The Coronavirus Twelve Weeks Later - The Mob Rules

It has been quite a week of turmoil. Emotions, as they say, have been running high. But emotion without reason can result in bad things happening. And reason without compassion can lead to faulty logic and actions. Let me start with the obvious - again. The killing of George Floyd was horrible. We saw a police officer acting with no compassion for a fellow human being who could not breathe. In that moment, it was irrelevant that Mr. Floyd had a criminal history. The police were called because he was said to be passing a counterfeit twenty dollar bill - not a capital offense. Since that day, the mob - the left-wing politically correct mob - has been on the march.

Drew Brees is the long time quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. This is what got him in trouble with his fellow players: "I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country." He went on to acknowledge that the country has problems, but said that honoring the flag is a way to show "unity" and that "we are all in this together." But group think and group speak is required by the left, especially in this time of upheaval. Aaron Rodgers, quarterback for the Green Bay Packers attacked Brees: "It (taking a knee) has NEVER been about an anthem. Not then. Not now." Really? Then how come the only time I saw players kneel was during the playing of the national anthem? They weren't kneeling during halftime. Brees apologized. Twice. The pressure must have been too much. Shannon Sharpe, retired all-star, called the apology by Brees "meaningless." Sharpe said Brees "should just go ahead and retire now." Back in March, Brees and his wife said they were donating $5 million to provide 10,000 meals a day to help feed needy people throughout Louisiana. There is no doubt that many of those recipients are black. Yet, his fellow players did not come to his defense, and say he was a good man. I've said it before, if you don't adhere to the party line in your thoughts and speech, the left will come after you.

The New York Times published an Op-Ed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton. In the article, Cotton recommended sending in troops to quell the rioting going on across the country, and to help restore order. Many staffers at the Times Tweeted: "Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger." How's that? The mere publishing of one man's opinion on the use of troops put their lives in danger? How? The Times, as could be expected, apologized to the left-wing mob. After initially defending the decision to publish the article, the Times said the article made it through a "rushed editorial process." And, to demonstrate the cowards that they are, not only did they apologize, they said they would reduce the number of Op-Eds in the future. Imagine that. A newspaper, often billed as the premier newspaper in the country, decided that less speech is better. So much for the First Amendment at the Times.

Kirsten Powers is a liberal opinion writer for the USA Today. In a recent Op-Ed she quoted her friend, Lisa Sharon Harper, a black woman, as follows: "The only course of action for white people now is repentance and repair." Is that group repentance? Does every white individual have to repent? For what exactly? Then Powers added: "I urge all white people to really search their conscience and take responsibility for how they benefited from not challenging white supremacy." Do whites who voted for Obama (which whites did in large numbers) also have to search their conscience and take responsibility? Or, is this all a ruse to persuade people to vote for democrats, who will follow the left-wing agenda? Do those of us who were born white now have to apologize for that?

Emily Watson is a white sociology professor at Dartmouth. She also had an Op-Ed in the USA Today, on 6/2/20. Walton: "All students should take an accessible course on race and ethnicity if racial equity is to be an achievable goal." If I thought taking a course would end racism, anti-Semitism and other religious and ethnic hatreds, I would be all for it. I am concerned, however, about the spin that a left-wing professor would put on it; and I fear such a class would quickly turn into an anti-American and anti-Israel class. After all, we know that many professors throughout the country are anti-Israel and anti-American. So, I think it is a reasonable concern.

Watson continued that white students must "understand that being a good person does not make them innocent but rather they, too, are implicated in a system of racial dominance." So, there you have it. Every white person, no matter how good, is bad. I would ask the professor if the blacks who have succeeded in this oppressive society owe repentance to poor whites who have not succeeded. I happen to think that being a good person is excellent. Think about it; what if every person lived by the Golden Rule (alternatively stated as "do unto others what you would like people to do to you," or "do not do to others that which you do not want done to you"). If officer Derek Chauvin was following the Golden Rule, Mr. Floyd would still be with us. If the people who were rioting, burning and looting followed the Golden Rule, they would not have done any of it, and many lives and businesses and jobs would have been saved. Just by being a good person.

Please do not mistake my comments for meaning that society cannot improve. No society, like no person, is perfect. But let's not start by attacking good people just because they are white. I'll take a good person of any race, religion or ethnicity over a white male Jew (such as myself) who is bad, any time.

Chad Sanders is a young black author. He had an Op-Ed online in the New York Times on 6/5/20. He started his piece with this: "My book is coming out in a few months, and I don't know if I'm going to be alive to see it, because I'm a black man." I truly feel bad for Mr. Sanders. The way the media depicts our society, I can understand why he might fear not living very long. But I have to ask. Does anyone, even those on the left, truly believe that the United States is engaging in a targeted genocide of blacks? While I will give some statistics, I truly encourage everyone to do their own research. If anyone finds evidence of mass genocide, a Holocaust, against black Americans, please forward the data to me.

Mr. Sanders then expresses his unhappiness with white friends: "many white people I know are spilling over with guilt and overzealous attempts to offer sympathy." He says: "Stop sending your thoughts." Instead he wants his white friends to: (1) give money to blacks running for office, or to legal defense funds for those unjustly arrested or imprisoned or killed. If I give money to black Republicans running for office, does that count? (2) He wants his white friends to text "relatives and loved ones telling them you will not be visiting them or answering phone calls until they take significant action in supporting black lives either through protest or financial contributions." I'm going to guess that Mr. Sanders is not religious, as he seems to be throwing out the biblical commandment of "honor thy father and mother." It is difficult to honor one's parents while ignoring them. Lastly, Mr. Sanders wants whites to (3) give protection "to fellow black protesters who are at greater risk of harm during demonstrations." I do not know if black demonstrators are at greater risk than whites, but what is he seeking? Vigilantism?

Some numbers. According to the site "Mapping Police Violence," which appears to be a left-wing site, police killed 1098 people in 2019. We are immediately told that, even though blacks were only 13% of the population, 24% of those killed by the police were black. That would be 263 (or 264) people. I could not immediately find the rate at which blacks commit crime within that article. Nor could I easily find the number of blacks who were killed in 2019 even though they were unarmed. Heather MacDonald reported in the 6/2/20 Wall Street Journal that in 2019 the police shot and killed 9 unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites. (Yes, not all killings done by the police are with the use of a gun. But this gives us some idea.) Politifact objected to those stats and said that as of June 3, 28 unarmed blacks and 51 unarmed whites were killed by the police. "Unarmed" included those with toy guns, BB guns, air soft guns and rocks. Ms. MacDonald also reported that, in 2018, blacks committed 53% of the murders and 60% of the robberies. That might account for blacks greater interaction with the police.

Here's a question. For those of you who can quickly recite the names of black people killed by the police in the recent past, can you name even three white people killed by the police recently? But if a black person is killed by a police officer, especially by a white police officer, that will be non-stop news all over the media. Then perception becomes reality, whether or not the numbers bear it out. Here's another stat - in 2019, 89 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty (per the FBI). Of those, 41 were accidental and 48 were from felonious acts. Of those 48, 7 were black, 1 was Asian and 40 were white. Again, none of this is to excuse the excessive use of force by police when it occurs. None of this is to excuse police who abuse the power they have been given. The purpose of this post is to try to give some balance.

In yet another Op-Ed in the USA Today, on 6/5/20, Kelly Lawler (a young white woman) bemoaned the number of cop shows on TV. Much of her beef seemed to be that the cops were always portrayed as the good guys. A couple of questions come to mind. Should they portray murderers and rapists as the good guys? If cops are portrayed as the bad guys, how might that affect young people's interactions with the police if they are stopped and/or arrested. I have seen plenty of movies where cops are portrayed as corrupt and evil. Some, like Serpico, are even based on true stories. But I fail to see the benefit of a weekly TV show where the bad guys either win, or the bad guys are the police. Remember, perception becomes reality.

Some more numbers. The numbers as of last night were 1,988,545 cases of coronavirus in the US, with 112,096 deaths. New York had 397,810 cases and 30,401 deaths, New Jersey 165,675 and 12,146 cases and deaths, California 128,947 and 4,624, Illinois 126,890 and 5,864, Massachusetts 103,132 and 7,289, and Pennsylvania 79,514 and 6,001. Los Angeles County as of last night had 62,338 cases and 2,620 deaths.

In the latest week's numbers an additional 1.9 million people filed for unemployment benefits. That brings the 11 week total to an astonishing 42.6 million people. On the good news front, the unemployment rate in May dipped to 13.3%, as the economy added 2.5 million jobs. That is certainly good news, as the economy starts to reopen from the pandemic.