The Other McCain

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

Liberalism as Organized Ignorance

Posted on | July 25, 2021 | Comments Off on Liberalism as Organized Ignorance

Because I watch a lot of police videos, the YouTube algorithm is always recommending more, the same way it’s always recommending more “how to play” guitar videos for classic rock songs. So in between watching breakdowns of guitar riffs (e.g., “Spirit in the Sky”) Saturday night, I watched a June press conference where police in San Jose, California, explained the shooting of Demetrius Stanley, 31. Watch:

What led to this shooting is that undercover officers were conducting surveillance of Stanley, who was wanted on a warrant related to a March armed robbery that stemmed from a road-rage incident where Stanley pointed a laser-sighted 9mm pistol at a teenager. Stanley was arrested and released on bond for that incident, but then police discovered that, because of a previous domestic violence conviction, Stanley was legally prohibited from possessing firearms. So an arrest warrant was issued for the gun charge, and officers were conducting surveillance to confirm Stanley’s whereabouts. Video clearly showed what happened — Stanley walks out on the street with a pistol, notices someone sitting in an SUV, opens the door of the vehicle and points the pistol at the driver, and is shot in response. The cop had no alternative.

Anyone who watched that briefing would understand why this happened, but the usual suspects didn’t wait to learn the facts:

Protesters are demanding justice for a man who was shot and killed by San Jose police officers on Monday night.
Dozens of people marched on the Guadalupe Freeway to police headquarters Tuesday evening. They chanted the name of Demetrius Stanley.

“Demanding justice,” as if the simple fact that the slain suspect was black was somehow conclusive proof that an injustice had occurred. Indeed, the niece of the slain man invoked history as justification:

With over 300 people, protesters were able to take the nearby Highway 87, blocking traffic for several minutes, on the way to the police station. Protesters chanted, “No justice! No peace! No racist police!” “Black lives matter!” and “Say his name! Demetrius Stanley!” as they made their message heard to other San Jose locals. . . .
After the chanting subsided, speeches were given by Demetrius’ family, including his niece, Nia Stanley, who said Demetrius was her “best friend.” She states, “I would like the bastards who killed my uncle, my best friend, the only reason that I stayed in this state, to bring their coward faces out so I can see the men who allowed my uncle to bleed and die on the street I called home for so long! But they will not do that, because they’re cowards. They hide behind guns! They hide behind bulletproof vests! They hide behind a badge and a title! They are nothing!” . . .
She called on protesters, “In the name of Demetrius, my uncle, I ask that we never stop fighting. Fighting for all the thousands of Black lives that have been lost, that have been taken by the ones who do nothing but support this system that has kept us under since we were brought here on ships! They will pay, even if it means that I fight for the rest of my life, they will pay.”

Ma’am, you were not “brought here on ships,” and the circumstances of your ancestors’ arrival are not what got your uncle shot dead by cops. While I am unfamiliar with police procedures in, say, Sierra Leone or Ghana, I think it reasonable to conclude that a suspect who pointed a pistol at police officer in Freetown or Accra would also get shot, just the same as anywhere in the United States. Cops carry guns for a reason, after all, and they are not trained to lose gunfights. But the shooting of Demetrius Stanley didn’t happen just anywhere, it happened in San Jose.

San Jose isn’t Alabama or Mississippi. You can talk all you want about “the system” and slave ships, but San Jose was never part of that. There were no cotton plantations in Santa Clara County, and I’m doubtful the KKK ever had much influence there. As for the current demographics of San Jose, the city’s population is less than 30% non-Hispanic white, 33% Hispanic, 32% Asian, 16% “other,” and about 3% black.

Even if we did not know the specific details of Demetrius Stanley’s death, does it make sense to jump to the conclusion that racism explains this shooting? Is San Jose a bastion of right-wing Trump voters upholding “systemic racism”? Let us consult Wikipedia:

In the California State Senate, San Jose is split between the 10th, 15th, and 17th districts, represented by Democrat Bob Wieckowski, Democrat Dave Cortese, and Democrat John Laird respectively.
In the California State Assembly, San Jose is split between the 25th, 27th, 28th, and 29th districts, represented by Democrat Alex Lee, Democrat Ash Kalra, Democrat Evan Low, and Democrat Mark Stone, respectively.
Federally, San Jose is split between California’s 17th, 18th, and 19th congressional districts, represented by Democrat Ro Khanna, Democrat Anna Eshoo, and Democrat Zoe Lofgren, respectively.

All of San Jose’s elected representatives are Democrats. The governor of California is a Democrat, as are both of the state’s U.S. Senators. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden got nearly 64% of the vote in California, and almost 73% of the vote in Santa Clara County. There may be more liberal places in American than San Jose, but certainly the city is not a reactionary stronghold of white supremacy.

Who was it, by the way, who pushed for the law that made it illegal for anyone with a domestic violence conviction to possess firearms?

Oh, that’s right — it was liberals!

It was liberals who pushed for the federal Violence Against Women Act in Congress, just as it was liberals in California who pushed for their state law against domestic violence perpetrators owning guns.

Notice that Demetrius Stanley’s niece didn’t mention any of this? She also didn’t mention that the pistol her uncle pointed at the cop was an illegal “ghost” gun and that, furthermore, the pistol had a high-capacity magazine illegal under California law. As a conservative, I oppose laws banning high-capacity magazines, just as I oppose VAWA. America was getting along just fine before such laws were enacted and, if you study social trends, there’s not much reason to think the country is getting better, generally, nor that places dominated by liberals are a shining beacon of opportunity for black people (or anyone else, for that matter).

So the people “demanding justice” are damned fools. Every time a case like this comes to public attention, you’ll always find some intellectuals on TV talking about “root causes.” Well, I don’t have a Ph.D. and I’m not on the faculty of any Ivy League university, but in examining the death of Demetrius Stanley, I cannot avoid the conclusion that if there was any “root cause” for this situation, it was liberalism. And yet here, as in every other situation, you find that the failure of liberal policies always leads to liberals demanding more liberalism.

Turn on the TV and watch the parade of idiots marching and chanting. Ignorance is always dangerous, but is usually scattered amongst the population in a random and haphazard way. The genius of liberalism is that liberals attract all the ignorant people, and organize them for political action, in many cases constituting an effective majority.

Is anyone surprised that liberalism has deadly consequences? Only fools are surprised. And these are the kind of fools who voted for Joe Biden.




 

Category: California, Crime

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