About a year ago, a cop arrested, handcuffed and foolishly killedftnt a violent career criminal, drug addict, thief, robber and ex-con named George Floyd who was high on fentanyl and methamphetamine.
Last week on the anniversary of Floyd’s death, the left marked the day. Not with mournful candlelight vigils as civilized people might, but by celebrating in the usual Third World way by shooting guns into the air, into windows and into other people.
The left lives for these tragedies. It gives them an excuse to go out rioting, and they did. Not because they give a damn about Floyd, but because they like to riot. They like to riot because they hate America.
To the extent the rioters bothered with words, they couched much of their violence last year in anti-Trump rhetoric. For that, the media of course cheered them on. That rhetoric was proven disingenuous on the day Joe Biden was inaugurated when they chanted “We don’t want Biden, we want revenge.” Long after Trump left the White House, they routinely chant “Burn it Down” and “Death to America.”
All this fueled Black Lives Matter, a group founded by a person who boasts that they are “trained Marxists.” After they bullied corporations into giving them $90 million, and counting, this founder went on a house-buying binge. As successful socialists do, from Venezuela to North Korea.
A central tenet of this Marxist group is that America is “systemically racist.” That’s the kind of racism for which there’s no actual racist person and so they get to blame the entire culture, and there’s no actual acts of racism. There’ just a disparity in the success rates between different groups.
It’s like observing that men do worse in foreign language than women and are less represented in book clubs, and thereby concluding that language instruction or perhaps language itself, and books, are systemically misandrist (prejudiced against men).
This same half-baked reasoning deems America systemically racist because blacks are underrepresented in, for example, law, medicine, skiing and bicycling. Ignore the fact that they’re overrepresented in music, entertainment and sports other than skiing and cycling. And ignore the fact that for over a generation they have been overtly favored in academic admissions, hiring and promotions.
In America’s big city police departments, this American racism is allegedly more than just systemic. There, the left contends, cops are murdering blacks right and left. This allegation requires you to ignore yet another fact: Big city cops and police chiefs are disproportionately black.
This media-repeated meme about racist police is not only unsupported by the evidence. It’s outright disproven by the evidence. Look at some statistics.
Even though blacks are only one-eighth the population of whites, the number of black-on-white murders is twice the number of white-on-black murders, and black-on-black murders are ten times the number of white-on-black murders. The most common cause of death among young black men, by far, is murder by another young black man. The pandemic of black-on-black deaths goes tragically unprotested.
Similar statistics hold in the police departments. Blacks are 13% of the population and are 24% of the deaths caused by cops. At first glance, that seems to suggest that blacks are much more likely to be victims of police violence. But it is also true that blacks are much more likely to encounter cops in violence-prone situations, such as an arrest, because blacks with only 13% of the population commit 53% of murders and manslaughters.
Viewed in context with the black violent crime rate, it is therefore indisputable that any given black being arrested for a violent crime is less likely, not more likely, than a white arrestee to die at the hands of the cops.
The reason the left singles out the police departments for their smears is not because the police departments are especially racist – as shown above, they’re not – but because it’s the police departments that maintain the rule of law in America. In their effort to reduce America to a violent, lawless society – as they seek America’s death – the left correctly views cops as their enemy.
The left has been partially successful in their battle against the cops as part of their war on America. Big city violent crime is way up since the emergence of BLM and the reductions in police resources. It turns out that reducing cops on the streets increases crime rates. (It’s not due to COVID; in Europe, crime rates did not increase during COVID.)
The left learned generations ago that Karl Marx’ class warfare is ineffective in America because Americans see their country as a land of opportunity. People routinely transcend the class into which they are born. I did, and there’s a good chance that you did too.
But the left has now learned that while class warfare doesn’t work, racial warfare and the ensuing societal chaos do. So they distort and lie about police-black interactions, as they notoriously did with the false “hands-up-don’t-shoot” meme in the Michael Brown shooting, all in the aim of stoking racial tensions.
And they celebrate every tragedy. Absent a sufficient number of tragedies to celebrate, they celebrate the anniversaries of the old ones, as they did last week.
Truth-telling and problem-solving in America are not the goals of the left or their useful idiots in the media. They candidly boast that their goal is to burn it down. On that, I take them at their word.
Footnote: Two points about the murder trial of the cop who killed Floyd.
The cop may have been denied a fair trial in view of the publicity. That includes the city’s needless announcement the week before trial of a $27 million settlement with Floyd’s family, Joe Biden publicly rooting for the prosecution (though I doubt anyone takes seriously the gibberish that comes out of Biden’s mouth) and an apparent lie that one juror told in jury-selection where he falsely denied participating in BLM protests.
However, as for Floyd’s drug-addled condition that may have contributed to his death, a wrong-doer takes his victims as he finds them. It’s no legal defense to say the victim would have died anyway next week of an overdose, or that he wouldn’t have died at all but for his ill health, or that his life was worthless. This column is not intended as a defense of that particular cop.
the Aspen beat 
Thank you Glenn for another thoughtful and excellent column. I’ve long considered that the media’s and/or BLM’s racialism is 21st Century version of class warfare. And you’re absolutely right that racialism is more effective in America than class warfare, more effective in causing the Left’s desired chaos and destruction.
Also, imho, there is no evidence that Floyd was killed because he was Black. Seems to me, the fact that he was 6’8″, i.e. about twice as large as the officer who had to arrest him, was much more the reason why Floyd was restrained as he was. (No, I do not support the way Floyd was restrained, it was heinous). Did the policeman receive a fair trial? I doubt it, given that the jurors had to be concerned for their own safety had they not found the defendant guilty.
As a Christian, American and mixed-Latino Male, I found this particular piece disturbing,
Again: I’m not a “Conservative”, not a “Liberal”. Neither Democrat, nor Republican.
Nonetheless, more confirmation for what I’ve taught for years: Truth, most-often is quite disturbing.
Truth is “disturbing” because it cleaves, “piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)
Amen and amen, forevermore.
Amen!
Glenn, your applied use of statistics gives the lie to the old saw about lies — attributed to Twain, or Disraeli, or somebody — that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
That saying should now be revised to read, “There are lies, damned lies, and leftist lies.” Marxists don’t respect truth in any form, statistical or otherwise.
As for our Liar in Chief, senility excuses nothing. Even if he’s little more than a Charlie McCarthy dummy, perdition awaits.
‘Twas Twain.
But, as Steven Wright said, “46.8% of all statistics are made up on the spot.”
One of the things I see in the press is an ignorance of numbers and statistics. Invariably, the numbers are used out of context and without any adjustment by a denominator. Of course, some statistics must be hidden or ignored, if it doesn’t fit in with the established narrative.
Spot-on as usual—as well as sad, frustrating and alarming. Thanks, Glenn.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but BLM was spawned by the Trayvon Martin incident, not the George Floyd incident.
I find it disturbing that Derek Chauvin has been thrown under the bus even by the right, despite having been convicted in a trial as corrupt as the 2020 election. In the future, a cop confronting a motorist suffering terminal delirium from a drug overdose would be smart to hand him his car keys and say “Have a nice day,” rather than immobilizing with a harmless hold to keep him from wandering into traffic or injuring one of the cops while waiting for the ambulance.
Chauvin was unfortunate in that the ambulance took longer to arrive than it had to Floyd’s previous OD.
Actually Floyd was handcuffed. There was no danger of him wandering into traffic or walking away or attacking someone. The knee on his neck served no legitimate purpose, and police experts testified to that fact.
Handcuffs stop someone from walking?
Let me think. Once a cop has someone in handcuffs, is there anything the cop could do to prevent him from walking away? Like, uh, using a second pair of cuffs to attach him to a tree, car, sign etc?
Nope. The only possible way to prevent a handcuffed person from walking away is to put him facedown and put a knee on his neck while he moans “I can’t breath!”
I guess that’s why, when defendants are brought to the courtroom handcuffed for their trial, the cops bring them in on a 4-wheel dolly with one cop kneeling on their neck.
Seriously, let’s not be tribal. We can be against the violent foolishness of BLM, and support the police, without defending this particular idiot cop.
That “idiot cop” was following department procedure and was not using force against the neck but on the upper shoulder area as the defense demonstrated with video evidence. The medical examiner found no evidence that the restraint caused strangulation or loss of blood flow to the brain, and the defense proved that a the restraint used would have caused no damage or risk to a normal healthy individual. Thus this “idiot cop” was supposed to diagnose that a well muscled 6 foot 6 240 lb. male who had just spent 10 minutes actively resisting arrest had a heart condition that would make restraining him in a prone position lethal to his heart, and actively monitor his physical condition while a large and hostile crowd was screaming at him while they waited for the ambulance to arrive? I’d love to see how you handled a similar situation Glenn.
Ed, other experts testified that there was no legitimate reason to put the guy face down on the asphalt and apply a knee to his neck or back. They testified that no such hold is taught to or authorized by police. https://www.npr.org/sections/trial-over-killing-of-george-floyd/2021/04/06/984717386/watch-live-minneapolis-police-crisis-intervention-trainer-testifies-in-chauvin-t?t=1622364657403
Bear in mind that he was in handcuffs, for Gosh sakes.
The cop didn’t do that, because adrenalin was flowing and he was angry at Floyd. Understandable, but he’s a cop and trained to deal with such situations without losing his cool.
None of this makes Floyd a good guy. He was a thug. But cops are not allowed to kill people for being thugs.
As for what I would have done if I were the cop, let me say for starters that I’m not trained as a cop. But an obvious thing to do, to avoid all contact with the guy so he doesn’t hurt himself or anyone else, is to simply use a second pair of cuffs to attach him to a sign or a tree.
Chauvin displayed no signs of anger during the entire incident, but was resolutely calm, while dealing with a huge, delirious criminal.
Had he handcuffed Floyd to a fixed object, he would have flailed around like a pinata in a hurricane, no doubt injuring himself while the crowd went nuts.
There are professional opinions about that particular hold that differ from the one showcased by NPR.
Although NOTHING was “as corrupt as the 2020 election,” I agree that this trial was an act of appeasement driven by fear of the mob, a pinch of white guilt, and a $27,000,000 pre-judgment from a woke-topIan city government.
When the DOJ moves to nullify the appeals process, then we’ll be talking about corruption.
Chad, I’m not sure what you mean by the Dept of Justice “moving to nullify the appeals process.” The Dept of Justice has no power to file such a motion even in Federal Court where they practice, and in any event this trial was in state court for state crimes — where they have no jurisdiction.
As for Chauvin’s chances on appeal, they’re lousy.
As for what all that does to the point of my column, the answer is nothing. I can scorn the violent foolishness of BLM and the left without defending a violent rogue cop. To do otherwise — to defend the cop out of a tribal instinct that “Floyd was bad so the cop who killed him must be good” — is to play right into the hands of the left.
Slightly off topic, but I think that the moment Biden who was in obvious cognitive decline was put forward as the best on offer by his party and shielded by the press, the results of the 2020 were going to be a given.
Maybe Chauvin can get Dershowitz to appeal. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/alan-dershowitz-chauvin-verdict-reversed-appeal-maxine-waters
Glenn, by “nullify” I did not mean “intervene” but, rather, “offset” by way of federal “interfering with civil rights” charges that will ensure that Chauvin “does the time” even if local and state courts were to overturn the homocide verdicts, which in my view are excessive. Such charges have already been filed against all four officers, and we all know that the vigorousness of the prosecution will be driven by the politics of the party that controls the DOJ, a party that panders to the BLM mob, that wants Critical Race Theory taught in our schools, etc.
How does this relate to the point of your posting, which I thoroughly agree with?
The DOJ is practically indistinguishable from the mob. It’s corrupt. I have no faith in it.
I agree that the Federal charges for civil rights violations are out-of-bounds. Are the feds going to start filing civil rights charges every time there’s a white-on-black crime? What about when there’s a black-on-white crime, which are far more numerous?
In any event, there’s no evidence that race was the cop’s motive, and he’s already been convicted of the ordinary state homicide for Gosh sakes.
The Federal charges look like pandering to the left, IMO. At the expense of the justice system.
O.J. Simpson is out and about and roaming the country, presumable still searching for the “real killers.”
I’ve always thought that Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were deprived of their civil rights on that fateful night in Brentwood some 27 years ago.
Does an individual American citizen who engages in human trafficking and sex slavery deprive people of their civil rights? Does and individual American citizen who premeditatedly targets and murders two other citizens also deprive these people of their civil rights? I would argue yes in both situations.
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman can no longer exercise their civil rights … they’re dead by the hands of a murderer and they can no longer enjoy their lives, liberties and pursuits of happiness.
The sounds of crickets chirping from the USDOJ …
Another great column, but your logic will not appeal to the mindless Left.
I’m sure BLM would love to see the visage of George Floyd replace that of Guy Fawkes in all future protests, of anything at all provided that something gets set on fire. Surely Floyd is as improbable a hero as Fawkes has become over 400 years; surely it’s time to honor a man who “sacrificed his life for justice,” as Speaker Pelosi proclaimed. So c’mon, mask manufacturers, there’s a fortune to be made here.
Not a fair trial according to Dershowitz. March 29, 2021. https://rumble.com/vf5xd1-the-chauvin-case-begins.html
“It’s a lot easier to fool people than convince them they’re been fooled.” – Mark Twain
I am no fan of police, because the position itself appeals to authoritarian personality types. I have had my share of encounters with such officers of the law, yet survived, mirabile dictu! Nonetheless, I recognize power dynamics and play the game as and when required. Same goes for judges, maybe even more so. Yet, I recognize they are cloaked by virtue of their position with greater power than I in the courtroom, so play along accordingly, disregarding as far as possible my personal feelings. There always comes another time and place in which to contest any unfairness in the power dynamics. If you are arrested/cited for criminal behavior, you comply and follow the rules to contest in the proper venue. In the courtroom you defer to the judge, and take any substantive unfairness up on appeal. The whole concept of a civilized society is based on the repression of individual will and whim in favor of the proper structural avenues made available to right wrongs, yet recognizing that not every wrong has a remedy. The current generation of spoiled children (which includes actual children as well as those who behave as such) are sewing the seed of civilizational destruction. They are toddlers smearing their own excrement all over their comfortable crib as an expression of their “individualism.” Except, if they continue to be allowed to have their way, there will soon be no mommy to come along and clean up their mess. Although they profess to want to create Utopia, they forget the literal translation of that word, viz., “No place.”
Well said.
I’m troubled that so many conservatives think that because Floyd and the BLM are bad, that makes the cop good. It doesn’t.
That sort of thinking is pure tribalism. It’s as bad as the left’s tribalism, where they think that because what the cop did was bad, that makes Floyd and the BLM good.
Here’s a more nuanced judgment, but only slightly, for those who insist on simplicity: (1) BLM is bad, (2) Floyd was a thug, and (3) the cop was a fool.
To defend the cop by denying (3) is, itself, foolish and plays right into the hands of the left by permitting them to paint conservatives as defenders of foolish (or racist) white violence against black men.
Glenn, I don’t think your readers’ thinking is as binary as you describe it. Here’s my take:
(1) All three of your numbered premises are correct;
(2) Nevertheless, a fool doesn’t deserve to go to prison for 40+ years, especially when the “thug” he’s dealing with is a not-so-gentle giant who’s behaving irrationally;
(3) The only reason he IS going to prison for life, as it were, is because the general population has a high percentage of even greater fools — long called “bleeding heart liberals” — who believe that the whole BLM narrative about “systemic” racism is true (despite all the statistical evidence to the contrary that you have cited), that all the violence is “a cross we have to bear,” and that the murder conviction will appease the mob;
(4) Add to this “ship of fools” a population of rats who hate cops and white people in general (and their civilization) and, voila!, you have the perfect recipe for REAL “social injustice.”
To this day I am still astounded as to just what (ex) Ofcr. Chauvin was thinking when he was pinning down the handcuffed Floyd. In the day and age with smartphone video cameras so ubiquitous Chauvin seemed to have a complete lack of awareness of the likely outcome of dozens of people recording the grinding of his knee into Floyd’s back/neck with a seemingly shit-eating grin on his face … for some nine minutes.
What did Chauvin think was going to happen with all of those live videos being uploaded instantaneously onto social media? Was he that unaware of the likely ramifications of these videos going viral online? Does he even know of or remember the infamous Rodney King video some thirty years ago and the ramifications of that recording?
For better or worse, once a suspect is arrested and cuffed he is in the custody of the officer. He might be a shitbird (as Floyd was) but that person’s life is now in the arresting officer’s hands. The arresting officer is literally the guardian angel for the arrested prisoner until custody can be transferred to other officers, the county jail or to a secure hospital or psychiatric unit.
Ironically, I think Chauvin is guilty of abuse (and possibly worse) yet I also think he did not receive a fair trial for the reasons mentioned by Glenn in his column.
I find it rather sickening that Floyd has risen to a level of sainthood. He was a deeply troubled man with a substantial criminal record and a history of drug abuse. The Floyd family hit the Reaper’s lotto with a multi-million payout by the city of Minneapolis. The vulture lawyers and race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are surely dining in the very best restaurants after this.
I have been thinking and wondering why the woman in Texas who Floyd robbed at gunpoint in her home, while pointing his firearm at the woman’s pregnant belly, doesn’t turn around and sue the George Floyd estate for damages. It would be an interesting footnote to this whole mess but it would go to restore some balance as to reminding everyone who George Floyd was. He was a deeply troubled man with lots of criminal history … not a saint nor a civil rights icon. But he did deserve his day in court which was denied to him.
In the meantime, the modern day brown shirts (BLM) have their 21st century Horst Wessel martyr to further their propaganda and to perpetuate their influence and power. Hitler and Mussolini were deeply affected and inspired by Marx. Their hatred of capitalism, religion and individual rights formed the cornerstones of their brands of fascism, a different direction than Soviet Bolshevism. But fascism and communism both drink from that poisoned well of Marxism; they are two sides of the same totalitarian coin. Head’s they win … tails you lose.
Pray for America …
“… why the woman in Texas who Floyd robbed at gunpoint in her home, while pointing his firearm at the woman’s pregnant belly, doesn’t turn around and sue the George Floyd estate for damages.” Because the event occurred in 2007, so the statute of limitations on any civil suit would now bar the action. Otherwise, I agree with your sentiments.
What was he (Chauvin) thinking with all the cameras pointed at him? Answer: He was thinking he was following police procedure and the training he was given to subdue a belligerent and very large and strong prisoner who was resisting arrest, so he had nothing to fear from the cameras. On the other hand, he did have reason to fear the growing hostile crowd while he was waiting for the ambulance to arrive, and likely hoping they could get Floyd loaded and taken away before the hostile crowd attacked and endangered himself, his fellow officers, and his prisoner. And remember, the only reason Floyd was on the ground was because he refused to sit in the air-conditioned police cruiser and requested he be allowed to lay down instead, which the officers politely granted while taking precautions to prevent his escape after he had been resisting arrest for 10 minutes.
The Paul Wellstone funeral/hatefest sealed the deal for me – you could see this day coming from that moment (undoubtedly sooner for others)
One last thought that just occurred to me … Democrats and the Left always lecture and hector Americans to have a frank discussion about race, but this is always meant to be on THEIR terms and according to THEIR agenda and standards. Their notion of having a frank discussion is the force feeding of critical race theory down the throats of all Americans.
Anybody remember Obama’s USDOJ “wingman” Eric Holder’s “Nation of Cowards” speech?
See: https://www.city-journal.org/html/nation-cowards-10538.html?wallit_nosession=1
Perhaps it is time to have that discussion, but framed this way …
Should Black Americans have the ability and license to commit criminal acts with impunity because of what happened in antebellum America 160 years ago or because of what happened in the Jim Crow Democratic South 60 years ago? Do Black Americans deserve these “Get Out Of Jail Free” cards every time one of them commits a criminal act? Why or why not?
I’m sure that crime victims and their survivors of all races and creeds from Chicago to Brentwood to NYC to Florida and all places far and wide would like to know …
Wishing all a Blessed Memorial Day.