Prissy Goodness Is A Seedbed For Self-Righteous Violence

The Good People Burning Witches

Best Pax Posts On Psychological Projection And "The Shadow"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/02/best-pax-posts-on-psychological.html

"Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/08/bad-black-people-why-bill-oreilly-is.html

"The Deadly Oppression Of Black People: Best Pax Posts"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/10/like-me-black-people-are-far-from.html

Dear Fred,

Thanks for your emails.

Sometimes conventional responses are good ones.

When, for example, a major political party goes rabid, a muzzle works just fine.

Here's how the rabidity manifests...

Stand your ground "laws" are licenses to kill.

In this regard, my response is so conventional that I coincide with Aquinas who said:  "(Unjust laws) are not so much laws as acts of violence, because, as Augustine says, An unjust law does not seem to be a law at all." 

Or, as John XXIII, quoting Augustine, wrote in Pacem in Terris: "What are kingdoms without justice but large bands of robbers?" 

 http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jo23pt.htm

In the light of Original Sin, I have no trouble seeing myself as a thief.

The problem with "the impeccable" is that they can only see the thieves elsewhere, mostly in the guise of dark skinned peoples who - in the main - are in the habit of working hardest for their daily bread.

Perfection does not even leave room to be good, but instead -- when imposed as a standard for others -- becomes evil.

"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  

"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton

More Merton Quotes

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/merton-best-imposed-as-norm-becomes.html

A certain kind of prissy, thin-lipped "goodness" is, ironically, the high road to Hell.

Pax on both houses,

Alan

PS Speaking of "good" conventional responses --- and here I paraphrase Gandhi --- 'God would not dare appear to a starving man except in the form of bread.'  http://www.mkgandhi.org/sfgbook/four.htm

Alan: Most Americans have living relatives who were alive when these good Christians cooked this man.

Several years ago, I attended a talk by UNC-Chapel Hill Public Health Professor John Hatch who mentioned that all four grandparents were born into slavery. In one of his ancestral families the children were auctioned off in a single day. Knowing that the new owners would remove them to distant plantations - with no hope of family reunion - a bereaved daughter committed suicide within hours of her sale.

To think that this heritage - still burningly alive in human memory - can be transcended in a few generations is more Pharisaic than the good church-goers whom Yeshua railed against.

"Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/08/yeshua-excoriates-fellow-pharisees-woe.html

"Love Your Enemies. Do Good To Those Who Hate You," Luke 6: 27-42

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-your-enemies-do-good-to-those-who.html

"Do You Know What You're Doing To Me?"

Jesus of Nazareth

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/do-you-know-what-youre-doing-to-me.html

On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

Well, I'm thinking that it makes sense for the police to profile young men, but not profile young black men.

Adopting the hoodie as a symbol of a positive stance against racism is a totally weird strategy  -- small point, I admit.

Anyway, you are posting standard and conventional positions which show no imagination.

My experience and my approach to this problem has the distinct advantage of coming at it from a different point of view. Hence, my views will be ignored, not fitting into established factions.

On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 9:31 AM, Alan Archibald <alanarchibaldo@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Fred,

I agree with the soundness of your advice.

Even sounder advice is to declare every stand-your-ground law (that is based on subjective "feeling of threat") not only a license to kill but an open invitation to kill.

Pax 

Alan

On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

It is especially important for young men, who are physically stronger and more energetic than the rest of us, to not only be harmless, but also to act and appear harmless. Don't wear a hoodie, pull your pants up, don't keep your hands in your pocket, greet people cheerfully and openly, state your purpose before being asked. This is simply acting like a gentlemen and reduces the chance of violence.
--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001