Do Black Lives Matter to Leftists? Evidence Says No

On a scale of 0 to 100, 100 is willing to spend all resources and sacrifice one's own life and 0 represents homicidal indifference, 30 is how much most people care when hearing about a mass casualties from an earthquake in a country they've never heard of, 40 is how they care when the stranger is identified and their life story is told, 50 is how much they care when that life story substantially matches their own. A functional society adds several dozen points to care for a life. People that do care are given resources to increase the caring of any one life. Just as life is worth more in a wealthy society, civilization increases the care for any life substantially. Civilization + proximity lifts care for life into the 70-90 range. We recognize as heroic the people who rise to 100 for strangers; these men are uncommon as a percentage of the population, but civilized societies have enough examples of this behavior that it is not uncommon.

1. People care most about their close relatives. Black people have fewer close relatives due to the destruction of the family (civilization). (Few 100s for an individual life)

2. The few close relatives lack the social capital to make others care. One person with a lot of private resources can get more people to care, but many people with no resources and no network cannot. (The few 100s and 90s cannot call upon the 30-80s. The neighbor down the street in a major urban area might barely register 40 or 50).

3. The nearest strangers who care are those who interact with black lives: social workers and the police.

4. Crime and violence are a major source of the loss of black lives, ergo the police are most actively saving black lives. Social workers may care, but due to 1, are on net doing things that lead to the taking of black lives.

5. Black and leftist political organizations hate the police more than anything since August 2014.

6. The second most hated group, right-wing/white people, keep police caring about black lives by supporting the police (other factors such as support for religion that says all lives matter count, but less immediately)

7. Left-wingers seek to demoralize right-wing white people, reject right-wing values and remove right-wing white people from power.

8. A tipping point is reached when the absolute number of right-wing people falls and the willingness to spend political capital defending police in left-wing controlled cities declines. "Something must be done about Baltimore!" becomes "Baltimore is your city, do with it as you wilt." The attempt by the NYTimes to turn local crime stories into national political agenda, instead turns national political agendas into local crime stories.

9. Once right-wing people mentally and then physically abandon them, left-wing controlled areas are allowed to implement their political agenda without opposition

10. Everyone who screams loudest that black lives matter has far more power over the police today than 1 year ago. The people who through direct contact or through indirect support of civilization help all lives to matter, have far less power than 1 year ago.

11. The New Nationwide Crime Wave

In Baltimore, the most pressing question every morning is how many people were shot the previous night. Gun violence is up more than 60% compared with this time last year, according to Baltimore police, with 32 shootings over Memorial Day weekend. May has been the most violent month the city has seen in 15 years.

In Milwaukee, homicides were up 180% by May 17 over the same period the previous year. Through April, shootings in St. Louis were up 39%, robberies 43%, and homicides 25%. “Crime is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said St. Louis Alderman Joe Vacarro at a May 7 City Hall hearing.

Murders in Atlanta were up 32% as of mid-May. Shootings in Chicago had increased 24% and homicides 17%. Shootings and other violent felonies in Los Angeles had spiked by 25%; in New York, murder was up nearly 13%, and gun violence 7%.

Those citywide statistics from law-enforcement officials mask even more startling neighborhood-level increases. Shooting incidents are up 500% in an East Harlem precinct compared with last year; in a South Central Los Angeles police division, shooting victims are up 100%.

By contrast, the first six months of 2014 continued a 20-year pattern of growing public safety. Violent crime in the first half of last year dropped 4.6% nationally and property crime was down 7.5%. Though comparable national figures for the first half of 2015 won’t be available for another year, the January through June 2014 crime decline is unlikely to be repeated.

The most plausible explanation of the current surge in lawlessness is the intense agitation against American police departments over the past nine months.