Falsely Accused of Rape? Rolling Stone Rape Story! Black on Black Murders!

Nick Gillespie ― In the Rush to Blame Everyone for the Shooting of NYPD Cops, Don't Forget to Include the Actual Shooter

From Reason Magazine:

Just as Sarah Palin's defense of gun rights has zero culpability in the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords and Dallas's right-wing "climate of hate" had nothing to do with Marxist-Leninist Lee Harvey Oswald's assassinaton of JFK, it's worth underscoring at every moment of what is already shaping up as a very ugly debate that the actual killer is the culprit here.

As the New York Daily News and other outlets are reporting, the apparent shooter was not only violent and unhinged but had bragged via Instagram that he was "putting wings on pigs" and "putting pigs in a blanket."

The distance between such rantings and, even worse, the act of shooting policemen sitting in a patrol car is so vast that they simply have no relation to legitimate and even impassioned criticism of the militarization of police and the protesting of specific acts of apparent injustice.

Read complete article here

The Problem With Blaming Black Crime for Police Shootings

From Reason Magazine:

When a white cop kills an unarmed black man, many blacks see a pattern of prejudice that generates official suspicion, hostility and abuse based on skin color. Many whites, however, say it's the fault of blacks. If they didn't commit so much crime, they wouldn't get so much attention from police.

This is not just a favorite theme of overt bigots and Internet trolls. It's the view of Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Republican presidential candidate, and many other whites.

Black-on-black crime "is the reason for the heavy police presence in the black community," he asserted on NBC's Meet the Press. "So why don't (they) cut it down so so many white police officers don't have to be in black areas?"

In this view, African Americans have only themselves to blame for the presence and behavior of cops in their neighborhoods. If they would get serious about cleaning up the problems in their own communities, police would not be arresting or killing so many black people.

There's an element of truth to this line of argument. Violent crime rates are far higher among blacks than among whites and other groups. One reason cops have a disproportionate number of interactions with African-American males is that these men commit a disproportionate number of offenses.

Where the argument fails is in its assumption that blacks are complacent about these realities and that whites are blameless. The gist of the message is that blacks created the problem and blacks need to solve it.

Read complete article here

Dr. Virgil Storr - Markets as Social and Moral Spaces

Virgil Henry Storr, a libertarian economist at George Mason University defends markets from it critics.

Police Misconduct, in Ferguson and Beyond

The violence in Ferguson is inexcusable. But it should not be seen as primarily a reaction to the grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson. Rather, it should be seen as a reaction to years of racially charged policing and a discriminatory justice. Focusing on Officer Wilson’s culpability detracts from the bigger, nation-wide story: That every month there are innumerable police abuses throughout the country that go unnoticed and unreported, and, even if they are reported, the accused officers will likely never be disciplined, much less charged with a crime.

Unfortunately, many of these abuses are disproportionately felt by people of color. Abuses can be small and nearly impossible to discover, such as stopping a car full of black men without probable cause, or they can be large and public, such as unjustifiably gunning down an unarmed black teenager. Sometimes the police action may be justified, and sometimes it may not, but the systems in place for determining culpability are egregiously biased in favor of police officers.

 Add to this an over-militarized police force that uses surplus military gear to violently break into homes 100 times per day, usually to only execute search warrants, and you have a recipe for disaster and an urgent need for reform. We should take advantage of this time of heightened awareness to reform a justice system that has too much power and too little accountability. Hopefully the violence in the street will not overshadow the legitimate protests, but I fear it may.

Trevor Burrus is a research fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. His research interests include constitutional law, civil and criminal law, legal and political philosophy, and legal history

• “The Decision of the Ferguson Grand Jury,” by Walter Olson
• “The Ongoing Situation in Ferguson” by Tim Lynch
• “Broad Reforms Needed to Stop Another Ferguson,” by Trevor Burrus
• Cato’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project

Ron Paul interview on C-SPAN

Ferguson is Burning

My commentary on the looting and arson in Ferguson, Missouri after the grand jury in the Michael Brown case decided not to indicted the officer.

 

Jonathan Blanks - There’s no respect for the rule of law in Ferguson because the government destroyed it

What we’ve seen play out in Ferguson over the past few months, culminating with the rage and destruction last night, is the result of a system that does not work for the people in that community.

Use of force laws protect police officers to an extent that, in the absence of convincing evidence and a forceful prosecution, Officer Darren Wilson was quite unlikely to have been convicted of a crime even if the grand jury had handed down any indictments last night.

But the problems in Ferguson go beyond one officer-involved shooting. From the altercation that left Michael Brown’s body in the street for four hours throughout this ordeal, law enforcement officials have lied, leaked, and obfuscated at seemingly every opportunity. The release of the shoplifting video under false pretense and implementation of bogus no-fly-zones for media helicopters were hallmarks of a law enforcement community circling the wagons around one of their own, regardless of his guilt or innocence.

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