Fiddling While America Burns

From my archived blog (June 2020) at donaldjeffries.wordpress.com

Note: I’ve recently been losing instead of gaining paid subscribers here. This Substack was set up inadvertently when I added a pay option to my primary “I Protest” Substack donaldjeffries.substack.com. I add new content there regularly. I have a huge backlog of older articles, which I thought might be of interest to readers. Thus, that is what I’ve been using this Substack for, since I can’t figure out how to delete it, and it now has a good number of subscribers as well. If you have any other suggestions for how I can use this Substack, please let me know.

Thus far, 2020 has been a sci-fi dystopian nightmare. Six months ago, how many people would have believed the images of human beings wearing masks everywhere, while carefully keeping six feet apart from each other? Who could have imagined something like “social distancing?”

But within the last week, the COVID-19 production has been replaced by nationwide riots, ignited by white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin grinding his knee into the neck of an alleged forger, George Floyd, long enough to kill him. Lloyd was Black, so the state-controlled media jumped on the story like a rabid animal.

The media and sycophantic politicians were quick to drum home the point that “institutional racism” was at fault. In conjunction with Donald Trump, of course, who does nothing much more than Tweet continuously, but is blamed for everything by these Social Justice Warriors. While videos have shown a fairly diverse group of protesters, Blacks are clearly the predominant group, and the prolific graffiti desecrating the likes of the Lincoln Memorial all share the “Black Lives Matter” and/or “Evil White Racists” theme.

Lost in the furor was the fact that the Floyd death was not even that egregious, when compared to the countless unnecessary deaths of unarmed civilians at the hands of police officers. Since 2017, 2,855 civilians in this country have been killed by cops. 1268 were White, 571 were “unknown” or “other,” 518 were Black, and 498 were Hispanic. Somehow, from those official numbers; the press, our laughable politicians, and deluded celebrities have concluded that “cops are killing Black men.”

They are killing Black men, but more accurately, they’re killing even more non-Blacks. And the important point should be that these “public servants” have killed nearly 3,000 Americans in less than three years. By contrast, police in Norway haven’t killed a single person in over a decade.

Most Americans don’t realize that the Supreme Court ruled in 1981 that police are not there to protect us. So, the old “protect and serve” thing hasn’t applied since then. Once widespread looting and destruction of property began in cities all over the nation this week, police simply let it happen. For days, they didn’t even attempt to stop the vandalism and theft. Firefighters were just as useless, as their superiors claimed it was “unsafe” for them to put out the many fires set by rioters.

So, if we can’t depend on police to stop mass looting and destruction, exactly what are we paying them for? The Supreme Court has already ruled that they aren’t there to protect us. So what are they there for? Why are we giving these often psychopathic bullies guns and unlimited authority? Under the policing for profit system, their primary purpose is to issue as many traffic citations as possible. Most of them seldom encounter a truly threatening situation. So it’s no wonder they don’t know how to quell disturbances involving thousands of angry, potentially violent people.

The riots have managed to push the world’s most dangerous virus into the background. And all those virtue signalers who lashed out at the anti-lockdown protests for their alleged “racism,” and failure to “social distance,” have been as quiet as church mice over these much larger crowds, which are jammed together in pre- COVID fashion. Now, it’s not “irresponsible,” or endangering anyone’s safety, to protest. Now, it’s a precious right. The only difference is what’s being protested, and who’s doing the protesting.

While we were all distracted with nonstop coverage of the riots, the World Health Organization issued a statement saying that only those with COVID symptoms, or who had been around those with the virus, should be wearing masks. No healthy people should. So why is everyone still wearing a mask? Why are states like mine, Virginia, requiring anyone entering an establishment to wear one? Does this make any sense? Why should any of us trust those making such stupid decisions?

If the COVID Plandemic can serve any purpose, it’s to pull the mask off of our largely anonymous leaders at the state and local levels. Americans can see clearly just how incompetent and corrupt those who rule our lives with their laws, mandates, and restrictions, actually are. We are responsible for their salaries, much as we are paying police and firefighters. Most of them are making a lot more than the taxpayers who pay them. And virtually all have much better benefits and more lucrative pensions.

The old expression “you get what you pay for” doesn’t seem to apply to public servants in America. On the contrary, we pay pretty well, but get virtually nothing in return. Except for possibly being harassed by a cop, anxious to meet his monthly quota, over an illegal u-turn or failing to come to a complete stop at an empty intersection. Politically, we have had “taxation without representation” for a very long time. Ironic that this was on of the primary reasons why the Founders fought for independence. You’re lucky to be able to get a phone call through to one of our pointless bureaucratic government agencies. Doesn’t quite seem worth it.

It should bring us to tears, or laughter, depending upon one’s perspective, to watch rioters stealing and throwing things with impunity, while dutifully wearing their masks of submission. The fact that so many more Americans are willing to hit the streets over “racism,” including many Whites, than they were to protest an unwarranted, unconstitutional closure of businesses and implementation of draconian “social distancing” rules tells us all we need to know.

To those of us who think we’re “awake,” the fact that we’re vastly outnumbered by our slumbering, “socially conscious” peers is a sobering thought. Why continue to try to wake them up? They not only don’t notice the tyranny, they are willing to fight for it. They parrot meaningless, wildly inaccurate slogans like “white privilege” because they obviously are persuaded by the ludicrous propaganda of Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, and all the other professional “journalists.” They aren’t persuaded by any evidence we provide, and instead dismiss us as “conspiracy theorists” or “wackos,” just like the professional “journalists.”

We have no one to fight for us. Those still clinging to QAnon fantasies, and imagining a group of powerful “white hats” riding in to save the day, are in denial of a harsh reality. That reality is that our rigged electoral process doesn’t give any of us a voice. All winning candidates are a part of the problem, or they wouldn’t have won.

If there were any “white hats” in positions of prominence, they would have exposed the COVID fraud a long time ago. Instead, both “liberals” and “conservatives” abide by ridiculous rules that are unenforceable, because they were never passed as any law. By this standard, a governor or a mayor could simply decree that all persons appearing in pubic henceforth must wear a giant pointed hat. That would make just as much sense, and have as much legal authority.

As Barney Fife once said, “the first rule is: obey all rules.” That kind of satirical authoritarianism used to be incredibly funny. It isn’t funny when it happens in real life. Barney used to make a big deal over jaywalking. The writers on The Andy Griffith Show used that particular crime because it was so trivial. In recent years, the same kind of out of control cops who killed George Floyd have done things like shoot a deaf jaywalker in the back, because he didn’t turn around when they shouted at him. And the brave officer who killed him called for “backup,” as they invariably do when abusing helpless elderly people, those in wheelchairs, or homeless drunks.

An honest “dialogue” about police would note that virtually all police departments have been guilty of excusing the most reprehensible conduct of their officers, including murder, by defending them as acting “appropriately.” Our police forces desperately need strong civilian oversight, and new management across the board. Policing for profit needs to be abolished. They need to be converted back into the “peace officers” they once were. We don’t need “law enforcement,” when the only laws being enforced are harmless traffic violations or victimless drug offenses.

An honest “dialogue” about race would urge that our legal system establish consistent sentences for every offense for everyone. No exceptions for race or wealth, both of which corrupt our injustice system. The disparity in sentencing, the arrogant and political bias of judges, and the shocking regularity with which jurors find defendants guilty on the most dubious evidence imaginable, should frighten anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves sitting in one of our courts.

Considering how putrid all the institutions in America currently are, we should welcome a cleansing, a hard reboot. The problem is, the ones who are seemingly bringing the system down on purpose will be running what replaces it. And the prospect of contact tracers, mandatory vaccinations, are the antithesis of the massive reforms that are needed.

It isn’t just Donald Trump emulating Nero with a fiddle. The entire political and business world is joining him. So are the media and clueless celebrities. They say the band kept playing as the Titanic sank. America is sinking, while the entire country whistles and sings.