The Michael Brown case: eyewitnesses and the forensic evidence
According to the preliminary report of an autopsy requested by the Brown family, Michael Brown was shot six times, four in the right arm and two in the head, the last shot killing him. All were fired from the front.
That could end up being revised, but so far the forensic evidence contradicts the reports of several eyewitnesses who reported that at least some shots were fired from behind as Brown was fleeing. One of those witnesses, Dorian Johnson, had reason to lie, since he was Brown’s friend and was present at the time of the convenience store robbery (which Johnson didn’t mention till the police brought it out).
Eyewitness testimony is prized by the public but is often very flawed. It’s not necessary to get into the racial aspects of this case to doubt the reliability of the eyewitnesses: study upon study has demonstrated how poor eyewitness testimony tends to be. Here’s an interesting point about focus that’s relevant to the Brown shooting:
The weapon focus effect suggests that the presence of a weapon narrows a person’s attention, thus affects eyewitness memory. A person focuses on the central detail (for example, the weapon) and loses focus on the peripheral details (for example, the perpetrator’s characteristics). While the weapon is remembered clearly, the memories of the other details of the scene suffer…Another hypothesis is that seeing a weapon might cause an aroused state. In an aroused state, people focus on central details instead of peripheral ones.
That’s not the only focus problem. There’s more:
The testimony of a witness can lose validity due to too many external stimuli, that may affect what was witnessed during the crime, and therefore obstruct memory. For example, if an individual witnesses a car accident on a very public street, there may be too many cues distracting the witness from the main focus. Numerous interfering stimulus inputs may suppress the importance of the stimulus of focus, the accident. This can degrade the memory traces of the event, and diminish the representation of those memories. This is known as the cue-overload principle.
The Brown killing had all those characteristics, which would tend to degrade eyewitness memory even if there were no racial biases or issues involved. Also, the enormous amount of publicity and talk in the media about the event could have its own effect:
…[T]he memory of an eyewitness can become compromised by other information, such that an individual’s memory becomes biased. This can increase eyewitnesses sensitivity to the misinformation effect. Individuals report what they believe to have witnessed at the time of the crime, even though this may be the result of a false memory. These effects can be a result of post-event information.
It would not be the least bit surprising if the testimony of many of the eyewitnesses in this case turned out to be inaccurate. That’s why the forensics are extremely important. A webcam would have been very good, too (that’s been my opinion from the start), but very unfortunately no official video exists. Meanwhile, the demagogues continue their work.
As a commenter on an earlier post noted, your concern with facts is quaint. Not going to make any difference. See Zimmerman/Martin.
Meanwhile, Conner Verkerke (aka “who?”) is unavailable for comment.
Eyewitnesses are very unreliable. You might find this video interesting.
http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html
I simply don’t think focus had anything to do with these witnesses lack of truth. A third world area being run by a first world legal system runs into these types of problems perpetually. Actually, it is common, typical, usual, in third-world countries. Which is partly why their judicial systems are total, rather than partial, failures. The honest don’t survive in third-world systems. Which is why the witnesses are what was had. Some people can be crushed to that, others just are that. Third-world civility on display.
A concern over microfacts which cannot be established (it is famously said about cameras–including webcams–that they do not lie but they also do not tell the full truth) needs to defer to the macrofacts which are all too evident in Ferguson, supported by lots of cameras.
New, critically important info:
“CONFIRMED — Officer Darren Wilson Did Know Mike Brown Was Suspect In Robbery, and Did See Stolen Cigars In His Hands Prior To Attempting Questioning….”
The “JJ Witness Video” — Eye Witness Audio of Mike Brown Shooting States: “Brown Doubled Back Toward POlice”…
As the evidence both direct and circumstantial emerges, it entirely supports Officer Wilson’s account.
similar to the gorilla video:
http://youtu.be/9jcWbpD2ap4
Watch this a few times.
This is NOT a Ferguson video.
See why the perp was shot.
At a certain angle, or on first viewing it looks like he was wrongfully shot.
Geoff Britain: and that JJ Witnes video you linked to shows why two witnesses (ala Rashomon) can be right.
He was up on the cop.
He was shot a distance away.
Won’t stop the riots.
No it won’t stop the riots.
“What can be done against force, without force?” Roman statesman Cicero
Force is what will stop this riot. Instead they will just let it burn itself out because white America’s guilt inculcated by the left won’t allow them to confront it. But that won’t stop future riots because it supports the left’s racist memes. What will stop future riots is written and spoken confrontation by black and white public figures willing to confront the demagoguery of the left.
It is NOT white privilege and racism that is keeping blacks at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale. It’s not frustration at the dearth of economic opportunity that is responsible for the rioting in Ferguson. Those are the excuses sold to blacks by a seditious and treasonous left that knowingly lies for the advancement of their political agenda.
It’s the abandonment of the cultural keys to success by blacks and their embrace of the racist excuse sold to them by the left which is where the truth lies and conservative commentators need to start speaking forthrightly about it and confronting the left’s predictable accusations of racism and false outrage.
Virtues are values practiced and virtues cannot be racist.
A minority group’s socioeconomic success in America exactly tracks the minority culture’s embrace, neglect or rejection of Five Critical Cultural Key Virtues.
The Five Critical Cultural Key Virtues are simple but profound in their effects, they are;
1) education,
2) developing a strong work ethic,
3) acceptance of personal responsibility and accountability,
4) acceptance of familial obligations and loyalty, and
5) the virtue of delayed gratification.
Individual exceptions both positive and negative aside, that is all it takes to be successful in America.
That is all it has ever taken.
Until blacks* look in the mirror, no amount of entitlement programs and welfare programs will substitute for embracing and practicing these critical virtues.
* According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 31 percent of blacks recognize that the majority of blacks are racist.
** An even more recent Rasmussen poll reveals that,
But important as all of this is, what is more important is what the predictable result will be of destroying a policeman for doing their job. If a white policeman justifiably shooting a black man will result in a charge of murder, then the “thin blue line” that protects civilization from the ‘barbarian’ will be mortally wounded by the very society it is charged with protecting.
That which is obvious but may not get a hearing: poor, young, black, is the equivalent of criminal class. Jesse Jackson knows the feeling; the black community lives daily with the feeling — intimately; the not black community knows the feeling; crime statistics reinforce the feeling as a reasonable response. The next time some Trayshawn is gunned down by some white guy the default position of the black community and everyone else should be ‘he had it coming’. The investigation may then commence. Otherwise, one has to wonder which is the greater outrage — that a black boy had been gunned down or an opportunity for looting missed?
GA:
My quaint reliance on facts is just that, my quaint reliance on facts.
I happen to like facts. I think that, on the whole, many of my commenters share my interest in them. That does not—I repeat, does NOT—think I am so naive as to think this predilection is all that widely shared.
Facts from today’s WSJ op-ed by Phil Gramm:
“But the real scorecard on the Senate Democrats elected in 2008 is in the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey data. While all Democrats claimed to be champions of the middle class and defenders of minorities and women, census data show how their program did not live up to their campaign promises.
Since the Senate Democratic Class of 2008 took control, the average real income of the poorest one-fifth of American families has declined every year, falling to $15,534 in 2012 from $16,962 in 2008 (the 2013 data will be released Sept. 16). The average real income of the lowest quintile of Americans is now below the level it was in 1968, the year when the War on Poverty began its spending surge.
The next-highest income quintile, often referred to as the working class, has also experienced a continuous decline in real income since January 2009. The average income of these Americans has fallen 6.5% and is now $1,182 lower than it was when President Reagan left office.
The third quintile–America’s middle class–has seen its average income decline to $62,464 from $65,672. More than half of this decline has occurred since the recovery officially began in the second quarter of 2009.”
**************************************
So inflation-adjusted income of the “poor” has fallen to BELOW 1968 levels, despite $20 TRILLION in redistribution to the “poor”. And of course, Civil Rights. Our reward? We get Obama, Holder, Ferguson. And the list goes on.
I dont think that conservative people with conservative values and morals have ever rioted and they have plenty of reason to do so in today’s America.
Nor do they loot. Wasn’t there a time when looters knew they would be shot? Looting is pandeonium and a danger to innocents. It is lawlessness.
Shooting at them would stop their favorite pastime.
The policeman was doing his job protecting the citizens of Ferguson. He put his life on the line against a 6′ 4″ 300 lb thug. Thug attacked him in the squad car, tried to use his gun against him. He escaped and turned back and charged the officer. I would have shot, too.
And creepy Al Sharpton says shoplifting isnt a robbery even when you have video of the thug assaulting the clerk. You take something by force, that’s assault and robbery.
Policeman deserves another commendation.
If we kowtow to bullies and the left is the biggest bully of all, we are screwed.
I would for somebody in authority to say that these rioters are acting like savages.
As a private in the US Army, WWII, my father witnessed a sergeant shooting a lieutenant — dead straight in front of his eyes.
Indeed, the better part of the ENTIRE company saw this shooting, for the sergeant and the lieutenant had been arguing at the top of their lungs.
The bullet blew the lieutenant’s head completely apart — just one shot from a 45.
During the court martial, my father was amazed to hear countless accounts of the shooting — NONE of which matched each other!
This event pre-figured the fragging of the Vietnam era. The reason that the sergeant shot the lieutenant was because the (green as grass) officer had directly caused the death of many of the sergeant’s (seasoned) men. (best buddies) — Something about dragging them through an American minefield that the lieutenant had set up, himself, without it being properly marked — so that the returning patrol was cut to ribbons.
&&&
Strangely, I heard of EXACTLY this same sequence happening all over again in Vietnam. Again, it was an American minefield — established under protest — which cut a returning patrol to pieces.
In the Vietnam incident, the lieutenant was buried in the field, his death attributed to the mines that had killed those returning on patrol. The enlisted survivors clammed up about it. He was NOT a popular lieutenant, the sergeant was.
%%%
In my own life, I’ve seen warped eye witness accounts time and time again.
I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t hardly trust them. I want video footage, hopefully high definition.
If you want to see a Hitchcock movie about eyewitnesses being wrong, watch, “The Wrong Man” with Henry Fonda as a bass player for the Stork Club whose life is ruined by eyewitness testimony.
This is more like a documentary than a movie. Hitchcock introduces the movie saying that all the events are true. I read the real account online and it is told just the way it happened.
Very sobering about taking eyewitness accounts as the truth of what happened.
Don Carlos Says:
August 18th, 2014 at 3:45 pm
Facts from today’s WSJ op-ed by Phil Gramm:
###
Don, you can’t trust such highly politicized statistics, no, not at all.
1) Inflation adjustments are typically poor to perverted.
2) Welfare transfers are almost uniformly blanked out from such stats. The result is that THEIR idea of the bottom and OUR idea of the bottom are quite different.
A) Social security transfers are omitted, especially to include disability transfers.
B) Those not earning anything at all are typically omitted. The distribution only includes 1040 reported incomes.
C) The black economy/ dark income is, of course, entirely omitted. Yet, this type of income totally dominates that of the bottom quintile.
&&&\
The logical upshot is that you can’t make any policy changes based upon such statistical muck.
It does provide grist for the mill — for those engaged in ‘incomes distribution architecture.’
It presupposes that it’s a matter for Congress to decide how, when and where Americans conduct their economic affairs.
Any argument that socialist policies have not brought nirvana begs the question as to how to tweak things yet further.
Sheesh.
%%%
By far the better argument: look what the 0bamanation is doing to youth employment!
An entire cohort is losing its footing on the American economic ladder.
That reality is a true finger in one’s eye. It’s profound; it applies up and down the scale. No youth segment is unscathed.
Likewise, new business formation is absolutely terrible.
Both trends travel together: the number one cause for hiring young adults is NEW BUSINESS FORMATIONS.
&&&
When I was young, and founded my first business, I couldn’t hire anyone older than me to save my soul. I HAD to hire those aged 18-24. Anyone older refused the job the moment they met me.
While this point is rarely mentioned: very, very, few people are willing to work for a founder-owner younger than themselves.
THIS ^^^^ is why the lack of new business formation is so all important.
%%%
Intangible wealth (living wealth is deemed intangible by the accountants and the economists) is evaporating in America everyday.
This failure to launch will have exponentiating effects as time compounds.
Barry is ‘losing’ an entire generation.
He is double losing Black Americans. They are being actively anti-trained. That’s what’s going on at Ferguson: anti-economic ‘training.’
Re: Quaint Reliance on Facts.
The facts are what got Zimmerman acquitted (rightly) despite powerful forces mustered to force a conviction.
Already in Ferguson we see some of the same creatures attempting to suppress the facts that don’t fit their preferred racial narrative. The DOJ’s attempts to suppress the video of the ‘Gentle Giant’ committing a strong-arm robbery are only one example. I assume there will be many more. The facts objectively established are the only thing we can trust.
Neo.
“GA” is Richard Aubrey. I can’t get comments to post with my name and addy. have to use my wife’s.
GA:
Sorry. I wish there were some way I could remedy that, but it happens now and then to people and I don’t know why.
However, if previous experience is any guide, sometimes the ability to post under one’s own name spontaneously comes back. So periodically, keep checking.
Notwithstanding the preliminary autopsy report, which said Brown was shot from the front, the Brown family lawyers are still pushing the story that he was shot from behind. See video here.
“I wish there were some way I could remedy that, but it happens now and then to people and I don’t know why.”
Check the IP bans under the comment section for word press, see if the automatic filtering has added any that corresponds to his old comments.
blert-
Those are the gubmint’s own facts. If facts they are.
So I use them. We don’t have better, even though they may actually be worse. They are bad enough as is.
At 300# and 6′ 4″ … the perp need never carry a weapon.
Like any professional prize fighter — HE was the weapon.
At such a heft, whether he was armed or not ceases to have any meaning WRT lethal force being employed.
There was absolutely no prospect of getting him to stop with non-lethal means. That’s a fact.
Even David didn’t mess around with Goliath.
I’ve noticed that the MSM constantly refer to Mr. Brown as the unarmed teenager. That makes him a victim. They also make a point of saying the kid was shot six times as if that is proof the kid was murdered.
OTOH they don’t talk about the strong arm robbery or drugs in his system.
GA: that happened with me at another friend’s blog.
Once WordPress likes your e-mail it resists change.
You might create your own WP account and use it.
I found that I had two WP accounts that I had created and that was the problem.
Fact 1: over 90% of black victims of homicide die at the hands of other blacks. Can anyone reading this letter name one of these black victims?
Fact 2: interracial crimes of violence are overwhelmingly black on white (google the DOJ document Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2008 Statistical Tables [pdf] and go to Table 42). Can anyone reading this letter name one of these victims (the O. J. Simpson case excepted)?
But everyone reading this letter has heard of the unarmed Michael Brown and the riots in Ferguson. Why is that? Why has the shooting of a black male by a white cop dominated the news for over a week while thousands of other deaths have gone down the memory hole?
In the old racist South, white-on-black and black-on-black crimes were frequently ignored or not taken seriously, while black-on-white crimes were taken very seriously indeed. Today, the reverse seems to hold true. Who in his right mind would call this progress?
Who in his right mind would call this progress?
Democrats were responsible for the KKK in the South from 1865 onwards. And Democrats are responsible for the riots and looting and race crimes.
That’s progress, of a sort in that they have obtained more slaves.
blert @ 7:33,
In this specific case I agree.
But in a situation with room to maneuver and time to operate, a fit, trained cop with a taser and a stun gun baton can easily take down a 6’4″ 300 lb man (who is not on a drug like PCP).
Many cops, reportedly the majority are not fit and are certainly not properly trained in non-lethal tactics. That may also be due to the inherent risk a cop assumes when he uses such tactics. Officer Wilson for instance couldn’t know that neither Brown nor his accomplice were not armed. A cop who routinely relied upon non-lethal tactics would sooner or later be shot. Thus, while I disagree as to the efficacy of non-lethal tactics against a big man, I agree as to the wisdom of foregoing that option.
Given the clear lynch mob atmosphere in Ferguson incited by possible felon, Darin Johnson, I’ve had the hunch for several days that Michael Brown’s parents and protestors insistence, that officer Wilson is guilty of murder and that he be punished for shooting Micheal Brown, resides somewhere along a continuum between demand for tribal/family/clan retaliatory vengeance and a demand for human sacrifice of a scapegoat. Lo and behold Conservative Treehouse posted a report and photo of Ferguson protestors expressing sentiments along just those lines!
One demostrators poster declares:
Link to photo here:
https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/anderson-cooper-ferguson.jpg
Link to webpage here:
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/08/18/anderson-cooper-accidentally-tweets-mindset-of-ferguson-community-protestors-why-wont-police-offer-just-one-cop-for-a-sacrifice/#more-87587
.
Now imagine you are a non-Black American Law Enforcement Officer called to respond to violent criminal behavior in Black Underclass neighborhood. In post-Ferguson America just how might you react?
Just how might LEO’s across America respond if Office Wilson gets thrown under the bus?
“You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” Rev. Caiaphas in 33AD as quoted in John 11:50.
https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/anderson-cooper-ferguson.jpg
Perhaps little has changed in human nature during the last two millennium?
.
[Now you know what Rev. Al and Rev. Jesse are thinking.]
Given the distance reported when Brown started to charge Wilson I am surprised Wilson managed to put 6 hits on Brown in such a short time. Excellent shooting in a high stress situation Officer Wilson.
They’re a lynch mob, nothing less; all the race pimps.
Ace posted a note that the AP Style Manual says you must call any male 18 years old or older a MAN, not a “teenager.”
And the beat goes on…..
Re the accounts of the shooting: “Josie’s” account is the only one that (a) fits the facts so far in evidence, and (b) fits what was likely to have happened.
A few addenda: Officer Wilson was injured in the fracas. Therefore Brown got rough with him.
Officer Wilson was patrolling solo, and was in a black neighborhood. In What Universe would a white cop in such a setting just up and shoot a black NFL tackle-size man just for kicks and giggles? Really, NYT?
The NY pathologist Baden, an old lefty loon, who whined that Wilson “used too many bullets” was angry that he couldn’t use the autopsy to smear the policeman: all the bullets were in the front of Brown, none in the back, and no exit wounds; he also knows zero, zip, nada, bother-all about armed combat: if someone that enormous is charging you and won’t stop, you empty your pistol.
The other reason cops are trained to keep firing is pretty simple: people are high on adrenalin in a fight and Very Hard to Stop, and it’s too easy for them to keep going and get the cop’s gun — with bullets still in it.
Gee, I wonder what could happen then? But never mind, Prig Baden wouldn’t use more than a judicious one or two: or more likely, harsh language. Or maybe he’d just wet his knickers.
One more thing: When, oh when, are we going to stop calling violence “unrest”? What a ludicrous euphemism. Even the Powerline guy was using it.
Lesson #1: Never, never use the Reds’ and Pinkos’ terminology. You use, you lose.
My question to the Revs. Jackson and Sharpton or any black rioter would be, “What exactly constitutes justice in this case?” Get them to say what exactly it is that they are calling for. Ask them pointedly if they want the policeman imprisoned without benefit of an investigation and trial (if one is necessary). Ask them to define exactly what they will say if the shooting is found to be justified. Pin them down on terms and what exactly it is they want. Otherwise they are just huffing and puffing demagogues who are creating chaos, wasting people’s time, and the government’s money.
Why are the black people of Ferguson, Missouri throwing such a fit? Have there been incidents of police brutality, overt racism, overt aggressiveness, or much else in the way of white on black racism? Is there a story there? Why hasn’t anyone in the media tried to look into this?
“The long Fourth of July weekend in Chicago was riven by violence, with dozens of shootings across the city. Since Thursday afternoon, when the holiday weekend began in earnest, at least 82 people were shot, 14 of them killed, according to the Chicago Tribune.” Have there been any riots in Chicago? Have there been any demands for justice in Chicago? Have the President and Attorney General mentioned these crimes? Nope, it’s all black on black crime. Which, I guess, doesn’t count as crime. Just gang-bangers doing what they do.
Where is the reason? Where is the weighing of priorities? What is going on? This whole thing raises far more questions than answers. There is a back story here for any journalist who wants to do the leg work and find it. I won’t be holding my breath in anticipation of that.
J.J.:
Excellent questions.
I doubt anyone will ever answer them, though.
Mike O’Malley:
Do you have any idea what the four years is in reference to?
The N word is surely being resurrected in a lot of hearts and minds as Ferguson is contemplated. Inevitably. A dividend of the social justice movement. How will it play out? The cop will be found innocent, blacks will reflexively object, and we’ll continue the spiral.
We may end up with our own Apartheid. Functionally we really have our homelands already, just have not declared them as such.
JJ,
I can answer your questions by noting your questions are superfluous. A million black youths can die by the hand of a million other black youths and 5 million black babies can be aborted each year and the left and their welfare plantation slaves would still play the race card in order to demonize the right. They are propagandizing for a war they can not win; but that may be their crisis too big to waste.
In sign-speak: 4= for it doesn’t mean four.
blert:
Well, you can certainly tell I don’t do much texting 🙂 .
Mr. Obama is sending the AG to Ferguson, to throw gas on the fire.
German TV covered Ferguson last night. It was as if they copied their POV from the NYT and MSNBC. There was no mention of Sharpton or the New Black Panthers. The takeaway point was that despite Obama’s election, racism is still prevalent in America.
Someone should point out to blacks that their reaction to this shooting is doing little to improve race relations. It portrays blacks as unable to wait for the results of an investigation or to use the tiniest bit of logic to figure out what might have happened.
And the videos/tapes I have heard of blacks commenting shows exactly why blacks don’t have jobs: they can’t string 8 words together without 2 F-words. I could barely follow what some of these idiots were trying to say. Who would give them a job?
As to Baden, why did he give a report after only looking at the wounds? He said he didn’t have the info about the lab tests. He sounds like someone who just wants to get his name back in the news without doing a proper autopsy. Of course, he was hired by the Brown family.
It’s time for the decent sensible blacks to get over their fear of being called Uncle Toms and to stand up to the rabble rousers.
Hello Neo Neocon.
I understood the “4” as it was used in that protest sign to mean “for” and not “four”, a numerical value. I understood it to be a numerical substitute for preposition employed by a someone who habitually texts on their cellphone.
Christine Byers reports
Something similar may have happen at the Leo Franks murder trial in 1913 when a likely actual murdered was the prime prosecution witness testifying against the likely innocent Leo Franks.
Why do so many people discount the possibility that Darrin Johnson is a felon and an evil man who is willing to vindictively lie so that a white authority figure is imprisoned and ruined? Remember according to Officer Wilson’s purported story Johnson was the first prep to try to steal the officer’s firearm.
C’mon, Mister Holder,’Yo. Jump into that stew and stir up the s**t, Sonny!! Keep stirring that pot,’Yo, right up until Mid-Term Elections,’Yo.
Oh, and Texas..? Say bye-bye to Democrats winning anything,’YO,’YO,’YO!!!
I saw this movie in the Sixties. Jobs and stores will disappear. White folks in big cities will avoid black folks as much as possible.
Roger Simon has taken a deeper look at Ferguson and tried to answer at least one of my questions:
“The Great Society. There, I’ve said it. The Great Society, which I voted for and supported from the bottom of my heart, is the villain behind Ferguson. Ferguson is the Great Society writ large because the Great Society convinced, and then reassured, black people that they were victims, taught them that being a victim and playing a victim was the way to go always and forever. And then it repeated the point ad infinitum from its debut in 1964 until now – a conveniently easy to compute fifty years – as it all became a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
It’s worth reading it all: http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2014/08/18/the-real-villain-of-ferguson/
There is no doubt in this case that every fact will be twisted in order to make the narrative fit. It’s clear Brown was shot while he was facing Wilson, not while running away as we had been told. This fact can easily be explained away for some by claiming Wilson shot at him as he was running away, but missed. Then Brown stopped, turned around, put his hands up to show he wasn’t armed and to get Wilson to stop shooting, and then executed. I had read some where that Wilson was supposed to have fired 10 shots, but don’t know if this is just rumor or a confirmed fact.
The most interesting finding from the autopsy isn’t that all the shots Brown took were from the front, but that four of the shots hit him along the right arm, at differing intervals. If his hands were truly outstretched and away from his body before Wilson started shooting, I’m skeptical the cop would be aiming for his arm, no matter what the case was for him to be firing at Brown. Also, unless Brown’s arm was outstretched completely horizontal, I find it hard to believe the cop would have been able to shoot along it towards Brown’s body. The more likely scenario is Brown’s right arm was at his side while he was rushing at Wilson. Wilson aimed for his periphery to try and stop him, and worked his way up Brown’s body as the man failed to stop. Wilson eventually had to shoot him in the head to subdue him.
LOL I’ve tried the same thing with progressives for years, and it doesn’t work.
The result of a feral wariness about acceding to any affirmative proposition at all, as much as any well thought out consideration of the consequences of doing so.
Left/lib: “Prove that men have natural rights!”
Me: “Ok, but first what standard of proof will you accept?”
Left/lib: No answer …
Me: “Say what your standard of “proof” is; so it can be considered and then met if valid.”
Left/Lib: “No! You prove to me to my satisfaction!”
Me: “What exactly will satisfy you?
Left/Lib: No answer …
And so it goes with these essentially mindless, gleefully anti-rational, obviously sub-moral, and proudly unreasoning bags of appetite.
Have you ever tried reasoning with an actual monomaniacal madman? I have.
It’s not that much different from trying to reason with a modern liberal. It’s as if, once you get down to it and look real close, there is no one really there; just some kind of canned cycle running on its own till the electricity is cut off.
Neo may have touched on something akin to this the other day in discussing what actually interested most people.