Andy Taylor was the policeman many of us wanted, but he is no longer the policeman we deserve. That claim is for all communities within Weimerica also.
For years we’ve heard tales of mass lynching in the South of poor blacks and other innocent people. It fits a similar narrative used to prohibit free speech and expression in Europe. The U.S. lynching narrative is that they were victims of circumstance in a world that had it out for them from the get go. It’s critical to the ongoing victimhood culture that the Left cultivates. According to the totally impartial Tuskegee Institute, 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the United States (round that up to a century in length of time). Of those numbers, 3,446 were black and 1,297 were white. More than 73 percent of lynchings in the post-War period occurred in the South.
To put that in perspective, approximately 3,454 homicides occured in Chicago in just the last six years. The vast majority of those victims were, you guessed it, black – and, due to black-on-black violence. Again, that’s just six years and greater than almost a century of vigilante lynching. Wonder which gets more coverage? If we extrapolate those numbers out another 14 years to give us a 20 year period of Windy City violence, and based on the averages, the death toll is well over 10,000 homicides. Our critics will call that comparison whataboutism, but perspective and priorities should always take precedent over historical and politically-charged events. In other words, do something about Chicago violence, instead of bringing up unfortunate events from the last century.
Never mind the fact that the majority of lynchings were done because the “victim” was accused of something truly despicable like the rape of a child or murder. While some estimates put the number of innocents put to the rope at nearly ⅓, lynching stood as an extrajudicial way for communities or other groups to band together and say, “some crimes don’t deserve trial.” While the practice of lynching may have claimed some innocent lives, high profile lynchings, like the notorious Leo Frank, saw justice wrought by man, where government failed. We don’t condone lynching, a man deserves a fair trial. But, we understand that our world is exceedingly different than the 19th century and early 20th century.
Today, we see articles sprout up with increased frequency on individuals getting off with lighter sentencing for what were once thought to be heinous crimes. Just last week, a story broke over a New York man having his head caved in during a robbery on his way home from work. Left paralyzed, and able to do little more than cry in the presence of his children, you’d expect at least some sort of justice to be done to his attacker. Justice, in this case, seems to have been a prison sentence of little more than two months over a misdemeanor charge. When I see stories like this, I try to put myself in Andy Taylor’s shoes to see how that idyllic sheriff would have handled, or reacted, to such a crime. Although, it’s becoming harder and harder to see how Andy, or anyone else of his time, could even fathom such a future where this was possible.
Andy Taylor was the sheriff of a small fictional town in the 1960s. He enforced the laws of the land, settled disputes and kept outsiders in check. Grifters would try to roll through to scam the people of his community, but before their evil could take root, he would snuff it out. The town of Mayberry was a small community that could only exist as a homogeneous ideal of the past, when such a thing was permitted. Nowadays, you cannot have such an enclave without being accused of several different “isms.” Andy and his cousin Barney were the only law in their land, armed with simple revolvers, they had no need for fully automatic weapons, body armor, or armored personnel carriers. Andy could not exist today, as he was, because society is not as it was.
As you may, or may not yet be aware, as societies increase in diversity, social cohesion begins to decrease. You no longer have your Aunt Martha down the street to watch your house while you’re away, since you moved to the big city to chase that 5k raise. Her new neighbors are Somalians renting their houses on section 8 vouchers and their kids have started roaming the streets at night to check if she left her car or house unlocked this time. All it takes to lose Sheriff Taylor is the breakdown of his community – where neighbors start looting neighbors, criminals start taking over, and the population starts to need a different type of law man.
Such is the atmosphere we experience today, where communities have lost their social cohesion and the violence has escalated. Therefore, the forces that check such violence have also escalated. No longer is your sheriff interested in settling your petty dispute with your neighbor to the right, he’s too busy busting the meth den to your left. His deputy now carries a Glock, and several spare magazines, because he may have to shoot more than once if your dog barks at him. When a convenience store several blocks away gets attacked, but the cashier rebukes the perp with lead, you may have to wait for the sheriff to put down a small riot before he can look into why your pets keep getting kidnapped.
Police are reactionary to the communities they serve, and with changing demographics and increasing turmoil, there’s a race for them to keep up. We, as a people, have failed to deserve a sheriff like Andy Taylor since we have failed to preserve the society in which he could have existed.
-By Dixie Anon
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
