Tag Archives: defunding the police

Justice, My Nightmares of Today!

There are certain things I dream about as I am tossing and turning during a sleepless night. One of these dreams involve our elections. Do we have honest elections? I have that particular dream because some states used vote counting software that was designed to overturn elections in third world crap holes. Do our elections replicate those third world crap holes for which it was designed? In line with that, I also wonder why no law enforcement agency, in particular the FBI, did not investigate any of the numerous complaints about voter fraud in our last election. The FBI did find a mountain of ‘uppers’ when it came to arresting anyone that entered the Capitol building on January 6th of this year, however. I would feel much better if some of that new-found energy would have been used to investigate those claims of voter fraud. I would definitely sleep better, if I thought our elections were honest. Remember this. Our elections are only as honest as the election officials responsible for the voting sites.

In continuation, wouldn’t it be assuring if only American citizens were voting in our elections? Would it be a stretch to require a photo ID? In our state, it is a requirement. We voted with an absentee ballot during one election, and we had to go to a government building, produce an ID, and watched as our names were stricken from the election roles as having voted. We were mailing in our ballots. The state of Georgia went so far as to say that requiring a photo ID is racist. Racist? Will someone educate me as to how providing a photo ID to vote would be racist?

But here is my most disturbing dream. It is the dream that almost sets my asbestos sheets on fire from the friction created by my tossing and turning. Here it is: If we defund the police, what will the replacement be? This dream is not only troubling, but it is timely, because next week the City of Minneapolis is having an election, and one of the items on the ballot is to defund the police. Homicides in Minneapolis and St. Paul have almost doubled this year. Many police close to retirement, opted out of the police force to retire. Many more have just left the police profession. Both cities are at least 1/3 short of the necessary police required. This has put quite a strain on those remaining officers. It has increased the reaction times for these departments because they are understaffed. And now, the geniuses in Minneapolis want to defund the remaining remnants of a once very good police department. Why?

I will tell you why, even though you may not appreciate my logic. Minneapolis and St. Paul are not the only cities facing this same crisis. Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles have all had their policing issues. But the catalyst for defunding the police took place right in Minneapolis with the death of George Floyd on May 5, 2020.

George Floyd, according the trial, was killed by officer Derek Chauvin. But was he?

Let me provide this assessment of the already familiar event. Firstly, would George Floyd be dead if he did not pass counterfeit money? No. The police would not have been called. Secondly, would George Floyd be dead if he got into the back of the police car without resisting arrest, as he did. No. There would not have been any reason to restrain him. Thirdly, would George Floyd have died if he wasn’t full of a high-ball of illicit drugs? That would be a resounding maybe, because that is what the coroners report said killed George Floyd. According to that report, as bad as the ‘knee to the neck’ restraint that Derek Chauvin utilized looked, that was not what killed George Floyd. If you believe the coroner, it was from complications from existing health issues coupled with the ‘drug highball.” So….in a matter of less than 20 minutes, George Floyd passed counterfeit money, resisted arrest, and topped it all by being addled with illicit drugs. Derek Chauvin had nothing to do with the causes of any of these George Floyd events.

Exactly what was Derek Chauvin guilty of? I believe he was guilty of two things. Firstly, he was guilty of being the ranking and most experienced police officer that answered the call. This was beyond his control. Secondly, and most importantly, Derek Chauvin was guilty of familiarity. Unfortunately, Derek Chauvin knew George Floyd, knew of his criminal background using weapons, and knew of his prison time. He also knew George Floyd was working as a bouncer, and knew that George Floyd had a physical presence that would be difficult to contend with. George Floyd is tall, muscular, and has not hesitated to use his size and muscle in the commission of some of his past crimes. With all of that, the ranking police officer, regardless of who it was, needs to take control of the situation. Unfortunately, it was Derek Chauvin. Officer Chauvin realized quickly that George Floyd was on some kind of drug. Ambulances were summoned. (Did you know that some police departments have gotten rid of their 9mm caliber service weapons in favor of larger calibers? That is because some drug addled shooters were so pumped up on drugs that the smaller caliber was not bringing them down! An experienced Derek Chauvin would know this. I digress.)

Now racial justice takes over and the riots occur for four days with few arrests before the Mayor of Minneapolis or the Governor of Minnesota take action. Over 500 businesses are destroyed and looted. To further promote and legalize racial justice, a Black Lives Matter fund of $20 million was provided for posting bonds for any of the arrested looter/arsonists. (No money for the victims who lost their livelihoods, just for the people who destroyed those livelihoods!)

Prematurely, before any investigation of depth, Derek Chauvin is arrested, jailed, and fired from the police department. (Never mind the facts….public opinion demands it!)

The City of Minneapolis, in another premature and stupid move, awarded the Floyd family a $27 million settlement before the Derek Chauvin trial. (This is the same family he had not seen for 6 years.)

The national media could not stop running the tape of Derek Chauvin putting his knee on George Floyd’s neck. Never mind the results of the coroners report, Chauvin killed George Floyd! And….George Floyd went from violent gun toting criminal who served prison time to national black hero and martyr! The woman who filmed the whole event on her cell phone got a Pulitzer prize!

Now, after all of this, Derek Chauvin goes to trial….on national television! The judge, in his desire to look better than Judge Judy, did not sequester the jury. He did, however, instructed the jury to not watch television news. What an idiot! 65% of all Americans get their news off the internet, and the jury was not prohibited from using their devices. They knew what was happening all over the country about rioting that was planned with a not guilty verdict, and they knew of their notoriety on the internet! After one of the most lopsided, kangaroo court procedures known to man took place, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second degree murder, plus some other tacked-on charges. (As an aside, in Minneapolis, two black men arrested in separate incidents, both accused of homicide, were freed from jail because their high bonds were paid for by left over funds from the BLM $20 million get-out-of-jail bond money. Within 6 months, they killed three more people. Did you hear about that on national TV? Did you even know of it? Racial justice?)

After the trial, two of the jurors said that they were afraid to vote not-guilty, because they knew what would occur (rioting, looting and burning!) as they lived in areas that were originally burned after Floyd’s death! So here is the big question: Did Derek Chauvin receive justice, or was he the victim of racial justice? What if Derek was a black cop? What if Floyd was a white victim? If either was true, would there have even been a trial?

With all of this in mind, I return to my original premise; what will replace the police department? And….more importantly, because of the George Floyd death, and trial of Derek Chauvin and the continual media assertion of police brutality…what public-serving intelligent person would want to be a cop?

My guess? Less people will want to enter the law enforcement profession, police departments will lower their standards, and we will end up with a lower standard of police departments in those cities that keep catering to the crooks rather than supporting the police.

Good luck, Minneapolis. If you defund the police, you will deserve everything that you will get.

P.S. Derek Chauvin should have been disciplined. He did not wake up that morning thinking, “I am going to kill George Floyd today.” It was an unfortunate event that took place while the police were doing their job. In my mind, George Floyd killed George Floyd. America needs to get its priorities straight, do we want a nation protected by dedicated police, or some other half-baked solution that would lead to anarchy, much like what the advocates of racial justice are promoting. It’s an easy choice: either support the police or idolize the thugs.

Is This the ‘New Norm?’

Like most people growing up in the middle of the 20th century, I thought my upbringing was ‘normal.’ At the time, both Grandma P and I thought that we were what was called ‘middle class.’ We did not have any more material possessions than anyone else, but we did have everything that was needed to grow and prosper. We each had two loving parents. My farm family always planted a huge garden. That was because my grandmother was raised during the time of the Great Depression, and was damn well bent on the fact that none of us was ever going to starve! When the peas in the garden were ripe, we had peas for two meals a day until they were gone. (Mercifully, we did not have to eat peas for breakfast!) When the lettuce was ripe…same thing. We were subjected to this kind of diet for every vegetable that could not be frozen or canned, throughout the entire summer.

We were raised to respect authority and our elders. It did not matter if that authority was a teacher, preacher or policeman. I received the ‘do as the cop tells you speech’ at an early age. The second part of that speech was that I should not do anything so stupid as to need a policeman’s involvement. You know those things: speeding, drinking, stealing, yada yada. Some of my most serious discipline, as handed out by my father, ‘Big Daddy G,’ was because he heard that I had misbehaved in class. (Amazingly, the husbands of 3 of my 6 elementary school teachers worked with my dad! He never attended parent/teacher conferences. He got reports every frickin’ day!) By today’s standards, my actions would draw a smile. By ‘Big Daddy G’s’ standards, corporal punishment was required! (And received!) Big Daddy G was a strict adherent to black and white. Shady gray was never a part of his color palette. There was no room for compromise as to what was right, and what was wrong, as that line was never allowed to blur.

I recited the Pledge of Allegiance, every day for my entire 12 years of school. We stood at attention, with our hands over our hearts as we were saying it. This is what you did in a small, blue-collar, midwestern community where practically all of your parents and teachers survived the Great Depression and fought in World War II. They were a tough generation to have survived so much. They had no compunction to be ‘soft’ on the children they brought into this world.

For all of us, the ‘baby boomers’, our childhoods were not draconic. We were being parented! Our parents, because of their experiences, imparted their values on us. They also implanted expectations as to what we could become with effort. They never waivered in their love of country or their belief that America was indeed the ‘land of opportunity.’ For all of us that are from this generation, this was ‘normal.’ So what has happened?

Defunding the Police

This past summer has seen destruction and carnage in many of our major cities. Minneapolis, because of the death of George Floyd. Seattle and New York saw rioting and looting. Portland will probably be in the Guinness Book of Records for allowing a riot to go unchecked for over 100 days. Anarchists seized a multi-block area of Seattle that was allowed to go unchecked for over a month. During my youth, these actions would have been unthinkable. During my youth, there would have been swift justice dealt to the perpetrators of these incidents before the loss of property and the loss of life. So what are the responses of the mayor’s of these communities? Well, in Minneapolis, because of the unfortunate death of George Floyd, there has been a movement to defund the police. The George Floyd incident was the excuse given for all of the rioting and destruction that has taken place. So the media has turned the spotlight on the police as being the villains in this surrealistic scenario, followed by the total lack of common sense and action by the mayors and governors of the affected states and cities. I would like to point out that this anti-cop attitude began with our last black President, who stoked the fires of racism by stating, “If I had a son, he would be just like Trayvon Martin.” There you have it. Black thugs are all good. All cops are bad. Is this the new norm?

Media Bias

There was a time in one of my classes when the teacher had us perform a political debate. This particular debate was about the upcoming election between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. My family were all FDR democrats, so I was on the Kennedy side of the equation. I slam-dunked the election debate in our favor by quoting and producing an article that had been printed in the largest major newspaper in our state. (It still is!) Because of the validity attached to that article and because of the status of that newspaper, the Kennedy side won! How much of what you read or see in a newspaper would you believe today? How much of any media source do you believe today?

I very much remember when Richard Nixon resigned as POTUS, because of the Watergate scandal. Do you remember that this whole scandal was exposed because of investigative reporters? Yup. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, both working for the Washington Post, exposed the scandal and brought down a presidency. Ah yes….those were the good old days! So where did these investigative reporters go? Have they not heard of Hunter Biden? The fictitious Steele dossier? The Russian collusion hoax? The politicizing of the FBI and CIA? Benghazi? The Clinton emails? The Clinton Foundation? The Uranium One deal? Holy cow! You cannot shake a stick without hitting on what should be a slam-dunk for getting a bushel of Pulitzer Prizes by exposing liberal maleficence! But sadly, the media is liberal, too. So no real investigative reporting has ever been done on any of these subjects. Is this the new normal?

Social Media Bias

Did you know that 65% of all Americans receive their news on social media? Yup. And considering that in our recent election, the big social media outlets took it upon themselves to block any info concerning Hunter Biden as it relates to his father. They had no problem with the fictitious Steele dossier, or anything that was anti-Trump, but they decided that there was not enough evidence to allow the Hunter Biden story.

So rather than being a conduit for ideas, these large social media outlets have decided to discard the first amendment, and inhibit the free speech provided by our Constitution. Trump has been likened to Hitler, but yet, it is the left, biased media that is exerting dictatorial, discriminate authority…much like Hitler! The new norm?

Antifa and BLM

Call me a racist, but I happen to believe that ‘ALL LIVES MATTER!’ And, yes, that includes black lives as well. If you believe that Black Lives Matter is some sort of civil liberties organization, you had better go on-line and read their website. They are a politically socialistic organization with a huge socialistic agenda. Antifa? Antifa keeps trying to purvey, along with the help of the liberal media, that they are a group fighting fascists in America. Fascists? I am pretty sure we killed most of the Fascist bastards with the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini. I am pretty sure that these fascists are fictitious, much like the Steele dossier, in order to justify their illegal actions. And like BLM, they are attempting to put ‘lipstick on this pig,’ to make it appear as a civil liberties organization. Like BLM, they are not a civil liberties organization. Check them out. So here you have it. Two organizations largely responsible for the destruction of property, businesses and the livelihoods of thousands of Americans trying to pass themselves off as civil liberties organizations. The new normal?

There are a plethora of items that could constitute being the ‘new normal’ from when I was growing up in our great nation. Can we not count our election ballots in one night? In 1960, all ballots were manually counted, and we knew who the POTUS was before we went to sleep. Do we attempt to change our history by destroying buildings and statues that represent our past? Is ‘shaking down’ foreign countries by our politicians and their family members the ‘new normal?’ Do we think our country is so terrible, that we have to take a knee during the national anthem to show our displeasure? Is this the new normal?

I will tell you that as a senior citizen, I am not pleased as to what kind of country we are leaving our children and grandchildren. Even though we did not grow up having the technological marvels that we take for granted today, we had opportunity and a burning desire to improve ourselves. Call me naïve, but I believe I grew up in a better America.

P.S. Ode to Beau

My friend, Beau, recently passed away. Beau was the father of the Bijou Mauler, who was my proof reader for the beginning of my blog. Beau always read and commented on each of my blogs. He also forwarded my blogs to his many friends. I jokingly referred to him as my ‘best disciple.’ He was, without question, my most fervent reader. You are sadly missed, because you were a fantastic person, husband, father, and grandfather. Rest in peace, Beau!!