Watching the debate between Heather Mac Donald and Edward Stringham was a fascinating experience for a number of reasons, foremost among them being that it presented two deeply contrasting visions of right wing thought. The former shaped by a deep reverence for social cohesion and ordered liberty, while the latter is influenced by a deeply-held anti-authoritarianism and faith in an unencumbered free market. The point of dispute was criminal justice reform, which was framed by the debate resolution, “There’s a war on cops, and it’s making us less safe.” Mac Donald, naturally, responded in the affirmative, asserting that the most horrific outbursts of violence directed against law enforcement, e.g. last year’s sniper attacks against Dallas police officers, as well as the 2014 ambush of NYPD officers, were a direct result of a deliberate campaign to demonize law enforcement by public officials and political activists. Stringham rejected that claim, asserting that civilians are at much more risk of being killed by police officers than vice versa.

Both perspectives were bolstered by statistics, although Mac Donald also emphasized the human cost of what she perceives to be a lack of faith in the police, including some horrific anecdotes from Chiraq. Stringham decried her “appeal to emotion,” and expressed his belief that his debate opponent doesn’t understand basic statistics, repeatedly hammering home the fact that we are experiencing historically low rates of violent crime and gun crime. He described how data fluctuates, which means you can’t ‘make inferences based on 2 data points,’ i.e. the national and local spikes in violent crime we witnessed in 2015. He asked Mac Donald why it took so long for homicides to increase in New York City, despite a 5 year-long decrease in the number of stops under its stop-and-frisk program-reaching a low of 22,929 in 2015-and why crime in almost every other measurable category continued to decline.

Mac Donald was asked whether her role was to serve as an advocate for the criminal justice system, to which she responded, “no, it’s to combat false narratives.” One of those misleading narratives-and it was this ground upon which I think she was on her firmest footing-is the Black Lives Matter campaign to convince ordinary people that black people are subjected to uniquely unfair treatment at the hands of systemically racist law enforcement. As she pointed out, whites are shot disproportionately during violent encounters with police-she didn’t mention Native Americans, who are killed at a per capita rate exceeding every other ethnic group in this country-when you consider the paltry rate at which they commit violent crime in comparison to other races. Even so, the public knows virtually none of their names, even those who are killed at point blank range, like the late David Kassick. By contrast, black civilians who are killed unjustly at the hands of police are the subject of critically acclaimed films, not to mention being the inspiration for conflagrations which engulf entire cities.

Although Stringham maintained that the racial component of this debate was irrelevant, while asserting that police should not be taxing citizens under the color of law-as many claim was the case in Ferguson, Missouri-his opponent insisted upon pointing out the inherent racial disparities of an purportedly underpoliced society, e.g. blacks dying at a rate 6 times that of whites, as well as the 4,300 people shot in the city of Chicago last year. For what it’s worth, I wish he had acknowledged this aspect of the debate, i.e. that many Americans, whether they’re residents of the Ingersoll or Marlboro Houses, or Camden, New Jersey, live in a very violent and insecure world, even as Americans are generally safer than they have been in generations. A belief that there is a divide along racial lines is perfectly consonant with an opposition to needlessly intrusive, aggressive policing. In fact, the solution to this problem might have been alluded to by an audience member, who asked whether more shall-issue laws might be responsible for a decrease in violent crime.

Stringham also pointed out the efficacy of private police forces, which-unlike law enforcement under our current system-are directly accountable to the public. Unlike cops in the public sector, who often view themselves as fee collectors/enforcers for the state-police within a consensual system actually have incentives to serve their customers, i.e. the public, and not to abuse their authority. Although Mac Donald expressed qualified skepticism about this arrangement, it’s worth noting that there were once entire societies which operated largely within the parameters of private law. Whether or not this is an applicable model in the case of the United States is an open question, although it’s a question which deserves to be asked. After all, if the exorbitant black crime rate is entwined with the familial and social breakdown in black communities, then who is to say that increasingly aggressive policing is the long term solution to this problem?

Update: Mr. Rahami was a busy jihadi, it turns out. 

Rahami charged. 

It turns out that CNN is good for something after all. 

Surrender and think of diversity. 

The man who shot the now deceased jihadist in Minnesota was a competitive shooter. Perhaps, contra Maddow, guns aren’t the main culprit in Islamic terrorism? As an aside, in the past 3 years 9 Somali-Americans have been convicted of trying to join ISIS. 

Free radicals. 

Footage of the shootout in Linden before Rahami’s apprehension by police. 

The war on noticing proceeds apace. Lionel has the perfect solution. 

Ahmad Khan is now in custody, according to CNN. 

CAIR has its priorities in order. 

You can’t make this up. 

More Ahmad Khans on the way thanks to the clever folks in the federal government. 

Thieves cracked the Chelsea bombing case. 

Hillary’s boffo refugee resettlement plan. 

The woman who gave us Libya-and all its bitter fruits-explains why Donald Trump is the real terrorist. After all, there are literally millions of Muslims who aren’t trying to blow you up at the moment. 

 You can’t make this up. 

Governor Cuomo has deployed the National Guard. 

A suspect in the terror plots in New Jersey, as well as the Chelsea bombing, has been identified. Authorities are now seeking the whereabouts of Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalized alien from Afghanistan. It would appear that this is the work of  a terror cell, not the ubiquitous lone wolf of so many prior jihadi assaults. After decades of thoughtless third world immigration, New Jersey finds itself with an entrenched Islam problem, as Chris Christie’s short-lived presidential campaign illustrated. The idea that this threat was erased with the conviction of the Blind Sheik is foolhardy, as this weekend’s attacks demonstrate.

Robert Menendez’s “I am not a crook” presser, following his indictment by the Justice Department, pretty much ran to form, including his personal Hispandering simultaneous translation en Español. One of the underreported ironies of this story is the fact that some of the charges revolve around a scheme whereby the Soprano State’s Senator demanded visas for his benefactor’s foreign girlfriends. Open borders zealotry-masked as compassionate advocacy, naturally-and naked self-interest are almost always intertwined, although never remarked upon by a deficient news media eager to highlight the existential plight of illegal aliens.

Whether Senator Melendez’s eventual replacement-like his predecessors, I doubt he will emerge from this scandal unscathed-will be as receptive to criminal alien sex offenders remains to be seen, but you can be assured that he or she will most likely be devoted to the same warped principles regarding immigration and border control. And the press corps will continue to manipulate the news cycle in order to obfuscate the matter. The citizens of New Jersey, of course, will be all the poorer for it, as Mr. Melendez’s escapades illustrate.

The man behind Seavey/Perry finally steps out from the shadows and talks about his adventures across this fair land.

Check it out!

Also, like our Facebook page, Seavey/Perry on Culture!

Gayle Kesselman, our good friend from New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control, has information about an upcoming hearing in New Jersey aimed at pressuring Congress to enact amnesty which will be taking place this Monday.

There will be a hearing on NJ Senate Resolution 61 which urges the US Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform. The hearing will be on Monday, June 2 at 11 am in Committee Room 7, State House Annex, Trenton. Several NJCIC members will be there to register our opposition to this legislation.

You can watch the proceedings live on the Senate’s website.

Yesterday saw a lively debate between the two main candidates for the Republican Party nomination in New Jersey’s Third Congressional District. New Jersey Public Television broadcast the event live, but you can watch it for yourself on NJPT’s website, which I urge you to do. Steve Lonegan is one of the few figures in the contemporary Republican Party willing to incur the wrath of the kultursmog by openly and vociferously opposing open borders policies, which is merely one reason-among many-he deserves the support of patriotic conservatives.

There will be a hearing on SR61 on Monday, May 5 at 10 am at Committee Room 7, 2nd Floor, State House Annex in Trenton. Several NJCIC members will be going to express their opposition to this bill which urges the US Congress to pass “comprehensive immigration control” also known as amnesty for illegal immigrants. If you want to join us, contact us at info@njcic.com. 

Most of you are probably aware of Governor Christie’s decision to reward illegal aliens yet again by signing a statewide DREAM Act into law, although this has obviously been overshadowed in recent days by another prominent news item revolving around the governor of the Garden State. Although there’s no link between Bridgegate and the latest sop to la raza activists, the two do share some similarities in the sense that both display the contempt public officials have for ordinary citizens, as well as the venality and political opportunism at the heart of legislating-both at the state and federal level.

Mark Krikorian wrote an incisive blog entry for National Review Online earlier this month on another highly publicized victory for illegal aliens, the decision to award Dreamer Sergio Garcia a law license, which delineates the philosophical chasm between those of us who view America as a distinctive, sovereign nation and those like Governor Christie, Governor Jerry Brown, and their allies in the open borders movement, who view it merely as a place where people live-regardless of allegiance. It’s well worth reading, as is an op-ed by Bill Winkler which points out the huge human cost that legislative acts like those taken in New Jersey and California, and extraconstitutional edicts issued by the Obama administration, have on ordinary American families trying to eke out an existence in this torpid economy.

These are the stories that are being swept under the rug by a news media which is unwilling to grapple with the huge problems that their support for open borders impose upon Americans who don’t have the mobility or resources to insulate themselves from mass immigration’s most baleful effects.

The actual deportation numbers for this administration are, as anyone who has been paying attention to this issue in even the most cursory manner, appalling. Federale has an incisive post exploring just one of many grossly misleading media puff pieces extolling the benefits of President Obama’s latest unconstitutional administrative amnesty, which I recommend reading. The utterly spurious open borders narrative, i.e. Barack Obama is interested in immigration enforcement, is nothing more than a smokescreen intended to peddle mass amnesty, which has been the goal of this administration since its inception. 

If we’re going to be discussing this subject, we might as well do so honestly, something the proponents of amnesty have never been willing to do.