Trayvon Martin is only one of the more recent casualties; George Zimmerman is likely to follow, dead or in prison because the electorate is foolish and the politicians we elect are even more so.
I can't flip through the channels without tripping over some race-baiting pundit or pol reframing the case to suit the grind of his particular axe. It's easy to blame them for the opportunistic bloodweasels that they are, but that's too facile.
They operate in the world we all made. The world of zero-sum handouts, where every man's your competitor and your "team" is whatever racioethnic special-needs subgroup genetics and your putative peers have hammered you into, no matter how bad a fit square-peg you may be to that round hole. Less for you is more for the other guy -- and it's the other guy who's keeping you down/attacking your young women/holding you up/taxing you broke/whatever badness du jour is happening, and to you and yours more than most.
Swim in that sea long enough -- and we all do, tune in USA Today or pick up CNN and you're up to you neck in it; watch C-SPAN and it's over your head -- and it sinks into your soul, permeates your brain and before you know it, you start to talk the same crap as those around you.
FACT: I wasn't at that apartment complex and neither were you.
FACT: I'm neither $DIETY or Dick Tracy: I didn't see what happened and I can't reconstruct it from what I read in the papers (etc.). Maybe you are one of those entities, in which case there are sick to be healed and a missing aviatrix to locate -- what're you waitin' for?
FACT: Florida has a criminal justice system. They have civil courts. There's exactly one (1) suspect in the shooting of Treyvon Martin and nobody is patting him on the back or slipping him a wink and a nod. He's standing at the entrance to the meat-grinder now and there's no going back. What will come out at the far end of the process will be -- at best -- as much truth as can be wrung from the available evidence and testimony. It's all we'll get. It's all anyone gets.
FACT: There's a whole Federal justice system too, and their dander is up. If there's a prosecutable offense to be found, they are going to winkle it out. Count on it; good or ill, it will happen.
But here's the deal: our governments have spent the last what, sixty years waging a War On Poverty, which turned out to be a war on poor people; they've been waging various phases of a War On Drugs for even longer, which turned out to be a war on the drugs poor people use. And they've been waging plain ol' War-type Wars, which turn out to be places where some of the best and brightest of the poor go, learn new skills and come home with limbs shot off.
The poor are disproportionately African-American and thanks in large part to Wars On A Noun, so's the population of this country's prisons. I'm not gonna play the dozens about who has it worse or how many (screw that game, see above) but I will point out that it's a short damn step from seeing those around you end up on the losing end to assuming anyone who isn't like you and yours will, in any conflict, get breaks you wouldn't -- even without the Very Reverend Al Sharpton doing his best to whip up that good ol' hatin' feeling. 'Cos more for them is less for you; if you've been getting less justice, what'll you figure the other guy is getting?
Oh, dammit.
Welcome to the world. The one we built. The one we begged politicians to build. Ooops.
RX,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your main points, however I have to call foul on one comment. The poor are underrepresented in today's all volunteer military. Google US Military demographics and you'll find study after study for years that come to this conclusion.
Still love the blog though :o)
GregF (USAF Ret)
Mike Vanderboegh is prone to quote the noted philosopher F. Zappa (RIP):
ReplyDeleteDo you love it
Do you hate it
There it is, the way you made it
And I helped too, in my way and in my day: Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Now, though, having given up on both factions (each in its turn) of the Running Things Party (hat tip to the hostess) in favor of the Cast Down Sauron And Have No One In His Place Party, what is to be done?
Lots of words to say that you don't know and smart enough to say so... but your point on our world, or the jungle of un-natural selection - we get what we pay for. Thanks
ReplyDeleteHad to dig these numbers out for another post elsewhere, so bear with me. According to the FEC, in the 2008 Election, 69,926,158 people voted for Obama. 56,375,761 voted for either McCain or Paul or the Communist Party guy, or Someone Else. The rest of the Legally Eligible Voters stayed home.
ReplyDeleteNow, Legally I can Vote, write Letters to the Editors, make Comment on Blogs, make Donations to various Political Parties, attend my City Council Meetings, attend Political rallies, PEACEFULLY gather in Protest for/against Something, Sign Petitions, and run for Public Office. I've complained to my Congress Critters in Both Houses, and I even VOLUNTEERED to put my Butt on the Line and joined the United States Navy when there was NO Draft. I've done all of the Above, except run for Public Office.
But I am One Vote. I can't make a Congress conform to my wishes, I can't Anoint a President, I can't tell 9 people on the Supreme Court to rule in a certain way, I just don't have the Power.
So, in the Famous Words of Tonto, "What's this WE Crap, Whiteman?"
Roberta, please don't fall into the Trap that the Left has been using for years about how EVERYTHING is ALL our fault. No, it's NOT all our fault. A lot of us out here have done our best to try and change things in manners that are Legal and Constitutional. And I will continue to do so, up to the moment that I HAVE to put down the Pen and Pick Up the Sword. And even then, there's no guarantee that my Side would win, or even that I would survive.
And no, I really DON'T want to break out the Wookie Suit. But if Push comes to Shove, it's ready to go.
And may God help us all if that Day ever comes.
RX,
ReplyDeleteGiven that your main points are true, does the fact that it took almost three weeks for the mass media to misrepresent the known facts to start us down this path give us reason the question the motives of those so called reporters?
Does the fact that the Feds have an order for 450 million rounds of .40 s&w and 1.75 million rounds of .223 anything to do with the end game for this event?
Am I being paranoid or clairvoyant? It's hard to tell anymore.
Reporters: always assume laziness until proven otherwise.
ReplyDeleteBig Fed ammo buy: consolidation of purchasing under the oxymoronic "Homeland Security" Department. Buy in bulk and save! (This would include groups like Coasties, Air Marshals and a few others who actually do a lot of shooting in training, not just the usual clowns and losers nobody but the Feds would trust with sidearms).
"We:" tough tonails, Toots; you partcipated in the elctrate that picked 'em. e, too -- like you, I'm voting "against" just as hard as I can but we are neverthess part of the system, inside the problem. I think it is a good thing to be applying the brakes...having a Plan B is good, too.
VeriWords: look, I just rent the place. Gogger/Bloogle paints the walls and generates the secret words -- and look, here's the duck, with a $100 in his bill!
A couple of points:
ReplyDeleteEll Bee Jay declared War On Poverty before Nixon declared "the moral equivalent of war on drugs". While narcs were ruining people lives over a joint before that, but it was Nixon's pseudo-declaration that really cranked up the Federal money machine for local yokels.
GregF is correct; furthermore, when poor kids enlist, they tend to go into fields which do not require high ASVAB scores, and, often, teach a trade. Combat Arms are disproportionately filled with working and middle class guys who "don't want to sit behind a desk." If they're in a technical field, it's quite likely to be as a Marine or as a soldier doing his technical thing close enough to the Sharp End to qualify for a Combat Action Badge for actual Combat Action, not just being on the FOB during a mortar attack.
A lot of this stuff was gradual enough, and over a long enough period--our grandparents get a lot of the blame!--that either no one saw where it was going, or no one took those kooks warning of where it would go seriously.
But, hey, sometimes history does repeat itself, The Won has declared war on the Supreme Court again...
Les: it's not "all our fault," but it is "our fault" in the sense that participation in the system legitimizes the results. Alas, "conscientious objectors" to voting end up without even a travesty of a sham of a mockery of a voice in the process, to mangle Tam's quote from this morning.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is NOT, as the two parties (and many of the others, too) claim, the wrong kind of government, but too much of it. It hadn't ought to have the power to be waging Wars On Nouns.
In re "poor folk in the .mil," I never claimed they comprised the majority of enlisted, only that "the best and the brightest" found it a ladder out. Johnny or Jane Middleclass is at least as likely to be courted by the Marines (etc.), if he or she looks to have potential, but the poor kid with a knack for a needed skill is a lot less likely to be tryin' to get into Rutgers instead.
PS: The War On Drugs has been running ever since the time when, at the end of Prohibition, an ambitious T-man on the verge of having no work realized hemp was growing wild in the ditches -- and being smoked by a lot of Negro musicians, Mexican migrant workers and the era's version of young hipsters. It was a veritable scourge!
ReplyDeleteIn 1930, we got the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. It went downhill from there. Wikipedia: "In 1935 the president Franklin D. Roosevelt, publicly supported the adoption of the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act. The New York Times used the headline ROOSEVELT ASKS NARCOTIC WAR AID." The links make for interesting reading -- and yes, cannibis was covered under "narcotics."
Sentencing disparities in drug cases contribute to a deep sense of unfairness in the black community -- and once you have lost faith in the justice system, what's left? Pitchforks and torches. And/or Al Sharpton & Co.
I had a nephew spend 17 months in Iraq with a Stryker unit. When he got back I asked him how the various races got along his his unit. The answer I got was that they had one guy form Puerto Rico and the rest were all white guys. Mostly from the South and Mid-west and the black guys don't sign up for combat units. I wonder if this hold true for other troops.
ReplyDeleteDuring the Viet Nam war the only group to have casualties our of proportion to the civilian population were Jewish guys.
The rest of your post seems to be right on target.
All men are created equal, some are just more equal than others.
ReplyDeleteThe Constitution is all about the balance of power or even the limits of power. This current administration is all about the increase of Government and thereby its power. Mr. Obama favors ignoring the people altogether except when it suits his purpose. I guess that is because he is the “most equal”.
OldTexan,
ReplyDeleteCombat arms units tend to be disproportionately middle class whit kids who signed up for adventure or out of family tradition, as opposed to support units, which are populated by people who joined to learn a trade and/or pay for college.
Being a SAW gunner is probably fun and all, but it doesn't have much applicability in the civilian world. Yet.
It is true, the Infantry is largely composed of middle class white boys. But there are enough Hispanic and Black guys to do their communities proud.
ReplyDeleteOf course last month I met a new Spcecialist with two masters degrees. We get those guys too.