RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://spectator.org/misquoting-mlk-to-legitimize-violence/

It was inevitable that George Floyd’s death would spark protests against police brutality and that mendacity would characterize the attendant media coverage. True to form, the press affected dismay when the demonstrations devolved into violence, yet reported the riots with obvious approbation. The most obscene example of this was the widespread use, in headlines and ledes, of an out-of-context Martin Luther King quote suggesting that the civil rights leader would have condoned the mayhem. USA Today, for example, ran a feature story bearing the following title: “ ‘A riot is the language of the unheard’: MLK’s powerful quote resonates amid George Floyd protests.”

This grotesque misrepresentation of Dr. King’s views is only possible by cynically cherry-picking eight words from a 1966 interview during which he repeatedly emphasized that violence was counterproductive to the progress of the civil rights movement. Mike Wallace interviewed him for “CBS Reports” on Sept. 27, 1966, and the primary topic of discussion involved divisions within the movement concerning overall strategy. The myth that King had somehow endorsed violence went mainstream in 2013, when “60 Minutes Rewind” posted a clip from the Wallace interview and irresponsibly titled it using the same out-of-context quote. The interview transcript begins with this unambiguous statement:

KING: I will never change in my basic idea that non-violence is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for freedom and justice. I think for the Negro to turn to violence would be both impractical and immoral.

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/500315-it-wasnt-just-religious-liberty-that-chief-

The big story is even bigger than it appears to be at first blush.

Close to midnight on Friday, while rioters used the killing of George Floyd as a pretext to set America aflame, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling that declined to enjoin the states of California and Illinois from restrictions on communal worship imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Most startling was that Chief Justice John Roberts not only joined the court’s four left-leaning justices (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan) in declining to uphold religious liberty. Roberts also wrote a brief opinion explaining his decision. 

That opinion is an eye-opener. Roberts accords the right to worship no deference by virtue of its being a fundamental liberty expressly protected by the First Amendment. We are to see it as an activity like any other activity, commercial or social, the pros and cons of which technocrats must weigh in fashioning regulations. The opinion, moreover, champions the power of government officials to dictate to the people who elect them without “second-guessing by an unelected federal judiciary” — exactly the power that the Bill of Rights, and the incorporation jurisprudence by which the court has applied much of it to the states, are meant to deny.

This is truly remarkable because it is so gratuitous. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/californians-object-islamic-call-prayer-over-robert-spencer/

Diversity is being duly celebrated in the Los Angeles area these days, as neighbors of the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City are now treated to what Barack Obama called the most beautiful sound in the world, the Islamic call to prayer, blared over loudspeakers five times a day, beginning at 4:30AM. And lo and behold, some Culver City residents have had the temerity, the audacity, the unrestrained “Islamophobia,” to complain about the noise. As Greta Thunberg might say, How dare they? Don’t they know they live in California, and that California is the most woke of states?

It’s likely that most of the people who were complaining were Leftists who, in other contexts, would denounce concern about jihad violence and Sharia oppression as “Islamophobia” and “bigotry.” So now they have what they have wanted and enabled. They should be very proud. They can get up at 4:30 every morning and celebrate diversity.

This is happening all over the world, notably in the United States, Canada, and Germany: cities are amending or ignoring their noise ordinances to allow the Islamic call to prayer (adhan) to be broadcast over loudspeakers. Officials in Europe and the U.S. have explained this as an effort to comfort Muslims who in quarantine because of the coronavirus; however, none of those who have offered this explanation seem to have made any efforts to comfort Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or anyone else.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/paula-bolyard/2020/06/01/breaking-rioters-burn-historic-st-johns-church-in-d-c-deface-monuments-across-the-city-n474820

“Meanwhile, more than 50 Secret Service agents have been injured tonight by the “peaceful protesters.” The city is under a curfew and under the protection of the National Guard, but that hasn’t stopped the rioters from causing mayhem and destruction across the city.”

St. John’s Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square in the District of Columbia burned Sunday night, having been set ablaze by rioters in another long night of nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer dug his knee into the handcuffed man’s neck until he stopped breathing.St. John’s, built in 1816, has been called the church of presidents—every president, beginning with James Madison, has attended a service there. It’s located a stone’s throw from the White House.

Benny Johnson notes that President Lincoln prayed in St. John’s. That didn’t stop the violent mob from torching it.

Fox News is reporting at this hour that the fire, which began in the parish office of the church, has been extinguished by D.C. firefighters.

Rioters also defaced many of D.C.’s beloved monuments.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-and-disorder-11590959305?mod=hp_opin_pos_2

The violence that broke out in American cities this weekend goes far beyond justified anger at the killing of George Floyd on Monday. The rioters are looting shops and attacking police with impunity, and they threaten a larger breakdown of public order. Protecting the innocent and restoring order is the first duty of government.

The violent scenes in more than 30 cities were the worst in decades. Minneapolis police were overrun on Friday as neighborhoods and a police precinct burned. Los Angeles police were assaulted and their vehicles vandalized and burned. In Milwaukee a 38-year-old police officer was shot and 16 buildings were looted. In Dallas a shopowner trying to defend his property with a machete was stoned, beaten and left bleeding in the street.

Americans watching on TV saw reporters grabbed and pushed by protesters who flashed obscene gestures for the cameras. Police were pelted with rocks and bottles amid “Defund the Police” signs. Mayors across the country set curfews, and in Minneapolis and elsewhere the National Guard was called in.***

This was more than spontaneous anger at the grotesque video of a white cop, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on the neck of the African-American Floyd for nearly nine minutes as he pleaded to breathe. Many protests were peaceful. But the riots in many places had the earmarks of planned chaos by those using Floyd as an excuse for criminality.