The Hypocrites on the Right

I have a great number of friends that are professional law enforcement officers. One is a friend that I met my freshman year of high school over 30 years ago and is among my dearest friends. Another, I met my freshman year of high school over 25 years ago, and is again, one of my dearest friends. Two of the men in my cove are local officers. One of the men in my Sunday School class is an officer, as is another good friend at my church. Yet another officer is a friend that I listened to and counselled through his divorce several years ago. On top of all of these law enforcement professionals, I know many others personally and through social media.

My heart breaks every time that an officer's End Of Watch date is posted, which has been happening all to frequently lately. Several of the losses have been associated with the #BlackLivesMatter campaign, which conservatives have countered with #BlueLivesMatter or better yet, #AllLivesMatter. The profile picture on my Facebook profile has been a badge with a black stripe all to often. Every officer that dies in the line of duty is someone's son or daughter, and likely someone's mother or father. My prayer is that every officer goes home to his family at the end of every shift. To ensure that, should anyone be foolish enough to attack an officer in my presence, they will receive return fire from me as well.

Switching gears a bit, there are only a few members of the Senate of these United States to which I pay any favorable attention, and to which I look fondly. One of those rarities is Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. Today, I saw a post on Senator Session's Facebook page today that made me very sad, and I was disappointed to see how many people were posting favorably on the post.

The topic of the post? Senator Sessions and Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania introduced a bill today that would make it a specific condition in favor of the death penalty to attack a law enforcement, first responder or prosecutor.

I have two massive issues with this bill, and I am honestly unsure which one bothers me more.

Firstly, these United States are a classless society. We don't have serfs, lords or royalty. We don't treat people legally in accordance to their income level, social status, or career. The murder of a homeless junkie should receive the same attention and commitment to justice as a child from the suburbs. This bill would create yet another "protected class" of people. This feeds straight into the same propaganda that has brought us to "hate crimes", where we treat a murderer differently because one guy killed someone for a quarter, and another guy killed someone for his skin color. Both victims are dead, and both are deserving of equal justice. What that means is that one victim is not deserving of MORE justice than another victim. If conservatives believe that #AllLivesMatter, then we better act like we believe it.

Secondly, conservatives were handed a defeat a few weeks ago by judicial fiat, when the Supreme Court of these United States ruled that States didn't have sovereignty over the definition of marriage. This was done in blatant disregard to the Tenth Amendment and the fact that marriage is not mentioned at all in the Constitution, nor is defining or regulating marriage listed as one of the enumerated powers granted to any branch of the federal government. Rightly so, conservatives howled bloody murder over this abuse of our Constitution. The federal government has no business being involved in marriage at all. Just as they have absolutely no business being involved in defining, enforcing or punishing local crimes.

There are very few crimes that are actually under the purview of the federal government. These include treason, abuse of federal office, and a few crimes that are truly inter-state offenses. Killing a law enforcement officer is not on that list. The Congress has absolutely no business getting involved in and demanding MORE justice for this murder than for that murder. It's morally wrong. It's Constitutionally wrong. It's unAmerican. It is hypocritical of conservatives to cheer for this violation of the Constitution while objecting to the ones that favor liberals.