Murder in Minneapolis

A few days ago during an arrest in Minneapolis,  a black man named George Floyd  screamed that he could not breathe and then died while a white cop was pressing his neck onto the ground with a knee for several minutes.  Two autopsies have been performed. According to reports in the news, they disagree as to the cause of death with one naming asphyxiation   as the cause of his death and the other finding death by cardiopulmonary arrest, but  both list his death as a homicide.  The cop has been arrested and charged with murder. 

In the last few days there have been  protests  and big demonstrations against  “racism”, the police,  and  sometimes society in general in cities around the country.  In several cities rioting vandals, hoodlums, and arsonists have looted and burned businesses and government offices and attacked police and bystanders.  People in the traditional media have given the crime and its aftermath huge amounts of coverage and attention. Leftist politicians and their media flacks have tried to portray the whole country, or at least all  the white people in it, as somehow responsible for or guilty of Floyd’s murder.  (Some Democrats have tried to blame it on Trump, which is peculiar  since local police report to local officials in this country, and the mayor of Minneapolis is a Dem.) Politicians, writers,  and commentators of various sorts have attempted to represent  the crime as something of national or global symbolic significance.

A while back a cop in Minneapolis  shot and murdered an innocent woman named Justine Diamond who had made a 911 call when she feared someone was being attacked.  In that case the cop was black and his victim was white. The crime led to no massive protests or demonstrations.  There was no violence, looting,  or rioting.  People in the traditional media generally ignored the story. A few conservative politicians and their media flacks tried  to make something of the fact that the murderer was an immigrant, but  usually stopped short of tarring all immigrants with the crime.  Almost no one tried to take the thing global.  People mainly treated it as what it was – a single crime for which the man who committed it was solely responsible.

The two cases are not entirely parallel.  Floyd’s death was caught on video, and many people need pictures to be able to take a thing seriously.  One event happened  quickly with a pistol, and one happened over a long period.  One had  a cop who has been reported to have a long record of bad behavior.

Still the differences between the aftermaths of the two events are striking, instructive,  and worth thinking about for several reasons.  Some people may also be thinking about  whether the benefits of big city life are enough to justify the costs and risks.  

New York, New York

That many politicians are vulgar, larcenously avaricious grifters and extortionists who would tax the gold out of the freshly deceased’s teeth if they could get away with it, is not news.  However sometimes one of them manages to surpass his colleagues and do something  along those lines that is newsworthy.  This week Andrew Cuomo did just that. He announced that as thanks to the many volunteers from Samaritan’s Purse and other places  who came to New York at at least some risk to themselves to help local medical people deal with the epidemic, he was going to shake down any of them who helped for over fourteen days for state income taxes. Then, as though advertising himself as a despicable  fool and ingrate was not enough, he offered an explanation.  He said that since the state government had collected less tax money than usual during the epidemic, to would be wrong to give the volunteers a subsidy by not taxing them at a time when he and the boys had problems with their budget.  He apparently really thinks that anything anyone earns in the state is his and that letting someone keep some of what he earns is giving him a subsidy,  a present from his benevolent rulers no different from a welfare check.  That is worth noticing, particularly since some Dems are talking him up as a possible relief pitcher if Biden’s dementia sends him to the showers before the election.

With all that, Cuomo’s behavior was not the worst from a New York politician this week. Mayor Warren Wilhelm (alias di Blasio which plays better at election time) of New York City announced he was suspending the First and Fourteenth Amendments  and decreeing that the people will not be allowed peaceably to assemble and speak about his decrees until he decrees that they can. His seemingly ignorant sidekick the police commissioner explained that this was now a law “passed”  by the order of the leader. Wilhelm is a hard leftist. It is not surprising that he would want to rule in the manner of Castro or the Duce (who at least really had an Italian name).  It is a little surprising and a lot worrisome that he thinks he can get away with it. Maybe New Yorkers will show him he is wrong.

I feel sorry for the decent New Yorkers who are saddled with these two. I wish them better. I also am even more glad than usual that I live in Texas.  Our politicians certainly have their faults and make lots of mistakes, but they look pretty good by comparison.  Some people from out of state have wondered how a woman in Texas of all places could be sent to jail for opening her own business and then refusing to lick the boots of an arrogant, Democrat judge. Well it happened in Dallas.  Politics in Dallas are not what they were years ago. Many of the people in the Dallas area who would vote for Republicans or ordinary Democrats now live in the suburbs, leaving a higher percentage within the city limits of Dallas of people willing to support leftist Democrats. Some of Dallas’s boosters used to speak of their city becoming like New York. In some ways, they may be  getting there. The good news is that after the governor ordered that no one could be jailed for violating the rules of  the declaration of emergency, the state supreme court ordered the woman to be released. Other good news is that people are chipping in help her financially, including paying her fine.

Different Approaches

Republican politicians can be exasperating. Too many are  crude, illiberal on social matters, unserious about liberty, pragmatic in the bad sense of that term, unscientific in outlook, poor at making their case, and generally lacking cohesive, thought out principles. Some  people favoring liberty and individual rights still  support Republicans in elections against Democrats as the lesser evil.  Others say the two parties are more or less equivalently bad and reject both.  Since state and local governments are being left  to make many of the decisions about handling the present epidemic, people have a chance to look at the behavior of politicians from both parties and see if it indicates any meaningful overall differences between the parties.

Republican officials usually have ordered shut downs reluctantly, enforced them fairly politely, relied as much as possible on people going along voluntarily, and begun – usually eagerly – to start getting things back to normal as soon as conditions allowed. From their behavior it seems that they have not liked the things they have done and will be glad to stop doing them.

On the other hand many Democratic officials give the impression of really enjoying having and using this new power over other people. The pettiness, malice, arbitrariness, dogmatic vigor, and simple mean relish with which they have made and enforced  their dictates surely make it seem that  they are having a good time. They certainly are reluctant to let  go. Some even speak seemingly longingly of a “new normal” in which they will keep the new powers indefinitely.  Some of that reluctance to open things up may be a political ploy to hurt Trump in the next election, but that does not explain all of it. (Trump probably  is not going to carry New York in November regardless of how long Cuomo and Wilhelm  keep the state and city shut down.)

Many of us who are fond of neither party believe Democrats on average are more likely than Republicans to want to control more of other people’s lives by force,  and therefore are a worse  threat.  The Dems recently have given that hypothesis a whole lot of support.