I’ve mostly ignored what’s been happening in Ferguson because, like the George Zimmerman trial, I feel the incident was used to manipulate us and to divide us. I intended to do the same with the Eric Garner protests, particularly after I saw the protesters holding up pre-printed signs – that’s just too overproduced for me to take seriously. (When I and tens of thousands of others protested Obamacare in DC, I spent hours making signs as did thousands of others – I don’t recall any pre-printed signs – I’m sure there were plenty of them given the long lead time to the rally, but I just remember being surrounded by poster boards just like mine and thinking of how many man hours went into each one.) However, after I read that Eric Garner was the “Loosie King of Staten Island,” I had to see for myself what happened.
I am, like many libertarians, horrified by the very idea of a 100%+ tax on anything for the purposes of controlling behavior and to generate revenue to be used to support a state that does more harm than good. After seeing the video, I have a lot to say about it – Garner’s behavior, the cops’ behavior, the underlying alleged crime, the race issue, government and media coverage, etc., so I’ll be leading off the show tomorrow with this story and would love it if you would check out the video. It’s embedded in this video from The Advise Show, which I never heard of before and didn’t even listen to, so I’m not highlighting the commentary, I just watched the video from 1:00 to 5:26 to see the actual footage of the incident.
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“You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” – Martin Luther King.
It makes me mad to listen to RADIO TALK SHOW hosts about Mr.Garners death. I come away with the feeling that the talk show hosts places the full blame on Mr.Garner. The talk show hosts says over and over again the dead man was fighting the police. I never saw him fighting. He was pleading to be left alone.I believe police work is the most necessary job in our country today. A form of execution during the Salem Witch Trials was to place heavy stones on the person until they could not breath.It was not the take down that killed Mr. Garner, it was being hand cuffed behind his back with much weight pushing down on him. It was a shame that with such superior manpower and other means to subdue, that this ending happened.
Could they ,not have simply, A. surrounded him with Riot Shields and talked him into compliance,B.used netting .C.used a Goo cannon. Simply being faced with these tactics Mr. Garner may have chosen to give up. The E.M.S.personal were slow to react if at all to save his life.Was the pretty young female there to check his pulse to declare time of death? I don`t think so. I THINK she was convinced by officers that MR. Garner was playing possum. Many errors made and for this reason I hope Mrs Garner gets much money from the city. I am sad his wife and six children have lost a husband and father.