“It’s a Great Time for…

…looters, bullies, intimidators, assaulters, destroyers, and anti-Americans, foreign and domestic.”        

                                                                                                          ─ Me

Looters? It’s a great time to pick up free stuff.

Bullies? It’s a great time to hurt people and feel really good about it.

Intimidators? It’s a great time to feel the thrill of terrifying people.

Assaulters? It’s a great time to attack the peaceful “because I can.”

Destroyers? It’s a great time to create the chilling sound of Shattering glass.

Anti-Americans? It’s a great time to bash America.

It’s also a great time for irrational demands.  You hate America? No problem: Declare a sovereign state in the middle of United States territory. You are disturbed by police brutality? No problem: Abolish the Police Department.  Everyone knows that the less police, the less crime. And, by all means, transform peaceful protests to violent riots and heighten partisan hate hyperbole.

Hyperbole doesn’t necessarily scream in headlines. It also whispers in its subtext.

When speaking about the incident on TV, a crafty lawyer used the word ‘genocide’ to describe George Floyd’s tragic death. That lawyer knows that genocide refers to mass killing. ’Systemic Genocide’ is not happening in America.

I am not prejudiced against any race and never have been. But I’m not about to accept guilt for the political ‘original sin’ of America: slavery. But I take African Americans at their word when they relate their bad experiences with the police. I also carefully cut through the narratives of social media so that I might discern, as best I can, the overall truth about a specific fatal incident.

The common denominator of virtually all fatal encounters is the pivotal point where a detention or routine arrest suddenly becomes a life or death incident. For years, I’ve posited that it’s too bad that witnesses and cameras do not necessarily tell the whole story. To further obfuscate truth, political partisans imagine or deliberately lie about an event.

For instance, Representative Maxine Waters said of Officer Derek Chauvin (the officer that held George Brooks in a carotid chokehold): “He enjoyed doing what he was doing. I believe some of these officers leave home thinking, ‘I’m going to get me one today and I think this is his one.’’’ (Ms. Waters is not well known as a peacemaker. I saw Officer Chauvin both live on TV at the scene and later in a close-up of that scene on the Internet. He was anything but enjoying himself.

In the past, when Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin were killed ─ in separate instances ─ I regretted the absence of cameras. I thought cameras would have helped avoid the controversial perceptions associated with both their cases.

Also in the past, when the Eric Garner incident was clearly recorded in daylight  with cameras, it became clear to me that the cause of death is not exclusively limited to the use of firearms. Mr. Garner was not shot, but he choked to death as a result of a carotid chokehold.

But the recent George Floyd tragedy definitively demonstrates that the carotid chokehold must be banned no matter what the circumstances. I’m certainly not qualified to judge the pros and cons of restraint tactics, but I’m sure that being handcuffed and restrained by additional non-life-threatening restraints must replace the chokehold immediately. 

       

A few one-liners that speak for themselves

─ Calling a looter ‘depraved,’ is to flatter him.

─ The most dangerous fascist organization in America is Antifa.

─ Defunding the police is a criminal’s most fervent dream.

─ Abolishing the police is an undertaker’s most fervent dream.

─ Socialism and communism are fraternal twins.

─ Fascism and Nazism are identical twins.

─ Debating a relativist is like walking on intellectual quicksand.

─ Gangs are cowards in wolves clothing.

─ Anarchy is a one-way ticket to the death of civilization.

─ Compassion is the greatest of all moral values.

The common denominator for tragic arrests is not racism. It’s the product of intense conflict (see my post, Justice, Prejudice, and Testosterone, April 9, 2012.)