The Press-Dispatch
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The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, July 20, 2016 D-1 OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg America, as I wrote after the Ferguson, Missouri, debacle is at a racial crossroads. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" arose as a re- sponse to perceived racial injustic- es of the black community. Just that statement "black com- munity" notes that as a nation, we are divided. A frican-Americans claim the phrase is theirs and theirs alone to use. In race relations, there are few cool heads. Whether real or imagined, many blacks feel their lives do not mat- ter when there is a confrontation with police. The media tells us that last week Alton Sterling, an A frican-Amer- ican, was shot and killed by po- lice in Baton Rouge while he was held by police on the ground; an- other A frican-America Philando Castile was killed in Minneapolis while reaching for his wallet after he told the officer he had a permit to carry a gun. Protests were organized, and A frican-Americans marched to demand social justice, chanting "Hands up-Don't Shoot! " During a protest in Dallas, five Dallas police officers were killed by [suspect] Micah Xavier John- son, an A frican-American who po- lice claim said that he wanted to kill white police offi- cers. Johnson himself was killed by a robot explosive [seven oth- ers were wounded]. It is obvious that white/black race re- lations are strained along with the police in many urban com- munities. This has to be diffused. At the same time, what is not be- ing addressed is the cheapening of life among blacks with "black on black shootings." A frican-Amer- ican columnists Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have been challenging the Black communi- ty to "man up" and own the prob- lem of black-on-black violence, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Do black lives matter? Absolutely! But to respond "yes, and so do all lives matter" does not negate their need [Black Americans] to deal with the deaths in their com- munity by violence from all sourc- es. Blacks killing blacks and blacks killing whites in retaliation will lead to civil unrest, riots, and an- archy. Protests and march- es make good media coverage, but often the intent is for "face- time" with the griev- ance taking second place. South-A frican An- glian Bishop Desmond Tutu, a staunch oppo- nent of Apartheid, re- marked during that ra- cial struggle for equality, "If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies." Talk is a reciprocal action; it al- so means you must listen. Race relations at this juncture in time can be likened to a stand- off between gunfighters who say simultaneously "you put you gun down first.' Anyone with a sense of social ac- tion and knowledge of urban prob- lems know we ask the police to do a job that cannot be done. A culture wants and needs order and law, but it is always the other guy who is the law breaker. If a policeman accosts someone, often the accused screams brutali- Continued on page 2 Continued on page 2 Continued on page 2 Observations by Thomas Sowell The Weekly by Alden Heuring The war on cops Continued on page 2 Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond A reprise: All Lives Matter Sticking to the Constitution for a 25 years Black Lives Matter and lawlessness Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker There was never a more appro- priately named book than "The War on Cops" by Heather Mac Donald, published a few weeks ago, on the eve of the greatest es- calation of that war by the ambush murders of five policemen in Dal- las. Nor is this war against the po- lice confined to Dallas. It is occur- ring across the country. Who is to blame? There is a ton of blame, more than enough to go around to the wide range of people and insti- tutions that have contributed to these disasters. In addition to the murderers who have killed peo- ple they don't even know, there are those who created the atmosphere of blind hatred in which such kill- ers flourish. Chief among those who gener- ate this poisonous atmosphere are career race hustlers like Al Sharp- ton and racist institutions like the "Black Lives Matter" movement. All such demagogues need is a situation where there has been a confrontation where someone was white and someone else was black. The facts don't matter to them. The same is true of the more upscale, genteel and sophisticat- ed race panderers, including the President of the United States. During his first year in the White House, Barack Obama chastised a white policeman over his han- dling of an incident with a black professor at Harvard — after ad- mitting that he didn't know the specific facts. Nor did he know the specifics when he publicly announced that, if he had a son, that son would look like Trayvon Martin. Are we to de- cide who is right and who is wrong on the basis of skin color? There was a long history of that in the days of the old Jim Crow South. Are we fighting against racism to- day or do we just want to put it un- der new management? No one should imagine that any of this is helping the black com- munity. The surge in murder rates across the country, in the wake of the anarchy unleashed after the Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore riots, has taken a wholly dispropor- tionate number of black lives. But, to the race hustlers, black lives don't really matter nearly as much as their chance to get public- ity, power, money, votes or whatev- er else serves their own interests. The mainstream media play a large, and largely irresponsible, role in the creation and mainte- nance of a poisonous racial atmo- sphere that has claimed the lives of policemen around the country. That same poisoned atmosphere has claimed the lives of even more blacks, who have been victims of violence by thugs and criminals who have had fewer restrictions as the police have pulled back, or have been pulled back, under po- litical pressure. The media provide the pub- licity on which career race hus- tlers thrive. It is a symbiotic rela- tionship, in which turmoil in the streets gives the media something exciting to attract viewers. In re- turn, the media give those behind this turmoil millions of dollars' worth of free publicity to spread their poison. It is certainly news when there is turmoil in the streets. But that is very different from saying that giving one-sided presentations at length of the claims of those who promote this turmoil makes sense. The media have also actively promoted the anti-police propa- ganda by the way they present the news. This goes all the way back to the Rodney King riots of 1992. Television stations all across the country repeatedly played a se- lectively edited fraction of a vid- eotape covering the encounter be- tween the police and Rodney King, who had been stopped after a wild, high-speed chase. The great majority of that vid- eo never saw the light of day on the T V networks that incessantly played the selectively edited frac- tion. When the police were charged with excessive violence in over- coming Rodney King's resistance to arrest, the jury saw the whole video — and refused to convict the policemen. That is when peo- ple who had seen only what the me- dia showed them rioted after the "It's not my Constitution to play around with." I've read many quotations from Clarence Thomas over the years, especially now, as he marks 25 years as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. But this par- ticular one, drawn from something he said to The Wall Street Journal a few years ago, really struck home with me. It cuts to the heart of why he has been such an outstanding member of the high court during the last quarter-century. Simply put, he gets it. Unlike other justices, past and present, with a lamentable skill for discovering all kinds of unex- pected "rights" and hidden mean- ings in our nation's charter, Justice Thomas does something quite rad- ical: He sticks to the actual text. "I don't feel I have any particular right to put my gloss on your Con- stitution," he said. "My job is sim- ply to interpret it." I like that — "your Constitu- tion." As in "We the People." Jus- tice Thomas recognizes that it's the document by which the governed — you and me — de- fine exactly what the government can and can't do. This understand- ing, I believe, is heav- ily rooted in his char- acter. I've been fortu- nate enough to know Justice Thomas and his wife, Virginia, for more than 30 years, so I can personally attest to his virtue, both as a justice and as a man. Very few people know the "American Dream" quite as well as Justice Thomas. That a man could rise from such humble be- ginnings in Pin Point, Ga., to sit on the bench of the most power- ful court in the world is a true tes- tament to his will, his intelligence, his drive and his perseverance. It's also a stirring commentary on the greatness of our nation. In no other country could Clarence Thomas come from where he did, and end up where he is. His is a uniquely American story of triumph in ev- ery sense. His memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," is a remarkable book. The story of how he went from a poverty- stricken existence in the segregated south to the halls of power in Washington, D.C., makes for an eye-opening read. It all culminated on July 2, 1991, when President George H.W. Bush nominated him to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall on the Su- preme Court. At his swearing in, the president said, "America is blessed to have a man of his char- acter serve on its highest court." For 25 years now, Justice Thom- as has proved him right. We need Let's try and connect some dots. Last week, FBI Director Jim Comey expressed his view that, after investigation of Hillary Clin- ton's handling of State Depart- ment official business, including classified material, on her person- al email server, he would not rec- ommend criminal charges against her. This despite describing the be- havior of the former secretary of state as "extremely negligent." Former New York City mayor and federal prosecutor Rudy Gi- uliani said, according to Clinton's behavior as described by Comey, she was clearly in violation of the law. By choosing to recommend that she not be indicted, Giuliani said that Comey decided to put her "above the law." The way it was described by The Wall Street Journal, Comey's "po- litical actions spared Clinton and protected his own job." Now lets turn our attention to Dallas, where a gunman opened fire and five police officers were killed at a Black Lives Matter rally. The question every decent American is asking is: How do we stop this horror? How do we stop the seemingly endless and growing circle of vio- lence in our cities? There are plenty who think they know the answer. For some, they see the problem as indiscriminate and violent treatment of blacks, partic- ularly young black men, by police, driven by racism. For others, it's the opposite. It's the refusal to come to terms with what they see as the deep social pathologies in black urban areas and the hampering of police to do their job effectively. As always in situations like this, both things are going on. But do I think either is the primary and sole reason driving the violence? No. What we are witnessing is the chaotic result of a so- ciety that is becom- ing each day more lawless. The basis of a civi- lized, decent and just society is law. But law, if it is going to be re- spected, must be root- ed in core values and eternal truths. In the words of our second president, John Adams, we need "a government of laws, not of men." In our zeal to purge our nation of Judeo-Christian values, driven by the false notion that religion ham- pers rather than enhances our freedom, we bear the consequenc- es of this effort. We wind up with a government of men, not laws. Capriciously applied law has always been a disturbance for blacks. The civil rights movement was supposed to be about the coun- Podcasts before swine As promised, today I'm going to talk about podcasts and what they can do for you. But first, we have a lovely and practical prose poem submitted by loyal reader and fel- low columnist Cleoramae Stunkel: BEST PRACTICE FOR REMOVING WASPS' NESTS ONE choose occasion when no wasps are present, T WO arm self with long - bladed scissors, THREE clip stem connecting nest to surface to which it is attached, FOUR tromp firmly upon fallen nest, FIVE remove debris from area. Thank you, Cleoramae! I'll be accepting and publishing poems of most kinds all through autumn. PODCASTS Now, to podcasts. As a child of the millennium, I am one of the people for whom podcasts were particularly designed—I can use a smartphone. I drive a lot and I despise most local radio. (88.3FM gets a grudging pass for its clas- sical nights, opera Sundays, and best of all, Car Talk.) Even so, I'm just now getting on the pod- cast train most of my peers have already been riding since, gosh, probably like 2008. Were podcasts around that far back? I don't even know. Having now acclimated pod- casts into my daily routine, I've added not picking them up soon- er to my enormous pile of regrets I keep in the back yard by the compost heap. They've previous- ly been something I was just too set in my ways to think too much about, but the seed was planted in my head months ago while I was listening to a certain CD in my car. The speaker was talking about how to use technology as a Catho- lic, and while a large portion of the presentation was cautions against letting technology deprive you of real human relationship, he end- ed with a salient point about how technology enables any person of any age, provided they have ac- cess to the Internet, the ability to learn anything at any time by sim- ply clicking, typing and reading. Of course, he's exactly right. Most young males choose to use this incredible, unprecedent- ed, one might even say Godlike, power to look at pictures of Kim Kardashian and cats. But there's more to the Internet than Kim Kar- dashian and cats! You can read (or watch videos) about history, sci- ence, how-to guides, program- ming, et cetera, et cetera, et ce- tera. The possibilities, while finite, are innumerable—much like the angelic hosts of Heaven. So, you could say, the Internet is what you choose it to be. The same principle applies to podcasts, which are basically just a subset of the Internet expressed in audio format. You can listen to podcasts covering pretty much any topic you want, and—this is the important part—you can do it while driving! Suddenly an hour of my day, namely the hour I spend driving to and from work, that had previ- ously been relaxing at best, is now whatever I choose it to be. (So far, I have chosen the clever radio dra- ma Welcome to Night Vale, daily readings from the Catholic litur- gy, and a neat little ecology pod- cast called Pulse of the Planet). And your commute can be what you choose it to be, too! If any of you fine folks have a recent-model iPhone, a Podcast app with a wide selection is built right into your little box of sorcery that calls and texts your friends for you. I could go on expounding the benefits of podcasts, but the main point I want to get across is that time is a precious, precious re- source, and for most of the post- industrial era, billions of us have wasted years of our time in cars, moving from point A to point B and trying not to think about the futili- ty of it all. But we now live in an age where the collective knowledge (and cat pictures) of all peoples can be accessed from any place at any time—and there's a slice of that In- ternet pie in the sky that you can listen to while you're in your car! It just makes sense, to me any- way, to convert drive time into time spent learning, or praying, or at the very least soaking up good writing.