{"id":40029,"date":"2014-11-24T13:00:59","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=40029"},"modified":"2020-07-14T13:02:04","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T17:02:04","slug":"this-is-our-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=40029","title":{"rendered":"This is our country"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-40030 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/seasonsgreetings-480x276-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"276\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/seasonsgreetings-480x276-1.jpg 480w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/seasonsgreetings-480x276-1-300x173.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Embarrassing, isn\u2019t it? Normally, I\u2019ll feign ambivalence to the unfortunate news of the world, but given the fact that this story is literally, quite unavoidable, enough thoughts have swirled around in my head to where I felt like writing something.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019ll keep it short (as I can), because it\u2019s not like there\u2019s going to be any shortage of opinions on this matter, and mine certainly isn\u2019t going to make or break anyone\u2019s line of thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019m not qualified to say on whether or not I feel that it\u2019s good or bad that the officer in question has apparently gotten off the hook without any sort of punishment, because I simply have not paid any attention. However, I do think that it\u2019s completely unfortunate that the response of such a decision from the predominantly black community of Ferguson, Missouri has been that of a massive eruption of violence, vandalism, looting and general destruction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2014\/11\/25\/justice\/ferguson-grand-jury-decision\/index.html?hpt=hp_t1\">this CNN article<\/a>, two things in particular stood out to me:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\"><em>The violence is exactly the reaction that Michael Brown&#8217;s father pleaded against. Before the grand jury decision was announced Monday night, he implored protesters to stay peaceful no matter what the grand jury decided.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\"><em>&#8220;Hurting others or destroying property is not the answer,&#8221; Michael Brown Sr. said. &#8220;No matter what the grand jury decides, I do not want my son&#8217;s death to be in vain. I want it to lead to incredible change, positive change. Change that makes the St. Louis region better for everyone.&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">The father of the slain victim, one of the few people that actually lost someone, that was duly affected by the actions of the subject matter of the trial, pleads for peace, regardless of what the decision of the court would be. I\u2019d hope that if there was absolutely <em>one person<\/em> for the sheep to listen to, it would be the father of the deceased.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">But of course, that didn\u2019t happen, and the rest was history. Including:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\"><em>Looters broke into a beauty supply store and stole hair weaves and wigs, leaving the heads of mannequins strewn in the middle of the street.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\"><em>And in nearby Dellwood, some people torched a row of cars at a car dealership and set several businesses on fire.<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">So, a bunch of people were unhappy with the jury decision of a trial that didn\u2019t really affect them, personally, so their reaction to display their disagreement is to go on a massive crime spree, burning cars, smashing windows, and stealing things for their own personal gain?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Riiiiiiiight. Real injustice being fought there with such cerebral tactics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">There\u2019s really nothing much more that I want to say in regards to this. It\u2019s unfortunate that a whole bunch of black people feel wronged, and I can understand the skepticism of racism that a white police officer is seemingly get away with killing a black teenager scot free. But at the same time, erupting as a community in a massive crime spree <em>isn\u2019t exactly<\/em> the best form of protest or best method to draw up sympathy and future support, either.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/kermit_ferg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-40031\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/kermit_ferg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"553\" height=\"311\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/kermit_ferg.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/kermit_ferg-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/kermit_ferg-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/kermit_ferg-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/kermit_ferg-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 553px) 100vw, 553px\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embarrassing, isn\u2019t it? Normally, I\u2019ll feign ambivalence to the unfortunate news of the world, but given the fact that this story is literally, quite unavoidable, enough thoughts have swirled around in my head to where I felt like writing something. I\u2019ll keep it short (as I can), because it\u2019s not like there\u2019s going to be &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=40029\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">This is our country<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[176,112,45,15],"class_list":["post-40029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-murica","tag-crime","tag-fail","tag-og"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40032,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40029\/revisions\/40032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}