Good whatever-it-is…
One problem with having to take a nap every couple of hours is that all sleep patterns inevitably get wrecked, and that’s where I am now, awake and staring in the early morning or late night…what fun.
1. I see that we have riots in Minneapolis. The Third Precinct police station was set on fire; earlier, rioters burned down a six-story, 190-unit affordable housing project slated to open in the spring of 2021. That development cost approximately $37 million. Never mind: MSNBC’s reliably ridiculous Ali Velshi told his viewers, literally as flames raged behind him, that “this is mostly a protest. It is not generally speaking unruly.” I would say this is unbelievable, but it only slightly moves the needle in the manner the current left-mainstream media regards reality as a flexible concept.
Meanwhile, there is absolutely no rational nor ethical justification for riots, ever, as a response to a single instance of police brutality, or in response to anything else. Nevertheless, we will get rationalizations and excuses from the usual suspects, as well as pious humming that it’s “understandable” for people to act this way. Not if rioters are to be regarded as adults, it’s not. They are harming innocent fellow citizens and business owners, and making matter worse, not better. The enablers and the apologists for such conduct should be duly marked, identified, and condemned, and no, the four rogue police officers who appear to have killed George Floyd did not “cause” the riots. The rioters caused the riots; it’s a choice, and an inexcusable one. The protests elsewhere demanding premature charges and the abandonment of due process regarding the officers are similarly indefensible.
This isn’t even a close call, and it is frightening that so few are willing to articulate it without equivocation.
2. Doesn’t anyone read Supreme Court opinions? “There’s no First Amendment right to lie. Period,” said Donna Brazile on Fox News.
Actually, Donna, you utter ignoramus, in United States v. Alvarez, the Supreme Court held by a majority of six to three that it was unconstitutional for Congress to make lying about one’s military honors illegal, because, as the 9th Circuit had ruled, misrepresentations and lies that fall short of fraud are protected speech. Putting an emphatic “Period” after a reckless misstatement of law and fact is exactly the kind of false pronouncement that the First Amendment does protect.
Brazile’s statement is also the kind of “lie” that gets added to those lists of 1001 Trump lies. Brazile wasn’t lying, I’m relatively certain. She just doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about, raising the question of why she’s a “news contributor” anywhere.
3. Moral luck bites Amy Klobuchar. Senator Amy Klobuchar was the Hennepin County Attorney in Minnesota when one of the officers implicated in the death of George Floyd fatally shot a black suspect in 2006 but was not prosecuted. It doesn’t matter whether the decision not to prosecute Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin over the shooting of Wayne Reyes in October 2006 following a car chase was correct or not. He was one of the cops in the Floyd episode, and Joe Biden can’t afford to have a #2 without an impeccable past regarding race issues. So Klobuchar, due to no apparent fault of her own, is toast.
Fate seems to be greasing the wheels for Stacy Abrams, the least qualified of the potential black, female candidates available to Biden, to end up as his VP. Of course, then she would be subjected to the same relentless criticism as Sarah Palin was when she offered her thin resume to the public as John McCain’s running mate…I’m sorry, I just dissolved in giggles. I just couldn’t get that out with a straight face…
Ethics Alarms 
How are you and your family, Jack?
Covid may have helped Biden by keeping him out of the public eye; his gaffes have been fewer than if he had been actively campaigning all this time in front of cameras, but how long can he keep up the charade? Whoever is VP may very well be President within a year of the election, he’d better pick well.
For context, this is the man who smashed all but one of the front windows of the AutoZone. Internet rumor mill has labeled the mask as both police issue, and taken from the man’s girlfriend who presumably uses it do do her nails or other crafts that involve organic fumes. It’s also effective against tear gas, but definitely civilian.
Rumor mill has also found a cop with similar eye features, but he more likely is just an anarchist who got chased off before the looters exploited his handywork.
It has what I’m almost certain are Honeywell P100 multicontaminant filters, which I’ve used first-hand in commercial industry. You can tell they’re multicontaminant from their bulk; a simple filter for airborne particulates is noticeably smaller. They would almost definitely protect against tear gas.
Your point?
To show responsible attire for a responsible citizen when one is going on the rampage. 🙂
It is interesting here as well to notice the *framing*. If you do a search under Minnesota police arrest CNN various mentions come up (not quite articles). ‘White police officers surround African American journalist’ is one of them. In that mix of googled items is one where it describes President Trump’s reference to the rioters as ‘thugs’ to be ‘gratuitous violence’.
So, without taking a specific side it is interesting to pay attention to how these social struggles are being framed. The way that they are framed indicate specific *poles* of opinion, view and ideology. But in the backdrop — as I have been asserting — a clearer narrative can be discerned. That is to say, a clearer (and a rational) narrative interpretation is there, but it cannot (yet) be stated.
These are battles — idea-wars — that have to do with structural definitions about what America is, what it should be, what it has become (for those critical of what it has become), and also where it will be taken. You see?
Now, where you stand in this valkygrrl is (to me) interesting. You have no stated position. You make statements though odd innuendo, just as you have by putting up this video. I can only assume (I arrived at this view years ago) that you simply cannot think. I do not mean that you are incapable of thinking but that you do not organize your thought. You seem to have an idea-structure and yet it is never concretely expressed. It is always submerged. And that is another thing I find interesting.
What very interesting times we live in. Oh my . . .
can’t wait for the commenters on this board to leap in to either justify the president’s endorsement of violence against his own citizens, write it off as just a stylistic quirk, or tell us all how this is nothing compared to the leftist plot to destroy the country.
He has since copypasta’d that tweet to @potus and @whitehouse so I can’t wait for the commenters on this board to leap in to justify an obvious temper tantrum.
No, since you raise the issue, explain what law enforcement’s approach should be when rioters are burning private property and endangering citizens, and when looters are using the pretext of protests to take law abiding citizens’ property. What’s the duty of law enforcement? Whose welfare is the higher priority, law-abiding citizens, or violent law breakers?
Keep in mind that a business of home owner is within the law and his or her rights if he chooses to use deadly force to repel a home invader or someone who attacks his property.
Law enforcement could do what they should have done in the first place and arrest George Floyd’s murderers.
Wrong, and not responsive. Try again. Citizens do not suddenly gain the right to engage in arson because they don’t approve of the pace of the justice process. Answer the question posed, please.
I see no reason why the officers involved should not have been arrested, but that’s a separate issue.
I have seen at least one person point out that a white woman named Justine Damond was also killed by police in Minneapolis, and it took 9 months before Mohammed Noor was arrested and then immediately bailed out, but he did go on to trial and was found guilty.
I think the process should have been faster in both cases mind you, but the police in Minneapolis seem to be consistent offenders rather than racist ones. On the other hand, there was actual video evidence in this case.
joeystigz and valkygrrl,
You have just endorsed vigilante justice, legitimizing what miscreants are doing in Minneapolis and other cities here in the States. These “protestors” are demanding justice for George Floyd. Define what justice means? Arrest? Detention? Charges filed? Tried in a court of law by a jury of their peers? If found guilty, sentenced under applicable state or federal law? Or, does it mean immediate execution to allay the Mob? It means the latter. Four police officers failed to meet even the most limited definition of competence in the way they handled the Floyd arrest – at least two of them should be charged to the fullest extent allowable under law.
As I watched the news last night, it was clear to me that Minneapolis police department abandoned the city to rioters. Rioters are not protestors. The protestors are expressing their Constitutional rights to hold the authorities accountable, including law enforcement and local and state politicians. A police precinct was set ablaze yesterday, along with a bar, liquor store, a low-income housing complex, and numerous other businesses. Rioters looted a Target and a Cub (I’m not sure what they sell but . . . .), and burned an AutoZone and a Wendy’s franchise to the ground (while I am no fan of their food, they are a private business and should rely on law enforcement to do its job). Rioters prevented firefighters from doing their job and saving property. The police are supposed to “protect and serve”, if not the citizenry, the community and law and order, but its leadership pulled police and riot forces out of the area on some theory of de-escalating tensions. Idiot police officers arrested a CNN news crew and did it LIVE when all the reporter had asked was, “where do you want us to set up to stay out of your way?” The Mayor wept at a press conference (probably more over what’s left of his political future than over Floyd’s death). This entire situation has laid bare the fundamental lack of competent leadership in that city. Now, Benjamin Crump and Al Sharpton are running around stoking fires.
You now advocate Mob Rule and tearing the system down to redress grievances over Floyd’s death. To hell with due process and the rule of law. The officers involved in the Floyd incident, as you hare “murderers” so execute them in the town scare. Let the Mob dismember them, to satiate their call for divine retribution. Good to know. Don’t be surprised when the Revolution turns its sights on others, including you, and demands your annihilation. That is what is going to happen. “Protestors” are demanding justice for George Floyd. Define what justice means? Arrest? Detention? Charges filed? Tried in a court of law? Convicted by a jury of peers? Sentenced under applicable state or federal law? Or, does it mean immediate execution to allay the Mob?
jvb
“You have just endorsed vigilante justice, legitimizing what miscreants are doing in Minneapolis and other cities here in the States.”
I’ve done nothing of the sort. I explicitly said the opposite of that. Straw man.
The rioting and looting is lawless, stupid, and completely counterproductive. If they scooped up and arrested anyone and everyone participating and gave them the harshest possible sentence I would not blink an eye. I also recognize that the law enforcement officers are being put in a terrible position where performing the duties of their job is putting their lives in imminent danger. But they are professionals, and I trust that they are interested in enforcing the law without having to use violence unless absolutely necessary. They’ve been given legal authority to use deadly force to uphold the law – that’s an incredible responsibility, and thus it must be wielded responsibly. And of course priority should be given to protecting property and citizens. But you’ve built a straw man, because nothing I said in any way justified the rioting or attacked law enforcement. My comment was about the president wildly irresponsible promotion of the use of deadly force against citizens, and how folks on this board will either justify or brush it off. And they will.
And I have no idea what point you were trying to make about homeowners being able to protect their property – that’s not what we’re talking about. The president tweeted that police and/or military should start shooting looters.
The President was accurately describing the lawful options available to law enforcement during riots and looting, including martial law. Your answer is schizophrenic. The job of law enforcement is to protect the public. No, off the cuff tweets are not a proper or Presidential way to make the legitimate point about how to stop rioting and looting. In LA, during the Rodney King riots, the LA police just pulled out and let everything burn. Baltimore’s mayor ordered the same response to the Freddie Gray rioting. Good plan. You really want to focus on the tweets rather than the actual law enforcement issue at hand? Get serious.
I knew the commenters on this board would be quick to excuse him or downplay the seriousness of it. Didn’t think you would be. But wonders never cease in the age of Trump.
Jack, I grant permission for you to email joeystigz my email address.
In my opinion the two of you should clearly develop your arguments not in private, but here, so that everyone can see it and think about it.
I can’t decide if this is poisoning the well or a Kafka trap.
Poisoning the well! I’m ashamed it took me that long. I allowed the accidents of begged question and forfeit-of-argument-by-the-act-of-arguing to throw me and nearly neglected the overall form.
What actually IS the “seriousness” of it? My understanding (which could be wrong) is that the president can’t actually use the regular US military for this type of thing, and use of the national guard is limited to enforcing federal law, so his silly threat is likely moot.
Are you going with “The president mentioned something, so people are going to start doing it” idea that’s popularly now used to blame him for anything some idiot does? Hard to see how that would work with whatever actions the democrat mayor and governor in Minnesota might take (though people like Cuomo certainly try to lay off their actions on him, so who knows for sure).
“silly threat” – noted!
So far we have:
– He was just describing lawful options available (the “no actually he was making a rational observation you just misinterpreted it” excuse)
– It is good and moral and necessary to shoot rioters and looters (the “they deserve to die” excuse, with some thinly veiled racism thrown in for kicks)
– In order to have effective law enforcement, we must shoot offenders (of apparently any crime?) when no other options are available (the “I am ignorant to how 99.9% of law enforcement in this country works but that’s not going to stop me from saying this thing I thought sounded good” excuse)
-He actually has no authority here, so it was just a silly threat and why don’t you just chill out (the “old uncle Trumpy sure does say goofy things sometimes but whaddya gonna do?” excuse)
Lot’s of disagreement, but ample amounts of justification for the president casually inciting violence.
Still need a good whatabout argument (though in absence of one I can refer back to the post on Maxine Waters yesterday)
I also recognize that the law enforcement officers are being put in a terrible position where performing the duties of their job is putting their lives in imminent danger. But they are professionals, and I trust that they are interested in enforcing the law without having to use violence unless absolutely necessary. They’ve been given legal authority to use deadly force to uphold the law – that’s an incredible responsibility, and thus it must be wielded responsibly. And of course priority should be given to protecting property and citizens.
I think this is a defective argument. If the police have authority to act against rioters destroying a part of the city (and causing I’d guess 50 million dollars of damage and very severely hurting people who have worked had to build their businesses) then the police have a mandate to stop these acts before they get started. And since they know what is coming they have to be given — as the police are in all situations, and far more minor ones) — not only the *right* but the command to use lethal force. This is clear as daylight. There is no possible counter-argument. But if you have one I’d like to hear it.
Violence is part of ‘necessary policing’. This is a fact. Violence is always there if only in the background. There may be strategic methods to have kept the rioting mobs at bay that do not involve lethal force. However, when the rioters understand that if they do ‘A’ that ‘B’ will result, then they will clearly understand the consequences of the choices they make.
You speak of ‘responsible wielding’ of police power. But what you actually mean is irresponsible restraint. This would fit of course with some *liberal* and *sentimental* interpretations of the enforcement of laws. I suggest — and feel I can demonstrate — that this is a disease of thinking. It is in fact a sort of sick philosophy. It weakens everyone. Those who have to uphold the law and those who violate the law.
There is no possible counter argument against your claim that law enforcement in the United States is mandated to use lethal force against people that destroy property? Do you know how historically, culturally, and legally off base you are?
I guess they should point their guns impotently while both parties know there’s no intent to fire and whisper “pretty please” politely. In such a society, it would be both laudable and necessary for the citizenry to put down criminal acts themselves while they formulate a new government. Fie on all this screaming insanity. If a government isn’t for upholding the laws which themselves uphold justice, then it isn’t for anything. If a man has a right to hold property, then another man in the act of voiding the first’s right has willfully abandoned his own while so doing. One can not simply demand the protection of law while simultaneously in the act of violating it. If a purse snatcher is fleeing police, let him be shot if no other means of apprehending him is available. One is either civilized and under the protections of civilization, or one is standing squarely in that Hobbesian state of nature.
All of whatever axioms you hold are apparently foreign to me, and I have no reason to imagine you’re even speaking the same language. Imagine I’ve been shouting this in the futile attempt to overcome a language barrier like a crass tourist. Habla Ingles?
Nihilism, the ultimate product of liberal thought, has a way of draining all meaning out of every word. In just a few generations, the whole human race will resort to pleasant cooing for approval and irate barking for disapproval. I, of course, will have long since been eaten alive by participants in a not-unruly protest.
“One can not simply demand the protection of law while simultaneously in the act of violating it. If a purse snatcher is fleeing police, let him be shot if no other means of apprehending him is available. ”
Cop appears to kill a man – let the justice system play out (which, lest yet another straw man be built against me, I agree with 100%).
Rioters, looters and purse snatchers – shoot those lawless MFers!
Thanks Benjamin, I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. Keep ’em coming!
If the rioters, instead of rioting, put the men who strangled whatsisname, you’d find me a bit more sympathetic to them. Vigilantism I can get behind, terrorism should be put down with deliberate prejudice. You’ll find me quite immune to your motte-and-Bailey attack, too.
Your “shoot those lawless MFers!” slur is just that, having portrayed me without the qualifications any honest reader can just look up and see. You’re already barking!
Oh, excuse me. Composing in this narrow space on a rotary telephone can be challenging. That’s “put the men who strangled whatsisname to death.
Random acts of violence as a response to random acts of violence is beneath the behavior even of mindless animals, however. It’s a counter-productive look for race relations, and I suspect it’s deliberate. You’re all just tools! Your responses were all expected and planned-for!
also, see Tennessee v. Garner for the legal reasoning that refutes your argument
In that we’re sitting in judgment of laws and their application, a court decision would belong to that purview of things being judged. That an official somewhere may have regarded use of force against a fleeing criminal excessive, here, in the realm of moral philosophy, which sits below and supports the law, is a thing to be regarded as either justified or unjustified. It does not change the concepts on which it itself depends.
One more thing – this is the gift which keeps on giving – you’ve paralleled response to an active present crime with punishment for a known past crime. These are unrelated concepts; shooting an active purse snatcher is not to make purse snatching punishable by execution. Shooting a cop to prevent his murdering someone (justified) is not to kill him in response to a system arguably moving too slowly (depends on specific factors). Opening fire on active rioters who refused a request to disperse is not to execute rioters after they’ve been arrested.
Maybe I’ll come back and find another!
Esteemed Joey. I wrote:
“If the police have authority to act against rioters destroying a part of the city (and causing I’d guess 50 million dollars of damage and very severely hurting people who have worked had to build their businesses) then the police have a mandate to stop these acts before they get started. And since they know what is coming they have to be given — as the police are in all situations, and far more minor ones) — not only the *right* but the command to use lethal force. This is clear as daylight. There is no possible counter-argument. But if you have one I’d like to hear it.”
You said:
“There is no possible counter argument against your claim that law enforcement in the United States is mandated to use lethal force against people that destroy property? Do you know how historically, culturally, and legally off base you are?”
I would say that it is beyond doubt that the defense of property by police forces is indeed a ‘mandate’. If people are poised to do damage, then the police forces have a ‘mandate’ to stop them. That is the function of the police.
If you actually develop some sort of argument that defines your view it would be appreciated.
I think we can be sure that we’ve arrived at that point in which we can be sure whatever reasoning or justification is presented is merely an ad hoc rationalization of a mere preference. A soothing cooing noise. Meaning is precisely the thing we’ve all either abandoned or been denied. There is no appeal which will stand in the face of naked, deliberate, manipulative will. There are only the consequences of that unmoored, a-philosophical, primal, collective will left! There’s nothing left under the law! We neglected the foundation, and it eroded away under our feet!
I’m sorry, I may have hampered your attempt at discussion. I can become a bit manic in these circumstances and should learn to control myself.
I do better understand your point — insofar as it is a *point* — about the kind of restraints imposed on law enforcement in riots. I also understand the case you referred to. I’ll have to look into it more. So, thanks for the reference.
I’ve seen reports that Minnesota is a “duty to retreat” to state, and law enforcement is forcing owners out to prevent deadly confrontations between owners and protesters. So property owners are not even getting that protection. They have even made one arrest of a shop owner who shot a looter.
Meanwhile Derek Chauvin’s house is well protected:
can’t wait for the commenters on this board to leap in to either justify the president’s endorsement of violence against his own citizens, write it off as just a stylistic quirk, or tell us all how this is nothing compared to the leftist plot to destroy the country.
Wait, think about it. The proper recourse — the only proper recourse — under a system of laws is to protect property with lethal force. Not only is that justified it is (given the American valuation of property) mandatory. No one has a right (if you think it through) to take any other course of action. So, to inform the populace that if rioting and looting begins, that police action will result, and certainly violence against those who act with absolute violence, is what we should all desire.
But the world is rather topsy-turvy isn’t it? We now have a segment of the populace, allied with establishment figures and forces, that encourage and allow immense destruction to go on. They *aid and abet* it. They stand with it and they also stand behind it.
And then there is another sector of the populace — more conservative, more law-respecting I gather — that is getting to the point of no longer willing to put up with it.
This is the stuff of tremendous civil conflict.
Myself I do not leap. I cooly analyze things. The best thing that I can do, and we can do, is to arrive at *clear seeing* and clear description of what we see and understand. Though it is contentious it can still be wonderful fun.
It seems to me that President Trump speaks for millions and millions of people.
Why hasn’t anyone called him on his obvious anti-Hindu slur?
…compared to the leftist plot to destroy the country.
Everyone looks out at the world and through specific lenses. I think that we can become (more) aware of the lenses that we have. It also seems possible, when we do see and understand our specific lenses, to then choose to modify them.
What you say is sort of right: some *conservatives* think that Leftist as set to destroy the country. Steve Witherspoon has a personal narrative (a lense structure) build exclusively around this one. (Steve, can you post the idiot hippy girl here please?)
But the Left-Progressive *plot* (to use your word) is both a plot but also a sort of *vision* of what America is and what America should be. It is in this sense a sort of reinvention of America: a radical reinterpretation. Even very dedicated leftists are aware of this. See for example Jia Lynn Yang’s
One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924 — 1965. It was recently reviewed I think in the Times. Here is a review from the WSJ:
Jia Lynn Yang is an editor at the New York Times and a daughter of immigrants. “Led to believe that the United States had always welcomed immigrants like my parents,” she writes, “I lacked the imagination for most of my life to envision a different America in which my family had been turned away.” Accordingly, “One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965” is an effort to understand precisely what kind of nation of immigrants we are and how we arrived at this moment in our history.
This is very much a journalist’s account. Ms. Yang is disturbed to learn that, until very recently, many prominent Americans held views on race, nationality and an ideal social order that we now consider distasteful. And while she is wise to confine her timeline to the past century, the history is imparted through the stories of political participants whose lives are now mostly forgotten—the bumptious Brooklyn champion of immigrants Rep. Emanuel Celler, the irascible red-baiting Nevada Democrat Sen. Pat McCarran—or altogether too well known: John, Robert and Edward Kennedy. This can get a little tedious at times.
The advent of the *Progressivism* that now, largely, has us all convinced of its rightness and goodness, is a specific creation: a specific lens.
There are different lenses though, and it is possible — and I think wise — to know what they are. However, it must also be said that we are really not allowed to examine certain political theories because these involve crimeassertion (as we define it today). We can study everyone on the Left of course, but those on the Right are, necessarily, shunned.
I am an exponent of the Dissident Right and my *enemy* is, at it were, liberal rot and liberal misunderstanding (or liberal principles). We are now in a dangerous and demanding phase of a return to far more conservative principles — real principles — and the Liberal Progressive forces are doing all in their power to inhibit this transmission and communication of ideas.
of liberal principles that was supposed to read.
Can’t believe I’m just seeing this (I usually ignore your posts – they’re a bit tedious, to put it nicely) – but based on your comments and the website linked to your profile, I have a question for you. And I don’t ask it lightly. Do you think people of color are genetically inferior to whites of European descent?
Yes, yes she does.
I mean, it seemed pretty clear once I really took a close look and parsed what she was saying, but I didn’t want to make assumptions.
You did not of course *really look*. You looked superficially, and that is not at all the same. I have complex and nuanced views on all things.
You made assumptions, and you are sticking with assumptions, because they serve your purpose: to shut out those perspectives that seem to you morally reprehensible.
But the most important thing to take note of is how ‘assigning labels’ is used in our present.
Yes, yes she does.
Do you think people of color are genetically inferior to whites of European descent?
Each of those who commented — who answered the question you asked me, for me — commented incorrectly and from their own biases.
I do not think that *genetics* gives us any information at all. There are many other factors — a wide group of factors really — that distinguishes one people from another people.
Your question is a baiting question overall, as you are aware.
Don’t worry about being kind. Be cruel if you like. But make good arguments and don’t resort to underhanded sophisties — fallacious by definition!
Thanks – and good luck!
Boy, you are hot-headed!
You could calm down and work to make a good argument to try to prove whatever points are important to you.
That is what our responsibility is. We have to do this. Not just react emotionally.
. . . Can’t believe I’m just seeing this
Seeing what? What are you talking about that you just saw? As far as I know I said nothing controversial here.
Ah, now I see what you are referring to: the article “The Reality of Race” on the Faith & Heritage website.
I was a mere child when I linked to that site! That was 3-4 years ago I’ve grown quite a bit since then. 🙂
I defined myself when I first came on to this blog as a ‘racialist’. I do distinguish that term from ‘racist’. But many others don’t. I guess that would include both Jack and La Sylphide . . .
Wasn’t a looter shot and killed already by a store owner? Perhaps that’s what the President is referring to?
I’m pretty sure he’s referring to martial law, which is always a threat, but a pretty empty one. In general, U.S. state laws are pro-looter and pro-riot, and police really do not have the tools to deal with them. Blame the Sixties. If looters knew they could be shot, there wouldn’t be looting. In general, they know they can’t be shot, and Minnesota’s laws regrading businesses are especially wimpy.
Yes, you were all wrong. The president is now saying that he only meant that when looting and rioting happen, people can get shot by other people. Anyone else want to walk back their statements now that the president has said that he didn’t actually mean that rioters & looters SHOULD be shot? Because the president is no longer on your side in the matter.
As usual, he didn’t doesn’t know what he meant when he said it. It is politically untenable to advocate shooting rioters when they are primarily black. Ethically? I’d be happy to make the argument that defiant looters, arsonists and rioters who defy law enforcement warnings to cease and desist should be at risk of being legally shot. The alternative is to advocate anarchy.
If I owned a business in imminent danger of being destroyed, I’d certainly be inclined to defend both myself and my property. I live over the border, where laws differ enough to make self-defense more likely. Rumor has it that rioters may move into Wisconsin later today or this weekend. It’s probably not going to end well if it does.
Yes. I live in a popular border town and neighbors have seen the police going from business to business today. Interestingly, I stopped in at the gun shop today. The parking lot was full of Minnesota plates.
Cover your bases with a Benelli M3 (shotgun) that can be switched between semi-auto and pump. Pump lets you fire beanbags and rubber bullets that won’t cycle a semi-auto. Then, when you have permission, you can switch to “full semi-auto” for slugs and normal shot. Be ready for your next riot!
Sig Sauer P365 XL and self defense ammo. It’s all I have for now.
My defense is an out of tune plugged into a screaming amplifier stack. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can stand that.
jvb
Ha!
Watch this lie spread at the speed of light.
Do note in the above video that the CNN team identifies themselves and are wearing press badges clipped to pants.
Time for a Brady notice on the officer involved.
At a minimum, it is certainly fodder for a good defense attorney. I hope their taking note of who the officers are.
They needed to clear the area so clean-up crews could get in. The arrest was a bit much but journalists are not granted special access to closed off areas.
That is bullshit. The stated reason for their arrest was that the police did not know they were journalists, when it is obvious in the video that the reporter is displaying his credentials. They offered repeatedly to move to a more appropriate location. Just stop.
As always, my thoughts & ideas are my own exclusively. No one else shares them. I want to make this clear. My critical thinking obviously goes into that area I define as crimethink.
____________________
The riots following the incident, meanwhile, are pointless and destructive. Responsible public officials and African American leaders should be trying to prevent them. Waters is encouraging them.
Floyd’s death also was a single incident that proves nothing about racism, police attitudes toward blacks, white supremacy, and especially President Trump. To claim otherwise is intellectually and ethically indefensible.
The death of the man in custody is just one more pretext needed so that unruly, uncontrolled, rebellious population that has *issues* that have not been solved and likely cannot be solved, can go on rampages. To look analytically and critically at those issues, and the causal chain in American history that has led to the events of the present is what is needed.
Rebellion: this is what is going on. It is complex and it is evident in many different areas. You can find it in musical forms, you can find it in *general attitude*, you can find it in the NYTs, but what it is, really, is harder to put into clear words. Is it *constructive*? I would say clearly no. Its intentions are destructive and chaotic. I suggest that *seeing clearly* what it is, is made to be crimethink. Yet there are some who, in their way, begin to speak the truth. Look up Tucker Carlson’s segment on the riots on YouTube.
Rebellion: it is that and not any other thing. Rebellion and ‘revolutionary will’ that does not have clear *idea* behind it but it largely destructive and perhaps even nihilistic. Anger, ressentiment (it is important to understand what this term really means), and a lashing out related to internal defect. These must be mentioned even if they are not all of it.
It is regretful that they cannot fire live ammunition and put an immediate stop to the riots. Think about why this is. The fact that they can’t is evidence of a sick incapacitation. So, the destructive rioting demonstrates the intentions of those who do it and also demonstrates the ultimate intentions of what the people involved in it are after. And that it is permitted, and there is no general will to put a stop to it, points to the general sickness of incapacity.
But what they do is not ‘pointless’. It definitely has a point. And that point has to do with a malicious and destructive intention. That is the point. Those who do such things show what their ultimate intentions are. They demonstrate that they are set on *destroying your world*. Not *their world*. But the world they find them self in. If they show their intentions on the street, that is one thing. But when these intentions are encouraged by those who have gained political power, then their power and their positions are open to severe critique. Now, in our present, we are witnessing what seems to be the beginning of some sort of political and also social separation. If the political machinations of this activist ‘progressive-left’ wing continues to gain political power in this democracy, it is more or less unimaginable to predict what will happen.
I have written that I do not agree that Donald Trump should be seen as a ‘benign’ political and cultural figure. It is a fact, I think, that he does speak for the dispossessed white demographic that elected him. This is a fact and it must be stated as such. That they did elect him was a fluke and (I opine) there will come a time when such a figure will not be able to be elected again in America: as the demographic shift strengthens. This has been written about extensively: the unlikelihood of the election of another ‘Republican’ (and a white Republican man) to the presidency. The social will seems set on something else.
But presently he is, to some degree, a representative of that suppressed majority. And they may indeed, were they really to have the choice and to voice an opinion honestly, not desire nor accept the present direction that the US has taken, and I mean in the post-Sixties. Causal chains must be examined. Cultural, social and political interpretation is required. This is to say that they could very well be racialist if not racist and ‘chauvinist’ and many other things normally associated with social conservatism. They could be many different things that are not allowed in our present if they were allowed, and encouraged, to sort through their perceptions without massive and constant coercion.
I do not discount the ideas of people like Charles Blow (and dozens of others like him). I would not even say that they are *irrational*. They are highly rational within the structure of their ideas and their will. In actual fact if the white demographic were to wake up far more fully, what they would advocate for might be very different from what the so-called *elites* and the social engineers advocate for as both moral and good. It is generally always elite capital forces that advocate for multiculturalism and a Walmart America. But what they care about in creating such a debased world is not what principled people should ever care about. This statement points to a general corruption within the system itself. It is neither exclusively Democrat nor Republican. The corruption has to do with *selling out*. Ultimately, what this alludes to is the complicity and permissiveness of average people.
Is the will and the desire not to be made a minority in your own country what ‘white supremacy’ means? What if that will arose within the majority of Whites? What if an average white person could say, without fear and without cowardice, that he or she wants to change the present order and recover numerical superiority? What is an entire social and cultural program became articulate in them? And through this a more defined program determine their own affairs? Do you notice how even this statement has been made impossible? Such a thought is unthinkable. It has been placed in the domain of *unthinkable thought*.
I have said this before and I will repeat it: Donald Trump and his manifestation, whether *you* like this or not, whether you wish to understand it or not, is connected to strains of American nativism and, for example, the 100% Movement of the 1920s. Put another way, if you do not see this connection you are interposing a distorting lens that is not fully committed to truth. But this is where the difficulty really does lie: Occidentals, and European Americans as Occidentals, have to get clear about who they really are. And through this begin to link very strongly, and again, to a whole group of factors of identity. The nature of the war going on today has quite significantly to do with keeping these ideas from coalescing.
Such a curious state of affairs when you think it through . . .
The 37 million dollar affordable housing investment that was torched should be left as a monument to human stupidity.
The people have shown that they do not value such investments so do not rebuild.
I think it is high time we give inner city residents what they want: limited police activity using only a limited number of minority officers to patrol for violent crimes. It is obvious that trust is so corrupted that no white officer should ever be hired to patrol a minority community. White officers should only be hired to patrol white neighborhoods and the police force should reflect the demographic makeup of the area. Obviously, we will need two different police chiefs because we will need one to supervise minority officers and one to supervise white officers. (Sarcasm alert)
I was not kidding about leaving the housing project as a monument to human stupidity and the consequences of identity politics.
I do want to give a big thumbs up to civil rights activist Leo Terrell who quickly and very publically condemned the rioters and stated that the Trump administration’s quick response was on target. I don’t always agree with him but maybe I need to listen more carefully to his points in the future.
Should it interest anyone . . .
Leo Tarrell latest interview.
That was where I heard his comments
I suspect the cities have gotten the police force they wanted: a brutal one filled with biased and violent officers. By portraying the police as evil and bigoted, they have gotten exactly what they described.
What decent cop wants to work all day as people call him a racist or a baby killer? Who would work under those condition? Not a decent cop. What type of cop will allow racial quotas on arrests? Not a decent cop. What type of cop will continue working if they are required to allow the public to pour milk on them, or spit at them? Not a decent cop. So, who do you have left? The kind of cop who likes to put his knee on arrestees’ necks because he likes to hurt them. The kind of cop that stands around while colleagues brutalize suspects. That’s who you have left. How do such officers get away with this type of conduct? The union protects them.
A few months ago, I was watching an interview with a former police officer (the video was several years old). He left policing after a few decades of service and was explaining why he left. He discussed how Black Lives Matter made it much more difficult to work as an officer, but that didn’t make him leave. He discussed how racial analyses of arrests made it more difficult to work as an officer, but that didn’t make him leave. What made him leave was the fact that they could no longer hire decent officers. He said the screening test that tested what the officers knew about the law and their psychological temperament had been adjusted. They couldn’t get enough applicants who could pass with the 75% score required. So, they dropped it…to 35%. That was it. He was out. He wasn’t going to work with officers like that. I suspect this has happened all over the country.
Because Black Lives Matter is a leftist movement, it is bound by the ‘institutional racism’ dogma of cultural Marxism and could not seek change through improvements in the ability to punish and fire bad officers. It had to attack all police officers and police forces themselves as fundamentally racist and bad. Since the whole concept of civilian policing is a British (thank you Robert Peel) thing, you can see that they probably DO want to do away with the very concept of police. It IS a whiteness thing, it IS a purely European institution. No decent person wants to live this controversy every day. So, the people you get as police officers are going to be predominantly NOT decent.
Think about the cop who recently uploaded a video telling the police officers in this country that their job is to follow the law and that CDC guidelines were not the law and that orders from Mayors and Governors are not necessarily the law and may be illegal. The next day, he was told that his job was to follow the orders of the mayor and the governor, not to question the constitutionality of those orders. He was then fired. So, who do you have left?
The Orwellian reporting on the riots unveils the Dorian Gray portrait of identity politics. Maintaining the support of every faction of the coalition demands of those who are allied to it, to not just cast a blind eye to the indefensible, but to deploy the most grotesquely perverting doublespeak conceivable to redefine the indefensible as understandable, if not justified. Objectivity, once the cornerstone of responsible and ethical journalism, has given way to narrative, advocacy and censorship. The most visible journalists of our time, right and left, hew to visible narratives. The narrative becomes the filter, displacing any semblance of objectivity. What advances the subscribed narrative is effusively reported on (advocacy), and what diminishes or contradicts that narrative is redefined, omitted, or denied altogether (censorship).
Perhaps it is wistful nostalgia to believe that we had, for most of the last century, a press which was equal to the times and challenges we were facing. But I believe we did. Muckrakers, Murrow, Cronkite and Russert, to name but a few, remain paragons of journalism. Is there anyone reporting today, and certainly not Velshi, who has served journalism well enough to join their ranks? I think not. I truly cannot think of a single one. Can you?
Nice comment. Thanks.
Having grown up watching God, er, Walter Cronkite pronounce the way things were each evening, looking back, I’m not at all sure he was all that objective, nor a paragon of anything other than voicing the news and yachting. I think Walter was a standard issue Manhattan lefty. As were the rest of the CBS, NBC and ABC producers and newscasters. They had their own agendas and narratives. See, eg., the Vietnam War coverage.
I would say that while it was not hard to tell the personal leanings of Murrow, Cronkite, et al, but it didn’t, imo, compromise the essential objectivity of their reportage. A journalist I sorely miss in today’s hot mess of broadcast journalism is Tim Russert. No question that he was a yellow dog Democrat. He had a significant political career before Meet the Press, but did an excellent job of holding both sides of the aisle accountable in his interviews and issue presentations. Utter objectivity is not possible, but I believe we’ve had exemplars in the past who make today’s crop seem crude hacks by comparison.
I’d say that’s about right.
Have you noticed that the articles about the protests are steering clear of the criticism about the lack of social distancing and mask usage that has characterized all of the articles about the lockdown protests?
Does this virus work differently based upon what one is protesting?
I’d love to know what happened to the comments about how selfish the protesters are and how, if they get COVID-19 because of their irresponsible gatherings, they shouldn’t be treated. Terrible comments to be sure, but, apparently only reserved for protests perceived to be white-generated.
Well, the left did tell those of us who started to push reopening to please sign a card that we would refuse treatment. The left wasn’t amused when I said that those who wanted to keep things locked down should sign an agreement to forfeit any income during that time instead. At this point, any black person brought to an ER with bruises from a fight, or burns from a fire, or other riot-related injuries, who tests positive for COVID-19, should be thrown into the street. How do you like that?
The mayor ordered masks for the “protesters”. …here’s your mask, have a safe riot.
“A Hennepin County Grand Jury returned a no-bill in the death of Wayne Reyes on Oct. 25, 2007. All prosecutorial decisions were made under the direction of Mike Freeman,” the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said in a statement. So, will it matter that Klobuchar left the office about a year before the prosecutorial decision (following grand jury no-bill) was made about a year after she left that office?
I agree with all who do not understand, and I do condemn, rioting. I also distinctly remember the rioting in 1968, and remembered that MLK (advocate of non-violence) had something to say about rioting. I cannot help but view things from the perspective of who I am, culturally and ethnically, MLK’s statement gives us reason to reflect:
“And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? … It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Well Michael, I guess even Hall of Famers don’t bat a thousand, do they?
I also recall “Burn baby, burn!”
I also recall something about “you can’t sell ashes.”
: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The phrase was used prominently by Walter E. Headley, Miami’s former police chief, in 1967 as he pledged a no-holds-barred response to a Christmas-season outbreak of violent crime in black neighborhoods that had left three people dead in attempted robberies.
Mr. Headley suggested that his department’s tough tactics had kept Miami calm that year, even as race riots were convulsing dozens of other cities and leaving scores dead.
“We haven’t had any serious problems with civil uprising and looting because I’ve let the word filter down that when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he said. “We don’t mind being accused of police brutality. They haven’t seen anything yet.”
I said once that if we continued down the path we were headed down we’d end up in our own version of the Troubles. Things like destruction of police stations happened in Belfast in the 1970s. Do we really want our very own Operation Banner also? That’s what’s next.
I’ll be the first to tell you that this Officer Chauvin was dead wrong to do what he did, and I speak from a place of more knowledge than most. I cannot fathom anything that justifies his actions. As someone who suffered bullying myself what he did was VERY uncomfortably close to the conduct of bullies in school or summer camp choosing one other person as a target and abusing him, sometimes way beyond the pale, while he was rendered helpless. It also appears to me that he is a bad apple who got missed more often than he should have, something I also have some personal experience with (message me if you want details).
However, he is still entitled to the same due process as any other accused wrongdoer, and that takes longer than one day. This department also has one other blot on its record already (Castile). Still no excuse for expanding this into a general attack on all police or all this or all that, and still no excuse for the actions we’ve talked about.
This is proof that a good sector of the black community really doesn’t give a damn about justice, humanity, or whatever else they dress it up in. They DO care about anger, revenge, and taking what they can’t earn honestly. This is just giving them an excuse to do it. If they want to destroy a city and live in ashes, or kill everyone they dislike and live in a graveyard, then so be it.
I always appreciate your comments, Steve. Thank you from someone who used to married to one of the good ones – police officer that is.
…used to be…
“I cannot fathom anything that justifies his actions.”
It’s pretty bad; there wouldn’t seem to be much that would help him out of this situation except for the unlikelihood of a first degree murder charge. The only thing I’ve seen, that could possibly come into play, perhaps importantly, in the legal proceedings, is that the “knee on the side of the neck” thing is an “approved” restraint method because it supposedly does not cut off air supply.
Has anyone compared these protests to the protests in Virginia against the Democrat’s gun confiscation? Those protests were large and involved a lot of emotion and a lot of firearms. How many buildings were burned? How many people injured? How much trash was left on the ground?
What about the Michigan demonstrators who took guns into the Michigan capitol. How many arrests? How many killed/assaulted? How many buildings burned? How much trash and graffiti left behind?
Do conservative protesters just protest differently?
I was watching someone explain why people obey society’s rules. He said some people are just good people (we will call them group 1). They see society as good and obey the rules because that keeps society functioning. He said other people are just cowards who are afraid of being caught and punished (we will call them group 2). Both groups think they are good people, however. You can tell these two groups apart when the riot starts. You typically have both groups in a protest. When the riot starts, the first group goes home. The second group will seize any pretext to allow them to act in a lawless manner and then they will justify it. So, all the people rioting are BAD PEOPLE.
Did you see the people who were stealing the safe from a bar while the black bar owner was giving an interview to the media just a few feet away? Yeah, they felt they could just walk in, brush past the interview, and steal the safe. That’s ‘sticking it to the man’. That’s getting justice for…whoever it is we’re protesting for. Watching the pundits excuse the behavior was just infuriating.
Back to the question. Why are conservative and leftist protest different?
Option 1: Is it that conservatives are generally good people (Group 1) and leftists are generally bad, but cowardly people (Group 2)?
Option 2: Is it that good conservatives will not just allow bad, cowardly conservatives to riot and ruin their demonstration? Is rioting so unacceptable to conservatives that the cowardly conservative know the Group 1 conservatives might just shoot them if they tried something? Is rioting so acceptable to leftists that the cowardly leftists know that they face no repercussions for their actions?
In other words, are conservatives just better people, or is it that good conservatives are more likely to act than wring their hands?