Leading right-wing websites—like Breitbart—didn’t seem very “torn” about how to cover Ferguson.
It would be a great thing if politicians were more critical of the obvious trend towards militarization of police forces. And there’s no doubt that some voices have been more critical of overzealous police practices than one might expect. But is it actually a widespread trend?
The New York Times and Washington Post seem to think so, since both papers have pieces about a supposed shift among Republicans. But there’s not a whole lot of evidence–beyond one Republican in particular.
The Times piece (8/14/14), headlined “Missouri Unrest Leaves the Right Torn Over Views on Law vs. Order,” argues that the police killing of Michael Brown and the “overwhelming law enforcement response” to the protests that followed “have stirred more complicated reactions” among conservatives. One would certainly hope so. As the Times‘ Jeremy Peters notes, “Some prominent conservative commentators and leading Republican politicians began questioning whether the police had gone too far.”
But just how much of this questioning is really happening? Peters points to an “ascendant strain of libertarianism” in the GOP, and focuses on Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul‘s piece at Time (8/14/14), a powerful argument against the militarization of the police as a threat to liberty.
The Drudge Report seemed to think the big story from Ferguson was the New Black Panther Party.
But is there much happening beyond that? Peters points to a rather bland statement from fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, and to a Twitter comment from right-wing blogger Erick Erickson. But the counter-examples in the piece seem to outweigh the evidence of this new trend on the right:
In much of the conservative news media, the protesters in Ferguson are being portrayed as “outside agitators,” in the words of Sean Hannity, the Fox News host.
And:
Other conservatives have focused on instances in which chaos has broken out in the streets. Images and headlines on the Drudge Report and Breitbart.com have singled out acts of violence among demonstrators and shown looters breaking store windows.
In one segment broadcast on Fox News on Thursday, a reporter walked down the street with demonstrators who he said were members of the New Black Panther Party, a radical group.
In the Washington Post, Dan Balz had a similar piece (8/14/14), arguing that the Brown killing
has produced a rare and surprisingly unified response across the ideological spectrum, with Republicans and Democrats joining to decry the tactics of the city’s police force in the face of escalating protests.
To Balz, “the reactions reflect a shift away from the usual support and sympathy conservatives typically show for law enforcement in such situations.”
“No better sign of that,” explained Balz, than Paul’s Time op-ed. Fine–and what are the other examples? Balz cites some comments from Republican strategists that don’t really answer that question, though one notes that he doesn’t think reactions like Paul’s are “indicative of a broader trend among conservatives that is less pro-law enforcement.” Balz then points to the “more careful reactions” from other Republican leaders like Sen. Marco Rubio. “Careful” here would appear to mean less critical of police repression.
It would be wonderful if more Republicans–and, for that matter, more Democrats–were speaking out about police abuses and related issues. But treating one lawmaker’s op-ed as a sign of a fundamental shift on the right seems a bit of an overreach.
Surely what’s needed is for everyone to ‘open carry’ machine guns.
According to the NRA, that would make everyone safe.
Oh no, we should all have Flame thowers, or Bazooka’s. Gotto protect myself from the Open carrying machine gun people. (:-)
I think the republicans are doing what they always do; have one person ‘speak out’ and then the rest can wipe their brow and either sigh in relief (See someone said it, so it must be ok), or roll their eyes and make a bit stink (that smells suspeciously like Tush Limburger) and pretend to deny they would go so far.
Then everyone is covered, and the Punk-dinks of the Fux Snooz Nitwork will all then use that ‘talking point’ to prove “them libber-alls rong” because the Pea Party said it was not happy, so stop claiming we are supporting the police. And then segway into a bit of how great the Police really are, and thus it is only a few and far bewteen people (just like always).
As long as tyranny is against non-whites, the right wing conservatives do not seem to care. If this was happening to whites they would be up in arms.
Remember all that blather a while back about the Republicans “rethinking” their positions on “social issues”?
Rinse and repeat.
(How’d I whiff on this?)
Make that “Blather, rinse and repeat.”
I can’t help but wonder if the government might have realized that providing heavy weaponry to organizations which might end up being fired back at them is a bad idea.
We have a long history of creating occupying armies that prove to be bad ideas. Now just how are we going to deal with an occupying army which is located in the middle of our own country.
Wasn’t there a Bruce Willis movie about this somewhere?
By the way, there are no federal laws against possession of flamethrowers. They can be bought from several places on line, and a number of plans and instructions can be located via search engine. They’re really not that difficult to make. A compressed tank full of flammable liquid and some sort of nozzle….I did see a “how to” page put together by some enterprising teens who built a flamethrower out of some plastic pipe and aquarium fittings.
The police have no business being militarized. I am of the opinion that they shouldn’t even have protective vests. When police are geared up, they lose fear and go rambo. Further, the internal affairs office of police forces should be dismantled and grand juries should be investigating all police shootings and misconduct. And for you partisan hacks out there I am very conservative. NSA, CIA, TSA, IRS, ATF, should all be dismantled. This government has no business at all doing what it has been doing lately. The politicians create more problems than they solve.
Actually, you can add NPR (“All Things Considered”) to the list of news outlets who talked about how the Right too was speaking out against the militarization and then (at least mainly) used Rand Paul as the example. I remember thinking to myself, “Rand Paul is not exactly the typical Republican…but rather represents the tiny libertarian wing of a party that is generally libertarian on economic issues but authoritarian on everything else.”
Here’s the link to the NPR story: http://www.npr.org/2014/08/15/340619998/left-and-right-unite-in-criticizing-ferguson-police-response
There’s no need for police to have military equipment. If a terrorist attack takes place on American soil, let the military deal with it. Local cops are too gung-ho and want to play with their new toys. They can’t be trusted to use this equipment judiciously. Too many cops are a bunch of adrenaline junkie smart butts that need their tail feathers clipped. Sending the NYPD cop who choked an unarmed man to death to prison for the rest of his natural life as well as the other officers and paramedics who stood by and did nothing would be a great start to the tail feather trimming.