A Conservative Christian View Of Police And Protests Shows Shortsightedness

R.R. Reno (click here for personal info) just wrote an article for the First Things blog that seemed to criticize the police for not being confrontational enough with protesters some of whom were destroying property. In his article, he makes the following claim:

Since George Floyd’s death, civil authorities have done everything possible to avoid deadly encounters.

 Reno calls much of their current approach 'containment' in contrast to 'confrontation.' In Reno's view, it isn't that containment is always wrong, but it has been overused here. As a result, not only has there been preventable property destruction, too much containment has led to vigilantism (click here for the article).

Perhaps the most revealing line about Reno's perspective precedes the above quote:

News of street violence makes my heart sink.

    When we combine those two statements together, we see that              Reno shows more concern over the reaction to the shootings than       the shootings themselves. Such is a view of a privileged person.

    Here we should note the human tendency to judge the actions of       others as if they are reacting from the same context, with generally    the life experiences as one's own context with life experiences. To      give an example, I remember corresponding with a member of          BLM  and telling my friend about how the police gently escorted        those who were engaging in civil disobedience at a protest in             suburban area. My friend, because of their own life experiences,         had difficulty in believing what I wrote. At the same time, one of       friends who lives around me could not believe the accounts of          police brutality that I relayed to them when I was discussing     misconduct by the police. Why? That was because he had neither      experienced, nor witnessed,  nor knew anyone who had been abused   by the police.

 Other factors can be involved in how we receive news about police violence as well. Those who are conservative authoritarians, which is a distinct possibility for Reno, naturally side with recognized authority figures such as the police. Those who are more anti-authoritarian might tend to assume that the police always are abusive when dealing with people.

Then there is the race issue. Whites have generally treated with less suspicion and more favortism by many police officers than Blacks have. So Whites might tend to be more open to favorable stories about the police than Blacks are. And that is especially true for those Blacks who have either be abused by the police or know someone who has been. But race is not the only contributing factor here, economic class is as well in determining what people tend to believe about the police.

Having said all of that, we need to get back to the quotes from Reno. The first quote points to an assumption of innocence for the police. It also separates the conditions of the protests from the protests. If police have done everything to 'avoid deadly encounters,' then why do we have two more examples of police abuse? Those two examples are the shootings of Rayshard Brooks and Jacob Blake. If the police to do not want to risk deadly encounters during protests, then why continue to conduct unjustified attempts on life which has been a cause for the protests?

But we should also point out clear police misconduct when determining whether police have done everything to avoid deadly confrontations. That misconduct ranges from the pushing down and then ignoring their victim as he was down injured of a 75-year protester in Buffalo. And to the attitude of the police regarding that matter, when two police officers involved in the assault were disciplined, 57 officers from that unit resigned in protest. Or we could go documented police attacks against protesters, medics, journalists and legal observers (click here and there). We should note that just because actions did not result in death, does not imply that such actions did not risk the death of the targets.

Also, if police were so concerned with avoiding deadly confrontations, why did they let a 17-year-old, untrained kid with an assault rifle walk toward a protest? Did they not know that that could easily lead to a deadly confrontation? Such would be unlikely.

Thus it seems that Reno's claim that the police have done what they could to 'avoid deadly encounters' seems flawed.

The second quote is even problematic. Where is Reno's expressed concern for the 3 men who have been either killed or seriously wound by unnecessary police violence? Why is the destruction of property some that saddens Reno but the flagrant use of force against Blacks does not produce a sorrow worthy of mention?

Later on, Reno writes the following;

Protecting property from theft and destruction is one of the fundamental functions of government.

And yet where is Reno's statement about protecting lives as also being one of the functions of government? As a religious leader, why does he more strongly express a concern for property than for lives?

The title of Reno's article is: The Rule Of Law Imperiled. But is the rule of law only imperiled when, in anger and anguish, protesters flaunt the law in the destruction of property? Or should Reno consider that when when officers of the court and state act unlawfully, then the rule of law is under attack too?

Finally we should realize that it is a sign of privilege to think that the current unrest began with the protests. For many, but not all, Blacks, the unrest today is simply a continuation of the conflict that started here in 1619. But because Whites like me don't have many of the life experiences that many Blacks have had, we are at risk for being at least partially blind to the whole picture of what is going on today.

 

The Search For Maintaining A True Conservatism

Russell Ronald "R.R." Reno (click here for a bio) has just written an article for the conservative Cathlolic website, First Things (click here for the website) that is both a warning and a plea regarding the need for Conservatives to update the way they see the world (click here for the article). Why is such an update needed? It is because, according to Reno, there has been a disturbance in the liberal force. Liberalism has changed and thus poses a new threat. It poses a new threat because unlike the liberalism of the past, it is now using big government to compel us to accept 'plenary liberation and economic growth.'

It's not that liberals have never used big government before. After all, Reno complains about how big government was used to address racism, sexism, and poverty when he was younger. But now big government consists of the expanded use of the judicial system to change the world. In addition, unlike past liberalism that seemed to have unintentionally followed some of Pope Leo XIII's directives on keeping what is necessary to maintain an healthy society, today's liberalism is looking to move society to accept beliefs and practices that totally lie outside of Pope Leo XIII's instructions. What did Pope Leo XIII say that was necessary for a healthy society? He wrote about how the family and domestic part of life, the religious part of life, and Civic life for our political needs were all essential  for a good society. And when these three areas of life are in balance, the political life open as to how to be constructed so that the common good is advanced. And, of course, Reno believes that the Church, that is the Roman Church, has the answers to what best advances the common good.

However now, both family part of life and the religious part of life are under attack by big government forcing some to accept, what is for them, the unacceptable while others seem to be willing to swallow the new values of the 21st Century hook, line, and sinker. Thus because of the Sexual Revolution, the family part of life seems to be slowly dying from the American scene. And because of that, fewer Americans see getting married and having children as being important or even necessary. What follows then is that fewer Americans consider the consequences in the future when it comes to values and beliefs. And that is another part of the disturbance in the liberal force for this represents a change in liberalism and its causes. In addition, the religious part of our nation's life is faltering.

Certainly there is more to the current disturbance in the liberal force than what is being mentioned here. Reno also mentions identity politics along with the over emphasis on the economics through economic globalism. In addition, there is the blaming of government for the corruption of Capitalism.

One of Reno's primary concerns in the article is the survival of the West. And thus he finds what students learn about the West in school to be disconcerting. For too many students have come to associate homophobia, racism, and imperialism with the West. This has, in Reno's view caused a kind of guilt that might make people think that the West is not worth preserving. This guilt, according to Reno, is due to Secularism's overreach that collective guilt now exists for past and present failures.

Now Reno talks about other things such as his pragmatic based support for Trump,  but what has been described above is enough to chew on. We should note that being a religiously conservative Christian, Reno is prone to embracing authoritarianism. That is because conservative Christianity relies heavily on authority structures in teaching people how to relate to others. And his view of the centrality of the Church in society is evidence that he clings to it. For he writes:

I was finishing graduate school when Richard John Neuhaus launched First Things. His outlook seemed right. Again, I wasn’t thinking in Leo XIII’s terms in those days. But I can now see that Neuhaus recognized that our society needed the renewal of the moral authority of traditional institutions, especially marriage and Church, in order to restore the Leonine balance.

We should note that Neuhaus was responding to the exclusion of religious thought in public discussions. However, the mention of the 'moral authority' of the Church implies more than just having a seat at the table of issues.

We should also include what he writes about Secularism:

Secularism takes things out of God’s hands—and puts them in ours.
 

Or we could add Reno's claim that only the Church can help one to adequately respond to guilt. Secularism might heap guilt on to people, but that it often does that falsely and it offers no remedy for that guilt. This makes society utterly dependent on the Church and independent of Secularism. Of course, this claim is made without reciting the many historical failures of the Church in justly ruling over people in society.

But what most indicates Reno's embracing of authoritarianism is the essential part to a healthy society he believes the Church plays. For such a belief concludes that there has never been a healthy society without the Church playing a key role. And the problem such a view presents is in the area where Christians ask themselves how they will share society with others. Will they share society as equals? Or will we share society feeling entitled to enjoying a privileged position where we can at least partially control society through, of all things, government? 

Those who feel entitled to enjoying to such a privileged position often act as the proverbial bull in a china shop when it comes to recognizing their own faults. Evidence for this kind of acting can be seen in Reno's analysis of the French Revolution. For before the Revolution, the Church sided with wealth and power as the state transferred more and more burdens on the peasant class while enriching and empowering the nobles and the clergy. But Reno doesn't mention any of that. Reno's calloused reactions to the protests of the 60s as well as his defensive reactions to the accusations that the racism, homophobia, and imperialism were key parts of the West provides another example of this bull in a china shop attitude.

What Reno fails to mention is that the 21st Century's challenges to conservatism are due to the legitimate concerns found in Post Modernism. Though while Post Modernism falsely conclude that the metanarratives of Pre Modernism or Modernism are not true, that it made that judgment is largely the fault of institutions like the conservative Church in the West for it failures to acknowledge the injustices it visited or caused others to visit on those from different races, religions, nations, and sexual orientation. For all of the injustices were, and sometimes still are, real and could be quite severe. But feeling entitled to have a privileged place over others somehow robs one of self-awareness and makes one resist feeling guilty for how their use of privilege has hurt others because they are so focused on the 'good' they have done.

Finally, quite often the interest in preserving the West, which is a concern of Reno, indicates, not implies, some racial overtones. Why? That's because the West that was predominant and branched out into empires all over the world, including America, was a White European West. And since many who see the low birthrate in Europe as a sign of doom, what they are saying is that not enough White people are being born. In addition, there are a sufficient number of prominent Christian leaders who have spoken  at meetings of organizations that seem to promote White Supremacy. Sometimes, the appearance of a Christian leader at such a group's event is unrelated to the group's racism. But that other such leaders do have some leanings into White Supremacy is unmistakable. And though I've seen no indication in the Reno writings with which I am familiar that say that Reno leans that way, the concern for the preservation of the West or Western Civilization raise red flags that there could be some racist leanings by the person with such a concern.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 21, 2014

May 17

To R. Scott Clark and his heidelblog podcast on political correctness. This appeared on the Heidelblog


The Left has been aware of how political correctness has been around for decades and started during Wilson's administration as soon as the  controlling public opinion became a priority. During WWI, everything German was the target. After WWI, Bolshevism was targeted. There was the Hollywood blacklist of the 1940s and 1950s along with McCarthyism. There was firing of at least one professor from a tenured position for participating in and supporting students who were standing up against segregation. And then there was the FBI harassment of Civil Rights and antiwar activists. Then there was the harassment of antiwar activists during the Bush years along with the Obama Administrations possible ties to dismantling the Occupy encampments.

The test of our commitment to civil and religious rights is whether we will defend the rights of those with whom we disagree. So the ACLU defense of the speech and assembly rights of neo-Nazis, with whom they vehemently disagree, shows a true commitment to civil rights. Likewise, we would be showing a commitment to civil and religious rights by defending the rights of homosexuals to marry while disagreeing with homosexuality because of what the Scriptures say.

On the other hand, we have to consider that any political correctness pressure to condone accepting  homosexuality could be partially be due to our past intolerance and legislative persecution of gays. In other words, we have no problems when we can control them but we cry coercion if the favor is returned. Such shows a commitment to partisanship, not to principle, and those seeds of partisanship have found their place in other gardens.

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May 18

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on globalization and the reduction of world poverty. This appeared in the Acton blog.


There is a problem with linking globalization with the reduction in world poverty. The problem is that globalization means different things not just to different parts of the world, but to different countries as well. To show this, all we need to do is compare two neighboring countries and what globalization meant to each. To India, as to the West, globalization means neoliberal capitalism--note that India has been starting to introduce some new controls. To China, globalization a liberalizing of the economy but that is relative to what the economy was. It is still pretty much controlled.

But problems loom for both countries. For example, not all sectors of India's economy have profited from globalization. The number of its farmers who went deep into debt as the result of the free market has resulted in the number of suicides to measured in the tens of thousands. In addition, air pollution in India, which was already a problem prior to globalization, has increased due to industrialization. In China, air pollution is a very serious problem.

But other problems have arisen with the increase of globalization is income disparity. That income disparity has significantly increased in the West is beyond dispute. Part of that is that income many Americans, for example, has stagnated or dropped. Part of that is due to the technological unemployment and the outsourcing of jobs to other countries.  In Europe, we also have austerity cuts. The combination of these two factors could suggest that  what we are seeing with the reduction of poverty is a shifting wealth from American middle and even lower classes to other countries.

Part of the global alleviation of poverty is the result of the increased labor supply which has lowered pay in the West while allowing for the existence of sweatshop labor conditions in countries like China. Here, sweatshop labor is defined not by pay but by working conditions and violations of labor law. So those working in sweatshop factories might be lifted out of poverty by their jobs but the working conditions are abusive if not dangerous or deadly.

Another problem with globalization is the multiple use of the term "comparative advantage." This has referred to a country using protectionism to build up an industry and then forcing free trade on other countries for products made by the newly established industry. This drives foreign companies involved in manufacturing the same kinds of products as the protected industry out of business in their own countries as they are forced to compete with the once or still protected foreign industry. We should note that comparative advantage is sometimes currently used to assign specific contributions a country can make to the global economy. These assignments are not made by the country itself but by the leaders of the global economy. Here we can see certain sectors of a country's economy disappear making that country dependent on the world to even feed itself. Haiti  found itself in that situation when in around 2008 when fuel prices rose, Haiti suffered a food crisis because its farmers had already been put out of business.

In addition, part of what was just said leads into the next problem with our current form of globalization. That problem is that foreign investors begin to accumulate power in foreign countries. Thus, the citizens of a given country lose democratic control over their economy and are thus ruled by foreign investors.

We could go on with other concerns but the point is when people try to present overlysimplistic cause and effect relationships between desired results and single variables, we should remember the saying:

Beware of Geeks bearing gifts

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May 19


To Greg Forster and his article on separating marriage from the state because of society's new view of marriage. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition's website.


To me, it seems that the first front in the battle over marriage is status of our own marriages and those of our friends. But something has to be added when talking about the battle over marriage in the state. What needs to be added is that we live in a kind of democracy. Democracies can be  measured by the effectiveness that democratic procedures have in controlling the gov't and they can be measured by the degree to which the country belongs to all of the law biding citizens. So once we start using legislation to prohibit same-sex marriage and that is done for religious reasons, we are telling those outside our group that the country belongs more to us than to others.

But if we defend the equality of homosexuals while preaching the Gospel, won't we be fighting the battle over marriage while preserving/enhancing our democracy?

I hate commenting on this so much but it seems that we conservative Christians are obsessed with the subject and what others are doing behind closed doors.

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May 20


To R.R. Reno and his blogpost on the Nationalism. This appeared in the First Things blog.


Are we forgetting American nationalism and how we call it patriotism? True, our nationalism does not revolve around ethnicity and there is a dispute as to whether it is to revolve around religion. We should note that nationalism is merely an instance of something more abstract. What is more abstract is that people tend to congregate in groups for obtaining significance and security. And that is a human trend. Where it becomes a problem is when loyalty to that group whether it be national identity, ethnicity, religion, race, or whatever, trumps commitment to principle. That is one kind of nationalism.

Another kind of nationalism involves group ownership of nationally located,  jointly needed resources. Here, we are talking more about self-sovereignty than compromise of principle. And this is where we should favor nationalism over the control of resources by financial elites. And we should note that the apartheid congregation of elites is based on the same principles of group identity that nationalism is based on. That is it is based on a search for significance and security, as stated above.