Everyone was united in condemning the death of George Floyd. Literally everyone — there was a poll out last week showing that 96% of Americans were appalled by what happened to him and wanted justice for him. You can’t get 96% of Americans to say they’re proud to be Americans anymore. That’s a level of unity we just never see.
Here are a couple of facts. One, most Americans aren’t racist. Two, most Americans recognize that while police deserve our support for doing a dangerous job, they can be wrong too, and when police are wrong about something, it can be disastrous. Police who commit crimes aren’t above the law and they must be prosecuted.
Protests over Floyd’s killing started and no one really had a problem with it. They were justified given what happened to him. Peaceful protests are fine, just about every American has been involved in one at some point. I have. They’re written right into the First Amendment as part of our system of self-governance. We have the right, even the duty, to tell our government when we think it’s wrong.
Then the riots and looting started and the police in Minneapolis failed to respond. They let it happen. Now the country is burning down.
People you may know of a leftist bent were quiet for a few days. They didn’t want to be seen supporting the riots. Now they’re gaining confidence, probably because some clever person came up with some talking points for them. They’re posting variations on some themes on social media, virtual signaling without actual virtue. Preening. Posturing. Trying to make you feel guilty for opposing the riots.
One version compares the looting to the Boston Tea Party. That’s all kinds of wrong, but since so many are so historically ignorant now, it resonated for a day or two. The Boston Tea Party was very targeted and its participants made sure that no person or anything that wasn’t tea — a tax on which they were protesting — was harmed during the action. The Boston Tea Party was the opposite of the wanton violence we are suffering now.
Another version tries to guilt you because you’ve lamented the property damage over the past few days, and dishonestly says you didn’t care about George Floyd losing his life. Your priorities are wrong, they say.
Here’s the truth. It’s ok to care about both. It’s morally right to care about both. And it’s ok to point out that the destruction of property now not only isn’t justified, it does nothing at all to help anything at all. It’s terrible. It dishonors George Floyd, as his brother so eloquently said. Full stop. It’s also ok to point out that with every store or business that gets looted, someone is losing their livelihood. They can’t put food on the table for their kids. Did they deserve this? It’s ok to point out that they did not.
As the riots turn deadly, innocent people are getting killed. Those who guilt you never mention this. It’s ok to point this out to them, although arguing on social media is almost always a total waste of time anymore.
Another version of this guilts you for not supporting Colin Kaepernick when he was “peacefully” protesting police brutality. The problem with this is he was a millionaire protesting at his place of work, using the brand of his employer and politicizing non-political activities in a way that divided people. He was insisting that police brutality is always racial and out of control, neither of which is actually true. Racism is sometimes a part, but not always. Broad brushes just tend to paint over facts and nuance.
Kaepernick wasn’t about unity at all. He was all about preening. He failed to do his homework on crime statistics, which would have proven that police-involved shootings remain far less common than crimes in which one black man kills another black man. Those killings happen multiple times every weekend just in Chicago. This is truly a tragedy. Has Kaepernick said a single word about that?
Kaepernick is also getting paid boatloads of money by Nike. Nike is an awful company. Nike is close to the communists who have their boots on the necks of a billion Chinese every single day. China is threatening Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India right now and they unleashed a virus — through cover-ups and/or incompetence — that has killed over a hundred thousand just in America, has put millions around the world out of work and may condemn millions more to starvation.
China is bad. Really bad. It’s a dictatorship that puts its racial minorities, the Uighurs, into real concentration camps. It oppresses dissent. A Colin Kaepernick protest does not exist in China — because it can’t. Such a protester in China will be imprisoned, and so will his family. In some cases, China murders its dissidents and sells their organs. But Kaepernick doesn’t care about that or anyone who suffers at the hands of the Chinese communists at all. Not one little bit. If he did, he would have said so.
Nike also operates sweatshops, which are thisclose to slavery. Does Kaepernick care about that?
No, he does not. He is very happy getting rich off the labors of all those sweatshop workers. If he wasn’t, you know we would hear all about it. He’s not shy. He takes Nike’s blood money with a smile.
Everyone who posts along the lines above is doing the same thing. They are providing cover to thugs who are committing heinous crimes and tearing our country apart. There is no excuse for this.
Don’t let these moral idiots guilt you into anything. Our country is burning. Killing George Floyd was unjustified, period. The justice system is working so far, despite the violence — not because of it. The officer who put his knee on Floyd’s neck and killed him had already been fired and arrested before the first brick went through the first window.
The riots have achieved nothing but anarchy and they are destroying the lives and livelihoods of good Americans. The riots are not discriminating but they are disproportionately harming Americans who live in the inner cities. Guess who they tend to be?
The rioters are desecrating our country. The neighborhoods they are destroying may never recover. The lives they end will never come back. They are setting race relations back decades — and that is their goal. They are killing our cities. They are bad people and no good person who has any sense of right and wrong should go anywhere near justifying any of their actions, or laying guilt trips on anyone who opposes them.
If you’re running any sort of interference for antifa or the rioters — not the protesters — on social media or anywhere else, you are a bad person and you should stop it. You pat yourself on the back today, but tonight your moral stupidity may get innocent people killed.
