December 30, 2014 12:00 AM
When Facts Are Obsolete
<http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395475/when-facts-are-obsolete-thomas-sowell>
Juries in Ferguson and elsewhere could not ignore them — unlike mobs and
the media.
By Thomas Sowell <http://www.nationalreview.com/author/thomas-sowell>
"Hands Up, Don't Shoot!" gestures at a protest over the Ferguson grand
jury in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Print <http://www.nationalreview.com/node/395475/print>
Text
Comments
<http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395475/when-facts-are-obsolete-thomas-sowell#comments>
446
Thomas Sowell
<http://www.nationalreview.com/author/900925>
Some of us, who are old enough to remember the old television police series
*Dragnet* may remember Sergeant Joe Friday saying, “Just the facts, ma’am.”
But that would be completely out of place today. Facts are becoming
obsolete, as recent events have demonstrated.
What matters today is how well you can concoct a story that fits people’s
preconceptions and arouses their emotions. Politicians like New York mayor
Bill de Blasio, professional demagogues like Al Sharpton, and innumerable
irresponsible people in the media have shown that they have great talent in
promoting a lynch-mob atmosphere toward the police.
Grand juries that examine hard facts live in a different world from mobs
who listen to rhetoric and politicians who cater to the mobs.
Advertisement
During the controversy over the death of Trayvon Martin, for example, a
member of the Congressional Black Caucus said that George Zimmerman had
tracked Trayvon Martin down and shot him like a dog. The fact is that
Zimmerman did not have to track down Trayvon Martin, who was sitting right
on top of him, punching him till his face was bloody.
After the death of Michael Brown, members of the Congressional Black Caucus
stood up in Congress, with their hands held up, saying, “Don’t shoot.”
Although there were some who claimed that this is what Michael Brown said
and did, there were other witnesses — all black, by the way — who said that
Brown was charging toward the policeman when he was shot.
What was decisive was not what either set of witnesses said but what the
autopsy revealed, an investigation involving three sets of forensic
experts, including one representing Michael Brown’s family. Witnesses can
lie but the physical facts don’t lie, even if politicians, mobs, and the
media prefer to take lies seriously.
The death of Eric Garner has likewise spawned stories having little
relationship to facts. The story is that Garner died because a chokehold
stopped his breathing. But Garner did not die with a policeman choking him.
He died later, in an ambulance where his heart stopped. He had a long
medical history of various diseases, as well as a long criminal history. No
doubt the stress of his capture did not do him any good, and he might well
still be alive if he had not resisted arrest. But that was his choice.
Despite people who say blithely that the police need more “training,” there
is no “kinder and gentler” way to capture a 350-pound man, who is capable
of inflicting grievous harm, and perhaps even death, on any of his would-be
captors. The magic word “unarmed” means nothing in practice, however much
the word may hype emotions.
If you are killed by an unarmed man, you are just as dead as if you had
been annihilated by a nuclear bomb. But you don’t even know who is armed or
unarmed until after it is all over and you can search him.
Incidentally, did you know that, during this same period when riots,
looting, and arson have been raging, a black policeman in Alabama shot and
killed an unarmed white teenager — and was cleared by a grand jury?
Probably not, if you depend on the mainstream media for your news.
The media do not merely ignore facts, they suppress facts. Millions of
people saw the videotape of the beating of Rodney King. But they saw only a
fraction of that tape because the media left out the rest, which showed
Rodney King — another huge man — resisting arrest and refusing to be
handcuffed, so that he could be searched.
Television viewers did not get to see the other black men in the same
vehicle that Rodney King was driving recklessly. Those other black men were
not beaten. And the grand jury got to see the whole video, after which they
acquitted the police — and the media then published the jurors’ home
addresses.
Such media retribution against people they don’t like is part of a growing
lynch-mob mentality. The black witnesses in Missouri, whose testimony
confirmed what the police officer said, expressed fears for their own
safety for telling what the physical evidence showed was the truth.
Is this what we want? Grand juries responding to mobs and the media,
instead of to the facts?
— *Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the* *Hoover Institution*
<http://www.hoover.org/>*. © 2013 Creators Syndicate, Inc.*
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395475/when-facts-are-obsolete-thomas-sowell
--
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"PoliticalForum" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
