Libertarian Commentary #16-09C By Nathan Barton

How much is a black life worth? Especially that of a 50-something business owner? Seems to me that the race-baiters who supposedly “support” black liberty would scream at this decision. Four white men are ordered by a court to pay restitution for killing of a black man. The defendants were teenagers in Mississippi in 2011 when they screamed “White power!” and beat James Craig Anderson before running him over with a truck. The WaPo reports this, five years after the atrocity. Putting aside issues of how an ARMED black man is a lot harder to torture and kill, consider that the attitude of courts and Tranzis is to let perpetrators of atrocities like this off with very little punishment. I am very much a believer in restorative justice, but this payment of $840,000 (before taxes) seems to be a poor penalty for torture and murder. Which leads to problems like the next incident.

Also reported by the WaPo, we learn of outrage in Alabama after a white officer killed unarmed black man in front of his own house as neighbors watched. Montgomery police promise an impartial investigation, but that has done little to soothe the dead man’s family and neighbors who want white police to stay out of their neighborhood. Do you blame them? I want them to stay out of MY neighborhood, too, whether it is an Anglo or AmerInd or Hispanic neighborhood. Not because they are “police” but because they are trained thugs who have way too many of their number willing to gun down or beat or otherwise abuse “mundanes” (“civilians”) and are an internal military occupation force.

And all too often incompetent at what they are supposed to be doing: solving crimes. It isn’t just Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Peirot that makes cops look bad. Consider this next WaPo piece: It is an Airbnb nightmare: 7 bedrooms, a swimming pool — and a decomposing body in the garden. Police haven’t been able to identify the victim found in the garden in a tony Paris suburb, but said an autopsy indicated she’d been dead at least a month. The cops DO say that “foul play is suspected.” No, really? The branches which covered the body in a shallow hole might make that “obvious,” but I don’t know if the trees have sufficient motive, at least not that cops can identify.

Actually, all too often the incompetence extends to MORE than just crime-solving, as DC Clothesline claims concerning the Malheur County (Oregon) Sheriff’s Office, already tainted with corruption for its handling of the occupation of the wildlife refuge and the events around it. This time, the evidence of the corruption comes from – get this – the sheriff’s deputies’ own video cameras on their vehicles, as they stop and harass yet another person with no real justification for doing so. County voters are SUPPOSED to control their elected sheriff, and when they fail to do so, they get messes like this. And worse: innocent people dying.

I am no real fan of football, but this still seems to be insanely politically correct and nanny-statish. According to the WaPo, the Ivy League football teams have voted to quit tackling in practice to prevent injuries. The unanimous decision by coaches must be affirmed by other league officials and university presidents before it becomes official. I understand some of the logic of this, but it will surely chase away potential college athletes: if they don’t want to run risks of injuries in tackling, they can go out for soccer or curling, can’t they?

Mama’s Note: Oh, I can see it now… all the macho men sitting in their living rooms with beer and cigars, watching the football players in their new memory foam and bubble wrap uniforms. That’s hysterical.