The Phenomenon of Violence and the Myth of a White Hate Crime Wave Targeting Blacks

Be it on an individual level or a political scale, specific manifestations of violence have always been beyond the reach of rational comprehension. Based on a proper ontological design underlying human existence, it might be safe to say that the phenomenon of violence for the mere sake of violence has accompanied humankind forever.

Let's remind ourselves of last-judgment day sectarians or similar chaotic associations who are driven by apocalyptic visions and are often willing to use violence solely for the sake of power, without any further justifications. Also, let's think of those lone-wolf killers who could not transcend their aggression and self-hatred and their discontent with how life presented itself to them. They magnified their desire for death and self-annihilation by extending it to as many other humans as possible. I consider the Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who took 149 passengers with him when he decided to put an end to his own life, the most recent sad, as well as evident, an instance of the described phenomenon.

We will never know precisely why Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, was intellectually and psychologically incapable of rising above his hatred toward black people. Were his white supremacy convictions merely an expression to cover his feelings of inferiority? Was it his desire to become "famous," to be recognized and enter history forever, albeit as a vile criminal, that made him do what he did? Psychological evaluations might give us an idea or provide an ensemble of the reasons which led him and others to his despicable deed. Yet, we can never be sure. We will never know any of this for certain simply because psychology is not an exact science, and absolute rational psychology is a myth that only faces those who are lacking profound erudition.

However, we know that the hate crime perpetrated by Dylann Roof is NOT evidencing a general hate-crime disposition of whites to commit crimes on blacks. While liberals are speedily trying to exploit the tragic Charleston incident by making us believe that a wave of hate crimes committed by whites against blacks is in full swing, it doesn't exist.

If FBI statistics are correct, although being outnumbered by whites five to one, blacks commit eight times more crimes against whites than the other way around. A white male is 40 times more likely to being assaulted by a black person than the reverse. And the number of blacks killed by other blacks vastly outnumbers the number of blacks killed by whites. Let's be clear. I have quite a few black friends, and I do not feel threatened by blacks per se. These are mere statistical data, but they tell and contradict the idea of a hate-crime wave of whites on blacks.

Are there white supremacists out there who fuel racial division? Of course, there are. But their influence pales compared to the degree to which others have given impetus to this country's racial division - for instance: The Black Lives Matter Movement, or Reverend Al Sharpton, or the Obama Justice Department under Eric Holder. Most of all, Barack Obama incited racial division in this country, which has worsened in the past few years at an alarming pace.

I am running out of superlatives to describe what's going on - i.e., the lack of judgment in large parts of the population, the disingenuousness of politicians and media, and people's overall tendency to give precedence to ideological prejudice over objectivity and impartiality.

"Draw Muhammad" - Freedom and the First Amendment Misunderstood

Any type of blasphemy is utterly irresponsible and morally unjustifiable. In my blog essay below of March 31, "The Crisis of Morality" (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2015/03/the-crisis-of-morality.html), I outlined the connection between freedom and responsibility, in fact making clear that both are but two sides of the same coin. We can't think of freedom without responsibility; responsibility is void unless somebody is free to act. Consequently, human freedom is about responsible freedom. Irresponsible freedom, the arbitrariness of doing what one wills, epitomizing itself in unconstrained ego-centrism, gives only the illusion of freedom. Whoever is a prisoner of his impulses and indifferent selfishness is not free; but rather held hostage by his deficient personality, always inclined to act irresponsibly. 

From my morality essay below: "True human freedom is finite freedom, limited by the conditions of social coexistence and the legitimate aspirations of all other individuals. We must not mistake freedom as independence from everything, but rather has to be considered as a choice to something."

From this quote, it becomes clear that our responsibility as human beings extends, in any given social and political context, to all other human entities and living organisms, as far as they assume significance in terms of our own actions. And the line of demarcation between our freedom, and the freedom of every other, in a most formal and universally applicable way, is what we call justice. Injustice, therefore, is the extension of one's freedom beyond the boundary of justice into the realm of somebody else's freedom, encroaching upon the entitlement to make use of their freedom. If we meet the claims of righteousness by our own volition, we exercise justice morally. Conversely, the purpose of human law, which always connects to enforcement capabilities, is to outline this line of demarcation we call justice and, when violated, to implement and enforce it. This explanation also establishes the perennial task for the legislator to determine justice in relevant existential contexts at any time and in any place. As we can see, while the application of justice is dynamic and ever-changing, as it has to consider the evolution of human coexistence, the idea of justice is timeless and unchanging. However, this also explains why positive law stipulations, which lose sight of this normative principle, can represent unjust legislature.

 

This concept is universal and normative and also sound in religious terms. The face of the Other is "Where God passes" (Emmanuel Levinas), bestowing upon us, in the social condition of our existence, the primary responsibility, which is ethical and arises from the equally valid claim to freedom that our fellow man asserts. 

Having said this, we become aware of how utterly irresponsible, and thus unnecessary and (morally) unjustifiable, any form of blasphemy is. No matter what law allows for, never is it ethically justified to mock or ridicule other people's faith. To provoke Muslims by making fun of their Prophet Muhammad is as misplaced as provoking Christians by deriding Jesus Christ in works of satire and art. In Paris, Charlie Hebdo was misguided and irresponsible in using his satirical magazine to mock religious figures, as was Ms. Pamela Geller in her "Draw Muhammad" cartoon competition in Garland, Texas. Both were pushing their ideological and monetary aims by hiding behind a clear misinterpretation of the free speech principle, be it expressed in the form of the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or in the form of a moral-philosophical ideal. 

Genuinely free and therefore utterly responsible people have long understood that responsible behavior does never exhaust itself by merely abiding by law regulations. They have comprehended the fact that the legal provision, first and foremost, establishes the conditions one doesn't have to suffer. In contrast, moral responsibility determines what we have to do and how we ought to act. 

If, however, somebody engages in blasphemy under the guise of artistic creativity or political free speech, could we think of any ethical-moral severe concept that would justify killing this person? Of course not. Interestingly, the blasphemous act tells us something about the individual's moral character or group of individuals carrying it out. The reaction of the recipients of the wicked action tells us even more about their concept of humaneness.

Same-Sex Marriages - The Supreme Court in Charge of this Society's Future

In 2010, at a time when Barack Obama and hosts of other politicians and media pundits championed the states to decide the issue of same-sex marriages, I argued that such profound cultural questions "must not be left to regional sentiments and the arbitrariness of state legislatures." Readers can found the respective blog essay below under the title of "Ideological Misuse of Federalism leads to Bad Governance" (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2012/05/ideological-abuse-of-federalism-leads.html)

Boy, was I right! One beauty of proper philosophical reasoning is the timelessness of its findings. Like most of my other writings, this essay is as topical as when I published it on Oct 9, 2010. In the case of Mr. Obama, who had just departed from his previous conviction and come around to embrace same-sex marriages, it was quite apparent that it was about shirking responsibility along with political expediency that made him espouse that stance. 

Now, roughly four years later, the Supreme Court has to decide the issue for the entire country. As was to expect, the court is profoundly divided over the issue. In the following, I outline the why and provide the solution and answer to this subject matter: 

What underlies this and, more or less, all socially contested issues is an undifferentiated misconception and misuse of the principle of equality. In addition to the false philosophical conception of the equality notion, ideological strategies are applied in the public and political realms to protect the idea and prevent a fierce debate from taking hold. Whoever attempts to question equality aspirations is being denigrated as discriminating, antiquated, a violator of human rights. As far as the issue of same-sex marriages is concerned, opponents are even called homophobic. This intolerable state of public debate needs urgent change. The essential prerequisite for a turnaround would be the proper theoretical understanding of the notion of equality, as, with Aristotle, only sound theory can ultimately provide for good (political) practice. 

 

It is clear that in terms of their human dignity, all men are equal – male and female, people of any ethnic descent, skin color or sexual orientation, infants and geriatrics, everybody. Yet, in addition to their biological and sexual differences, all humans are different regarding their concrete way of being. How would we otherwise justify different income levels, responsibilities and entitlements, property, and tenure? 

For the proper dealing with the idea of equality, it is thus inevitable to differentiate two levels of equality – the formal or primary one, on which all men are equal; and the factual or secondary one, based on the former, on which differentiation and disparities are allowed. The fact grasped that equality clearly forbids a schematic equal treatment and not only affords but even demands differentiations that have to be justified by objective and factual rationales. The only thing the principle of equality forbids is arbitrary and baseless differentiation. 

This outlined dualism of form and content forbids the schematic and straightforward treatment of gender issues and any other aspect of social disparity, including the issue of same-sex marriages. 

"To treat the latter different from traditional marriage does not at all violate the principle of equality. The (moral) imperative to upkeep traditional marriage in its exclusivity – as a religious sacrament as well as a civil union – derives from the idea that every social claim has to be designated its proper place in the cultural cosmos of (occidental values) and ideas."

This cultural underpinning cannot and must not be altered by impulses of individual hedonism and personal gratification, which seem to have become the driving social forces in our societies. Instead, the stakes of the common good and humanistic considerations have got to return to our public, political, and legal discourses. 

But in the given context, we must not deceive ourselves over the fact that when it comes to the claims of the gay communities and particularly same-sex marriages, it is about more than merely the desire to satisfy individual sensitivities and personal preferences. When we deal with gender issues and related topics, we face claims that aim to create new power structures and identity designs that substantially alter our societies. The termination of the traditional binary gender code in the name of equal treatment and anti-discrimination, as a precondition for the destruction of traditional marriage, is supposed to pave the way for an amorphous society that allows for all possible combinations of social coexistence and ways of life. 

The burden resting on the Supreme Court judges' shoulders is no small one, for the future of this society will depend in no small measure on their decision. A community losing its capability to enclose itself in a "bounded horizon" (Friedrich Nietzsche), losing its sense for differentiation and the power to accept a hierarchy of values, its instinct for rank and distance, is destined to perish.

Astonishing Media Double Standard on Ukraine

The murder of Boris Nemtsov, a liberal Russian politician and avid critic of President Putin, back in February, caused a significant outcry and was covered extensively by virtually all mainstream media in the West. Without substantial evidence, from the beginning, the murder of the politician culminated in speculations about the Russian Government's involvement. 

When somebody murdered three Ukrainian critics of the incumbent president Poroshenko within a few days in April, no such outcry could be heard. The assassination of Oleh Kalashnikov, a former Ukrainian member of parliament and vocal critic of the ruling administration, and the murders of opposition journalists Oles Buzina and Sergei Sukhob went by more or less uncommented. In previous blogs, I've already made clear that Poroshenko was a stooge installed by Washington and Berlin in a coup in the course of the so-called Maidan Revolution in the spring of 2014. Barely any media reported on these events, and the silence of the media in conjunction with the lack of comments from the US state department and EU foreign ministries and NATO, OSCE, and EU representatives speaks volumes. It gives indirect testimony to the West's collaboration in Ukraine's Maidan coup and the ensuing destabilization and radicalization.

Aside from the double standard in reporting and commenting, which violates the primary principle for news outlets to report factually and objectively, it demonstrates how most of the media degenerate into mere propaganda instruments for whatever policies suit their ideological agenda.

Failed Foreign Policies Cause Human Catastrophes

Some 800 people recently died when an overcrowded refugee vessel collided with a merchant ship in the Mediterranean. Among the rescued were a handful of people-smugglers, thus giving testimony to migrant-facilitators' business, thriving in the Middle East as it does in Mexico and Latin-America. As an entry gate into the E.U., Italy can hardly cope with refugees' seemingly never-ending stream from the north-African state belt. Both the Italian Navy and Coast Guard are overwhelmed by the challenge. The European Union is scrambling to find solutions. For now, more funds are supposed to flow into the refugee programs Triton and Poseidon. 

This exodus of people fleeing the conflict zones and war-torn areas of Africa and the Middle East is a direct result of the U.S. and the E.U.'s failed foreign policies. I have criticized the blunder of U.S. foreign policy, supported by the European Union and NATO, in my blog entries of 2011 on Libya (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2011/03/us-and-european-foreign-policy-blunder.html) and 2013 on Syria (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2013/05/disastrous-foreign-policy-failures.html), and warned against the policies of supporting violent and extremist insurgent movements while letting down established heads of state and governing political administrations. It began with the Muslim Brotherhood's support in Egypt against President Hosni Mubarak and then the US-led NATO campaign to take down Libya's Gaddafi. The support of a conglomerate of dubious insurgents in Syria was the third cornerstone of a U.S. foreign policy that is unethical and outright in the wrong, as it is ineffective and destructive. 

While the E.U. does everything in its power to help refugees and get a grip on the situation, it abides by its strict immigration policies, thus preventing the internal order from descending into utter chaos. In contrast, the U.S. is propping up its foreign policy blunder by national security foolishness, courtesy of presidential executive immigration orders that pave the way for more or less unlimited immigration, serving nothing but sealing the fate of future political and social disaster.

 

However, most concerning is the fact that these policies seem to find an ever broader acceptance and support on a bipartisan level. Powerful voices of senators, congress members, and presidential candidates for the 2016 race on the Republican side espouse similar, if not identical viewpoints on foreign policy and immigration. 

Given the U.S.'s two-party political system, one has to wonder how the State Department could alter its harmful stance on essential foreign policy and national security issues? If both major political forces align in their position on such topics, how could this ever change and U.S foreign affairs brought back to its senses?

Empirical evidence and the reality of failures don't appear to have any impact. Established authorities and political counterparts are merely doubling down and adding fuel to the fire. In previous commentaries, I have criticized the geopolitical madness vis-a-vis Russia that has been unfolding in Ukraine. Ideological prejudice and a certain arrogance appear to be the dominant forces in a media-driven political business that seemingly doesn't allow concessions to be wrong. What is supposed to be a sign of strength and compelling character is now considered a weakness. 

What can be a solution to this predicament in global affairs, for the most part, instigated by the failed policies of the U.S. and the Transatlantic alliance? Let me reveal a secret here not debated in the political realms, even at the reproach of talking pro domo.

I see the only hope for betterment in the return of philosophers to the ranks of political advisers and proper philosophical instruction to higher education curricula. As far as the former aspect is concerned, the political business, specifically the advisers to political stakeholders and executive decision-makers, has to be enriched and balanced by adding the holistic philosophical thinker to the equation. As far as the latter aspect is concerned, I am talking about conveying the broad history of ideas of philosophy. No lip service to philosophy by providing courses in which so-called philosophy professors and lecturers try to indoctrinate a liberal-progressive political agenda. What is needed is a focus on ontology and social and moral philosophy, thus enabling critical thinking and independent and profound judgment.

No longer must the hubris of jurists and economists, who too quickly get stuck in sterile materialism and superficial rationalism and whose consciousness is lacking profound philosophical reflection, dominate politics and policy-making.

The Crisis of Morality

If society turns immanent - I use the term immanence in the Kantian epistemological tradition of everything that remains within the boundaries of possible experience - and loses its transcendent basis, its particular religious-metaphysical reference, it will perish. Western civilization has profoundly gone down this path in recent decades, and restorative measures have been mostly ineffective. Yet, every culture arises from its religious foundation, derives its cohesive strength from it, and perennially regenerates itself through it. The common denominator for any civilization has got to be transcendent. Everything immanent, above all also science, is prone to opposing and conflicting interpretation, which is why anything immanent cannot serve as a constant unifier. The paradox of this truth lies in the fact that precisely the faculty unable to fathom the transcendent, namely human reason, comes to acknowledge the necessity of the transcendent.

In sacred terms, the transcendent manifests itself in religion; in secular terms, the transcendent manifests itself in morality. As religion serves as the horizon of meaning and represents common and uniting values, morality – and by no means economy – is the underpinning category of immanent life routine.

As civilization as a whole disintegrates when it loses its religious foundation, so do social and political life fail if morality subsides. We can ultimately lead every crisis of politics back to a moral crisis or, more precisely, to the fact that the fading of morality has not been detected or reacted to in time.

Morality constitutes the crisis of responsibility, as only the moral human being binds itself to act responsibly because of an inner and voluntary disposition to do so. Whether one excels in the economy, is an educator, contributes to the safety of the society by way of constabulary or military service, or works as a politician on bettering the social conditions of his constituency – the quality of their achievements depends on their morality, which is their commitment to act responsibly.
 
The notion of freedom inextricably links the categories of morality and responsibility. Only if the human being is free to decide between alternatives to act can he take on responsibility for his actions and be held accountable for his doing (or not doing). Not being able to withdraw from this responsibility constitutes the intrinsic moral quality of being human.

Human freedom is about responsible freedom. Irresponsible freedom, epitomizing in unconstrained egocentrism, is mere arbitrariness and no freedom at all. True human freedom is finite freedom, limited by the conditions of social coexistence and all other individuals' legitimate aspirations. Liberty must not be mistaken as independence from everything, but instead has to be considered as a choice to something.

Inappropriate use of freedom equals irresponsibility, which equals immorality. The absence of a personal and inner disposition to act righteously necessitates the enforcement of correct behavior from the outside. While morality cannot be imposed from the outside but rather springs from an intimate and inner urge to "ought" righteously, legality comes with law enforcement. Indeed, we cannot even imagine human statutory law without its intricate linkage to the ability to be carried through by force.

Suppose we put these considerations into a political context. In that case, we find throughout history and the modern world governmental systems that allow for freedom and individual responsibility, and those collectivist forms of government that don't. Thus the futility of the debate about capitalism versus socialism as socialism is a collectivist form of government, whereas capitalism is a form of economy. While the relatively closed and collectivistic socialist societies typically embrace the economic concept of a planned market economy, free and open democratic societies usually feature free-market economies as the typical characteristic of capitalism.

Capitalism can only exist in a political environment that allows for responsibility – for there are freedom and morality – and can only survive if the proponents of this system are generally prone and willing to use that freedom by acting morally. Thus, capitalism's problem is not the lack of legal regulations, but rather the irresponsibility – in other words: the immorality and human immaturity – of its proponents. The one who cannot impose boundaries upon himself in a self-legislating manner needs to get the proper behavior forced upon from the outside. Inappropriate, dishonest, and illegal behavior is even possible under existing laws and regulations. The political system of open and democratic societies, and the economic system of capitalism can function in the end only if the inner moral disposition, the outlined sense of responsibility, can be instilled and realized. This ideational concept is empirically sound in general terms.  On Wall Street, the one who derives his incentives to act mostly from greed and the idea of personal enrichment proves his moral immaturity to the same extent as the guy from Main Street, who buys himself a home on a loan that he can't afford. Both have not understood the meaning and import of free society and its ensuing stakes for the individual.

The price of freedom is the responsibility, and those who are unwilling to pay this price, do not deserve freedom. They must not wonder why they are subjugated continuously to regulations, legal impositions, and governmental encroachment.

Although the subject of further consideration, it becomes quite clear that only through appropriate socialization and education processes can the desired attitude on life be achieved. All those national and international comparisons on high school and college levels of knowledge and education regarding mathematical, technological, and language skills are vain, as long as the instruction does not result in independent judgmental abilities. And the quality to acknowledge the significance and indispensability of responsibility as the existential manifestation of freedom in any social context.

Loretta Lynch Confirmation

It has been a perennial dream of liberal politicians to get rid of borders and the nation-state's confinements, thus eradicating any differences between citizens and foreigners, be they illegal or legal immigrants. However, any society attempting to obliterate these differences is bound to perish in the long run. I have given a comprehensive account of what I termed the neo-cosmopolitan idea in my blog-essay of August 9, 2010, in the wake of the Arizona Immigration Law's rejection by a federal judge.

I have warned about this particular utopian phantasm that claims the individual human being, and not the (nation-) state, to be the protagonist in interstate and international relations. As I made clear, while the traditional position sees the (nation-) state as the moral actor in political affairs through which individual rights can be brought to bear alone, the neo-cosmopolitan position stipulates a radical reduction of state-sovereignty. It promotes the idea of a global social contract. Hence, the attempt to put any immigrant on level par with a citizen, a person holding legal citizenship, granting them equal rights in employment, voting, social support, etc.

So, yes, Mr. Obama's (most likely unconstitutional) executive orders are highly unreasonable and will severely damage this nation's social fabric. It would be preposterous to confirm a person into the highest office of law enforcement of the land after claiming in a congressional hearing that illegal immigrants have the same right to employment as US citizens. It doesn't play any role whether the job aspirant is a man or a woman, black or white, Republican or Democrat. By whatever bizarre ideological confusion, a person negates one of the most profound statecraft criteria, she deserves exclusion from holding such office.

While the federal prosecutor from Brooklyn, N.Y., Loretta Lynch might be, as Mr. Obama claimed, a "tough, fair, and independent attorney," she seems to be unfit for the office of Attorney General due to her unsound political philosophy.