Tag Archive for: Baltimore

Watch How ‘The View’ Treats Conservative Black Voices | Kim Klacik

Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Kim Klacik (U.S. House candidate) about her recent appearance on “The View” and her argument with Joy Behar. Kim explains why there seems to be a double standard for how black women are treated on ”The View” depending on if they are liberal or conservative. She also explains why there are growing numbers of black Trump supporters and black conservatives. Finally, she explains why she is running for office in Baltimore and how 50-plus years of Democratic leadership has failed the black voters of her city.

©The Rubin Report. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Antifa Wants to ‘Overthrow Our Government,’ Terrorism Expert Says

The Democrats’ War on Blacks

When hearing talk of Democrats’ war on blacks, some may think of the 92 percent of black homicide victims murdered by other blacks mainly in Democrat-run cities. Others may ponder the 300,000 black babies killed yearly in the womb with the approval, sometimes tacit, sometimes more overt, of many white liberals. Yet there’s another front in this war, one more recently opened and far more insidious.

When President Trump early this month ordered an end to mandatory “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) training in the federal bureaucracy — which sometimes involved compelling white male employees to write letters of apology to “marginalized” people — he was, predictably, called a “racist.” But if ending this destructive program is “racism,” well, then whatever racism is, we need more of it.

The CRT “training’s” anti-white nature is obvious. As Heritage Foundation fellow Christopher Rufo wrote last month, reporting on the CRT indoctrination at Sandia National Laboratories, the trainers insisted “that white males must ‘work hard to understand’ their ‘white privilege,’ ‘male privilege,’ and ‘heterosexual privilege.’”

Of course, such privilege exists like unicorns do. But insofar as blacks and other non-whites will believe it does and that they’re (perhaps fatally) disadvantaged, we should ask: How does making people more hopeless and bitter improve their prospects for success?

“Acting White”

It gets far, far worse, however. The trainers also claimed that “rugged individualism,” “a can-do attitude,” “hard work” and “striving towards success” reflected “white male culture,” which they said leads to “lowered quality of life at work and home, reduced life expectancy, unproductive relationships, and high stress.” I guess slacker bums who can’t put food on the table (when they have a table) have no stress.

But this Loser 101 indoctrination isn’t limited to Sandia or even the bowels of federal buildings. It’s in schools (and corporations) as well, where teachers are being told that hard work, planning for the future and punctuality are “white norms.” Try telling that to Asian-descent Americans, who, apparently, are just like white people — only more so.

(One race theory activist, Glenn Singleton, does tell them that, saying that Asian-descent Americans are a “majority” group because of their “white” habits. Honorary white people, I guess.)

Ironically, this is the very attitude black educators lamented, and combated, just a generation ago. Back then it was slacker, criminally inclined black youths (usually driven by jealously, mind you) accusing their higher achieving peers of “acting white.” This was universally recognized as destructive social pressure that militated against the embrace of success-breeding habits. Now the attitude has been lent the respectable veneer of educational theory and the endorsement of academic authorities.

This does violence to an already struggling black underclass. It’s man’s nature to glom on to convenient excuses, and American blacks have long been fed a diet of low expectations for performance and high expectations for copping out. Now pseudo-intellectual social engineers are exacerbating the problem.

Consider race-theory-demeaned punctuality. The saying goes that “80 percent of success is just showing up”; I’ll add that 90 percent of success is showing up on time. Yet as black writer T.J. Holmes lamented in 2014, failure to do so characterizes the black community.

In “It’s Time to Quit Operating on CP [Colored People’s] Time,” Holmes writes that our “challenges with starting or arriving on time are often dismissed with humorous complacency.” “You know how we are,” is what he hears from other blacks. “But this week,” he wrote, “CPT totally stopped being funny to me.”

After relating instances in which he’d been bitten by CPT, he stated, “This hurts to admit, but I often pause when considering doing business with black people or black companies, based on my experiences.”

Now, will activists call this black man a “racist”? They’ll more likely brand him an Uncle Tom. No amount of name-calling alters reality, however, which is this: We can institute all the affirmative action, quotas and set asides we want, but the last 50 years have proven that the wider society’s indulgence cannot compensate for a community’s fundamental virtue deficits. The pork barrel can keep people on a certain plantation, though.

Of course, as we’ll often hear regarding social ills, “It all starts at home.” It’s well known, too, that fatherlessness/family dissolution plagues the black community today, with 72 percent of black children born out of wedlock.

Now the Democrat Left aims to worsen this problem, too, with Black Lives Matter openly stating that one of its goals is to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement.” In this structure’s place, BLM wants blacks to care for each other, as it writes, “collectively.”

A popular race-hustler notion, the aforementioned Glenn Singleton called “collectivism” a black norm while BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors admitted “We are trained Marxists” (collectivists) in a 2015 video. And in pushing socialism on blacks, they are in a way working toward equal outcomes — for the vast majority of the 100 million souls thus far murdered by Marxist governments have been white or Asian.

The notion that blacks somehow require a different economic/moral framework (collectivism) than whites do gets at a truth: The CRT’s largely unrecognized philosophical foundation (philoso-babble, really) would have to be the relativism sweeping our time. The idea is that, as Louis Farrakhan put it, “A White Man’s Heaven Is a Black Man’s Hell” (I believe Hitler expressed a similar sentiment, by the way); that whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, etc. all have different “needs.”

The truth, however, is precisely the opposite. As Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson has put it, the black community’s problem is “immorality.” Often called sin, this is a universal plaguing everyone and causes most human woes. Now, the remedy for immorality is, obviously, morality. To be specific, if morality came in a jar, on the ingredients label would be virtues.

These are “good moral habits,” examples being hope, honesty, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, prudence, chastity, patience, kindness, humility and love. Another virtue is diligence, which relates to punctuality and industriousness. Yet another is forgiveness, which forestalls the bitterness and hatred that can cause a person to focus on tearing society down instead of building himself up.

The point, however, is that virtues aren’t “white” or black, Hispanic or Asian, male or female.

They are divine.

They’re also universals. All people need them to live happy, prosperous, moral lives — there are no exceptions.

Anyone counseling against virtue — as the race activists do — is the worst enemy a people could have. In fact, this is why Rev. Peterson called BLM “worse than the Ku Klux Klan”: It’s doubtful that even the most clever white supremacist would think to, or could, convince blacks that virtue is vice.

But Democrat-enabling, and enabled, organizations — teachers’ unions, BLM, academia, etc. — are doing just that. And why? Well, since poor, dependent people vote Democrat by wide margins, a cynic could think that the Democrats would want to make the poor and dependent class as large as possible.

What’s for sure is that virtuous people rarely support leftists. So if I were an amoral modern Democrat lusting after power, I’d peddle vice, too.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Gab or Parler (preferably) or Twitter, or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

©Selwyn Duke. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: President Trump Endorses Kimberly Klacik for Congress

President Donald J. Trump after viewing the below video posted by Kimberly Klacik who is running for Congress in Maryland’s District 7, Tweeted his endorsement stating:

Kimberly will work with the Trump Administration and we will bring Baltimore back, and fast. Don’t blow it Baltimore, the Democrats have destroyed your city!

©All rights reserved.

First Lady Dissed by Wimpy Snowflakes

First Lady Melania Trump was booed by students when she spoke at an opioid awareness summit in Baltimore. Snowflake adults said the students were justified because Melania’s husband hurt their feelings by saying bad things about their city.

Folks, this infuriated me. I am so sick of snowflake adults who create dumb-down, brain-dead and wimpy snowflake youths. Taught to believe they are entitled, snowflakes are unable to submit to authority or deal with the normal pressures of life; living in their parent’s basement playing video games at age 30.

Liberal Democrats have controlled Baltimore for the past 50 years, transforming it into a hellhole of poverty, fatherless households, failing schools, economic decline and record breaking black on black homicides.

As a child, I lived in the Baltimore projects. I don’t remember any neighborhood so horribly out-of-control that no one dared to venture after dark. And yet, that is the ridiculous situation in Baltimore today.

Visiting Baltimore for my dad’s funeral, it was shocking to see endless blocks of empty rundown row-houses, rats and trash. What the heck happened to my beloved hometown once renowned as “Charm City”?

In the 1980s, Baltimore’s first black mayor, Kurt Schmoke ordered that my song “Hello Baltimore” be placed into the city’s time capsule. To illustrate Charm City’s shocking transformation, I made a music video of my song using footage of recent Baltimore riots.

Back in the day, the neighborhood around Pimlico Race Track where the Preakness Race is held was safe and upscale. Today, the Pimlico neighborhood has dramatically declined, infested with drugs and crime.

In the 1990s, I saw the beginning of the end for Baltimore because of stupid liberal Democrat policies. Park Avenue was the place to enjoy dinner at an upscale restaurant. Smelly, dirty vagrants began sleeping on the sidewalks and aggressively pestering patrons outside of the beautiful restaurants. Due to the city’s commitment to political correctness, restaurant owners could do nothing to save their businesses. Finally, every restaurant closed or moved away.

Living in the projects as a child, I loved exploring Park Avenue downtown“The lights are much brighter there. You can forget all your troubles, forgot all your cares. Downtown, things’ll be great when you’re downtown. Everything’s waiting for you.”  Park Avenue has become another depressed section of the city unsafe after dark.

Incredibly, liberal Democrats who run Baltimore still have not learned to be friendly to businesses. During the recent Baltimore riots the mayor ordered the police to stand down and allow thugs to destroy businesses to express their frustrations regarding racial injustice. Unbelievable.

Late Democrat congressman Elijah Cummings received billions in federal grants to clean up his rat and crime infested district. The money was wasted or stolen. By the way, idiot black relatives of mine who live in Baltimore still praise Cummings for his wonderful service to the black community. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.

Cummings’ wife also emits a putrid odor of corruption; using the suffering of her fellow blacks to get rich.

White liberals in fake news media claim to be advocates for black empowerment. The liberal Congressional Black Caucus and NAACP also lie about their commitment to black empowerment. These black and white liberals viciously attack anyone who dares to address problems which plague blacks in cities controlled by Democrats.

Thank God president Trump cares enough to address the problems of blacks who are suffering in Democrat urban plantations. Therefore, I don’t give a rat’s derriere about the hurt feelings of spoiled-brat snowflake youths, upset because Trump told the truth about their cesspool city run by corrupt Democrats. Adults who defended the students for booing our first lady are a part of our nation’s morally bankrupt and wimpy culture. They should be ashamed of themselves.

This hypersensitivity to “hurt feelings” turns my stomach. For crying out loud, adults need to start instructing wimpy youths to grow a spine.

World War II Americans are turning over in their graves in disgust of this new generation of snowflake Americans. My black dad passed away at age 90. When my brother was a teen, he quit his summer job because his boss hurt his feelings by yelling at him.

Dad could hardly believe his ears. Annoyed at my brother, Dad said, “He hurt your feelings? Boy, you had better go back and get your job!” Dad was teaching my brother to be a man!

As a black civil rights pioneer in the Merchant Marines and Baltimore City Fire Department, Dad endured all kinds of humiliation and hurt feelings. But Dad knew a man has to do what a man has to do. He had a wife and five kids to feed. His hurt feelings were irrelevant.

To restore our youths, we need to have zero tolerance for all this hypersensitivity, wimpy-ness and entitlement that liberals have instilled in our youths.

A snowflake reading this article will probably say, “Lloyd you sound angry. I feel triggered. Your toxic masculinity makes me feel unsafe. You should be silenced and jailed.”

Can you imagine what a nightmare it would be if a snowflake ever became president?

Thank God president Trump is a real man.

Responding to ‘Black Lives Matter’ & What Obama Can Learn from Bill Clinton

When is President Obama going to stand up and lead on the issue of violent rhetoric directed at our nation’s police officers? Although a direct connection between many of the recent assaults on police officers and the Black Lives Matter movement is still tenuous, it’s difficult to argue that chants of “Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon” are helping diffuse community tensions with the police. Yet, President Obama has still refused to publicly denounce the group.

This should infuriate every law enforcement officer in the country at the local, state and federal level who bravely stands on the demarcation line between law and order, and street chaos. It also begs the question, what does a left-leaning group have to do, or say, to earn President Obama’s condemnation? We know from experience that just being a Republican is enough to generate condemnation from President Obama in many cases but, calls for assaults on police officers have earned Black Lives Matter activists not condemnation, but an endorsement from the President’s party.

If the Democratic Party insists on endorsing, rather than condemning, a movement that has some of its members declaring open war on our police officers then they have made the politics of this fair game. If President Obama continues to cower on this issue and continues to avoid condemning the dangerous rhetoric of Black lives matter, then law enforcement should openly boycott the Democratic Party. There is power in numbers and if a major, national political party, led by the current President of the United States, cannot gather up the courage to condemn what’s evolving into an openly violent movement, then the Democratic Party should suffer politically for it.

Police investigate the scene where two police officers were shot outside the Ferguson Police Department Thursday, March 12, 2015, in Ferguson, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Police investigate the scene where two police officers were shot outside the Ferguson Police Department Thursday, March 12, 2015, in Ferguson, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Leadership and judgment are two qualities we look for in a President and, with regard to the Black Lives Matter movement, and their calls for violence against police officers, President Obama has shown neither of these traits. But, Mr. Obama still has an opportunity to redeem himself. He could take the path chosen by Bill Clinton in 1992 when he was given the opportunity to take a stand against inflammatory, and divisive, racist rhetoric when he refused to appear at a Rainbow Coalition event because activist Sister Souljah was speaking there. Sister Souljah—who infamously stated to a Washington Post reporter “If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?”—gave Clinton an opportunity to show sound judgment in distancing himself from this type of nonsense, and he took it.

I’m no fan of Bill Clinton’s politics, and I cannot dive deep into his thoughts to uncover what his real motivation was for calling out Sister Souljah, but actions matter and talk is cheap. President Obama is all talk, and no action, on the extremely violent rhetoric being directed at the police.

President Obama was quick to be seen on camera in the Henry Louis Gates incident claiming, without a full grasp of all of the circumstances of the interaction, that the police officer acted “stupidly.” He was quick to be seen on camera after the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson, stating that it “stains the heart of black children,” while failing to responsibly describe to the America people the full context of the interaction between police officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown. He was quick to issue a statement after the grand jury’s decision not indict the police officer involved in the death of Eric Garner stating, “It’s incumbent on all of us as Americans…that we recognize that this is an American problem,” despite not having the facts presented to the grand jury in the case.

It’s interesting that the President was so comfortable indicting the country and talking about police use of force incidents as an “American problem” but he still refuses to stand publicly in front of the cameras and give a forceful speech defending the good cops out there and condemning the dangerous and violent rhetoric employed by the Black lives matter movement as an “American problem.” How many more police officers are going to have to die before the President acts on this?

Finally, playing word association games is a terrific way to get past the clutter and find out what people are really thinking about. The recent word association results from a Quinnipiac University poll are devastating for the Hillary Clinton campaign as the word mentioned most often in association with Mrs. Clinton was “liar.”

I made the case in my August 4 Conservative Review piece that the ongoing email scandal regarding Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server was clear evidence that she is missing the two qualities most important to the presidency—leadership and judgment—and the association of Hillary with the word liar is further evidence that the public doesn’t trust her anymore. If President Obama doesn’t change course with his attitude towards police officers in America the first word that’s going to be associated with President Obama on the lips of our nation’s police officers is going to be “opportunist.”

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review.

Leftists Use Black Lives Matter to Exploit Blacks, Again

animals versus human babyRecently, my black brother shared an unfortunate incident. Years ago, police in two unmarked cars blocked his car. They jumped out pointing guns, demanding that he exit his car. My brother immediately raised his hands, but did not exit his car because he was frozen with fear. An officer pulled him out of his car onto the ground. My brother said, “Calm down! I am not resisting!”

After checking him out, the officers realized he was not their suspect. Rather than sending my brother on his way with an apology, the police framed him. My brother had an unopened six pack of beer on the floor. An officer opened one of the beers and said, “You’re under arrest for drunk driving.” The bogus charge did not stick and my brother was released hours later, angry, with a bitter taste in his mouth.

Ironically, my brother’s reason for telling me about the incident was to defend the police in the recent shooting and arrests covered 24/7 on CNN. He said the cops who framed him were a few bad apples which are everywhere in every profession. Amen to that. Jesus had 12 disciples and one was a bad apple. My brother made the point that he was not harmed because he submitted to the police’s authority. He noted that the blacks in the videos shown on TV did not submit to the police.

My brother’s point is correct. In each incident caught on video in which people are second-guessing officer’s behavior, bad outcomes could have been avoided had the persons simply respected authority and complied.

A friend of mine is a veteran Baltimore black cop. He told me upon arriving at a scene, a cop must immediately take control of the situation. If not, the cop could end up dead – stabbed in the back by a weepy girlfriend or mom. The most hazardous part of a police officer’s job is the routine traffic stop; 62 officers killed 2002- 2011.

Democrats, CNN and other liberal bias media have an insidiously evil agenda to convince black America that Republicans, conservatives and police are out to get them. These Leftists would love to feature my brother’s bad boy cops story 24/7; claiming the cops were unequivocally motivated by white racism.

Meanwhile, the Left avoids experiences like mine with police like the plague. In the 80’s, an interracial couple robbed a bank, their description matching my wife, me and our car. Police surrounded our car with guns drawn and ordered us out of our car. We complied. They checked us out, apologized and went on their way. We were stopped on another occasion years later. Again, the officers were respectful and professional.

black lives matter bill boardAs a young adult, my cousins wife called me in a panic to their home in the hood. My black cousin had a nervous breakdown. He held their two toddler sons hostage in the basement, threatening to kill himself and their boys. First on the scene were two white cops – one young and fit, the other much older and morbidly obese. Masterfully, the old obese cop gained my cousin’s trust and talked him out of the basement. “C’mon son, I know life gets tough, but you don’t want to do this.” My cousin was arrested, given the mental health assistance he needed and was later released. My cousin is alive, well and a great dad.

Folks, cops kill whites at almost double the rate of blacks. As a matter of fact, blacks are killed by blacks 93% of the time. The Left does not want you to know the biggest threat to black lives is other blacks. Despite the Left’s Black Lives Matter (blame and hate white America) movement, incidents of blacks killing blacks are on the rise.

The Left is ignoring the stunning numbers of blacks murdered in Chicago by blacks.

In July, Baltimore homicides reached its highest in 43 years, up 60%. 

The mainstream media deliberately creating the false impression that cops are the biggest threat to blacks is reprehensible. Proving they do not give a rat’s derriere about blacks, the Left refuses to address real issues plaguing black America; multi-generational government dependency; increasing numbers of fatherless households; unprecedented high unemployment under Obama; epidemic school dropouts; black on black homicides and Leftist encouraged moral and cultural decline

White guys in white hoods, the Aryan nation nor cops are infiltrating black neighborhoods, victimizing residents and murdering blacks. The Left has been fooling blacks with its blame-everything-on-whitey tactic for decades; keeping blacks voting for their supposed Democrat saviors.

As young as 9 or 10, I realized the blame-everything-on-whitey excuse was a lie. My family lived on the sixth floor of a Baltimore project high-rise building. The elevators were often not working due to vandalism. The stairwells were pitch black due to broken light bulbs and smelled of urine. The crunch sound under foot echoing off the concrete walls was due to broken liquor bottles. I knew whites were not sneaking in at night, peeing in our stairwells.

Not to indict everyone who lived in the projects, some neighbors kept their apartments immaculate. Even as a child, I concluded that poverty (and ghetto) was a mindset rather than simply an absence of money.

The Black Lives Matter movement, “white privilege” and so on are founded on lies. They are despicable tools to exploit blacks’ emotions. These Leftist scams have resulted in what can be described as black terror cells. Police are assassinated, outbreaks of black flash mob attacks and innocent whites assaulted, raped and murdered.

Outrageously, Black Lives Matter thugs threaten to “shut down” the Republican National Convention. Notice the stupid, hateful and racist assumption that white Republicans are a threat to black lives? Imagine if the Tea Party announced a plan to shut down the Democrat National Convention. After recovering from multiple convulsions of pleasure from being given such an opportunity to demonize the Tea Party, Leftist media would bombard the public with 24/7 news coverage; branding the Tea Party racist, sexist and homophobic.

Rest assured, you will not hear any meaningful criticism from the MSM, Democrats or Obama regarding Black Lives Matter thugs arrogantly assaulting free speech. Quite the opposite. Leftists are behind the scene cheering on the Black Lives Matter thugs.

Wake up black America. The Left is playin’ y’all, again.

Baltimore Lawmakers, Not its Citizens, Are the Problem

Sadly, what’s happening in Baltimore shouldn’t surprise anyone.

You cannot have an environment where the political leaders leverage chaos for personal political gain and expect those on the side of law and order to sweep in and win the day. The real tragedy here is the growing fear now residing in the hearts of the good citizens of Baltimore, those being subjected to daily threats of deadly violence because of the disturbing and irresponsible actions of its political elite.

Baltimore Shooting Stats
Baltimore Arrests Stats

By now, most of us know the name Freddie Gray. But how many of us know the name Eladio Bennett or Kester Browne? And, how many of us have heard the name Shaquil Hinton? These are but a few of the more than 50 lives taken before their time since the death of Freddie Gray, yet their lives and untimely passing have drawn but a sliver of the attention paid to Freddie Gray.

We can’t help the good citizens of Baltimore, and America’s many struggling inner cities, if we are afraid to shine a spotlight on the real problem. The problem is an organized far-left cabal, which has hijacked the party of JFK, and an opposing political party with few leaders willing to confront them. The organized far-left has accurately calculated that they can leverage chaos and use it to place blame, and divide us into their (not our) pre-selected racial, cultural, religious, gender, and sexual preference silos. They also use this blame strategy to highlight the fictitious failings of our system of government, bed-rocked in freedom and individual liberty. Then, once the division and blame propaganda has set in, with few in the mainstream media willing to fight back against this narrative, they propose a better way “forward” where, conveniently, they are empowered, not you.

The new “way forward” relies on more of your money going to them through higher taxes and expensive government programs. It takes away your ability to make basic health care decisions for your family, and it orders your child to attend the school they choose, not the one you choose. If you were designing a system to fail then you couldn’t design it any better than this “way forward.”

It’s not just the political penalty we pay, where we lose control over our money through their relentless push for government empowerment subsequent to a crisis, we can also lose our lives. The complete lack of leadership in Baltimore and the constant apologies for lawbreakers who were given “room to destroy,” while ensuring an expedited rush to judgment for the police officers involved in the Freddie Gray incident, has broken what has made this country the global, historical exception; fidelity to process. Process, and the rule of law and order, has enabled us to prosper economically and become a global example for freedom and liberty. When this process breaks down and we become a country of rule by discretion, rather than rule by law, the entire system breaks down and it filters down to the police officers on the street.

Having been a law enforcement officer with the N.Y.P.D. and the U.S. Secret Service I have seen first-hand the dangers law enforcement officers knowingly face every day for little money, and even less accolades. All these men and women ask is that the cities and towns they have pledged to protect and serve grant them the same process and legal rights as the citizens they protect. I don’t know what happened behind those doors of the van Freddie Gray was placed in and, if it turns out that the officers involved committed a crime, then they should be prosecuted. But, when far-left legal scholars and conservative thought leaders agree that the charges leveled against the police officers by Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby were political, and not firmly based on evidence, then we have a serious problem.

Police officers are an intelligent lot and they see this street justice prosecution as a direct attack on their ability to fight crime. Police officers are given tremendous discretion to combat crime and do their jobs and they are not legally mandated to arrest every person for every violation of the law they witness. I can imagine a scenario where many of these formerly discretionary police actions for non-violent, nuisance-crime-type activities, are not happening because the officers feel that the city of Baltimore will not be on their side if a police action for public urination turns into a use-of-force scenario. Sadly, it is this man or woman, who is engaged in this nuisance crime, and who is not confronted by law enforcement, that is typically the one who walks out of the alley and robs, rapes or kills someone.

In short, politicians and government are the problem in Baltimore, not the citizens. Nothing will change in Baltimore until the political leaders, who worship at the altar of big government are replaced by those who believe that the future of Baltimore is in the hands of the liberty of its citizens, fidelity to the rule of law, order and process, and not the permission of its government.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review. The featured image of the Mayor of Baltimore is by Patrick Semansky | AP Photo.

Baltimore: From Charm City to Deadly City

Baltimore’s 40th murder in May set a new record for homicides in one month.

My friend wrote…

Lloyd,

The American Legion National Convention is scheduled for late August through early September, 2015 in Baltimore City.

Sad to say, I have canceled my reservations as I do not think the Convention is worth the risk to my life as I was very much looking forward to the Convention. Many others of American Legion are canceling due to high risk of being shot and/or killed.

I would very much appreciate your thoughts as you grew up there. No doubt , is a terrible shame to see a great City, Baltimore, go down due to liberal Democrats being in charge for the past 4 decades

Keep the Faith, Brother”

My reply…

Hey Brother, You are wise for staying away from sin city (Baltimore). Baltimore police are reluctant to do their job for fear of being arrested. Clearly, the mayor is allowing the inmates to run the asylum. The only thing the vile local Democrat government cares about is protecting their liberal narrative. Baltimore’s mayor considers lives and businesses acceptable collateral damage. It is shameful and evil.

God bless,

Lloyd

My wife Mary said perhaps Baltimore will come to it’s senses upon realizing the financial consequences (at least $20 million) of allowing the thugs to wreck havoc. I said to her, you are mistaken oh wise and beautiful one. The liberal zealots running Baltimore do not give a rat’s derriere about consequences financial or otherwise. All that matters is furthering their liberal socialist/progressive big government controlling everything and everyone agenda. If Leftists are nothing else, they are persistent, patient and unshakably focused on achieving their goals.

For crying out loud, the Baltimore Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby is running around acting like an anti-police pit bull, giving speeches in churches to rally the black community against the police. Dear Lord what evil has overtaken my former home town? What has so emboldened Leftist Democrats to dismiss all pretense of fairness and legality, openly displaying their liberal bias and intentions?

Before I moved to Florida fifteen years ago, Baltimore was promoted as “Charm City”. I received a citation from former Mayor Kurt Schmoke for the song I wrote about my beloved city. A CD of my song “Hello Baltimore” was included in the city’s Bicentennial time capsule.

Visiting Baltimore five years after I moved, a black Baltimore cop friend told me crime had gotten much worse. He said metal detectors were installed in public schools and almost every black nightclub. This does not support the Left’s claim that cops are the problem.

My brother said his white girlfriend won tickets for a show at the famous Hippodrome theater. The riots made her afraid to venture to downtown Baltimore. My brother dropped her and a female friend off at the theater door and picked them up immediately after the show.

Folks, there is a pony hidden in the pile of excrement which is Baltimore politics. The dire consequences of full blown liberalism are exposed for all the world to see.

Here’s a music video of my song “Hello Baltimore” illustrating my hometown then and now.

How Government Turned Baltimore into Pottersville by James Bovard

Baltimore’s recent riots are not surprising in a city that has long been plagued by both police brutality and one of the nation’s highest murder rates. Though numerous government policies and the rampaging looters deserve blame for the carnage, federal housing subsidies have long destabilized Baltimore neighborhoods and helped create a culture of violence with impunity.

Yet just last week, Baltimore officials were in Washington asking for more. Given the history, it defies understanding.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was created in 1965, and Baltimore received massive subsidies to build housing projects in the following years. Baltimore’s projects, like those in many other cities, became cornucopias of crime.

One 202-unit sprawling Baltimore subsidized housing project (recently slated for razing) is known as “Murder Mall.” A 1979 HUD report noted that the robbery rate in one Baltimore public housing project was almost 20 times higher than the national average. The area in and around public housing often becomes “the territory of those who do not have to be afraid — the criminals,” the report said. Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke in 1993 blamed maintenance problems at one public housing projects on drug dealers who refused to let city workers enter the buildings.

In the 1990s, the Baltimore Housing Authority began collecting lavish HUD subsidies to demolish public housing projects. But critics complained that HUD was merely replacing “vertical ghettos with horizontal ones.” Baltimore was among the first cities targeted for using Section 8 vouchers to disperse public housing residents.

HUD and the city housing agency presumed that simply moving people out of the projects was all that was necessary to end the criminal behavior of the residents. Baltimore was one of five cities chosen for a HUD demonstration project — Moving to Opportunity (MTO) — to show how Section 8 could solve the problems of the underclass.

But the relocations had “tripled the rate of arrests for property crimes” among boys who moved to new locales via Section 8. A study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that boys in Section 8 households who moved to new neighborhoods were three times more likely to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and behavioral problems than boys in the control group.

A 2009 research project on Section 8 published in Homicide Studies noted that in the one city studied, “Crime, specifically homicide, became displaced to where the low-income residents were relocated. Homicide was simply moved to a new location, not eliminated.”

Ed Rutkowski, head of a community development corporation in one marginal Baltimore neighborhood, labeled Section 8 “a catalyst in neighborhood deterioration and ghetto expansion” in 2003.

Regardless of its collateral damage, Section 8 defines Valhalla for many Baltimoreans. Receiving a Section 8 voucher can enable some recipients to live rent-free in perpetuity. Because recipients must pay up to a third of their income for rent under the program, collecting Section 8 sharply decreases work effort, according to numerous economic studies.

Last October, when the local housing agency briefly allowed people to register for the program, it was deluged with 73,509 applications. Most of the applications were from families — which means that a third of Baltimore’s 241,455 households sought housing welfare. (Almost 10% of Baltimoreans are already on the housing dole.) Section 8 is not an entitlement, so the city will select fewer than 10,000“winners” from the list.

HUD’s Federal Housing Administration also has a long history of destabilizing neighborhoods in Baltimore and other big cities. A HUD subsidized mortgage program for low-income borrowers launched in 1968 spurred so many defaults and devastation that Carl Levin, then Detroit City Council president and later a long-term U.S. senator, derided the program in 1976 as “Hurricane HUD.

In the late 1990s, more than 20% of FHA mortgages in some Baltimore neighborhoods were in default — leading one activist to label Baltimore “the foreclosure capital of the world.” HUD Inspector General Susan Gaffney warned in 2000: “Vacant, boarded-up HUD-owned homes have a negative effect on neighborhoods, and the negative effect magnifies the longer the properties remain in HUD’s inventory.”

The feds continued massive negligent mortgage lending in Baltimore after that crisis, creating fresh havoc in recent years. In late 2013, more than 40% of homes in the low-income Carrollton Ridge neighborhood were underwater. Reckless subsidized lending in Baltimore and other low-income areas helped saddle Maryland with the highest foreclosure rate in the nation by the end of last year. One in every 435 housing units in Baltimore was in foreclosure last October, according to RealtyTrac.

President Obama said the Baltimore riots showed the need for new “massive investments in urban communities.” What Baltimore needs is an investment in new thinking. The highest property taxes in the state and oppressive local regulation often make investing in jobs and businesses in Baltimore unprofitable. Only fixing that will produce a stable community. Shoveling more federal money into the city is the triumph of hope over experience.

James Bovard

James Bovard is the author of Public Policy Hooligan. His work has appeared in USA Today, where this article was first published.

Biker Shootout: Libs Going Wacko over Race in Waco

Leftists are upset about what they view as a double standard with respect to the Baltimore/Ferguson affair and the recent Waco gang shootout. They’re right, too — there sure is a double standard.

And, as usual, it’s their own.

Consider, for example, an Associated Press piece by one Jesse J. Holland titled “Differing perceptions of Waco, Baltimore bothering some.” Holland starts out writing that the “prevailing images of protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, over police killings of black men were of police in riot gear, handcuffed protesters, tear gas and mass arrests. The main images of a fatal gun battle between armed bikers and police in Waco, Texas, also showed mass arrests — carried out by nonchalant-looking officers sitting around calm bikers on cellphones.” The idea is that while the black thugs in Baltimore and Ferguson received harsh treatment and coverage, the primarily white thugs in Waco were, relatively speaking, handled with kid gloves.

But pardon my tongue, this brings us to another complaint. Holland cites people who say that while Barack Obama and other politicians called the Baltimore miscreants “thugs,” no such descriptive is applied to the white Waco punks. He mentions in particular radio and TV commentator Roland Martin, who tweeted, “So the mainstream media refuses to talk (hashtag)WacoThugs, huh?” And Martin has a point: While the black Baltimore rioters and looters were called thugs, no white Waco rioters and looters were thus characterized. I wonder, why might that be?

Oh, yeah, that’s right: there are no white rioters and looters in Waco.

Minor details such as this seem to escape the notice of two-brain-cell journalists in search of a story, but a prerequisite for having “police in riot gear” is actually having, you know, a riot. The incident in Waco was an unforeseen event, meaning, the cops had no time to don any kind of special gear.

Perhaps they don’t teach proper analogizing in journalism school, but the Waco biker thugs aren’t analogous to the Baltimore rioter thugs; rather, they’re analogous to the person the latter were rioting over: drug dealer Freddie Gray. And no one went out of his way to call Gray a thug.

Martin also lamented that we won’t have a “panel discussion on their [the bikers’] childhood” or on “fatherless homes”; no doubt, as the media will soon drop the story. This is largely because they don’t have a black-on-white racial angle to play up, but also for another reason:

Whites won’t be rallying to the defense of the biker thugs.

Matters are proceeding as they should. The police went to the scene of the crime, fired on the thugs when necessary (perhaps killing some), brought matters to a conclusion and they made arrests — 170 of them. Moreover, all people, including whites, want to see justice done. In fact, no small number of whites would no doubt say that more of the thugs should have been shot.

Oh, as for the adjectives, it’s self-evident that the Waco criminals are thugs. The reason why the point had to be made in Baltimore is that politicians, media propagandists and race-baiting activists had euphemized the rioters as “protesters” who cared about Freddie Gray (whom they would have knifed in a second for 50 bucks) and had legitimate grievances. So even Obama, in a rare and fleeting moment of lucidity, pointed out the obvious: get off it — they’re just thugs.

The irony of the Lamestream Media’s reporting on what’s a flawed conception of a double standard is that it was created by their own exercise of a true double standard. As black pundit Larry Elder reported, police shootings of black suspects are down 75 percent over the last several decades, but you wouldn’t know it from cherry-picked reportage that seems designed to incite racial unrest. Consider the following list of perspective-lending realities the media refuses to cover:

  • As Elder also wrote, “In 2012, according to the CDC, 140 blacks were killed by police. That same year 386 whites were killed by police. Over the 13-year period from 1999 to 2011, the CDC reports that 2,151 whites were killed by cops — and 1,130 blacks were killed by cops.”
  • Of course, blacks are only 13 percent of the population. So far more significantly and as this recent Washington State University study shows, police are actually more willing to shoot white than black suspects. Why? Because police know that, as Ferguson officer Darren Wilson’s experience illustrates, shooting a black criminal can mean media crucifixion, career destruction, death threats and, basically, the end of your life as you know it.
  • Black suspects are as likely to shoot at police as to be shot at.
  • Relative to whites, blacks are shot by police at a lower rate than their involvement in crime would suggest. As sociologist and ex-cop Professor Peter Moskos writes, “Adjusted for the homicide rate, whites are 1.7 times more likely than blacks [to] die at the hands of police. Adjusted for the racial disparity at which police are feloniously killed, whites are 1.3 times more likely than blacks to die at the hands of police.”
  • According to FBI statistics, 46 percent of those who’ve murdered police officers during the last decade have been black.
  • Blacks commit more than half of all murders nationwide. And 93 percent of all black homicide victims are murdered by other blacks.
  • Stories of generally “unarmed” white suspects being shot by minority police abound but are never reported nationally. There was 20-year old white man Dillon Taylor, who was shot by a Hispanic cop last year; Iraq military veteran James Whitehead, shot by off-duty black police officer Robert Arnold in Texas in 2011 after a verbal altercation; white teen Gil Collar, shot by a black officer at the University of Alabama in 2012; and 46-year-old white man John Geer, shot with his hands up (according to four police officers on the scene) by a Hispanic cop with “anger issues.”

This isn’t to imply that all the above shootings were unjust, but such a standard is hardly necessary for the media to play the race card when reporting the rare white-on-black shootings. In fact, the media will trumpet the causes of obvious thugs, such as Ferguson’s Michael Brown, Baltimore’s Freddie Gray and Trayvon Martin, even in the face of evidence that thugs are precisely what they are.

Speaking of which, what do you think about the coverage of that unarmed 17-year-old shot by that grown man?

No, not cute little Trayvon.

Seventeen-year-old white kid Chris Cervini, shot by black martial artist Roderick Scott in Greece, NY, in 2009. Scott is built like a brick outhouse and admits Cervini never laid a hand on him, but says he thought his life could be in danger. He was acquitted by a mostly white jury, and I don’t question the verdict. But the verdict on the media is clear:

Guilty of using lies that have evoked hatred, fomented racial unrest, sparked riots, caused property destruction and led to innocent people’s deaths.

Guilty of gross malpractice and, by proxy, murder.

Guilty of being destroyers of civilization that have no moral right to exist.

Yes, #MediaLiesMatter.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

The dirty little secret no one wants to admit about Baltimore

The population of Baltimore is 622,000 and 63 percent of its population is black. The mayor, state’s attorney, police chief and city council president are black, as is 48 percent of the police force. But as 36-year-old Robert Stokes says, “You look around and see unemployment. Filling out job applications and being turned down because of where you live and your demographic. It’s so much bigger than the police department.”

Everyone wants to have an honest conversation about race, so let’s us endeavor to do just that. Now, of course, when you speak the hard truth about race issues in America – and not just the liberal progressive talking points – and you’re white, you’ll be branded a racist. And if you’re black, well, y’all just watch the comments below and see the denigrating drivel.

As posted on Breitbart.com by John Nolte, “Contrary to the emotional blackmail some leftists are attempting to peddle, Baltimore is not America’s problem or shame. That failed city is solely and completely a Democrat problem.”

“Like many failed cities, Detroit comes to mind, and every city besieged recently by rioting, Democrats and their union pals have had carte blanche to inflict their ideas and policies on Baltimore since 1967, the last time there was a Republican Mayor. In 2012, after four years of his own failed policies, President Obama won a whopping 87.4% of the Baltimore city vote. Democrats run the city of Baltimore, the unions, the schools, and, yes, the police force. Since 1969, there have only been only been two Republican governors of the State of Maryland. Elijah Cummings has represented Baltimore in the U.S. Congress for more than thirty years.”

“As I write this, despite his objectively disastrous reign, the Democrat-infested mainstream media is treating the Democrat like a local folk hero, not the obvious and glaring failure he really is. Every single member of the Baltimore city council is a Democrat. Liberalism and all the toxic government dependence and cronyism and union corruption and failed schools that comes along with it, has run amok in Baltimore for a half-century, and that is Baltimore’s problem. It is the free people of Baltimore who elect and then re-elect those who institute policies that have so spectacularly failed that once-great city. It is the free people of Baltimore who elected Mayor “Space-to-Destroy”.

Mr. Nolte is white and we all know the invectives which will be hurled his way — but he is absolutely correct.

I was watching the news reports from Baltimore and hearing all the condemnations from some about being kept down and the lack of jobs, opportunity, good schools — then why do these blacks keep voting for the same people? And this isn’t a phenomenon isolated to Baltimore.

Every single major urban center in America is run by Democrats — more specifically, liberal progressives, black or white. The morass that became Detroit. The killing fields of Chicago. The depravity of Washington DC. The shame of South Dallas. And yes, even the place that was once my home, Atlanta — even with all the successful black entertainers.

Now, I remember the first black mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson. That guy was a leader and even spoke at my high school Baccalaureate. But today, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has done such a bang-up job that the Atlanta Braves are moving to Cobb County!

Just do the assessment yourselves, who are the elected officials heading up the urban centers? And where does one find the most dire socio-economic statistics?

Yet we hear these rioters blame whites — well, they need to make sure they’re specifically blaming the correct whites — those on the left. Blacks have been herded into these inner city clusters, a new economic plantation and in this 50th year of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society — well, the unintended, or maybe intended, consequences are deplorable.

But Mr. Nolte does bring up an interesting comparative analysis. He writes:

“Poverty has nothing to do with it. This madness and chaos and anarchy is a Democrat-driven culture that starts at the top with a racially-divisive White House heartbreakingly effective at ginning up hate and violence. Where I currently reside here in Watauga County, North Carolina, the poverty level is 31.3%. Median income is only $34,293. In both of those areas we are much worse off than Baltimore, that has a poverty rate of only 23.8% and a median income of $41,385. Despite all that, we don’t riot here in Watauga County. Thankfully, we have not been poisoned by the same left-wing culture that is rotting Baltimore, and so many other cities like it, from the inside out. We get along remarkably well. We are neighbors. We are people who help out one another. We take pride in our community, and are grateful for what we do have. We are far from perfect, but we work out our many differences in civilized ways. Solutions are our goal, not cronyism, narcissistic victimhood, and the blaming of others.”

The truth is that it is a culture of dependency as promulgated by the race baiters and new plantation overseers of the inner city that has created what we’re seeing play out in Baltimore. There is where the blame lies, but there are very few who are willing to admit just that.

Remember what ESPN sports commentator Stephen A. Smith said? He wished that for one voting cycle, the black community would vote Republican. Heck, they could do no worse — and look, even the people of the state of Maryland decided to try something different and elected a Republican governor. Who, when finally asked, immediately activated the National Guard to quell the violence and chaos which the Democrat Mayor of Baltimore failed to comprehend, and control. Perhaps what we’re witnessing in Baltimore is the pure definition of insanity — continuing to do the same thing and expect different results.

Yes, the dirty little secret that no one wants to admit is that Baltimore, and so many other urban areas and inner city communities in America are a reflection of the abject failure of liberal progressive socialist policies as advanced by the Democrat party.

The preeminent question is whether or not those in Baltimore and other places will recognize who is truly responsible for their plight. Or will they continue to be manipulated and propagandized by the liberal progressive media and the poverty pimps like the one supposedly heading down from New York City.

John Nolte’s piece was spot on and this is not about an American failure, it is about a Democrat failure. And ask yourself, who were the ones who developed the concept of urban economic empowerment zones — as opposed to the ones who have produced urban depraved enslavement zones?

Black Leadership Is On Trial In Baltimore

Last week I wrote about “Liberalism Being On Trial In Baltimore.”  In that column I talked about how all the leadership in Baltimore was Black, but yet they seem to blame all the issues surrounding Baltimore on racism and the Republican Party.  How can that be when the city is 63% Black and run by Blacks?

I argued that Baltimore has nothing to do with racism, but rather the liberal policies these Black leaders are advocating.

Let’s look at three of Baltimore’s so-called leaders, Mayor Stephanie Rawlins-Blake, Congressman Elijah Cummings, and State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby.

Aside from being mayor of Baltimore, Blake also serves as secretary of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and vice president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.  She was born and raised in Baltimore.  Her mother was a pediatrician and her father was a professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates.

She has an undergrad degree in political science and a law degree.  She served on the city council and became president of the city council before becoming mayor.

Cummings represents Baltimore as their 7th district U.S. Congressman.  He has held this position for 19 years.  Prior to that, he served in the Maryland House of Delegates.  He has an undergrad degree in political science as well as a law degree.

According to Mosby, she comes from a family of policemen that spans five generations; both her mother and father were policemen in Baltimore.  She is a lawyer by training and her position as Baltimore’s State’s Attorney is her first elective position.

All of these elected officials are liberal Black Democrats and I have one thing to say to them, “mene, mene, tekel upharsin.”

These words are taken from the book of Daniel in the Bible; it has to do with the expression, “the handwriting on the wall.”  The full text in the book of Daniel is chapter 5: 25-28, “and this is the writing that was written, mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.  This is the interpretation of the thing:  mene; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.  Tekel; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.  Peres; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

Blake’s political career is over.  She will never win another elective office.  Last week she asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch an investigation into her police department for any hint of racism and police brutality.  Really?  No, really?

You were born and raised in Baltimore and you need someone from the outside to investigate that which you already know?  According to the Baltimore Sun newspaper, “The city of Baltimore paid out judgments or settlements in more than 100 cases alleging police brutality since 2011…They have been involved in 317 lawsuits stemming from complaints of assault, false arrest, and false imprisonment…They have paid $ 5.7 million to alleged victims of police brutality between 2011 and September 2014 (coinciding with Blake’s tenure as mayor).”

So, what is it that the DOJ is going to tell you that you don’t already know?  You have truly been weighed in the balances and have been found wanting.

Cummings has been an elected official representing Baltimore for over a generation and has nothing to show for it.  Did he really just become aware of all the negative pathologies of Baltimore as a result of Freddie Gray’s death?  Cummings has helped direct hundreds of millions of dollars to Baltimore over the years for liberal programs with not a damn thing to show for it.  You too have been weighed in the balances and have been found wanting.

Mosby has displayed her lack of professionalism with her constant desire to be in front of the cameras.  During her first appearance before the media while reading the charging documents against the six policemen; she went into this rant about “to the people of Baltimore and demonstrators across America, I heard your call for no justice, no peace…your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of this young man [Freddie Gray].”  Every lawyer knows this type of commentary is totally unacceptable for a prosecutor.  She should be brought before the Maryland Bar for ethics violations and should be sanctioned.  She too has been weighed in the balances and have been found wanting.

If the residents of Baltimore do not vote each of these people out of office during the next election, they have no one else to blame for the condition of their city other than themselves.  Elected and non-elected Blacks have presided over the destruction of their own community and now want to blame others for their condition.

Everyday, supposed Black leaders are selling out the very people they claim to represent.  They are aggressively pushing a homosexual agenda that is in contradiction to the Black church; they are promoting amnesty for illegals while the Black unemployment rate continues to be in double digits; they are constantly sentencing Black school kids to non-performing schools because they are beholden to the teacher’s unions.

The current Black leadership both in Baltimore and nationally has been weighed in the balances and has been found wanting.

RELATED ARTICLE: 4 US Cities Cited as Most Violent in the World. Do You Know What They Have in Common?

Black Privilege

Is white privilege really the problem? I explore another possibility.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Ebony magazine.

Endless Racial Discord

When I look back at the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, I marvel at how naïve I was that the passage of major legislation was going to “solve” the problem of discord between the white and black race.

On May 3, the Wall Street Journal reported on a survey regarding racial disturbances around the nation such as those that wracked Baltimore. “A resounding 96% of adults surveyed said it was likely there would be additional racial disturbances this summer…” To nobody’s surprise, blacks and whites “viewed the situation differently.”

“Asked to choose between two possible explanations for recent events, 60% of blacks said they reflected ‘long-standing frustrations about police mistreatment of African-Americans.’” Some 27% of black respondents said they thought the disturbances were caused by people as an excuse “to engage in looting and violence.” I favor the latter explanation because I doubt that our nation’s police forces engage in deliberate harassment and mistreatment of blacks.

Indeed, Baltimore has a back Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a black police chief, and many blacks among his force. If the issue was the police, then no city in America is safe and that is just not so. Unfortunately, the foolishness of Baltimore’s Mayor, who told the force to stand down and let the rioters have their way, was then demonstrated by her request that the Department of Justice (DOJ) launch an investigation of the city’s police force.

The problem with that is that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has only fifty employees responsible for handling labor-intensive ‘pattern or practice’ investigations among the nation’s 18,000 state and local forces. There is no way the Baltimore investigation will produce anything of useful information. It is far more likely that the outcome will be more political than demonstrative of trends.

What is generally not being noticed is that the Obama administration, as reported in Politico.com on May 8, “has opened more than twenty such investigations into local law enforcement agencies “most of which result in either a settlement agreement with local officials or a lawsuit that pushes legally binding reform.”

AA - Obama and Sharpton (1)I have come to the view that the most racially divisive leader in America is our first African-American President. Why else has Rev. Al Sharpton become his most widely recognized “adviser” and why are administration figures are less likely to be found honoring fallen police officers than the alleged black victims? Three were sent to Freddie Gray’s funeral and none to the funeral of the slain police officers. The First Lady, too, has been stirring up racial discord.

Referring to the Baltimore riot, he said that “we as a nation have to do some soul-searching” when as William McGurn of The Wall Street Journal noted the trillions spent on liberal programs, personified by LBJ’s “War on Poverty”, have not succeeded in reducing poverty and have contributed to creating whole populations that live off of government handouts of one sort or another.

“While the Great Society’s billions were creating a culture of dependency,” said McGurn, “South Korea—with its emphasis on trade and global competition—rose from the ashes of a terrible war to become the world’s 12th largest economy.” This occurred over the same time period the liberal dependency programs and liberal governance of many U.S. cities created the problem we are addressing and discussing today.

Nor is the answer for the federal government to take over the management of the nation’s police forces. We have already seen how it has ruined the educational system and is now doing the same to our health system.

Are their differences between whites and blacks? Yes, but they are economic. Middle and upper class blacks share the outlook of their white counterparts. They look at the inner cities and they understand that decades of liberal governance has driven out businesses large and small, along with anyone who could afford to leave. Yes, there was “white flight”, but they were joined by blacks who saw there was no future to be had there for their children. The rest are trapped.

So, will there be more riots and disturbances in our cities this summer? Yes, that would appear to be the case. So long as police are not allowed to take action against the instigators and perpetrators, that is a given.

Not until this nation returns to the high levels of respect for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day will we see a cessation of such events. My experience and the nation’s over the past six decades is an indication that some pundit will be holding forth on this topic six decades from now…only it will be worse.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Michael Moore and the 2nd Amendment by B.K. MARCUS

Would the left support gun rights over police monopolies? 

In the wake of the Baltimore riots and the latest charges of police violence against unarmed suspects, Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore has called for disarming American cops, saying in his Twitter feed, “We have a 1/4 billion 2nd amendment guns in our homes 4 protection. We’ll survive til the right cops r hired.”

Is that an implicit endorsement of private individuals’ right to armed self-defense?

Probably not.

Moore, who became the darling of the gun-control movement in 2002 for the movie Bowling for Columbine, is an outspoken critic of the 2nd Amendment, saying that the Founders themselves would have excluded gun rights from the Constitution if they had known what firearms would become over the next two centuries:

If the Founding Fathers could have looked into a crystal ball and seen AK-47s and Glock semiautomatic pistols … I think they’d want to leave a little note behind and probably tell us, you know, that’s not really what we mean when we say “bear arms.”

It’s tempting, therefore, to dismiss Moore’s April 30th tweets as conscious hyperbole — perhaps confronting law-and-order types with the logic of their own support for gun ownership.

But if you look at the full set of Moore’s tweets on the subject, a consistent libertarian logic is evident:

  1. Government agents currently do more to endanger private citizens than they do to protect us.

  2. That oppression can only continue while the government holds a monopoly on armed violence.

  3. We need to shift the balance of power away from the state and back to the people.

Is that too much to read into one angry Twitter rant?

If Moore’s goal was to outrage the American public, he has certainly succeeded. Pro-police conservatives are jerking their knees at the far-left filmmaker’s provocations. But advocates of liberty can find at least a sliver of common cause with those who see the visible fist of government power in Baltimore and too many other American cities in recent months.

Many libertarians consider the police to be among the few legitimate roles for a night-watchman government; defense and security are necessary to protect the rights of individuals. But there is no question that the government’s most heavily armed agencies have grown well beyond the role of night watchmen, if that was ever really their function. And then there is the proliferation of armed agents to organizations like the Fisheries Office, NASA, the EPA, and the Department of Education.

As the sharing economy chips away at other cartels in our over-regulated economy, we need to accept that the police, too, need competition — and we have the opportunity right now to ally with many on the American left who are beginning to suspect the same thing.

When government agents hold a monopoly on the tools of violence, is it any wonder when they behave like a cartel? Privately owned firearms are part of the decentralized solution to both looting and the police violence that triggers the protests.

By allowing individuals to defend themselves, their homes, their businesses, and their communities from crime and rioting, they need not rely exclusively on police forces that may be ineffective or corrupt. (The famous defense of Koreatown by armed shop owners during the LA riots shows this principle at work.)

If you don’t recognize the right to armed self-defense in principle, you are either dogmatically opposed to private guns, or you think the question is pragmatic and that there is a calculus of trade-offs: which is more dangerous at the moment, armed citizens or a police monopoly?

There isn’t much say to dogmatists on the matter. But the question of practical trade-offs may resonate with those on the left who currently see the police less as protectors and more as a danger.

Would such an alliance evaporate as soon as our allies perceive themselves to be in power again? Probably. Moore doesn’t see the problem as permanent: “We’ll survive til the right cops r hired.”

But we have the opportunity right now to drive home the point that the government needs more than checks and balances within itself. The people must have the ability to defend themselves independently of the state, and that’s harder to do when the government has all the guns.

B.K. Marcus

B.K. Marcus is managing editor of the Freeman.