Posts published in “Public Policy”

George Floyd’s Murder Is Not About ‘Systemic Racism’ and It’s Not Emblematic of a Larger-Scale Problem

George Floyd’s Murder Is Not About ‘Systemic Racism’ and It’s Not Emblematic of a Larger-Scale Problem

By John R Guardiano on June 3, 2020

The facts and the data tell a far different story than what the media is feeding us.

As I’ve explained here at ResCon1, groupthink is a real problem in contemporary America. We’ve seen it with the cult-like following behind mask-wearing allegedly to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

And now we see it with the universal declaration, trumpeted throughout the media and in the popular culture, that the murder of George Floyd is an obvious instance of racism—and emblematic of the “systemic racism” that supposedly pervades U.S. law enforcement and American society more generally.

In truth, racism is less of a problem today in American than in all of human history. No country in the history of the world, moreover, has done more for blacks and other minorities than the United States of America.

And, despite the best efforts of left-wing, “progressive” journalists to show otherwise, there simply is no data to support the notion that there is “systemic racism” in law enforcement.

Quite the opposite: as Jason Riley reports in the Wall Street Journal :

In 2016, [Harvard economist Roland] Fryer released a study of racial differences in police use of deadly force.

To the surprise of the author, as well as many in the media and on the left who take racist law enforcement as a given, he found no evidence of bias in police shootings.

His conclusions have been echoed by researchers at the University of Maryland and Michigan State University, who in a paper released last year wrote:

“We didn’t find evidence for anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings, and, if anything, found anti-White disparities when controlling for race-specific crime.

Adds talk radio host Larry Elder in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity (June 2, 2020):

According to the CDC, in the last 45 years, killings of black by the police has declined [by] 75 percent.

Last year there were nine unarmed black people killed; 19 unarmed white people. Name the unarmed white people who were killed.

You can’t because the media gives you the impression that this is something that happens all the time [and only to black people].

Obama said this ought not be normal. Mr. former President, it’s not normal; it is rare. Cops rarely kill anybody, let alone an unarmed black person.

And the idea that this happens all the time is why some of these young people are out there in the streets. And it is simply false. Isn’t that good news? It’s not true!

What most left-wing “progressives” gloss over or refuse to forthrightly acknowledge is that, as Riley explains, “racial disparities in police shootings [stem] primary from racial disparities in criminal behavior.”

“Why are the Minneapolis police in black neighborhoods?” asks Heather Mac Donald.

Because that’s where violent crime is happening, including shootings of two-year-olds and lethal beatings of 75-year-olds.

Just as during the Obama years, the discussion of the allegedly oppressive police is being conducted in the complete absence of any recognition of street crime and the breakdown of the black family that drives it.

The murder of George Floyd was an abomination, but it is not a racial or racist abomination. Instead, it is a rare law enforcement problem that affects a small number of police officers, white and black.

It was only last year, after all, in Minneapolis of all places, that a black Somalian-American police officer, Mohamed Noor, was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for wrongly killing an unarmed white woman while on patrol in 2017.

Acording to the New York Times, the woman “was unarmed, wearing pajamas, and holding nothing but a glittery cellphone.” Yet she was killed by this black police officer. However, nowhere in this Times article on the case does the word “racism” appear.

Racism? So why is racism being seized upon now in the murder of George Floyd?

In part because all Americans of goodwill are understandably sensitive to the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial discrimination, and how that legacy might have ramifications even today.

But there are less benign reasons as well.

Anti-American anarchists and far-left extremists seek to use the cudgel of race and racism, real and imagined, to attack and destroy America.

These are the people affiliated with Antifa and foreign intelligence services who have hijacked otherwise peaceful protests and used them as vehicles for arson, looting, rioting, and lawlessness.

Politics. There also are nonviolent “progressives” eager to exploit Floyd’s murder for rank political reasons. They see in his death an opportunity to push for sweeping legislative changes that will “fundamentally transform” America along statist lines.

The racist narrative, albeit false, is politically useful to these left-wing activists; so they push it with unrestrained gusto.

We the people, however, should not be fooled. While racism certainly exists and should be called out and acted against whenever it rears its ugly head, it is a far cry from the most significant problem that we face today.

And it is far cry from the most significant problem that blacks and other minorities face today.

What’s worse? Subpar schools and a lack of educational choice and opportunity in too many poor black neighborhoods. The breakdown of the family and the absence of fathers in too many homes, black and white.

Black-on-black crime that results in the senseless death of too many young black men and innocent children. And a relative lack of jobs and economic opportunity in too many of our nation’s disadvantaged communities.

But all of this has very little to do with racism and a lot do with economics, sociology, and public policy.

In truth, we Americans should take pride in what our nation has done for blacks and other minorities. And we should be grateful for our police, of all hues, colors and ethnicities, who put their lives on the line every day to protect us from the barbarians at the proverbial gate.

The thin blue line, remember, is neither black nor white. It’s blue, and it includes Americans of every race, color and creed.

Feature photo credit: LAist.com.

Officer Chauvin May Not Have Killed George Floyd, But He Is Still Legally Culpable for Gross Wrongdoing

Officer Chauvin May Not Have Killed George Floyd, But He Is Still Legally Culpable for Gross Wrongdoing

By John R Guardiano on June 1, 2020

The autopsy has some surprising results. However, it doesn’t negate what we already know about guilt and innocence in this case.

Maybe new evidence will emerge that helps to explain or exonerate the actions of the Minneapolis police officers who apparently murdered George Floyd last week, but I very much doubt it. The video that we’ve all seen is utterly compelling, straightforward, and clear-cut.

For more than eight long and fatal minutes, Officer Derek Chauvin dug his knee into Floyd’s neck while Floyd lay prostrate on the ground. Three other Minneapolis police officers, meanwhile, either joined in, or watched and did nothing to stop Chauvin. Floyd then died.

The autopsy reportedly found that Floyd died “from a combination of heart disease and ‘potential intoxicants in his system’ that were exacerbated” by the unrelenting police pressure on the carotid artery in Floyd’s neck.

Thus, according to the autopsy, Floyd did not die from asphyxiation or strangulation caused by the police.

From a medical standpoint, that may be significant; but in terms of law and public policy, it is largely irrelevant, and for two reasons:

What Chauvin and his fellow officers did was obviously and manifestly wrong. Floyd was handcuffed and subdued. Thus there was no reason to risk killing him through unrelenting pressure on his carotid artery.

Any properly trained police officer (or military veteran for that matter) knows that unrelenting pressure on the carotid artery is a surefire way to kill someone because it cuts off the supply of blood to the brain.

Chauvin either was grossly stupid and ignorant, or he was malicious and sadistic. Either way, he is legally culpable for wrongdoing—whether or not it resulted in Floyd’s death.

From the standing of public policy: within our judicial system, the police have a limited and prescribed role. The police are tasked with subduing a dangerous suspect, handcuffing him, and taking him into custody.

That’s it. The police are not tasked with meting out justice, real or imagined, outside the confines of the judicial system.

If a dangerous suspect cannot be subdued, then the use of deadly force is prescribed. This typically happens when a suspect is free and on the loose, and the deadly force most often employed involves a firearm or weapon.

But Floyd was not free and on the loose. Quite the opposite: he already was subdued and handcuffed! So there was absolutely no need to employ deadly force against him.

In short, Chauvin may not have intended to kill Floyd (thus he was charged with manslaughter and third-degree murder as opposed to first- or second-degree murder); but neither did he intend to do his job in the manner that he surely had been trained and prescribed by the Minneapolis Police Department.

And Chauvin’s fellow officers who stood by and joined in, or who did nothing to stop him, are equally culpable and disgraceful.

Justice. In the United States of America, no one is above the law, not even the police.

In fact, police officers in the United States are rightly held to a higher standard of conduct than ordinary Americans precisely because they are entrusted with the use of deadly force to protect the weak, the vulnerable, and the innocent.

Officer Chauvin and his fellow officers will be represented by counsel and they will have their day in court. They will be forced to explain themselves and justice will be served, American-style. Thank God for that.

In the meantime, our hearts grieve for Floyd’s family and we weep for the stain of shame inscribed on the thin blue line.

We Americans know better and we Americans deserve better. So, too, did George Floyd. RIP.

Feature photo credit: New York Daily News.

The Choices We Need—to Which the New York Times is Utterly Oblivious

The Choices We Need—to Which the New York Times is Utterly Oblivious

By John R Guardiano on May 11, 2020

The New York Times today published a long and eloquently written editorial that blames affluent Americans (mostly white or caucasian) for segregating themselves off from less affluent Americans (mostly black and Hispanic) and thereby giving rise to economic inequality and, allegedly, a corresponding lack of opportunity for the poor and disadvantaged.

The Times is rightly worried that the COVID-19 pandemic will exacerbate this problem—if, as is likely, it causes the affluent to further flee densely packed cities for neighborhoods that are more inherently conducive to social distancing and thus safer from pathogens like the coronavirus.

Restrictive Zoning. The Times has a point when it criticizes restrictive local zoning ordinances, which too often prevent the development of denser, varied, and more affordable types of housing.

But instead of proposing the obvious solution to this problem—more open, accommodating, and less restrictive zoning ordinances—the Times proposes more authoritarian-style, command-and-control regulations such as those imposed by the state of Oregon.

Oregon, reports the Times, last year banned single-family zoning in all cities of more than 10,000 people.

Of course, this doesn’t solve the problem of affordable housing; it exacerbates it, as the affluent bid up the price of increasingly scarce single-family housing stock in economically segregated neighborhoods.

More options, not fewer options, in the housing and education markets are needed to create greater opportunity for America’s poor and disadvantaged.

Sins of Omission. For these reasons, the Times’ editorial is remarkable for what it does not mention.

There is no mention of school choice, which allows parents of poor and disadvantaged students to send their children to a public or private school of their choice regardless of district or jurisdictional boundaries.

School choice programs have been enacted with great success in many states and locales; however, they run afoul of the teachers unions, which are a powerful Democratic Party constituency with deep financial pockets and organizational wherewithal.

The teachers unions rightly fear that choice and competition threaten their public school monopoly. Thus they are vociferous opponents of school choice.

Crime. There also is no mention of crime—or at least no substantive mention of crime and the very real effect crime has had in creating residential segregation and the inequality that the Times laments.

Instead, the Times mentions the word crime exactly once, and only to belittle and disparage it as a reason the affluent have fled cities and created more economically segregated neighborhoods, both within cities and in the surrounding suburbs.

But the truth is: an explosion of violent crime in our nation’s cities in the 1960s and ‘70s caused many people of financial means, black and white, to flee the cities.

The New York Times to the contrary notwithstanding, this had nothing to do with selfishness or “racism.”

Instead, it had everything to do with safety and survival—for yourself, your family, and your loved ones—and with wanting to ensure that your children grew up in a neighborhood rich in opportunity and free of violent crime.

American cities have rebounded in recent decades after Rudy Giuliani and other urban leaders embraced conservative reforms that dramatically reduced violent crime and made cities once again an oasis of safety and culture.

Yet, the Times and other “progressives” have been working diligently to overturn these reforms—by attacking “stop-and-frisk” policing, for instance, and by seeking to eliminate entrance exams for New York City’s elite public high schools.

Of course, the Times editorial is silent about crime because it is the elephant in the room that dare not be mentioned in “progressive” circles—except insofar as it can be used as a cudgel to attack the police.

But make no mistake: undermining the achievements that New York and other cities have made in combating crime and in creating islands of educational excellence will not help the poor and disadvantaged; it simply will drive the affluent—black, white, and brown—further away.

School Funding. Finally, the Times pushes the old saw that we don’t spend enough money educating the poor and disadvantaged; and it laments the financial disparities that exist between affluent and poor school districts.

These disparities are real, but the notion that they are responsible for differences in educational achievement is silly and simply not supported by the facts. As Reason Magazine’s Ron Baily reports, researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research have found that

the gap in educational achievement between public school students in the bottom 10th economic status (SES) percentile and those in the top 90th SES percentile has remained essentially unchanged over the last 50 years.

[…]

The researchers note that these disappointing results occurred despite the fact that ‘overall school funding increased dramatically on a per-pupil basis, quadrupling in real dollars between 1960 and 2015.’ In addition, pupil-teacher ratios declined from 22.3 in 1970 to 16.1 in 2014.

In short, the problem is not money; the problem is the schools and the home environment of the students.

And this becomes especially obvious when you consider that many Catholic and public charter schools do a demonstrably better job educating poor and disadvantaged students and at a fraction of the cost of traditional public schools.

Choice and Competition. We absolutely need to create more opportunities for our fellow citizens who have failed to share or partake in our rising national affluence. And no doubt the COVID-19 pandemic makes this more difficult.

But ignoring politically inconvenient truths, as the New York Times does, makes this mission impossible. We need more choices, more competition, and freer and less fettered markets in housing and education.

Feature photo credit: Getty Images via the Wall Street Journal.

Media Coverage of the Supreme Court’s Public Charge Decision Sows Confusion Over the Role of the Judiciary

Media Coverage of the Supreme Court’s Public Charge Decision Sows Confusion Over the Role of the Judiciary

By John R Guardiano on January 28, 2020

The gnashing of teeth over the Supreme Court’s decision Monday to allow the Trump administration to “begin enforcing new limits on immigrants who are considered likely to become overly dependent on government benefit programs” shows that there is widespread confusion over the role of the judiciary.

The courts were never intended to be a super legislature where disputants who lose out in the political process can appeal for a rematch and ultimate victory. Public policy is supposed to be determined by the legislative branch of government and, to the extent that the Constitution and legislature allow it, the executive branch as well.

The judiciary simply has no role in formulating public policy, or at least is should not have such a role in the American system of government. “We the people” through our elected representatives, not nine unelected lawyers ensconced in Washington, D.C., are responsible for setting public policy.

Yet, media coverage has focused on the public policy implications of the Court’s ruling, with fulsome quotes from various left-wing interest groups who politick and litigate on behalf of open borders and unrestricted immigration. These advocates decried the allegedly negative effects of the Court’s ruling on immigrants.

“This rule is an all-out assault on legal immigration,” David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told the Washington Post.

“The public charge rule is the latest attack in the Trump administration’s war on immigrants,” [added] Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration expert at Cornell University’s law school.

But if the Trump administration’s new public charge rules are, indeed, an “all-out assault” in its “war on immigrants,” this is something that Congress can remedy. There is no need for the judiciary to intervene: that’s not the Court’s job.

Unsurprisingly, the hyperbolic rhetoric from partisans with a political agenda to grind doesn’t square with the facts, which are far more benign than these verbal volleys suggest.

“The policy would not apply to humanitarian programs for refugees and asylum recipients,” reports the Post. Moreover, an official with the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service

said the policy will not be applied retroactively to those who have used benefits in the past; it will apply only to those who receive taxpayer-funded benefits after the rule takes effect in mid-October.

What’s more,

the change will have little to no effect on those who already have permanent resident status who are seeking to become naturalized U.S. citizens. ‘Naturalization applicants are not subject to a new admissibility determination and therefore are not generally subject to public charge determinations,’ said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.

So much for the “war on immigrants.” In truth, the new rules are a modest attempt to update the definition of a public charge, so that the definition accounts for both cash and non-cash federal assistance.

I say update because as social assistance programs have grown and expanded, they increasingly include many non-cash benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps, Meals on Wheels, the provision of housing, et al.

Yet, in the past, when determining who might be a public charge, these non-cash benefits were ignored. That might have made sense several generations ago when non-cash benefits were miniscule and non-existent. However, it makes little sense today, as non-cash benefits occupy an increasingly prominent place in the social safety net.

Partisans can debate the particulars of the Trump administration’s policy changes. The devil, as they say, is in the details. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, while applauding the Court’s decision, argues that there are real problem s with the administration’s public charge rules.

Perhaps, but the appropriate place to hash out the issue is in the policy-making branches of government—in Congress, principally, and, to a lesser extent, within the administration.

Doing so is no doubt laborious and difficult. Legislating isn’t easy and policy-making can be hard. But that is what liberty and self-government demand: hard work and effort, argument, persuasion, and consensus. A free and proud people should not want it any other way.

Feature photo credit: iStockphoto.com via National Public Radio.

As the So-Called Public Option Shows, There Are No Moderate Democratic Presidential Candidates

As the So-Called Public Option Shows, There Are No Moderate Democratic Presidential Candidates

By John R Guardiano on January 23, 2020

The media typically portray the Democratic Party primary contest as a race between far-left “progressives,” such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and more “moderate” candidates such as Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Peter Buttigieg. But this divide reflects stylistic and personality differences more than it does genuine differences in politics and policy.

In truth, the Democratic presidential candidates are all frighteningly progressive or left-wing. They really don’t have any substantive disagreements.

In fact, the one big disagreement that they ostensibly do have—on health insurance, and whether to provide “Medicare for All”(Sanders and Warren) or just “Medicare for All Who Want It” via a “public option” (Biden, Klobuchar, and Buttigieg)—turns out to be a complete ruse.

A so-called public option “would increase the federal deficit dramatically and destabilize the market for private health insurance, threatening health-care quality and choice,” reports Lanhee Chen in today’s Wall Street Journal.

“Some 123 million people—roughly 1 in 3 Americans—he notes, would be enrolled in the public option by 2025, broadly displacing existing insurance.”

In other words, the “public option” is just a more politically palatable way of displacing private-sector health insurance with a “single-payer” government monopoly over time. Sanders and Warren would eliminate private-sector health insurance proudly and openly; Biden, Klobuchar, and Buttigieg would do so more discreetly and stealthily.

But the end result would be the same: a government monopoly on the health insurance market and the elimination of choice and competition in health care.

To progressives who distrust markets and love big government, this might sound good. What’s not to like?! they might say. The problem is that a government monopoly will result in skyrocketing and unsustainable costs and deteriorating healthcare for patients and consumers. Chen explains:

“Many health-care providers would suffer a dramatic drop in income, while at the same time experiencing greater demand for their services.

“Longer wait times and narrower provider networks would likely follow for those enrolled in the public option, harming patients’ health and reducing consumer choice.

“Declines in provider payments would also affect investment decisions by hospitals and may lead to fewer new doctors and other medical providers…

“We estimate that federal spending on the public option would exceed total military spending by 2042 and match combined spending on Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and ACA [the Affordable Care Act or ‘ObamaCare’] subsidies by 2049.

“In the latter year the public option would become the third most expensive government program, behind only Medicare and Social Security. The public option alone would raise the federal debt by 30% of gross domestic product over the next 30 years.”

And good luck with financing this disastrous scheme. Chen estimates that “if tax increases to pay for a politically realistic public option were limited to high-income filers, the top marginal rate would have to rise from the current 37% to 73% in 2049—a level not seen since the 1960s.

“Such large rate increases,” he observes, “would undoubtedly have [adverse] economic effects, causing revenue to fall short of our static estimates.”

In short, there is nothing “moderate” or reasonable about the so-called public option. It is a radical and dangerous idea that will wreak havoc in the health insurance market and lead to the elimination of private-sector health insurance.

America deserves better and American voters deserve the truth about the Democrats now running for president: There’s not a moderate in the bunch. They are all far-left progressives now.

Feature photo/illustration credit: Lydia Zuraw/California Healthline illustration; Getty Images, via California Healthline.