Via the NYT:

More than 60 organizations associated with the Black Lives Matter movement have released a series of demands on Monday, including for reparations. […] “We seek radical transformation, not reactionary reform,” Michaela Brown, communications director of Baltimore Bloc, another participating group, said in a statement. “As the 2016 election continues, this platform provides us with a way to intervene with an agenda that resists state and corporate power, an opportunity to implement policies that truly value the safety and humanity of black lives, and an overall means to hold elected leaders accountable.”

The six planks of this platform are: End the War on Black People, Reparations, Invest-Divest, Economic Justice, Community Control, and Political Power. And if you follow that link, you’ll likely find — as I did — that the actual proposals are even worse than than the titles imply.

In the years leading up to the present, many folks on the Right began adopting a skepticism toward some police powers, including night-time no-knock warrants on drug suspects and “Stop, Question, and Frisk” when used to ensure that all citizens are legally disarmed. The mean-spirited challenge such people often gave — I know because I did it myself several times — is that some folks’ well-earned skepticism for government power evaporated the moment somebody appeared with a badge and a gun muttering something about law and order.

This was not, of course, to deny civil peace required both that there be people with badges and guns protecting our lives and property and that the people doing so required our support for doing their jobs well as much as our opprobrium for abusing their powers. It also acknowledged that our legislators often put police in impossible positions by requiring them to to enforce unjust laws and that the media was often a knowing and eager participant in the trouble.

The Black Lives Matter Movement, however, does not believe any of that. This is evidenced not only by this manifesto, but by their actions, including their celebration of criminals alongside genuine victims, their dismissal of the sacrifices made by black officers, and their repeated incitements to violence. These are not police critics, but Marxist race-separatists.

Policing is deadly serious work and officers deserve to have their work judged — positively and negative — on its merits. But this summer has brought me to the point where reading this profile of some of the hundreds of applicants to the Dallas PD filled me with unmitigated relief.

May they chose the best candidates.