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This post comes from a series of Tweets I put out yesterday. If you prefer a twitter thread you can read it here. I have modified it slightly due to the different interface of a blog
If you watch the MSM you are bombard of images of protests against the police, political leaders scrambling to be the first to hit them, corporations rushing to pay “protection” money and bend the knee to those who are trying to, at best neuter and at worst destroy the police. It’s on the news, it’s on entertainment shows, it’s on sports shows you can’t escape it.
The real problem for those of us who think #bluelivesmatter & #supportthepolice is that there is very little pushback in the non virtual word to the media’s anti police narrative. Hashtags are nice but they don’t make a difference in the real world. For days the thought ran though my mind that “Somebody has to do something!” and I suspect that’s been going through a lot of people’s minds. On Wednesday it suddenly hit me that this was the wrong way of thinking.
The right way of thinking is “I have to do something.” So here is what I did.
I went to Ocean State Job lot before work for a folding chair, some markers and some poster board. Unfortunately poster board was on sale so all that was left was two loud bright green boards both torn at the bottom. I had no time to spare so I bought them.
When I got home from work at Midnight I took out one of the poster boards and on one side wrote “Support Our Local Police” and on the other side wrote “Support Our Local Fitchburg Police” and it put it back in the car
I woke up around 8 AM (I never use an alarm clock ) went to my church and had confession from my priest. Then I drove down to the municipal parking lot. took out my chair, my sign and my rosary and walked to the intersection of Main street and Putnam Street unfolded my chair and sat down with my sign facing the one way traffic going straight on main or turning on Putnam.
I was there about an hour holding with my left hand while praying a Rosary for Police with my right. A few people beeped, some walked by and said they agreed (and commented that the sign was hard to see in the bright sunlight suggesting different colors). There was none of the commotion of the BLM event of a few weeks ago. No fuss, no muss, no shaking down anyone for cash, just one man sitting down in the sun holding a sign in support of the Police.
The high point for me was when a police car drove by, slowed down on Putnam, rolled down his window and said “Thank You”.
I’d like to think that for someone who has spent the last month being told how horrible he is by moves and shakers across the land.
After I finished two twenty decade rosaries and a pair of Divine Mercy Chaplets I picked up my sign and my chair, headed back to my car and went home. No fuss, no muss, it was a pretty unremarkable hour. But it meant something.
Police officers have a thankless job. They are called when there is trouble and are expected to handle it. That means they generally deal with people at their worst because when they show up it’s because
In other words a police officer generally appears at a time of maximum tension. Such situations are inherently volatile. Even a routine traffic stop can become life or death without warning.
Yet a police officer is excepted to either diffuse the situation or handle it with the appropriate amount of force needed, with the word “appropriate” to be defined after the fact.
Furthermore in such a situation whether alone or in force they are expected to stand there when people berate or disparage them or even throw objects at them. And of course there is always a camera phone ready to condemn them if they put a foot wrong.
They are always a single remark or action, away from being out of a job or in the dock it can happen in the blink of an eye. And that’s not even mentioning the risk of permanent injury or death.
That is the daily price police pay to allow our society to live outside of gang justice or vigilante justice or tribal justice. I couldn’t do it & I suspect neither could those making political hay & racking in $ attacking them.
However we’ve ceded the public argument to those seeking gain political & financial power off the backs of the men & woman who do a thankless job day in & day out that most of us couldn’t handle so we can live safe.
This can’t stand.
My little chair and sign yesterday was a tiny public response in a small city to the media juggernaut but it was noticed & appreciated by those who needed to see it.
I think if you really want to show you support the police and believe blue lives matter I’d make a sign like the one I did supporting your local police, get a chair & be seen for an hour. Maybe your town is quiet and maybe won’t be a big deal but your local #police will see it and know that no matter what narrative the media / left wants to push, there is someone who knows the job they do and thinks it’s worth it.
I submit & suggest that if you make than sign & have the courage to be seen in public for an hour, it will be make a difference to a local cop worried about where this is going & be more valuable than a hundred tweets with the hashtags #bluelivesmatter or #supportthepolice
Closing thought: I did a series of audio interviews called “Interviews with Immigrants” a while back. On one of them I spoke to a lady named Maria from the Dominican Republic. She told me the story of visiting her sister in Leominster MA and sitting alone by a pond one day when three men she didn’t know came walking by. After they went by it suddenly hit her that for the 1st time in such a situation she wasn’t afraid. That’s when she knew she wanted to live in America.
That’s what those who are trying to destroy the police want to take from us.
By John Ruberry
While we’re not–yet–at the French Revolution level of destroying then recreating society, the Angry Left is focused on defacing and toppling statues of men deemed racist. Or by having sympathetic politicians remove them, such as what happened last week with Jefferson Davis’ statue at the Kentucky state capitol. So far women in bronze and marble, to my knowledge, have been spared, but one of Illinois’ representatives at National Statuary Hall at the US Capitol just might be inflicted with induced restless legs syndrome. I’ll get to her later.
Monuments of Confederate generals and of course Jefferson Davis have been the hit the hardest by the vandals. But the rage is now world wide. Winston Churchill’s statue at Parliament Square in London had “was a racist” spray painted on its pedestal. There’s an Abraham Lincoln statue there too, Black Lives Matter activists defaced that one. Up in Scotland, a statue of medieval monarch Robert the Bruce, whose views on black people are unknown, had “BLM” and “was a racist king” spray painted on it.
Because I’m from Illinois, I’d like to zoom in on my state. Let’s return to Lincoln. While Honest Abe was always anti-slavery, his views on black people prior to the Civil War would be classified as racist today. Lincoln’s stance on slavery in the 1860 election was to confine it to states where it already existed. By 1863 he was an abolitionist, at least in areas held by Confederate forces. Two years later the Great Emancipator enthusiastically backed the 13th Amendment that finally ended slavery in America. Oh, Lincoln saved the union too. That’s why he is considered the United States’ greatest president by most historians.
Lincoln gained national prominence in 1858 during his campaign for the US Senate against Stephen A. Douglas. Other than his connection to Lincoln, Douglas, “the Little Giant,” is largely forgotten now. His Kansas-Nebraska Act, which eliminated the Missouri Compromise in determining which states would be slave or free, ignited Bleeding Kansas, a brutal warmup to the Civil War. But Douglas was a political dynamo in the 1850s and he was the nominee for president for the northern Democrats in 1860.
Douglas and Lincoln agreed to a series of seven debates throughout Illinois during the 1858 campaign, the famous, or make that formerly famous, Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Late in the 20th century bronze statues of both men were placed at each of those sites.
Hmmm.
Douglas’ views on slavery were purposely murky, he believed in “popular sovereignty,” that is the voters, who comprised only of white males in the 19th century, should decide where slavery should exist. The Little Giant owned a plantation in Mississippi with slaves. Well, not exactly, but it was in his wife’s name.
How long will it be before those Douglas statues in Illinois will be vandalized? When will the call for their removal begin? And those seven plazas with Lincoln and Douglas will look unbalanced with just one man. Will Lincoln, who at one time of course was a racist, albeit most whites were bigots in the 1800s, get yanked too from those spots too?
Nancy Pelosi is calling for the removal of eleven statues honoring Confederates at Statuary Hall. Each state gets two statues, some of these honorees are well-known, Andrew Jackson represents Tennessee, George Washington is one of Virginia’s statues. Both men of course owned slaves. Some of the honorees are virtually unknown. Frances Willard, the longtime president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a group that assisted in establishing Prohibition in America, represents Illinois in the hall. Like Douglas, she was a big deal in her day. But Willard held racist views and she feuded with African American civil rights leader Ida B. Wells.
When you remove the Confederates, the slave holders, and the racists, how many statues will be left in Statuary Hall?
How many statues in front of libraries, village squares, or county courthouses will be removed?
Where does is it all end?
And if all of the statues are gone, then what?
John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.
Public business my son, must always be done by somebody.— it will be done by somebody or other— If wise men decline it others will not: if honest men refuse it, others will not. A young man should well weigh his plans. Integrity should be preserved in all events, as essential to his happiness, thro every stage of his existence. His first maxim then, should be to place his honor out of the reach of all men
John Adams to his son Thomas Sept 2 1789
Because of it’s nature Television has an over-sized ability to influence culture to the good or to ill. It is no coincidence that many of the cultural changes that have had negative connotations for society have been pushed by the celebrity culture for the sake of their own justification over the years for example: Sex in the City
I do wonder what my life would have looked like if “Sex and the City” had never come across my consciousness. Perhaps I’d be married with children now? Who knows, but I can say for sure that, as clever and aesthetically pleasing as the show was — and, as much as I agree with its value of female friendships — it showed too much consumerism and fear of intimacy disguised as empowerment.
It’s like candy: In the moment it feels good to eat it, but afterward, you feel sick. Whom you’re dating, what you’re wearing, or how good you look at that premiere — none of that s–t matters unless you genuinely love yourself. Solid relationships are what really matter.
Truth be told, I wish I had never heard of “SATC.” I’m sure there are worse role models but, for me, it did permanent and measurable damage to my psyche that I’m still cleaning up.
Sure, I could have been a dating columnist for the rest of my life but, honestly, I gave really bad dating advice — and so did Carrie Bradshaw.
Many women fell for this fantasy and are regretting it now. It’s worth noting that Sarah Jessica Parker got married in 1997 at age 32 and has been married to Matthew Broadrick ever since. She knew it was just a show.
However there were and are plenty of shows that can influence for the good. How many people became engineers because they wanted to Scotty from Star Trek or got into science because they wanted to be the Professor from Gilligan’s Island?
Cop shows are like this. I suspect there are plenty of people who became cops because they wanted shows about police as a kid and decided they wanted to be the honest cop the person of integrity and honor , who serves and protects others from the dangers of the world. Even shows like Barney Miller, which highlighted the monotony of the job, featured good people doing good things.
Now I ask you. If you decide to teach that the police are evil and to be rejected and you remove that image of the honest cop from the culture what will replace it? And more importantly WHO will replace it when it comes time to seek people to actually do one of the most thankless jobs of society.
Let me remind you again of John Adams’ quote that started this piece
Public business my son, must always be done by somebody.— it will be done by somebody or other— If wise men decline it others will not: if honest men refuse it, others will not.
This is being demonstrated in Seattle today. If the Police don’t do the policing others will who just might not be wise or honest or worried about serving and protecting.
The Demonetization of Police by the media/left for their political purposes is going to have great damage to our society in the short term. But the removal of the image of the honest cop and policeman who protects and serves from our cultural stream will do even more damage, not now but 20 years from now, because when you don’t inspire people to be honest men and women with integrity, with no other agenda than to make their living serving the public to be cops, then those looking to exploit such a job for it’s perks while hanging back from it’s responsibilities will be the ones who fill those positions and you and your children and grandchildren who follow won’t like the result.
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