A big segment of the population that doesn’t understand how freedom requires the rule of law, and that without it we’re all right back to the jungle, where the strong and the mean rule over everyone else. The segment of the population that doesn’t understand that – or doesn’t accept it – has made Chicago and at least parts of most other American cities into war zones, where life is cheap, violence or the threat of it is the way all conflicts are settled and anyone weaker than the predators are fair game, regardless of race.

Author Tiffany Madison wrote, “Our Founders grasped that self-defense is three-fold: every free individual must protect themselves against the evil will of the man, the mob and the state.”

NBA legend Michael Jordan just announced that he could “no longer remain silent” about the growing tensions between black Americans and the police, and his words provide all the explanation needed about the source of these shootings – “I have the greatest respect for their [i.e., police officers] sacrifice and service. I also recognize that for many people of color their experiences with law enforcement have been different than mine.”

It has been our actions (and inactions) that have destroyed America. History will continue, noting only with wonder how Americans in the late 20th and early 21st centuries traded heaven-on-earth for a hell of our own creation.

For those who remain in poverty generation after generation, it’s their choices that condemn them to that condition, not racism. Not studying, not developing the social skills needed to succeed, not exercising restraint on their immediate wants and desires, rejecting society’s standards of behavior and laws…those are the “fatal shots” fired long before any policeman fires his gun.

“…that all men are created equal…” Not that they are equal, or that the outcomes of their lives will be equal; but that they are created equal. What happens after that depends on what each individual man or woman does with their lives.

Alton Sterling fought the police, and now he’s dead. He refused to follow their directions and fought them and continued to struggle with them while on the ground. Was it because he didn’t have a permit for the gun?

Great news! I was recently arrested as a suspect in a local bank robbery, but the local prosecutor announced today that I’ll not be charged. I’m grateful, of course, because it was just a really odd series of coincidences that implicated me in the first place.

Did the Founding Fathers establish the rights and freedoms given by God, expressed by the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Constitution based on what we do sexually? Of course not; those rights and freedoms are based on our status as American citizens.

Much is being made of Donald Trump’s supposedly “racist” comments and attitude about the judge in a Trump University lawsuit. According to Trump, the judge, who is of Hispanic ethnicity, can’t rule objectively in the case because of the antagonism caused among some Hispanics by Trump’s promise to build a wall to stop illegal immigration from Mexico and Central American countries.