No snowflake here.
Change of approach
Over the last several weeks we have seen reports of people objecting to closures, social distancing, quarantine, and wearing face masks and doing so by gathering maskless and in close quarters, sometimes in front of and often inside state capitol buildings, quite often carrying various styles of rifles. While they were protesting their inability to get a haircut, have their nails done, and go bowling because states were following the steps for a safe reopening of the country in accordance with Trump’s own steps for doing so, he agreed with the protests in telling many of those in at least three states to liberate themselves from the oppressor and connecting the protest to the need to defend their Second Amendment right to bear arms even though that last was in no way relevant to the purpose of the protests.
No one got arrested.
After all, the Second Amendment gives gun owners the right to own them and protest any attempts to curtail that right, and the First Amendment gave them the right to assemble for that purpose.
But the First Amendment qualifies the assemblies to which we have the right, and it specifically states that these are to be peaceable assemblies, something that is belied by the presence of arms being brought into state capitol buildings as legislatures were in session.
So it would seem that the President of the United States is encouraging protests which could turn violent with the presence of arms even if those protests are opposing him and his policies.
And when it came to earlier protests that could have, and in at least one instance did result in violence and death, nothing was done because the president declared that there were good people on both sides even though one side was chanting “Jews will not replace us” while carrying the flag of the only enemy to have waged war against the United States on its own soil, other than the War of 1812 which was in actuality a continuation of England’s opposition to our independence and thus an extension of the Revolutionary War, and the flag Of Nazi Germany.
Armed protest would seem to be acceptable.
However, protest a pipeline that could leak into your water supply or destroy land considered sacred by Native American tribes as the land is raped during the construction of it, and you become criminals.
Although those protesting the XLPipeline were unarmed and peaceably assembled, there were hundreds of arrests, protesters were rushed with horses and dogs, and arrested protesters were strip searched.
Many male friends can not accurately distinguish the symptoms of these two prostate diseases, so, here, I’d love to cialis prices in india share the information about the medicine before starting off with its treatment. Studies reveal that the main damage is done to the nerves that control response to sexual stimulation, it reduces a person’s ability to achieve an erection upon arousal, leading http://robertrobb.com/unintended-consequences-of-the-firefigher-cancer-bill/ cheap 25mg viagra to erectile dysfunction. Rather quality time should be cheapest cialis given to understand another person and judge whether he or she has friends in the class. Some of the well known companies also discover this pharmacy cialis sale are engaged in producing the generic drug.Among the offenses were setting up illegal roadblocks, trespassing onto private property, and establishing an encampment, and this forced law enforcement to respond at this time.
There was law enforcement from six states, armored personnel carriers, and hundreds of law enforcement officers with concussion grenades, mace, Tasers, and batons.
Alabama lawmakers are moving along legislation that would add new criminal penalties to nonviolent protests against pipelines and other fossil fuel projects.
Joining Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia the bill would designate virtually any oil, gas or coal equipment or facilities in the state as “critical infrastructure”, would prohibit where drones used to track pollution can fly, and would make any action that “interrupts or interferes” with pipelines, storage depots, or refineries a Class C felony, punishable by at least one year in prison and up to $15,000 in fines.
The only thing holding up the bill is COVID-19’s keeping the legislators from gathering.
In 2016 the Colonial Pipeline Co. spilled 11,800 barrels of gasoline in Shelby County and 2018 the company agreed to pay $3.3 million in state fines and faced at least one lawsuit over alleged contamination of land.
So why would anyone even think about protesting pipelines?
Koch Industries owns the biggest stake in Colonial, and Colonial lobbied Alabama lawmakers during the first three months of this year and it was joined by Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Dow Chemical Co. and the utility giant NextEra Energy.
The Alabama bill is aimed at proactively stopping demonstrations, protests, or acts of civil disobedience against any fossil fuel project.
This is in response to the months-long unarmed standoff over construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline which was ended when security forces mounted a military-style takeover of the area where the protest was taking place.
Many states are pushing a bit of generic legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) called the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act including Tennessee, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Texas.
So it would appear that armed protests that include armed invasions of State capitol buildings and legislatures in session to oppose steps that are designed to protect the health of American citizens are acceptable, but unarmed protests of the construction of pipelines and fossil fuel facilities that benefit industry while endangering the environment, water supplies, and the health of American citizens are what is unacceptable.
The sheriff is at it again
On May 1, 2020, there was what some have termed a “riot” at the ICE detention Center at the Bristol County House of Corrections administered by Sheriff Thomas Hodgson when he is not off to Washington DC to be seen with Trump, appearing at Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, white supremacist gatherings to participate and give speeches, or running to any microphone or TV camera where he can promote his pro-Trump rhetoric to be seen by Trump and appear as the law and order sheriff.
In his statements concerning that event at the Bristol County House of Corrections, the Bristol County sheriff, Thomas Hodgson, has stated that the detainees involved in the incident refused to get tested for COVID-19.
The sheriff has been insisting in press releases and interviews that even without a testing program in place there is no COVID-19 at his facility, and this in spite of at least 11 people on his staff who interact with the inmates in the general population and Detainees in the ICE Detention unit testing positive for COVID-19 and returning to work when cleared by doctors, even as he ignored the calls for such a program by legal representatives and social justice groups such as Bristol County for Correctional Justice, an ad hoc committee of concerned county residents.
Those staff members who tested positive had been in and out of the facility before being tested and could have obviously been bringing the virus in with them. Even after their doctor cleared returns, there is no telling if, in spite of not displaying any symptoms themselves, they are not carriers of the virus.
With those 11 staff members having tested positive for COVID-19, Judge William Young ordered the sheriff to report the results of any virus testing and the release of 40 ICE Detainees in April.
Detainees and general population inmates, along with community advocates, have been requesting such testing and better conditions both at the Bristol County House of Corrections in Dartmouth and the Ash Street Jail a few miles away in New Bedford for a number of weeks to no avail, so their reaction to the sudden command to pack their things and go to the infirmary is understandable.
BCCJ is in possession of a letter written and signed by a number of inmates listing the lack of serious steps being taken to control the spread of the virus in the sheriff’s facility.
There were no masks, no social distancing, and no soap or hand sanitizers unless the inmate purchased them at the canteen. No money, no hand sanitizer.
Demands for testing went back to the beginning of March.
The sheriff’s representation after the May 1 incident that the inmates opposed being tested is verifiably false.
The testing was not the issue.
Timing, speed, and the need to pack their things for removal were.
The Detainees’ opposition stemmed from the sudden need to be tested quickly, the possibility of being removed from their unit where the tests could already have been done, and being placed in solitary confinement.
The question that should be asked is why it took so long to administer those tests, and why the sheriff found it imperative that they be done so suddenly and at that time.
The reaction of the inmates and the conditions that produced it should not come as a surprise.
Add to that the sheriff’s opposition to a court order demanding that inmates be tested.
A federal judge did not “respect” the sheriff’s power to his way of thinking, and had demanded testing and the release under certain circumstances of those in both facilities who were there for non-violent offenses, just days away from release, or were there only because they could not meet bail for minor offenses.
Since the spring of 2017, when the sheriff tried to make points with Trump by volunteering inmates in his facilities to help build the wall on the Southern Border, Bristol County for Correctional Justice has written letters to the Massachusetts governor, the Attorney General, various state and local elected officials, as well as to local media, had meetings with people from the offices of the Attorney General, and local state senators and representatives to present their concerns and recommendations about conditions in the sheriff’s facilities, and in October 2018 brought the concerns of inmates and detainees directly to the State House where they spoke to people from the offices of the governor, the Attorney General, and the State Auditor who all said they would pass the information on.
Sadly, conditions in both facilities did not improve, there was no follow up, and the warnings about the condition went ignored.
During the time of COVID-19, BCCJ continued to bring attention to conditions at the facilities especially in regard to the lack of addressing the virus seriously and, while claiming that there was no COVID-19 in his facilities, the sheriff’s not testing inmates or detainees.
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After the May 1, 2020 incident, the federal judge ordered the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office to test immigration detainees and staff members as ICE Detainees are under federal jurisdiction.
In his decision, Judge William Young said,
“I require everyone be tested, from the sheriff on down,”
That includes around 600 staff members as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.
He also ordered the sheriff’s office to trace possible contact between COVID-positive staff members and detainees.
The sheriff reacted in his usual way by attempting to protect his power and self-assigned importance by responding,
“I absolutely disagree with Judge Young’s decision,”
and declaring that the judge had “far exceeded his authority.”
As he had done at his press conference the day after the May 1 incident where he claimed any criticism of him by lawyers, other elected officials, especially those not in his political party, and civil justice advocates was merely a political attack on him, the sheriff wrote in a statement that the judge had expressed “his personal dislike of immigration policies” in the court opinion.
He went on to claim that testing his staff members was “invasive and unnecessary” testing violating their constitutional rights.
Hodgson has asked the Department of Justice for an emergency stay while the judge’s order is appealed to the First Circuit Court.
Hodgson has also claimed that the judge decision and activists have “encouraged unrest” in the facility, accusing immigration activists of using corona virus as a pretext to release all immigrant detainees.
That is also an obvious lie to distort the truth as advocates like BCCJ have not advocated for the blanket release of all Detainees, only those who were not arrested for having committed any crime but were in the wrong place at the wrong time, like at work when ICE raided the place, or had been pulled over for a minor offense like speeding and missing a court date and, upon it being discovered they were in the country with no papers, were turned over to ICE as is the established procedure even in Sanctuary Communities where local law enforcement does not do the job of ICE at local taxpayer expense by actively seeking out undocumented residents.
But the sheriff has traditionally represented all those in ICE detention as being hardened and dangerous criminals to justify his holding them and to present himself as the only thing standing between safety and terror in the community,
When making his decision after the incident, Judge Young expressed surprise that detainees had not been tested before May 1, calling it “deliberate indifference”.
Hodgson will be required to provide regular updates about testing and report on contact tracing for those staff members who tested positive. ICE will foot the bill for the tests as these are its Detainees being held on county property, not county Detainees.
Meanwhile the Office of the Inspector General at the US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, is conducting an investigation of itself by itself, while the office of Attorney General Maura Healey, the state Senate’s Post audit and Oversight Committee, and the Massachusetts congressional delegation in DC are calling for an independent investigation.
In his press conference after the incident the sheriff referenced a tape of it, but has said it would not be released until after the incident is investigated, again by himself and ICE.
Throughout all of this, the sheriff has acted as if, in spite of being an elected official accountable to the public, he is an independent entity who cannot be questioned in thought, word, or deed, and has displayed his displeasure when people call him on possible misconduct, such as inmate abuse, high recidivism rates, and the highest number of suicides, both attempted and completed, in his facilities in comparison to the other county jails in the state, and his claiming that what he says about undocumented residents and his characterization of them does not need to be backed up by facts and statistics because, in his mind as stated in interviews, his opinion is a matter of communal common sense, while many in the community have disagreements based on facts and statistics.
His usual response, as it was this time, is to claim there are political enemies constantly attacking him and in doing that hoping to distract the people of the county from seeing what goes on with him and in his facilities.
He hopes that by getting sympathy for being seen as the victim, he can victimize those in his care without being questioned.
If the tapes can exonerate him of any wrong doing in the incident of May 1, 2020, his reluctance to release them to the public, other elected officials, and the press until he and ICE review them is questionable at best.
a sad and silent victim
The survivalist in the time of covid-19
Here’s how re-opening now works
Sad
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There was what could be called a riot at the ICE detention center at the Bristol County House of Correction. The sheriff, Thomas Hodgson, usually speaks of his detainees and the general immigrant population with loaded words, often misrepresenting them as “criminal Illegal Aliens” which implies a degree of dangerousness when in reality most have only committed the civil crime of being in the country without the proper papers. Had Sheriff Hodgson simply held a press conference where he described his version of what transpired and then took questions even though there might have been a certain amount of distrust of his answers, he decided to go on a political screed that put another spin on his telling of the tale.
People have been calling for releasing those detainees with no criminal record to help control the spread of COVID-19, and the sheriff has consistently opposed this saying that these people would then be free to roam the streets committing crimes and terrorizing the county. Again, the people who would be released would be those with no record of having done that to get arrested.
When a court decision had some detainees released, both in ICE detention and the general population, the sheriff released a list of crimes that he alleges they had committed, and that list was of the most serious crimes a person could commit, short of murder. However, by state law, names could not be connected to the list of crimes, and without the ability to verify those released had committed those crimes, the question is if these were crimes actually committed by those released, or just a list of crimes to instill fear and distrust in the people of the county, or simply to support his promoted image that he is all that stands between safety and terror.
The sheriff’s main thrust of his version of events was that after some detainees had been demanding they be tested for the corona virus, when ten of them were told that they were going to be brought to the clinic for testing, their objection became violent after demanding they be tested where they were, and their violent actions called for him, his corrections officers, and K-9 teams to enter the ICE detention area. to quell the riot which caused thousands of dollars in damage.
The next day he allowed the media to view the damage done after he held a press conference about the matter.
Although the general public may have accepted his word without question, there are those in the community who have been watching him more closely than most and were not disappointed if they thought the sheriff would be less than forthcoming.
The sheriff is known for his overuse of solitary confinement as a first resort not a last, poor treatment of inmates, and the number of suicides attempted and completed.
In contrast to the sheriff’s explanation according to a lawyer who had been on the phone with a client at the time leading up to the “riot” and was able to speak to a client after, the sheriff arrived and informed about ten of the detainees that they needed to pack their things because they were going to be moved to another building to be tested for the corona virus. Since they were just going to get a test they demanded the test be given where they were, fearing that they were going to be moved to Solitary immediately after the test and be exposed to people in from the street and from other units who might have the virus. After having complained about symptoms for weeks, some of those to be suddenly moved questioned why they were to be suddenly removed from the unit to be tested when these were not new symptoms.
While one detainee was talking to the lawyer on the phone, the sheriff ripped the phone out of his hand and things escalated from there.
During the press conference, rather than just present either just his own version or perhaps both in an attempt to support his while discounting the other, the sheriff took the opportunity to, again, misrepresent those in detention and introduced politics.
It should be mentioned that the sheriff is the state co-chair for Trump’s reelection campaign in the state, and he has had a very public record of taking actions that would bring him to the president’s attention from volunteering his county jail inmates to help build The Wall, always being the one to hand Trump some award from his sheriffs’ association, and his recently discovered emails to Stephen Miller in which he pledged his undercover unit would report any pro-immigrant activity taking place in the county.
So his using this event as a chance to further solidify his image with Trump and the state and national Republican Party and misrepresent anyone who opposes him came as no surprise.
Although ICE said it would conduct an investigation of the event, no bias there, Representative Joe Kennedy who represents Bristol County, called for an independent investigation. The sheriff said he welcomed such an investigation but only if Representative Kennedy was in no way involved.
Would he support an independent investigation?
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The man who said that he is open to an independent investigation provided it isn’t part of a political agenda revealed he had a political agenda in that regard.
If the investigation of him is independent, why would the sheriff have any say in who is doing the investigation? Obviously he wants to have some control over it.
That would not be independent.
And then going for the heart strings and presenting himself as more interested in the people of the county than anyone else, ignoring that people can fact check what he says on their computers and in quarantine have plenty of time to do it, and not missing the opportunity to use veterans as a political pawn, he veered to making false claims about the Democratic state delegation in Washington and their ignoring of the elderly and veterans in senior housing.
He claimed that while they express concern for his ICE detainees they do not care about our veterans who are dying from COVID-19 in Veteran Homes.
However, In early April, members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation expressed their concern about the spread of the corona virus at veterans’ homes with Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Representatives Richard Neal and Ayanna Pressley sending a letter to Ryan Lilly, network director at the VA New England Healthcare System, expressing concerns about COVID-19 and asking that more resources be obtained and deployed to mitigate the spread of the virus in veteran’s homes.
They not only addressed Homes where there had already been a problem, but the possibility of problems in Homes yet to have them.
They were concerned that staff lacked needed personal protective equipment, were being directed to continue working even after exposure to corona virus, and were not effectively isolating potentially infected veterans.
Things changed.
As far as the problems in nursing homes, Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, is giving that his attention and his virus response team is addressing it as the local problem it is, unlike veterans’ homes which are under the VA, a national entity.
The sheriff pivoted at one point to complain that any criticism of him is purely political. He is the victim of human rights activists and the lawyers who represent the inmates.
He is the beleaguered victim in spite of the court cases he has lost over the years that showed that things of which he has been accused, like mistreatment and abuse, were true.
There is a surveillance camera in the unit where the “riot” took place, and according to the sheriff captured it on video. Right now the video is being reviewed, one has to expect by the sheriff and ICE, and will be released after the ICE investigation.
The sheriff said that criminal charges are likely to follow with arraignments done by video. If so the complete recording would have to be available to the court, not just the parts the sheriff wants to be seen, but all of it.
What will be telling is what parts of the video have been lost and what parts damaged. During the media walk through a sheriff Department spokesperson pointed out the camera at which a cup of coffee was thrown, but as the recording device would certainly be housed elsewhere, will we be expected to accept that had that coffee not been thrown we would have a complete tape to see?
Who’s the baby?
Rather than take steps to limit the number and accessibility of military grade guns and rifles whose obvious purpose is not for hunting or self defense each time there is a school shooting, far right pundits claim the shooting didn’t happen and the victims and survivors are merely hired actors paid to pretend there is a need to discuss reasonable gun control, or, if they admit it did, the NRA and its supporters in Washington DC claim it is not the time to discuss gun control, and the idea of arming teachers as a first line response is promoted, and, worse, there is a call for better training for students handling an active shooter.
The onus of dealing with school shootings is to have children as young as 5 years old practice how to save their lives when a shooting begins rather that make it more difficult for the shooter to get a weapon whose set purpose is to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time.
While the adults protect an exaggerated Second Amendment right to bear arms, while conveniently ignoring the part in the Amendment about the “well regulated militia”, children are the ones given the responsibility to protect themselves.
Somehow children should just accept that this is how the world is, and they need to recognize this and act accordingly.
People in large numbers are not only contracting COVID-19, but are dying from it.
It is one of those situations where citizens should be taking the responsibility to work as one citizenry and care for each other.
But the inconvenience.
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The clerk behind the register, the waiter at the restaurant, the bar tender who has to approach each person at the bar on a one to one basis, unlike the customer who can control where they go and with how many people they interact, have no control over the number and condition of those who approach them for hours at a time.
Children have to practice how to shelter in their classroom, where to hide if out in the hall when the shooting starts, how to defend themselves if the shooter manages to get in the classroom that was locked like in the drills or the closet they might have found to hide in because that is their new normal.
They have to learn how to use their desks and textbooks as shields, and accept that every day as they enter the school building, after handing over their coats and jackets, some adult will rifle through their, hopefully, bullet proof backpacks, looking at, picking up, and asking questions about personal items like the feminine napkins wrapped in plain paper or tin foil to have them discretely available if and when they are needed.
Before I retired from teaching I, along with other teachers, was assigned the task of doing this each morning on a rotating schedule and saw the look of embarrassment on the faces of girls whose privacy had been violated and then had to report to the classroom of the adult who knew their “secret”.
Meanwhile the adults who put this pressure on the students march into state capitols brandishing firearms demanding that their need to wear masks and forgo a haircut is an unconscionable burden.
Obviously the lives of others are not as important to them as haircuts, drinks at a bar, someone else cooking for them, watching a movie on a screen bigger than their TV screen, and unlike children who have to learn to live with the inconvenience of possibly getting shot and practicing how to handle a shooting, these adults just can’t handle that they might have to put on a face mask even when they walk around carrying their guns.
Something to think about
There are three common complaints that people whine out occasionally when any of them might be useful to their agenda.
The first two are easily dispelled if you speak to anyone actually involved with the classroom, and are usually promoted by people who have not seen the inside of a classroom since they graduated or dropped out.
The pledge of Allegiance is recited every day in school, usually in Homeroom and just before the morning announcements.
Sadly it is a by rote exercise that most kids mumble their way through with it having any more meaning than the “God Bless You” after a sneeze or a “Thank you for your service” at a service member sighting.
Prayer is not forbidden in schools.
What is not allowed is for the administration to lead the prayer because that leaves the choice of prayer up to that administrator, and that administrator would most likely choose one with which he or she is most familiar, giving favorite status to one religion or sect within a greater one over others with which they are unfamiliar or just simply do not agree.
Which religion’s prayers are allowed and which are left out?
In the 1930s Brookline High School near Boston had a major fire so students had classes in the nearby Jewish Community Center. In those days the Lord’s Prayer was the prayer recited at the beginning of the day, and my mother, who was a student at the time, while she had never considered the prayer out of place as she was Catholic and the prayer was part of her background, realized that while there were Jewish kids in her classes who were present during the daily recitation at the high school building and had to follow school practice, here was the Jewish Community helping out the public school system and that same prayer was being recited every day in their building. Beyond being unappreciatively ironic, it struck her that in all fairness a Jewish prayer should be recited occasionally. To her it was like being invited to a Catholic home for a Friday night pot luck in those days, and bringing a meat dish.
Students today are allowed to quietly pray on their own or in groups outside of instructional time provided it does not interfere with the class lesson, override it, or bring attention away from the lesson but to those praying.
Bibles can be read by students with the same constraints as prayers, meaning it cannot be read instead of an assigned reading or out loud when kids are captive in class or the cafeteria and only if it is in a class that deals with various types of literature and the Bible is part of the syllabus..
As with prayer, since there are three version of the Bible, Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic, which Bible does the school use? Also, when it comes to prayer, which version of the Lord’s prayer, the Catholic one or the Protestant one?
There are plenty of times during a school day that students can pray or read their bibles- before and after classes begin, walking in the halls, between classes, at lunch, or in the school yard. While they have that freedom, others have the freedom not to be preached at or have their use of free time usurped for another student’s purpose without any say in the matter.
The third annoying claim goes beyond the classroom to promote the fallacy that the world became a crueler place once God was removed from society, and people have become degenerates.
This conveniently ignores actual history at the time when God and religion held a more prominent place in society.
A list of wars based on
religion and the number of deaths cause by them would include
Taiping Rebellion- 20,000,000 Deaths, Thirty Years War- 7,500,000 Deaths, Madhi
Revolt- 5,500,000, Crusades (in the East)- 3,000,000 Deaths, French Wars of
Religion- 3,000,000 Deaths, War in the Sudan- 2,600,000, Albigensian Crusade-
1,000,000 Deaths, Panthay Rebellion- 1,000,000 Deaths, Hui Rebellion- 640,000
Deaths, Partition of India- 500,000, and Cromwell’s Invasion of Ireland-
400,000 Deaths (Rank 81st) .
And this is a short list.
That’s a lot of violence not only when God and religion were major things, but because of them.
Beyond wars these are example of other practices and events done by religion in the name og god, or gods, as the case may be.
To appease the bloodthirsty goddess Kali, members of lndia’s Thuggee sect strangled up to two million people as sacrifices. With British rule they switched to goats.
In the 1600s Puritans hanged and flogged Quakers because theyn had different beliefs, and then went on to kill 20 people as witches.
When the capitol of Burma was moved to Mandalay, 56 “spotless” men were buried beneath the new city walls to sanctify and protect the city, and then a further 500 men, women, boys, and girls were killed and buried under a section of the wall that was discovered to have been missed.
Those traveling from Arkansas to the West in the Fancher-Baker wagon train got as far as Mountain Meadows in Utah Territory on September 11, 1857 before they were attacked by a group of Mormons and Paiute Indians, agreed to give up their weapons in the pursuit of an end to the attack, and were then escorted to a place where 120 men, women and children were massacred. The Mormons took forever to admit this happened, and explained it was because of the defense of Mormons in Utah who feared invasion from the U,S, government of which these settlers were not a part.
The Aztecs killed up to 20,000 people to appease their gods. Preferred methods were drowning, beheading, burning, being dropped from heights, and the classic ripping out of the Heart on the high altar. Along with male victims there were terrorized children so that their tears might induce rain and virgins danced for 24 hours before killed and skinned. At King Ahuitzotl’s coronation, 80,000 prisoners were butchered to please the gods.
Again, a short list of examples.
When it comes to Europe, We have the Inquisition, another God inclusive practice that lasted a number of centuries, whose purpose was to suppress large popular movements throughout Europe considered apostate or heretical. In 1209, 20,000 Cathars were massacred at Beziers in France, and in 1545 the Waldensians met a similar fate, and Jews had it pretty rough in a very religious Spain.
Killing people for God wasn’t always clean. As a matter of fact, it was usually cruel and gruesome. Preferred methods, all designed when God and religion were very present in society were:
- The Rack upon which victims were strapped across a board, bound by the ankles and wrists and then having their joints dislocated as two wheels on each end were turned in opposite direction of each other. Sometimes a grate was added under thr victim for added effect. .
- Water torture where the victim’s nostrils were first pinched shut, and then about 8 liters of water was forced down the victim’s throat with a funnel. Boiling water or vinegar was used to inflict even greater suffering. The victim’s stomach would rupture, leading to painful and gruesome death.
- The Heretic’s Fork that consisted of two metal dwell with forks on neither end that was placed under the chin of the accused with one end resting just above the larynx and the other end above trachea. The victim had to hold his head erect at all times in order to avoid pain. Since the instrument didn’t target any vital organs, suffering could last for days without death.
- The Pear which was mostly used on female victim as it was inserted into the vagina or mouth, and then expanded by twisting the screw on the outer end, lacerating and ripping the inside. Torture sessions usually ended in death.
- The Wheel, a giant spiked wheel operated by several men and was able to break literally every bone in victim’s body as it turned. It was a new and improved rack.
- The Breast Ripper, a pronged device used to tear breasts off the chest. Obviously this was used non women
- The Judas Cradle a pointed pyramid with iron belts over which the victim whose ankles were weighted was suspend than quickly dropped. The results can go without description.
- Hanging cages usually hung outsides of town halls, palaces, cathedrals where God lives. In the first phase the victim was left naked and exposed to die slowly from hunger and thirst. The second phase left the cadavers in the cages until the bones literally fell apart.
Another short list.
No video games but plenty of God.
So the claim that we have become more crass and cruel because God is no longer in schools, the market place, and/or government is belied by these and many more instances of cruelty that existed when He was.
Remember these examples and look up more, there are plenty, when someone tells you orally or on the internet that their God must be restored and your rights suppressed to that end.