Tag Archives: Black Lives Matter

And The Chickens Come Home to Roost…

RaceWhiteHouse

Currently on the cable news channel CNN (and why it’s on there I have no clue, except for the factor that news channels are “entertainment” channels nowadays) is a six-part documentary series (ah, THAT’S how they play it off as “news”) delving into the history of the campaigns for the Presidency of the United States. Race for The White House, narrated and produced by House of Cards actor Kevin Spacey, looks back at six campaigns from the jaded history of the country and the lengths (some would say depths) that people would go to ensure that their candidate was ensconced in the White House. Last week’s episode dealt with the 1960 Presidential election between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon (I already knew the story and thusly bypassed it) and this week’s episode – unless its preempted for “Breaking News” (“Hey, someone found a piece of that Malaysian plane that’s been missing for two years!”) – will look at the 1860 fight between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.

To say that the 2016 Presidential campaign has been unique and may someday be a part of the 75th anniversary of Race for the White House on the Interstellar News Network (INN) would be an understatement. For the most part, however, it isn’t two parties or candidates going after each other that have made this a campaign that has either been memorable or an embarrassment, depending on viewpoint. It is one person whose repeated usage of inflammatory rhetoric has, indeed, drawn an audience of knuckle-draggers out of the woodwork that have repeatedly attacked even the slightest hint of protest at his campaign rallies. Now, however, the chickens are coming home to roost.

TrumpThirdParty

Of course, we are talking about Donald Drumpf, who has led the charge for the Republican Party after eight years of heated, borderline racist rhetoric of their own that castigated the twice elected President Barack Obama. It started for Drumpf with the 2012 election when he drove the “birther” movement (even after it had calmed down in most Republican circles) and Trump himself fanned the flames higher. “You won’t believe the information my investigators have found,” the Orangutan Mutant crowed in news conferences – that was before Obama stood up, showed a full birth certificate showing his place of birth to be Hawaii and basically told Drumpf to put up or shut up (note:  Drumpf shut up).

When Drumpf announced his run for President in 2016, he simply continued the divisive, racist, xenophobic and misogynist rhetoric that he has parroted since he entertained thoughts of running for the office in the late 1990s. No matter the nationality or region – Mexican, Syrian, South American, Asian – nor the ethnicity or religion, Drumpf has cursed them all, pumping his StormTrumpers with an Aryan vision of “making America great again.” Then, when things got violent, Drumpf simply ratcheted the verbosity and tension even more.

Since that day in June 2015, Drumpf has continually encouraged his rallygoers to verbally and physically attack those in the crowd that would even think to disagree with him. In February, Drumpf literally said if someone at one of his rallies saw someone even giving the slightest appearance of trying to disrupt his speech to “knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. OK, just knock the hell – I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise.”

So what do you think happened?

On March 8, a member of the Drumpf crowd DRESSED IN HIS KOREAN WAR VETERANS ASSOCIATION GARB pushed and threatened a black protestor in Louisville, KY, forcing the WOMAN from the rally for apparently protesting too much (there is no video of what she did). The man, Al Bamberger, has since repeatedly apologized to his Veterans’ Chapter and his family, but basically has handed out a big “fuck you” to the woman whom he assaulted. So has Drumpf, who encouraged the actions from the stage (as he has virtually every one of the altercations at his rallies).

Another Drumpf rally on March 10 got even worse. As Cumberland County Sherriff’s Department officers escorted two men from the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville, racial epitaphs reportedly were hurled by the crowd towards both black men. Then another man, John McGraw, stepped up and sucker-punched one of the men as he walked by. Instead of apprehending McGraw for the assault, Cumberland County officers tackled the punched man and quickly got him and his partner out of the Coliseum. It wasn’t until the next day – and after the tabloid show Inside Edition interviewed McGraw with him saying “Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him…he might be with a terrorist organization” – that the Cumberland authorities got around to arresting McGraw for assault (an investigation is ongoing by the Sheriff’s Department as to why they didn’t act at that time).

Then there’s Drumpf’s treatment of the press. Breitbart.com reporter Michelle Fields – and Breitbart is a conservative-leaning website that has been VERY closely associated with promoting the Drumpf campaign – was allegedly accosted by Drumpf campaign manager Corey Lewandowski while the campaign was in Florida on Friday. Fields filed charges of assault against Lewandowski and displayed bruising on her arm where she said she was “forcefully grabbed” by Lewandowski, who doesn’t say he didn’t do it but calls Fields “delusional” and the campaign says is “entirely false.” There is video, however, of Lewandowski being within close proximity to Fields while Drumpf is departing a press engagement and, at a point, her body jerking back violently, giving credence to her side of the story. The investigation is ongoing.

And this all has gone on while the Orangutan Mutant continues to up the ante, increase the bile in every speech and ratchet up the rhetoric to histrionic proportions. But what happens when the odds are evened up and it isn’t a screaming horde of a few hundred people against one or two? Drumpf and his supporters scream like little weaklings with their panties in a bunch and say that their rights are being violated!

On Friday, Drumpf scheduled two rallies, one in St. Louis and the other in Chicago, and everything short of street warfare broke out. Outside of the St. Louis rally, protestors from both sides clashed and, in what has become a usual occurrence inside a Drumpf rally, the speeches were interrupted on more than a dozen occasions. That just served as the appetizer for Chicago, where the crowd was evenly split and, this time, Drumpf’s campaign decided not to hold the rally out of “security concerns.”

Now these protesters were apparently organized by the Black Lives Matters and MoveOn.org groups, but that isn’t a point worth arguing. When it came time for Drumpf to actually have to face off against those whom his supporters have targeted for attacks time and time again, they decided to back off. Drumpf himself then whined about his “First Amendment” rights and how he had a right to hold his rallies.

First-Amendment

Let’s get something straight here. Yes, everyone has a First Amendment right to say whatever the hell they want to say (and that the First Amendment is there to prevent the GOVERNMENT from infringing on that right). In utilizing that First Amendment right, you also have to accept the ramifications of what comes from that exercise. If your rhetoric is constantly demeaning of – well, virtually everyone – then you have to expect that you are going to get some backlash at some point from the targets of your vitriol.

Those protesters have the same right to be heard. Now there may be a question as to the usage of violence (and that is one that can be asked on both sides), but there should be no question that protesters can call out the Orangutan Mutant and his slobbering horde for their idiocy. That First Amendment thing? It works both ways.

What doesn’t work is to try and act like you haven’t done anything to aggravate the situation. For most of Friday evening and into Saturday (a Cincinnati Drumpf rally was also canceled due to “security concerns” while another in Dayton saw the Secret Service perform their duties admirably when a potential threat rushed the stage, surrounding Drumpf in a protective cocoon), Drumpf tried to say that he hasn’t said anything onstage to encourage his supporters to take the actions that have occurred, that there is nothing he regrets having said, that he is completely innocent regarding the “issues.”

To that, everyone – whether you agree with the Orangutan Mutant or don’t – has to raise up and loudly say “BULLSHIT!” Drumpf is the one that has turned the 2016 Presidential campaign into the shitshow that it has become, that has tossed it into the racial commode and continues to stir the malodorous pot. There’s an ever-so-slim chance that someone might get to Drumpf and see if he can walk it back a bit…if not, then I fear it’s going to get worse, perhaps to the point of dead bodies worse, rather than improve.

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…But “Black Lives Matter” Isn’t Helping the Situation

There is an old adage, “there are two sides to every story.” I personally have always liked the rock band Extreme’s take with their album III Sides to Every Story. III Sides to Every Story was a concept album (an outstanding album that stretched genres in hard rock) regarding different “sides” to a story that was divided into three sections – “Yours,” “Mine” and “The Truth.” That concept is more realistic than many who divide things into two sections because, regardless of who is telling the story, there is some truth in both sides. That middle ground – “The Truth” or the third side – is 99 times out of 100 the way something occurred.

When it comes to the case of police shootings, especially of unarmed civilians, across the United States, there has been the grassroots growth of a “side” to help tell their story. The loosely affiliated group known as Black Lives Matter has sprung up across the country, trying to take the helm of the protests against the overreach of law enforcement in its actions against minorities. While a coalition such as this is necessary to continue to keep the focus on the actions of law enforcement, Black Lives Matter isn’t helping the situation and, in fact, the situation overall may be better off if they didn’t intercede.

Black Lives Matter actually date back further than the turmoil that first arose in 2014 and truly exploded over the course of 2015. The shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Florida in 2013 – and his subsequent acquittal in a trial in Florida – brought about the usage of the hashtag “#BlackLivesMatter” on Twitter, long before any incidences from the past couple of years. It is only with the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York that the founders of BLM emerged as a nationwide organization. As of today, there are now 23 chapters of BLM, spread across the U. S., Canada and Ghana.

According to their website, BLM is an organization “intended to build connections between Black (sic) people and our allies to fight anti-Black racism, to spark dialogue among Black people and to facilitate the types of connections necessary to encourage social action and engagement.” What you won’t find on this webpage is the one thing that is critical for any organization to have to be successful in their endeavors – leadership on a national level. Without this leadership, the message of BLM can sometimes get lost and, in some cases, the tactics used by those in the organization’s name can be a detriment to the overall cause of the group.

We only have to look back to 2011 to see what happens when a movement initially has a good purpose but gets derailed by the lack of recognizable leadership. In September 2011, protesters took to the grounds of Zuccotti Park in New York City’s Wall Street area to protest against the largesse of the “1%.” What came to be called “Occupy Wall Street” intended to bring attention to several facets of life in today’s world – wage inequality, financial corruption, the other reasons behind the financial collapse that brought the Recession of 2008 to life – but gradually devolved into something that was nowhere near what the original intentions of the group had been.

By the time the protesters and their tent city in Zuccotti Park was busted up in November, there were various fringe elements hanging on the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. This occurred because there was no leadership for the group to issue its thoughts, its beliefs, its coherent goals. Instead of actually having an impact, by the time the Zuccotti Park grounds were cleared, there was little that was actually accomplished by the Occupy Wall Street “movement.”

In many ways, BLM is seemingly on the same path that the OWS movement trod before them. BLM initially had a very solid reason for coming together – the killing of unarmed men (in this case black) by law enforcement under suspicious circumstances – but lacked a national coalition to be able to organize its “chapters” and drive this message home first. As a result of the inability to have a focal point to work from, the individual chapters have gone about pushing the message to the people in all the wrong ways.

One of the most obvious methods of protesting was taken from the old marches from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in blocking roadways while delivering the message through a walking protest. In some areas, however, BLM supporters weren’t just satisfied with getting their message across through a moving march, they decided to lie in the streets of major cities and block traffic, sometimes for hours on end. This method of protest violates one of the major keys of protesting:  don’t offend those whose opinions you’re trying to sway.

This style of protest became even more prevalent during the holidays this year. In Chicago – where there are seriously some issues with the police department – BLM protesters disrupted holiday shopping on Black Friday along the “Magnificent Mile,” the line of high end shops in the Windy City. It even reached the point that the Mall of America and the Minneapolis Airport (a city also protesting a police shooting) was the site of sometimes violent clashes between BLM and law enforcement.

Once you’ve made the point of your protest, then you can let life return to normal for people who had nothing to do with the situation. If you either continue to push your demonstration (look at the two months of OWS and how public opinion changed there) and exceed a reasonable amount of time, you can turn public opinion against your group and, hence, your cause. What was the reason for denying people the ability to shop? To really make them dislike you? That isn’t a desired end for the protests.

The next one was much more sinister in its message. According to several media outlets, marchers who were offered a booth inside the Minnesota State Fair this summer to advocate for their cause refused said location to instead march directly in the street outside the entrance to the carnival. During this march, the BLM banner was flying while the marchers chanted “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.” Law enforcement officials viewed this as a death threat against officers (a reasonable assumption), one that was weakly refuted by BLM “leaders” who said they didn’t hear such words being used (the You Tube links are quite numerous).

Finally, there’s been the methods used by the movement to thrust themselves into the 2016 Presidential race. Through virtually storming several campaign stops – on both the Democratic and Republican sides – the BLM movement has tried to make their cause celebre the focal point of what is a very complex election (even to the point of demanding from each party a Presidential debate on racial justice; both parties declined). Not only have the persons involved with the organization disrupted several speeches from Presidential candidates, they have caused several campaign stops to be closed due to their disruptions.

Once again, with a solid national leadership and some organization, this wouldn’t have to happen. With those simple pieces of structure, there wouldn’t be the turn against BLM that there has been. I personally have several issues that are quite important to me in this campaign (on the federal, state and local levels) – the revamping (training, screening and monitoring) of law enforcement can be done on the state or local levels, not on the federal one.

Now you might say, “Well, you don’t understand, you’re white…” and you would be correct. I don’t understand what it is like to constantly be thought of as breaking the law by simply being a certain ethnicity. I don’t understand what it is like to be viewed with suspicion in virtually every aspect of life because of my skin tone. I do understand, however, that things can be changed through solid leaders and national organization…right now, Black Lives Matter doesn’t have that and they should remove themselves from the equation with law enforcement until there is such organization as mentioned previously to this organization that could do a great deal for life in these United States.

Time to End This Charade…How Can ANYONE Support Donald Trump For President?

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When it began a few months ago, it seemed a fun little charade. When billionaire…what the hell DOES he actually do anyway?…Donald Trump descended the escalator of his Trump Tower complex in New York that fateful day in June, no one could have envisioned what has happened. The moment he opened his mouth, the U. S. as a whole should have arisen as one and shut down this gasbag asshole before he even got into motion. The problem is now it may be too late.

From that meeting, Trump has been an unrestrained fountain of idiocy and there are enough mouth-breathers out there to lap up every drop of his gruel. In that supposedly celebratory introduction of his campaign to the U. S. voters, Trump immediately came out saying that he would push all illegal immigrants out and send them back to Mexico. Calling them “rapists and murderers” Trump the dipshit assumed that every one of the “illegals” was from Mexico as he bastardized an entire nation. What backlash did he get from those statements, from the Republican National Committee? Silence. What did he get as condemnation from any Republican leader or other candidate who had declared for the race? Crickets…

This wasn’t the end of Trump’s bullshit bouillabaisse. In the very first GOP debate, Trump decided to castigate Fox News Channel reporter/anchor and moderator Megyn Kelly. Feeling a question was out of line, Trump the misogynist cretin went on a rampage later insinuating that Kelly was on her period with blood coming from “wherever,” hence the “grueling” questioning from her. He has continued to bastardize Kelly’s name and Fox News also. What have they done about it? Not a fucking thing.

There have been other truly mind-numbing incidences since this August tete a tete with Kelly (diminishing Senator John McCain’s military service, building a “wall” on the border with Mexico that they would pay for, etc.), but let’s fast forward to the last week or so as Trump has ratcheted the bullshit up even more. After the last GOP debate on November – and in response to falling behind Dr. Ben Carson in the polls in Iowa – Trump went on a 95-minute diatribe against Carson. In that screed against an opponent, Trump went to the point of stating that the voters of Iowa were “stupid” for wanting to support Carson and compared Carson’s statement regarding his teenage “pathological temper” to that of the mindset of a child molester.

The terrorist attacks in Paris – by European nationals radicalized by the Middle East terrorist organization ISIS, it has to be stated – was a truly stunning and saddening attack on a great European city. It also provided an opening for the GOP to use the incident to show how “weak” the Obama Administration has been in foreign policy (political demonization of a subject isn’t the exclusive domain of the Republican Party, but they’ve perfected its usage). Not to be outdone by the “weaklings” around him, Trump rocketed off the rails in his demonstration of his “foreign policy” knowledge.

To start with, Trump stated that he would “bomb the shit out of ISIS” as a method of taking care of a delicate foreign policy issue. This “bullshit in a china shop” mentality doesn’t stop there as Trump went on to declare that a “database” or registry for Muslims in the United States wasn’t a bad idea. He finished off this latest xenophobic rant by saying that he saw “Muslims” standing on the shores in New Jersey cheering as the World Trade Center came down on 9/11, an occurrence that there is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE OF EVER HAPPENING!

What should have been the final straw – no, the final straw should have come the day after he announced his candidacy when the castrated RNC should have said “thanks but no thanks, Donald” – occurred on Sunday evening. Delivering his usual blindly racist, misogynist and xenophobic message to a bunch of droolers in Alabama, Trump was faced with one man apparently from the organization Black Lives Matter who questioned his stance on the subject of the treatment of blacks by law enforcement. Before any of the Secret Service agents on the scene could do anything, Trump bellowed, “Get him the hell out of here!” His brain-dead minions, ordered to act by their demigod, proceeded to beat, punch and kick the man in question and Trump later commented that “maybe he should have been roughed up” as if he were John Gotti ordering a hit on a member of the Bonanno Family.

Oh, and guess what? Trump may still run as an independent if he doesn’t feel he’s been “treated right.” He also hasn’t even bothered to issue any of his political platforms on any issue facing the country, instead continuing to say about those ideas “it’ll be great,” “it’ll be huge” or “you won’t believe how good it will be.”

The complete and utter madness that comprises the Trump campaign would be funny if it wasn’t so A) dangerously problematic, and B) fucking stupid. None of what Trump wants to do – from building a wall on our Southern border to the nearly Nazi-esque thought of rounding up 11 million illegal immigrants with an “immigration police” (already got that, asshole…it’s called ICE) or creating database watch lists on segments of society, “bombing the shit” out of things, ramping up taxes on Chinese imports, reducing taxation revenues without cutting spending (I could go on) – would be politically feasible or particularly helpful to the country as a whole. For all the empty feeling rhetoric of his campaign slogan – “Make America Great Again” – Trump would instead drive us into the depths of a catastrophic financial and political crisis.

The blame for the ascension of Donald Trump falls squarely in the lap of the RNC and the lower reaches of the conservative movement. The RNC, in an attempt to turn around the results of national elections and return to the White House, decided after 2012 to “streamline” their nomination process. This streamlining was originally supposed to reduce the exposure of the candidates to the general public (instead of the more than 24 GOP debates in 2011-12, only 11 in 2015-16) and, in twisting around the counting of the early primary states, was supposed to produce a candidate earlier. The logic for this was to move their candidate forward sooner to start the campaign against the Democratic nominee earlier than the GOP Convention in the summer of 2016.

This “planning” by the RNC has completely backfired on them. First of all, it opened up a free-for-all as to the nominee, with 16 eventual candidates announcing their intentions to run for President. That size of field would only serve to create and demonstrate the massive division inside the party, with center-right Republicans leaning towards Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, with Tea Party sympathizers going towards Ted Cruz or Rand Paul and with the religious right going towards Carson or Mike Huckabee (where the others fall in is anyone’s guess).

Secondly, the skewing of the early results in a rush to nominate a candidate could come back to haunt them. Because of the size of the field, it is possible that someone (like Trump) could usurp the early primaries and, if not earn the nomination outright, hold a sizeable chunk of delegates come convention time. Thus, everything that the RNC had looked to avoid would be caused in a brokered convention.

The RNC has also been completely castrated as to controlling the candidates. There is a point of disagreement with the opposition, but the RNC has not castigated Trump (nor anyone else, for that matter) when they make inappropriate statements regarding other candidates or blatantly racist stances that WILL have an effect come next November. The purpose of having a leadership body is to do exactly that…lead. The RNC has failed to do that.

The rank-and-file GOP also deserves a great deal of blame for allowing Trump to rise. Instead of the party drawing together to denounce the incomprehensible statements Trump was making and forcing him either to run a proper campaign or get the hell out, everyone chose to stay quiet, lest they offend the deeply conservative base of their party. This part, which has been shown to be less intelligent (no college degree) and not as rich (earning under $50,000 per year), also outnumbers the elite inside the Republican Party. As such, they have to be paid “lip service” towards their antiquated and borderline racist thoughts by allowing Trump to be their spokesperson.

These are the same people who have stated it would be good to hunt potential illegal immigrants on the border of Texas; who have stated without evidence that immigrants are taking jobs from real “‘Muricans” while at the same time stating these immigrants are “lazy” and would suck from the teat of government welfare (and the list goes on). Needless to say, these aren’t the brainiacs of the United States.

To the GOP, I would like to say there is still hope yet. You can still distance yourself from Donald Trump or, at best, force him into having to defend his statements and provide some policy points of what he would do as President. Those members of the Republican Party who have a functioning brain could then let their other brethren know that Trump isn’t the one to lead the party into next week, let alone lead the country for the next four years and present a logical alternative. If you continue down this track, GOP, you will be destroyed in the 2016 elections and it could inflict permanent damage.

As a personal note, I’d love to see a GOOD Republican nominee come to the fore. I think Rubio is on the right track (have a hard time seeing him getting the nomination after the complaints over Barack Obama, whose career is mirrored by Rubio) and there are younger members of the GOP that might have some ideas worth hearing. I hear much discussion about the “diversity” of the GOP, but I don’t see it when they step on the stage (one woman, a black man and two Hispanics don’t change the faces in the crowd behind you). I also don’t hear the diversity in thought when I hear the voices speak.

Am I angry about Donald Trump and his egotistical, idiotic exploits on the campaign trail? Yes, I am. A well-known former Libertarian vice-presidential nominee has said that a Trump presidency “would be fun.” I don’t look for my President to be a fucking comedian or an entertainer; I look for that person to actually be someone I can respect in the office, regardless of party (as much as I disagreed with the second George Bush, I still respected how difficult his job was and his efforts). If Donald Trump is the person who is sitting in the White House come 2017, woe to the nation of idiots that elects him.

It Works Both Ways in “Black Lives Matter,” But Not In Every Other Case

Since the shooting of Houston, TX, Deputy Darren Goforth, allegedly by Shannon Miles and for some unknown reason(s), the rhetoric on both sides has ramped up drastically. Harris County, TX, Sheriff Ron Hickman, Goforth’s boss, stated it plainly on CNN when he said, “This rhetoric has gotten out of control. We’ve heard ‘Black lives matter,’ ‘All lives matter.’ Well, cops’ lives matter, too. So why don’t we just drop the qualifier, and just say ‘Lives matter,’ and take that to the bank?”

While Sheriff Hickman’s comments might be construed as not being acceptable (and, as a member of law enforcement, personal feelings aren’t supposed to be a part of the job), it comes on the heels of a “Black Lives Matter” protest in Minneapolis, MN, this weekend that were just as reprehensible. Although the particular “Black Lives Matter” group was offered a booth at the Minnesota State Fair, the organizers refused that opportunity to connect with people and instead decided to hold their protests on the streets in front of the fairgrounds. This allowed the protesters to say things such as “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.” All of this supposedly helpful bullshit comes on the heels of the Virginia shooting of two newspaper reporters by a former coworker, who supposedly was a homosexual male and supported the politics of President Barack Obama.

There is so much that is wrong in the current climate of discussion that it is difficult for anyone to wrap their heads around the subject. One of the main issues, however, is that no one wants to admit that the prescribed norms work both ways and should be applied equally to both sides. With that application, the outcome isn’t the same in every case, however.

The Texas case is tragic in that, on the surface, it does seem to be spawned by the anti-law enforcement sentiment that has festered throughout at least 2015 if not for the past 100 years itself. Lacking any information from the authorities, we are only left with conjecture as to why Miles decided on Friday night to cold-bloodedly gun down Goforth as he filled his squad car with gas. The same thing was seen in December 2014, when two New York City police officers were senselessly executed by another black man (who subsequently committed suicide), supposedly in response to the decision by grand juries in Missouri and New York not to indict police officers in the deaths of two black men.

In the Texas case, we could start with not escalating the situation any further than it already has been. Sheriff Hickman didn’t need to step in front of the microphones outside his office and toss gasoline on the fire by implying that the “Black Lives Matter” movement had something to do with the execution of his officer. He could have just as easily said, “We currently have no information on any motive or reason for my officer’s shooting.” Instead, he chose that moment to inflame conditions even more than they might have been. In a volatile state such as Texas, where very widely divergent viewpoints often don’t meet with genteel outcomes, it is something he should have thought about.

That doesn’t let the “Black Lives Matter” protestors off the hook, though. To actually chant for the execution of police officers – which has also been alleged in several other protest marches throughout the United States during “Black Lives Matter” events, among other violent acts – is downright wrong if not borderline criminal. If an individual can be charged with “voicing a threat” against another person, then what is the charge that should be put on those whose basic statement is “kill a cop?” (Let’s not get this wrong, I do believe in freedom of speech. That’s why I don’t have a problem with Body Count’s “Cop Killer” (an artistic statement) but do have an issue with this situation).

Some of the spokespeople for the “Black Lives Matter” organization have come out and said not to paint the organization with a broad brush for the actions of one person or one part of the group. Law enforcement and police unions have said virtually the same thing – “Don’t judge us all due to the actions of one bad cop” (we’ll leave alone for the moment the systemic incidences of police abuse of power for now over the years). The answer is that it works both ways and for both groups, but neither wants to admit it.

Where it doesn’t work is in the senseless Virginia murders of reporter Allison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward. While there has been plenty of information that has come out regarding Vester Flanagan – including that he went to the voting booth in 2012 as an Obama supporter to the point of wearing a pin and advocating in line for him (we know this because this is one of the litany of things that WDBJ management reprimanded him for while he worked there) and that he was gay, among other much more important things such as his emotional volatility in the workplace – the case has slowly slipped into the background because Flanagan killed himself and there will be no charges brought (unlike the Texas case). What is ridiculous is some of the statements over social media that try to show that it should go both ways and, in this case, it shouldn’t.

Some on social media have advocated for the “banning” of the rainbow flag that has become the banner of the LGBT community (and was seen on many a Facebook profile following the U. S. Supreme Court decision that made same-sex marriage a right), positing that it was the banner of “hatred” much like which happened when Dylan Roof used the Confederate Banner Flag as his “reason” for executing nine people in a Charleston, SC church. They also have demanded contrition from President Obama because one of his supporters – somehow like the illegal immigrant in San Francisco who killed a woman and, according to anti-Obama people, LOVED Obama – gunned down two people.

Unlike the “Black Lives Matter” situation where a) both sides could tone down the rhetoric and b) both sides should chastise their not-as-eloquent members, these accusations laid down in the Virginia case are completely ludicrous. First off, there is no indication that Flanagan’s sexuality was the hell-bent reason behind his decision to kill Parker and Ward. An argument can be raised that Flanagan was looking to do the same thing as Roof – incite a “race war” (Flanagan’s manifesto talked about how Roof’s actions pushed him to commit his crime) – and it should be discussed that Flanagan and Roof are cut from the same cloth. That’s about the point where the similarities end, however.

To suggest that the rainbow banner used by the LGBT community is a “flag of hatred” (never has been shown to be) like the Confederate Battle Flag (plenty of examples where it has been used as such) is about the most illogical thing there is…it’s called an association fallacy, one that basically says because you did one thing one time for one situation, you should always do that when similar situations arise. Thus, those that are frothing at the mouth to ban the rainbow flag merely show their idiocy rather than any practice of rational thought.

Situations such as Virginia and Texas – and even the issues between law enforcement and the communities they are supposed to protect (and who knows how many other aspects of society) – have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. In every case, both sides should be held to the same burdens of representation and held to a certain criteria that is used against both schools of thought equally. You cannot hold one to a separate, higher standard without applying the same principles on the opposition. After exercising this mantra, however, the answer aren’t always going to come out the same way every time.