This page was last updated on January 14, 2015.
Past decisions led to where we are; Lonzie Cox, Jr.; Beaver County Times; January 12, 2015. Though my friends have fun at my expense by referring to him as my “Cousin Lonzie,” I am not related to Mr. Cox.
Most of Mr. Cox’s at least 92 letters since 2004 are tinged with race, and all take leftist positions. The most recent previous Cox letter I critiqued was “Police should be our fellow citizens.” You can find more Cox letters in the archives (2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004).
When it comes to race issues, Mr. Cox is pretty tolerant if you share his leftist ideology. For example, Mr. Cox had no problem with the late-Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), a former KKK officer, but referred to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as an “Uncle Tom.”
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“There was no connection between the massive protests against police shootings of unarmed civilians and the horrific ambush of Brooklyn police. Americans only want the slaughter to stop on both sides. Instead, some cops are still shooting first and asking questions later.”
[RWC] What “slaughter?” “Shooting first and asking questions later” is not what happened and Mr. Cox knows it.
“Rudolph Giuliani, Peter King, George Pataki and Fox News have taken advantage of the two officers’ deaths to distract the protesters from their goal which is only to stop bad police from committing murder against unarmed civilians of all races. There is no anti-cop movement. Learn that. Good cops help to make good communities. Any fool knows that.”
[RWC] “Civilians of all races?” Sure. While it’s encouraged to hold up a “black lives matter” sign, those who carry “all lives matter” signs are denounced. A college president had to apologize for using “all lives matter” in the subject line of an e-mail note.
“But even more tragically, the police deaths at the hands of a seriously ill mental patient, have provided U.S. society with an untimely distraction to delay a solution to its most pressing problem of which police shootings are just one part. Other distractions included: The Continental Congress allowing slavery to continue when it could have been eliminated in 1787; the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, which led to the Civil War; President Hayes’ removal of Union troops from the South prematurely in 1877, allowing anti-black terrorists to flourish; the Supreme Court overturning the Civil Rights Act of 1873, including voting rights; the Supreme Court making Jim Crow discrimination federal law by its 1896 decision in Plessy vs. Ferguson.”
[RWC] It’s an exaggeration to claim the Dred Scott decision by itself “led to the Civil War.”
Only two Southern states still had “Union troops” when President Hayes (R) took office. Further, the Democrat-majority House refused to continue funding for troops in the South.
There was no “Civil Rights Act of 1873.” Mr. Cox likely meant the Civil Rights Act of 1875 but it had nothing to do with “voting rights.” Like it or not, the Supreme Court was correct to declare sections 1-3 unconstitutional as they applied to private citizens.
Plessy v. Ferguson did not make “Jim Crow discrimination federal law;” the decision upheld the constitutionality of state “separate but equal” segregation laws.
“Each police shooting of unarmed citizens without prosecution is connected somehow to these decisions.”
[RWC] Huh? In “Police should be our fellow citizens,” Mr. Cox advocated “an automatic minimum sentence of 24 months in state prison” for a police officer “shooting … an unarmed citizen while on or off duty.”
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