Feeding the Abscess
04-30-2015, 03:40 AM
http://christophercantwell.com/2015/04/28/an-open-letter-to-baltimore-rioters/
Police are a curious bunch of folks. There is little question as to what my fate would be, if I violently abducted a man off the streets and he died before I had released him. Collect a paycheck funded by coercive taxes, slap on a badge, and magically this behavior earns you a paid vacation instead of a lengthy prison sentence.
So when I hear the story of Freddie Gray, the riots that ensue afterwards make a great deal of sense in some ways. People are rightly furious. I’m not going to give you the cliche “violence is not the answer” line, because that’s a lie. There is a predatory gang of criminals at large who rob, assault, kidnap, and murder with impunity. The police, and the institution they stand for are your enemy, and they will not stop victimizing you until doing so becomes so dangerous that they find more productive ways of sustaining themselves.
Not only is violence the answer, it is the only answer, and the answer is so obvious that I am perpetually baffled by the fact that people don’t see it and act on it every day. The dumbed down docile nature of the public at large is so frighteningly destructive that it makes the looting look civilized by comparison. Of course you should resort to violence, what other option do you have against an enemy so belligerent that he would say “Fuck your breath” to Eric Harris after shooting him in the back over a constitutionally protected firearm sale? What other response could there be to a gang so cold as to shoot Walter Scott 8 times in the back over a broken tail light? Why wouldn’t you kill the people who strangled Eric Garner to death in broad daylight over a cigarette? What besides violence could ever hope to stop a crime syndicate that pays its assassins for time off after they fatally injure a man’s spinal cord, just because he had a knife?
So by all means Baltimore, burn buildings to the ground. Go ahead, kill your oppressors. Throw rocks, bottles, firebombs, and whatever weaponry you can muster at your enemy.
But perhaps you might want to figure out who your enemy is before you begin.
Your enemy is not “society” or “white people” or “racism” or “capitalism”. CVS is certainly not your enemy. So destroying private property and generally making your home city unlivable doesn’t seem productive at all. Quite the contrary, you are granting your enemy the legitimacy he thrives on. You are making him look like the savior of humanity, when he is anything but.
Your enemy is the same as mine. Your enemy is the enemy of all mankind. Your enemy is the State.
Racism? Your enemy is the enemy of your race alright. Mine too, and I’m white. He is the enemy of the human race. They prey on all of us, and this perpetual distraction of #BlackLivesMatter only signals to your white skinned fellow victims that this is not their problem. A falsehood that dooms your cause if it ever hoped to find a solution. As long as people are free to believe that police are primarily gunning down blacks, and that this is the real issue, then they will be free to assume that they are gunning down blacks because of their lifestyle, and that white society can sit comfortably while that happens. This is false, white people are being taxed and regulated into oblivion while they obediently do as they are told and avoid the direct physical confrontations that go on in your communities.
It is no better that the white man is threatened with violence by the State and obeys, avoiding direct physical confrontation, than it is that a black man disobeys and is killed. The crime is the same, it is aggression. If a white man pays $30,000/year in taxes to avoid police breaking into his home, killing all who resist, and taking the survivors off to prison, he is as much a victim as a black man who suffers that violence at the hands of the same revenuers. If a white man is told to turn in his guns, and obeys to avoid armed conflict, he is no less a victim than Freddie Gray was when the police came to disarm him, no less than was Tamir Rice when police came to disarm him, the crime is identical and race is a mere distraction. Go do some research into the incident in Waco, Texas with the Branch Davidians. Look into Ruby Ridge, Carl Drega, Kelly Thomas, the list could go on forever.
The State is evil because it is the initiator of force, saying that the problem is race only distracts from this very obvious problem.
The State is your enemy, kill him before he kills you. He is not difficult to identify. He is so brazen in his aggressions that he brags about them on television. He claims his authority to brutalize you, by winning a popularity contest that you call an election. He wears uniforms, displays his emblems proudly, threatens you with sirens and strobe lights. He is not hiding.
Your enemy is the State. Kill him! Gun him down! Set him on fire! Break his spinal cord! Strangle him! Take his property! Make his family live in fear until they disassociate from him!
But if you instead loot businesses owned by your fellow victims, if you set fire to buildings that are not the property of your enemy, if you harm the innocent, then you have become the enemy yourself.
Police are a curious bunch of folks. There is little question as to what my fate would be, if I violently abducted a man off the streets and he died before I had released him. Collect a paycheck funded by coercive taxes, slap on a badge, and magically this behavior earns you a paid vacation instead of a lengthy prison sentence.
So when I hear the story of Freddie Gray, the riots that ensue afterwards make a great deal of sense in some ways. People are rightly furious. I’m not going to give you the cliche “violence is not the answer” line, because that’s a lie. There is a predatory gang of criminals at large who rob, assault, kidnap, and murder with impunity. The police, and the institution they stand for are your enemy, and they will not stop victimizing you until doing so becomes so dangerous that they find more productive ways of sustaining themselves.
Not only is violence the answer, it is the only answer, and the answer is so obvious that I am perpetually baffled by the fact that people don’t see it and act on it every day. The dumbed down docile nature of the public at large is so frighteningly destructive that it makes the looting look civilized by comparison. Of course you should resort to violence, what other option do you have against an enemy so belligerent that he would say “Fuck your breath” to Eric Harris after shooting him in the back over a constitutionally protected firearm sale? What other response could there be to a gang so cold as to shoot Walter Scott 8 times in the back over a broken tail light? Why wouldn’t you kill the people who strangled Eric Garner to death in broad daylight over a cigarette? What besides violence could ever hope to stop a crime syndicate that pays its assassins for time off after they fatally injure a man’s spinal cord, just because he had a knife?
So by all means Baltimore, burn buildings to the ground. Go ahead, kill your oppressors. Throw rocks, bottles, firebombs, and whatever weaponry you can muster at your enemy.
But perhaps you might want to figure out who your enemy is before you begin.
Your enemy is not “society” or “white people” or “racism” or “capitalism”. CVS is certainly not your enemy. So destroying private property and generally making your home city unlivable doesn’t seem productive at all. Quite the contrary, you are granting your enemy the legitimacy he thrives on. You are making him look like the savior of humanity, when he is anything but.
Your enemy is the same as mine. Your enemy is the enemy of all mankind. Your enemy is the State.
Racism? Your enemy is the enemy of your race alright. Mine too, and I’m white. He is the enemy of the human race. They prey on all of us, and this perpetual distraction of #BlackLivesMatter only signals to your white skinned fellow victims that this is not their problem. A falsehood that dooms your cause if it ever hoped to find a solution. As long as people are free to believe that police are primarily gunning down blacks, and that this is the real issue, then they will be free to assume that they are gunning down blacks because of their lifestyle, and that white society can sit comfortably while that happens. This is false, white people are being taxed and regulated into oblivion while they obediently do as they are told and avoid the direct physical confrontations that go on in your communities.
It is no better that the white man is threatened with violence by the State and obeys, avoiding direct physical confrontation, than it is that a black man disobeys and is killed. The crime is the same, it is aggression. If a white man pays $30,000/year in taxes to avoid police breaking into his home, killing all who resist, and taking the survivors off to prison, he is as much a victim as a black man who suffers that violence at the hands of the same revenuers. If a white man is told to turn in his guns, and obeys to avoid armed conflict, he is no less a victim than Freddie Gray was when the police came to disarm him, no less than was Tamir Rice when police came to disarm him, the crime is identical and race is a mere distraction. Go do some research into the incident in Waco, Texas with the Branch Davidians. Look into Ruby Ridge, Carl Drega, Kelly Thomas, the list could go on forever.
The State is evil because it is the initiator of force, saying that the problem is race only distracts from this very obvious problem.
The State is your enemy, kill him before he kills you. He is not difficult to identify. He is so brazen in his aggressions that he brags about them on television. He claims his authority to brutalize you, by winning a popularity contest that you call an election. He wears uniforms, displays his emblems proudly, threatens you with sirens and strobe lights. He is not hiding.
Your enemy is the State. Kill him! Gun him down! Set him on fire! Break his spinal cord! Strangle him! Take his property! Make his family live in fear until they disassociate from him!
But if you instead loot businesses owned by your fellow victims, if you set fire to buildings that are not the property of your enemy, if you harm the innocent, then you have become the enemy yourself.