No, It’s Not Our Fault

Americans as a whole are not responsible for events in Ferguson.

‘We are all complicit in the warzone that has become Ferguson, Missouri,” declare the headline writers at Esquire.com.

And you thought you had been on your best behavior in the past week, hm?

Those of us who live outside of Ferguson ought to react with empathy; the locals there seem caught between, on one side, opportunists who think outrage over a police shooting offers them a nice chance for some looting and tipping over public portable toilets, and on the other side a police force that looks like a U.S. military platoon heading into Fallujah, with some members of that force losing their cool. So far, no approach is sufficiently quelling the rioting, the looting, and the related crime: not the armor, rifles, tear gas, and flash-bang approach, not the initial lighter touch of Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson on Thursday night, not the subsequent curfew, not the arrival of the National Guard.

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