Wounded Veterans Disrespected by Florida Fraternities

In a recent CNN.com article, wounded veterans and their service animals were assaulted by members of two fraternities during spring break in Panama City.  Allegations included spitting; pouring beer on them and their service animals; verbal profanity; and lastly, lewd comments made about their spouses.  The two fraternities were alleged to have been from the University of Florida and Emory University, or Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.  The general revelry spring break that takes place nationwide fueled by alcohol and drugs typifies this environment where young people are encouraged to participate in this debauchery.  Again, this is the same environment where a young woman was alleged to have been drugged and gang raped by three men while being recorded as other party goers did nothing, in broad daylight and public!  Panama City tolerates this general type of behavior as they're a tourist town and this brings in money to the local economy, but at what point do we as a society draw the line?  Rape?  Assault of veterans and their service animals?  Please keep in mind that if they have service animals, they are very likely to be legally disabled making this doubly disgusting and abhorrent.  John Stuart Mills advocates that everyone should live to increase happiness and decrease unhappiness, but so long as it doesn't harm anyone.  With that said, I'm in complete concurrence and agreement, and if these members of the fraternity are caught for this type of assault to disabled veterans and their service animals, they shall be prosecuted.  However, a retributive approach will deal with this from a statutory aspect, but how do we instill empathy in these young men who will presumably go on to potentially lead industry in their chosen areas of study?  Perhaps community service post-prosecution with veterans and their service animals would be very appropriate to return the "unequal unequals" back to an equal state.  As an active duty member of the armed services, I don't get wrapped around the axle when I hear of a veteran being treated differently, regardless of how terrible it may be so long as no one is harmed.  I understand that not everyone agrees with my service nor do they agree with what we do; however, if they're being systematically assaulted and targeted specifically because of this, I do absolutely take issue here with their behavior.  If they're prosecuted of any relevant crime related to this, I would like to see them have to do community service with the very people they targeted and tormented in an effort to hopefully change their perspective and redeem what lack of humanity these young people chose to exude during these incidents.

References

Rosenstand, N. (2013). The Moral of the Story (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Stapleton, A. (2015, April 24). Wounded veterans say fraternity boys disrespected them - CNN.com. Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/24/us/frats-and-wounded-vets/index.htm

Murgatroyd, J. (2015, April 16). Panama City rape: 'Spring break as we know it is over' - CNN.com. Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/15/us/florida-panama-city-beach-spring-break/

Fourth Amendment Erosion: The Fallacy of the Utilitarian Approach

A current article featured on the front page of CNN.com is "Has Much Changed?" regarding domestic terrorism since the Oklahoma City bombing among other less famous acts of terrorism committed by American citizens on her soil.  The approach I've most notably noticed to systematic depletion of our fourth amendment among others has been that of the utilitarian:  the safety of all is above and more important than the privacy and protection thereof under the fourth amendment.  Now, please consider that without the leak of classified documentation from former Booz-Hamilton employee and fugitive, Edward Snowden, we'd never have publicly known of this.  We've made wide sweeping changes to our legal and law enforcement systems to ensure safety above our amendments and rights as citizens of the United States of America under a utilitarian approach, and there are quite a lot of slippery slopes there to say the least.  Granted, since 2001 there have only been a handful of successful, homegrown terrorist attacks; however, the counter argument will be that classification prevents us, the public, from knowing just how many were prevented.  So, this line of thinking and legislation can easily be argued and favored to further erode your liberties and rights under the conditions of classification without truly providing you and I with tangible results.  And as stated above, without any warrants and without any suspected evidence, you could be held indefinitely and without your birthright amendments under these same laws.  Again, you could be denied habeas corpus as an American citizen due to the utilitarian approach our legislative and executive branches have taken to domestic terrorism based upon safety of her citizens while systematically eroding their rights.  I'd like to add that the propaganda that the media perpetuates seems to lull us into thinking that this is the best and only course of action too, regardless that you're more likely to be killed by someone you know!  Where would this stop at?  Confiscation of your guns?  No longer able to write freely on the internet because it's inciting hate or is treasonous against the state?  Search and seizure without warrants?  In conclusion, I find that the utilitarian approach that our government has taken to protect us from domestic terrorism is a greater threat to us than the terrorists themselves, they (terrorists) are empowering our government to change the way we live and operate by stripping of us of what makes our nation so profound, her freedoms and Bill of Rights.

References

Lauter, D., & Pitcavage, M. (2015, April 19). Oklahoma City bombing, lessons 20 years later (Opinion) - CNN.com. Retrieved April 19, 2015, from http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/17/opinions/lauter-pitcavage-oklahoma-bombing/index.html

Rosenstand, N. (2013). The Moral of the Story (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Erosion of Emotionalism in Police Work

I awoke one morning prior to work like any other this week, but this morning CNN's headline featured video of a man running away from an officer while the officer fired eight shots into the man's back.  Granted, I did not see what happened before the incident, but what I witnessed seemed very clear to me to be murder, regardless of the races involved in the incident.  Generally, police policy would only be to wound or kill a human being in this manner justifiably if the suspect presented immediate and grave danger to society, this was a man whom didn't have insurance on his vehicle and was trying to escape $16,000 in child support, hardly fitting the former definition for justifiable homicide in the line of duty.  Recently, we have seem many officer involved shootings in the news, especially ones that involve white officers and black suspects as this is a very polarizing issue between different segments of American culture.  With the proliferation of cellphones with video cameras, we're seeing more and more videos of citizens recording police officers in the line of work, including the one I've cited above.  We're finding out with these headlines that numbers of officers killed is kept (FBI.gov), but records of suspects being killed by officers is much harder to come by and isn't really recorded as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is trying to change that into statutory law.  As I finished chapter 4 of our text yesterday, David Hume's Emotionalism struck an accord with me as it resonated with me that many officers in their daily dealings may lose their ability of compassion and feelings of empathy with the suspects they deal with.  As Hume explains that the good and the bad only lie in our feelings toward the act, not whether it is objectively right or wrong, even murder.  I fear that certain police officers, especially the one involved in this particular shooting in South Carolina, may in the line of their duty, be desensitized and have their emotionalism be eroded into "good" feelings about murder in their daily duties.  I too fear that with the increased militarization of police forces that citizens are being viewed as combatants rather than, well, citizens.  This coupled with the fact that some officers may have a paradigm in the erosion of their compassion and empathy of others and citizens viewed as combatants, we may have a major societal issue as police forces are required to serve the community as a police force, not a military force. In conclusion, with the possible erosion of compassion and empathy of police officers in their line of work, coupled with more militarization and exacerbated by no database to track police officer related shootings, we many continue to see these incidents in the news more often with the proliferation of cellphone cameras.

References

Rosenstand, N. (2013). Myself or Others? In The Moral to the Story (7th ed., pp. 204-206). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Harshaw, P. (2015, March 5). America needs a reliable death-by-police database. Retrieved April 12, 2015, from http://fusion.net/story/57901/america-needs-a-reliable-death-by-police-database/

FBI Releases 2012 Statistics on Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted. (2013, October 28). Retrieved April 12, 2015, from http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2012-statistics-on-law-enforcement-officers-killed-and-assaulted

Fantz, A., & Yan, H. (2015, April 9). South Carolina officer charged with murder - CNN.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015, from http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer-charged-with-murder/ 

Rioting - An Ethical Perspective

With the final four now deduced to two teams for the NCAA championships, supporters and fans of the Kentucky Wildcats took to the streets and "rioted" by burning articles of clothing as an expression of their displeasure for their team's loss.  To say that they were "rioting" is a bit of journalistic sensationalism, which wouldn't be beyond CNN.com, in my opinion.  More importantly, and as we have seen not just in Ferguson, MO, riots have become part of culture and trace back their roots mainly to social injustices.  We know of the Watts riots and the riots that erupted in Los Angeles after police officers were cleared of any crime following what pretty clearly was an outright and malicious assault on Rodney King.  Rioting may be one way to address social injustices, but it certainly isn't right nor ethical as it leads to criminality and destruction of property, typically in the rioter's area that they dwell.  According to sociologist Christian Borsch, riots create irrational behavior rather than rational people driven to rioting by social injustices as has been argued in yesteryear.  This phenomenon seems to be reflective and an outlet specifically among low-income and impoverished cities or neighborhoods in America, and continues to trend towards increasing as the middle-class shrinks and government assistance continues to be harder to obtain as our jobs in these neighborhoods too.  Rioting too forces police to take a militaristic and paramilitary stance to protect citizens and property, thus reinforcing more negative views of the police and resistance to them when they engage in tactics generally reserved for the most violent situations.  This blog doesn't seek to address the social injustices endured, whether perceived or real, but rather that certain segments of our population have no other outlet to release their frustrations at their circumstances that is generally driven by some event as a catalyst for this expression.  To me this is a national security issue as we have a severe fracture and departure of our overall general values as we all make up the social fabric of our great nation, and we must start to look at providing better education to our youth and adults to ensure a better quality of life.  Education and a reemphasis on hard work is the only way we can lift our fellow man (or woman) in these areas.  We must all seek to change the cultural paradigm towards this, otherwise the fabric will continue to rip and we will not stand "indivisible" and together as a people.

References

Silver, J. (2015, April 5). Kentucky Fans Riot After Loss. Retrieved April 5, 2015, from     http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2420624-kentucky-fans-light-fires-in-the-street-after-final-four-loss-to-wisconsin?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial

 Borsch, C. (2013, April 15). Søg / Search. Retrieved April 5, 2015, from http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2013/2013.4/riots_create_irrational_behaviour/