The man who shot Ashli Babbit as she sought to climb through a window of the Capitol on Jan. 6 was a Black officer named Michael Byrd. While he has been charged with nothing and his name was in fact kept secret for months after the event, the revelation of his identity led a number of “conservative” pundits to wonder how differently his story might have been handled by the media had he been a White cop who shot an unarmed Black woman. Babbit, by the way, a military veteran and staunch Republican, was unarmed yet Byrd has declared he shot her through the neck because he feared for his life.
On Aug. 27, MSNBC’s Joy Reid ranted about the “hypocrisy” of “far-right” agitators such as Dinesh D’Souza and Tucker Carlson who had dared suggest there might be some sort of double standard in effect based on race. I am certainly not exonerating Babbit for her actions nor am I suggesting Byrd was guilty of first degree murder, but was not Reid’s perspective brazenly dismissive of the facts if not abjectly racist? There was no reason for Babbit to have died nor for Byrd to have feared for his life. Apparently the chaos and stress of the moment which the latter invoked as the cause of his deadly reaction were in no way applicable to the circumstances governing the multitude of interactions between White cops and Black criminals which the Left never tires of invoking as evidence of “systemic racism.” Joy Reid’s rant, it seems to me, is so devoid of logic, so tainted by her political agenda, so motivated by the color of her skin, that her status as a news reporter is no more than an absurd reflection of the absurd cultural bias of our time.
It is as a result of that bias that the Jan. uprising, which was demonstrably less violent than the antics of B.L.M and Antifa over the last 18 months, has been accepted by much of the brain-dead public as the most despicable crime in modern American history, indeed an act of violence far more heinous than the horrors of 9/11. It is as a result of that bias that Jacob Chansley, who injured no one at all on Jan. 6, has been sentenced to 41 months in prison.
Chansley, face painted red, white and blue, clad in Viking head gear crowned with horns while flaunting an American flag attached to a spear, was the most conspicuous of the Jan. 6 rioters and among the first of the 600 arrested to be tried and convicted. The number 600, by the way, is a result of the justice department’s determination to round up anyone who was anywhere near the Capitol that day, no matter the nature of their actions. Meanwhile, of course, thousands of Leftist protesters guilty of thousands of acts of violence and billions of dollars in property damage, roam the States freely without a care in the world.
Chansley was well-intentioned, fervently believing American Democracy was in peril, believing indeed that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump. While there continue to be investigations into various irregularities noted last Nov., the Left consistently dismisses this hypothesis as a ludicrous conspiracy theory. As I have pointed out elsewhere, its daily disregard for the truth coupled with its pathological loathing for Trump, suggest it is capable of just about any outrage in pursuit of its sacred, religious agenda. But Chansley’s beliefs went well beyond such conjecture and, his online history would suggest, verged on the demented.
QAnon is a bizarre conspiracy theory given to the belief that a satanic mob of pedophiles is secretly undermining the values and integrity of the civilized world. Chansley appears to have believed that those forces were in part responsible for the defeat of Donald Trump. Even more bizarre is a statement he made suggesting he was a creature from another realm. Clearly there are reasons to doubt both his sanity and intelligence. But what exactly did he do on Jan. 6 that got him three and a half years in jail?
At no point brandishing his flag-bearing spear as a weapon while expressing his outrage through a bull horn, Chansley made his way to the Senate chamber where he left a note which read in part: “It’s only a matter of time. Justice is coming.” Such is the crime for which he got 41 months!
CNN stated in a Nov. article that the Justice Department had clearly sought the harshest sentence possible as a warning to others of Chansley’s “barbaric” leanings. Prosecutor Kimberley Paschall, referring to him as “terrifying,” charged him as an armed felon though his spear was basically no more than a flag pole. And of course while there were deaths on Jan 6 due to health issues or accidents and while the media insists on referring to the “deadly” repercussions of that day, neither Chansley or indeed any of the “barbarians” had fired a shot.
Surprisingly rational, Chansley, in the course of his trial, was apologetic, expressing regret for his actions while claiming he was not by nature a violent insurrectionist but “a good man who broke the law.” Obviously he was doing his best to ameliorate the harshness of his sentence. As for his appearance on the Sixth, I would suggest he looked more ridiculous than “terrifying.” And as for the “barbaric” nature of the insurrectionists, I would suggest those of that opinion view film of the summer of 2020 in which thousands of their idealistic little social justice warriors, while endlessly spewing obscenities, directed lasers at innocent cops in attempts to blind them, violated government buildings, destroyed small, privately owned businesses, etc., etc., etc. But quite aside from all this, when did it become the function of our legal system to unduly punish one individual in order to send a message to others?
No one is suggesting Chansley ought not to be punished but the 41 months he was given are outrageous. While repeat violent criminals are habitually released into America’s streets with only minor bail requirements, Chansley was kept in custody from the moment of his arrest! Moreover that 600 have been charged, many of whom did little more than trespass, smacks of a Religious Inquisition. Of course there’s no convincing Joy Reid and company of their laughable biases. While those who share their views can burn down cities with impunity, the “insurrectionists” of the Sixth whose primary aim seems to have been the expression of their contempt for a government by which they felt betrayed, are all apparently intolerable “barbarians.” Such rhetoric is absurd when applied to those who, while they certainly need to pay for their misdeeds, clearly had little interest in either killing the objects of their disdain, burning down the Capitol or toppling the American government.
Nothing better illustrates the motivation behind the events of Jan. 6 than the picture of Richard Barnett sitting in Nancy Pelosi’s office with his feet perched disdainfully on her desk. For that “barbaric” crime he was kept in custody for three months after his Jan. arrest. His lawyer’s argument that he had no criminal record, was gainfully employed and a respected member of his Arkansas community, ultimately got him released in late April, his prolonged detention, apparently, a result of the fact that he is a White Male guilty of the crime of supporting Donald Trump.