The Story of Five Men Gunned Down Becomes Perturbing When It Goes Against the Narrative

My God isn't this horrible? Doesn't Fox News show its racism by showing the faces of the victim and of the killer in a case where the tragedy does NOT show white-on-black racism?!

Fox News isn't following the narrative!

As Kevin D. Williamson puts it (thanks to Instapundit), the

same people who literally blamed the NRA for the Orlando shooting while the blood was still being mopped up are today demanding that Black Lives Matter not be smeared by association with the violence in Dallas.

The people who blamed Sarah Palin’s use of crosshairs as a graphic-design element on a poster (“targeting” certain Democrats for electoral challenges) for the shooting of Gabby Giffords suddenly have nothing to say about violent and irresponsible rhetoric.

 I myself hold to the view that we hold criminals responsible for their actions and that speeches given by third parties are generally, at most, tangential questions. Maybe your view is different, and that’s fine: But pick one.

Leftists are not only not demanding that Black Lives Matter not be smeared by association with the violence in Dallas, they are also steadfast in their insisting that the entire left, including their post-racial healer-in-chief aka the activist-in-chief in the White House, have no ties to the Dallas killings…

Stephen Miller:

America finds itself rocked once again by post racial violence in the era of “Hope and Change,” stoked by a president content to fan the flames before facts or motivations are known in ongoing investigations.

Back-to-back shootings of young African-American men, this time in Baton Rouge and St. Paul, captivated social media. The shootings certainly looked bad, but judging what is on a Facebook Live video is something for social media pundits, not sitting presidents.

The nation then sat by and watched as police officers in Dallas were gunned down by a group of suspects, with one perpetrator reportedly inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and angry at the shootings that led up to this.

Read the whole thing, i.e., read Stephen Miller's short history of Obama’s habit of jumping to conclusions when it comes to the police coupled with "the media’s love affair with race riots"…
John Ziegler has a question:

As the news media refuses, as it seems to have done so far, to even address the black online support for these soul-crushing murders, it will further prove this point. Can you imagine the outrage in the news media if the Charleston murderer Dylann Roof had been widely supported online by whites and no one in the white community, or conservative media, had immediately condemned that response? It would obviously be a huge part of the story’s entire narrative. In this situation that’s not allowed because, under the media’s absurd rules of political correctness, it would somehow be “racist” to criticize black people. 

Ben Shapiro weighs in by asking, point blank, what sort of responsibility does President Obama bear for the massacre: Is Barack Obama Responsible For The Dallas Anti-Cop Terror Attack?

First off, let’s point out the obvious double standard from the left: when a white racist, Dylann Storm Roof, shot up a Charleston black church, the left immediately blamed a widespread culture of racism, and insisted that states across the country tear down Confederate war memorials and stop sponsoring the Confederate flag at state capitols. When non-black cops shoot black suspects, the left insists – without a shred of evidence – that such killings are endemic among police officers, and that the entire system is racist. When anti-Donald Trump protesters riot against Trump supporters, the left blame Trump’s rhetoric. When a nutcase shoots up an area near a Planned Parenthood, the left blames the pro-life movement. When another nutcase shoots Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, the left blames Sarah Palin’s Congressional targets map.

But when obvious anti-white racists murder white cops, the left suggests that gun control is the issue; when obvious Islamic terrorists murder gay people in a nightclub in Orlando, the problem is white Christians who don’t support same-sex marriage and Republicans who defend gun rights.

In other words, for the left, rhetoric can only connect with murder when it’s rhetoric they don’t like. If they do like the rhetoric -- or at least if they want to defend the people responsible for the rhetoric -- then the actual motivation for murder will be [omitted].

But now let’s tackle the real question: when is rhetoric responsible for violence? Rhetoric is responsible for violence when it calls for violence. Radical Islam calls for jihad. Protesters chanting “pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon” calls for violence against cops. Barack Obama didn’t call for violence against cops.

That said, he did do three things that are particularly despicable:

1. He denied that murder charges require evidence;
2. He denied that charges of racism require evidence;
3. He ignored the actual cause of anti-cop violence.

Obama didn’t cause the Orlando shooting attack, but his failure to label it Islamic jihadism surely stopped America from fighting it properly. Obama didn’t cause the Dallas shootings, but his attempts to turn the conversation toward gun control or police brutality are just another way to avoid a real conversation about anti-white racism.

As usual, Jonah Goldberg presents some good commentary:

 … here is something particularly vile and disgusting in the way many of the leading masters of sanctimony keep changing their standards. When a registered Democrat and Muslim murdered people in Orlando in the name of ISIS, it was outrageous to suggest that maybe we shouldn’t point fingers at Christian conservatives or the NRA. When Gabby Giffords was shot by an utterly apolitical schizophrenic, Paul Krugman blamed it on Michele Bachmann’s “eliminationist rhetoric.” The Democratic party almost en masse blamed it on some crosshairs on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. The Orwellians leapt out of their bunkers and started memory-holing martial metaphors.

But now, I gather, any suggestion that rhetoric from Black Lives Matter influenced these murderers is beyond the pale.

I keep repeating the old line: Behind every apparent double standard is an un-confessed single standard. The single standard here is that only the right people may politicize tragedy. Only the right people get to determine what sort of speech incites violence. Only the right people know when it’s a time for prayer and unity and when it’s time to take up action. Only the right people know when the blame falls solely on the murderers and when the murderers are simply a symptom of a larger problem. And when anyone disagrees with the right people, they reveal themselves to be the wrong people. Because you can only be right if you agree with the right people.

See also: What Is to Blame for Mass Shootings?
Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere?

The Misleading Statistics of Gun Control

To an Instapundit reader who, on the subject of gun control, takes issue with my (longish) list of mass gun crimes in Western Europe over the past 20 years or so — "Maybe you don't realize but if you add all those victims up and that's a month in Chicago or Baltimore" writes J. Daniels; "Those examples are rarities in those countries but not here" — I reply as follows:

You are making the mistake of using statistics
to conflate victims (American as well as foreign)
and make all of them (as well as all shooters) alike.
Like the cattle herd that statists and statisticians
alike think we members of the dirty masses are.

Typically, leftists will say that there are something
like 400 mass shootings every year in the U.S.
(I forget the exact number, it keeps changing, both
up and down). Why, then, do we not read about
every one of these shootings — in America proper
as well as abroad — and why aren't they given as
prominent news coverage as Newton or Orlando?

Because most of these mass shootings occur
between criminal gangs. To learn that a gangster
has been, or a group of gangsters have been,
shot dead will simply not touch the average
citizen — American or foreign — as much as
the innocent dead of Orlando or Utøya. And
rightly so, since violence is part of their calling,
of their chosen profession, if you will. (Which
is why — even left-leaning — journalists don't
mention those killings in the first place; except,
of course, as part of the respective city edition's
metro section.)

Here is where leftists, American as well as foreign,
start using their misleading Chicken Little statistics
coupled with Drama Queen melodramatics. They
come, like you do, saying there have been hundreds
more of "mass killings" in the USA than abroad, that
13,000 "Americans" (or whatever the number is) are
shot every year compared to the much lower foreign
numbers.

Yes. Well, call me a hater all you like,
express as much indignation at my lack of humanity
as you will, I would say that it is easy to argue that
500 or 700 thugs ("Americans") killed by other thugs
in America (or in Europe, for that matter), in the
context of their "business" dealings, are not to be
compared to the 50 revelers shot in Florida or to the
70 teenagers gunned down over the space of an hour
or so on a Norway island…

Edited and updated to reflect the following post:
The statistics behind gun violence: Mass shootings
in the U.S. have fallen so much in the past century that
the political left has had to redefine what a mass shooting is

Related:
The Story of Five Men Gunned Down Becomes Perturbing When It Goes Against the Narrative

Hunting for Heretics: Nondiscrimination laws are a statist monstrosity, selectively enforced against disfavored groups, often to shake them down for money

In case more proof was needed that the homosexual movement does not want to “live and let live,”

notes Benny Huang,

Aaron Werner and Richard Wright will gladly provide it. The two “gay” men sued Christianmingle in 2013, claiming that the website violated their rights under California law because it offers only opposite-sex matchmaking. Last week, they won their case. Christianmingle must now accommodate homosexuals. Oh yeah–and it has to pay Werner and Wright $468,000 in damages and attorney’s fees.

The two men sued under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, a state law that prohibits discrimination based on a number of protected categories including “sexual orientation”–an amorphous and troublesome social construct that is almost always interpreted to mean sexual conduct. The operative portion of the law is short and sweet:

“All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual orientation are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.”

To a lot of people that sounds like an eminently reasonable law that offers equal protection to everyone. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a statist monstrosity, selectively enforced against disfavored groups, often to shake them down for money. Forcing everybody to do business with everybody does not make us “free and equal.” True freedom and equality arise when people are free to choose to engage in economic transactions of their volition. Unruh should be repealed  

Dating services illustrate in vivid color the stupidity of private sector nondiscrimination laws. Many dating sites cater to niche markets and must therefore discriminate by necessity. In other words, dating sites discriminate because they want to meet the discriminating tastes of their customers. Not all dating sites specialize of course, and that’s fine if they don’t. Customers have the option of using all-purpose dating sites such as Match.com or Okcupid, but if they want a more tailored experience they have a smorgasbord of options to choose from. Nondiscrimination laws mandate that all sites cater to (nearly) all tastes. Sure, you can still have your niche dating site, as long as it serves everybody.

There are niche dating sites for every imaginable group—farmers, military members, smokers, fat people, liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. Those sites might still be free to operate under their current business models because they do not bump up against legally protected categories. Or do they? According to an official pamphlet published by the State of California, the power of Unruh is expansive to the point of theoretical limitlessness. According to the pamphlet:

“…the California Supreme Court has held that protections under the Unruh Act are not necessarily restricted to these characteristics. The Act is meant to cover all arbitrary and intentional discrimination by a business establishment on the basis of personal characteristics similar to those listed above.” 

Whether the aforementioned websites are illegal in California is an open question but dating sites that cater to different races, ethnicities, and religions are all certainly illegal in California even if the state has not yet enforced the law against them.

With such a wide array of sites for every possible taste, one is left to wonder why people can’t simply seek out the right one for them. There are even sites for “gay” Christians such as Dateagaychristian.com. The two crybaby homofascists who sued Christianmingle could have found mates on that site but of course they weren’t looking for love; they were hunting heretics. The very thought that there’s someone somewhere who won’t fix them up with a sodomy partner is enough to drive them into fits of rage.

But wait a second—don’t “gay” Christian sites discriminate as well? Yes, they do. They exclude heteros and non-Christians. They are in fact more discriminatory than Christianmingle! Some homosexual dating sites cater exclusively to men or women, which is also illegal in California. Why isn’t anyone suing them? I think we know the answer to that.

If Christianmingle is violating the Unruh statute, then there are plenty of other dating websites in violation as well. Any website that excludes anyone is by definition discriminating, and in a great many cases that discrimination is illegal. All of them should be forced to cough up half a million dollars, just the same way Christianmingle was. Fair’s fair.

Some of the protected categories found in Unruh are absolutely ludicrous, such as “medical condition.” Shouldn’t dating websites have the prerogative, for example, to decline to do business with someone who is spreading contagious diseases? That’s not as far-fetched as you might think. A cursory search of the internet revealed a number of episodes in which people have intentionally spread HIV. All of those I found were men, and most were homosexual. Here’s one from California, no less–Thomas Miguel Guerra of San Diego … seemed to take perverse joy in spreading the virus. If a sociopath like that were using a dating website to meet men, shouldn’t the website have the right to dump him as a customer? California law says no.
 
What about Muslim dating sites? … Should[n't] Singlemuslim.com be sued as well? I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen. The crybaby homofascists are terrified of Muslims. Like most bullies, they avoid picking fights with people who might fight back.

Singlemuslim.com runs afoul of California law in another regard—as the name implies, it’s only for single Muslims. What if a married Muslim wants to play? Marital status is a protected category under California law and so all businesses, even dating services, must offer their services to married people. If you aren’t willing to facilitate adultery, you can’t go into the matchmaking business in California.

 … But let’s return to Singlemuslim.com, which may be the most discriminatory dating site on the internet. First, it discriminates on the basis of religion, second on “sexual orientation,” and third on marital status. Someone ought to sue the pants off these “bigots.” No, I’m serious. Demand to be paired with a married Jewish homosexual then scream bloody murder when they won’t do it. I wouldn’t have standing in a California court but someone else really ought to sue them, if only to demonstrate the intrusive absurdity of private sector nondiscrimination laws.

 … The reason we have these insane laws is because we allow the word “discrimination” to have entirely too much power over us. Nothing shuts off brains quite like the “D” word. Oh no, not discrimination! Gasp! All that word means is treating different people differently. Some forms of discrimination may be malicious, but none should be illegal in the private sector. We all discriminate every day, and nowhere more than in romance and dating.

Related: • Diversity isn’t really a compelling need in most sectors of society
(Liberals just tell us that because they hate merit-based hiring)
• Diversity compels society give up its traditions, its sacred rights, and even its basic decency
• That’s what nondiscrimination laws are—involuntary servitude laws
• The story of Matthew Shepard's life and death bears no resemblance to what actually happened
• Stealth is the Left’s watchword (Oh, those stubborn conservatives, when will they ever learn the value of compromise?!)
• "No One Is!" Leftists and Their Calculated Lies Intended to Pacify the Bitter Clingers

Former Prime Minister Michel Rocard, 3-Time Candidate for the Presidency, Is Dead

A former French prime minister who thrice tried to run for the presidency has died, reports Le Monde (No Pasarán's Michel Rocard posts).

Michel Rocard avait le « parler-vrai », la dent dure et le jugement acéré. Nul doute qu’il se serait gaussé de l’avalanche d’hommages qui lui ont été rendus, au lendemain de sa mort le 2 juillet.

A gauche, bien sûr, François Hollande a salué ce socialiste capable de « concilier utopie et modernité », Manuel Valls a évoqué avec émotion ce « visionnaire » qui fut son « père en politique », Lionel Jospin cette « référence », Emmanuel Macron cet « exemple », Jean-Pierre Chevènement ce « militant sincère qui croyait à la force des idées », ou Jean-Luc Mélenchon cet « éclaireur » dont « la vie est une leçon ».

A droite, tout autant, où Jacques Chirac et Nicolas Sarkozy, Alain Juppé ou François Fillon ont dit leur respect pour l’homme d’Etat. A l’extrême droite même, puisque Marine Le Pen a adressé ses condoléances aux proches de cet « homme de conviction ». Sans oublier Nicolas Hulot et Brigitte Bardot.

 … L’homme de gauche Rocard mérite ces hommages, évidemment. … Pour son pragmatisme tenace, sa capacité d’innovation autant que de conciliation, le premier ministre Rocard (1988-1991) ne mérite pas moins l’éloge.

 … La frustration de constater que les qualités reconnues à Michel Rocard – une exigence de morale en politique, un inlassable engagement pour ses idées, une inépuisable ouverture d’esprit – paraissent si peu et si mal répandues aujourd’hui.

Lire aussi :   Michel Rocard en héritage

Le regret est de voir disparaître un homme, et une voix, qui incarnait une conception noble de l’action publique : celle qui fonde l’ambition et l’exercice du pouvoir sur la force et la justesse des idées, du savoir et de la culture. Et non celle qui instrumentalise les idées au service de la seule stratégie qui vaille, la conquête du pouvoir. C’est ce qui a fait sa singularité et lui confère aujourd’hui une aura particulière. C’est aussi, et il le reconnaissait lucidement, ce qui a fait sa faiblesse pendant quarante ans.

Washington Post Shows How Badly Racist White Americans Treat Minorities In Order to Remain at the Top of the — Hold on a Minute!

Doesn't this poll reflect an outrage? Doesn't this report prove what a racist society America is? How the whites keep all the benefits of society for themselves? To keep minorities down? While remaining at the very helm?

 … the Pew Research Center released a new report on how Americans are paid by race and gender 

reports the Washington Post's Danielle Paquette.

— and boy, are there some bombshells for those interested in our nation’s wage disparities.

 … Pew found women typically still take home smaller paychecks than men.

 … But here are five other, less-discussed angles in the pay conversation:

1. America's top earners are Asian men

Racial and gender wage gaps persist in the United States, though they’ve narrowed for some groups in recent years. (Pew used white men as the comparison group, since they comprise the largest chunk of the work force at 33 percent.)

All groups trail white men in earnings — except Asian men. They made 117 percent of what white men earned in 2015:

Last year, average hourly wages for black and Hispanic men were $15 and $14, while white men pocketed $21 and Asian men made $24. …

Some Thoughts on American Patriotism…

Some thoughts on American patriotism…

In France and around the world, July Fourth is a day like any other, i.e., one to complain, worry, moan, wail, and lament, not least over Uncle Sam's misdeeds as well as the distressing state of patriotism among Americans. …

Related —
by Matthew Spalding:
What the Founders ask of us
for the Fourth of July 2016:

 … Lincoln spoke about another set of Americans, the ones whose families came here after the great Revolution was over. In a word, immigrants. Of these, Lincoln said:

 “If they look back through this history and trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none. They cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence, they find that those old men say that, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’ and then they feel that the moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are.”

And so we are. None of us fought at Bunker Hill or Lexington or Concord. None of us endured famine, cold, or the impact of a musket ball. None of us signed our names to a document that made us traitors, fit to be hung.

Yet, despite all that, we are still Americans, and the Fourth is still our celebration, because we hold dear the “moral sentiment” for which those iron men fought and died —

“That all men are created equal.”

Lincoln would fight and die for it, too.

Lincoln reassures us that this alone is enough to form that “historical connection” with men who in all other things bear no relation to us. Or, as he puts it:

“That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

… yet we find our present culture riven by a hypersensitive strain of identity politics. We are told, even by some who belong to Lincoln’s party, that we should provide this group of Americans with one kind of government handout and that group with another.

We are told that we must “speak to” a certain group of Americans in a certain way or else lose their vote. We are told that skin color or sex  determines whether a group is more or less deserving of government perks. If one disagrees, one is shouted down as a racist, bigot, or chauvinist.

Yet Lincoln would disagree. The Founders would disagree as well. And so must all whose connection with that great and glorious generation of “iron men” consists of embracing an ideal that was meant to be taken literally; namely, that all men are created equal.