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We are a nation that prizes and defends individual rights, especially those delineated in laws: secular and sacred. Not killing each other is a biggie. Theft is also a mighty infringement on personal freedom to acquire. I am amazed that more lawsuits are not based on curtailed ability to pursue happiness. Law would be far more close to what we dream.
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Having once been defined as 3/4 of a human, I was astonished to hear that anti-semitism, like hatred of black life (both of which matter) is on the rise.
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As a nation of individual thinkers and defenders of personal spaces, we have not fully embraced the notion, or risen to it, that you are free to hate any group or individual you want, you simply can not threaten or kill them. Similarly, there is a line that has turned into a legal wall against sexual harassment, and all its permutations - spoken or written dismissal of female individual rights, another form of hatred. In the forefront of that and other struggles, figures are climbing in areas of systematic expressions of hatred against Judaism.
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KKK has been busy defending its right to hate again. When social media fills with anti-life messages against all the causes of master race white poverty or pro protection of supremacy postures, we are endangering a long and bloody history that legally protects civil rights for all sexes and races, creeds and religious beliefs.
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As money dries up and people become homeless or forced to move in with mom and/or dad, those older attitudes toward Black and Jewish humans are going to return full force. I am getting anti-Chinese American hate statements from Black folks. Talk about kettles bein'called black! And it has not gotten crazy yet. Black people in this country are armed to the silver linings in their teeth. Next time you go to the firing range look down the line and see what color hands are holding and firing at targets. We have been perpetually at war and a lot more citizens know how to break down, clean, and put together fast weapons of low mass destruction as defense.
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I am 70 and my attitudes are split: the hell my relatives suffered by white folks, the hell and hate I continue to witness everywhere daily is not conducive to keeping in place the walls of civility that I hope stay in place. Racists will use times of crisis to kill thinking wrongly that no one has time to notice. Guess what?
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What can not be predicted is what those who hate will do, while already psychologically challenged stepping across the color line of others not like them, when they are faced with loss of status during the COVID-19 upheavals. Going on food stamps (SNAP) is going to force anger to the surface with barriers worn away (especially when they learn they can't buy toilet paper with SNAP).
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Somebody has to be blamed. It is a hater's response to stressors beyond their God-given control. The Fed Chairman has just declared that the future economic downturn will be inordinately extensive. God help us because Congress won't be able to and the Trumpet has hotels losing more money. It gives a different and ironic twist to the phrase, death and taxes, that chooses between virus stay home orders or opening up the economy across the board to resume government revenues.
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The Anti-defamation League, abundantly financed, is on point to identify injustice against Jewish humans and will deal with it in the courts. Note: Trump has packed the court with his cronies and blind justice at the appellate level may now also be deaf and mute. If King espoused Gandhi's non-violence practice, he also left a legacy of political relief in the courts. Martial Law is the thing to fear next - total denial of human expressed freedoms. The return of justice at gunpoint is not the American dream most of us see when we close our eyes. Let us hope it does not become a nightmare when we open them.
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Stella L. Crews
05-14-20
753a
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