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credit: blogs.scientificamerican.com

How crazy has the D/S/C left become over George Floyd?  This crazy:

America’s largest teachers’ union has announced it backs the teaching of critical race theory in schools, wants to hire staff to ‘fight back’ against those who oppose CRT, and has called for an October 14 rally to be held in honor of George Floyd‘s birthday.

The National Educator’s Association [sic] recently approved a resolution to promote critical race theory through its existing channels, work to ‘fight back’ against opponents of the practice.

It also wants to assemble a team to teach it to union members and create a ‘national day of action’ to start a dialogue about systemic racism on October 14 — George Floyd‘s birthday.

The resolution reads that the NEA will ‘provide an already-created, in-depth, study that critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism (human centered points of view) and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.’

credit: usatoday

Remember, gentle readers, George Floyd was a violent felon—a multi-offense loser—a drug addict, and died not by the actions of the police, but because he was caught trying to pass counterfeit money, violently resisted arrest, swallowed a fatal dose of multiple drugs to try to hide them from the police (he was already dosed before he did that), and had medical problems sufficiently serious to kill himself without any other cause.  Only a few months before his death, he swallowed a lethal dose of drugs, trying to hide them from the police, and nearly killed himself then.  This was a man who, committing an armed robbery, held a gun to the belly of a pregnant woman. The National Education Association thinks George Floyd worthy of honors. They think him an appropriate role model for children.

Let’s take a few minutes to review everything that has occurred since the last post in the Floyd series on May 25, 2021. The SMM Floyd archive is here.  By all means, take the links that follow.  They’ll help you better understand the issues in this case, which involves us all.  We begin with Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:

Derek Chauvin (L), George Floyd (R)
credit: medium.com

Count I – 270 months, 10 year addition to presumptive sentence of 150 months, credit of 199 days already served.

Counts II and III considered unadjudicated since they are lesser included offenses. A 22-page memorandum setting forth the findings will be posted.

The Prosecution sought a 30 year sentence, and though Judge Cahill was very much on their side, he stopped short of that outrageous sentence, a full ten years beyond what would be a normal sentence for this charge.  Scott Johnson—an attorney writing at Powerline—was less than impressed:

More than 100 pages of briefs were filed supporting and opposing Chauvin’s post-trial motions. After I posted part 7 this morning, Judge Cahill summarily denied all of Chauvin’s motions in a two-page order. The order is posted here.

I have the impression that Judge Cahill has had it with this case. At least some of Chauvin’s motions — such as the one based on the issue of venue — deserve more than his high-handed kiss-off.

Cahill was afraid of the mob.  He had every reason to be, but in allowing his fear to overcome his reason, he betrayed justice.

The open space in front of the courthouse building on Seventh Street is full of cameras. The atmosphere is festive. Chauvin family attorney Ben Crump is doing interviews. The circus is back in town.

Fox News reports on the upcoming state trial of the three other officers:

Three former Minneapolis police officers accused of aiding and abetting the murder of George Floyd last year will stand trial beginning March 7, according to court records.

The starting date comes nearly a month after a judge said the case would be delayed until 2022 after initially being scheduled to start in August.

The defendants –  J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao – are scheduled to go on trial in Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis. Opening statements will start on March 28.

Despite having no active role apart from keeping the hostile crowd at bay, they are all charged with Third Degree Murder.  Keep in mind Chauvin and the three other officers are also facing federal charges.  Scott Johnson comments on that:

We have yet to hear an explanation why federal prosecutors are piling on the former officers in the civil rights case. In Chauvin’s case, the prosecution is redundant. In the three other cases the prosecution is disruptive. In all four cases the prosecution is unsavory.

“Unsavory” is very kind.  Outrageous, and racist, political persecution would be more accurate.  There will be no explanation, because the only possible explanation is the “destroy the police,” and “all white people are racist,” narrative.  At The American Thinker, John Dale Dunn, MD, JD explains why Chauvin did not kill Floyd.  If you take no other link, take this one.

Finally, Andrea Widburg at the American Thinker compares the persecution of Chauvin with that of Alfred Dreyfus in 1894:

In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was convicted of treason – despite it being obvious that he was not guilty but was being railroaded. Four years later, once the facts were fully known, Émile Zola, the famed novelist, famously wrote an open letter under the headline ‘J’Accuse,’ accusing the French military of a deliberate cover-up. I can’t help but see parallels to that in Derek Chauvin’s railroading in a Minneapolis courtroom.

As do I.

Nevertheless, to sate the mob’s race-based bloodlust, Chauvin faced a kangaroo court that a judge, afraid of the mob, helmed. Now, Chauvin’s sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison – assuming he’s not killed or driven insane by being kept “safe” in solitary confinement. This isn’t justice. This isn’t due process. And this surely isn’t America.

J’Accuse!

Lorie Schaull wikimediacommons

Analysis:  Derek Chauvin was not found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  He was found guilty beyond a racist doubt.

There was a time in America, before the Civil Rights Movement achieved its goals, before America truly became a place where everyone was judged not on the color of their skin but the content of their character, Black Americans were judged on the standard of beyond a racist doubt.  Not all and not everywhere, to be sure, but even one such is too many in a nation founded on equal justice for all.  That standard didn’t actually require a trial.  All that was necessary is that the accused be Black and the victim, white.  In too many places in America, there was no such thing as a fair trial.  Oh, a semblance of the process of due process was observed, but the outcome of the “trial” was never in doubt: guilty beyond a racist doubt.

Unlike the lies and racist viciousness of contemporary race hustlers, Americans of all colors rejected that standard, that genuine racism. It took time, but America embraced equal justice for all. The Civil Rights Movement won—all Americans of good will are glad for it–not only in law, but in the hearts and minds of Americans.  This matters far more than any law, because no law matters if people aren’t willing to voluntarily obey it.

Actual racists, a rare breed, were justly social pariahs, until race hustlers took over the Democrat/Socialist/Communist Party, Hollywood, the academy, and even big tech, and suddenly, half of Americans found themselves branded racists, and once again, the standard of proof became beyond a racist doubt.  Denying one is racist is taken as prima facie evidence of racism.  No one can be proved innocent of the crime of being a racist because the charge is the proof and the proof is beyond a racist doubt.

Circa 2020 and beyond, however, the races were reversed.  Race hustlers claim the only way to atone for past discrimination is to impose present discrimination.  A white person—they’re all racist, privileged white supremacists—accused of committing a crime against a Black person—rare as that is—is guilty beyond a racist doubt.  They’re not guilty until they prove themselves innocent–that would be too easy.  They’re guilty without any possibility of being found innocent.  Should the unfortunate white defendant be a police officer, the only question before the court—actually, before the racist mob–is how severe the sentence is going to be, and one can be certain it will be far more severe than the sentence for Black serial felons convicted of the same offense.

Just as it was before the triumph of the Civil Rights Movement, this is not so everywhere.  A white police officer accused of murdering a Black felon violently resisting arrest can get a fair trial in much of America, a trial where evidence matters and the process is more than just social justice theater.  But it is certainly so in Minneapolis, and likely, most of Minnesota.  Derek Chauvin’s most serious mistake was choosing to remain a Minneapolis police officer when many of his compatriots realized what happened to him was very likely to happen to them.  They got out; he didn’t, and he dared to try to enforce the law when a violent, drugged felon with exceedingly fragile medical conditions violated it.

At the very least, Chauvin must have a new trial.  Charges should never have been brought against any of the officers.  Visit the SMM archive to find the reasons therefor.  Unfortunately, in Minnesota, the standard continues to be proof beyond a racist doubt and equal justice is a thing of the racist past, resurrected in the present.