Too Much Government

As protests mount across the country in reaction to the recent killing of Eric Garner, there has been little to no legitimate response from any conservatives in this country, except to condemn the looters and flag burners. Those forms of protest were reprehensible—but focusing on them distracts from the dead black men, victims of state-sanctioned violence against the people, who lie dead in our streets.

As a lifelong conservative, I have always believed the unifying principle of our part of the political spectrum to be a belief in limited government. A limited government maintains low taxes to help businesses grow, reduces regulation to promote innovation, and keeps its powers in check to protect the civil liberties of the people. Based on the reactions to these killings, it seems that most of my conservative friends have ignored this third tenet.

Our Founding Fathers overthrew the British because they abused the colonists not only with taxes but also with physical brutality. We conservatives seem ready to applaud Thomas Jefferson’s push against a government that taxed people out of business. Where are we now when our government is shooting people in the streets? Nowhere. We are hiding. Why are we not shouting down and calling out the clear violations of the liberties that our ideology holds dear?

This desire for change is not, as many on the right have phrased it, a war on the police. Police officers do not go out everyday with the goal of killing black men. And yet we must recognize the racism present in our system that continually keeps blacks in this country down. When this happens even once, it is too often. The police officers who are sworn to protect us should be held to a higher standard; they should be the protectors of the people, not the persecutors.

Was Eric Garner a perfect man? No. But does that matter? No. Should he have been strangled to death as he gasped for oxygen in front of multiple officers? No. Is Daniel Pantaleo, the officer in question, guilty? I don’t know. That was for the court to decide, but he was never tried.

In response, conservatives will point to other factors that are harming the black community. Yes, Mr. Hannity, we know that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment for black male youths is double what it is for whites of the same demographic. We know about black-on-black crime. We know that urban poverty and squalor are created by a lack of jobs, a bad welfare system, and that failing government schools hold black youth back in life. We know that broken families and fatherless homes are some of the leading indicators of future arrest and poverty. Those are bad things. We should fix them. But that’s not the issue we’re facing.

The issue we’re facing is forces of the state killing innocent youth. They weren’t tried. They were shot. They were strangled. They were killed.

We have tolerated a caustic system that permits those with power to put those without it down—especially when those without it are black. We can work to fix that system. We can work to address the prison industrial complex, the mandatory minimum sentences, the treatment of blacks as criminals and of urban areas as war zones. We can work to prevent the future killing of all types of people by authorities of the state. It’s time that we as conservatives stand and say that black lives matter. All lives matter.

Conservatives constantly bemoan our overreaching government. We talk about the government hindering our businesses, spying on our communications, failing our children in the classroom. What about when the government cuts short the life of one of our fellow citizens? That’s not “too much government?”

Don’t be a hypocrite. This is what the Founders warned us about. Wake up.

Cameron Khansarinia ’18 is a freshman living in Lionel Hall.