The Protests

There is a lot I don't understand about the current protests occurring daily in the US and apparently now in much of the world.  I'm trying to get my head around them, but some aspects of the marches and demonstrations are illogical, if not stupid.

I certainly understand the racial injustice.  There is still far too much bigotry and discrimination in this country.  (I'll save "affirmative action," "self-destructive practices," etc. for later.)  Anyone who denies that is, in a word I have come to enjoy, delusional.  Of course, nobody will admit to being a bigot.  "I have black friends," they'll say.  I don't really know how widespread it is, but it's there.  Although slavery has been abolished for more than 150 years, I still hold that blacks today wear "the badge of slavery," something that holds them apart, not in a good way, from whites.

But that's not what is troubling me this day.  Why are others in the world staging protests?  Don't they have their own problems to fix?  Yes, racism in the US is troubling, very much so.  A lot of those people should take a good, hard look at how minorities, racial and ethnic, in their countries are treated.  But, for instance, why haven't there been extended world-wide protests over the murders of Christians, gays, etc. by fundamental Islamists?  Where are the mass gatherings to protest the filthy rich oil sheikhs while the rest of the population of their countries live in squalor?  Why did Russia's takeover of Ukrainian land meet with mostly silence?  Where are the global protests over how the commies in China treat their people?  The list goes on.  Oh, there are some actions/protests.  But they don't seem to be anything like what is occurring after George Floyd's murder.  Plus, we really don't need to have the likes of Putin and Xi lecture us on "peaceful protests," do we?

Again, to harken back to one of my posts of a couple of weeks ago, I don't know who to trust, what "facts" to believe.  According to one study, 16 unarmed black men were shot and killed by police officers in 2019.  Of course, that is 16 too many.  (But I don't know the circumstances.  I wasn't there.)  But as a percentage of the black male population, those 16 compose about four/one ten millionths of a percent.  That's six zeroes to the right of the decimal for a percent, which is two more places to right of one.  (Double check my math; my calculator is broken.)

And how does burning, looting, beating, and killing honor the memory of George Floyd?  What sympathy is that going to achieve?  For that matter, what protesters are stupid enough to defile memorials such as that honoring the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, an all black unit that included the sons (both of them if I recall) of Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, you know, the man who the emancipated former slaves referred to Biblically as "Father Abraham?"

Why has "all lives matter" become something so terrible to say?  People have even lost their jobs over it.  I guess freedom of speech actually means speech which the anointed approve, that which feeds the agenda.  BTW, did those almost 20 million black babies who were aborted since 1973 "matter?"

Are all those "Black Lives Matter" people going to Chicago next?  Last weekend, there were more than two dozen murders, with twice as many other people wounded in shootings.  After all, if "Black Lives Matter," shouldn't those twenty-five dead be shown the same respect as George Floyd?  What about the families of those murdered people?  I wonder if they are asking, "Hey, didn't my son [daughter, husband, wife, father, mother, brother, sister......] matter, too?"  I guess not.

For that matter, there are political leaders--esp at the local level, where they should really know better--called for disbanding or defunding police departments.  Hmmm...... With the police there were a couple dozen murders in Chicago last weekend.  Without the police that number will surely go down, right?  Heh Heh Heh.

People have replied to me, "Not all of the protesters are violent......" or something akin to that.  Well, guess what?  Not all police are racists and bigots.  Not all of them follow the path of racial injustice.  I know, I know.  If we can't lump all of the protesters with their violent cohorts, why can we lump all police officers together?  "But that's different."