Blackhawk Down and Out
I am watching Merrick Garland make a DOJ announcement about their investigation into the events surrounding the George Floyd killing and has concluded that the Minneapolis PD committed civil rights violations on a rather routine basis. His listing of the evidence of violations of those civil rights, the First Amendment, the American Disabilities Act and various other cultural guardrails is really quite eye opening. The one that jumps out at me is the incident where a Minneapolis PD officer stopped a car full of Somali youths and told them that Blackhawk Down had not gone far enough and that had it done so, then they would not be here on American shores to bother stand-up Americans like him. This was a two year investigation and it was very comprehensive. It caps off a moment in our history that I hope was a peak in the long history of biased police brutality. The toxic police culture starts at the top as it always does in any organization and then extends downward into the criteria used to recruit staff and then train and manage them in their best practices. Ever since Rodney King, the DOJ has the right and obligation to investigate systemic bad policing practices. The most amazing thing about this is that this did not happen in Birmingham, Alabama or Jackson, Mississippi, this was in Minneapolis, which has historically been one of the most liberal cities in one of the most liberal states, the home of Hubert Humphrey, that icon of liberal ideology.
In the movie Blackhawk Down, a Delta and Ranger team of 100 gets dropped into Mogadishu, Somalia by Blackhawk helicopter in a reenactment of a true incident that occurred there in 1993. This team was injected to seize a warlord who was reaping havoc on the local population, stealing humanitarian and much-needed food supplies and engaging in ongoing ethnic cleansing. The warlord opponents were ruthless and well-armed with Russian military equipment and the local population was enlisted by force to help them assault the isolated and embattled U.S. Army soldiers. I recently watched the movie again and I must admit that I have no love lost on the warlord or their activities against the local population and despite being sympathetic to the local residents who were wanting to just go about their lives in peace, I was rooting for the American soldiers right from the start. As an American, I am trained to be patriotic and support our troops, especially in battle where their lives are endangered. I think the same is true of my general reaction to police forces in the enforcement and conduct of their duties on the streets. I side with law and order and the police. I want to live in a country and a world that is free of oppression from the likes of warlords, cartels and inner-city gangs and general bad actors and criminals.
I have been very fortunate in my life. Even after living in New York City for forty-five years, I have never been the victim of street violence or crime, and I have barely even known anyone that has been. I had a car stolen when I first moved to Queens and then once again when I lived on Long Island, but that is almost a victimless crime in that I didn’t see it happen and didn’t have to confront the evil doers (If that was even the right way to characterize them). It’s like living in a border town like San Diego. I hear on the national news all about the Mexican cartels in places like Tijuana and all the bad things they and illegal immigrants supposedly do on the border and yet I see none of it day to day.
All of this makes me think that all this concern about crime and the threat to our way of peaceful life may be overblown in order to garner support for more severe policing and border immigration control practices. There is little doubt that man has both a good and a bad side. There are probably also both good and bad people. But I am reasonably convinced that the good significantly outweighs the bad. That may be my optimistic view of the world or a function of my good fortune in not having seen this criminal activity first hand, but I think it is more than that. By virtue of living in what is purported to be a highly dangerous city and now living right on the border near all the supposed cartel activity, I think I have had a front row seat and what I see is simply not as bad as it is touted by the folks that prefer to impinge on the human rights of the population than to risk victimization of whatever crime there is.
I also spent many years traveling and living in the Emerging Markets, where the dangers of criminal and political violence are supposedly the greatest. While I will admit that there is greater need for caution in traveling to these less controlled parts of the world, there too the harm is greatly overstated in my opinion. We just travelled to Egypt, which the State Department calls a Level 3 risk country and over two weeks there, we saw no incidents of concern and never once felt any threat. I believe that is more normal than not and that risk is also overblown by extremists who benefit from or simply like to see more policing and restrictions.
So, where do we go with all of this? Do we turn a blind eye to the DOJ report and say that is the price of feeling safe? Do we suggest that the DOJ is simply a weaponization of the liberal ideology that wants to create chaos in American cities and turn the country towards a Socialist revolution? Don’t be ridiculous. All that liberals like me want is that we find a better balance to our policing practices, a balance that maintains civil liberties while keeping us safe. Understanding that we cannot ever have a perfect system in either goal, I am prepared to say that compromise is necessary and careful and continuous examination of policing practices is necessary to keep law enforcement from overstepping their limits. This is not only not about defunding the police, but rather spending more on policing to insure that it is as unbiased as possible. I hedge that comment because I KNOW that this country suffers from a history of systemic set of biases. Those biases range in varying degrees to African-American, Native-American and Hispanic-American citizens, but also to immigrants, Asian-Americans, LGBTQ+ people and perhaps even poor and less-educated people generally. Those biases are not right for sure, but to disavow them or pretend they don’t exist is sheer ignorance and a sign of the very systemic nature of that beast.
The only thing that makes all of this even worse is our national gun policies. I firmly believe that it is not our God-given right as Americans to bear arms and keep guns on our person or in our homes for protection. I believe that leads to more, not less, violence and harm to the citizenry than it ever averts. We seem to be heading towards a digital future with augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Why can’t we let people have their fun with guns only on a digital or virtual basis and leave the real world to a more gun-free environment? I understand that man has baser instincts in his nature, but we are intelligent enough to evolve away from those baser instincts and in an 8 billion person world we really have no choice. America has gone off on a very solitary and divergent path by allowing gun ownership in the extreme way in which we have. We need to rein that in just like we need to rein in our policing practices and start managing our society for the greatest good for the greatest number of people regardless of racial, national origin, immigration status or sexual preference status. I do not want a world where we go Blackhawk down and out rather than live in peace.
Thanks, Rich!