OPINION:
“For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.”
— C.S. Lewis, “The Magician’s Nephew”
Let’s start with the shooting last week of Renee Good, a Minneapolis woman killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent while attempting to drive away from the scene of an ICE operation. Moments after the first videos were available, the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz blamed ICE and called the shooting unnecessary.
The leftist activist group of which Ms. Good was reportedly a part is dedicated to tracking and “resisting” immigration enforcement operations through apps and a rapid response hotline, according to the New York Post. Messrs. Frey and Walz claimed Ms. Good was trying to drive away. Mr. Frey added that the agent who shot Ms. Good “hopped” down the street. Perhaps he was limping after Ms. Good’s car hit him?
Standing on the other side of the argument were Vice President J.D. Vance, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, current and former U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and conservative commentators on Fox News.
In Portland, Oregon, a CBP agent opened fire on a couple identified as members of the Venezuelan gangster group Tren de Aragua. A Homeland Security Department statement said they had “weaponized” their car after fleeing a traffic stop.
If jumping to conclusions were an Olympic sport, these premature commentators who sought to create a narrative would receive gold medals.
News media and Democrats have driven much of this. For the media, it makes for good pictures. For Democrats and liberal groups who may provide them with support money, it’s a strategy they hope will bring down President Trump and his administration.
There are two ways to break the law. One is by breaking it, and the other is by ignoring it. The latter is mostly what the Biden administration did by letting in violent criminals who committed new crimes, including the murders of American citizens.
Investigations take time to sort out the truth, but in the instant communication age, many are impatient and produce their own “truth” to further personal political objectives.
The Homeland Security Department claims that ICE and other law enforcement agents are in more danger than at any other time in recent memory. They are cursed in vile ways, bottles and bricks are thrown at them, and demonstrators demand that they remove face masks so they can be identified and doxed.
This disrespect for legitimate authority goes back at least to modern times, to race riots and the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Then, riots and looting destroyed many Black neighborhoods and forced a call-out of the National Guard to maintain order.
Growing up in the Washington area, I was taught to respect and obey police officers because they were there to keep order and apply the law. Then, only one officer was on the steps of the House and Senate. There were no metal detectors (those were for the beach to find loose coins), and no identification was required.
If you seek to enter the Capitol building today, there are stone-and-metal barricades blocking vehicles from getting close and X-ray machines to examine what’s in your pocket as you enter on foot. Security cameras are everywhere.
This modern, anti-law-enforcement attitude, I believe, comes from too many university professors and social media that teach a different American history and promote an America that resembles the countries from which radical migrants to the U.S. come.
In Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle, we have seen ICE trying to arrest and deport people with serious charges and convictions. Now those who are to “protect and serve” are the targets of organized demonstrators, many of whom are breaking the law.
• Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book, “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (Humanix Books).
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