They had such high hopes. The race hustlers, the diversity divas, the social justice cracktivists, the Holder/Obama Department of Racist Justice, Progressives, Socialists, Communists, MSNBC, the Lamestream Media, and much of the Democrat Party, they believed that this one, this case, just might be the one. The one? The one that would tilt the social scales, once and for all, irretrievably, in their favor, that would truly, fundamentally, transform America into their version of a people’s utopia. Alas, it was not to be.
credit: nbcnews.com
Even the catchy, video-ready hook and catch phrase “hands up; don’t shoot,” has been so effectively ridiculed and mocked as to render it a tactic the Brownites have all but abandoned, though a few true believers on the fringes still flash it upon occasion, like the gang sign of a gang long since disbanded and forgotten.
Ah, but for awhile there was hope, perhaps even change, as long as “change” consisted of looting, arson, and general barbaric lawlessness. Even today in Ferguson, property values remain at least 50% below their pre-riot levels, virtually none of the destroyed businesses have been rebuilt, and the overall economic damage to the community–to say nothing of the damage to race relations–remains incalculable. Ferguson may never recover. Whether America will once again regain the racial comity it worked for so long, and with such sacrifice, to gain, remains to be seen.
What remains is the battle between the forces of diversity and liberty, social justice versus the rule of law. Social justice cracktivists are like addicts. There is never enough of their drug. No matter how much they get, no matter how many of their irrational demands are granted, no matter how much they are stroked, praised and appeased, it can never be enough, for their goal is not equality, peace and simply being left alone, unmolested by government to live their lives as they choose. They demand not only racial and lifestyle supremacy, but that everyone else, in every way, recognize and praise their superiority.
Thus do we have “peaceful” demonstrations in memory of Michael Brown, demonstrations that on their first long night, ended in the critical wounding–apparently entirely legitimate–of a black “activist” that shot at the police. What, exactly, is it we are memorializing?
Michael Brown was an abject lesson in the destruction wrought by drugs, a lack of appreciation for education, and the rejection of the values and habits that have always produced individual and social success in America. It’s not hard. Anyone can do it. Go to bed at a reasonable hour; get up at a reasonable hour. Do as well as possible in school. Never stop learning. Be reliable. Get a job, any job, and work hard at it. Be honest. Treat others with sincerity. Avoid booze and drugs. Avoid crime. Avoid criminals. Give proper deference to others, and obey the law. It’s not hard. If most Americans weren’t capable of doing it, we would have descended to a post-apocalyptic Mad Max movie set long ago, though the social justice crowd does its best to achieve just that from time to time and in place to place.
Michael Brown spent his last hours smoking pot, robbing a convenience store, stealing handfuls of cheap cigars he intended to use to smoke more pot, and assaulting a much smaller clerk in the process. There was no nobility in this, no justice, no diversity, just a violent felony. Instead of lying low, he swaggered down the middle of a busy street, and when Officer Darren Wilson asked him to walk on the sidewalk, he arrogantly ignored him. But that wasn’t enough. He brutally assaulted Officer Wilson. He ran, but soon turned and rushed Wilson in a berserker charge, and died in a hail of bullets.
Michael Brown’s Mother
credit: youtube.com
But he was unarmed! Hands up; don’t shoot! Oh, the possibilities, the paydays, the unrest and shakedown opportunities. But the facts were stubborn things. Brown never had his hands up. He never said “don’t shoot,” or anything remotely like it. The local prosecutor didn’t try to manipulate a grand jury into doing things his way, he presented every shred of evidence to the grand jury, every single witness, and so many of them lied. They lied to express solidarity with a felon of the same race. They lied to see a white police officer jailed, perhaps executed. They lied for street cred. They lied because their lives were lies and they knew little else. Those ridiculous, ludicrous, stupid lies, combined with the evidence, particularly the honest and honorable testimony of a few black witnesses, absolutely exonerated Darren Wilson. It wasn’t even close.
“Hands up; don’t shoot” came to symbolize the lies, not that the social justice crowd gave up easily, but the tide of mockery inspired by the truth overcame even their usually inextinguishable flame of arrogant, self-righteous misdirection and deception.
The Holder/Obama DOJ were giddy with hope, but it blew up in their faces. There was not only no evidence to support even the slightest possibility of guilt under Missouri law, all of the evidence proved Darren Wilson’s innocence. No matter how much they wanted the narrative to support their racist preconceptions, they had nothing at all, nothing that could even be warped to fit federal law. Very reluctantly, they had to abandon the effort–that particular effort.
What remains is the “black lives matter” thugs. They are most active these days in disrupting the political rallies of Socialist Bernie Sanders and Democrat Martin O’Malley, opponents of Hillary Clinton. They focus particularly on Sanders, who is, at the moment, the most serious threat to Clinton’s coronation. Let us not forget that Bill Clinton was lauded as America’s first “black” president. Perhaps some of that rubbed off on Hillary. She occasionally tries to fake a southern and/or black accent, which is among the most painful things I’ve ever seen or heard, worse than fingernails on a blackboard. One wonders if there is any connection between the Clinton Campaign and the “black Lives matter” thugs, but certainly a woman with Clinton’s sense of ethics would never do that.
Their primary reason for existing seems to be establishing racial superiority, as “all lives matter,” may not be spoken in the same sentence as “black lives matter,” and commonly moves them to violence. They react violently at the very idea of equality, a concept they–and many social justice cracktivists–hate with a passion, all of the accomplishments of the civil rights movement, abandoned in favor of division and rage.
What has the last year taught us? Nothing that anyone paying attention and willing to honestly and thoughtfully analyze the evidence didn’t know then.
There is no epidemic of white people killing black people. There is no epidemic of white police officers–or any police officers–wantonly and unlawfully killing black people. But there is an epidemic of black people killing black people.
Under the rule of law, all lives matter equally. When liberty exists, all men are free to live unmolested by government, and to make the most of their lives, the most their talents, determination and efforts can achieve. But there is a downside. Free men have no guarantee that others will worship them or their lifestyle choices. In fact, others might not approve of them. They may hold different ideas. They may even express disapproval–perhaps even public disapproval–of others and their beliefs.
This is what so frightens and enrages the social justice movement. They don’t want to live in peace. They don’t want others to live in peace. They want the power of government, to use it to force others to speak, act, even think in the right ways–their ways. They want the goods and labor of others. Thus does “diversity” become conformity. Thus does “equality” become some animals being more equal than others. Thus is freedom bondage.
Shall we memorialize Michael Brown every year? What, exactly, is there to honor? Are we to tell little children to emulate him? Is he to be pitied? “Yes son, be a slacker, use drugs, hang out with criminals, dare the police to stop you, attack and try to kill them, and you can be like Michael Brown too.”
Pity instead Darren Wilson and his family, an honest man who was everything Michael Brown was not. A man who did everything Michael Brown would not do. A man who, every day, risked his life to protect the citizens of his community, even citizens like Michael Brown. I’m sure he remembers that day, and will for the rest of his life, a life in hiding, a life lived under the radar. For doing precisely what we asked of him, for upholding the rule of law, for acting as one at the front of the battle over equal justice for all, for obeying not only the letter but the spirit of the law, and for doing exactly as any rational, reasonable police officer would have done, he lost his career, and any chance for a normal life.
Remember the day for what it was: an unmistakable lesson about the ravages of drugs, crime, and the breakdown of the social fabric of an entire race, a breakdown abetted and constantly driven by the same social justice, progressive forces that continue to deny the truth, and that delight whenever useful idiots cry “hands up; don’t shoot,” and “black lives matter.”
They do matter, as do all lives, but only because the rule of law, for the time being, exists, but not if they have their way.
UPDATE, 08-11-15, 1550 CST: No kidding…
Reblogged this on Brittius.
Well said!
Mike, thought you might this local story of interest from this past Friday.
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/08/suspect_with_violent_past_char.html#incart_most-read_
It appears to be another demonstration of what happens when the police have to second guess themselves based on a sort of reverse racial profiling. And it is a perfect example of the fact that certain segments of the population actually believe police officers, particular white police officers, deserve to be beaten if not killed. The officer, who clearly made some mistakes when dealing with this thug, is lucky to be alive. I am sickened that this is happening just a few miles from my home, but I suppose it demonstrates that no place is going to be immune from this race-baiting insanity.
Dear JD:
Thanks for the link! Fortunately, in most of America, the kind of race hustling we’re seeing in Ferguson and Baltimore just doesn’t work. People know better and don’t accept race cards.
Living just a scant 20 miles from Ferguson and being retired law enforcement, I believe the “hands up, don’t shoot” community has done more to damage race relations in the last year than anything I’ve ever seen before.
I would like to add my opinion that I think it is Obongo who has done more
damage to race relations. By reflexively siding with the forces of
deconstruction every time one of these stories breaks, he is the one
most responsible for pushing the false narrative. By sending dozens
of federal agents to Ferguson, and pressuring the authorities in
Florida to prosecute George Zimmerman, he has thrown gasoline
onto the fire from day one.
One cannot forget that the primary duty of a “Community Organizer”
is to stir that big pot of racial shit so that everyone can smell it.
He is a third rate intellect and forth rate street hustler who made
his bones by threatening lending institutions with lawsuits who
failed to extend half million dollar homes loans for people on
welfare. Every fiber of his being is dedicated to fighting the
ghost of racial injustice. The racial chip on his shoulder would
require a crane to remove.
Barry Sotero Obama is every bit the rabid race hustler as Al
Tawana Sharpton or Jesse Jackass. A few decades ago,
Obama would have been labeled a two-bit shakedown artist!
And then when the welfare recipients got in over their heads in debt, the banks and finance companies got blamed for allowing them easy credit in the first place.
The professional activists don’t want equal rights, justice, or peace. They want controversial issues that can be exploited to justify their own sinecures.
And it tells you something about contemporary America that sociopaths like Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin can be portrayed as saintly martyrs. Also, that a thug who has just robbed a store feels free to swagger down the middle of the street drawing attention to himself, instead of hiding out.
Tom said: “The professional activists don’t want equal rights, justice, or peace.”
They want reparations, and that’s exactly what all of this ‘disparate impact’ nonsense accomplishes.
It’s just a rose by another name.
A local cop friend who works the night shift told me the other day that some people just don’t want to be told what to do.
I recently watched Jake Tapper of CNN interview Jeff Roorda, a St. Louis, Missouri police union official, and Antonio French, a St. Louis Alderman, about the New Yorker profile of former police officer Darren Wilson. I believe it was part of a media push to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown (an anniversary that unfortunately has not passed without violence) and that’s fine, but I was—to use a wonderful British expression—gob smacked by something Mr. Tapper said.
Just to make sure we’re all on the same page here, Darren Wilson who is white, is the former police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, sparking months of rioting and looting in Ferguson, Missouri. And just to make sure we’re all on the same page here, extensive investigations by the Ferguson Police Department, the St. Louis Police Department, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the United States Attorney’s Office, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and a grand jury hearing, all concluded that Michael Brown had assaulted Officer Darren Wilson, and that Officer Wilson had killed Michael Brown in self-defense, and that he was completely justified in doing so because he had reason to fear for his life.
What caught my attention during the interview was the following question by Jake Tapper:
“Jeff, you know him, you are friends with him. Does Officer Wilson have any remorse for what happened?”
The implications behind that question floored me. Michael Brown was a three-hundred pound male who fit the description Officer Wilson had just been given of the suspect in a recent strong-arm robbery (it was in fact Michael Brown who was the perpetrator of that robbery), who ignored Officer Wilson’s commands, who assaulted the officer in his vehicle, who attempted to wrest Officer Wilson’s sidearm from him, and who then charged the officer even after he, Brown, had been wounded. No matter how you look at this in terms of racial and societal differences, or in terms of how much more training police officers in certain communities might need to be able to better serve those communities, this particular encounter almost instantly became nothing more—or less—than a life and death struggle. And Jake Tapper wanted to know if Darren Wilson felt any remorse.
Jake Tapper is not a stupid man and he is not an uneducated man. He is the son of highly educated professionals (his father is a pediatrician and his mother is a psychiatric nurse); he was raised in an exclusive and well-to-do neighborhood of Philadelphia; he was educated at a private, mainline school and went on to graduate magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth; he has been awarded multiple honors for his work as a journalist, including both the Edward R. Murrow Award and an Emmy Award. He’s damn good at what he does. He understands the power and the meaning of words.
But he could still ask if Officer Wilson felt remorse. He didn’t ask if Officer Wilson felt sorrow or regret that his own life has been destroyed and his ability to earn a living compromised. He didn’t ask if Officer Wilson was suffering any post-traumatic troubles or having nightmares about his fight for his life. He didn’t ask if Officer Wilson felt any resentment about his life being, essentially, destroyed because he had done what his oath required him to do and came close to dying for it. Tapper asked if Wilson felt remorse, meaning specifically, “moral anguish and bitter regret arising from repentance for past misdeeds,” for killing a man who was attempting to kill him.
Remorse for what, Mr. Tapper? For being alive? When did fighting for your life become a misdeed?
I was so stunned by the implications of that question that it took me awhile to realize what the problem was, not just with Mr. Tapper, but also with practically every other journalist around today. The problem is a complete disconnect from any reality other than that of the exceptionally sheltered and rarified atmosphere of their own upbringing. If you’ve never been forced into a situation where you’ve had to fight for your life, how can you have any possible understanding of the emotions that rise to the surface as a result of such a struggle?
When I was still earning my living in the gilded jakes of Hollywood, I lived on the edge of a neighborhood in Los Angeles where the homes ranged from comfortable and moderately affluent, to luxurious and stinking rich. It was a neighborhood of well-educated, successful families, most of whom represented the best of the American dream, a few of whom qualified as old, inherited wealth, but all of them basically decent, well-meaning, well-intentioned, well-educated, well-heeled people. The kind of people you might find in, say, one of Philadelphia’s exclusive and elegant neighborhoods.
One quiet Sunday afternoon I took my dog for a long circuitous walk that included a loop through one of the really wealthy enclaves within the neighborhood. I was part way down a tree-shaded street where the houses all sat back on lawns the size of small golf courses, when the LAPD descended en masse, half a dozen squad cars, lights flashing, sirens blasting.
As the officers bailed out, the door to one of these stately homes opened and a young man came out, covered in blood, breathing heavily, but carrying himself with that jaunty strut one associates with boxers in the ring. I recognized him as someone I saw occasionally in that area, no one I knew personally, but a guy I used to nod to when I passed him on my walks, a guy I used to see jogging from time to time.
I was close enough that I could hear the exchange between him and the police. It has been over thirty years now, so I now no longer remember the exact words, but this represents both the tone and the essence of what he said:
“It’s alright, it’s all over. I killed the son of a bitch. He’s deader than a mackerel. He had a baseball bat and tried to kill me, but I killed his sorry ass. He won’t break into any more houses in this neighborhood, God damn him.”
And then in response to a question I couldn’t hear from one of the officers:
“He’s on the second floor, up at the head of the stairs. He jumped out at me from behind, from the linen closet, and got me in the side of the head, but I fucking killed that son of a bitch. That was my own bat he hit me with! He got it out of my bedroom. If he weren’t already dead I’d go back in there and kill him all over again.”
(In point of fact, it was very quickly determined by the police that the burglar, while certainly very much the worse for wear and unconscious, was not dead.)
It turned out the young man was studying for his master’s and had come to his parent’s home while they were away on vacation so that he could study in peace and quiet. Someone had just broken in through a back door, had been surprised in the house by the young man coming home, and the fight was on.
But take a look again at the words that young man spoke. Like it or not, I can assure you, having been there, that is the reaction of the victor in a life and death struggle. It is triumph, strutting, victorious, chest-pounding triumph. Later, he probably regretted his boastful words, his unconcern for the man he thought dead inside, but baby, at that moment, all you feel is triumphant, unvanquished, immortal, the gladiator in the arena, holding your sword on high and waiting for Caesar’s thumb to go up or down.
Under normal circumstances, after a tennis match at his country club, say, that young man was the kind of guy who would jump over the net to shake your hand and say, “Great game! You’ll beat me next time. Let me buy you a beer.”
But after fighting for his life, the completely normal reaction was to act like a mixed martial arts fighter after a cage fight. And, having been there, I can also guarantee you he didn’t later feel “remorse” for being alive.
Of the five police officers I know who have had to kill people in the line of duty, not one of them regrets the split second decisions they made that kept them alive and not the other guy. None of them like to talk about it, but none of them feel “remorse” for staying alive.
The line between victim and victor can be very thin, very tenuous, and can change very quickly, but only a man who has no understanding of—or empathetic imagination for—the realities of the world outside the Mainline and the Ivy League could ever imagine survival should be tempered with remorse.
Dear Jameson Parker:
Well said, and thanks for your comments. Reporters often think themselves very wise in the ways of the world because they have visited the occasional war zone, walked about in the aftermath of shootings and assaults, and talked with criminals and victims. As you noted, there is nothing like actually being involved in reality. People like Tapper, who have probably never been involved in a fight, let along an assault, simply don’t have a clue, though they imagine they have more of a clue than most people.They do have one thing most don’t: hubris, which Tapper displayed.
Thanks again!