Not Getting It

The President fails to understand the shooting in Dallas, in two different and predictable ways.
The president met for nearly two hours with leaders of eight law enforcement groups Monday, informing them that he considered the killing of the five police officers in Dallas on Thursday “a hate crime” and that he would work actively to serve as an intermediary between minority activists and police.

“I’m your best hope,” Obama remarked at one point, according to the Fraternal Order of Police’s James O. Pasco, one of the meeting’s attendees.
Once more, it's all about him and his unique and pivotal role in human history. I'm reminded of his comments at the time of the financial crisis that he was the 'only one between the banks and the pitchforks.'

The far more dangerous misunderstanding is the idea that this was a "hate crime." This was not a crime in the ordinary sense of the word. It was an act of war. It was not a terrorist attack either, but a guerrilla attack that was consonant with most of the provisions of the Geneva Conventions -- especially if you include Protocol I, which the United States has not ratified, but which intends to clarify the status of guerrillas in the laws of war. The only questionable provision is the one requiring them to be under the command of a central authority: this group may have had a commanding officer among them, but it does not appear to have been part of a larger movement. Their status is therefore unclear pending the resolution of that question, and whether a 'central' authority can be derived from such a small group.

The reason this is important is not to say that the shootings were morally better or worse than a terrorist attack or a hate crime. That's a debatable question at best, and one that can be set aside completely at the moment. The reason that it's important is that the solution set is different. If it's a terrorist attack, you kill the terrorists. Terrorists are hostis humani generis. They target civilians, destroy the infrastructure on which life depends, and so forth. This attack waited until civilians dispersed, and targeted only armed agents of the state.

If it's a hate crime, you can be satisfied with merely arresting and prosecuting the hateful criminals. That sets a standard of what is acceptable within the community that will be persuasive, such that even those who are hateful will mostly be motivated by the fear of punishment not to commit such crimes.

A guerrilla swims in a sea of popular support, however. A guerrilla movement cannot exist without such a sea, as Mao pointed out. If you are dealing with a guerrilla movement, you need to address the underlying problems that are giving rise to the support for the killers.

It should be clear from the reaction nationwide that there is a sea for these fish to swim in. Likewise, the fact that "20 to 30" people brought rifles to the BLM protest suggests that there is a strong message being sent to the government that it has reached the limits of patience, and that armed force is the next option. I support such armed, peaceful protests. It's true that armed protesters can confuse police in the case of an actual attack. In that case, the police are justified in treating armed protesters as shooters until they prove themselves otherwise. But it is important that the government recognize that this willingness to take that kind of risk onto one's self is an indicator that political legitimacy has become strained. Legitimacy derives from consent of the governed. A polity that brings rifles to confront the government is still consenting to be governed: they are lawfully protesting and not shooting. But they are an important warning siren that the limits of consent have been reached, and the government should reform itself.

Ultimately I think it would make more sense for the armed protesters from the III% movement and the ones from the BLM movement to get together, and present a unified challenge to a government that has grown accustomed to exceeding its authority. A shift to a more consensual model of government would benefit all of us. There is a common flaw in the approach that gives rise to BLM -- that's "Bureau of Land Management" -- abuses out West, and the shift by localities into using police to generate revenue through the constant extraction of fines.

Nor have I any patience for the liberal/progressive tendency to sing songs of love for BLM -- that's "Black Lives Matter" -- while suggesting that they should definitely disarm themselves and pursue only fully peaceful and nonviolent resistance. If you really respect what they're doing, have the decency to recognize their right to arms. Free citizens don't submit to tyranny, nor are they under any moral obligation to endure it peacefully while begging for relief. Martin Luther King, Jr., was as successful as he was in part because he could point to the crazy radicals like Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. 'Deal with my movement of Christians adhering to ordinary middle-class morality,' he did not even have to say, 'or, if you will not work with us, deal with the radicals your resistance to change creates.' If you really want to see change, rich white progressives, you should be glad to see this dynamic emerging. Your attempt to marry gun control to loud public signalling of your support for BLM sounds to me like an attempt to slip in submission to your own preferred moral scheme -- a centralized, powerful government with authority to regulate all aspects of American life, and with the sole claim to the legitimate use of force. If you really care about this as you claim to do, progressives, have the courage to dare a potentially revolutionary conflict.

Sometimes violence is a good thing. Violent resistance to overbearing authority gave us Magna Carta, the Declaration of Arbroath, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. None of those things would have existed without men taking up arms to fight for liberty against powerful authority. Political violence also often leads to bad results. You should recognize, however, that this particular moment is not a moment of crime, or hate, or terrorism. Those solutions aren't adequate or appropriate to this situation.

6 comments:

Ymar Sakar said...

https://www.oathkeepers.org/navyjack-hacked-messages-discuss-the-plan-for-a-black-lives-matter-summer-of-chaos-leading-to-martial-law/

More ambitious than the co dependence relationship between police unions and BLM I described, but certainly within the Left's reserve of power to be feasible for them to do.

Oathkeepers have been the right kind of paranoid for some time now. They had snipers on Ferguson roofs, for example, keeping the riots under watch in case it spread to certain areas.

Ymar Sakar said...

Ultimately I think it would make more sense for the armed protesters from the III% movement and the ones from the BLM movement to get together, and present a unified challenge to a government that has grown accustomed to exceeding its authority.

BLM is an arm of Hussein Obola and the Leftist alliance. The 3% ers are enemies of the Left and the Leftist alliance. Both of the BLM work for Hussein and by extension, are Leftists.

Trying to get BLM as your "allies", Grim, shows just how suspect your sources of information and intel are, given the nature of the enemy. Wanting enemies as allies, might make sense if your enemies were fighting amongst themselves. BLM isn't fighting Hussein, and neither is the Left fighting against BLM. Either BLM.

Eric Blair said...

So what sources of "intel" are you using?

C'mon. I don't think that BLM and Cliven Bundy's crowd is going to get along in any meaningful way, but at least Grim's suggestion is a starting point.

I don't see anything from you but Internet-tough-guy bloviating. At least Grim has gone places and done things.

Grim said...

If the Sunni tribes can be disaggregated from AQI and convinced to fight alongside the Shi'a-led ISF -- at least for a while, as long as we were there to guarantee fair treatment -- I don't see any American divisions as harder to cross than that.

What's Obama ever done for them besides talk? As you say yourself, the III%ers put rifles on rooftops to protect people's homes in Ferguson.

Ymar Sakar said...

C'mon. I don't think that BLM and Cliven Bundy's crowd is going to get along in any meaningful way, but at least Grim's suggestion is a starting point.

This isn't the first time Grim has suggested that BLivesM are potential allies.

Bundy is a Mormon Christian, specifically Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. The 3% movement either isn't with Bundy officially, or membership between the Bundy stake out, the FBI counter terror SPLC CAIR controlled wing, and the 3% movement + Oathkeepers overlap so much there's no way to tell which faction is telling the truth or what the truth is. 3% blogs, suggest Bundy is being "controlled" by inside agents of the feds, for example. The suspicion has warrant and backing to it, given previous fed operations, but the timing is off. In Waco 2, the feds or local state probably had some inside agents setting it up. They tend to be very quick at crushing them though, since the longer the covert agent is inside, the more chances somebody has of finding out and getting rid of said agent. Some federal alphabet soup agency also infiltrated the Weather Underground. The FBI, due to the sub director that got rid of Nixon, also raided Ayers' house illegally, which set him free.

If EB is asking me what my sources are, you can infer based on my statements what they are. There's no reason for me to describe what I use on a public open net format.

If the Sunni tribes can be disaggregated from AQI and convinced to fight alongside the Shi'a-led ISF -- at least for a while, as long as we were there to guarantee fair treatment -- I don't see any American divisions as harder to cross than that.

Like I said, that's because the Sunni tribes began fighting the AQ factions they somehow allowed in to fight the oppressors (you and the US military). Until that happened, the Al Anbar Awakening was a pipe dream.

The precise reason Al Anbar tribes agreed to American adjudication was because they didn't trust the Shia, the government, or the Kurds. America's outsider status was why the Al Anbar Sunni tribes agreed, because American martial might had proven its promises (until betrayed years later).

That hasn't happened for your ideal on BLM, Grim. Hence, your intel about the situation is wrong. Either that or your entire judgment is wrong because of too much hope and not enough assessment of the factions and their behavior in the US.

Ymar Sakar said...

What's Obama ever done for them besides talk? As you say yourself, the III%ers put rifles on rooftops to protect people's homes in Ferguson.

Those rifles were pointed at the black activists and rioters, not at the peaceful protesters and police.

The Oathkeepers had already assessed the mass riots as being Hussein's pawn and or false flag op. Thus they would consider any leader of BLM or any Black Activist or Black Panther look alike, to be part of the same enemy as they consider Hussein Obola.

This should be easier for you, Grim, to infer via deductive analysis, as these are supposedly your fellow Countrymen. After all, the Shia were Al Anbar Sunni's fellow countrymen as well. Sometimes, that makes conflicts easier, not harder. Understanding the enemy doesn't make one more sympathetic to the enemy at times.

As for EB, I could wonder why you ask me what my sources are, since Grim who has gone and done stuff, would have more reliable sources for your interest. I could also wonder where EB has gone and done stuff that qualifies him to judge, but frankly that line of investigation doesn't interest me. You have nothing to offer me or my cause, EB. And nothing you've said in the last 7 years, has proven me wrong. Do you think I need more years to gather more sources to decide otherwise...