Comments by John Latham | Eastern North Carolina Now

Your last comment sums up quite well what I make of it. Jesus was no coward, when the time was appropriate, He used violence in righteousness. Then, again when the time called for it, He was compassionate and spoke against unnecessary violence. The only complexity of the issue is when to use use violence righteously, and when to avoid it. If violence was immoral in and of itself, and the weapons of violence also, we would not have Law Enforcement, the Military, or any other defense against physical evil; so long as we desired to be moral people. The question is less "would Jesus carry a gun," and more "when would righteous men use a gun."

Commented: Friday, August 8th, 2014 @ 9:41 am By: John Latham

Thankyou, Gene. I know we all, well most of us, want to live in a safe world where morality and reason guide the actions of young men, but that world does not exist. If our world today is The Wild West, with mothers hanging long-irons on their hips, it is the criminals that make it that way, not those who would protect themselves from crime.

An openly carried gun certainly gets attention, but that is the point. A concealed weapon may be used to protect oneself once a crime has been initiated, but an openly visible gun may prevent the crime entirely.

I think it's good that she kept a 'clean' appearance while carrying. This helps set a good impression of 'responsible gun owner' instead of 'gun rights nut militia-psycho.' When I see someone in torn jeans, with an untucked t-shirt spouting needlessly aggressive patriotism, and a scowl as mean as the handgun strapped into their 'tacti-cool' thigh holster, I immediately think 'Danger, hothead, avoid.' However, someone in slacks with a collared shirt, a clean haircut and a recently shaved or trimmed beard makes me think of them as law abiding and 'socially acceptable,' even with their gun in full view. Image matters a lot with open carry, I believe.

As for Jesus, I won't parse scripture, but He did command his apostles to arm themselves. Why would he do that if he believed that defense wasn't necessary? He argues against Paul's cutting off the Roman soldier's ear because He knew that what was going to happen had to happen. Paul acted when he should have accepted.

Check out www.biblicalselfdefense.com where people far wiser than I explain the Biblical foundations of personal self defense.

Commented: Monday, July 28th, 2014 @ 10:29 am By: John Latham

Mr. Dixon, I fully support civilian oversight of law enforcement, and should you win this race, I look forward to that body's creation. A formal committee, with authority to which the SD is accountable, selected from the public that both employs and is subject to local law enforcement, seems to answer that important question: Who watches the watchmen? On that note, where do you stand on body camera's for law enforcement on duty? These camera's have been proven, in other locations, to protect both the officer from false accusation, and the public from false arrest. Given that the Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement officers have no reasonable expectation of privacy while on the job, as public servants accountable to the public; will you seek to equip the Deputies in your employment with these devices?

Commented: Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014 @ 3:44 am By: John Latham

When I first started reading Beaufort County Now in 2012, I came across a great article by Dianne Rufino titled "Why Have African American's Abandoned the Republican Party When it Never Abandoned Them." beaufortcountynow.com

Ms. Rufino's essay accurately reports the history of racially suppressive actions taken by the southern Democrats after the Civil War. Ms. Rufino's essays are always very well thought out and well written, and this one was particularly interesting to me. Given the very real historic facts presented, why would African American's more often align themselves with the party that gave birth to the most hate filled organization in the USA?

I haven't been able to answer that. I've looked into it, and in fact the articles concerning the topic are plentiful. But I'm not a historian, and as for the past, I can only conjecture that it probably had more to do with President Kennedy and the Civil Rights movement more than anything else. It could have something to do with the propensity of some southern Republicans to affiliate themselves so closely to the 'Confederate Flag' southern rebel mentality, which is unfortunately still a home for very real racists. Not all, but enough to tar that culture's reputation. But this is just my speculation, possibly uninformed speculation at that.

So again, I don't know why. But what I can say in the light of recent legislation in North Carolina is this: I have a good idea why they wouldn't want to come to the GOP now. Our new Governor and his fellow state-level Republicans just passed legislation straight out of the Jim Crow era. There's nothing wrong with early voting, in fact, allowing early voting allows for more freedom instead of less - which is supposed to be the goal of the Republican party's core values. Also, in a bizarre channeling of Kay Hagan style corporate cronyism, our Governor and cohorts have, are, and will protect Duke Energy from any REAL punishment entailing serious financial loss. If you like heavy metals in your drinking water, you shouldn't have a problem with that.

So I still don't know why African Americans would, at large, support the Democratic Party. As far as my back yard though, here in NC, I also can't see any reason they'd support the Republican Party either. I can't speak for the past, but the present speaks for itself, and presently, I feel extremely disappointed by our Republican leaders. I imagine that if I was African American, I'd probably still feel the same way.

Commented: Sunday, March 23rd, 2014 @ 4:19 am By: John Latham

Aside from the good reasons the residents of Chocowinity bring up against the jail being built there, what I take away from this is that the Beaufort County Commissioners have paid 2 million dollars to an architech to design a jail, when they don't even know if they can build it where they propose. They know the sewer will be adequate, that is all apparently. I wonder just what contact the Commission has had with the representatives of Chocowinity, and what, if anything other than sewer, has been discussed with the people who will be most impacted by the jail.

Commented: Wednesday, March 19th, 2014 @ 5:26 pm By: John Latham

That was uncalled for and I apologize.

Commented: Friday, February 7th, 2014 @ 12:28 pm By: John Latham

Must the lawsuit wait until the contract has been entered, or is that something that can be persued now? Also, if the BCSD was negligent with the maintenance of the jail, what consequences do the individuals responsible face? Surely the department answers to some authority capable of judgement. Who is that authority? An officer in our Military would be burned at the stake for an embarrassment like that. I'm not trying to deride our Sheriff's department. They seem to be competent enough given the articles about drug busts and violent offender arrests I've read, but to be ignorant of the sorry state of their own facilities, or worse, unwilling to remedy those facilities by way of regular inspections and maintenance speaks of either incompetence or outright malfeasance by way of negligence. In other words: someone should have been fired.

Commented: Sunday, January 26th, 2014 @ 8:07 am By: John Latham

www.zoominfo.com
When looking into it, I found this page listing Klemm as a board member of BCN. Is this true? I find it hard to believe, given the amount of negative articles concerning him here.

Commented: Saturday, January 25th, 2014 @ 6:23 am By: John Latham

Won't find that in the Washington Daily.

Commented: Sunday, August 25th, 2013 @ 12:57 pm By: John Latham

Sounds like these guys should have looked around before they built on properties near a an already established animal rescue. It seems the rescue owner was already operating when these fellas rolled in to build; I call that look before you leap. And what has the HOA said? If she's been doing this for 14 years and the HOA hasn't shut her down, they must not have a problem with her dogs. As for updating the Ordinance, my neighbors are a nuisance, their dog can stay but they have to go. One man's nuisance is another man's neighbor. Tough. I hear acreage in Montana is cheap.

Commented: Friday, August 9th, 2013 @ 4:28 am By: John Latham

This story is fictitious. www.snopes.com

Commented: Saturday, June 29th, 2013 @ 4:13 am By: John Latham