What Would Jesus Have Done in Kenosha Last Week... What Would You Have Done?

Imagine that Jesus was in Kenosha last week when Jacob Blake, a man with a warrant out on him for criminal trespassing, domestic abuse and sexual assault, began threatening the very person he had previously abused. In order to keep things from getting out of hand he might have given Mr. Blake a heart attack. He might have turned Mr. Blake into The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Or he might have had Mr. Blake pull a hamstring so that he ended up wreathing on the ground not being able to move. But none of those things happened and the truth is, I’ve no idea what the Lord would have done had he been responding to the 911 call.  But I know what the police did… They shot Mr. Blake.

There is of course a bit more to the story. They didn’t just show up and start shooting. No, apparently they tried talking to him, but that didn’t work. They tazed him, twice. That didn’t work. They tried to physically restrain him. That didn’t work… at one point apparently he even had one of the three police in a headlock! They eventually pulled their guns on him and told him to stop moving. Even that didn’t work. So when he reached inside his car after being told again to stop and didn’t, they shot him.

Just as I don’t know what Jesus would have done with the 911 call, I don’t have any idea what he would have done in reaction to the shooting… but I do know what the leftist BLM and Antifa mobs did… they rioted, of course.

While we can’t know what Jesus would have done had he responded to that 911 call, we can ask what exactly would most Americans, black or white do if they were in the shoes of the policeman? You have a known violent criminal who has been fighting with you, who was not fazed by a Taser, who was noncompliant in the face of police pointing guns at him commanding him to stop, who continues to defy them and reaches into his car… The police, observing this behavior, not knowing what Blake was reaching for, possibly a gun, had to decide in an instant. Had it been a gun Blake was going for, not only could he have shot one or more of the police, he might have accidentally shot one of his 3 small children sitting in the back seat or some innocent bystanders.  What would you have done?

Should the police have waited until Blake emerged from the car with a gun pointed at them or until he had already started firing? Is that the standard we expect for police now? Wait until a criminal points a gun at you and shoots before you fire? Maybe they should they have used less lethal force instead? Like what? They tried physically restraining him and by using a Taser on him, twice! Neither worked. Should they have tried a net like gladiators used to use? Blake was undaunted and violent… so expecting him to reach into his car and pull out a candy bar or some flowers wasn’t exactly rational. The police expected something violent and fired before someone other than the criminal got hurt. What is the right alternative in this circumstance that would have guaranteed no one else – or even Jacob Blake – was hurt?

“But they didn’t have to shoot him 7 times!” or “They didn’t know what he was reaching for at the time… it could have been his keys!” Because… yeah... It’s one thing to play the Monday morning quarterback and say what should have been done or not done after the fact, but in the heat of battle… and make no mistake, for those involved that’s exactly what this was, what was the right answer in that split second, at that moment when the lives of at least three police officers, three children, numerous civilians and the suspect were on the line? Sure, someone might say, hey that’s not fair to ask us, we’re not trained to know what to do in situations like that, but the police are. That’s true… but it was clear they tried all those things they were trained to do and nothing seemed to stop Blake… but that doesn’t seem to have mattered to the rioters.

So where does appear to leave America in 2020? Do facts not matter any longer? Do circumstances not matter? Is everything literally black and white as in black vs. white? How does this comport with Martin Luther King’s hope that people would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin? All anyone knew in the hours after the shooting was that a black man was shot by white cops… Full stop.  Period. Yet, chaos and violence ensued.

In today’s world of identity politics and the cult of victimization the facts no longer matter. Rational thought no longer matters. Objective reality no longer matters. The only thing that matters is the message of victimhood, the color of one’s skin or gender or whatever today's characteristic of choice, but only as it relates to traditional America and traditional American values. If a black criminal gets shot because he’s defied every non lethal attempt to subdue him, he’s a hero, regardless of the facts. If a white kid shoots three protesters in self defense he’s a white racist… regardless of the facts.

People like Nancy Pelosi, LaBron James, Mark Cuban and the entirety of the media, education and Democrat cabal have brought America to the brink of anarchy with their disregard for the truth, for objective reality and for the true and good nature of most Americans. They have embraced, manipulated and leveraged anecdotal evidence of human failings to tarnish the name of half the population and undermine the founding principles of the nation that has done more good for more people than any in human history. All in the name of Hope and Change… In reality, it is power they seek. It is obedience they seek. Fundamentally, it is fealty to their worldview they seek. Racism is no longer defined by actual racist behavior… it’s defined by whatever they say it is. Free speech no longer means actual freedom to speak your mind… no, it means you’re free to say only those things they agree with. Fair is no longer a term that can be debated based on the merits of an argument… no, alas, fair means outcomes that are aligned with the various identities of the people involved, regardless of effort or risk or ingenuity associated with the endeavor being undertaken.

Which brings us back to Kenosha. And Portland. And Seattle. And Baltimore. And Chicago. And New York. And Ferguson. America was never perfect and it never will be. But it has been the greatest nation on the planet for at least a century and has grown better decade after decade. But that’s not good enough for Pelosi, James, et al. They have a worldview of perfection as they define it and they demand it now. They are in the process of killing the goose that has laid golden eggs for 233 years. If they are allowed to win the argument today and the election in November the nation will come to resemble Kenosha far more than it does the rich enclaves that they inhabit… and the goals that they pretend they care about will end up in tatters on the floor.  More importantly, the people they profess to care about will end up as part of a system which will likely provide far fewer opportunities, far fewer freedoms, far less security and far less prosperity than the one they inhabit today. As I mentioned, I can’t speak for Jesus, but I can’t imagine that he or anyone with a functioning brain would be in favor of replacing imperfect freedom with leftist fascism… but that’s exactly where this cabal wants to take us.

30 Million Dead Americans? The Coronavirus Is Not A Hoax, But The Hysteria Surrounding It Very Much Is...

On June 6th 1944 over 250,000 American and allied personnel left from England and headed to the Normandy to face the Nazis who were entrenched along in giant fortified bunkers all along the French coast. The Nazis had control of virtually all of Europe and Operation Overlord was the Allied attempt to gain a beachhead in northern France from which they could open another front against Germany.

Once the smoke cleared on D-Day, the Allies had suffered approximately 10,000 casualties, 4,400 of which were fatalities. Those numbers are of course staggering for one day, but the truth is, relative to the anticipated casualties, those number are quite low. Prior to the invasion General Eisenhower and his staff estimated 13% of the invasion troops might die and 25% of those who landed on the beaches would end up casualties. Together those calculations suggested that during the first 24 hour period nearly 30,000 Allied soldiers and sailors would end up dead and another 24,000 would be wounded.

That’s not what happened… but it could have. And that’s the point. Despite the potential for over 50,000 dead and wounded in one day and for a failure which could have allowed Germany to make its hold on the continent permanent, Ike decided to launch Operation Overlord nonetheless… because it needed to be done. Life with a Europe ruled by Nazis was simply not feasible for the United States and her allies. And so D-Day was launched. And the rest is history.

Today while there it’s not a Nazi storm taking over Europe or America – although BLM and Antifa certainly demonstrate very similar tactics – it’s the neutron bomb of Covid 19 is. Neutron bombs of course are generally intended to leave structures standing while killing people via radiation poisoning. That is exactly what Covid 19 is doing to the American economy. Not the virus itself or course, but rather the shutdowns, quarantines, lockdowns and other government interventions.

Not that the virus is not killing people. It is. Thus far about 165,000 people in the United States. That is not a small number by any stretch, but in a country of 330 million people in which 2.5 million people die annually, it is far from a catastrophe, although for the victims and their families, it is no doubt catastrophic. On Friday the government announced that 1.8 new jobs had been created in July and that unemployment dropped to a 10.2% down from almost 14.7% in April – and up from a record low of 3.5% in December. This good news comes despite the fact that the media pillories Republican governors for opening their states while venerating Democrats who seek to keep the country locked up tighter than a drum. Despite what seems to be an economy on the mend however, the reality is, the only reason the nation is still standing is that the federal government and the FED have pumped close to $10 billion into the economy since March… much of it ending up in the stock and debt markets.

Everywhere you look, hotels, restaurants, gyms, karate classes, airlines, sports teams, convention centers, the number things that are closed or working at threadbare capacity are extraordinary. But these are only the faces we see. Behind all of these public facing businesses are millions of small businesses that provide services like, pool maintenance, janitorial services, furniture repair, painting as well as goods like bread, eggs, chairs, exercise equipment, foam fingers, bobbleheads and thousands of other things businesses use and need to survive. Those businesses employ millions of people who are today not working.

Sure, companies like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Campbell’s Soup, Netflix, Amazon and Clorox are doing fine, but they are a small fraction of the American economy. And there’s the rub. America can’t survive just buying Great Value tomato sauce and Behr paints or cleaning the kitchen with Windex when not arguing on Facebook or watching Netflix and eating Orville Redenbacher Popcorn. Small and medium sized businesses drive the American economy, representing a majority of the job creation and sustaining tens of millions of employees. The true cost of this disaster – the government shutdowns rather than the virus itself – have yet to be felt, and are likely to be felt for years to come.

The Democrat’s and media’s willingness to use this virus to keep the country closed for the purpose of harming Donald Trump is simply despicable. Unlike the Nazis in 1944, Covid 19 is not an existential threat to the country, or the world. Below is a chart from the CDC. It tracks the one week average death total in the United States going back to July 2018. The funny thing about this chart is that it shows that the number of excess deaths relative to the number of expected deaths is quite small, averaging 14.4% more deaths each week than was expected. Since February 15th the number of excess weekly deaths has averaged 8,000 above the 63,000 average expected.

For a nation with a population of 330 million people, the 165,000 people who have died represent .00005% of the population. To give you an idea of how good a job of misleading the public on the dangers of Covid 19 the media and the Democrats have done, according to a July 15 poll by Publicis Groupe (page 24), Americans on average think 9% of the population has died from Covid 19… that’s 30 million people! That’s 180 times more than the actual number who have died!

So we’ve shut the country down for a virus that Americans think has killed 30 million people when in reality it’s killed 165,000. We’ve added $10 trillion to our national debt, we’ve seen tens of thousands of businesses declare bankruptcy, we’ve watched as tens of millions of people have gone on unemployment, we’ve seen depression and suicide leap, we’ve stopped people from going to church, school and in many cases, work. And all in an attempt to keep Donald Trump from being reelected in November.

To come full circle, the United States lost 400,000 troops during WW II when the population was 140 million. That’s .002% of the population lost – mostly young men of working age – in the pursuit of fighting a real, existential threat to the country and the world. Today, America has essentially eviscerated her economy and much of her community in reaction to a virus that has killed .00005% of her population, 80% of whom were 65 and older, most with underlying health problems. The Coronavirus may be many things, but it’s far from an existential threat to the United States. Heart disease kills 4 times as many people each year and we don’t shut the country down for it. Cancer kills 3 times as many people each year and we don’t shut the country down for it. Sure, they’re not contagious, but the Flu is and it kills 1/3 to ½ as many people each year and we don’t shut the country down for it either.

The bottom line is, while the Coronavirus is not a hoax, the shutdowns, the lockdowns and the hysteria surrounding it very much are and it was perpetrated on the American people by the Democrats and their media sycophants in their willingness to sacrifice the nation for their “Orange Man Bad” psychosis.

In November voters will have the opportunity to demonstrate to these anti-American misanthropes that most Americans are not snowflakes… That most Americans understand that life involves risks, but that is the cost of building a better life for their families and their communities and yes, building a better country. Ben Franklin said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” That quote, like many of Franklin’s seems to have a particular resonance in America 265 years after he uttered it. In the face of real threats Americans have demonstrated a real willingness to sacrifice for the common good. Covid 19 is not that, despite what the media and the Democrats want us to believe. Americans have had enough of this hoax of a national threat and the pernicious statists who have foisted it on the country. Hopefully they will demonstrate their displeasure in November…