Posted on 08/17/2014 4:10:11 PM PDT by Kaslin
A week ago last Saturday, at high noon in Ferguson, Missouri, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by police officer Darren Wilson. Brown was black, Wilson is white.
Protests immediately followed, understandably; sadly, so did rioting and looting.
Not to mention dueling narratives.
Michael Brown was an unarmed kid walking to his grandmother’s house on that fateful day, and would have been on his way to college this fall. Instead, according to some accounts, Brown was gunned down in the sweltering August street in a hail of bullets. Why? No reason. It was in effect an execution by this policeman — even though Brown had his hands up and posed no threat.
It has been reported that Michael Brown’s body was left lying in the street for hours, but that he never received any medical care.
His “lynching by bullet” shows that racism is alive and well and too often administered by the police.
The police version is quite different. It alleges that Michael Brown was walking in the middle of the street blocking the road and that, when Brown was stopped, he assaulted the policeman, Darren Wilson. They note that Wilson is a six-year veteran of the force with a clean record. They say Brown tried to take Wilson’s gun, and that the gun discharged first in the squad car during that altercation, before Wilson shot and killed Brown, apparently some 30 feet from the police car.
As for receiving medical care, according to the police, an ambulance was on the scene assessing Brown’s condition within 5 minutes of the shooting.
On Friday, police also released a surprising video showing Brown robbing a convenience store and physically assaulting an employee not 15 minutes prior to the deadly altercation with Officer Wilson. That was the first time I recall hearing the 6-foot-4-inch, nearly 300-lb. Brown referred to by his nickname: “Big Mike.”
The implication is that Brown was the cause of the violent incident.
What really happened? I don’t know. I wasn’t there.
No doubt, the truth is not exactly as either narrative suggests. Maybe not even close. Michael Brown might be an angel or a devil and it could still be a case of police misconduct, even flat-out, cold-blooded murder.
Or not that way at all … and, instead, a justifiable act of self-defense.
Or something else altogether.
Until we know more of the facts, it isn’t possible to know for certain.
Admittedly, I’m skeptical there was justification for the use of deadly force. Libertarians usually are skeptical of government power. But I’d like to know the facts before passing judgment.
Such considerations don’t mean much to Washington Post blogger Paul Waldman, who attacked libertarians and small-government conservatives in a post entitled, “Why aren’t libertarians talking about Ferguson?”
“One might be tempted to conclude,” Waldman wrote, “they believe that when somebody’s grandson has to pay taxes on their inheritance, it’s a horrifying injustice that demands redress, but when somebody else’s grandson gets shot walking down the street, that’s just how things go sometimes.”
But had Mr. Waldman bothered to actually look or listen to libertarians or limited-government conservatives? Since the Obama ascendancy, it has been the limited government crowd that has consistently raised the civil libertarian critique of out-of-control policing, at federal, state, and local levels. A better question to ask is, where have progressives been? And why do they seem only to get upset when there is an inter-racial dimension to deadly force? American state violence is growing and quite alarming. If you pay attention to actual Tea Party voices, outside-the-beltway libertarians, or even grassroots conservatives (the latter of whom, I readily admit, are most likely to instinctively back local if not federal police), you might be surprised by what you hear.
U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) tweeted that same day: “Is this a war zone or a US city? Govt escalates tensions w/military equipment & tactics.”
The next day, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was featured in Time magazine with an op-ed arguing that “Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention. Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for non-violent mistakes in their youth.”
The Senator also noted disapprovingly that, “The militarization of our law enforcement is due to an unprecedented expansion of government power in this realm.”
Waldman’s own newspaper printed stories the next day entitled, “Libertarians make their voices heard on police in Ferguson, Mo.” and “Rand Paul on Ferguson, police militarization, and racial disparities in the criminal justice system” and “Libertarian criticism of police militarization.”
“I don’t see a Rand Paul, I don’t see a [RNC chairman Reince] Priebus, I don’t see anyone from the libertarian or Republican movement who talk about small government and overstepping American citizens’ rights coming to the fore, either on camera or social media, to talk about this situation,” charged CNN contributor L.Z. Granderson. “You don’t just come to the aid of white people that are being under siege from the government, you come to the aid of Americans who are under siege from the government.”
Mr. Granderson's innuendo is likewise simply not accurate. But, er, are progressives beginning to feel “under siege from the government”?
Welcome to the club.
But wouldn’t that be the very same government those same progressives want to expand exponentially, to take over our healthcare system, to subsidize and tax, and to have a monopoly on gun ownership?
In fact, what seems increasingly clear to both left and right is the ugly appearance of a militarized local police, not to mention the potential for abuse. As the Cato Institute’s Walter Olson posited, “the dominant visual aspect of the story, however, has been the sight of overpowering police forces confronting unarmed protesters who are seen waving signs or just their hands.”
In light of the militarization of our local police forces throughout the country and the events in Ferguson this past week, do progressives still want to take guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens — leaving all firepower with those government agents behind the automatic weapons and the armored personnel carriers?
Waldo is in there somewhere
Oh no!!! He was on his way to Grandma’s house with her box of Shwisher Shweets...
"Releasing information, witness statements and videotape to the public at this stage is tantamount to smearing Michel Brown after they shot him down in his own street. They are obviously trying to make the public think he was some kind of thug or gangster. The fact is, none of that is relevant!"
"There were a lot of folks who were concerned about that, this dastardly tactic simply fanned the flames and caused more damage and caused us to have to deal with that"
"It doesn't matter what the truth is, the real world implication is what is shown on television. This poor young man was shot down in the prime of his life and the community is rightfully angry about that."
When my son was heated within inches of his life by a black man, egged on by a black woman, I did not go out and riot or loot. When my friend’s son was gunned down in cold blood along with five other people in a bar in Colorado by a black man who robbed the place for $5, I didn’t riot or loot. When there are young blacks dying every week in Chicago, no one is rioting or looting. This is BS. I’m sick of it. I’m tired of people who ruin the schools that are given to the community with my tax dollars, who can’t be bothered to vote so that the entire city government is a different color than they are, who don’t get on the police force probably because of unions and nepotism which their political party support, etc etc. And now, they have time all day and night to riot and loot. Get over it. Get an education. Vote. Stay home with your children and old people. This is not the case of a white cop who got up on the morning of August 9th and said, I think I’ll go shoot and kill a black man. It’s a tragedy and it may be the officer’s fault. The 30 feet is disturbing but Big Mike was a scary guy. And why in hell is Holder ordering an autopsy. I assume one was already ordered and perhaps done. So it’s not about being a libertarian, it’s about common sense.
“No doubt, the truth is not exactly as either narrative suggests.”
No doubt?
Have some people learned nothing from the Martin Florida incident?
Wasn’t there an autopsy then Brown family wanted another and now Holder wants a third?
“It doesn’t matter what the truth is...”
“What difference does it make?”-Hillary
The battle cry of the left?
“Brown was black, Wilson is white.”
Those words are found in every news article on this event. There is no explanation of the underlying assumptions behind these words.
Suppose there is an accident. A truck plows into a car. Suppose the news articles say “the truck was black, the car was white.” Everyone will wonder why the hell that was in the article because a vehicle’s color has no effect on the outcome of an accident.
Back to Ferguson. No vehicles. People. The underlying assumption is that Whites hate Blacks and are racists, and that Blacks are always victims of White aggression. The news articles never SAY that, but that is what they want you to think when you read the words “Brown was black, Wilson is white.”
seems like it
America no longer has an answer to our political and economic problems, IMO.
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarter's Expenses?
No offense intended, but... DUH.
IOW - you’re absolutely right.
Because it is CONDEMMING EVIDENCE.
“What really happened? I don’t know. I wasn’t there.
No doubt, the truth is not exactly as either narrative suggests.”
What kind of namby-pamby crap is that? Oh, I’m so understanding and tolerant, I’m sure there is fault on both sides. Maybe we can compromise.
NO, you jerk! The truth is there. What is wrong with this country that so many people are so afraid of blacks that they won’t stand up and say what needs to be said?
Whites are going to be moving as far away from blacks as they can get. Then HUD will do its best to move blacks to where they are. Pretty soon we’ll have to go to Iceland.
LOL You got me.
Well played.
Unfortunately, most of the “real” stories have that exact tone.
This an ugly demise. The socialist media raced in and blurred the reality and now there is no way to clean the mess up.
Unarmed black teenage shot and killed by white policeman as teen ran from the police.
The likely truth:
Strong arm, 6' 4", 270 lb, 18 year old black robber, stopped by police officer, with whom he struggled for the policeman's gun, is shot once by the officer and then runs, but when the officer orders him to stop, he turns on the officer and charges him and is shot several times and killed. The truth does not fit the race hustling, race baiting narrative, so Sharpton, Jackson, and the new Black Panthers call the truth a lie and urge more violence.And Holder and Obama abett this behavior, and do nothing to stop it.
My Gosh, that statement from the governor is STUNNING!
An endorsement to loot Missouri Tax paying citizens.
People of Missouri are you listening!?!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.