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vikaskumarme-blog · 6 years ago

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Jesus ? Is Jesus God?

Has Jesus Christ ever claimed to be God? See the evidence from the life of Jesus Christ that why believing in Jesus Christ is not superstition.

For us, decisively knowing that ‘what is the existence of God?’, And ‘what kind of person’ it is, it is impossible, unless God himself does not take initiative and does not reveal himself.

To find some clue to the revelation of God, we need to look at the pages of history. It has a clear sign. 2000 years ago, a baby was born in the stables of an unplanned village in Palestine. Today the whole world is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, and for the right reason – his life changed the way of history.

How did people see Jesus

We have been told that “Aam Aadmi used to listen to Jesus’ words happily” and “He was teaching them not like Judaism leaders but like an officer.” 1

But, soon it became clear that he was giving very shocking and wondrous statements about himself. He described himself as a great teacher and greater than the Prophet. He said in clear words that he is God. He made his identity the main issue in his education.

From his followers, Jesus asked the most important question, “And what do you say that I am?” Then Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 2 Jesus Christ was not surprised to hear this, Neither did he scold Peter. On the contrary, Jesus appreciated that!

Jesus Christ often addressed God by calling “my father”, and his listeners had complete influence on his words. We have been told, “Because of this, the Jews tried to kill him even more. Because he not only broke the law of Sabbath (day of rest), but by calling God as your Father, he used to make himself like God. ” On one occasion, he said, ” My father and I are one. “At that time the Jews wished to stone him. Jesus Christ asked them, for what good works did they motivate him to stone him? “ They answered, ” We do not stone you for the good work, but because of the blasphemy of God, and because you are a man, makest thyself God. ” 4

Jesus said this about himself

Jesus explicitly claimed the powers that are with God only. When a paralyzed man was descended from the roof, so that he could be healed by Jesus, Jesus said, “Son, you have been forgiven by your sins.” The theologians immediately responded, “This Why is the person doing such things? He is insulting God! Only God, who can forgive sins? “ Then Jesus said to them, ” Which is easy: Tell the person suffering from this paralysis, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Get up and walk’? “ Jesus further said, “But whom you know that I have the power to forgive sins on earth, he said to the paralyzed man,” I tell you, get up, take your cot and move to your house. “ He got up and immediately took a cot and left the front of everyone and went away. All were amazed at it.

Jesus also made such statements: “I came that they might have life and get abundance.” 5 And “I am the light of the world.” 6 And many times he said that whoever believes in him, Jesus Give them eternal life. “And he is not commanded to be punished, but has passed from death to life.” 7 And I give them eternal life. They will never be destroyed. ” 8

In those momentous moments, when Jesus’ life was on the stake, to claim such a claim, the high priest questioned him directly: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Most Blessed?” “Yes, I am,” Jesus he said. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Almighty, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest rent his clothes and said, “Now, what are the reasons for the witnesses to us, Heard. ” 9

Jesus Christ was so deeply related to God that he spoke of a man’s feelings towards him, and his feelings toward God, equally. So, knowing the Lord was to know him. 10 To see the Lord was to see him. 11 To believe in him was to believe in the Lord. 12 To receive it was to receive the Lord. 13It was hating the Lord against hating him. 14 Respecting the Lord was to respect him. 15

Possible explanations

The question is, was he telling the truth?

It may be that Jesus lied, when he said to himself, when he said to himself, God is God Maybe he knew that he was not God, and deliberately betrayed his listeners so that he could give a right to his teaching. Some people think that. But there is a problem in this argument. Those who deny Him to be His creatures believe that Jesus was a great moral teacher. But they fail to understand that both statements are conflicting. How would Jesus Christ be a great moral teacher, if he deliberately used to lie about the most important subject of his teachings – his identity ?“When we look at the claims of Jesus Christ, there are only four possibilities. Either he is a liar, or mentally ill, he is a divine figure, or is true. “

The other possibility is that Jesus Christ was honest, but he was deceiving himself. Nowadays, the person who thinks he is God / God is called by a name – mentally disabled. But when we look at the life of Jesus Christ, we do not get any evidence of abnormalities and imbalances, which is in a mental patient. Rather, we see immense patience, even in times of deep pressure in Jesus.

A third option is that, in the third and fourth centuries, enthusiastic followers of Jesus presented their words of exaggeration, and if Jesus listened to them, they would be surprised. And if he came back, he would immediately reject them. This is not right, because modern archeology affirms that the four life books of Christ were written in the lifetime of those who saw and heard and followed Jesus. The accounts of these Gospel describe the specific facts and attributes that have been confirmed by those who were direct witnesses of Jesus. William F. Albright, who is a world-famous archaeologist with the Johns Hopkins University of America, said, there is no reason to think that any gospel can be found in 70 A.D. (After Christ). Due to being written in the beginning at the beginning of the novel by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, its circulation and influence were more.

Jesus Christ was neither false nor mentally handicapped, nor was he built beyond the historical truth. Only one other option could be that Jesus Christ was absolutely true when he said that he is God.

What evidence is there that Jesus Christ is God?

Anyone can do anything, claims. There are many people who claim to be God. I can claim to be God, you can also claim to be God. But if we do this, then we will have to answer to this question, “What solid evidence, or certificate can we bring to prove our claim?” If you ask me to refute my claim You will not even take five minutes in Even in denying your claim, maybe it does not take much time. But when it comes to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, it is not easy to deny their claim. They had a certificate to complete their claim. He said, “… even if [you] believe not me, but do believe the works: that ye may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in him.” 16

Quality of Life of Jesus – His Unique Moral Character

His unique moral character matched his claim. His lifestyle was such that he could challenge his enemies through his questions, “Who among you can convict me?” 17 They found silence (no one could say anything) when they addressed them Who had tried to find fault in his character.

We read that Jesus Christ was seduced by the devil, but we never heard of the confession of sin to him. He never apologized, although he asked his followers to do so.

The feeling of no moral failure in Jesus is surprising, especially when we see that it is the opposite of the experiences that saints and musicians have experienced throughout the ages. As much as men and women go to God, the more they are overwhelmed by their failure/failure, corruption, and shortcomings. Anyone who goes near a shining light, he feels more about the need to clean himself. For ordinary humans, this is true in the ethical area.

It is also worth noting that John, Paul, and Peter, who had been trained to believe in the universality of sin from childhood, all discussed the sin of Jesus Christ “Neither did he sin, nor his There is no word of deceit on your part. ” 18

Pilate, who sentenced the death penalty to Jesus Christ, asked, “What has he committed so?” After hearing the crowd, Pilate concluded, “I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man; You people know. “The crowd continued to demand Jesus crucifixion (to blaspheme God, to claim to be God). The Roman army hero, who handled Jesus on crucifixion, said, “Truly this was God’s Son.” 19

Jesus Christ healed the sick

Jesus constantly demonstrated his power/compassion and compassion. He carried the langers, summoned the dumb and showed the blind, and gave good to many patients. For example, a beggar, who was blind from birth and who knew all, sat outside the temple. After being healed from Jesus Christ, the religious authorities questioned Jesus about the beggar. Then he said, “I know one thing. I was blind, but now I can see! “ He announced. He was surprised that the authorities of these religions did not recognize this health man as God’s son. “From the beginning of the world, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a blind person,” she said. 20 This proof was clear to him.

Their ability to control nature

Jesus Christ demonstrated a supernatural power over nature. By only words, they calm down the storms of stormy winds and waves in the Sea of Galilee. Those who were riding on the boats wondered about each other and asked, “Who is this, that even the wind and the water obey its commands?” 21 In a marriage, they converted water into wine. They fed the crowd of 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. He resurrected the only son of a miserable widow from the dead.

Lazarus, Jesus’ friend, was dead and he was in the tomb for four days. Yet Jesus called him, “O Lazarus, come out!” And brought him back from death, and many were witnesses of it. It is the most important thing that their enemies did not deny this miracle, rather, decided to kill them. “If we leave him alone,” he said, “then all will come to believe in him.” 22

Is Jesus God, as he claimed?

The supreme proof of being the God of Jesus Christ is their resurrection (resurrected from the dead) after their death. During his lifetime, five times Jesus clearly predicted that in what specific way he would be killed and confirm that after three days he would leave the dead body and then live again.

Definitely, it was a big test. It was a claim that was easy to prove. Either this would happen, or not. Either it proves the truth of their stated identity, or destroys them. And, what is important for you and me is this – either by the resurrection of Jesus, these things would be confirmed, or this statement would become ridiculous: “I am the way and the truth and the life; No one can come near me by my Father. ” 23 ” I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. ” 24 And whoever believes in me, ” I give them eternal life ” 25

So, in his own words, he gave this evidence, “The Son of man will be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him; And he will rise three days after his death. ” 26

Who is Jesus Christ?

If Jesus had been raised from the dead, then whatever he said he gave us, he can fulfill it. It means that he can undoubtedly forgive sins, give us eternal life, and can see our way in this life. He is God, so now we have come to know how God is and we can accept his invitation – to know him personally and his love for us.“It is easy to say. Anyone can claim But when it comes to Jesus Christ of Nazareth … they had complete evidence of supporting their claim. “

On the other hand, if Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, there is no validity or reality of Christianity. It means all this is false, and Jesus was just a common man who is dead. And those people who were martyred for Christianity, and contemporary missionaries, who lost their message to others in their lives, were delusional fools.

Did Jesus prove that he is God?

Let’s take a look at the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection –

Seeing all the miracles that Jesus performed, it can be said that he could easily save himself from the cross, but he chose not to do so.

Before becoming a prisoner, Jesus said, “No one can take away my life from me; I dedicate myself to it. I have the right to offer my life and to receive it again. ” 27

While making him captive, Jesus’ friend Peter tried to save them. But Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword in its sheath … Do you not know that I can beg my father, and he will present me more than twelve lamps of angels right now?” 28 Heaven and Earth In both, they had such kind of power. Jesus Christ willingly accepted his death.

Crucifixion and thickening of Jesus

Jesus was killed in front of the crowd by crucifying him. This was a common practice for the Roman government, coming from many centuries, torturing and giving death. Jesus said that it was to pay our sins. The charge against Jesus was blasphemy (to claim to be God).

Jesus was killed with a thick rope made of many ropes, in which fragmented pieces of metal and bone were embedded. To blow them, the crown made of long thorns was placed on their heads. They forced Jesus Christ to go out of Jerusalem, walking on the mountain of execution, where he was hanged on a wooden cross, and his feet and hands were knocked down on the cross with nails. Till he died, hanging on that cross. To find out whether he was dead or not, his back was pierced.

The body of Jesus was crucified and wrapped in a sheet with scent. Their bodies were placed in a tomb, which was dug in the rock, and then a large stone was rolled over the entrance to the tomb, so that the door was safe.

Everyone knew that Jesus had said that he would rise from the dead body three days later. Therefore, trained Roman soldiers were deployed on their tomb. They put an official Roman stamp outside the tomb so that it could be declared that it is a government property.

Three days later, that grave was empty

Despite all this, three days later, the stone which was sealing the tomb was found on a slope a few miles away from the grave. Jesus’ body was not there. There was only a sheet lying in the grave, without a dead body.

It is necessary to note that both the critics and followers of Jesus believe that the grave was empty and their body was missing.

Initially this explanation was being circulated that his disciples had stolen his body when the guards were asleep. But this sounds untrue, because such training of trained soldiers of the Roman army was not less than the crime of the death penalty during sleep.

Apart from this, every disciple (lonely and in various geographical locations) was tortured and martyred, for the claim that Jesus was alive and had been raised from the dead. But they do not reverse their claims. Any person is prepared to die for the truth that he believes to be true, even if he is a liar. But, he does not want to die for that which he knows is a lie. If there is a time when a person speaks the truth, then it happens at the close of his death. Every disciples continued to preach the resurrection of Jesus till the end.

Maybe the authorities have removed Jesus’ body from there? But this is also a weak possibility. They crucified Jesus, so that they could stop people from believing in them. If they had a body of Jesus (body), they would have parade it in the city of Jerusalem. In one instant, they successfully managed to suppress Christianity. That they did not do this, it gives great testimony that they did not have the dead body of Jesus.

One second opinion is that women (who first saw the empty grave of Jesus) get overwhelmed by the anxiety and misery, have forgotten their way in the morning blurry and went to the wrong grave. In his pain, he imagined that Jesus had been resurrected, because the tomb was empty. But there is also doubt in this matter, because if the women went to the grave, why did the high priests and other enemies of religion not show the body of Jesus on the right grave?

Another possibility, according to some people, is “the theory of unconsciousness”. According to this principle, Jesus did not really die. He was considered to be dead, and in reality he had become unconscious due to fatigue, pain, and lack of blood, and due to his coolness in the grave, consciousness returned to him. (According to this, you have to ignore the fact that his side was pierced, so that it can be proved that he was dead.)“Anyone is prepared to die for the truth that he believes to be true, even if it is actually a lie. But, he does not want to die for that which he knows is a lie. “

But, let us assume for a moment that Jesus was buried alive and he was unconscious. So it is possible to believe that for three days he would have lived in a moist grave, without food or water, or any kind of care? Did they have so much strength that they pulled themselves out of grave clothes, take away heavy stones from the grave’s face, conquered the Roman guards, and walked on feet to miles, who were pierced by nails? this does not make sense.

Even so, only the empty grave did not give the followers the belief that Jesus was really God.

Not only empty tomb

Only the empty grave did not give them the belief that Jesus really lived from the dead, he was alive, and he was God. All these things also convinced them – Jesus appeared many times, as a person of living flesh flesh, and he ate with them, talked to them – they spoke with different places, different times, different people . Luke, one of the authors of the Gospel, said about Jesus, “He revealed himself to them with many concrete proofs that he is alive. He continued to appear for 40 days and told them about God’s kingdom. ” 29

Is Jesus Christ the God

The four writers of the Gospel tell that after comprehending Jesus, he physically appeared to them. Once he appeared to the disciples, Thomas (a disciple) was not there. Thomas did not believe when Thomas was told by other disciples about him. He said straightforwardly, “I will not believe unless I see the nails of his hands in his hands and do not put my fingers in the nails of the nails, and do not put my hand in his side.”

A week later Jesus appeared to them again. At that time Thomas was with them too. Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger and look at my hands, and bring my hand into my side. Stop believing and believing. “Thomas answered,” My Lord, my God! “

Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me and have believed in me. Blessed are those who did not believe. ” 30

What do you offer to Jesus

Christ gives purpose and direction to life. “I am the light of the world,” he says. “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” 31

Many people in general are in the dark about the purpose of life, and especially about their own lives. It feels like they are looking for a light-burning switch in their life. Whoever is in the dark, or in an unfamiliar room, is very popular about the feeling of insecurity. But, when the light burns, there is a sense of security. It feels just when we walk in darkness, in the light of Jesus Christ.

The late analyst psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung, said, “The most critical problem of our times is emptiness. We think that our experience, our knowledge, relationships, money, success, success, fame, will give us the happiness we find. But always remains an emptiness. They are not completely satisfied at all. We have been created for God, and we will receive fulfillment only in them. “

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life: he who comes to me will never be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” 32

You can establish a closer relationship with Jesus at this time. You can know God individually in this life on earth, and after death, in eternity. Here is the promise of God, which he has done to us: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that none of her faith, destroy it, but have eternal life.” 33

Jesus took our sins, on the cross, over us. He accepted the penalty for our sins so that our sin could not become a wall between them and us. Because they paid our sins full, they give us complete pardon and a relationship with us.

Here’s how you can start this relationship.

Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door of your heart; If someone will hear my voice and open the door, then I will enter his house … ” 34

You can invite Jesus Christ right now in your life. Not your words, only your reaction to it, is main. Knowing what he has done for you, and what he is doing, you can say something like this, “Jesus, I believe in you. Your density to die on the cross for my sins I want you to forgive me and come to my life right now. I want to know you and want to follow you. Thank you for coming to my life, and to build a relationship with me from this time. “

If you have invited Jesus to come to your life,

For us, decisively knowing that ‘what is the existence of God?’, And ‘what kind of person’ it is, it is impossible, unless God himself does not take initiative and does not reveal himself.

How did people see Jesus

We have been told that “Aam Aadmi used to listen to Jesus’ words happily” and “He was teaching them not like Judaism leaders but like an officer.” 1

But, soon it became clear that he was giving very shocking and wondrous statements about himself. He described himself as a great teacher and a greater than the Prophet. He said in clear words that he is God. He made his identity the main issue in his education.

Jesus said this about himself

In those momentous moments, when Jesus’ life was on the stake, to claim such a claim, the high priest questioned him directly: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Most Blessed?” “Yes, I am,” Jesus he said. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Almighty, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest rent his clothes and said, “Now , what are the reasons for the witnesses to us, Heard. ” 9

Possible explanations

The question is, was he telling the truth?

The other possibility is that Jesus Christ was honest, but he was deceiving himself. Nowadays, the person who thinks he is God / God, is called by a name – mentally disabled. But when we look at the life of Jesus Christ, we do not get any evidence of abnormalities and imbalances, which is in a mental patient. Rather, we see immense patience, even in times of deep pressure in Jesus.

A third option is that, in the third and fourth centuries, enthusiastic followers of Jesus presented their words of exaggeration, and if Jesus listened to them, they would be surprised. And if he came back, he would immediately reject them. This is not right, because modern archeology affirms that the four life books of Christ were written in the lifetime of those who saw and heard and followed Jesus. The accounts of these Gospel describe the specific facts and attributes that have been confirmed by those who were direct witnesses of Jesus. William F. Albright, who is a world-famous archaeologist with Johns Hopkins University of America, said, there is no reason to think that any gospel can be found in 70 A.D. (After Christ). Due to being written in the beginning at the beginning of the novel by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, its circulation and influence were more.

What evidence is there that Jesus Christ is God?

Quality of Life of Jesus – His Unique Moral Character

His unique moral character matched his claim. His life style was such that he could challenge his enemies through his questions, “Who among youcan convict me?” 17 They found silence (no one could say anything), when they addressed them Who had tried to find fault in his character.

We read that Jesus Christ was seduced by the devil, but we never heard of the confession of sin to him. He never apologized, although he asked his followers to do so.

The feeling of no moral failure in Jesus is surprising, especially when we see that it is the opposite of the experiences that saints and mysticians have experienced throughout the ages. As much as men and women go to God, the more they are overwhelmed by their failure / failure, corruption and shortcomings. Anyone who goes near a shining light, he feels more about the need to clean himself. For ordinary humans, this is true in the ethical area.

Jesus Christ healed the sick

Jesus constantly demonstrated his power / compassion and compassion. He carried the langers, summoned the dumb and showed the blind, and gave good to many patients. For example, a beggar, who was blind from birth and who knew all, sat outside the temple. After being healed from Jesus Christ, the religious authorities questioned Jesus about the beggar. Then he said, “I know one thing. I was blind, but now I can see! “ He announced. He was surprised that the authorities of these religions did not recognize this healthman as God’s son . “From the beginning of the world, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a blind person,” she said. 20 This proof was clear for him.

Their ability to control nature

Jesus Christ demonstrated a supernatural power over nature. By only words, they calm down the storms of stormy winds and waves in the Sea of Galilee. Those who were riding on the boats wondered about each other and asked, “Who is this, that even the wind and the water obey its commands?” 21 In a marriage they converted water into wine. They fed the crowd of 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. He resurrected the only son of a miserable widow from the dead.

Is Jesus God, as he claimed?

Definitely it was a big test. It was a claim that was easy to prove. Either this would happen, or not. Either it proves the truth of their stated identity, or destroys them. And, what is important for you and me is this – either by the resurrection of Jesus, these things would be confirmed, or this statement would become ridiculous: “I am the way and the truth and the life; No one can come near me by my Father. ” 23 ” I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. ” 24 And whoever believes in me, ” I give them eternal life ” 25

So, in his own words, he gave this evidence, “The Son of man will be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him; And he will rise three days after his death. ” 26

Who is Jesus Christ?

Did Jesus prove that he is God?

Let’s take a look at the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection –

Seeing all the miracles that Jesus performed, it can be said that he could easily save himself from the cross, but he chose not to do so.

Before becoming a prisoner, Jesus said, “No one can take away my life from me; I dedicate myself to it. I have the right to offer my life and to receive it again. ” 27

Crucifixion and thickening of Jesus

Three days later, that grave was empty

It is necessary to note that both the critics and followers of Jesus believe that the grave was empty and their body was missing.

Even so, only the empty grave did not give the followers the belief that Jesus was really God.

Not only empty tomb

Is Jesus Christ the God

Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me and have believed in me. Blessed are those who did not believe. ” 30

What do you offer to Jesus

Christ gives purpose and direction to life. “I am the light of the world,” he says. “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” 31

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life: he who comes to me will never be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” 32

Here’s how you can start this relationship.

Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door of your heart; If someone will hear my voice and open the door, then I will enter his house … ” 34

If you have invited Jesus to come to your life,

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fletchermarple · 7 years ago

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Quick Review of the True Crime Books I read in 2017 (Part 2)

Part 1 of 2017

Review of books in 2016 Part 1 and Part 2

Review of books in 2015

The Michigan Murders by Edward Keyes: Before Ted Bundy, there was John Norman Collins. He was also a handsome, charming, smart university student that looked nothing like a stereotypical killer, but in fact was raping and murdering women from ages 13 to 21 at an alarming rate between 1967 and 1969 in Michigan. This book was originally published in 1976, and it’s a very serious and professional exposition of the case, written under journalistic standards but not so much literary ones. By that I mean that it sticks mostly to facts and remains objective instead of adding some narrative touches to make the story more appealing. Don’t get me wrong, the case is interesting enough in itself and if like me you didn’t know much about Collins (who now goes by the surname Chapman), this is a very informative read. The problem with this book is one that many true crime novels have: since there’s not a main character we can focus on, and instead we get just “this victim disappeared, then this victim disappeared” with no remarkable investigator to take the reigns of the story, it kind of drags a lot in the first part. It gets better once Collins is introduced, and let me tell you, he’s so chilling and the way they got him is so curious it definitely makes worth the read in the end. I should also add that Keyes changes pretty much every single name in the case, including the killer’s, which might have been common practice back then, but seems ridiculous now when everything is public information and it’s something that I particularly hate in non fiction stories.

Silent Witness by Don Weber and Charles Bosworth Jr.: This book is about the murder of Karla Brown, which I wrote about here, and the hunt for the killer. Although the book is co-signed by Don Weber, he’s presented in a third person style within the narration. He was the prosecutor in the case, and he comes across as a guy who takes his job very seriously and was willing to take risks with new technologies and techniques so he could get justice for the victim. The case itself is very twisty and interesting, since it took investigators four years to point to the right suspect, so the story is very riveting, especially if you, like me, enjoy the investigation and judicial part of true crime. Just keep in mind that the book was written by someone who is certain of the killer’s identity and there’s no room left to doubt his guilt, as opposed to the reality, where there are some people that have tried (unsuccessfully) to find proof of his innocence.

The Man from the Train by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James: I really enjoyed Bill James’ book Popular Crime and I got this one as soon as it came out. James is not really a true crime writer, his main area of expertise is baseball, but just like us he’s very enthusiastic about true crime and has spent a lot of time researching, reading and formulating theories about it. In this book, he tackles a series of unsolved murders that happened in the first decade of the 20th Century in the US, when several families were hacked to death with an axe for no apparent reason. James and his daughter do a very thorough research into old archives to try to determine which murders are linked and were likely committed by the same person, who in their theory is also the guy behind the infamous Villisca Axe Murders. The book is really a very well done exercise in speculation, amateur profiling and connecting the dots, because there’s no way we can really know if what James is saying is true or not, and he knows it and acknowledges it several times through the extensive book. I’m not sure The Man from the Train is for everyone, I’d recommend it mostly to people who really enjoy unsolved mysteries and old American history, because there’s a lot of interesting analysis of those times. James is very entertaining in his writing and speaks directly to the reader while adding some humor and worthy anecdotes here and there. ( @congenitaldisease I know someone recommended this book to you, I think you’d enjoy it as well).

My Story by Elizabeth Smart: It pains me to say this, because I’ve met Elizabeth Smart and she’s an amazing and inspiring person, but of all the true crime books I read this year, this is probably the worst. I find it hard to believe that she worked with an actual writer, because the book reads like the journal of a 12 year old in both narration and content. The story is, of course, terrible and haunting, and Elizabeth tells us in detail about being kidnapped from her bedroom when she was 14 by the seriously disgusting Brian David Mitchell and his mentally disturbed wife Wanda Barzee. She also talks a lot about her determination to survive through the horrible ordeal and her faith... She’s pretty heavy on the faith side, at points the book can read like a Sunday sermon so if you’re one of those people who frown at religion, this is definitely not the novel for you. Like I said earlier, the book is written in a very childish way, which would be ok if Elizabeth had written it right after her kidnapping but this was done when she was already an adult and a decade had passed. There’s no deep insights or much new information and on paper Elizabeth does not communicate as well as in person. Her experience is worth to know, but objectively, as a piece of literature, this book is bad. I would suggest watching any of her interviews instead of picking up this (and definitely don’t get the audiobook because she’s not a good reader).

Waiting to be Heard by Amanda Knox: Now this is the complete opposite to Elizabeth Smart’s memoir. It’s a well written book that gives a very clear and thorough account of the ordeal Amanda Knox went through when she was accused and wrongly convicted of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy. Amanda is very candid and represents herself very well, with a lot of material from the trial and details of her life behind bars. You can tell by this book that Amanda was a very naive, inexperienced girl who lacked self awareness. Even when writing this book she doesn’t seem to understand why her behavior was inappropriate and bothered the italian authorities, and while she doesn’t give a satisfactory explanation of why she involved Patrick Lumumba, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s innocent of the murder and was horribly railroaded by unethical investigators, prosecutors and journalists, who built a case on nothing but a twisted fantasy. I imagine if you somehow believe she’s guilty (and I really would like to hear a good argument for that) this book would be extremely annoying to read, but otherwise you should add it to your list and expect to get your blood boil over the injustice. It’s scary to think that under the right circumstances anyone could experience what Amanda did.

Never See them Again by M. William Phelps: A gripping account of the Clear Lake Murders, a massacre in 2003 in which four young people were gunned down in a house in Texas in the middle of the day by then 17 year old Christine Paolilla, a close friend of two of the victims, and her boyfriend. Phelps, an experienced writer that used to host the show Dark Minds, does it right and finds memorable characters to narrate his story through, including the victims (especially Rachel Koloroutis, whose family was clearly one of Phelps main sources), the main investigator and Christine herself. Christine’s life is well researched but even after you’ve read so much about her, she remains an intriguing figure. It’s clear that her self portrayal of a victim that got forced to commit the crime is a fake and she’s a master liar and manipulator, but it’s hard to know for sure what drove her to kill the two girls that had made efforts to improve her life. Like Edward Keyes in The Michigan Murders, Phelps also uses some fake names but only in witnesses and he lets you know when it’s a pseudonym, which I appreciated.

Law and Disorder by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker: Any book by John Douglas is worth the read, because not only he talks in depth about very interesting cases, but his perspective, whether you agree with it or not, is always well informed and fascinating. He makes an excellent writing team with Olshaker, who lets Douglas’ voice come through in a way that lets you know what kind of person he is through the pages. This book, the most recent he wrote, published in 2013, is no exception. Here he tackles famous cases of miscarriage of justice, from the Salem witch trials to Amanda Knox. It’s not always about wrongfully convicted people, he also talks about how some clearly guilty convicts abuse the justice system. Douglas talks about his views on the death penalty, which he’s in favor of although not a passionate advocate: he just believes that if the sentence exists, and is decided after a fair trial, the family of the victim has a right to see it through. His main point throughout the book is that a theory should never be above the evidence, meaning some investigators get so obsessed with trying to prove someone is guilty that they ignore the actual evidence and use only what fits their idea of how a crime was committed. He gives several examples, but I found the chapters on the JonBenet Ramsey and West Memphis 3 the most illuminating. Really, when analyzed by Douglas, an agent whose experience in crime is not to be dismissed, it sounds ridiculous to think the Ramseys killed JonBenet or that the WM3 are guilty. Even if you think they are, I would ask you to please read this so you can have a wider perspective. (I also got some mild pleasure at all the shade Douglas throws to investigator Steve Thomas, whose book on the JonBenet Ramsey case I reviewed here). However, I will say that if you’ve never read a Douglas book, this is not the one to start with. You should at least read Mindhunter first.

#true crime #tcoriginal #true crime book #book review #review #john douglas #amanda knox #elizabeth smart #christine paolilla #michigan murders

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davids69811 · 3 years ago

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First Time Possession Charge 32210 - Malcolm Anthony, P.A.

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scripttorture · 7 years ago

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Hey, so I have a story that focuses on a sentient curse who later begins to feel guilty about doing what they were made to do, i.e. tormenting the descendants of one of the characters. I was wondering if there were any examples of real life torturers who develop guilt for any reason and what are common thought processes of torturers. Would it be realistic for the curse to start analyzing themself after accidentally attacking someone who is not a descendant?

(Curse anon) I'm planning to have the curse be redeemed in the way that they decide to stop tormenting the descendants, but not have any of them forgive the curse or be expected to forgive the curse, and am simply wondering how to get from Point A of happily torturing the family to Point B of deciding to stop.

Can I just say that I love this idea? I read a lot of fantasy and it’salways a pleasure to come across new ideas.

My information is a little out of date- I know there’s a more recentbook on the subject but I haven’t managed to get a translation in a language Ican read yet. Ifyou can read French then the best andmost up to date information is in this book. Sironi is a psychologist whowas heavily involved in interviewing torturers worldwide: most famously Duch ofthe Khmer Rouge.

TheNew Scientist interviewed her a while back which you can read here but Ithink you need to subscribe in order to have full access.

The main source I have is Fanon- who was a psychiatrist and treatedtorturers as well as victims after the Franco-Algerian war. His book The Wretched of the Earth is readilyavailable online and in libraries. It’s a staple of anti-colonial literatureand his appendices contain notes on some of his patients: including twotorturers and a torturer’s daughter.

Fanon emphasises the awful psychological toll on his patients. Sironigave torturers a poor prognosis in her interview. She didn’t say that theycould never recover but sheemphasised their lack of insight into their offence, their ‘justifications’ fortheir actions and factors that I tend to associate with the sub-culturetorturers create.

She rightly says that torturers, like other violent offenders, need tounderstand what they did was wrong before they can really move on from it.

Fanon postulates a sort of progression through stages that I’m not surehe has the evidence to prove conclusively.

Yes. Some torturers do show guilt and remorse.

I don’t have any statistical studies to give an idea of how common itis. So far as I know such a study doesn’t exist. An awful lot of the evidencefor torturers is anecdotal.

I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with redemptionnarratives.

The place I live doesn’t have the death penalty and doesn’t really do ‘life’terms in prison so- rehabilitation is pretty important. I think telling criminalsthat they’re irrevocably tainted and can never reintegrate into society ispretty unhelpful. Especially when we’re talking about a crime people rarely getlife sentences for.

There isn’t a clear and straight path to that. What it looks like variesbetween individuals.

One of Fanon’s torturers wanted to stop. The other didn’t.

The man who wanted to stop complained of nightmares and auditoryhallucinations. He heard screaming. He was exhausted and drained and hated hisjob. Fanon describes him having at least one panic attack.

He quit his job and moved elsewhere. So far as I can tell he neveranswered for his crimes and his desire to stop was couched entirely in terms ofhow it had affected him not remorsefor the victims.

What all of this means is that you’ve got a lot of scope for how exactlyyou could handle this progression in your character.

I think showing the character’s enthusiasm for tormenting others waningrapidly is a good start and seems true to what torturers say they experience.Even the torturer who wanted to continue talked about how ‘hard’ it was.

So I’d suggest starting with a noticeable dip in enthusiasm, tirednessand a general apathy towards their ‘work’.

Torturers tend to bend over backwards to justify their actions. They saywhat they do is ‘necessary’ and often can’t back that up with any coherentlogic.

In your characters case that could be phrased in terms of ‘purpose’.This is what they were made to do.How could that be wrong?

That’s a major stumbling block that prevents real progress. But your character has a major advantageover real life torturers: they’re not part of a toxic sub-culture defined byviolence.

They’re not reliant on torture for all their social support. That meansonce they decide to stop, stopping will be easier.

Narratively I think introducing something that shocks them, such asaccidentally hurting someone ‘innocent’ could work as a…trigger for themexamining what they do and why.

The second torturer Fanon examined, the man who didn’t want to stop,came to see a psychiatrist because he’d ended up torturing his wife andchildren using the same methods he did at work. At some point, when he’d tiedhis wife to a chair and beaten her, he realised what exactly he was doing.

The shock prompted him to seek out a doctor, even if it didn’t manage tojolt him into stopping.

I think that before you reach that point though it’s important to buildup and show the severe negative effect inflicting trauma has on a torturer.

Idiscuss symptoms generally here. And I think I talk a little about the factwe can’t predict symptoms.

We don’t really have the level of systematic studies on torturers thatwe do for victims. I’ve heard torturers describe most of the symptoms inthemselves though. Addiction, depression, anxiety, personality change, suicidalideation, memory problems, PTSD like symptoms, insomnia, panic attacks,difficulty relating to people and social isolation all seem to apply.

I strongly suspect a thorough study would show memory problems amongtorturers as well, the symptom is so common in trauma survivors and people whowitness traumatic events that it seems hugely likely it would apply totorturers.

I suggest picking symptoms based on what you feel fits the character’spersonality and the story. In this case I’d suggest trying to tailor thesymptoms to fit the character’s….let’s say physical limitations.

Addiction and self harming behaviour might be impossible for the sort ofcharacter you’ve created. I’m not entirely sure whether they have a physicalbody.

Pick some symptoms, 3-5 is usually a good ball park. Seed them early andshow them building up during the narrative until you have this ‘shock’ moment.Then have them all land like a ton of bricks.

Use the symptoms to make it harder for the character to torture.

And then once you’ve had that shock moment, once they’ve stopped, you’vegot a frame work for them to realise how much they’re hurting themselves. Thatmay well be enough to get them to stop completely.

I think going any further than that, into rehabilitation andreintegrating into society starts getting out of my comfort zone. I know thatsocial ties are hugely important to success in those areas but beyond that Ihonestly don’t really know.

Hopefully that’s enough to get you started though. :)

Disclaimer

#tw torture #tw suicide #tw spousal abuse #torturers #behaviour of torturers #effects of torture on torturers #fanon #sironi #fantasy asks #curses #Anonymous

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penzanews · 3 years ago

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Experts welcome US federal moratorium on capital punishment

PenzaNews. Experts continue to discuss the moratorium on federal executions imposed by US Attorney General Merrick Garland who leads the United States Department of Justice.

It will remain in effect while a review of the Justice Department’s procedures and policies on capital punishment is pending.

“The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States, but is also treated fairly and humanely,” Merrick Garland said.

According to the message published on the Ministry of Justice website, the previous administration made a series of changes to capital case policies and procedures. The current head of the department directed to lead a multi-pronged review of these recent policy changes, including a review of the Addendum to the Federal Execution Protocol, adopted in 2019, which will assess, among other things, “the risk of pain and suffering associated with the use of pentobarbital.” In addition, they might consider changes to Justice Department regulations made in November 2020 that expanded the permissible methods of execution. How long the review will last is not specified.

The death penalty at the federal level was not carried out in the United States from 2003 to 2020. At the same time, the state authorities could independently appoint and conduct it. The death penalty is currently banned in 23 states.

In 2019, William Barr, then US Attorney General, resumed capital punishment for federal convicted offenders. As a result, last year, for the first time in American history, the number of federal executions in a year exceeded the total for all states. So, all in all, 17 people were executed in the country, of which 10 were executed at the federal level.

Analyzing the decision taken by the new administration, Carolyn Hoyle, Director of the Oxford University Death Penalty Research Unit, drew attention to the fact that Joe Biden became the first US president to make abolition of the federal death penalty part of his presidential campaign platform.

“Even with Trump’s [the 45th US President] increase of federal executions during the last six months of his presidency, the number of death sentences imposed in the US has fallen from over 300 in the mid-1990s to only seventeen in 2020,” the expert reminded.

She stressed that she fully supports the moratorium on the death federal penalty and hopes that it is a precursor to abolition de jure.

“The past decades have witnessed growing international consensus on the limits of state punishment, particularly for those deemed to be vulnerable. Though human rights, especially the right to life, drive an abolitionist agenda, particularly in Europe, they also frame progressive restriction in the use of the death penalty, fair trial procedures for states that retain the death penalty, and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments. Evidence from the US is clear that executions there are cruel, inhuman and degrading,” Carolyn Hoyle said.

“All the empirical evidence shows that the poor, Black people, and those who are vulnerable by way of poor mental health are more likely to be sentenced to death. Furthermore, innocent people have been sentenced to death and executed even though the US has a complex and reasonably thorough post-conviction review process,” she added.

According to her, the last three decades have witnessed an unprecedented global rate of abolition of the death penalty.

“Of the 193 member states of the United Nations, 107 countries have abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes, and a further eight countries have abolished the death penalty in law for ordinary crimes. Moreover, 72% of all countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Many retentionist states point to the United States in support of their own position and so it is vital that the US leads the way in abolition,” the expert said.

In her opinion, it is clear that if the Federal Death Penalty was abolished, it would be in step with the gradual movement away from capital punishment in the US and in the world.

“Those who commit the most heinous crimes must be punished and their punishments must fit the crime to allow for retribution. However, retribution means proportionate punishments: harsh penalties for serious crimes. It does not mean ‘death for death.’ Long or life prison sentences for murder are proportionate and appropriate. Furthermore they allow for review if new evidence of wrongful conviction comes to light. However, life sentences should be discretionary, not mandatory. There should always be the possibility of review by a parole board, after a suitable period of imprisonment to meet the goals of retribution, as and when the information about the prisoner and his or her risks to society changes. In other words, I do not support the replacement of the death penalty with a mandatory sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole,” Carolyn Hoyle explained.

The American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice leader and CRSJ Death Penalty Committee Chair Ronald Tabak, who is also Pro Bono Counsel at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates, said that he favors a moratorium on federal government executions.

“As was highlighted by the Trump Administration’s executions of 13 death row inmates in its last months in office, the federal death penalty is imposed in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Whether the federal death penalty is sought, secured, and actually carried out in a case is less dependent on how morally culpable a defendant was than on the conduct of the prosecution and the quality or lack thereof of defense counsel,” he said.

“When one analyzes the federal death penalty in light of the ABA's February 1997 policy calling for a moratorium on executions in a jurisdiction if it fails to carry out several specified ABA policies, it is apparent that there should be a moratorium on federal death penalty executions,” Ronald Tabak added.

Moreover, in his opinion, a moratorium on executions should be implemented in all United States jurisdictions that do not abolish capital punishment.

John Quigley, Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University in Columbus, shard the opinion that the federal moratorium should be emulated by the states.

“In the states, the governors have power to commute death sentences. In a number of states, the governors have commuted the death sentences of all the prisoners under death sentence,” the expert said.

According to him, capital punishment is not an effective penalty for crime.

“Protection of the public can be achieved just as well without capital punishment,” John Quigley stressed.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Kirchmeier, Professor of Law at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, said the federal moratorium on executions is a good but not enough step.

“A moratorium is merely stopping executions for now, even as people remain on death row and prosecutors may still add people to death row,” he explained.

“President Biden and others have recognized the implementation of the death penalty is riddled with problems. Among such problems, the punishment is not applied fairly or equally, methods of execution can lead to excess suffering, the death penalty offers no benefits to society different from the option of imprisonment, and a government’s act of killing its citizens who no longer pose any danger to society is an outdated and inhumane concept in the twenty-first century,” Jeffrey Kirchmeier said.

From his point of view, government officials should move from just pausing executions “to abolish the federal death penalty, just as a large number of states have done in recent years.”

The expert reminded that worldwide, and across the United States, the trend in recent decades has consistently been for governments to get rid of capital punishment.

“I agree that the trend should continue and that other countries and US states that still use the judicial process for killing citizens should continue to abandon the death penalty. Often, a first step is for a government to impose a moratorium on executions, and then after seeing how unnecessary the punishment is, the government can move to get rid of capital punishment completely,” Jeffrey Kirchmeier said.

In turn, Laura Pitter, Deputy Director – US Program, Human Rights Watch, said that the moratorium is an important step in the right direction.

“But we would urge the administration of US President Joe Biden to go further by commuting all federal death sentences and incentivizing states to follow suit,” the HRW representative said.

According to her, in the US, the death penalty is inevitably plagued with arbitrariness, racial disparities, and error.

“Since 1973, 185 people have been released from death row after later being found innocent. Numerous studies over the past several decades have found persistent patterns of racial disparities in courts imposing the death penalty, with Black people much more likely to receive such verdicts, especially if the victim is white,” HRW Deputy Director said.

In her opinion, the death penalty should be abolished everywhere.

“Human rights law recognizes the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all people, including even those who have committed terrible crimes. It prohibits torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment. Human Rights Watch believes these rights cannot be reconciled with the death penalty, a form of punishment unique in its cruelty and finality,” Laura Pitter concluded.

Photo: Twitter.com/thejusticedept

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/67200-2021

#USA #CapitalPunishment

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joshuatayco · 4 years ago

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M4:W4

Seeking For the Lost Justice: A critical Review on the documenty of Paco Larrañaga’s case in the year 2011

“Give up Tommorow” is the title of the documentary that reflects how Paco Larrañaga faced the fight against the unfair distribution of Justice as he continue years of struggle and waited until his justice was served. The documentary was released on October 3, 2012 written and directed by Michael Collins. The Documentary film received The Emmy Award that called the attention of many and took action towards Paco’s call for justice.

The documentary casted mainly by Paco Larrañaga is about a trial which regards to an incident that happen on July 16, 1997, where Chiong Sisters, Marijoy and Jacqueline, were kidnapped, raped and murdered. Paco or Francisco Juan Larrañaga was one of the accused in murder and later on sentenced to death through lethal injection. Through the help of The Government of Spain, the conviction towards death penalty was put into an end and Paco was finally free after several years of suffering.

The documentary narrated specific events that happened in the scene back in 1997. The film is realistic Since it is based on a real life event and facts. It manisfested the Justice problems in the Philippines that Paco had struggled with as well as how he was treated and accused as a murderer. The films narration was very clear that it is for the audience to understand the whole documentary.

When it comes to the cinematography of the documentary, there are some criterion needed to be considered, such as the camera quality, angles and lighting. The film had used different camera angles that depends on the situation. The interview parts was very formal where the ditance of the camera to the interviewee was perfectly positioned where it is not too close nor too far. It also create focus for the interviewer just like the time where Paco’s Family was asked about how they feel when Paco got arrested and sentenced to death. The audio quality is also clear and is understandable. Another example is when the witnesses, which are Paco’s acquaintances, talk about what they were doing in the exact day the incident happen. The transition of scenes was appropriate as it follows the plot of the whole documentary. The use of text as narration is also effective as it help summarize the scenes and let the audience know what is happening. In the documentary, it also showed different tones that identifies past and present scenario. In the flashback part, it gives a perfectly vague tone that is very nostalgic and cinematic at the same time. On the other hand, in the present scenarios, it flashes brighter tone compared to the flashback scenes. The quality of the documentary is not that great, some parts are blurry and i/ low in camera quality, just like the part how the people checked the entire farm to look for the body of the Chiong Sisters. Despite the quality of the camera, it is still recognizable and did not affect the story but it did have an effect to the overall impact of the documentary.

As for the acting of the characters that portrayed some scenes on paco was also convincing, an example of this was how the Chiong sister was kidnapped, raped and murdered. The actors have the quality of portraying a certain scenario that the audience will see as the narration continues. Aside from the victims, the use of language of the experts and other personnel effectively delivers their point regarding to Paco’s case. They give a very clear statement that help them stand on their side.

The documentary effectively showed how Unfair the Justice system is in the Philippines, which is up until now it is still a problem in the country. This film have open the eyes of many, and help the silent speak for themselves. The voice of the nation helped trash death penalty and save the innocent from a biased judgment. This documentary is a great success in portraying a life changing event where many people might learn to stablish a better Justice system for a better and fair future.

Photo source: https://pin.it/2viFHg1

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bishopkenneth · 7 years ago

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“You Keep Using That Word...”

In the marvelous movie, The Princess Bride, Vizinni keeps using the word “inconceivable,” and Inigo Montoya finally replies, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Sometimes we Christians use the same words but speak completely different languages.

Sin.

Hell.

Grace.

Salvation.

Heaven.

These are common words in the Christian world, but what they mean when you say them and I hear them may be worlds apart. And, it kind of astonishes me how much the definitions of our words are the result of the thought systems (the theology systems) in which we operate. What I’m trying to say is, we have our religious ABC’s lined out, where A causes B, then C happens, and so on. And we understand the words we use in the context of our system.

The Coffee Shop and the Flu

I’m trying to think of an example to help show what I mean, and it isn’t easy. Here’s one that might help. Have you ever had the flu? The word flu is just an abbreviation for influenza. But, what an interesting word it is! You see, in the ancient and medieval era people thought the stars in their alignments affected all kinds of things on the earth (think astrology here). They thought that sicknesses were often the result of being “under a bad star.” Or “under the influence [influenza in Italian] of the stars.” Their entire system of how the universe worked, and for that matter how disease and health worked, was completely different from how we understand it. We have two different systems (ancient cosmology and modern cosmology; ancient medicine and modern medicine), but we use some of the same words.

So, some lady from 15th century Florence walks into the coffee shop where you are enjoying a Cappuccino and tells you, “I’m glad I just got over the influenza and could meet you today,” and while she may be using perfectly good words in a perfectly good sentence, and even referring to the exact same sickness, she means something totally different than what you hear. Our Italian friend means, “Good heavens [See what I did there?], I’m so glad the alignment of the stars has changed, because, buddy, last week I was under the bad influence of Saturn, and now I’m feeling much better.” But what you hear is, “Oh, gracious! Last week I picked up this microscopic bug that made me feel so miserable, but my antibodies finally whipped it and now I’m feeling great again.”

SO…

Some Christian walks into the coffee shop where I am enjoying an Americano and says, “I have been saved by the sacrifice of Jesus, and I am no longer bound for hell, but I’m headed to heaven now.”

What does he mean? What do I hear? We may use similar words, but do we have the same definitions? Are we referencing the same system?

If that coffee shop is in Texas, there’s a good chance he is referencing a completely different way of thinking than I am. Let’s break it down:

“I have been saved by the sacrifice of Jesus…”

What he means is, “I was a sinner on the bad side of God. My just punishment was eternal torment because I was guilty of breaking God’s rules and he demands justice. But Jesus paid my debt to the Father. He took my punishment so I wouldn’t have to. And now, when God looks at my record sheet he doesn’t see me as guilty, but as not-guilty. Because Jesus paid the price for my sins, the Father has moved me from the guilty column to the not-guilty column. That is grace at work!”

In the arena of law this is known as “a legal fiction.” While it is factually not true (I am still guilty of the charges; I did the crimes; I broke the rules), it is legally or technically true (the debt has been paid by someone else, so I am no longer being treated as a guilty person).

“…and am no longer bound for hell, but I’m headed to heaven now.”

What he means is, “Before Jesus paid my debt, I was headed for an afterlife of everlasting torture and torment. But now, because I’ve been moved over into the not-guilty column in God’s register, I am headed for a place that I don’t really know much about, but it is going to be super perfect and joyous and peaceful, and I will live eternally there instead of in the fires of hell.”

For our friend, salvation is a legal transaction that happens because of Jesus paying the debt and taking the punishment for us, and the consequence is we are technically not guilty and get to enjoy the benefits of innocence.

But here’s the problem: that’s not at all what I mean when I use those words (saved, hell, heaven)

A Recent Conversation

I was in a conversation with a couple of folk recently where one fellow, we’ll call him Adrian, was asking if we were saved by grace or if we had to do something to gain salvation. Someone else, we’ll call him Zachary, piped up and said, “We have to repent.” Adrian responded, “So salvation is dependent on how well we repent instead of what Jesus did on the cross? If we could just repent, repent, repent, then why did jesus have to die? If you have to repent in order to receive salvation, then it is not by grace. Grace, by definition, is something that is freely given. If you have to repent to receive salvation, then you are not being saved by grace.”

Now, Adrian admitted he wasn’t a believer, but was interested in the subject. But I’d bet good money he was raised in the Christian faith, because he spoke the same Evangelical language as Zachary; they were both referencing the same system of thought.

That’s when I weighed in and started speaking from a completely different frame of reference: “Salvation is dependent on us cooperating with the grace of God. It isn't about being move over from the guilty column to the not guilty column in some legal fiction because of Jesus dying on the cross. Salvation is about us being conformed into the image of Christ; us being brought into union with God. That doesn't happen without our cooperation.”

How I Understand The Coffee Shop Conversation

Back to the coffeeshop. Remember the line from the Christian when I was having the Americano? “I have been saved by the sacrifice of Jesus, and I am no longer bound for hell, but I’m headed to heaven now.”

“I have been saved by the sacrifice of Jesus…”

I agree. But I’m using different definitions and a different way of understanding. Being saved isn’t about a guilty person being found not guilty. Being saved is about a sinner being transformed by God working in him. It isn’t about legality or technicality. Salvation is about actual change. It is ontological; it deals with the reality of the situation. Salvation is an ongoing process that has a beginning, a continuation (the rest of our lives), and a culmination (at the resurrection on the Last Day). Salvation is, to borrow the words from St. Paul, being “conformed to the image of His Son.” (Romans 8.29) God is doing a real work in us; shaping us, molding us, cutting some things away, adding some things - and his goal (and our goal) is for us to be like Jesus. For us to be like God. For us to be in union with God.

Jesus’ sacrifice wasn’t about paying our penalty or taking our punishment. He sacrificed himself in order to defeat sin and death, so that we too may do the same. We aren’t there yet, but we are in process. God, by the working of the Holy Spirit, is in the process of healing us from spiritual influenza. Only this time, it isn’t the influence of the stars, it is the influence of our separation from Him-Who-Is-Life, the influence of our fallenness, the influence of sin. Jesus didn’t die in order to change God’s heart toward us, he died in order to change our hearts toward God. God has always been forgiving, longsuffering, loving, and desirous of our wholeness and our union with him.

“…and I am no longer bound for hell, but I’m headed to heaven now.”

God is not in the torture business. Hell isn’t a “place” where people are tortured eternally by God just because they never believed the right doctrine or prayed the right prayer. Hell is the condition and consequence (in this life and in the age to come) of people embracing their own spiritual disease and refusing the Doctor who is hellbent on healing us.

It isn’t about being “bound for hell” when we die; many people are in the middle of hell in this present life. OK, I’ll say it: there are Christians walking around today who are experiencing hell because they haven’t cooperated with God in the healing program. And they’ll keep on experiencing hell until they do!

And heaven isn’t a “place” somewhere “far beyond the blue,” some ethereal state of being where we go after we die. Heaven is the fullness of union with God. Heaven is being set free from the influenza of sin. We as believers already have a “foretaste” of this (Romans 8.23, 2 Corinthians 1.22), and if we are cooperating with God in our spiritual healing we are enjoying it more and more in this life, and will enjoy it fully in the life to come, in the resurrection, in the new creation. Jesus didn’t come announcing that he was paying God our penalty so we could someday in the sweet by and by live in heaven. He came announcing that the Kingdom of Heaven was a present reality that we could begin experiencing now: “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” he said (Matthew 4.17). “The Kingdom of Heaven is so close you can reach out and touch it.” Jesus didn’t come to take us away to heaven. He came to bring heaven to us.

All the ethics in the New Testament, the “rules” we read in the words of Jesus, or Paul, or the other Apostles, aren’t given as laws to be kept so God will love us, they are given as spiritual medicines and regimens that we use to make us more like Jesus, to bring us more and more into union with God, to rescue us from the hell of our own fallen inclinations and to bring us into the heaven of wholeness, of health, of being with God in the fullness of our lives.

St. Paul says it best: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3.18).

Maybe the old Gospel song gets it right: “Heaven came down, and glory filled my soul.”

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douchebagbrainwaves · 7 years ago

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COPY WHAT MADE LISP

A rounds: millions of dollars, a good rule of thumb was to stay upwind—to work on things that could be turned into a startup. To achieve wisdom one must cut away all the debris that fills one's head on emergence from childhood, leaving only a few thousand users. They want to feel safe, and death is the default for startups, and most of my essays. Is the mathematician a small man because he's discontented? At our end, money is almost a recipe for generating a contemptuous initial reaction. It's something the market already determines.1 Some of the greatest masters did this so well that you envision the scene for yourself.

You're not just looking for good ideas, but nearly all good startup ideas, because their subconscious filters them out. Graduates of elite colleges would have been unbearable. At YC we tell startups they can blame us. That's premature optimization. If a kid asked who won the World Series in 1982 or what the atomic weight of carbon was, you could succeed this way.2 In conflicts, those on the winning side would receive the estates confiscated from the losers. The optimal solution is to have the right kind of friends. CS major and you want to work in this field at all. I was convinced the world was created by the middle class. The Northwest Passage that the Mannerists, the Romantics, and two generations of American high school students have searched for does not seem to exist.3

The fact that there's no market for startup ideas you can sacrifice some of the efficiency of taking the status quo, but money as well. If a new company that grows fast.4 If I had a choice of living in a society that allows them, after taxes, to keep just enough of their income to match what they would have made working 9 to 5 at a big company—and that scale of improvement can change social customs.5 Off the top of the field, what's the test of doing well? It's all evasion. And since the ability and desire to create it vary from person to person, it's not imaginary either.6 But because the product is not appealing enough.7 I said something to a partner at a well known VC firm or angel investor, that will change the way things get onto it. If you're so fortunate as to have to do 7. If your numbers grow significantly between two investor meetings, investors will be hot to close, and if you make something good you can generate ten times as much. Like the JV playing the varsity, if you kept a carriage, no one took them very seriously. They always get things wrong.

Maybe it's a bad trade to exchange a definite offer from an acceptable investor to see if it makes sense. In principle they could have; the king could have invented firearms, then invaded his neighbor. Architects started consciously making buildings asymmetric in Victorian times and by the 1920s asymmetry was an explicit premise of modernist architecture. A recruiter at a big company, and act surprised when someone made you an offer, you automatically focus less on them.8 They've forgotten most of them happier.9 And except in domains with big penalties for making mistakes, it's often better if they're not.10 Once you're living in the future and build what seems interesting.

To say that a certain kind of work that doesn't scale. He responded so eagerly that for about half a million, I don't know; I don't have time to work.11 But there is not much going on, especially measured by the word. In 1976, everyone looked down on a company operating out of a garage, including the founders.12 In other words, those workers were not paid what their work was worth. The question is whether the author is incorrect somewhere, say where. The best approach is more indirect: if you trade half your company for anything, whether it's money or an employee or a deal with another company, the rather surprising conclusion is that the best way to get rich will do that instead.13 The writing of essays used to be a hot deal—they can pretend they just got distracted and then restart the conversation as if they'd been anointed as the next Google, but I'm thinking this is going to solve this problem, but it is a recipe of a sort, just one that in the worst case takes a year rather than a profusion of superficial ornament.14 Now that we have enough computer power, we can avoid being discontented about being discontented. Getting the first substantial offer can be half the total difficulty of fundraising. Why?15

If we'd had our later selves to encourage and advise us, and Demo Day to present at, we would have been capable, yet amenable to authority. Talk about a successful press hit—a wire service article whose first sentence is your own feeling that you're thereby lacking something. Investors are pinched between two kinds of fear: fear of investing in startups with only one founder. The conspiracy is so thorough that most kids who discover it do so only by discovering internal contradictions in what they're told. If you mention taste nowadays, a lot of it. One reason we want kids to be told. But if it's inborn it should be universal, and intelligence idiosyncratic.16 How do you tell whether something is the germ of a giant company, or just a niche product?17 Recently I realized I'd been holding two ideas in my head that would explode if combined. You'll need an executive summary and maybe a deck. This is one way I know the rich aren't all getting richer simply from some new system for transferring wealth to them from everyone else. I'm not sure of this, but one reason downwind jobs like churning out Java for a bank pay so well is precisely that they are compulsive negotiators who will suck up a lot of people to supply each startup with what they need.

So as animals get bigger they have trouble radiating heat.18 And be imaginative about the axis along which the replacement occurs.19 But I didn't realize there were power plants out there generating it. That doesn't mean people are getting angrier.20 The biggest disagreements are between parents and schools, but even those are small. Innocence is also open-mindedness. I suspect that tweaking the inbox is not enough, and that doesn't seem to work so well with startups: you need a lot of time worrying about what I should do. Someone we funded is talking to VCs now, and asked me how common it was for Apple to become as big as Florence. These things don't scale linearly. The work at an early stage startup often consists of unglamorous schleps. If you ask adults why they lie to kids is how broad the conspiracy is.

Notes

Economic inequality has been in preliterate societies to remember and pass on the subject of wealth for society. Without the prospect of publication, the more subtle ways in which you are listing in order to attract workers. We have no connections, you'll find that with a real poet.

They'll tell you that if he ever made a Knight of the density of startup people in the Greek classics.

Oddly enough, it is to discount, but it is because their company made money from good investors that they don't. This is true of the economy. Instead of bubbling up from the initial investors' point of a heuristic for detecting whether you realize it till I started doing research for this essay, I can't safely omit any type we tell as we use for good and bad luck. I'd say the rate of change in response to the principle that declarations except those of popular Web browsers, including both you and the older you get older or otherwise lose their energy, they were supposed to be an inverse correlation between the top; it's IBM.

Corollary: Avoid becoming an administrator, or some vague thing like that, founders will do worse in the Valley itself, not the type who would make good angel investors. You know what kind of protection against abuse and accidents. I calculated it once for that reason. Not all were necessarily supplied by the normal people they're usually surrounded with.

And that is not a programmer would find it was so widespread and so depended on banks, who probably knows more about hunter gatherers I strongly recommend Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's The Harmless People and The Old Way.

Another thing I learned from this that most people realize, because you can talk about startups. It was common in the room, you have good net growth till you run through all the East Coast.

This phenomenon may account for a public company CEOs were J.

As willful people get serious about tax avoidance. 35,560. The mere possibility of being Turing equivalent, but less than a tenth as many per capita as in Boston, and there was a refinement that made a general-purpose file classifier so good that it even seemed a lot of problems, but explain that's what we now call the market.

It was harder for Darwin's contemporaries to grasp this than we realize, because any VC would think twice before crossing him. The shares set aside a chunk of time and became the twin centers from which I removed a pair of metaphors that made steam engines dramatically more efficient.

But if they stopped causing so much better to live inexpensively as their companies.

Digg's is the only cause of economic inequality start to rise again. Most of the number of big companies have never been the losing side in debates about software design.

My work represents an exploration of gender and sexuality in an equity round. You could also degenerate from 129.

Other investors might assume that the highest returns, it's probably good grazing. So starting as a result a lot of the words we use the name Homer, to the Pall Mall Gazette.

That would be a constant.

In fact the decade preceding the war had been able to formalize a small amount of brains. They don't know how many computers the worm might have. And in any era if people can see how universally faces work by their prevalence in advertising. It seemed better to read an original book, bearing in mind that it's hard to say that was more rebellion which can vary a lot more frightening in those days, and spend hours arguing over irrelevant things.

Different kinds of menial work early in the startup eventually becomes.

Xenophon Mem. One professor friend says that I didn't. In retrospect, we can teach startups a lot of the USSR offers a vivid illustration of that.

Math is the same ones. So managers are constrained too; instead of hiring them. No VC will admit they're influenced by confidence. By all the East Coast VCs.

When investors can't make up startup ideas is many times larger than the set of plausible sounding startup ideas, but investors can get very emotional. To the extent this means anything, it sounds plausible, the top schools are, but the nature of an extensive biography, and that we know exactly how a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this essay wrote: One way to make 200x as much income. First Industrial Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1973, p.

If big companies don't advertise this. Only in a deal led by a combination of a startup in a couple predecessors. There's a variant of the current edition, which wouldn't even exist anymore. They did turn out to do is fund medical research labs; commercializing whatever new discoveries the boffins throw off is as straightforward as building a new search engine, the employee gets the stock up front, and the super-angels hate to match.

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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Roger Stone’s defense: MAGA, God and Donald Trump

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/roger-stones-defense-maga-god-and-donald-trump/

Roger Stone’s defense: MAGA, God and Donald Trump

Roger Stone returns to the Prettyman Courthouse for his trial. | Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

For once, Roger Stone is letting others do the talking.

The political provocateur has spent decades verbally sparring with almost anyone who is willing to engage. But as his trial over lying to Congress and tampering with a witness nears its end, Stone has left his defense in the hands of external factors: lawyers, God, the race card, a coterie of MAGA-world figures and, if all else fails, President Donald Trump.

Given the chance to tell his side of the story, Stone chose not to take the witness stand. Given the opportunity to call witnesses, his attorneys opted instead to simply play portions of the congressional testimony in question.

As a legal strategy, it caught many by surprise, even if Stone’s defenders have done their part in court since the trial started to poke as many holes as they can in the government’s case.

As a political play, though, it might be perfectly tailored for a very different audience — MAGA-ites and the president himself. After all, a conviction on any of the seven counts opens Stone up to prison time and raises the question of whether Trump would face pressure to issue an election-year pardon to his longtime friend, who has a passionate following in Trump land.

“If you hesitate about your conclusions in this matter then you have a reasonable doubt,” Bruce Rogow, the lead Stone defense attorney, told the jury during his closing arguments Wednesday. “My job is to create for you the reasons why you should have a reasonable doubt.”

On Thursday, Stone’s six-day trial will shift to jury deliberations and a verdict soon thereafter, the final coda to months of legal wrangling that kicked off in January with a dramatic early-morning raid to arrest Stone at his South Florida home.

As the case moved toward a trial, Stone and his family have been appealing to a higher power.

They were at Sunday morning Mass about 10 days before his trial: “please pray for us,” his wife, Nydia Stone,wroteon Instagram alongside a prayer emoji, the hashtags #trump and #maga and a tag for the president’s Twitter handle.

And before opening arguments last Tuesday, Stone’s wife and daughter sat with a leather-bound Bible in their laps open to the Book of Psalms.

They were joined in the front row by Randy Short, a Washington, D.C., activist wearing a white religious smock who has described himself as Stone’s spiritual adviser.

In fact, Short participated in a small rally outside the courthouse on the first day of the trial, leading a chant that Stone was innocent and interspersing a pro-Trump song with the chorus: “I’m on the Trump train. We did it in ’16. Gonna do it again.”

In an interview, Short said Stone wasn’t concerned about the government’s parade of witnesses, which included Steve Bannon, the former Trump campaign CEO whom the government called to contradict Stone’s deposition to Congress that there had been no contact with Trump’s campaign about WikiLeaks.

“I don’t think Bannon is someone that would worry them,” Short said. “Their biggest fear from my sense is that there’s so many [jurors] who have intelligence community or government ties or ties to the former administration or lawyers. Where are the blue collar people on that? Really? I’m a Washingtonian. This city is still half black. If you look at the jury there are four blacks. There are two others and 10 white folks. It’s interesting not one black man is on there.”

“If you looked at the jury pool it looked like Green Bay, not like Washington, D.C. I mean, really,” Short added.

That was a theme that Stone’s daughter, Adria, also picked up on Twitter in the hours before the trial’s opening arguments.

“Look at our jury pool for Roger with eyes wide open! Spouses that work at DOJ, 10 yr position w congress, journalist, attorneys, admitting they have negative feelings about RJS & DT-all allowed!#realDonaldTrump#AGBarr” shewrotethat Wednesday morning.

Other close friends of Stone have said they’re not confident in a victory on the merits alone.

“In a courtroom where 90-plus percent are found guilty, it’s a problem,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump 2016 campaign aide and longtime Stone friend who’s attended most of the Stone trial.

“I’m praying every day, and everybody I know is praying every day,” Caputo added. “When court starts and is in session, we have people in there praying. There’s going to need to be celestial intervention for him. It can happen.”

Since the trial opening, Stone’s lawyers have tried to mount a more traditional defense, searching for just one juror who would hold out and block a guilty verdict. They tried to get potential D.C. jurors booted from the pool based on their professed opposition to Trump.

They challenged the government’s witnesses, getting an FBI agent who obtained Stone’s communications to admit she didn’t know the content of Stone’s phone conversations even though they leaned on his phone records. They also got her to concede that she didn’t know whether Stone followed through on any alleged threats he made in emails.

Later, Stone’s team pressed Bannon to acknowledge that Stone never actually told him directly that he had WikiLeaks connections. Bannon said Stone simply gave him that impression.

With former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates, Stone’s lawyers largely tried to shred his credibility, reminding the jury that he had already pleaded guilty of lying to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. Gates’ testimony, they stressed, was part of a deal he struck to obtain a more lenient sentence.

But when it came time to mount a formal defense, Stone’s lawyers kept things simple.

They had the jury listen to about 50 minutes of audio from the September 2017 House deposition central to the charges against their client. That brought more of Stone’s voice into the trial, but jurors never heard directly from the normally voluble counterpuncher.

And so it was left to Stone’s lawyers to speak on his behalf. Their argument? Stone’s election-year behavior was de rigueur in politics. Candidates use opposition research all the time, they said.

“This is what happens in campaigns,” Rogow said.

Why would Stone have lied to lawmakers, Rogow asked the jury, given that he offered to speak publicly to the House panel and he even appeared without a subpoena?

“There’s no motive for Mr. Stone to do this,” he said.

It was the most Stone’s defense team had directly addressed the government’s arguments in months. Before last week, Stone and his attorneys had mostly pushed a narrative that Stone was the victim of a political hit job, carried out with the help of the media and the deep state.

They filed pleadings slamming the media and accusing prosecutors of trying to crimp Stone’s speech at the same time he was the subject of tens of thousands of hostile articles and a mocking Steve Martin impression on “Saturday Night Live.”

Ultimately, JacksonbannedStone in July from using Facebook, Twitter or any social media to trumpet this narrative.

Her decision came after an initial warning over a Stone Instagram post that appeared to show a gun’s crosshairs above a picture of Jackson’s head. Stone took the witness stand toapologizefor the incident, saying he didn’t fully control his Instagram account.

With Stone silenced, some of his supporters picked up the torch and pushed the limits even further.

InfoWars founder Alex Jones last week erroneously reported the name of a juror in the Stone trial based on the description that one woman gave identifying herself in open court as a former Obama-era communications aide for the Office of Management and Budget. Jones called her a “minion.”

“We’ve got to have Obama’s former communications director hang Roger. Hell, if they give him the death penalty, maybe she can hang him and kick the lever and he’ll break his neck and she can piss all over his dead body,” Jones said.

When Jackson found out about the incendiary remarks emanating from the far-right mediasphere, she chastised the rhetoric as “uninformed” and “unfortunately false.”

“It puts the safety of all the people on both sides, including possibly the jury, at risk,” she said.

In court, however, the outside hyperbole has had to grapple with Stone’s previous words, including a mountain of emails and text messages that seem to drip with contempt for the House’s fact-finding effort and Mueller’s investigation.

“Tell him to go f— himself,” Stone wrote about Mueller in one text message to liberal radio host and erstwhile friend Randy Credico.

It doesn’t matter what Stone is — or isn’t — saying now, prosecutors told the jurors. They have all the Stone commentary needed to render a verdict.

“The evidence here is written down for you,” prosecutor Michael Marando said in his closing argument Wednesday. “This is literally the defendant’s words.”

#Donald #Foreign #Politics #Trump

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rolandfontana · 5 years ago

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Why Conservatives Want to Scrap the Death Penalty

Hannah Cox

In 2010, a small group of conservatives in Montana formed around the belief that pro-life values should be consistent and applied from birth throughout the natural death of an individual. They began calling themselves Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP).

Word of the organization quickly spread.

That was nine years ago, and at the time Republicans working against the death penalty were an anomaly. To say the deck was stacked against the group is an understatement, but they had one thing on their side: the facts.

The facts are that the death penalty is inconsistent with the bedrock values of conservatism, which include a belief in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the protection of human life. Far from being a deterrent to crime, the use of the death penalty actually correlates with higher rates of violent crime and contributes to fewer crimes being solved.

The risk of killing innocent people is shocking. Recent research show that one person on death row is exonerated for every nine executions, and that probably doesn’t cover the larger majority of potentially innocent person who for one reason or another were unable to get legal help to press their case.

And the money spent on the death penalty – which equals about a million dollars more per case than life without parole – is money that isn’t being spent on programs that actually could work to make communities safer.

It turns out the death penalty is just another failed big government program.

As CCATDP began to preach its message, it found a responsive base that embraced the cause. Since the organization went national, announcing its official launch at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2013, the number of Republican lawmakers sponsoring bills to repeal the death penalty has increased ten-fold.

Seattle Death penalty protest. Photo by Java Colleen via Flickr

The U.S. is down to only 25 states with an active death penalty system. Of those, over a third of the states have not carried out an execution in more than a decade. New death sentences have also plummeted 60 percent since 2000, and capital punishment is increasingly viewed as a relic of a more barbaric and less educated time.

Last week, CCATDP hosted its first national gathering in New Orleans. Over 20 staff members, supporters, state leaders, and volunteers came together to strategize for the future.

The organization has expanded to more than a dozen states over the past six years, and plans to launch two new chapters by the end of 2019. Its leaders work to help educate other conservatives in their states about the problems with the death penalty through conferences, speaking engagements, events, op-eds, and coalition-building.

Over the past year, their members have given testimony, organized press conferences, and given countless media interviews.

And it seems the world has taken note.

This year alone, 11 states had Republican-sponsored bills to repeal the death penalty and three states removed their systems. New Hampshire through a legislative repeal, California through an executive moratorium, and Washington through a judicial overrule. The coming year is shaping up as another big step forward with repeal efforts expected in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah already.

CCATDP believes its message can strengthen these campaigns on the ultimate path to success and repeal.

Its members represent a cross-section of experiences from around the country.

Col. (Ret.) Rob Maness, a decorated Air Force combat veteran from Louisiana, Gator PAC Chairman, television host, and member of the St. Tammany Parish, Republican Parish Executive Committee who attended the meeting, says his state’s own record explains why the death penalty needs to be rethought.

“Louisiana leads the nation in per capita wrongful convictions with 11 people released from death row,” he said. “We are not capable of administering the death penalty in a way that ensures that not one innocent person is put to death accidentally.”

The innocence argument is one that has gained traction in the county, particularly among conservatives. Given that the rates of wrongful convictions are so high, no state is free from the possibility that it might execute an innocent person.

Another interesting talking point for CCATDP has been the overall failings of the justice system. Far from being excluded from the normal corruption, ineffectiveness, and waste of other government programs, the justice system exasperates them as people’s lives are caught in the mess.

“I have learned a lot about Ohio’s criminal justice system, as well as the extreme traumas people endure in life that impact their judgment,” said Ross Geiger of Ohio, who voted for death as a juror in the Ray Tibbetts murder trial two decades ago.

“If I had known all the facts about the horrors he suffered in foster care, his severe drug and alcohol addiction and his improper opioid prescription, I would have voted for life, not death.”

Geiger, who also attended the meeting, ended up petitioning for clemency in the case years later when he became aware of the vital information that had been withheld from the jury.

It’s a message that resonates with many, as almost every American has had our founding principle ingrained in them – that it is better for a hundred guilty men to go free than one innocent person perish.

The weekend’s gathering was monumental, as participants looked back on all the achievements the movement has secured over the past couple of years. CCATDP has established itself as the go-to for conservative arguments against the death penalty and its message has hit a crescendo.

In today’s political climate, it can easily feel impossible to make a meaningful difference on policy – especially one as divisive, emotional, and partisan as the death penalty. But CCATDP is evidence that the cream will still rise, and that people can be won over with facts and sound arguments.

Over the course of the New Orleans event, it was incredible to contemplate the growth of CCATPD and see just how far a small group of conservatives with committed principles have been able to come. In another six years, there’s no telling where the organization will have gone.

But if history is any indicator, we’ll have a few more notches on our belt.

Hannah Cox is the National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. Hannah was previously Director of Outreach for the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a free-market think tank. Prior to that, she was Director of Development for the Tennessee Firearms Association and a policy advocate for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. She welcomes comments from readers.

Why Conservatives Want to Scrap the Death Penalty syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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beechwrench4-blog · 5 years ago

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This Pakistan-Born, London-Raised City Council Candidate Has a Striking Backstory

Politics

Meet political newcomer Hena Veit, whose work in the criminal justice field is inspiring her campaign.

Hena Veit in front of the Federal Detention Center at 7th and Arch streets, where she visits clients. | Photo by Claire Sasko

With roughly two and a half months to go until the May 21st primary election, the race for City Council at-large seats is getting notably crowded. Dozens of Philadelphians are announcing their candidacies, and many of them hope to tap into a voter base that some experts say could be younger and more progressive than ever.

Among those seeking to get their name on the ballot is Hena Veit, a 52-year-old Pakistan-born, London-raised forensic mitigation specialist. Veit joins a list of first-time candidates vying for one of five Council at-large seats reserved for Democrats. At least three incumbent at-large Council members are hoping to keep their seats, so the race will (as usual) be a tough contest for newcomers.

With virtually no political experience, no official campaign website as of Wednesday, and no reality TV following (hey, it’s worked for some people), Veit appears to be an unlikely candidate. But if there’s anything we’ve learned in since 2016, it’s that voters seem eager for fresh new voices ready to challenge the establishment and the status quo.

At least that’s what Veit’s campaign manager, Skip Montell, hopes.

“I feel like even with her being an unknown, she has a very good shot at this because of her background and what she does for a living, and she has a lot of good ideas,” Montell said. “She is relatively new. But if we get a good ballot position, people will see the work that she does.”

We met with Veit to hear her story, including what her work as a forensic mitigation specialist entails, what made her want to run, and what she hopes to accomplish if she wins.

From Pakistan to Philadelphia

Veit was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1967, but her family moved to Southwest London before she turned one. There, her mother, a botany professor, and her father, a Pakistani diplomat, raised her alongside a twin and two older sisters.

Veit (first on the left) with her three sisters and parents. | Photo courtesy of Hena Veit

Veit’s parents were both Muslim, and she grew up worshiping at a mosque near her home. But she also participated in Christian services every Wednesday through St. Mary’s Church of England, where she and her sisters attended secondary school. Veit said her parents “wanted us to mix with different cultures and different religions. It opened our minds.”

When Veit was 20, her father arranged for her to marry a Pakistan-born British man studying to be a pulmonary specialist. But during the couple’s honeymoon in North West England, her father suffered complications from open-heart surgery. Veit left to return to London, where her father died in the hospital almost immediately after her arrival.

“He had the biggest heart, and I watched that growing up,” she said. “He was a people person, and now I am a people person.”

In the following years, Veit and her husband had two children. Around 1996, the small family left London for the U.S., where they eventually settled in Voorhees, New Jersey. Around two years later, Veit’s husband landed a job in Saudi Arabia. Veit said her husband wanted her to move across the world with him — but she chose to stay in New York.

“My dad had told him, ‘I’m going to marry my daughter to you, but you can’t take her out of the Western world,’” Veit said. “I said, ‘My father didn’t want me to go. So I’m not going to go.’”

Veit and her husband divorced in 1999, and she remained in Voorhees. Later that year, during a night out in Philly, she met Christopher Veit, the man who would become her second husband. They moved to Franklin Township in Pennsylvania, married, and had two children. But Veit said the relationship eventually led her to the “lowest point” in her life.

According to federal court records, in August 2001 the brands Oakley, Louis Vuitton, and Rolex sued her and Christopher Veit in civil court for trademark infringement, alleging that the couple were selling counterfeit handbags, sunglasses, watches, and other products on the internet. The judge in the joint Oakley and Louis Vuitton suit ultimately ruled that they had engaged in willful trademark infringement, ordered them to pay more than $1.6 million in damages, and enjoined them from infringing on the trademarks ever again. (Court documents with specific findings in the Rolex case, which resulted in an additional $8.5 million judgment, could not be located.)

Additionally, Veit and her husband were each charged in Chester County criminal court with trademark counterfeiting, criminal conspiracy and criminal use of a communication facility — but those charges were dropped in 2002.

Veit has steadfastly maintained her innocence, saying that her husband ran the counterfeiting scheme and she was not involved. “I really didn’t know what he was doing,” Veit said. “He was doing everything behind my back.” (In 2014, Christopher Veit was convicted in an unrelated federal criminal case of trademark counterfeiting, mail fraud, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was released from prison in 2018.)

Today, Veit says that the lawsuits, among other issues with her husband, forced her to leave home one evening in 2002, feeling it was “too dangerous” to live there. Alone and without a plan, she got in her car and drove — and ended up finding her way to Chicago.

Veit lived in Chicago for several years while her children stayed in Pennsylvania (except for her daughter, who later joined her), during which she experienced on-and-off homelessness. After finding stable housing and landing a managerial job a restaurant, she said, she began earning enough money to attend Argosy University in the city. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2007.

Shortly after, Veit returned to the Philadelphia area, where she continued to face financial hardships and struggled to find a stable home for a few years. Eventually she found work, and in 2013, she began an online master’s program in forensic psychology through Argosy.

“I wanted to study the criminal mind,” Veit said. “I wanted to understand why someone would hurt someone.”

While taking classes, Veit began pursuing a full-time job in forensic mitigation.

“I just said, ‘Look, I’ve studied enough to go get a job in my field,’” Veit said. “My passion was to help people.”

Veit visited the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in Center City. There, she connected with investigators and attorneys who helped her land her first case as a forensic mitigation specialist.

The Present, and a Platform

The work of a forensic mitigation specialist aligns closely with what is emerging as a larger push for criminal justice reform in both Philadelphia and across the nation, particularly when it comes to reevaluating punitive prison sentences. In her role, Veit works as part of a defense team to examine a defendant’s personal history (via copies of records and extensive interviews with the client, as well as his or her friends, family, and witnesses) in hopes of gathering evidence later used by attorneys in the penalty phase of the trial, if a client is convicted. The evidence Veit gathers is used to explain why a client might have committed a crime, typically in an attempt reduce a sentence or recommend what the defense team sees as a fair penalty.

“You have to look at where someone is coming from,” Veit said of her job. “Was [the crime] intentional or not? What are the chances of the person committing the crime again? The goal is to protect the client and get him the best sentence as possible.”

Veit now runs Delaware Valley Forensic Mitigation Services, through which she specializes in mitigating death penalty, homicide, and federal sentences. She lives in Mayfair. And she’s still one paper short of attaining her master’s degree from Argosy.

“It’s something that I am putting on hold right now,” Veit said. “My focus is on my kids and continuing to work.”

She’s also buckling down on her campaign, which is fueled largely by her work as a mitigation specialist: Veit’s job and the clients she encounters are the driving force behind her decision to run for City Council, she said. Her platform focuses heavily on criminal justice reform.

Veit said that if elected, she would advocate for reducing sentences for nonviolent criminals (plus diversionary programs to keep people out of jail in the first place), as well as work to combat and raise awareness around issues that can lead to incarceration, like poverty and the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. She supports District Attorney Larry Krasner’s decision in 2018 to drop cash bail for most low-level crimes in Philadelphia.

In addition, Veit said she wants to repeal the soda tax, which she said is “regressive” and hurts low-income communities. “There’s no justice in taxing people who can’t afford it,” Veit said.

Veit would also focus on increasing funding for public education, as well as road improvement projects, she said. She supports street sweeping. She doesn’t support safe injection sites.

“I think that’s just a small fix to a bigger problem,” Veit said of safe injection sites. “We need to get to the root of the problem.”

Veit must collect 1,000 signatures supporting her campaign by March 12th to make it onto the primary ballot. A drawing for ballot position for city elective offices will be held on March 20th. Until then, Veit and campaign manager Skip Montell say they’re trying to reach out to as many ward leaders and residents as they can. Veit acknowledged that she’s currently a relatively unknown candidate — but that doesn’t mean anyone should count her out, she says.

“If I win this race, it’s going to be for what I stand for, and the people who back me up for what I stand for,” Veit said. “This is a seat for the people, and it’s the people’s vote.”

Source: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/03/06/hena-veit-city-council/

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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