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Title: College QB arrested, suspended after claiming ‘cocaine’ on his car was bird poop. It was bird poop.
Source:
Saturday Down South
URL Source: https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/s ... on-car-was-actually-bird-poop/
Published: Aug 3, 2019
Author: SDS Staff
Post Date: 2019-08-11 09:33:59 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 39903
Comments: 348
Chalk another one up to faulty drug field tests: Georgia Southern QB Shai Werts has been suspended following an arrest earlier in the week. Werts was arrested following a traffic stop on Wednesday night in Saluda, South Carolina. According to reports, Werts was originally pulled over for speeding. When the officer attempted to pull him over, however, he kept going and reportedly called 911 to explain that he wasn’t pulling over in a dark area. After reaching town, Werts then pulled over and was arrested for speeding. The QB was then asked about the white powder on the hood of his car, and he claimed it was bird poop that he tried to clean off at the car wash. The officer tested the powder, and it tested positive for cocaine with two different kits and in two different places on the hood of the car. “Everything about him and inside his vehicle made him appear as a clean person but the hood of his car was out of place,” the police report states. Werts denied any knowledge of the origin of the cocaine. The officer wrote that the powder appeared to have been “thrown on the vehicle and had been attempted to be washed off by the windshield wipers, and wiper fluid as there was white powder substance around the areas of the wiper fluid dispensary.” In addition to speeding, he was charged with a misdemeanor possession of cocaine. This is all really bad news because Georgia Southern plays LSU Week 1. Al Eargle, the Deputy Solicitor for the 11th Judicial Circuit which includes Saluda County, told Werts’ attorney, Townes Jones IV, that these kinds of charges would not be pressed on “his watch,” Jones said. South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) tests were conducted on the substance samples collected from the hood of Werts’ 2016 Dodge Charger, but the results confirmed that no controlled substance was present in the samples. “I have not seen (the SLED results) yet,” Eargle said on a phone call Thursday night. “But I was informed that the test did come back and that there was no controlled substance found.”
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
The officer tested the powder, and it tested positive for cocaine with two different kits … Damn … You libertarian drug promoters even birds doing cocaine now. What is this frickin world coming to …
Which is essentially your admission that drug tests conducted by police departments are either completely corrupt or completely incompetent. I can't quite imagine how big a dumbass any cop would have to be to be so unaware of the properties of crystal cocaine and how it looks if exposed to moisture. What, did the cop think that the QB had, in the process of being pulled over, thrown his coke stash forward (into the wind) onto his windshield and then tried to wash it away with wiper fluid? There is no other way to read this. Corrupt lab and/or corrupt cops. Probably both. Oh, look. It's a black QB. Let's just frame his black ass with phony drug tests that make any pile of poop test positive for cocaine. Thanks for playing. If you were a decent human being, you'd be ashamed of what you've posted here. It does matter to have a black man falsely accused of narcotics and to have such an arrest on his record. Like you even care about this victim of false arrest. I hope he can sue their asses off for defamation of character. He should never have been charged with cocaine possession without a full lab test.
It could have been wet/damp powdered cocaine. "What, did the cop think that the QB had, in the process of being pulled over, thrown his coke stash forward (into the wind) onto his windshield and then tried to wash it away with wiper fluid?" I think that was the theory, actually.
You know as little as the cop did. He was trained. He has no excuse for being so ignorant.
What's he supposed to do when the substance tests positive -- twice? Let the guy go because he's black?
Should the police department keep using these field tests since they have been proven to give inaccurate results? If they use them again should they be held accountable and sued? Does the real victim the quarterback have a case against the police department for not using a reliable drug test? Why didn't the police know the drug test was inaccurate, don't they test them? If the police knew it gives false readings and it did int he past should the be sued for even more money? Do you go down on cops?
I heard he does suck a few nightsticks. Not wanting to intrude here but I thought I'd pass along this ugly rumor. After all, if it's a false accusation, whitey shouldn't mind at all that he's being falsely accused. whitey loves to defend cops making false charges in unlawful arrests, even corrupt cops. I also heard he once went down on a state trooper for a gallon of gas but that could just be an ugly rumor someone here at LP made up.
So you don't know that it's true, you did not ensure that it's true, yet you published it anyways. And, based on your previous posts about me, you published that with actual malice. This means it must have been made with disregard for the truth, and with the intention of doing harm to my reputation on this forum. I'd say I have an airtight defamation lawsuit. Or at least enough to get you kicked off this forum.
A K A Stone to misterwhite: After all, if it's a false accusation, whitey shouldn't mind at all that he's being falsely accused. whitey loves to defend cops making false charges in unlawful arrests, even corrupt cops. I also heard he once went down on a state trooper for a gallon of gas but that could just be an ugly rumor someone here at LP made up. So you don't know that it's true, you did not ensure that it's true, yet you published it anyways. And, based on your previous posts about me, you published that with actual malice. This means it must have been made with disregard for the truth, and with the intention of doing harm to my reputation on this forum. I'd say I have an airtight defamation lawsuit. Or at least enough to get you kicked off this forum. I say that you are wrong about ever getting Stone to kick TC off this forum. He will never do it, albeit the right thing to do with the malicious and vulgar defamation of character displayed by TC. I predict Stone will not do shit about it. We shall see …
misterwhite v AKA Stone, Tooconservative et al? Yeah good luck with that Parsons.
I know, this seems petty, but hear me out. “Good luck” is not a religious or emotional statement in any way. It’s something we say to each other to communicate ‘I want the best for you (in this matter).’ But “good luck” is a terrible way to say this. Despite being a common phrase, it’s got a couple of significant problems. First, “good luck” is a pessimistic phrase. It encourages, as the psychologists say, an external locus of control. In non-psychology-speak, this means the phrase “good luck” encourages us to see events as outside of our control (as opposed to within our control). When we perceive outcomes as outside our control, we don’t work to affect them, leaving us in the passenger seat of our lives. Second, “good luck” implies, to the person you’re saying it to, that they need luck to succeed. Instead of encouraging or helping them, you’re wishing for the world to conspire in their favor. If you had a friend who was about to compete in a contest, you wouldn’t tell them “I hope the judge is feeling lenient today,” but to say “good luck” is to say the same thing. Last, “good luck” is a terrible phrase no matter what your religious orientation. If you are a theist, and believe in god, it’s bordering on blasphemous. Why are you appealing to a nonexistent ‘luck’ when it is God who directs the events of the world? If you are an atheist, it’s a meaningless statement because it acknowledges there is no way for you to affect this luck. Either way, you’re out of luck (get it?) Some obvious religious alternatives to “good luck” include “blessings” and “thoughts and prayers.” But there are some great secular options as well.
Eccl. 9:11 I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. I sometimes find myself saying "good luck" to the unbeliever...because that's about all they have...time and chance.
Isn't that just some variety of "Good luck on your little path to hell"? It's not surprising the country is turning atheist. The organized churches seem like smug self-interested morality clubs, often using their tax status to provide entertainment/services to their members at discount, that do very little for anyone but their own. And possibly the larger influence is with the charismatics and healers and other flim-flam people you can see on those awful cable channels. And it is difficult to discern anything that resembles a serious doctrinal view in modern churches. I look at local churches and people I know in them and they all seem to believe most anything they want, even if it opposes the church's offical doctrine. Preachers won't even get close to doctrinal preaching. So, if you're talking to me, I'd rather not hear any smug "Good luck in hell" talk. It got old a long time ago. Little wonder that people want nothing to do with religion any more. It's more a rejection of the sales force than Christianity itself.
It's not surprising the country is turning atheist. The organized churches seem like smug self-interested morality clubs... When I say "good luck" to a person it is said with a most heavy heart. Your assessment of the church...is true. With one exception: there IS doctrinal preaching in many churches but it is obviously not helping. Now, you've told me the symptoms, but can you pinpoint the exact cause? (I can) And, your feelings about the church's condition...is it anguish for something you love?
I can tell you why the Church has mostly died in Europe, and is rapidly fading in North America, and starting its descent in Latin America too. But being that I'm Catholic, all past experience has taught me that we have to re-fight the Reformation to even get to the beginning of the conversation, and that all such re-fights (which happen a million times a year all over the world) never result in getting to the beginning of the conversation. (Which is one of the reasons why the Church continues to die at an accelerating clip.) Truth is, Christians would rather that the Church die and not exist in two or three generations, then compromise on anything, let alone admit they are wrong. Therefore, the Church is almost dead in Europe, is dying in North America, and has begun to die in Latin America. My only reason for writing this at all is that I guess I still hold a small spark of hope that Christians can behave like the Germans and French have managed to do. But I really just expect the Church to die, because I don't think the good will truly exists to save it.
Agreed. Sometimes the best way to move forward and actually agree amicably is not to debate at all. Just try to draw closer, recognize common interests. It's a disgrace how the ancient Christian churches in the Mideast have met such horrible persecution as we have meddled there and invaded. I can't understand why people are so indifferent to them. Your remark brings to mind something I thought about recently about Judaism. As we all know, Jews have been saying "Next year in Jerusalem", especially in the Diaspora outside Israel itself. So they've dreamed of Jerusalem all these years but they don't move there and many of them won't even visit Israel or just prefer other destinations. So they've had 70 years to get with the program and just move to Jerusalem. Yet every year, they keep repeating "Next year in Jerusalem". I know you can see the humor. So I considered what might happen if, say, a bolt of lighting came out of the sky and obliterated the mosque on Temple Mount and scare the Muslims so much that they didn't even want to rebuild it. And Israel could then build the Third Temple. What I wondered was how many Jews would leave Judaism is they actually had to practice the animal sacrifices demanded in the Old Testament. Would they summon the priestly family, prepare the purification rituals, slaughter the animals, then sell the carcasses in the local market afterward? Or would modern Jews just be so horrified at the thought of handing an animal to a priest to slaughter it to expiate their sins in a blood sacrifice? I think many of the two most liberal Jewish denominations would just quit Judaism completely. These people are already intermarrying their temples out of existence, no matter what the rabbis do. I think many modern Orthodox Jews, like Ben Shapiro, would also try to find some way not to observe animal sacrifice in a Third Temple. I think some Orthodox Jews might support the Temple sacrifices. But not all. And some Orthodox Jews don't think that the Israel established in 1947 is the real Israel of which scripture speaks, that it is a fake. I do wonder just how many Jews in the modern era really want to expiate their sins by handing an unblemished lamb to a priest to have its throat cut at the Third Temple. That's a lot more graphic than just reciting Next Year In Jerusalem every year. If they did build the Third Temple and started sacrificing, can you even picture the heads exploding over at PETA HQ? You could sell tickets on PPV for a confrontation like that. Anyway, Jews do give lip service to rebuilding the Temple. And certainly lots of Christian prophecy books describe it as coinciding with the False Prophet, the forerunner of the Antichrist. And the Antichrist will then commit the abomination of desolation (idolatry) in that new Temple. But when you get right down to it, do Jews or even Christians want to see animal sacrifice on altars in the Mideast? I think most of them would hate the idea.
The truth about rebuilding the Temple is that it will end up just being the sin of I of Israel if they do it. You may remember that when Je of I of Israel if they do it. You may remember that when Jeroboam split off the North Kingdom (Israel) from Ju Judah during the reign of Rehoboam (son of Solomon), that he immediately began to to worry that the fact that the Temple and altar was in Jeru to to worry that the fact that the Temple and altar was in Jerusalem would in inevitably drag Israel back into unity with Judah because of the religious ti tie. Every year, the inhabitants of Israel would have to make three pi pilgrimages into Judah. So Jeroboam built altars in the North and commissioned a a priesthood to perform the sacrifices on those altars ( a a priesthood to perform the sacrifices on those altars (frequently translated as as "high places" in the English). And you may recall that God sent prophet after prophet to Israel, warning them that the "High Places" were an abomination, because God had ordained ONE altar for Israel, and the ONLY priests who could sacrifice upon it were those directly descended from Aaron. That bloodline, and that bloodline ONLY, was authorized to perform the sacrifices. Anybody else who did was was in fact performi performing a blasphemous act. Thus, the " performi performing a blasphemous act. Thus, the "priests" of the North were an abominat abomination, even though they were following the same rites and rituals. Now recall two things that Jesus said: First, that not a letter of the law could could change until the end of the world. could could change until the end of the world. The Law was for the Israelites at Sinai Sinai and their lineal descendants in I Sinai Sinai and their lineal descendants in Israel, and nobody else. People have tried tried to write the Christians into tha tried tried to write the Christians into that law, but that defies Jesus who said NO change changes until the end of the world. change changes until the end of the world. Second, recall that Jesus said that the Temple would be destroyed in that gene generation, and it WAS, in 69 AD, by Titus and the Roman Army. Reading Josephus, we discover the dramatic scene during the conquest of Je Jerusalem in which the priests, barricaded into the Temple, sought to surrender to to the Romans, but Titus refused t to to the Romans, but Titus refused their surrender, stating that THEY had been th the source of the rebellion and all of the bloodshed, and ordering that they be ex executed to a man. When God sen ex executed to a man. When God sent the Roman Army to destroy the Temple, the pr priesthood was destroyed with it. So, if you built a new Temple, you will have erected an altar, a high place, but where are you going to get the Aaronic priests? They all died in 69 AD. It is IMPOSSIBLE to find anybody who is their descendant. Oh sure, there are LEGENDS of this and that, but that's all they are, popular legends. Note again that ONLY the Aaronic priest can perform the sacrifices, that for anybody ELSE to do it - even meaning well (as the priests of Israel did) - is an abomination befo before God. Note tha befo before God. Note that God left no wiggle room: the law cannot be changed even by a by a letter until th by a by a letter until the end of the world. God intended exactly this result. Sure, you can build an altar where the Te Temple used to be, but if you revive the sacrifices, you're doing no different th than the Northern th than the Northern Kingdom did: you are creating a false priesthood to perform ab abominations on a high place. There is absolutely no way to determine whether AN ANY Aaronic prie AN ANY Aaronic priests survived the fall of Rome, and no possible way to choose pr priests that descended from Aaron. Oh, sure, the Jews who spent the money and effort to rebuild the Temple would CLAIM that the Cohanite genetic marker is "proof" of Aaronic descent, but th that's just wishful thinking. Truth is, Jesus said that the Law could not change and gave a New Covenant for individuals only, different, new wine in a new bottle. He also predicted the destruction of the Temple. And God made that happen, shattering the old wine in the old bottle and removing from the earth the possibility of fulfilling the terms of the Hebrew Covenant. Because it can't be changed, it CAN'T be revived, even if you rebuild the temple. At best, all you can do is recreate the sin of the Northern Kingdom, carrying out sacrifices on an altar with politically-selected non-priestly hands, and that never has and never will ple please the God of Israel. So nope, the old rites can never be restarted, not unless God himself reveals a an Aaronic heir.
...that never has and never will ple please the God of Israel. So nope, the old rites can never be restarted, not unless God himself reveals a an Aaronic heir. According to the Bible, Israel will revive the sacrifices. That it doesn't please God, well, they just can't see that right now.
That it doesn't please God, well, they just can't see that right now. According to the Bible, Israel CANNOT revive the sacrifices unless they have an Aaronic priesthood, which they CANNOT reconstitute, so absent a revelation from God of a new Aaronic priesthood, the sacrifices cannot ever be rightly resumed.
In America, the vortex that is cracking the hull of Christianity is the wedding of the Christian Churches to a political ideology that favors a certain socio-economic pact that frankly wo economic pact that frankly works at odds to Jesus. The Christians focus on sexual issues with a econom sexual issues with a economic pact that frankly works at odds to Jesus. The Christians focus on sexual issues with a judgmentalism that exceeds Jesus, but prefer Reagan and Mi Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand, in their economics over Jesus. That isn't sustainable as wealth has concentrated and poverty has risen, and anybody who reads what Jesus said sees the obvious hypocrisy in it. So the young have abandoned the Church en masse, and the old cling to the politics and the the religion, wh the the religion, which they have joined, and refuse to admit their error. And so the Church dies around them. The Catholics, for their part, priestly celibacy and child molestation, while scolding married couples for birth control - that has set the axe to the root of the Catholic Church. However authoritative the Pope and Bishops may be, they've got nothing if they can't pay the rent, and the people who pay the rent are the people in the pews giving money. When the people stop coming, the money stops coming, and one can be infallible on a street corner in front of a shuttered Church all one likes - nobody cares. Authority led the flocks astray, and people won't follow it anymore. They WILL fo follo fo follow Jesus, but the existing leaders are all morally compromised, tainted by se secu se secular politics that runs opposite to Jesus, or by a spirit of oppression that pe peo pe people won't pay for anymore. The jig is up. It's Jesus, or nothing - IF people want to save the Church. Th The camel can't carry anything through that narrow gate. It all has to be un unloaded and left outside.
I have never heard any Christian preacher or teacher approvingly quote Ayn Rand. Or even seem to know who she is. No, really. Her name just never comes up. Reagan gets mentioned, mostly for standing up to the godless Soviet commies and bankrupting them with his arms buildup. I don't recall any discussion of Milton Friedman either. Maybe sermons at the Catholic churches are much different than I imagine them to be. : )
The Ayn Rand issue is not HER. It's the whole insane idea that social welfare - - the use of tax - - the use of taxes to help the poor - is unchristian. The tithe was mandatory in Israel, and it was for the poor. And Israel was the state. Ayn Rand's view is synonymous with those who oppose social welfare, but who pr propose nothing realistic in its place. People are to just starve, in the se service of a false religious narrative. And the churches empty out because the product of Reaganamics over 40 years has been bee been been a massive concentration of wealth in a few hands, little job security, and a ste a a ste a steady relative impoverishment of the middle and working classes. It's quite malignant. And it's not Christian. At all. But certain Christian Churches have been the loudest proponents of that political philosophy. Those Churches are imploding. They young won't buy the lie. And the young are right. Jesus clearly doesn't buy it.
The tithe was mandatory in Israel, and it was for the poor. And Israel was the state. If it was mandatory and universal, then why do they keep talking about it in the N.T.? I'm not so sure those Israelites were such patriots when it came to paying taxes or giving alms to the poor. Alms were an established part of Jewish life, not something recently invented.
The tithe was a tax on crop produce, not all money. It was specifically for feeding the poor and the Levites.
I think the Levites got fed first. I have to wonder if there was some surplus that the Levite families might have sold, black market. The priestly families were, after all, wealthy and they got that money from somewhere. Maybe there were times when the priestly families or their cronies actually dominated local food markets with these donations. You really think tax compliance was that high in ancient Jewish kingdoms, under Jewish kings or the various empires that conquered and ruled them over the centuries? I don't. And I don't believe you could expect so high a subsidy for the poor to be offered by Jews outside Israel. During most of the era, a large majority of Jews lived outside Israel in the Diaspora. Very significant numbers lived in Greece and old Greek empire trade centers. The Jewish population of the Roman empire at the time of Nero was estimated at being 10% of the empire's populace. However, Jews in the Diaspora did tend to congregate together so they could build some crappy little dirt-floored synagogue. How much money did they collect to support the Levites and the poor in Israel? After all, they could be listening to some lawyer who was telling them that all those laws obligating them to support the Levites and the poor only applied inside the historic land of Israel and only to Jews who were otherwise in good religious standing according to Judaism. We don't have to look far to find examples of Jesuitical arguments to justify how rich people weren't ever rich at all because they themselves had direct need of that wealth to sustain their businesses and households, to provide employment, to increase trade for the benefit of the town and the nation, etc. I always thought the Jesuits were very good at this argument. They sound a bit like libertarian economists. I think the ancient Jews did their best to hide their produce from government or smuggle it out before Jewish tax collectors or Greek tax collectors or Roman tax collectors could tax it and haul it off. Let's look at ancient Jewish food charity from another angle. ... Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz and Magdeburg did not reply to Luther's letter containing the Ninety-five Theses. He had the theses checked for heresy and in December 1517 forwarded them to Rome.[50] He needed the revenue from the indulgences to pay off a papal dispensation for his tenure of more than one bishopric. As Luther later noted, "the pope had a finger in the pie as well, because one half was to go to the building of St Peter's Church in Rome".[51] Of course, a duty to give alms to the poor (in unspecified amounts) cannot be compared directly to people buying their relatives out of Purgatory with a single coin in the monk Tetzel's plate. Tetzel was, at least, selling a defined papal service at a defined price. There is the power of papal binding and loosing in action. Returning to Jewish food charity, if it worked so great as a welfare program, then why would there be any concern for the widow giving her last coins as long as she got fed forever for less than a penny? If she had a few gallons of lamp oil and a few other sundries hidden away, as long as she got fed, she would have all she needed to live, wouldn't she? So giving her last 2 coins, literally her last red cent, to comply with a law that guarantees her to be fed something was a smart investment for a poor person. Infinitely more so since it was observed and praised by the Savior of all mankind. So she had that going for her. And how much food was a penny going to buy anyway? Prices are vastly inflated in the modern era but surely a penny (a mite) would only buy a few days' food anyway. If she was going to starve next week due to lack of money, she might as well go out looking like a winner, a kind person of generous heart. You have to admire how this parable manages to try to make the rich feel obliged to contribute vastly more to the program but it also reminds the poor of their obligation to help the even-more-poor. And if you don't, you're all goin' to hell (or Hades). This is pure fundraising gold! Maybe we should look more at food insecurity and ancient Jewish charity, keeping in mind that the vast majority of the ancient world periodically suffered severe food insecurity as a result of failed crops and famine, disruptions caused by some crappy empire conquering adjacent nations, uprisings that caused problems with food supply, etc. We could look to a parable for more: I like this one, one of the better photos we have from the New Testament. Being a parable, it is of course one of the #FakeNews stories of the Bible. Parables in the Bible never happened. They are just fiction and were always known to be fiction. IOW, it did not happen nor does the Bible tell us of specific instances of similar occurrences involving the rich and the poor and their temporal and eternal fates. If tax collection for the poor was so universal in Israel, then why was the rich man paying to live in luxury while Lazarus starved at his gate with dogs licking his sores? Or did the Rich Man (later assigned the fictional name of Dives, a contemporary term for a rich man) give alms at the temple, perhaps even large sums but he just didn't want to have a filthy diseased-appearing, sore-covered beggar sitting next to his dining table while he ate, with the beggar scavenging the floor under the table for any crumbs that were dropped. Who wouldn't want a diseased beggar crawling on the floor scavenging crumbs when they dine with their family or throw a party for their friends? And the rich man might have been very generous in giving alms to the poor at the Temple but just didn't think he had a duty to let that sore-covered beggar at his gate eat crumbs off his floor and should instead go receive charity bread and eat fish harvest leftovers like the other poor who were food-insecure for various reasons. Maybe Lazarus would just prefer to eat the scraps off the floor of fine grapes and olives and the best meat than to go eat the charity handouts at the soup kitchen. Or maybe Lazarus was clever, knowing that if his begging and sore-covered body embarrassed the Rich Man, he might get some nice leftovers handed out the back door. Perhaps the Rich Man had made the mistake of doing that previously and had been targeted as an easy mark for begging. I'll point out that hobos even in modern America have a secret sign language unknown to the general public which contains provisions for finding local kind doctors or pushover housewives who will give out food or medicine along with a specific notation of what their nearby address is and which can be read even by illiterate hobos. These signs are found in places where hobos hang out. And perhaps Lazarus was being crafty, trying to set up Dives for a fall because if Lazarus died at Dives' gate then he gets the bosom of Abraham and that rich guy who wouldn't give him handouts got eternity in hell. Maybe Lazarus was already so sick that he was just playing the system for his own eternal benefit and decided to lay at the Rich Man's door to embarrass him and trick him into ending up in hell. Except it's all just a fairy tale really. It is labeled a parable after all. Let's consider how you might be able to apply the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in your own life. Let's say you are at home one day, cooking a quick salmon filet and boiling some spinach and collard greens and suddenly a homeless wino shows up at your door or lays down out on your sidewalk and your wife informs you of this. When you go out to ask what he wants, he says he wants to eat the salmon crumbs off your plates or lick the bowls of your collard greens or spinach after you and your family have eaten your meal of highly nutritious and tasty food. You respond that there is a soup kitchen down the road and he replies that he'd rather eat your crumbs (and hope for actual leftovers or that one of your kids was a fussy eater). Or you throw a BBQ for the folks at the local Roman franchise you attend and a homeless meth addict shows up at your back gate, just begging to eat the fat cut off the steaks you just served to a party of 35 guests and to lick their plates. Certainly, the table scraps of 35 guests at a sumptious food event would easily feed at least one wino and his crackhead friend standing there outside your gate. And the meth head even has body sores which is typical for his type of drug use. And when you respond to the wino or the meth head that there's a church soup kitchen down on the next block (of which you are the founder and one of the main donors), then he replies that he's been banned from there unfairly or he's afraid of the other bums who have fought with him before or that their food is inedible or that he just prefers to eat the food you would otherwise throw away or wash off your dishes and down the sewer pipes. I'd say you'd better be careful when crafty beggars show up at your door. They might end up in the bosom of Abraham while you're in hell for not giving in to his manipulative demands for access to your home and your table scraps. And we both know that if you feed that beggar even once, he'll be back. And over time, it is almost certain he'll bring a friend or two or ten along to beg along with him. Of course, wealthy communities are pretty good at keeping out the bums with their vagrancy laws in tony neighborhoods in wealthy east coast liberal enclaves. What a pity that the Rich Man didn't get the local pols to issue an vagrancy ordinance to remove these persons who would otherwise hang around their gates. After all, the Bible doesn't forbid zoning ordinances and vagrancy laws. Just make it against the law for homeless bums to set foot anywhere in the city (or state). If that doesn't work, pass a law forbidding anyone from giving charity to bums and issue a few tickets or even jail sentences for someone who refuses to stop feeding them, just like we do in forbidding people from feeding wild animals in national parks. If only the Rich Man had had the foresight to get a few vagrancy laws passed, he could have avoided Hell. But then, it's all just a story, a parable, the Bible's #FakeNews, isn't it? And yet, people recite it, century after century and draw moral lessons from it to justify their own conduct or condemn others for being uncharitable and too mean-spirited to ever go to heaven. You have yourself cast a few aspersions on those who will not agree to the huge desired increase in social welfare that you advocate for on a steady basis. Focusing on such parables, we should look beyond the mere narrative and how these kinds of stories form a substantial portion of the moral views and legal thinking of many societies in various eras. It's not all virtuous beggars and callous idle rich people, no matter how convenient that is to justify our own public policy positions and private conduct, often hypocritically. There is a certain childlike quality to these stories, making them like a Grimms fairy tale. They include a few details to make them sound more authentic (dogs licking body sores). They exclude specifics and many facts pertinent to understanding the entire situation. It is, in fact, the duality of many of these stories and the necessity of a reader's mind to supply more details in personal terms that gives them their power. After wandering far afield, we should return to the point you pursued. However, modern scholars are still arguing over matters like what the population of Israel was during the Roman era, how many Jews lived in various Roman cities, the extent of taxation compliance, whether there are any records at all to support the idea that ancient Jews actually did support the poor, no information on how much was given to the priests and whether any was left over to help the poor, etc. The truth is that we simply don't know and can barely make an educated guess with any evidence or records being quite incomplete. We do not know, for instance, the geographical distribution and size of ancient Jewish communities with any certainty, certainly not comparable with the birth/baptistry records or census records of the Middle Ages for which we have original documents or known copies of them and can find other evidence to measure their consistency and accuracy (like gravestones). There had to be a lot of people who simply did not comply with censuses or who dodged taxes in big and small ways. It was just as true then as now. Probably it was more true then than it is now. I know, I know, next thing I'll be doing is raising questions about whether George Washington actually did chop down a cherry tree on his father's land but then did not lie about it when questioned, perhaps I might even suggest it is a modern morality tale on the virtues of confessing your misdeeds to authority figures that was useful to governments, parents, churches and other authority figures of the era.
I don't know. I have a homeless man living in my house right now, in the spare bedroom. If he really wanted to eat out of the garbage, I wouldn't stop him, but he doesn't need to, thanks to food stamps, and the fact that I'm perfectly willing to share my food with him. Last night I came home and he had cooked dinner, which I appreciated because I was tired and would have probably just eaten a bowl of Cheerios and gone to bed.
Homeless as in an old bud who needed a place to stay when his wife kicked him out or homeless homeless like a wino or meth head street person? Most people with a wife and child would think twice about allowing a real street person to live in a home with them. I wouldn't count them as homeless for instance if they have a job but just can't meet high local rents.
Most people with a wife and child would think twice about allowing a real street person to live in a home with them. I wouldn't count them as homeless for instance if they have a job but just can't meet high local rents. Homeless, as in a man whom I know through the men's group at Church. An older man who lost his job and his savings due to the economy and various problems with his family. Not an old friend or anything, just a fellow Catholic. Not a drug addict or alcoholic. Unmarried, without children. Simply a man for whom life has been very hard (and quite unfair, in truth), who was otherwise sleeping in his car. Part time job that pays a pittance while he looks for new work. I would not put anybody at risk, and do not expect people to bring drug addicts into their homes. In fact, I don't myself expect anybody to do anything - I'm not God. Jesus has said what he expects. For my part, I have a house with spare room, and an old Catholic man who can use some help, and a wife and daughter who temporarily live a couple of hours away for school and work, so there is no skin off their nose except on weekends, but then I just go down and stay with them.
Part time job that pays a pittance while he looks for new work. I would not put anybody at risk, and do not expect people to bring drug addicts into their homes. I believe you. And it is commendable. You can understand why I distinguished between homeless-by-circumstance-or-misfortune from drunk-insane-methhead-homeless. Still, good for you. And I don't think you're doing it to cultivate any admiration in local church circles. I'm not quite as cynical as I probably sound at times. For some reason, I had already thought your wife and daughter were not present in the house but I didn't want to pry too much. You can see why. Nice work, Vic.
#147. To: Tooconservative (#145)
The house has toxic mold in it thanks to a flood last year that I haven't had the resources to abate. So, in addition to the fact that my daughter's school and training facility are both two hours away, and my wife's job is there as well, there's the fact that the mold makes my wife sick every time she comes into the house. So we got a tiny apartment down in the City for them to stay in until school is done and the mold is cleaned up. That will be next year. So the fellow has a year to try to make something work. Once family comes home it will be harder, because it's a small house.
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#4. To: Gatlin, misterwhite (#1)
The officer tested the powder, and it tested positive for cocaine with two different kits …
#6. To: Tooconservative (#4)
to be so unaware of the properties of crystal cocaine and how it looks if exposed to moisture.
#8. To: misterwhite (#6)
It could have been wet/damp powdered cocaine.
#13. To: Tooconservative (#8)
He was trained. He has no excuse for being so ignorant.
#19. To: misterwhite (#13)
(Edited)
What's he supposed to do when the substance tests positive -- twice? Let the guy go because he's black?
#30. To: A K A Stone, misterwhite (#19)
AKA to whitey: Do you go down on cops?
#33. To: Tooconservative, A K A Stone (#30)
Not wanting to intrude here but I thought I'd pass along this ugly rumor.
#34. To: misterwhite, Tooconservative, A K A Stone (#33)
(Edited)
Do you go down on cops?
Tooconservative to A K A Stone: I heard he does suck a few nightsticks. Not wanting to intrude here but I thought I'd pass along this ugly rumor.
Misterwhite to Tooconservative, A K A Stone
I say that you are absolutely correct on the defamation lawsuit if you cared to file one.
#35. To: Gatlin, A K A Stone, Tooconservative (#34)
I say that you are absolutely correct on the defamation lawsuit if you cared to file one.
#39. To: Deckard (#35)
(Edited)
Yeah good luck with that Parsons.
#41. To: Gatlin (#39)
Why are you appealing to a nonexistent ‘luck’ when it is God who directs the events of the world?
#43. To: watchman (#41)
I sometimes find myself saying "good luck" to the unbeliever...because that's about all they have...time and chance.
#44. To: Tooconservative (#43)
Isn't that just some variety of "Good luck on your little path to hell"?
#70. To: watchman, Too Conservative (#44)
Now, you've told me the symptoms, but can you pinpoint the exact cause? (I can)
#97. To: Vicomte13 (#70)
But being that I'm Catholic, all past experience has taught me that we have to re-fight the Reformation to even get to the beginning of the conversation, and that all such re-fights (which happen a million times a year all over the world) never result in getting to the beginning of the conversation. (Which is one of the reasons why the Church continues to die at an accelerating clip.)
Truth is, Christians would rather that the Church die and not exist in two or three generations, then compromise on anything, let alone admit they are wrong. Therefore, the Church is almost dead in Europe, is dying in North America, and has begun to die in Latin America.
#100. To: Tooconservative (#97)
#105. To: Vicomte13 (#100)
The truth about rebuilding the Temple is that it will end up just being the sin of I of Israel if they do it.
#107. To: watchman (#105)
According to the Bible, Israel will revive the sacrifices.
#111. To: All (#107)
#115. To: Vicomte13 (#111)
(Edited)
The Christians focus on sexual issues with a judgmentalism that exceeds Jesus, but prefer Reagan and Mi Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand, in their economics over Jesus.
#119. To: Tooconservative (#115)
#125. To: Vicomte13 (#119)
The Ayn Rand issue is not HER. It's the whole insane idea that social welfare - - the use of tax - - the use of taxes to help the poor - is unchristian.
#126. To: Tooconservative (#125)
#129. To: Vicomte13, watchman, redleghunter, A K A Stone, Deckard (#126)
(Edited)
The tithe was a tax on crop produce, not all money. It was specifically for feeding the poor and the Levites.
It's a great fundraising verse for any religion. Give all you own to us and God (or some government) will take care of you forever and you go to heaven. It works better for some churches than others. If you have a pope with the apostolic power of binding and loosing, he can just write you a guarantee of salvation if you give everything 41And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums.
42A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent.
43Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury;
44for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”to him to God. And if the pope guarantees it, then God must honor the pope's promises. This is why the pope is God's boss and can make God do anything the pope wants. The pope can loose and bind God to back up papal promises. Very handy for fundraising when you want to hire some gay homo artists like Michelangelo to paint some fancy murals at the Vatican and elsewhere. After all, how else can you buy your relatives out of Purgatory and game the system so your kids can buy you out of Purgatory when the time comes? Not everyone was rich enough to endow a monastery with the funds needed to support a group of monks who prayed daily for decades or centuries for the souls of the dead, begging every saint in the Catholic pantheon for intervention to get them into heaven. A great many monasteries and monastic orders would not exist but for this practice. Luther objected to a saying attributed to Johann Tetzel that "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory (also attested as 'into heaven') springs."[35] He insisted that, since forgiveness was God's alone to grant, those who claimed that indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments and granted them salvation were in error. Christians, he said, must not slacken in following Christ on account of such false assurances. 
The tithe was a tax on crop produce, not all money. It was specifically for feeding the poor and the Levites.
#133. To: Tooconservative (#129)
#137. To: Vicomte13 (#133)
I don't know. I have a homeless man living in my house right now, in the spare bedroom. If he really wanted to eat out of the garbage, I wouldn't stop him, but he doesn't need to, thanks to food stamps, and the fact that I'm perfectly willing to share my food with him. Last night I came home and he had cooked dinner, which I appreciated because I was tired and would have probably just eaten a bowl of Cheerios and gone to bed.
#142. To: Tooconservative (#137)
(Edited)
Homeless as in an old bud who needed a place to stay when his wife kicked him out or homeless homeless like a wino or meth head street person?
#145. To: Vicomte13 (#142)
Not a drug addict or alcoholic. Unmarried, without children. Simply a man for whom life has been very hard (and quite unfair, in truth), who was otherwise sleeping in his car.
For my part, I have a house with spare room, and an old Catholic man who can use some help, and a wife and daughter who temporarily live a couple of hours away for school and work, so there is no skin off their nose except on weekends, but then I just go down and stay with them.
Replies to Comment # 145.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 145.
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