I noted in my last post that, when you peddle hatred of the police, you get hatred of the police. This is not rocket science.
Nor is it rocket science -- indeed, it's nothing but history -- that when you peddle hatred, violence is next in line. Those who'll be claiming today that there is no relation between (1) banshee condemnation of the police and (2) violence against the police, are lying. There's no polite way to put it, and I decline to gussy it up for pundits who, yesterday, were in the banshee business but, today, find it useful to feign prissy high-mindedness.
Racial grievance is a part of all this. I don't have to like it -- and I don't -- but I'm not going to gussy that part up, either. I didn't invent the race-huckstering Black Lives Matter narrative. They invented it for themselves.
After Barack Obama was elected, seven in ten Americans thought he would improve race relations. It hasn't happened. To the contrary, a recent Gallup Poll Reveals Obama Has Turned Back Clock on Race Relations (emphasis added):
[S]ince he took office, national tensions over race have gotten worse than ever, with the share of Americans who worry a lot about race relations soaring to 35% from a bottom of 13% just after Obama took office, according to a shocking new Gallup poll.
In fact, racial strife is the highest it's been in the poll's 15-year history.
This is not going to get cured with more mush. We might start on getting it cured, however, with straight talk and resolve. Instead of kumbaya and teddy bears, how about a statement from the President or the Attorney General like this:
Policing is not a popular job, but we depend on police for our safety. This fact does not insulate police either from fair criticism or rigorous accountability under the law. They are citizens like the rest of us, and live under the same rules. They understand this when they take the job. If they don't, they need to take a different one.When they are gunned down from a sniper's perch, however, it is not a time for befuddlement, cheap, trite sermons or moral confusion. It is a time for justice. I have said before that I believe in the death penalty for grotesque crimes. Those alleged to be responsible for the ambush murders in Dallas are, it goes without saying, entitled to due process. It is my view, however, that a jury is similarly entitled to consider the death penalty if and when those accused are found guilty in court.If the jury imposes the death penalty, and it is upheld after a prompt and full review, it should be carried out without apology or delay. I hope my successor will do everything in the President's constitutional power to see that this happens.It is in some ways a mystery that one of our fellow creatures could be so full of hate as to gun down people he never knew simply because they wore the police uniform. But it is no mystery that this atrocity jeopardizes the basics of civilized life. Nor is it a mystery that we, in the name of decency and our own safety, have the right to respond with the only punishment that comes close to fitting the crime. With unrelieved determination, that is what we need to do.
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