Dakota Beacon

The decent, law-abiding citizens of our nation have a right to expect a reasonable level of order on their streets.  Over the past week that order disappeared in a hail of bricks and bottles, of beatings by Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists of small business owners trying to protect their livelihoods and property, in a shower of molotov cocktails and the smoke and ashes of burned out police precinct buildings.  Clearly, our local governments have, largely, failed our people.

For weeks we were treated to videos of the most absurd law enforcement imposed on ordinary people going about their business - pet owners trying to walk their dogs, mothers trying to give their toddlers a few minutes of precious sunshine in a public park, business owners slammed and fined for trying to keep their clientele, afraid there would be no business to return to - all due to the overreaction to the coronavirus.  Reason took a holiday with the virus.  Instead of encouraging people to seek the sun and fresh air, they were literally shut up in their rabbit-hutch apartments, windows closed, intimidated into remaining indoors.  For weeks.  Long after the so-called “curve” was “flattened”.  Now, the insane act of an out-of-control rogue cop has brought on the dogs of war to our cities’ streets and as protests turned to riots, these Dudley Do-Rights are nowhere to be seen.

There is no question that George Floyd was murdered in cold blood by the cop - the videos and our clear eyesight tell us as much.  And the cop, Derek Chauvin, has been charged - today the charge was upgraded from third-degree murder to second-degree murder and the other three policemen who were on duty with him and watched the whole event, have been charged now with “aiding and abetting” the murder.  There’s no reason for those concerned with the social justice implications of Floyd’s death to believe that their concerns will not be answered in a very consequential manner.  There really was no need for the protests in the first place, but in America we do have the right even if we don’t have a good reason.

There never was a particular indication that this was a racially motivated killing.  Chauvin has a long history of abuse as a cop and the Chief of Police should long ago have had him on the carpet, called him to account and he should really have been discharged years ago.  There are at least ten prior complaints.  These complaints should always be taken seriously.  How many times have you been treated unfairly by a police officer?  I don’t know anyone who hasn’t.  Yet how many times have you filed an actual complaint about a specific officer?  Never, in my own case, and I have had more than sufficient excuse.  What I am saying is that if there is a complaint on file it is a serious matter.  In Chauvin’s case there were ten.  Why was he still a cop?

The other police were complicit - they should have nudged Chauvin and said, “enough”, but they didn’t.  Why wasn’t Floyd just put in the car and driven off to the precinct station?  If he was in too spaced-out a condition to get him in the police van, they could have held him there in the handcuffs and called for an ambulance to take him to a hospital.

Okay.  So we have a bad cop and cop accomplices and a victim.  All bad enough, but the city authorities have promised legal action.  We don’t go out and storm the cop shops and take the law into our own hands in America.  By nightfall, that protest should have considered its work done.  But nightfall is when the trouble begins.

We now know that the lawful and peaceful demonstrations only served to give cover to a well-organized terrorist campaign designed to spread violence and destruction, to tear our cities apart from Los Angeles to New York, Atlanta to Minneapolis.   Few of our major cities escaped the rioting.  Those who were involved in this phase were paid professionals.  We now have considerable evidence that it was orchestrated and choreographed to occur simultaneously throughout the nation.  How do we know this?  Supplies for rioting were left at key points in the cities.  In Minneapolis it was caches of incendiaries and accelerants.  These, we know, were put to use by the rioters because swaths of the city of Minneapolis were burned to the ground, including the Third Precinct police headquarters building.  The shameful and worthless Mayor Jacob Frey basically gave that the green light, turning it over to them and announcing that the police would stand down while they did their deed.  

In other cities it was pallets of bricks and paving stones dropped off (in places where there was no construction, basically the middle of urban streets) and these were used to pelt police officers, break windows and expedite looting and violence on persons.  Someone unloaded the bricks and stones there - they didn’t just fall off a truck in the middle of major thoroughfares.  People were seen trying to give bricks to those they mistook for rioters (there is one video of a Black woman refusing to take the brick).  In other videos an operative was trying to egg a group of peaceful protesters to tip a car over.  They refused and tried to tackle the man as he ran away.  There is a serious difference between those who felt compelled to show their demand for justice for a man killed by a bad cop and those who arrive on the scene after the protest starts to turn it into a riot.  

None of this would ever have mattered if our city and state governments had acted responsibly when faced with a violent mob.  What could they have done?  I don’t know all of the options they might have but common sense tells us a lot.  If I were the mayor of a city being terrorized and vandalized by a vicious mob, I would have set an early curfew - 7:00 pm or 8:00 pm, and let everyone know that unless they were either off the streets or had documentation to show they needed to be there (a press pass or some identification showing they were medical or emergency personnel - first responders) they would be incarcerated without bail and if they resisted or tried to flee, shot.  That could have saved billions of dollars of damage and terrible pain and suffering of the people.  If the mayor failed to do this and I were governor I would call out the National Guard.  I would turn the job over to them.  That is what they are for, why we have them.  

These people, for the most part, failed in their duty.  Here and there, a lone sheriff or law enforcement officer would stand out - the sheriff in Polk County, FL, was one - who effectively stopped rioting in its tracks by invoking the Second Amendment.  It was very telling to watch video of police, en masse, backing away as the club-wielding rioters advanced against them, to watch a police headquarters blow up, to hear city leaders literally turn our cities over to hooligans.  It was shameful.  It also was a clear signal that we must never forfeit our right (and duty) to keep and bear arms.  Few if any of these vicious thugs used guns.  That in itself is interesting.  They did horrible violence to people by beating them with clubs, ladders, two-by-fours, lead pipes and anything else that came to hand - bricks and paving stones, for example.  The only protection we have when the police are ordered to stand down is our Second Amendment and absolute right to self-protection.

President Trump has reached the point of exasperation and now threatens to send the U.S. military forces into our cities to restore order.  There are many - and I don’t blame them - who think this is a great idea.  After all, when you are looking at the likely destruction of your business, your neighborhood, or worse, your own home and your personal and family’s safety is at risk, it sounds like a good thing to do.  

This would almost certainly be one of Trump’s worst mistakes.   We have seen the utter failure of our leadership (especially the Democrat leadership) in our cities.  Under their watch we have lost whole neighborhoods and commercial districts.  Trucks on our highways are not safe.  They, two, have been pulled over - an act akin to piracy.  Yet this is a domestic matter.  We are not being invaded by non-citizens.  These people need to be dealt with by our state and local authorities.  If they believe that Trump might be lured into sending the military in, why should they take any responsibility for their cities?  What would motivate them to risk criticism or risk anything going wrong, if they can put their feet up and watch while Trump oversteps his constitutional limitations and sends in military force, establishing martial law? 

For one thing, there are plenty of leftists who would like nothing better than a Republican president imposing martial law on the eve of an election.  That’s what they wanted in the first place.  Why not trick a Republican into being the one to impose it?  For another, this would just let them off the hook.  They can look like the underdog who is standing up for people’s rights against an authoritarian dictator (Trump) who uses the army to take over their cities.  They don’t have to take any chances that they’ll make a mistake as long as Daddy can take care of it for them.  

Meanwhile, Trump would get to assume the risk that an out-of-control soldier might do something wrong.  How will that look? It would surely liven up the next press conference, there’s that.  Instead of stepping in to do their work for them, the president should sit back and stay within his constitutional limits.  If the mayors and governors get this message they might finally get serious about doing their job.  They ran for these offices, they were elected, they took office and were sworn in.  Now they need to do their jobs without Trump stepping in to clean up their mess.  Which brings up another issue - Trump threatens also not to provide help in the clean-up and rehabilitation of these neighborhoods if the governors and mayors do nothing to protect them.  There he has a point.   Maybe we should deny any public funds to these cities where a mayor handed over the precinct police headquarters and said, “let it burn”.  Frey did this on the pretext of saving the lives of policemen.  But then, why have policemen?  Isn’t it just for this that we pay for police protection?

None of us should wish for martial law imposed by any president.  We need to hold our elected local and state officials to account - just as we hold a rogue cop to account.  What Cuomo and de Blasio, Frey and Walz and dozens of other heads of government at state and local levels have done in their failure should be left on their doorstep, not transferred to someone else.  If the people of Minneapolis don’t like their neighborhoods destroyed, their buildings razed by mobs, their people beaten up, they and they alone can change their leadership.  They never should have put their trust in Democrats, either at the city or the state level, but now they need to recall them, impeach them or whatever avenue is open to them, not wait for the cavalry to rescue them.  If the people of New York don’t care to see Macy’s on 34th Street looted, if the people of Washington don’t want to see the Lincoln Memorial defiled, they need to take action.

If the people themselves don’t care enough to take an interest in their municipal and state elections, if they don’t want to get off the couch to tend to their own business, the President of the United States or all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t fix it.  If that is the case, the people got what they really asked for.  If they take action, hold a peaceful assembly for a worthwhile purpose - something other than making signs out of cardboard and lath - and get the ball rolling on impeachment or whatever their law calls for in this situation, they will send a powerful statement to the organizations behind this violence - Antifa, BLM and their paymaster - that Americans will not have it.  We will demand responsible and effective leadership and our police will protect our persons and property, not kill us or allow others to destroy our cities.  

It’s really up to the people of each city involved in this and every city which might be a future target of this violence.  We know it is paid and organized - it is not organic protest.  We know that the only language they understand is force.  We need to apply that force where it will be effective in protecting our property and our freedom.

I truly would appreciate some feedback.  What is your opinion on this?  Is martial law the answer?  How would that end?  Is anarchy okay?  How would that end?  Who is responsible?  What should be done to make them accountable?  Is self-protection better than martial law or anarchy?  

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