Ducking the issue

Police violence.

Nowadays, nearly everybody is talking about it. Over the years, I’ve kvetched about SWAT team raids, the War on Drugs, Homeland Security, militarization of law enforcement, etc., etc. more times than I care to imagine.

In the latest national meme, liberals are doing everything they can to conflate police violence with racism. Nice try, but it won’t work. When police are in war mode, the race of their victims is irrelevant. And in my opinion it is not honest to scream about police violence only if the victims happen to be black.

Liberals don’t seem to have a problem with lethal force per se; they are only concerned with the race of those subjected to it.

What liberals can’t bear to face is a stark and ugly fact. By their very nature, laws are designed to be backed up by — and enforced with — lethal force. The power to compel with state power means the power to kill.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is a typical example of this cognitive disconnect:

Police first engaged Eric Garner, for example, after being explicitly ordered to crack down on the sale of loose, untaxed cigarettes. Afterward, New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, resisted attempts to connect strict enforcement of petty laws, which are disproportionately applied to poor, largely minority, communities, to the spate of police violence in the city last summer. He insisted police would continue to “strictly enforce” the petty laws because “the law is the law.” Commitment to the law didn’t stop de Blasio from operating New York as a sanctuary city because of the perceived injustice of immigration laws but did stop him from pulling police back from the kinds of interactions that inherently introduce violence—police authority backed by the use of force—to non-violent situations—things like selling loose cigarettes or possessing drugs.

If liberals want laws like the ones they keep passing, police violence will continue unabated.

No wonder they’re focusing on race.

If race continues to be the primary focus, then the obvious “solution” will not be to get rid of lethal force, but to redirect it.

(And as M. Simon notes, plenty of people are always lining up to oblige.)


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6 responses to “Ducking the issue”

  1. Bram Avatar
    Bram

    Liberals LOVE them some police state! And if a few of their own get killed or jailed along the way, well, you know what they say about omelettes.

    The problem is that most on the Right haven’t figured it out yet and keep apologizing for the cops. Then they get all crazy when the police state gets directed at them.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisconsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french

  2. captain*arizona Avatar
    captain*arizona

    In arizona and many red states it is conservatives who have no problem with coercing people to do what they want. Closing down planned parent hood clinic that do abortions, trying to make it a crime to help or feed the homeless, stop american citizens from registering to vote, mandatory drug testing for anyone they don’t like. Banning gay marriage, I could go on but people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. By the way my screenplay on the arizona republican police state is up at my website: thealamoisavenged.com give it a read and tell me what you think.

  3. Veeshir Avatar

    Liberals LOVE them some police state! And if a few of their own get killed or jailed along the way, well, you know what they say about omelettes.

    Bingo, bango, bongo.

    They couldn’t care less about the race except insofar as it allows them to act all virtuous as they gain more control over our lives.
    Which control is implemented by police.

    Which is kind of funny if you think about it, they’re decrying the police while saying only the police should have guns.

  4. Gringo Avatar
    Gringo

    captain*arizona
    In arizona and many red states it is conservatives who have no problem with coercing people to do what they want… to make it a crime to help or feed the homeless.

    It can be problematic to equate “conservative” versus “liberal” regarding the policies of individual cites regarding the homeless, because these cities are governed by Democrats and/or Republicans. Nonetheless, I suspect that our captain friend would accept the assumption that a Republican is a conservative, and a Democrat is not a conservative. The following article indicates that it isn’t just Republicans who are hostile to the homeless. From Cities All Over America Are Becoming Extremely Cruel To The Homeless

    And what the city of Camden, New Jersey just did is even worse than what happened in Daytona Beach.

    Camden just bulldozed an entire tent city and dumped all of the belongings of the homeless people living there into the trash…

    I doubt that Camden is considered a hotbed of conservatism. When did Camden last elect a Republican mayor?

    Or consider this vignette from Hawaii

    In the past two weeks residents in Hawaii noticed what appeared to be a crazed individual carrying a sledgehammer through the streets of Honolulu, a state lawmaker looking to rid the city of homeless people by targeting their belongings.

    State Representative Tom Brower (D) is currently dedicated to dealing out his own personal brand of “justice” by seeking out homeless people and destroying their possessions. Brower estimates that he has used the sledgehammer to smash at least 30 shopping carts, rendering them useless by bashing in the front wheels.

    “I got tired of telling people I’m trying to pass laws. I want to do something practical that will really clean up the streets,” he told Hawaii News Now. “I find abandoned junk, specifically shopping carts, and I remove them.”

    A Democrat. Whooda thunkit?

    Or consider the Daytona Beach fine for feeding the homeless. 2012 Election results for Volusia County,which includes Daytona Beach, show that 47.8% voted for Obama, compared to 49.94% for Romney. As Daytona Beach is 35.4% Black, compared to 10.4% for Volusia County, it is a fair conclusion that Daytona Beach, with its ordinance against feeding the homeless, voted for Obama.

    A substantial proportion of the homeless are mentally ill, alcoholics, or non-alcoholic drug addicts that cannot take care of themselves. Had the mental hospitals not been shut down, an initiative largely supported by Democrats, our homeless population wouldn’t be so large.

    As for myself, the cops have been called to get the homeless off the condo complex where I live. I have supported this. If our captain arizona friend is opposed to that, we can provide such homeless with a bus ticket so that the homeless can camp out on captain arizona’s property.

  5. Gringo Avatar
    Gringo

    captain*arizona
    In arizona and many red states it is conservatives who have no problem with coercing people to do what they want… to make it a crime to help or feed the homeless.
    sss
    Appeals court says Orlando can restrict feeding of homeless downtown

    A federal appeals court ruled unanimously Tuesday that Orlando’s restrictions on feeding the homeless in downtown parks are a reasonable way to protect the city’s parks and don’t violate the constitution…. The city passed the ordinance in 2006 in response to business owners and residents near Orlando’s signature Lake Eola Park. They complained that frequent feedings at the park drew dozens of transients, who would later disburse into surrounding neighborhoods.

    The rules effectively limit the number of feedings in any single park by requiring permits for each one, and by allowing a group only two permits per park each year.

    An anti-poverty group, Orlando Food Not Bombs, joined a church with a largely homeless congregation in challenging the ordinance in federal court. They argued that the rules infringed on their constitutional rights. A federal judge in Orlando agreed, and issued an injunction prohibiting the city from enforcing its ordinance….

    Mayor Buddy Dyer said there are many charitable agencies around the city providing meals to the needy outside city parks.

    “Our homeless coordinator said there is no reason anyone in the city who is in need can’t find three meals a day,” Dyer said. “Our job is to balance the needs of our neighborhoods, and our objective has always been to make sure that no one park or neighborhood is overburdened.”

    The city’s victory in court means taxpayers won’t be on the hook for paying the substantial legal fees run up by homeless advocates.

    Mayor Buddy Dyer is a Democrat.