As I sat in horror watching Wednesday's events unfold at the Capitol in DC, I, like many others probably asked themselves "What could possibly lead to behavior this radical?" Maybe part of the answer at least is sitting there right in front of us and we don't even realize it.
I've said for a long time that social media is toxic, and is creating an army of sociopathic individuals devoid of empathy and compassion. When you spend all your time conversing and interacting with other individuals through short bursts of text other than real conversation, you become detached. Humans were designed to interact face to face. To see emotion in another person's face. To read their body language. It's what invokes empathy and feeling. However, another byproduct of mass social media use is propaganda. Never before has there been a tool so effective at spreading misinformation, and our addiction to these platforms leads to constant inundation of this rhetoric, causing more people to eventually believe a whole lot of nonsense.
Our politicians, media, pundits, scholars, celebrities, and entertainers all push blatant information out into the social media sphere, for gullible people to gobble up. It distorts the perception of reality and creates a culture of anger and division. In other words, the American mind is being poisoned.
Ask yourself would yesterday have occurred without social media? Would thousands upon thousands of people have descended upon DC yesterday if their only exposure to propaganda or rhetoric were sporadic statements by Donald Trump on TV? Or did it take weeks and weeks of rhetoric being pounded into the brains of Americans, not just by Trump, but my other users spreading misinformation and misleading rhetoric 24 hours a day collectively? There probably would have been some people down at DC yesterday without social media, but I highly doubt it would have been the massive sea of people it was without these platforms.
Ask yourself if factions like Q Anon would exist without social media. Without the ability to spread asinine conspiracy theories to a wide user base in an instant, would this entity even exist in its current form without social media?
This goes beyond just yesterday's events. Throughout 2020, the country was plagued with riots, insurrections, and looting. Social media was informing the public that police violence in America was out of control and people of color were being "actively hunted." If someone were to believe that, of course they would be freaking out. They would be terrified, panicked, and angry. The problem is, it's not true. Police violence against people of color was its lowest in decades... and those are just total numbers, not per capita, which make it even lower. The number of unarmed black men shot and killed by cops dropped by over 60% from 2015 to 2019. More bad cops are being prosecuted and sent to prison than ever. Crime in general has decreased, making the 2010 decade(2010-2019) the second greatest decade on record for crime in the United States. That's not to say there aren't racist cops. Of course there are. And when these scumbags are found, they need to be removed from the force, and if they commit wrongdoing they need to be charged and locked up.
Social media would have you believe otherwise, however. When you are constantly inundated with propaganda and rhetoric, you'd believe the opposite to be true. And many people do. A recent poll showed a significant portion of the population believes gun violence in the United States is the worst it has ever been in American history, when that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Americans have been lead to believe falsities pushed by people with an agenda, and it's causing division and discord in our society. It's causing us to hate our fellow men and women who we likely agree on 95% of life issues with. It's unhealthy and unsustainable.
Weak American Leadership
Just last night, people were pushing a narrative that if the rioters and insurrectionists weren't a bunch of white people, things would have gone differently. Maybe. It's certainly possible. I'm not often one to write off the possibility of something until we know for sure. But maybe not. If you're going to make accusations, at least back it up with some evidence and data to support your theory. I don't know about you, but in 2020 I saw regular rioting and looting with very little repercussion. I saw a police precinct burned to the ground by a massive crowd of rioters of all races in Minneapolis, not to mention countless other buildings. A police precinct, the home base of a police department. Did they gun down the rioters and cause mass casualties? No, they ran away
I see weekly rioting and looting in Portland and Seattle. Again, people of all ethnicities going building to building smashing every window in sight and setting fires in many. The cops do absolutely nothing but make a few arrests, most of whom are released on bail the next day and never charged.
I saw Philadelphia get rioted and looted and the police doing absolutely nothing to stop it. People raiding a Walmart and picking the store clean without an officer in sight.
I saw insurrectionists, of all races and backgrounds take over a section of a city in Seattle, dub it an "autonomous zone" and operate unimpeded for weeks until police stepped in... only after innocent people(some kids) were murdered in its confines.
I saw officers standing guard in front of a courthouse in Portland on dozens of occasions, having bricks, molotov cocktails, glass, stones, and explosives thrown at them by crowds of people of all races, and doing very little about it.
Yesterday's response was per the norm in this country. Rioting and looting goes unpunished. That's the precedent we set in 2020 and yesterday was a reflection of that. Do you honestly think that officers guarding the Capitol stopped to think about the race of these lunatics yesterday? Being assaulted, screamed at, having things thrown at them, all while knowing that it's the job of a few select officers to guard one of our nation's most precious building with its most important people... you really think during the madness, chaos, and carnage they stopped to think about race? If you do, then your mind has been poisoned.
Yesterday was a byproduct of weak American leadership more than anything. Officers have been undermined and abandoned by our leaders for months. Many have resigned because of it. Very few have stood up for them, while they endured months of ridicule and demonization. Our leadership in America is so weak, the very entity they rely on to protect us, were neglected in favor of violent extremists looking to burn our cities, telling them to stand down and don't engaged while their cities are torn apart. And naturally, these same leaders were the first ones to call the cops whenever their personal safety was compromised or threatened, while pushing for these same departments to be defunded.
Cries to strip law enforcement of any means to prevent rioting and looting came from all corners of the country. Banning choke holds, banning tear gas, banning pepper spray. Banning the use of rubber bullets. These tools used to deter and prevent mass carnage were condemned because some claimed "they violated the first amendment rights of peaceful protest" while many news agencies refused to condemn the rioting and burning altogether.
And some cities did just that. Some cities pushed and enacted policies to ban some of these methods. And the ones that didn't? Total demoralization of their police forces. Knowing their leaders won't have their backs and that if they so much as hit one rioter with a rubber bullet in the face, their identity will potentially be put on social media and mobs of angry people will show up at the officer's house threatening them and their family.
The New Norm
So, why did yesterday happen so easily? Because this is the culture that was created in 2020. By catering and cowering activists, we have stripped law enforcement with means to combat these angry mobs, both technologically and psychologically. It's a lose-lose situation for them. If they use tear gas or rubber bullets they're wrong, if they don't they're wrong. If they resort to lethal force they're evil and if they don't they're evil. We have created a culture that tells us destruction and violence is okay if you do it in the name of a certain cause; to quote certain media types "When did protest ever have to be peaceful?" Their duty as leaders and politicians is to protect our citizens and our cities. Yesterday, in part, is the result of those failures. I believe if not for the events of 2020, police would have been more aggressive and better equipped yesterday. I strongly believe if law enforcement didn't endure an entire year of attempted suppression of crowd control tactics, things wouldn't have gotten as bad.
We can't have it both ways. We cannot tell law enforcement that they need to do less, need to be responsible for less, be less aggressive in counter-measures, have less money, but also do a better job at preventing incidents they are ill-equipped for. I said it during the summer, that this was going to come back to bite the country in the ass and was going to weaken the foundations of our law enforcement departments around the country, leaving them vulnerable to a seismic event like at the Capitol.
Meanwhile, these criminals have become embolded after months of inaction. You don't think the people down in DC yesterday were watching on TV and seeing hundreds of cities enduring rioting and looting with very few arrests and say to themselves "Hey, if they can get away with it, so can we."
What To Do About it?
So what can we do about it? How do we prevent mass rioting, looting, anarchism, and insurrections every time something happens that people have a problem with? The only solution I can think of are policy changes.
We need to enact rioting and looting laws that bring heavy punishment. If a riot breaks out and you even step foot inside of a business or building that is being raided? Minimum 5 years in prison with no possibility of early release. I don't care if you're that guy who casually strolled into the Walmart in Philadelphia after it had been ransacked and peacefully wheeled off with a washing machine. 5 years in prison-gone.
If you take part in rioting or looting and you have any type of weapon on you even if it has not been used maliciously? 10 years in prison, mandatory. No possibility of early release.
If you are caught using a weapon or instrument of harm during any of these events, 15 years in prison, no questions asked, and no chance of early release.
Every single person caught is prosecuted. No leniency. No sympathy.
If things turn outwardly violent and rioters are using deadly weapons to put innocent civilians in danger? Authorized use of lethal force by law enforcement. We cannot allow one innocent civilian life to be lost in lieu of violent radicals.
The only way to deter crime is with crackdowns, and we're way beyond the need for reform at this point. This insanity has gotten way out of control after an entire year of pandering and cowardice from our leaders. We need to get law and order back in our cities and things back under control. Maybe Americans will think twice about taking part in these if they had more reason to fear for their freedom. Crackdowns have worked before with violence, and they can work again. Violence is skyrocketing in our cities, approaching 90's level benchmarks. Violence rates are going in the wrong direction after a great decade of progress. We need our politicians, leaders, lawmakers to step up and quell this madness before it is too late. Otherwise, who's to say the White House won't be the next building extremists decide to storm?
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