THE END OF SYSTEMIC RACISM AT LAST

The Left is angry, and understandably so. Systemic racism has been a crucial part of their political DNA since, well, forever. The Democrat Party was the the bulwark for slavery against the abolitionist Republican Party and then the party of the KKK. The Leftists leaders quietly changed their brand of systemic racism and the branding of their party to make them more palatable to a post-Jim Crow electorate when they saw an opportunity to secure votes. Now the current Supreme Court decision on affirmative action threatens their carefully crafted narrative, and they won’t go down easily.

It’s apparent with any sober analysis that affirmative action is evil, and at odds with the tenets of our core beliefs as a nation as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and instantiated in the Constitution. Out past is littered with the evils of ignoring these beliefs, requiring Amendments that should never have had to be added. The 1960s was heralded as the “civil rights era,” and it is understandable how the move to jump-start racial equality through preferential treatment of black Americans was lauded. It was deemed that the egregious disparities generated by Jim Crow policies coupled with the still widespread personal bigotry (especially but not solely in the deep South) required extraordinary means to right the scales. I won’t speculate on the relative percentages of those who supported this “reverse” racism out of altruism versus those that simply saw it as a marketing ploy for votes and power, but I will remind the reader that the president who introduced the Great Society, LBJ, was well-documented as to his racist beliefs. So the policies were implemented with no end-point stipulated, a targeted welfare state that unfortunately favored fatherless families and government dependency. Out of this grew a lucrative race-grievance industry dependent on the perception of perpetual, systemic racism. As long as white guilt could be stoked by a vision of unchanged, unadulterated systemic racism, ingrained in our very DNA, those on the gravy train would flourish. It led to the rise of race-baiting superstars such as the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, to name but two of the grifters dubbed “civil rights leaders” who could pardon “offenders” with the appropriate public apologies (and payments to the appropriate organizations). In later years it has evolved into the formation of a vast, well-funded network of DEI policies and departments, infiltrating every aspect of the socioeconomic ether. Books and lectures have made $ millions for those practitioners at the top of the food chain. The problem is, as evidence of systemic racism became more and more scarce, virtually disappearing at the time of the election of our first black (actually mixed race but phenotypically black) president, acts of personal racism had to be generated to support the narrative, such as the Jussie Smollett disaster and the noose in Nascar racer Bubba Wallace’s garage ploy. Despite these subterfuges, the socio-legal evidence for the persistence of systemic racism was wearing too thin. Still, the Leftist Racial-grievance industry knew they they could count on the power and revulsion tied to the word “racist” when cultivated in the fertile loam of while guilt, and spinning any white-on-black incident resulting in the demise of the latter as defacto evidence of systemic racism regardless of the facts (as illustrated by the Michael Brown “hands-up-don’t-shoot” fable in Ferguson, MO, and the George Floyd incident, to name only 2 of the more famous). Critical Race Theory was dusted off, repackaged and distributed everywhere, including to our schools, and with it the concept (debunked, but don’t go there) of the 1619 Project, a country founded not on principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but on slavery. Racial division (including, astonishingly, new segregation and separate black graduation ceremonies) was kept alive by preaching the existence of two classes of people: oppressors and victims. And, it was warned, the sooner that the “white-privileged” masses accepted this reality, the sooner they could join the ranks of the morally righteous “anti-racist.” The “proof” of the “systemic racism” and their righteousness was always and only the statistical disparities in socioeconomic outcomes between racial groups, regardless of cause. Their efforts have been spectacularly effective—racial tensions, with Obama’s early help, have progressively heightened since the early 2000s. The great irony in all of this is that as systemic racism in the legal system and in the minds of the vast majority of citizens had virtually vanished, it was being kept on life support by the very people who most loudly decried it—via the ongoing policy of affirmative action.

I stated above, and it bears repeating, that affirmative action is evil, and this is evident with even a rudimentary, honest analysis. It’s also unconstitutional and, therefore, illegal, and it’s astonishing how long a societal malaise born of historic guilt has allowed it to flourish. To forcibly correct past evils based on skin color in modern society requires specifically targeting some races for preferential treatment over others. In the case just decided by the Supreme Court against affirmative action in the admissions policies of Harvard University and U of North Carolina that particularly disadvantaged the Asian community, there was a resounding majority declaration that admissions decisions based on the hue of someone’s skin flies in the face of the 14^th Amendment. But the issue extends further: By lowering academic standards and test score thresholds for admission based on skin color, one must engage in the execrable practice of bigotry of low expectations. The fallout from this is higher dropout rates by those students that the proponents of affirmative action are purporting to help, students who may have flourished in a more appropriate, meritocratic environment. And those that were qualified by their achievements may be forever tainted by the inevitable and unfair perception by many that they got there simply due to racial quotas. This policy is a clear indication that you cannot fight racism with racism. Our parents taught us “two wrongs don’t make a right.” It seems that we’re forever relearning this basic rule. The Supreme Court got it right. And shame on the two Leftist dissenting justices, Maria Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown, with the latter proferring a particularly vacuous and egregious argument.

It was high time the that the Court decided to abolish the last bastion of systemic racism. Expect the Left, though, to not go quietly into this good night.

Addendum: It is now customary to routinely capitalize racial descriptions of skin color (i.e., “Black,” “White”). I refuse to accede to this new convention as it reinforces the Leftist narrative of the importance of skin color over other personal attributes, including character.

EQUITY IS EVIL

The people in power at the top of our government are lost, and they’ve taken about half the nation with them either actively or passively. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, the politicos simply a reflection of the people. Either way, nothing embodies the essence of the corruption as well as one word: Equity.

As the country has drifted away from spirituality to materialism, and from God to self, so it has drifted form the reverence for one of the pillars upon which this great nation was built—equality. Equity, its dark counterpoint, fits nicely into the new, secular “religion.” If someone has more, or “too much,” why shouldn’t we take it and redistribute it to the less fortunate? After all, some people were born with less physical strength or beauty, some with less intelligence, some in more dire economic and social circumstances. A compassionate society provides. To accomplish this, we can simply look at outcomes and flatten them out by fiat.

To implement the false charity of others’ money known as equity, the “more just” outcomes must be mandated at gunpoint, something which governments, unfettered, are never loathe to do. Then virtuous justifications need to be manufactured to support the legal theft. In the US, for instance, relics of the past are dredged up such as slavery and systemic racism to foment white guilt and justify ultimately detrimental policies such as affirmative action, the concept of reparations, and a dramatic expansion of the general welfare state. The ideal of color-blindness promulgated by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and nearly a reality in 2000, had to be discarded in favor of intersectionality, victimhood, and division fomented by reverse racism (never mind our mothers’ admonition that “two wrongs don’t make a right”). The reincarnation of racial division from this cynical approach under the euphemistic, pseudo-intellectual name “Critical Race Theory” has dire consequences that go beyond those of dividing the nation and reinventing segregation. The myopic acceptance of unitary and spurious causes for the existence of inequity by policymakers, such as systemic racism, have led them down a blind alley that insulates them from the actual causes and precludes effective solutions. No surprise then that there’s been socioeconomic deterioration for these disadvantaged groups extending over decades, despite spending trillions.

And it doesn’t end there: By flattening out inequity by force, you inevitably end up with more mediocrity and a lower standard of living—for all but those in power and favored by the powerful. Innovators are less predisposed to risk time and effort to invent, start new businesses, or employ more workers. The best minds beyond our borders are less inclined to emigrate here, where the land of opportunity is now the land of equity. In short, the very things that have made this place extraordinary, the most exceptional nation in history, will be gone. So to sell the idea of equity in place of equality one must paint the country as anything but exceptional. And what better way to do this than to convince its citizens that it is racist, misogynistic, and imperialistic?

In short, to vanquish equality with the fetid whip of equity we must steal assets at gunpoint, perpetuate socioeconomic disparities through lies and ignorance while doubling down on policies that contribute to these disparities, foment racial division, and jettison the very principles that made the country the most free and prosperous in all of human history.

It’s difficult to conclude that equity is anything but evil. And those that promote it are evil or committing evil, intentionally or unwittingly. We are all equal in the eyes of God. But do you doubt that if He had intended there to be equity in this life He could not have created us all with the same inherent capabilities? Equality, color-blindness, and charity, are the path to the spiritual health—one that leads to material wealth as its byproduct. The road to equity only leads to darkness and despair.

THE UTOPIAN PARTY

For the growing number of Americans that are choosing to notice, the psychotic behavior of what was formerly known as the Democrat Party makes internal sense when viewed from the proper, outside-the-box perspective, the “box” being reality. The new, Utopian Party doesn’t concern itself with reality, only what those in charge have decided the reality should be; and from this viewpoint, everything they do makes sense.

President Biden himself has made this clear: He’s stated that inflation and high gas prices, while difficult, are good in the long run, since they are a step toward Utopia, a world without fossil fuels, a world protected from the scourge of Climate Change. So any discomfort, death and destruction that occur in the interval are to be lauded, because it’s all in service of a just, greater cause. However, since the buy-in by the people is becoming more difficult by the day (unfortunately, not being able to afford gas and food or get baby formula causes the people to lose sight of the greater purpose), it’s important to creatively redefine reality. Some might call this lying, but it’s really the Great White Lie, in service of—repeat after me—a just, greater cause.

To overcome the growing resistance of the people, they must be divided. In years past, this was done via class rivalry, today it’s implemented via the tools of diversity/intersectionality/equity, or DIE. It requires the inculcation of a set of beliefs, or disbeliefs, at odds with what your lying eyes see, as presciently illustrated in the novel 1984 so many years ago. Transplanting systemic racism to the present from the past, cherry-picking and changing climate data and using the most extreme results from flawed modeling programs, and generally redefining truth (man can be woman, woman can be man) are useful adjuncts on the road to Utopia. And since it’s now a “given” that we’d all be best served by less carbon, even if only 6% of the world’s power is supplied by “renewables,” it should be 100%, so it shall be. Although it may be a decade, or two, or three, before technology makes this remotely feasible, and the carnage caused by prematurely abandoning fossil fuels while simultaneously refusing to vigorously pursue nuclear energy is regrettable, we do this in service of—you’ve got it—a just, greater cause.

All of this involves fundamental change. Not everyone likes fundamental change; some prefer a federation of states with limited central government, the concepts of God-given rights, checks and balances, and individual liberty with freedom of speech and the right to self protection from evil-doers, criminal and political. But this is not in service of the greater cause. While masks and lock-downs have aided in population control, these are not enough. So open border policies need to be pursued with the assumption that a flood of needy new future voters that will support the purveyors of an expanded welfare state will keep the rulers in power. The incidental causalities resulting from an influx of new infection, criminals and terrorists, illegal arms, drugs, and human trafficking are regrettable, but they are in service of a just, greater cause. The citizens that are already here legally and illegally also need to be addressed, so the authorities are telling our children what to think, instilling race consciousness and white guilt, introducing them to a precocious and unbounded sex education, and giving them medical procedures against their parents’ wills. Those beyond the age of “educating” can be managed by limiting speech to the greater truth (i.e, the Great White Lie), and attempting to take guns from the law-abiding. Disagreement is not dissidence—it’s a reflection of moral bankruptcy racism, misogyny, and disregard for the callous murder of children. In other words, the definition of right-wing extremism. A member on “The View” recently proclaimed that the Left hasn’t changed a bit—rather, it’s the Right that has become progressively more extreme. While some of you may protest that this is akin to a person in an unmoored boat claiming that the continent is slowly drifting away, I assure you, that kind thinking is nothing more than extreme right-wing delusion. And, as our leaders have assured us, there’s no greater danger to democracy at this moment than right-wing extremism.

So as the year progresses on the road to Utopia, as food and heat become increasingly more unaffordable, famine strikes the most vulnerable, crime skyrockets, and millions suffer and die, be of good cheer. Remember the words of our Commander-in-Chief: it’s all for a just, greater cause.

ON SYSTEMIC RACISM, EQUITY AND IMPLICIT BIAS

I came across an interesting article in Science News that gave me a new perspective on the strident voices calling for the fundamental change of our systemically racist nation. Underpinning this sorry state of affairs, we’re told, is implicit bias, as evidenced by disparate outcomes of minority groups. As discussed two rants back, despite the scant empirical evidence for systemically-driven racism in modern America beyond the numbers showing inequity in outcomes, the narrative has achieved wild success in the US. Although I did recall a study that showed mixed results regarding employers’ callbacks to job applicants based on name-associated ethnic assumptions, this would be evidence of individual racism; legal protections placed decades ago now lead to swift and public action, and often over-reaction, to which anyone familiar with the headlines that we are bombarded with almost daily can attest. No serious person on either side of the political aisle denies that individual racism exists. Unfortunately, the relative scarcity of bonafide racist events in current, as opposed to past America, has moved some to continue the narrative with manufactured incidents (two prominent examples are the Jussie Smolett and the Bubba Wallace noose capers). So the crux of the argument between the Left and those that oppose it is whether disparities, labeled as inequities, are a priori proof of systemic racism. I’ve laid out in prior rants how that argument doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny (i.e., elevation of black socioeconomic status as reflected by home ownership in the Jim Crow period relative to the post- civil rights/welfare state era, and the hard sell of a systemically racist nation that elects a black president, twice, and welcomes voluntary black immigration, nearly doubling from 2.4 to 4.1 million between 200 and 2016. But the narrative offers a faux aura of moral authority via programs such as affirmative action that ironically presuppose inferiority of the group they purport to be helping through lower standards and the soft bias of low expectations. Worse, it provides cover for ignoring what I believe are far more potent drivers of ongoing disparities, such as fatherlessness and policies that encourage progressive dependence on the government through welfare. Despite not only the continued failure of these efforts to improve disparate outcomes, but arguably increase them, the Left’s answer is always to double down, the definition of insanity. But it’s not insanity if solving the problem isn’t the goal, but increasing power is.

However, if you deny systemic racism exists in America as defined solely by socioeconomic disparity, then, the Left claims, you’re ignoring “implicit bias.” The article from Science News referenced in my introduction attempts to cogently discuss this issue from the perspective ofa group that has posed a dilemma for social justice warriors, the Asian community. Comprising only about 7 percent of the US population, according to the author the group suffers from the “majority-minority paradigm…which frames white Americans as better off than other groups [with respect to] educational outcomes, wages and family stability. So studies of minorities often focus on issues related to marginalization and inequality. Asian Americans do not appear to fit the paradigm.” It goes on to state how relatively few Asians are included in many medical studies compared with the census data, and also points out how the group is not monolithic (i.e., Mongolian and Burmese poverty rates are higher than other segments of the “community”). This, of course, can be said as well of all conglomerated groups such as blacks, Latinos, and others. So, could this Asian “invisibility” be attributed to implicit bias, and if so, is it reasonable to equate this hidden bias with systemic racism, as the Left apparently does?

The major problem with this argument, which it shares with the a priori thesis, is that there is no objective measure of implicit bias; it can be as scarce or widespread a factor as one needs to support a viewpoint. Assuming implicit bias in an individual or group is itself a form of prejudice that divides, and is as caustic to the fabric of a civil society as acid. This is evidenced by the antidotes proposed: solutions such as those touted by the likes of Ibram X. Kendi, an outspoken proponent of Critical Race Theory, and Robin Deangelis, author of White Fragility. And the goal is always ultimately to tear the current system down and institute “fundamental change.” What is it they want to change? The idea of equality of all with rights given by God? The idea that we should all be judged by merit? Precisely. Outcomes need to be forced at gunpoint to achieve “equity” based on the prevalence of a particular, immutable physical trait in the national community. And so-called “reverse” racism is not only an acceptable tool to achieve this end, but lauded. The consequences of this ideology are already evident: Standards are being lowered, and feckless incompetents are being employed, even at the top levels of our government, on the basis of skin color and sexual preference rather than merit and competence.

Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who faced true systemic racism, still had the wisdom to get it right: He yearned for the day when people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. If you listen closely, you can hear him turning over in his grave.

THE “E” IN EQUITY STANDS FOR EVIL

The relegation of equality to second class status below equity in this country by those in power and, by extension, the voting majority, has proceeded shockingly fast. In truth, the groundwork for this development has been laid over decades, at first quietly, and now with brazen stridency. For a country built on the concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, this is a sad and dangerous detour off the path of righteousness towards tyranny.

The idea of a Utopian equity has been a pillar of socialism and perhaps the major reason why this failed system rises like a phoenix generation after generation despite the many historical examples of its utter failure economically and ineluctable collapse into despotism.

In post-modern America, the necessity for equity is commonly illustrated by the disparate outcomes of blacks compared with whites in the post slavery and Jim Crow eras, the unequal distribution of women in STEM fields and in the higher echelons of big business, and the widening wealth gap between the rich and the middle class/poor. Generally, the proposed solution is a form of socialism, quietly by a progressive expansion of the welfare state, or overtly through an increasing maze and burden of regulations that place businesses and the financial markets increasingly under the thumb of the government. The motivation for many is altruistic, and for the controlling fewer is power.

The error behind the movement towards equity is that it ignores the obvious—it always fails. But why? First, it’s important to realize that human nature is flawed. The concept of “from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs” sounds good, but inevitably leads to unfairness, resentment, and systemic collapse, unless sustained by force. The Pilgrims’ dalliance with it bore this out. Which brings us to point two: Socialism requires tyranny to sustain itself. There will always be individuals possessed of more intelligence, strength, and motivation, making them more productive, innovative, and successful. Equity necessarily requires forcing everyone to the mean, as it is much easier to lower standards than to elevate the less able and less motivated. We’re beginning to see this manifesting itself as tests, grades and standards are being lowered in institutions of learning in the name of “equity.” The third major argument is the historical oppression of people of color that has contributed to disproportionate prevalence of poverty in segments of these communities. In the name of equality, this has been combated by instituting laws that should not have been necessary to bring into practice the equal treatment under the law mandated by our Constitution. But, in the name of equity, we went further, instituting affirmative action, arguably a necessary evil early on but now resulting in the soft bigotry of low expectations. Ironically, in the era of Jim Crow, and in spite of it, the black community was progressing through sheer fortitude socially and economically with fatherless family rates that were low and comparable to other groups. With the advent of the often well-intentioned welfare programs that rewarded fatherlessness, the rate rocketed to 70%, much more than even the unacceptably high rate in the white community. The contribution of lower standards and fatherlessness, along with other factors, to the economic malaise in the black community is routinely ignored or minimized in favor of a straw man concept of ongoing systemic racism (abolished by laws decades prior) to continue or expand the same failed policies. To this end, with sufficient ongoing examples of individual bigotry to fuel the fire, white guilt has been weaponized so that everything may be viewed through a racial lens. Further, reverse racism is deemed acceptable by many through an erudite-sounding discipline termed “critical race theory.” The examples of this scam are myriad and beyond the scope of this short treatise. The fourth argument, the subjugation of women, is another straw man. Women are actually replacing men in the institutions of higher learning (ironically the primary hotbeds of the movement towards socialism and equity). In fact, sociological studies have shown that the most egalitarian societies with respect to gender demonstrate fewer women choosing to seek careers in the STEM fields, not more. Pay differences, when adjusted for preferred job type, have also been shown to be constructs in service of a narrative of division.

By treating certain groups as inferior, stifling innovation, rewarding mediocrity, and requiring tyranny to sustain, equity is evil incarnate. We’d be better served by stopping big government’s interference (by choosing winners and losers) with market forces and thus widening the wealth gap, and by recognizing that the size of the wealth gap is less important than the relative economic health of the less wealthy. Rather than trying to redistribute the earnings of those who already pay the lion’s share of all taxes we should use the advantages this country provides to become one of them. Most importantly, we’d benefit by a return to a state of gratitude for the gift of being born in the freest place in the world, the wildly successful experiment of the world’s first democratic republic based on God-given rights. Government, especially the career politicians that run it, have demonstrated that they have no special wisdom exceeding that of the marketplace of things or ideas, and people that continue down this brier-strewn path of favoring its growth will reap the rotten fruits of what they sow.

The “E” in equality stands for excellence.

HOW TO TELL IF YOU’RE RACIST

I’ve just finished Shelby Steele’s White Guilt, a brilliant dissertation by a black scholar who lived through the era of Jim Crow. While it was written 15 years ago during the George W. Bush administration and Steele’s parting comments show he didn’t predict the subsequent dramatic failure of the conservative “correction” of the era’s progressive influence, his analysis is more germane today than ever (watch the first 3 minutes of this, if you have any doubts). His wisdom lent him the ability to analyze the motivations behind and effects of the policies enacted to deal with the evils of racism. And I’ve gotten a clearer understanding of how to define your own personal racism.

You’re racist if:

• You believe someone is inferior by dint of skin color
• You socially exclude someone by dint of skin color
• You mandate greater qualifications to hire someone by dint of skin color
• You fire or reduce someone’s compensation for work done or services rendered by dint of skin color
• You believe someone is superior by dint of skin color
• You include someone by dint of skin color
• You mandate lower qualifications to hire someone by dint of skin color
• You hire or increase someone’s compensation for work done or services rendered by dint of skin color

In light of the above, it’s clear why the current definition of personal racism crafted by the Left into the newly pervasive dogma of “anti-racism” will harm people of color and whites alike. It also provides a clue as to why the war on poverty has failed despite the infusion of more than $23 trillion over decades, by exaggerating and focusing on, to the exclusion of all other variables, an illusion of systemic racism from a dead past in the interest of power and financial gain. No one denies the past and no one denies the persistence of individual racism. But honest people don’t denigrate the validity of the values the country was founded or the truth of how far we’ve come since the 1960s. As Mr. Steele eloquently lays out, not only is the current Leftist dogma morally objectionable, it is reprehensible. By harnessing white guilt, corrupt and deluded whites are extorted and bestowed the false gift of “moral authority,” enabling them to implement ultimately racist policies that only harm the communities they profess to help. We should all see through this, no matter how many race-baiting Al Sharptons, Jessie Jacksons, Joe Bidens, or the dozens of big name politicos scream “racist!”.

My “moral authority” will never come from holding people down with the boot of low expectations on their necks. Take that, Joe.

THE CHAUVIN EFFECT

Yesterday the verdict returned against Derek Chauvin, the cop who achieved infamy in the wake of a 9-minute knee on the deceased George Floyd. The universal guilty verdict caused the purveyors of systemic racism dogma to celebrate in the streets, on the air, and in the White House. It reminds me of the band playing on the deck of the Titanic.

To those exulting, I say enjoy your moment. The short-term gain from a brief reprieve in the street violence is just an illusion, like the calm in the eye of a hurricane or the ominous silence while the shooter reloads. No one believes this will be the final white cop/black perpetrator interaction. And it’s been demonstrated over and over that any negative outcome, whether due to appropriate police behavior or excessive force, will be deemed illegitimate, and worse, racially motivated, regardless of the facts.

The facts surrounding the Chauvin/Floyd affair, reminiscent of the O. J. Simpson trial so many years ago, were simply ignored, and the upcharges sustained. The evidence that the knee on the neck was a knee on the back and that there was no evidence of airway damage, and that the deceased had lethal levels of drug in his system and coronary artery disease, might have, in saner days, supported a charge of manslaughter, if that. It would have been generally recognized that an inappropriately lengthy prone restraint by Chauvin using an department-approved hold with failure to recognize the lethal consequences in the setting of distraction by angry crowds was understandable, if unfortunate. Even now, if we waved a magic wand and turned Floyd from black to white, there is little doubt in my mind Chauvin would have been determined to be guilty of manslaughter or a lesser charge. But many of the masses have bought the rhetoric of systemic racism and accept the absurd verdicts of murder 2 and 3 as justified, or are afraid to object, or don’t care.

Our hearts have to go out to the jury members who were, inconceivably, not sequestered until the final stages and who had to know that an acquittal on any of the more serious charges would result in riots and perhaps personal threats. Public lionization of Floyd, far from a citizen worthy of emulation, by the likes of President Biden and Speaker Pelosi among others, didn’t help. It’s not possible to know to what extent fear versus indoctrination played a role in this disastrous decision. But it is irrelevant.

Surrender to the mob will delay but not prevent the next violent outburst, and will only strengthen its resolve. I can imagine no other outcome than an acceleration of the efflux of our guardians in blue from the urban police forces across the country, and a continued rise in crime and murder in these venues, many of which are predominantly black. What sane individual would want to take on a job that has become more of threat to life and limb than ever, knowing that any use of force will be scrutinized depending on the perpetrator’s skin color with no support from your superiors and a good chance of criminal prosecution?

So celebrate if you will. I’m heading below decks to see it there’s any of that 20-year-old scotch left still above the water line.

THE DEREK CHAUVIN-GEORGE FLOYD TRIAL AS POLITICAL THEATER

Grab your popcorn and a comfortable seat. The show has started. While the Russia and Impeachment Hoaxes were scripted fiction posing as reality show entertainment, the Left has now moved into reality as fiction. Unfortunately, the fallout will be very real.

Remember George Floyd, allegedly murdered by a racist cop (Derek Chauvin) in a systemically racist police force? Of course you do; the media won’t let you forget. It’s inconvenient that there is no evidence of a racist motive, or that the first (there were 2 with contradictory conclusions) autopsy results failed to demonstrate asphyxia, but instead revealed a lethal dose of fentanyl on board in a person with an underlying heart condition. There’s also no evidence that Chauvin intended to murder Floyd. At best, the full video evidence suggests an initial appropriate police interaction relative to the circumstances, then apparent inappropriate police behavior manifested as an approved knee-on-neck restraint hold (not prohibited until after this incident) extended over a seemingly excessive, 8 minute 45 second period. I don’t know to what extent the police action contributed to the death relative to the preexisting medical issues. I do know that those prosecuting were motivated to upgrade the charges from manslaughter to murder 2 and 3. For the Leftist screenwriters, an overzealous police officer and a charge of undue force on a resisting perp with priors and an adverse outcome complicated by contributing factors just doesn’t fit the conclusion: that of a systemically racist police force in a systemically racist country. The inconvenient “facts” can be back-filled—or, better yet, ignored. Representative Karen Bass, among others, (such as Benjamin Crump, the Floyd family attorney) make this crystal clear. It’s a slam-dunk. And I guess it is. Because if he’s acquitted by dint of charges that were upgraded to support the narrative rather than the potential crime, the inevitable proclamation will be that of further proof of systemic racism. If he’s found guilty, the same conclusion will be drawn. The facts, necessarily, are secondary to the narrative.

So we’re watching a show with a preordained ending. But don’t fall asleep, yet: we don’t know if the final scene is scripted with a violent, riotous ending. Unfortunately, violence on this reality channel is real, and we’re the stuntmen. And with or without Chauvin behind bars, the racial divide will grow, fanned by the rhetoric of the likes of execrable race-baiters like Al Sharpton.

The time when you could grab the remote and flip the station is over, because subscription to the New America Channel isn’t voluntary, and membership fees are about to go up.

TO SILENT LIBERALS AND COWED CONSERVATIVES: A REAL CALL TO UNITY

To all the liberals out there, the ones I know and love as friends and family, and the nameless majority, you have what you wanted. Trump’s gone. And, as one pundit I follow aptly stated, he “screwed the pooch” at the end. Now there are no more excuses.

While the media tries too hard to claim the sociopolitical seas have been calmed with the exodus of the old administration, the country is being actively transformed. Laws and executive orders are being promised and implemented to deliver justice based on skin color or sexual/gender preference, illegal entry is being supported and normalized, critical race theory and intersectionality are being taught in the schools and corporations and will be coming back to government agencies, social media sites that allow unfettered expression of conservative viewpoints are being canceled, and free speech is being redefined through the filter of “hate speech.” None of this is new, but it is now intensifying, overt, and unapologetic.

I don’t know what you believe, only what the mainstream media sites say you should. So I can only tell you what I, and the conservatives I know, believe. We do believe the current crisis of free speech is real. We are or know people who are afraid to speak their views due to a real fear of losing employment. We do believe individuals should be judged according to the content of their character (the philosophy of MLK), not skin color, gender, or sexual or gender preference. We do believe in equality of opportunity but not mandated equality of outcome. We do believe racism exists and is evil. We do believe the country has a history of systemic racism. We don’t believe in the flawed historical interpretations of the 1619 Project, or that the US remains a systemically racist country (nor do the millions of immigrants of color struggling to join us). We do believe that there are disparate outcomes, and that historical injustice has a lingering contribution that is now far overshadowed by failed government social policies, abetted by an attendant shift in values away from individual achievement toward acceptance of government largess. We believe in the checks and balances instantiated in the Constitution with the intent to limit the size of government that have, sadly, been slowly failing. We believe in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we believe that rights are God-given.

I don’t know that you, as a liberal, have accepted the now daily mainstream media tirade (supported by numerous prominent Democratic politicians) that all Trump voters are racist, misogynistic imbeciles and have contributed to hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths. Perhaps you’re either uninformed of this or see the purveyors of this inflammatory rhetoric as a fringe phenomenon; I wish that were still the case. Perhaps you’ve heard that Trump voters support the insurrection of the Capitol. This is not true. We condemn the fringe element on the Right that engaged in this egregious act of violence and mainstream Republican leaders have echoed our disapproval in no uncertain terms. I did not hear the same outcry from Democratic leaders with respect to the BLM/Antifa rioters (some politicians went as far as to support bail-outs) which, incidentally we also strongly condemn.

It is no longer possible to view as serious analysis from anyone claiming to be both liberal and informed that our denunciation of infringement of freedom of speech is nothing but right-wing hypersensitivity and confabulation. Or the idea that, at this moment in time, the radical Right is the ascendant threat to the union. We do not expect you to agree with all, or even many, of our policy preferences, but do expect an outcry against the stifling of freedom of speech, as you should expect from us. The alternative (and there are embryonic signs this is already happening) will be two parallel economies, two parallel worlds of social media, and two incompatible cultures with more impervious echo chambers that will fatally fracture the politics that lie downstream. Both conservatives and liberals alike must stand in unity to oppose the more radical factions of our sociopolitical beliefs if the country is to stand. The window for reconciliation is closing. Liberals can no longer be silent, nor can conservatives, even with the risk of harsh economic and social repercussions. We need each other. It is the only clear path between tyranny and chaos.

NEWSFLASH FROM THE US OF P: BIDEN-HARRIS WON

This is my first newsflash from the government-controlled United States of Puro Free Press. Sorry for the late report but communications in and out of here are affected by the prevailing winds. The country at my border is a fascinating exercise in democratic evolution; it used to be a lot like mine but now has little in common but a slowly divergent language.

The top leaders, including the president-elect, having successfully defined their country, in contradistinction to my own, as systemically racist based entirely on the notion of outcome inequity, now in similar fashion openly regard their peace officers as racist. It is currently accepted in the higher echelons of power that the police would have acted more brutishly if the insurrectionists/rioters at the Capitol weren’t white, the deaths of several rioters and a policeman (evidently racist) notwithstanding. Both sides roundly and quickly condemned the riot/insurrection, but this is not deemed relevant, any more than both sides condemning the rogue behavior of an individual cop in the George Floyd incident. Nor is the fact that Democrat leaders turned a blind eye to or supported the BLM rioters for weeks to months during the mostly peaceful protests. This was way back in the Time of Trump.

In the new, more progressive US of A, where non-Left speech is microaggression or hate speech and hate speech is violence, corporations can now have their open censorship of noncomplying free speech sanctioned as the only acceptable social behavior. It’s fair to suppress Trump’s speeches on Facebook, ban conservatives (especially Trump) from Twitter, and push impeachment redux. It’s nothing less than a social imperative for Google, Apple and Amazon to cancel the Parler app, where disenfranchised Trump voters fled to escape cancellation. After all, their words and beliefs threaten to undermine democracy; the assault on the Capitol proves this, the rapid and vociferous censure of the riot by the Right notwithstanding. US of A citizens are expected to be more progressive, since any good during the last 4 years is tainted by Trump and must be disregarded and obscured. Biden-Harris has made it clear that national unity is now a priority, as long as it is under the banner of progressivism.

While those of us in the US of P think the words of the new leaders and the actions of the big tech companies are far more dangerous and deserve at least as much attention than the actions of a the contingent of misguided radicals, clearly the majority of our neighbors, the American voters, disagree. In the US of P the irony of the characterization of the outgoing leader as a corrupt liar while a blackout on the disturbing evidence of the president-elect’s compromised state with respect to China is not lost. Be assured, these concerns will be addressed by our ambassador at a future date (when we have an ambassador and a reliable means of communication, as I’m planning to close my Twitter account and there’s no guarantee I can engage on Parler, that reputed hotbed of conspiracy theorists).

Until such time as the serious dissension on our border is alleviated, I’ve decreed that we should erect a wall. Unfortunately, my HOA rules don’t allow it. If necessary, I can be reached by carrier pigeon.

P.S.: Please include #birdpoop in the footer on any communications for security purposes, as my sources tell me I’m being monitored by Russian agents and Google.