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