So I am officially back from vacation. Did you miss me? Wait, don’t answer that. My plan had been to spend a week with my backside in the sand and a mai-tai at my elbow, doing a little light beach reading. In this case, it was Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Reagan. Don’t laugh: for guys like me, that is light beach reading. I learned two things on that trip. One, the “Free State of Flarida,” as Dave Rubin is fond of calling it, is crowded. Two, the Free State of Flarida is expensive. I guess if you are Rubin or Ben Shapiro, the Free State of Flarida is the place to be. For guys like me, it is going to be a while before my wife and I can move there. But hey, I needed the break. Of course, coming back from vacation means facing reality, and my sunburn had not even begun to peel before the proverbial News of the World hit me square in the face. But then, I didn’t anticipate things would get better during my absence.
There were the issues of Jordan Neely, the Brownsville incident, and the shootings in Allen, Texas. But the Devil is also interested in the details and never misses an opportunity to nudge the world a little further down the slope to Hell. And in that respect, a few inches can be just as effective as a few miles. Particularly when taken cumulatively.
Take, for instance, the recent incident in Antioch, Tenn., in which a teacher confiscated a student’s cell phone during class. The student responded by pepper spraying the man. WZTV in Nashville had a rather vanilla report:
An Antioch High School student who pepper sprayed a teacher is facing discipline from the school and police investigation.
FOX 17 News contacted Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) following a video shared on social media depicting a student pepper spraying a teacher for taking possession of her cell phone.
Recorded by a fellow student, the female can be seen following the teacher to the hallway where she asked for her phone back before spraying the teacher.
MNPS says the incident “represents a serious violation of law and our school policies, and the student involved has received appropriate disciplinary consequences.”
An incident was also filed by the School Resource Officer for further investigation.
That doesn’t quite capture the moment. For that, we need to see the video in question:
Justified?
Student Pepper Sprays her High School Teacher because he confiscated her phone in Antioch, Tennessee… pic.twitter.com/QIcMty1Bqd— Fight Haven (@FightHaven) May 6, 2023
According to the River City Post, the same teacher was punched in the face two months ago by a student for whose cell phone he also confiscated. This kind of behavior seems to be the norm for Antioch High School.
What was a student doing with pepper spray in school? And for that matter, why did she feel entitled to use it on a teacher who was merely confiscating the phone, not stealing it? Well, if you need me to feed you the answers to those questions at this point, I don’t know what to say. But what really struck me was not only the act itself, which seems to be SOP for America’s public schools, but the reactions of the students. You saw the jeers and hooting and hollering and the look of glee on one girl’s face. In their minds, this was not an assault; it was entertainment. Not only are they unconcerned with the fact that their school has become a place for violence and toddler tantrums thrown by adult-sized people, but they are also unaware of it. Or worse yet, they revel in it.
A bit closer to the homefront, the Salt Lake City Police Department is on the hunt for the person or persons responsible for a tagging spree on Saturday. Someone with at least two cans of spray paint and zero dignity tagged six cars and a dog park. The graffiti consisted of the letter “P” in a circle with a line through it. Internet speculation has ranged from gangbangers marking their territory to drug cartels unabashedly declaring their presence and their implied immunity. Of course, it could be someone trying to express their disdain for the police, or maybe it is just an idiot getting his rocks off. Whatever the case may be, someone felt entitled to deface someone else’s property to vent their spleen. Or just for the hell of it. One more inch down the slope.
Related: In a World Gone Mad, the Jordan Neelys Rule
As I write this, I am watching a report of the weekend riots in New York City over the Neely situation. None of the rioters seem to care about or even be aware of Neely’s violent history, the fact that Daniel Penny put Neely in the “recovery position,” or the fact that other riders were appreciative of Penny springing into action. And they have paid no attention to the insanity which has reigned in that city’s subway system, much of it against people of color. They do not care about the scores of victims who have suffered under the policies of Kathy Hochul and Eric Adams. I don’t remember any protests on their behalf. But why consider the facts when a protest will do? Probably because facts don’t fuel protests. Feelings do. Why should they let facts get in the way of an emotional rush? Neely’s death was tragic, but the same people who protest it support the politicians and policies that led to it. The truth of the matter is that black lives only matter to Leftists when it is convenient.
Like the cell phone incident in Tennessee and the tagging case in Salt Lake, the Neely protests reflect another step in turning the country into the Disunited States of Dopamine and Entitlement, a place where justice is whatever someone decides it is on any given day. And that has been achieved by playing the ground game; anarchy, like football, is a game of inches.
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