As far as reporting suspicions, sometimes you just have to take a chance at being embarrassed, or being called some sort of “ist”.
I was sitting on a flight a couple of weeks ago (incidentally, while on cc), and I noticed a bunch of loose wires under my seat. Never seen that before, no idea what it could be connected to. Kind of embarrassed, because I’m an airline captain, shouldn’t I know this? But it was just weird. Asked the guy sitting next to me if he knew what it was. Nope. Asked the flight attendant. Nope. The captain came back. He didn’t say it, but he obviously had no clue either. Called the mechanic, who initially wasn’t sure, and then he realized it was one of those old 757’s that had removed the footrests, and the wires are usually covered by a piece of plastic, so he wrapped it up, shoved it back in, and we were off.
The obvious thing is, everyone is fearful it’s a bomb, but nobody wants to suggest it. But what’s really the harm in telling someone in charge, and having them do their job to follow it up?
Edit to add, I guess I know what the harm is. You could be like the teacher of the clock making kid, and have people accusing you of being a racist and an idiot, because you called in the principal to look at something you were uncomfortable with.
Not long ago, really not long ago, the KKK attempted to recruit my brother, who is part of a multi-racial family. The KKK really is still a thing. Who knew?
You could also get someone in trouble for something that you really didn’t want to get them in trouble for.
For example, a person who has a lot of visitors and receives a lot of packages might be running a home-based business in violation of the zoning laws. Would you really want to get your neighbor in trouble for something like that?
Or the harm could be that you were the tenth person to report a dangerous brown-skinned Girl Scout leader suspiciously distributing terrorist cookies.
To be sure, you should report dangerous-seeming activity. But its dangerousness should not be because of the color of the people doing the activity. If it wouldn’t be suspicious if a white person were doing it, it’s also not suspicious if a brown person is doing it.
Yeah, but if it is your neighbor and YOUR kids live next door, why would you not say anything?
There is a well-publicized See something, Say something campaign in the US, well at least in my area near NYC.
This also reminds me of people who live near me and let their 4 year old run around the streets unsupervised. Many times I thought of calling, and I hoped daily that the poor thing lived to see his 6th birthday. I didn’t call, he didn’t get hit by a car. And I think about the hassle if I did call, and made an official report.
Contrary to many people I know, including my own family, who did have child services called on them for stupid reasons. It took months for them to send an “all clear, suspicions unfounded” report and in the mean time we had to report that we were being investigated to our companies due to their policies.
If this Army of God commits murder, they are apart from Christ. They shame themselves, Christ, and the term “Christian”.
A label is only true if the person to whom it is applied (or who applies it to himself…) actually acts and believes (or is…) according to the definition of that label.
Just because a person calls himself something, does not make it so.
Just because others refer to him as something, doesn’t mean they are right.
You know, I hate to say it, but I believe it to be true. Sometimes there’s nothing that can be done to prevent an atrocity. I think this is one of those times. These people were determined and obviously had cash and resources. I know that there have been more than a dozen serious threats broken up here in NYC, so it’s really just a matter of where, when and how. It’s scary and disheartening, but some attacks will happen and God bless our police and intelligences services for the jobs that they do. For the 99 things they prevent, the 100th that they don’t probably haunts them forever.
prezbucky, a number of people on this board, including yourself and zoosermom and many others, have said that they are Christians. And people in my own family say they are Christians. And I have been calling posters on this board, and members of my own family, Christians, without hesitation, as a neutral term indicating the religious group they belong to. But according to you, I can’t call those people Christians because I don’t know what is in their heart.
So then what is the terminology I am supposed to use for people who say they believe in one God, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the reality of the resurrection, the Trinity, and the other things that people who say they are Christians say they believe? I’ve been using “Christian,” but apparently I can no longer use that term. What word am I supposed to use instead, and what is the point of the word “Christians” if people can’t use it?
CardinalFang is right. People get to define themselves. Sometimes that’s confusing to others. For example, I am a conservative, but I worked for marriage equality for decades. There were people here at CC who thought I was lying about one or both of those things until they got to know me. But I think if a person defines himself as a Christian and commits acts of violence or terror against others in pursuing what he believes to be his religious commitment, then I think we’ve got to go with calling him a Christian terrorist. Look, I don’t like calling everyone who commits an act of violence a Christian terrorist by default, but we have to be serious and say that some people do terrible things for that reason. It’s not like we’re talking about calling someone’s baby a toddler terrorist. Lots of bad things have been done in the name of Christ across the world and across the centuries. Let’s not minimize the experience of the victims.
"BTW,I agree with the headline in the NY Daily News, it shows a bunch of tweets from pro gun politicians talking about praying for the family and victims of this attack, and the headline is “God Can’t Fix This”.
"So who or what can?
Any suggestions from anyone?"
The real problem is to make suggestions you need data to be able to make a decision on what to do. Right now, for example, the CDC is forbidden from studying the causes of gun violence to even be able to come up with rational solutions. One thing I do know, freely flowing guns is not making the problem any better, the guns used in this crime were purchased legally, maybe rationalizing what kind of guns are acceptable for civilian purchase could be a starting point, as well as cutting down the flow of legally purchased guns into the black market. In this case, if guns with rapid fire capability and extended magazines were not legal, likely the outcome here might have been a bit different, handguns don’t kill as effectively as an AR15.
zoosermom, to return to something you said a few pages ago, Robert Dear lived in Hartsel, Colorado. As it happens, I was in Hartsel a few months ago, and made calls on my cell phone, so I know there’s cell service there. Spotty service, but service. He could have gotten access to the Internet over a cell phone. Or he could have had satellite Internet, if he had a generator.
Czolgolz was not necessarily a lone loonie, he assasinated McKinley and was part of a movement known as the Anarchists, and it was part of a string of assasinations all over the world, a decade or so after McKinley the king of Italy was assasinated, the plot was fomented among a group of Italian anarchists in good old Paterson, NJ…so it was ideologically driven. Nothing is new under the son, religion is one of many things that create a kind of tribalism where it is okay to kill others based on your beliefs, whether it is anarchism, your country, your soccer team, all have been used. Religion is particularly strong an identity, and as such has a lot of power to get people to do horrible things (think of the crusades, or the holocaust, for prime example of what evil religion potentially can wrough; the same passion that can generate incredible acts of charity and love can generate hate, they are the opposite sides of the same coin.