lectures and debates for people to see.

UPDATE: My buddy Justin tells me to link to this post at the Canadian bioethics site Unmasking Choice.

News

Marco Rubio’s finest speech yet… at the Reagan Forum

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Greatness. He is everything that America has always been. (45 minutes)

Excerpt from the transcript: (scroll down)

And so, if defining the proper role of government was one of the central issues of the Reagan era, it remains that now. The truth is that people are going around saying that, well, we’re worried about – let me just add something to this because I think this is an important forum for candor.

I know that it is popular in my party to blame the president, the current president. But the truth is the only thing this president has done is accelerate policies that were already in place and were doomed to fail. All he is doing through his policies is making the day of reckoning come faster, but it was coming nonetheless.

What we have now is not sustainable. The role of government and the role that government plays now in America cannot be sustained the way it is. Now some are worried about how it has to change, we have to change it. The good news is it is going to change. It has to change. That’s not the issue.

The issue is not whether the role that government now plays in America will change. The question is how will it change. Will it change because we make the changes necessary? Or, will it change because our creditors force us to make these changes?

And over the next few moments I hope to advocate to you –- I don’t think that I have to given the make up of the crowd –- but I hope to advocate to you that, in fact, what we have before us is a golden opportunity afforded to few Americans.

We have the opportunity –- within our lifetime –- to actually craft a proper role for government in our nation that will allow us to come closer than any Americans have ever come to our collective vision of a nation where both prosperity and compassion exist side-by-side.

To do that, we must begin by embracing certain principles that are absolutely true. Number one: the free enterprise system does not create poverty. The free enterprise system does not leave people behind.

People are poor and people are left behind because they do not have access to the free enterprise system because something in their lives or in their community has denied them access to the free enterprise system. All over the world this truism is expressing itself every single day. Every nation on the Earth that embraces market economics and the free enterprise system is pulling millions of its people out of poverty. The free enterprise system creates prosperity, not denies it.

The second truism that we must understand is that poverty does not create our social problems, our social problems create our poverty. Let me give you an example. All across this country, at this very moment, there are children who are born into and are living with five strikes against them, already, through no fault of their own.

They’re born into substandard housing in dangerous neighborhoods, to broken families, being raised by their grandmothers because they never knew their father and their mom is either working two jobs to make ends meet or just not home. These kids are going to struggle to succeed unless something dramatic happens in their life.

These truisms are important because they lead the public policies that define the proper role of government. On the prosperity side, the number one objective of our economic policy, in fact the singular objective of our economic policy from a government perspective is simple — it’s growth. It’s not distribution of wealth; it’s not picking winners and losers.

The goal of our public policy should be growth. Growth in our economy, the creation of jobs and of opportunity, of equality of opportunity through our governmental policies.

And the most gripping part of the speech:

To me, this is extremely special, and I’ll tell you why. During the ’80s, politically especially, there were two people that deeply influenced me. One clearly was Ronald Reagan, the other was my grandfather, who lived with us most of the time in our home.

We lived part of our life, especially the key years, ’80-’84, in Las Vegas, Nev. And my grandfather loved to sit on the porch of our home and smoke cigars. He was Cuban. Three cigars a day, he lived to be 84. This is not an advertisement for cigar smoking, I’m just saying to you that …

He loved to talk about politics. My grandfather was born in 1899. He was born to an agricultural family in Cuba. He was stricken with polio when he was a very young man, he couldn’t work the fields, so they sent him to school. He was the only member of his family that could read. And because he could read, he got a job at the local cigar rolling factory.

They didn’t have radio or television, so they would hire someone to sit at the front of the cigar factory and read to the workers while they worked. So, the first thing he would read every day, of course, was the daily newspaper. Then he would read some novel to entertain them.

And then, when he was done reading things he actually went out and rolled the cigars because he needed the extra money. But through all of those years of reading, he became extremely knowledgeable about history, not to mention all the classics.

He loved to talk about history. My grandfather loved being Cuban. He loved being from Cuba. He never would have left Cuba if he didn’t have to. But he knew America was special. He knew that without America, Cuba would still be a Spanish colony. He knew that without America, the Nazis and Imperial Japan would have won World War II. When he was born in 1899 there weren’t even airplanes. By the time I was born, an American had walked on the surface of the moon.

And he knew something else. He knew that he had lost his country. And that the only thing from preventing other people in the world from losing theirs to communism was this country – this nation.

It is easy for us who are born here –- like me –- and so many of you, to take for granted how special and unique this place is. But when you come from somewhere else, when what you always knew and loved, you lost, you don’t have that luxury.

My grandfather didn’t know America was exceptional because he read about it in a book. He knew about it because he lived it and saw it with his eyes. That powerful lesson is the story of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It’s our legacy as a people. And it’s who we have a chance to be again. And I think that’s important for all of us because being an American is not just a blessing, it’s a responsibility.

As we were commanded to do long ago, “Let your light shine before men” …

[PAUSE – he is overcome by emotion]

…“that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Well, as we gather here today in this place, that pays homage and tribute to the greatest American of the twentieth century, we are reminded that for him and for our nation, being a light to the world, that’s not just our common history, it remains our common destiny.

I cried at the part in bold above.

Here’s the verse he cited – Matthew 5:16 – in context: [NASB]

13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;

15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

I notice that he cites the NASB, which is my favorite translation – the translation closest to the original Greek.

On my Facebook page, I have Matthew 5:13, which is the verse that comforts me when things look bad in my life – when my plans haven’t worked out the way I hoped they would. Things look bad for us right now as a nation. Maybe we need to reconsider these words.

This speech is being well-received everywhere. Permit me just one reaction from the UK Telegraph, which is still punch-drunk from socialism-induced rioting caused by the anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-father policies of the secular left Labour Party.

Excerpt:

Two of the brightest rising young stars in American conservatism today are Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio. Neither are running for president in 2012, but both will be strong contenders for the vice presidential running mate slot, whoever wins the Republican nomination. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ryan or Rubio eventually sitting in the Oval Office itself at some stage in the future. After all, Congressman Ryan of Wisconsin is only 41, and Senator Rubio of Florida is just 40; they have decades of public life ahead of them. They are both deeply principled politicians in the Reagan mould who grew up during the late Cold War years, and share a profound belief in American exceptionalism and the need for the United States to maintain its position as the world’s leading power.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Congressman’s Ryan’s superb speech on foreign policy to the Alexander Hamilton Society in Washington, remarks which outlined in stark terms the challenges the United States faces if it is to avoid decline. Ryan’s address, which I attended, was probably one of the most important statements by a US politician on American leadership this year.

Senator Rubio’s speech yesterday at the Reagan Presidential Library in the presence of Nancy Reagan, was another key address by a Member of Congress that deserves to be widely read, both at home and abroad. Like Ryan, Rubio offers a powerful rejection of the Big Government approach that has crippled America’s economy, and outlines a firm defence of the free market, championed by Ronald Reagan.

There is something very different and special about America. And Marco Rubio reminds us all what it is in this speech. A speech heard ’round the world! A reminder of our principles – of our role – and of our responsibility to the world.

On a side note, Marco Rubio also rescued Nancy Reagan from a fall by alertly grabbing her arm when she slipped.