None for me, thanks.

Mark Draughn, a.k.a Windypundit and the Ethics Alarms 2013 “Blogger of the Year,”  has swallowed the Kool-Aid, apparently, and decided to defend the race-baiters, from the tippety top of our government to the stygian depths of MSNBC, who have finally managed to get police killed in retaliation for the “racist murders” of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and others. In his most recent post he challenged my analysis, and ended up making me feel pretty good about it. I love Mark’s blog and admire Mark’s mind, and if can’t do any better than this, I am obviously on firm ground.

I want you all to visit Windypundit, for Mark is terrific (usually), so I’m not going to go through the whole post, which you can read here. I will make a few salient observations though. Let’s play “Mark Says”:

Mark Says:

“I knew there would be people who would take Brinsley’s reputed motive and use it to smear protesters and activists who had spoken out against police abuse.”

1. Mark wrote this before my straw man post, and sure enough, he followed the script. It’s about “police abuse.” Right. Not race. Not the racism of whites, the hunting down of black men; not about how blacks can’t get justice even when they have been gunned down with their hands in the air. Indeed, it’s not “about” any of the irresponsible, exaggerated, inflammatory accusations that we have been hearing since Trayvon Martin was shot…and not by a cop, either.

2. “Reputed motive.” Mark thinks I am unfair to conclude that a killer who wrote online that he was going to kill some “pigs” in retaliation for police killing Mike Brown and Eric Garner killed the two police officers in retaliation for police killing Mike Brown and Eric Garner.  Got it.

3. I’m smearing protesters! These are, recall, protesters who, by their use of the “hands up, don’t shoot” theme, were smearing a specific police officer with the false claim that he was a racist and a murderer, though the evidence says otherwise, and smearing the integrity of the citizens on the grand jury who refused to indict him.  By extending this smear to police generally, they were also asserting that this—that is, the fictional racist murder of that “harmless, unarmed black teen” who had just tried to take the officer’s gun and was charging all 300 pounds of his body at Officer Wilson—was the potential orientation of all white police.  I was smearing them by pointing out that this was divisive, inflammatory, dishonest and irresponsible. Continue reading →