Radio CG 5: You Don’t Want Vigilante Justice

We didn’t set out to discuss the police again after last week’s tough episode, but the events in Kenosha were too upsetting to ignore. We had a lot of questions – among them, why the heck are militias taking to the streets? And what the hell is going on?

Obviously the case is still developing, but what we’ve got right now is pretty disturbing: A 17-year-old kid killed two people and blew off another guy’s arm. He reportedly considered himself part of a militia.

These vigilantes, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have become something at a fixture at protests. They claim to be protecting businesses, or “patrolling.”

Here’s something we can agree on here at Common Ground: We don’t want vigilantes taking the law into their hands. Do police departments need some changes? Yes. But swapping them out for vigilantes is not the answer.

We did find our hoped-for Common Ground, though we didn’t quite land on any solutions. Here’s a few things we did come up with that will serve as a start:

• Bring Civics classes (or the equivalent) back to schools. Kids aren’t learning the basic things they need to get through life (like changing a tire, interacting with a police officer, creating a budget).
• Improving how we, as a society, handle mental illness and homelessness. Cops get summoned to deal with both and shouldn’t have to – but as Dean points out, “There’s too many people and not enough help.”
• The media needs to start researching clips – and preferably obtain entire videos – before posting them. They’re at least partially fueling the fire that’s raging across the country.

Meaningful change often isn’t fast change. It will be made all the slower, Pat notes, because at this juncture of American history, “Partisanship prevails all the time.” Getting anything done is a slog because so many on both sides would rather “Own the libs” or “stick it to the GOP” than work together.

So we’ll keep on keeping on.

We will keep at it. We’re not giving up.

We had a couple of callers – thank you, Will and Bryan! – who did their best to help us dig into the subject. There’ s obviously a lot more to be said, but we’ll hit on that during a later show. For now, listen to the latest update and let us know your thoughts!