Are we to punish all, for the offending bunch?
It’s easy to say, Yes, but we are all totally familiar with the labels against societies charlatans. There is hardly a profession that is not included. Some of the most ruthless, are the most respected. Unduly respected, but then, that is modern society. Does this mean, we are to hold all professionals as guilty charlatans, when it is only a few who have learnt to play the system more expertly than others?
I’ve worked many years at extending a rope of grace, towards wanting a better society. However often see we are overpowered by the legalized Big Brother Bully, over and over again.
Ministered in Correctional Facilities
For many years, as a pastor, was also an itinerant minister between McAlford Correctional Facility, McCloud Half-way House, and the local county jails. I was privileged to meet some real genuine believers, who had fully turned from their erring ways.
Sadly, they were in the minority.
Repeat Offenders, Playing the System
Most people who were incarcerated were repeat offenders. In Marietta Oklahoma, wanting to file a complaint against gangster-like youth, was shown several files by the Chief of Police. Some were at least an inch and a half thick. He said these youngsters have learnt to play the system often knowing the laws better than the law enforcement officers. He went on to elaborate, that on many occasions the Department of Human Services, protected the children against any meaningful discipline from their wrongful behavior. A good intent, gone horribly wrong. AND so it was with most within the correctional facilities. They had learnt to play the system. All too often coached that way by well intentioned professionals.
"You’re going to court, or before the parole board, be sure to wear a suit, or at least a tie! You have to create a good impression."
"Create a good impression!" An invitation to win one’s own Oscar for a remarkable performance. All too often, that is all it amounted to; an outstanding act.
I’ve seen the erring ones, and heard them before their buddies, acting all macho. Rude. Tough, arrogant. Full of pride and bravado. Some with the meanest, the most threatening behavior imaginable. Some beyond what you could even believe possible. As much as Hollywood exaggerates and dramatizes for effect, even they only get it only half right.
You then see this same macho maniac standing before a judge or the parole board. And you’d think he was meek, mild, and mellow Saint Augustine himself. Smooth suit. Hair trimmed and combed. Teeth cleaned. Clean shaven. Smiling gently, and then looking extremely embarrassed, shamed, and disgraced that he could actually have done the wrong. Many a Mother Teresa, has been played there too.
The False Promises
There is the long deep apologies to hurt family members, and then to society as a whole. Followed by encouraging descriptions of turned about ways. "I’m reading the Bible daily, attending the weekly church services. I have volunteered for different services, and taken on improving my education! It’s been months, years since I have been called for any disciplining." The facility officials confirm the model behavior.
They have a term for this, I forget what exactly. Something like, Pardoning Religion.
They have learnt to play the system. Most with no intent, or at least very little determination to stay clean. Look! This world is tough. It can be extremely unforgiving. Even the rose garden is full of thorns.
Genuine Turn-Around
However, when wrong has been perpetrated, not only is there a repentance, a turning around from evil to face and follow after good, but there is also restitution necessary. It’s also about going way past making right for the wrong done. I enjoy a verse in the old King James Version of the Bible stating, we ought to avenge our disobedience. I understand this to mean, not only do we make right, paying back were we have erred, but we also go way beyond pay back, and create opportunities to do good in the area we fell.
As a very young Christian I still had a heavy foot on the pedal. I’d pray and my foot would get heavier.
So once I determined to pray on my knees the whole day. I’ve done so for seven hours a day, and three weeks at a time. I wanted my life different. After the day’s prayer...
A thought came to me, "If you find yourself going ten miles an hour over the speed limit, for the rest of your journey, travel at twenty miles an hour below the speed limit!"
I did so.
That was decades ago, and I’m pretty much a driver who drives way within the limit, but not only that have become a defensive driver. Not only taking into account my own possibility to err, but making added space for those who could err before me and behind me. Not only did I avenge my own disobedience, but I’m wary of others erring, and make allowances for them.
Where a young woman who had an abortion, and or even a young man who supported it. A meaningless loss of a life. Not only do you admit your selfishness, and never be part of an abortion again, but you go out of your way to learn what it is to a woman again. A womb-man. A person created to, not only bring forth life, but to nurture it, to protect it, re-enlightening the natural characteristic of what is to be a womb-man, and then a mother. Then to avenge the disobedience, the taking of a life, you determine to educate other young men and woman to regard life, a baby’s life as precious. In so doing you don’t only save one life, two lives, that you might bring forth directly, but three, four, five, ten, twenty. It is possible to have a complete heart change for the better.
However, those who have a complete heart change, are very few and far between.
Mostly, an erring one, is an erring one still.
Punishing All, Because of the Few
So do we punish all for the erring ways of some? Even if they are in the majority, do we punish all? What if the Most High God were this way? Could we even believe in Him? Most cannot, and yet, these same people who reject the Most High God, are often willing to elect mere men and women among themselves, and appoint them to some kind of God status. Yet, they’re very, very flawed.
A mayor of a city told me many stories of people caught on the highway. They would be speeding. On examination, they’d have no driver’s license, no insurance, a tail light out, but not only all that, have up to five hundred thousand dollars of marijuana in the vehicle. A lawless one is usually a lawless one fully. The law of the majority rule. "If you’ve done wrong, you’re likely a wrong doer. Period!
AND so, we have the laws to protect Adult Day Care Centers and also to be included for the proposed inclusion of Sheltered Workshops for the disabled. Laws to protect the citizens from the wrongful behavior of felons. Once a person has broken the laws, the statistics are heaped against that person. There is as much as an eighty to ninety percent chance that the felon, will commit another crime against humanity.
The Dangers of Being Lenient
I know people who have served time for decades, or decades ago, having walked a relatively straight and narrow ever since. Yet, they’re in the minority. Most will not only recommit the offence, but sometimes, all too often, there are those who will go on to commit worse crimes.
Who can afford to take that chance?
What if the crime is child molestation?
Can the individual ever be trusted again?
Yes, but the statistics show, that only the minority can ever be trusted again.
How do we know the difference between a truly repentant one, and a continued learnt-nothing- don’t-care violator? It is extremely difficult. It’s almost impossible. Not entirely impossible, but most certainly, almost impossible.
Societies Labeled Charlatans
So we have politicians. We have car salesmen! We have the preachers, and the pastors. Don’t even bring up the attorneys, the lawyers and the judges.
Charlatans, by the dime and the dozen. When I first came to America, was shocked at how little we really trust one another, and yet, also how gullible we can be. Tending to be on our guard against the truly genuine ones, but all too eager to fall for the lying promises. Yet, there are a few good judges, lawyers, attorneys, preachers or pastors, car salesmen and politicians. Hard to believe, but true. I struggle with these people all the time. The Main Stream Media reporters, I have no respect for at all. I find it extremely difficult to honor a liberal, a democrat or a progressive. Yet, I have determined to relate to one and all.
Giving a Rope of Grace
I have often, very regularly, been asked, "Ivan, how could you be so gracious to that person, after all they have done to you?"
I reply, "I have been given a rope of grace, and as I’ve been given a rope of grace, I entrust them the rope of grace also. Used correctly it will help them, it will rescue them. I give them the benefit of the doubt. If they misuse it, the rope of grace, becomes the very rope by which they hang themselves. And as they hang themselves, I’ll not be responsible. I wish them no ill, will not be revengeful, for I gave them a chance. It’s their own misuse that will be their own downfall. And so I approach everyone that way, the liberal, the democrat, the progressive, the attorney, the lawyer, the judge, the policeman, the politician, and the preacher and the pastor. I even extend the hand of friendship to the felons.
Regularly, I have to look in the mirror and extend to myself, a rope of grace. Most describe me as being too hard on myself. But I have erred. I have been given chances, over and over again. Still fall here and there, but, I have also seen progress. I know how dangerous it is to pat oneself on the back, for we all tend to be biased. However, even as we determine to give this House Bill approval to protect those within the Adult Day Care and Sheltered Workshop Centers, we also need to find a way not to, with a general blanket, discriminate against all.
I have intervened for others, many times.
Once, I came across two black men. One, with a brick in his hand, chasing another with a knife in his.
I jumped in between, calling for restraint and reason.
The man with the brick, stopped, and slurred out, not entirely from the drink, but also from the cut in his face, from cheekbone to jaw bone, exposing his tongue, teeth and throat, "Look what he has done to me!"
"So you kill him with the brick, what does that leave his family to do to you? Kill you with a gun? Can’t you see it can become another tribal warfare?"
Fortunately he listened. Stupid of me, or brave?
We ought to show some faith in the entire concept of the Correctional Centers, not as being mere prisons, but just that, Correctional Facilities. And if they are not working too well, also address the issue of things being done differently within them.
Our entire culture is founded upon a system of bullies and victims.
At school, the big and the strong, beating up on the small and the weak; having learnt most of it from the adults, where the rich beat up on the poor, the educated intellectuals, exploiting the uneducated common laborer; the officials pretending a representation of the people, but often in a reality, becoming as an uncountable oligarchy. And so on and so forth.
Sadly the few good, are often outnumbered by the selfish many.
Our entire American Constitution was written by men fully understanding the devious ways of mankind, and hence, the system of checks and balances. We have almost eliminated them entirely. The like-minded, mostly the brainwashed, are within every branch, and even the outside government checks and balances, have been eradicated, by the same bird of a feather group: our press reporters and church leaders, are not even a reliable defense against being played by the system anymore. We’ve kicked God out of our schools, our places of business, our gatherings, and even out of our churches. We are left to our devises. It’s not pretty.
Working Towards a Better Society
With the right laws, established by the right emotions and attitudes, we can work at producing a better society. I tend to believe, we can only do so, conscious of being accountable to an Almighty God. And that is a lot more than my own tiny little opinion. Will you accept my extended rope of grace? If I discriminate against a felon, whether good or bad, what is to hold me back from discriminating against a pastor, a politician, or just another human being, for being just that, a human being?
Where does it end?
When we write laws, I think a great deal more thought needs to go into exactly what we’re doing.
As hard as a I try, I can still not support this Bill.
I see the erring ways of convicted felons, and the likelihood of them repeating the offences. Yet, I also see an entire system that upholds a culture of victims and bullies, and it is often the rulers who are the bullies. This does not mean I do not respect most officials. I give them the respect due, and do not want any malicious harm against any of them. Justice, true justice is from the courts of heaven. Not me! Not a single human being is guiltless enough, to hold them accountable. Certainly not me! God is, and hence, I leave them to His hands.
For this House Bill to become the law of the State, means that no facility within the entire State is free from the malicious controls of the State, and it’s discrimination practices. Within the Bible, there were cities of refuge, to where an offender could flee, and find some relative peace and safety. To some degree, our Correctional Facilities are these cities of refuge. For not only is the community safe from the wrongful behavior of an erring one, but also the erring one, the offender, is safe from revenge that can go horribly wrong. We have the half-way houses, where those convicted, and who had served their time, can ease back into society. Yet, they’re never really ever accepted back into society, except in a few exceptional circumstances. Yet, there are many people in America, who need a way out of the system’s rat race. They need to be given employment and housing opportunities, not in some kind of welfare state, that is extremely degrading, but in some kind of self-help community. Those who have successfully changed helping others on the way. We can work at developing a life together, no matter what our past, of even in the light of our past, both good and bad.
For HB 2744 to be passed, there is no free way for this community to come into being, whereby people who have messed up in the passed can be free of discrimination.
The Established Bully
I read in an Oklahoman magazine, that Federal law trumps State law. This is an evil. In the same way, State law ought not to trump a county law, which ought not to trump a village, town or city law, which ought not to trump a business, a church, or a family law. The Federal law ought not to violate the Constitution, period. Just as a family ought not to violate it either. Yet, there is the higher law of the Most High God still. The Constitution ought never to violate it. It is supreme, and not subject to man-laws. Man-laws ought to conform to God-laws, and not the other way round. AND in the heart of the laws of the Most High God is to love one another; never do to another what you would not want done to you, or do to others as you would have them do to you. This is at the heart of respecting and honoring one another.
Outside Information
Some fifty-seven percent of convicted felons have had a previous conviction1. But some forty-three percent did not! The new ‘N’ word is an ‘F’ word; felon. A high percentage of young black men have been convicted.2. "Once you’re branded as a felon, all the old forms of discrimination – employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service – are suddenly legal 2. David Plotz, at Slate writes of increasing numbers of convicts returning to society, in his, Ex-con Nation. The major negative for me in the article was the fact that George Soros funds studies to help convict re-entry. Soros, in my opinion, is no friend to conservative America. Poltz deals with some hard realities, but ends the article calling for actions, both for and against their re-entry 3.
- www.ojp.usdoj.gov/newsroom/?pressreleases/2006/BJS
- politicalleft.blog-city.com/felon_is_?the_new_nigger.htm
- http://www.slate.com/id/110317/
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