Badly Needed -- A Draconian Response to the Drug Epidemic!

It is like a plague! The growing problem of illegal drugs of all kinds is impacting not just the large metropolitan areas but smaller towns and rural areas as well. Here in south central Pennsylvania, which includes the city of Johnstown, there have been large numbers of persons arrested in drug related activity and many deaths taking place as a result of drug overdoses. Adding to this is the fact of ruined lives of persons who are addicted and resorting to criminal activity to get money in order to maintain the addiction.

Attempts to organize a counter offensive plus numerous meetings and discussions have taken place in an effort to deal effectively with the problem. In spite of all the attempts to deal successfully with the issue, the problem with drugs appears with the passing of time to be like a juggernaut that is unstoppable!

However, there is a way that over time will begin to produce some positive results in this war that has been waged for far too long. And just what is this way, one might ask? It is really simple and the most effective strategy we can implement. We begin by putting in place legislation that makes it an automatic death penalty for anyone who sells illegal drugs for money. This penalty would be applied when during the trial the evidence is irrefutable that the individual is guilty of gaining money from the sale of illegal drugs such as heroin, et al! Further, there would be no appeal and the sentence to be carried out within 30 days of conviction! In time, if consistently applied, this measure would get rid of dealers at all levels with a message that says explicitly: “If you sell illegal drugs, are apprehended, brought to trial, and it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that you are guilty, you will die shortly after the trial!”

Will legislators have enough spine to pass such legislation? It is highly unlikely because of the twisted and distorted value system our culture now embraces. There are a number who claim the death penalty is cruel and inhumane punishment! And there have been demonstrations on behalf of persons about to be executed for violent murders committed. While there has been much sympathy expressed for the criminal and the fact that he/she is going to be executed, very little or no sympathy shown whatsoever for the victims’ families and what they are dealing with by way of grief and hardship!

Anyone want to tell how many lives have been totally ruined and cut short due to a drug dealer peddling his/her illegal wares? Go ahead – how many? A dozen, twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand? No, you, nor can I, even begin to fathom the number much less the extent of misery these people who sell drugs have caused!

So, what is your suggestion for dealing with the drug epidemic? Give the offenders a slap on the wrist, do some counseling, and have lots of discussions on what we can do? Too bad we cannot be Draconian in our approach to the issue!

By the way, the Draconian approach as mentioned above should also apply to every person who kills a law enforcement officer!

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. -- Genesis 9:6 (KJV)

PA UM Bishops' War on Gambling in Pennsylvania continued....

"Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! --- Jesus speaking in Matthew 23:24

Yesterday the focus was on four UMC bishops who have issued a pastoral letter urging all United Methodists in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to oppose Gov. Rendell’s proposal to expand gambling by means of video poker machines set up in a number of business establishments.

Many years ago before my retirement I, along with all W. PA Conference pastors, received a “pastoral letter” from the three UMC bishops in Pennsylvania. We were told to read the letter to our congregations and urge opposition and call for ultimate elimination of the death penalty in the state.

I wrote to each of those bishops personally and told each one that I would be most willing to read their letter to my people IF and WHEN I received a letter from them equally strong and forceful in opposing abortion on demand. After all, a "death penalty" of a kind is involved when an unborn child is executed in the womb, is it not?

Time passed and eventually I received a reply from the bishop of the Central PA Conference. The letter contained a few terse phrases which when translated clearly declared, “Who are you to question us?” That is a temptation some bishops seem to have once they take office – they now have a “kingdom” and when they say “Jump!” everyone snaps to attention and says, “Yes sir/madam – just how much altitude does your honor desire from us in that jump?” Pastors and congregations are expected to march in lockstep with no questions to be asked nor any objections to be raised when the bishop speaks!

The female bishop at the eastern end of the state never did send a reply to my letter. And as I followed her career in later years I understood why she did not respond.

More time passed and eventually my own bishop responded. He conceded that the issue was a serious one, but felt maybe I was making a little bit too much of it – you know, a matter of making "a mountain out of a mole hill" sort of thing!

And so, I didn’t read the letter. I did post it on the bulletin boards of my churches along side of the letter I sent to the bishops and informed my people what had transpired.

That is how it has been over the decades – United Methodist bishops have spoken out on issues of all kinds – pastoral letters have been drafted and congregations have been urged to take action to bring about changes toward improvement of some kind within our culture.

But on the issue which will bring the wrath of a holy God upon this nation more quickly than any other offense, the bishops seem to have a Mafia type “code of silence!” Not a one will boldly speak out in vehement protest about the horrors of the mass destruction of the unborn, nor urge those within his/her conference to do so.

At the present time W PA Annual Conference has been on a campaign to send treated mosquito netting to Africa in the battle against malaria with Bishop Bickerton hammering on the fact of huge numbers of persons dying each year from malaria. Jean and I have supported this effort financially. But why does the bishop not express at least equal concern for over a million unborn children in the United States being mutilated and murdered in the womb each year?

Maybe I have it all wrong – and that is, that it is much more a serious matter as to what a mosquito does to a person in Africa than what a hypocrite posing as a “doctor” does with a custom made vacuum cleaner in tearing to shreds an unborn child whom God is forming in the womb in the United States of America! For further discussion on this issue see
A Mosquito Does Not Rationalize, Resist Or Retaliate! Use return feature on your web browser to come back to this place.

Will someone please explain this mystery to me as the United States’ version of “holocaust” continues with enthusiastic support from our president and very little serious objection while we United Methodists with overwhelming enthusiasm fight the evils of gambling in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?

"For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.” --- Jeremiah 7:5-8

W. PA United Methodists on Death Penalty and Hand Guns!

"...We believe all human life is sacred and created by God...The sixth commandment, 'Thou Shall not kill,' not only forbids killing, it also implies that we are obligated to prevent harm and to preserve life and the well-being of human life..." --- statements in proposed resolutions for consideration at the W. PA Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, June 2008

Among the many pieces of proposed legislation to come before the members of the W. PA Annual Conference session during the second week of June, 2008, are those dealing with the death penalty in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the purchase of hand guns.

One item addresses the subject of establishing a moratorium on the death penalty. One argument put forth for this is quoted above, and is a quotation from the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church. Officially the denomination goes on record as saying that "we believe all human life is sacred and created by God." The resolution proceeds to set forth the logic of the need to preserve life.

There's a major problem here -- we strongly protest the execution of criminals convicted of murdering one or more other human beings, but we will not "officially" protest the intentional pre-meditated mutilation and murders of thousands of unborn children in the state of Pennsylvania each year!

And then there is the resolution which is titled, "In Support of 'One-Handgun-a-Month' Legislation in Pennsylvania." This one gets a bit wild by mentioning that in light of the sixth commandment we are "obligated to prevent harm and to preserve life and the well-being of human life!"

Ah, yes -- same issue, only in connection with those horrible things called "hand-guns" -- it's like a lot of people are going to walk in the store and buy 2 or 3 of those things every week! If we want to propose legislation on restricting or limiting what are regarded as "tools of death," how about eliminating those "tools" used by those guys who wear white coats and mistakenly have the initials "M.D." behind their names -- you know, those tools used to tear apart an unborn child before it is born? Quite a few thousand in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania end up murdered each year before they are born with no charges of criminal activity ever being filed!

But worse, we draw that line at the entrance to the human womb -- we'll legislate in the name of protecting human life, but what's inside the human womb -- you know, that little one God is forming for a high and holy purpose (Jeremiah 1:4,5) -- that one doesn't count. Maybe that's because too many of us have bought into the propaganda line that all that is inside the womb is a mass of tissue and blood, to be disposed of at the whim of the "mother" (term used loosely) and in the name of "constitutional rights!"

Do you sense that something is terribly amiss here? Do you wonder at the blatant inconsistencies of episcopal leadership which does not hesitate to address certain social ills and campaigns vigorously for stamping out malaria in Africa which kills a million children a year (according to figures quoted by those involved in the Nothing But Nets campaign) but says absolutely nothing about the 1 million unborn victims of intentional murder in the United States each year?

What will happen? The W. PA Annual Conference will likely pass those resolutions and many others besides, and then return home with a "feel good" feeling that we have done some great things for the Kingdom of God. But in the meantime the slaughter of the innocents continues and we haven't even uttered a whisper of protest against this abomination!

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!" --- Matthew 23:23, 24