Ferguson and the Tyranny of the Minority

The ongoing rioting and looting taking place in the town of Ferguson, Missouri, has been blamed on the usual suspects - a racist white police force lording it over innocent blacks, an understandable reaction due to poverty and underprivilege, basically everything short of "It's all Bush's fault!"

It's taken a little while for the truth to begin to emerge, but it appears that the liberal media narrative was the customary pack of lies: the "innocent child" shot by the cops was fleeing from having committed a robbery and was high on marijuana, which perhaps explained why he charged an armed police officer and continued to do so while absorbing 6 bullets.

Add in the rioting and looting, and we're well on the road to casting in concrete the usual stereotype of blacks as inveterate criminals and thugs, the existence of which was supposedly the basis for their protests in the first place.  "The police think we're all violent criminals, so we'll demand justice by... behaving like violent criminals!"

But you'd be wrong, as a startling incident over the weekend showed.

Yes, Black Thugs, but More Black Citizens

Of course, the images you saw on TV of black looters and arsonists weren't lies; there were many black criminals committing crimes.

What's interesting, though alas much less vividly viewable on a small screen, is the much larger group of equally-black citizens who were trying to stop the looting.

The International Business Times reports:

...Men began running into local stops, including the Ferguson Market & Liquor store where Michale Brown was alleged to have stolen a package of cigarettes before he was fatally shot by police. At first, it was just one or two people, but slowly the group expanded, breaking windows and leaving with food, electronics, cigarettes and bottles of liquor.

Soon after this activity began, another group of demonstrators congregated by the door of the market, with others posted at different locations nearby, in an attempt to keep the looters out. [emphasis added]

Why We Need the Police

There are two highly relevant facts this incident illustrates.  First, although it may well be that blacks are more prone to criminality than other races, the overwhelming majority of black people are law-abiding.  Is it justice for people of other races, or for the police, to simply assume that all blacks are criminals when that's manifestly not so?

This fact gets muddied by the best efforts of the Racist Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and their eager acolytes in the Obama administration such as the odiously bigoted Eric Holder.  Years ago, the Democratic party decided that it was politically useful to get American blacks into an "us vs them" mentality even though it's a lie that has led to the needless deaths and suffering of thousands.

Say what?  Let's let another black resident of Ferguson, MO explain the second important fact:

Why were those officers standing back?  Why didn't they shoot those looters?

This gentleman understands what it means to be an American.  The looters share his skin color and the cops don't.  So what?  The looters are a threat to him and to his community.  They need to be behind bars if not six feet under.  If the cops gun down a criminal, that's not a danger to him, they're doing him a favor.  In fact, they're doing the job his taxes pay them to do.

When the police don't do their job because the politicians have ordered that they stand down, he and his community suffer.  The longsuffering Ferguson Market & Liquor store was defended by the peaceful protestors because the police, who'd protected it for a while, were ordered to withdraw.

So, peaceful townsfolk can do the job the police are ordered not to do?  Alas, no:

As time went on, the store’s guard team began to wear thin, eventually dwindling down to nobody. Witnesses say the looting activity moved away from the police line and down West Florissant Street, possible to a nearby Wal-Mart store. Meanwhile, the door to Ferguson Market remained wide open, and a handful of looters made their way in, one at a time.

Earlier in the evening, a line of police, some carrying helmets and others in riot gear, had lined the entrance of the same store, saying only that there were following orders. None intervened during the looting.

The cops were there and stood by while the thugs went about their dirty deeds. Good citizens intervened to protect property rights, which worked for a while, but eventually they went home.  They have jobs to go to tomorrow morning and need their sleep!  The thugs don't have jobs so they can sleep as late as they want.  As soon as the guardians left, back came the thieves.

There's been a lot of quotes from George Orwell flying around this week, but there's one you may not have seen:

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

Ferguson, MO shows what happens when those rough men - the cops - are prevented from doing violence to looters.  A small minority of felons rejoice while everyone else cowers in fear except when gathered in overwhelmingly large numbers.

This is the price of allowing the Racist Reverends and their allies to stir up racial strife.  Government's inability to keep order is what many citizens feared after Mr. Obama's elections, which is why they bought so many guns.  Is that what Mr. Obama's administration wants as the future of the United States?