Where's the Beef?

As I watch the scenario play out in Ferguson, Missouri and around the nation, I have stopped to look at what is going on.  One thing that strikes me is that the demonstrations that are ongoing after the grand jury's declining to indict the officer seem to carry themes that are no longer valid, given the outcome.

"Hands up!  Don't shoot!" cry the protesters.  But now we know that the "unarmed teenager", who should be properly characterized as the "pot-smoking thief, who attacked a convenience store owner, resisted arrest and attacked a police officer", never had his hands up, and never told the officer not to shoot.  In fact, when he stopped charging at the officer, the officer stopped firing.  Only when he resumed charging the officer was he again fired on and killed.

So if indeed Michael Brown was a criminal  who effectively committed suicide-by-police-officer, what is the rationale for protesting, let alone burning the businesses of innocent store-owners, and costing the employment of dozens of Ferguson's residents?

The Ferguson protests appear to be a microcosm of contemporary liberalism and the problem with the Democratic Party today: there is only style and not a shred of substance.

Conservatism has had more than its share of internal disagreements about the means to the end, but the end itself has always seemed to be reasonably consistent -- limited government under the Constitution, the freedom of the individual to achieve his or her full capability, low tax rates to encourage the economy, capitalism as an optimal economic framework, that sort of thing.  The bottom line, of course, is that it is a workable system.

What, then, is the Democrats' answer?  Well, they got a president elected and reelected on "hope and change", lacking experience at administering ... well, anything at all.  And doesn't that seem to reflect today's liberalism?  Full of platitudes, with no solutions that actually work -- not for the economy, not for health care, ISIS, Syria, Iran.  Doesn't it reflect this administration?  No solution that works for anything -- our allies hate us because we don't do anything; can't keep a Defense secretary, because they aren't allowed actually to make policy; Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster from the doubling of premiums to the incompetent Web roll-out; fewer employed today than in 2009.  Nothing that actually works. 

It will always matter to me that when you advocate for something, it is based on principles and methodologies that actually work.  There needs to be a "there" there.  We have protesters out on the street tonight shouting about something that is contrary to the truth.

Empty shouting.  No beef, as Clara Peller said in the commercial so many years ago.  Because absent a clue, or solutions that work, that's what liberals do.

Copyright 2014 by Robert Sutton