Don's Tuesday Column

           THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   10/23/2018

    Offenders don’t deserve a home

Occasionally, a local story seems so outrageous that no resident of our fair towns and countryside could not agree with the obvious. People should not have sex offenders abiding in halfway, rehab or otherwise-named facilities in their neighborhoods without their consent, as is being proposed, and protested against, in Los Molinos.

The story hit the local channels on Sunday evening news; a sizable contingent of “Los Mos” town folk stood and paraded on sidewalks along Hwy 99E with signs saying they find it reprehensible to have such a sex offender home sited within walking distance of their schools. I deeply sympathize and hope elected (or unelected) officials respond to their eminently rational objections to having such detritus given an abode among their children, wives and sisters.

I’m sure some will insist that, having “paid their debt to society,” they should be allowed to transition back into freedom. I don’t buy that argument because, in most cases, they are not outside of parole, probation or other conditions of release and supervision. Their crimes deserve long-term control.

I could hardly believe my ears; these sex offenders qualified for this sort of facility because they “committed their crime while under the influence” of some sort of substance abuse, meaning drugs or alcohol. Is this supposed to constitute “extenuating circumstances”? Are we really being asked to believe that because such offenders committed their abominable crimes of sexual violation “under the influence,” they can be trusted to not re-offend because they’re now reliably clean and sober? You…must…be…joking. This is not happening without a fight; don’t give in, Los Molinos.

The near-obsession by national, even local, news media with the unfortunate demise of a Washington Post “journalist” has me scratching my head. It’s not that I have doubts that Mr. Khashoggi met with some sort of “termination with prejudice,” as the spy lingo goes, but that the coverage and outrage emanates from the “usual suspects” with nearly pre-written narratives assigning black and white hats. I’m setting aside, for the moment, serious, principled observations from those like Senators Lindsay Graham and Rand Paul, even though they still seem to embrace conclusions and advisories not in evidence so far.

As for the national, beltway news and the reliably Trump-hating Democrat left, all of their blame-assigning and pronouncements of “reliable” scenarios and conclusions seem oblivious to the double and hypocritical standards used elsewhere. Consider the relatively mild, even dismissive, coverage of: 1) the murder of Border Patrol agent Bryan Terry by Mexicans using guns illegally sent into Mexico by Barack Obama’s ATF in 2010; 2) journalist Daniel Pearl’s beheading, which hardly compared to the coverage of Khashoggi; 3) the assault, brutal beating and death of New Jersey journalist Jerry Wolkowitz, a freelance photographer murdered by a 25-year old black man because Wolkowitz was white;

4) The hundreds upon hundreds of murders in Chicago, which inconveniently are not the result of white racism, and are likewise inconveniently the result decades of soft-on-crime but gun-blaming Democrat rule; 5) the nearly instantaneous burying of the culpability for the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans at the hands of Islamic terrorists in Benghazi, Libya—enabled by Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s denial of needed security upgrades. The same news media are chomping to sully President Trump, even his son Jared Kushner, with ephemeral responsibility for—and with obligations to punish—Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi’s death.

Can we just set aside political correctness and sensitivities for a minute for some frank talk? The Middle East runs on lies, propaganda and fabrications, from Saudi Arabia to Iran to Syria to Turkey and, to a lesser degree, the friendlier nations of Iraq and Israel. It’s a cultural thing and, in the case of Muslim nations, is a practice sanctioned and approved by the “taqiyya” doctrine of deceiving to protect the Muslim faith.

Moreover, how is it that the news media takes a default view of favoritism toward Turkey, whose (likely) president-for-life, Erdogan, has Turkish journalist blood on his hands? How is it that Mr. Khashoggi’s history of brotherly sympathy and alliance with Osama bin Laden, the radical Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi advocates of the Islamic State, matters not since he was a Washington Post opinion writer and legal American resident? Is his background now sanitized of bad ideological company?

My view is that I see a likely illegal taking of life, possibly a rogue, unsanctioned one that may or may not involve the next ruler, crown prince Mohammad bin Salman. America’s choice in the larger scheme is that we have national interests, allies and enemies. Iran and ISIS are our enemies; Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are allies that can be sanctioned for misbehavior but must be considered for the relative progress they represent toward democracy and women’s rights. Truth? Good luck finding it.

I want it known that any tactics of harassment employed by those opposing Nancy Pelosi are as reprehensible as those employed against conservatives and Trump supporters. Hillary said there’ll be “no civility” until Democrats are in charge; Eric Holder said to “kick them when they’re down”; Maxine Waters said to physically accost Trump’s people with mobs; Nancy Pelosi said there would be “collateral damage” to those opposing Democrat policies. Our side shouldn’t be guilty of perpetrating “collateral damage.”

Finally, I paraphrase the words of America’s 33^rd President, Harry S. Truman, in response to Mr. Minch’s snide characterization of my writing: “I never did give anybody a rant. I just told the truth and they thought it was a rant.” Moreover, for a textbook example of an unhinged rant, I offer Will Durst’s column, from Saturday’s Opinion page. He said “steal and cheat” to vote for Democrats because “the lives of your children are at stake.” Seriously? Tax cuts, deregulation, judges that abide by the Constitution, and having America respected again, even feared, will kill America’s children? Now, that’s a rant, agreed?