DARREN WILSON IN GALT’S GULCH?
Posted by Zenphamy 10 years, 7 months ago to Philosophy
DARREN WILSON IN GALT’S GULCH?
As a long standing Objectivist, I’m disturbed. In the last few weeks, there have been a number of posts and comment/reply strings on this site on the subject of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by policeman Darren Wilson and the riots in Ferguson, MO. As well as the activities and statements made by those that support either side of the rightness/wrongness of the shooting, of the actions of the rioters, of the police response to the riots, of the St. Louis justice system’s response to both the shooting and the rioting, the militarization of the police, the involvement of professional race baiters (Sharpton, Jackson, etc), the involvement of the US Department of Justice, and the involvement of Obama. The statements and opinions expressed by the majority of the posts I’ve read have covered the entire imaginable range of support and as well, derogation of the participants involved.
During the same time, the media, both main-stream and alternate have fed us a continual stream of ‘information’ (more appropriately termed infotainment) structured to cater to their particular audience or produced biased episodes and articles supporting all and any of the above.
The major issue that I’ve gleaned from the majority of the coversations is that everyone seems to want very badly for their ‘beliefs’, from one side or the other, to be substantiated. To date, there has been very little factual information provided to the public from which rational, logical reason could reach conclusions, even the Grand Jury ‘evidence’. Commenters, many on this site, illustrate quite vocifirously their biases, their mistrusts of government and key government figures, but at the same time express their sincere hopes that they can trust in the fidelity, honesty, and virtue of the government police forces that they’ve entrusted to protect them, that police are ‘heroes’ for all of us, that what officer Wilson did was justified and right. But in all of the conversations, debates, and quoted infotainment on this Galt’s Gulch Site, I’ve seen very little Objectivist logical reasoning.
Three activities of late, as well as the referenced postings, comments, and replies here in the Gulch have generated for myself, a desire to reflect on and discuss further the questions posed so far and raised by the below.
1. One of course has been the Michael Brown killing, with an associated report by Reason.com: “Deadspin is Crowdsourcing a Police Shooting Database”, Anthony L. Fisher|Aug. 20, 2014 3:47 pm @ http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/20/deadsp....
It appears that researchers and others wishing to study and report on police shootings have discovered that there simply does not exist a publically available record of police shootings and killings in this nation. Why?
2. In the second activity fortuitously published by The Oklahoman on Novemeber 9th, substantiating the first item, it was reported that The Tulsa World had just completed such a study in Oklahoma, finding that to do so they had to search Oklahoma’s OSBI (Bureau of Investigation) records, the Highway Patrol’s records, the Office of the Medical Examiner’s records, local news reports, and Court records of law suits to generate such a study just for Oklahoma.
A brief summary of some of the report: In Oklahoma, with a population of 3.8 million a study just released reveals that 109 citizens have been shot and killed since 2007, with only one found to be non-justified. Since 2009 when the victim count was only 7, the number of such shootings per year has tripled while only 3 LEOs were killed statewide during the same time period and assaults on police have been on the decline nearly 30% during that time.. Blacks were 18% of the victims, but 7% of the population and whites were 62% of the victims. Hispanic and Indian killings were proportionate to their representation in the population.
3. The third activity has been the recent release of the video of the police killing of Tamir Rice 2 weeks ago, 12 years old, in Cleveland playing with a toy gun. The video starkly contradicts the police report of the shooting. See @ Reason.com http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/26/police....
Some of the questions raised for me are:
1. In a country that records everything down to the minutest detail of every piece of information on every citizen whether legally or illegally, even their phone calls, why doesn’t anyone keep public records of police shooting deaths?
2. Most police shootings do not result in the death of the citizen. Police are notoriously bad shots and often empty their 12 and 16 round clips, even reloading on occasion. How would that compare to the numbers that could be generated only from deaths?
3. Most police abuse of their position doesn’t result in shootings, but often result in beatings instead, some in death. How does the findings from the above reflect on additional information on police/citizen interactions?
4. Police lie. How many of the shootings and beatings not videoed happened as the police reported?
5. FBI statistics on crime in general show that every category of crime has been steadily decreasing throughout the nation for at least a couple of decades and don’t seem to support or justify the police rationalization of extreme danger, more funding, military hardware and weapons, etc.
But what’s absent in any of the discussion and reports to date?
• What would be the place of a Darren Wilson in an Objectivist Galt’s Gulch?
• How would the Gulch respond to such an action as the killing of one of it’s citizens by a policeman whose only legitimate reason to exist is to respond to violations of citizen’s individual rights?
• Are such questions in this ‘real’ non-objectivist society of today meaningful to those whom espouse the ‘non-initiation of force principle’ of Ms. Rand’s philosophy and the lessons provided by her novels as well as by the Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders?
• Can any semblance of an Objectivist society ever come to be while our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity?
In an age in which we’re finally beginning to realize and see the true scope of the absolute and total attack on the Constitutional foundation of this country and our natural individual rights, both explicit and implied, an apparent disregard for application of law to those within government, in this nation with the largest prison population in the world while only having 5% of the world population, it might behoove us to look a little closer at the underlying and exposed issues illustrated by this set of events and associated discussions, both for our ‘real’ society and for Rand’s Galt Gulch.
As a long standing Objectivist, I’m disturbed. In the last few weeks, there have been a number of posts and comment/reply strings on this site on the subject of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by policeman Darren Wilson and the riots in Ferguson, MO. As well as the activities and statements made by those that support either side of the rightness/wrongness of the shooting, of the actions of the rioters, of the police response to the riots, of the St. Louis justice system’s response to both the shooting and the rioting, the militarization of the police, the involvement of professional race baiters (Sharpton, Jackson, etc), the involvement of the US Department of Justice, and the involvement of Obama. The statements and opinions expressed by the majority of the posts I’ve read have covered the entire imaginable range of support and as well, derogation of the participants involved.
During the same time, the media, both main-stream and alternate have fed us a continual stream of ‘information’ (more appropriately termed infotainment) structured to cater to their particular audience or produced biased episodes and articles supporting all and any of the above.
The major issue that I’ve gleaned from the majority of the coversations is that everyone seems to want very badly for their ‘beliefs’, from one side or the other, to be substantiated. To date, there has been very little factual information provided to the public from which rational, logical reason could reach conclusions, even the Grand Jury ‘evidence’. Commenters, many on this site, illustrate quite vocifirously their biases, their mistrusts of government and key government figures, but at the same time express their sincere hopes that they can trust in the fidelity, honesty, and virtue of the government police forces that they’ve entrusted to protect them, that police are ‘heroes’ for all of us, that what officer Wilson did was justified and right. But in all of the conversations, debates, and quoted infotainment on this Galt’s Gulch Site, I’ve seen very little Objectivist logical reasoning.
Three activities of late, as well as the referenced postings, comments, and replies here in the Gulch have generated for myself, a desire to reflect on and discuss further the questions posed so far and raised by the below.
1. One of course has been the Michael Brown killing, with an associated report by Reason.com: “Deadspin is Crowdsourcing a Police Shooting Database”, Anthony L. Fisher|Aug. 20, 2014 3:47 pm @ http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/20/deadsp....
It appears that researchers and others wishing to study and report on police shootings have discovered that there simply does not exist a publically available record of police shootings and killings in this nation. Why?
2. In the second activity fortuitously published by The Oklahoman on Novemeber 9th, substantiating the first item, it was reported that The Tulsa World had just completed such a study in Oklahoma, finding that to do so they had to search Oklahoma’s OSBI (Bureau of Investigation) records, the Highway Patrol’s records, the Office of the Medical Examiner’s records, local news reports, and Court records of law suits to generate such a study just for Oklahoma.
A brief summary of some of the report: In Oklahoma, with a population of 3.8 million a study just released reveals that 109 citizens have been shot and killed since 2007, with only one found to be non-justified. Since 2009 when the victim count was only 7, the number of such shootings per year has tripled while only 3 LEOs were killed statewide during the same time period and assaults on police have been on the decline nearly 30% during that time.. Blacks were 18% of the victims, but 7% of the population and whites were 62% of the victims. Hispanic and Indian killings were proportionate to their representation in the population.
3. The third activity has been the recent release of the video of the police killing of Tamir Rice 2 weeks ago, 12 years old, in Cleveland playing with a toy gun. The video starkly contradicts the police report of the shooting. See @ Reason.com http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/26/police....
Some of the questions raised for me are:
1. In a country that records everything down to the minutest detail of every piece of information on every citizen whether legally or illegally, even their phone calls, why doesn’t anyone keep public records of police shooting deaths?
2. Most police shootings do not result in the death of the citizen. Police are notoriously bad shots and often empty their 12 and 16 round clips, even reloading on occasion. How would that compare to the numbers that could be generated only from deaths?
3. Most police abuse of their position doesn’t result in shootings, but often result in beatings instead, some in death. How does the findings from the above reflect on additional information on police/citizen interactions?
4. Police lie. How many of the shootings and beatings not videoed happened as the police reported?
5. FBI statistics on crime in general show that every category of crime has been steadily decreasing throughout the nation for at least a couple of decades and don’t seem to support or justify the police rationalization of extreme danger, more funding, military hardware and weapons, etc.
But what’s absent in any of the discussion and reports to date?
• What would be the place of a Darren Wilson in an Objectivist Galt’s Gulch?
• How would the Gulch respond to such an action as the killing of one of it’s citizens by a policeman whose only legitimate reason to exist is to respond to violations of citizen’s individual rights?
• Are such questions in this ‘real’ non-objectivist society of today meaningful to those whom espouse the ‘non-initiation of force principle’ of Ms. Rand’s philosophy and the lessons provided by her novels as well as by the Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders?
• Can any semblance of an Objectivist society ever come to be while our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity?
In an age in which we’re finally beginning to realize and see the true scope of the absolute and total attack on the Constitutional foundation of this country and our natural individual rights, both explicit and implied, an apparent disregard for application of law to those within government, in this nation with the largest prison population in the world while only having 5% of the world population, it might behoove us to look a little closer at the underlying and exposed issues illustrated by this set of events and associated discussions, both for our ‘real’ society and for Rand’s Galt Gulch.
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http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/11/new-fb...
Violent and non-violent crime are both on a steady decline and have been for a number of years now.
As to power hungry cops, I'm sure that's part of the problem but I don't think it's all of it by any means. I suspect it's as much about training, 'them against us', utilizing intimidation, and 'putting us in our places' combined with out and out fear on their parts. Many of them actually think they're at war even calling themselves 'operators'. That's not law enforcement. They and the justice system that employs and uses them have turned themselves into our enemies.
While I do believe that most law officers are good, honest, and reasonable people, there are those (and seemingly increasing in percentage) who are power hungry. They aren't the majority, but they are enough to make a difference.
he physically combated a police officer.
he was 6'4" and 300lbs
the cop had a gun.
What more facts are needed?
The bully brought lard to a gunfight.
(remember Rand's law... one may not *initiate* force. I submit that he beat on the cop before he was shot multiple times, cause the other way round would make him a zombie).