Have been thinking more about the George Floyd case...

Some additional notions that I have been pondering, though I said earlier that there would probably be nothing more that would be remarked upon:

1.  The death of George Floyd was a tragedy, make no mistake about it.  But it was not necessarily a racially-motivated death.  It is now coming out that the officer who knelt on Floyd's neck already had an established history of troubling behavior in his role as a law enforcement agent.  It is altogether possible that Mr. Floyd's ethnicity didn't even figure as a consideration in the officer's mind, as well as that of the other officers involved.

Not everything is about race.  Or needs to be.

2.  The handling of George Floyd's death was a matter germane to local jurisdiction and that's ALL as far as it should have gotten.  There should have been proper investigation, including objective autopsy (there are now two autopsies with different results competing with one another).  Such a matter as this demands that there be as objective and thorough an examination as possible, with regard toward all parties involved.  The people of Minneapolis deserved no less.  The family of George Floyd deserved no less.

But of course it became a viral video, one that the media picked up and ran with, and now... well...

3.  Speaking of the the media, it is 10,000% culpable in this disaster.  There is likely not another situation in American history where the news media has been responsible for precipitating so much devastation.  But as is also 10,000% of the time there will be no holding anyone in the media accountable.  And speaking as a former journalist, what I have seen is beyond the pale.  These are not the actions of those in a profession devoted to seeking and reporting the truth of the matter.  I can attest without reservation that too many in the journalism racket are actually proud of the mayhem that they have helped to unleash.

Incidentally, I am never going to chalk myself down as a fanatic for the guy, but the media is trying to perpetuate the claim that President Trump's visit to the church a few days ago was preluded by confronting protestors with tear gas and rubber bullets.  We now know that this did not happen, according to United States Park Police.

4.  Impartial handling of the case has been rendered impossible.  Mob justice has prevailed.  Anything going forward is going to be poisoned with the threat of more rioting and violence.  It is going to be impossible to empanel an impartial jury after this debacle.  Because no juror will want to have it on his or her conscience that he or she voted "not guilty" in a case after a full and fair presentation of evidence, if said presentation merits a not guilty verdict.

In short: the rule of law in the George Floyd case - figuratively speaking - has been strangled.

5.  Scott Adams - the creator of the Dilbert comic strip - has made a brilliant observation in his video podcast: the "black leadership" presuming to speak on behalf of all African-Americans is for all intents and purpose without a rudder and has NO idea what it is trying to accomplish.  For all of the rioting and calls for social upheaval, there is not a single solid idea that has been put forth from these "leaders" about how to accomplish it.  As Adams put it, nobody in the crowd seems to have a typewriter or a pencil to capture any ideas that come to mind.  Adams further remarked that there is currently no leader approaching the caliber of Martin Luther King Jr.  I am compelled to agree with him on that.

6.  Much of the reaction to the Floyd murder... and again, something that may not have been racially motivated at all... has been either out of fear or out of political opportunity or both.  For God's sake, LEGO has now jumped into the fray and telling its stores to not display sets depicting cops or the White House.

I am going to draw flak for proclaiming this, but I'm not going to jump on this particular bandwagon.  It is mob mentality, it is madness, and someone's got to say it dammit.

7.  The mob mentality we are now seeing is too much like what transpired during the French Revolution, when "the wisdom of the crowd" wrought anguish and worse upon the innocent.  Thankfully it is not at the point of beheadings and mass drownings.  Not YET anyway...

8.  An example of that last point is what has happened to Grant Napear, the longtime announcer for the Sacramento Kings.  Napear merely tweeted that "all lives matter" and for that he was driven from his position.

9.  I am going to state without hesitation that all lives do matter.  That all human lives are precious and sacred.  Indeed, I will posit that the Founding Fathers had it all wrong: it's not "all men are created equal".  It should be "all men are created sacred".

10.  The last words my grandmother spoke before she died were "I love everybody."

That's not a bad way to live, when you think about it.  Too bad that the way things are going, saying those words will probably be soon worth condemning over.

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All that I'll likely post about the George Floyd "protests"...

Some are seriously suggesting that the looting taking place in the "protests" (note: they are not protests, they are bouts of purposeless violence) are justified because "white people looted" for thousands of years and that's "loot" that now fills the museums.

Which is the most ridiculous thing that I've heard all month and believe me, I heard ridiculous this past month.

99.99% of the inventory of museums has been found in archaeological expeditions, or donated, or otherwise legally obtained. In the vast majority of these there was no present legal owner of the property, because said owners were long dead without any identification.

What is happening now however, across America, is outright theft of private property, whether it belongs to a store or to individuals or is in the custody of legitimate government. It is being done by people who have no respect toward the notion of ownership.

Others with greater minds than mine have remarked that private property ownership and the right to have that, are among the most basic elements of a free society. Take that away and there is no regard for anything that follows. And we are seeing that happen now in cities throughout America: the throwing aside of respecting the property of others, watching the anarchy and madness that inevitably follows.

I'm old enough to remember the riots that broke out in Los Angeles following the Rodney King case verdicts. Thousands of buildings were set on fire, many innocent people were killed. Those weren't "protests" either. Those were acts of violence absent any responsibility or regard for human life. Among the buildings destroyed were many owned by African-Americans as well as Caucasians. The ONE exception was stores and other buildings that were owned by those of the Korean community. Why were they spared? Because the store owners LITERALLY took to the roofs of their property and held vigil with handguns, rifles, and whatever other firearms they possessed.

THAT is where the rioting and mayhem is taking us. If some will not respect the property of others, then the owners of that property are justified... more than justified even... to protect said property by any means necessary. Up to and including potentially depriving others of life. If property is the product of one's own efforts and sacrifice, then that person WILL be forced to defend it by any means necessary if his or her back is pressed against the wall.

I don't want to see it come to that any more than any other sane human being would.

What we see happening now however, is not sane. And the perpetrators are fast compelling those who respect law and property to consider taking measures that would be regrettable for all involved.

 Just my .02

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