I mean, there is no excuse that I can think of for choking a man to death for selling illegal cigarettes. This is about cigarettes. This isn’t a violent confrontation. This isn’t a threat that anybody has reported, a threat of someone being killed. This is someone being choked to death. We have it on video with the man pleading for his life. There is no excuse for that I can even contemplate or imagine right now. And so we’ve heard a lot in recent days about rule of law, and that’s exactly right. We need to be emphasizing rule of law. And a rule of law that is Biblically just is a rule of law that carries out justice equally.
Romans 13 says that the sword of justice is to be wielded against evildoers. Now, what we too often see still is a situation where our African-American brothers and sisters, especially brothers, are more likely to be arrested, more likely to be executed, more likely to be killed. And this is a situation in which we have to say, I wonder what the defenders of this would possibly say. I just don’t know. But I think we have to acknowledge that something is wrong with the system at this point and that something has to be done.
Frankly, nothing is more controversial in American life than this issue of whether or not we are going to be reconciled across racial lines. I have seen some responses coming after simply saying in light of Ferguson that we need to talk about why it is that white people and black people see things differently. And I said what we need to do is to have churches that come together and know one another and are knitted together across these racial lines. And I have gotten responses and seen responses that are right out of the White Citizen’s Council material from 1964. In my home state of Mississippi, seeing people saying there is no gospel issue involved in racial reconciliation.
Are you kidding me? There is nothing that is clearer in the New Testament that the gospel breaks down the dividing walls that we have between one another.
I had not followed this case. I first saw the video last night, on the Fox News 6 p.m. hour. It certainly looks like excessive force, and the federal regulation outlawing sales of loose cigarettes, and police enforcement of same, is outrageous. However, on reading last evening and this morning, I learn that Garner did not die of being choked. He had no neck damage on autopsy, and did not asphyxiate. He died of heart failure.
The very first issue is the ridiculous and excessive amount of laws we have which no doubt every single one of us inadvertently violate.
I suppose a nanny state can only think that outlawing selling loose cigarettes is a great idea, but once you unleash the police on lawbreakers than *forcing* people to accept arrest who are unwilling to do so is a given. There is no reason to have police if they cannot force an unwilling person to be arrested.
he wasn’t an innocent and he was refusing arrest. he had a criminal record. he wasn’t choked to death. from what i’ve seen when people want ‘a discussion about race’ it’s contigent upon a very narrow and specific narrative.