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Of Course This is Because We Rejected Kaepernick.
On Facebook, I would reckon that most of my friends are conservative of one stripe or another. Most of them are old school friends, and we’re from a conservative county in the Smoky Mountains. Several others are college friends, and Rhodes was a moderately conservative campus, overall. But with both environments, we have our exceptions. And they have opinions this week and decided to share them with the rest of us.
You see, the riots that started in Minneapolis and spread around the country, complete with vandalism, arson, battery, and now the killing of a couple of law enforcement officers… those are understandable and shouldn’t be criticized. Those who object to this say that the rioters should be expressing themselves peacefully? Oh, like Colin Kaepernick, right? Well, if you criticized Kaepernick for his peaceful protest, then you’re a hypocrite for criticizing the violent riots now.
I’ve seen so many friends and acquaintances making this argument that I wanted to work out my objection to it. There are a couple of directions to tackle it from: The first is that I have seen nobody arguing that the man killed by Minneapolis police was treated justly. There has been tremendous sympathy for him and his family, and desire for justice to be done. When peaceful protests began, I heard no criticism at all. The only criticism has been of the violence and destruction of property, especially that directed against people, places, and businesses that had nothing to do with the killing. There cannot be any defense of this mob violence in a civilized society.
The second argument is that the criticism of Kaepernick was that he was dragging politics into sports, where people didn’t want to see it. His action, as he explained to us, was intended as a sign of disrespect of the American flag and the country for which it stands. It was unpatriotic in its motivation, and that offended a lot of us, even those who don’t watch football. His stunt was directed, not against any specific police who were guilty of brutality, but against police in general. Think of the “pigs” socks he showed off. Moreover, he was probably doing this all because he was expecting to get cut by his team for not being up to par. A race-oriented political stunt was a last-ditch attempt to make himself unfireable.
I went out running through our city park today, and I saw a crowd assembling with signs against police brutality. There’s been none of that here, from anything I know, but I don’t object to the protest in principle. As long as they’re peaceful, as they seem to be, that’s all fine. But if there’s any vandalism or violence, I’m going to be really angry with them, and it won’t be a matter of hypocrisy.
Published in Policing
Aside from the Kaepernick argument, I’ve also heard a lot of people — including owners of the very businesses destroyed in the riots — saying things like, “Well, property can be replaced, but lives can’t!” or, “Dude, chill out. It’s just stuff!” . . . as if all crimes short of assault or outright murder are nothing at all. They seem to think that burning down a grocery store or pillaging a Target is no different from punching a pillow. Hey, man. We’ve all gotta blow off steam somehow!
The sense of entitlement is astounding.
The acceptance of anti-social behavior is astounding.
I am going to start sounding like a broken record on this point, but I am not going to stop.
It is not established that George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police. The information that we have — from a probable cause statement that summarizes a preliminary autopsy report — is that he was not strangled. My preliminary impression is that he had a heart attack as a result of the stress of being stopped for apparently committing two crimes — passing a counterfeit bill, and drunk driving. The details are limited, thus far, and he is entitled to the same presumption of innocence as the officers.
The probable cause statement says that Mr. Floyd said that he couldn’t breathe while he was still standing, on the other side of the car. We don’t yet know the precise timing of this. It is consistent with a heart attack, and not consistent with strangulation.
The autopsy results will be interesting. I do not know whether a heart attack would leave conclusive evidence on the heart, or other physical evidence, that could be found by an autopsy.
One cheer for Kaepernick. He’s putting his money where his mouth is, and his contribution may mean less spent on public defenders.
I’m replying to myself because I need to correct an error.
A video shows Mr. Floyd being taken out of his vehicle by officers, from the driver’s seat. I assumed that he was driving.
It seems likely that he was not actually driving at the time. On reviewing the Dragon Wok video again (here), it appears that Mr. Floyd’s vehicle was parked next to this restaurant, across the street from Cup Foods, which seems to be something like a Middle Eastern restaurant and convenience store. It was a Cup Foods employee who made the 911 call about Mr. Floyd buying cigarettes with a counterfeit bill.
Now that I understand the locations, it seems probable that Mr. Floyd did not move his vehicle after buying the cigarettes from Cup Foods. It seems more likely that he just returned to his vehicle, and was sitting in the driver’s seat when the police arrived.
It is possible that this would still qualify as drunk driving, perhaps if the engine was on, but I don’t know either: (1) if the engine was on, or (2) if it would be drunk driving under Minnesota law to be sitting at the wheel of a parked car with the engine on. I also don’t know whether Mr. Floyd was actually drunk (though the 911 caller said he was), and if so, I don’t know whether he was over the legal limit.
Kephalithos
Aside from the Kaepernick argument, I’ve also heard a lot of people — including owners of the very businesses destroyed in the riots — saying things like, “Well, property can be replaced, but lives can’t!” or, “Dude, chill out. It’s just stuff!” . . . as if all crimes short of assault or outright murder are nothing at all. They seem to think that burning down a grocery store or pillaging a Target is no different from punching a pillow. Hey, man. We’ve all gotta blow off steam somehow!
The sense of entitlement is astounding.
Yes, lives are more important than property. But when people in a poor neighborhood don’t have a place to buy food because the stores have been burned down and no one wants to build there anymore… Lives are endangered.
Every time we turn around, zero-dollar bail is being implemented somewhere, and one or another set of criminals is being released from one or another jail, so it’s hardly surprising that lots of people seem to believe that there won’t be any consequences for their actions, especially if they’re “just” looting and burning buildings down. I’ve been busy, and haven’t really kept up with this–are they locally-sourced riots for the most part, or are there rent-a-mobs touring the country stirring things up?
I read a statement from the daughter of the owner of a restaurant that was burned. She says her father told the fire department to let it burn, because the dead man needed justice.
I would like to commend people like that for being exemplars of Christian forgiveness, but I’m afraid that’s not it. I think they somehow think there’s some appropriate connection to be made between a brutal police action and destroying the possessions of somebody else. That attitude is unchristian. You can forgive this, but you can’t justify it.
I’m willing to have it settled with an investigation and a trial and to withhold at least most of my judgement until we see everything. The truth is the important thing.
That man has no business being in business.
Maybe we need labels for businesses that agree to be destroyed.
Contrast the tears of the man in Minneapolis who had sunk months of physical labor and his life’s savings into creating a pub scheduled to open in the next week or two, only to have the pub destroyed by rioters, followed shortly by rioters burning the entire building to the ground. That pub was more than “just stuff.” It was his dreams, his aspirations, his sweat, his time and life spent pursuing those dreams and aspirations. No, those cannot be replaced.
It’s hard to say. About 10% have out of state addresses listed on licenses, but the Twin Cities spans a state border and is a university town, so by those numbers, it is not reasonable to think people are coming from out of state for this. At least not in Minneapolis.
There could, however, still be Rent-a-Mob going on. College students seem ripe for that kind of thing.
If you look at the Twitter feed of Andy Ngo, one of the things you will see is the set of mug shots from the pathetically few arrests the feckless Portland police actually made. On most of them, he notes they were already released by the time he posted their mug shot. As an aside, the tweet stream of the Portland police department is a form of black humor. It is in the style of “If you don’t stop rioting and beating people and setting cars on fire, we are going to have to ask you to leave the area!”
About the rioters themselves: locally sourced, I suspect. Minneapolis reports most of the arrests were people from Minnesota. I saw this morning that Pittsburgh arrests were also largely local. To me this suggests that Antifa has been building up local forces all over the county for a while now. Aided and abetted by the fact that an arrest for rioting typically results in a fine, or nothing. No disincentive to riot seems to exist. If you don’t have a job and live in your mom’s basement, it’s something to do with your time.
Are they organized? You bet. Somehow pallets of bricks have been handy for the rioters to use, even on streets that have no construction going on.
One broken record begets another. The reason that it’s not yet “established” one way or the other is that we’re awaiting further (and, perhaps, definitive) evidence in the autopsy What we do know is that Floyd was under restraint for a period of time and in a manner that is inexplicable to the average person. Even if we assume Floyd died of a heart attack, that is no guarantee the officer’s actions were not contributory. This is reflected in both the preliminary findings and the charge that was brought against Chauvin.
Property is an extension of humanity. The right to freedom of press exists because the government cannot take your printing presses away and because they protect newspapers from mobs that disagree with the newspapers. Likewise, you can’t have freedom of religion if the government burns down your church. “The argument that it’s just stuff is rubbish.” The home that you raise your kids in is, just stuff. My Grandfather’s medals are just stuff. The food you eat and the car you need to get to work are just stuff.
Stuff is important. You need a good reason to take away people’s stuff. That’s why we fought the British Empire. They were taking our stuff unfairly.
Not that is should matter, but… lots of those guys are minorities. In fact, minorities tend to have a rougher time getting ahead because of crime.
Also, two of the cops present and subsequently fired, are what the left would call “People of Color.” It’s is just a mystery but the Black Muslim state AG is now in charge of the prosecution so we know somebody will get hung.
And, of course, one needs to know how his insurance policy reads.
People forget that the Kaepernick protest wasn’t about any sort of higher cause, it was about him getting traded or cut
So the purpose of the protest changed depending on what it needed to be to get more outrage.
I personally find Kaep’s antics to be manipulative to a willing audience, whether it be the Che shirt in Miami or the cops as pigs socks. The other half of that equation is Kaep opted out of his contract. Teams didn’t sign him because he was going to throw temper tantrums off field and because defenses had figured him out on field. It’s oppression in the same way the kid with the face tattoos complains he can’t get a job.
People of the left idolize 1968 to the point they always want it to be 1968. It’s like the quarterback that still hangs around the high school. So everyone’s acting like we just repealed Jim Crow yesterday without coming to terms with things like how the Great Society didn’t help.
When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail
When I see the claim that he’s better than some fraction of the quarterbacks now playing, it amuses me. His effectiveness fell off greatly, and he did not deserve playing time. Third string? Maybe.
Another problem: the last picture I saw of him suggests he could no longer get a helmet on over that massive do.
Yeah, probably best for us to stay away from arm chair “Zaprudering.”
The average amateur – like me – would have to work at it and have some time to think about it to distinguish alcohol affected behaviour from drug affected behaviour. And not be trying to check a bill for counterfeit. Presumably the chem analysis will set that straight. Thanks for hewing to how criminal legal analysis ought to begin, notwithstanding how hard it is to stick to facts when the hysterical horse is out of the barn and running to the coast, whipped on by a crazy horse thief who’s throwing flaming matches into the brush as he goes. With Ellison in charge of the case I doubt it will deal much with evidence or criminal law.
During Occupy in Oakland I saw a guy interviewed on TV who had just watched his car set on fire. His reaction was along the lines of: “Well, I guess they have a point…”
That’s funny, my reaction would’ve been “WHAT THE….YOU BLEEPHOLES, YOU SET MY CAR ON FIRE!”
Being this woke is a societal death sentence.
That’s right. And it’s the ugly left that sanctions crime in minority neighborhoods. I wish I could say they’ve grown stupid enough to make it evident to everyone, but people of the left will hang on to their lies until they’re dispossessed.
You do not hear that nonsense from a small business owner who just lost his entire life work in an act of terroristic violence directed at nothing that he had anything to do with.
What? I’ll believe that when I hear it…out of the man’s mouth itself. I will say, at one time I owned a business and it’s physical building. I didn’t want anyone to hear mat–just in case– so I only whispered to my wife: “Honey, we’d get more money out of this business if it burnt to the ground then we would selling it.” That can happen because insurance makes you buy more than you need in order to get full coverage for a complete loss.
I hope his fire insurance doesn’t pay off.
Near the border of Wisconsin, but doesn’t appear to cross it.
My only beef with your article is that you failed to mention that Kapernick was a crappy quarterback who lost his job to Blaine Gabbert (you have to be really bad to lose out to Blaine Gabbert). I think any conversation concerning Kapernick needs to start there.
Right on, @henrycastaigne. The right to own property is essential to freedom itself. The basic unit of property is one’s own personal work and/or thoughts, without which we are slaves.