Here it is, in all its coalescing rage, the progeny of lockdowns, the inevitable outcome of decimating society through mass house arrest: a rapidly-growing socio-political movement that aims to take power. Tucker Carlson recognizes that obvious fact in this segment. While I don’t agree with much of what he says here, he’s one of the only commentators to point out the obviousness of this organization’s power and influence.
Why destroy innocent lives and livelihoods just because you’re angry? Doesn’t that make you just as bad as the cops who’ve killed innocent blacks?
Statues being torn down, mobs of unemployed youth taking over entire city blocks, the looting and burning stores, incoherent demands being made of government and society, all of this has become an enormous distraction from what should be the primary focus of the protests: dismantling the privileges afforded to police. Qualified immunity, unionization, prosecutors unwilling to prosecute bad cops, outrageous cop pensions, military gear, et cetera, these are all things that could be realistically dismantled in the current climate. It’s the perfect moment, when the entire world is giving its undivided attention to this issue. But the chaos of the mob is clouding this momentum.
Of course, the mob riots are an inevitable evolution of naive lock-downs: the older generation, in their fear, demanded the lock-down of society, which spawned massive unemployment and social fracturing. This essentially generated a dense sawdust cloud of unemployed young people, one waiting for a spark. That spark came in the form of the widely-publicized murder of George Floyd. Too many people are surprised by what has happened, but that is merely because they never fully understood the consequences of shutting down a developed, complex economy. The unemployed youth have nowhere to turn for real leadership, not their political leaders, nor their elders, and so they are turning to chaos. It’s a recipe for a revolution of the French variety, not American. It’s a revolution intent on bringing out the guillotine, for erecting a totalitarian State. It’s a revolution of re-barbarization, whether the participants realize it or not.
Police, mayor allow it to happen.
In one sense, it’s like watching a nature documentary, but in this instance we are getting a rare close-up glimpse at the birth of a State in the wild. The mob takes over an area of land, establishes dominance, and then begins constructing a hierarchy among themselves, even if they don’t realize they’re doing it. A primitive form of taxation will follow, as will suppression of dissent. The emergence of this State will follow the time-worn evolutionary course that every other State has, because the seed of the State is inextricably bound up in human nature. Understanding this fact makes it all the more mind-boggling that a State restricted by a constitution has ever existed to any extent.
This will surely rile some libertarian readers of this space: We do not have a choice between a society with a State and one without. The State will always be with us, because it is within us. To prevent the rise of the wild, primitive, totalitarian variety, we purposely create government, imbue it with a monopoly on violence, imprison it, and pray that the bars are strong enough to hold it. It’s the best we can do, and it’s important to realize that that is our only option. That doesn’t mean there’s no room for private security. Most police could easily be replaced by private firms that did nothing other than defend, and who could be more easily held accountable for their actions. The Seattle mob doesn’t want the abolition of police, they want their own gang of armed thugs on patrol, doing their bidding. Just like every State in history.
Talk about worlds colliding. Could you imagine if it had been anti-lockdown protesters doing anything remotely close to this?
These mobs are a Frankenstein’s monster created by continuous saturation of one specific narrative by the corporate media. They’ve been conjured into existence out of the toxic brew of a self-inflicted economic apocalypse, but now can’t be controlled.
One went the private sector route, the other continued his crimes under the guise of “public service”. And now we are learning that these two had a history. They had both previously worked together at a nightclub, and didn’t get along, apparently. Before murdering Floyd, Derek Chauvin had racked up a long list of complaints over misconduct, 16 in fact. This, while hiding behind the badge that shielded his actions. The valorization of either Floyd or Chauvin depends on the side one takes in the manufactured cultural conflict that has arisen around Floyd’s death. But you don’t have to take a side. You can recognize the fact that Floyd had a criminal history, but also that he was clearly murdered by a casual psychopath who believed he was above the law. You can be for reform while also being against the burning of American cities. American cops kill around 1,000 citizens every year, a far higher rate than other Western nations. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. These are outrages, and the outrage should be bipartisan. But more Americans aren’t seeing it that way because they’ve been baited into fighting a race-based culture war rather than joining together to demand meaningful change.
Something miraculous has happened in New York state. New York lawmakers have swiftly repealed section 50-a o the civil rights statute, a law that hides police misconduct records from public view. Democrats in the state have been trying for years to make these records public, but cop unions have wielded their enormous power every year, quashing every attempt. This year was different. The law was made short work of, with no lawmakers giving much of an ear to the whining of the police unions. This is amazing, and every state legislature should take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity to implement true police accountability while they have the chance.
Why are U.S. cops receiving training from a foreign power? The U.S. is nothing like Israel. Their values are not something our police should aspire to emulate. Israel is an Apartheid State, and one can imagine that these tactics they’ve developed were not meant to be used on ethnic Israelis, but rather Palestinians and other minorities. So, another point to add to the list of police reforms is: Absolutely no training from a foreign power.