[CS-FSLUG] Humor me a moment

[R. Thompson]

Hi Ed,

    I appreciate your posting.  After some thought it came to mind to
pray for you, it seems that this ongoing problem may be making you feel
bitter over the treatment you've received at the hands of people that
you feel should be treating people with more consideration and respect.

    It brought to mind our childrens' problems with bullies in the
school and indifference of the school officials (who publicly claim they
do something about bullying).  And then there have been my own problems
with a previous employer.  We're working at putting the negative parts
of these experiences behind us and move on.  Bullies may not grow up,
there are occupations / positions where inconsiderate and unthinking
behaviour pays well :-)  We serve a higher calling, and answer to higher
authority.

    You're in my prayers brother!

               Ron T.

On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 22:52, Ed Hurst wrote:
> I don't wish to post here about politics; this about my crazy life.
> Please humor me for reposting here from my blog. I want to make sure
> this is on the record, in case something unpleasant happens. This is not
> fiction.
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> They're At It Again
> 
> 
> I wrote once how the US Marshals ruined my work at a local church not
> too far from where I now live.
> 
> While living in Oklahoma in the late 1990s, I struck up a friendship
> with a man who ran a drug store business in eastern Oklahoma County. We
> discussed Bible History and Theology at length over a few years' time.
> He remains in essence a student of mine. This good friend of mine had an
> elder brother working with him, running a pharmacy as part of the
> company about two miles away. This elder brother got in serious trouble
> with federal authorities. He was caught in a sting, offering to sell
> illegal quantities of pseudoephedrine hydrochloride ("sudafed"). This is
> a critical ingredient in homemade crystalized methamphetamine ("meth").
> You may have heard such labs are terribly dangerous, and have resulted
> in explosions and fires in motels and such, where criminals set up
> clandestine labs for producing large batches of meth ("meth labs"). The
> product is fast replacing crack cocaine as an abused substance of great
> potency. With the large effort to crack down on the trafficking of
> cocaine across our southern border, meth as a homegrown substitute is
> catching up to the same flourishing level of trade in the underground
> economy.
> 
> This man was arrested by federal agents because he made the offer to
> sell a massive quantity of sudafed to an undercover narcotics officer.
> They had the goods on him, and while out on bond, he fled prosecution.
> His pickup truck was found a short time later parked at Los Angeles
> International Airport. I am told the man had access to sufficient cash
> reserves that flying to Central or South America would be easy, not to
> mention places in the Asian Pacific area. That would be a smart move if
> the man was determined to escape justice. My friend is totally unlike
> his brother in that respect, acting with high moral standards and
> carefully observing the requirements of the law. He often hosted
> weeknight Bible studies where I was the teacher.
> 
> Under God's leading, I moved to Texas -- just about a week after the
> elder brother's disappearance. I didn't even know about that mess at the
> time. My younger sister and her husband had joined with my parents in
> buying a ranch of sorts, and they asked me to live on the property with
> them and help clear scrub trees and so forth. Once we were settled in
> here, my friend began calling me often, carrying on the Bible study we
> had engaged before I left Oklahoma. He also sent me a check, mostly as a
> love offering, to help my family and I during the transition before any
> of us got work here in Texas. He had mentioned this whole mess once we
> established regular phone contact, as his phone was being tapped and his
> mail being intercepted. He felt obliged to warn me, in case I was
> uncomfortable with the idea. Given the timing of all this, I am not
> totally surprised the US Marshals believed my presence in a remote rural
> area might indicate I was hiding my friend's brother. They came to visit
> a month or so later, and asked questions regarding this suspicion of theirs.
> 
> My final three years in the US Army as a Military Policeman I served as
> a DARE Officer. You may know that was a program whereby police officers
> were trained to enter the school system and conduct classes with
> students to convince them to stay away from the temptations of substance
> abuse and gangs. So there could not have been anyone more on the
> Marshals' side at that point. I still had a pair of police handcuffs,
> and had this fugitive shown his face at my door, I would have used them
> to restrain him while waiting the police to come retrieve him. I invited
> the Marshals to look the place over, including a search of my residence,
> knowing they would not find evidence of his presence. They declined and
> left after we talked a short time.
> 
> What I did not know was they had spent the morning in the town nearby
> asking around if folks knew me. Their questions were aimed at
> establishing if anyone felt I was the sort of fellow who would hide
> fugitive from justice. At that point, I had become the Music Director of
> the local Baptist church. The deacons were all big shots in that little
> town, and very nearly had me fired that week. As it was, the tenor of
> the questioning was that the Marshals already knew I was such a criminal
> kind, but were seeking confirmation. This is completely unethical, but
> not illegal by their rules. As it was, I could never effectively
> minister in that town again. That was in 1999.
> 
> It was quite some time before I learned how the Marshals had
> intentionally defamed me in this way, and I wrote them a note
> complaining of this treatment. A part of my message was that this sort
> of ham-handed approach was the sort of thing that turned their best
> supporters into enemies. No one offered so much as a mere "sorry about
> that." When I began looking into the possibility this was their becoming
> their typical behavior, I was inundated with information that proves I
> got off rather lightly. I have since written articles hostile to this
> oppressive and hateful handling of citizens.
> 
> Well, they are at it again. This past week, they returned to harass my
> friend's family some more. They have contacted people who attended our
> Bible studies, characterizing me as a sort of Anton LeVey, leading a
> weird religious cult. They describe me as a bald, evil-looking fellow
> who often wears a black robe. I suppose if you visit a couple of forums
> of which I am a member and look at some of my posts, you will see an
> avatar I made from an old picture of me. At that point I was shaving my
> hair close and had a mustache and goatee. Yes, perhaps I do look "evil"
> -- as do a large number of men living out this way, who also shave their
> heads and sport similar facial hair. However, I do not own a black robe,
> nor even a good choir robe of any color. I once had a brown costume,
> with a hood and rope belt to resemble a medieval friar, but that was
> before I was stationed in Europe in 1988.
> 
> When I first opened this blog a year ago, I posted a large amount of
> material that could be fairly characterized as hostile to my national
> government. Make of it what you will. Federal agents have worked hard to
> earn my hostility, and I continue to see it as a much larger pattern of
> an growing police state. I called a truce a while back, because I really
> had better things to do. Still, do not be surprised if they come to
> visit me again and I disappear from the Net for awhile.
-- 
Ron G. Thompson, |^|
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada
www.petomai.org   ron at petomai.org
"Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as doves to their window?" Is
60:8