It is hard to have a rational discussion when a person rejects the notion of looking at facts. Those who rely solely on feelings insist on denying facts, data, and science. They trust intuition and feelings, not reality. That’s why the saying, “My facts don’t care about your feeling,” has gained traction.
Attorney General William Barr committed the ultimate heresy in the eyes of Leftists when he cited data. He recently noted that there has been a consistent reduction in the number of deaths of Blacks by police. Five years ago, the total number was 38, last year, 10. That is an amazing reduction in the number of police on black shootings.
What really triggered the Left was when Barr put these numbers in context. He pointed out that there were nearly 8,000 African Americans murdered last year. And he juxtaposed that outrageous number of black murders with the fact that only ten were killed by police officers. And, as he mentioned, six of those were attacking police officers.
During the same weekend that Black Lives Matters and Antifa rioters were tearing down statues of an abolitionist in Washington, D.C., Chicago had more murders (14) than last year’s total of Blacks killed by officers. Chicago also had more than 100 people shot. These facts are more important than the feelings of the violent mobs running some of our largest cities.
One leader of the police in Chicago called to keep violent offenders in jail longer. That’s not likely to happen as we have seen cities empty their jails during the virus outbreak.
The “community garden” in Seattle run by violent thugs experienced a murder in two separate shootings. I thought the autonomous zone was peaceful, a “summer of love” thing.
A Congresswoman in Minnesota said her community has been through so much, when commenting on a shooting that wounded 11 and left one dead last weekend. She also wants to get rid of the police. She has called the police department a cancer that must be amputated and claims the Minneapolis Police Department is “rotten to the root.”
Her emotions have overcome the facts.
There was an average of one shooting per hour in New York City last weekend.
And while mobs are destroying historical artifacts in an attempt to sanitize American history, their message of hostility to police corresponds with the carnage in our largest cities.
The agitators aren’t interested in justice; they are motivated by Marxism and the desire to impose a totalitarian regime in America. They adhere to Critical Race Theory—a belief that the class warfare integral to Marx’s philosophy isn’t based on economic disparities, but on racism inherent in free market countries.
How else can you explain the nonsensical attacks on statues, professors wanting to remove books from libraries, or museums removing art? Their violence is fueled by emotional pleas emanating from those leading and mobilizing the criminals.
As long as police--state, local, and federal--allow the violence, it will embolden the vandals. Arrests need to be made of those inciting the rioting. It may not provide a general deterrence because of the emotions that are overwhelming the reason of the violent perpetrators, but it will provide a dose of specific deterrence.
The facts are clear, but the haters are living on adrenaline and emotion. To reason with them is an almost hopeless task. Facts may be stubborn things, but to the irrational, they are always incomprehensible.