A few days ago Fox News’ Tucker Carlson spoke extensively about the rampant disrespect for the Rule of Law evident in many American cities. Odd, he suggested, that car accidents involving young Blacks spiked significantly after George Floyd’s death in 2020, when, because of Covid, there were significantly fewer cars on the road! Is it possible the Left’s demonizing of Whites, and specifically White cops, led many Blacks to express their contempt for their “oppressors” by simply disregarding their laws? At the same time is it not both sad and ironic that most of the victims of their recklessness were other Blacks? In typically simplistic, Leftist fashion, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg exonerated those actually responsible, attributing the statistic in question to the dangerous roads built years ago in Black communities by uncaring, White racists.
The issue of concern here is that those such as Buttigieg, in their empathy for the “underprivileged,” actually stoke the flames of stupidity, self-indulgence and immorality by eliminating accountability [i.e., free-will] from their narrative and declaring all those who have failed to “achieve” to be mere victims. That’s the basic message of Karl Marx! That was the lesson of George Floyd’s death! It is, of course, a complex issue which we can’t possibly exhaust here. But, the facts would seem to suggest, the “compassion” so avidly endorsed by the Governors, Mayors and District Attorneys of various Democratically dominated cities and states in the U.S., is clearly contributing to the decline into barbarism of many of those they are intent on helping. One crime cited by Carlson will perhaps serve to illustrate that point.
Black Chicago youth Anthony Brown, 16 years old, was arrested on June 10, 2021, for illegal possession of a .22 caliber Glock. He was released a few days later with electronic monitoring. Arrested in Dec. for his apparent role in a car theft, once again found to be illegally in possession of a handgun, he was nevertheless released once more. On Feb. 8 of this year, just after a court appearance, while still on electronic monitoring, he hijacked a car and proceeded to kill perfectly innocent Michael Brown, 15 and unrelated, who was apparently walking home from school. Michael, also a Black youth, was shot once in the head and then 9 times more as he lay on the ground! His killer, by the way, is an aspiring rapper who goes by the name “757 Baby Glock.” Gosh, he’s so Cool! Tell me, where do your sympathies lie, with Anthony or Michael?
Shootings were up 60% in Chicago last year. Some see Democratic mayor Lori Lightfoot as eminently responsible, yet, under pressure from locals who no longer feel safe in their city, she has recently taken to vilifying practices such as the release of potentially violent criminals tagged with monitoring devices which in no way deter them from offending again. The justice systems in various U.S. cities governed by Democratic mayors in tandem with “progressive” D.A.s have taken to such inane policies, releasing a significant percentage of those arrested for both misdemeanors and violent crimes. In Chicago, 43% of those released offend again. In California that number is somewhere around 50%. L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villaneuva says the D.A. of his city, George Gascon, as well as that of San Fransisco, Chesa Boudin, have created a revolving door where people arrested for “petty” theft are habitually released to offend over and over. The crime stats in those cities are, he says, completely inaccurate inasmuch as shop-lifting, etc. is so widespread that many no longer bother to even report such crimes. In 2021, L.A. County courts dismissed without significant investigation approximately 42,000 misdemeanor charges!
An effort is under way to have George Gascon “recalled.” A recent L.A. Times article of an obvious “progressive” bias defends him from the charge that his policies are responsible for the rise in violent crime in L.A.. The article does admit, however, that whereas Jackie Lacey, Gascon’s predecessor, had attempted to prosecute 86% of the misdemeanors presented to the courts, Gascon has prosecuted only half that number. Quite literally, as Sheriff Villaneuva charges, thousands in his city have assumed they can steal without repercussions as their D.A. has told them so! From his various public statements, I must point out, Gascon has made it clear he is particularly concerned with the welfare of the homeless and drug-addicted and reluctant to be unduly harsh in prosecuting either. But while no one is suggesting a callous disregard for such people, ought decent, law abiding citizens to be sacrificed on their behalf?
Here is a direct quote from the Times’ article which illustrates the absurdity of the “compassionate” Left’s refusal to take “minor” crimes seriously. “A 2021 Times investigation, however, raised serious questions about the extent of financial pain retailers were feeling from such crimes.” The implication, of course, is that because Walmart has not been put out of business as a result of rampant shoplifting, we ought not to be unduly concerned. It is a statement that is A] brazenly anti capitalist, B] indifferent to human morality and C] apparently unaware that a good many of the businesses being jeopardized are owned by private citizens struggling to make ends meet!
Are the homeless and drug-addicted mere victims of circumstance? I realize that some are incapacitated by real intellectual/psychological problems, but are not most the victims of their own inexcusable life decisions? Is the 16 year old male who pays no attention in school because he is preeminently intent on getting high or getting laid, the architect of his own future or a victim of society’s indifference? Are the policies of D.A.s such as Gascon and Boudin examples of Man at his compassionate best or of sentimental fools willing to jeopardize the well-being of decent, law-abiding citizens by releasing criminals over and over again simply because they are Black or poor or addicted?
Nothing better illustrates the moral degeneracy of those whom “progressives” seem most intent on defending than the recent murder of Anthony Fraser in Atlanta, Georgia. Caught on a security camera, it is there online for everyone to see. Fraser was a 51 year old Black man who had taken a job as a security guard to earn some extra money. As shown in the video, he exits his car and takes only a few steps before being shot from behind by a fast striding Black youth who proceeds to rob him and then run off. Another person of color walks by shaking their head in disapproval without stopping to see if Fraser is still alive. At the same time two other young Black men who had been sitting only a few feet away rush over to the prone man, go through his pockets and also rush off. The disregard for human life exhibited by all four is disgusting. The individual responsible for this murder which occurred last Monday has since been identified. He is Stanley Henderson, a resident of an “urban encampment” who has been arrested 12 times for incidents that were frequently violent, only to be released by a legal system apparently more concerned with the welfare of recidivist criminals than of hard working fathers and husbands such as Anthony Fraser.
Life is sacred, irreplaceable. I do not take it lightly. I feel bad when I squish an ant scurrying across my kitchen counter. He’s simply being an ant, acting in accord with his nature. But I am fully in favor of the death penalty for scum such as Anthony Brown and Stanley Henderson. Humans are gifted with the capacity to know better, to understand that the callous, unprovoked taking of an innocent life is the ultimate moral abomination. My fury has nothing to do with the race of the murderers cited above but stems from my “conservative” belief that we are moral beings who need to be held accountable as such. It is the same conviction that fills me with disdain for a culture, i.e., the Hip Hop Culture, which, with the mind-set of a 6 year old, finds it “cool” to adopt names such as “757 Baby Glock.” Of course in our ludicrously amoral “progressive” culture, that last comment definitely makes me a racist. But guess what, I have every right to prefer the values born of my nature as an intelligent/moral being to much of the trash that has come to litter our popular “culture.”
Obviously it would be absurd to put those who engage in petty thievery in the same moral category as cold-blooded murderers. But they need to be punished, the accommodations proffered by D.A.s like Gascon and Boudin literally turning the U.S. into a third world country. Ironically, the multitude of “liberals” who argue that, for example, the Law’s “war on drugs” has been a failure, are the very same simpletons who encourage the abuse of drugs by preaching the gospel of determinism which implicitly excuses all drug users of responsibility for their addiction. They call it “compassion.”And the victims of their amoral narrative, of course, are those millions of decent, law abiding citizens who constitute the vast majority of the species.