There is a war that America is losing. It’s battleground is our cities, and we are losing it because, to a great extent, we are not fighting it. It is not a race war, and it is not a war between police and criminals; these are but the conscripted soldiers in the conflict between forces as old as life itself. Life seeks to thrive, to prosper, and to procreate; but always there is an opposing force that’s only purpose seems to be to destroy. Whether you see that force as a metaphysical evil or simply a hostile universe, it is clear that the natural state of existence is struggle, and surrendering to that struggle will always end in death, chaos, and destruction.
Ferguson is only the latest and most visible demonstration of the battle. The war was raging long before the shooting of Michael Brown, the grand jury decision, the demonstrations, the rioting and the looting. Our cities are dying, and as the proverb goes, we’ve brought a knife to a gun fight. There’s a difference between government and society. Government in a free society is merely a tool that society uses to perform a limited function. It is not the only tool that society has, and when we become so dependent on it that we abandon our other tools, then we are like a carpenter so enamored with his fine hammer that he tries to use it to drive screws, cut miters, and deal with customers. The inadequacy of government, progressive ideology and police state control is clear in cities like Detroit, D.C., and Ferguson. Given any social issue that is generally under control, government is an effective tool to handle the outliers. Most people do not speed down the interstate at 110 mph, and the police are usually able to deal with the few that do. If for one reason or another a much larger percentage of the population began this behavior, and if they ignored police authority, and if even the slower drivers didn’t cooperate with the traffic cops… well, then you would have a problem you would need to fix in another way.
Facts have shown that Michael Brown was not an angel. Whether his shooting was justified seems to be the point of controversy, but the fact of the matter is that we have allowed our cities to decay to the point that there will be people killed both justly and unjustly, and you can’t fix that without fixing the larger issues. These are huge issues including family structure, spirituality, education, and poverty; many of which are interconnected. One place to start is the restoration of hope, the reclaiming of the American Dream for our cities. We have given men fish instead of teaching them to fish. Now, it does a man no good to starve while he is learning to fish, but simply sustaining people makes them little more than livestock. Giving people hope is not a natural function of government.
The riots and looting in Ferguson are unfortunately the face of the protests. These seem senseless and unrelated to the idea of “justice”, when innocent shop owners, private citizens, members of the press, and law enforcement personnel are targeted to pay for the perceived sins of others. Even in other cities, peaceful demonstrations targeted Black Friday and Wal-Mart in retaliation for the grand jury decision. Protest often takes the form of terrorism when it uses indiscriminate destruction to call attention to a cause. It follows the mindset of an increasingly large segment of society where retaliation is the first and preferred response for conflict resolution. It is a retreat to the dark corners of chaos in a misguided attempt to punish the powers that be. It is a hopeless surrender to the dark side, where fighting fire with fire means throwing gasoline… “burn this bitch down!”
Good people don’t make news. Normal folk are not entertaining. Shows like Jerry Springer, Judge Judy, and even the evening news are the modern day equivalent of the freak show. We are at once repulsed and captivated by the steady stream of odd balls, sociopaths and train wrecks. The saturation of these shows, social media, and the 24 hour news cycle can tend to cause us to overestimate the descent of society as a whole. There remain many good people, many hard working solid citizens anxious to embrace the ideas of America. Some need a little help. Neighbors have always helped neighbors, especially when they were starting out. We’ll help you build your barn, but after that we generally expect you to muck out your own stalls, and most people will. It is these good people that are the foundation on which the cities can be rebuilt. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, and inasmuch as we encourage idleness, we encourage mischief. Helping our neighbors to have the tools to be productive and create industry builds an infrastructure for success, self-reliance, and prosperity. People with jobs and businesses don’t burn their own city.
One of the victims of the Ferguson riots was business owner Natalie DuBose. Having started her bakery business selling cakes at flea markets, she grew into a small store front in Ferguson. She’s a black business owner, but the irrationality of the rioting was color blind and her business was looted and vandalized in the mayhem. Thanksgiving is an important holiday for a cake maker, and even as her fledgling “GoFundMe” plea for help from her neighbors began, she made arrangements for finding a way to fulfill the Thanksgiving orders she had promised. No doubt greatly due to her appearance on Fox News, and publicity from conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, “neighbors” contributed more than a quarter of a million dollars in just three days to get Natalie’s Cakes and More up and running again. In addition Ms. DuBose used the notoriety of her cause to highlight the plights of some of the other small business owners in Ferguson who are also being helped by neighbors across the country.
IMHO: It is not uncommon for conservatives to be cast in false dichotomies to villainize their positions, because their positions in and of themselves are not sufficiently villainous for political purposes. Argue against affirmative action and you will be cast as a racist. Take a pro-life stand and somehow that puts you in a war against women. Being a second amendment advocate makes you a gun nut that doesn’t care if our children are shot in school. Believing in traditional marriage makes you a homophobe. Taking what you consider to be a more reasoned approach to immigration and amnesty, and you are turned into a bigoted redneck. So it is not surprising that conservatives are cast in the role of greedy capitalists that don’t want to share their blessings. Except for the true Randian Objectivists, of which there are exceedingly few, conservatives are almost always shown to be more charitable than other political groups. That being said, if we believe that government is not the answer to save our cities, and by extension our country, then what is? Self-reliance is important, but no one is born self reliant. We need to help one another, not under compunction of law, but because we are neighbors, and that’s what neighbors do. We can’t afford to wait until the government gets out of the way; there will be nothing left to save. Government is inconsequential. Not all will be charitable, but most will, and the others will be judged in a higher court. If capitalism is the route to prosperity, then we need to invest in those willing to bring it to our cities. Where some seek to destroy, we need to rescue. Where some seek to kill, we need to bring life. Where some seek to enslave, we need to bring freedom. When they burn the cities, we must build bridges; even if it’s just one city at a time… Ferguson wouldn’t be a bad place to start!
“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
John 10:10
