The family of a 3-year-old killed in a northern Missouri house fire is outraged after police used a stun gun on the boy's stepfather as he tried to run back in and save the child.
Riley Jeffrey Rieser Miller died early Oct. 31 in the Mississippi River town of Louisiana. A city police officer fired his stun gun at Ryan Miller, 31, as he tried to re-enter his burning home, according to a city official. The house was destroyed.
Lori Miller said she witnessed two officers use their stun guns on her son a total of three times, twice after Ryan Miller had been handcuffed. The final time, he was in a police squad car, she said.
"It was police brutality," said Miller, adding that she was also threatened with arrest. "We're still trying to mourn."This story gets to me on so many levels. The son was in the process of being adopted and I have two adopted children myself so it hit home. But that was just on a personal level.
The idea of a free society is that we choose for ourselves. This man was not allowed to choose for himself whether or not he could rescue his son. Maybe he would have died. Maybe he would have failed. Maybe he would have succeeded, despite the odds.
The greatest stories in human history are of people defying the odds. Our founding fathers put into place a system of government that let people make mistakes, but also let them achieve great things. The Declaration of Independence is not a familiar sounding phrase you belch out every so often on July 4th. It declares our independence as individuals from the state, from a ruling body and from any who would tell us how to live our lives. It tells us the "why" while the constitution tells us the "how."
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In this case all three were violated by the state in one lone act. The child was deprived of his life. The man was denied the freedom (liberty) to pursue his happiness. Rescuing his child I'm fairly certain would have made him happy.
The police were not thinking of these things I'm certain at the time. But a collectivism mentality that starts at the presidency and has oozed its way down to the lowest levels of government has permeated everyone who is involved in government. The state over the individual. Protect the state. We wouldn't want any lawsuits. Lawsuits that should never go anywhere if judges realized that a person's choices is his own. No, people don't know what's good for them, remember? With that mentality, the firemen and policemen are responsible for this man's life because he's too stupid to make his own choices. The state's judgement over the individual.
A person's choices cannot be taken away from him as long as he is not violating another person's rights. Stealing deprives a person of his property, murder deprives a person of his life, kidnapping deprives a person of his liberty. This man did none of these things, however a damn good case could be made that the police violated all of them. In the name of "we know what's good for you."
Now this man is treated like a criminal for the crime of trying to save his son's life. This is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Whether or not he would have or would not have succeeded is not the state's judgement or choice to make. We have taken the choice away from the individual and given it to the powers that be.
If you think that this isn't going to happen with health care, that's where you are living in a dream world. People will die not because of their own decisions, but because of others forced upon them. By the elite, caring, and intelligent who deem it necessary that we hit you with a stun gun and let your son die in a fire rather than allowing you to try.
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