Attacking the Paladins

• How have we sunk so far?

  Our nations heroes are attacked and maligned for defending themselves and us from monsters.  Yet thousands protest the treatment of the monsters.  This need to demonize the cop is so paramount even the narrative of the event is changed or wholly ignored to support the requisite level of outrage.

  An entire political movement has now developed around the idea of police brutality.

  Have innocent people been arrested?  Of course.

  Have innocent people been framed by the illegal actions of law enforcement?  To say no would be the hight of folly.  Yes there are bad cops.  Just like there are bad bus drivers, bad teachers, and bad lawyers.

  The Chief of the Dallas Police dept. offered one of the most compelling suggestions to the Black Lives Matter Movement to “fix” police misconduct issues:  Become a cop.

  Of course, to become a cop one cannot be a criminal.

  (If you have arrived here from our newsletter, continue reading here:)

  Therein lies the rub.

  In the 1960’s the “useful idiots” (Lennin’s term… not mine) allied with the former Soviet Union sought to undermine our policy of Containment.

  Just to set the stage,… The Soviets were interested in international expansion and a direct confrontation with the Soviets was seen as tantamount to an existential threat to humanity.  Rather than confront them directly our goal was to prevent the expansion of Soviet Influence by supporting allied regimes throughout the world.

  Sometimes, this support was militarily as we saw in Vietnam.

  To counter the idea of Containment the Soviets supported an insurgency within the United States.  The thought was that if domestic pressure became too great the US would have to withdraw from their support of targeted countries and the Russians could march on unimpeded.

  In Vietnam this worked.  There is a legacy damage though that lives on in our country.

  We have always been a country of rugged individuals.  First and foremost though, we were Americans.  The concept of the hyphenated American is a relatively recent phenomenon.

  Now make no mistake… there was rampant racism.  What there was not though was tribalism.

  That is where we now are.

  Tribalism.

  Those brave cops in Dallas were not gunned down by a traitor…. he gave up his American card when he directed his fire at his own side.

  He was, in his own mind… a hyphenated American.  He was an “African American”… or barring that moniker, a “Black American”…. or simply “Black”.

  What he was on the most fundamental of levels was a criminal.  A criminal that idolized the violent acts of other criminals, and saw the soldiers of justice as the enemy to his idols.

  Samuel Johnson stated that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel.  I understand what he was attempting to convey, but his statement misses the mark.  Patriotism is not the last refuge…. identity politics is.

  For a “righteously aggrieved party” to be properly righteously aggrieved there must be a narrative of pure injustice.  When Michael Brown is held up as a hero for trying to surrender to a cop, only to be gun downed there is… as there ought to be… righteous indignation.  When the facts show that he was a thug that was attempting to charge and murder a cop, the drama becomes less compelling.

  So like the Soviets, we simply change history to make the anger appropriate to the cause.

  “E pluribus unum.”

  Out of many one.

  We chose that motto as a reference to our distinct colonies, but the expansive interpretation has made our nation the greatest on earth.  We are a nation of individuals… not collectivist tribes.  Yet through that recognition, that we are all individuals we establish a national identity that transcends our individualism.

  At least up until now.

  As our nation has begun to remove the identity of the individual and instead substitute the identity of the sub-group our allegiance is more to the tribe than to the whole.

  This is a catastrophic development when it comes to the concept of the nation-state… when that same nation-state has become a spikette for the transfer of wealth from one tribe to another an inherent tension develops.  When the resources that are doled out become scarce, or the flow is threatened the tensions are exacerbated to the point of armed conflict.

  Still,…there are those that stand as guardians against the chaos.

  Paladins that are sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the ideals and dignity of the individual.  Sworn to prohibit the rule by tyrants.  Regardless if that tyrant be elected in office, or roaming the streets as a criminal.