“Truth is incontrovertible,” wrote Winston Churchill, “Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is.” When confronted with a truth that they don’t like, what better describes many modern liberals than panicked, ignorant, and full of malice? Of course, the chaos following the recent grand jury decision out of Ferguson, Missouri is the latest case in point.
Since the death of Michael Brown, how many chants of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” have we heard? How many posters and t-shirts have been emblazoned with what we now know was nothing but a lie?
The thousands of pages of grand jury testimony, which included details concerning a significant amount of physical evidence, finally brought to light what really happened on the night police officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown. There’s so much evidence that disputes the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” narrative that even the likes of the AP has started to question whether Michael Brown was indeed an innocent victim of police brutality.
The mention of Brown with his hands up is found throughout the grand jury documents. According to the AP, the accounts are so widely varying it’s as if witnesses, or alleged witnesses, were describing totally different scenes.
However, the liberal faithful remain just that. Taylor Gruenloh, a 32-year-old protestor from near Ferguson, declared that “Even if you don't find that it's true (Brown was shot with his hands up, surrendering), it's a valid rallying cry.” He adds that. “It's just a metaphor.” So for weeks now, liberals have lectured, looted, and lusted for vengeance based on nothing but a metaphor?
“This is not about one boy getting shot in the street, but about the hundreds just like him who have received the same callous and racially-influenced treatment,” said Oakland demonstrator Gabe Johnson. Hundreds? I’ll bet Mr. Johnson couldn’t name ten, but “hundreds” sounds so much more menacing. Mr. Johnson, and those like him, can justify their angry and misguided efforts with “hundreds.”
As the AP explains, “To some, it doesn't matters whether Brown's hands literally were raised, because his death has come to symbolize a much bigger movement.” As many well know, liberals are always looking for the next “symbol” to promote America as a nation full of racists. Hand-in-hand with this, many liberals are also always on the lookout for the next excuse to protest, “occupy,” riot, burn, pillage, plunder, or any other such activity that doesn’t require innovation, an interview, or a clock to punch.
After Brown’s death, in lieu of looting, it seems at least some under the influence of liberalism gave it the old entrepreneurial try. Reportedly, back in the middle of October, Brown’s paternal grandmother, Pearlie Gordon, along with a few cohorts, attempted to sell Michael Brown merchandise in the parking lot of Red’s BBQ, a Ferguson area barbecue joint. According to police reports (surprise!), shortly after 1 p.m. on October 18, about two dozen individuals were fighting in the parking lot of Red’s.
Apparently, a crowd led by Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, McSpadden’s mother Desureia Harris, and McSpadden’s then boyfriend (now husband) Louis Head, rushed the merchandise stand and assaulted Gordon and others present. One victim ended up in the hospital. The police report stated that McSpadden was heard yelling “get her ass.” McSpadden was also accused of punching Gordon.
Such a display, along with Louis Head’s call to “burn this bitch down,” after the grand jury’s decision was announced, along with the video of Brown robbing the convenience store prior to being shot, certainly does no favors to the “gentle giant” label that was so frequently used to describe Michael Brown. After all, isn’t it at least probable that Brown was somewhat likely to display the same thuggary and brashness exhibited by his matriarchs?
Yet, privileged liberals tell us that it’s Officer Wilson’s account that is unbelievable. Upon reading Wilson’s grand jury testimony, Ezra Klein finds it “unbelievable. Literally.” Just to clarify for those of us less smart than he, Klein expounds on what he means by “unbelievable:” “I mean that in the literal sense of the term: ‘difficult or impossible to believe.’” Got it?
For Klein, it is “difficult to believe” that a 6-foot-4-inch, 300-pound 18-year-old who had just committed a violent robbery, while high on drugs, would dare challenge or attack a police officer who was confronting him. Again, this is in spite of the video inside of the store that shows Brown callously and arrogantly shoving the clerk who dared to request payment for the items that Brown was about to steal from the store.
Adam Howard of MSNBC tells us why he can’t believe Darren Wilson. In spite of the physical evidence and multiple eyewitness accounts, Howard simply refuses to believe that Brown would have charged at Wilson. He laments that too many of us “refuse to see the collective tragedy of [Michael Brown’s, Rodney King’s, et al] stories and instead accept the official line of what took place wholesale.”
What we refuse to do here is to cower to liberalism and ignore the facts. What we refuse to do is coddle criminals while condemning cops. What we refuse to do is to encourage those who would resort to lawlessness in their pursuit of “justice.” And the only “line” being dangled here is that by Howard and his ilk.
As another, wiser, Michael Brown instructs us, what Ferguson (and the rest of the world) needs is not more protests, platitudes, and politics, but redemption.
Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com
