Racism

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Black Lives Matter Don’t Care About Black People | SOTS

12302430_16x9_xlargeBy Amir Pars

I will lose many friends over what I’m about to say.

I will possibly be called a racist or even a white supremacist (even though I’m a brown man, who’s been beaten to a pulp by neo-Nazis wearing steel toed boots).

But maybe, just maybe, the fact that I am getting 100% of my information from the black scholars in the picture – The Great Thomas Sowell, Glenn Loury, Shelby Steele, John McWorther, Coleman Hughes, Kmele Foster and Thomas Chatterton Williams, allows me some room for thought?

I’ve been watching the narrative play universally over the heinous killing of George Floyd, and the complete and utter lack of facts about African Americans in The US has been infuriating.

Unfortunately, anyone who doesn’t submit to the dominant narrative will be called a heretic, a racist, a whites supremacist etc. Still, I can’t stop myself.

Black Lives Matter don’t care about black people

Want evidence? Name me a single time – just once – when they’ve protested against black people being killed by other black people? Whether in America or elsewhere?

Why is this relevant? Because the biggest cause of death for black men aged 15-45 in USA is… other black men. Compare to white people, where it’s traffic accidents for the younger portion and heart attacks for those over 35.

Or how about the black lives in Sudan, East Timor, Libya? Why do we only ever hear from BLM when it’s a white person killing a black person?

Speaking of which – imagine if white people started doing the reverse. Imagine every time a white person was killed by a black person, there’d be protests, riots, looting and social media campaigns. First thing to notice is that it would be more frequent, because African Americans kill more white people in the US than white people kill African Americans. Now what? Should we really start applying the race card every time there’s a murder involving more than one pigmentation? Where will it end?

Police killings

The video of the murder of George Floyd is so visceral, by showing the casual evil with which officer Derek Chauvin kills George Floyd. People are rightly outraged, and no one can honestly defend the officer, who rightly has been arrested and hopefully will spend his remaining years behind bars (although the prosecutor has been idiotic in moving the case from 2nd degree to first degree murder – a burden of proof they will most likely fail to provide).

But… The only reason people are up in arms about these is that the social media and MSM attention focuses disproportionately on these incidents when the victim is black and the officer isn’t. Don’t believe me? Let me prove it:

You’ve all heard of Tamir Rice – a 12 year old black boy who was murdered when brandishing a toy gun. It was all over the news, there were riots and marches, hashtags and universal condemnation all over the media.

But how many of you have heard of Daniel Shaver? A white man who was showing his friends a scoped air rife used to exterminate birds who entered his store, and was killed for this?

You may remember the case of Sam DuBose, a black man who was shot dead for driving his car away from from the police. The exact same thing happened to before that to Andrew Thomas, a white man driving away from the police. None of you have heard of him.

Alton Sterling was a black man shot dead by the police when reaching into his pocket for his wallet – a travesty. The same thing happened to a white guy named Dylan Noble. Sterling made national headlines, none of us heard a word about Noble. Loren Simpson was a white teenager who was shot dead by the police in eerily similar circumstances as George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. You’ve not heard of the former, but demanded justice for the latter. You’ve not heard of James Boyd, Alfred Redwine, Brandon Stanley or Mary Hawkes.

But you’ve heard of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Because the only times police killings make the news is when the victim is black and the officer isn’t.

Here are the FBI, NCJRS and BJS statistics:

For every 10, 000 black people arrested for violent crime, 3 are killed by the police. For every 10,000 white people arrested for violent crime, 4 are killed by the police.

In 2019, 49 unarmed people were killed by the police. 9 were black. 19 were white.

The likelihood for a black person being shot by the police is as high as being struck by lightning. Yet, we are seeing riots, every single post on Instagram and Twitter is in support of Black Lives Matter and denunciation of police in America…

“Systemic Racism” / “Institutionalised racism”

Sound good, don’t they? Such powerful words… and completely inaccurate. First, let’s see what the claims being made are:

Both insinuate built-in racism within various official institutions (police, law, governments etc). Yet, when they are challenged, by asking the proponents to provide *evidence* for these, nothing is provided. Name one single law that is targeting exclusively black people. Just one. There isn’t one. If the police is “systematically” anti-black, explain how it is possible that 20% of the Police Force in America is black (African Americans in America constitute roughly 14% of the population, meaning that blacks are *overrepresented* within the police force!)? Now, imagine how incredibly racist it is to say that the 100, 000 plus black police officers are too stupid to know that they are working inside and within a racist institution? That really is racism. And none of them have come out and said anything??? None of them have gone on 60 Minutes and said “We are being trained to be racists”? Seriously?

How about governments? Well, let’s leave aside the fact that America just had a two-term black president (whose second name was Hussein, by the way). Some of America’s worst run cities have black mayors, black governors and majority black councils. Look at two of the worst cities in America to be black in:

Baltimore and Chicago. Why is it that a place where the people in power are black can be *worse* for the African American Community, than cities that aren’t run by black politicians? This is a knock-down argument.

Disparity

People often look at the economic disparities between blacks and whites, and claim it to be evidence for institutionalised racism. It says something about the power of a narrative, when it has been debunked decades ago – by BLACK ECONOMISTS (like The Great Thomas Sowell) – yet the myth persists.

First of all, at no point in human history has any two groups of people had the same level of wealth or income as each other. It would be an absolute miracle to expect that people with different backgrounds, cultures, histories, values and ethics to have the same level of wealth.

This is even true within so called races – compare for example Black Americans (generational) vs Black Immigrants… particularly the ones from West Indies (Jamaica, Barbados etc.).

You couldn’t tell these people apart, just by looking at them, and whatever racism is in place for one group must by definition be applied for the second group. But what they have is completely different values and work ethics (the Jamaicans arriving in the US does so commonly to achieve greater heights than what he or she can in their home country). Whatever level of systemic racism exists, they are subjected to it as much as the African American.

Yet, already in the 1970’s (!!!), when racism was far more prevalent than it is today, Black Americans from the West Indies were earning 58% more than the Black American whose generations go back centuries in the United States. How could that be, if there’s supposed to be such a thing as “systemic racism”?

Disparities are only proof of disparities. Just because Group X doesn’t have the same as Group Y, doesn’t mean that it’s explained by racism. And why does this so called “White Supremacy” only run against one group of Black Americans? Why doesn’t it run against Asian Americans, who out earn White Americans by over 60%? Why doesn’t it apply to Jewish Americans? Or Indian Americans, all of whom earn more than… White Americans??

Maybe there’s something else going on…?

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan published his report “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action”, where he saw that African American households were 25% single mothers – a frightening statistic that would have devastating consequences. Since then, Jim Crow laws and Red Lining have all been removed from the books, Martin Luther King Jr. and The Civil Rights Movement made tremendous strides and we’ve now even had a black two-term president.

But, today, black households with no paternal figure, and only a single mother constitute SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT of all black households in America!!! SEVENTY FIVE!!!!

Now you tell me, which is the better explanation for young black children ending up in a life of crime – the lack of a father figure, or the mythical, non-explainable entity known only as “institutional racism”, which for some reasons doesn’t apply to Nigerian immigrants, to black immigrants from West Indies, to Indian people, to Jewish people, to Asian Americans…?

Criminality

“Why are blacks being disproportionately imprisoned? There’s a racist Prison Industry Complex!”

The key word here is “disproportionately”. Because it most certainly is true that African Americans make out the majority of prisoners in America, but what is the evidence that this is disproportionate? It’s non-existent.

Let’s look at the stats:

Black Americans constitute roughly 14% of the population in America, yet they commit 50% of all the murders. But, this is misleading – because it’s not the elderly, nor the children nor the women who commit the murders. It’s almost exclusively the young men (15-40). That constitutes about a fourth of the black population, which means that about 3.5% of the American population are responsible for 50% of all the murders!

Read this again: 3.5% of Americans are responsible for 50% of all murders.

You will find similar astonishing figures for drug related crimes, armed robberies, breaking and entering and gang violence.

So, even though it is true that black people make up the majority of the prison population, the incarceration rates are only proportionate against the crime rate, not the population.

History of slavery, Jim Crow and Red Lining

“Well, that maybe so, but it’s because of the history of slavery and Jim Crow!”

I don’t doubt the good intentions of those making these arguments, but they don’t actually see how it is a classic case of Racism of Lower Expectations.

No one has been able to provide a logical link between historical racism and the plight of people today.

First of all, what’s unique about racism in America (and Britain, for that matter) is that these countries abolished slavery when they did! They were among the first countries in the world to do so, and America even fought a bloody civil war to implement the 13th Amendment. Almost every country in the world practiced slavery, and there are many – particularly in Subsaharan Africa – who still do to this day.

And it most certainly is true that racism didn’t end with slavery, and evil practices such as Jim Crow, segregation and Red Lining were practiced until the 70’s. But – and here is the most astonishing fact of all – African American’s had *more* wealth and less unemployment during those times than today, when such practices have been abolished and are rightly considered moral evils.

Now, before anyone makes the nonsensical claim that “You’re saying we should oppress them then, because they had it better!?”, let me explain that correlation does not mean causation. But just as facts don’t care about feelings, reality won’t comply with narrative.

“America is a White Supremacist society!”

This is one of the most egregious claims out there. First of all, compared to what? Show me a country where blacks are a minority, but still get to be elected presidents, have more than 50 Mayors, congressmen and women, run city councils and have had multiple presidential candidates. Show me one.

America (and Britain) are two of the least racist societies on earth and in history. For god’s sake, look at the response from the murder of George Floyd! Just look at the outpouring of support for black people, the universal condemnation of racism from exactly all corners of the political spectrum, the complete solidarity from every white person with a social media account.

“Black Lives Matter”

This is a big one. Because I don’t know of many organisations who care less about black lives than Black Lives Matter. 93% of all killings of black people are done by other blacks – BLM are completely silent on this. BLM has never – not a single time – had a march or campaign black people being killed en massé in places like Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia or Libya.

Instead, what they have done is to have chants like “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon” (about the police), which inspired a lunatic in Dallas to murder 3 police officers.

During the current riots, a 77 year old, black former Police Captain – David Dorn – was murdered by rioters. BLM has not said a word.

BLM reject Martin Luther King Jr.’s sentiment that people should “…be judged based on the content of their character, not the colour of their skin”. If you’ve actually listened to the “I have a dream” speech, that line is the one which got the loudest cheers and applauses. BLM believe people who aspire to apply this principle of colour blindness are racists.

Conclusion

I can go on and on. I’ve provided my sources below, and I can point to the works of economists and criminologists and historians for further data. But I don’t [think] it will matter – the narrative is too strong, and people are too emotionally invested. Facts don’t stand a chance.

People are so keen to use the tragic murder of George Floyd to wave their anti-racism badges and flags. It makes them feel good. Black friends of mine, who are incredibly successful in their fields, are talking about how they’ve been victims all their lives, even though they are some of the luckiest people who have ever lived, regardless of race.

All I ask of you, if you’re reading this (and I doubt many will, certainly not to the end) is to ask yourself “What if what Amir is saying is true?”

That’s all I can hope for.

References:

Source: SOTS

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Protests Expose Lockdowns And Social Distancing Shaming As A Farce | The Federalist

Lockdown-Farce-1024x705By Tristan Justice

It was just more than a week ago that crowds gathered at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks to enjoy the Memorial Day weekend. With the celebrations however, came sharp criticism over the lack of social distancing featuring fearmongering elites shaming those relishing the springtime sunshine.

Former Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill was among those quick to demonize the apparent selfish behavior as “embarrassing” for her home state.

“Hope none of them have parents fighting cancer, grandparents with diabetes, aunts and uncles with serious heart conditions. Because clearly they could care less,” McCaskill wrote on Twitter.

When it comes to the massive protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody however, McCaskill is cheering them on, retweeting somber images of the demonstrations and calling Missouri’s decision to deploy the National Guard to Washington D.C. after days of rioting as “disgusting.”

The densely crowded protests would soon draw the attendance of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, both over the age of 65 putting them at higher risk of serious complications from the Chinese virus.

The sudden disregard for social distancing from avid lockdowners expose the extreme measures that tanked the nation’s economy and destroyed the nation’s psyche to be nothing more than deeply unserious methods to combat a virus that poses nearly no danger to low-risk groups.

More than 40 million Americans have now filed for unemployment. An estimated 100,000 small businesses have already permanently shut down. About 1 in 3 Americans are experiencing signs of clinical anxiety and depression. Thousands of others have put of critical health procedures so hospitals could build adequate capacity for an overwhelming surge in cases that never came in most of the country.

Yet while thousands gather in protest against police brutality across the country, no one seems to care about the ongoing public health pandemic after chastising those who dared break social distancing rules to reopen their states and reclaim their livelihoods.

In today’s America, churches can’t host socially distanced sermons including more than ten people but a violent mob can burn it down in the name of social justice. States had already made their priorities clear providing bars and casinos with greater freedom than houses of worship it deems nonessential, illustrating just how far we’ve strayed from faith even as millions of Americans desperately need it.

Floyd’s funeral is slated to take place in Houston on June 9 and is expected to draw an attendance of thousands, including prominent figures such as former Vice President Joe Biden. Many in the rest of the country however, were barred from properly saying their goodbyes to lost loved ones because the government declared it too dangerous, even this week and in the coming days.

But the media doesn’t care. Before downplaying the violence from days of lawless anarchy terrorizing a dystopian nation because the message fit their own progressive agenda, legacy media painted the anti-lockdown protestors as heartless grandma killing rubes. These Americans, the media said, were reckless, selfish, dangerous, suicidal, racist because they could spread the virus to black people, and didn’t deserve medical attention. One would be hard pressed to find that kind of reporting on even larger protests today, because it doesn’t exist.

If nothing else is clear in the aftermath of these time-defining protests, it’s past time to end the lockdowns. Shut down the nursing homes, insulate the at-risk population and move on.

Source: The Federalist

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The Moral Authority of the Lockdown Fetishists Is Gone. Thank the Protestors and Rioters | Ron Paul Institute & MISES

nyc-riotBy Ryan McMaken

Six weeks ago, when thousands around the nation took to state capitols to protest the human rights abuses inflicted by coerced “stay-at-home orders,” lockdown supporters reacted with sanctimonious outrage.

Declaring the protestors to be “covidiots” who failed to appreciate the virtue and necessity of police-enforced lockdowns, news outlets and lockdown advocates on social media declared the protests would cause outbreaks of disease, and nurses declared the protests were “a slap in the face” to those trying to treat the disease. One political cartoon featured an image of an emergency room nurse saying “see you soon” to anti-lockdown protestors.

Now, with far larger numbers of protestors amassing in larger groups, we hear none of the lofty moralism coming from the media or lockdown enthusiasts in social media. Yes, there are still some token attempts to express worry over how the riots and protests of recent days might spread the disease. But the tone is quite different. Concerned over COVID-19 are now phrased in the formula of ” if you protest, take these measures to minimize risk. ” It’s all very polite and deferential to the protestors.

Politicians like Kamala Harris have even joined the protestors in the streets, thus doing what she demanded other avoid just a few weeks earlier. Where are the nurses denouncing these protests as a “slap in the face”? They’re nowhere to be seen.

Of course, those who support the current protests, but oppose last month’s protests, claim there is no equivalence. Many would likely say “we’re now protesting against people being killed in the streets!” followed by “those other protestors just wanted haircuts!”

The reality, of course, was far different. Most of those who oppose the COVID lockdowns are well aware that the lockdowns kill. They lead to severe child abuse, to more suicide, and to more drug overdoses. They lead to denial of medical care because lockdown edicts have ridiculously labeled many necessary medical procedures to be “elective.” Lockdowns have rendered tens of millions of Americans unemployed while robbing people of their social support from family and community groups. Lockdowns increased police abuse and harassment of innocent people who were guilty of no crime but leaving their homes or trying to earn a living.

Lockdown advocates, however, declared all of this to be “worth it” and demanded that their ideological opponents just shut up and “#stayhome.”

Lockdowns for Thee, But Not For Me

But now the current spate of protests and riots have made it clear that lockdowns and social distancing are all very optional so long as the protestors are favored by a leftwing narrative.

While the pro-lockdown/anti-lockdown conflict can’t be defined by any neat left-right divide, it is nonetheless largely true that the most enthusiastic advocates of COVID lockdowns are found on the left side of the spectrum.

And that’s why things have now gotten so interesting. It was easy for the pro-lockdown left to oppose protests when those protest were seen as a rightwing phenomenon. But now that the protests are favored by the left, then it’s all perfectly fine outside of a handful of politely expressed “concerns” that protests might spread disease.

The left’s about-face on the sacredness of social distancing will have significant effects on the future enforcement of stay-at-home orders and social distancing laws.

After all, on what grounds will governors, mayors, and law enforcement officers justify continued attacks on religious groups who seek to assemble in the usual fashion? If one group of people are allowed to gather by the hundreds to express one set of beliefs, why are other groups not allowed the same?

Politicians will no doubt soon invent new rationales for this inconsistency. Indeed, we already have one case. New York mayor Bill DeBlasio has come right out and said people who protest racism are allowed to assemble. DeBlasio likes them. But how about religious gatherings? DeBlasio doesn’t like those, so they’re still prohibited.

The Moral Authority of the Lockdown Advocates Is Gone

The current riots and protests have accelerated this sort of disregard for coerced social distancing, although things were already headed in this direction anyway.

The lockdowns initially were imposed with so little resistance because the legacy media and government bureaucrats managed to convince a sizable portion of the public that virtually everyone was in grave danger of death of serious disability from COVID-19. Many people believed these experts.

By May, however, it had become clear the doomsday scenarios predicted by the official technocrats greatly overstated the reality. Certainly, there were many vulnerable groups, and many died of complications from disease, just as many died during the pandemics of 1958 and 1969. But there’s a difference between a spike in total deaths, and a civilization-stopping plague. The experts promised the latter. We got the former. And we would have gotten the former even without lockdowns. Those jurisdictions that imposed no general lockdowns — such as Sweden — never experienced the sort of apocalyptic death predicted by lockdown advocates. Yes, they had excess deaths, but Sweden’s hospitals never even went into “emergency mode.” In the US, those states that imposed limited lockdowns for only a short period never experienced overloaded hospitals and overflowing morgues and was claimed would happen.

Could this yet happen in the future? It’s certainly possible, but how will we know? The lockdown advocates have already been so wrong about masks, about fatality rates, about the models, and about so much more, that we have no way of knowing if we should believe them the next time they show up and swear “this time, the situation is truly dire!”

But we’re not out of the lockdown woods yet. This fall, politicians and other lockdown advocates are likely to start up again with demands that new laws be passed requiring people to stay home, shut down their businesses, and otherwise put life on hold in the name of stopping COVID-19.

But it’s unlikely the public will fall for the same routine twice in a row. At least not to the same extent. The reaction of many will likely be “we’ve heard this song and dance before. Besides, social distancing didn’t matter to these experts very much back during the riots. Why should we believe them now?”

It’s a good question.

Source: Ron Paul Institute & MISES

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Memo to My Liberal/Progressive Friends | Liberty International

SABy Johnny Liberty, Author of the Global Sovereign’s Handbook

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

So sorry, but my “liberal/progressive” friends who blindly hate Trump have lost their minds (and their souls in the process).

My friends are so deceived by digesting and parroting years of negative, liberal/leftist media (e.g, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, etc) that they are no longer able to think outside the box of their own mental conditioning. 

The critical thinking skills of many of my liberty/progressive friends are impaired. They do not think for themselves. They do not read news sources from a conservative perspective. They do not read Trump’s tweets directly. Thus they are blind to what’s actually going on.

My friends have willingly given up their sovereignty and now complain daily about everything beyond their control. They believe they are victims instead of empowered individuals with the power to make a difference.

My friends place their daily angst on Trump and use him as a convenient scapegoat for all that’s wrong in our world (and there are many more powerful players than Trump). They forget  who is actually responsible for what’s wrong in our world. We the People are responsible.

My friends can believe it or not, but Trump is a freedom fighter, the first sovereign President in your lifetime who has pledged his life and honor to defend this country against its many enemies, both foreign and domestic. Other Administrations have come and gone, but they’ve all been cohorts amongst those globalists bent on destroying this country. 

Now, many of my “liberal/progressive” friends are now domestic enemies blindly and foolishly allied with these forces towards destroying this country ~ the last free country on this earth.

My friends, take a good look at where you stand!

The violence ravaging the streets of America is no longer a protest about race. This is a declaration of war by forces bent on destroying the USA, a country which has blessed you with the right to freedom and liberty your entire life. 

Take notice of who is allying with these forces.

These riots are an organized attack against the people of the USA and my “liberal/progressive” friends are on the wrong side of this battle contributing en masse to America’s destruction. 

Would you prefer living in Nazi Germany or Communist China? Do you wish for your children to live in The Matrix wired to a machine like a robot without a soul?Take a good look at where you stand.

For without freedom and sovereignty in the USA there will be hell to pay for many generations beyond your life. Take a hard look at where you stand.

I stand for freedom and liberty.
I stand for sovereignty for all the people.
I stand for sovereignty for the USA and every nation of the world.

Where do you stand?

~ Johnny Liberty, Author of the Global Sovereign’s Handbook (who dedicated thirty years of his life fighting for your freedom and sovereignty)

Source: Liberty International

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Three Ways Lockdowns Paved the Way for These Riots | MISES

160209115236-24-mong-kok-riot-0209-exlarge-169By Ryan McMaken

There were many reasons to oppose the COVID-19 lockdowns.

They cost human lives in terms of deferred medical treatment. They cost human lives in terms of greater suicide and drug overdoses. Domestic abuse and child abuse have increased. There is also good reason to believe that lockdowns don’t actually work. The lockdown activists capitalized on media-stoked fear to push their authoritarian agenda based not on science, but on the whims of a handful of experts who insisted that they need not present any actual evidence that their bizarre, draconian, and extreme scheme was worth the danger posed to human rights, health, and the economic well-being of billions of human beings.

Those who lacked the obsessive and irresponsible tunnel vision of the prolockdown people warned that there were other dangers as well, in terms of social and political conflict.

[RELATED: “COVID Panic: The New War on Human Rights” by Ryan McMaken.]

It didn’t require an especially clear crystal ball to see that destroying the livelihoods of countless millions while empowering a police state to harass and arrest law-abiding citizens would create a situation that maybe—just maybe—could lead to greater social and political conflict.

Specifically, there are three ways in which the lockdowns laid the groundwork for our current state of unrest.

The Lockdowns Created an Economic Disaster

The COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, business closures, and other forms of coerced social distancing have so far led to job losses for well over 30 million Americans. The unemployment rate has risen to levels not seen since the Great Depression. Food banks are under strain as Americans line up for free food. Thanks to government moratoria on evictions in many areas, it is still unknown to what extent homeowners and renters are unable to pay mortgages and rents, but a wave of delinquencies is almost certainly coming.

To advocates of lockdowns, this is all “worth it” even though these sorts of economic stresses often lead to suicide, stress-induced disease, and death. But impoverishment, unemployment, and financial ruin are all merely “inconvenient,” as described by head lockdown advocate Anthony Fauci.

To someone who isn’t enamored of lockdowns, however, it is clear that millions of job losses are likely to worsen a variety of social ills, sometimes even resulting in violence. Moreover, the current job losses appear to be affecting the young and those who earn lower incomes most.

Lockdown advocates have attempted to avoid responsibility for all this by claiming that it is the pandemic itself that has caused the current economic disaster, and not the lockdowns. This is a baseless assertion. As has been shown, neither the pandemics of 1918 or 1958 led to the sorts of job losses and decline in economic growth that we’re now seeing.

The Lockdowns Destroyed Social Institutions

Another outcome of the lockdowns has been the destruction of American social institutions. These institutions include schools (both public and private), churches, coffee shops, bars, libraries, barbershops, and many others.

Lockdown advocates continue to claim that this is no big deal and insist that people just sit at home and “binge watch” television shows. But researchers have long pointed to the importance of these institutions in preserving peace and as a means of defusing social tensions and problems.

As much as lockdown advocates may wish that human beings could be reduced to creatures that do nothing more than work all day and watch television all night, the fact is that no society can long endure such conditions.

Human beings need what are known as “third places.” In a 2016 report, the Brookings Institution described what these places are:

the most effective ones for building real community seem to be physical places where people can easily and routinely connect with each other: churches, parks, recreation centers, hairdressers, gyms and even fast-food restaurants. A recent newspaper article on McDonald’s found that for lower-income Americans, the twin arches are becoming almost the equivalent of the English “pub,” which after all is short for “public house”: groups of retirees meeting for coffee and talk, they might hold regular Bible study meetings there, and people treat the restaurant as an inexpensive hangout.

Third places have a number of important community-building attributes. Depending on their location, social classes and backgrounds can be “leveled-out” in ways that are unfortunately rare these days, with people feeling they are treated as social equals. Informal conversation is the main activity and most important linking function. One commentator refers to third places as the “living room” of society.

The lockdown advocates, in a matter of a few days, cut people off from their third places and insisted, in many cases, that this would be the “new normal” for a year or more.

Yet, these third places cannot simply be shut down—and the public told to just forget about them indefinitely—without creating the potential for violence and other antisocial behavior.

Indeed, third places act as institutions that provide a type of social control that is key to a well-functioning society. In his trenchant book The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, historian and social critic Christopher Lasch described the importance of third places in communicating political and social values and conventions to young people, and in setting the bounds of acceptable behavior within the community. Lasch notes that these institutions are also important in defusing violent impulses among the young. Also of great importance is the fact that third places provide a means of social control that is voluntary and not a form of state coercion.

Writing in the 1990s, Lasch was lamenting the decline of third places, although he emphasized their importance even in their modern reduced form. Thanks to the lockdowns, however, these places have been crippled far beyond what Lasch might ever have imagined.

The Lockdowns Empowered the Police State

The lockdowns have created a situation in which millions of law-abiding citizens have been deemed criminals merely for seeking to make a living, leave their homes, or engage in peaceful trade.

In many areas, violations of the lockdown orders have been—or even still are, in many places—treated as criminal acts by police. This has greatly increased negative interactions between police and citizens who by no moral definition are criminals of any sort.

Many have already seen the stories: police arresting mothers for using playground equipment, police arresting business owners for using their own property, police beating people for the “crime” of standing on a sidewalk.

Complicating the issue is the apparent fact that police have not enforced social distancing edicts “uniformly.” Some have alleged, for example, that the NYPD has lopsidedly targeted nonwhites in enforcement:

Of the 40 people arrested [for social distancing violations in Brooklyn between March 17 and May 4, 35 were African American, 4 were Hispanic and 1 was white. The arrests were made in neighborhoods—Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Cypress Hills and East New York—which have large concentrations of blacks and Latinos.

This may or may not reflect the reality of the general situation, but the fact is that the lockdowns created theperception among many that this is just yet another case of law enforcement targeting certain populations over small-time violations.

Moreover, it is quite plausible that lower-income populations have more often been on the receiving end of state harassment in the name of social distancing. After all, compliance with lockdowns is something of a luxury reserved for higher-income, white-collar residents who can work from home and remain comfortable for long periods in their roomy houses. Working-class people and those with fewer resources are far more likely to need to find income and venture outside during lockdowns. This attracts the attention of police.

Lockdown advocates, apparently in their usual state of extreme naïvete, perhaps believed that further empowering police to violently enforce government decrees against petty infractions would not lead to any unfortunate side effects down the road. Yet criminalizing millions of Americans and subjecting them to heightened police harassment is not a recipe for social tranquility.

Worsening a Volatile Situation

Of course, my comments here should not be interpreted as making excuses for rioters. Smashing up the property of innocent small business owners—or worse, physically harming innocent people—is reprehensible in all circumstances. But this isn’t about making excuses. We’re talking about avoiding extreme and immoral government policies (i.e., police-enforced lockdowns) that remove those institutions and conditions which are important in helping minimize conflict.

Some may insist that the riots would have occurred no matter what, but it’s easy to see how the lockdowns made a bad situation worse. Yes, some of the rioters are lifelong thugs who are always on the lookout for new opportunities to steal and maim. But experience suggests that the pool of people willing to engage in riots is often larger during periods of mass unemployment than during other periods. In addition, those people who exist on the margins of criminality—the sorts of people for whom third places serve an important role in moderating their more antisocial tendencies—are more likely to be swept up in these events when third places are abolished. And, as we have seen, lockdowns also create more opportunities for police abuse that ignite riots of the sort we’ve seen in recent days.

It’s true the responsibility for the riots lies primarily with the rioters. But we cannot deny that policymakers fuel the flames of conflict when they outlaw jobs and destroy people’s social support systems by cutting them off from their communities. It’s also wise to not provoke people by pushing for widespread human rights violations and additional police harassment. But this is what lockdown advocates have done, and their imprudence should not be forgotten.

Source: MISES

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The Riots Over The Weekend, Our Thoughts by the Hodgetwins | YouTube

An interesting perspective from two conservative African-Americans.

Source: YouTube

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The Truth about Police Brutality, Riots & the New World Order Agenda by Young Pharaoh | YouTube

Source: YouTube

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George Floyd death: The cities where people are protesting and rioting | Fox News

Screen Shot 2020-06-15 at 4.50.48 PMEditor’s Note: Protests, rioting and looting across the USA occurred primarily in the following cities: Minneapolis, MN, Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Nashville, TN, San Francisco, CA, Detroit. MI, Portland, OR, Memphis, TN, Chicago, IL, Atlanta, GA, Washington, DC, Madison WI, Denver, CO, Santa Monica, CA, San Diego, CA (Republican), Boston, MA, Miami, FL (Republican), Oklahoma City, OK (Republican), Scottsdale, AZ (Republican), Windemere, FL, Albuquerque, NM, Sioux City, SD (Republican), Fontana, CA (Republican), Columbus, OH, Houston, TX, Phoenix, AZ, Louisville, KY, Davenport, IA, Jacksonville, FL (Republican), St. Louis, MO, Las Vegas, NV, and Oakland, CA. All but the seven noted had Democrat Mayors. 

The death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody after a white officer kneeled on his neck for more than 8 minutes, has sparked widespread violent protests in dozens of American cities.

Floyd, 46, was pronounced dead Monday night after he was pinned to the ground under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white. In a video recorded by a bystander, Floyd is heard saying he could not breathe.

Four police officers – Chauvin, Tomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng – were fired from the force Tuesday. Chauvin was arrested Friday and charged with murder in the third degree.

In the days since his death, unrest in every corner of the country left charred and shattered landscapes in dozens of American cities. Here is a list of some of the cities where protests have erupted:

Minneapolis, Minn.

  • Mayor Jacob Frey (D)
Police stand watch as a firefighters put out a blaze Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis. AP Photo/Julio Cortez

Police stand watch as a firefighters put out a blaze Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis. AP Photo/Julio Cortez (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Minneapolis has been the epicenter of protests since the death on Memorial Day of Floyd after a police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes. The protests have spread to cities across the United States.

Peaceful protests broke out a day after Floyd’s death. The demonstrations quickly escalated to outright violence and looting. For several days after, city residents woke up to fires still burning from the violent protests.

The building of the Minneapolis Police’s 3rd Precinct was overtaken by protesters and burned down by the end of the week.

Buildings burn in Minneapolis as rioters ignore curfew order

Be Saturday, protesters were seen defying curfew orders issued by Frey as firefighters sought to put out several business fires after the fourth night of unrest. The curfew lasts from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. and any violation of it could lead to a misdemeanor charge, which entails 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Gov. Tim Walz, who authorized the “full mobilization” of the state’s National Guard, said it’s the largest civilian deployment in the state’s history. He said it was three times the size of what was in place during the race riots of the 1960s.

Fire burns inside The Family Dollar Store after a night of unrest and protests in the death of George Floyd early Friday, May 29, 2020 in Minneapolis.

Fire burns inside The Family Dollar Store after a night of unrest and protests in the death of George Floyd early Friday, May 29, 2020 in Minneapolis. (David Joles/Star Tribune via AP)

The Pentagon has been ordered to prepare troops to be sent to the Twin Cities, a move said to be rare in nature.

“This is no longer about protesting,” Frey said Saturday. “This is about violence and we need to make sure that it stops.”

After the fifth day of protests, police said early Sunday they succeeded in stopping violent protests that ravaged parts of the city for several days

People clear the area after curfew Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis.

People clear the area after curfew Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis.
(AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Police, state troopers and National Guard members moved in to break up protests after an 8 p.m. curfew took effect, firing tear gas and rubber bullets to clear streets outside the city police’s 5th Precinct and elsewhere. The show of force came after three days where police mostly declined to engage with protesters.

The tougher tactics also came after the state poured in more than 4,000 National Guard members and said the number would soon rise to nearly 11,000. Dozens of people were arrested as of Sunday morning, FOX9 reported.

Police in riot gear prepares to advance on protesters, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis.

Police in riot gear prepares to advance on protesters, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

As Minneapolis streets appeared largely quiet, Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said the heavy response would remain as long as it takes to “quell this situation.”

The tougher tactics came after city and state leaders were criticized for not more strongly confronting violent and damaging protests.

Authorities made a new round of arrests on Sunday night as they worked to enforce the curfew, FOX9 reported.

Hours earlier, a semitrailer sped toward a crowd of people protesting on an interstate bridge in a harrowing series of events, forcing the protesters to run for safety.

A tanker truck drives into thousands of protesters marching on 35W north bound highway during a protest against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. May 31, 2020.

A tanker truck drives into thousands of protesters marching on 35W north bound highway during a protest against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. May 31, 2020. (REUTERS/Eric Miller)

The driver was later identified by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office as Bogdan Vechirko, according to Fox 9. Police said he’s being held on suspicion of assault.

Los Angeles, Calif.

  • Mayor Eric Garcetti (D)
Los Angeles Police Department commander Cory Palka stands among several destroyed police cars as one explodes while on fire during a protest over the death of George Floyd, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Police Department commander Cory Palka stands among several destroyed police cars as one explodes while on fire during a protest over the death of George Floyd, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Protests in Los Angeles began two days after Floyd’s death, with dozens temporarily blocking Highway 101. The demonstrations turned violent in the days after and lasted through the weekend.

On Saturday morning, police worked to disperse crowds in downtown Los Angeles as multiple businesses were looted. Hundreds were reportedly arrested, and at least five police officers were injured, multiple media outlets reported.

By later in the day, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti imposed a rare citywide curfew and called in the National Guard after demonstrators clashed repeatedly with officers, torched police vehicles, and pillaged businesses in a popular shopping district.

George Floyd protests devolve into fires, looting in Los Angeles

Garcetti said Saturday he asked Gov. Gavin Newsom for 500 to 700 members of the Guard to assist the 10,000 Los Angeles Police Department officers.

Garcetti said the soldiers would be deployed “to support our local response to maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city.”

Firefighters responded to dozens of fires, and scores of businesses were damaged.

A protester holding a sign stands behind the burning trash cans during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man in police custody in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, Saturday, May 30, 2020.

A protester holding a sign stands behind the burning trash cans during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man in police custody in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, Saturday, May 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

“If you’re in pain, I feel that pain. If you’re angry, I get it. But this has moved from a being a protest, to vandalism to destruction, and nobody should be out there making a mistake,” Garcetti told FOX11.

A protester shouts in front of a fire during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man in police custody in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, Saturday, May 30, 2020.

A protester shouts in front of a fire during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man in police custody in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, Saturday, May 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

One of the hardest-hit areas was the area around the Grove, a popular high-end outdoor mall west of downtown where hundreds of protesters swarmed the area, showering police with rocks and other objects and vandalizing shops.

Members of California National Guard stand guard in Pershing Square, Sunday, May 31, 2020, in Los Angeles.

Members of California National Guard stand guard in Pershing Square, Sunday, May 31, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

A countywide curfew was in effect Sunday night into Monday morning after another day of violence and destruction throughout parts of Los Angeles city and county, FOX11 reported.

The Los Angeles Police Department estimated there were 398 arrests on Saturday night and Sunday morning related to the police protests.

A U.S. National Guard soldier watches over Hollywood Blvd., Sunday, May 31, 2020, in Los Angeles.

A U.S. National Guard soldier watches over Hollywood Blvd., Sunday, May 31, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

During a press conference Sunday afternoon, LAPD Chief Michel Moore said at least five officers were injured with two being hospitalized. One officer was hit on the head with a brick and suffered a fractured skull but is expected to recover, according to Moore.

The scale of the destruction in Los Angeles was being compared to the 1992 riots when there was more than $1 billion in property damage. There was no estimate of how many businesses suffered damage since protests began Wednesday, but it was clearly extensive.

New York, N.Y.

  • Mayor Bill de Blasio (D)
In this photo provided by Khadijah, firefighters work to contain the flames from a New York City Police Department van ablaze, Friday, May 29, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, amid a protest of the death of George Floyd in police custody on Memorial Day in Minneapolis.

In this photo provided by Khadijah, firefighters work to contain the flames from a New York City Police Department van ablaze, Friday, May 29, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, amid a protest of the death of George Floyd in police custody on Memorial Day in Minneapolis. (Khadijah via AP)

Demonstrators took to New York City streets in protest of Floyd’s death and invoked the names of other black people who died at police hands. Street protests have spiraledinto some of the worst unrest the nation’s largest city has seen in decades.

Fires burned, windows got smashed and dangerous confrontations between demonstrators and officers flared Friday and Saturday amid crowds of thousands decrying police killings.

Protesters march down the street as trash burns in the background during a solidarity rally for George Floyd, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in New York.

Protesters march down the street as trash burns in the background during a solidarity rally for George Floyd, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

The names of black people killed by police, including Floyd and Eric Garner, killed on Staten Island in 2014, were on signs carried by those in the crowd, and in their chants.

But as day turned into night, a handful of stores in Manhattan had their windows broken and merchandise stolen.

Officers sprayed crowds with chemicals, and video showed two police cruisers lurching into a crowd of demonstrators on a Brooklyn street, knocking several to the ground, after people attacked it with thrown objects, including something on fire. It was unclear whether anyone was hurt.