Dissident Veteran For Peace

If Black lives really mattered to BLM, the media, and academia then they would tell the truth about the Black homicide rate instead of promoting specious, unfounded narratives about racism and police brutality. I was reminded of this once more while listening to an almost hour-long program on National Prevarication Radio (NPR) yesterday.

The show was Freakonomics Radio and the episode was "What Are the Police for, Anyway?" I actually agree that the US has a murder and incarceration problem. I also support an end to the War on Drugs and evidence-based police reforms that are effective at increasing the safety of both officers and the communities they serve. 

Unfortunately, BLM, most of the media, and most academics don't care about facts. They are driven by false narratives that sow division and enhance their careers and the power of politicians and business elites.

Here's an illustrative excerpt from the radio show transcript:

Black Americans are five times more likely to be arrested than white Americans. On a per-capita basis, Blacks are also much more likely to be fatally shot by the police. There has of course been a racial reckoning around policing lately

    PROTESTORS: Hey, hey! Ho, ho!  These racist cops have got to go!

Highlighted by the police murder [sic] of George Floyd. According to a recent Gallup poll, just 51 percent of U.S. adults have either 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in the police.

Anyone with even a modicum of common sense, let alone statistical education, realizes that on "a per-capita basis" is a wholly inadequate way to analyze police shootings by demographic group.

According to the Washington Post 2015-2021 police shootings database, 95.5% of the people shot and killed by police in the US are males and yet they make up slightly less than half of the US population. Thus, on a per capita basis, men are far more likely to be shot and killed by police but no one screams about systemic police misandry. An honest, sensible person looks at that discrepancy and say, yes, but males commit proportionality far more violent crimes than females.

In fact, year after year, Blacks commit around 50% of the murders in the US and most of their victims are Black. Anyone who thinks this fact bears no relation to outcomes of police encounters with Black people is profoundly stupid, profoundly dishonest, or both. Cops of all colors may not be able to cite the precise statistics but they know by experience that, ceteris paribus, Black people they encounter are far more likely to be a threat to police and others than people of any other race. (That doesn't mean police should not regard everyone as putatively law-abiding individuals, most Black people are not violent criminals and they deserve to be treated respectfully unless objective circumstances dictate otherwise.)

Moreover, FBI data (Zip file) reveals that Black criminals upped their game in 2020.^* In 56.6% of cases where the race of the "murder offender" is known that offender is Black; the comparable figure for Whites is 40.6%.^† Academics have long known that Black Americans have a criminal violence problem that dwarfs that in all other communities but, by and large, they haven't had the courage or integrity to vocalize that and hold the media and activists accountable in discussions of police conduct.

For instance, in 2013, Siegel et al. published an article on the predictors of firearm homicide rates in arguably, the premier US public health journal, but they buried the lede. They claimed "ours is the most up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the relationship between firearm ownership and gun-related homicide rates among the 50 states."

In their final statistical analysis they found that the strongest predictor of "gun-related homicide" rate was a racial factor. In their tables 2 and 3 they reported: "For each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of Black population, firearm homicide rate increased by 5.2%" and "For each 1-SD [standard deviation] increase in proportion of black population, firearm homicide rate increased by 82.8". The comparable firearm homicide rate increases associated with an "increase in proportion of household gun ownership" were 0.9% and 12.9%.

There is no discussion whatsoever of the relationship between proportion of Black and firearm homicide rate in the body of their paper, which was titled "The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010". Now, if you really cared about reducing homicides wouldn't you foreground the strongest predictor found in your analysis? Needless to say this finding, as far as I can tell, has never been reported in any mainstream media outlet. In the only coverage I could find of the study anywhere was in Science Daily and they didn't report on any predictor but household gun ownership.

Notes

^* See "Expanded Homicide Data Table 3, Murder Offenders by Age, Sex, Race, and Ethnicity, 2020".

^† 8,142 ÷ (20,982  - 6,592) = 0.5658 = 56.6%; 5,844 ÷ (20,982  - 6,592) = 0.4061 = 40.6%

Labels: Black America, crime, George Floyd, guns, media, National Public Radio, police, race, science

In 1995, the Sackler family started producing and pushing oxycontin, a semi-synthetic opioid, via the Sackler-controlled company Purdue Pharma. Along the way they made billions of dollars in profits.

According to the CDC:

Nearly 500,000 people died from overdoses involving any opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids, from 1999-2019 ... The first wave began with increased prescribing of opioids in the 1990s, with overdose deaths involving prescription opioids (natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone) increasing since at least 1999.

Most states of the United States have some form of the "felony murder rule". This means a perpetrator can be held be criminally liable for murder if s/he caused the death of another person in the course of committing a felony. The perpetrator need not have intended the death of the victim and, in some states, need not have been the proximate cause of the death.

For example, if you merely drove the get away car for an armed robbery where one of your accomplices murdered a bank teller then you may held responsible for the murder. (If narrowly written and applied I think the felony murder rule is perfectly fair and just.)

I bring this up to point out that in America if you kill one person—even if you didn't pull the trigger—you can be punished for the murder. On the other hand, if you are a member of the Sackler family who had a key role in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans by opioid abuse then (so far) you won't be personally charged with any crime.

The Sackler family members who ran Purdue Pharma belong in prison. However, there are plenty of other culprits not directly connected to the Sacklers or Purdue Pharma who also belong in prison for their part in the opioid crisis and, as far as I know, none of them has been criminally charged, either.

To be clear, while the Sacklers et al. helped create the opioid crisis, the crisis itself is a form of collective suicide founded on America's nihilistic consumerism and culture of death. It's worth noting, too, that the death toll is mainly comprised of White Americans who are supposedly so privileged. This is undoubtedly fueled by unconcealed hostility to White people, generally, and White working-class people, in particular.

If you doubt this then try carrying a sign saying "It's Okay to be White" in public in any town or city in America and see what happens. Also, consider the remarks of Duquesne University Psychology professor Derek Hook who opined that “White people should commit suicide as an ethical act.” Hook says that he was speaking about suicide as the destruction of "Whiteness" but try publicly advocating that for any other racial, ethnic, or religious group.

Labels: crime, culture, government, health, medicine, race, White folks

Here are few excerpts from Katie Halper's and Matt Taibbi's recent interview with Adolph Reed, Jr.:

Reed: Combating racism becomes a convenient alternative to attacking inequality ... even those inequalities that appear or ... manifest themselves as racial disparities. Because the struggle against racism is exactly parallel to the struggle against terrorism … It can go on forever, because the enemy is an abstraction that you can define however you want to define it, at the moment that you wanted to find it.

Matt Taibbi: There's a line in her [i.e. Robin DiAngelo's] book that I missed originally: "I believe that white progressives caused the most daily damage to people of color." ...

Reed: ... the other thing I thought was just in listening to her was that an image that came to my mind was Viola Liuzzo, right? The wife of a postal worker, from Detroit, who went down to Selma in 1965 to participate in the voting rights March and to participate in organizing the voting rights March. And she got herself killed by the Klan. In the context of that, with DiAngelo, I thought, "Oh, so that's what she was doing, she was just trying to out-woke the black people." I don't even know what to say to shit like that, I really don't. It's pretty repugnant.

... I've been puzzling with addressing the question of why so much anti-racist discourse now depends on analogy with slavery and Jim Crow. And that's ultimately because ... Well, to be honest, because the political as well as the intellectual concern of the people making these arguments is exactly the same as the political and intellectual concerns of the defeated Confederates who established and propagated lost-cause ideology, the myth of the Solid South, and put all those Confederate monuments up because they were committed to a racialist understanding of the world for the purpose of undermining any possibility of a political-economic challenge coming from the lower class, basically.

That's the same reason that people making the race-reductionist arguments today can't really move without drawing links between this moment and slavery and Jim Crow. Just as the 19th century former Confederates were committed to a white supremacist narrative, these people are also committed to a white supremacist/anti-white-supremacist narrative for the same reasons: to keep political economy off the table, and to advance their particular class program, just as the planter class was in the 19th century.

... so my tank is basically full now from white people in particular telling me that I don't understand the depth and intensity of racism, and its effects and this and the other, not because they're violating a normative or an epistemic principle of mine, but because they're violating theirs, by the shit that they argue. They technically don't have the right to say shit to me. So why is it I'm the only POC that you can tell that he's got it wrong?

See also:"Why Black Lives Matter Can’t be Co-opted" by Adolph Reed, Jr.

Labels: Adolph Reed Jr., class, history, politics, quotations, race

American society has never upheld or realized truth and justice in a manner fully consistent with American rhetoric. Yet, for most of my life I thought our society was at least headed in the right direction. No more.

In the flurry of non-stop anti-Trump (someone I never supported) lies I finally realized that somewhere, in my lifetime or before, the country took a wrong turn. It's tempting to say it happened in the last ten years but it may be more accurate that it was during the 1991 Rodney King police brutality/racism hoax and subsequent rioting when politicians and the media openly abandoned truth, justice, and integrity. The American public, in general, then showed itself to be too gullible and lazy to know or care that vital principles were being gutted.

Don't get me wrong, politicians and the media were not paragons of virtue before then but it does seem like we as a society turned the corner down into dangerous alley back then and things have gotten steadily worse ever since. Academia and the clergy have followed suit or, perhaps, helped lead the way.

In any case, I followed the prosecution of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin very closely. Before the verdict I had estimated the outcome in order of probability (most to least) was as follows:

1. Hung jury
2. Full acquittal
3. Partial acquittal
4. Guilty on all charges

It's obvious I couldn't have been more mistaken. My estimation was based on the clearly erroneous assumption that the jury included at least one intelligent, rational, and principled juror. I don't have a lot of hope that Chauvin will get justice in the appellate courts.

I wish I knew what to tell people to do to turn this country away from the abyss but I don't. I can say there's no hope in Biden or Trump or most of the other denizens of the two wings of the political uniparty. What I do know is that defeatism is a faster path to destruction.

Here are a few more perspectives on the Chauvin trial and verdict:

• "It's a lie: 'Systematic police racism' and the Derek Chauvin Trial" on LawOfficer.com
• "The Derek Chauvin Trial: Reasonable doubt exists" on LawOfficer.com
• "Chauvin Guilty Verdict Completes the Total Collapse of Law, Order, and Due Process in Biden’s America" on Revolver.news
• "Candace Owens: 'This was not a fair trial. No person can say this was a fair trial.' " on Tucker Carlson Tonight via Twitter
  
• "After the Derek Chauvin Verdict: Initial Thoughts and What Comes Next" on RedState.com
• "The Chauvin verdict" on AmericanThinker.com
• "The American Crisis" by Ben Domenech via Twitter

If there were any Left-wing writers who care about truth and justice in the matter of George Floyd and Derek Chauvin then I would link to them but I am unaware of any.

21 April 2021 Addendum: In "George Floyd's Death: Test Your Knowledge" I mentioned that "the written report of the unofficial autopsy of George Floyd requested by Floyd's family and performed Michael Baden, MD, and Allecia Wilson, MD" had never been publicly released. They and their findings were much in the news last summer but unless I'm mistaken neither of them testified in the trial of Derek Chauvin nor was their report offered in evidence by the prosecution. If true, then this suggests that the "family autopsy" was primarily a media prop to advance the financial interests of George Floyd's family and lawyers in extracting a sweet financial payout.

Labels: Biden, crime, critical thinking, George Floyd, Justice, media, police, politics, race, Trump

The prosecution in State v. Chauvin has presented, through its witnesses, an incoherent theory as to how Derek Chauvin allegedly killed George Floyd. Except for an opening statement, the defense has not yet presented it case.

Yet, the prosecution's witnesses have repeatedly given testimony that fundamentally undermines the prosecution's case against Chauvin. For instance, some witnesses testified Floyd died of "positional asphyxia" yet the only witness to perform an autopsy on Floyd testified there was no evidence of asphyxia (see also here). If the state cannot settle on how Chauvin supposedly killed Floyd then how can they honestly argue he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

Minneapolis Police Dept. Excited Delirium training slide (cropped)

Judging by the currently available evidence, the Chauvin prosecution is a political show trial orchestrated by corrupt politicians and a corrupt mainstream corporate media. From the point of view of race grifters and their corrupt enablers the trial is a win no matter what happens. If Chauvin is convicted then they will argue that affirms the false narrative of state-sanctioned routine, deadly, racist police violence against Black people. If Chauvin is not convicted or not convicted of the most serious charge(s) then they will claim that proves Black people cannot get justice and you can expect more of the rioting, looting, arson, and violent crimes that we saw last summer and fall.

However, unless there is some smoking gun soon presented by the prosecution Judge Cahill should dismiss the charges "in furtherance of justice" pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 631.21 after the prosecution finishes presenting its case. Since it is extremely unlikely that Cahill, given his past performance, will do this defense counsel Eric Nelson should consider filing a motion for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.03, subd. 18(1)(a).

It's unlikely that Cahill would grant such a motion on any of the three counts but it's not impossible that he might acquit on one or two of the counts against Chauvin and, from my armchair, non-lawyer perch, I don't see that the defense has a lot to lose by filing the motion. The calculus, of course, includes weighing the time and energy involved in preparing the motion and what possible impact a ruling by Cahill might have on the jury. If Cahill acquitted on one of the murder counts would the jury be more inclined to convict on manslaughter?

See also:

• Prosecution Opening Statement
• What was Derek Chauvin Thinking?
• George Floyd's Death: Test Your Knowledge

Labels: George Floyd, Justice, law, media, police, race

On June 11, 2020, Von Kleim wrote a piece titled "Preparing for Hard Conversations" on the Force Policy Institute web site. One of Kleim's claims in his piece was: "Even now, we cannot make sense of what we saw. Experts, who have learned to be circumspect and wait for facts, are struggling to imagine any fact that could adequately explain the treatment of George Floyd."

Less than a week after that piece was published I tried to leave a comment. My comment was never posted although I'm not sure why. In any case, jury selection in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin started last week.

If you, like Von Kleim, cannot imagine such possible explanations then your 'imaginer' is probably broken or you have been bamboozled by media manipulation. I can imagine several possible facts that, singly or in combination, may explain, but do not necessarily excuse, Chauvin's actions, including his failure to stop and place Floyd in the recovery position in the last 3-4 minutes before EMS arrived.

Below is essentially the list I came up with in the middle of last June. Since then more information has rendered some of them implausible and I've struck them out. I don't claim to know which, if any, of the remainders are true but here they are in no particular order:

1. Chauvin is a racist with a disregard for the lives of Black people.
2. He is a misanthrope who dislikes people in general, regardless of race.
3. He had detained others this way before and/or had witnessed it and didn't think any serious harm would be done.
4. He was showing the crowd who was boss.
5. He was showing the rookies how it's done.
6. He was actually putting very little pressure on Floyd's neck (this seems to be consistent with the final report of the Hennepin County M.E.) and thought Floyd would be fine until EMS arrived.
7. He genuinely thought Floyd was just fine but faking.
8. He was having a bad day and/or angry about George Floyd's behavior or something else and expressed his anger recklessly.
9. He was fatigued or stressed and simply made a poor decision(s).
10. He had a personal grudge against Floyd and wanted him to suffer but not die.
11. He had a personal grudge against Floyd and wanted him to suffer and die.

See also: George Floyd's Death: Test Your Knowledge

Labels: crime, critical thinking, George Floyd, media, police, race

On December 8, 2020, I wrote about the State of Texas' motion in the Supreme Court to allow it to file a complaint over alleged problems in the 2020 election in several states. Back then I made two observations relevant to the present post.

First, I said: "I think the State of Texas should have standing but that is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition and it's motion comes awfully late." Second, I said: "If, as seems likely, the Supreme Court refuses to hear this complaint then it's probably game over for all the election challenges."

The Supreme Court did indeed reject Texas' motion. Here's the full text of the Court's unsigned order:

The State of Texas's motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.

Now, it's clear Texas does not have an interest in how other states elect their own state officials. But the notion that they have no "judicially cognizable interest" in how other states elect the one President and VP of all of the United States defies logic and facially undermines constitutional republicanism. I'm not suggesting there were no reasonable grounds to deny Texas' motion but, rather, that the one the Court came up with was unreasonable. 

Supporters of Biden like to mention that many of the federal judges denying 2020 presidential election challenges have been Trump appointees. The implication is that the legal challenges have been so hollow that even Trump loyalists had to reject them.

There may truth to this but it doesn't follow that because Trump nominated these judges that they would necessarily do him any favors. That is the whole point of lifetime appointments for federal judges—to try to insulate them from political influence.

Also, Trump "relied on outside conservative legal organizations and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell" to select and manage the confirmation of his judicial nominees. Moreover, these are people who were on the judiciary career path long before anyone took a Trump presidency seriously and who always knew they would likely be on the bench long after Trump was gone. They might even despise Trump but were willing to accept a nomination (or, possibly, reject an election lawsuit) to advance their own careers and political commitments.

Thus, there are scant grounds to think Trump necessarily got special or even fair consideration of his post-election legal complaints. I'm not saying he was treated unfairly but that you cannot infer much from the fact that some Trump judicial appointees rejected his election claims.

###

The January 6, 2021, Capitol rioters are criminals who should be prosecuted. They are also fools and idiots who played right into the hands of the "progressive" authoritarians and their program of racism and repression.

Trump has now been impeached a second time on purely political grounds—they're afraid he'll beat them in another election. Barring a miraculous transformation I hope Trump quietly retires to another, far away country.

In any event, I read the new article of impeachment and it presents no sound legal basis to claim that Trump criminally incited the rioters. If prosecutors believe there is probable cause that Trump committed a crime then they should seek an indictment.

Instead, the Democrats and their media allies are simply hyping and milking the riot for every political advantage they can extract no matter how dishonest the effort. Referring to the upcoming impeachment trial, Jonathan Turley writes: "A private citizen is being called to the Senate to be tried for removal from an office that he does not hold." 

The Democrats had some conceivable legitimate grounds to impeach Trump while he was president though not on events connected to Russia or Ukraine. For instance, the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was, arguably, illegal under US and international law. It was also dangerous and counter to American strategic interests. Yet, because that attack was perceived to be in Israel's interests impeachment was never on the agenda for it.

Trump might also have been impeached for his attempt to suborn Mike Pence to violate the Constitution and federal law by unlawfully interfering with the certification of Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021. But, no, to impeach Trump for that would draw more unwanted attention to Pence who refused Trump's entreaties and followed the law while also undermining the Dems specious and profoundly hypocritical claims that for members of Congress to lawfully object to certification "borders on sedition or treason" and such.

###

The election of Donald Trump was always a symptom of the larger problems of, in no special order, economic inequality, toxic consumerism, empire, corporate globalization, Democratic race grifting for power, and the corruption of the media and political elites. Trump ran on a campaign that showed awareness of some of these problems but he was seemingly always a con man exploiting the justified grievances of millions of Americans. He betrayed them and never rose to the call of his office or of history.

Unfortunately, Trump's disastrous term has only worsened matters and emboldened "progressive" authoritarians to step up the repression of their political enemies, including the White working class, in general (which is not to say the GOP were ever their allies). This is Trump's fault, the fault of his many enemies, and, to no small extent, the fault of voters duped by him.

Biden claims he wants to unify the country but—and I hope I'm wrong when I say this—that's a lie to judge from so many of his other utterances and policy plans. When I saw recent photos of the unprecedentedly large military presence in the Capitol for the inauguration I was reminded of all the unpopular, repressive governments the US has propped in foreign countries over the years. Are chickens coming home to roost?

Virginia National Guard members in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 13, 2021 (U.S. Air National Guard photo by SSgt Bryan Myhr).

New Jersey National Guard members in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 12, 2021 (U.S. Air National Guard photo by MSgt Matt Hecht).

See also: Anointing Biden & Election Irregularity Allegations IV

 

Labels: Biden, class, Democrats, Empire, Iran, Israel, law, media, military, politics, race, repression, Supreme Court, Trump, voting

Donald J. Trump has endured more than four years of constant public drubbing by most of the mainstream media, academia, and the entertainment industry. Trump survived the bogus Russiagate conspiracy and a failed impeachment related to Biden family dealings in Ukraine. A significant number of establishment Republicans betrayed their party to publicly campaign for Biden. Biden has collected far more campaign money ($1,380.1 million vs. $863.6 million) than Trump.

In many ways Trump's presidency has been an incoherent mess marked by numerous self-inflicted wounds, including but not limited to, bad policies and inept policy implementation. Yet, despite all this and during the worst pandemic in 100 years and the worst economy in 90 years, Trump once again defied the pollsters and pundits to mount a strong challenge to the presidential nominee of Democratic Party. It looks like Republicans will hold the Senate and cut the Democratic majority in the House to single digits. Meanwhile, in solid blue California voters soundly rejected an attempt by political elites to remove an anti-discrimination clause from the state constitution.

This all begs the question: Will Democratic (or Republican) elites learn the right lessons from the 2016 and 2020 elections and resolve to work "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty"? Nah.

See also:

• Anointing Biden & Election Irregularity Allegations I
• "Tucker Carlson: A Vote for President Trump Is a Vote Against America's Ruling Class" by Joey Pietro for The Western Journal
  
• "Ketman And The Left's Problem" by Rod Dreher for The American Conservative

Labels: Biden, COVID-19, media, politics, race, Russia, Trump, Tucker Carlson, voting

Facts don't matter to the academic victimology narrative. Far from destroying the black body, whites are the overwhelming target of interracial violence. Between 2012 and 2015, blacks committed 85.5 percent of all black-white interracial violent victimizations (excluding interracial homicide, which is also disproportionately black-on-white). That works out to 540,360 felonious assaults on whites. Whites committed 14.4 percent of all interracial violent victimization, or 91,470 felonious assaults on blacks. Blacks are less than 13 percent of the national population.

Source: Heather Mac Donald. "Darkness Falls: The collapse of the rule of law across the country, intensified by Antifa radicals, is terrifying". City Journal. May 31, 2020.

Labels: Black America, crime, politics, quotations, race, White folks

Whoopi Goldberg poses with members of the Proud Boys in Florida in 2019.

After the sh*tshow that was last night's presidential "debate" the mainstream media's major talking point is the allegation that Trump refused to "condemn white supremacists". Never mind that, beginning no later than August 2017, Trump has repeatedly "condemned white supremacists". Never mind, too, that White supremacism is virtually a non-issue in modern America.

In any case, the media frenetically seized on Trump's failure to condemn a group fingered by Biden—the Proud Boys. Earlier today, I ran a search on "proud boys" + "hate group". Every news hit on the first page of results claimed, assumed, or implied that the Proud Boys is a violent "hate", "white nationalist", and/or "white supremacist" group, mostly on the strength of allegations by the disreputable ADL or SPLC. In typical fashion, spineless Republicans and Fox News piled on.

Here's the strange thing, as even some of its detractors acknowledge, the Proud Boys is a multi-racial group. Here's what one critic wrote earlier today:

Indeed the group has a membership that includes those of Black, Hispanic, and Asian backgrounds. This fact would be the core argument against the Proud Boys being termed a "white nationalist" group, which goes along with its also-problematic rebranding to center on the coded language of "Western values."

"Proud Boys is a multi-racial fraternity with thousands of members worldwide," a lawyer for McInnis asserted in 2018. "The only requirements for membership are that a person must be biologically male and believe that the West is the best."

So, how is a Progressive goodthinker supposed to reconcile the Proud Boys' racial/ethnic diversity (good) with White people/hate (bad)? Injunction 1: Who said you were allowed to think? Your betters have told you what to believe, just accept that the Proud Boys are a hate group and leave it at that. Injunction 2: If you disobey Injunction 1, realize that their refusal to accept (White) racial guilt proves their crime. It goes like this:

However, the group's [i.e. the Proud Boys'] website includes a list of core values [see also here] as tenets: "Minimal Government, Maximum Freedom, Anti Political Correctness, Anti-Drug War, Closed Borders, Anti-Racial Guilt, Anti-Racism, Pro-Free Speech (1st Amendment), Pro-Gun Rights (2nd Amendment), Glorifying the Entrepreneur, Venerating the Housewife, Reinstating a Spirit of Western Chauvinism."

The impossible notion of couching "anti-racism" together with "anti-racial guilt" is informative, in the implicit suggestion that Proud Boys do not hate non-whites as long as they (whites) aren't guilted into taking ownership of their privilege or past sins of racialized violence. In other words, per their ideology, "others" can join as long as they fully adhere to white-centered, libertarian ideals of freedom, and inherent superiority.

In fact, all ethical and thinking people reject both racism and racial guilt. Moreover, the Proud Boys nowhere, that I have seen, claim or imply that non-White members are "others" who must "fully adhere to white-centered, libertarian ideals of freedom, and inherent superiority."

In one of the rare, more balanced accounts USA Today reported:

Current Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who is Afro-Cuban, says the group has "longstanding regulations prohibiting racist, white supremacist or violent activity," Ronald D. Coleman wrote in an email to USA TODAY. Coleman said he is a spokesman for the Proud Boys.

"We do not care what color you are or what your background is ... if you love America ... we consider you a brother," Tarrio said in a written statement provided by Coleman. The group condemns racism, fascism, communism and socialism, the statement says.

As for the allegations of violence. I have little doubt that some of the Proud Boys and/or its associates have instigated violence and they should be arrested and tried for it. However, I have watched a lot of video of the violent encounters and they, overwhelmingly, seem to be defensive on the part of the Proud Boys.

One recent example occurred this summer in Kalamazoo. The USA Today report quoted above said simply: "When the Proud Boys met with counterprotesters in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in August, the tensions boiled over into fights requiring law enforcement to step in." The reporter did not see fit to tell his readers that Kalamazoo police determined, and provided video showing, that "counterprotesters" initiated the violence (see also here).

In a largely ignored statement issued before Kalamazoo police had their press conference the Michigan chapter of the Proud Boys said, in part:

For those in Kalamazoo city government who claim to reject our values of hate – we merely ask who do we hate? African American Proud Boys, Asian Proud Boys, Jewish Proud Boys, Arab Proud Boys, Hispanic Proud Boys were all represented as photo and video documentation of our protest prove. We hate no one, but we do pity those that must resort to violence when confronted ... by those who vote for a different political party than they do, and support the current President of the United States.

All this is not to say the Proud Boys are angelic beings who can think or do no wrong but all the evidence of which I am aware indicates that the mainstream media has generally shamefully misrepresented them for transparently political purposes.

Labels: Biden, critical thinking, media, politics, race, Trump, Tucker Carlson, video, White folks

Due to a gruesome video of Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on George Floyd's neck and the widespread media coverage of it, the death of Floyd quickly became a matter of public outrage and ongoing national interest. Across the United States, Derek Chauvin has been characterized as the murdering poster boy of systemic racist police violence and important public policy decisions are being made in the wake of protests occasioned by Floyd's death.

What follows is a 12-question quiz. The purpose of this quiz is not to amuse, provoke anger, or to make light of George Floyd's death. Rather, the purpose is to give the reader a benchmark to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of information provided by mainstream media coverage of the death of Floyd and subsequent events.

If you do well on this quiz then you may conclude that the media sources you rely upon are providing you with important factual material in context (or it may be that you have also done your own research independently). Otherwise, you may want to consider what your sources of information are and whether they are trustworthy when it comes to controversial and important subjects. The answers to the questions appear at the end of the quiz.

1. According to the statements of probable cause in the criminal complaint and the amended criminal complaint against former officer Chauvin, what was the relationship of Chauvin and George Floyd before May 25, 2020?

a. They had both worked at El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub.
b. They had worked at the nightclub and knew each other.
c. They had worked at the nightclub, knew each other, and had clashed there.
d. The statements of probable cause do not indicate that the two men worked together or knew each other.

2. The conversations in the publicly available bodycam transcripts of former MPD officers Thomas Kiernan Lane and J. Alexander Kueng reveal that Chauvin knew Floyd and/or Floyd knew Chauvin.

a. True
b. False

3. David Pinney, a Black man who told CBS News he worked with Floyd and Chauvin at El Nuevo Rodeo, retracted his claims that Floyd and Chauvin knew each other "pretty well" and "bumped heads" with Pinney later saying he mistook George Floyd for a different Black former co-worker.

a. True.
b. False.

4. According to the Lane and Kueng bodycam transcripts officers expressed concern that Floyd might be at risk of or suffering from which potentially lethal condition:

a. None, they expressed no concerns about Floyd's health and safety.
b. Positional asphyxia.
c. Mechanical asphyxia.
d. Excited delirium.

5. According to a 2009 "White Paper Report on Excited Delirium Syndrome" by a task force of American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), a 2014 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin article, and a 2016 ACEP newsletter article "excited delirium" is likely to be:

a. A myth.
b. Junk science.
c. A racist fiction created to justify police misconduct.
d. A real condition that can lead to death by a sudden cardiopulmonary arrest.

6. On May 25, 2020, MPD's official use of force policy permitted officers to use neck restraint as a "Non-deadly force option" including the "Conscious Neck Restraint" described as "The subject is placed in a neck restraint with intent to control, and not to render the subject unconscious, by only applying light to moderate pressure."

a. True.
b. False.

7. According to information in the official autopsy report by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner and the amended criminal complaint against former officer Chauvin how long did George Floyd live after Chauvin "removed his knee from Mr. Floyd's neck"?

a. Zero minutes, Floyd was already dead.
b. Seven minutes.
c. Thirty-three minutes.
d. Fifty-eight minutes.

8. According to the official autopsy report, the Medical Examiner identified "no potentially life-threatening injuries" to George Floyd's body and no "evidence of injury" to his neck.

a. True
b. False

9. How many times does the official autopsy report mention "excited delirium", "suffocation", "strangulation", "asphyxia", and "neck compression" in total?

a. Once.
b. Seven times.
c. Thirteen times.
d. Twenty-three times.

10. The case title of the official autopsy report is which of the following:

a. Cardiopulmonary Arrest Complicating Law Enforcement Subdual, Restraint, and Neck Compression.
b. Cardiopulmonary Arrest Caused by Law Enforcement Subdual, Restraint, and Neck Compression.
c. Cardiopulmonary Arrest Due to Fentanyl and Methamphetamine Overdose.
d. Cardiopulmonary Arrest of George Floyd aka Floyd Perry.

11. On May 31, 2020, according to notes of the Managing Assistant Hennepin County Attorney, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner "said that if Mr. Floyd had been found dead in his home (or anywhere else) and there were no other contributing factors he would conclude that it was an overdose death."

a. True
b. False

12. When was the written report of the unofficial autopsy of George Floyd requested by Floyd's family and performed Michael Baden, MD, and Allecia Wilson, MD, publicly released?

a. On June 1, 2020, the same day as the press conference announcing their findings.
b. On June 3, 2020, the day charges against Chauvin were upgraded to second-degree murder.
c. On July 15, 2020, when the Floyd family filed their lawsuit in federal court.
d. It has never been publicly released.

It may be objected that to focus too closely on the facts surrounding the death of George Floyd or any other police-involved death is to miss the forest of systemic racist police violence for the trees. However, if you were in what you were told was an oak forest and found that most of the trees were actually cedars then you might begin to question the competency or motives of those who had misinformed you.

For example, the high-profile police killing of Michael Brown in 2014 helped propel Black Lives Matter onto the national stage. That case has been independently investigated three times in the last six years. Two of the three prosecutorial inquiries were under the supervision of Black officials—there was the federal inquiry under the Obama administration's Attorney General Eric Holder and then, this year, a five months long investigation by St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell. Each time a grand jury or prosecutors found there was insufficient evidence that a crime had been committed against Brown. Yet, Brown's death is still unqualifiedly characterized by BLM as a "murder". Why is that?

Answers:

1) d. The statements of probable cause do not indicate that the two men worked together or knew each other (see the criminal complaint and the amended criminal complaint).
2) b. False (see the bodycam transcripts of former MPD officers Lane (p. 16) and Kueng (p. 33)).
3) a. True (see "Man who claimed George Floyd and Derek Chauvin 'bumped heads' changes story").
4) d. Excited delirium.
5) d. A real condition that can lead to death by a sudden cardiopulmonary arrest (see ACEP "White Paper", FBI Bulletin, & ACEP article).
6) a. True (see the MPD Policy & Procedure Manual use of force section 5-311).
7) Either c. Thirty-three minutes or d. Fifty-eight minutes may be considered correct. According to the amended criminal complaint Chauvin "removed his knee from Mr. Floyd's neck" at 8:27 PM (see p. 4). The official autopsy report says that an "antemortem blood draw" ("antemortem" means preceding or before death) was performed on Floyd at the hospital at 9:00 PM (see p. 2) and that Floyd was not pronounced dead until 9:25 PM (see p. 1).
8) a. True.
9) a. Once. The report uses the term "neck compression" only once, in the title, and never uses the other words.
10) a. Cardiopulmonary Arrest Complicating Law Enforcement Subdual, Restraint, and Neck Compression.
11) a. True (see "Notes from conversation with Dr. Andrew Baker, Hennepin County Medical Examiner").
12) d. Never. As of September 14, 2020, the report has not been made public.

See also: "What was Derek Chauvin Thinking?"

Labels: crime, critical thinking, George Floyd, media, police, race

No honest or rational person would ever accuse me of being a supporter of Donald Trump. That said, Trump's response to Bob Woodward's question about "White privilege" is almost perfect and worth listening to.

Woodward: But let me ask you this. I mean, we share one thing in common. We're White, privileged, who- my father was a lawyer and a judge in Illinois, and we know what your dad did.

Do you have any sense that that privilege has isolated and put you in a cave to a certain extent, as it put me, and I think lots of White, privileged people in a cave. And that we have to work our way out of it to understand the anger and the pain, particularly Black people feel in this country. Do you feel–

Trump: No. You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn't you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.

At the end of a 60 Minutes clip poor, old Bob incoherently whines about how Trump "was ridiculing me for reflecting what the whole movement after George Floyd is". Well, Bob, people who embrace fraudulent movements such as Black Lives Matter and destructive, specious concepts such as "White privilege" have certainly earned any ridicule directed at them.

Labels: media, politics, race, Trump

Labels: critical thinking, politics, quotations, race

There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they [do] not want to lose their jobs.

A story told me by a coloured man in South Carolina will illustrate how people sometimes get into situations where they do not like to part with their grievances. In a certain community there was a coloured doctor of the old school, who knew little about modern ideas of medicine, but who in some way had gained the confidence of the people and had made considerable money by his own peculiar methods of treatment. In this community there was an old lady who happened to be pretty well provided with this world's goods and who thought that she had a cancer. For twenty years she had enjoyed the luxury of having this old doctor treat her for that cancer. As the old doctor became -- thanks to the cancer and to other practice -- pretty well-to-do, he decided to send one of his boys to a medical college. After graduating from the medical school, the young man returned home, and his father took a vacation. During this time the old lady who was afflicted with the "cancer" called in the young man, who treated her; within a few weeks the cancer (or what was supposed to be the cancer) disappeared, and the old lady declared herself well.

When the father of the boy returned and found the patient on her feet and perfectly well, he was outraged. He called the young man before him and said: "My son, I find that you have cured that cancer case of mine. Now, son, let me tell you something. I educated you on that cancer. I put you through high school, through college, and finally through the medical school on that cancer. And now you, with your new ideas of practising medicine, have come here and cured that cancer. Let me tell you, son, you have started all wrong. How do you expect to make a living practising medicine in that way?"

I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.

Source: Booker T. Washington. My Larger Education; Being Chapters from My Experience (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911). pp. 118-120. Washington was born into slavery in Franklin County, VA some time during or about the year 1856.

###

People who expected the election of President Barack Obama to lead to racial healing and a post-racial society failed to take account of the political reality that racial healing and a post-racial society would, at a minimum, reduce black voter turnout.

Black votes matter to many politicians -- more so than black lives. That is why such politicians must try to keep black voters fearful, angry and resentful. Racial harmony would be a political disaster for such politicians.

Racial polarization makes both the black population and the white population worse off, but it makes politicians who depend on black votes better off.

Source: Thomas Sowell. "Black Votes Matter." Rasmussen Reports. July 26, 2016.

Labels: Biden, Black America, Obama, politics, quotations, race, slavery, Thomas Sowell, voting

In the current American context reparations refers to the idea of forcing people who never owned slaves to pay compensation for slavery to people who never were slaves. Newsweek recently reported the estimated cost of reparations, according to one 2020 study, was "$6.2 quadrillion as of 2018" which "divided by 40,909,233 Black non-Hispanic descendants of the enslaved, could result in a total reparations payment per descendant of $151.63 million."

And don't get any ideas about a discount if one of your ancestors died fighting against slavery during the Civil War. The study's authors have that covered, too: 

... some reparations opponents point to the federal government's expenditures in blood and treasure to end slavery through the Civil War as a form of reparations already rendered. This argument suffers from two major problems. First, ending an injustice is not the same as making reparations for its enduring effects. Second, more than 200,000 Black soldiers, including slaves and free, fought and died disproportionately to earn the freedom of the enslaved. The moral credit for this self-liberation goes to them, not to the federal government that had permitted their enslavement for so long.

With Joe Biden and Kamala Harris poised to possibly begin relocating to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and 1 Observatory Circle, respectively, next January it's worth thinking a bit more about reparations.

Apparently, Biden's chronologically impaired thinking has, shall we say, quickly evolved on the issue. He reportedly said in 1975: "I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather. I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation. And I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 [sic] years ago."

In a 2019 presidential debate Biden gave a muddled response when asked: "What responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?" However, by February of this year Biden was on board with a proposal by Cory Booker (he of not inconsiderable, say 45%, European ancestry) "to study reparations and make a judgment whether or not what they should be and what they should do". Then Biden publicly stated about two months ago that he is in favor of "slavery reparations".

Kamala Harris, the privileged daughter of not one but two PhD possessing immigrant parents, co-sponsored Booker's legislation. She also reportedly supports reparations when she's not hiding in the "study it" column.

It's worth pointing out that the idea of slavery reparations is not new. I do not intend here to go all the way back to 1865 and Special Field Orders, No. 15. Given its limited scope and purpose, it is debatable that the order was intended as reparations for slavery. No, my goal is much more modest and I wish only to go back about five decades.

In 1969, James Forman of the Black Economic Development Conference (and formerly of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) "interrupted services at New York City's Riverside Church to demand $500 million in reparations from white churches to make up for injustices African Americans had suffered over the centuries." These demands were in accord with the BEDC's "Black Manifesto".

As Jason L. Riley put it:

Civil-rights organizations rejected the idea, which the NAACP's assistant director called "an illogical, diversionary and paltry way out for guilt-ridden whites." Bayard Rustin, who organized the 1963 March on Washington and was one of Martin Luther King's closest advisers, was another vocal skeptic of blacks cashing in on the tribulations of long-gone forebears. "The idea of reparations is a ridiculous idea," Rustin said. "If my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, then he may deserve some money, but he's dead and gone and nobody owes me anything."

Rustin, profiled in this blog in 2006, called the demand for reparations "preposterous" and accused Forman of "hustling, begging." Rustin continued: "Furthermore, I don't believe that any black man in this country wants to be given a thing—just the opportunity to work, to work and take care of his family." Times have changed, Bayard.

Labels: Bayard Rustin, Biden, Black America, class, economics, history, Obama, politics, race, slavery, White folks

Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?

Source: Thomas Sowell, "Random Thoughts", Nov. 1, 2016.

Labels: quotations, race, slavery, Thomas Sowell

Almost thirteen years ago, I wrote a post, citing Chris Hedges, that mentioned Karl Popper and his contrived "paradox of tolerance". I also invoked Popper again last year in a post quoting George Orwell.

In note 4 to chapter 7 of The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) Popper writes:

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

Here is a graphic representation of Popper's ideas:


Someone on the Right has reworked this graphic, substituting ISIS (or, perhaps, Muslims more generally) for Nazism:


If you doubt whether Popper's "paradox of tolerance" enjoys any currency on the Left then please consider that a slightly longer version of the text quoted above appears as the epigraph to the first chapter, "Faith", of Chris Hedges' 2006 book American Fascists. Consider, too, that billionaire George Soros considers himself a protégé of Karl Popper and derived the name of his Open Society Foundations from Popper's book title. Then please have a look at these articles in The Washington Post, Patheos, Quartz, Kottke.org, Big Think, The New York Times, Salon, Open Culture, and Hornet, for example.

The problem with Popper's supposed paradox should be obvious but it, apparently, is not. To illustrate, here is what Popper should have said:

But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force if they or their followers advance their ideas by the use of their fists, pistols, or other means of actual criminal violence. But even then we must be clear that is not their ideas we suppress but their violence in furtherance of those ideas, which would be criminal even if stripped of any ideology whatsoever.

In other words, the problem is not with "intolerant" ideas (Who gets to decide that?) but with violent, coercive actions that are used to promote those or any other ideas. I don't mean to say that society has to wait until the "intolerant" carry out actual violence but, at a minimum, there should be solid evidence of an actual, imminent attack. Thus, there is no paradox of tolerance.

What cannot be tolerated is not intolerance but criminal activity in support of "tolerance", "intolerance", or no ideology whatsoever. Ironically, as has been made abundantly clear in the last two weeks of  looting, arson, shootings, assaults, theft, and vandalism in the George Floyd riots, many on the Left have a high tolerance for criminality in advance of a favored ideology. In this case the favored ideology is "anti-racism" i.e. the intolerance of alleged "racism".

Popper is not the only figure associated with the Left who advocated a constrained view of "tolerance". As cited in Sculos and Walsh, Herbert Marcuse wrote in a 1965 essay titled "Repressive Tolerance" (later published in A Critique of Pure Tolerance) that "a liberating tolerance:"

[W]ould include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc. Moreover, the restoration of freedom of thought may necessitate new and rigid restrictions on teachings and practices in the educational institutions which, by their very methods and concepts, serve to enclose the mind within the established universe of discourse and behavior—thereby precluding a priori a rational evaluation of the alternatives. And to the degree to which freedom of thought involves the struggle against inhumanity, restoration of such freedom would also imply intolerance toward scientific research in the interest of deadly “deterrents,” of abnormal human endurance under inhuman conditions, etc.

It may be that Marcuse is more influential these days than Popper but they are two birds of a feather in the procrustean arguments they use to constrict and distort the idea of tolerance. My primary objections to Popper's and Marcuse's ideas are to their distortion of the idea of tolerance and their advocacy for the use of state power to enforce orthodoxy. On the latter point, if a church, company, political party, club, etc. wants to expel someone because they do or do not support same-sex marriage, for example, then that is nothing to be celebrated. However, it is a qualitatively far different thing than the governmental coercion Popper, Marcuse, and their acolytes advocate.

Here are a couple of other thoughtful critiques of the "paradox of tolerance":

• Popper and the Paradox of Tolerance
• Rebutting the Fallacious "Paradox of Tolerance"

See also: "The Ideological-Conflict Hypothesis: Intolerance Among Both Liberals and Conservatives" (2014) by Brandt et al. in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Labels: censorship, Chris Hedges, crime, critical thinking, Karl Popper, Orwell, philosophy, politics, race, thoughtcrime, violence

Arson in Minneapolis on May 28, 2020

In the wake of the George Floyd protests and riots a particular quote from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been repeatedly trotted out (see e.g. here and here and here). As Time noted after the Freddie Gray riots: "One quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., has become a touchstone for those who seek to understand [sic] why those individuals have taken to the streets: 'A riot,' King said, 'is the language of the unheard.' " (On the origins of this quote see the 2013 CBS News piece "MLK: A riot is the language of the unheard".)

It is doubtful that there has been any time in American history when more Black people occupied positions of prominence in the media and power in politics. Even Demon Trump has the same percentage of Black cabinet members as Obama did in his first term.

In Minneapolis, the police chief and the state attorney general are both Black men. The city's representative in Congress is a Somali-American woman. There are apparently four Black members on the city council, one of whom is the son of the state attorney general.

So, how is it that the Minneapolis rioters are supposedly "unheard"? What are they saying and who isn't listening? More importantly, why is it that when pundits, politicians, and other propagandists quote King about the "language of the unheard" they seldom quote the text below from his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize speech?

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

In a real sense nonviolence seeks to redeem the spiritual and moral lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

I believe in this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.

In 1968, shortly before his death, King reiterated his position on the "language of the unheard" while "condemn[ing] riots", saying: "... I am still committed to  militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the [race] problem from a direct action point of view ... And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method  that  brings about tangible results."

Labels: Black America, Christianity, crime, critical thinking, Ilhan Omar, Martin Luther King, nonviolence, Obama, police, quotations, race, Trump, violence

Labels: class, economics, media, police, police repression, politics, race, Tucker Carlson, video

In the last couple of weeks I've discussed the death of Ahmaud Arbery with two people. Both of them had some familiarity with the matter and had seen William Bryan's video of the last few seconds of Arbery's life.

What was initially stunning to me is that their recall of the video was that the McMichaels were in motion in their vehicle and simply gunned Arbery down. I asked them if they had noticed that, in reality, the video clearly shows that at the time of the shooting the McMichaels were stopped with no one in the driver's seat. And that Arbery had run/jogged toward them and then alongside the passenger side of the McMichaels' truck before suddenly veering in front of it to attack Travis McMichaels, who was on the other side. They both denied noticing or recalling any of this.

The second person, I'll call her P., lives far south of the Mason-Dixon Line in a state where slavery was legal until 1865. P. is, arguably, herself of "redneck" stock. Nevertheless she reflexively denounced the McMichaels as vicious "rednecks". In all the years I've known she has never used that word, as she later acknowledged to me.

She also got angry that I characterized Arbery's final actions as "attacking a man armed with a shotgun". She objected to the word "attacking" even though, as I pointed out, that the word is neutral and if Arbery was engaged in actual self-defense, as she contended, he would have every legal right to attack the McMichaels.

Above I indicated I was initially stunned by the perspective of my friends. However, given the mainstream media's aggressively dishonest agenda-pushing it would be surprising if most people didn't accept the dominant narrative of the shooting. To be clear, my point is not that the McMichaels (and William Bryan) are innocent of any crime—although that seems to be the case based upon the evidence I've seen so far—but rather that the actual facts and the video alone paint a more complex picture of events than the simplistic characterizations of most mainstream and fringe Left/Right media outlets.

The McMichaels have both been arrested for aggravated assault and felony murder. The key charge the prosecution must prove is aggravated assault. If they are found guilty of that then perforce—because Ahmaud Arbery is dead—they must be guilty of felony murder (O.C.G.A. § 16-5-1). I was surprised that they were charged with aggravated assault (O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21) because, in my reading of the Georgia statute, I think the prosecution will have a more difficult time convincing a jury of that than of the charge of criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment (O.C.G.A. § 16-5-41), which is one of the charges against Bryan.

Going out on a limb here, I predict that, before they go to trial (assuming, as I do, that there will be a trial), the prosecutors will charge the McMichaels with criminal attempt to commit unlawful imprisonment in place of or in addition to aggravated assault. If they don't do that then I think the McMichaels will almost certainly be acquitted.

In any event, everyone interested in this case should critically scrutinize media and activist motives and narratives, consider the available evidence, and make up their own minds. Also ask yourself why some killings become national new stories with frequent updates and others get mostly ignored, nationally (see also here and here). Below is the best video (although the accuracy of the narration is spotty) of which I am aware of the events leading up to the shooting and some links to additional key case documents or sources.

• Glynn County Police Report of the Shooting
• Autopsy Report of Ahmaud Arbery
• DA George Barnhill's letter to Glynn County Police Department
• Ahmaud Arbery Murder Investigation | Georgia Bureau of Investigation

Labels: crime, critical thinking, guns, Justice, law, media, politics, race