Civil Unrest

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

In this season of uncertainty as we grope in the darkness of our own imperfect apprehension of God and all that is happening in the world, and as we wrestle with God’s absence as Job did, we might come to experience the presence of God in a different way. For it is also the season of Pentecost, where we remember the movement of the Spirit who changed the world by changing the hearts and minds of a handful of disciples. Perhaps we too might proclaim with Job: “I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye has seen you.”(6) . Margaret Manning Shull, Slice of Infinity 

CIVIL UNREST

"Restoring order to America’s cities isn’t a complicated proposition.

"All it requires is resources and determination and a firm rejection of the longstanding progressive fallacy that an overwhelming police presence is “provocative” and “escalatory” and must be avoided.

"As has been established across decades of civil disturbances, it is police passivity that emboldens mobs. When the cops stand by, or don’t show up or, even worse, run away, it is a permission slip for destruction. They might as well supply the spray paint, bricks, and hammers for the crowds, and beckon them into the local Target or Nike store to take whatever they want.

"Out-of-control looting is almost always a failure of municipal resolve or police tactics, and we have seen plenty of just such cowardice and foolishness over the last several days, most notably in Minneapolis, ground zero for this spasm of urban disorder . . . 

"It is simply not true that rioters will be quickly sated if they are allowed to break and burn things freely. Disorder feeds on itself. Looting one store, overturning one police car is never enough.

"There is no alternative to imposing curfews, zealously enforcing them, arresting violators, and calling out the National Guard if there’s not enough police manpower for the job. This doesn’t escalate the violence, it stops it."  Rich Lowry, National Review Online

"These riots fail as an attempt at private justice on the fundamental grounds: They do not leave the specific victim (or, in this case, his survivors) any better off, they do not actually advance the project of reforming police practice, and they leave society worse off, especially in the case of many of the communities on whose behalf the protesters purport to agitate. Of course it is the case that most of the looters and hell-raisers are not thinking things through in these terms, but I am not sure that really matters to our understanding of the situation."  Kevin Williamson, NRO

"Now that we have enormous crowds gathering in cities all over the country to protest the death of George Floyd, the talk of the importance of social distancing has almost completely disappeared in the media, and Democratic officeholders don’t talk about it anymore, either.

Just another example of how the rules they establish are usually in service of their political and ideological agenda, and as soon as the rules are no longer useful, they are changed or dropped."  Rich Lowry, NRO

"Tears for George Floyd are universal and justified. Anger at what happened to him is universal and justified. But for leftists, that poor soul is little more than a weapon to be used in their ongoing rage against America, the police and white people. And to further enrage blacks against them."  Dennis Prager, Townhall

"What we witnessed this week in Minneapolis is a failure of liberalism. The leadership of the city and state could not persuade the protesters it claims to represent to remain peaceful. And when rioting, looting and arson erupted, and attacks on police began, that leadership sat morally and politically paralyzed.

"The elites could not condemn both the killing of George Floyd and, with equal moral vehemence, the violent and criminal element that came to permeate the ranks of the protesters.

"They failed to get sufficient law enforcement or the National Guard into the city on time, or to declare and impose a curfew, or to use requisite force to halt the rioting and looting."  Patrick Buchanan, Townhall