Most people agree about the wrongness of police brutality, if not about whether a particular police action is an example of it.
But what about protester brutality? Again, most oppose it. Still, skeptics on this point have been particularly loud and insistent lately. Some even suggest (or scream) that violence against the innocent is fully justified if that’s what it takes to protest injustice.
But the existence of police brutality does not justify protester brutality, protester vandalism, protester indifference-to-evidence, or any other violence or irrationality.
The grand jurors in Ferguson were not dealing with injustice in the abstract, but with a particular incident and the relevant evidence. They were not asked to determine whether police ever wrongly shoot or kill, but whether there was evidence that a particular officer had done so, enough to justify a trial. Even assuming legitimate grounds to disagree with their conclusion, too many commenters declaim as if the evidence is irrelevant and the jurors’ motives not possibly honest. The man had to be indicted regardless.
Of course, had Officer Wilson been tried, on this assumed-guilty approach only one outcome would have then been deemed acceptable, regardless of evidence: conviction. Absent that conviction, violence against the innocent would still have been rationalized.
No injustice is properly fought by either sweeping aside facts or by attacking the innocent in the name of protecting the innocent. If we ignore the requirements of justice in order to advance a Cause, how can that Cause be justice?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “Against Protester Brutality”
Thank you for a little voice of reason in this muck of hysteria! I will never understand people taking sides in an issue before they have any facts in the case. People did that for and against the officer in Ferguson right after it happened. Unfortunately once their minds are made up, no facts can change their minds. If there’s police brutality that needs to be address then address it, but don’t sacrifice innocent people just to bring attention to other incidences.
We see the surface of the problems but the history at some point needs to be addressed and perhaps then each situation can be judged on its merits alone. I am not black, but even I am suspicious of the outcome. However the looters and pillagers should not be excused as they too must learn to address problems and not take out their frustrations on innocents.
It is my considered opinion that, had he been charged and tried, Darren Wilson would almost certainly have been acquitted. There is plenty of room for reasonable doubt as to precisely what happened that day in Ferguson, and he would have had lawyers who knew how to maximize that doubt for an acquittal.
Unfortunately, both he and “the people” were deprived of due process of law. If the prosecutor didn’t believe there was probable cause to charge Wilson, all he had to do was: Nothing.
The act of a prosecutor taking a case to a grand jury, or to a judge at a preliminary hearing, is inherently a claim: “As prosecutor, I believe there is probable cause to indict this person for that act.”
Bob McCulloch did the opposite of his job, at great expense in time and effort to the grand jurors and in money to the taxpayers of St. Louis County. Instead of making the case for probable cause — his JOB — he conducted a secret trial with himself and his team as Wilson’s defense attorneys and, in effect, no prosecutor present.
No, that doesn’t excuse “protester brutality.”
But if McCulloch had declined to charge Wilson in August, the riots would be a distant memory even if they had lasted a little longer than they did back then.
And if he had decided to charge Wilson and gone through the process of doing so instead of putting on a dog and pony show, at least it would have been justice pursued instead of intentionally thwarted and the protesters could have been written off as unreasonable.
It seems very strange that all the media writers, including those on the right are completely failing to ask “Who is paying for all those busses being used to transport ‘protesters’? The enormous presense of International ANSWER, in these demonstrations is being, ‘somehow’ overlooked. Questions abound…
There is never any justification for the protesters to commit such criminal acts as was seen in Ferguson in protest as a result of a perceived and alleged wrong in the operation of the legal system.
This is mob rule. The actions are “understandable” by false and misleaders only for political gain. They have no regard for the consequences on their statements to the civil society.
Lawlessness only begets more lawlessness. It will never solve the problem or correct the wrong. Those who can be shown to have participated in such activities should be prosecuted and if convicted, punished as the criminals they are.
The end NEVER justifies the means. The means in this case being the destruction of the property and livelihoods of the merchants who were doing nothing more than serving the community, who were totally without blame or participation in the complained of incident.
The Ferguson “protest” was an abomination, wrong and criminal and must be totally and absolutely condemned by any true leader.
Those who even attempt to justify or state they “understand” are a disgrace, as bad, if not worse, than the criminals themselves.
This whole incident was ginned up to further a radical left-wing cause that the fighters of the cause have no wish to fix or cure. There is too much money involved to want a cure, and when there are no actual examples of white on black racism, the radicals must make them up. There is very little actual white on black racism in America anymore. However, there is much more white guilt and black racism as evidenced by the two-time election of a black racist Marxist radical by guilty white liberals and the people who voted for him because his skin color was the same. This is compounded by the race-baiting radicals who need their race industry to continue to steal taxpayer dollars to “fix” the problem. As long as these people are able to make money ginning up this issue, racism will live in America. The fix is probably in Washington, taking away their ability to lobby for taxpayer dollars to “cure” their issue. If Washington does not have the money to spend on these issues, the issues will go away very quickly.
Nicely takes everyone“s mind off of the amnesty issue.
Classic Saul Alinsky technique.
Zippy may have slept or been stoned during his Constitution classes but he absolutely nailed Rules for Radicals.