There were two more predictions I neglected to work into my earlier post this morning.
First, although initially they may support the demonstrators after a moment’s consideration and a bit of throat-clearing, the public employees’ unions and by “public employees’ unions” I mean the firefighters, teachers, and the SEIU will all rally to the support of the police officers. I don’t know how they’ll rationalize it but rationalize it they will. Defunding the police is an existential threat to all public employees’ unions. The only factor that might stand in the way of that leads to my second prediction.
In a contest between political affiliation and cognitive dissonance affiliation will win every time. It doesn’t make any difference that the system the demonstrators are unhappy about was put into place and supported, in some cases acerbically, by the very politicians they’re going to vote for in November. Vote for them they will.
Affiliation.
Correct. Deeply structural. A self inflicted wound. And many people, the mobile people, see this and decide, rationally, they have no choice but to leave. And leaving they are. The smoking hulk they leave behind to others is saddening.
Affiliation, but in theory only. Reality is that police unions will come out of this intact and with little change for the most part (firefighters also). We are OK with going after teachers but police will be protected by half of the country no matter how they behave.
Steve
Police will survive, but changes will be made, because the loudest public voices will demand it. What will not change is white liberal guilt married to minority victimization – a combo which is never satisfied with whatever concessions or reforms are made on their behalf. Consequently, we will continue to have race injected into any issue, not because it’s justified, but because it serves to shut up anybody countering claims of unfairness.
Narratives screaming brutality towards minorities, like what has happened in the Floyd case , will also conveniently omit damning details filling out the circumstances surrounding this black man meets white police officer episode. No where, for instance, is there a discussion of how many drugs Floyd was on, creating a 6’ 5†incoherent man, who must have been out of his mind, having 4x the lethal dosage of fentanyl in his system, plus meth, alcohol, weed, and perhaps heroin (traces found in his urine). While much is made about Floyd starting his life over, there still lingers a long arrest record behind him, including being a member of a home invasion gang, where he was singled out to be the one pointing a gun at the stomach of a pregnant woman. This is the felony which got him prison time. No, this is literally “whited†out of his bio. Instead, he now occupies an honorary status, where people kneel in deference to him, people rob, loot, burn and kill with his name on their lips. Police departments are now threatened to be defunded, mayors, police chiefs are stepping down, over 70 Minneapolis cops are resigning or taking early retirement, 1000 commercial sites were damaged in Minneapolis, alone, with some 50+ burned out, 500 million estimated losses, and one manufacturer has signaled they are relocating somewhere else – one of presumed many. But, no where is there any acknowledgement of the brutality and suffering committed in the name of George Floyd, who his family even admits to being no angel.
This morning, Judge Andrew Napolitano argued on Fox that the Minneapolis City Council does not have the legal authority to defund the police because of requirements in the Minnesota constitution. Should they attempt to do, the Minnesota state government would take over direct governance of the City, disbanding its City Council.
That’s one man’s opinion. But he’s a lawyer and has read the law.
Minneapolis has had 80 years of leftist/socialist/progressive/marxist government and a population that is nearly 100% leftist. And yet it is supposedly riddled with systemic racism.