Wednesday, December 03, 2014

THANKS, BUT, UM, DOESN'T THIS MAKE YOU QUESTION SOME OF YOUR ASSUMPTIONS?

Ryan Reilly at the Huffington Post notes that, in the Eric Garner case, some conservatives agree with liberals: they think the cop who choked Garner should have been indicted.
"The grand jury's decision not to bring any charges against the officer who killed Garner is inexplicable. It defies reason. It makes no sense," wrote Sean Davis at The Federalist. "Unlike the Michael Brown case, we don't have to rely on shaky and unreliable testimony from so-called eyewitnesses. We don't need to review bullet trajectories or forensics. All we have to do is watch the video and believe our own eyes."

"This is one of those moments where left and right could unite. Few seem comfortable with this outcome," Noah Rothman of HotAir.com wrote on Twitter. He elaborated in a post on the website....

"I don't like Eric Holder, and in general don't approve of Feds doubling up, but the Eric Garner case merits it," tweeted Ken White, a libertarian. "This needs a U.S. Attorney."

"Seriously, can you imagine what Sam Fucking Adams would have said at the news that a man had been killed over cigarette taxes," Charles C.W. Cooke of the National Review posted on Twitter.
The fact that Garner was being entrepreneurial and trying to deprive the evil gummint of tax revenue is obviously a big reason for some of the right-wing synpathy. But these conservatives do seem to be reading the Garner video correctly and reacting with appropriate horror. I'd be happy if left and right could unite in outrage in this case.

But, um, folks ... does what happened in this case not make you the least bit skeptical about the narrative that emerged from the grand jury proceedings in Missouri? You look at the Garner video and see that it should be an open-and-shut case, at least regarding an indictment, but the grand jurors clearly failed to come to the obvious decision. So if grand jurors found Darren Wilson and the witnesses who backed his story more plausible than witnesses who challenged his story, why are you so sure that they made the right decision? Why are you so certain that Darren Wilson really feared for his life and had a legitimate reason to think the "demon" Michael Brown might kill him first if he didn't shoot?

Look, it's great that you see the injustice in the Garner case. But now try imagining that cops get away with this sort of thing a lot. Weigh the possibility that the Garner case is typical, not anomalous.

You people don't like government. So why do you have so much trust in government when the government workers are cops, with this case as the exception?