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Crime and Punishment and the Real Battle for America’s Soul
The summer of 2020 is proving to be America’s turning point. It’s a strange time in which individuals, families, and communities are at once experiencing pandemic-induced social isolation and bearing witness to collective strife and upheaval from coast to coast. And both are creating a deep sense of helplessness and chaos and division. I fear we have entered a phase of social awareness in which truth exists not in the human condition, but in its defiance.
After George Floyd’s death, there was a fleeting moment in which good-faith efforts were made towards a collective self-examination. Police reform was on everyone’s lips, from all political stripes and across the country from federal to municipality levels. But the boiling point was past levels of containment. The steam it produced gave renewed power to a machine having no interest in reform, only destruction. And the path was cleared by a cabal of self-serving media interlopers who gain validation through terrorizing consumers.
We’ve been here before. In December 2014, then-President Obama signed an executive order creating the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. It was created in response to the violence in Ferguson, MO, following the police shooting of Michael Brown. Now, almost six years later, little has changed. Life certainly hasn’t improved for the residents of Ferguson. On August 9, there were violent riots as the city marked the grim anniversary. But why? Why the doubling down on the claim of America’s inherent evil? Why, after years, sometimes decades, of leftist policies and one-party control are we dealing with civil unrest, racial division, and uncontrollable street violence? Because no one was allowed to talk about it with clear-eyed honesty and without deflecting blame. There was one narrative to be shown and believed.
America, contrary to race-opportunists’ insistence to the contrary, is a nation well-aware of its original sin. We take great pains to rectify a loss that comes with the dark mark of impurity in this noble experiment of the Founders’ vision. We fought a civil war over it. But all too soon the lure of the image overcame the pursuit of the facts. Empathy Theater is the only stage, and it is a ‘whites-only’ show. It is a shallow and self-interest driven type of activism. The Marxist and Jacobin radicals know how to leverage liberal privilege guilt and they use it at every opportunity to the fullest extent.
The apologists for the violence in the streets – not just the rioters but the gangs, the domestic violence, the daily homicide that surpass records in the most innocuous cities – are engaging in the most demented type of bigotry in the form of virtue signaling. It is a way to fill the utter emptiness of virtue in such people’s lives. It does nothing but signals the disdain for the people being kept victims of their own creation. It is dehumanizing of the basest sort. A whole group of people condemned to dependency based solely on socioeconomic status, education level, or skin color. When people such as Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ibram Kendi, or Ta-Nehisi Coates insight division and hatred based on lies and distorting facts, they are doing it to assert their own power. They use systemic racism to justify the destruction of societal norms and institutions. They use race as an exemption from personal responsibility, as if a person doesn’t have control over his actions simply based on skin color – just as a dog or child cannot be held responsible for its wrongdoing.
This is evidence of regression. Denying facts, and suppressing speech and thought through shame and mob justice is perpetuating racist ideology and is tearing at the moral objectivism that holds a virtuous society together. It happens when the media denies the details of Breonna Taylor’s and George Floyd’s deaths. It happens when they use an alleged racist as a call to justice. It happens when they deny the real champions of hope and opportunity. The angry, shallow, superficially-woke mobs attacked Rand Paul after the RNC convention. They accosted Alice Johnson – pardoned by President Trump in the days following the passing of First Step Act. When the RNC convention featured black speakers, MSNBC’s Joy Reid claimed it was a plot to protect ‘white nationalism’ and Uncle Tom was a trending topic on Twitter.
Slavic Souls (“Crime and Punishment”) by Nicolae Vermont
But freedom has a way of persisting as long as there is hope. Independent thinkers such as Thomas Sowell and Bob Woodson have led the way. Jason Riley, Kmele Foster, Glenn Loury, Coleman Hughes, John McWhorter, Wilfred Reilly, and many others are continually challenging the accepted, leftist propaganda that they are defenseless pawns in a racist America. They broach topics previously deemed untouchable by a fascist left, who is bent on a commitment to reworking human nature to fit their image of utopia. But reducing societal problems to race does nothing but allow liberals to pay lip service without having to sacrifice their place on the subjective moral hierarchy. The left has no appetite to walk in grim determination that allows for the objective truth of human nature: individuals are capable of moral agency. What is so difficult about the principle of conservatism is that we have to confront the moral truth of the human condition. We cannot construct a utopia reflective of a perfect humanity-it doesn’t exist. But for our suffering we attain the freedom of choosing how we react to our situations.
The American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said, “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Utopianism is ineffectual for dealing with reality. The Founders understood this. The people who are actively trying to destroy our democracy know this. In order to know how to act, to have a society that embraces the self-actualization of every person, we have to know who we are. If we allow our enemies to define us and the truth, we will be lost.
Published in General
And therein lies the problem. In attempting to correct the sins of the past, LBJ’s Great Society programs promoted the dissolution of the family and fostered dependency on government.
Because after a half century and over a trillion dollars, poverty hasn’t been eradicated. Instead, we have a permanent underclass – generations of families, both black and white, dependent on government welfare programs. Rather than admit that their policies have not only failed but have made matters worse, Progressives chose to cast around for anything or anyone else to blame. Their new narrative is that their only mistake was to underestimate the inherent racism and disfunction of America. Rather than try something new, they argue, we must double and triple down on their top-down, trickle-down, one-size-fits-all policies.
As if Minneapolis residents and business owners didn’t know how little the government thought of them, it stands in the way of small businesses willing to take another chance on the neighborhood. Prohibiting security bars on their windows. I think they’re trying to run us out of the city.
https://www.americanexperiment.org/2020/08/minneapolis-businesses-rebuilding-after-riots-burned-again-by-city-hall/
[Emphasis added]
Marrying “empathy” and “shallow” like this is spot on.
P.S.:
Bonus points for correct contextualization.
You’re right about the dependency. Government is now the surrogate to orphaned citizens they created. But I think even LBJ would shudder at this level of blatant hatred for self-actualization.
From the linked article:
Actually, I think that it was the Minneapolis officials’ refusal to protect citizens and businesses that created – not the “impression” – but the fact that the city is “unsafe” and “troublesome.”
And I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the justifying the a denial of shutters as causing ‘blight’. I kind of think they’d distract from all the burnt-out buildings and graffiti…
One thing for sure. All our property insurance is going to skyrocket soon. It is going to be harder for low income to afford homes.
Jenna, I like the bulk of your post.
I reject the conclusion that there is a problem with policing. The Michael Brown narrative was a lie, and it looks like the George Floyd narrative is not true, either.
I do not see any evidence of undue police use of force, whether allegedly motivated by race or otherwise.
I think that the brief, bipartisan call for major reform was a mistake. Everyone was played by a false narrative. Even the Republicans – even Rudy Giuliani, in his speech last week – bought into the narrative.
The truth is finally trickling out.
And the people who are able to move out of the city will, leaving those tied to jobs without mobility, and faced with plummeting property values.
I agree with you that the call for police reform was not wise (if you will allow me that). But I disagree that I concluded there is a problem with policing. Quite the contrary. I wrote that even after President Obama’s Task Force, there is still the same civil unrest here in MN, and in Ferguson. The platitudes accomplished nothing. Further, I argue the detailed truth of George Floyd’s death was obscured to the same level as Michael Brown’s to the point it becomes more legend than fact. So it’s being used to perpetuate a narrative of systemic racism that is inherently incurable, even after so-called reforms of 6+ years ago. I’m not always as clear in writing as I think I am in my head (be thankful you don’t live there 😉), so thank you for your feedback. It’s always appreciated!
which was incited by organizers who want violent insurrection. These organizers including the future founders of Black Lives Matter. This was a Big Lie campaign that involved and still involves the collaboration of the major news organizations in the United States, and many federal officials
and founded on a series of lies about the Michael “the gentle giant” Brown, the violent attacks he committed on a merchant and then on a police officer.
the revolutionary organizations that coalesced around the Ferguson riots continued their efforts, raised money, and trained people at every level of their operations. In accordance with the revolutionary strategy which seeks to destroy the capitalist entities that enable people to make a living outside the State,
Or else.
Jenna, in further follow-up to your #10, here’s the part of the OP to which I was objecting:
In my view, there were not good-faith efforts toward a collective self-examination. There was a rush to judgment in support of a false narrative of widespread police murder of black men, in ignorance of the facts in three ways:
So I don’t see a “good-faith effort” toward “collective self-examination.” I see fake news from the Left, and an astonishing failure to push back on the narrative from the Right. At least Heather MacDonald, and a few others, countered the third point above, but even they conceded the first two points.
Basically, Left-wing radicals played everyone, and the politicians and pundits on the Right jumped on the bandwagon.
A good-faith effort toward a collective self-examination would reject the “systemic racism” narrative, and put the burden of proof on its proponents. They would be required to carefully and analytically rule out alternative explanations, including cultural differences (especially the high levels of illegitimacy and family breakdown among blacks and much higher levels of crime) and the possibility of genetic differences contributing to a different distribution of characteristics between groups (including IQ and tendency toward violent behavior).
This is precisely the discussion that has been forbidden by the Wokeist “cancellation” tactics. It is the opposite of a good-faith discussion. It is Orwellian, with the Two Minutes Hate directed at anyone who suggests an alternative explanation for differences in average (or median) group outcomes.
It’s a tough discussion to have. The possibility of a genetic component in group differences is particularly troublesome, but there is substantial evidence in favor of this hypothesis, and it would be helpful if we were sufficiently grown-up to properly and calmly investigate the facts.
Jenna,
Michael Brown got himself shot dead in broad daylight in a black neighborhood. Black witnesses came forward and corroborated Officer Wilson’s story that Brown put his head down and charged him. The autopsy performed three times by three different agencies, one federal, produced the evidence that backed this up. Nothing has ever stopped the lie of “hands up don’t shoot”. Nothin stopped the professional rioters from going into Furguson and burning half the community down.
Lies and evil behavior just promote more lies and evil behavior. The cycle will never end as long as it goes unchallenged. If there is racism in this country it is among those who believe that Wilson gunned down Michael Brown in cold blood. Good faith efforts can’t succeed in an atmosphere of corruption and lies. First, we must stop the liers from obtaining any more power then we can try to help the problem.
Regards,
Jim
I understand your complaints, but I don’t really understand the fixation with this very small part of my post…but as a rebuttal, I’m sticking to what I wrote. Discussions require two parties. I think it’s fair that common-sense people like you and me, after George Floyd’s death, talked about the realities of police shootings- that it’s not the terrorism against black men that media almost always makes it seem. And we can listen to how black people may feel unfairly targeted for things like petty crimes. That’s a discussion. I tend to think this has very little to do with race and much more to do with poverty, but that’s besides the point here. The other part of the good faith discussion is police specifically, not only the necessity of their tactics, but also concern for their safety-both physical and especially mental. Here in Minneapolis, many cops are under incredible amount of stress with little relief. I think that’s a very important discussion, actually. I’m sorry I didn’t put these in my post, but I already feel I write posts that are too long, so…that’s all I got. You lawyers, always need the last word, huh?
You’re probably right about that last part. :)
Sorry about this. I’m quite sensitive about the George Floyd incident, out of frustration for the failure of the media, and conservative politicians and pundits, to accurately report the facts. Every time I hear or read a reference to the “killing of George Floyd,” I want to respond with “you haven’t established that he was killed.” This led me to quibble about a small part of your post. My apologies.
Of course, there I go getting the last word again. I hope that’s OK when the word is “sorry.”
There’s no need for apologies. And you deserve the last word on this, because it’s a very important piece of current culture that seems inescapable and overlooked in its contribution to the madness: the failure of accountability and learning (and apologizing!) for making gross assumptions ahead of fact-finding. From Russia-Gate, Believe All Women, COVID, and notably the Nick Sandman situation, to what we discussed here in Michael Brown and George Floyd. Facts and the honest pursuit of truth are secondary to salaciousness and narrative shaping. There is a rush to judgment instead of thoughtful examination. And what’s troublesome is this keeps happening- over and over again no matter how many times the media and political theorists, etc, are forced to walk back their initial assertions. Bravo to you for thinking independently. It’s becoming a lost virtue. Thank you, and the rest of the Ricochet community for allowing for such enriching and engaging civil discussions!
More like 22 trillion, roughly equal to the national debt. In extremely simple terms, we could ask what we’ve gotten for that debt load, that the people who work for a living – and people who have yet to be born – have borne and will bear for the rest of their lives.
https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/commentary/assessing-the-great-society