It’s not that government can’t clamp down on people when it wants to. The J6 prisoners’ treatment proves that abundantly. It’s that when it wants to, it’s not driven by the imperative of justice but the incentive of politics. A prime example is the Jordan Neely/Daniel Penny affair.
Neely, 30, the violent, deranged man who died while or after being restrained on a New York City subway May 1, had a voluminous rap sheet of 42 arrests. On the list are the kidnapping of a seven-year-old girl and multiple assaults, one of which was a 2021 attack on an elderly woman on whom Neely inflicted serious injuries. Yet he was still on the streets.
Penny, 24, the ex-Marine who (with others) helped restrain the unhinged Neely on May 1 — doing the job the authorities wouldn’t do — has now been charged with manslaughter by hard-left Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Perhaps the charge really should be something Bragg can’t brag about: “Being a real man in the third millennium.” Regardless, apparently upstanding citizen Penny could be off the streets for a long time. He faces 15 years’ incarceration.
What’s wrong with this picture?
The answer observers such as commentator Emma Vigeland offer is: the “bourgeois” concern about people’s “discomfort.” Along with many others, she emphasizes that Neely was a “mentally ill” man who needed help. And, yes, that does make a difference, because if a mentally sound person kills you, you’re dead.
And if a mentally ill person kills you, you’re dead.
The difference is something else: Maybe Neely should’ve long ago been in prison.
Or maybe he should’ve been in a psychiatric institution.
For sure, though, he should have been off the streets.
It’s not as if Neely hadn’t long served notice on society or was low-profile, either. The mainstream media have, in an effort to whitewash the criminal, pointed out that he was a (lovable) Michael Jackson impersonator. Well, journalist Mike Cernovich uncovered a 2013 Reddit post (tweet below) by a liberal who was warning about how this Jackson impersonator had become unhinged.
As the Reddit poster wrote:
Try to stay away from the Michael Jackson impersonator if you see him…
Used to be all cool, dancing to MJ in the subway train, but as of late he’s become a maniac.
Sometime in late Spring/early Summer I saw him in the train, his radio f***** up and he was angry as f***, cursing and bad mouthing commuters screaming “What the f*** are you looking at? Dont f****** look at me!” Totally didn’t expect him to act as such.
Ever since that day he’s just been a scary dude to me. He doesn’t dress up anymore. No more dancing…just asks for money. Occasionally shouting obscenities.
The poster elaborated further as well. (Hat tip: Revolver news.)
Revolver also presents a confrontation online provocateur “Joey Boots” had with Neely while legally filming him on the streets (video below). The footage includes as well an interaction Boots had with commentator Tucker Carlson, whom Boots videoed fishing at NYC’s Central Park lake! As Revolver points out, the difference in the two men’s reactions to being recorded speaks volumes.
The point is that Neely had been making his “mark” for many, many years as a high-profile miscreant.
Some say, though, that Neely wasn’t violent on the train that May 1 day — just threatening. But, question: What would happen if someone, anyone, thus behaved on an airplane, ranting and raving and issuing threats? We well know.
So why is it tolerated on a subway? Partially because it’s a conveyance for the “great unwashed”? It all seems beyond bourgeois, this gross inequality in security.
Many defenders of Neely’s “right” to threaten are also, ironically, the same people who will say that someone who gets attacked for using the n-word “had it coming” because he used “fightin’ words.” Note, too, that issuing threats is considered actionable under our laws and people have been arrested for it. Why, Texas teen Justin Carter sat in prison for months after making what was an obvious joke on social media in 2013.
But with Jordan Neely it’s different, and commentator Don Surber puts it well. “Democrats turned subways into hell and now give good citizens the choice between being the victim of a lunatic who kills them or a lunatic justice system that punishes anyone who stands up to the psychos,” he writes. “It’s called anarcho-tyranny.”
It wasn’t always this way. The term “vigilante” now has a negative connotation, but is a Spanish word meaning “watchman” and came into usage with the old West’s “vigilance committees.” These were groups established (such as in San Francisco in 1851) because crime was a problem and government was perhaps too weak to “insure domestic tranquility” — a necessity mentioned in the Constitution’s Preamble. So citizens stepped into the breach.
Now there’s a breach, too, of “contract” by a government that is also weak — morally. Reflecting many low-virtue voters, it won’t ensure domestic tranquility, but will punish those who defend the vulnerable.
This brings us back to Penny, who many state used excessive force in applying what is commonly being called a “chokehold,” though some say this isn’t what killed Neely (see below tweet).
But here’s what’s left unsaid: Those complaining about cops’ “excessive force” will insist police need better training, the implication being that only a real professional can restrain someone effectively without inflicting serious injury. If true, why would we then expect this from a citizen?
Moreover, if true, why put citizens in a situation where, due to the authorities’ abdication of responsibility, they must do the job those “professionals” should be doing?
The real issue is that the state didn’t do that job, its job. And that raises the real question:
If a government won’t perform even its most basic functions, should it even exist?
