May 5^th

Yesterday we had Pat Buchanan in full rant mode; he was after those lawless black folks who seem immune to all that money the liberals have sent their way. Obviously, for a conservative like Buchanan any lack of respect for money is a sin of considerable magnitude.

Let’s look at some of Pat’s comments: Pat’s first point is that if Freddie Gray had been simply left to die in the street as a result of black crime no one would care but because he was killed in the care of the police he was “credibly cast in the victim’s role.” Well yeah, Buchanan, because you see the cops are supposed to protect civilians not kill them. That’s what we pay them for but sometimes they, and you, don’t get that message.

Hillary Clinton mentions Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown as examples of racial problems; Buchanan quickly defends George Zimmerman who shot Trayvon Martin to death “while Martin was sitting on top of and beating senseless this neighborhood watch guy.” Buchanan conveniently leaves out the established fact that Zimmerman had called police about Martin and was told to stay in his car and not to follow him. He disobeyed a police order. If Treyvon Martin had a gun he could legally, according to Florida’s stand your ground law, have simply turned and killed Zimmerman on the spot. Zimmerman was following Trayvon Martin because he was walking in the neighborhood and he was black.

Then Buchanan tells us about his version of Michael Brown’s death; that Brown was a hoodlum there is no doubt. There is also no doubt that he was killed unnecessarily by a panicked cop. The cop, as I’ve said elsewhere had been disrespected by this enormous black kid, in fact, he’d had his nose broken. So to recover his self-respect he didn’t wait for the backup that he’d requested, and was on its way; he started to chase the kid down and when the kid turned around and started toward him (charged Buchanan says) he fired twelve shots at him before finally killing him; twelve shots! Can you say panicked cop?

Buchanan makes the point that most black men are killed by other black men. That’s true but those black men are not paid to “protect and defend” anybody.  Cops are paid to do just that and when they don’t do that, and in fact do just the opposite, people get upset. Pat Buchanan can’t understand that.

Pat then comes to Freddy Gray who died while in police custody. The coroner said it was murder but Buchanan can’t bring himself to report that; instead he reports that Freddy Gray had been arrested a “dozen times.” But does Buchanan tell us how many of those arrests resulted in convictions for some crime? Of course he doesn’t tell us that.

Finally Buchanan bristles at the thought of releasing some of these felons from prison. We’re running about 700/100,000  population in prison compared with less than 200/100,000 for most European nations. Much of this disparity is due to our drug laws which criminalize even small amounts of marijuana. This is the crime for which Buchanan is sure early release will endanger honest citizens. More likely early release would reduce the income of Correction Corporation of America, that’s the outfit that makes a profit from long sentences for minor violations and from strict enforcement of drug laws. What do you suppose it’s worth to Correcrion Corporation of America if a judge sentences a man to a twelve year prison term for selling pot? Do you think they might support the reelection of judges who do that? Imagine, we now monetize jail time!