Rioting, looting, burning down stores and shooting police officers – is this about to become the “new normal” in America? What we just witnessed happen in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri is a prime example of how quickly the streets of America can descend into chaos. There is so much anger and frustration in this country, especially among our young people, that all it takes is a “trigger event” to spark a wildfire. In this case, it was the shooting of an unarmed black teen by a police officer. According to the police, 18-year-old Michael Brown got into a physical altercation with an officer and was subsequently shot. Word spread quickly throughout the community, and protests were rapidly organized. But the protests didn’t stay peaceful. People started chanting “kill the police” and throwing rocks and bottles. Store windows were smashed, the looting began, and people went absolutely crazy. And it wasn’t just a few people that were doing the looting. Huge mobs of people looted stores all over Ferguson. At one point an ATM was even dragged out of a QuikTrip gas station and a while after that the store was set on fire. But this is what happens when things descend into chaos. The owners of those stores didn’t have anything to do with the shooting of Michael Brown, but the violence got directed at them anyway. And someday when we see similar scenes erupt in major cities all over the nation, it won’t matter what your political beliefs are. You just better not be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ferguson is a little town just outside of St. Louis with a population of about 21,000 people. You wouldn’t think that it would be possible to see such massive rioting in such a small community. But that is precisely what happened. On Monday, millions of Americans were absolutely mesmerized by the images coming out of Ferguson. The following is how one news source described what happened…
Brian Schellman, with the St. Louis County Police Department, said close to 300 police officers from at least 15 different departments were called to Ferguson when angry mobs began smashing windows, setting fires and looting businesses in the area.
Schellman said a St. Louis County officer injured his knee while at a Foot Locker store during the rioting. He said another officer was injured when he had a brick thrown at him.
Throughout the evening, numerous cop cars sustained damage and Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson said someone in a yellow pickup truck fired shots at officers while circling a WalMart parking lot. Chief Jackson said he got into a cop car to give chase to the truck but the truck got away.
Police said shots were also fired at a police helicopter in the area.
But words do not really accurately convey the level of craziness that was unleashed. I would encourage you to watch some of the videos on YouTube of the rioting and looting that were going on in Ferguson. The video posted below is just one example…
Sadly, this violence might continue for a while.
Just check out what one very angry 30-year-old man told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch…
DeAndre Smith, 30, of Ferguson was happy to justify the looting when a reporter asked him about it Monday morning.
“This is exactly what is supposed to be happening when an injustice is happening in your community,” he said, adding: “You have kids getting killed for nothing.”
Smith, who moved to St. Louis from New York in December, said there could be more to come.
“I don’t think it’s over honestly,” he said. “I just think they got a taste of what fighting back means.”
Of course this is not the first time that we have seen this kind of thing happen. Earlier this year, all it took was a snow storm for people in Atlanta to start behaving like crazed lunatics. And late last year we saw rioting and looting all over the nation when a technical glitch caused the EBT system to go down for a short while.
Even though the economy has somewhat stabilized (at least for the moment), levels of anger and frustration have continued to grow in this country. We have been taught to hate one another and to blame one another for our problems, and so now the U.S. is more divided than at any other point in recent memory. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “America The Divided: Everyone Knows We Have Problems But There Is Very Little Agreement On Solutions“.
We live at a time when things are so tense that even a small spark can light an absolutely huge fire. America has become a tinderbox. Next time it might not be a racially-charged shooting. Next time it might be an Ebola outbreak that sparks looting and panic. Or it might be some sort of financial collapse. We just don’t know.
But what we do know is that there are lots and lots of people that are willing to riot and loot and commit unspeakable crimes given the right circumstances.
Decades of social decay have gotten us to the point where the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted every single day is wearing dangerously thin.
The truth is that it is not going to take much to push this nation over the edge.
If this kind of rioting can take place in a community with just over 20,000 people, what would a full-blown riot look like in a city with millions of people?
That is a very sobering thing to think about.
Once upon a time in America, you could leave your doors unlocked at night and you could let your kids play in the streets without ever having to worry.
But now we are a sick, decaying nation that has millions of people ready to riot and loot at the drop of a hat.
Is there any hope for us?
Young Girls BANNED From Selling Girl Scout Cookies On Their Own Front Lawn
So were the girls doing anything wrong? No. There are very few things that are more “American” than selling girl scout cookies. In fact, they had been operating the stand during this time of the year for the past 6 years. It had become a community tradition. But according to the city of Hazelwood, the girls were violating a city ordinance that bans “the sale of commodities” from a home.
You see, the truth is that there is a “rule” for almost everything today. In fact, we have so many “laws” and “rules” and “regulations” in the United States that it is literally impossible to be in compliance with all of them.
However, this incident with the girl scout cookies would probably never have exploded if a nearby neighbor had not snitched on the girls. Apparently the neighbor did not like the fact that the extra people coming around to buy girl scout cookies made her dogs bark.
This is what America is turning into. We are all being taught to be suspicious of each other and to “inform” on our neighbors. Instead of living in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we are suddenly living in a country that more closely resembles East Germany or Soviet Russia with each passing day.
Well, fortunately this story had somewhat of a happy ending. Philanthropist George “The Shoeman” Hutchins bought the remaining 36 boxes of girl scout cookies that the girls were trying to sell. He even had the girls deliver one of the boxes to the angry neighbor for free. But even that turned into a bit of an incident. A local news report about the story put it this way….
But that is not the end of the story.
The city of Hazelwood is not backing off. They still insist that those girls (and all other girls in the city) will be banned from selling girl scout cookies on their front lawns from now on.
That is life in America today. We are taught that we should never try to do anything on our own. Instead, we are all encouraged to just give up, work for the system, and when we are not working for the system or shopping at their stores we are to stay in our homes watching the endless hours of “programming” on television.
In the old days, the streets of America were teeming with life.
In America today, how many people do you see out and about enjoying life in our neighborhoods?
The country that so many of us once loved is dying.
Unfortunately, the incident in Hazelwood, Missouri is far from an isolated incident.
For example, last year a 7 year old little girl in Tulare, California had set up a little lemonade stand because she wanted to raise money so that she could go to Disneyland.
How could anyone have a problem with that?
Well, apparently the authorities had a problem with that. They came in and shut her down cold because she did not have a proper business permit.
That is the way it is in America today. You have to have a “permit” to do almost anything.
Sadly, a growing number of Americans are buying into the idea that life will be better when we allow government to micromanage our lives.
One example of this that I wrote about recently is the new federal regulations regarding light bulbs. The old light bulbs that have worked so wonderfully are being totally banned and are being replaced by new bulbs that are more expensive, that are more dangerous for children and that are actually worse for the environment. The following is a brief excerpt from an article I recently posted about these ridiculous new light bulbs….
Now that the government has banned us from selling girl scout cookies in our front yards and is telling us what kind of light bulbs we have to buy, what is next?
Will they arrest us for not recycling properly?
Don’t laugh – the city of Cleveland has announced plans to have “trash supervisors” go snooping through trash cans to ensure that people are actually recycling according to city guidelines.
Will they arrest us for smoking in a public park?
Don’t laugh – in New York City they will. The New York City Council has voted to ban smoking in all public parks and on all public beaches.
Will they arrest us for trying to do good to others?
Don’t laugh – in Houston, Texas a couple named Bobby and Amanda Herring that had been feeding homeless people for over a year has been banned by the city from doing so. They were told that they needed a permit to feed the homeless and city officials said that they are not going to get one.
Sadly, the American people do not really speak up much about these ridiculous regulations on the local level. Instead, we all just keep going back to the ballot boxes and keep sending the same control freaks back into positions of power over and over again.
If there is not a major shift in the political culture of this country, the crazy regulations are just going to become more and more suffocating.
Someday will we need a “permit” or a “license” to take a breath of fresh air? Will we need a “permit” or a “license” to step outside of our homes?
Wake up and take a look around you. Our society is being turned into one big prison grid.
Is this really how you want to live?