UPDATE II: Racism Rhetoric Is Rubbish (Catchall Phrase For The Feeble-Minded)

Crime, Fascism, libertarianism, Race, Racism, Reason, South-Africa

Police brutality? Yes! Militarization of the police force? You bet! “A Government of Wolves”? Yes again, and worse! “The Rise of the Warrior Cop”? For sure! But racism? No! That’s bullshit. So why have some libertarians adopted this rhetoric? The same people who would argue against (color-coded) hate-crime legislation—and rightly so, for a crime is a crime—are suddenly accusing white America of racism (thought crimes).

Sheepishness? No doubt, but racism? Enough of this nonsense:

This doesn’t mean that racism is not also involved. Polls show that a majority of white Americans are content with the police justification for the killing. Police apologists are flooding the Internet with arguments against those of the opposite persuasion. Only those who regard the police excuse as unconvincing are accused of jumping to conclusions before the jury’s verdict is in. Those who jump to conclusions favorable to the police are regarded as proper Americans. …

Could it be that the ordinary Americans Paul Craig Roberts maligns as likely racists are really, truly waiting for more information, or suffer an authoritarian, submissive frame-of-mind, or are uninformed about “police state USA,” or have simply experienced “black crime” first hand, or are fearful of experiencing “black-on-white violence” in all it ferocity”?

UPDATE I (8/23): Et Tu, Stossel?

John Stossel mars a perfectly reasonable column, separating the “liberal from the libertarian response to Ferguson,” with a nod to the endemic racism meme:

Yes, centuries of white people abusing the civil liberties of blacks have left many blacks resentful of police power, and in recent years, white police officers have shot, on average, two young black men every week. But none of that justifies violence and looting like that which followed Michael Brown’s death. Criminals who ransack stores are always wrong to violate the rights of innocent third parties.

It reminds me of the root-causes excuse offered up by lily white liberals for the dysfunction of many young black South Africans, who were born well after the end of apartheid.

UPDATE II (8/24): Racism: The Catchall Phrase for the Feeble-Minded. Jack Kerwick explains why:

… anyone who is interested in thinking clearly and honestly must realize that “racism” is the rhetorical ware of bumper stickers and t-shirts: Because it means—and is intended to mean—all things to all people, it has become meaningless. All that we do know is that “racism” is a dreadful, probably the most dreadful thing, of which a white person can be accused.

UPDATED: ISIS Is Islam

Barack Obama, Bush, Christianity, Europe, IMMIGRATION, Iraq, Islam, Judaism & Jews

“ISIS Is Islam” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“ISIL” is how President Barack Obama refers to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He pronounces it as one would the last syllable in “Moishel,” giving it the ring of a Yiddish diminutive. Yiddish adds an “-l or –ele” suffix to signify affection. “ISIL,” the more expansive appellation preferred by the president, stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Obama was set to tee off on the golf course, when the outfit released footage of its latest bloodletting in Iraq: a video clip depicting the handsome head of American photojournalist James Foley being sawed off by a masked man with a British accent—yes, the West either admits these Muhammadans through mass immigration, or grows them at home in hothouses of multiculturalism.

The life of another journalist, Steven Sotloff, now hangs by a thread.

Unlike our Israeli and European allies, the U.S. government does not haggle for the lives of its countrymen. In fairness, Obama had at least made attempts to rescue poor Mr. Foley. His predecessor, Genghis Bush, sat bone idle, never lifting a bloodstained finger to spare Paul Johnson, Nick Berg, Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, of blessed memory, who also met the most ghastly fate imaginable: beheading.

Even before these men were headless, they were faceless to Bush and his followers.

From Martha’s Vineyard, Obama addressed the media. His response to the beheading of Mr. Foley exhilarated the groupies at CNN. “The entire world is appalled,” the president intoned solemnly. It shocks the conscience of the world. Foley was a good man who stood for “hope and civility.” The killers are craven cowards. They have no ideology, only an “empty vision.” They offer their neighbors nothing but “nihilistic” horror.

“ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim. No faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just God would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day,” asserted Obama, before scampering back to his game.

Don’t be too harsh on the White House’s current occupant for symbolically severing the ISIS snake head from its Islamic body and tail. His predecessor was as devoted to promoting the Religion of Peace pie-in-the-sky. When it comes to anodyne assurances about Islam’s compatibility with diversity and democracy, Bush was every bit the delusional dhimmi that Obama is. …

… The complete column is “ISIS Is Islam,” now on WND.

UPDATE 8/22: At last, a fun Jewish response to the intro of “ISIS Is Islam.” It comes from music man Ira Newborn (http://barelyablog.com/isis-is-islam/), who writes:

Dear Ketseleh,
You are so right to correct Hussein about his pronunciation of ISIL and
you should certainly let him know that to properly show fatherly or avuncular affection for what is just a tiny little caliphate, he should refer to it as “ISILeh” or “mine shaneh isileh.”
XXXXXXXX
Iraleh

I guess not many people get our humor.

A Callous Killing (Or Armed And Stupid)

Criminal Injustice, Fascism, Law

“They could have tased him or shot him in the leg; they shot the man, he dead [sic]. They could have tased him.” The speaker is a man who is walking along, talking to himself [or “he self”], while filming his surroundings with a mobile device. Another man is meandering around, acting erratically. The latter appears more confused than menacing. The filmer passes the meanderer with no incident. Police arrive. The narrator gets increasingly agitated and distressed as it becomes apparent what could and would go down. He’s describing the events as they unfold, incredulous, genuinely in disbelief.

Police arrive. Wait hardly at all. Make no attempts to subdue the meandering man or talk him down. Then pump him full of lead. The officers proceed to cordon off the street, clearly to prevent the shocked witnesses, who are standing at a considerable distance, from assembling.

Mediaite explains that “St. Louis police put out this cell phone video” “in the name of transparency, following the outrage over the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer last week.”

Now we know that some at St. Louis police are both dangerous and stupid. This callous, if transparent, killing does nothing to redeem the force.

WATCH:

Eric Holder’s Howlers About His Independence

Criminal Injustice, Law, Race, Racism

Eric Holder, Attorney General for black America, has been joking about the promise of a “‘fair and thorough’ investigation into the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.”

As he deployed “Approximately 40 FBI agents and some of the Civil Rights Division’s most experienced prosecutors to lead this process,” he continued to tout “the independence and thoroughness of our investigation,” at least four times in one “op-ed for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.”

Amid howlers like the unimpeachable independence of his Department Of Justice, Holder’s impetus is to racialize the incident: “We’re looking for possible violations of federal civil rights statutes.”

In case you doubt what he’s up to, Holder said this to his constituents at a community meeting in Ferguson: “I am the Attorney General of the United States, but I am also a black man.”

Don’t expect Pajama Media to look beyond the tit-for-tat of, “What if the Rioters Were White?” Nevertheless, what J. Christian Adams has to say about the DOJ is edifying; he has covered “the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division for years”:

Why does it matter that the DOJ unit that will investigate the Ferguson police is stacked with leftists and ideologues? Because anti-police biases of lawyers in this unit have resulted in gross prosecutorial misconduct against police officers.
United States District Judge Kurt Engelhardt issued this blistering 129-page opinion documenting prosecutorial misconduct by DOJ lawyers … As Holder moves forward in Ferguson, keep the documented misconduct of his lawyers in mind.

MORE.