We Are Ruled by Fools

And we are a nation of cowards.

The protests and riots over the death of George Floyd have had remarkable results. One has been rituals of subservience by whites. In New York City, hundreds of white people knelt and repeated degrading slogans shouted at them by a black man. [00:9 – 00:24] They also chanted that the solution was not voting but revolution.

The white police chief of Webster, Massachusetts, went face-down on the pavement during a Black Lives Matter protest. One black shouted, “It’s not enough, but it’s a start.”

In Cary, North Carolina, white police officers washed the feet of a black pastor and his wife.

Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, and other Democrats knelt and observed nine minutes of silence to “honor George Floyd.”.

In Bethesda, whites repeated what sounded like a new profession of faith. [0:00 – 0:22] Black protest and the fight against that will o’ the wisp known as “systemic racism” has become like a religion.

Maybe that’s why no one dares punish rioters. In Washington, prosecutors dropped charges against virtually every person the police brought in on a felony rioting charge. Fort Worth Police also dropped rioting charges against protesters. The Manhattan DA decided not to prosecute protesters for low-level offences, including unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct. That’s just as well for Chiara de Blasio, the daughter of the Mayor Bill de Blasio. She was facing those very charges.

It may be that all white men are as bad as Frank Rizzo. The theory today is that we are all racists and that even the best intentioned whites can’t help propping up white supremacy. That thinking logically leads to signs like this one, which says, “Haiti did it in 1804. This is just Round 2. What happened in 1804? Blacks slaughtered all the whites on the island.

Here’s another Black Lives Matter sign: “We are not like our ancestors. We will Fuck you up.” This lady seems to have a broader program in mind than merely justice for George Floyd.

One expert estimates that the damage, looting, and business losses for Target during the protests were $50 to $100 million. What’s the solution? Target has pledged $10 million to “help heal,” as the company put it, and promised 10,000 hours of free consulting to people of color who own small businesses. Only to people of color. Don’t even ask if you’re white.

The Financial Times noted that “US companies flood civil rights groups with donations.” The paper has a table of corporate pledges that total more than $485 million. The list isn’t complete. Apple and YouTube are each going to spend $100 million to fight racism. The beauty company Glossier pledged $1 million that the Financial Times didn’t know about, and I’m sure there’s a lot more. The eventual total could be – what? — 1 billion? 2 billion? American companies are laying off millions and millions of people. And they are giving millions and millions of dollars to the folks who rioted, looted, and burned their businesses.

It seems that every organization in the country is preening itself on racial sensitivity. The principal of my daughter’s high school sent all us parents a message about what he called, “the heinous acts of racism and hate that have occurred in our country.” The Yale Club of Washington DC wrote to tell me, “We can only begin to understand the daily pain of our black peers. Institutional racism, inequity, and injustice are unacceptable.” A friend got a message that said, “the Minnesota Orchestra will reduce our reliance on and reproduction of white privilege and will disrupt our own role in systemic racism.” What have these musicians, in their masks, standing eight feet apart, ever done that was remotely racist?

The rules change when you protest against the public health crisis of racism. Perhaps you saw that over 1,000 health professionals had written a public letter about the demonstrations, saying, “We do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health.” But they said any other demonstrations are bad, especially if you are out of work and protesting a lockdown order. We’re supposed to stay indoors even if it kills the economy, but go ahead and catch Covid or give to someone else if it’s in the name of George Floyd.

White people everywhere were caught up in this festival of guilt and capitulation. Here is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — in the middle wearing just the right mask – for a Black Lives Matter rally. Along with aides, he knelt in tribute to George Floyd.

These lads in Brussels tore a traffic signal off a pole and threw it at the police. [0:00 to 0:11] With the Brussels police occupied, looting went on in high spirits. [0:22 – 0:35] The London police ran away from demonstrators.” [00:10 – 00:41] A statue of Belgian King Leopold II had to be vandalized and torn down because . . . well, I’m sure you know why.

The BBC sent this astonishing tweet: “27 police officer injured during largely peaceful anti-racism protests in London.” Looks very peaceful.

Here’s the main lesson from all of this: Violence works. Rioting works. If you burn down enough buildings you get what you want. What if blacks had seen the video of George Floyd’s death and quietly waited for the investigation, indictment, trail, and verdict. That’s what white people did when a black Minneapolis policeman shot and killed an unarmed white women. It’s the civilized thing to do. But if blacks and their hopped up “white allies” had done the civilized thing, there wouldn’t be a billion dollars splashed out for black causes, would there? There wouldn’t be monuments to white men coming down all over the country. There wouldn’t be white people on their knees, washing the feet of black people.

Are our rulers such fools they don’t know that if you give in to a child’s temper tantrum, you get more tantrums? Don’t they understand that if you bow to the mob, you get more mobs. I guess they don’t. Our rulers really are . . . fools.