by Ilana Mercer, posted with the author’s authorization
America circa 2020 continues to erupt in riots, spurred by the death-by-cop of George Floyd. The violence is qualitatively different to the violence that roiled the U.S. during the race riots of 1964.
Whether you thought those riots right or wrong, back in 1964, state police officers were a forceful presence for law-and-order. They did damage to rioters as deliberately as they defended people and their property.
“End-stage America” riots, referred to by the malfunctioning media as “peaceful protests,” have engulfed “over 2,000 cities and towns in all 50 states.”
Even Wikipedia has conceded that “most large cities [have seen and are seeing] large scale rioting, looting, and burning of businesses and police cars.” You know how bad things are when such habitual liars for the Left admit to “large-scale” destruction by the Left.
This “mostly peaceful” mob even murdered a man, in Minneapolis, and burned down a pawnshop, all in memory of George Floyd.
Neutered, coopted, infiltrated and compromised—the police force in 2020 is missing in action. In the rare event that they act in accordance with their constitutional obligation to protect innocent people and their property, the police are hobbled—prevented from deploying riot-control tactics and, thus, invariably “hurt and hospitalized.”
“End-stage America” and its kneeling, pleading police force is the result of institutional rot, brought about because of the Left’s lengthy control of the intellectual means of production (neocons and ConInkers are collaborators).
In 1964, The Law would not countenance the disruption of public order and tranquility. The Law in 2020 has helped invert ordered liberty, so that, in America today, the law protects the outlaw against the law-abiding.
Witness the case of Mark and Patricia McCloskey: Riffraff invaded their grounds and encroached on their residence. The legacy media faulted the St. Louis couple, framing the two’s self-defense stance and deterrence as dangerous aggression. The Law followed through with weapons confiscation and criminal charges.
The police, whose first duty is to uphold the negative rights of the citizens, appear to believe they serve not the citizens but local mob bosses like Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, and her crooked police chief, Carmen Best. The latter, who seems to worry more about the weave on her head and eyelashes than about the working people of the city, commanded her compliant and cowardly police officers to desert their posts and the people they swore to protect.
Another Black Lives Matter stooge—all-round coward and oath-of-office violator—is Paul Pazen, police chief of Denver, Colorado. He stands complicit in standing down so as to enable the violent attack on author and activist Michelle Malkin.
Ms. Malkin, the scrappiest, bravest woman in America, was physically assaulted at a “Back the Blue” rally, in Denver, Colorado, on July 21. Police were present all right. They watched on as a bulldyke with a baton advanced on a little Braveheart of a lady, who screamed her lungs out in fury, not in fear.
But the boys in blue for whom Michelle stood up, stood down.
Inspired by scenes of wanton destruction openly enabled by elected authorities and their private militia—the police—Chris Cuomo of CNN minted a new phrase for the kind of “peaceful protesters,” who physically struck the diminutive Ms. Malkin and are destroying structures across the country: “Inequality riots.”
“Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto”: Another morally corrupt celebrity, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat from New York, has made the Jean Valjean Argument from Bread: Rioters are hungry. Indeed, there are some “heartbreaking videos of starving New Yorkers stealing bread from … a Chanel flagship store on Fifth Avenue.”
The same scenes played out in thousands of cities across the country. Worst of all have been Portland, in Oregon, and Seattle in Washington State.
So, finally, President Trump has sent in the cavalry. The president launched “Operation Legend.” “Announcing a surge of federal law enforcement in American communities plagued by violent crime,” Trump added that he had “no choice but to get involved.”
This paleolibertarian supports the president’s belated defensive actions to launch a counter-terrorism operation with the aim of crushing a violent insurrection against law-abiding America.
It is essential to take back the streets, and to quit misnaming a repulsive specter that is neither democratic nor peaceful.
Upholding rights to life, liberty and property is a government’s primary—some would say only—duty.
Belatedly, and in furtherance of the violation of individual rights, Democrats frequently rediscover American federalism. (In fairness, to promote their political agenda, Republicans are as opportunistic about deferring to the division-of-power bequeathed by the Founders. Rather than mandate facemasks to save people from dying and killing others; Republicans have left local leaders to supervise the killing fields of COVID.)
The reason the president’s domestic counter-terrorism operation is warranted is because the people’s rights to life, liberty and property are being systematically violated.
And natural rights antedate the state apparatus. Federalism is an excellent principle, but it is not a religion.
Michelle Malkin has a natural right to walk about unmolested and speak her mind free of bodily harm. If Colorado officials will not uphold her inalienable natural rights in Colorado, and mine in Washington State, then bring in the feds. Better still, free armed citizens to do the job their representatives, ostensibly bound by the Constitution, have shirked.
What a shame that a debate that ought to be about inalienable individual rights is straitjacketed into statist terminology.
We are told that “federal authorities from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, DEA and ATF” have arrived in our states to protect federal property (court houses, in the main), when their true duty is to uphold inalienable rights undermined.
The level of decision-making is immaterial; what matters is the decision. No one has the right to threaten lives and livelihoods (that includes the Internal Revenue Service). By logical extension, it matters not who upholds those inalienable rights to work and walk about Seattle and Denver unmolested—which state or federal official—just so long as someone does.
Yes, suddenly loathsome local leaders like Seattle’s Mayor Jenny, Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler (who was tear-gassed by federal agents on Wednesday night), Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D), and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) are decrying “a blatant abuse of power,” given that policing is the purview of “states, and governors and locals officials.”
To repeat, natural rights antedate the state apparatus and the federal scheme. And although federalism is an excellent principle, it is not a religion.
In their appetite for destruction, these liberal “leaders” have rediscovered principles for which they’ve hitherto had nothing but contempt.
In the liberal vernacular, States’ Rights are synonyms for racial hatred and discrimination. Now Democrats are shrieking louder than Dixiecrats ever did that the intervention by the Federal government in state affairs might undermine this “cherished” principle. (So, they know about the 10th Amendment?)
What’s next in liberal two-facedness? As they shield lawbreakers and attack the law-abiding, will Mayors Jenny, Lori and Ted lecture that, “We are a nation of laws”?
These confused casuists, whose reasoning is even more meager than their morals, don’t know that the long tradition of English and American law and the Christian religion favors the preservation of life, liberty and property over their forfeiture.
**
Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian column since 1999. She’s the author of Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) & The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” (June, 2016). She’s on Twitter, Facebook , Gab & YouTube
Fine article except for this line: “Rather than mandate facemasks to save people from dying and killing others; Republicans have left local leaders to supervise the killing fields of COVID.)”
According to several serious scientific studies face masks do not protect anyone from getting ill and may well be the cause of other illnesses than just the virus people wear it against. One of the most damaging effects of wearing a face mask is that it causes the rise of cortisol levels which directly influences TSH and thyroid hormone levels causing an avalanche of hormonal imbalances. This causes a direct attack on the immune system and is thus not at all a good idea.
“… According to several serious scientific studies face masks do not protect anyone from getting ill and may well be the cause of other illnesses …”.
Yes, there are studies published in respectable medical journals fully confirming this. The masks have become, as one public commentator observed, a “virtue signalling” – but in fact a dangerously misguided one.
Absolutely, glad there is some common sense here.
True Seeker asks for a link:
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/special_episode_masks_6.2.20_0.pdf
Read the whole transcript. This is an interview with the head of CIDRAP (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota), Dr. Michael Osterholm.
This podcast was on June 6. There is no new “research” on masks since June 6 that shows them to be effective in stopping the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
Yet Dr. Osterholm came under a lot of pressure. Which is ironice because he speaks of the pressure doctors and scientists already have been under to sign on to various letters, etc.
Osternolm very carefully advises “wear a mask if it is mandated.” What he is saying is: “Don’t go and get yourself into trouble if mask wearing has been mandated. But here is the actual scientific evidence.”
In fact, Dr. Osterholm states that there is no evidence that surgical masks actually make any difference in a surgical setting, but surgeons insist on wearing them anyhow.
Osterhom is a scientist, defending actual science (RCTs—random control trials) and relying for his , not a politician using bad science (what I call “perhaps/maybe/could be/wish it were true/seems possible science) to further a political agenda.
I have checked ouit many of the studies used by the CDC as documentaion of their mask-wearing advice, and Osterholm is right: basically most of it was not about mask wearing. One study that was a metanalysis stated right at the outset that they undertook the study to try to find some evidence of the efficacy of maskwearing **at the request of the CDC,** who apparently **wanted to change their policy**.
See how this works?
Katherine
Please post some links of such studies
To keep up with new studies and commentary on a daily basis,
go to Lockdownskeptics.org.
Katherine
Here is a good website by a Swiss Doctor;
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
Scroll down on his July entry to find the section ‘On the effectiveness of masks’
Masks for all for covid-19 not based on sound data;
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data
Your being played. First Trump will over react then Trump will be replaced as Republican candidate.
This author totally misses the mark. We are living in insane times with leaders thinking insane thoughts producing insane actions and a public reacting insanely to those insane actions.
The demonstrators: What are they really protesting? It’s not just “Black lives matter.” It’s the SYSTEM. It is an emotional response to a system that does not listen. And the system will not listen because it cannot. And what is the system? It is Administrative Law that cannot be challenged peacefully by the average citizen. And ironically the focus of the protests is centered in front of a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
The State and local leaders: These are people who have been elected into office by ignorant people. I say ignorant people meaning that the background of these elected people were not known by the voters because if their backgrounds were known most of them would have been seen to be incompetent for the positions they were running for. This is the sad part of our political system. Competent people won’t run because of smear campaigns that ruin reputations while the incompetents have no problem begging for votes by lying and promising things they know they can’t deliver.
Now let’s take notice about the response the demonstrators are getting from their elected leaders. Their elected leaders say the demonstrators have a right to protest so long as they are peaceful. And we have seen that many have been protesting peacefully. So why the riot police harassing them with tear gas and rubber bullets while the looters run roughshod around the community destroying property and looting? And where are these leaders while the protesters are making their case with signs? So far it is obvious these elected officials have no interest in changing the status quo. Why? Because they are incompetent to go up against administrative law and change the system. Democracy fails when our leaders are incompetent to solve problems either because of ignorance, self interest or serving party interests.
Another factor fueling the fire leading to an insurrection: The covid-19 pandemic; weather exaggerated or not, due to the actions of our leaders has caused the closing of hundreds of thousands of businesses and the unemployment of 40 million plus americans leaving people with nothing but frustrations, worry and fear that is fast turning to anger. Over the summer and into the fall this is going to swell the ranks of the protesters; drawing in scores of looters and anarchists along with probably millions of distraught unemployed & irate former business owners.
Conclusion: The lack of taxes coming into the coffers of State and local governments will impair the ability of government to contain the growing number of irate people rioting in the streets and breaking down social order. The few federal police guarding federal property will no doubt get overwhelmed and have to retreat from their positions. Police departments will also be overwhelmed and have to retreat. This will no doubt cause the President to call in the military. And this move will have serious consequences like causing more deaths than the covid-19.
Another option. The federal government could start a national jobs program to put people back to work. Start work to reform the criminal justice system and get administrative law out of the criminal justice system; replacing it with common law and bring the common law courts back. Get the police out of law enforcement and back on the streets as peace officers. Get government out of licensing and regulating professions and businesses so small business can build up again without government interference. Repeal the 17th amendment along with the administrative procedures act so States can again be represented in the congress and regulate their internal affairs without interference from the federal government. Break up the big monopolies so all businesses can operate on a fair playing field.
People created government to serve them. They expected the best people to enter government and do this job. The government is like the brain of the social organism. The people are like the cells of the body of the organism that do all the functions of society. What has happened over the years is the worst predators have entered into the brain and caused a cancer. This cancer has to be removed. When the brain dies the organism will die and when it does it will be the end of america as we know it.
There is not much time left.
This author misses the mark all right. Left vs Right is a totally meaningless argument anymore. It’s two different sides of the same coin.
White against Black, Muslim against Christian, men against women, Americans against Chinese, immigrants against natives and left against right. Ms. Mercer wants you to think that all the blame of the rot in America is the fault of ‘the left’. She will never let you see or urge people to unite against the true enemy: crony capitalism and its basic ideology, the cult of liberalism. It wasn’t ‘the left’ who shipped millions of jobs to Asia. It isn’t ‘the left’ who have frozen wages at 1970s level. It isn’t ‘the left’ who wages endless wars against mostly defenceless peoples. All these evils can be laid at the feet of crony capitalists. They own the means of production, the banks, the media and the law enforcement.
After reading this article I get the impression that “Life, Liberty and property’ only applies to people living in mansions, like the lawyers in St. Louis, not the 50 million unemployed in America, some of whom can’t afford paying the rent at the end of the month.
Gilad Atzmon summed it up brilliantly: ‘What used to be known as a battle between socialism and capitalism, Left and Right, has reemerged as clash between greed and grace…’