While it might not be popular to say in the wake of the recent social disorder, the true plight of black people has little or nothing to do with the police or what has been called “systemic racism.” Instead, we need to look at the responsibilities of those running our big cities.
After reading the article in your June 9, 2020 issue [“Demonstrations end peacefully with messages of unity, justice”], I had to let you know how proud I am of Lampasas and the way it is handling some of the issues that are so divisive elsewhere. Congratulations!
In the wake of the murder/ manslaughter of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and the nationwide protests and riots that have claimed 21 lives, there is a growing movement to defund or even to abolish the police in municipalities across America.
What comes of a nation whose newspaper of record publicly caves to overwhelming pressure and repudiates an opinion piece written by a duly elected national legislator who boasts degrees from the nation’s most famous educational institution, has undeniably relevant life experience on the subject and advances an argument supported by a majority of citizens? America is about to find out.
Look out. An “army of contact tracers” is about to be unleashed on America. Corporations, political lobbyists and government bureaucracies all win. Privacy, freedom and family autonomy all lose. Big time.
An overlooked irony of these terrible, horrible, awful, no good, very bad times (as the great children’s author Judith Viorst would have described them) is the 5-4 Supreme Court decision last week upholding California’s restrictions on church attendance, the whole matter playing out on the sterile card table of constitutional law.
We are all aware of this coronavirus that is sweeping the world. We are all living this historical time. I know I in fact am scared of this virus. And yes, I am a Christian but as you know no matter Christian or not, race, political stand, rich or poor, this virus affects us all.
Imagine that you are an unborn spirit in heaven. God condemns you to a life of poverty but will permit you to choose the country in which you will spend your life. Which country would you choose? I would choose the United States of America.
Is China on the precipice of an aggressive expansion into Taiwan and Hong Kong while the U.S. is bogged down with the COVID-19 pandemic, the worst recession in a generation and riots over the police killing of George Floyd?
When the mobs picked up guns and baseball bats and headed back into the streets [June 1], it was no longer about George Floyd. The chaos that’s erupting at dark has stopped telling his story -- and started telling ours as a lost and desperate country. “It’s OK to be angry,” George’s brother said. But the man in whose name policemen are being shot, cities are being burned, and businesses are being destroyed would have never wanted this. He was “about peace.” And if the rioters cared about justice, they would be, too.