Reblogged: Barbarians at the Gateway

[Gus Van Horn blog]

There is <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/updates-on-ferguson-shooting/collection_38dae294-b61e-5dbf-8c3c-f6384c6100ba.html#utm_source=stltoday.com&amp;utm_campaign=hot-topics-2&amp;utm_medium=direct">rioting and looting</a> going on mostly north of my neck of the woods, although the barbarism has also <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/08/massive-brawl-shuts-down-st-louis-galleria-mall-on-lockdown/">engulfed an upscale shopping mall</a>. The major local paper <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/ferguson-area-businesses-cope-with-aftermath-of-weekend-riot/article_4a310ec3-94de-57dd-95f7-4e350f6a6fa2.html">refers</a> to this ongoing travesty as being "in response to" the fatal shooting of a young man by a police officer. I beg to differ with this wording, for it, as an <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-get-it-right-about-the-terrible-wrong-in-ferguson/article_93ee8213-2406-5771-a959-2fcc8c486340.html">editorial</a> in the same paper might put it, is inexcusable. <br /><br />This brutality is only tenuously related to what happened Saturday. Perhaps "excused by" would have been a better turn of phrase. Stealing and vandalism -- victimizing people who had nothing to do with this sad event -- are neither called for nor justified. Indeed they are continuing despite the fact that: (1) the full circumstances of the shooting have yet to be determined; (2) the young man's family <a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/chi-missouri-police-shooting-protests-20140811,0,1870857.story">has asked for it to end</a> (as have locals); and (3) the man who was shot <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/michael-brown-remembered-as-a-gentle-giant/article_cbafa12e-7305-5fd7-8e0e-3139f472d130.html">was an aspiring businessman</a>. Whatever the level of grief or sense of injustice one might feel for the loss of another, I am sure it would not motivate someone to harm someone very much like the departed.<br /><br />There are numerous calls for "justice" in the wake of this shooting, but neither <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/shooting-an-unarmed-suspect-could-be-justified-according-to-the/article_e9b5412f-2283-512e-8636-0d2bbe958c5c.html">presuming the policeman was wrong</a> nor stooping to brutality should be confused with a call for actual justice. There are many things wrong with our society, but perhaps the worst is the corruption of the concept of <a href="http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/justice.html#order_2">justice</a>, whether well-meaning or deliberate, that has occurred over the last few decades. If we are to have a functioning society at all, we will quickly get up to speed on this virtue and begin practicing it at all times.<br /><br />Now is not the time to mince words about the rioting. Whatever the circumstances of Michael Brown's death, the lawless actions that have followed are completely inexcusable.<br /><br />-- CAV

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