Hate Crime Hysteria in Georgia

Since the shutdown apologists seem to be losing their argument—because the vast majority of us are in little to no more danger from the Wuhan virus than we are from other such illnesses, because the number of Wuhan virus infections is a near-useless metric, because “social-distancing” is pseudo-science quackery, because more and more of us are getting the proper context on Wuhan virus numbers, and because the hand-shake police really are out there—democrats are now resorting to their favorite political fallback: “Racism!”

No doubt you’ve probably heard of the death of Ahmaud Arbery that took place recently in a small South Georgia town near Brunswick. Mr. Arbery, a black man, was shot and killed after suspicious behavior in a neighborhood and a 911 call led two armed citizens—Gregory and Travis McMichael, both white—to give chase. According to multiple reports and video evidence, at the time of the shooting, Arbery was not armed and was in possession of no stolen property.

After a brief investigation, the McMichaels were initially not charged. Several weeks after the shooting, video of the event went viral and charges of vigilante murder, an unjust cover up, and racism ensued. The McMichaels have since been arrested. I’m not going to argue here the guilt or innocence of anyone involved in this ugly incident. I’m praying and hoping for truth and justice for all those involved.

However, as is often the case when someone white (or “white Hispanic”) kills someone of color, many others are not content with mere justice. Some folks want to make political hay out of such events. And, as often happens when we go down this foolish road, truth and justice get set aside for ugly politics.

A few days after the McMichaels were arrested, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms—whose jurisdiction lies about 300 miles north of the Arbery, McMichael incident—called the shooting “a lynching” and laid blame at the feet of President Trump. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Bottoms said, “With the rhetoric we hear coming out of the White House in so many ways, I think that many who are prone to being racist are given permission to do it in an overt way that we otherwise would not see in 2020.” Left-wing pundits galore have been using similar ignorant, inflammatory, and deceptive rhetoric.

In addition to such foolishness, Arbery’s death has led to rampant calls for hate crime legislation in Georgia. Of course, this is unsurprising from the left, but many on the right in Georgia have signaled that they are at least open to the possibility of such legislation, and some have even directly called for it.

The most notable individual in the latter group is no less than Georgia’s Speaker of the House, republican David Ralston. Just days ago, in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), Ralston said that once Georgia’s legislative session resumes in June, he would “challenge and implore” the Georgia Senate to pass the hate crimes bill already adopted by his chamber, House Bill 426, “with no delay and no amendments.” Ralston added,

The time for being silent ended last week. It’s time to do what’s right. It’s going to take some leadership and some courage, but I think it’s time to act…It’s a shame that it took a video of this to engage many leaders, but our responsibility is threefold: to demonstrate that Georgia and Glynn County will not be tarnished by this act of evil. It’s time that we bring our law into the 21st century and make it more just, and it’s time to do what’s right.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has indicated that he’s open to signing a hate crime law. Georgia is one of four U.S. states that don’t have hate crime legislation, and for good reason. Hate crime laws are unnecessary, and they do nothing to deter hate.

According to FBI data, in 2018, there were only 7,120 hate crime incidents involving 8,496 offenses in all of the U.S. More than half of the offenses (52.2%) involved property damage or “intimidation.” About two-thirds of the offenses (5,566) were crimes against persons. Of these, 80% were crimes of intimidation or simple assault. In 2018, there were 24 murders that were classified as a hate crime.

One murder is too many, but if you take just three U.S. cities—say Chicago, Baltimore, and St. Louis—there’s around 24 murders nearly every week of the year. Most of these murder victims are black Americans. Shockingly, the CDC reveals that for U.S. black males, from birth to the age of 44, the leading cause of death is homicide. As has been often reported (but also often ignored), the vast majority (over 90%) of these homicides are the result of black-on-black violence.

Using the latest Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of criminal victimization (2018), Manhattan Institute researcher Heather MacDonald reveals: “There were 593,598 interracial violent victimizations…between blacks and whites last year, including white-on-black and black-on-white attacks. Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90 percent, and whites committed 56,394 of them, or less than 10 percent.”

MacDonald adds that, “Blacks are also overrepresented among perpetrators of hate crimes – by 50 percent – according to the most recent Justice Department data from 2017; whites are underrepresented by 24 percent. This is particularly true for anti-gay and anti-Semitic hate crimes.” In other words, in spite of the narrative so often perpetuated by hate crime apologists, America does not have a problem with white on black hate crime.

Of course, in spite of its lack of hate crime legislation, this is true for the state of Georgia as well. North Carolina and Michigan both have a total population that’s almost exactly equal to Georgia’s—about 10 million. In addition, both North Carolina and Michigan have hate crime laws. According to the FBI, in 2018, North Carolina had 142 hate crime incidents. Michigan had 431. Georgia had 35. And despite having half the number of black Americans as does Georgia, Michigan had 10 times more incidents of racially-based hate crimes than Georgia. North Carolina has two-thirds the number of black Americans as does Georgia yet had three times the number of racially-based hate crimes.

What’s more, hate crime laws are predicated upon someone’s idea of what is “hate.” As they have done with most everything else they have had their hands in, the modern left has even perverted hate. Sadly, in today’s America, a “hate crime” is often nothing more than the “heinous” act of disagreeing with a leftist.

This is especially true when it comes to anything or anyone that runs afoul of the evil LGBT agenda. For example, many on the left today consider it an act of “hate” to declare that marriage is only the union of one man and one woman, to note that biology determines sex, or to refer to acts of homosexuality as sin. More than half of democrats want to criminalize such “hate speech.” Last year, The Washington Post ran an editorial (from the former editor of Time magazine!) that declared “Why America needs a hate speech law.”

America doesn’t need a “hate speech” law. America doesn’t need hate crime laws, and neither does Georgia. Most violent crime is motivated by some sort-of “hate.” The effort to get hate crime legislation passed in Georgia is nothing more than the Georgia left trying to elevate themselves politically. E.g. “Because we support ‘hate’ crime legislation, we ‘hate’ crime like this more than those who don’t support ‘hate’ crime legislation, thus vote for us!” Shame on Georgia conservatives for not realizing such.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2020, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Violent Liberalism Strikes Again (Updated)

Again, guns don’t kill people, liberalism does. With the disturbing attack on congressional republicans who were gathered to practice for a charity baseball game, again we see virtually every perpetrator carrying out a sensational act of violence has one of two things in common: their lives are corrupted by either liberalism or Islam. With prominent American leftists mock-beheading President Trump, celebrating the on-stage assassination of the U.S. President, threatening to blow up the White House, and so on, few should be surprised that a Bernie Sanders supporter—who recently wrote “It’s Time To Destroy Trump & Co.”—armed with a gun, decided actually to carry out his evil liberal fantasy.

As others have already pointed out, the recent rhetoric of the modern left reeks of hate and violence, and as Townhall's Derek Hunter prophetically noted nearly two weeks ago, “The Left Won’t Rest Until Someone Gets Killed.” College campuses, which are replete with radical left-wingers young and old, are becoming more and more violent. In addition, most every protest or parade these days that is significantly populated by liberals almost always devolves into a vulgar hate-fest where angry leftists compete to, among other “nasty” things, see who can lob the most f-bombs.

And when someone corrupted by liberalism finally does take the violent rhetoric to its literal end, the reaction by liberals is as predictable as the sunrise: blame the weapon, usually guns. Just hours after Democratic Socialist James T. Hodgkinson fired dozens of rounds at the GOP baseball team (thankfully killing no one, but seriously injuring Majority Whip Steve Scalise), liberal politicians and pundits began blaming guns. Whether guns, blades, or bombs, when violent liberals and Islamists commit murder, liberals of every stripe ignore the ideology of their like-minded comrades to focus on instruments—especially guns.

As a telling anecdote, on the day of Hodgkinson’s assault against congressional members of the GOP, a comment from a liberal on my website sarcastically declared,

I don’t want to alarm you but there have been four shootings today and apparently none of them involves Islam and…People are saying it’s guns that did the shooting and killing, even though guns don’t kill people as you’ve proven here. I’m so confused!

My reply to the poor confused soul: “When a gun is arrested and charged, please let us know.”

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised at such thinking. As modern liberals continue in their “struggle against reality,” with many seemingly unable to determine whether a person is a male or a female, perhaps such liberals are now so far divorced from reality that they can’t tell the difference between a person and a gun. Of course, it could be that I’m behind in my knowledge of the wide variety of ways with which people these days are choosing to “identify” themselves. Under a liberal worldview today, perhaps now it is acceptable for a human being to “identify” as a gun. (The late-great Jerry Clower probably had a story of a Ledbetter who had done such.)

To aid in their gun-control meme following Hodgkinson’s attack, it was not at all uncommon to stumble across the following in the liberal media: “The GOP baseball shooting is the 154th mass shooting this year.” Do a search for the exact phrase and see for yourself. Go here for the full list to which the frequently used headline refers. Granted, almost none of the violence listed is directly politically motivated. However, take note of the locations for the shootings.

As I noted in 2015, almost all deadly gun violence in the U.S. occurs in large cities where liberal politics, policies, and personal practices reign supreme. And as I (and subsequently others) recently noted, most violent criminals in the U.S.—especially those with the largest body counts—have two things in common: broken homes and/or sexual deviancy. Again, as they preach “Do What Thou Wilt” in the sexual realm and wage war on the biblical family model, we find liberals and liberalism complicit.

In addition, another act of dramatic gun violence leaves modern liberals longing for the ever-elusive gun- and religion-clinging right-wing shooter. Of course, the conservative Christian assassin or terrorist toting his rifle, his bombs, and his Bible is nothing more than a hopeful myth perpetually sought out by the left nearly every time one of these despicable events occurs.

And why is it that it is so rare to find an American whose politics is reliably conservative who will react violently as a result of his conservatism? Could it be that, like me, most conservatives in America are conservative in their politics as the result of a relationship with their Creator? Could it be that, because of our relationship with God, and because we are surrounded by loving families led by married mothers and fathers, along with a loving, truth-telling church community, our “moral chains” keep us from such violence? Could it be that most conservatives understand that the real solutions to what plagues us defy a government solution?

Of course those are exactly the reasons the Christian community is virtually devoid of such wicked violence. What’s more, when it comes to politics, most Christians know well that, even when we lose elections, all is not lost. We always have hope that whether in this world or the next, there are brighter days ahead. This stands in stark contrast to those who have made a god of government.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Injured Fed-Ex Security Guard Was Unarmed

It appears as if a foolish policy towards guns has again reaped horrible consequences.

According to the father-in-law of Christopher Sparkman, the FedEx security guard that was critically wounded in the shooting at the FedEx warehouse in Kennesaw on Tuesday, the young security guard "didn't stand a chance" against heavily armed Geddy Kramer, the 19-year-old gunman who attacked the facility. Armed with what was reportedly a shotgun, a knife, and shells strapped across his chest, Kramer, according to one witness, "looked like he was heading into war."

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution quotes Sparkman's father-in-law, Russell Brannen declaring that "It's real unfortunate they [FedEx] didn't allow those security guards to be armed." Brannen added, "Chris didn't stand a chance. The guy blew through the back door. The scales are tipped in the wrong direction when the security guard can't carry a sidearm. Had he been armed, he might have been able to stop the other five from being shot."

It's one thing to ban employees from arming themselves, but when you don't allow those who GUARD the unarmed to be armed, you are simply inviting disaster. What's more, Sparkman is an ARMY SOLDIER who has been deployed to Kuwait! If Brannen's information is accurate, this reeks of the same policies that have allowed armed killers to shoot up U.S. military bases, and the like. Will the gun-control freaks ever learn?!

Additionally, Sparkman's family is "cautiously optimistic" at his chances for recovery. He is shown below with his young bride that he met through his church youth group.

The Most Dangerous Place in America

Not long after the recent shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, Dr. Janis Orlowski, the chief operating officer of MedStar Washington Hospital Center, where three of the shooting victims of mass murderer Aaron Alexis were being treated, spoke with a rare bit of moral clarity on the situation. “There’s something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate…There is something wrong, and the only thing that I can say is we have to work together to get rid of it. I would like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots.”

Saying that this is “a challenge to all of us,” Orlowski concluded, “This is not America.” Sadly, what Aaron Alexis perpetrated is becoming all too American, but not for the reasons many would think.

After this most recent shooting massacre, the left again parroted its predictable rants against guns while calling for more and better gun laws. Diane Feinstein asked, “When will enough be enough?” Her statement declared, “Congress must stop shirking its responsibility and resume a thoughtful debate on gun violence in this country.” Of course, in the mind of Feinstein and her ilk, the “responsibility” of Congress is to pass more laws against guns.

Liberal pundit Leonard Pitts wonders if we’re all crazy. In Pitts’ world Americans are “crazy” because the right to bear arms in the U.S., as declared in our 2^nd Amendment, is an antiquated notion because it was “written in an era when muskets were state of the art and citizen militias guarded the frontier.”

Obama himself used the massacre to call for “basic actions” to toughen our nation’s gun laws. Never mind that, as Reason’s J.D. Tuccille points out, the strict gun control measures that liberals love were already in place at the Washington Navy Yard. Alexis passed a background check and legally purchased his shotgun.

Tragically ironic, as Tuccille also notes, Alexis was aided greatly by the fact that, for the most part, U.S. military institutions are gun-free zones. Only in a culture so corrupted by the liberal mindset would military institutions be vulnerable to a mass shooting by a civilian.

Some have speculated that the U.S. has suffered the violence committed by men like Alexis, Adam Lanza, and Seung-Hui Cho because of our coddling of the mentally ill. I believe that there is some truth to this.

However, as I noted earlier this year, (referring to prominent psychotherapist Gary Greenberg) there are many problems with modern psychiatry. Namely, in an attempt to gain medical relevance, modern psychiatry has eliminated the moral aspect behind many behaviors. As Greenberg himself points out, “This society is very wary of using the term ‘evil.’”

Being unwilling to recognize evil for what it is has plagued this nation for decades now. Such willful ignorance of what is truly evil is, among other things, why our culture is so plagued with violence. Dr. Mark Rutland, former president of Southeastern University and, most recently, Oral Roberts University, sheds some much needed light on this matter.

In a sermon I heard about a dozen years ago, Dr. Rutland recalled a news story that heralded the accomplishments of a single mother. She was so touted because she had raised five children on her own in a housing project in Chicago. Four of them went on to graduate from college. By almost every measure, she and her children were deemed successful.

What was particularly interesting to Dr. Rutland was the tag-line of the story, which concluded that the children were raised in “the most dangerous place in America.” Speaking of dangerous places in America, just three days after the D.C. Naval Yard shooting, in a scene that plays out all too often in certain U.S. cities, 13 people were shot in a drive-by shooting at a gang-infested park in Chicago.

Earlier this year, NeighborhoodScout.com released its report on the 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in America. The usual suspects were at the top of the list. Four of the top 10 are in the city of Detroit. Three of the top 20 are in Chicago, with neighborhoods in Atlanta, St. Louis, and Houston also appearing.

However, as Dr. Rutland observed, the most dangerous place in America is not the city with the most gangs. It’s not the neighborhood where most the most drugs are dealt or where the most bullets fly, though certainly these are dangerous enough. “The most dangerous place in America is the place where authority is not observed and where rebellion is inculcated into the lives of our young people.”

For decades, millions of American youths, taught by their Faustian masters, (whether in their homes, at their schools, or through the media) have been brought up in this spirit of rebellion. Thus hundreds-of-millions of Americans have suffered with the cursed fruit of a nation that has rebelled against authority of most every kind, but especially that of God.

We are a nation that has mocked the laws and the works of God. We are a nation full of disobedience. “The most dangerous place in America,” noted Dr. Rutland, “is the place that is filled with disrespect, irreverence, and the spirit of lawlessness—the spirit of disobedience.” Such rebellion is so dangerous because it moves us away from the protective covering of God.

Most every parent understands this well. How many of us have had our children pull themselves away from our protection and dash out into danger? What is our plea? “Stay here with me! Stay under my authority! Hold onto my hand! I can see things you can’t see. I can discern danger coming around the corner that you can’t. I can react faster. I have better judgment than you. If you pull away from me you’re in a dangerous place.”

And of course, so often we adults do the same thing with God. Is anyone really surprised that a nation which has killed over 50 million of its children in the womb is a violent nation in other ways as well? As Mother Teresa taught us, “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child—a direct killing of the innocent child—murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

Are we not a nation full of such rebellion? Good has become evil, and evil has become good. A man commits mass murder and so many of us look for answers in his weapon of choice. Satan laughs. We have not armed ourselves against one another so much as we have taken up arms against God and His law.

Thus we are plagued not only with violence, but with greed, gluttony, slothfulness, selfishness, lust, along with almost every other wickedness you can imagine. It is little wonder then that we elect leaders who reject God’s idea of marriage and who refuse to defend the most defenseless among us. It is little wonder that, more and more, our courts reject the moral authority of God’s law.

A nation such as ours, founded on the ideas of liberty and freedom, must have the proper views on both God and man. Liberty cannot exist without a proper moral foundation. As Edmund Burke admonished us, “Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites…Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free.”

Our Founders understood this. John Adams, writing in 1798, said that, should America assume “the language of justice and moderation while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

“There is a degree of depravity in mankind,” wrote James Madison in The Federalist Papers, “which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.” In Federalist 51, Madison further captured such thought when he wrote, “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

We are certainly not angels, but neither are we without hope. However, until America understands what is truly wrong and evil in our society; until America decides to lay down the arms that we’ve taken up against God and submit to His authority and surrender to His love, we are in a dangerous place indeed.

Copyright 2013, 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