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The Only Answer Is to Speak the Truth
There is only one answer to the events that are unfolding around us: Speak the truth. It’s not hard to find. Even the Washington Post sort of stumbled over it. Key quote:
In a year-long study, The Washington Post found that the kind of incidents that have ignited protests in many U.S. communities — most often, white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings. Meanwhile, The Post found that the great majority of people who died at the hands of the police fit at least one of three categories: they were wielding weapons, they were suicidal or mentally troubled, or they ran when officers told them to halt.
There is no war on black lives by the police. There never has been, and a simple look at statistics shows it. It’s obvious why Democrats want to foster this myth. What is so depressing is that Republican politicians are so cowed by the media and charges of “racism” that they are unwilling to publicly and forthrightly challenge it.
If there is war on black lives, it’s being waged by other blacks. In 2014, nearly 6,100 blacks were murdered. Of those, some 2,451 were known to be killed in “single victim/single offender” incidents* and, of those, 90 percent were killed by other blacks. That’s the real war on black lives. And I think everyone really knows it, but they go along with the media narrative for their own cynical reasons.
The true moral rot in our culture is the lack of courage to speak the truth, and it is endemic to both parties. There is only one solution and, fortunately, it is not hard: Start speaking the truth.
It would be a game-changing moment if a Republican leader like Speaker Paul Ryan or Senator Mitch McConnell did it (I know; don’t laugh). Nothing will change until they come to realize that. For there is a point when all the maneuvering, political calculations, and clever positioning no longer matter and only the truth does, even for self-interest politicians. That point happened a long time ago, and here is hoping they finally realize it.
* Editor’s Note: The FBI does not publish similar statistics for other circumstances. For reference, though, about 48 percent of murders in 2014 were known to have been committed by one individual against another, and about 12 percent were known to involve multiple assailants against a single victim, and about 30 percent involve a single victim by an unknown number of assailants. Less than 10 percent of all murders that year involved multiple victims.
Published in Domestic Policy
Thank you, J. —can I cut-paste-share this with some folks? Actually, I’m sort of inclined to share it with my representatives…
This is the part I still don’t quite get. That is, I get it in theory—the deaths of young black men at the hands of the police is a distraction from the failure of democratic policies to improve the lives of black Americans—but it still seems so self-destructive. After all, in a city like Baltimore the police aren’t some strange, separate entity imposed on a Democrat-dominated city government, they are the city government.
Yes—and it’s appalling. Why isn’t anyone willing to say so and point out, moreover, that there is a connection between the rate of violent crime in inner-city black communities, and the actions of the police, including use of force?
Cut and paste all you like, Kate.
Some people do point it out – like on NR or other conservative publications. Heather McDonald is very good on this. Unfortunately it won’t matter until mainstream politicians start saying it. I actually have some hope they might – but only because they are running out of other options.
The only question is whether it’s collateral damage to their quest for power and control or purposeful and tactical. Progressives know what their policies have accomplished and never miss an opportunity to exacerbate the perverse results.
It’s not a bug — it’s a feature.
Democrats do not maintain a deathgrip on the black demographic despite this abuse, but because of it.
Pace Johnson.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for rank-and-file politicians to suddenly start speaking the truth.
The minute they do, the anointed will go after them for their obviously racist, fascist, hateful policies.
You’d best arm yourself before you try.
And this could be wishful thinking on my part, and I have no real evidence for it (like there is evidence for the absence of cop war on blacks), but I get the sense that the moment might be finally at hand where people just want to hear the truth spoken to them. Blacks know they are being used by the Democrat Party, and by their own so-called “leadership.” They live the daily carnage in their streets.
In any event, pandering hasn’t earned Republicans any black votes. Why not give truth a chance?
Yes, that has been the plotline so far. One of the lessons to learn from Donald Trump is that the old plotlines aren’t playing out as they used to. The racism charges, etc., will fly. But there comes a point where they don’t work anymore – just like in the Soviet Union, there came a point where it didn’t work anymore to threaten someone as an enemy of the people. If the mainstreamers are savvy enough to intuit that such a moment may be at hand, then they may work up the courage merely out of self-interest.
No, I’m not holding my breath. But I can’t shake the sense that things have changed and the old playbook isn’t working any more – both for good and ill.
I’m in full agreement. But the truth is not a highly lauded virtue anymore. Power is up at the top of priorities and doesn’t care a whit about truth. We can all choose to do our part, individually, to live our lives in truth, but I doubt those in power will care to. But I thank you for the post, J.
I’m sorry to rain on your meme, but it is not the job of Ryan or McConnell to challenge the idiocy of the blacklivesmatter movement. It’s just not. They are legislators, not culture warriors. I understand that you want them to be culture warriors, but the positions they hold are ill-suited to that role. If they both took to the floor of their respective houses of Congress, and made 8 hour long speeches on this subject, nobody would be watching and nobody would know anything more about it than whatever NBC News reported in a 15 second story.
The job of being a culture warrior falls to the conservative media. And they are doing their job. Bill O’Reilly talks about the false narrative of blacklivesmatter, and the real bloodbath going on in Chicago and other inner cities, several times each week. And he has been reporting that story for years now. So have many other conservative voices.
There is no legislation in Congress that would thrust this issue onto the to do list of Ryan or McConnell. They have plenty on their plates without taking on an obligation to refute the claims of every wingnut group that takes to the streets chanting nonsense. They have actual jobs to do, and getting distracted by every wingnut who comes along is not part of their job description. And if you call them cowards for that, I call you deluded.
Can’t speak the truth. It is too dangerous and can have too many repercussions. Best to keep your head down and your mouth shut.
You haven’t been paying attention. This is the era of post-modernism. The whole problem is that THERE IS NO TRUTH! Speak all you want. Its meaningless. Your truth is merely a fabrication in your racist, misogynist, fascist, CIS-gendered, mind according to a large minority in this culture. In short order, that minority will be a majority. When that happens, we will be back in the Dark Ages.
Maybe their job is to promote that bluelivesmatter?
We are all culture warriors now, because the left is waging total war. When the left uses the latest atrocities to push gun control or anti-police legislation, it is the duty of elected officials to push back – and the best weapon for that is the truth.
WSJ reporting ….
Dallas Shooting Suspect Targeted White Officers, Was Killed When Officials Detonated Bomb
They do speak the truth. All the time. You don’t hear them so much because they don’t have a bully pulpit. The President does have a bully pulpit, so he can address these issues. You know who else has a bully pulpit, and should be speaking out? Trump. Unlike Ryan or McConnell, Trump can make a speech and get it heard by the public. But I have never once heard him mention blacklivesmatter.
Now, you mention gun control. That actually is an issue in Congress, and Ryan has spoken out forcefully on the subject. At the moment, though, the lead issue is Hillary Clinton’s non-indictment, so that is what Ryan is currently talking about. Yesterday he asked the Director of National Intelligence to deny her a security clearance during the campaign, which I thought was kind of clever.
Our guys do speak the truth – all day, every day. But we, who should be supporting them, spend all day, every day whining. Many on our side don’t even bother to look at what our representatives are saying before we start whining that they haven’t said anything. I’m tired of it.
Its a classic power-grab, and its worked for centuries: Inflame the passions and anger of people by by blaming their problems on a targeted group. These power-hunger ‘blamers’ promise to fix the problem, punish the targeted and improve the lives of the masses. It worked most recently in Venezuela for Chavez and his successor where, even though they were the government, they told the people that the ‘rich’ were holding them back, and Chavez would punish the rich and use their money to help the people. Hitler did it with Jews and other targeted groups, Mao did it…. classic technique. And isn’t this what Community Organizing IS: stirring up anger, then marshaling that anger for ‘change’.
It is a mystery for me why people fall for it – but they do.
Sadly, I would argue they are not doing their job very well – for they are, by and large, pompous blowhards preaching only to the choir. (And I write that as someone who largely agrees with their positions.)
If the conservative media wants to change hearts and minds, they need some new talent. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly are never going to accomplish that. They are too polarizing, too brash, as personalities.
But I don’t think that is going to happen. I’m just cynical enough to believe that the conservative media, like its liberal counterpart, is more than happy speaking only to its base audience.
How can we say that black lives matter when we no longer even know why life matters?
You condemn Trump for not challenging blacklivesmatter, which is certainly fair, but your link is to Ryan talking about gun control – not challenging blacklivesmatter himself. As far as I know Congressional Republican leaders carefully avoid the subject.
As long as they do, and refuse to state the obvious about what is going on, they will always be playing on the left’s terms, playing defense, and bound to lose in the long run.
Yes, the topic yesterday was Hillary. Today it will be Dallas. A perfect time for Ryan to point out that the alleged injustice for which the atrocity was committed is a myth.
Now I am so angry at Obama that I am no longer interested in making excuses for him or attempting to understand. All done.
Right now, Ryan’s job is to hold his caucus together in opposing the Democrats’ efforts to pass gun control legislation. So far, he has blocked the Democrats on that repeatedly – for which I see him getting no credit here on Ricochet. Winning that legislative fight is what is important, and I would be happy to see Ryan avoid getting distracted by tangents. I don’t care if he makes a speech about blacklivesmatter. Let someone else give that speech. Let him focus on gun control legislation, which must be defeated. Just win, baby.
One could accurately say that … 0bama’s chickens are coming home to roost …. and the collateral damage on our country is horrific.
They fall for it because if they can’t blame someone else for the mess they are in they have to take personal responsibility and DO something to fix the mess, climb out of the hole, etc. In other words grow up. So it seems like the easy way out. But it is really a trap.
Jim Geraghty @NRO echoes my thoughts today ….
The summer of 2016, the time America lost it’s collective mind
When this president took office, he promised hope and change. The few officers that should not be in that role do not represent the majority of law enforcement who risk their lives daily to protect law abiding citizens. While Obama spoke out when the shooting incidents in Baltimore, etc. took place, it was an opportunity for him to talk about why the inner city crimes and conditions among minorities have not improved. He also should have stood with law enforcement encouraging them. You cannot take sides and demonize those who protect us over those who are breaking the law. This is not 1962, but it feels like it. I think Obama has emboldened the wrong people. He needs to buy a house in Chicago, not the DC burbs, and return to community organizing. It is a terribly sad day (year) for race relations in America and for our beloved law enforcement community.
This atrocity executed by four individuals acting in concert against innocent individual police officers is a consummate example of the collective blaming of a problem on a targeted group instead of probing to find and act on the true cause of police actions against individuals, many of whom are black and some small numbers of which are crimes committed by individual rogue police officers.
This cultural influence, instituted through leftist educational approaches, has substituted this mob mentality and group ‘think’, if such can be called thinking, for the individual thought processes that should be developed when the young are educated. This tragic event falls clearly into this realm. This must change if we are to get a different result.
My theory was always that the intention of the Left has always been evil and oppression for its’ own sake.
They just changed their advertising over the years to something that was more palatable to an honorable citizenry and their heightened sensibilities. But they needed to bribe black Americans in order to get things off the ground.
The end result of their agendas leads to an ultimate reality that would make their eugenist forebearers proud.
Also, read something similar in a Thomas Sowell book. So it has to be right.
This.
As for why no one acknowledges the obviousness of the Truth, simply put, the black charlatans have made personal accountability equal to total and complete betrayal within “black community”.
It’s never outrightly stated but it’s there. You can feel it just by looking at them lol.
Taken alone and engaged in candid conversation any one of my black friends can be heard acknowledging how effed our communities are and how effed up we can be but they never make the link between that reality and what its effects would look like amongst our people.
They’ve been trained not to see it.
This is a fact I’ve experienced throughout my whole life and witnessed with my own eyes in adults, geezers, authority figures, ignorant, educated and all.
If you are power hungry, they are easy pickins, it’s just a fact.