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A Tale Of Two Zimmermans: Was Zimmerman Really Prepared? – Episode 167

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Photo Courtesy of Headline Digest.

Photo Courtesy of Headline Digest.

In the newest edition of Off The Grid News Radio, hosts Bill Heid and Brian Brawdy sit down in the studio to talk about what is trending in the news and the enormous amount of coverage these topics are getting. To start the show, Heid and Brawdy tackle the extremely heated and controversial topic of the George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin case. In order to get a law enforcement insider perspective, Heid asks Brawdy, “Was Zimmerman really prepared?”

Then Brawdy gets really heated when they start talking about the impact of public figures like Reverend Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton on a case like this. Brawdy calls for a more direct approach to conflict by public figures. “You want to be a tough guy [Al Sharpton]; walk into the city of Chicago and do some good.“ He goes on to say, “You’re too busy getting cameras to cover you. You’re too busy inciting race riots. You want to do some good, come on this show and let’s have a little bit of a debate about what good you do.”

Off The Grid Radio
Ep167
Released: July 25, 2013

Brian:   Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to off the grid news, the radio version of offthegridnews.com [1].  I’m Brian Brawdy here, as always, with Mr.  Bill Heid.  Bill, how are you sir?

Bill:      Brian, I’m well.  I’m well; thanks for asking.

Brian:   Good, good.

Bill:      My hip hurts.  No I’m just kidding. I’m fine; I’m feeling better.

Brian:   Good, good.

Bill:      It’s good to have you here today, thanks for driving in.

Brian:   Not at all, my pleasure, I love hanging out with you.

Bill:      Love to have you here.  Got some great stuff I want to talk about today, and I kind of want to turn things around a little bit and ask you a few questions now.

Brian:   Okay.

Bill:      Normally you’re sort of querying me, and you’re saying, “What about this?  What about this?”  I really have—as a former detective, I have a question for you.

Brian:   Sure.

Bill:      And I’m going to pause at this idea.  No banter back and forth.

Brian:   Right.

Bill:      Just jump right in to it.  Normally you know how we have, like Joel Olsten?  He likes to tell a joke before he gets started.  We like to, you know, lighten things up and tell people about our tomatoes or something.  But today?

Brian: All right.

Bill:      We’re just running right into it, like Walter Payton getting a football and heading right into the Minnesota Vikings.

Brian:   Right like there ain’t no clown.

Bill:      Exactly.

Brian:   Okay, got you then, no safety net, I’m in.

Bill:      No safety net, and no safety net on the other side too, we’re going to tackle that… It seems like there’s a lot of emotional attachment to in the United States and that’s the case of George Zimmerman.

Brian:   Who’s that?

Bill:      You’ve been on Mars, in a cave on Mars.

Brian:   That’s it, yeah.  I’ve got AT&T cell reception.

Bill:      That’s your second home.  That’s yourself at home, yeah.  What’s your reception like on Mars?  Probably not very good.

Brian:   Unbelievable.  Well I guess that’s kind of a play on the joke that one of his defense attorneys use at the beginning.  Knock-knock, who’s there?  George.  George who?  George Zimmerman.  You know, you can’t turn anywhere without hearing about that story.

 

Bill:      He’s become famous or infamous, depending on which side of that transaction you’re on.  But the side that I wanted to attack, and first so our listeners don’t call in and say that we’ve switched sides to some horrible position that we don’t have.  I think you and I are probably unanimous in both the perspective the guy can defend himself, and I think that the jury found him defending himself, and that verdict probably was the right verdict.  But that’s not my question.

Brian:   Okay.

Bill:      But just as a little bit of a qualifying statement.  But here’s my question for you.

Brian:   Shoot.

Bill:      We talk to people about the prepare… you know, are you prepared?

Brian:   Sure.

Bill:      Are you prepared for this event?  Are you prepared for that event?  Now I want to look at the Zimmerman thing as a microcosm for maybe a social breakdown.  Maybe people talk about meltdowns.  People talk about problems in the street.  So here’s George Zimmerman.  The point – the point I want to make to you and get your perspective on as a police officer… was George Zimmerman prepared?  So when he started walking down that alley, was he ready?  Was he prepared for all of the contingencies that might happen?  I’m just trying to make the case.  He may have ended up on the right end of the legal transaction.  He probably had no choice to defend himself at the end of the day.  However, did Treyvon Martin really have to die?  Did he really have to die?  Would a better decision, you know we have to fight with to know what hill we’re going to die on.

Brian:   Sure.

Bill:      And is that a hill?   I think there’s some back and forth here…

Brian:   Sure.

Bill:      Because is that a hill, in your opinion as a police officer, for someone that’s just in charge of neighborhood watch– is that a hill to die on?  Because somebody did.

Brian:   Because somebody did, and as you said tragically, a young man was a victim of a homicide.  And both of them, I suspect, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I think what happens to a lot of people, and you see it everywhere, they go, “Well I’ve got a gun so I’m all secure, I’m all set.”  But even with a pistol, even with some type of weapon to defend yourself, it’s just one part of the puzzle.  It’s one part of a bigger plan, because if all of us had guns and all you had to do to get yourself out of the situation was to pull that gun…

Bill:      We’d be stepping over a lot of corpses.

Brian:   We’d be stepping over a lot of corpses.  So when I look at it…  I think what tweaks me a little bit is when you hear some people say, “Well, Zimmerman ignored the order from the 911 operator.”  You mean the same group of people that you hear all these different stories about how 911 operators make huge mistakes and all the rest of it?  Thankfully, at least yet, there’s no law saying that 911 operator can tell you anything.  We still live in a free country.  The 911 operator says, “We don’t want you to do that, you don’t need to do that, we don’t want you following him.”  Was George in the right to get out of his vehicle?  Yes, there’s still no law that says you have to listen to a 911 operator, and you have to get out of your vehicle.  You know?  And there’s some stories about Mr.  Martin was on the phone with his girlfriend, and his girlfriend may have gotten him a little riled up, or his “female friend”- not implying that there was any relationship between the two- female friend got him all riled up, saying maybe he’s a stalker, maybe he’s coming after you, he’s doing these things.  But to your bigger question, to have a gun does not begin and end your plan.

Bill:      As a police officer you’re saying…

Brian:   Right, right.  You only draw your weapon.  And here’s the thing that drives me a little bit crazy about the case.  If you hear some of these police officers – well, a dog got free in the yard, cop shot him.  All right – justifiable shooting.  Right?  We talked about, I think last year, a case where the cops raid the wrong house, guy grabs a golf club to try to hold him at bay, they shoot the guy with the golf club.  All right, great, they shoot the guy with the golf clubs, cops get off.  So what I find fascinating now is all the reasons that we’ll excuse law enforcement officers for using deadly physical force when they shouldn’t have, in my estimation.  I wasn’t there so you never can say, “Hey, you shouldn’t have done it that way.”  But the rule is if you feel like you’re in fear of losing your life, right, if you think someone’s going to take your life, you’re allowed to use that amount of force which is necessary to terminate the attack.

So, I’ve never been one that said if you pull up and the guy’s got a knife, that you have the right to shoot him.  I’ve never been one that’s said if someone comes after you with a baseball bat, you have the right to shoot them.  I was in plenty of fights as a cop and never shot anyone, in a scenario of those fights, for that reason.  You’re allowed to use that amount of force which is necessary, to terminate the act.  Right?  So that old line, “Just like you don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.”  Well in the law, the ability to defend yourself rises to the level of which you’re being attacked, so I don’t think Mr.  Zimmerman was prepared when he gets out, because there’s a lot of people who aren’t afraid of handguns.  You know, there’s a lot of people who are like, “Great, you got a gun, so now what are you going to do with it?”  So once you threaten the use of that deadly physical force, there’s no going back.

So I find it laughable, Bill, when I see, you know, you see videos, or you see reports of cops going out and automatically drawing their guns.  Well there’s no way to in facing an aggressor to back down from that position.  Once you pull the gun… my belief was always when you pull the gun, you’re a second or two away from pulling the trigger.  If you need to pull the gun, it’s because you’re almost there.  You’re a millisecond or two away from thinking, “I have to fight.”  There’s no pulling a gun, point it at somebody and saying, “Oh do this or do that.”  You pull that weapon when you’re pretty sure your finger needs to let that hammer go, right?  Pull a trigger or let hammer go, whatever you’re using.

So, I don’t think Mr.  Zimmerman was prepared either, for what was going to happen, and I think for a lot of folks – I have a foid card, I carry a weapon, I’m certified in, I don’t know, 20 or however many states I’m certified in, 20, 30, 40 states.  But that doesn’t mean that I use that as a sense of any more protection than if I didn’t have one.  Obviously you want to talk yourself out of the situation if you can.  You want to flee if you can.  There’s no, there’s really no reason to use your first and last line of defense to use a firearm to fill that void.  Just, there’s no reason to do it.  And none of that is taking away from the jury’s verdict.  I hear all the time, “Well, we’re going to boycott Florida; everyone’s upset with the jury.”  Did you see the case the prosecution put on?

You want to be upset with someone – let’s just say that, probably not a lot of people listening here but, let’s just say you want to be upset with the outcome.  Don’t blame the jury.  They only took the evidence they were presented with, right?  That’s like going to the bat- going to a restaurant, getting a bad meal, and then blaming the people that ate the meal, right?  You go to a meal, you get food poisoning.  Am I supposed to blame you because you got food poisoning?  No, you blame the people that prepared the food.  So I would say, everybody get off the juror’s backs – blame the waiters that served the food.  And those are the prosecutors there in the state of Florida.

Bill:      Well the prosecutors did a poor job, but let’s just be candid; they didn’t have a lot of evidence to work with.  Evidence that they had was speeches at best, so I mean that’s how you end up…

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      …getting a good verdict, because the jurors clearly saw what happened, and said, “You know, we don’t really have anything for this guy to pin him down.”  I wanted to go back and tell you something earlier I thought was pretty interesting.  My dad’s always taught me, “Don’t ever point a gun at someone unless you’re prepared to use it.”

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      And he raised me that way, and I think that’s true.  I don’t even let my grandkids point guns.  You know how kids play cops and robbers, you don’t really get to do that when they’re at grandpa’s house, because I don’t want them to think, be thinking that that’s just how, “bang bang bang’ that’s how we do it.  It begins young.  So when you’re training your kids, you’ve got to teach them the value of human life, the value of just what a gun is and what a gun can do.

But the point you’re making, I think is a good one is wisdom.  Think about this, if you’re in your house… I’m going back to not only the laws, but a lot of the laws come from things that have biblical references.  And I think the bible’s perspective probably on it would be: if you’re in your home, and somebody attacks you, you have every right to use deadly force.  And then I think it gets fuzzier once you leave your home.  So the classic scenario is the guys at night, he doesn’t know what’s going on, somebody comes to his house.  You kind of have the right to protect your family and yourself.  Now you don’t want to shoot your daughter’s boyfriend obviously, right?

Brian:   Right

Bill:      You’ll spend a lot time in jail.  Things like that you need to go into this bigger picture, this bigger wisdom picture.  And I think that that’s something… The reason I want to bring it up is because I think folks really, as you pointed out early, get this idea that once you have a gun, you can just walking anywhere and acting like you’re a police officer, acting like you have authority.  Now, he doesn’t have authority; being a neighborhood watch guy doesn’t carry a lot of legal authority.  We appreciate the fact that there are noble people willing to protect their turf and protect their neighbors, but I have to say again, from the bible, in Trayvon Martin’s case, even if Trayvon was a burglar, I don’t think he was burglaring anyone.  I think he bought some ice tea and some skittles and was on his way home.  That sounds like, even from Zimmerman – that sounds like what happened.

Let’s say he was someone that George needed to have confrontation with because he was a burglar, remember the penalty for burglary from the bible isn’t death.

Brian:   Right.

Bill:      It’s restitution plus, in another words, you take someone’s cow, you’ve got to pay them back two cows.  That was kind of the gig.  So at the minimum, you’ve got to be careful because what if, what if you do get into a situation, as you said, where you’ve got to shoot somebody?  What if – and listen, there’s people alive right now that were in Vietnam, perhaps the Korean war still even, the World War II guys are kind of going away, but who shot people, who spent years and years and still have dreams about shooting another human being.

Brian:   And you know, Bill, that’s so true and also important because I hear people say all the time, “I’d have no problem shooting another human being.”  Really?  Ever shot one?  Ever watched a human being bleed to death in front of you?  Ever walk up and a human being is bleeding to death and you’re standing in the puddle of blood that’s evacuating.  Until you’ve done that – I know those people, “Oh, I can shoot, don’t worry.”

Bill:      Don’t be too sure.

Brian:   Don’t be too sure.  God love you if you can.  I’m not saying that, “You know, go play modern warfare for, you know, 12 months in a row and become desensitized to human life,” but the thought that you have a gun and that that’s all you need, that’s not a plan.  That’s not a plan.  Now arguably, Zimmerman, in terms of the nose, in terms of the damage to the head, and for that matter, Mr. Martin, in terms of being able to defend themselves, you have that right.  And what always troubles me is that they say, “Well, police are not there to protect you.  The police are not designed to call 911 and be able to get there in time and terminate an aggressive act.  ” But if you believe in the divinity within you, as you know I do, if you believe, as people have probably heard me say 1,000 times, that if you’re the great great great great great great great grandson of God, or granddaughter of God, right?  You’re in that lineage.  You were created in God’s image.  Well there’s something there to protect.

Bill:      Protecting somebody made in the image of God.

Brian:   Protecting somebody made in the image of God.  So if you want to devalue human life to such a degree that you’re no longer protecting that image of God, that’s where I’ve got to go, “Well, why wouldn’t you defend your family?  Why wouldn’t you have the right to protect yourself from an aggressive act?”  You know, using that amount of force isn’t enough to terminate that act.  Why wouldn’t you exercise what has to be life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which is the pursuit of a long life, one would think.  I still believe you have the right to defend yourself from that attack because you’re like a satellite post-office from God.

Bill:      Certainly the bible gives you the right to protect yourself and your family.  I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.  But I’m just talking too, about the idea of what situations, what alleys would we walk down, what hills are we willing to fight on?  And I’m just saying again, that when as people sort of let this thing digest, and as time goes by I think it gets a little bit easier as we get a little bit detached from the emotional side of it.  And I think what really ends up happening is you start thinking, “Well, what is the fall-out?  What is this that happened/ what is this happened?”  You have to look at all the elements.  And we’re talking about the preparedness aspect of this.

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      Was he prepared for all the scenarios?  What if someone comes at you and doesn’t care if you’ve got a gun?

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      What if someone is on – what are some of the drugs that they’ve hooked up on

Brian:   Sure.  Anything you could do crystal meth.

Bill:      Some things people take that really make them just oblivious, too, even alcohol.  Even alcohol

Brian:   Absolutely.  Well at first, you’re going to say, “Brian, why are you bringing up a story about a place called the wave in southern Utah.  It’s claimed its third victim according to ABC news, claimed its third victim in a month.  Now this is a really cool place in the Vermilion cliffs wilderness area outside of Utah, and a young lady died the other day – went out for a hike, got lost, and 100 degree + temperatures, she died.  She never made it back.  Her husband went for help, came back, found her, she subsequently died.  So…

Bill:      And maybe that was alley that she should’ve considered before she started walking down it.

Brian:   Absolutely, that’s all I’m saying.  Absolutely.  Was she prepared, given the situation, that she actively put herself in?  Did she see it all the way through?  Did she go, “Okay, what if I get stuck?  What if it’s the time of day?  What if I don’t have water?  What if the heat is overbearing?  What if all these other things?”  So having hiking boots doesn’t make you a hiker.  Having a handgun doesn’t make you a superhero, right?  You have to have it as a part of a cohesive plan on how to defend yourself.  And defending yourself can also be removing yourself from the situation.  I bet if he had to do it all over again, and you asked him, I bet you Mr.  Zimmerman would’ve said, “I wish it had turned out differently.”

Bill:      Oh I agree with you.  I bet you he would say that, without a doubt he would say that.

Brian:   So we have a benefit from learning from him.

Bill:      We get that impression he would say that from hearing his attorneys talk, because they say that about him.

Brian:   Yes, yes, absolutely.  So I would say to your point, have a plan, and there’s no one piece that’s a be all end all in a plan.  Just like we talk about that.  If your plan is relying on the grid, you’re in a bad way.  You know when we talk about brown outs, black-outs, hurricane, hurricane season month, tornado season.  If your plan is relying on the grid, you need a fallback plan.  If your plan is hiking out in 100 degree temperatures of southern Utah, and you’re going to go and make it because you’ve got good hiking boots, you need more to your plan.  If your plan is getting out in the middle of the night in an area where you think there could be trouble, if your plan is, “Hey, I’m superman, I’ve got a gun,” again, not commenting on whether he should have or shouldn’t have used the weapon in that fashion… if that’s the only part of the plan you’re going to fall back on, I think you’re backing the wrong horse.

Bill:      You’re backing the wrong horse and it’s really what I think, what you were saying there Brian is know thyself.

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      So you just can’t have a handle on what looked like the environmental circumstances around you, because you as a human being are interacting.  Now some people that go down that alley with that gun couldn’t pull that trigger.  Let’s create another possible contingency.  They walk down there, but they don’t know themselves, right?  More on preparedness, because you really don’t know what you’re willing to do.  Zimmerman was willing to go as far as it took.  I’ll bet you a lot of people –we can break our citizenry up…   statistically I bet among the percentage, I’ll bet 33% of the people wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger.  Now, once you pull… this is through my dad’s point.  Once you point a gun at a human being, expect the level of force to rise back at you to that equivalent value.

Brian:   Sure.

Bill:      So you point a gun at somebody and you don’t have the guts to pull the trigger, expect somebody to shoot you in the head.

Brian:   Yes.

Bill:      That’s how it ends.  Now, they may or may not, but that what I would expect.  So that’s why you better use caution, not just because you don’t know whether you’ll kill them or not and all that goes into that, but all the extenuating circumstances that go from pointing a gun at another human being…  if you point a gun at me, I’m going to try to stop you.  If I had a gun, I’m going to try to shoot you first.  So that’s where all these crazy misunderstandings… And if you point a gun at somebody and you don’t really intend to shoot them, don’t be surprised.  Don’t be surprised if they’re carrying you away in an ambulance, don’t be surprised if you wake up someplace else.  Like the move Gladiator, Elysium, if you find yourself walking around, you know – remember how we saw that at the beginning?

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      You know, you’re not here, you’ve died.  You’re in Elysium.  Well you’re going to end up in Elysium.

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      Or a Christian version of that.

Brian:   It can be a part of your overall plan, absolutely, because Bill, there’s a lot of law enforcement, excellent law enforcement – you point a gun at me, chances are pretty good if you don’t do it from a great distance, like a rifle, you point a gun at me, I’m going to take it away from you.  But that’s what we were trained to do, because even then you don’t want to kill someone.  If you can take the gun away, as you know, whether it’s an automatic or a revolver, there are so many things you can do to disable a revolver, or disable – let’s say a 9mm hand gun, semi-automatic hand gun.

There’s all kinds of things you can do with the strength of a ten year old, five year old – there’s all kinds of things you can do in an instant, to disable that weapon from being able to fire.  And I never have to take it out from hand in order for that to happen.  So you point a gun at me, you have to be prepared to shoot because if not, I’m going to take it away from you.  That’s how we’re trained.  So I would say this whole thing of using only one part of your plan and thinking, great, it’s going to be the whole plan, that’s always a bad idea.

Bill:      And do you think perhaps, George Zimmerman went down that alley, brave and engaging, which I think that he is, we’re going to talk about the second part about Zimmerman later, brave and engaging, and do you think perhaps he became scared?

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      Me too.

Brian:   Absolutely.  But can I just say this?

Bill:      People do crazy things when they’re scared.

Brian:   If my head is being slammed into the sidewalk, I’m going to be scared too.   And if I can’t get the person that’s on top of me to get off of me, if I hadn’t been trained in (inaudible 0:21:25)

Bill:      You’ll get progressively more scared.

Brian:   You’ll get progressively more scared, wouldn’t you?

Bill:      Yes.

Brian:   And if you’re not trained in martial arts, if you’re not trained in wrestling, if you don’t know… I mean I’m fascinating about watching the trial and they say, “Wow, Mr.  Martin was on top of him,” having someone on top of you isn’t the end of the wrestling match.  So clearly when people said, “Oh, Mr.  Zimmerman was a mixed martial artist,” no.  He may have mixed martial arts flowers or something, but he wasn’t a mixed martial artist, because simply because you’re on your back on the ground and there’s an assailant on top of you, that’s not the end of the match.  How many times have you seen a mixed martial arts match when they talk about ground and pound, and the person on ground still gets up?

Bill:      Sure.

Brian:   So I agree, I think he progressively became more and more scared.

Bill:      So here we go.  Do you know yourself enough to know, in a preparedness sense, to know what are the levels of emotion you are going to go through?  And it’s hard to work that out on paper without actually going through something.  So again, just another word of caution, lets segue onto this other idea.  Word of caution about what alley you’re going to go down.

Brian:   Sure.

Bill:      That’s what alley we should go down.  Let’s take the other example, I don’t know all the details of the vehicle where he saved someone’s life, but that’s an easier alley right, to go down.  You might somebody do something.  You might get burnt, you might have problems with yourself, but risking your life and the legal consequences of trying to save somebody, I think it’s a little more clean-cut than a dark alley where you have to end up shooting somebody.  So I’m making the case, that I think, in the tale of two Zimmerman’s part, that he used – this is a better discretion situation for him to use because it’s definitely more clear-cut.  The contingencies are probably more manageable in terms of predictability.  There’s less downside risk legally and with respect to his own life, he can kind of manage.  Though you may have taken some risks to save somebody.  But I just think it was a better choice.  So he, in this case, I think wisdom prevailed, he made a good choice in saving that family.

Brian:   According to the reports that I’ve seen, it was a family of four, and it was in Seminole County and the Sheriff’s officer that responded and said that he was there and helped the family out of an overturned Ford explorer.  So overturned SUV.  To me when I saw that story, my first thought was, “I don’t think Zimmerman is a bad guy.”  To your point… I think he walked…  I mean in terms of people he’s adopted, in terms of people he’s tried to help, there was a story where he stood up against a police officer who was in some way aggressive or attacking someone else’s community.  I don’t think Zimmerman is the bad guy.

Now, we’ve discussed it before, and probably just to save our email things from crashing with the emails that you would get, when I look at the Reverend Jacksons, and when I look at the Reverend Sharpton’s, and I look at what they’re trying to do, I don’t see them stopping and helping a family in an overturned vehicle.  I don’t see them pulling over, alongside the road, and helping the family of four out of an emergency situation.  Now, I’ve never met Reverend Sharpton.  I’ve met Reverend Jackson on a couple different occasions.  I don’t see who benefits from the race-baiting that continues.

Bill:      Well Reverend Sharpton and Jackson benefit financially from playing the Olinksy class conflict game.

Brian:   That just breaks my heart.

Bill:      That’s just raw race-baiting is what they’re doing and I think President Obama has really done his share of adding some gasoline to that – to the level that he wants to take it, I’m not sure.  I don’t know of any standing president previously that stooped down to comment on something like that.  I mean, the place of that office isn’t meant to do that.

Brian:   Well, it isn’t meant to do that Bill, but what I’ve learned and I was thinking of your granddaughter this morning.  I don’t want to say her name, but your granddaughter doing that line, remember from that movie, we got a little bit of her doing that?  Is that what governments are really all about?  Is that how it’s supposed to work?  I think when we see the President of the United States commenting on a case like this, what to me screams inappropriate is that it’s not the Federal Chief Executive’s position to be involved in anything at the local level.  Anything.  The President is to protect our borders, to run our country – there is a very limited list of things that presidents are supposed to do.  But comment on local things, having beer summits in his first term, things like that, it’s just not.  You know, it’s beneath the president.   It darn well ought to be.  It’s none of his business.

Bill:      Well he’s using it as a broader, broader policy because he does have this – so for him it’s part of who he is and what his goals are.  But I think really…

Brian:   But that’s not the oath he took.  That’s not the oath he took.

Bill:      That’s not the oath he took and it does show up.  I mean it’s a little embarrassing that you would step out.  But here’s the thing that I think on his side if you look this could be true for both Republicans and Democrats.  I think in this case, not only is he an Olinsky conflict guy.  He wants to see conflict in society so that government can step in and play a bigger role – the conflict that you have constantly.  I think in some ways, it’s just his base that he’s dealing with that sort of demands it.  In other words he’s got this crazy far-left base.  So when he makes a decision, he doesn’t make it outside of… he makes it right within the context, and the context is you surround yourself with race-baiting socialists and then wonder why the President makes a race-baiting socialistic… why everything he does has the same look and feel and motif.  And it just really doesn’t appear so awkward and unusual because it makes sense.  Like, 3 days in the condo and you can kind of plot out where that guy’s going to be, you can plot out what position he’s going to take, you just don’t know with how much intensity he’s going to take it.  But know that his base is pounding that drum for him to do whatever he can and also for holder.

Brian:   Absolutely.  I mean I’m also encouraged that other people are starting to raise up from all different ethnic background and go, “Look, we have a trial by your peers.  We have a jury trial system in this country, and the jury found them.”  You know I saw a headline that said, “Not guilty, but not innocent.”  That’s not what we’re built on.  You’re innocent until proven guilty.  So if you’re proven not guilty, then that innocence stays attached.  So it says, “Oh you’re not guilty but that doesn’t mean he’s innocent” Well, he’s innocent when it comes to the legal justifications for what the jury decided what he did or didn’t do, and that’s what’s so disheartening.

For people to come out and say, “Look, we had a trial; prosecution put on their best case.”  At least you would hope they tried to put on their best case, the defense tried to put on their best case.  Both cases went to the jury; the jury came back with their decision.  And as you know from the way the legal process works – you know the people saying, “Wow, why weren’t there any males in the jury, why weren’t people from these backgrounds on the jury?  Why weren’t these races on the jury?”  Well, the prosecution and the defense both had the ability to seek the jury.  It was a challenge to each one, right?  There’s a challenge to the jurors that come on, the jurors that aren’t.  So I don’t see how the system in Florida, at least the legal system in that regard… Now why they never took it to a grand jury?  I think our listeners are a pretty smart crowd.  You know darn well why they didn’t take it to a grand jury, because they weren’t going to get an indictment.

Bill:      Yeah, I really think too, Brian, one of the things about this case that really… it does sort of project out just how tentative and un-structural race relations still are among the fringe.  Now there’s places where there aren’t any problem.  But if you look at the news stories today, the family that he saved… I don’t know if you saw this story, the family that George Zimmerman saved, now is refusing to do an interview because they don’t want to be perceived as anti-black.  Now think about it, think about this.  Only in the United States, in a weird sort of upside down, really Orwellian hellhole nightmare, can people be… they can’t say this guy, “Hey thanks, George Zimmerman, for pulling me out of that foxhole,” or whatever it is, “for helping me out of the car.”  Because that means they hate black people?  Because he saved them?  Now, any culture that operates on twisted premises like that can’t long survive.  We’re in the final twilight days of the order, of the current order that we’re in and we’re just… What would be the next phase of the world?  I have no idea but you can’t live in a world that’s that mixed up.

Brian:   And it breaks your heart to see it because there’s so many great people of every skin color, right?  But its skin color, that’s why we call it skin color, we all have the same color blood.  We all come from the same family tree.  So it’s just heart breaking to see this kind of thing go on, to see people do anything that can to fuel the fire.  And I find it fascinating that you can be charged if you’re sitting in a movie theatre and you yell, “Fire!”, and there isn’t one.  And there’s a stampede and people are hurt on the way out, you can be charged for that.  But you have race-baiters in our country, from both sides – I mean, you can be a race-baiter and it doesn’t matter what color your skin is, you can be a race- baiter.  But race- baiters from both sides can continue to inflame a situation, and everyone goes, “Well, you know, that’s what we do here.”  Why do we have to be that way?  Why does it have to be that way?  Why do we – if you can convict someone for yelling, “Fire!’ in a movie theatre, if you make that movie theatre our country, why is it okay for people to continue to incite riots?

Bill:      Yeah, they walk right up to the line.  Even if you sort of did free speech, its works up to a point because of what Franklin told the lady after the convent, you know, a Republic man if you can keep it.  And of course as Adams would say, it’s predicated on the morality of the individuals.  And if you’re throwing all that out, if throw the morality side out, you really can’t have a self-government, you can’t have a system that works very long because it becomes a world of manipulation.  It becomes a world of radical manipulation where it’s a power game.  And it looks to me like, I personally believe, and again its speculation on my part, but this is my personal beliefs, is that I don’t believe Bell Sharpton and Jesse Jackson truly care about poor black people in the way that they purport.  I just don’t believe it.  I think that they have an industry, and I think that industry makes money in certain ways.  And I think when there’s conflict they’re there.  That’s just my belief.  And I think they profit by the problems that… and it doesn’t mean that there are those parties that have done anything, I don’t want to say they have haven’t.  I’m sure that they’ve done good things in their lives.  So throw it out on the table.  But I think whether they’re conscious of it or not Brian, it’s their business.

Brian:   Absolutely.  Absolutely.  And you read the work of Dr.  King and some of the things in his writings and the speeches and the like, he had a totally different understanding, I think.  So you have these people that, I think you’re right, they continue to make a living off of keeping people fighting.

Bill:      And when you think about it, King really won.  In other words…  but the battle is, maybe the battle’s not over.  There’s probably bigotry in some ways.  But bigotry needs to be healed and the human hearts spiritually.  You can’t really enforce morality from the top down; it has to grow up organically from the bottom.  In other words, the individual has to see people that God made – all men and women in his own image, and that there is that equality that way.  Now, am I equal to LeBron James?  No, I’m not equal.  I don’t have as much money as he has.  I can’t play basketball as well as he can.  So we live in a world of radical inequality.  And I just, I like to use phrase Christian nomenclature and say yeah, God gives people different gifts.  So, and that can even be a function of your race, I don’t know.  But we have different gifts, so we use those gifts, and we should be doing God-glorifying activities with our gifts.  But one thing I know is that, when it comes down to the wire, there’s a sense ontologically that we’re equal, but there’s a sense economically in which, as I said, Bill ain’t LeBron James.

Brian:   Though I suspect at the time that becomes most important, you’ll be judged on things that are absolutely outside the differences between you and LeBron James.

Bill:      Oh yeah, yeah.

Brian:   You know what I mean?  You will be judged by the content of your character and not the color of our skin.

Bill:      Certainly.  Certainly.

Brian:   And that’s why I would say great, you want to hold up Reverend Sharpton?  You want to hold up Reverend Jackson?  I look forward to the day when they’re judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.  You want to live by the sword, I’m digging it.  Then let’s do it.  Live by the content.  Be judged by the content of your character.  And it continually fans the flames of racial inequality, of racial bigotry, from whatever side it comes from.  I’m all over those of us doing what we can to tamper that down, to expose it when it’s legitimate.  But look at the number young African-American men that are killed every day in cities all over this country, all over the country.  You want to do good?  Instead of having a march calling for the boycott of the state of Florida, march into Chicago.  I don’t know the exact numbers, but I know over most weekends they lose around 2 or 3 young African American men.

Bill:      That’s a good weekend.

Brian:   March into Chicago.

Bill:      Yeah, it’s usually much higher than that.

Brian:   You want to be, you want to be BA all the time, you want to be a tough guy Al, walk into the city of Chicago and do some good.  Walk in where I go.  Walk to some of the places that I go in inner city areas to help with the food pantries, and do some of the things.  Walk into that area.  Don’t prance around on TV with $1,000 suit and your girlfriend who’s 50 years younger than you are/ you want to do some good Reverend Jackson?  Then get out on the street and help people where they really need help and stop clamoring for the television cameras.  Stop clamoring for the television cameras and actually get out, take off your suit coat, save your baloney, and do some good.  Do some good.  Help people that need help.  Be a figure and a role model for young kids that don’t have a dad and they turn to gangs, because at least the hierarchy in a gang is better than no dad at all.

You want to do some good, Al?  Try that.  And if you don’t like that Al, call Jeremy, book yourself on the show.  You want to do some good on the show, Jesse?  Call, get a hold of Jeremy.  Anyone listening here knows how to find me.  Call, and let’s have a debate.  Let’s see what you do to do stem the gang violence in a city like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami.  You want to talk about how you’re there for the people, how great you think you are?  Square your shoulders with me.  Come on the show.  Tell me all the good you do to keep young kids from killing each other in cities all over our country.  But oh, you’re too busy getting the cameras to cover you.  You’re too busy inciting race riots.  You want to do some good, come on this show.  And let’s have a little bit of a debate, about what good you do by continuing baiting people.  Now you have to say Bill, only the gullible are baited.  So it’s easy for me to get worked up, it’s easy for me to blame people that are race- baiters.

Bill:      But there are a lot of gullible-

Brian:   There’s a lot of gullible people.

Bill:      There’s a lot of gullible people.

Brian:   You can’t bait a smart person.

Bill:      There’s a lot of people who think that they’re doing the right thing.  In other words, they can’t tell, they can’t make – probably one of the flaws in the educational system is being able to make a distinction between things.  In other words, people feel bad about Treyvon Martin’s death, and they instead of look at law, they want to emote their way to some outcome.  And it’s not something that’s solved by emotions.  There’s a lot of emotions, and we had a misunderstanding.  This thing was a misunderstanding, and point A.  Point B is there’s no perfect justice.  Justice has never been perfect, because you’re talking about imperfect people who are in charge of justice.

In Christian parlance, we say sinners.  So some systems are better and more equitable than others.  I still think we live in one of the better, but it’s changing for the worse in terms of what crime and punishment is.  It’s changing, it’s getting worse.  Thought crimes are here and so forth.  So we are down a very slippery slide.  What I was going to say to your, sort of asking if Al and Jesse would come, I think you’d probably end up just getting a prepared statement read to you.  Because that’s all that’s ever, its Teflon-ism, and they never will address those issues directly because they know in their heart of hearts, where they’re at and I think that they surround themselves with a buffer.  They put a team around themselves so you can’t get to them and they want to match as long as the camera’s there.

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      Not interested in marching if the camera’s not there.

Brian:   If the camera’s not there.  And I would say that when you look at what causes gang violence- compassion, understanding, and caring for the young men, and the young women that are in gangs, caring for those people, as opposed to constantly, continually pushing more hate.  That’s what’s going to solve the problem.  But you can get on the cameras and you can scream and holler and you can do all these other things, but until you can find the root cause… and I believe – in disagreement with Bill O’Reilly on this, I believe that the root of a lot of this is young people growing up outside of a family.

Bill:      What does O’Reilly say?

Brian:   Well.  It’s just in terms of… that it’s all about the drugs, it’s all about the culture, it’s all about hip-hop music, it’s all about all of those things.  The basic of anyone’s involvement in the gang is a young mind, looking for a role model.  And unless you’ve worked with gangs, save your opinion, I don’t want it.  Unless you’ve been in Cabrini Green, unless you’ve been in Ida B Wells, unless you’ve been in Henry Horner, like I have.  Until you’ve worked with gang and realize that these young minds, they just want a role model.  They want to know that they’re special to someone.

Well if you’re a 12 year old running around, and these 13 year olds, 14 year olds, 15 year old – you’re special to gang, because the gang knows it can use you.  But the root of all this violence are young minds growing up thinking, “No one really loves me, but my gang brothers, my gang sisters love me.”  That’s the root of it.  Is a young mind, waking up one day and going, “I’m going to find somebody that will love me.”

Bill:      So let’s back it up a little bit; you’re talking about if we want to sort of reconstruct family, we have to say, “What’s the best way to go about doing this?”  And again, I’m always going to be an advocate for a father and a mother staying together over… You remember Dan Quail tried saying…  And there’s some valiant single parents trying, there’s just no doubt about that.  I’m not saying that people don’t find themselves on the odd end of the transactions.  I’m just saying in the same way I’m saying justice isn’t perfect, you do have something things that we know…  marriage isn’t perfect because the two people are that are married are both sinners and are imperfect.  But there are some systems that seem to work better, having a dad and a mom in a household seem to do better.  Kids get better grades, I think you’ve probably seen the studies that show probably the highest factor for childhood development and getting good test scores is to have your mom and dad.

Brian:   Or a role model.  I think back, my dad left, as you know, when I was very little, but the preacher at my church, Reverend Arthur Bloom.  I don’t know if he’s still alive, but I’ll never forget him.  My football coach, a patrolman I knew, I won’t say his name in case he’s still out there and around, but a patrolman that I knew came by one day to say hello.  It’s role models, it’s effective role models, it’s little minds going, “There’s got to be more to my life than what I have.  I need someone who’s going to care for me.”  And if it’s mom and dad right there in the home, groovy, but for the 50-some percent now I think they say, it’s a 40-50% of Americans that are divorced, you still have the ability to play a huge role in the mind of a child.

I just—I’ll do a quick little plug.  I was at a gig last week for an Inner Faith food pantry where all the food businesses donate all the food.  A bus pulls in, and there were 250 families in this particular city that I was in, that come once a week to get groceries and food and vegetables and everything else that are donated by the businesses.  That’s a way of making a positive impact.  Churches can do it.  Community organizations can do it.  Sporting organizations can do it.  I grew up – the only thing that kept me off the streets of New York when I was little, Bill, was PAL, the Police Athletic League where I knew I could go and shoot pool and play basketball or do all these other things.  So even if you’re in a family where your dad lives somewhere else, your mom isn’t always there, it’s still the neighborhood role model.  The school role model.  The organization, someone that can say – to be honest with you, not to sound – my second plug of the half hour, why I’m such a fan of your Henty programs.  Your role model can be someone that you learn about, listening through an audio program.

Bill:      I think that was true for Churchill and some other great men.  Their role models were some of the biographies that they have read, and their minds projected that, and the theatre of the minds just reading the books.  You can have lofty role models if you are a reader.  If you are a reader.  I think Henty did a wonderful job, we’ll talk more about Henty in the coming weeks, but Henty did a wonderful job of creating… George Alfred Henty, a Victorian writer, did a wonderful job creating models for young boys as well as young girls.

Brian:   Absolutely.

Bill:      But just people that you’d want your child to be like.  And you would be amazed at how many great people were products of the Henty books.

Brian:   And I would say to you Bill, if you were to look at, let’s say, Special Forces operations in the military, and you were to pick any organized gang in the city of Chicago.  And all you did was list the top 5 things: camaraderie, skill and tactics, the ability to take a bullet for a friend.  You know things we say in law enforcement and military, “Here’s a guy who would take a bullet for you.  Here’s a guy who stand up for you.”  If I removed the names of what was on the top of the hierarchical list, you couldn’t tell the difference between Special Forces guys and gang members.  There’s that sense of camaraderie in a gang.  One’s called a unit; another one’s called a street gang.  But that’s what the young mind is looking for, it’s looking for direction.  It’s looking to know that it’s wanted.

Look my heart goes out to Mr.  Martin’s mom and dad.   It just… I can’t even imagine.  I have a son slightly younger – to lose him for any reason, you just have to know their hearts are broken.  But to fix the overall picture, it’s a way of finding… whether it’s a Reverend, whether it’s a community leader, whether it’s a – there’s some great politicians doing great work at the local level.  A young mind wants to know it’s important.  And if you don’t find a way of showing that mind, that it’s important, it’ll find a way of gaining that importance for itself.

And that’s what we see with inner gang struggles.  But no politician wants to touch it, because it’s not glitzy enough, it’s not sexy enough; it’s not bling enough, right?  It’s not rap music enough.  But that’s the bottom line.  Ask anyone that has any understanding about how this works.  They’ll go, “A young mind needs a role model.  A young mind needs to be loved.  It needs to fit in.”  We’re all parts of gangs.  Now you might say, “Oh, the gangs in, in…great.”  But then you look at people that all root for the Blackhawks – they’re a gang.  You see them when they show up in their colors.  They’re Blackhawk jerseys.

Bill:      They’re tribal.

Brian:   They’re tribal, we’re a tribal group.  We’ve always been.  Since we first walked out, walked out or evicted from the Garden of Eden, we’ve been tribal.  The young mind grows up wanting to fit into a tribe.  And if their significant others in their immediate area can’t provide a tribe for them, they’re going to find their own tribe.  That’s the root of gang violence.  Not racism.  Not all these other things the race-baiters want you to believe.  It’s a young mind one day hits a tipping point.  And if you haven’t been able to show it that it’s important, it’s going to find a way of gaining that power for itself.  And when you’re a young boy on the streets of Chicago or any major city, what’s the greatest way to get… like you have a sense of power.  I know you know this Bill, what’s the greatest way to have a sense power, if you really believe yourself to be powerless?

Bill:      Yeah, you’ve got to carry a gun.

Brian:   You’ve got to carry a gun and kill somebody.

Bill:      You’ve got to have the weapons and you probably should have a… There’s probably a list of bullets and blings and things that you need to have.

Brian:   Sure.

Bill:      External things that you need to prove that makes up for the lack of something else.  And I think that’s what people need to understand.  Inside these kids are still human beings.  And I think it’s probably inappropriate too, to say, “Look, I’ve seen Treyvon Martin’s tweets, and I know that he was going to be a bad person forever.”  And I would say just for the Christians listening, to sort of think that God can’t change some heart, whether its Zimmerman’s, whether it’s… and really only hearts changed is the only way to heal this kind of thing.  It’s the only want to heal it.

And I’ll never forget – what was the – it was in Ecuador, and it was the missionary.  Do you guys remember the names of the missionaries in Ecuador?  Elliot.  Anyway, being shot and then have her go down there, the wife of one of the missionaries, and just say, “You know what?  I forgive you.”  And just say, “I understand.  People do crazy things.  I’ve done crazy things, I forgive you.  As a matter of fact, I forgive you so much I’m going to hang out here and live with you.”  This is the kind of commitment you’re talking about to those inner city kids, but she just had a commitment to people who killed her husband – Elizabeth Elliot.  “I’m going to stay here because I love you, and because I know you’re a human being too, and I know that God can change your heart, too, like he has mine, and I’m going to stay here with you.  You mean that much to me.”

Brian:   As you were saying that I thought of it’s the difference between a hot head and heated heart, right?

Bill:      Sure.

Brian:   If you work with the heart, if you have a passion for saving, and being important to another person, being that role model.  Or you can be a race-baiter who continues to work from a hot-head standpoint.

Bill:      These people… there’s only one way, as we kind of sort of close it down a little bit, I think that there’s only one way out of this mess, whether its race, whether its class warfare because of economics.  There’s been cultures where there wasn’t class-warfare.  Marxism is just a tool to exploit and expound upon class war and to make it a real, viable thing.  There’s been many cultures where the rich and the poor live together, go to church together, you know, play sports together, whatever.  It doesn’t have to be… We still have a little bit of that left, and I think we need to care for that, nurture that because that becomes a really important thing.  But forgiveness is one of those issues in life, one of those things in life that can be the great healer.  So do you see Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton preaching the implications of a gospel?  What did Jesus say?  What was his words?  You know?  Forgive them Father for what they’ve done… they don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t know the gig.

Brian:   And I would say to you that when you look back to some of his early days, attorney general Eric Holder said that when it comes to issues of race, we are a country of cowards.  His sentence, his line, his bullet point was right; he was just directing it at the wrong people.  Because it takes a true hero to have love and compassion for another human mind.  Only a coward tries to preach contrary to that.  So when he says, “When it comes to race in this country, we are a nation of cowards.”

It took bravery for her to go down and forgive the people that had killed her husband.  It takes bravery to stand up to evil, but you don’t beat evil by pounding the pulpit, asking for more evil.  That’s not the way it works.  It’s like if out in the middle of the ocean and you’re drowning and you’re asking for more water, right?  It takes a true hero to work with an open heart, to go into the inner cities to see what’s going on, to continue to race-bate… I just, it’s so… it’s not only heart-breaking, it’s embarrassing.  I often think, “Well, great, what if there are UFOs?  What if there are Martians and whatever else?”  And they come and they look at some of the things that we do to each other, they’d have to look at us and go… and just shake their heads.  That that’s the way we treat each other.

That’s just heart breaking.  That’s just heart breaking.  And I welcome for anyone that’s listening, if you happen to be a friend of Reverend Sharpton, you happen to be a friend of Reverend Jackson, just give them our contact information.  Ask them to call.  Because I would love for them to tell me why I’m wrong.  They’ll go, “Brian, you’re just a white guy, you don’t get it.”  Okay, groovy, but I’d love for you to come on the show and tell us why we’re wrong.  What do you think, Bill, is that cool with you?

Bill:      I’d love to have Al Sharpton and Jesse be a call-in guest sometime.  But I think for the most part though, those fellows are very smooth, and I think that what you get is sort of, a very prepared and polished statements that walk along the edge, but then when you really expose yourself, you don’t walk on the edge, your presuppositions don’t show in those types of operations.  I don’t see it happening, but as you say Brian.

Brian:   I’m just saying I would love to be taught how I’m wrong; at least we’re open enough to be told how we’re wrong, right?  Have them come on, maybe they can teach us why it’s the way they think.  Maybe, you never can tell.  That’s the invitation we extend to all of our guests, come on and educate us to our point of position, we don’t always agree with everyone that’s on our show, right Bill?  So, come on.  Reverend Sharpton, if you hear this, Reverend Jackson if you hear it, please call.

Bill:      Can I argue their point for just a second as we close?

Brian:   Sure.

Bill:      I think if your presuppositions are everything.  If you feel embattled, if you feel… I’m not saying that you are or aren’t.  I’m just saying if you feel, and we’ve all had communications with spouses, or family members where the phrase, “Don’t go there” gets brought up.  Why?  Why does that get brought up?  Because there’s something that’s happened in the past that’s created some pre-suppositional foundations for how the future is going to be interpreted.  And I think that there some people, and I’m just defending them ever so slightly because I think it’s important to see that.  I think if you see yourself as embattled and as the little guy, then events like this just, in their mind… The Zimmerman trial to me proved that justice still exists.  But I think to some of these people, some of these are honest, and I think to some of these people, it proves to them that their living the white man’s world.  They’re living in a world where black man can’t get any justice.

The same facts, Brian, the same evidence… this is why I love Cornelius Santertil, because he said you know evidence isn’t neutral; it’s got to be interpreted.  It’s not neutral.  It always carries an interpretation by an interpreter.  So whoever’s perceiving the facts, has their own world views, has their own past so they see facts in a totally different way.  And that’s all I’m saying in defense of those people who are honest enough, those people that they see themselves as an embattled group – I can give them a little bit of that.

I don’t see the profiteers of race-baiting amongst that fold.  I see them as a little different so I’m just trying to be graceful to the people that I think are saying, “You know what, we’ve been down for a long time.  We’ve been treated a certain way a long time, and we don’t want to be treated that way anymore.”  And that’s certainly kind of King’s message.

Brian:   Absolutely, absolutely.

Bill:      I have a dream.  And it’s a good message in that sense that we do need to see ourselves as equal.  That’s my parting thought.

Brian:   Because we are.  I would say in the divine’s eyes we are equal.  So why not just… why mess with perfection?  Right?  Why mess with perfection?

Bill:      Well said, well said.

Brian:   All right ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much as always to Off the Grid News – the radio version of offthegridnews.com [1].  We’ve got a great website, if you have the chance to stop by, check it out.  Don’t forget, find us on Facebook, on Twitter.  We really do listen to your comments and try to incorporate them in quite a bit we do here.  On behalf of Mr. Bill Heid, the parent company of Solutions from Science, all the gang here in the studio, thank you so very much for giving us an hour of your time.