Justice

And so it is… the engine is STILL SOUND. When we choose to put our foot down, the acceleration GROWS. As the velocity of this change increases, in-sync with the fluidity of the passage of time, we breathe deep and shift gears; opening another level of expansion… attaining that which was once said to be unattainable.

Attaining that, which was once said could NEVER be done… after four years of the Donald J. Trump Administration, does anyone truly believe there is anything this Nation cannot DO.

Cyclical in nature, the gears turn… just as it was when this experiment was set into motion. Where once there was nothing, with the stroke of a QUILL thus it was born; zero to sixty one HOT afternoon in July. Today, the promises of SPRING bloom… may our work preserve and protect the harvest of a Just and Righteous fruit this FALL.

Where once there was doubt grows HOPE. Where once sprawled a field of brambles, now lies neatly tended rows… cleared by PATIENTS, with a devout adherence to the marking of the passage of TIME. The Fields of Destiny now call us. Let us move FORWARD and dispel the opinions of those who stand opposed to the MAJORITY and SHOW THEM how it will be, how it MUST be… it is for THEM we do this as well.

Equal Justice Under Law is NOT an opinion… in this country, that must be our REALITY. It’s our DUTY to ensure it is so.

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Accountability for offensive actions is a GOOD START.

The George Floyd Accountability in Policing Act must be passed.

It doesn’t matter who that knee is upon, so long as it’s able to happen again… you could be next. Without LAW, they retain that right.

IF we granted Qualified Immunity to EVERYONE we employ to operate a deadly metal machine, we would see an increase in the number of pedestrians struck and killed by CITY BUSES. Because they can be held accountable for their split-second decisions, they err in-favor of the PEDESTRIAN and not the LAMP POST.

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But this legislation does not go deep enough. It does not SOLVE the problem that created the need for this legislation in the first place. While accountability itself can act as a deterrent, it will ultimately lead to more of the SAME.

Locking up Police Officers for abhorrent behavior will not stop the killing of Black Lives. Only KNOWLEDGE can do that… knowledge leads to UNDERSTANDING, and anyone we deem worthy of carrying a BADGE and a GUN should always be striving for more knowledge, to better understand the communities in which they serve.

Right now, where do these Officers gather their information? What level of education should we require for our Law Enforcement Officers and what fields should we require them to be fully knowledgeable in before we consider ARMING them and sending them out into our communities?

Racism, discrimination, prejudice… these mindsets are NOT default settings. They are TAUGHT to others, they are LEARNED. The best weapon against racism is knowledge.

We need to create a four year degree in Law Enforcement and Peace Officer Education, in which we require extensive learning in the methods of policing and the historical relationships between police and minority groups in this country. To simply say police need more training is not enough, we need to fully establish and accredit what it is they should know and how they will be trained.

Once established, Officers will fully understand what it is we expect from them in the line of duty. They will have no doubt as to when they should pull their service weapon, and there will be no doubt as to when they should be held accountable for their actions. It is in our Nation’s interest to make this training mandatory for all Officers, so it should be free of charge for anyone who earns the degree.

The FAA requires 1500 hours of training before a pilot can fly commercially in the United States. According to Wikipedia, that can take about two years to complete. That amount of time should be the MINIMUM requirement for all Law Enforcement Officers in the United States, on top of a four year degree.

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I still believe in the mission of Law Enforcement. I believe they play a vital role in our society, of both deterrence and security.

Understanding the diversity of situations Officers find themselves in, we need to incorporate a multi discipline approach to Law Enforcement. We need cops who are specifically Doctors, Nurses, Psychologists. Officers trained in Law Enforcement with a specialty. When called, they respond with a Badge and authority, but armed with KNOWLEDGE instead of a gun. Their primary objective is to correct a situation by any means necessary including arrest, but not specifically so.

Discretion. Empathy. Compassion. Community Assistance… responding to those situations that are not solved by incarceration. If we can avoid bad outcomes for both police AND citizens, then we should do so.

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The guilty verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin has shattered our perception of reality, exposing a tectonic shift… a generational divide. My teenagers saw the outcome of the trial as a given, the evidence was too overwhelming. ‘There’s only one way the jury could decide.’

I did my best to tell them. I told them to go watch the footage of Rodney King and remember… a jury let those Officers GO. Mr. King was resisting arrest.

Our children now view JUSTICE as a given, unlike their parents and grandparents who have been conditioned to expect the opposite… because it’s been proven to be so many times before. For them, that world no longer EXISTS.

All they have is HOPE, and now their beliefs have been affirmed…
I want THIS WORLD to be more like theirs.

It is Self-Evident.

The state of BEING equal… especially in status, rights, and opportunity. A symbolic expression of a FACT, that two quantities ARE EQUAL.

The quality of being fair or impartial. The QUALITY of… the VALUE of. The value of WORTH. Ownership. Rights.

EQUALITY promotes fairness by treating EVERYONE the same, regardless of need.

We’ve all been plodding along, believing what was written, that we are ALL created EQUAL. And everyday… we continue to question why it’s not so.

“Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it… it doesn’t. No one ever voted for that.”

-Justice Antonin Scalia

… no one ever voted for that.

In the beginning, they did not know. It had never been proven before… it had never been done. As new light was being cast upon old paradigms of thought, revelations of a new way forward were forged.

IF they proved to be superior to those that came before, it could break the cycle of enslavement humanity had endured for thousands of years. IF they proved to be wrong… it could lead to the enslavement of the entire globe.

They chose to believe in the fundamental laws of nature, as proved by countless minds across thousands of years. That we are ALL created EQUAL. A fact so universally profound, our Founders believed it to be SELF-EVIDENT. It is the foundation upon which our Democratic Experiment is built. A fact so basic, we now take it for granted.

If that which we believe to be FACT becomes a variable, the entire experiment falls apart… that’s why they Declared it to be so from the start.

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Our words matter… every one of us. We are united in common cause, our destinies entangled. Our fates dependent upon the actions of others. It is by choice and design that we stand today, not by chance. Some would say it was preordained, as if a gift from the divine.

If that’s the case, we must remember- it is a gift given with FREE WILL… a choice. The ability to see that which is OF divinity, and that which is NOT. It’s up to us to use these gifts we’ve been given, in the way they were intended to be used…

For ALL MANKIND.

And at the heart of it all stands that universal truth… EQUALITY.

Just read the WORDS as they are written. Therein lies our ANSWER! That’s why OURS is to be celebrated! Any path we follow must bring us closer to Equal Justice Under Law for everyone. From the President to the Postmaster, from Senator to Sanitation Worker. It’s what we’ve all pledged to do.

Anyone who stands opposed to EQUALITY, stands opposed to the MAJORITY of the people of the United States of America… and we now have the DATA to back that up.

STAND UP for the RULE OF LAW!

STAND UP for the CONSTITUTION.

-JC

‘Jack Charbonneau 2020: Political Revolution’ Fundraiser Announcement

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With the proper amount of support, I still believe I can make it on to the ballot and change the course of this election. The arguments continue to grow around what has been done and what has NOT been done. INACTION in the SENATE. INACTION in the WHITE HOUSE. Meanwhile… the PEOPLE are living it.

Is THIS the way we want it to continue to BE? Beyond 2021… is THIS the government we choose to empower? Does THIS represent the Will of the American People?

The PEOPLE deserve a THIRD OPTION on the debate stage this fall. A candidate who represents their agendas and their responsibilities.

With your help… I would be HONORED to be that candidate.

-JC

Gut Check

I was always told, if you don’t have anything nice to say… don’t say anything at all.

“Trump Jr’s baseless attack on Biden…” Slate.com (05/17/2020)

Everyone is eventually held accountable for their actions… even an atheist like myself believes that. My actions in life will be judged, weighed on the scales, and found to be either merits or mischievous; all dependent upon my choices and my values.

To tell you the TRUTH… I never really cared what most people think of me.😉

I’ve always attempted to treat others with respect, whether or not they show it in return. Even after realizing respect or common courtesy will not be reciprocated… I know, at the end of the day we are ALL still human. We all still have the ability to change, and someday that seed of hope might take root… you never know!

“Ousted State Dept. IG was investigating if Pompeo made staffer walk his dog and run other personal errands” CNN.com (05/17/2020)

“Pruitt used security detail to run errands…” TheHill.com (06/07/2018)

None of us can truly judge what is in another man’s heart. Individually, our sight will always be limited. Our Rule of Law accepts that fact and works to ensure Equal Justice by embracing the strength found in a Jury of our Peers. The Constitution affords us Due Process, making sure everyone has their day to be heard.

What we do and what we say MATTERS. We can effect those around us, as well as people we may never meet. Our actions can touch the lives of an entire CITY, changing the perspectives of people of like-mind in cities across the STATE, eventually bringing about changes in the make up of our Legislatures… thereby impacting lives in EVERY state.

… and there-in lies the problem.

Our SILENCE allows it to continue. To be SILENT and ignore injustice or criminal acts makes you COMPLICIT. Part of the problem is the SILENCE surrounding these subjects.

**… and the silence effects us all.**

www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

I would not stand SILENT if someone were to shoot another person in the middle of 5th Avenue, and allow them to get away with it; nor could I lend my support to or elevate someone, who would dismiss the value inherent in another human being… simply because they could not see eye to eye.

“A sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden has ignited a firestorm of controversy.” vox.com (04/29/2020)

Shame on her if she is LYING… but SHAME on us if we continue to ignore the root of this problem. Because these behaviors will continue, especially if they are affirmed and given our consent at the ballot box this fall. TWENTY-FIVE is too many, but ONCE is not enough…?!

How much lower must we drag the bar?

We’re only talking about the HIGHEST OFFICE in the land here.

Then again, who am I to say… I’m just some guy from Kansas.

“Indelible in the Hippocampus…”

The Scouts of Boy Scout Troop #86 had, for many months as their leader, an older Scout who was a bit of a hard nose. He was a drum major for the Olathe South Marching Falcons, and he led our Troop with an emphasis on structure and discipline, with rigidity and order…

Needless to say, 50 or 60 high school kids on a Monday night weren’t exactly stoked to comply with his sanctimonious leadership style.

As his 18th birthday approached, we began considering who we wanted to be his replacement. It was more or less assumed that our new leader would be one of the older Scouts that had been with the Troop for a longer period of time. More than likely, our new Senior Patrol Leader would be one of the Scouts that were in his Patrol, the term for a group of Scouts within the Troop itself.

The Senior Patrol Leader is the Scout who decides where the Troop will go for the monthly camping trips. One weekend a month, every month, the Troop spends a weekend learning important skills at various locations throughout the Kansas City area. Some locations are near facilities that can help Scouts earn Merit Badges that they wouldn’t normally be able to earn.

One weekend we camped at a park located near an airport, operated by the University of Missouri, where we spent the weekend earning our Aviation Merit Badge. Another weekend, we camped near the depot of an old railroad that once served the States of Kansas, Texas, and Arkansas (KTA) in the 19th century. We helped their museum change railroad ties on the still-operating line, and in the process we earned our Railroading Merit Badge.

But those trips had happened under previous leadership, and we wanted our new Senior Patrol Leader to plan future trips to places like those, to the places that we wanted to go. I guess that sounds about right for a bunch of adolescent teenagers. (NOTE: Back in MY day… teenagers were rebellious and self-centered. FYI)

At some point before the election, proposed as more of a joke than anything else, the name of one of the younger Scouts was recommended. He wasn’t part of the youngest group of Scouts who had just recently joined the Troop, he joined with the group before that. He had been with the Troop no more than nine months.

The argument was made that as a younger Scout, it would be easy to convince him to see things our way. In essence, we believed he would do as we said because he would be a “pushover”. A young Scout, wanting to fit in with the older Scouts…? Every camping trip would be where we told him we wanted to go.

No one in the Troop was excited to vote for any of the candidates… so the majority of the Troop voted for the “pushover”. One month later, our new Senior Patrol Leader subjected the younger Scouts to an “underware check”. It was the first camping trip with him as our new leader.

We enabled that to happen by electing someone we wouldn’t have chosen under different circumstances.

The Catholic Church.

The Boy Scouts of America.

The United States Military…

The United States Supreme Court.

The Movie Industry.

The Music Industry.

The Hotel and Service Industry.

The Fast-Food Industry.

Even in small businesses. “Ma and Pa” shops that only employ a handful of people…

Like the United States Senate.

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Once the light pierces the darkness, it’s hard to go BACK to the way things were before. To do so would mean ignoring what has been seen, forgetting what has become KNOWN.

That is why the DARK AGES are part of our PAST… our HISTORY. Not our future.

wyco_lake — Wyandotte County Lake under quarantine- 03/27/2020

At the end of the day, it’s all about making sure THEY have a better shot at making it. That they start out with more opportunities than I had. By working to make sure their future is successful… MY future will be as well.

What will we leave behind when we go? In this moment, I’m thinking not so much as will I be remembered… but will anyone be around to do any remembering? Will they have the luxury of leisure, to sit and contemplate the past; or will they be so busy just trying to SURVIVE in the moment, that they’ll be unable to take the time to expand their horizons?

When you must spend every waking moment in a constant struggle to put food on the table, things like education take a back seat. You know… “When I get around to it.”

So much is up in the air right now as our nation stands watching… faced with a choice that is all too clear. There is so much that we must do, and so much of it must be done RIGHT… as we may not have this chance again.

What will our children make of this moment? How will democracy be judged by future generations? The political structure that we grew up with is now gone. It died with the passing of the Republican Party. All that remains is a hollow shell of what once was, held up only by our belief in it… a stiff breeze is now all that’s required.