Some Thoughts on the Recent Troubles

There've been numerous demands for justice this past week, a circumstance which is not a little ironic. 

After all, we live in a society that has made it clear that there's to be no mixing of religious belief with public policy, but a society simply can't say, at least not rationally, that we don't want God but we do want justice.  

Calls for justice are empty in a secular society which sees human beings as little more than an evolutionary product of the struggle for survival. We're told that we're just animals, "naked apes," but where is there justice among animals? What makes our sense of justice an objective moral imperative rather than a mere illusion? 

Justice as we understand it, and as it's being demanded in the streets, is an artifact left over from our Judeo-Christian heritage. Secularism has no basis for it. Justice in the absence of God is simply whatever the strong can impose on the weak. For justice to exist, objective morality has to exist  (i.e. some things, like harming the innocent, have to be objectively wrong) and for objective morality to exist God has to exist. 

Calls for justice coming from those who stand in the Christian tradition, like Martin Luther King, have resonance. Those who demand justice based on a secular understanding of the world, however, are either hypocritically piggy-backing on the Christian tradition they reject or they're just shouting meaningless slogans as a form of public virtue-preening.

Clamorings to abolish or defund the police are also emanating from the protest marches.  Here's a suggestion: Why not establish police-free zones, like urban enterprise zones, in those neighborhoods where the police are most resented? Neighborhoods can democratically decide whether they want a police presence or not.  

This would be a disaster, of course, for the people in those neighborhoods; businesses would flee and gangs would take over, but at least there'd be no cops around risking their lives to protect people who don't want their protection. And it'd allow the corrupt city politicians to pocket more taxpayer money that would've otherwise gone to funding the police.

It sounds like a good idea, and I don't know why it hasn't actually been tried before.

Another thought: Maybe I'm too cynical, but watching the memorials honoring George Floyd, I have to wonder how many of the "mourners," aside from his family, really care about George Floyd the man. After all, we certainly don't see such an outpouring of grief over the deaths of any of the other thousands of black men murdered every year. Why not?

Most people probably care more about what Floyd's death symbolizes, so wouldn't it be more appropriate to honor instead all the innocent victims, living and dead, of police recklessness, brutality and malfeasance? This would be a much more meaningful observance as it would encompass all those who've had their lives unjustly devastated by law enforcement in this country, but that would, of course, include Michael Flynn so there probably won't be an upswell of support for this idea from the mainstream media.

The governors and mayors of the states and cities hardest hit by the violence and unrest are assuring us that the inequities and  racism that led to the death of George Floyd and the deaths of fifteen others during the riots, as well as the huge property losses, cannot be allowed to continue. They're going to "bring about change," they're going to "eliminate systemic racism," but what, exactly, does any of that actually mean? 

Does it mean "reparations"? Perhaps it means that where minorities are underrepresented more will be hired. Perhaps it means more affirmative action. 

Are there too few blacks in physics, astronomy, engineering and neurosurgery? No problem, just lower the standards and hire more. 

Are there too few whites in the NBA and NFL? No problem, just lower the standards and hire more. (Well, maybe we need to tap the brakes on that one. We don't want to overdo our attempt to achieve racial equity. After all, some racial inequities are more acceptable than others, just like some reasons for flouting social distancing are more acceptable than others.).

Are there too many members of one race committing a particular kind of crime, such as whites committing white-collar crimes and blacks committing street crimes?  No problem, just legalize the crime and, poof, the inequities are gone. What could be easier?

Here's another irony.  Most of  the states and cities that have suffered severely from the late unrest have been governed for decades by liberal Democrats, and, in the case of the mayors, many of them are African American. Why have these politicians just now awakened to the need to "do something" and why do the people so often victimized by the inequities they live with every day continue to vote for the same party every election that has done nothing to meliorate their suffering? 

What has electing Democrats done to change the prospects of those citizens living in our poorest neighborhoods? Every election season they talk about change, but for the poor in Democrat run cities and states nothing ever seems to change.

A final thought: Minnesota's Attorney General, Keith Ellison, a black liberal Democrat, as it happens, has decided to push all his chips onto the table by charging former officer Derek Chauvin with second degree homicide in the death of George Floyd and charge the other three former cops with aiding and abetting second degree homicide. 

I don't know who's advising Ellison, but in order to convict on a charge of second degree homicide in Minnesota you have to prove an intent to kill or prove that the death occurred during the commision of a felony. It's hard to see how it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt either that Chauvin actually intended to kill Floyd or that in subduing him he was committing a felony, but that's what Ellison has chosen to base his case on. 

Aiding and abetting is defined as occurring when a person is criminally liable for a crime committed by another if the person intentionally aids, advises, hires, counsels, or conspires with or otherwise procures the other to commit the crime. It's not clear that the other three officers did any of these things. The most they could be convicted of, it seems, would be negligent homicide because they stood by and did nothing to stop Chauvin.

But that's not the route Ellison has chosen to take. 

So imagine what'll happen now in cities across this country if the state of Minnesota fails, as seems quite possible, to make its case, and all four officers are acquitted. 

Heaven help us.