Any law, policy or administrative directive based on skin color (race) is manifestly unfair and utterly ridiculous. There can be no other logical, reasoned conclusion because there is only one race: the human race.

Yet we find an entire system encompasing education, welfare, health and a slew of other issues where decisions are made based primarily on the color of a person’s skin. What makes the situation even more disturbing is that the system has all the authority and coercive power of government.

There was another time in this nation when decisions about a person’s educational opportunities, access to health care and other personal matters were made based on skin color. The system was called slavery.

So it would seem we have not come as far as we might have once hoped. We have, it seems, traded a privite system for a public one. How sad, how sad!

Conclusion:
If it was morally reprehensable for a member of the human race to have personal opportunity systematically determined by skin color in the past then merely tranfering the system to government does not make it any less reprehensable. The only result is the continual fomenting of hard feelings based entirely on somethin as utterly inconsequetial as…skin color.

Thanks for reading!

More than a year before the massacre at Fort Hood, a Senate panel conducting an extensive investigation into the threat of homegrown terrorism warned that “radicalization” had spread beyond Afghanistan training camps to the United States and that lone wolves fueled by Internet propaganda would present a growing threat.The Senate committee report warned that the Internet was serving as a “virtual terrorist training camp,” and cited that as a contributing factor in the United States becoming more and more susceptible to homegrown extremists.

Though the report said that the lack of a “sympathetic audience” and presence of an integrated Muslim community historically has made homegrown terrorism less likely in the United States, it cited recent homegrown plots — like a foiled plot against Fort Dix, N.J. — as an “early warning” that the trend is reversing.

The “sympathetic audience” is now the political establishment and the mainstream media. More and more information is being released about the events leading up to the Fort Hood shootings, and the some of the media is suggesting the Major Hasan just snapped, still asking if this was preplanned, still trading carefully on the “terror” word.

“Radicalization is no longer confined to training camps in Afghanistan or other locations far from our shores; it is also occurring right here in the United States,” the report stated.

Mike Baker, a former CIA covert operations officer, said Hasan — particularly as a member of the U.S. military — would have made an “attractive candidate” for radicals overseas. If he was influenced by such elements, Baker said, Hasan would be more than just an “unhinged fellow” accused of going on a shooting rampage.

If so, the attack certainly did not follow the Sept. 11 model, where hijackers were recruited from overseas in the Middle East. As the 2008 report detailed, “the violent Islamist threat to the homeland has evolved and expanded.”

Imagine that, the enemy is changing tactics, and somehow we can’t. Jihadists can apparently only be Middle Easterners who hijack planes or blow up things in the war zone; they can’t be American, they can’t act alone, they have to fit the mold, otherwise we’re just stereotyping. Here’s a thought, read the evidence!

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News that it appears the “red flags” surrounding Hasan should have prompted an investigation.

“Certainly it’s worrisome if red flags were ignored, if behavior issues were not targeted for further review,” Collins said Tuesday. “This is something we have to have a no-holds-barred investigation of.”

A Chester City firefighter was suspended without pay yesterday for refusing to remove an American flag sticker from his locker. James Krapf, an 11-year veteran of the department, could face more days of suspension if he does not remove the sticker, Fire Commissioner James Johnson said.

Johnson directed the force’s 61 members to remove all decorations from the outside of their lockers over the summer after a firefighter posted a cartoon that others found offensive. The drawing, which firefighters said was posted by a black colleague, showed two black men and included a racial slur.

Firefighters can post personal items inside the lockers, but the outside must remain “free of alteration,” according to the directive.

Some firefighters didn’t think the American flag was included in the ban…

And, would they think the flag wasn’t in the ban? Perhaps, because it’s sewn on their uniform, or maybe because there is one on all the apparatus; what about the big one on the pole out front. Hmm, our mistake.

“The directive says ‘everything,’ ” said Capt. John Barbato, vice president of the department’s union. “I never would’ve thought the American flag would be included in that.”

Yesterday, almost seven weeks after the order went into effect, 11 firefighters were notified that they were still in violation.

Krapf removed a union sticker and a picture of a truck, but refused to scrape off the flag, a one-inch-square sticker that has adorned his locker for a couple of years, he said.

“Anybody who finds the American flag offensive shouldn’t be working there,” Krapf said yesterday.

Well, there you go James, getting all snobbish-American… this land is a melting pot; everyone is able to keep their culture and heritage, even if that heritage includes hatred of… well, you get the point. 

“I said, ‘No disrespect, Chief, but I’m not scraping that sticker off my locker.’ He said, ‘OK. Go home.’ ”

Banning all materials from locker doors was the simplest way to avoid bickering among the staff, Johnson said.

“How do we know what offends who?” he said. “I have to play Solomon here.”

Solomon, as in wise Solomon? I am pretty sure, the wisdom of Solomon would have told him not to make such a ridiculous, knee jerk, sweeping policy. Wisdom is the do what’s right regardless of consequence, not making sure there is not consequence.

Johnson said Krapf would face a two-day suspension if he did not remove the sticker today. Next would come a three-day suspension, and then the matter would go before the mayor and council and could go to arbitration, officials said.

Walter Miles Jr., the city councilman who oversees public safety, said he did not know all the specifics of the incident. “I strongly back my fire commissioner,” he said. “A directive is a directive.”

The Chester City Fire Department has worked without a contract since 2007. Johnson said the handful of firefighters making a fuss over the stickers were trying to gain sympathy from the public during contract negotiations, an allegation Krapf denied.

Krapf, 31, said he hoped to speak with the union and the commissioner today and reach a compromise. He doesn’t want to miss more pay, and he’s worried that this will be a negative mark on his record.

“I certainly can’t afford to lose a day’s pay, but it’s something I believe in,” he said.

 Now that’s the wisdom of Solomon.