Dakota Beacon

A comment from an unexpected source yesterday puts in focus a great deal of what has gone wrong with our society and political climate in the United States of late. There are many more examples, but first let's look at Greg Gutfeld's comment about the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. Chauvin was tried on charges stemming from his arrest and allegedly excessive force used in subduing George Floyd – an incident which set off pre-arranged riots throughout the nation. (There can be little doubt as to the pre-arrangement. Had this not happened in Minneapolis the rioting would have gone on there anyway, just as it did in Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Kenosha and other cities. These are organized.)

There were those on the streets, calling for violence, who asserted that there should be no trial – Chauvin should be convicted without a trial. This is shocking in a nation where once we enshrined the belief that one was innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But we have become inured to outrageous proclamations by these hooligans, and even some of their fellow travelers in the political arena, people such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nancy Pelosi, Rashida Tlaib and even Joe Biden and their like. It comes as a shock indeed from Greg Gutfeld. “. . .  I am glad that he was found guilty on all charges even if he might not be guilty of all charges, I am glad he was found guilty on all charges because I want a verdict that keeps this country from going up in flames,” he said. Well, that sounds easy.

So Gutfeld is ready to sacrifice a police officer based on the expedient that he doesn't want riots. How does this play out? We have already seen the threats made to juries and to other police officers. Is this a position we should be taking now? I would say that unless we want to go all in for mob rule we had better not.

A few years ago, I recall being very critical of Dr. Ben Carson. Carson, as a presidential candidate, advocated compromising on punishment for an alleged crime – a lesser charge. George Zimmerman should just serve a short sentence rather than be tried for murder. This way everyone would get “something”. It was a position which overlooked the possibility that an innocent person could be imprisoned, or someone guilty of a serious crime would get off with a light sentence. That would be great if Zimmerman was just a “little guilty” of murder. It's wrong. It sort of obviated the need for a trial, if not in so many words. Zimmerman argued his innocence. If he were guilty, a light sentence to satisfy a mob, first would not have satisfied the mob, but second, would be unjust if he were not guilty of the crime. Should we just put people away to avoid justice? Compromise can be a good thing, but not as a substitute for trial by jury where the person charged asserts his innocence.

We can look beyond trial courts, however. This sacrificing of the interests and life of the individual for the “greater good” is now a dominant theme. We are supposed to all line up and take a highly risky and unproven “vaccine”, whose outcome is uncertain and which is not even FDA approved (in itself not a guarantee of safety by any means!) and which has the possibility of doing long-term harm to the immune system and could render one sterile. These seem to be factors worthy of consideration. Parents are “signing up” their children – one as young as two years old – to be used as guinea pigs in the “scientific research” which normally precedes injecting humans with these experimental “vaccines”. Highly regarded specialists and experts have been warning against these, yet we see parents sacrificing their own babies and children “for the greater good”. We're being told that we don't even have the right to refuse these injections because they are to benefit the “public health”. Dr. Anthony Fauci sits there grinning at a Nationals baseball game and then tells us we need to “do as we're told”, as though we were a bunch of unruly, selfish children. After all, it's for the “common good” so our individual rights don't matter.

There is always a sort of balance. When we were kids in school we were taught that “my rights end where yours begin” or “my fist stops where your nose starts”, to put it more graphically. Our rights and our noses mattered back then. Since then we have seen all of our rights slipping away, and that slipping is accelerating rapidly.

Today we read of another case of violence, this one in Columbus, Ohio. Police were called to the scene, where a 16-year-old girl was in the act of stabbing another woman in the neck and head. This continued even in the presence of police. A police officer shot the girl with the knife. The intended victim ran off. The girl was taken to a hospital where she died of the gunshot wound. Now, there are other ways this might have worked out. The police might have taken the long route to this crime scene and maybe not gotten there in time to prevent the stabbing death of the victim. Or, they could have shown up and not acted to protect the woman from the stabbing. Had I been dispatching I think I would have first ascertained whether the parties in the violence were white or not. Had they not been white I would never have sent a white officer to the scene. Is this racist? Well, it is pragmatic. The parties involved in the violence were both black females. The officer who stopped the stabbing of the one was white. She will pay a high price for going in to work yesterday. Undoubtedly there will be calls for violence against her and her family. She will be subject to review for her actions and will have to defend them. Having watched the bodycam footage in slow motion, it is obvious that the officer had only two choices once at the scene: 1) let the teenager murder another person and just watch or 2) shoot to stop it. This was life or death and required an instant decision.

Perhaps the officer will be charged with murder. The perpetrator's mother said she was “loving”, a really sweet kid. Her aunt was in the street yelling that she was a good girl who “didn't deserve to die like a dog in the street” at the hands of police. It is likely they will marshal their cohorts to “demonstrate” - maybe they can come up with a slogan. “I can't breathe” worked last summer. If this officer is not charged they will probably riot against the police. Would Gutfeld then think, “What the hell – charge her with murder. We don't want Columbus to go up in flames.”

If we do enough of this kind of thinking, maybe Gutfeld can tell us where we will get the next police officer. Why would a police officer even go in to work anymore? It is as risky as taking the vaccine. Will this be the day? Or will you survive without an incident sure to put you in prison? That has got to be the question in the mind of a police officer these days.

Our court system is just about over anyway. Our Supreme Court has abdicated on every important constitutional case brought before it. The justices, with about two exceptions, are taking the day off every day while the country's legal structure crumbles under them. They are failing us. Now we have people – influential people who should know better – basically taking the position that it's not worthwhile to even have courts of law. Just convict the person the mob doesn't like and get it over with. If we try to seek justice we are just in the way of the “common good”.

The subjugation of the individual and the diminishment of his rights has not been a feature of American culture or law. It has been more the realm of the old Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China, where the collective has all the rights and the individual, none. It is a feature common to tyrannies. Hitler demanded it, Mao did, Stalin did. It leads to oppression. It leads to more violence in the meantime. If we were appropriately disconcerted when Maxine Waters called for suspension of law in the case of Derek Chauvin, we should be totally shocked when Greg Gutfeld says basically the same thing. It is nothing other than extortion. Now all anyone needs is a mob calling for riots and the case is closed.

In the America I grew up in this would be unthinkable. It was just a given that where guilt was disputed, even if it seemed obvious on the surface, an American has the right to a trial by a jury of his peers. I don't know whether Chauvin was guilty of murder. It appeared that he used excessive force, and it appeared as though he did not use the best judgment – but I wasn't there. And I wasn't on the jury. I don't know what they saw that convinced them of his guilt, or what their real reasons were. Were they the same as Gutfeld's? Simply slamming him in jail without a trial reminds me a little too much of the Count of Monte Cristo. Is this what we want to foster in 21^st Century America? Really?

If we thought the Derek Chauvin/George Floyd incident was incendiary last summer, just wait. Rioting will be used again. And a lot of people like Gutfeld or Ben Carson, will think it isn't worth it to pursue justice. And then think what that will bring us. It is certainly not the answer to turning down the mob violence on our streets. It is a massive incentive to stepping it up. The violence worked. Have we regressed from the right to a fair and impartial trial by a jury of peers to simple lynching?

Comments: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)