Two prayers....

God's will be done and may He have mercy upon us all.

About Me

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A Catholic who follows Rome & the Magisterium. I'm against gay "marriage", abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, human cloning. Altar girls, Communion in the hand, Eucharistic Ministers and "Protestant" music in the Church doesn't bother me at all. A proud American retired submarine sailor. Our borders should be secured with a 10 ft. high fence topped by concertina wire with minefields out to 20 yards on both sides and an additional 10 yards filled with warning signs outside of that Let's get energy independent NOW! Back Israel to the max, stop appeasing followers of the Pedophile Prophet. Pro 2nd Amendment, pro death penalty, Repeal all hate crime legislation. Back the police unless you'd rather call a hippie when everything hits the fan. Get government out of dealing with education, childhood obesity and the enviornment. Stop using the military for sociological experiments and if we're in a war don't micromanage their every move. Kill your television, limit time on the computer and pick up a book. God's will be done and may He have mercy upon us all.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

But, but, but, isn't this "torture"??

By Jerry Seper
-
The Washington Times
8:36 p.m., Sunday, November 28, 2010


The self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff" in America, Phoenix's Joe Arpaio, who has survived six separate inmate lawsuits trying to stop him from playing Christmas music, will begin playing the tunes again this year - starting Monday with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,""Frosty the Snowman" and "Feliz Navidad."

The 8,000 inmates also will hear, among others, "A Christmas Kwanzaa Solstice," "Over the Skies of Israel," "Ramadan," "Llego a La Ciudad," "Let it Snow" and "Rodolpho El Reno de la Nariz Rojita."

"Maybe the holiday music can help lift the spirits of the men and women who are away from friends and family during the holidays, not just the inmates, but the dedicated men and women who work in the Maricopa County Jails," the sheriff said in an announcement Sunday.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, to which Sheriff Arpaio was first elected in 1992 after a 25-year career at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), has played the holiday songs all day, every day, during previous seasons. The latest inmate lawsuit was dismissed in federal court in December 2009.

Sheriff Arpaio has long expressed his fondness for Christmas music, especially "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and anything by Alvin and the Chipmunks, so it was with some glee last year that he announced in a red-and-green press release that the lawsuit had been dismissed and the music would begin.

"We keep winning these lawsuits. Inmates should stop acting like the Grinch who stole Christmas and give up wasting the court's time with such frivolous assertions," the press release read.

Inmates have sued six times claiming that being forced to listen to the Christmas songs 12 hours a day was in violation of their civil and religious rights and a cruel and unusual punishment, but U.S. District Judge Roz Silver disagreed, dismissing the case and denying claims for $250,000 in damages.

The court issued a summary judgment saying it found no evidence of fact, so Sheriff Arpaio was entitled to the judgment as a matter of law.

In upholding the decision, the court said the sheriff was free to "inject the holiday spirit into the lives of those incarcerated over the holiday season in the third-largest jail system in the U.S."

Sheriff Arpaio has noted that his music selections have been multiethnic and culturally diverse, from all religions and ethnicities. He told The Washington Times that in addition to tunes by Alvin and the Chipmunks, the music included the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Bing Crosby and Doctor Demento.

"All people everywhere deserve a little Christmas cheer," he said.

Sheriff Arpaio catapulted to national attention when he cracked down on the thousands of illegal immigrants who swarm daily through his county; put inmates in pink jumpsuits and underwear; worked them in chain gangs; housed them in tents in the Arizona desert; and fed them bologna sandwiches.

The sheriff is no stranger to controversy, although his philosophy of "zero tolerance towards the criminal element" has been embraced by his deputies and the community alike.

Most recently, he has come to the attention of the federal government. He was notified in March 2009 by the Justice Department that he may have unfairly targeted Hispanics and Spanish-speaking people for arrest. In October 2009, the Department of Homeland Security revoked the authority of his federally trained deputies to make immigration arrests in the field.

Tired of waiting for the federal government to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and concerned about the potential terrorism threat that the lack of border security posed, he assigned deputies in 2006 to monitor his 9,226-square-mile county for illegal immigrants. He targeted the illegals under an anti-smuggling law that state lawmakers passed to fight drug trafficking.

"My message is clear: If you come here and I catch you, you're going straight to jail," he said at the time. "We're going to arrest any illegal who violates this new law, and I'm not going to turn these people over to federal authorities so they can have a free ride back to Mexico. I'll give them a free ride to my jail."

In September, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Phoenix accusing the sheriff's office of failing to turn over documents sought since March 2009 that federal prosecutors say comply with its probe of purported discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against those with limited English skills.

The sheriff has described the lawsuit as "harassment," saying thousands of pages of documents have already been turned over by his office to federal prosecutors. He said the lawsuit made it "abundantly clear that Arizona, including this sheriff, is Washington's new whipping boy."

Earlier this month, the sheriff announced the creation of an armed "Immigration Posse" to combat illegal immigration. Among those signing up were Hollywood actors Steven Seagal and Lou Ferrigno, along with Dick Tracy and Wyatt Earp.

Fighting Justice Department accusations that his office discriminated against illegal immigrants during arrests, Sheriff Arpaio said the civilian posse of more than 50 members gives citizens a chance to fight the problem inundating their border state.

"Law enforcement budgets are being cut and agencies are losing personnel and yet the battle to stop illegal immigration must continue," said the sheriff, who heads the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. "Arizona is the busiest port of entry for people being smuggled in from Mexico, Latin and South America. So asking for the public's help in this endeavor makes sense, especially given the success the posses have experienced over the years."

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has investigated, arrested or detained more than 42,000 illegal immigrants during the past three years.

(Story ends here. My comments follow.)
I'm posting this for two reasons. First, the whole article strikes me as funny. Seems the good sheriff will supposedly try to accommodate all tastes while at the same time pissing off almost all his "guests" during the playing of this music. As an example; Alvin and The Chipmunks? I'd rather have root canal work done. But that's just me.

Second, and this goes back to Alvin & Co., I'm reminded of how up in arms so many human rights types got over the playing of "Barney's Theme" to the inmates at Gitmo. Seems it was deemed "torture" because they were really disgusted by it (I can identify, that song is a constant at my home. It's something I consider temporal punishment in this life. Any time in Purgatory should be brief.).

But evidently there's no righteous outcry from the Christian hierarchy, MSM, cultural elites, etc. when the ones subjected to teeth-grating, hair pulling, wishing-you-could-jam-chopsticks-through-your-eardrums, "music" are run of the mill criminals. Guess that won't give the same warm fuzzy feeling as a heart bleeding for those who want to kill us all on general principles.

Damned if I can understand it. Double standards of this sort don't make sense to me and never have. If something in the way of "Barney's Theme" is cruel and unusual punishment for Gitmo detainees, Alvin and The Chipmunks should merit equal consideration when played for the average felon. But you don't hear the hue and cry for one as you did for the other. As I noted, the glamor and "chic" may not be there.

It puts the whole "torture" issue and it's lack of consistency in an interesting light.

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