Jackson Jambalaya

 As Americans shift into prolific identity groups, the rest of us find ourselves rolling our eyes and shaking our heads a lot. “Why did he say that? Didn’t he know?” Social constructs excuse reactions that used to be more than inexcusable. Identity groups claim that their own rules exempt them from traditional, i.e. mature reactions. Group violence via demonstrations and riots has become the norm in our cities. The teams are divided into outraged citizens who demand their freedom of speech rights versus law enforcement officers and supportive citizens trying to maintain law and order.  

Just last week we compared how different sides of politically active Americans express themselves. From the beginning of President Trump’s moves to identify and arrest criminal immigrants last year, outraged citizens have organized disorderly protests aimed at limiting law enforcement’s effectiveness in following their orders. 

Protesters against the ICE roundups began by throwing rocks, concrete, and fireworks. Of course, groups carried the usual array of professionally printed signs. Generally, protesters tried to harass and otherwise get in the way of law enforcement officers who were capturing criminal immigrants for arrest and deportation. 

On September 24, a sniper in Dallas, TX, “protested” by firing at an ICE facility killing one detainee and wounding two others. The sniper’s notes indicated he was targeting ICE agents with a bolt-action rifle in a premeditated attack. 

On November 26, in Washington another man attacked two National Guardsmen near the White House killing 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and seriously wounding Andrew Wolfe. Two weeks later Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) in a House hearing characterized the attack and murder as an “unfortunate accident.” Later in his comments Thompson called the attack an “unfortunate situation.” Clearly, Thompson saw this attack as “unfortunate.”

Talk about “unfortunate,” last week an ICE officer fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis after authorities said the woman tried to run over him and other officers during an enforcement operation. DHS released a statement saying the woman tried to “weaponize her vehicle” to attack law enforcement officials in an act of “domestic terrorism.”

What is the difference between protesting, rioting, and committing acts of “domestic terrorism”? Who decides? Violence is in the eye of the beholder these days. Who’s to say whether violence that kills is murder or merely unfortunate?

From law enforcement’s point of view, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News the incident was a “direct consequence of constant attacks and demonization of our officers by sanctuary politicians who fuel and encourage rampant assaults on our law enforcement who are facing 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats.”

I fear we are getting close to if not actually in a war between law-and-order folks and loosely organized associations of political activists. One of the Founders who foresaw troubles in American cities was Thomas Jefferson. He said, “I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.” In another quote he said, “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”

Finally, Jefferson said what he really thought, “The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body.” That’s unfortunate.