For Liberalism, It's Always About "The Narrative"

After members of the Fellowship of Ferguson Fabricators, also known as the Congressional Black Caucus, gathered on the floor of the U.S. House on Monday to showcase the St. Louis Rams’ new touchdown signal, otherwise known as the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture, Thomas Sowell likened the display to Nazi propaganda.

I don’t usually like allusions to Nazism tossed around in our political debates—it’s too often used simply as hyperbole—but liberals today certainly are following the messaging strategy famously articulated by Joseph Goebbels: repeat a lie often enough and loud enough and people will believe it.

Defending the actions of his congressional cohorts to Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, Democrat representative Al Green brashly argued that, “It’s not enough for things to be right, they must also look right.” The Houston congressman (Is there any surprise that the place where pastors’ sermons are subpoenaed—because they contradict the current liberal narrative on marriage and sexuality—would elect the likes of Congressman Green?) also accused Kelly of telling only “one side of the story.”

In a stunning display of hypocrisy, the looters and rioters in Ferguson, Missouri accused CNN of promoting a “certain narrative.” In other words, while shining a bit of light into darkness (It seems that even CNN can sometimes stumble onto the truth, even when it doesn’t mean to!), CNN was doing damage to the liberal narrative in Ferguson. And for liberalism, “the narrative,” not truth, is essential.

As has been demonstrated for decades now, liberalism is quite adept at creating “narratives,” i.e. making its own “truth,” which can easily change as soon as it’s advantageous. Such skill and flexibility is very necessary when one needs political power to make sure the preferred notion of “truth” rules the day.

This skill has been keenly tested with the events in Ferguson. The liberal apologists at Time Magazine went so far as to pen a “Defense of Rioting.” Sounding like the puppet of President Obama and the ally of the immoral that she is, Time’s Darlena Cunha instructs us that, “When a police officer shoots a young, unarmed black man in the streets, then does not face indictment, anger in the community is inevitable.”

Seemingly desperate to show off her liberal cred, Ms. Cunha evokes Darwin and adds, “Riots are a necessary part of the evolution of society.” Such an ignorant statement must be born of desperation; otherwise we must conclude that Time is in the habit of employing ignoramuses. She painfully continues, “Unfortunately, we do not live in a universal utopia where people have the basic human rights they deserve simply for existing, and until we get there, the legitimate frustration, sorrow and pain of the marginalized voices will boil over, spilling out into our streets.”

Ahh, the ever elusive liberal utopia. It seems hopelessly lost on Cunha and her ilk that the decades of pursuit of such nonsense by liberalism is ultimately what has yielded Ferguson and other such dystopic nightmares. To distract from the nightmares, and even to excuse them, the narratives continue. Instead of actually dealing with what is wrong in Ferguson, liberals give us vague lectures about “justice,” “structural inequality,” a “culture of oppression,” and, of course, “racism.”

The khaki-creased “conservative” at The New York Times, David Brooks, demonstrates that his intellectual palate prefers modern liberal narratives to the notion of absolute truth when he spoke on Ferguson. He said, “This is not a question of good versus evil, right versus wrong. Racial inequality has become entangled in all sorts of domestic problems…”

Brooks’ editorial colleague at the “newspaper of record,” Nicholas Kristof, devoted a five-part series recently to explain why “Whites Just Don’t Get It.” Democrat Representative Eleanor Holmes said that the facts in Ferguson don’t matter to her. And on and on it went and continues.

Just prior to the second dose of Ferguson riots, in order to help sell abortion and sexual promiscuity, and in a spectacularly failed attempt to elect Democrats, liberals all across the U.S. saturated the media with the “war on women” narrative. So violently is this narrative protected and sold, the unborn are dehumanized to the point that no limits on the age of the mother or the unborn child are tolerated.

Demonstrating their continued penchant for calling evil good and good evil, and in a sad attempt to take the moral high ground on abortion, Katha Pollitt, author of Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, writes, “Terminating a pregnancy is always a woman’s right and often a deeply moral decision. It is not evil, even a necessary evil.”

Late this past summer, in the Washington Post, pro-abortionist Janet Harris said that abortion should never be considered “difficult” or “immoral.” In order to de-humanize the baby, and thus make us feel better about killing it, Harris declares, “To say that deciding to have an abortion is a ‘hard choice’ implies a debate about whether the fetus should live, thereby endowing it with a status of being. It puts the focus on the fetus rather than the woman.”

That’s right Ms. Harris, because it’s all supposed to be about you. In order to promote big government, liberals deftly lecture us about how they care about those in need, and about how, if we would only give them the power, they would make a better world for all of us. Ms. Harris’s above conclusion reveals what liberalism is really all about: a “Dictatorship of Pride.” In other words, under liberalism each of us is “free” to do “what is right in our own eyes.”

“Pride leads to every other vice,” the great Christian apologist C.S. Lewis reveals. “It was through pride that the devil became the devil…it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” This is why I find liberalism so repulsive. In almost every moral issue of our time, liberals stand opposed to the truth.

The narrative that says that an unborn child is not a life worth protecting is one of the most enduring lies of liberalism. In order to sell this lie, we now must suffer the “heart-warming” tales of women who’ve decided to kill their unborn children. And of course, the mainstream media is only all too eager to help. In October of this year, the pro-abortion media was beside itself celebrating the “beautiful,” “brave,” “powerful,” and “heartwarming” letter written by an anonymous Reddit user that revealed her plans to abort her unborn child.

The abortion narrative has its roots in the sexual narrative preached during the sexual revolution of the 1960s: that we all have the right to do whatever we wish in the sexual realm, which has also “given birth” to the unconditional acceptance of homosexuality. To promote this perversion, and distract from the truths of homosexuality, liberals again employ those heart-warming tales that are supposed to distract us from the darker side of whatever it is they are promoting.

Liberals have been recently put to the test on this narrative as well. Terry Bean, the co-founder of the largest pro-homosexual advocacy organization in America, the Human Rights Campaign, was recently arrested and indicted on two felony counts of third-degree sodomy and one count of third-degree sexual abuse after allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old boy he met online last year.

Bean is also co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and is a major donor to the National Democratic Committee and a major financial supporter of Democrats across the U.S., including Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. Bean has made multiple trips to the White House and has even been on Air Force One. In other words, on issues related to homosexuality, Bean has the ear of virtually every leader in the Democrat Party.

In this case liberals are forced to protect their narrative. This too is a common approach taken by liberals when “inconvenient truths” come to light. Very little is being written or spoken when it comes to Mr. Bean. Of course, it’s not as if liberals are incapable of reporting when it comes to homosexuals and crime. How many Americans are still under the illusion that Matthew Shepard was the victim of a “homophobic” hate-crime?

In order to push the homosexual agenda, for nearly two decades liberals have continued to promote this lie. Author Stephen Jimenez, himself a homosexual, has been instrumental in helping to reveal the truth in this matter. In 2013 Jimenez published The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard. Shepard’s life, it turns out, is a sad tale of drug addiction, drug trafficking, child molestation, and rampant sexual promiscuity. Shepard’s murderer, Aaron McKinney, was his drug partner/rival as well as his homosexual lover. Both Shepard and McKinney were heavy meth users as well as dealers.

Though Shepard was killed in 1998, for over 10 years his narrative thrived to the point that Democrats passed major legislation in his name. The Congressional Democrats passed, and President Obama signed the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crime Prevention Act in 2009. A few brave souls attempted to point out the lie that is the Shepard narrative. On the floor of the U.S. House, North Carolina Representative Virginia Foxx attempted to point out the Shepard hoax.

The left went nuts. The nuts at MSNBC went even nuttier. Keith Olbermann named Foxx his “World’s Worst” and called her “criminally misinformed.” In his typical angry-anchorman speak, Olbermann continued to spread the Shepard myth by telling his audience that Shepard’s killers lured him away by “pretending to be gay.”

After Jimenez’s book came out just over a year ago, the pro-gay publication The Advocate finally asked, “Have We Gotten Matthew Shepard All Wrong?” No matter though. As the piece puts it, “There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.” And there you have it: it’s okay to lie; it’s okay to promote “the narrative,” as long as the end justifies the means.

Of course, the most recent offspring of the sexual narrative that came out of the sexual revolution is the lie that is same-sex “marriage.” So swiftly has this narrative taken off that what just barely a decade ago would have caused even the most ardent liberal politician to squirm to defend, is now openly celebrated and promoted. Though there is nothing in the 200-plus years under our Constitution to suggest any idea that our Founders would have been anything but repulsed by the mere mention of two men or two women marrying, judges across the U.S. are rushing to declare same-sex marriage “constitutional.”

Although polling data shows an increase in the acceptance of same-sex “marriage,” when put before voters, the vast majority of states have overwhelmingly rejected same-sex marriage. Rogue judges deceived by the liberal narrative on marriage and sexuality are overturning the will of the U.S. electorate.

One issue that, again, at least according to most polls, the liberal narrative has yet to sway many Americans on is global warming—I mean climate change. The left is undeterred, however, and as is almost always the case, the narrative continues.

The narrative here is so powerful that many liberals have made their devotion to the climate into a religion. Ian Plimer, a geologist, author, professor of earth sciences and mining geology, as well as an ardent atheist and Darwinian evolutionist—which, normally would make him a darling of the political left—calls global warming “the new religion of First World urban elites.”

Plimer adds, “Environmentalism has many of the hallmarks of failed European socialism and [failed] Western Christianity. It has a holy book which few have read [IPCC reports], has prophets [Al Gore, et al] who cannot be challenged, relies on dogma, ignores contrary evidence, has armies of wide-eyed missionaries...; imposes guilt, has a catastrophist view of the planet, and seeks indulgences.” Leave it to an atheist to recognize a religion when he sees one.

Whether polar bears and the always “disappearing” arctic ice (that continues to set records for volume), or blizzards, cold-snaps, droughts, heat-waves, hurricanes, tornadoes, wild-fires, etc. that always have useful human (and animal) victims, and dramatic television footage, the left again employs sympathetic stories to sell the narrative. It’s also quite useful when virtually any weather disaster can be written into the climate change narrative.

Again, like with virtually every issue discussed here, liberals are using the climate change narrative to push significant legislation and official government policy. Because, for liberals, the solution almost always lies with government and political power.

In this case, such legislation and policy is usually aimed at fossil fuels. Operating under the myth that man-caused carbon emissions are warming the planet, liberals are waging war on oil, coal, and natural gas. President Obama, yet unable to win over American voters with his lofty climate rhetoric, has made it a mission to use his executive power to foist the left’s climate agenda upon the world. As with the federal judges and same-sex “marriage,” (and for that matter abortion as well), the oligarchs of the left know best, and as long as they have the power, it will be used.

For a man who is supposedly one of the smartest, if not the smartest, men ever to be president of the United States, Obama’s climate agenda has painted him into a political corner from which there is no escape. Oil prices are currently just below $70 a barrel, down over $40 per barrel since June of this year, and it continues to fall. The price is less than half of what it was just prior to Obama taking office.

The drop is due to major growth in U.S. production, which is due to American innovations such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling, which the left hates. In 2012, to help further the pro-climate change, anti-fossil fuel narrative, Warmist Matt Damon even made a movie about the “horrors” of fracking. In a bit of twisted irony, Damon’s anti-fracking film was funded in part by foreign oil wealth.

The drop in oil prices has led to a significant drop in the price of gasoline across the U.S. The price is well below $3 a gallon and, like oil, is expected to continue to drop. Such a drop in energy costs for Americans is helping to invigorate the U.S. economy, but because of their war on fossil fuels, liberals can’t take credit even if they wanted to. Instead, we are warned about “The Trouble With Cheap Oil.”

“We are awash in cheap oil” laments the uber-liberals at the New Yorker. Liberals love higher oil and gasoline prices because, “High oil prices would force governments, corporations, and consumers to find another way to power the world.” Did you see that? We need to be “forced” to find another way to power the world. Most liberals are far too comfortable “forcing” their agenda upon America. “Force” is at the heart of liberalism, and that is why so often false narratives can be justified, and why so often a big government agenda is pursued. After all, what better instrument to force an agenda than big government?

And thus we see, whether climate change, same-sex marriage, homosexuality, abortion, racism—and for that matter, immigration, gun control, education, and so on—liberalism is not concerned with the truth, but with whatever narrative will put liberals in power.

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

Liberals Again Prefer Fantasy to Fact

It almost never fails. In spite of physical evidence and sound eyewitness accounts, today’s liberals refuse to acknowledge what plainly contradicts their preferred meme on any of the favored tenets of liberalism. Whether global warming, marriage, life in the womb, energy, homosexuality, foreign policy, defense policy, immigration, healthcare, or the scene of a crime, liberals all across the U.S. find themselves looking to manufacture “facts” to fit the world in which they wish to live.

“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

Ferguson Again Erupts With Liberalism

When the news came down that the Ferguson grand jury had declined to indict police officer Darren Wilson, what ensued was sadly all too predictable. The burning, looting, shooting, and the like to "protest" unpopular police or government actions have become all too commonplace for those who are under the influence of liberalism.

As I noted in August of this year, after the surveillance video of Michael Brown robbing a convenience store was released--which set off more random acts of liberalism--Ferguson is and has been somewhat of a mess for the very same reasons virtually every other urban area in America is a mess: liberalism.

Ferguson has long been (Update, 5/17/15, as a regular commentator (Kiev) notes here, the politics of Ferguson is not quite the same as the politics of St. Louis County. Prior to the Michael Brown incident, Ferguson had a significant republican government. However, as is noted here, this is not due to some nefarious conservative plot.) dominated politically by Democrats. St. Louis County Prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, who took the evidence to the grand jury, is a Democrat. In the past election, which saw Republicans make gains all over the country at every level, Democrat County Councilman Steve Stenger won the race for St. Louis County executive. This is in spite of the perceived close ties Stenger had (and, I presume, still has) with the increasingly unpopular McCulloch.

Of course, it is exclusively liberals who are stoking the racial tensions in Ferguson. Liberals all across the U.S. are attempting to make political hay out of the grand jury's decision. President Obama again decided to interject himself into the Ferguson situation, giving veiled cover to the Ferguson rioters, saying that reacting in anger is "understandable." He also carefully managed to throw the police under the bus, calling on them to "show care and restraint" and "work with the community, not against the community," and amazingly concluded that those rioting and destroying property amounted to only "a handful of people."

Attorney General Eric Holder has declared that civil rights charges are still possible. The professional race-pimps and publicity prostitutes like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who make their living off of situations like what is occurring in Ferguson, will almost certainly again be on the scene. Missouri State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal proudly declared on MSNBC that what was happening in Ferguson was "St. Louis' race war."

As Dennis Prager rightly points out, what is happening in Ferguson is not due to a racial divide, but a moral one. Of course, liberalism is rooted in moral relativism, and thus, while killing children in the womb, redefining marriage, sexual perversions of every kind imaginable, "redistribution" of wealth, and wanton destruction of other people's property can be justified, defending oneself from a violent, high-on-drugs thief is, no matter the physical evidence, an unjust act that requires vengeance. Sadly, today's liberals are all too willing to comply.

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

Forget the Facts in Ferguson--Libs Want an Indictment

The liberal media is already laying the groundwork for the next round of riots in Ferguson, Missouri, now that a grand jury has been convened. The game is to continue to perpetuate racial conflict in America, write stories, organize protests, and remind Americans why they need to vote for Democrats. But since the grand jury in Ferguson consists of nine whites and three blacks, many liberals have decided that true justice can’t possibly be served.

Case in point would be the recent musings of progressive commentator Sally Kohn. Her recent piece in the Daily Beast concludes that, given the racial make-up of the Ferguson grand jury, an “obvious question” has been raised: “Can whites empathize with Michael Brown and the larger grievances Ferguson’s black community has with police?” Because, you know, when weighing whether to change a man with murder, it’s always important that grand juries “empathize” with the community at large. After all, isn’t the word “empathy” prominently featured in the Fifth Amendment?

Given such progressive nonsense when it comes to our legal system, it’s no wonder that Texas liberals were able to indict Rick Perry. Such thinking is pervasive and long-standing with liberals when comes to the U.S. legal system. It’s one of the reasons why federal courts are falling all over themselves to legalize same-sex marriage. Since more Americans than ever are “empathetic” towards homosexuality, it’s only just that our courts find “rights” for homosexuals that have eluded us for well over 200 years.

Kohn also asks: “[C]an America more broadly value the experiences and concerns of black America enough to address them rather than dismiss them?” In other words, forget the facts; forget what grand juries are supposed to do; the Ferguson grand jury better indict or what we just witnessed in the St. Louis suburb will look like a bad weekend at Freaknik.

(See this post at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Ferguson, MO: More Tragic Fruit of Liberalism

After a day of calm, upon the release of the surveillance video that purportedly shows Michael Brown, the young man whose death sparked the violence in Ferguson, MO, robbing a convenience store, the protests and looting erupted again. According to St Louis news reports, as the looting occurred, "police dressed in riot gear mainly stood and watched, apparently under orders not to engage."

The Obama justice department did not want the video released, because, you know, when more facts and information to a crime become available, that's always a reason for more looting and violence. Missouri's Democratic governor, Jay Nixon, has now announced a curfew in Ferguson. Many feared that a curfew would just spark more confrontations with law enforcement.

But not to worry, Captain Ronald Johnson, the state Highway Patrol officer now in charge of Ferguson security, is going to treat curfew breakers like they are now treating looters. "We won’t enforce it with trucks, we won’t enforce it with tear gas, we will enforce it with communication," Captain Johnson said. "We will be telling people, 'It’s time to go home.'" After all, a good talking to is what those breaking the law in Ferguson have needed all along.

Patricia Bynes, a black Democratic committeewoman for Ferguson Township, on Saturday said, "I don’t know what the answer is, but there has to be [some] type of response because it’s only getting worse out there. People are fed up with police brutality and police harassment. There is still so much racism and discrimination in this region, ingrained in the business world and the communities. This is what happens when institutional racism continues." Imagine that!--A Democrat excusing criminal behavior with cries of "racism!" Of course, she is not alone. I won't bother you with links to prove such--just search the internet for "Ferguson and racism" and see for yourself.

We keep hearing about how, though Ferguson is about 70% black, only one out of seven city council members are black. Of course, we are supposed to believe that this is due to racism. Perhaps it's because the Democratic machine has yet to sufficiently corrupt the Ferguson election process. I wonder how the Ferguson vote went on the last two presidential elections. Wanna bet? St. Louis County (which does not contain the city of St. Louis), which contains Ferguson, was one of only three Missouri counties to go for Obama in the 2012 presidential election. 

The fact is that Ferguson is and has been somewhat of a mess for the very same reasons virtually every other urban area in America is a mess: liberalism. As I noted in April of this year, the political machine in most every large U.S. city is dominated by democrats. As Kevin Williamson of National Review pointed out a couple of days ago, "Ferguson was hardly a happy suburban garden spot [before] the shooting of Michael Brown."

Williamson also points out that 40% of the births in St. Louis County are out of wedlock. What do you think Michael Brown's home life was like? News reports identify his mother as Lesley McSpadden and his father as Michael Brown, Sr. Doesn't quite sound like a happily married couple does it?

As I noted, the unbridled liberalism present in many U.S. cities has been complicit in the destruction of the families in these cities. Not only that, as I've also noted, such liberalism has bred crime, violence, dependence, and poverty. 

Williamson adds, "The more progressive the city, the worse a place it is to be poor and/or black. The most pronounced economic inequality in the United States is not in some Republican redoubt in Texas but in San Francisco, an extraordinarily expensive city in which half of all black households make do with less than $25,000 a year. Blacks in San Francisco are arrested on drug felonies at ten times their share of the general population. At 6 percent of the population, they represent 40 percent of those arrested for homicides."

In other words, whether its the violence in Ferguson or drugs in San Francisco, liberals are reaping what they have sown. The sooner the citizens of such places realize this, the better off we will all be.

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com