Domestic Chaos: Far-Left Upheaval vs. Nation-Preserving Common Sense
These last ten days have been difficult to watch or understand, and certainly difficult to experience for some all-too-close to the destructive mayhem, and for anyone truly concerned about America and our future. With all due respect to the totally unnecessary, unmerited, very tragic death of that gentleman at the hands of an out of control police officer in Minneapolis, we explore thoughts on the, in some cases, destructive aftermath. Most of it jarring and impossible to understand, especially when looking at responsive actions, and listening to the “wisdom” of the person initially quoted below, who has apparently traveled here from the far side of the moon.
That space traveler would seem to be the Democrat Attorney General of Massachusetts, when she was actually reported as saying in a public speech: “Yes, America is burning, but that’s how forests grow.” She later tweeted: “We must seize the opportunity we have right now to build anew in ways that rid us of the institutionalized racism that’s led to America burning today.” Well, no dear madam, it’s the thugs and criminals, you appear to legitimize, who’ve led to the burning (rioting & looting) in many of our major cities today. But burning cities is OK with her, because “that’s how forests grow.” This person was actually elected by voters in this liberal mecca, and is being paid, no doubt handsomely, by the State of Massachusetts. It’s really good to be nowhere near folks with that kind of bizarre philosophy and thought, where dialogue is, we’ll bet, forbidden!
Continuing with mayhem, despite days of rioting in St. Louis last week, only 36 had been arrested and, (wait for it), all have been released back onto the city’s streets. And it gets worse elsewhere. More than 400 of those arrested during the mayhem in New York City were released without bail (thanks to a ridiculous, liberal, no-bail law). I’m absolutely positive that those, who might have actually been given summons, will appear in court as requested, especially because they are all basically “good kids.” And in Washington, D.C., most rioters arrested there were released, with felony charges against them tossed. Looks like those laws are working out really well. Adding to the crime rate, while we were “growing new forests,” several major cities had released prison inmates to, you’ll recall, avoid catching and transmitting the coronavirus; humanitarian gestures that, of course, backfired. Many of those thousands of inmates released (5,000 in LA County alone) no doubt participated in the metro “festivities,” and were soon re-arrested for crimes from robbery to rape.
So how did the American public feel about all of the rioting, burning, and looting? Well, according to a Monmouth University survey, 62% of those aged 18-34 thought the actions of “protesters” were OK, while only 29% disagreed. And here comes a big part of the problem, and its source, 58% of college graduates (most likely the younger ones) responded that “the actions of the “protesters” are justified.” Thank you, liberal professors! That’s only one source, but the trend among the college “educated” is worrisome, especially if they choose to vote in November. Recall that the study appears to have been done early on in the uprisings and refers to “protesters” rather than rioters.
Under the heading of thanks for defending our city, the Democrat mayor of Washington, D.C. told 200 Utah National Guardsmen they would have to leave their downtown Marriott hotel and find other accommodations. Supposedly those rooms had been secured by the city for coronavirus responders, and not for Guardsmen, who were sent to her city to help down the damage. Again, thanks for the hospitality shown to a contingent of your defenders, Ma’am. She apparently saw no need for any National Guard troops to be there, let alone staying in their nice, conveniently located hotels.
Meanwhile back in New York City, where those arrested for “low-level” crimes (e.g., disorderly conduct) would face no charges, looters took $60,000 worth of drugs from a midtown pharmacy, and a gang of about 20 looters, broke-in, entered, and stole $750,000 worth of furs from a family-owned Manhattan store. So that no-charges/no-bail thing was really working out well for law enforcement. Commenting on the looting in NYC, and the Mayor’s (many feel) inadequate response to it, the irrepressible Republican Louisiana Senator John Kennedy reacted by saying: “I don’t know what planet Mayor deBlasio parachuted in from, but I don’t see him carrying his happy ass down there and trying to protect people.”
In LA, during a community leader meeting at a church (supposed to be closed due to the epidemic!), the LA Mayor, referring to calls to “defund the police,” reportedly said to them: “It starts someplace, and we either say we are going to be who we want to be, or we’re going to continue being the killers that we are.” “Killers” meaning police officers! To clarify, he made it clear that he wasn’t referring to their own police, but to “killer” police elsewhere! I’m sure that made it all OK referring to everyone else’s law enforcement officers as “killers.” Anything to appease your voters. By the way, the mayor has now proposed cutting the LAPD budget by more than 10%, and then redistribute those dollars to LA’s “communities of color.”
And finally, among the Democrat leader pandering foolishness, several nights into the mayhem within his city, the mayor of Portland, Oregon, ordered the police not to use their high-volume loud speakers to break up the “protesters.” Perhaps he was concerned about causing hearing loss among the rioters! Or maybe he just didn’t want to further irritate those roaming bands of up-to-no-gooders. Either way, he took an effective crowd dispersing tool away from his officers, because it was upsetting the “peaceful protesters,” who, sadly, in this super-liberal enclave, were anything but.
In the midst of this “peaceful” mayhem, across the nation, where cities had erupted, untold numbers of police officers were being injured, trying to control the damage. In NYC alone, 292 officers had been injured (likely more by final count). Columnist Victor Garcia posed the obvious question amidst the metropolitan violence: “How many more nights like this before no one in America will serve as a police officer? Who will be in charge? Well, violent young men with guns will be in charge. They will make the rules. They will do what they want. You will do what they say.”
And that change impacting police protection is now underway in at least three major U.S. cities, and you can correctly guess which ones (to-date): Minneapolis, NYC, and LA. The latter two mega-municipalities are, so far, talking only of cutting police department budgets (semi-defunding), rather than abolishing the force. Fortunately, so far, Minneapolis, under total Progressive-Socialist domination since forever, is the only one to call (by city council mandate) for the complete “dismantling” of its police department.
So then, who exactly will take on Minneapolis community criminality, if in fact, with this enlightenment, there will even be any? And, of course, there will. With heavy BLM, and accompanying influence of other advocates for radical change, here is their proposed community “policing” plan: “Instead of cops (a.k.a., ‘strangers armed with guns’), mental health providers, social workers, religious leaders and victim advocates could keep law and order.” Yes, and at the end of every rainbow there is a pot of gold. Speaking of “gold,” the activists claim that by pouring a ton of free money at the criminals, those crime-ridden neighborhoods will magically morph into “a place where people don’t need to rob banks.” Another naïve nirvana solution for a perfect fluffy-cloud-filled world! Totally land-of-make-believe stuff, both the lack of actual policing, and the endless demand for more money to feed the now-docile and dependent subjects, satisfying to all except those who aren’t docile and want more money than their neighbors! Wait until the first social worker or mental health provider is robbed, shot, and killed. Then what? More money to hand out, of course, from higher taxes, and from budget savings from the, one would assume, no further need for jails and personnel there in fanciful Minneapoli-Oz.
Back to reality, the last weekend in May, Chicago recorded 85 residents shot, 24 of them fatally. Eighteen of those murders occurring within a 24-hour period, “the single most violent day in Chicago in six decades.” Over the Memorial Day weekend, 40 Chicagoans were shot, 10 of them fatally. Reminder: Chicago is a gun-control city! Sounds like something social workers ought to be ale to handle. And notice how nothing seems to be done to reduce this plague of, primarily, black-on-black crime, which in Chicago, just goes on and on. Apparently, it’s accepted? Certainly not by the families affected week after week.
Moving at last from the side of liberal delusional lunacy to the side of conservative reason and common sense, it seems like a good time to mention that, in a very recent poll, only 16% of those surveyed approved of defunding or abolishing police departments, including 33% of black Americans.
In a recent Fox News interview, black American Iraq War veteran, Rob Smith, spoke the truth about what we all know will happen by dumping or lessening police presence: “The communities that are going to be hurt the most by this move to ‘defund the police’ are lower-income communities, are African-American communities, are people that are living in the inner city, and that are more susceptible to violence, not from police officers and not from the police force, but by people in their own communities.” Black economic empowerment advocate Robert Woodson has proposed an idea to those elites calling for the defunding of police. Said he: “They should demonstrate by example, by getting together and offering up their own zip codes, and then declare themselves a police-free zone. Then watch how all the criminals will line up to go there”!!
Former Missouri Republican Governor Eric Greitens, a black American, put it this way: “I think what’s happening is people around the country have seen there’s this ludicrous liberal leftist logic that just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense for American citizens and unfortunately, you’re seeing the consequences of that in cities across the country.”
Said another fine black American, the former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, indicating that what leftist forces want “is a disruption of civil society so that they can advance their agenda, which is to take America off of the track we’re on, where we are the most diverse, the most prosperous constitutional republic in the history of the world.”
And black American, former NFL player, Burgess Owens, had this to say about what happening in our cities and respect for America’s flag: “Americans don’t like bullies. They don’t like people who demand that we disrespect our flag and our country. I will call these people out for what they are: they’re bullies, they’re cowards, and Marxists. Period. I will always say ‘All Lives Matter.” I don’t care what the bullies say. Black elitists are enemies to my race.” And, finally, well-known author and civil rights veteran, noted black American, Shelby Steele, rejected the claim that America harbors ‘systemic racism.” Said he: “That’s a corruption. It’s a corruption because the truth of the matter is blacks have never been less oppressed than they are today. Opportunity is around every corner.”
Along with the other impactful messages on the subject of purposeful unrest and calls for community-damaging change, from the impressive gentlemen quoted above, the words of Mr. Owens and Mr. Steele are a powerful way to conclude this sampling of very welcome conservative, solid-spine common sense.
And a recent national poll, from Just The News Daily, conducted with the highly-regarded Scott Rasmussen organization, showed that 72% of American voters, including 51% of black voters, have a favorable view of their local police department. Much to the displeasure of most, while many mayors and governors seem to have indicated that their leanings were more toward the “protesters” than with their own police, a very recent Civis poll published by Vox, indicated that “by more than two to one margin, black Americans support the police and 60% of black Americans want more police hired”! These polling findings certainly fly in the face of the reduced or zero policing push, being voiced by about all we’ve heard from leftist community activists and carried by the left-adoring media. With public sentiment expressed, we’ll have to see if radical talk is actually followed by police department elimination or reduction in police personnel action. Oh, and by the way, in another Rasmussen poll, released on June 5, 2020, when asking respondents their feeling about President Trump’s job performance, the “Overall Black Likely-Voter approval” was 41% !! Other non-white likely voter approval stood at 43%. More indication that recent moves and messages from outside activists and community organizers may, ultimately, not be in-sync with prevailing feelings about the President’s job approval, or the reduction of police protection, among minority Americans.
And to conclude on a very positive note, along with all of the above clearly spoken on the common-sense side, listen to this. In the midst of the recent protest in Hartwell, Georgia, when Georgia State Trooper, O’Neal Saddler, was being pressured by some in the crowd to take a knee, to openly show his support for protesters, Trooper Saddler, a proud black American, responded to them, saying “I was supposed to be out of town this weekend with my wife. But, instead, I’m out here to make sure you are all safe. And don’t go there about respect. I have much respect, but I only kneel for one person.” Perhaps surprisingly but thankfully, someone in the crowd responded: “And that’s God.” Trooper Saddler nodded and said “Yes, God.” A heroic, faith-based stance from a great American law enforcement officer, during a very hectic and potentially dangerous time for our great, free, nation.
Forests grow quote via frontpagemag.com, Joseph Klein 6-5-20; Rioters released stats via breitbart.com, John Binder, 6-4-20; Prisoners released stats via frontpagemag.com, Daniel Greenfield, 6-5-20; Protesters justified stats via townhall.com, Matt Vespa, 6-4-20: D.C. Mayor via dailymail.com, Maxine Shen, 6-5-20; Major theft in NYC stats via breitbart.com, John Binder, 6-5-20 and nypost.com, Sara Dorn, 6-6-20; Senator Kennedy quote via dailycaller.com, Scott Morefield, 6-3-20; LA Mayor quote via brietbart.com, Joel B. Pollak, 6-5-20; Portland loudspeakers via nypost.com, Melanie Gray, 6-6-20; NYC injured police stats via foxnews.com, Sam Dorman, 6-5-20; Policing future quote via foxnews.com, Victor Garcia, 6-2-20; Who will patrol quote via nypost.com, Joshua Rhett Miller, 6-8-20; Chicago shooting stats via breitbart.com, Awr Hawkins, 6-8-20; Abolish PD’s stats via breitbart.com, Joel B. Pollak, 6-5-20; Rob Smith quote via foxnews.com, Matt London, 6-7-20; Woodson quote via justthenews.com, Carrie Sheffield, 6-8-20; Greitens quote via foxnews.com, Charles Creitz, 6-7-20; Blackwell quote via dailysignal.com, Virginia Allen, 6-4-20; Owens quote via brietbart.com, Trent Baker, 6-5-20; Steele quote via dailywire.com; Hank Berrien, 6-8-20: Civis poll quotes via nypost.com, Kyle Smith, 6-6-20; Just The News poll via justthenews.com, Carie Sheffield, 6-8-20; Rasmussen poll via powerlineblog.com, John Hinderaker, 6-6-20; Trooper Saddler quote via dailymail.com, Alice Cachia, 6-9-20).