Thoughts on honoring the memory of George Floyd…

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

What’s happening to our country and our culture is alarming. Never in my lifetime has political correctness felt heavier or more on the edge of something truly terrifying. Never have I felt a radical political shift happen so quickly. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

People we know to be quality individuals, who have documented records of helping others on a large scale, and who are often pointed to as examples of character and integrity, are being threatened into apologizing for comments that were sincere, well-intentioned and not even remotely in keeping with the reactions to those comments. It’s not enough to have a positive message. It must be the exact message we are told to convey, or else we risk the consequences.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

In the span of literally just a few weeks, the power of cancel culture has reached a level I never thought I would see in a supposedly free society. Lives are being ruined, careers are being destroyed, and people are being attacked if their responses to various social issues are not in literal, complete, 100% lockstep with the narrative de jour.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

A professional soccer player lost his job because of something his WIFE Tweeted…in Serbian. No matter how inappropriate her comments, this is chilling. Where will the line be drawn next? Should you be concerned about something your sister posted on Facebook? Or something your son posted on Instagram?    

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

America, in the blink of an eye, has become a place that looks and feels little like the America most of us have known our entire lives. I can feel the collective tension everywhere. People have become terrified of voicing dissenting views, lest they be the next target of the mob.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

Violence is being used as weapon against violence. Intolerance is being used as a blunt-force-trauma weapon to demand tolerance. Unjust rioting is being used to demand justice.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

We have become a nation of sheep who will do whatever we are told with almost no pushback whatsoever. The degree of pushback has been reduced even further in the aftermath of the Floyd incident, the protests and riots that followed, and the explosion in the power of the aforementioned cancel culture. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

The people who told us to shut down our lives and our businesses for months (and who, as a result, fired a torpedo into the hull of the greatest economy the world had ever seen, destroying thousands of businesses and wreaking economic havoc on millions of law abiding Americans in the process), who told us to “stay home/stay safe,” and who told us to maintain social distancing at all costs, are now telling us – openly and publicly, as if we are literal toddlers who cannot connect the most glaringly obvious of dots – that those restrictions don’t apply, so long as you agree with the narrative being broadcast 24/7/365 from the mainstream media they control lock, stock and barrel.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

You want to go to church? Sorry, you don’t have the right to put the health of others at risk. Stay home, stay safe! You want to participate in a protest or a riot? No worries! No justice, no peace, fuck the police! The pandemic is only a threat to people on the wrong side of the political war that is raging across this country at the moment. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

As we have watched false narrative after false narrative after false narrative rise and fall before us, we somehow remain just as gullible and just as eager to believe the next “the sky is falling” crisis we are told is about to befall us. No matter how much the corrupt media is shown to be corrupt, no matter how many times we see that they blatantly, overtly lied to us, too many of us are still all too willing to continue consuming the falsehoods they continue to create.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

Social media platforms are now openly, actively and shamelessly censoring free speech. Not only is the media spinning and shaping every narrative, but now social media is doing the same. Control the narrative, control the people.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

We can mourn the death of a George Floyd and also, at the same time, be outraged at how our country is being reshaped and remade into something that looks and feels little like America pre-2020. These things are not mutually exclusive. As a nation of adults, we must be able to discern these as separate concepts – because they are separate concepts. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

There can be no progress – on ANY issues of true significance – without open and honest discussion and debate. Today, given the current social climate, such open and honest discussion and debate is not possible. We have seemingly lost nearly all capacity to have nuanced conversations about anything controversial. We must collectively recognize the dangers inherent in allowing this trend to continue.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

Instead of a melting pot in which the best of all cultures is embraced and assimilated into the fabric of America, we have become a collection of separate and distinct tribes, within which – for far too many – parroting the narrative of the chosen tribe has become more important than (1) the truth, (2) doing what is best for the majority of Americans, and (3) doing what is morally and ethically right and just. We have become far more interested in shouting down and labeling than in listening and thinking. It has become more important for our “team” to “win” – no matter what the cost – than it is for America – ALL of America – to prosper. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

We can participate in calls for reform and march in peaceful protests – which everyone has every right to do – while simultaneously fighting against the loss of freedoms that seem to be taking place at the moment. We can demand reforms in the manner in which we are policed, while at the same time realizing that the abolition of the police outright would lead to a level of chaos, anarchy and destruction from which we might never be able to recover. Calling for police REFORM? Good idea. Calling for the ELIMINATION of police? Utter lunacy. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

We can protest against injustices aggressively and peacefully, while at the same time being absolutely horrified when riots ensue and innocent people (many of whom are of color) are forced watch their hopes, their dreams and their life savings go up in flames when ne’er-do-wells use those protests as camouflage to provide cover for their wanton lawlessness and opportunistic criminality. Destroying entire blocks of American cities does nothing to honor the memory of George Floyd. His own family has said so publicly.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

Bloodlust and vengeance – while somewhat understandable on a short term, visceral, emotional level – are never the precursor to positive change. Killing to avenge a killing is an ineffective way to advance a political agenda. History is littered with examples in which the “an eye for an eye” mentality ultimately backfires and boomerangs back around to harm those who advocate such tactics. Two wrongs never make a right. As one of America’s greatest and most beloved heroes and champions of social change – Martin Luther King, Jr. – said it perfectly: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

Being outraged by the senselessness of the rioting AND by the insanely unjust murder of George Floyd is NOT a contradiction. These things are NOT mutually exclusive. In fact, they are entirely consistent with one another, as both demand the same thing: the observance of the rule of law, and the application of the law to all members of a society equally. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served. 

At the end of the day, we must be diligent. We must think. We must allow ourselves to see the things that might contradict with the narratives to which we have previously ascribed and held dear. We must ask ourselves why these unprecedented crises keep happening, one after another after another, in a literally never-ending torrent of fear-inducing stories that have served to paralyze so many of us. The easiest way to control people? Make them fearful. And, if you can make them hate one another, all the better! 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

We must stand up when we see injustices play out in front of us. We must rise collectively and demand “better” when “better” is clearly required. At the same time, we must also have the intellectual discernment to know when we are being played. We must have the strength to suppress our emotions when it’s necessary to do so in order to be able to think clearly. We must have the maturity and the wisdom to go against the masses when we know that’s the right thing to do.

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

We can demand that the memory of George Floyd be honored, and that racism and discrimination be eradicated and eliminated wherever they may exist. And, as a civilized society, we MUST do those things. But we can do that at the same time we are also doing all we can to protect the greatest asset of a free society: actual freedom, and all that that entails: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from an oppressive, tyrannical government. Freedom to “live free or die.”

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

“All that is needed for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good men to remain silent.” There should not be silence in the aftermath of what happened to George Floyd. Similarly, there should not be silence when political opportunists use incidents like what happened to George Floyd to fundamentally alter the philosophical foundation on which this country was built. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

Is America perfect? No, not even close. Can we do better? Yes, of course, and we must. But just because America is not perfect does not mean it’s not still the best country on this planet.  Because, by a long shot, it absolutely is. We must never hold any endeavor involving humans to a standard of perfection, because perfection is not attainable whenever humans are involved. Rather, we must strive for continual progress and improvement, understanding that mistakes will be made along the way. It would be wonderful if that were not the case, but such are the limitations of the human condition. To deny that is to deny reality. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

We can demand that justice be served, while at the same time insist that America be preserved. 

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

Right now, we have a choice.

YOU have a choice.

We can use the awful, terrible thing that happened to George Floyd to make changes that need to be made to address the issues that need to be addressed, and, in the process, make America an even better place to live. To repeat, America is NOT perfect, but it is the best country on earth by most meaningful measures. 

Or, we can use the awful, terrible thing that happened to George Floyd to further divide us, to reduce the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world for many generations, and to turn America into a thing I would not have thought possible even a month ago: a place where people are motivated more by fear and a desire to avoid public shaming than they are by a desire to protect their freedoms and their – to quote the Declaration of Independence – “unalienable Rights.” 

If we choose the latter, then I fear George Floyd’s life will have been taken in vain. While certain “progress” may be made in terms of new laws or regulations, if we end up even more divided than we were before the incident, and if our freedoms are further eroded in the process, then I don’t think that honors Floyd’s memory well.

If we choose the former, in my humble opinion, while that won’t bring him back, it will at least honor Floyd’s memory in a way we can all be proud of.

If we make the right choice, we can look back on this terrible incident as a catalyst for positive change, and as an event that contributed to the healing of a nation.

If we don’t, then things will likely continue to move in a direction in which – in the long run, no matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on – we’ll all lose.

I would implore you – me, us, everyone, EVERY American – to choose wisely…

What happened to George Floyd was horrific. The cop who murdered him should be found guilty of murder, and he should be penalized to the maximum extent possible under the law. There are zero excuses for this. Justice must be served.

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