An Angry Old White Guy Has Reached His Boiling Point

Squads of elite civility police are back in action.  This follows the killing of a white police officer by black teenagers.  It happened in Baltimore County, Maryland but you could substitute any community in America and see the same fallout.

First, my bias.  Had it been four police officers killing a black teenager the riots would be underway.  I can offer decades of history as evidence.  The reaction in the Baltimore suburbs is a bit more subdued.  Neighborhoods aren’t burning, stores aren’t being looted and there isn’t any sporadic and random gunfire crackling all night long, however.

Media explains there is still public anger.  Much of it directed on social media and talk radio.  This story has the obligatory comment the culture now lacks civility.

Can I remind you online posts and talk radio may be cathartic.  People can vent their spleens and I believe it’s what keeps them off the streets and away from smashing windows at CVS drug stores.  What’s your choice?  Riots or online venting?

Meanwhile, to claim the country was somehow more civilized when I was a boy or Grandpa was a boy is ridiculous.  American history is filled with riotous behavior.  Members of Congress used to beat themselves silly.  Ethnic gangs roamed streets and bloodied other gangs.  City’s burned.  I’ve got nearly 60 years of “coffee shop” memories.  Since I was a little boy I’ve been going into diners and listening.  First with my parents and over the last 40 years on my own.

People speak freely at the counters and tables.  They’ve always had a strong sense of right-and-wrong and they speak without governors on their tongues.

I recall late in high school friends and I were talking at a table about the killing of an American on camera in Nicaragua (a journalist, by the way).  Our waitress overheard the conversation.  “When I see pictures like that,” she explained, “I wish the entire American Army would go in and clean the place out!”

People are just as blunt when it comes to child molesters, cop killers and bandits in government.  Hanging is often mentioned as a solution.  Just as much today as when hanging was a common solution to crime.  Dangling evil from a rope also would appear to be cathartic.

This is what the elites, media included, miss.  They discount public attitudes but when it serves elite purposes they write about the “wisdom of crowds”.  It’s just the latter is only praised when it meets their standard of virtue.  Which translates into the vernacular as, “We know best!”  So we pamper criminals because they had hard lives growing up, we’re told we should give up our guns because we overwhelmingly aren’t smart enough to use them responsibly and when your job goes overseas and you’re unemployed it’s because you weren’t bright enough to make the right career choice.  Just remember, you aren’t a victim when the world economy leaves you behind.  It’s because you can’t be a victim.  Someone who looked like you was mean 300 years ago to someone who didn’t look like you.

Understood?  Now shut up and follow your elite instruction!