“We can’t do anything, ma’am. The city told us this is a sanctioned event,” said the police dispatcher to Virginian Tara Durant. Durant had called 911, frantic, because she’d been stopped in Fredericksburg by violent protesters, some of whom were jumping on her car.
Incredulous and fearing for her five-year-old daughter, who was with her, Durant could be heard in the recording exclaiming “Get out of my car!” and “They’re on my car!” The dispatcher’s response? Apart from offering the advice “Don’t hit anyone with your vehicle,” she told the mother:
“Yes, ma’am. We would suggest you call up city hall to let them know about your frustrations.”
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Of course, the police were being handcuffed by the city government. Given this, it’s not surprising that Fredericksburg mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw offered an apology. What is surprising is whom she offered it to: the mob.
Police, after all, had tried to disperse them while they were rioting. “I am personally sorry,” Greenlaw consequently stated. “I apologize to those who went through this fearful experience.” Yes, well, how dare the law try to spoil their mayhem.
Unfortunately, No-law Greenlaw is hardly alone. Democrats across the nation have not only allowed mobs to tear down statues reflecting our culture, but have also sometimes even tacitly encouraged them. Then there was the NYPD cop heard on audio joking “Welcome to New York” when discussing a 911 call from a woman complaining that her neighborhood was like a “war zone,” with gunshots ringing out. And Fox host Tucker Carlson showed video Thursday night of NYC police ignoring just such a war-zone situation, as Democrat city streets descend into anarchy.
Carlson had also reported on the Durant situation (video below. Relevant portion begins at 6:46, but the whole segment is well worth viewing).
Yet it’s not just that taxpaying Americans and their culture go unprotected now, notably in Democrat cities, but that they’re actually sometimes punished for protecting themselves and their culture. For example, Democrat Philadelphia officials condemned citizens guarding a Christopher Columbus statue, and radical leftist city district attorney Larry Krasner threatened to bring charges against them.
Recently in Nashville, an 88-year-old female liquor store owner was charged with assault for non-fatally shooting an alleged robber. A man in Democrat-run New York was arrested early this month for expressing on social media that he was going to shoot rioters. And a smoke shop employee in Democrat-run Virginia was arrested in March for using a firearm to ward off a trio of robbers.
Of course, this just reflects the Europeanizing of America, something the Left trumpets as it admires Western Europe’s norms. Consider, for example, that in 1999 already, Britain imprisoned an oft-victimized farmer for five years for shooting a burglar in his home.
Oh, the farmer, Tony Martin, had initially been given a life sentence. It was ultimately reduced to manslaughter, but he was denied reduced time on that charge because, the authorities said, Martin “would continue to pose a danger to any other burglars.”
As for our creeping (or is it galloping now?) leftism, while governmental malpractice affects all, ours nonetheless appears targeted. Mentioning this, Carlson also pointed out in his segment that during both the Wuhan virus lockdowns and the current protests, all the double standards just happen to redound negatively upon one particular group: Trump voters. As he put it, during the pandemic,
Christian churches and small businesses were locked down; weed shops and abortion clinics stayed open.
Most Trump voters seemed not to notice; they accepted the restrictions without question. This was a health crisis, and they wanted to do the right thing. So they obeyed. They cowered in their homes, and that’s exactly where Democratic leaders wanted them — cut off from one another, atomized and alone.
The few conservatives who tried to organize resistance to the lockdowns were indicted or threatened with arrest. None of this had anything to do with public health, of course. It was electoral politics, an especially brutal form of it.
Carlson then said that regarding the rioting and calls for systemic upheaval, we should consider
the targets that the mob chose. Law enforcement, obviously, but not all law enforcement. Local police departments must be eliminated, they said, but the FBI is just fine — and that was telling.
Then they claimed that capitalism was the enemy, but only certain kinds of capitalism. The mob burned independent businesses to the ground by the score; they didn’t say a word about those businesses’ digital competitors, Google and Apple and Amazon. All of those companies were funding the destruction.
Then the mob told us that traditional Christianity was racist; they desecrated churches in the name of avenging slavery. And yet Antifa did not touch a single mosque, despite the fact that historians say Mohammed owned slaves.
As all of this progressed, Democrats continued their lectures about gun control, as they always do, but they ignored the rifles in the hands of their own supporters in downtown Seattle. The real threat, they told us, was rural Americans with their AR-15s. We better get the FBI on that — arrest more farmers.
In other words, what looked like protests were in fact highly effective attacks on Donald Trump’s voters, his power base.
I noted this as well. Consider that Democrat governors locked down mostly virus-free rural areas along with pandemic hot spots such as NYC. But would they have locked down the cities if there were a disease ravaging mainly the country?
In reality, it’s reminiscent of how the Soviets’ Joseph Stalin persecuted farmers, killing millions of them, beginning in the 1930s. Historically, the cities have been bastions of leftism while rural people are more likely to oppose it.
Ironically, though, the cities have borne the brunt of our rioting and looting, and this teaches a lesson:
When eggs are broken for omelets, you don’t have to be the desired target to end up collateral damage.
Photo: AP Images
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
