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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
Thank you very much fellow property rights enthusiast. However, you misquoted me. I did not write what you quoted.
Anitfi are not encouraged my their management to get arrested.
And a person’s property is a person’s life. His time and energy to earn it or the money to buy it, or to build it, his creativity to imagine it and bring it into existence. When someone takes his stuff, they are taking his life that went into his having that stuff.
Ha! Somebody said it. I must have highlighted something at some point and then copied it somewhere else and then printed to the wrong post and then…….
Anyway, thanks for the support Henry.
This is what I meant to copy @henrycastaigne
Like to hear from somebody who is more knowledgable, but I have heard that insurance doesn’t normally cover riot or war damage.
Peaceful protests don’t get us anything so we’re gonna . . . steal TV’s
And that’s supposed to show people how wrong racism is? Well, the looters are multi-cultural so maybe that helps for something.
It’s especially slippery to claim that if one protests peacefully and doesn’t get their way, that they are justified in becoming violent. It happens all the time, and it shouldn’t be surprising when it does again, but having something to protest doesn’t make somebody right.
The most common violent protesters are infants and little children, and they know literally nothing about justice.
Next most common: “adults” acting like infants and little children.
Keith Ellison, defender of cop killers
There was no traumatic strangulation or asphyxiation. This does not rule out putting a weight on someone’s back so that he suffocated without trauma.
And almost all heart attacks are occlusive, and this is determinable by autopsy. Yet it doesn’t say this either.
Both can be replaced. Property can be rebuilt, and babies can be made. The problem is, in both cases, the unique property and the unique person cannot be replaced.
But there has to be a good reason to replace the property. Why put up another Target when it’s going to be burned down the next time there’s an incident? Once-burned neighborhoods can easily become business deserts, where no corporation or individual is willing to risk capital investment no matter how many tax breaks they get . . .
Don’t get me wrong I think there’s truth to teams said “let’s not have this in the league” and also that he milked it with diva behavior and demanding starting money so that teams that may have kicked the tires said buzz off while simultaneously playing the “no one wants to sign me” victim card.
But there is no right to be a NFL player. As my father always said when I complained “McDonald’s is always hiring”
Good point. The Tea Party protested very peacefully, years ago. They didn’t exactly get their way. So they ought to be justified in looting Targets and burning things, right?
My elder daughter, who just graduated college, is…well, mostly still conservative, but she’s been around the artsy crowd a bit too long, I’m afraid (architecture major), and her urban, left-wing friends have influenced her on this. She reposted someone else’s take on the riots:
Now, let’s take a look at what’s being said here.
1. The teacher is an expert on toddlers, so she knows how to deal with adults burning down buildings.
2. She identifies the cause and solution to a toddler’s temper tantrum with the riots.
3. We’re supposed to see the riots as coming from so-called “trauma,” and the “trauma” coming mostly from things that ended decades or centuries ago. (Never mind that—it’s “generational” and “deep,” so it can go back as long as you want it to.)
4. The solution to both is to love people and “stand with” them, whatever the latter means in practice, but not to stop the immediate destruction and lawlessness.
If I were black, I think I’d be really insulted that she thinks they have no more moral responsibility or self-control than a toddler. I mean, that’s her explicit comparison. She’s not separating out most blacks from the rioters—she conflates the two!
Someone may have already mentioned it (and if so, I apologize) but when it comes to Kaepernick, that “workout” that the NFL owners scheduled for him; the one that Kaepernick actually boycotted should have shown everyone that Kaepernick is no more interested in playing in the NFL than Michael Moore.
Now, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not saying that a convicted person has no rights however the Minneapolis Police Union is reiterating that George Floyd served five years for assault and robbery and that he had been convicted of charges ranging from theft with a firearm to drugs.
Again, this does not give a police officer the right to act as executioner, but if I were a police officer approaching a known felon, my reactions would be a lot different than if it were a person not known to be a trouble-maker.
Yeah. I’m not sure her definition on trauma is something I’d cosign. Her solution maybe, but only on the condition that people acting like a monster is a manageable size. Child size will do.
More seriously though, I think much of the sentiment which claims our country is fundamentally racist comes from the fact that politically active minorities are surrounded by genuine racists – but ones with smiles.
Maybe she’s using “martyr” as “witness”.
It’s a reasonable tangent, I think. As far as throwing blame around goes, mightn’t the members of America’s education system be responsible for the inability of these young people to articulate themselves in a constructive manner. When people can’t express themselves, they tend to go unheard.
That’s a generous interpretation. I’ve never seen that usage.
Do we know whether they knew that about him at the time?
Not sure, but I suspect that, having done time in the slam, the guy had some issues. Plus, if he gave his correct name and the officers called it in, it would have probably come back that he wasn’t exactly a debutante.
Again, this doesn’t mean that he deserved to die but, out on the streets, it’s a different world.
Beats me! I’ve long had a deep skepticism of what our Teachers’ Ed departments actually teach our future teachers, and this girl is not raising my opinion.