Scott Shackford over at Reasonmade an excellent point in the wake of the grand jury decision finding insufficient probable cause to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown.
Based on the information [St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Robert P.] McCulloch described tonight it may seem unlikely Wilson would have convicted, and perhaps that would have been the right decision by a criminal jury. That raises yet another question, though: Should we be upset at the amount of deference and effort made to find reasons not to indict Wilson in this case or should we be upset that the same doesn’t happen to the rest of us? Is the outrage that a grand jury didn’t indict Wilson or is the outrage that the grand jury indicts just about everybody else?
As far as I’m concerned, my outrage is that grand juries indicts just about everybody else. This jury heard the evidence with all the conflicting testimony and the rest of us have not. I cannot say whether this is a just outcome or not and neither can anyone else at this point. We will most likely never know for sure what happened that fateful day.
I imagine that at least a few of the protesters in Ferguson who have themselves (or know someone who has) been indicted with very little evidence then either strongly encouraged to take a plea deal or were convicted. It’s not to hard to see why some might feel that the criminal justice system works one way for the police and a different way for everyone else, regardless of the specific circumstances in this case (the specific circumstances in this case being all the grand jury should have been concerned about).
Here’s a great observation for Lucy Steigerwald writing from Rare:
Whether the shooting of Brown by Wilson was justified or not, it’s important to remember that there were good reasons people distrusted the Ferguson police’s narrative of events.
Police did everything wrong after Brown was killed. They left his body in the street, they refused to answer questions or identify the officer. They used military tech to answer the protests that resulted. They repeatedly teargassed crowds, arresting peaceful protesters and members of the media.
Officer Darren Wilson shouldn’t be punished for the impression that people — especially minorities — have of the police. If he doesn’t deserve prosecution, he shouldn’t be prosecuted. Whether he deserves harsh, little, or no punishment is still up for debate.
Read the whole thing. The entire article is worth quoting but I thought I would just wet your beak.
Over the past week, talk show host Jason Lewis has been letting on that something big was going to happen on his show. July 31, 2014 he dubbed “Judgement Day.”
Being an avid listener of his, I thought it probably had something to do with his political activism site Galt.io* and probably something to do with his cause called “Starve the Beast.” Was he going to announce that he was going to move his show from the high tax progressive state of Minnesota to a more tax friendly/liberty friendly state?
As it turns out, I wasn’t too far off but he took his “starve the beast” thing a step further. You could say he had “gone Galt” on the air halfway through his radio show.
All over the continent of Europe there are castles. Castles that children are taught to admire. But these monuments are not shrines to liberty but are a stark reminder of an oppressive past that we are quickly forgetting. These elaborate fortresses were built to honor the riches of royalty. Such wealth was not derived from the cooperation of capitalism but from the conquest of collectivism. It was stolen through taxes and fees collected from the serfs. It was not earned.
We have apparently learned little from history for today we have our own royalty dressed up in the robes of compassion. A false altruism that merely enables the mob and crushes the individual. We have erected a shrine called the welfare state and as a result, we now resemble a nation with more takers than makers. Crony capitalists who preach the virtue of community service while acting like economic parasites who live off the system. Indeed the real entrepreneurs are no longer valued. Only the political ones who loathe them. Profit is a dirty word while one’s obligation to society regulates the most productive to second class status. We are it seems endlessly told to live for others. Endlessly told. Taxes are patriotic. We are told to apologise for our own existence. The pursuit of happiness has been replaced by the mandate of self sacrifice. This is not freedom, it is tyranny.
And so we, I, you are faced with a choice. The choice that all people in all times must make: to fund the beast or to starve the beast. To host the parasite or walk away. To participate in the system that punishes the value of your own existence or boycott that system.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have now chosen the latter. They can now feed off one another.
I quit.
Just after Lewis uttered the words “I quit” there was silence followed by his confused producer getting on the air “Um…Jason?” and then announcing that Jason had left the mic. They then went to commercial and found another talk host to fill the remaining hour and a half remaining in the show.
From there there was a flurry of calls and people going to this website and the Galt.io homepage. Was this some kind of stunt? Did Jason Lewis really quit halfway through his syndicated talk show?
Personally, I wasn’t sure. It does now seem that Jason Lewis indeed did quit and decided he was no longer willing to keep feeding the beast.
Okay, so a talk show host who would likely be retiring soon quit in dramatic fashion, what’s the big deal?
For me, it is a bummer. Jason Lewis was one of the few talk show hosts that didn’t tow the party line or spend three hours a day attacking Barack Obama for everything under the sun. Its true that he did attack Obama’s policies with gusto but he didn’t spare the Republicans either. He brought insights that no other syndicated show offers.
And maybe this going Galt is more symbolic than anything else. But what if his message resonates to other high achievers who could stop the motor of the world if they followed this example?
I for one hope this inspires such a revolution even if its on a smaller scale than what took place in Atlas Shrugged.
*I have a cause and a group that I started within Galt.io: The Non-Aggression Principle (educates people about the NAP) and my group called Restore Everyone’s Property And Individual Rights (REPAIR). Contact me via Twitter @s_littau if you would like to join Galt.io and these and other causes.
At most every wedding I have ever attended, 1 Corinthians 13:5 is the selected Bible verse: “Love is not rude, is not selfish…”
This overly used quotation notwithstanding, the Objectivist’s view of love is that love necessarily is selfish. Gary Hull explains:
Imagine a Valentine’s Day card which takes this premise seriously. Imagine receiving a card with the following message: “I get no pleasure from your existence. I obtain no personal enjoyment from the way you look, dress, move, act or think. Our relationship profits me not. You satisfy no sexual, emotional or intellectual needs of mine. You’re a charity case, and I’m with you only out of pity. Love, XXX.”
Needless to say, you would be indignant to learn that you are being “loved,” not for anything positive you offer your lover, but–like any recipient of alms–for what you lack. Yet that is the perverse view of love entailed in the belief that it is self-sacrificial.”
[…]
The nature of love places certain demands on those who wish to enjoy it. You must regard yourself as worthy of being loved. Those who expect to be loved, not because they offer some positive value, but because they don’t–i.e., those who demand love as altruistic duty–are parasites. Someone who says “Love me just because I need it” seeks an unearned spiritual value–in the same way that a thief seeks unearned wealth. To quote a famous line from The Fountainhead: “To say ‘I love you,’ one must know first how to say the ‘I.’
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is unquestionably one of the most famous speeches in American history. In listening to the speech today, I found the following passages that aren’t as often quoted to be some of the most powerful lines in the speech.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
America has come a long way since King delivered this speech. Racial and ethnic minorities have made great strides thanks to courageous individuals like King who made a stand for liberty and justice (and in King’s case, paid with his life) and we are all better off for it.
Here is the rest of the speech. Listen and be inspired.
