Plain Wrong Again

Another unarmed Black man, Jacob Blake, shot by police. Shot seven times in the back. It was a domestic call not a school shooting. Apparently not one of the police officers thought of physically restraining the victim. We can’t use choke holds so let ‘s shoot him. We have a choice: shoot him or choke him to death. There is no in between. The police unions will be at the forefront of the defense of these officers telling America this is what we can expect when we criticize police tactics.

Racism drives this kind of policing. How many white boys were choked to death or shot this week? Zero. The whole legal system from arrest, bail, conviction and incarceration is loaded against Black Americans. When Black citizens show up with guns they are arrested when white ones show up, they go to the Republican convention. Racism permeates our society from birth until death, and Black Americans are treated differently. We can’t even treat them the same in the health care system. The virus has killed disproportionately more Black Americans than white Americans.

We have systemic racism because people who are part of institutions, corporate and public are racist. The Rule of Law is the rule of racism. Blacks are arrested at a higher rate than whites. Blacks are more likely not to get bail. Blacks are more likely not to get legal representation. Blacks are more likely to enter a guilty plea or be convicted and are more likely to go to jail. But they entered a guilty plea isn’t that a confession, Sure just like General Michael Flynn. A guy who knows the difference between right and wrong, you can’t get to be a general being stupid or a crook right. So why didn’t he get prison. Oh, he’s white and he worked for Donald Trump, head dissembler and corrupt president.

The racism that exists in the United States predates Madison’s republic. We had slaves before we had white revolution against oppressive tax collectors. The Constitution idealized by those who have never read it made slaves three/fifths of a person, legalized slavery and gave the southerners the Fugitive Slave Act. The Constitution has no checks and balances. George Mason, delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Virginia, warned Madison the Constitution’s checks and balances don’t exist when the president and the Senate are controlled by the same faction. The Constitution legalized slavery, and could only be amended to end it by the deaths of 750,000 Americans. Despite the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments the federal government was unable to stop the resurgence of white racist governments. Maybe it wasn’t a failure of the Amendments maybe it was failure in law enforcement. A failure of the legal system.

Qualified immunity is a legal scam. It permits and sanctions police conduct that is inconsistent with good policing, democratic expectations of good policing and moral norms. Do we sanction murder to protect us from illegal cigarette sales, and traffic stops?

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