Dear Bradley Jardis,

I have tried but am unable to reach you by telephone.

It has come to LEAP’s attention from the below blog entry, that you have
chosen to violate the oath you took on joining the police department; to
enforce all the laws of the federal and state governments in which your
police department has jurisdiction. And worse, you are calling on other law
enforcement officials to violate their oaths of office.

This is the opposite of what LEAP requires of our representatives. We have
always said that we will in no way ask that any law enforcer decline to do
his or her duty by refusing to enforce the laws as they are currently
recorded. That would be unethical and wrong. What we do call on them for is
take action on their off-duty time to help us change those laws.

Because you have so blatantly stepped over that line, your actions have
caused people to lose respect for our organization, which leads to a loss of
our credibility within the public, the media and the policymakers; the very
people whom we are trying to convince to change these laws.

The Executive Board of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition was made aware of
your actions in their January 22, 2010 Board meeting. They were unanimous in
their decision that you must no longer represent Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition while espousing this belief.

As Executive Director of LEAP, I therefore am notifying you that,
effectively immediately, you are to stop referring to yourself as a speaker
for or member of LEAP in your publications, interviews, and public or
private addresses.

Sincerely,

Jack A. Cole
Executive Director
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
121 Mystic Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
(781) 393‑6985 LEAP Office (781) 393 2964 FAX
(781) 396‑0183 Home Office (617) 792‑3877 Cell
jackacole [at] leap [dot] cc www.leap.cc

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There is a reason why this bothered me. I was trying to probe my coworkers beliefs (primarily because he will discuss ‘religion’ or Christ with every other coworker but me, except to invite me to his church, but also because of my curiosity). I have been trying to see what kind of a Christian he was, and if he had good reasons for his beliefs. Perhaps my conclusion is unfair, but he seems to be a typical ‘conservative’ type: he confuses faith in Christ with an unquestioning acceptance of everything taught to him in a Christian setting. Unfortunately, it seems as if the majority of Christians I meet are this way.

What kind of Christians are we if we believe this way? Of what value is our faith? We can quote scripture verbatim, but our only understanding is what has been taught to us. People ask us how to get to Heaven, and we immediately spit out an answer, without knowing if it is true. It was just taught to us. Frankly, I am not certain if most Christians even know why they believe what they believe. At all. A cab driver pointed this out to me years ago when he asked me some questions about my faith. Since then, I have tried very hard to make sure my beliefs are consistent and true. (Does anyone remember reading Philippians 2:12?) Some do not really care to do this, and get their consistent and true beliefs on Sundays.

Modern Christianity seem to be no better than the other theories of life or religions it derides. It rests simply on a teaching that has been passed down from multiple generations of teachers in a game of generational telephone with the current teaching being incredibly far from the truth it once showed, and there is no desire to go to the beginning and rework our beliefs as necessary. We say to ourselves that “This is what we were taught, and any deviation from it is heresy.” Someone raises an objection to our beliefs and instead of having an answer or researching the question, we cite problems with the questioner. Did we not read from the Bible that we proclaim to be true without knowing why that we should study (2 Tim 2:15)? We are offended by Christians in jail, forgetting in the Bible, persecution is normal. Forgetting God’s commandments, we try to force others to live the way we want. We advocate theft in Christ’s name. We serve someone other than the Jesus in the Bible, and others know this. They mock us, not to persecute us, but because our brand of christianity deserves mocking. They are offended by us, because we offend them, and not because the core of our belief itself is offensive. We even have rules just like the religious leaders Jesus criticized, but we have very intricate reasons for why our rules are not like theirs. We complain of people picking and choosing what parts of the Bible they believe, but it may better to do that with a consistent belief than to mandate that everything be included for the sole reason of a vote long ago while taking what we mandate as included and twisting and perverting it in ways the original authors/Author did not intend. There is a lot wrong with our christianity! It’s not Christian!

To be fair, people’s beliefs change over time, and I too was once a zombie-christian: eating the brains of other christians to sustain me. Perhaps I am still that way to a degree (I’ve changed, honest!). Maybe this is a rant more about myself than a plea for others to consider themselves. I could fill the rest of this spot with Philippians 2:12, but I doubt it would help; I’ve read passages hundreds of times before understanding them, and hundreds of times more before realizing I was abiding solely by a teaching rather than what the passage plainly said. Perhaps it’s worth scrapping our ideas and rebuilding them from scratch?
And the question now is “what do I believe?” I believe that there is a Creator. I believe that He came down in the form of Christ to show us how to live. I believe that he took the punishment of the world when He died on the cross because he loved us, and to show us what love truly is: not killing or oppressing others because they don’t believe like you, but sacrificing yourself for others out of love for them. I believe that when Jesus stated that the greatest commandments were to love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, that He meant it. I believe all scripture should be interpreted in light of these two verses.

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I bet their children had a sign “My mom cant afford to wait to for her reoccurring statism to be cured.” Public Option Now! The sooner the Fed fails, the sooner peoples statism gets cured (I hope).

It’s really terrible that so many people, because of the state, can’t get affordable healthcare, and then advocate using violence to obtain their medical care.

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