Basically the democratic chair resigned after a GOP member thought he would not be unbiased in the investigation and raised a complaint. The GOP now wants the governor to appoint a new member to the ethics board. If the constitutional amendment had passed in November, the GOP would be appointing the next chair instead of democratic governor Cooper (part of the GOP controlled legislature's plan in taking power away from the governor regarding the Ethics Board). Concerning that amendment I mentioned, it almost looks like the GOP here were doing their darn'est to prepare for this fraud investigation.
Ugh. A Christian group wants the Sentinalese islanders arrested and brought to trial for filling John Chau, who was on their island illegally and was killed by the natives.
Christian Group Wants Native Tribe “Brought to Justice” for Death of Missionary
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2018/11/christian-group-wants-native-tribe-brought-to-justice-for-death-of-missionary/ He was on the island illegally. It's illegal to go there because the islanders kill *all* outsiders. The law is there to protect people, and the islanders, who can die from the introduction of diseases they have no resistance to. They even speak their own language. He took his own life in his hands by going there, and now this group wants the islanders to be arrested and tried because this missionary broke the law. Stupidity is against the law of the universe, and is punishable by death. John Chau found this out too late.
"Stupidity" is not a crime. Murder is a crime.
I'm going to have to side with International Christian Concern on this one, and to be honest, I cannot fathom how anyone could not. I cannot understand why so much criticism is being focused on the mistakes of a murder victim rather than the people who killed him. If we blame Chau for his own death, we must also blame Khashoggi for his own torture and dismemberment, and we must blame every rape victim for "provoking" their attacker. I do not accept this warped view of ethics--victim blaming is unacceptable no matter who the victim is.
The punishment for trespassing is not the death penalty; you don't get to kill people just because they walk on your lawn. If trespassing on this land is illegal because the typical response is murder, the root problem with this situation is the habit of murder; not the trespassing. Murdering foreigners on sight out of sheer xenophobia is not acceptable behavior, and we should not give the islanders a pass just because the murder victim was a white Christian man and the murderers were uncontacted tribes.
The full responsibility for this man's death lies upon the people who literally nocked arrows and murdered this man in cold blood.
You cannot apply western society rules to everything.
Murder is not a crime in the Sentilese society, or if it is, trespassing carries a death sentence. That is the rules of their society.
Being aware of this, the Indian government applies its own laws to prevent people from falling victim to that, laws that were blatantly ignored by numerous people.
Turkey, and I believe Saudi Arabia have laws against murder. Khashoggi has a legitimate reason to go the embassy, in fact, he had to go to that embassy to follow a law.
Chau’s reasons was more of a forceful “follow these commmandments laws that I bring you” and inappropriate. They are nothing similar.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been sworn in as President of Mexico. He is calling for his country's Parliament to restructure the military police and Federales into a new national guard service in an attempt to try and root out corruption in law enforcement, as well as stating that he wishes to sign agreements with his southern neighbors Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador to engage in regional development to prevent more large migrant caravans, many of whom eventually settle in Mexico. He is also calling for a referendum in two years so that the people may vote to decide whether he should stay in office for the rest of his term--now *that* is a politician putting power back into the hands of the people. It is uncertain how his Administration will get along with Trump's Administration.
Ugh. A Christian group wants the Sentinalese islanders arrested and brought to trial for filling John Chau, who was on their island illegally and was killed by the natives.
Christian Group Wants Native Tribe “Brought to Justice” for Death of Missionary
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2018/11/christian-group-wants-native-tribe-brought-to-justice-for-death-of-missionary/ He was on the island illegally. It's illegal to go there because the islanders kill *all* outsiders. The law is there to protect people, and the islanders, who can die from the introduction of diseases they have no resistance to. They even speak their own language. He took his own life in his hands by going there, and now this group wants the islanders to be arrested and tried because this missionary broke the law. Stupidity is against the law of the universe, and is punishable by death. John Chau found this out too late.
"Stupidity" is not a crime. Murder is a crime.
I'm going to have to side with International Christian Concern on this one, and to be honest, I cannot fathom how anyone could not. I cannot understand why so much criticism is being focused on the mistakes of a murder victim rather than the people who killed him. If we blame Chau for his own death, we must also blame Khashoggi for his own torture and dismemberment, and we must blame every rape victim for "provoking" their attacker. I do not accept this warped view of ethics--victim blaming is unacceptable no matter who the victim is.
The punishment for trespassing is not the death penalty; you don't get to kill people just because they walk on your lawn. If trespassing on this land is illegal because the typical response is murder, the root problem with this situation is the habit of murder; not the trespassing. Murdering foreigners on sight out of sheer xenophobia is not acceptable behavior, and we should not give the islanders a pass just because the murder victim was a white Christian man and the murderers were uncontacted tribes.
The full responsibility for this man's death lies upon the people who literally nocked arrows and murdered this man in cold blood.
You cannot apply western society rules to everything.
Murder is not a crime in the Sentilese society, or if it is, trespassing carries a death sentence. That is the rules of their society.
And in Saudi Arabia, being raped can get you stoned to death. In a few places in Africa, mutilating little girls' genitals is considered tradition. 150 years ago in my own country, you could purchase a human being and literally flog them to death with zero consequences as long as you were white and he was black. All of that was perfectly legal within those societies--and yet, we do not consider ritual stoning for rape victims to be just; we do not consider FGM to be civilized; we do not view slavery as a morally sound institution.
No one in this thread would defend these practices, nor would anyone in this thread accept "that is the rules of their society" to be a legitimate defense for stoning, FGM, or slavery. This is because we recognize that there is a difference between what is legal and what is moral--and because we realize that the former must be based on the latter; not the other way around. For the same reasons, we can't accept "cultural differences" as a legitimate justification for the murder of Chau.
The only difference in these cases is that the victim, Chau, is a white man--and I think that's the primary reason why his death is being treated with contempt when I hear the case discussed online. Even one of my own family members mocked Chau until I pointed out that she was making fun of a murder victim.
Just because something is considered normal in a backward, premodern country insulated from the world at large doesn't make these things any more acceptable or any less worthy of criticism. "Murder is unacceptable" is not a "Western society rule"--in fact, it's the most universal moral rule that humankind possesses. Name one rule that's more common among the societies of the world.
A human being was killed, and yet our sympathies lie with his murderers rather than with his family. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this ordering of priorities?
Speaking of his family, apparently they issued a statement of forgiveness for whoever was responsible for his killing, and asking that the people who helped him reach the island not be prosecuted for doing so.
There are two mitigating factors here. The first being is that what he was told and what locals in the area knew about the island and it's inhabitants is crystal clear. If you go to the island, you are going to get killed. This wasn't hyperbole, it was a 100% true warning. It was basically like having a crystal ball. Rape victims don't have someone telling them 12 hours before they go out for the night that there is a 100% certainty they will be sexually assaulted if they go to a certain bar.
The other is what is being described as the reason this tribe kills anyone on sight who arrives, which is that they haven't been exposed to any modern diseases, and their tribe as a whole has no natural immunization to things the rest of the world doesn't even shake a stick at. A person arriving to them is viewed as a biological time-bomb.
Finally, the reason the victim is being excoriated isn't because he is white, but because he is a Christian. And one who believed spreading the word of faith was 1.) more important than his life and 2.) more important than the wishes and health of the island's inhabitants. I have no doubt he believed he had good intentions, but he was operating on blind zealotry and faith. I'm sure he figured God would protect him for doing the right thing and spreading his word. He clearly didn't do so. I think alot of people view his trek to the island despite being explicitly told what awaited him there as an example of the arrogance of having this kind of religious faith. I find it hard to view this much differently than the subjects of the movies "Into the Wild" and "Grizzly Man". I'm not saying his killing was justified or not tragic, but it's also hard not to wonder why these 3 people all so willingly walked into the jaws of death and thought they alone would be the exception to it.
@jjstraka34 You don't become a missionary because you think you are invincible. You become a missionary because you think trying to do some good in the world is worth potentially losing your life.
Murder is usually defined as the unlawful killing of a human being without any mitigating circumstances. Would this incident fit that definition? Part of the problem would seem to be that inaction was also dangerous to the islanders, particularly if they don't have sufficient understanding of how diseases are transmitted. We need more information about how the actions of those tribespeople are regarded from the perspective of their own society as well, to understand how to interpret 'unlawful' here.
I very much doubt that the tribe killed him because of their lack of immunity to foreign diseases. I'm going to take a stab in the air and guess that this uncontacted tribe isolated from civilization is not familiar with modern germ theory. We know about that threat because it's part of our well-documented collective history and because we study biology and history in school--we have a direct analogy in the form of the Native American genocide and the prominent role that disease played in it. It's more likely that the motive was xenophobia, one of humankind's most famously universal behaviors.
For what it's worth, I don't think the tribe's isolation is worth preserving as is, especially considering its size--not indefinitely. Yes, there is a danger of infection, but the tribe's isolation is the cause of that problem; not the solution. The reality is that a population of 50-200 individuals simply doesn't have the genetic diversity to survive indefinitely in isolation, and multiple generations of inbreeding are only going to make the problem increasingly dangerous as time goes on. At some point, you need to mix with a broader population to handle the threat of a new disease--and not just foreign diseases, but domestic ones as well.
If we want to keep this population safe from infectious diseases, establishing contact, introducing antibiotics, and finding a way to encourage intermixing with nearby populations would do a lot more in the long run than preserving its isolation.
Ugh. A Christian group wants the Sentinalese islanders arrested and brought to trial for filling John Chau, who was on their island illegally and was killed by the natives.
Christian Group Wants Native Tribe “Brought to Justice” for Death of Missionary
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2018/11/christian-group-wants-native-tribe-brought-to-justice-for-death-of-missionary/ He was on the island illegally. It's illegal to go there because the islanders kill *all* outsiders. The law is there to protect people, and the islanders, who can die from the introduction of diseases they have no resistance to. They even speak their own language. He took his own life in his hands by going there, and now this group wants the islanders to be arrested and tried because this missionary broke the law. Stupidity is against the law of the universe, and is punishable by death. John Chau found this out too late.
"Stupidity" is not a crime. Murder is a crime.
I'm going to have to side with International Christian Concern on this one, and to be honest, I cannot fathom how anyone could not. I cannot understand why so much criticism is being focused on the mistakes of a murder victim rather than the people who killed him. If we blame Chau for his own death, we must also blame Khashoggi for his own torture and dismemberment, and we must blame every rape victim for "provoking" their attacker. I do not accept this warped view of ethics--victim blaming is unacceptable no matter who the victim is.
The punishment for trespassing is not the death penalty; you don't get to kill people just because they walk on your lawn. If trespassing on this land is illegal because the typical response is murder, the root problem with this situation is the habit of murder; not the trespassing. Murdering foreigners on sight out of sheer xenophobia is not acceptable behavior, and we should not give the islanders a pass just because the murder victim was a white Christian man and the murderers were uncontacted tribes.
The full responsibility for this man's death lies upon the people who literally nocked arrows and murdered this man in cold blood.
You cannot apply western society rules to everything.
Murder is not a crime in the Sentilese society, or if it is, trespassing carries a death sentence. That is the rules of their society.
And in Saudi Arabia, being raped can get you stoned to death. In a few places in Africa, mutilating little girls' genitals is considered tradition. 150 years ago in my own country, you could purchase a human being and literally flog them to death with zero consequences as long as you were white and he was black. All of that was perfectly legal within those societies--and yet, we do not consider ritual stoning for rape victims to be just; we do not consider FGM to be civilized; we do not view slavery as a morally sound institution.
No one in this thread would defend these practices, nor would anyone in this thread accept "that is the rules of their society" to be a legitimate defense for stoning, FGM, or slavery. This is because we recognize that there is a difference between what is legal and what is moral--and because we realize that the former must be based on the latter; not the other way around. For the same reasons, we can't accept "cultural differences" as a legitimate justification for the murder of Chau.
The only difference in these cases is that the victim, Chau, is a white man--and I think that's the primary reason why his death is being treated with contempt when I hear the case discussed online. Even one of my own family members mocked Chau until I pointed out that she was making fun of a murder victim.
Just because something is considered normal in a backward, premodern country insulated from the world at large doesn't make these things any more acceptable or any less worthy of criticism. "Murder is unacceptable" is not a "Western society rule"--in fact, it's the most universal moral rule that humankind possesses. Name one rule that's more common among the societies of the world.
A human being was killed, and yet our sympathies lie with his murderers rather than with his family. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this ordering of priorities?
People would defend the castle doctrine however and that is more comparable in this situation than anything else that you've listed.
Not to mention, even though it was already mentioned, his own flippant disregard for the health of the very people he was attempting to "save."
From jjstraka:
The other is what is being described as the reason this tribe kills anyone on sight who arrives, which is that they haven't been exposed to any modern diseases, and their tribe as a whole has no natural immunization to things the rest of the world doesn't even shake a stick at. A person arriving to them is viewed as a biological time-bomb.
An expedition led by Maurice Vidal Portman, a government administrator who hoped to research the natives and their customs, accomplished a successful landing on North Sentinel Island in January 1880. The group found a network of pathways and several small, abandoned villages. After several days, six Sentinelese, an elderly couple and four children, were captured and taken to Port Blair. The colonial officer in charge of the operation wrote that the entire group, "sickened rapidly, and the old man and his wife died, so the four children were sent back to their home with quantities of presents".[2][26][27]:288 A second landing was made by Portman on 27 August 1883 after the eruption of Krakatoa was mistaken for gunfire and interpreted as the distress signal of a ship. A search party landed on the island and left gifts before returning to Port Blair.[2][27]:288 Portman visited the island several more times between January 1885 and January 1887.[27]:288
If past contact from the outside led to death, an oral tradition would have been started to prevent outsiders from encroaching their land.
Forgiving those who helped him is humble, but won't deter the next batch of people who want to help someone get to the island and this one carrying more protection than a bible. And you also have to wonder if the family is attempting to protect the ones that helped his son, or the two who encouraged him to go.
And the Sentilese will intergrade with the rest of the world when they choose to. Why would we force our way of life onto them if they are living peacefully in their own little world? What gives us the right to choose what is better for them?
Ugh. A Christian group wants the Sentinalese islanders arrested and brought to trial for filling John Chau, who was on their island illegally and was killed by the natives.
Christian Group Wants Native Tribe “Brought to Justice” for Death of Missionary
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2018/11/christian-group-wants-native-tribe-brought-to-justice-for-death-of-missionary/ He was on the island illegally. It's illegal to go there because the islanders kill *all* outsiders. The law is there to protect people, and the islanders, who can die from the introduction of diseases they have no resistance to. They even speak their own language. He took his own life in his hands by going there, and now this group wants the islanders to be arrested and tried because this missionary broke the law. Stupidity is against the law of the universe, and is punishable by death. John Chau found this out too late.
"Stupidity" is not a crime. Murder is a crime.
I'm going to have to side with International Christian Concern on this one, and to be honest, I cannot fathom how anyone could not. I cannot understand why so much criticism is being focused on the mistakes of a murder victim rather than the people who killed him. If we blame Chau for his own death, we must also blame Khashoggi for his own torture and dismemberment, and we must blame every rape victim for "provoking" their attacker. I do not accept this warped view of ethics--victim blaming is unacceptable no matter who the victim is.
The punishment for trespassing is not the death penalty; you don't get to kill people just because they walk on your lawn. If trespassing on this land is illegal because the typical response is murder, the root problem with this situation is the habit of murder; not the trespassing. Murdering foreigners on sight out of sheer xenophobia is not acceptable behavior, and we should not give the islanders a pass just because the murder victim was a white Christian man and the murderers were uncontacted tribes.
The full responsibility for this man's death lies upon the people who literally nocked arrows and murdered this man in cold blood.
Perhaps not in most of the world, but the Sentinelese are defending what they see as their home and the resoucres of their home. Also, it's also *illegal* to go there, so it doesn't come close to being like the death of Jamal Kashoggi. (Jamal Kashoggi was required to go to embassy to get a marriage license. It was a trap to get him there. He didn't break any laws going into the embassy.) On the other hand, it *was* illegal to go to Sentinel Island. Chau was breaking laws just to go there.
Murder is usually defined as the unlawful killing of a human being without any mitigating circumstances. Would this incident fit that definition? Part of the problem would seem to be that inaction was also dangerous to the islanders, particularly if they don't have sufficient understanding of how diseases are transmitted. We need more information about how the actions of those tribespeople are regarded from the perspective of their own society as well, to understand how to interpret 'unlawful' here.
The Sentinelese deprived Mr. Chau of one of his basic human rights--the right to remain alive. If the defense of these people is because their reason for killing him boils down to "this person is not one of us and might present a threat--kill him" then that would set an *extremely* dangerous precedent for others to follow. If we presume, just for a moment, that we have only one immigration law--you must enter the country at a checkpoint--then would anyone be arguing for the right to allow CPB to shoot anyone trying to enter the country at a place other than a checkpoint? Of course not--that would be absurd.
A tangentially-related issue.... I see memes from time to time, cartoons usually, depicting covered wagons heading West in the United States or Puritans coming ashore and the idea being that those people were "illegal immigrants". The Nations did not have written laws regarding immigration; therefore, the actions of those people were, from that point of view, not illegal.
On a related note...many people like to trash Columbus for killing millions via disease. The Europeans at that time did not have knowledge of how diseases were communicated, either, so technically they cannot be considered to be guilty of biologcal warfare or bioterrorism, either.
Murder is usually defined as the unlawful killing of a human being without any mitigating circumstances. Would this incident fit that definition? Part of the problem would seem to be that inaction was also dangerous to the islanders, particularly if they don't have sufficient understanding of how diseases are transmitted. We need more information about how the actions of those tribespeople are regarded from the perspective of their own society as well, to understand how to interpret 'unlawful' here.
The Sentinelese deprived Mr. Chau of one of his basic human rights--the right to remain alive.
No. He chose to go after being told trespassers are killed. He waived that right (willfully) by ignoring those warnings.
Once again, we do not know the full history of these people, and we never will. They are a peaceful people. They do not go out on their boats and kidnap or rape people on other islands. The only time they show hostility is when outsiders come to them.
That hostility is ingrained in them for some reason. It could be other warring tribes coming to take them as slaves or their resources. It could be from disease and watching people who had come into contact with someone not born on the island get sick and die. We don't know.
What we do know, and what we should respect, is that they want to be left alone. It's something the Indian government respects and I think the rest of the world needs to respect it too.
Murder is usually defined as the unlawful killing of a human being without any mitigating circumstances. Would this incident fit that definition? Part of the problem would seem to be that inaction was also dangerous to the islanders, particularly if they don't have sufficient understanding of how diseases are transmitted. We need more information about how the actions of those tribespeople are regarded from the perspective of their own society as well, to understand how to interpret 'unlawful' here.
The Sentinelese deprived Mr. Chau of one of his basic human rights--the right to remain alive. If the defense of these people is because their reason for killing him boils down to "this person is not one of us and might present a threat--kill him" then that would set an *extremely* dangerous precedent for others to follow. If we presume, just for a moment, that we have only one immigration law--you must enter the country at a checkpoint--then would anyone be arguing for the right to allow CPB to shoot anyone trying to enter the country at a place other than a checkpoint? Of course not--that would be absurd.
A tangentially-related issue.... I see memes from time to time, cartoons usually, depicting covered wagons heading West in the United States or Puritans coming ashore and the idea being that those people were "illegal immigrants". The Nations did not have written laws regarding immigration; therefore, the actions of those people were, from that point of view, not illegal.
On a related note...many people like to trash Columbus for killing millions via disease. The Europeans at that time did not have knowledge of how diseases were communicated, either, so technically they cannot be considered to be guilty of biologcal warfare or bioterrorism, either.
Wild animals also go around depriving humans of their right to survive, but we don't go in and kill, say, a wild tiger just because it kills a human. In this case, going to their island is like going in against a animal that can kill and eat you. You have a choice not to go there. The Indians have made this island off-limits to protect people on both sides. Those who would go to the island, where the natives would kill them. And the people on the island, to protect them from outsiders who might kill them with disease.
Chau made the choice to go- knowing it was illegal, perhaps even knowing why it was illegal. He apparently thought that telling them that Jesus loved them would be enough to save his life. It wasn't. I don't blame the Sentinelese, their practices are well-known enough that there are laws to protect people from going there.
John Chau ignored the laws. I don't know if it was because he thought he would be the one to break through to them, or because he wanted to have the glory of being the man to convert them to Jesus. He was an adult, he was playing with dynamite, and it blew up in his face.
There was 1 instance, back in the 1990's, when India successfully interacted with the islanders. They brought them a gift of coconuts. They also brought people from nearby islands to try and talk with them. While friendly, the islanders did not understand the "interpreters". Also, I believe at the time, the island had 300 natives. The population has since fallen to 50. I think that the natives associated contact with outsiders with the death toll they took from that, and it has made them even more insular and unable to be contacted without violence.
How exactly did he expect to convert them to Christianity?? Even if he hadn't been killed on the beach, how was he going to communicate with them?? Even if there was a person who could speak their language, no translator would give up his life to facilitate such a conversation. Of course there probably isn't really anyone on Earth who can functionally communicate with them, so again I ask, what was the plan here?? I'm not saying this to justify what happened to him, but there doesn't seem to have been a hell of alot of thought put into this conversion attempt. I just can't fathom what he expected was going to happen on this island. Even if they were the most peaceful people on Earth, the idea that this one man would be able to convince one of the oldest tribes on Earth to convert to Christianity despite a language and culture barrier that couldn't be possibly be overcome is just kind of nuts on it's face.
Take everything else out of the equation. Take out the missionary angle, the warnings about not going to the island, what some see as the savagery of the tribe, the disease element. Even without all those issues, the simple question remains: what possible realistic capacity for conversion to Christianity was there from one man visiting an island of a native tribe who has been cut off from the rest of the world for centuries?? Was the entire plan to just show up on a boat and spread the message of Jesus through osmosis?? I honestly don't want to rag on the guy, but if I was going to give my life for my religion, I'd hope I'd have a better plan than this. This is what I meant earlier when I talked about the arrogance of it. Not that he was an arrogant person per se, but that to think your religious belief and faith is so strong that you are just going to walk onto a beach of an island tribe you have been explicitly told will kill you on sight and instead everyone is going to just sit down and listen to you chat about the Gospels?? Again, HOW would these conversations take place?? This seems like a child's idea of how missionary work would unfold.
Was John Chau a bad guy?? No, I'd venture to guest he was probably what we would consider a genuinely great guy in many if not most aspects of his life. But I do think he was a dangerously naive guy. Again, if people haven't seen it, the documentary "Grizzly Man" is one of the best movies I have ever seen. It documents the obsession of a man named Timothy Treadwell. His obsession was protecting bears in Alaska. A genuinely sweet guy who cared about these animals who over the years of essentially living with them started to actually view himself as more a bear than a human being. And then, one year, one of the bears mauled him and his girlfriend he had brought along to death. Because the bear hadn't gotten the memo. Again, a genuinely caring human being who was about 15-20 cards short of a full deck. Because you can't just convince yourself you can park yourself in the wild with Alaskan brown bears every year and expect to always come out unscathed. And I can't help but think that you also probably shouldn't go to an island when people are screaming at you and holding up bright neon signs that say "if you go there you are doing to get killed". John Chau probably didn't have a malicious bone in his body. Neither did Timothy Treadwell. But they were both killed because of their own belief in the idea that what they were doing was righteous enough to inoculate them from the nearly inevitable end both of them came to.
Was Chau a victim?? Certainly. Is it victim blaming to point this stuff out?? Probably more than a little. But the difference here is that unlike the vast majority of people who are victims of something, Chau had specific knowledge in advance that not only was told to him to prevent him from becoming a victim, but that after receiving that knowledge, he specifically choose to become one. And if he didn't believe the warnings or thought God would save him, that was simply a severe miscalculation, but more likely simply the result of religious indoctrination.
Let's say I go look at a car some guy is selling. It's great, it's the right color, it's the right model, it has all the bells and whistles. But the owner, before he sells it tells me "I do have to let you know one thing about this car, and that is that the brakes don't work, and if you try to use them, it won't slow the car down". But I am really in love with the idea of this car and I buy it, pull out of the driveway and hop right onto the interstate. And I'm driving along, it feels great, it hit 70 mph, window down, tunes blasting. And I am rapidly approaching a semi. And I hit the brakes. And, lo and behold, they don't work. Who in their right mind would feel sorry for me if they knew I had advance knowledge about the functionality of this car?? Why in the hell did Chau go to this island when he was told he'd be killed on the spot??
And after reading a couple more articles on this, it seems the tribe itself gave him every chance to get away unscathed. It was his THIRD excursion onto their beach in which he was killed. On the first two, they fired arrows at him but he was not killed. So even after they tried to kill him twice already, he went BACK a third time. I mean, come the hell on.
But how does one start a dialogue with a group of people who greet you with a drawn bow? For this, I consulted one of the few people who have actually set foot on North Sentinel. Vishvajit Pandya is an Indian anthropologist who made three trips there. In 1998, he accompanied a government team that presented the islanders with several bags of coconuts. The islanders accepted them without hurting anyone, though they then made obscene gestures. “It takes a certain amount of courage and hard thinking,” Mr. Pandya said about the next step. “It has to start with gift giving, years of gift giving, then the language has to be learned through this gift giving. You have to make an effort to engage in dialogue. It’s not easy, but everybody is entitled to think about their future, that is the first right, the right to have rights.” When I asked Mr. Pandya whether the island was beautiful — the few photos I’ve seen show tantalizing white beaches and Windex-blue seas — he snapped back: “No, it’s filthy. It’s disgusting. Tell people not to go.” Then he laughed. “It’s actually a very interesting landscape,” he said. “The winds are so strong, the trees grow like a Mohawk, all the same height. No tree grows higher than the other.” “It’s a beautiful place,” he added. “But please, don’t go.”
Mr. Chau saw some islanders on the beach, paddled up to them and tried to preach, saying: “My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you,” according to the note. They raised their bows and he paddled back to the fishing boat. A few hours later, he tried walking onto the beach with some gifts like scissors and safety pins. A boy shot an arrow into a waterproof Bible he was carrying. Another islander, a man wearing a crown possibly made of flowers, stood on a coral rock and yelled at him. Mr. Pandya, one of the few anthropologists to have set foot on North Sentinel, said these were clear warnings. The islanders, he said, were saying: “I don’t want to engage with you, go away.” “If they were so savage,” Mr. Pandya said, “they would have slaughtered him straight away.” The islanders chased Mr. Chau into the surf. He saw the fishermen far away, standing in the boat, waving their arms up and down, and swam to them. The last part of the note conveys fear. He wrote, “It almost seems like certain death to stay here.” But the next morning he insisted on sending the fishing boat away, saying in the letter he had met someone in South Africa who went through a similar experience on a different island in the Andamans and won the trust of islanders only after being dropped off by a boat. He seemed now to be contemplating the end, writing in the note, “Remember, the first one to heaven wins.”
Seriously? "The First One to Heaven wins"? Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Seriously? "The First One to Heaven wins"? Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
It's the same mentality as a suicide bomber. What happens either to you or others on earth is of no significance compared to the promise of eternal bliss for doing as your god commands. There are lots of positives about having faith, but as with other things you can have too much. If you're at the point where others are no longer real people to you and the word of god is the only thing of importance - you've got too much.
So, more Trump news dropped, like an animal carcass on a road. Spoilered, as usual.
The People vs. Donald Trump: Every Major Lawsuit and Investigation the President Faces
http://fortune.com/2018/09/21/donald-trump-lawsuit-investigation-charges-news-update/?fbclid=IwAR2DadYBAoohVYgm6jAOPGrX0ZGVd_L_8Wi1PJ9m1GDnCrpl9CIlbzzl8pk A sitting president cannot be sued as an individual for official actions taken while in office, courts have decided. But a federally filed lawsuit that relates only to unofficial or personal behavior could proceed, ruled the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994’s Jones v. Clinton lawsuit. In that decision, the Supreme Court didn’t determine whether a state lawsuit might proceed, and indicated that different constitutional issues, including federalism, would have to be decided. Two lawsuits in New York State are currently underway against Trump, and judges in both cases have agreed so far that they should proceed.
Lawmakers call for investigation of Labor Secretary Acosta after scathing report
ICE Detention Center Says It’s Not Responsible for Staff's Sexual Abuse of Detainees
https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rights-and-detention/ice-detention-center-says-its-not-responsible?fbclid=IwAR1YdZlC11PuoEVzm2hkZ_-j2cNtbY6pEVqSCyHkK_7-T1zzBwBR0Lt5sNo I'm sure it just happens out of nowhere, for no particular reason! ::Side-eyes.:: Yeah, NO. "All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government impose criminal liability on correctional facility staff who have sexual contact with people in their custody. These laws recognize that any sexual activity between detainees and detention facility staff, with or without the use of force, is unlawful because of the inherent power imbalance when people are in custody. Yet, one immigration detention center is trying to avoid responsibility for sexual violence within its walls by arguing that the detainee “consented” to sexual abuse. E.D., an asylum-seeker and domestic violence survivor from Honduras, was sexually assaulted by an employee while she was detained with her 3-year-old child at the Berks Family Residential Center in Pennsylvania. At the time of the assault, E.D. was 19 years old. She filed suit against the detention center and its staff for their failure to protect her from sexual violence, even though they were aware of the risk. The record in the case, E.D. v. Sharkey, shows that her assailant coerced and threatened her, including with possible deportation, while the defendants stood by and made jokes."
Bronze Age woman in Scotland was an early immigrant, DNA analysis reveals
I don't think killing that missionary was the right thing for the natives to do. At the same time, it is their island and from all reports it sounds like they strongly warned him off on his first two visits.
So if we see them as a private community he was still continue to trespass on their territory after they fired warning shots. If we instead see them as a mini-state he repeatedly tried to cross the border illegally. Both can get you legally killed in a lot of countries across the world, including in lots of countries we regard as civilized.
Comparing this to the killing of Khashoggi is both fallacious and feels deeply cynical to me. Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi citizen, so his country had a duty of care towards him. He was also a journalist, which also should be respected by any country that considers itself part of the modern world in any way (which Saudi-Arabia does). Finally, at a minimum Turkey has a right to be offended that an embassy was used for a murder.
What would have been comparable, would have been the missionary witnessing the torture and murder of a tribe member by the rest of the tribe.
I also don't think their isolation should be maintained indefinitely. At the same time I do not think anyone should do anything except reaching out in non-threatening manner from a safe distance until they choose to communicate with us. Bringing food and/or useful modern tools would be a much better way than preaching at them in a language they do not speak.
Actually, he tried that on his second visit, bringing scissors and safety pins. That's when they fired the first shot at him (which hit his waterproof Bible) and the man wearing the crown of flowers yelled at him.
Even when the Indian authorities brought coconuts, the tribe made obscene gestures at them. So, they were telling him, in their own way, that they didn't want him there. He chose not to listen. He went back for a third time, and then he died. I really see no one else to blame for his death than his own choice. Yes, the fishermen shouldn't have brought him to the island. But after being driven away twice, he'd still be alive if he hadn't gone back on his own.
Again, the person really to blame for his death was himself. There is really no two ways around it.
If the defense of these people is because their reason for killing him boils down to "this person is not one of us and might present a threat--kill him" then that would set an *extremely* dangerous precedent for others to follow. If we presume, just for a moment, that we have only one immigration law--you must enter the country at a checkpoint--then would anyone be arguing for the right to allow CPB to shoot anyone trying to enter the country at a place other than a checkpoint? Of course not--that would be absurd.
Now, *this* is ridiculous. No country is going to say, "Let's set up a law where we can kill anyone who sets foot on our shores, because this primitive tribe on a small island was allowed to do so."? How is this going to set a "Precedent"? Florida already has "stand your ground" laws that allows a gun owner to kill anyone trying to enter their property without permission. And that law already existed, as do similar laws in other states. But other states do not have such laws. So it is by no means a national thing. So how do the Sentinelese killing this missionary set a "precedent"? (By the by, no one has any idea what they even call themselves- we call them the Sentinelese because of the islands where they live.
A tangentially-related issue.... I see memes from time to time, cartoons usually, depicting covered wagons heading West in the United States or Puritans coming ashore and the idea being that those people were "illegal immigrants". The Nations did not have written laws regarding immigration; therefore, the actions of those people were, from that point of view, not illegal.
They also broke every treaty they ever signed with the native Americans. The colonists/settlers would tell Native Americans that they could have this or that section of land as theirs to keep, forever, and then something that somebody wanted or needed would be found on, in or under that land, and the army or whoever would move them on somewhere else, only for it to happen again.
From Wikipedia: From 1778 to 1871, the United States government entered into more than 500 treaties with the Native American tribes; all of these treaties have since been violated in some way or outright broken by the US government, while at least one treaty was violated or broken by Native American tribes. However, violations by one party do not nullify the treaties under US law; the treaties still have legal effect today, and Native Americans and First Nations peoples are still fighting for their treaty rights in federal courts and at the United Nations.
On a related note...many people like to trash Columbus for killing millions via disease. The Europeans at that time did not have knowledge of how diseases were communicated, either, so technically they cannot be considered to be guilty of biologcal warfare or bioterrorism, either.
Later, however, this effect was better known. When Indians were besieging Fort Pitt (now in upstate New York), two Indians and a chief visited to urge the British to flee. The British refused, but before the Natives left, the Commander of the Fort gave them two blankets and a handkerchief straight out of the smallpox hospital. It seems to have worked (which the commander actually intended it to, based on his own words) when a smallpox epidemic broke out in the Ohio valley. 60 to 80 warriors died.
Now, we do know what causes disease, and that's why the Indian government are trying to protect the Sentinelese, which they consider a national treasure.
Seriously? "The First One to Heaven wins"? Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
It's the same mentality as a suicide bomber. What happens either to you or others on earth is of no significance compared to the promise of eternal bliss for doing as your god commands. There are lots of positives about having faith, but as with other things you can have too much. If you're at the point where others are no longer real people to you and the word of god is the only thing of importance - you've got too much.
@FinneousPJ things like having a sense of purpose / fulfilment and a way to make connections with other people. That's not to say that faith is necessary for that, but (at least in moderation) it's helpful.
@FinneousPJ things like having a sense of purpose / fulfilment and a way to make connections with other people. That's not to say that faith is necessary for that, but (at least in moderation) it's helpful.
I guess. Yeah, my point was more along the lines of unique benefits.
One cannot place blame on Chau over the natives that actually murdered him. It was their own choice to nock an arrow, aim it at another human being, and fire that arrow knowing that it would kill him. It takes a conscious choice to kill another human being; it doesn't just happen automatically. There was a brain behind that arrow, a brain that chose to fire it.
This is a simple issue of cause and effect. Chau died of arrow wounds. Where did the arrow come from? It came from a bow. Who was responsible for firing that arrow? The person who literally fired that arrow.
Chau didn't choose to raise that bow. Chau didn't choose to nock that arrow. Chau didn't choose to draw that bow. Chau didn't choose to aim that bow. Chau didn't choose to fire that arrow. So who is responsible for every step of that 5-step process?
The person with the bow.
This is what I mean by blaming the victim. To place the blame on Chau is to pretend that he was the only conscious being on that entire island, and that everything else was just a mindless machine with no free will. It takes a choice to kill another person. They knew what would happen if they shot him, and they still did it--they chose to kill him.
When one person draws a gun, aims the gun at another person, and pulls the trigger, the fact that that bullet results in the death of a human being is no accident. The fault lies with the person who fired the bullet, not the person who got murdered.
The alternative to murdering someone is to not murder someone. Is the concept of not murdering people so difficult to fathom? So difficult to contemplate? So difficult to support?
Chau was responsible for the act of trespassing. That's where his role in this begins and ends. The person responsible for killing him was the one who fired the arrow.
The bullet comes from the gun, not from the target.
I mention Khashoggi because there is an important analog between the two cases: Khashoggi chose to enter that consulate, but his killers were the ones who chose to murder him. Chau chose to go to that island, but his killers were the ones who chose to murder him.
The blame for murder always lies upon the murderer. That's not a matter of opinion or legal debate; that's a fact of cause and effect.
There are clearly two sides to the issue. Chau decided to place himself in a life-threatening situation and consequently got killed. He gets no sympathy from me.
The only way to blame Chau for his death is to treat him as the only sentient, conscious, thinking person on that island. To treat the islanders as blameless is to either treat them as unthinking automatons with no conscious thought or free will, or pretend that they did not exist.
But they did exist, and they did make a conscious decision to fire their arrows at him. Did they have to shoot him?
No.
No, they did not have to shoot him.
You always have the choice of not pulling the trigger. Pulling the trigger is a choice.
Comments
Basically the democratic chair resigned after a GOP member thought he would not be unbiased in the investigation and raised a complaint. The GOP now wants the governor to appoint a new member to the ethics board.
If the constitutional amendment had passed in November, the GOP would be appointing the next chair instead of democratic governor Cooper (part of the GOP controlled legislature's plan in taking power away from the governor regarding the Ethics Board).
Concerning that amendment I mentioned, it almost looks like the GOP here were doing their darn'est to prepare for this fraud investigation.
Murder is not a crime in the Sentilese society, or if it is, trespassing carries a death sentence. That is the rules of their society.
Being aware of this, the Indian government applies its own laws to prevent people from falling victim to that, laws that were blatantly ignored by numerous people.
Turkey, and I believe Saudi Arabia have laws against murder. Khashoggi has a legitimate reason to go the embassy, in fact, he had to go to that embassy to follow a law.
Chau’s reasons was more of a forceful “follow these commmandments laws that I bring you” and inappropriate. They are nothing similar.
No one in this thread would defend these practices, nor would anyone in this thread accept "that is the rules of their society" to be a legitimate defense for stoning, FGM, or slavery. This is because we recognize that there is a difference between what is legal and what is moral--and because we realize that the former must be based on the latter; not the other way around. For the same reasons, we can't accept "cultural differences" as a legitimate justification for the murder of Chau.
The only difference in these cases is that the victim, Chau, is a white man--and I think that's the primary reason why his death is being treated with contempt when I hear the case discussed online. Even one of my own family members mocked Chau until I pointed out that she was making fun of a murder victim.
Just because something is considered normal in a backward, premodern country insulated from the world at large doesn't make these things any more acceptable or any less worthy of criticism. "Murder is unacceptable" is not a "Western society rule"--in fact, it's the most universal moral rule that humankind possesses. Name one rule that's more common among the societies of the world.
A human being was killed, and yet our sympathies lie with his murderers rather than with his family. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this ordering of priorities?
The grace expressed by these people is humbling.
The other is what is being described as the reason this tribe kills anyone on sight who arrives, which is that they haven't been exposed to any modern diseases, and their tribe as a whole has no natural immunization to things the rest of the world doesn't even shake a stick at. A person arriving to them is viewed as a biological time-bomb.
Finally, the reason the victim is being excoriated isn't because he is white, but because he is a Christian. And one who believed spreading the word of faith was 1.) more important than his life and 2.) more important than the wishes and health of the island's inhabitants. I have no doubt he believed he had good intentions, but he was operating on blind zealotry and faith. I'm sure he figured God would protect him for doing the right thing and spreading his word. He clearly didn't do so. I think alot of people view his trek to the island despite being explicitly told what awaited him there as an example of the arrogance of having this kind of religious faith. I find it hard to view this much differently than the subjects of the movies "Into the Wild" and "Grizzly Man". I'm not saying his killing was justified or not tragic, but it's also hard not to wonder why these 3 people all so willingly walked into the jaws of death and thought they alone would be the exception to it.
For what it's worth, I don't think the tribe's isolation is worth preserving as is, especially considering its size--not indefinitely. Yes, there is a danger of infection, but the tribe's isolation is the cause of that problem; not the solution. The reality is that a population of 50-200 individuals simply doesn't have the genetic diversity to survive indefinitely in isolation, and multiple generations of inbreeding are only going to make the problem increasingly dangerous as time goes on. At some point, you need to mix with a broader population to handle the threat of a new disease--and not just foreign diseases, but domestic ones as well.
If we want to keep this population safe from infectious diseases, establishing contact, introducing antibiotics, and finding a way to encourage intermixing with nearby populations would do a lot more in the long run than preserving its isolation.
Not to mention, even though it was already mentioned, his own flippant disregard for the health of the very people he was attempting to "save."
From jjstraka:
The other is what is being described as the reason this tribe kills anyone on sight who arrives, which is that they haven't been exposed to any modern diseases, and their tribe as a whole has no natural immunization to things the rest of the world doesn't even shake a stick at. A person arriving to them is viewed as a biological time-bomb.
And they are aware of it (from Wiki):
If past contact from the outside led to death, an oral tradition would have been started to prevent outsiders from encroaching their land.
Forgiving those who helped him is humble, but won't deter the next batch of people who want to help someone get to the island and this one carrying more protection than a bible. And you also have to wonder if the family is attempting to protect the ones that helped his son, or the two who encouraged him to go.
And the Sentilese will intergrade with the rest of the world when they choose to. Why would we force our way of life onto them if they are living peacefully in their own little world? What gives us the right to choose what is better for them?
A tangentially-related issue.... I see memes from time to time, cartoons usually, depicting covered wagons heading West in the United States or Puritans coming ashore and the idea being that those people were "illegal immigrants". The Nations did not have written laws regarding immigration; therefore, the actions of those people were, from that point of view, not illegal.
On a related note...many people like to trash Columbus for killing millions via disease. The Europeans at that time did not have knowledge of how diseases were communicated, either, so technically they cannot be considered to be guilty of biologcal warfare or bioterrorism, either.
He chose to go after being told trespassers are killed. He waived that right (willfully) by ignoring those warnings.
Once again, we do not know the full history of these people, and we never will. They are a peaceful people. They do not go out on their boats and kidnap or rape people on other islands. The only time they show hostility is when outsiders come to them.
That hostility is ingrained in them for some reason. It could be other warring tribes coming to take them as slaves or their resources. It could be from disease and watching people who had come into contact with someone not born on the island get sick and die. We don't know.
What we do know, and what we should respect, is that they want to be left alone. It's something the Indian government respects and I think the rest of the world needs to respect it too.
Chau made the choice to go- knowing it was illegal, perhaps even knowing why it was illegal. He apparently thought that telling them that Jesus loved them would be enough to save his life. It wasn't. I don't blame the Sentinelese, their practices are well-known enough that there are laws to protect people from going there.
John Chau ignored the laws. I don't know if it was because he thought he would be the one to break through to them, or because he wanted to have the glory of being the man to convert them to Jesus. He was an adult, he was playing with dynamite, and it blew up in his face.
There was 1 instance, back in the 1990's, when India successfully interacted with the islanders. They brought them a gift of coconuts. They also brought people from nearby islands to try and talk with them. While friendly, the islanders did not understand the "interpreters". Also, I believe at the time, the island had 300 natives. The population has since fallen to 50. I think that the natives associated contact with outsiders with the death toll they took from that, and it has made them even more insular and unable to be contacted without violence.
Take everything else out of the equation. Take out the missionary angle, the warnings about not going to the island, what some see as the savagery of the tribe, the disease element. Even without all those issues, the simple question remains: what possible realistic capacity for conversion to Christianity was there from one man visiting an island of a native tribe who has been cut off from the rest of the world for centuries?? Was the entire plan to just show up on a boat and spread the message of Jesus through osmosis?? I honestly don't want to rag on the guy, but if I was going to give my life for my religion, I'd hope I'd have a better plan than this. This is what I meant earlier when I talked about the arrogance of it. Not that he was an arrogant person per se, but that to think your religious belief and faith is so strong that you are just going to walk onto a beach of an island tribe you have been explicitly told will kill you on sight and instead everyone is going to just sit down and listen to you chat about the Gospels?? Again, HOW would these conversations take place?? This seems like a child's idea of how missionary work would unfold.
Was John Chau a bad guy?? No, I'd venture to guest he was probably what we would consider a genuinely great guy in many if not most aspects of his life. But I do think he was a dangerously naive guy. Again, if people haven't seen it, the documentary "Grizzly Man" is one of the best movies I have ever seen. It documents the obsession of a man named Timothy Treadwell. His obsession was protecting bears in Alaska. A genuinely sweet guy who cared about these animals who over the years of essentially living with them started to actually view himself as more a bear than a human being. And then, one year, one of the bears mauled him and his girlfriend he had brought along to death. Because the bear hadn't gotten the memo. Again, a genuinely caring human being who was about 15-20 cards short of a full deck. Because you can't just convince yourself you can park yourself in the wild with Alaskan brown bears every year and expect to always come out unscathed. And I can't help but think that you also probably shouldn't go to an island when people are screaming at you and holding up bright neon signs that say "if you go there you are doing to get killed". John Chau probably didn't have a malicious bone in his body. Neither did Timothy Treadwell. But they were both killed because of their own belief in the idea that what they were doing was righteous enough to inoculate them from the nearly inevitable end both of them came to.
Was Chau a victim?? Certainly. Is it victim blaming to point this stuff out?? Probably more than a little. But the difference here is that unlike the vast majority of people who are victims of something, Chau had specific knowledge in advance that not only was told to him to prevent him from becoming a victim, but that after receiving that knowledge, he specifically choose to become one. And if he didn't believe the warnings or thought God would save him, that was simply a severe miscalculation, but more likely simply the result of religious indoctrination.
Let's say I go look at a car some guy is selling. It's great, it's the right color, it's the right model, it has all the bells and whistles. But the owner, before he sells it tells me "I do have to let you know one thing about this car, and that is that the brakes don't work, and if you try to use them, it won't slow the car down". But I am really in love with the idea of this car and I buy it, pull out of the driveway and hop right onto the interstate. And I'm driving along, it feels great, it hit 70 mph, window down, tunes blasting. And I am rapidly approaching a semi. And I hit the brakes. And, lo and behold, they don't work. Who in their right mind would feel sorry for me if they knew I had advance knowledge about the functionality of this car?? Why in the hell did Chau go to this island when he was told he'd be killed on the spot??
And after reading a couple more articles on this, it seems the tribe itself gave him every chance to get away unscathed. It was his THIRD excursion onto their beach in which he was killed. On the first two, they fired arrows at him but he was not killed. So even after they tried to kill him twice already, he went BACK a third time. I mean, come the hell on.
Then again maybe that's the point.
From an article about the situation:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/sunday-review/sentinelese-people-isolated-tribes.html
But how does one start a dialogue with a group of people who greet you with a drawn bow? For this, I consulted one of the few people who have actually set foot on North Sentinel. Vishvajit Pandya is an Indian anthropologist who made three trips there. In 1998, he accompanied a government team that presented the islanders with several bags of coconuts. The islanders accepted them without hurting anyone, though they then made obscene gestures.
“It takes a certain amount of courage and hard thinking,” Mr. Pandya said about the next step. “It has to start with gift giving, years of gift giving, then the language has to be learned through this gift giving. You have to make an effort to engage in dialogue. It’s not easy, but everybody is entitled to think about their future, that is the first right, the right to have rights.”
When I asked Mr. Pandya whether the island was beautiful — the few photos I’ve seen show tantalizing white beaches and Windex-blue seas — he snapped back: “No, it’s filthy. It’s disgusting. Tell people not to go.”
Then he laughed.
“It’s actually a very interesting landscape,” he said. “The winds are so strong, the trees grow like a Mohawk, all the same height. No tree grows higher than the other.”
“It’s a beautiful place,” he added. “But please, don’t go.”
From another article:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/world/asia/john-chau-andaman-missionary.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
Mr. Chau saw some islanders on the beach, paddled up to them and tried to preach, saying: “My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you,” according to the note. They raised their bows and he paddled back to the fishing boat.
A few hours later, he tried walking onto the beach with some gifts like scissors and safety pins.
A boy shot an arrow into a waterproof Bible he was carrying.
Another islander, a man wearing a crown possibly made of flowers, stood on a coral rock and yelled at him.
Mr. Pandya, one of the few anthropologists to have set foot on North Sentinel, said these were clear warnings.
The islanders, he said, were saying: “I don’t want to engage with you, go away.”
“If they were so savage,” Mr. Pandya said, “they would have slaughtered him straight away.”
The islanders chased Mr. Chau into the surf. He saw the fishermen far away, standing in the boat, waving their arms up and down, and swam to them.
The last part of the note conveys fear. He wrote, “It almost seems like certain death to stay here.”
But the next morning he insisted on sending the fishing boat away, saying in the letter he had met someone in South Africa who went through a similar experience on a different island in the Andamans and won the trust of islanders only after being dropped off by a boat.
He seemed now to be contemplating the end, writing in the note, “Remember, the first one to heaven wins.”
Seriously? "The First One to Heaven wins"? Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
The People vs. Donald Trump: Every Major Lawsuit and Investigation the President Faces
http://fortune.com/2018/09/21/donald-trump-lawsuit-investigation-charges-news-update/?fbclid=IwAR2DadYBAoohVYgm6jAOPGrX0ZGVd_L_8Wi1PJ9m1GDnCrpl9CIlbzzl8pkA sitting president cannot be sued as an individual for official actions taken while in office, courts have decided. But a federally filed lawsuit that relates only to unofficial or personal behavior could proceed, ruled the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994’s Jones v. Clinton lawsuit. In that decision, the Supreme Court didn’t determine whether a state lawsuit might proceed, and indicated that different constitutional issues, including federalism, would have to be decided. Two lawsuits in New York State are currently underway against Trump, and judges in both cases have agreed so far that they should proceed.
Lawmakers call for investigation of Labor Secretary Acosta after scathing report
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/30/lawmakers-labor-secretary-alexander-acosta-should-investigated/2156355002/?fbclid=IwAR0VzEyyXeaffclZugtUyvTnUct6Q0K205C3cxy74YSnmAgZEB0czcrImloThis reminds me of a certain Queen song...
Trump erupts at those who cooperate in the Russia investigation
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-russia-witnesses-20181203-story.html?fbclid=IwAR3ta-0e0KIuh_VoHMeuacbf9eI6cOXHPU4DCxXdZw-AFz6kkw2Q3OCJAmkPresident Trump’s criticisms of the Russia investigation are so common — it’s a “witch hunt,” rinse, repeat, tweet — that they no longer always register, but several presidential posts Monday may have crossed a legal line.
The Senate just voted to make $400 Billion in cuts to Medicare to pay for Trump's Tax Cut. Every single Republican Senator voted for it.
https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/24232095_1738528192837699_2339647133050691271_n.png?_nc_cat=106&_nc_eui2=AeEUBRCCDq6QCrEPfFppHr7quktSr6WykycvOfDStgWAk2rRDoZ57UGax92zrxStaLXctrpDmKP96OOcMjxdZvUjuFHNcAMmaZR3qc3ZulbNZQ&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-2.xx&oh=0238ebbf0ec13c93f9a72d63b3f39ace&oe=5CABFDC7
Judge orders discovery in Trump foreign gifts lawsuit to begin by end of month
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/12/03/politics/trump-lawsuit-foreign-gifts-emoluments-hotel/index.html?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR1wZYjyHF_lXpPXGPFH29ITOnyUn__IncjwSbHHXddCL1hXyyS3VCawxD8More troubles for Mr.Trump. As Trump would say, "Sad!"
In the Blink of an Eye, a Hunt for Oil Threatens Pristine Alaska
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/us/oil-drilling-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge.htmlFor decades, opposition to drilling has left the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off limits. Now the Trump administration is hurriedly clearing the way for oil exploration.
ICE Detention Center Says It’s Not Responsible for Staff's Sexual Abuse of Detainees
https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rights-and-detention/ice-detention-center-says-its-not-responsible?fbclid=IwAR1YdZlC11PuoEVzm2hkZ_-j2cNtbY6pEVqSCyHkK_7-T1zzBwBR0Lt5sNoI'm sure it just happens out of nowhere, for no particular reason! ::Side-eyes.:: Yeah, NO.
"All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government impose criminal liability on correctional facility staff who have sexual contact with people in their custody. These laws recognize that any sexual activity between detainees and detention facility staff, with or without the use of force, is unlawful because of the inherent power imbalance when people are in custody. Yet, one immigration detention center is trying to avoid responsibility for sexual violence within its walls by arguing that the detainee “consented” to sexual abuse.
E.D., an asylum-seeker and domestic violence survivor from Honduras, was sexually assaulted by an employee while she was detained with her 3-year-old child at the Berks Family Residential Center in Pennsylvania. At the time of the assault, E.D. was 19 years old.
She filed suit against the detention center and its staff for their failure to protect her from sexual violence, even though they were aware of the risk. The record in the case, E.D. v. Sharkey, shows that her assailant coerced and threatened her, including with possible deportation, while the defendants stood by and made jokes."
Bronze Age woman in Scotland was an early immigrant, DNA analysis reveals
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/03/health/scotland-dna-grave-scli-intl-gbr/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0CfNLCfxa1lmCulNywg3LsnXldE41ZN4Vq1Qy0DUjuh_viU40fpc_JEOoIs it just me, or does she look like Sarah Huckabee Sanders?
Twitter bans misgendering and deadnaming in pro-trans move
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/11/23/twitter-misgendering-deadnaming-trans/?utm_source=MOBFB&medium=309469+Twitter+bans+misgendering+and+deadnaming+in+pro-trans+move&utm_campaign=PNMOBFB&fbclid=IwAR23gxbbf4st5nsFBi-Khgl68ahgjWXboBpQkzoDwTmOgR58L-IR1oUXercMisagendering is calling someone who is trans by their former sex, and dead naming is calling them the name they no longer use. I was not familiar with the second term until I read this article.
Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/3/18123752/tumblr-adult-content-porn-ban-date-explicit-changes-why-safe-mode?fbclid=IwAR0HppScC0018hwnj0mVrmW3EO5yeVlSN7NDMn6zfASJKaRPXeqcVYN6qVMWith so much adult content on Tumblr, this is going to change the content significantly.
Pope Francis Thinks Holy Gays Are Ruining the Catholic Church
https://www.out.com/news-opinion/2018/12/03/pope-francis-thinks-holy-gays-are-ruining-catholic-church?fbclid=IwAR39BCMddp5pGnY_N-W_jM5EQ0-ZuQtDYNXTxnmWDuInlOniEBe92jm-JQAYeah, sure, it's "holy gays" that are the problem, and NOT pedophile priests!
By conflating pedophilia with homosexuality, the Pope follows a decades- or even centuries-long trend of far-right ideology that has been used to restrict the rights of (or, even justify the harm of) LGBTQ people all over the world.
Japan urged to scrap law forcing transgender people to be sterilised before they can transition
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-transgender-people-sterilise-before-transition-gender-change-lgbt-rights-a8086341.html?fbclid=IwAR0j7P5BjGWKBHI_01wV1VsGzHG4Lpeg1bmMzItpXUM-CSudCjGH9QLVlA0Rule requiring applicants to 'permanently lack functioning gonads' condemned by UN and WHO
Yeah, I don't agree with this at all. They also require that the person have no children under 20. I don't see a reason for that, either.
So if we see them as a private community he was still continue to trespass on their territory after they fired warning shots. If we instead see them as a mini-state he repeatedly tried to cross the border illegally. Both can get you legally killed in a lot of countries across the world, including in lots of countries we regard as civilized.
Comparing this to the killing of Khashoggi is both fallacious and feels deeply cynical to me. Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi citizen, so his country had a duty of care towards him. He was also a journalist, which also should be respected by any country that considers itself part of the modern world in any way (which Saudi-Arabia does). Finally, at a minimum Turkey has a right to be offended that an embassy was used for a murder.
What would have been comparable, would have been the missionary witnessing the torture and murder of a tribe member by the rest of the tribe.
I also don't think their isolation should be maintained indefinitely. At the same time I do not think anyone should do anything except reaching out in non-threatening manner from a safe distance until they choose to communicate with us. Bringing food and/or useful modern tools would be a much better way than preaching at them in a language they do not speak.
Even when the Indian authorities brought coconuts, the tribe made obscene gestures at them. So, they were telling him, in their own way, that they didn't want him there. He chose not to listen. He went back for a third time, and then he died. I really see no one else to blame for his death than his own choice. Yes, the fishermen shouldn't have brought him to the island. But after being driven away twice, he'd still be alive if he hadn't gone back on his own.
Again, the person really to blame for his death was himself. There is really no two ways around it.
This is a simple issue of cause and effect. Chau died of arrow wounds. Where did the arrow come from? It came from a bow. Who was responsible for firing that arrow? The person who literally fired that arrow.
Chau didn't choose to raise that bow. Chau didn't choose to nock that arrow. Chau didn't choose to draw that bow. Chau didn't choose to aim that bow. Chau didn't choose to fire that arrow. So who is responsible for every step of that 5-step process?
The person with the bow.
This is what I mean by blaming the victim. To place the blame on Chau is to pretend that he was the only conscious being on that entire island, and that everything else was just a mindless machine with no free will. It takes a choice to kill another person. They knew what would happen if they shot him, and they still did it--they chose to kill him.
When one person draws a gun, aims the gun at another person, and pulls the trigger, the fact that that bullet results in the death of a human being is no accident. The fault lies with the person who fired the bullet, not the person who got murdered.
The alternative to murdering someone is to not murder someone. Is the concept of not murdering people so difficult to fathom? So difficult to contemplate? So difficult to support?
Chau was responsible for the act of trespassing. That's where his role in this begins and ends. The person responsible for killing him was the one who fired the arrow.
The bullet comes from the gun, not from the target.
The blame for murder always lies upon the murderer. That's not a matter of opinion or legal debate; that's a fact of cause and effect.
But they did exist, and they did make a conscious decision to fire their arrows at him. Did they have to shoot him?
No.
No, they did not have to shoot him.
You always have the choice of not pulling the trigger. Pulling the trigger is a choice.