Honoring SDPD Officer and US Marine, Jeremy Henwood

This article was featured in today's San Diego Union Tribune and was penned by the Senior Pastor at my Church, Miles McPherson.  I've decided to put it on the LeaseOldTown.net not because it has anything to do with energy efficiency or commercial office buildings in San Diego, but because it has everything to do with being a grateful American Citizen who honors those who give all to defend God's greatest nation.

JBL

Jeremy Henwood was the kind of guy who showed up early for work and maintained a positive attitude in the face of challenging circumstances and long hours.
He had an ideal disposition for a police officer, a “glass is half full” outlook on life, and he possessed a talent for diffusing potentially volatile situations.
His boss recalls one day when Officer Henwood was called to the home of a teenager suffering from mental illness who had refused to take his medication. The parents feared for their safety because of the boy’s violent behavior and had called the San Diego police for help.
The first two officers on the scene evaluated the situation and agreed with the parents’ assessment that the boy should be taken to a mental health facility.
Jeremy had other plans. He talked with the boy and convinced him to take his medication. Next, he waited patiently at the home, talking and joking with the teenager until the calming effects of the medication kicked in.
That story encapsulates the heart of Jeremy Henwood: happy in his work and dedicated to serving others.
On Saturday, 36-year-old Henwood was gunned down in his police cruiser, shot in the head by an apparent stranger in what seems to be a random act of violence.
Many people say the sacrifice of Jeremy’s life was senseless – and there is no arguing that the manner of his death is utterly inexplicable.
But senseless means meaningless. And it is up to us to bring meaning to the horrible events of last weekend by honoring Jeremy’s legacy of service.
The service that Jeremy provided to his community as a San Diego police officer and to our country as a Marine is full of significance and value. Jeremy’s death is only as senseless as we make it. His death will be senseless if we neglect to take action to commemorate his life.
While the manner of his death was cruel, each of us can honor the memory of Jeremy Henwood by emulating his spirit of sacrifice and service. Think how much safer our community would be if every person cared enough to serve.
Seek out someone in uniform today and say a simple, “Thank you.” Mentor a child, start a neighborhood watch, care for troubled neighbors or volunteer with a church or community organization. Each of us can play an active role in honoring the memory and the legacy of Jeremy Henwood.
In death, as in life, Jeremy has given us a valuable gift. He’s provided us with the opportunity to reflect and examine how each of us will shape and define our own individual legacy. His death should prompt each of us to ask, “When I die, what will be remembered and told as the story of my life?”
Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson in 1950 created the term “generativity” to describe a basic human desire or “concern for establishing and guiding the next generation.” Most of us have a yearning to leave a legacy that extends beyond the span of our fleeting lives.
Often, we see this desire reflected in the actions of people who generously contribute large sums of money to install their names or that of a loved one on schools, hospitals and museums.
Even though these much-needed financial gifts are one way to establish a legacy, Jeremy’s gift teaches us that there is another way – a way that is available to all of us: taking personal action.
The power of our legacy is inherently dependent upon the depth of our sacrifice. The bigger the sacrifice in life, the greater our legacy becomes in death.
Jeremy paid the ultimate sacrifice.
The uniforms worn by Jeremy Henwood symbolize his legacy of sacrifice. He is a man who found purpose and value in sacrificing his own safety for the residents of San Diego and protecting the freedom of all Americans through military service.
A captain in the Marine Reserves, Henwood had just returned from deployment in Afghanistan and he served four years on the San Diego police force.
Jeremy Henwood should be remembered as a man of the few, proud, loyal, fearless members of our community who suit up every day to keep us safe.
Was Jeremy’s death senseless? We have the power to shape the answer to that question through our own acts of service to others.
McPherson is the senior pastor of the Rock Church, where a memorial service for Officer Henwood will be held today. McPherson will deliver the opening prayer.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/aug/12/officers-death-senseless-you-decide/

President's socialist takeover must be stopped

By Jeffrey T. Kuhner The Washington Times

President Obama has engaged in numerous high crimes and misdemeanors. The Democratic majority in Congress is in peril as Americans reject his agenda. Yet more must be done: Mr. Obama should be impeached.

He is slowly - piece by painful piece - erecting a socialist dictatorship. We are not there - yet. But he is putting America on that dangerous path. He is undermining our constitutional system of checks and balances; subverting democratic procedures and the rule of law; presiding over a corrupt, gangster regime; and assaulting the very pillars of traditional capitalism. Like Venezuela 's leftist strongman, Hugo Chavez, Mr. Obama is bent on imposing a revolution from above - one that is polarizing America along racial, political and ideological lines. Mr. Obama is the most divisive president since Richard Nixon. His policies are Balkanizing the country. It's time for him to go.

He has abused his office and violated his oath to uphold the Constitution. His health care overhaul was rammed through Congress. It was - and remains - opposed by a majority of the people. It could only be passed through bribery and political intimidation. The Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback, the $5 billion Medicaid set-aside for Florida Sen. Bill Nelson - taxpayer money was used as a virtual slush fund to buy swing votes. Moreover, the law is blatantly unconstitutional: The federal government does not have the right to coerce every citizen to purchase a good or service. This is not in the Constitution, and it represents an unprecedented expansion of power.

Yet Obamacare's most pernicious aspect is its federal funding of abortion. Pro-lifers are now compelled to have their tax dollars used to subsidize insurance plans that allow for the murder of unborn children. This is more than state-sanctioned infanticide. It violates the conscience rights of religious citizens. Traditionalists - evangelicals, Catholics, Baptists, Muslims, Orthodox Jews - have been made complicit in an abomination that goes against their deepest religious values. As the law is implemented (as in Pennsylvania ) the consequences of the abortion provisions will become increasingly apparent. The result will be a cultural civil war. Pro-lifers will become deeply alienated from society; among many, a secession of the heart is taking place.

Mr. Obama is waging a frontal assault on property rights. The BP oil spill is a case in point. BP clearly is responsible for the spill and its massive economic and environmental damage to the Gulf. There is a legal process for claims to be adjudicated, but Mr. Obama has behaved more like Mr. Chavez or Russia 's Vladimir Putin: He has bullied BP into setting up a $20 billion compensation fund administered by an Obama appointee. In other words, the assets of a private company are to be raided to serve a political agenda. Billions will be dispensed arbitrarily in compensation to oil-spill victims - much of it to Democratic constituents. This is cronyism and creeping authoritarianism.

Mr. Obama's multicultural socialism seeks to eradicate traditional America . He has created a command-and-control health care system. He has essentially nationalized the big banks, the financial sector, the automakers and the student loan industry. He next wants to pass "cap-and-trade," which would bring industry and manufacturing under the heel of big government. The state is intervening in every aspect of American life - beyond its constitutionally delegated bounds. Under Mr. Obama, the Constitution has become a meaningless scrap of paper.

To provide the shock troops for his socialist takeover, Mr. Obama calls for "comprehensive immigration reform" - granting amnesty to 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens. This would forge a permanent Democratic electoral majority. It would sound the death knell for our national sovereignty. Amnesty rewards lawlessness and criminal behavior; it signifies the surrender of our porous southern border to a massive illegal invasion. It means the death of American nationhood. We will no longer be a country, but the colony of a global socialist empire.

Rather than defending our homeland, Mr. Obama's Justice Department has sued Arizona for its immigration law. He is siding with criminals against his fellow Americans. His actions desecrate his constitutional oath to protect U.S. citizens from enemies foreign and domestic. He is thus encouraging more illegal immigration as Washington refuses to protect our borders. Mr. Obama's decision on this case is treasonous.

As president, he is supposed to respect the rule of law. Instead, his administration has dropped charges of voter intimidation against members of the New Black Panther Party. This was done even though their menacing behavior was caught on tape: men in military garb brandishing clubs and threatening whites at a polling site. A Justice Department lawyer intimately involved in the case, J. Christian Adams, resigned in protest. Mr. Adams says that under Mr. Obama, there is a new policy: Cases involving black defendants and white victims - no matter how much they cry for justice - are not to be prosecuted. This is more than institutionalized racism. It is an abrogation of civil rights laws. The Justice Department's behavior is illegal. It poses a direct threat to the integrity of our democracy and the sanctity of our electoral process.

Corruption in the administration is rampant. Washington no longer has a government; rather, it has a gangster regime. The Chicago way has become the Washington way. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is a political hit man.. He is an amoral, ruthless operator. It was Mr. Emanuel who reached out to Rep. Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Democrat, offering a high-ranking job in the hopes of persuading Mr. Sestak to pull out of the primary against Sen. Arlen Specter. It was Mr. Emanuel who offered another government position to Andrew Romanoff to do the same in the Colorado Democratic Senate primary. And it was Mr. Emanuel - as the trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has revealed - who acted as the go-between to try to have Valerie Jarrett parachuted into Mr. Obama's former Senate seat. The only question was: What did Mr. Blagojevich want in exchange?

This is not simply sleazy Chicago machine politics. It is the systematic breaking of the law - bribery, attempt to interfere (and manipulate) elections using taxpayer-funded jobs, influence peddling and abuse of power.

The common misperception on the right is that Mr. Obama is another Jimmy Carter: an incompetent liberal whose presidency is being reduced to rubble under the onslaught of repeated failures. The very opposite, however, is true. He is the most consequential president in our lifetime, transforming America into something our Founding Fathers would find not only unrecognizable, but repugnant. Like all radical revolutionaries, he is consumed by the pursuit of power - attaining it, wielding it and maximizing it. Mr.. Obama's fledgling thug state must be stopped.

If Republicans win back Congress in November, they should - and likely will - launch formal investigations into this criminal, scandal-ridden administration. Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has promised as much. Mr. Obama has betrayed the American people. Impeachment is the only answer. This usurper must fall.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute, a Washington think tank. He is the host of "The Kuhner Show" on WTNT 570-AM (from 5 to 7 p.m.
SOURCE: KUHNER: President's socialist takeover must be stopped - Washington Times
"In God ONLY We Trust"