Crime, Free Speech, Law, Political Correctness, Racism, Reason
NEW ON YouTube: Discussing with David Vance the role of “racism” in the Floyd trial.
Who the hell writes such a difficult column, as, “Was The Cop’s Knee On George Floyd’s Neck ‘Racism’? No!”
Oh, well. David did really well. (By the way, I’ll also be on with Alex Newman, of the New American, on Tuesday, April 27, at 1:00PM Pacific. I am told that this is when we’ll record the conversation, to be uploaded some days later.)
Affirmative Action, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Feminism, Gender, Law
The female officer who killed a man, because she reached for her service revolver instead of her taser, is another item in the case made in this column, “Systemic, Institutional Rot: From Big Freeze In Texas To Fires In Cali.”
Clearly, Kim Potter accidentally discharged her weapon. She did not mean to kill Daunte Wright. This only strengthens the case against women in the force. This was a veteran officer, who had worked for the Brooklyn Center Police for 26 years!
In my opinion. Weapons are just not natural to us.
I say this as my one piece rests on my desk; I’m never without it. (I use a revolver precisely because I’m pretty clumsy, and my digits aren’t even strong enough to rack the slide. Revolvers are female-proof.)
The video of the incident that was circulated by police shows the officer shouting out “Taser, Taser, Taser” before shooting, and then appearing to realise she had used a handgun instead. The officer, Kim Potter, … has resigned, and been charged with second-degree manslaughter.
This is a case, to quote from the column, “ Systemic, Institutional Rot: From Big Freeze In Texas To Fires In Cali, “of systemic stupidity; systemic rot. …”
“Things start to fall apart when the best-person-for-the-job ethos gives way to racial and gender window-dressing and to the enforcement of politically pleasing perspectives.”
The American government is marred, at every level, with similar set-asides, preferential hiring practices and affirmative action, which compromise an already compromised institution (the State, where incentives are inverted, as in the less efficient they are, the more funds government departments get). MORE.
And now, a policewoman, probably a very decent lady, is in a terrible bind, her life having been destroyed.
*Image credit is here.
Argument, Law, libertarianism, Liberty, Logic, Natural Law, Race, Racism, Reason
NEW ON CNSNews.com: “Resist the Left’s Conflation of ‘Racism’ With the Law, for Chauvin and Beyond.”
An excerpt: https://tinyurl.com/3j6sdu5z
Racism consists of a mindset or a worldview that boils down to impolite and impolitic thoughts and words written, spoken, preached, or tweeted.
If that’s all racism is, you ask, then what was the knee on George Floyd’s neck? Was that not racism?
No, it was not.
Judging from the known facts, the knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck was a knee on a man’s neck. That’s all that can be inferred from the chilling video recording in which Floyd expired slowly as he pleaded for air.
Floyd begged to breathe. But the knee on his neck—“subdual restraint and neck compression,” in medical terms—was sustained for fully eight minutes and 46 seconds, causing “cardiopulmonary arrest.”
There are laws against what transpired between former Officer Derek Chauvin and Mr. Floyd.
And the law’s ambit is not to decide whether the offending officer is a correct-thinking individual, but whether Mr. Chauvin had committed a crime.
About Officer Chauvin’s mindset, the most the law is supposed to divine is mens rea—criminal intention: Was the officer whose knee pressed on Floyd’s neck acting with a guilty mind or not?
For fact-finding is the essence of the law. The law is not an abstract ideal of imagined social justice, that exists to salve sensitive souls.
If “racism” looks like a felony crime, then it ought to be prosecuted as nothing but a crime and debated as such. In the case of Mr. Chauvin, a mindset of depraved indifference seems to jibe with the video.
This is not to refute the reality of racially motivated crimes. These most certainly occur. It is only to refute the legal and ethical validity of a racist mindset in the prosecution of a crime.
Surely, a life taken because of racial or antisemitic animus is not worth more than life lost to spousal battery or to a home invasion.
The law, then, must mete justice, in accordance with the rules of evidence, proportionality and due process. Other than intent, references to the attendant thoughts that accompanied the commission of a crime should be irrelevant—be they racist, sexist, ageist or anti-Semitic.
Ultimately, those thoughts are known only to the perp….
… READ THE REST ON CNSNews.com: “Resist the Left’s Conflation of ‘Racism’ With the Law, for Chauvin and Beyond.”
*Image via CNS.News (Photo credit: Noam Galai/Getty Images)
“In the case of Mr. Derek Chauvin, a mindset of depraved indifference seems to jibe with the video of George Floyd’s expiration.” (From “Was The Cop’s Knee On George Floyd’s Neck ‘Racism’? No!“)
Judging from the known facts, … the chilling video recording in which Floyd expired slowly as he pleaded for air… Floyd begged to breathe. But the knee on his neck—“subdual restraint and neck compression,” in medical terms—was sustained for fully eight minutes and 46 seconds, causing “cardiopulmonary arrest.”
There are laws against what transpired between former Officer Derek Chauvin and Mr. Floyd.
And the law’s ambit is not to decide whether the offending officer is a correct-thinking individual, but whether Mr. Chauvin had committed a crime.
About Officer Chauvin’s mindset, the most the law is supposed to divine is mens rea—criminal intention: Was the officer whose knee pressed on Floyd’s neck acting with a guilty mind or not?
For fact-finding is the essence of the law. The law is not an abstract ideal of imagined social justice, that exists to salve sensitive souls. …
Considerations to tease apart are in, “Was The Cop’s Knee On George Floyd’s Neck ‘Racism’? No!”
Comments from readers can be followed on this blog post: “UPDATED (8/22/): NEW COLUMN: Was The Cop’s Knee On George Floyd’s Neck ‘Racism’? No!”
Derek Chauvin’s trial is live, on USA Today.
Listened to a bit of #DerekChauvin's defense's cross-examination. Compared to the prosecution, it sounded poor. Ending a line of questioning with a deduction, so jurors get the point made, seems a MUST. Didn't hear that from #EricNelson. #GeorgeFloydTrial https://t.co/foLJHyZizP
— ILANA Mercer (@IlanaMercer) March 30, 2021