(Photo by Probal Rashid/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Reaching back to the fevered days of Summer 2020, I recall many social media posts written in RIGHTEOUS FURY over of acts vandalism and other crimes against property.
“When the looting starts – the shooting starts” someone said, and to my shame as a human I witnessed this intent repeated over and over in comments on live video feeds of the protests. “Shoot them NOW! – Shoot them ALL!! – I’D DO IT IF I WAS THERE!!!” Far removed from the centers of action, many openly declared an eagerness for protesters to cross their property lines so they could respond with a righteous rain of hot lead.
Blood lust.
Where are those voices now? After a crazed mob broke into our nation’s capital? Tore down the American flag? Killed a police officer? Defecated on the marble steps of the shrine to our Democracy? Attempted to capture and execute the Speaker of the House and Vice President of the United States of America?
Silent at best. At worst, applauding – excusing – justifying. Planning for more of the same. No apologies, no shame, no decency. Owning these acts of lawlessness and desecration, they have the absurd gall to call themselves Patriots. George Orwell would have laughed… or cried.
Eyes bulging, frothing with rage, these zealots fight to drive any semblance of the truth from the field with their shouted lies. The killing of George Floyd and the movement for justice it gave rise to dismissed out of hand, swept aside, invalidated by ready-made bite-sized talking points:
- BLM and ANTIFA rioters running wild!
- Widespread LOOTING and MAYHEM!
- 6 MONTHS of CITIES ON FIRE!
Events sensationalized and reduced to verbal cartoons – uncomplicated and easily repeatable – tales told by idiots to terrorize Aunt Tillie in Topeka.
Sadly they worked.
Aunt Tillie called her nieces and nephews, genuinely concerned, to ask if they were all right. We chuckled and reassured her there was nothing to worry about – those accounts were all way overblown – not understanding that on a very deep level these caricatures had already taken root in her mind like invasive weeds. Damage done.
It’s an impressive feat of exflation; recycling scenes from a few city blocks and tagging cities across the nation, and by extension all legitimate protest, with a single can of lurid spray paint. Psychological vandalism on a grand scale.
Repeated so often no one has the energy to persist in refuting the lies.
–OP 1/10/21
Summary Judgements by Officer Phil 