Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Why the Left Won't Call Rioters 'Thugs'
Townhall.com ^ | May 5, 2015 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 05/05/2015 9:13:49 AM PDT by Kaslin

Two months ago, The New York Times published an op-ed piece by a professor of philosophy titled, "Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts."

This is how the professor began his piece:

"What would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching children that it is not true that it's wrong to kill people for fun or cheat on tests? Would you be surprised? I was."

The problem, as the professor described it, is that a generation of Americans has been taught that there is no moral truth. There may be scientific truth and historical truth, but no moral truth.

The professor is, of course, right, as some of us -- overwhelmingly from religious perspectives -- have been lamenting for decades.

Now we have another example of the denial of moral truths. Last week, a number of leftists -- black and white -- announced that it is racist to label the rioters and looters in Baltimore "thugs." Even though both the black mayor of Baltimore and the black president of the United States did so, the left-wing argument is that the term "thug" is never applied to whites, only to blacks. The T-word is, in effect, the new N-word.

Soledad O'Brien, former CNN anchor, on CNN's "Reliable Sources":

"I think when you examine when the word is used, it's used to describe the actions of people of color, specifically people who are in the inner city.

"I can't think of a situation where there's ever been a headline or someone has called a white young person who is in the middle of a violent protest demonstration, whatever, a thug. We use it all the time when we're talking about people in the inner city.

"Thugs" [is] a proxy, a word we use instead of the N-word."

Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes interviewed by Erin Burnett on CNN:

Isn't "thugs" the right word to describe the rioters and looters? CNN's Erin Burnett asked the councilman:

He responded: "No, it's not the right word to call our children 'thugs.' These are children who have been set aside, marginalized, who have not been engaged by us."

"But how does that justify what they did?" Burnett then asked. "That's a sense of right and wrong. They know it's wrong to steal and burn down a CVS and an old persons' home. I mean, come on."

"Come on? Just call them 'Niggers.' Just call them 'Niggers,'" argued Councilman Stokes.

The left-wing website Daily Kos agreed with Councilman Stokes and challenged Burnett:

"Did she or anyone else at CNN use the 'T'-Word" when the Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl ... or when the San Francisco Giants won the World Series?"

Actually, it turns out that this is precisely how many of us in the opinion media have characterized rioters of every race. A word search on "thugs" and "Occupy Wall Street," for example, reveals that just about every major conservative commentator called those rioters "thugs."

In the Times last week, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, N. D. B. Connolly, wrote a piece titled, "Black Culture Is Not the Problem." Its thesis is that one cannot blame any of the social pathologies in inner city black life -- presumably such as the disproportionate rate of violence, the almost 80 percent out-of-wedlock birth rate or the riots -- on the values (or lack of them) in black culture. Any such pathologies are due to various manifestations of white racism. Specifically, the professor wrote, it is the "continued profitability of racism ... a country that still segregates people along racial lines, the financial enrichment of landlords, corner store merchants and other vendors selling second-rate goods."

Why is it impossible for the left to blame black rioters for their looting, burning and destruction -- the latter including an old-age home in the case of the Baltimore rioters?

One reason is that the left does not divide the world between traditional notions of good and evil. Rather, it divides the world between white and black, rich and poor, and powerful and weak. One therefore sides with the non-white, the poor and the weak.

A second reason is that the left rarely fights evil (it fights those who fight evil). It fights such things as inequality, fossil fuels and an alleged "rape culture" on American campuses. But it doesn't fight real evil (like rioters).

A third reason is that the day even a third of America's blacks come to believe that their problems are largely a product of poor cultural values, they will have become conservative and the left will have begun to lose its most important demographic group.

Those are the reasons the left now opposes calling black thugs "thugs."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: baltimore; liberals; thugs
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-59 next last
To: Kaslin
"Come on? Just call them 'Niggers.' Just call them 'Niggers,'" argued Councilman Stokes.

Ok Councilman Stokes, but I never needed your permission.
21 posted on 05/05/2015 9:38:48 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: AEMILIUS PAULUS
The left is pushing for a Social War wherein conservative doctrines and Christian beliefs are forever suppressed.

Okay, so the democrats can't win an election without getting 90%+ of the black vote. How do they do that when they are the party of anti-religion? I thought blacks, at least in the south, were very religious? Do they simply ignore their own moral compass and vote for democrats because they, what, have convinced them that republicans are racists?

22 posted on 05/05/2015 9:39:53 AM PDT by Go Gordon (Barack McGreevey Obama)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Biggirl
Exactly. If they're not trying to distract from the deeds of the thugs by trying to debate the permissible language, they're trying to shut down even the possibility of debate by declaring every new descriptor “off-limits”, just as they did the preceding one.
23 posted on 05/05/2015 9:40:41 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: chopperman
Here are some more...

bandit,bully,criminal,gangster,goon,hooligan,
mobster,rioter,rowdy,troublemaker,delinquent,gorilla,
hood,punk,ruffian,gangmember,brigand,hoodlum,bandit,
desperado,highwayman,marauder,outlaw,pillager,pirate,
robber,thief,convict,cutthroat,gangster,lawbreaker,
mugger,crook,mobster,racketeer,robber,mafioso,

24 posted on 05/05/2015 9:41:26 AM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Go Gordon

Because enough of the “black churches” aren’t Biblical, they are either social clubs (the same could be said of enough white churches) or they are “social justice” organisations. That’s why Jeremiah Wright’s supposedly “Christian” church could feature Louis Farrakhan, leader of the black Nation Of Islam, on the cover of its church magazine as a hero.


25 posted on 05/05/2015 9:43:45 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
"Thugs" [is] a proxy, a word we use instead of the N-word."

Okay, time to word-smith. Does the left prefer we use the term "miscreant"? Reprobate? Scoundrel? Hoodlum? Hooligan?

26 posted on 05/05/2015 9:43:57 AM PDT by Go Gordon (Barack McGreevey Obama)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: AEMILIUS PAULUS
The left is pushing for a Social War wherein conservative doctrines and Christian beliefs are forever suppressed. We are now organized to resist.


27 posted on 05/05/2015 9:44:20 AM PDT by Old Sarge (Its the Sixties all over again, but with crappy music...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
"Thugs" [is] a proxy, a word we use instead of the N-word."

I agree. Let's go back to the word that worked.

28 posted on 05/05/2015 9:45:15 AM PDT by Lazamataz (Jeb Bush makes John McCain look like Barry Goldwater.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The democrats should call the thugs and rioters by the proper name: Constituents.


29 posted on 05/05/2015 9:45:44 AM PDT by W. (Many Disqus sites, Cheezburger.com and [The Internet] Archive.org all censor conservative comment.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HiTech RedNeck

Exactly correct. Liberals have a GIANT Messiah Complex. They think they have to ‘save’ everyone and everything. They love playing God.


30 posted on 05/05/2015 9:50:49 AM PDT by navyguy (The National Reset Button is pushed with the trigger finger.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
...the left-wing argument is that the term "thug" is never applied to whites,...

Yes it is. All the time. As usual the left-wing uses a premise that is unadulterated bull puckey.

31 posted on 05/05/2015 9:51:37 AM PDT by TigersEye (STONE COLD ZOMBIE SCOURGE)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
When your house is on fire, you don't care if someone says "your house is on fire," "engulfed in flames," "is burning," or whatever else. You know there's a problem, it involves fire and excessive heat, and you want the problem resolved quickly.

People hung up on the connotation made when they hear the word "thug" are purposely confusing the issue. Everyone knows there's a problem (the riots) and everyone can see that people are starting and engaging in the riots (thugs). These people are not interested in resolving the problem; they only want to prolong the issue, or try to cast a diversion to lay the blame on something (or someone) else.

32 posted on 05/05/2015 10:00:17 AM PDT by Lou L (Health "insurance" is NOT the same as health "care")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Go Gordon
Do they simply ignore their own moral compass and vote for democrats because they, what, have convinced them that republicans are racists?

NOW, you're catching on...

33 posted on 05/05/2015 10:01:12 AM PDT by Old Sarge (Its the Sixties all over again, but with crappy music...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

CALL THE THUGS “DEMOCRATS”... you can’t go wrong then!!


34 posted on 05/05/2015 10:01:58 AM PDT by missnry (The truth will set you free ... and drive liberals crazy!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
What we are seeing is the implementation of Alinsky’s Socio -Anarchist community organizer led revolution.

http://www.socialanarchism.org/mod/magazine/display/122/index.php

It ain't for nothing that Michele Obama’s Inauguration night dress was styled off the Socio Anarchist flag.

35 posted on 05/05/2015 10:17:15 AM PDT by rdcbn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Go Gordon

No, it’s time to stop letting them be the self-appointed gatekeepers of language.


36 posted on 05/05/2015 10:19:20 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: DJ Taylor

“The Thugs or Thuggees, were history’s most notorious and deadly criminal cult.”

On the other hand, the British greased them and they disappeared by 1870.


37 posted on 05/05/2015 10:19:48 AM PDT by buffaloguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: rdcbn

And their “revolution” is defeated by the truth,
therefore, any word or concept that tells the truth about them is denied or banned.


38 posted on 05/05/2015 10:21:20 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: navyguy

The rank-and-file or lower level “true believer” leftists may think that, but I think that the ones with the power (like Soros) are globalists playing groups against each other. The fact that the GOPe is now showing its hand as being opposed to true conservatism, and supportive of globalist economic policies, at the expense of the middle class, strengthens that belief.


39 posted on 05/05/2015 10:21:53 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: mrsmel

Oh yeah, I think you’re right. The average deranged Liberal has a Messiah Complex, but the big players like Soros have no problem crushing their own paid lemmings if it means more power and wealth for them. It’s really a Master/Slave relationship they have. But Liberals enjoy being enslaved by dependency so it’s not a problem for them.


40 posted on 05/05/2015 10:25:15 AM PDT by navyguy (The National Reset Button is pushed with the trigger finger.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-59 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson