 |
| BLM replacing the Asian faces with Black faces. |
I bring it up because the prevailing narrative from the mainstream media and Black Lives Matter is that this is a verified fact, yet, I've seen no proof to back the claim. I've seen no evidence so far that any of the police involved have a background of racial prejudice. I do know two of them including Derek Chauvin had a history of abuse complaints from people of various races, but this is a separate issue.
How is it that a discussion that should have been about police brutality and abuse of power was allowed to be hijacked and turned into an issue of “white supremacy” that all white Americans are supposed to apologize for?
These days, simply asking these questions will trigger automatic accusations of “bigotry”. If you aren't an “ally” of Black Lives Matter then you are surely a racist; or so we are told. But I don't model my thinking according to a hive mind of emotionally stunted reactionaries, and neither do a lot of Americans. Many of us have to THINK about these situations logically and rationally and come to our own conclusions based on the facts at hand.
I watched the full video, and like most people I was disturbed by the cold robotic manner in which Derek Chauvin applied the full weight of his body to a single point of his knee on the back of George Floyd's neck for a period of 9 minutes that seemed like an eternity. Anyone with a background in medicine or mixed martial arts knows that you do not do this unless you intend to permanently injure or kill a person.
Damage to the vagus nerve and cervical spinal nerves can cause serious dysfunction to the rest of the body, including possible pulmonary distress. Police procedure specifically teaches officers to avoid such tactics. Chauvin had 19 years of experience and training, unlike the two rookie officers helping him hold Floyd down; he knew better and he did it anyway.
I have no interest in defending Chauvin. There is no excuse for his actions as is evident by the video. I think a lot of conservatives agree with this. If leftists had simply stuck to the reality of the situation and hammered home the danger of abuse of power regardless of a person's color, then there wouldn't be a problem. It's one of the few issues that leftists and conservatives find common ground.
Unfortunately, George Floyd's body has been devoured as a sacrifice to the social justice cult. They are ravenous now, frothing at the mouth and dancing with glee, because the hard left exploits tragedy as a vehicle to mold society according to their ideals. They NEED tragedy and division to keep their movement relevant.
Floyd has been turned into a morbid puppet for their benefit and entertainment. They have made his death about race politics and victim group status. They have made his death a monument to their fantasy world in which “systemic racism” and “white privilege” is the cause of all their struggles and failures. So now, we are at an impasse.
Inlast week's article, I tried to speak to conservatives directly on the dangers of overreacting to the protests and riots. Specifically, I warned about the building discussion of "martial law" and handing the government unconstitutional powers in the name of security. I believe this is ultimately what the establishment wants - To manipulate one side of the political spectrum or the other into supporting totalitarianism.
They tried appealing to the political left in the name of protecting people from the pandemic, and they have tried appealing to the political right in the name of protecting people from the riots. I want to make it clear, though, that the social justice movement is a key driver in the chaos the US is facing this year and into the foreseeable future. Conservatives need to avoid being lured by the temptations of government power, but the extreme left is still a considerable problem.
No justice no peace? If protest groups truly want peaceful resolution they would have realized by now that the officers involved in the event have been arrested and charged and the city of Minneapolis is even proclaiming an end to the municipal police altogether. Justice is being served, perhaps overtly just to appease the movement. But this is not enough for BLM and the hard left, and nothing ever will be.
One of the defining traits of the social justice horde is that they are never satisfied; give them what they want and they smell blood in the water. Fulfill their demands and they will draft more demands. Apologize, even when you have done nothing wrong, and they will attack you with more aggression to make sure you know they own you. Once you placate these people to gain their approval, you will never be free.
There is nothing that white Americans in general need to apologize for. The current conflict is NOT rooted in white supremacy, the conflict is rooted in the leftist mob and its collectivist zealotry. They are the divisive factor.
I have heard it said for many years that the great weakness of conservative movements compared to progressive movements is that we often lack uniformity when it comes to action. We all tend to agree on the causes of problems (big government, centralization, central banking, globalist influences within government, a lack of respect for the constitutional foundation of our country, etc.), but we vehemently disagree on specific solutions. That said, I prefer the weakness of too much individuality over the mob mentality of leftist movements.
Following gatekeepers blindly in terms of action even when those actions are utterly wrong and devoid of reason is a swift path to collectivist tyranny. It is the reason leftist movements are so concerning; they are easily led by terrible people.
They assume they are on the right side of history, and they feel they have no need for reason or facts. The race card is one of their favorite shock-and-awe weapons as it is a highly charged and emotional brush-fire that tends to choke out rationality in people's minds.
The left will cite certain stats until they are blue in the face to support their claims that everything is about race, while ignoring other stats that are contrary to their narrative. Anything that is contrary to the narrative is ignored. The narrative is god, and those who control the narrative control the political left.
For example, in terms of the George Floyd issue they will bring up the argument that 24% of police shooting deaths in the US are black people, even though black people make up only 13% of the US population. This number is usually derived from annual FBI crime stats and would be rather damning except it's only half the story. What they don't mention is those same stats show that blacks also make up the majority of violent crimes in the US including murder and robbery.
This does not mean that all police killings of blacks are justified including the killing of George Floyd, but I find it interesting that social justice warriors consistently ignore the data on black participation in violent crime. If BLM wants to play the statistics game they need to be corrected when they cherry-pick data to support a baseless ideological premise.
The BLM seems utterly disinterested in nationwide protests to stop black-on-black crime even though it is a much bigger problem than blacks being killed by cops. Hell, they won't even acknowledge the death of an elderly black man, David Dorn, at the hands of looters during one of their protests in St.Louis. It simply doesn't fit the image of the white supremacy bogeyman they want to project.
Remember BLM, facts are more important than your feelings or agenda. All lives matter, not just those you prefer to use to further your political goals. Beyond that, the claims of systemic racism among law enforcement simply don't hold up when one examines the number of white people that also die at the hands of police each year. There are psychopathic police (white and black) that kill unarmed people regardless of color, and there are just as many issues with black psychopaths as there are with white psychopaths.
Systemic abuse of power? It's definitely an issue, that requires a change in how individual cases of bad policing are handled. The thin-blue-line garbage needs to go out the window and bad cops need to be punished, not protected in the name of "saving the institution". But systemic racism? There's no evidence of it except the contrived data that groups like BLM prop up to support their fairy tales.
So then, why is it that white people are being throttled in the mainstream media and on social media like some kind of evil monolith with demands that we sublimate ourselves and beg the social justice cult for their forgiveness? This trend of white shame rituals is bizarre, but it is not unprecedented. It is a socio-political power strategy used in the past by communist movements, most prominently in China during the cultural revolution, called “Struggle Sessions”.
At bottom, all communist movements are the same. The Cultural Revolution in China was exploited by Mao as a means to destroy his political rivals and to cement his power. Even after Mao had killed millions through food production policies that led to mass starvation, he convinced a large portion of the Chinese communist devout that they were actually “victims of imperialists”, and that they needed to rise up and weed out the hidden threat. They were convinced that they were rebelling when they were actually serving the interests of Mao's establishment the entire time.
The goal of the Cultural Revolution was two-fold:
The movement attempted to erase Chinese history and replace it with a zero point of communism. They removed museums and ancient relics, tore down statues and buildings, and even changed the names on street signs that were considered "problematic". The past did not exist; the new history started with the communist revolution. (Khmer Rouge's YEAR ZERO genocide in Cambodia.)
Second, the revolution was engineered to terrorize anyone that held views contrary to the collectivist religion. Anyone with conservative, individualistic or free market inklings was rounded up and exposed publicly. They were forced into city squares to be psychologically tortured and shamed; some were physically tortured and executed to the delight of the mob. In their cult-like fervor, the frothing masses felt waves of ecstasy as the evil imperialist sympathizers were forced to repent in front of the crowd for their sins.
Sound familiar? It's happening right now in the US as BLM and social justice receive mainstream recognition, and there are a staggering number of similarities to the Chinese cultural revolution. It's almost as if someone is using the exact same playbook, right down to the unnerving religious fervor of the movement.
You better have a black square on your social media accounts for the next “Blackout Tuesday”, otherwise you are not an ally and are likely a racist. As a company or corporation you must show open support for the political left and signal your virtue, otherwise you are a racist or fascist business.
Say
anything on Twitter that is outside of the approved social justice language?
You will be hounded by acolytes until you beg for forgiveness. Say you are
sorry, tell them you will “do better” and “check your privilege” and maybe you
will be allowed to remain as a useful servant to the collectivist blob.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of law enforcement officers around the country and the world are bending the knee to social justice, most likely ordered to do so by city officials as sign of fealty to the movement. This is leading to some very dangerous circumstances. This kind of escalation is why liberty minded people have such mixed feelings on social justice warriors. Their behavior is equally hilarious and horrifying.
These people crossed my radar several years ago and I have observed them ever since. Certain character traits and attitudes have become apparent: They can be childish and emotional to the point of schizophrenia. They throw wild tantrums when they don't immediately get what they want, responsibility and merit are disdainful ideas to them. They are narcissistic and selfish, yet they see themselves as philanthropists and martyrs.
They are often vindictive, spiteful and viciously underhanded, seeking the total annihilation of anyone that disagrees with them. They do not know how to produce to succeed, they only know how to destroy and bring others down. They raise themselves up by standing on the ashes of others. They represent the dregs of humanity; the only people I can think of that are worse are global elitists, but if
SJW's were given as much money and influence, they would be comparably monstrous.
If they remain contained they can be entertaining. When they are allowed to feed on power, when they spread and fester into a society like cancer injecting their ideological venom into everything, they become a threat.
As I have noted this week, the establishment benefits greatly by escalating incidents like George Floyd's death into a race war or political war. The hard left while insane is not the core danger, but they are useful to powerful people. True conservatives and those that love freedom must be careful. We must act, but with calm professionalism, not rage. We must let the leftists know we have no intention of bending the knee, but we are also not stupid enough to support a totalitarian response and abandon our constitutional principles.
The solution is actually a simple one, and it's one I have advocated for many years. The extreme left wants to eradicate municipal police? Fine. They should be replaced with constitutional Sheriffs that are voted in and voted out by the public. I have no love for police brutality either, so why not make them all accountable through the voting system. If a sheriff's deputy attacks or kills an unarmed or innocent person, then there is incentive for the Sheriff to arrest and punish that deputy, otherwise the community might not elect him again.
What if this is not enough to satisfy them (they are never satisfied) and the extreme left wants to blame an imaginary white patriarchy to justify riots and looting? The Floyd protests will probably fizzle out soon, but they are always looking for new excuses to inflate racial tensions.
Citizen militias can be formed (with people of any race) to protect neighborhoods and property. It's already being done today. Wherever civilians form security groups to protect towns and businesses, BLM and Antifa run away, never show up, or remain very well behaved. The media pretends these security groups are pointless or don't exist, so don't expect positive coverage of the accomplishment, just know that they work.
No need to get violent, no need for martial law or oppressive government power; just regular citizens providing a show of force to send a message: Keep your protests peaceful and all is well. Try to harm us or our neighborhoods, try to impose your ideology on us, and you will be put down.