{"id":7779,"date":"2014-08-18T14:03:42","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T21:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7779"},"modified":"2014-08-18T14:03:42","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T21:03:42","slug":"revolutionary-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/revolutionary-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Revolutionary Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO-The Corner<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo via Huffington Post<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Certainly any time in America that an unarmed suspect is fatally shot by a policeman of the opposite race, there is a need for concern and a quick and full inquiry of the circumstances leading to such a deadly use of force. That said, there is something disturbing about the demagogic efforts to rush to judgment in Ferguson, Mo. While it is understandable to deplore the militarization of the police that might accentuate rising tensions on the street, and to note that a mostly white police force might be less sensitive to a majority African-American populace, there is as yet not much evidence that the antithesis \u2014 a more relaxed approach to crowd control under the direction of a sensitive African-American law-enforcement official \u2014 has so far resulted in an end of the street violence or of the looting of stores. Too little police deterrence can be just as dangerous as too much.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It is also an American tradition that those under suspicion are considered innocent until the evidence is gathered, sifted, and adjudicated. Instead, the officer in question has more or less been tried and found guilty by those on the street (some of whom are calling for his death) and the media who reports on them. The governor has been particularly demagogic in blasting as character disparagement the logical release of a video showing the deceased minutes before the shooting robbing a store and brutally intimidating a clerk half his size \u2014 a fact naturally of some relevance in the ensuing disputed events.<\/p>\n

If in fact the video has been doctored in the prior fashion of NBC\u2019s selective editing of the Zimmerman tape or CNN\u2019s distortion of the Zimmerman vocabulary, or ABC\u2019s massaging of the video of Zimmerman\u2019s wounds, then certainly disparagement is the correct noun; if not, the governor should be ashamed of himself. As of now, we have no accurate idea of whether the officer in question had reasonable cause initially to stop and interrogate the deceased, was first hurt in an altercation over his gun with a robbery suspect, or was charged and put in mortal danger by the deceased \u2014 or simply panicked, overreacted, and shot an unarmed man. What little evidence that has so far emerged from eyewitnesses, a video, and the police report remains ambiguous.<\/p>\n

No matter. The gratuitous looting and street violence, the almost instantaneous rush to blast the police by soon to be presidential candidate Rand Paul; the arrival of the usual demagogues \u2014 Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson (\u201cstate execution\u201d), and the New Black Panther Party \u2014 the reluctance to suspend judgment until we learn the circumstances of the fatal encounter and hear from the policeman involved, the unnecessary TV filming of the home of the officer in question, the politically motivated distortions of the media, the now customary editorializing in tense racial matters by President Obama before the facts are established \u2014 so reminiscent of the Trayvon Martin case \u2014 are all a sort of revolutionary street justice, but do not reflect the rule of constitutional law and do not calm racial tensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO-The Corner Certainly any time in America that an unarmed suspect is fatally shot by a policeman of the opposite race, there is a need for concern and a quick and full inquiry of the circumstances leading to such a deadly use of force. That said, there is something disturbing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[844,977,120],"tags":[1042,981],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-21t","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7982,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/losers\/","url_meta":{"origin":7779,"position":0},"title":"Losers","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO-The Corner 1. Barack Obama is now a toxic brand. Arrogance and incompetence are a fatal brew. If once his problem was his failed policies, now it is also his persona, especially the blame-gaming and sense of boredom on the job that borders on public\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/download-16.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8134,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/summit-on-violent-extremism-laugh-or-cry\/","url_meta":{"origin":7779,"position":1},"title":"Summit on Violent Extremism\u2014Laugh or Cry?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO-The Corner It was just announced that the White House, in the wake of the mass murders in France, plans to reactivate an old idea of convening a \u201cSummit on Countering Violent Extremism.\u201d Is this an accurate news account or some sort of cruel satire?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NRO The Corner"","block_context":{"text":"NRO The Corner","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/nro-the-corner\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7783,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/living-out-critical-legal-theory\/","url_meta":{"origin":7779,"position":2},"title":"Living Out Critical Legal Theory","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO- The Corner It may not have been the aim of Missouri Highway Patrol captain Ron Johnson to outsource security responsibilities to someone affiliated with the New Black Panthers and a legal activist group, but that is the impression that one receives from listening to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8266,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/riding-the-pollercoaster\/","url_meta":{"origin":7779,"position":3},"title":"Riding the Pollercoaster","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ NRO- The Corner Though polls employ different scientific methodologies, as a whole they are more often right than wrong. Everyone assumes that sampling public opinion remains an art, and is not immune from the biases of the pollster. Still, how does one explain not just discrepancies,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6480,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/populism-lives-at-nro\/","url_meta":{"origin":7779,"position":4},"title":"Populism Lives at NRO","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"We depend on thousands of small contributors. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 National Review Online\u00a0imposes no litmus test on its contributors. The result each day \u2014 to take the most recent hot-button issue \u2014 is that columnists both support and oppose the proposed Syrian intervention, though usually from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7707,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/from-my-people-to-our-people-what-next\/","url_meta":{"origin":7779,"position":5},"title":"From \u2018My People’ to \u2018Our People\u2019 \u2014 What Next?","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online - The Corner Representative Luis Gutierrez addressed the National Council of La Raza in hyper tones, calling not only for more amnesties but also for the crowd to \u201cpunish\u201d their adversaries who would oppose them. Apparently, Eric Holder\u2019s prior separatist reference to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ImmigrationRV.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7781,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7779\/revisions\/7781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}