RUTHFULLY YOURS

I don’t want to comment directly on these cases nor on the demonstration in Dallas which they prompted; during which five police officers were shot and killed and seven others and two bystanders wounded. It now appears that the shooter acted alone. Micah Johnston was a 25-year-old army veteran turned ‘black terrorist’ (for want of a better description) intent, as he said, on shooting white police officers. My comment primarily goes to public safety in America but it has application to Australia and to all societies living under the rule of secular law.

The reaction of the Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Dallas when they became aware that shots were being fired is instructive. They scattered in all directions crying out in fear and panic. The police ran towards the danger. There are two lessons to draw I think.

The first is that untrained unarmed people are no match for a trained gunman. This is so obvious why say it? It’s worth saying because we civilians, but particularly progressives and those intent on feminising society, have to realise that power does come out of the barrel of a gun. A few ruthless bad guys with guns can subjugate and enslave many unarmed people (otherwise called ‘sheep’) without any difficulty at all.

Our safety (the safety of us sheep) in Australia is totally dependent on the police and defence forces. In America it is a little different because many millions of citizens have the capacity to defend themselves. I like the American model better because the resurgence of militant Islam is making the world a more threatening place, but that is by the way.

The second lesson is that delegating our safety to police officers, as we must in the course of ordinary life whether we are personally armed or not, carries risks. One risk is that some police officers will at times act outside their authority; and sometimes brutally. But a second risk is likely to be realised much more often. That is that police officers may ‘overreact’ to perceived danger. Like us civilians, they don’t want to be harmed and have the same adrenalin reaction to danger as do we all. They are not a race apart.

In America there is a recurring theme among those on the left that police target black men. This goes right to the top. President Obama said this immediately after the shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana: “We have seen tragedies like this too many times. All of us as Americans should be troubled by these shootings, because these are not isolated incidents. They’re symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system…the data shows that black folks are more vulnerable to these kinds of incidents.” Does the data show this? It does if you are a charlatan or an idiot.

William D. Rubinstein: Blacks and Police in Violent America

If you consult the FBI crime statistics by race[i] you will find that in 2014 whites committed 46% of murders and blacks (accounting for only 13% of the population) for 51%. But hold on, these statistics are skewed, surely? They certainly are. By a PC sleight of hand, the FBI has redefined ‘white’ to include Hispanics, North Africans and Middle Easterners. So what is the white murder rate?

There is no data. But only six out of 71 of the FBI’s current ‘most-wanted’ offenders are white, according to The New Observer[ii], which looked at the mug shots and names. It goes on to conclude that “non-whites commit at least 90% of all violent crimes in America.” I heard one commentator drag a figure out of the air and say that blacks are nine times more likely to be stopped by police than are whites. Even if this is true, in view of their disproportionate criminality, it is hardly surprising.

It also seems to be generally acknowledged, without the benefit of reliable statistics unfortunately, that more whites are killed by cops than are blacks. Of course, the counter point is made that blacks are killed disproportionately. But again, if a segment of the population put itself at particular risk of coming into adversarial contact with law enforcement, particularly in a gun-toting society, more from that segment will be killed. Pari passu blacks disproportionately kill cops.

The FBI reports that 511 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the the ten years from 2004 to 2013.[iii] The perpetrators break down as 51% white and 43% black. But again, the ‘white’ figure is seriously inflated by the selective colour blindness of the FBI; which, to repeat, identifies Hispanics, North Africans and Middle-Easterners as ‘white’.

Where am I heading? First, there appears to be no compelling statistical evidence that the police unduly target blacks in America. Second, if we sheep want to be safe then the police everywhere need to concentrate their efforts on those more likely to do us harm. They need to profile. And for their own safety, and ultimately ours, they need to avoid putting their own lives at unnecessary risk.

This means in America that young black men will go on being killed by cops at a disproportionate rate. Of course, within the bounds of not further compromising police safety, efforts should be made to reduce and minimise such killings. But in the end result, while blacks continue to engage in sharply disproportionate criminality, black deaths at the hands of police is the price which will be paid for public safety, however disturbing and unfortunate that is.

There is an option. It is to allow black criminals to run rampant. Perhaps, rather than confront them and risk being killed or having their careers ruined or worse for a false step in the heat of the moment, the cops should offer black criminals a lift to the nearest white middle-class liberal enclave; retire to safety, and hear about the ‘fun’ next day.

Facts don’t matter to rabble-rousers like the agitators in Black Lives Matter and those who give them credibility. They are a plague; and would plunge us into a nightmarish world without safety, if their fantasies were ever to be realized. We need cops to keep the bad guys at bay. As Det. Frank Keller (Al Pacino) colorfully puts in the movie Sea of Love: “Come the wet-ass hour, I’m everybody’s daddy.”

Peter Smith, a frequent Quadrant Online contributor, is the author of Bad Economics