Americans Support Banning Chokeholds, Oppose Reparations/Renaming Bases, According To Poll

Among the many talking points raised following the unjust killing of George Floyd are the ideas of banning police from being able to use chokeholds to subdue suspects (there are pros and cons to that), issuing “reparations” (communist redistribution of wealth) to black people for the fact this country used to have slaves (forgetting entirely that slavery has been used by most other nations for millennia) and that we should rename military bases that are named after Confederate officers.
 
However, only doing one of those things has been found to be favored by a majority of people and that is banning police use of chokeholds to subdue suspects.
 
According to a recent ABC/Ipsos poll released on Juneteenth (the day that slavery was abolished by the Republican Union), 63% of Americans support “banning the use of chokeholds by police officers.” Even a majority of Republicans, 51%, support such a ban (President Trump has also demonstrated his support for such a ban). 71% of African Americans, 63% of whites and 56% of Hispanics also support banning chokeholds.
 
Like I said earlier, this issue has its pros and cons. Generally, I want to allow for officers to safely and non-lethally be able to subdue someone who is resisting arrest (and chokeholds are usually used for people who resist arrest) but the George Floyd killing demonstrates that it is not without its flaws. Further evidence regarding his killing does show that he was sort of resisting arrest at times, so there was a legitimate reason for him to have been subdued, but there were also times when he safely could have been put into a police car and Officer Chauvin refused to do that, opting to keep his knee on the back of his neck (which is not really a chokehold, per se, but still).
 
I generally believe that most cops are not out to cause harm to individuals they are seeking to arrest, so banning the use of chokeholds, while it can definitely prevent the choking death of a suspect, can also tie up an officer’s hands in dealing with an unruly suspect. There are plenty of times when using a chokehold is the best method (and there are no completely non-lethal ways to deal with resisting suspects other than just letting them go, which is not a good option), so banning chokeholds, in my opinion, can lead to more crime and even more officer deaths.
 
I am still of the mind that eliminating police unions, or at the very least making it so that bad officers cannot be protected by the unions for their very clearly bad behavior (again, Chauvin received 17 complaints before he killed Floyd and nothing was done to him), is the best course of action, so other methods that can hinder an officer’s ability to do his or her job is not something I would generally support. Hold the individually bad officers accountable for their individual actions – don’t punish every officer for the misdeeds of the few.
 
In any case, moving on to the second line item, there is the idea of changing the names of military bases. A majority (56%) opposes changing the names of military bases named after Confederate leaders and officers. Independents, who ABC notes as generally being split with regards to removing statues (and I’ll get to this in a brief moment), oppose renaming military bases 59-40. 67% of African Americans are also opposed to renaming bases.
 
When it comes to this one, I firmly stand with the idea that we should NOT rename the bases named after Confederate leaders. This isn’t because I’m a racist Confederate; far from it. It’s precisely because I know the history of this country that I don’t want to rename these bases. These bases, and the statues, represent the history not simply of this country, but of the Democrat Party. The reason the Democrats are so in favor of renaming military bases (and other things like schools and government buildings) named after Confederates is because the Confederates were THE DEMOCRATS.
 
Consider, for example, the paintings that Nancy Pelosi has decided to remove from the Capitol. She removed the paintings of four Confederate leaders who were also Democrats. Leftists also support the toppling of statues that remind them of their past and history and serve as a reminder to everyone of what they are.
 
Of course, the reason for Marxists to be in favor of removing statues (of everyone, whether they were pro- or anti-slavery) is to erase the history of this country completely and essentially make it anew under their rule. Can’t remind people of their history if you want there to be no history – only the eternal present.
 
But at least one reason for Democrats to support removing statues and renaming Confederate bases/buildings is to erase the history of the Democrat Party itself. They are already trying to rewrite history by saying there was a “switch” after the Civil War where the Republicans became the racists and the Democrats became not racist, which is a load of crap.
 
Alas, I digress. Moving on to the final aspect of this poll was the feelings of people regarding “reparations” for ancestors of slaves. 73% of Americans oppose the federal government giving “money to black Americans whose ancestors were slaves as compensations for that slavery.”
 
54% of Democrats support “reparations” while 94% of Republicans and 82% of Independents oppose it.
 
This is actually not very different from how general sentiment surrounding this topic has been over the past 20 years. An ABC poll asking this question back in 1997 found only 19% of Americans supported this, with 77% disagreeing. While 73% oppose it today, only 14% support it, so both opposition and support went down, indicating an increase of the number of people who simply do not know which way to think about this.
 
Of course, where I stand on this is opposition… for the most part. If black people want reparations, don’t demand that the government give it to them, or that white people overall give it to them, because not one white person today owned a slave and they cannot be held accountable for the actions of their ancestors. This would be like sending the son of a serial killer to jail just because he is the son of a serial killer, even if he did nothing illegal.
 
There are roughly six problems with these “reparations” that just revolve around the issue of race:

• First, not all white people used to own slaves.

 

• Second, not all white people in this country are descendants of slave owners.

 

• Third, similar to how not all white people are descendants of slave owners, not all black people today are descendants of slaves – for example, Barack Obama.

 

• Fourth, black people owned slaves too. So, should black people demand other black people contribute to “reparations”?

 

• Fifth, black people aren’t the only race of people to have been slaves. Jews (who I mostly consider to be people of a faith, not necessarily a race) were also slaves in the past. Should they demand reparations from Egypt or Iraq (which used to be Babylon)? And what about Eastern white people, called Slavs, who used to be slaves in Eurasia and quite possibly are named after that fact (there are disputes over this)? Do they get to demand reparations from Eastern Europeans?

 

• Sixth, what about the Africans who sold other Africans to the white slave traders? Should black people demand reparations from African countries?

 
The entire issue of “reparations” is, at its core, nothing more than redistribution of wealth from wealthy white people (or just white people, including the poor ones) to black people who were never forced to pick cotton a day in their lives. But if “reparations” are demanded in the States, the people who should pay them are those who make up the modern Democrat Party, since they are the ones who have historically fought to keep slaves.
 
I am adamantly against “reparations” because I know it’s nothing but an excuse to unfairly and unjustly redistribute wealth (though the rich white liberals who support it ought to be made to put their money where their mouth is and forced to pay these “reparations” they demand other white people pay). But if an argument is to be made about “reparations” is that Democrats should be the ones to pay them.
 
Nevertheless, overall, it doesn’t seem as though the political needle has moved all that much, if at all, in the Left’s favor with regard to these particular issues, maybe with the exception of chokeholds.
 
This, I say, to remind you that they are not the majority in this country. Not even close.
 
Deuteronomy 28:7
“The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.”