Posts published in “Public Policy”

Biden’s Cabinet Picks and the Media’s Bastardization of ‘Diversity’

Biden’s Cabinet Picks and the Media’s Bastardization of ‘Diversity’

By John R Guardiano on November 25, 2020

True diversity involves a diversity of thought and professional backgrounds, not a quota system for blacks, Hispanics, and women.

President-Elect Biden made his first cabinet appointments this week. These new officials will have vast legal authority to establish new policies on such contentious issues as immigration, trade, foreign policy, the budget, energy, et al.

Yet, to the media, what is most important about these new officials is not the policies that they espouse, but rather their racial, ethnic, and gender identity.

“Biden Will Nominate First Women to Lead Treasury and Intelligence, and First Latino to Run Homeland Security,” declares a headline in the New York Times.

“The racial and gender mix of the expected nominees also reflects Mr. Biden’s stated commitment to diversity, which has lagged notoriously in the worlds of foreign policy and national security,” says the Times.

Progressive Dog Whistles. Of course, “diversity” is a code word—or dog whistle, if you will—for racial, ethnic, and gender preferences.

The idea is that supposedly disadvantaged minority groups—principally blacks, Hispanics, and women—need to be favored in the hiring or selection process because they have been historically excluded or discriminated against.

These supposedly disadvantaged minorities, moreover, are said to bring a fresh or unique perspective, which needs to be heard in the workplace and in the corridors of power.

Of course, no one would dispute the importance of affirmative efforts to be inclusive and considerate of all Americans regardless of their race, ethnicity, or gender. However, it is unfair (and bigoted, quite frankly) to favor certain groups of people because of their race, ethnicity, and gender.

We ought to be color-blind and racially indifferent—as well as blind and indifferent to a person’s ethnicity and gender. These are, or at least ought to be, largely meaningless categorizations in the workplace and in the corridors of power.

After all: blacks, Hispanics, and women do not all think alike. Their views are as varied and multifaceted as any other group’s. So to speak of a “black perspective,” an “Hispanic perspective,” or a “woman’s perspective” is typically wrong and misguided.

And yet, the left has infused our culture and our politics with an unhealthy obsession over racial, ethnic, and gender identity—as if these categorizations are what matter most.

This obsession is also a disservice to the officials so categorized. It reduces them to cardboard cutout representatives of a group rather than individuals with minds of their own.

Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board points out in an editorial about “Mr. Biden’s nominee for Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, [and] Avril Haines, who will be director of national intelligence”:

Both deserve better than to be described as “the first Latino” to run DHS, or the “first woman” at DNI, as the press insisted on describing them. The media’s insipid preoccupation with identity politics obscures what’s important. How about what they think?

Exactly. True diversity involves a diversity of thought. Different policy views and professional backgrounds are what matter, not whether a cabinet official is black, Hispanic, or a woman.

Let’s put the focus where it belongs: on what Biden’s cabinet officials think and the policies they espouse. That’s the discussion our nation needs and the debate the American people deserve.

Anything less is a disservice to those who serve.

Feature photo credit: Biden cabinet picks Alejandro Mayorkas (L), Janet Yellen (C), and Avril Haines (R) (Getty Images/Alamy, courtesy of the BBC).

For the Most Part, the 2020 Election Is Not About Trump or Biden

For the Most Part, the 2020 Election Is Not About Trump or Biden

By John R Guardiano on September 27, 2020

Is a presidential election a personality contest between two men—or a clash of two political tribes with divergent views on public policy? Are you voting for someone you like—or for hundreds of people you may never see, known or hear from, but who may dramatically affect your future?

To a disconcerting extent, presidential elections are popularity contests. Voters make an intensely personal decision. They eschew ideology and public policy to vote for the man (or woman) they like best and believe is best prepared to lead the nation in the next four years.

I say disconcerting because while the man or woman at the top obviously matters, and while their leadership abilities (or lack thereof) definitely matter, he (or she) is just one person. And our government is far too big, unwieldy, and complex to be run or administered by just one man.

The reality is that a vote for president is a vote for hundreds of people and scores of policies that, to a surprising degree, operate independently of the president, or with his simple approval or assent.

Tax Reform, for instance, had Trump’s imprimatur, but was crafted by Congressional Republicans well before Trump even came on the political scene.

Thus when you voted for Trump, you were voting for scores of people—in Congress, the Trump administration, in think tanks, lobby groups, and the federal bureaucracy—who gave substantive meaning to Trump’s pledge of tax reform and who made tax reform a reality.

Trade. Likewise on trade. Trump promised to “get tough” with China by ending unfair and discriminatory Chinese trade practices. But it wasn’t Trump who formulated these specific public policies and who actually negotiated with China’s communist government.

Instead, it was Robert Lighthizer, Steve Mnuchin, Peter Navarro and other public policy experts who spearheaded this effort and negotiated the deal.

Political Parties. The point is not that Trump doesn’t matter. The point is that he matters a lot less than you might realize if you understand how our government works and how public policy is formulated and implemented. Yet, the media (and most voters, frankly) are fixated on Trump and his childish and obnoxious behavior.

I get it. Trump is the president, after all.

Still, part of being an informed and educated adult is recognizing that we’re not in high school anymore, and we’re not voting for the prom king or queen. The presidential election should not be a popularity contest; it should be a contest of ideas.

The reality is that any president, Democrat or Republican, will inevitably reflect the political tribe from which he comes and with which he affiliates. This means that voters must look beyond the man and the personality to the political party, its thought leaders and ideological agenda.

The Supreme Court. Consider, for instance, Supreme Court appointments, federal judgeships and the judiciary. Here, Trump has taken his cues from Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and the Federalist Society.

In fact, if you want to understand Trump’s judicial appointments, you’re much better off listening to McConnell and the Federalist Society than you are listening to Trump. The president, after all, is shallow and incoherent; McConnell and the Federalist Society are thoughtful and coherent.

Biden is more substantively engaged than Trump, but no less a reflection of the party and movement that guide and direct him. In fact, given his advanced age and obviously waning physical and mental abilities, Biden is arguably more of a political puppet than Trump.

Radical Democratic Agenda. Moreover, the energy and intellectual ferment in the Democratic Party today is clearly on the extreme left, as the party has embraced radical plans to:

restructure the judiciary;
end the use of fossil fuels, including a ban on fracking;
decriminalize illegal immigration;
abolish the Electoral College;
make Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia bona fide states, each with two U.S. Senators; and
inexorably extend the government’s takeover of the healthcare system through “Medicare for All.”

Biden may or may not agree with all of these radical plans. (We don’t know for sure because Biden has been lying low, hiding in his basement, saying very little of substance, and campaigning as little as possible.) But whether he agrees or not with his party’s extreme left agenda is largely irrelevant.

Biden is a good and loyal Democrat who will sign whatever bills House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Charles Schumer (D-New York) send his way—just as Trump has been a good and loyal Republican who has signed whatever bills McConnell and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) sent his way when the Republicans controlled Congress.

The bottom line: there is a lot more on the ballot this fall than simply two opposing candidates.

There are two opposing political parties, two divergent political philosophies, and two teams of candidates vying for control of the Senate and the House. And there are scores of policy analysts and public policy administrators who work for these two opposing teams or political tribes.

Trump and Biden may be the faces that you see, but there are a lot more faces—and arguably more important faces—behind the scenes working to shape America’s future; and, depending on who wins the election, they may get their chance.

Understand this and please vote accordingly. Policy, not personality, is what matters most.

Feature photo credit: The Shtick.

Three Reasons Conservatives Should Not Despair Over the Supreme Court’s Title VII Decision

Three Reasons Conservatives Should Not Despair Over the Supreme Court’s Title VII Decision

By John R Guardiano on June 17, 2020

In the wake of Bostock v. Clayton County, conservatives are disappointed and fearful. Here’s why they should temper their pessimism and perhaps even be optimistic.

The Supreme Court’s ruling Monday (June 15, 2020) in Bostock v. Clayton County has ignited understandable disappointment and fear among conservatives, especially religious conservatives.

Conservatives are disappointed that two generally conservative justices, Gorsuch and Roberts, sided with the Court’s four left-wing justices to find new and hitherto unknown meaning in Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964. Gorsuch, in fact, authored the majority opinion.

Title VII prohibits employment discrimination “because of” an individual’s “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Now, however, because of the Court’s decision, Title VII also prohibits employment discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.

For many Americans, especially those of a more secular bent, this is really not a big deal. After all, as David French observes at The Dispatch,

A combination of company policies and state and local laws have led to workplaces that already refused to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

For religious institutions, however, the consequences are potentially dramatic.

Should Christian colleges and schools be subject to lawsuits for upholding church teachings on human sexuality?

Does this case mean that the law now views Christians as akin to klansmen, and thus brings religious institutions one step closer to losing their tax exemptions?

This is a legitimate concern. Every major religion that I am aware of—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, certainly—contains longstanding proscriptions on sodomy and homosexual behavior.

But if these proscriptions are now considered unlawful discrimination, then what is to become of religious liberty in America?

This is hardly an academic matter. Religious liberty cases, in fact, are very much in dispute today, as religious institutions and religious believers who seek to live out their faith fight back against charges that they are unlawfully “discriminating” against gays and lesbians.

Whither Originalism? Moreover, if even conservative or originalist justices like Gorsuch and Roberts can essentially rewrite legislative statutes to comport with left-wing secular orthodoxy, then what is to become of the separation of powers, democratic self-rule, and the restoration of Constitutional government?

This, too, is a legitimate concern, as the courts continue to make legislative decisions that are well beyond their purview. The discovery of a hitherto unknown Constitutional right to homosexual marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) is the most recent example of this worrisome, decades-long trend.

Still, I think the pessimism that many conservatives feel right now—and which I share to a considerable extent—must be tempered by three important considerations.

1. Statutory Decision. Because Bostock v. Clayton County is a statutory and not Constitutional decision of the Court, it can be altered, changed or modified by new Congressional legislation.

True, because the cultural zeitgeist is decidedly secular and hellbent on stopping anything that might conceivably be called “discrimination” against allegedly oppressed or disadvantaged groups, legislative changes to Title VII are unlikely.

That, however, doesn’t change the fact that, unlike the Court’s Constitutional decisions, Bostock v. Clayton County does not preempt and deny democratic decision-making by the American people.

Indeed, Congress still has the right and responsibility to define the parameters and limits of anti-discrimination law.

2. As French points out:

[In his decision], Justice Gorsuch goes out of his way to reassure that the guarantee of free exercise of religion “lies at the heart of our pluralistic society.”

Provisions in Title VII itself provide limited religious liberty protections, the First Amendment is of course still applicable, and—as Gorsuch notes—the Religious Freedom Restoration Act also acts as a “kind of super statute, displacing the normal operation of other federal laws.”

Moreover, there are a series of cases already on the court’s docket that are likely (based on judicial philosophy and court trends) to [protect religious liberty to a considerable extent].

In short, the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty, specific provisions within Title VII itself, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act all may trump Bostock v. Clayton County in specific cases and controversies soon to come before the Court.

“Stay tuned!” says French.

A year from now, the jurisprudence could look largely like this: Secular employers are fully subject to each element of Title VII while religious employers enjoy a broad ministerial exception and a more robust free exercise clause.”

3. Textualist Decision. While there can be no doubt that the Court has written new meaning into Title VII—a meaning that no one who drafted or voted on the legislation in 1964 ever imagined—it did so for explicitly textualist reasons—that is, reasons grounded in the plain meaning of the statute itself.

This is very different from most left-wing jurisprudence (such as the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion-rights decision), which makes little or no pretense to being tethered or moored to the Constitution or legislation that it purports to interpret and apply.

So while conservatives certainly can lament the result of the Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, they should be comforted by the fact that the majority nonetheless reached its decision in an explicitly originalist manner.

This originalist argument may be a complete ruse. It may be, as Justice Alito declared in his forceful dissent, “a pirate ship [that] sails under a textualist flag,” while, in fact, representing “the theory that courts should ‘update’ old statutes so that they better reflect the current values of society.”

That may well be true. But just as hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue; so, too, is a faux textualism the tribute that left-wing or progressive justices pay to originalist or conservative justices.

In other words, although conservatives may have lost this particular case, we seem to have won the larger-scale war over Constitutional and statutory interpretation if even left-wing or progressive justices feel obligated to justify their decisions on explicitly textualist grounds.

This doesn’t mean that the Court will always decide in our favor; however, it certainly increases the likelihood that it will.

More importantly, the recognition by the Court that it must tether its decisions to specific provisions of the Constitution and close and faithful readings of legislative statutes acts as an inherent constraint on judicial activism.

This helps to contain the Court’s more wildly progressive impulses and desire to legislate from the bench. This, obviously is a good thing that portends well for future Court decisions.

The bottom line: don’t be too despairing over Bostock v. Clayton County. While the result in this case is regrettable and worrisome, all is not lost. This is one case that hinges on one statute. And while its effects will be longstanding and widespread, the damage can be contained by both Congress and the Court in future legislation and in future cases.

Congressional action is highly unlikely; but future Court decisions are inevitable and much more likely to protect religious liberty. The Court, meanwhile, seems to have accepted a more modest and limited role for itself by basing its decision on explicitly textualist grounds.

Granted, this modesty may not be apparent in this decision—a decision Justice Alito derides as a “brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes.”

Still, by acknowledging that its decisions must be tethered and moored to explicit Constitutional and legislative provisions, the Court implicitly recognizes that there are real limits to what it can do—limits that likely will become increasingly apparent over time.

Stay tuned.

Feature photo credit: Justice Neil Gorsuch in The Federalist.

The Questions No One Dares to Ask About ‘Systemic Racism’ and ‘Police Reform’

The Questions No One Dares to Ask About ‘Systemic Racism’ and ‘Police Reform’

By John R Guardiano on June 14, 2020

Before we rush forward to enact new legislative “reforms” we should step back to ask important and searching questions.

Excuse me, but may I ask a question? Or rather, a series of questions?

Oh, I know that no one today has much time for questions: because the loudest voices, in our newsrooms and out in the streets, are too busy telling us what the answers must be.

And, unlike the activists, the politicians, the pundits, the sports stars, and assorted other know-it-alls, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. However, I do have some pertinent—and perhaps unwelcome and inconvenient—questions to ask.

May I?

Thank you. I won’t take much of your time. I promise.

Federalism

1. Should the federal government micromanage state and local police departments and law enforcement agencies?

2. Does federalism matter, and might federalism help us determine which reforms work and which ones don’t?

Legislating Police Practices

3. Do we have a problem with specific police practices, such as chokeholds and no-knock warrants?

Or, instead, do we have a problem with specific police officers, such as Derek Chauvin, who misuse and misapply those practices?

4. Did Officer Chauvin kill George Floyd with a choke hold or by pressing his knee into his neck?

5. If the problem is specific police officers such as Chauvin, then why focus on stopping certain practices? Why not focus on recruiting better officers, training them better, and screening out bad officers?

6. Rather than ban or proscribe certain police practices, might we do well, instead, to train officers to use better, less dangerous, and more effective practices by which to subdue and control suspects?

7. Will legislation designed to outlaw or ban specific police practices actually end police brutality or make much of a difference? Or will bad police officers still find ways to commit egregious acts of wrongdoing?

8. Fox News host Sean Hannity has promoted non-lethal weapons that will “incapacitate violent or threatening subjects” without killing them.

Hannity says non-lethal weapons in the hands of the police are a way to balance the need for robust and proactive policing while simultaneously averting the excessive use of police force and wrongful deaths.

Does Hannity have a point, and should not the use of non-lethal weapons rank high on the police reform agenda?

‘Systemic Racism’

9. Is our problem “systemic racism” or human nature and human frailty?

If the latter, is it possible to legislate or change human nature and human frailty? Or will we still inevitably have incidents of police brutality and excessive police use of force?

10. If our problem is “systemic racism,” then why did the police kill more unarmed white suspects in 2019 (nineteen) than unarmed black suspects (nine)?

Why did unarmed black victims of police shootings represent just 0.1 percent of all African-Americans killed in 2019?

11. If our problem is “systemic racism,” then why is a police officer “18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer”?

12. Does “systemic racism” explain why the vast majority of African Americans are killed by other African Americans, and why, overwhelmingly, the victims of black crime are innocent African Americans?

13. An increasing number of police officers are black, Hispanic, Asian and other minorities, as are big-city police chiefs. Many departments—including the New York City and Los Angeles police departments—are majority minority.

Are these police officers and departments, too, plagued by “systemic racism”?

14. If, indeed, the police are statistically more inclined to police or confront African Americans, and sometimes on specious grounds, is this necessarily because of racism? Or might disparities in criminal conduct among different racial and ethnic groups have something to do with it?

15. Is there any other country than the United States of America where blacks have achieved more and enjoyed greater opportunity and more equitable treatment?

16. In the past 20 years, America has elected and reelected a black man as President of the United States, had two black secretaries of state, two black national security advisers, and at least a dozen black, Hispanic, Asian, and Indian governors, lieutenant governors, and senators.

Does this not refute the notion that ours is a country imbued with “systemic racism”?

‘Black Lives Matter’

17. If the protesters really believe that “black lives matter,” then why do they show little or no concern and passion for the lives of black teenagers and children murdered by black criminals in the inner city?

18. Why are there no “take-a-knee” protests and high-profile, high-vis funerals for black police officers killed by violent thugs?

19. We hear much about the historical legacy of racism and how it haunts law enforcement, and American society more generally, even today. Okay, but has anything changed for the better in the past 50 or 60 years, and can we also acknowledge this history and its relevance to the current debate?

20. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are considered landmark legislative achievements on the road to racial equality.

Ditto the 24th Amendment to the Constitution (also ratified in 1964), which prohibits poll taxes or any other tax that infringes upon a citizen’s right to vote.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968, likewise, prohibits racial discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing. Did this and similar legislation, as well as the 24th Amendment, achieve anything substantive and long-lasting?

21. America across the board—in government, corporations, public and private agencies—has instituted affirmative action programs to assist disadvantaged blacks.

Federal, state, and local governments, likewise, have spent trillions of dollars over a period of decades to assist disadvantaged Americans, black and white.

Is this evidence of a country that doesn’t believe “black lives matter”?

22. Polls consistently show that Americans are far less racist today than they were 50 or 60 years ago. Do these polls reflect reality, or are people lying to pollsters about how they really feel?

‘Militarization of the Police’

23. Is there any evidence that the so-called militarization of the police has resulted in more killings and bad community relations?

What if better armed police actually have had the opposite effect? Will policymakers and pundits then call for increased “militarization of the police”?

24. When the police receive equipment from the U.S. military, is this equipment assigned to every police officer within a law enforcement agency, or just specialized units such as SWAT teams?

25. Within police departments, is there a role for SWAT teams and should these teams be heavily armed and equipped?

26. Does the so-called “militarization of the police,” especially during introductory induction training, contribute to any shared sense of camaraderie, pride, and esprit de corps among cops? And, if so, might this help promote professionalism and good conduct?

27. Counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan emphasized protecting the indigenous population and exerciseing real restraint in the use of force.

Are there useful lessons here for our police? And, if so, doesn’t greater “militarization of the police”—meaning greater DoD-police cooperation and training—make sense?

‘Defund the Police’

28. Former NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly notes that about 95 percent of all police budgets are for personnel costs. So would not “defunding the police,” or reducing police budgets, mean fewer police and less of a police presence on the streets?

29. Given that blacks in the inner cities are the most victimized by violent crime, would not “defunding the police,” or reducing police budgets, hurt them the most?

30. Heather Mac Donald observes that “the most urgent requests [for a proactive police presence] come from the law-abiding residents of high-crime neighborhoods”; and that she’s seen these requests “time and again in the dozens of police-community meetings [that she has] attended.”

Moreover, she writes, “the percentage of black respondents in a 2015 Roper poll who wanted more police in their community was twice as high as the percentage of white respondents who wanted more police.”

Do these black citizens matter, and should their concerns be listened to and heeded?

31. Incidents involving the mentally ill, the psychologically maladjusted, domestic disputes, spousal abuse, juvenile delinquency, and drug addicts can be dangerous, with the threat of violence ever-present.

Given the clear possibility (and sometimes likelihood) of violence, then, does it really make sense to have unarmed social workers and not police officers deal with these type incidents? What happens if social workers who respond to these type incidents are killed as a result?

‘Qualified Immunity’

House Democrats have unveiled a bill that would abolish “qualified immunity” for police officers—on the grounds that this “undermines police accountability and encourages bad behavior.”

But qualified immunity is rarely invoked and revoking it is a recipe for police inaction, according to Ray Kelly, former head of the New York City Police Department.

32. Who’s right: House Democrats or Ray Kelly?

33. What is the greater risk or danger: that police will withdraw from the streets and cities because they fear lawsuits, or that police will respond too aggressively and with excessive force because they need not fear a lawsuit?

34. What does the data tell us?

Honest, Good-Faith Debate

33. Is there any evidence that the so-called reforms being pushed will actually save black lives? What if the so-called reforms will do the opposite?

34. Can we discuss these issues fairly, honestly and dispassionately? Or must we, instead, dispense with fairness, honesty and dispassion because “this time’s different”?

Excuse me? “Am I done?” you ask? Yes, well, I understand that I have exceeded my time and perhaps overstayed my welcome. I have many other questions, and perhaps I can ask those at another time.

But with all due respect, it seems to me that before we legislatively chisel the protesters’ preferred answers into the legal equivalent of Mount Rushmore, we ought to ask some important and searching questions.

I offer these up only as a starting point. We have, dare I say, a lot more to think about.

Feature photo credit: Refinery29.com.

Why Deploying the Active-Duty Military to America’s Cities Is a Reasonable Idea

Why Deploying the Active-Duty Military to America’s Cities Is a Reasonable Idea

By John R Guardiano on June 7, 2020

The critics—including former Defense Secretary James Mattis—have it precisely backward: Deploying the U.S. military for domestic security missions is all about protecting our Constitutional rights and liberties.

There has been a lot of elite Sturm und Drang over President Trump’s announcement last week that he would deploy the active-duty military forces to restore “law and order” in American cities torn asunder by violent rioting and looting.

Eighty-nine former defense officials, for instance, have published a piece in the Washington Post saying they “are alarmed at how the president is betraying [his] oath [of office] by threatening to order members of the U.S. military to violate the rights of their fellow Americans.”

“President Trump has given governors a stark choice,” they insist: “either end the protests that continue to demand equal justice under our laws, or expect that he will send active-duty military units into their states.”

Of course, Trump does not express himself well. He is a poor communicator who often uses awkward terminology and cringe-inducing rhetoric.

But the idea that he wishes to employ the military to violate the Constitutional rights of peaceably assembling, law-abiding Americans is ludicrous. You have to be a blinkered anti-Trump zealot to believe that the president is somehow conspiring to use the military to squelch dissent.

There is absolutely no evidence for this fervid, far-fetched proposition. It reflects the lurid imaginations of anti-Trump partisans, not objective, empirical reality.

Averting Violence. The truth, in fact, is quite the opposite: the rationale for deploying active-duty military forces is precisely to protect the Constitutional rights of peaceably assembling Americans from what Sen. Tom Cotton has righty called “nihilist criminals and cadres of left-wing radicals like Antifa.”

These criminals and radicals, Cotton explains, have marred the protests with an “orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic.”

This orgy of violence seems to have abated somewhat in the past couple of days; however, rioting and looting is still a real and omnipresent problem. Indeed, as the New York Post reports:

“Violence has been used multiple times during what could have been and what should have been peaceful protests,” [NYPD Commissioner Dermot] Shea said at a live-streamed press conference Thursday evening

[…]

There have been 292 members of the force who suffered injuries as some of the demonstrations have seen violent clashes, cops said.

As of June 3, according to the Forbes, at least 12 people have been killed and hundreds of others injured in the protests, including a black federal police officer in Oakland, California; a retired black police captain in St. Louis; and a former Indiana University football player and local business owner who is also black.

“Four police officers were shot in downtown St. Louis early Tuesday, [June 2, 2020], as a day of peaceful protests turned into a violent and destructive night in the city,” reports the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

In Las Vegas, reports the Daily Beast,

an officer responding to a looting incident was reportedly shot in the head early Tuesday, [June 2, 2020], after exchanging gunfire with an angry mob, according to several Nevada news sources.

County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told the Las Vegas Review Journal that the officer survived. “He is in extremely critical condition on life support,” Lombardo said “This is a sad night for our LVMPD family and a tragic night for our community.”

Mad Dog Mattis. Yet, in the face of these facts—this incontrovertible empirical evidence—the former Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, declared:

We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.

With all due respect to Secretary Mattis, this is ludicrous and nonsensical. Of course we have to be “distracted” or concerned about the reportedly small number of lawbreakers wreaking havoc in our nation’s cities.

Why? Precisely because they threaten the safety and well-being of the “thousands of people of conscience” Mattis rightly says we need to protect.

Moreover, as Pat Buchanan observes:

In Mattis’ statement, one finds not a word of sympathy or support for the police bearing the brunt of mob brutality for defending the communities they serve, while defending the constitutional right of the protesters to curse them as racist and rogue cops.

Trump Derangement Syndrome. I understand why Mattis doesn’t like Trump. His disdain for the president he once served is completely legitimate and understandable.

But Mattis’ failure to understand that violent thugs who threaten to kill the innocent need to be identified and stopped—and by deadly force if necessary—is wrong, inexcusable and unconscionable. Just because Trump proposes something doesn’t make it wrong, dangerous, and unconstitutional.

Too many people—including Mattis and the aforementioned 89 former defense officials—have allowed their disdain for Trump to cloud their judgment and analysis.

In truth, as Ross Douthat has explained, while Trump may well have authoritarian instincts,

real political authority, the power to rule and not just to survive, is something that Donald Trump conspicuously does not seem to want.

Executive Protection. Trump’s critics can and do point to one instance where it can be argued Trump may have tried to infringe upon the Constitutional rights of the protesters.

But that instance—outside of the White House, June 1, as Trump and his team walked to the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had been attacked and burned the night before—is the exception that proves the rule.

Trump’s decision to walk to the church apparently was not well communicated to the Secret Service, U.S. Park Service, and other federal law enforcement agencies. These agencies had to act quickly, therefore, to ensure the president’s safety. And ensuring the president’s safety, remember, is their job.

As the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney points out:

If Trump knew he was going to do this [walk from the White House to the church], he could have had the Secret Service set up the barricade further out before the evening protests got crowded. Then, there would have been no shoving or smoke grenades needed.

Instead, as WUSA 9 reports, “pepper balls and smoke canisters, which irritate the eyes and throat and cause coughing, [were used] to disperse the protesters.”

This is unfortunate. But given the circumstances—the need to ensure the president’s safety at a time when violent riots and looting were taking place nationwide, and police and innocent bystanders were being killed as a result—these actions are understandable and hardly constitute a gratuitous assault on First Amendment rights.

Indeed, the incident resulted from a lack of planning and coordination, and not because of any Machiavellian plot to betray the Constitution.

Historical Precedent. In truth, as even the 89 aforementioned defense officials acknowledge: “several past presidents have called on our armed services to provide additional aid to law enforcement in times of national crisis—among them Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson.”

Eisenhower, Cotton notes, federalized the the Arkansas National Guard and called in the 101st Airborne Division to protect the civil rights of black school children during a time of integration.

Were the active-duty military to be deployed domestically to American cities torn asunder by violent rioting and looting, they would, likewise, be protecting basic civil rights—namely, the Constitutionally protected right to peaceably assemble without fear of bodily harm, injury or death.

That is a wholly legitimate use of the Armed Forces of the United States.

It won’t happen. Trump already has ordered the National Guard to leave Washington, D.C.; the states and mayors don’t want active-duty military units; and the protests seem to have turned more peaceful and less violent in recent days.

Plus: there may well be prudential and political arguments against using active-duty military units to restore peace, safety and the rule of law to America’s cities. However, the notion that doing so is an unprecedented attack on Constitutional liberties is simply absurd and completely untrue.

Active-Duty Military. Some critics, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), complain that the active-duty military is untrained and unprepared for law enforcement work; but this, too, is untrue.

In fact, we have military police units that are specifically trained to perform law enforcement functions, including riot and crowd control. The idea that U.S military personnel are trained only to shoot and kill is not something that anyone familiar with the U.S. military would ever say or suggest.

It’s certainly not something that anyone familiar with the U.S. military mission in Kosovo (1990’s), Iraq or Afghanistan (2000’s) would every say or suggest, since these missions involved peacekeeping, stability and law enforcement operations to a very considerable extent.

The bottom line: use of the U.S. military to safeguard important Constitutional rights is not some lunatic-fringe idea that poses an inherent threat to American democracy.

To the contrary: there is ample historical precedent for this idea, and it can be wise public policy. The U.S. military is trained, ready and prepared for such a mission regardless of who is president.

Donald Trump has nothing to do with it.

Feature photo credit: Police Chief magazine.