In Defense of Law and Order
Its been a bad few weeks for law enforcement in America.
Its been a bad few weeks for law enforcement in America.
There are bad cops and corrupt cops and racist cops and brutal cops. But the great majority of police officers are not bad or corrupt or racist or brutal. If they were, given the 375 million annual contacts that police have with citizens, our country would look very different.
A man emailed me last week, and his email cut me to the core. He said he was really angry about the Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd deaths, but not for the reason the rest of us are. He, a black, middle-class man, lives with his wife and children on the edge of a crumbling neighborhood. They are saving to move.
It’s all about religion, isn’t it?
What are you really seeing as Americans kneel, hands raised in secular prayer, repeating political creeds on the TV news? And that secular foot-washing?
We just had riots from coast to coast. Downtown Seattle is currently a lawless zone under the control of anarchists. It may be time to start asking what’s going on in our country. People are not happy. The national unrest started with the brutal killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, but it is not solely about police brutality or race. People on the left and on the right are unhappy about a host of issues.
Liberals are beginning to swagger around as if the 2020 election is already over. Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post exclaimed that President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is “beginning to look like the Titanic.” Joe Biden should be preparing his inauguration remarks.
George Floyd was buried this week.
There is a fundamental presumption in law that if you were not in any way a participant in an act, you cannot be culpable for it. On the other hand, if you were aware of it and had the opportunity to stop it but did not, you can be held responsible. The George Floyd incident is illustrative.
I am watching the various classes of America’s “elites” — politicians, commentators, academics, activists, Hollywood big mouths and corporate CEOs — drive this country deeper into conflict for the sake of their own personal aggrandizement and profit, and it is disgusting.
Democratic mayors, with a few exceptions, run America’s biggest cities.
America is going through a bit of a rough patch right now. Over 100,000 dead courtesy of an invisible enemy from China.
Three months ago, America was told to trust public health experts.
With the death of George Floyd — a heinous atrocity virtually every American decries — unity should have prevailed.
After a second full week of mass demonstrations, protests, riots and civil disorders in over 30 cities, many law-abiding Americans are wondering why we were forced to comply with stay-home orders.
Minneapolis was a beautiful city with a promising future and unlimited potential.
As more of our political elite joins the mobs in the streets to conflate the death of George Floyd with a general indictment of America as a racist and evil nation, black Americans, more than anyone, will suffer.
Author’s Note: Interested readers who missed Vol. 2 – 12 of this series can click here, but Vol. 1 is here.
America has had enough.
First of all, let me say that this nation is in debt to former Marine Generals Mattis and Kelly for their service to the United States. Kelly in particular deserves our respect and appreciation. His own son gave his life as a Marine in service to America.
In the 1992 presidential campaign, candidate Bill Clinton referred to himself as the “comeback kid” after his second-place finish in the New Hampshire primary. Only a slick candidate with the skill of Bill Clinton would be able to turn a loss by 8 percent into a victory. However, his characterization, supported by the media, gave his campaign momentum and he eventually won the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination and the White House.
It can happen in a moment of time. One ill-advised tweet. One poorly worded post. One foolish act in public. And that’s it. You are branded. You are marked. You are guilty. For life.
Millions of Americans are becoming painfully aware of the old and inefficient technology operating our unemployment benefits system.
Yesterday, while running some errands, I witnessed a group of young, mostly white protesters peacefully demonstrating at a major intersection during the middle of the day.
Ongoing rioting, vandalism, arson and looting are compounding problems for many cities and minority communities.
“Although he moved away from Minnesota almost two years ago, Crockett (a black protester) told his grandfather he needed to go. In response, his grandfather, a retired Marine, quoted Che Guevara. “The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.” That’s the BBC (very sympathetically) describing the motivation of a Minneapolis looter.
COVID-19 has devastated the U.S. economy and 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the pandemic began. To prevent permanent economic damage, the country must devise a plan to jump-start the economy that doesn’t mortgage the future to pay for the present.
There are serious prudential reasons not to invoke the Insurrection Act, but calls to do so are far from un-American.