Police brutality and mob violence spring from the same fountain.
The disturbing video of a veteran police officer kneeling on the neck of a subdued suspect and, thereafter, the spreading wave of violence and looting in the name of George Floyd are painful. Yet these things are not surprising.
As one who served as a police officer for over a decade on the street, I would say that if the department approved of the tactic of kneeling on the neck of a man who was handcuffed and on the ground, there are bigger problems in Minneapolis than Derek Chauvin. The failure of the other officers to intervene would suggest this type of brutality is pervasive. That is not to say that there are a lot of bad cops in Minneapolis, it just says they have an administration that tolerates the abuse of power.
The abuse of power, disregard for human life, and the wanton destruction and uncontrolled rage we are witnessing in cities across our country, all flow from a society that is rapidly losing a sense of right and wrong, of transcendent truth. This truth deficit means justice will not be equal because it is determined by the position you hold or the zip code in which you reside.
This loss of a moral consensus is not a new development; what’s happened is that it has reached a crisis point. The foundation of America’s shared morality has been under steady assault for over half a century. Leftists will convulse with disdain and rage at this assertion, but let the mockers mock.
For over 50 years, we’ve systematically removed God from public life, the belief that He holds all people accountable for their actions, and that He has the authority to do so because He is the Creator. He made us and the laws that govern creation. He gave us those laws not to crush our freedom but to place it within wise boundaries.
Freedom does not mean the right to do whatever one wants. It means that we have the power to choose a good path, one with guiderails that lead and protect us. When we tear those guiderails down, chaos ensues. The kind of chaos we’re now seeing, as legitimate protest turns not only to the destruction of businesses and other private property but to the endangerment of human life itself and the wounding of our nation’s soul.
