It took him about two seconds to get elected to Congress after that short speech.
As a cloistered Benedictine nun told me across the pond, “service rules the day.” You do what you’re supposed to do for people and they’ll love you for it. What you’re supposed to do in law enforcement is not at all to follow the democratic “will to power” of “the people” madly chasing after this and that fad. Rather, law enforcement in a Constitutional Republic is to follow that rule of law which is legitimate because it is consonant with natural law, which is, of course, consonant with what God wants for us, the mercy that is justice, the clemency that is circumstantially justified.
I like how he says that most men in jail are good men who just got on the wrong side of the law. I like how he mocks the “gangsters” who hold their guns sideways. I laughed out loud when he said: “I’m easy to find.” That’s about enough to make any gangster retire into boxing yams, hacking sugar cane, driving rice trucks, sorting through crawfish, jarring up Cajun hot pepper.
This kind of law enforcement works when there’s no corruption in the upper echelon of law enforcement, no corruption of politicians. What honest LEOs hate the most is corrupt law enforcement leadership, corrupt politicians, corrupt prosecutors, corrupt judges, corrupt jailers. It makes an already dangerous job all the deadly, all the more frustrating.
I’m sure there’s an analogy to be made of the dynamics established when Jesus commands us to love one another AS He has loved us, in all truth, in all respect, in all goodness and kindness, He taking us deadly seriously and expecting us to take Him deadly seriously.
The thing believing priests and believing laity hate the most is corrupt “men of consensus”, those priests and (Cardinal) (Arch)bishops who go along to get along with the fallen world and the prince of this world who is Satan. It makes their lives of trying to help people get close(r) to Jesus and on their way to heaven all the more difficult, all the more frustrating. How wonderful it would be to have believing believers.
Here’s the deal: believing believers appreciate the efforts of those who try their best, even while suffering frustration in this way or that. We’ve all seen it all before. We’ve seen this or that Judas betray Jesus. We’ve seen this or that Peter deny Jesus, even repeatedly. We already recognize that those who go to hell with Judas want to go to hell, and that that’s their choice before God. But we also recognize that Jesus didn’t lay down His life, Innocent for the guilty (who include all of us), just to do it, but so that He would have the right in His own justice to have mercy on us. Our hope is not in fallen human beings. We want the best for them and for us, that we are all converted to the Lord and be on our way to heaven. But our hope is not in fallen human beings. Our hope is in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God.
And for that matter, I hope that the Gremlins get their act together and turn to Jesus as well.
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 