Newton's Third Law - "For every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction" - may not apply exactly or proportionately to "populist" political fracases, but it's encouraging to see that even after six years of Obamunist rule, it does still apply:
As thousands of law enforcement officers and civilians alike gathered Saturday to pay their final respects to one of two New York officers gunned down as they sat in their patrol car, scores of people joined in solidarity at pro-police rallies across the country.
The rallies were planned to show support for police in the wake of several high-profile police shootings of unarmed civilians, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York, and the December 20th killings of New York officers Rafael Ramos and Wejian Liu.
Ramos' funeral coincided with the planned rallies, many of which were started through social media using the Twitter hashtag #BlueLivesMatter. Funeral services were also held Saturday for a police officer killed in the line of duty December 21st in Tarpon Springs, Florida.
Similar events were held or planned in cities such as Atlantic City, Houston and Cleveland on Saturday.
Perhaps a wave of pro-law enforcement counter-rallies isn't so surprising. The Left is entirely composed of professional agitators of one sort or another; protesting and "movements" and "activism" are tactics that they consider to be their exclusive bailiwick. The Right, by stark contrast, is typically too busy actually working, earning a living, making the country run, raising families, and, you know, having normal lives, to pour out into the streets en masse with signs and placards and weird costumes and bellowing chants and slogans at the top of our lungs. At least outside of sporting events. It takes a great deal of provocation to get us off of our collective schnied to "stand united and kick butt" - or, at the very least, fight back.
But as I've written and said recently, the Ferguson-inspired racist insurrection has reached such a level of outrageously extortionistic gimmie-gimmie-ism, with widespread, murderous, racist violence against the men and women in blue to match, that it, too, has now motivated actual Americans to, in the modified phrase of William F. Buckley, "stand astride the road to [chaos] with hand extended, shouting, 'STOP!'". And, I think, for the same common-thread reason as on so many other issues across the spectrum: Barack Obama has fundamentally transformed this country, just as he said he would, at least to the extent that many of us don't even recognize what it's become, only that it is not remotely the same country in which we grew up and from which we inherited it from our parents and grandparents' generations. We're losing that country - most likely, already have lost it - and we are belatedly pulling together in a last-ditch hope and prayer that it hasn't been lost irretrievably.
In the mean time, this gentleman sets a most thought-provoking example:
After walking with 100 people several blocks to the Des Moines Police Station on Saturday, Bruce Heilman did something he’s never done in his sixty-five years: He thanked a police officer.
“I’m ashamed of myself for never having said ‘thank you’ to a cop,” Heilman said. “So a long overdue — thank you.”
Indeed. We make a concerted effort to thank soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines at every opportunity; should our guarantors of domestic tranquility be considered worth any less?
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