Unless you’ve been living under a very impressive rock – like a bad Brendan Fraser movie about people stuck in a bunker for decades – you know about this George Lloyd business. I’ve seen the video. If you haven’t, you should do so. It is pretty incriminating for the officers involved. I’ve never been much of a thin blue line kind of guy, but I definitely check out here. I know two very good friends who have been screwed over by exceptionally bad police overreach. Francis, over at Bastion of Liberty, surely knows one of them – he is a friend we have in common.
Police petty tyranny has been growing worse in recent years, and we add to that a certain tendency of some urban police departments to engage in soldier-LARPing behavior, well the problem only gets worse. Add to that the condition of various inner-city black communities, the current political climate of race-baiting social justice activism, and the fact that COVID-19 lockdowns have surely driven people mad with boredom and lack of social contact, and you have a perfect storm for this rioting behavior.
It’s hard to blame it on any one thing, save that the poor behavior of the officers in question surely struck a match and stuck it firmly in a powder keg of epic proportions. Personally, I am exhausted of this repeating cycle, which has been a thing since at least the early 90s and the Rodney King riots. Questionable police behavior (sometimes not really so bad, and other times absolutely inexcusably idiotic) leads to racial animus, which results in barbaric looting behavior. We’re all spiraling toward a singularity of stupid, the gravity pulling us deep into a descending orbit, too strong for any of us to escape.
Political rhetoric has become absolutely poisonous. Sure, it was bad in 2016, but this year it grows worse, and I grow weary of it. Every discussion even coming anywhere near a political point is liable to turn into a land mine. Friendships are breaking. Families are cracking. America is burning and creaking at the seams. I don’t know how much longer this dysfunctional system is going to continue to limp along. We may be witnessing its slow death. Or maybe we’ll bounce back again, and our country will be undone at some unspecified point in the future. It’s hard to say.
With the election approaching, I think it’s only going to get worse.
Sadly, I think underneath all the nuclear-level rhetoric, the unleashed ids, the emotional appeals and post-hoc rationalization, both sides of the American political spectrum are clutching a piece of the truth. I’m not sure how many people want to hear that, but I’ve become convinced that it is true. I posted the following summary on Twitter earlier:
- In general, policing has gone very bad in many ways.
- Black communities in most major cities suck.
- At least some of the suck is self-inflicted.
- I despair of any of that changing in the near future.
- We’ll be here again. And again
- Racial profiling is almost certainly a thing.
- It is not without some rational basis.
- Both facts poison interactions between cops and blacks.
- White liberal race-baiting doesn’t help.
- Neither does ‘thin blue line’ garbage.
- No political faction wants to tell the whole truth because it will piss off constituents who don’t want to hear it.
- Both major factions possess at least some components of the truth.
- I feel like some character in Battlestar Galactica. “All of this has happened before.”
The black communities in most major cities are littered with problems. Violence, crime rates, economic depression – you name it. Rightists are right about that. Leftists want to blame white racism, but that doesn’t hold up to investigation. Surely, even if Leftists believe racism to still be bad even they must acknowledge that it is far less bad than, say, the Jim Crow era. Why do these problems continue? Why do we see so little progress? I was rereading Larry Elder’s Ten Things You Can’t Say in America today after a debate with a Leftist on this subject, and it struck me how little had changed since then on matters of race, saving that acrimony continues to worsen. The same issues from 20 years ago are little changed today. What gives?
Police officers know this as well as anyone. Let’s be real, they certainly do racially profile (the Left is right about this); stereotypes about violent crime have a basis in fact, and cops know it. And, from the other direction, blacks certainly are inclined to see cops as the enemy, the attitude leaks into police interactions all the time. Combine those two factors, and the chances of an interaction going bad increase dramatically. And when that happens, prepare for protests that, likewise escalate in severity. Riots, looting, mob interactions – all intermingling with the still-peaceful (but emotional and crazy) main element – while the cops either stay on the sidelines as Rome burns, or escalate the situation even more themselves.
In some ways, it almost doesn’t matter that this particular policing incident really was bad. If it had been a legitimate death, it still had the potential to flare up into what we have today. We are at the point that any police interaction with the black community has the potential of blowing up into a national orgy of combined protest-riots. This one is the worst I’ve seen in my lifetime. There is a protest scheduled down the street from where I live tomorrow – it is likely they won’t bother my neighborhood (it is known that a lot of military folks live around here), but even the potential is strange to me. There were burnings and lootings all over Tampa Bay, especially in the University Mall/Temple Terrace area.
Tampa is not exactly a city known for rioting behavior. I cannot imagine how bad it must be in other major cities.
And we’re not even halfway through 2020 yet. The election looms over us, while the COVID-19 pandemic continues (and may be exacerbated by the riots – we don’t know yet), and political rhetoric has reached levels that make 2016 look like a picnic in the park. We may solve the police overreach issue – though I really doubt it, now – but the broader issue about any police interaction with the black community potentially triggering national riots remains no matter what might be done about that. I think we’re well beyond the ability to solve this in any constructive manner.
I’d like to be wrong. I’d like for someone to pour some water on this fire, to rein in police overreach, to deal with qualified immunity, poor recruiting, travesties like civil asset forfeiture, etc… I’d also like to take us back from 5 minutes until midnight on the racial rioting clock. But I doubt either will happen anytime soon.
Like I said, I feel like it’s an episode of Battlestar Galactica, and I’m reciting the catchphrase. All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. Again. Again. Again…
FFFFFFFFFFIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTT!!!!!
Much to be said here. The following statement may look rambling, but I promise to make it as coherent as I am able.
This is going to be very blunt. For any of you who think you can accuse me of racism from the statements below – FU and your family. I’m no racist, and you’re an ignorant, shallow, poser bitch.
Why is there a ‘black problem’ in America?
Relax. Don’t make any assumptions about what I am going to say.
Let’s remember first how African Americans arrived here. The height of the African Slave trade occurred roughly over the period of the 1400’s to the 1800’s (though slavery within africa precedes that period by thousands of years, and slavery is still practiced in parts of Africa even today.) Per the socioeconomic historian Fernand Braudel, records of slave ships over that period show that just under 18M slaves were exported to the Western Hemisphere and just under 19M were exported to the Dar Al Islam. Of that, about 4M were delivered to the USA.
Side note: There are about 40M blacks in the USA today. They are either the absolute majority or largest minority in many American cities – St Louis, Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia, etc etc. Are there any cities in the Dar Al Islam that have ANY sizable black populations? I point this out because there are people who loudly and righteously proclaim that America’s record of slavery is the worst in all of human history. You’ll know from now on when you hear this that the speaker/denouncer is either a lowlife lying race-baiting bigoted propagandizing opportunistic huckster or a stupid, uneducated, ignorant, unthinking and thoroughly racist sack of crap.
Back to the discussion: what happened to the 4M Africans who reached America’s shores?
Their enslavement began in Africa – almost certainly as a captive of an opposing tribe. Apparently the great majority came from tribes in sub-Saharan West Africa, where tribe-based wars continue to this day. Some were sold to Arab or Berber slave traders, and slightly less than half to european or american ones.
Upon landing in America, each of them almost certainly found himself/herself totally alone, stripped from tribe, village and family, in a very strange and alien land. Thus, they were separated from their cultural roots and likely preserved very little of it in their new homeland. Their main cultural influence from that point on would be the wardens of the slave owner to whom they were ‘property.’ These wardens were, as a rule, bottom of the ladder types who themselves came from an environment of abysmal ignorance, violence, substance abuse (almost exclusively alcohol in those days) and rampant sexual promiscuity. They served as the only contact and example for african slaves with the larger society in which they now found themselves. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that these shattered people were culturally influenced by their overseers – and by all reports from those days, they were, as slave warrens on plantations were noted for being typically violent places with promiscuous residents. (Note: Thomas Sowell wrote at least one book about this. I haven’t read it, so his treatise is almost certainly better than mine, more informed, better sourced and more nuanced.)
Fortunately, Christianity took hold among the slaves, providing a reference for order, structure, law and morality. It was enough to carry them thru the post-Civil War period to the twentieth century, where tremendous numbers of them migrated north, NE and West to cities and their industrial centers in the hope of building a future outside of the ex-Confederacy. And it appeared to be working up until the 1950’s, as black americans began entering the middle class in large numbers. Their education levels, crime rates and single parent household rates were still notably worse than that of ‘white’/european AMerica, but they seemed to be following the same path as European immigrant groups – first taking the lowest paying jobs and living in the worst neighborhoods, and over roughly 2-3 generations integrating themselves fully into American life.
But American Blacks as an ethnic group were still culturally fragile. And then they got hit by a triple whammy in the 60’s – LBJ’s Great Society bullshit, the decoupling of the USD from the Gold Standard (done by LBJ and completed by Nixon, to avoid making the hard choices in government budgeting and industrial policy), and the consequent beginning of the flight of industry from American shores, resulting in the Rust Belt extending across the east and northeast in the 1970’s. Unemployment in black urban areas skyrocketed, followed by exploding crime, drug use and single parent households.
That, in a nutshell, is basically how Black America got to where it is today. But that still doesn’t explain everything that’s going on now, including the rioting.
** To be continued**
SSSEEEECCCOOOONNNDDD!!!!
Let me continue with my diatribe.
Are blacks being discriminated against?
Yes and No.
No in the sense of affirmative action and preferential hiring programs, both in government and imposed by government on private enterprise. They also receive preference in university admissions, scholarships and such. For my own part, I am aggressively opposed to these policies – coddling someone is encouraging mediocrity.
Yes in the sense of their experience far more difficulties with the police (including getting shot or otherwise killed), much higher arrest rates and much higher incarceration rates. BUT THEY EARN THIS DISCRIMINATION.
Now – before any of you start screeching “YOU KU KLUX KLAN MONSTER!” at the top of your lungs:
Statistics show that on a per capita basis, blacks commit a lot more crimes than ‘whites.’ They also commit the great majority of those crimes against other blacks. That’s why they get all that ‘attention’ from the boys in blue. This also explains why the police have more reported abuse incidences with blacks than ‘whites’ – much of it is likely due to the stresses of the job, and some is undoubtedly due to the job attracting the few who enjoy the idea of ‘bashing as spook’s head in.’
Some other statistics of note:
On a per capita basis –
black on white crimes are far higher a percentage than white on black, or white on white for that matter.
So – does this mean skin color determines a person’s intelligence, aptitude, work ethic, sociability, interest in education and abiding by the law and overall success in life?
No.
Studies show quite convincingly that environment is EVERYTHING. In Germany, black children adopted as infants into white families experience the same educational levels of achievement and outcome as their white classmates. Also, if you go anywhere in America or Europe where there is an endemically poor ‘WHITE’ population, you will find very high rates of crime, violence and promiscuity, a perverse pride in rejecting learning and education, tremendous substance abuse, and an attitude on life that breeds failure. So it’s not a ‘black thing.’
The solution is quite obvious to me.
The Great Society programs have been an abject failure. Dinesh D’Souza is 100% correct in characterizing this and other social welfare programs as a modern day ‘welfare plantation’ and social workers doling out stipends, forgivable loans and all sorts of other ‘gimmedats’ as ‘welfare plantation slave wardens.’ Others have made the comparison between inner city blacks in ghetto ‘welfare islands’ and American Indians on reservations – and those comparisons are 100% correct as well.
Inner city blacks live in their ghettos because their grandparents and great grandparents gravitated to the tremendous work opportunities there when those cities were industrialized. That industry began to disappear when LBJ’s Great Society programs imposed permanent and ever-growing federal deficits that became unsustainable in a gold-standard-based currency regimen with its international trade balance settlements payable in gold, resulting in currency exchange imbalances and new business tax regimens that made it favorable for manufacturers to move offshore. And with those employment losses, blacks lost the chance to follow all other American immigrant groups up the ‘value chain’ of labor from menial work to skilled tradesman/craftsman (the great gift of industrialization) to college education (for those interested and suited to it.)
Thus, the solution to “The Black Problem” (GASP! RACIST SWINE! DOG WHISTLE, DOG WHISTLE! SYSTEMIC RACISM AT WORK! DEATH TO THE WHITE MALE PATRIARCHISTS, REEEEEEE!) is to create the conditions for cost-effective, non-subsidized reindustrialization of cities like St Louis (at the confluence of the Ohio and Missisippi rivers, navigable both up and downstream, and complemented by land trade routes originally used by Indians), New York (one of the best natural harbors in the world, and also astride old Indian trade routes up the Hudson River and overland), Boston (same as NYC), etc..
By doing the above, blacks will naturally GET BACK on the road to integration with the rest of America. FUCK THE LEFTISTS. They’ll say blacks need to be helped after ‘FOUR CENTURIES OF OVERT RACISM UPON WHICH THIS COUNTRY IS BASED’ (goddam, when I see that in print I wanna beat the crap out of the leftist who says it – Bill DeBlasio said it publicly just today, the commie prick.) But I’ll bet my last dollar that they won’t need any help at all and will LEAP at the chance offered them as a people. Humans pursue their rational self interest, and American Blacks are no different.
The Progressive Left will fight this to the death. Most are too stupid to accept that what they’ve done from LBJ’s instigation and everythign they’ve been taught by leftist indoctrinators is all crap, and they’ll defend their religious precepts to the death. Some of the more cunning will quickly perceive the loss of status, position, wealth and power such a change would mean to them and will fight to protect their positions, no matter that what they do is benefit from the misery and impoverishment of others. But it is nevertheless the solution. All the Left has done thru statism and welfare must be repudiated.
OK, I’ll shut up for now. Hurl your “RAAAYSSIIISSS!!!” epithets at me.
TTTHHHHIIIIRRRDDD!!!
One final comment:
The plantation (welfare and tobacco) and the indian reservation achieve the same results thru the same techniques. People qualify for certain handouts based on their exhibiting certain behaviors. The end result is endemic dependency which robs the individual of motivation to independently improve their lot in life and constrains them in ‘velvet handcuffs’ to a limited set of options which only ensure the continuation of their dependency and loss of agency.
This needs to end.
LEftists who clamor for continuation and extension of these programs need to SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Maybe some good will come out of this. I’m hoping the FBI will work to destroy Antifa as it did to the KKK in the 1960s and perhaps we’ll have a look at qualified immunity for police officers and other public officials. That was created out of whole cloth by courts, not legislators.
Observations from the northern Michigan woods.
Noticing a lot of whites dressed in black being arrested for rioting and looting. This is great except there are a lot of celebs posting bail for these thugs, wtf. In 67 Johnson determined the National Guard and Police had lost control in Detroit and sent in the regular army. Unfortunately if Trump does that the outcry against will be deafening.
On the political front the only thing dumber than the solitary confinement imposed by Governors and Mayors is the response to this insurrection. Of course if these idiots do get rid of the police forces when 2100 roles around that will be viewed as the stupid move of the century.
Rather than ramble on I’ll leave with the observation that the Earth in the Carreraverse was not supposed to be a how to.
This will end badly for them since us bad tempered independent types haven’t emigrated to Terra Nova yet.
Stay safe and if you have to shoot straight.
The celebs are ‘aiding and abetting’ and indirectly providing ‘incitement to riot.’ A couple of high profile prosecutions should put a stop to that.
Been reading today that big protests were planned for this weekend. In Chicago, cops are discovering buckets of pre-placed bricks.
They’re expecting trouble at nite – the rioters prefer cover of darkness. Activities during daylite have been apparently mostly trouble-free – just filled with complete fuckin’ idiots.
THe ‘disband the police’ movement is rapidly gaining steam – L.A. has cut the LAPD budget by $150M and Minneapolis has vowed to turn the police force into a ‘public safety’ force, trying to insert more ambulance/first aid responders and social workers. MINNEAPOLIS DESERVED WHAT HAPPENED after 46 years straight of “democratic farmer laborer” party mayors, and the hell they seem intent on unleashing upon themselves will be well-earned.
The vapidity, vanity, cowardice and idiocy on display by celebs and corporate CEO’s & PR departments is beyond comprehension.
Side note:
I’ve exercised my 2nd amendment rights for the last 25 years, but lightly. I’ve always believed that a simple revolver was enough. But with what’s going on now, I can at this point see I was far too optimistic. Looking at getting a 9mm with magazine capacity of 17 or greater. Yes, it will be expensive, but evidently I’ve grossly underestimated how stupid large groups of people can be. I can even begin to describe my disgust with my ‘fellow citizens’ in blue cities – especially those who tell themselves that their college education makes them more intelligent and worthwhile than regular joe’s and whose guided bus tour vacations in France and Spain convince them that they are more ‘worldly’ than the common man.
Truly – my disgust is cosmic in scale.
2nd side note:
Still convinced GEOTUS will win in an epic landslide. The reasons should be glaringly obvious – almost everyone on both the right and left prefers law and order, and the Donkeys have made their favoritism towards the rioters clear.
But whichever side wins in november, I’d say it’s guaranteed we are headed towards a storm. If GEOTUS wins, the Left will go to war. If – god forbid – the Left wins, they’ll be out for revenge, and they will try to exterminate us.
With all the hysteria on teh Left about Police racism/violence/oppression and utterly lunatic calls to disband police forces, here’s some actual data to peruse.
https://www.unz.com/article/the-manufactured-crisis-of-police-racism/
Read the whole thing. Some hilites:
Are cops arresting and then killing blacks in enormous numbers? No. In fact, on a statistical basis, they are killing more ‘whites’ – both on a total and per capita basis.
Are cops arresting blacks more frequently than whites or non-blacks for crimes on a racial profiling basis? NOPE. They’re reacting to where the crimes are taking place and who is committing them, with a much greater proportion of crimes being committed by blacks on other blacks.
Read the article. Very interesting and revealing.
TSW, I have to admit this chaos caught me by surprise also. Living in the upper Michigan wilderness I’ve been slack in firearms purchases myself and have relied on my sons AUG as the sole firearm in our home. Fortunately he received a huge virus unemployment check so with chaos growing daily he decided to treat my wife and I to some guns. He bought my wife a 9mm Ruger himself a 9mm Tokarev and some form of M 4 look alike. He bought me a Kimber .45 and a Ruger AR 556. Not my choice but beggers can’t be choosers. Turns out it’s getting hard to get guns even here. Seems everybody including liberals are discovering they need to defend themselves. When will it stop? Who knows? My bet it gets worse, probably a lot worse. Hopefully it won’t get to a Schlichter or Kratman level bad and God help us if it gets Maioranae nightmare level bad.
MM,
Wow! Your son got quite the check! I’d say you’re ready for anything now.
I suspect a Schlichter scenario is the most likely outcome at this point. The MSM seems to be driving for some sort of bloody outcome to all of this – especially those members of the MSM who are under 40. Their stupidity and vileness is mind boggling.
It may be a sin, but my heart is now filled with hate and scorn for the Left.
candace owens has quite a lot to say about all of this:
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1MYGNklYaYZJw
Everyone – read this. Trust me.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/anonymous-berkeley-professor-shreds-blm-injustice-narrative-damning-stats-and-logic
WOW.
“Police petty tyranny has been growing worse in recent years”
No it hasn’t, but as even Aristotle noticed thousands of years ago, democracy fails because people begin to think any police action is unjust and an affront to the notion of liberty, so even basic government functions are seen as tyrannical, thus unacceptable. So-called “police petty tyranny” has definitely NOT been getting worse, but what constitutes “police petty tyranny” has been drastically expanded.
Also, if George Floyd wasn’t been such a provable scumbag, and hopped up on meth and fentanyl at the time of his arrest, I might be even a little bit sympathetic. But every times, EVERY TIME, I’m supposed to get upset about “police petty tyranny” or “police overreach” the guy the cops are dealing with are truly disgusting and violent people.
There’s an easy way to interact with cops. The first and foremost is to simply treat them like human beings, instead of copping an attitude that someone might suspect you of having done something wrong because as we all know you would never do anything wrong or break any law. They are people, too, as human, i.e., flawed, as everyone else. Stop acting like they have to be 100% perfect and professional otherwise unfit for the job. Keep your hands in plain view. Act respectfully, acknowledging they do in fact have authority over you. Don’t be a smart ass and act like they are the gestapo and you’re some victim of the Stasi. You’re not. And comply with their orders. It’s simple, but people act like doing these obvious, common sensical things is little different from living in Nazi Germany. Get the fuck over yourself.
You out yourself by calling the thin blue line “garbage”. Crime is spiking because cops are doing LESS policing. If your BS line were even remotely true, increasing police presence would increase crime, but every time police presence increases crime drops. And vice versa. The cities you see burning right now is because politicians bought into the idea that the thing blue line is “garbage”, so ordered them to stand down. Then the inevitable and easily predictable thing happened: violence and destruction. But, here you are, like a dumbass, writing point 10.
In any decent society, George Floyd would have already been put in jail a long time ago and kept there. Instead, we are gaslighted. And even semi-sane people write tripe like this post.
Really, what we’re seeing here is election year politics on top of a three and a half year meltdown over republicans winning the presidency.