The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Activists Demand ‘Justice’ After Black Teens Murdered in Sacramento Mall

Posted on | November 29, 2020 | No Comments

Remember when Black Lives Matter activists made “defund the police” the core demand of their movement? After two teenagers were shot to death Friday, now they want police to apprehend the killer:

The family of two teenagers killed during a Friday shooting inside the Arden Fair mall spoke out on Saturday during a tearful vigil service.
The two victims were brothers: 19-year-old Dewayne James Jr. and 17-year-old Sa’Quan Reed-James. Family and friends gathered at the mall at 6 p.m. to pay respects and ask the community to step forward with information and demand more resources for the community’s Black youth amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We just want justice,” said the teens’ aunt, Sharron Jackson.
The shopping mall erupted in gunfire Friday night just after 6 p.m. and the teens were shot near the mall’s southwest entrance.
James was pronounced dead at the scene, while Reed-James was taken to UC Davis Medical Center, where he died several hours later. . . .
Leia Schenk, founder of Empact; Allegra Tayor, founder of The Village Advocates of Sacramento; and Jamilia Land, a local activist with ties to the James family, all spoke at the vigil.
“Whoever is out there who did this, may God have mercy on your soul,” Land said, holding back tears. . . .
The suspect, believed to be a man in his 20s, remains at large. Police have given few details but said they are working to make an arrest using surveillance footage captured by mall cameras and witness statements.
“It’s time for the community to stand up, take back our community, teach our children different,” Land said. “Give them something other than guns and rap music to pick up and follow behind.”

Notice that there is no description of the “man in his 20s” who perpetrated this murder. Probably not a Trump supporter, IYKWIMAITYD.




 

Category: California, Crime

Le Mot Juste

Posted on | November 29, 2020 | No Comments

There are certain ideas that are best expressed in French, and some that can scarcely be expressed otherwise. Esprit de corps, for example.

What I have in mind today, however, is panache and savoir faire. The former suggests conspicuous self-confidence, particularly in matters of style, while the latter refers to knowledge of how to act appropriately in any given situation. These phrases come to mind in response to a Rod Dreher column about the movie version of J.D. Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy. If you don’t know the story: Vance grew up in a small Ohio town near Cincinnati, joined the Marines after high school, returned after his service to get a political science degree at Ohio State University and then went on to get his law degree at Yale. His memoir is a sort of sociological treatise about the problems afflicting Middle America, and particularly the plight of the white working class. Dreher calls attention to a critic who complains that the screenwriters “lay on the ‘country man vs. the elites’ details rather thick — is it really believable that this guy would’ve gone all the way to Yale Law School without learning which utensil to use for which course, or that there’s more than one type of white wine?”

Why does the critic find this incredible? Because there is an association between (a) parental wealth and (b) attending Yale Law School. Nearly all students at elite law schools are the children of college-educated professionals. Most of these students have also attended private prep schools and got their undergraduate education at elite universities. At Yale Law, there are very few students from Midwestern small towns, and fewer still who served in the military. What percentage of Yale Law students have ever fired an M-16? Perhaps a fraction of a single percentage point. So the Marine Corps veteran from Ohio was duck out of water in New Haven, where most of his classmates came from backgrounds where one is expected to know the difference between chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. It isn’t really surprising that J.D. Vance wouldn’t know this. There may be wine connoisseurs in the Marine Corps or at Ohio State University, but such people aren’t nearly as common as they are at Yale, because in America, elite is usually just a fancy word for “rich.” (And, of course, the word “elite” is originally French.)

It seems to be assumed by the children of the rich that their wealth is proof of superior merit. It is further assumed by such people that the Ivy League has a monopoly on academic excellence because everyone who is smart enough to be admitted to an Ivy League school would, of course, choose to attend an Ivy League school. Thus, to have attended a state university is evidence of one’s intellectual inferiority.

There are several problems with such beliefs. There are highly intelligent young people who simply disdain the competitive “grind” mentality necessary to be considered eligible for admission at Yale (Harvard, Cornell, etc.), and figure they’ll do all right in life without a degree from a fancy “elite” university. There is certainly more fun to be had as a frat boy at Ole Miss than as a Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard. Let’s face it — the prettiest girl at Harvard wouldn’t rate better than a “7” at Ole Miss. Academic excellence is not the only standard of merit; Jeffrey Toobin went to Harvard and look what scum he proved to be.

Now, as to one’s knowledge of wine varieties and formal table settings, these are deficits of knowledge that are easily remedied. The problem in J.D. Vance’s case is that he failed to anticipate the situation, which would have allowed him to be prepared. One’s first time at a formal dinner can be daunting, but “fake it ’til you make it” works as a general approach to all such situations. Just act like you know what you’re doing, and most people won’t be able to tell the difference, even at Yale Law. However, there is no shame in honest ignorance, and one would imagine that, in Vance’s particular situation, he could have played it off with a joke: “My squad didn’t get invited to any formal dinners in Baghdad. Now, which one of these forks am I supposed to use?” This is what panache is about.

Did you know that the word panache has a military origin? It can be traced back to the 16th century, referring to the feathered plumes that cavalry officers wore on their helmets. Thus, panache came to describe the quality of gallant boldness characteristic of that class. The most literal translation of savoir faire is simply “know how.” A worldly gentleman, well traveled and acquainted with social customs, conducts himself with savoir faire, knowing how to behave whether he is duck hunting or dining with royalty. Any ambition young man should aspire to possessing both panache and savoir faire, not in a snobby show-off way, but rather because exemplifying these qualities will recommend him as a valuable associate, worthy of comradeship among the best people.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)




 

Category: Culture

In The Mailbox: 11.27.20 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | November 28, 2020 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Welcome to the Friday late night linkagery. Got the black lights on and the Tangerine Dream in my headphones; feel free to rave in the comments. Hat tip to Mr. William Hoge of Hogewash for the pic of the groovy Australian cousins.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Lit af, y’all. Turn off the lights, and I’ll glow…

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Good Guys 2, Bad Guys 0
Red Pilled Jew: Random Thoughts
Director Blue: Infographic – In Michigan, Bombshell Allegations Of Rampant Vote Fraud Made By Sidney Powell & Her Team
EBL: Horatio Nelson Joins The Royal Navy
Twitchy: Ted Cruz – John Brennan Consistently Sides With Iranian Zealots
Louder With Crowder: JP Sears Prepares You To Be More Obedient To Your Government This Holiday Season
Vox Popoli: The Threat Of Section 230, also, The PA House Steps In, also also, A Second Opinion
According To Hoyt: Keep Your Eyes Open
Monster Hunter Nation: DO Not BE Alarmed
Andrew Torba: Social Media “Influencer” Culture Is Crap

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Drive Like It’s 1950 On US-11
American Greatness: Round 2 Of The Great Trump War Sets The Stage For Round 3
American Power: French Government & Academics Not Down With Anti-Racist Bafflegab
American Thinker: What The Election Will Come Down To
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five New Amendment Friday
Babalu Blog: Why Democrats Lost A Huge Chunk Of The Hispanic Vote To Trump – And Why They’re Set To Lose More
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For November 27
Cafe Hayek: The “New Economy” Enriches Us All
CDR Salamander: Have A Happy Navy Thanksgiving
Da Tech Guy: In Damavand’s Shadow
Don Surber: Democrats Are Losing Ground
First Street Journal: The Special Snowflakes Are Just So Upset! also, The Justification For The Change
The Geller Report: PA State Legislature Files Resolution Disputing Statewide Election Results, also, NV Evidence “Compelling For Any Court”
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Your Mileage May Vary
Hollywood In Toto: Why Kurt Russell Calls his Fellow Actors “Court Jesters”
JustOneMinute: Pardon Their Coverage
The Lid: Freshman Rep Maria Elvira Salazar Creating A GOP Anti-Socialist Squad
Legal Insurrection: PA State Judge Upholds Halt To Certification, also, Sen. Cotton – Biden’s DHS Pick Disqualified; Sold Green Cards To Red Chinese On Behalf Of Wealthy Democrat Donors
Nebraska Energy Observer: How Is This Possible?
Power Line: Thoughts From The Ammo Line, also, Back To The Future Of Conservatism
Shark Tank: DeSantis Says Florida Ready To Distribute Vaccines
Shot In The Dark: Rebellious
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, Again With The “Cashless” Thing
Victory Girls: Trust Fund Kids Disavow Capitalism
Volokh Conspiracy: The “I’m For Legal Immigration” Dodge
Weasel Zippers: Olbermann Calls For Jailing All Trump Supporters For Not Agreeing With Democrat Policies, also, Single Mom Plans To Defy MN Ban And Open Her Bar Today
The Federalist: Carter Page Sues DOJ, FBI, James Comey, & Others Behind Crossfire Hurricane FISA Abuse, also, The Future Of President Trump’s Agenda Hangs On Georgia

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 11.27.20 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | November 27, 2020 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

More linkagery later tonight, and of course the usual deadlines for the usual weekend posts. Subject to change depending on tryptophan overdosing.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: More Like 1930s Germany Every Day
Director Blue: Infographic – The Shocking Allegations Of Vote Fraud In Sidney Powell’s Georgia Lawsuit
EBL: Hillbilly Elegy – A Review
Twitchy: John Brennan Infuriated By Report That Iran’s Top Nuke Boffin Killed
Louder With Crowder: Calling All Patriots To Disobey
Vox Popoli: An Analysis Of The Powell Filing In GA. also, Happy Thanksgiving
Stoic Observations: His Name Is Robert Springett

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Art Of The Political Deal
American Conservative: Our Rebel Thanksgiving
American Greatness: A Thanksgiving Worthy Of The Meaning
American Power: How To Be An Anit-Anti-Racist
American Thinker: Democrats Must Regret Messing With Texas
Animal Magnetism: Happy Thanksgiving!
Babalu Blog: Some Things Cuban Americans Should Be Grateful For This Thanksgiving
BattleSwarm: SR-71 Pilot Brian Shul On Being Thankful
Cafe Hayek: Thankful For Ivor Cummins
CDR Salamander: Nice Oil Trade You Have There – Shame If Something Happened To It
Da Tech Guy: Thanksgiving Thoughts Under The Fedora – They’re Still Scared, also, A Modest Suggestion For Those Who Can’t Tweet The Complaints From Sidney Powell’s Site
Don Surber: Election Theft & The Audacity Of Evil, also, How Donald Trump Saved Thanksgiving
First Street Journal: Things For Which I Am Thankful
The Geller Report: Twitter Blocks Links To Sidney Powell Election Lawsuits, also, SCOTUS Thrashes Gov. Cuomo, Blocks His Restrictions On NY Worshipers
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Thanksgiving At Stately Hoge Manor
JustOneMinute: Say Hello To Amy Coney Barrett
The Lid: Religious Freedom Wins Out Over NY’s Anti-Faith Shutdown
Legal Insurrection: Mexico’s President Still Refuses To Recognize (Alleged) Biden Win, also, Sidney Powell Releases The Kraken
Nebraska Energy Observer: Gobble
Power Line: COVID Shutdowns & Masks, also, Behind The Left’s Primal Scream Over SCOTUS’ Religious Liberty Ruling
Shark Tank: Wasserman-Schultz Whines About Senate GOP Pushing “Lame Duck Judges”
Shot In The Dark: The End Of The Beginning
The Political Hat: Happy Thanksgiving For 2020!
This Ain’t Hell: Lawyer Accused Of Stealing Nearly $1 MIllion From Vets Charity, also, Thanksgiving FGS
Victory Girls: Hillbilly Gratitude On Thanksgiving
Volokh Conspiracy: On Thanksgiving 2020, The New Roberts Court Has Arrived
Weasel Zippers: Joe Biden Tries To Deliver A Thanksgiving Message Quoting From The Bible, also, President Trump’s Thanksgiving Message
The Federalist: Why Is Big Media Hiding That Illinois Has More COVID Cases Than Florida? also, No, The Pilgrims Didn’t Desecrate Indian Graves, And Other Myths
Mark Steyn: Over The River, Through The Years

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Category: Linkagery

The Biden Agenda: ‘South Minneapolis Is Worse Than I’ve Ever Seen It’

Posted on | November 27, 2020 | No Comments

Kowalski’s Market is a grocery store chain in the Minneapolis area. Their store at 2440 Hennepin Avenue serves the so-called “Uptown” neighborhood southeast of downtown Minneapolis. Unfortunately for local shoppers, (a) liberals in Minneapolis decided to “defund” their police department and (b) Uptown is in Rep. Ilhan Omar’s congressional district. A column in the local newspaper tells about a woman named Elaine who was brutally robbed in the parking lot of Kowalski’s, and quotes the store’s security chief, Scott Nelson:

Committed to pursuing justice for Elaine, Nelson laments that we “need police service and we need more of it. South Minneapolis is worse than I’ve ever seen it.” He describes the surge of 20-plus attacks a day that are now striking people just going about their daily business, people like Elaine.
Usually in a stolen car, perpetrators Nelson describes as “young teens, 12-to-14 years old” cruise from lot to lot in neighborhood business districts, waiting for a victim, “like a deer hunter sits in a tree.”
When they are apprehended, Nelson says consequences are negligible. “I arrest the same people over and over. Nothing happens to them.”

Gonna take a wild guess that these marauding groups of teenage criminals probably aren’t Trump supporters, IYKWIMAITYD.

As I explained yesterday (“The Vision of the Anointed Returns”) a nationwide crime wave is likely to be one consequence of a Biden presidency. Democrats are anti-police and pro-criminal, and what is happening in Minneapolis is an example of where such a policy leads.

Earlier this month, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that the city had experienced 76 carjackings or attempted carjackings in a span of seven weeks. That report followed an alert from the police department:

The Minneapolis 5th Police Precinct has issued a crime alert, with a map detailing 19 carjackings since Oct. 14; most of them have occurred in the Uptown area.
The crime alert stated, “The increase in street robberies, including carjacking incidents, has been persistent and very troubling this year.” The alert also said the perpetrators are generally teens or young adults and in some cases are wearing masks, making it difficult to identify them. . . .
According to police records, 12 of the carjacking and robbery victims have been women.

Who are these perpetrators? Last month, we learned the name of two of them after they were killed, along with a third perpetrator, when they wrecked a stolen car during a high-speed pursuit:

Three people died when the vehicle they were in rolled as they attempted to flee from police in Minneapolis early Monday morning.
According to the Minneapolis Police Department, officers saw the vehicle in the area of Dowling and Logan avenues at about 1:44 a.m. Officers recognized the vehicle as being a vehicle taken by force during a carjacking Sunday morning.
Officers attempted a traffic stop, but the driver drove away at a high rate of speed, according to police.
A pursuit took place and officers then saw the driver lose control of the vehicle in the area of Emerson and 18th avenues.
Police said the vehicle’s three occupants died as a result of the crash.
“I got a phone call at work at 4:00 a.m. this morning saying my son was gone,” Thomas Wright said.
Wright says his son Jamonte Welch, age 15, was inside the car, along with his nephew Demetrius Dobbins.
“My son, my nephew, the other little buddy, they were not bad kids. They just needed a little guidance,” he said.

Jamonte and Demetrius “just needed a little guidance,” you see. That’s probably a fair summary of the Biden agenda on crime. You get carjacked, and the perpetrators get “a little guidance,” assuming they’re not killed in a fiery crash. In this particular case, the young perpetrators stole a car after punching a 72-year-old woman in the face:

“They punched her and knocked her to the ground to get her purse. They took off in their car, got halfway down the alley, realized they had the keys to her car backed up and she was standing up by now they got back out, hopped in her car,” said [Theresa] Schlee.
Schlee says her aunt’s car is the one Minneapolis police were chasing through north Minneapolis early Monday morning, with three teenagers inside.
All three teenagers in the car died when they lost control and crashed. Schlee says her aunt had been in the area near Dowling Ave. N, taking care of a relative’s cat.
“That kind of blatant attack in the middle of the day to an elderly person who was there just feeding a cat, it’s like, that’s not right,” said Schlee. . . .
With the recent spike in carjackings in the Twin Cities, Schlee says she hopes this tragic situation makes people think twice before following suit.
“They look at this and not see, oh they’re just victims because the police chased after them. No, they suffered some awful consequences for some bad choices,” said Schlee.

You punch a 72-year-old woman in the face, don’t expect much sympathy when you die in a fiery crash in a stolen car. Except from Joe Biden, maybe, because Democrats support your criminal agenda.

There have been 358 carjackings in Minneapolis this year and, so far as we know, none of the perpetrators were Trump supporters.

Minneapolis is in Hennepin County, where Biden got 71% of the vote, with 532,623 votes to Trump’s 205,973 — a margin of 326,650 votes. Statewide, Biden carried Minnesota by a 233,012-vote margin, so that if you subtract Hennepin County from the statewide totals, Trump carried the rest of Minnesota by a margin of more than 90,000 votes.

Minneapolis voted for this crime wave. They deserve it. My advice to anyone who wants to survive is to get the hell out of Minneapolis.




 

Category: Crime, Minnesota

Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist Killed

Posted on | November 27, 2020 | No Comments

God said to Abraham, “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.” He forgot to add, “F–k around and find out”:

Iranian state media reported on Friday morning that top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated near the capital city of Tehran by unidentified “terrorists” after a fierce battle with his security team.
Fakhrizadeh was described as the “father of the Iranian bomb” in a famous 2018 presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency quoted a statement from the Defense Ministry that said “armed terrorist elements” attacked Fakhrizadeh’s car on Friday, severely wounding him during a firefight with his bodyguards.
According to Tasnim, the injured nuclear scientist was taken to a hospital, where “efforts by the medial teams to resuscitate the Iranian scientist failed and he was martyred.”
Tasnim reported explosives were used in the attack and “a number of people have been killed in the incident,” possibly including relatives of Fakhrizadeh who were traveling with him.
Iran’s Fars news agency says the attack included “an explosion and machine gun fire.”
“Eyewitness accounts confirmed that Fakhrizadeh’s car came under attack first by a blast and then by two terrorist teams who sprayed bullets at his car as they moving in opposite directions. Eyewitnesses also said three to four individuals, most likely all terrorists, have been killed in the attack,” Fars reported, stating that at least two other dead bodies were spotted at the hospital.
Iran’s PressTV quoted Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claiming there was evidence of Israeli involvement in the attack.
“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice – with serious indications of an Israeli role – shows the desperate warmongering of the perpetrators,” Zarif said on Twitter.

Yeah, f–k around with the Mossad and you’ll find out, all right.




 

Category: Iran, Israel

The Anti-‘Anti-Racist’ Professor

Posted on | November 27, 2020 | No Comments

Donald Douglas has been a professor of history and political science at California’s Long Beach City College for 20 years, and for the past decade or so he has been besieged by leftist trolls because he is a conservative who blogs at American Power. Under the terms of identity politics, Professor Douglas counts toward his campus’s “diversity” calculus as a POC (“person of color”), and he also contributes to the kind of diversity that colleges really need — intellectual diversity. If he is not the only Republican on the LBCC faculty, he is certainly the most outspoken, and this has made him the object of hassles with LBCC’s administration.

Like all good Americans, Professor Douglas hates Communists, which certainly makes him a rarity in academia nowadays. Professor Douglas has agreed to participate in a campus discussion about Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Anti-Racist, and suggests that his point of view will be how to be an anti-“anti-racist.” I think an interesting point to bring up in this discussion would be the ironic fact that Kendi is an alumnus of Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas, Virginia.

That is to say, having made a career railing against “white supremacy,” Kendi nonetheless owes his education to institutions historically associated with a social order he wishes to destroy. Furthermore, Kendi got his undergraduate degree at Florida A&M University, a historically black institution whose existence originated in Jim Crow segregation.

Adapting to the conditions of an integrated society, where racial equality has been mandated by federal law since 1964, has been one of the greatest challenges in American history. Every citizen has a duty to maintain the peace and prosperity of our country, and nothing would be so fatal to this peace and prosperity as the kind of ethnic hostility that tore apart the former Yugoslavia, and produced genocide in Rwanda.

Last month, before the election, I wrote an American Spectator column entitled, “Are Americans Tired of Being Called ‘Racist’ Yet?” My belief is that spurious accusations of racism — “RAAAAACISM” with five A’s — tend to increase racial hostility, rather than to reduce it.

On the one hand, such accusations encourage a sense of paranoia among racial minorities, while on the other hand, these accusations are taking by white people as insults: “How dare you accuse me of unfairness?” When Americans hear the word “equality,” they always think of it in terms of basic fairness — treating others impartially, according to the Golden Rule. To accuse someone of racism is, in this sense, to accuse them of breaking the basic moral norms of our society. The frequency with which accusations of racism are flung around nowadays — more than half a century after the triumph of the Civil Rights Movement, at a time when minorities enjoy greater opportunities in America than at any previous time in our history — is counter-productive, to say the least.

Let’s hope that Professor Douglas is able to get his academic colleagues to listen to the voice of reason, before it’s too late.




 

Category: American Power, Education, Intellectuals, Racism

‘The Vision of the Anointed’ Returns

Posted on | November 26, 2020 | No Comments

One of the most predictable consequences of a Joe Biden presidency — assuming the Democrats get away with this obvious fraud — will be an astonishing increase in violent crime. Recall that in the five or six months prior to the election, riots occurred across America in support of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, dedicated to what Steve Sailer has called “the new Zeroth Amendment,” i.e., “No Black man must submit to being arrested if He’s really not in the mood to be arrested.”

In the wake of the George Floyd riots, Heather Mac Donald warned of “the Minneapolis Effect,” as shootings skyrocketed in the city as a result of police being restrained from pursuing criminals. Elsewhere, Mac Donald has written that the Biden-Harris platform statement on law enforcement “reads like a Black Lives Matter wish list.” While violent crime in the United States has declined significantly since the early 1990s, the downtrend began reversing after the 2014 Ferguson riots, and crime has especially soared among black residents in a number of major cities including New Orleans, Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit and Chicago.

Speaking of Chicago, it is certain that dozens of black people will be shot there during this four-day holiday weekend:

2019 Thanksgiving weekend: 4 killed, 28 wounded
2018 Thanksgiving weekend: 4 killed, 20 wounded
2017 Thanksgiving weekend: 8 killed, 37 wounded
2016 Thanksgiving weekend: 11 killed, 64 wounded
2015 Thanksgiving weekend: 9 killed, 22 wounded
2014 Thanksgiving weekend: 5 killed, 23 wounded
2013 Thanksgiving weekend: 4 killed, 12 wounded

Just as Thanksgiving murders in Chicago are predictable — the data form a pattern — so also we may predict that the consequences of a Biden presidency will include a massive crime wave in America.

Black Lives Matter is a pro-crime movement. You cannot be anti-cop without being pro-crime, and the Democratic Party has embraced BLM as a symbol of moral authority. The Biden-Harris anti-police agenda is not about facts and logic, but rather expresses sentimental notions of “social justice,” a belief in an imaginary world where all problems affecting black Americans can be explained by white racism. When it comes to crime in the black community, this means that the gangbanger dealing dope and shooting up the neighborhood is not really a criminal, but rather a victim of racist oppression — blame whitey! In this twisted worldview, the black criminal becomes a sort of civil-rights hero in a social-justice drama in which police are the villains. If you think I’m engaged in hyperbole, consider an incident that happened last year in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, California: An assault and theft occurred at a convenience store on El Segundo Boulevard where William Ewell, 24, was one of three men who “began arguing with the female cashier. … Ewell then walked behind the counter where the cashier was standing and forcibly grabbed store items from the display”:

The female cashier attempted to stop Ewell at which time she was assaulted by the subjects. Employees were able to force them out of the store. While outside, an employee was hit by a trashcan in the face thrown by Ewell.

Police were called. Ewell and another man were arrested.

End of story? No, because when police showed up to arrest Ewell, a woman recorded a cellphone video that “went viral” on social media:

A wailing, disruptive woman placed herself in the line of fire on June 7, when she barged into a scene where police were taking a robbery and assault suspect into custody at gunpoint . . .
The incident occurred at the intersection of Prairie Avenue and El Segundo Boulevard, the woman said in the now-viral cell phone footage.
“They have their guns drawn on this young, black man right here,” she railed, panning over to show a man on his knees facing away from police. “Why are your guns pulled on this young man?”
The suspect, later identified as 24-year-old William Ewell, had been stopped by Hawthorne police after an officer was flagged down by citizens at a gas station at approximately 6:45 a.m., the department said in a press release.
A gas station employee pointed to a male walking across the street, and told the officer he had just assaulted another employee inside the store.
While the officer was gathering information about what had occurred, a witness called 911 to report that a robbery had just taken place at the same location, and that “there were possible weapons involved,” according to the press release.
The officer was able to keep sight of the suspect the witnesses were pointing at, and drove across the intersection to detain him.
He was later identified as Ewell.
Cell phone footage showed Ewell as he hollered over his shoulder at the officers and told them he was unarmed.
“He has no weapons on him!” the woman parroted. “We live right now! We are so live!”
She then interrupted the officers at the scene, and began distracting Ewell by asking him for his name, at which point he began flailing his arms and telling her that people down by the gas station had “attacked” him.
Ewell dropped his hands to speak to the woman, making them no longer visible to the officers who were holding him at gunpoint from behind.
“Get out of my way! Get out of my way!” one of the officers yelled at her, motioning to the side.
Although the officer’s weapon was pointed at Ewell, the woman had positioned herself in front of him, and was directly in the line of fire.
“Are you gonna shoot him?” she asked the officer. “Relax, because they will shoot you — they killed my boyfriend in 2015. Yes, he was killed by the police!”
“You gonna shoot me too, right? For filming, right?” she asked the officers, while still standing in the line of fire. “We live! Look at that big -ss gun she got on this man with no weapon!”
Additional officers rushed to the scene as the officers continued to hold Ewell at gunpoint.
“Is all that really necessary, ma’am?” the woman behind the camera asked. “I’m sorry. I just need to know. Is all the guns drawn on him necessary?”
The woman identified herself as “Sky,” and said that her boyfriend, Leroy Browning, was killed by police in 2015.

The woman’s video went viral and was seen by millions who had no idea that Ewell had just attacked a woman at the convenience store, that witnesses to the crime had pointed out Ewell to the first officer on the scene, and that police responding to the scene had been told by 911 dispatch that “there were possible weapons involved.”

Also, how did this woman’s boyfriend get shot by the cops?

A man shot and killed by a deputy outside a Taco Bell in Palmdale early Sunday [Dec. 20, 2015] has been identified as 30-year-old Leroy Browning, authorities said Monday.
Browning, who is suspected of driving under the influence before crashing into the side of the restaurant, was shot by a deputy after he resisted arrest and allegedly grabbed hold of a gun of another deputy, said Lt. David Coleman of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau.
The incident occurred just before 3 a.m. in the 37900 block of 47th Street East after the Taco Bell had closed but some employees had remained inside. The employees reported that a vehicle had crashed into the business near the drive-thru and the driver appeared to be unconscious, officials said.
A blue-steel pistol and a baggie of marijuana was found in the car during the course of the investigation. It was later determined that Browning was wanted for armed residential robbery and assault with a deadly weapon in which a victim was shot in July, Coleman said. A warrant had been issued for his arrest. . . .
Following field sobriety tests, the suspect became belligerent and charged the deputy who was trying to arrest him and wrapped his arms around him “like he was going to tackle him.” He began “pulling at the deputy’s gun,” other deputies came to his assistance and struggled with the suspect who continued to pull at the gun. At some point, the deputy communicated with others that he had his gun and one of the assisting deputies fired his gun multiple times.

So, he was wanted for armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon when he got drunk and crashed into a Taco Bell, then “became belligerent,” resisted arrest, and grabbed a deputy’s gun.

Bang, bang. R.I.P., Leroy Browning.

You see, when you know the whole story, the “systemic racism” narrative doesn’t withstand scrutiny, but we are expected to jump to pre-ordained conclusions about such incidents, to believe that both Leroy Browning and William Ewell were victims of oppression. Facts that don’t fit this “social justice” narrative are made to disappear; for example, in the photo at the top of this post, notice that the officers aiming their weapons at William Ewell are both female and neither one of them is Caucasian. Also, perhaps you didn’t notice that the officer on the right is wielding a non-lethal weapon that fires beanbag projectiles. The cops did not want to shoot Ewell, but because a witness had told 911 that he might be armed, they weren’t taking any chances — routine precautions.

What do laws mean if police are deprived of their ability to enforce laws? What is the point of investigating an assault or a robbery if, when a suspect is identified, police cannot make an arrest? How are they to make an arrest if suspects are encouraged to resist arrest? And that’s exactly what BLM is all about — inciting violent resistance to law enforcement, on the premise that black suspects are victims of racism.

The most rudimentary exercise of logic will suffice to dismantle the arguments embedded in BLM rhetoric, but of course this rhetoric is intended to inflame emotions in such a way as to foster beliefs that are impervious to facts and logic. An appeal to ethnic tribalism, encouraging black people to view white people — all white people, but especially white police officers — as hostile enemies, produces a situation in which anyone within the black community who disputes the social-justice victimhood narrative is viewed as a traitor. Hating cops becomes a requirement of tribal loyalty, in much the same way that hating Jews was required to prove one’s status as a “loyal German” under the Nazi regime.

Who is to blame for this state of affairs? White liberals, that’s who.

We see them on CNN, praising Joe Biden’s “empathy” — he cares, and caring is all that matters in the liberal worldview that Thomas Sowell described as The Vision of the Anointed. So long as someone has the “correct” political beliefs, they are judged by their idealistic goals, rather than the actual results of the policies they advocate.

What matters, to liberals, is being sympathetic toward certain “mascots,” as Sowell calls them. As long as one has the proper sympathies, then everything else becomes irrelevant; you are among the anointed, and anyone who opposes you is among the benighted. One might think that such a nonsensical worldview would be regarded as objects of ridicule, but the fact that most university professors, prestigious journalists and other intellectuals embrace this belief system means that they seldom encounter any articulate criticism from anyone whose opinions make much difference to them. You’re never going to be fired from Harvard, CNN or the New York Times for being wrong about public policy; you can only be fired for not being sufficiently “woke.”

One of the amazing things about liberals is how they are able to persist in their erroneous beliefs — which are often harmful to the very people they claim to want to help — despite overwhelming contradictory evidence. However, if your beliefs are not based on facts and logic, but rather on an emotional commitment to a certain worldview, no amount of rational argument can ever persuade you that you are wrong.

Ed Driscoll linked this morning to a review of The Vision of the Anointed in which the reviewer, Professor Stephen D. Cox, notes Sowell’s observation about liberals “finding substitutes for argument”:

Suppose that you doubt the necessity or usefulness of some great new government program. You may first be presented with a quantity of decontextualized “facts” and abused statistics, all indicating the existence of a “crisis” that only government can resolve. If you are not converted by this show of evidence, an attempt will probably be made to shift the viewpoint: outsiders may doubt that there is a crisis of, say, homelessness, but “spokesmen for the homeless” purportedly have no doubts.
There may also be an attempt simply to declare victory by relabeling current political proposals as inherent rights: it will be announced, in vague yet dogmatic terms, that everyone has a right to decent housing and that government is therefore compelled to provide it. . . .
If even these methods fail to win you over, attention will be redirected from the political issue to your own failure of imagination or morality. It will be insinuated that people like you are simplistic or perversely opposed to change, lacking in compassion and allied with the “forces of greed.” (As Sowell observes, it is always the payers rather than the spenders of taxes who are considered vulnerable to the charge of greed.)
Perhaps the most potent of all the “tactics in lieu of arguments” that Sowell studies is the practice of assessing political programs by their supposed moral intention instead of their visible effect. Thus, a “poverty program” can always be justified by its compassionate motive, even if it turns out to have a disastrous impact on the poor. The opponents of such programs can be blamed for their hard-heartedness.
These are the kinds of argumentative fallacies that occupy a crucial place, as Sowell shows, in the discourse of influential modern-liberals. Reviewing his evidence, one naturally thinks of the old question from Jeremy Bentham’s Book of Fallacies: Is it credible that the “inanity and absurdity” of such arguments “should not be fully manifest to those persons who employ them”? In other words, how can people who argue like this possibly be sincere? Sowell’s answer is precise and compelling: “People are never more sincere than when they assume their own moral superiority” (p. 3).

The assumption of moral superiority is the psychological basis of liberalism. What is remarkable is how securely liberals insulate themselves from the consequences of policies based on arrogant folly. Unless and until criminals start showing up in the vicinity of Martha’s Vineyard, Malibu or other enclaves of the elite, the rest of us will be made to suffer for this folly. Don’t say nobody warned you.




 

Category: Crime, Intellectuals
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