Many of the people who argued vehemently against giving men the benefit of the doubt during MeToo now expect women to shrug off menacing men on the subway.
Saying Republicans are gleefully claiming Neely had it coming is just another version of the tired "Republicans pounce" trope used by NYT. Republicans can never just be right, there is always some kind of malicious intent which can be used as an excuse to dismiss what they're saying regardless of the validity. Republicans are not gleeful about being right about woke hypocrisy. In fact, we are really sick of it!
Can someone please state this author's argument in simple terms? That's not a rhetorical question, I genuinely don't get the argument. The Right is wrong because they point out that they were right all along about Neely posing a very real and serious threat to everyone on that train? That Daniel Penny choked out Neely because the Left took MeToo too far?
I never saw the end of this piece coming! I thought 99% of it made sense until the author said the MeToo movement made people act out of intolerance? No, maybe this highly trained Marine knew a situation that was about to escalate, or could escalate since it seems the subway is a place of anything goes, so he stepped in. I guess this is an opinion piece. I enjoyed the Karen in the Park article way back which is what made me a fan of Common Sense and this substack. It had facts and journalism. This is a hypothetical opinion piece?
Please don't make too much of Penny's training. The truth is that anyone with even a minimum of training - or no training, at all - could react to one of these lunatics and kill them accidentally, either with a well placed blow or if they fell into a train or on the tracks. And the result would be precisely the same. If they were white, Bragg would charge them. Because Tom Wolfe presciently predicted that New York would sooner or later devolve into a sewer of racial politics. Created by the very white progressives who now shriek that Penny is a "murderer."
I think the outrage is really about Penny acting with bravery. We're supposed to cower and capitulate; it does the authoritarian Left no good to have uppity marines intervening in the intentional chaos.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The liberal progressives do not want American's to protect themselves, much less stand up for themselves. They want everyone to be in victim status and only the government can help them. Since there wasn't a cop on the train to handle the situation, the masses were supposed to cringe in fear and happily accept the violence that this man wanted to inflict on others, even if that meant that this man was going to kill or maimed them.
Money quote: "Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into treatment program, who's going to go out and kill somebody?" [Current Milwaukee County District Attorney] John Chisholm said in a 2007 interview with the Journal Sentinel. "You bet. Guaranteed. It's guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach."
I will preface my remarks by saying, "I am on the right and I am not gleeful that this deranged man died. The author uses pretty broad bush to libel conservative."
Now on to my comments. If a black ex marine choked out an insane, belligerent white man he would be a hero to the left and in NY he would never be charged. Hell, they might even paint murals of him and name a library after him.
My brush is pretty broad but not as broad as Kat's. I think, my analysis of the left is right on the money.
Even though I thought the authors 'gleeful' comment was a cheap shot - I for one am truly gleeful that at least one member of the 'huddle masses' decided 'ENOUGH of this bullshit' - and acted. The Michael Jackson impersonator took the loss - but shit happens when you act like an unleashed asshole. Good for Mr. Penny for having the balls to act.
It is sad that every media and political response (and I mean EVERY) response to an event is viewed through the lens of the race/gender/sexual identity of the parties involved. As you mention, reverse the races of the two people and this doesn't even make the local news, let alone national news.......
Well I think military training may have you scan a scene differently than nonmilitary people. And I would not have a clue how to choke hold someone, but I am 5 ft 2 inches so it also is a matter of size, male versus female, and our backgrounds. I do own a gun and think at times, I would not mind concealed carry for my safety. I also respect the power of the weapon and would not want to harm anyone beyond the intended harm. I hope I never need to get to that point of carrying my gun when I am out and about living life. The whole scenario is sad, as I am sure both men didn't wake up thinking this is how my day is going to go today.
If you're on Cape Cod why would you carry? I have a CT carry permit and I never carry. In NYC, however, you will never get a carry permit. Instead you must - on a daily basis - be threatened by violent vagrants, some of whom may carry a knife. Think about it.
There are a lot of drugs in/around Hyannis. I was there on a golf trip in July before Covid, walking back to the hotel from the 19th hole late at night and had a few guys try to mug us (which was dumb as one guy with me was a pro fighter who tried to persuade them to back off). Strangely, plainclothed police were there very quickly and de-escalated things.
I don't plan on carrying. I would like to have the skills to do so. And hope I never need to. If it comes to that, I will have to find a new place to live. And hope that doesn't happen.
Get yourself a small 380 automatic with a laser sight, load it with hollow points. Go to a shooting range and take lessons on how to use it and follow the old dictum, "If you draw your gun, you intend to use it and if you use it shoot to kill." If you pull your pistol don't be like a bleeding heart Democrat and wring your hands and over analyze the situation. Act!
If you are in a situation where you see danger and feel threatened. split seconds count. Shoot the SOB. The person who acts first usually wins. It takes longer to react than to act.
If the person who is threatening you is within arms reach or closer than 10 or 12 feet, shoot. Otherwise, they will disarm you and most likely kill you.
For someone with a military background who’s reasonably afraid he or someone else is about to be attacked, the reaction is instinctive. It seems highly unlikely that the Marine meant to kill Neely; the fact that he did will weigh on him for the rest of his life. And the progressive Left’s desire to turn him into a villain and exploit Neely’s death, spinning this incident for partisan game, is as gross as it is callous.
You are correct, the action is instinctive. I wasn’t a Marine, but was an Army Ranger. Although I find myself to be more of a pacifist nearly 50 years later, I find myself running forward to protect others even when it is far from the best idea. My heart in this incident is with Penny. He did the right thing even though it turned out tragically. We were trained to move toward the threat and neutralize it, which is exactly what he did.
What no critic seems to consider is that Neely struggled the whole time and, thus, helped cause his own death, that and his threatening behavior. People like AOC make me sick, but it makes me even sicker that people vote for her.
I don't know whether I am missing something, but the reports are that 3 people were holding Neely. If it took 3 people to restrain him, aside from the fact that this *might* indicate that he was very dangerous, why is the narrative that Penny killed him? And didn't he die later in the hospital?
That's what I keep asking! There is no proof that Penny was responsible for the death of Neely. He was breathing after Penny put him in recovery mode. Just like George Floyd, the amount of drugs in his system was significantly responsible for his death.
I haven't heard anything about drugs in Neely's system. Has that been reported? George Floyd had 11 mg of fentanyl in his blood. 2-3 mg would kill most people. Naturally, fentanyl was not considered a primary cause of death for Mr. Floyd.
You haven't heard because the toxicology report is being slow walked. This was supposed to go to a grand jury but after the train track protests Bragg hurried the arrest. Penny and his attorney were told it would take months and that turned into days. I don't doubt that Neely also was full of substances. Let's hope there's honesty and transparency in those reports.
Like most here I want Mr. Neely acquitted. He never should’ve been arrested. Why were the other two men not arrested? One I realize carries a get out of jail card.
I disagree on two matters. First I found the writer’s style lucid and analysis balanced. Second using chokeholds. I’ve been to many restraint trainings, witnessed scores of restraints, participated in a few. I’ve never been taught this technique. I never have seen it applied. Maybe marines are taught the technique. I understand why.
Too many conservatives find satisfaction in Jordan Neely’s fate. Almost all liberals want him elevated to sainthood. Neither response is healthy. Politicians from both sides are eager exploit these divisions.
Yeah. Pro-tip: Unless you're physically attacked probably best to not engage in anticipatory/preemptive self-defense by holding a rear naked choke for 15 min.
Well, it wasn’t 15 minutes - between 4 or 6 is what evidence suggests - and Neely appears on video to have taken a deep breath afterwards. Toxology report inexplicably delayed.
That is what I have been saying. Neely was breathing on his own after Penny released him. The coroner made.a death determination in record time and there has been no autopsy. Death from choking is highly doubtful.
Wait, WHAT?!? No autopsy? How the eff do you charge someone with manslaughter if there’s no medical evidence for the cause of death? I assumed the coroner had ruled that choking was the cause of death based on the usual indicators such as crushed windpipe and conjunctival petecchiae (neither of which were present in George Floyd, btw).
The point of a rear naked choke is to cut off the carotid artery, it has nothing to do with the windpipe. It really doesn't matter if he was breathing or not.
It has always been farcical that people thought that Garner and Floyd died from the chokehold and neck compression - neither compressed the airway to any major extent. Their lungs were compromised by compression from their own body weight due to positioning and the men on their body. Neck was largely unimportant.
The basic biology of a chokehold is that you make a V with a notch pointing out from nape of neck - that keeps no pressure on the airway and all pressure goes to the left and right side cutting off blood flow in the carotid on each side. One passes out quickly if done well and the hold can be released. If done very poorly, like in this case, bad things can happen even if no ill intent.
Remember everyone, Comprof will only ever parrot talking points.
As an objective person, it bothers me that Neely is dead, and how he died really shouldn't be a matter of dispute. There is clearly a very thin line between being a hero and a villain in this country. In my opinion (and obviously I wasn't there), Penny acted bravely but also stupidly. He had the man subdued and took it too far.
Wrong. It took about 15 minutes for the police to respond. Neely was being restrained for only a portion of that time, basically until.he stopped resisting. Sometime around then he was described as unconscious. That implies that he was still breathing.
As someone who has choked a fair number of criminals in a prior career (that was not law enforcement), I can tell you that it's quite possible to shift from applying the choke, to merely cradling the head with arm around the neck.
That's what it appeared to be here - but I wasn't there and video can be hard to judge. So I don't know for sure either way. Just wanted to point this out.
No, Compost, *you* are the one who thinks words are violence, because you’re an adolescent. You also think people need to have a warrant in order to think criminals should be in prison and that China is a diverse country.
Bruce simply told you to shut up because you are trolling for $17/hr on behalf of George Soros and, unlike me, he does not find it entertaining.
Common Sense/The Free Press has many opinion pieces. This one just strikes me as psuedo-intellectual babbling about what is a pretty simple issue: progressive governments have created crime-ridden cities where a situation like this is inevitable, then as always they use the incident to further racial greivance to cling to power while society decays around them.
But in all honesty, I try to remember that I can be dense, have my own biases, and often miss larger points from opinion pieces such as this one, so I'm open to this article making more sense than I currently understand, which is why I ask the question of what actually is the point here.
I agree with you. The situation is not that complicated and doesn't need extensive analysis. Hypocrisy due to different standards for different identity groups. This is called tribalism and is what the rule of law is intended to eliminate.
I don't know how or why the "Me Too" movement needs to be inserted into this situation. Phony feminism has always reeked of hypocrisy. AOC never uttered a word when Elizabeth Gomes (a woman of color) lost an eye after a brutal attack in a subway station last fall.
It’s a juxtaposition of two political stances by the same progressive group that shows the hypocrisy of their underlying position. If you believe male aggression should be zero tolerance (MeToo), you’d should apply that same philosophy to crime in public places and be accepting when the outcome is strangers stepping up to stamp out male aggression. It’s the “why” at the core of the belief.
It’s no different than when the Right pointed out the hypocrisy of the Left’s favorite pro-choice motto “My body, my choice” when they wanted to mandate COVID vaccines.
In is so insane to me. The behavior described in this article about the typical subway ride in NYC is that Bad (capital B) yet people shrug it off. Rules-no eye contact, don’t intervene (I saw the video of the poor woman simpering for help to no avail), put up with sexual aggression (ejaculation on your coat?!) - WTF. And now we are taking political sides when someone does try to help...insanity. What the hell is wrong with these people??
I think the point of the article is to point out that all these “righteous” arguments are contributing to an atmosphere of fear and consequently “vigilantism”. I would add that there are supporting facts, like the increase in gun in ownership, especially among women.
I don’t know all the facts in this case, but I have heard of “suicide by cop” - when someone who wants to die provokes a cop to shoot them. Will “suicide by vigilante” become a thing?
I see your point. And I think that is precisely what happened in the Trump case which was a classic #method. But that was a civil case. The Penny case is a criminal case, is not #metoo (despite this authors take),and I am guessing there will be subway riders on that jury.
Having sat in a jury in Chicago in a criminal trial, my experience was that everyone took their role VERY SERIOUSLY. And yes his lawyer should be very selective.
Hey, Kevin. I’m late to this conversation (I’m out of the country), and it’s certainly a vivid comment section. And you appear to be in fine form.
But don’t be too sure of the preordained conviction. Penny’s lawyers will argue quite persuasively that he acted in defense of the other passengers and himself, and that the threat appeared real enough for two other passengers to get involved as well. To kill was not his motive, only restraint. I say this will be a hung jury.
I truly feel sorry for Neely. He won't be tried by a jury of his peers, he'll be tried by a jury of Uber liberal New Yorkers. He doesn't stand a chance unless a change of venue is granted.
I think you meant Penny? His peers ARE his fellow New Yorkers. Unless he hires an idiot lawyer (which is doubtful) he will get a fair trial. Don't believe the BS propaganda about New York. We are not Chicago or San Francisco.
There is always a need for the left to create a false equivalence.. there's never a situation where the left is just wrong and the right is correct... I struggle to see what the author is trying to argue here..... the view that "the right" found any "glee" in this tragedy is a baffling take.. Pemulis perfectly laid out what the issue is... it's really that simple... so while it is tragic, it's certainly accidental and absurd that Penny was charged for doing what the NYC police is unwilling or unable to do.
When I lived in a wealthy-ish community in California, the police blatantly told the homeless to go to San Francisco or they would be arrested, so they did.
Cities are kind of like public schools--they pretty much have to take anyone who shows up. Suburbs can be a bit more exclusive by virtue of cost and aggressive policing.
Assume the NYPD starts arresting every person who acts crazy. Where are all these people going to go? Jails are full. Treatment facilities are full. Some people say "ship them to other places that aren't full" but what town or city would WANT to take them?
I agree Scott, there are no easy answers to these questions. When I see the homeless in person or on video, most of them appear to be serious addicts of one form or another. Instead of providing them with needles and safe places to shoot up, maybe we should try rehab with some housing options if they meet specific requirements.
I volunteer at a group home and there are very tight regulations for who can stay there and for how long. There are also case managers to help them become productive citizens. Much of this sounds rose colored and I understand that, but the other option is what? If we keep letting these junkies doing this there will be entire city blocks that will be uninhabitable.
I fully agree with you. There is too much carrot and not enough stick. I fully support putting people into treatment programs but if they refuse then they should go to jail. For example, in the recent NYC subway incident, Neely was ordered into treatment but simply walked out. That should not be allowed to happen.
No, we need to give street addicts the option of treatment or jail. And "treatment" need to mean REAL treatment, not the ability to skip out after a day or two if they don't like it.
I am an American with permanent residency in Mexico. It took me four years, fingerprinting, and financial records to get this standing. Mexico has stringent immigration laws. The U.S. should adopt some of them.
I get that. I honestly wouldn't have put MeToo and this unfortunate man's death in the same conversation. So for that, I am expanded in my thinking. This is good. For me, I guess to to me.bot putting them in the same convo, makes drawing the conclusion she makes hard to do.
It’s a very repetitive argument that goes like this: MeToo said we have to be easily offended, so why is everyone surprised this guy was offended? Conversely, if you want to argue that the subway should be a place of tolerance (or at least ambivalence) to even the greatest social transgressions, then quit getting so mad at old inappropriate white guys in the office.
The problem with conflating MeToo-at-the-office with the-schizophrenic-in-the-Subway scenarios is that Penny was likely never part of MeToo so to cast him as a MeToo Warrior is a poetic truth at best. He is however a man who was trained to defend his country so he stepped up when things escalated and a tragedy was the result.
The more salient issue to me is how Neely and so many other vulnerable homeless mentally ill individuals are free not only to hurt others but to be hurt by others. And layered over that is a different hypocrisy - not the MeToo inconsistencies but the very real fact that laws apply differently to different people. In the Intersectional Olympics, if you’re in the “victim category” you can do no wrong. And if you’re in the “aggressor category” you can do no right.
That to me is a much scarier place to be than who gets offended by a handsy boss. It’s made the subway a lot scarier too.
Wow! This is the best comment and sums it up perfectly:
"In the Intersectional Olympics, if you’re in the “victim category” you can do no wrong. And if you’re in the “aggressor category” you can do no right."
Great comment Shirley - completely agree. If the marine was black and the lunatic was white we wouldn't even be talking about this. The progressive mindset is similar to a mountain outhouse - a black hole that smells terrible.
I think this piece is written by a progressive for other progressives. Saying it's hypocrisy to be 100% offended during MeToo and 0% offended by actual danger. Something silly like that. The sort of argument that the Right sees instantly bc it's obvious & we don't need word salad to say what we mean. Neely was a threat to society and to himself; NYC did nothing for him but let him roam freely, endangering others; Penny sees a dangerous situation & steps in to protect others; Neely dies, Penny is arrested. Only in NY & CA would this happen and thank God I don't live in either state. The Left's positions on everything require that you believe lies & reject reality------this has always been true.
The point was to illustrate how women won't put up with any kind of true or perceived threat in the office, violent or not, but don't seem to be all that grateful for a defense against a seriously menacing threat on the subway. I thought it was a very good point to make.
It isn’t clear to me how Kat Rosenfeld feels about the actions Daniel Penny took on May 1. It seems she can’t decide whether men should simply avert eye contact while she is “groped, flashed, or… ejaculated on” by another man or risk becoming a “vigilante” by physically interceding when she and others are menaced by a psychopath. If there is a line somewhere between the two, she doesn’t say. Maybe her “sensitivity” to the issue prevents her from providing clarity. Not exactly a profile in courage, and therein, it seems to me, is the problem. For any man who was raised right, and any woman not cowed by feminized weenies like Ezra Klein who are determined to emasculate men, both are wrong. Maybe the next time she is ejaculated on things will become clearer.
PARDON ME KTON I'M ONLY ALLOWED TO POST IN "REPLY". MY COMMENTS BOX IS BLOCKED.
Responsible moral/social intervention in a dangerous situation demonstrating personal agency, stewardship and empowerment can not be tolerated. Especially if the citizen is a man. All citizens are required to stand tail tucked, eyes downcast, submissive and fearful. Or, risk a ball gagging, life destroying de-platforming cancellation .Unless of course, you are a fascist anti-fascist acting in service to the toxic feminist D.E.I. commissariat that fronts for the DNC/CCP/WEF juggernaut. Then you can loot burn and murder at will. Chaos and societal disintegration serves the totalitarian surveillance state. It's only one intentional outcome of the psyop. Last year a woman riding the subway was assaulted and raped as her fellow passengers sat and passively tried to "avoid making eye contact". Mr. Penny is a threat to the weaponized lie that has subsumed our lives. The woke DNC/CCP/WEF juggernaut has no moral center.
Toxic feminism (now the D.E.I. commissariat) has long and profitably worked hand in hand with the world capitalist totalitarians waging the class war that has looted the American economy, gutted its industrial base, suppressed wages and continues to strip the dignity away from everyday American life. The hateful misandrists, many of whom called for the open murder/castration of men, funded by totalitarian capital, were able to move forward with their plans to capture and poison the American national dialogue, destroy the family, launch a war to drug and destroy boys, criminalize and remove fathers from the home, reduce education to Marxist indoctrination and ultimately make speech and thought criminal acts. Their dystopian sterility and success is apparent in their ability to de-humanize language and declare the words "mother", "father", "man" and "woman" abusive and dangerous. I'm sure they find great glee in the Dylan Mulvaney spectacle and the castrations being performed by Boston "CHILDRENS" Hospital.
There is a line in the sand drawn by a lie. The lie has no moral center or legitimacy. It represents the lowest common denominator pay me venality. Its inhabitant's are the definition of narcissistic hubris and avarice. The Constitution remains our only legitimate engine of survival.
You’d think a god would be able to do something about that. Especially when people, including children and babies, are suffering and dying. But hey, not one of our 10,000 gods stepped in to stop the Crusades or the Holocaust or the Killing Fields of Cambodia or the Inquisition. Or childhood leukaemia, for that matter. Let alone pedophilia. I guess we just need to worship more? (Like during the Crusades and the Holocaust and the Inquisition-- when God was everywhere and church attendance was way up!) Thanks for the tip!
"MeToo" was before "Trans rights are human rights"/ "Trans is the Civil Rights movement of our time"/"Trans Day of Vengeance". Women and girls no longer matter. Take their sports, make money off of them with barbaric "Trans Medicine"...
And, I'm still waiting to read the Audrey Hale Manifesto.
"If you argue that a woman can be traumatized by bawdy humor in the office or awkward come-ons in a bar, surely you would agree that she’s entitled to be fearful when trapped underground on a metal tube with an erratically behaving stranger twice her size."
Is she entitled to be fearful with intact men in the ladies room and in women's prisons?
I think fundamentally it is about the mentality of MeToo/Progressive thought and how it on the one hand will brook no acceptance for verbal slights and awkward behavior that in any way make women feel uncomfortable and must be punished with loss of job or cancellation, but on the other is willing to not only accept truly threatening behavior but to condemn a man who steps in and provides protection against that threatening behavior.
Its about the idea that if every single behavior by men that is in anyway perceived by women as being uncomfortable or sexist, if words can cause trauma, and that these behaviors MUST be punished, why do they then tolerate the risk of real trauma and real potential danger and condemn a man who stands up to protect them.
In other words, if every perceived social transgression must result in punishment, then why excuse real world, physical threats? If you are going to insist on punishment for any perceived transgression, that you must be VIGILANT in monitoring for them and punishing them, then you can expect to create VIGILANTES, whether they are online and seeking to destroy a career or if they will hold down a homeless, mentally ill man.
I also think it is about questioning what things in life we need to tolerate and what we actually need to stand up to. Where do we just need to be resilient and where do we need to actually take action.
“if words can cause trauma, and that these behaviors MUST be punished, why do they then tolerate the risk of real trauma and real potential danger and condemn a man who stands up to protect them?”
To be perfectly honest, I do not think it is men they actually hate. I think they hate themselves and they hate the stress that they put on themselves. I think they look at men for two reasons. First, they do not see us stressing in the same ways and second because it is always easier to look outward at "the other" as the source of your misery, it allows you to be angry instead of depressed.
First wave feminism, in the days of women not being able to even have a CC in their own name etc, made a whole lot of moral sense. This was genuinely righteous rage. Where things went off the rails is with second wave feminism and its determination that women MUST turn away from anything remotely related to a traditional gender role and MUST shoot for the high level career and that this was the only path to happiness and fulfillment. What they never allowed for was two things. First, that women may choose careers but that those careers are not always the ones that are high paying. Second, that feminism or no, women still want children and a home and those two things collide with the high powered feminist vision. Plus, I think women began to find out what men already knew, that work and career are not nearly as satisfying as they thought and being a provider is stressful. Yes, being a stay at home mom can be stressful and hard work, but at least you are taking care of your own and not other peoples needs and you do not have to worry that a bad day at the office can mean you do not have an income or healthcare for your kids. Lot more satisfaction from teaching your kid to read than in getting that last report written.
So, I think women today are miserable because they face a series of impossible or miserable choices. They can live up to the feminist ideal of career and independence or they can choose to have a family and risk some level of dependence and criticism from their feminist sisters. Then, look at the dating situation young women face. The sexual revolution gave women a lot of choices. The pill and the push back against slut shaming quite literally encouraged women to engage in sexual encounters the way they thought men did, even if it was a small subset of men. Going to a bar and getting laid has not exactly been as fulfilling as they thought that was gonna be. The list goes on and on. It even includes being encouraged to expect unreasonable things from men or they are to be ashamed for "settling". They have insane social pressures about how to live their lives and how to look etc. that are impossible to meet and often do not really want. The sad thing is that most of those pressures are imposed, not by men, but by themselves and their female peers.
But, as I said, it is easier to be angry at an outside force than to be sad or depressed about forces you actually control or the expectations of your peer group.
Good points. On the dating thing though my understanding is that they try to meet on dating apps and the desirable men (good-looking with income and assets) are apex there. Which disrupts the age-old phenomena of many men competing for the desirable woman and replaces it with a harem culture of sorts. And it also leaves many young men out in the cold completely.
As a woman who came of age during first wave feminism and lived through the second wave, I agree with you 100%. I have often wished I could go back and tell my younger self “no, you can’t have it all. No one can, not even men. Make choices for your life or those choices will be made by default.” I would add the final irony: that we women were betrayed by the very women’s organizations that purportedly represented us, when they sacrificed us on the altar of Democrat politics during the Clinton administration.
A good friend of mine told me that she felt like she got mislead on a lot of things, or at least given bad advice by people with an agenda. One of those was that she could put off having kids until her career was set. Well, as most of us find out, careers are almost never set, particularly in this economy. She put off getting married until her mid 30's and then wanted a couple of years of marriage before trying to have a baby. Well, at 39 she decided it was time. After a lot of heartbreak and money spent, they never did have a child. They gave up and went with 3 dogs.
Now, she is not a miserable person by any means, but there is a sadness to her sometimes. We have been friends for 30 yrs, I can read her like a book.
It is not fair, if fair is the right word, but why God or Mother Nature, take your pick, decided that a 15 yr old girl can get pregnant seemingly by just looking at her boyfriend and a 35 yr old adult woman has to struggle, I just do not know. But fair or not, ( the old adage about fair having nothing to do with anything comes to mind) it is what it is.
I dunno, but it seems to me that we need to find a better way. We cannot ask women to give up a career for all of their adult life because they chose to have a child when their bodies were still in high gear for it, but neither do we want them to have to sacrifice being mothers. Nor should any couple have to go through what my friend and her husband did, all that time, all that money, all the sacrifice. Even at the societal level we need children. We need a new way of looking at people and at how careers are started and we need to find ways that allow people to carry on a career and be a parent.
What a sad story, and one that happened to countless women in my generation. I think part of the agenda was to show women that we didn’t have to depend on a man financially, and part was to move women into college and out into white-collar careers, the vanguard of a huge societal change. It was only later we learned that Mother Nature will not be defied (something we apparently need to relearn today). Our bodies are governed by ancient rules, one being that a woman’s ability to conceive naturally drops precipitously at a pretty young age, 30-35. That made sense when the average lifespan was 40, not so much now. But it’s a reality we can’t ignore so, if a woman desires both a family and a career, we as a society have to make space for that. It would require, in my opinion, a major change in attitude towards the job of having children and raising a family. It’s of great benefit to society and deserves at least as much respect as any other job. Anyone who doesn’t think so has never tried it! Perhaps we need to consider ways of compensating women who opt to delay a career and have a family first. Other governments - Hungary comes to mind - are experimenting with family-friendly policies like this.
Thank you for explaining this succinctly to the folks who can't see through their own ideology and understand what is a really interesting take on this case. Funny, that it is mainly aimed at the "me too" activists, but the right wing ideologues have the most issue with it????????
Dave & Pemulis, yes BOTH sides are guilty as charged, when it comes to the extremest (Right & Left). However, I believe most people fall into this huge swath of middlers just Right & Left of middle. Hence why TFP appeals to us.
The sad fact about this entire situation is Neely being the victim and Penny the murderer. (The Left looking for another George Floyd?!).
Because Neely was Black, with a long criminal record, “He was a victim of this racist society! If you don’t recognize this then you must be racist, too!” And, “ Penny is a WHITE Marine! Well, say no more! Lock that racist, vigilante up for murder!”
Although I mainly live in Texas, I own a condo in Brooklyn Heights and am well aware of the too many indigent, mentally ill people that roam the streets and ride the subway there.
No, not all are Black, menacing and threatening with criminal rap sheets. Neely, like Floyd, was!
Also, regardless of Penny being a Marine he, WITH HELP from 2 other men, held Neely down, while repeatedly asking people to, “Call police! Call 911!”
It is unfortunate Neely died, but to think Penny (or the others) murdered him intentionally is absurd! In fact, watch the videos, if the other 2 men had not helped Penny hold him down, then it’s clear Neely would have put up a much bigger fight to possibly break free. He was kicking and punching, and Penny needed help subduing him. When adrenaline is surging, you tend to have some almost superhuman strength.
After taking their reports, even the police said no crime had been committed, and let Penny go home.
Most right wing "idealogues" have been making these points for years. Hearing a liberal supposedly calling out the Left while actually just making a vague "both sides" argument instead is what frustrates us.
That MeToo makes it so that women see ordinary men as dangerous predators lurking around every corner while at the same time creating a society that is increasingly violent. That woke people claim to be bleeding hearts for vulnerable populations while ignoring every real problem facing and eminating from those communities. Funny how you and this author try to pin this on "me too activists" when it is actually stemming 100% from the liberal tribe
So, the me too movement may see men as inherently dangerous (that's hyperbole by the way), but they aren't creating a society that is violent. While I would generally agree with you that liberals, in general, downplay violence within vulnerable societies, right wing groups exaggerate the violence and for example want to fill prisons with non-violent drug abusers. I have been critical of both sides myself. And don't pretend that the current liberal and conservative positions aren't further into the opposing ends than before leaving those of us in the middle, so to speak, left out.
They will accept awkward behavior that makes a woman feel uncomfortable - a man who believes he's a woman disrobing and displaying his genitalia in a woman's locker room. This is a feature not a bug of the system. For the left, it's all about the intersectional hierarchy.
If you know that a drunk driver is going to crash into another car and you can’t stop it, in that case, given the guaranteed shitty outcome, you are just hoping they crash into another drunk driver instead of the mother driving to church with her three kids.
Same thing here. Democrats institute intentionally destructive policy, emptying the prisons and coddling the psychotic, and all you can do is hope that the victims are Democrats.
We would all prefer zero victims but unfortunately half of the country is comprised of pagan collectivist scumbags whose only chance to feel virtuous, since they hate God and truth and reality, is to be catastrophically tolerant in a way that is so deranged you often can’t describe it.
Kevin Durant? is giving Bruce Miller a run for his money over here....."pagan collectivist scumbags" LOL. I may need to start making a bingo card of your choice descriptors to add to my enjoyment here!
"Collectivist scumbags" I could go with. The "left" have always been Judeo-Xtians in drag though, whatever the blend. Pagans weren't and aren't terribly good at collectivism; this is mostly why barking wibble won out over them in the Fourth Century and looks like doing again today.
Speaking of drag, yesterday morning on the CBC a drag queen was interviewed and accidentally admitted that drag queens reading to children, "doesn't have to be sexual," revealing the opposite.
This is simple manslaughter. He did kill the guy, but accidentally. The fact that it got to that, though, was a clear indication the System failed. If you let lunatics run the streets, bad things happen. This is such a simple truth that you have to be a left wing lunatic to fail to grasp it. Order has value. Chaos is only funny if you are young, strong, and don't care about anything or anyone.
And I will add that I did martial arts for a long time, and we practiced chokes a lot. Our instructor was always very careful to tell us not to choke anyone too long. It's hard to tell when somebody goes out. Many cops have gone to jail for the same thing, which is why many departments stopped using choke holds.
But you have to admit that all the rules go out the window in real violent situations. Plus Penny was not a cop. And the real cops were nowhere to be seen for 15 minutes or more. Plus one who has practiced martial arts, you know well that many moves used in a street encounter can accidentally kill. Even a blow that causes an assailant to hit the floor can kill. And Bragg still would prosecute. Penny. Or you. Or me.
I think Bragg is a political animal and functionally an agent of lawlessness, chaos and unnecessary death. Having said that, how long did he hold the choke hold? We were taught—and this was to increase our odds if winning the battle with the law—to hold no more than thirty seconds or so, or when they went limp. If you are in a good position you can then apply it again if they start struggling again.
I get the fog of war, but having a solid choke on someone with no other combatants present is a really really goid place to be.
I do my best simply to state the truth as I see it, and thats how I see it. The situation was created by a broken system but somebody is still dead.
A "somebody" who had over 40 arrests and whose actions easily could have killed someone several times. Sorry but I have to deal with this lunacy and chaos on a daily basis. So I have zero sympathy for Neely and a ton of respect for Daniel Penny. Dealing with things in a martial arts class is way different from the spontaneous fear and panic that can - and does - erupt when one of these ranting vagrants suddenly spirals out of control. The marquis of Queensbury rules do not and cannot apply. Otherwise you could be the one dead. Daniel Penny should not have been arrested.
You have the right to your opinion. I simply disagree. That does not mean we cannot agree on the obvious fact that the Left is trying to bring back the worst periods of the past 50 years, and succeeding. And of course whenever they "succeed" they lie about it as long as they can. Breaking things and lying about it is pretty much the whole scope of their work.
You're right, of course. We conservatives often disagree, which makes it fun to be us instead of the leftists with their dreary orthodoxy. And the important thing is that we agree on the big picture of liberty, free speech, the Constitution and personal responsibility. Apologies if I was too aggressive.
Right. If you're behind your opponent (choke hold) you can get him to the ground, and then you control that situation for as long as you need to. No reason to keep the choke.
We never took them to the ground if we could help it. But the principle is the same. If you've done it correctly they are not getting out, so you have time.
I do not think it is that clear. Penny was on his back, Neely was on top of him and two other people were interacting with Neely. Could those interactions caused movements Perry misinterpreted? Also reportedly Neely drew breath after being released. Plus the use of deadly force in defense of self or others is usually allowed. If for example Perry stabbed Neely in self-defense and he died, would anyone argue that the stab was too deep?
We're all guessing. But in America Penny is entitled to a presumption of innocence and to be convicted only on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Will he get that in New York? You tell me. Looks to me like Democrat pols such as AOC and the NYC Council have already concluded he's guilty of "Murder!" Can he possibly get a fair trial in NYC? Doubtful.
A lot of the time the devil is in the details. I honestly have not educated myself on the specifics, and if I were being more careful than in the event I was, would have remained judiciously silent.
It can be generally posited, though, that the chances of the media reporting honestly on any event where they've taking an ideological position is zero. This applies if they are trying to indict an innocent person, or exonerate a patently guilty one. Noise fills the air, and following noisy but ignorant opinions, which is just how the people running all this like it.
Penny put himself, either intentionally or not, in a very vulnerable situation. I believe Penny acted with extreme bravery, but he was physically capable of controlling Neely more effectively. Unfortunately, once Neely was on top of Penny, instead of the other way around, it would have been very difficult for Penny to get control of the situation. I can't imagine Marines are trained to fight people like that.
That makes sense. I have heard that the training thing is overblown. If he was justified in the use of deadly force though, the rest should not matter.
Agree with you that Penny acted with bravery and perhaps impulsively rather than setting the situation where he could have had more leverage. It is also possible that a person having a psychic episode or on drugs are very strong because in that moment(s) their body has no pain feedback.
And what happens when the martial artist rubber hits the road? The street fighter wins. Sport is not reality; you are going to die very quickly if you think otherwise.
The argument seems to be, correctly, that the left’s reaction to any threat rises in inverse proportion to its seriousness. Oh, and the standard gratuitous and lazy swipe at the “right” (meaning normal people) for being correct but having impure emotions (gleefulness).
Centrist argument claiming that it is both understandable and sad that a man died. Is that confusing?
The argument is mostly that the left is hypocritical for worshiping and defending victimhood in one case (“poor, poor white snowflake gender-fluid gen-z employees at the Times who endured a questionable joke from a white guy!--kill the bastard! Or at least his whole career!”) vs shrugging off the victimhood of subway riding women who genuinely feel unsafe (“meh, he’s black--let him threaten you, he’s earned the right from 400 years of oppression--your actual safety isn’t that important). Viola, hypocrisy! Viola, a blog post!
This author is failing to account for the left’s rapidly shifting hierarchy of values. True, during MeToo women had their 5 minutes of sympathy: “isn’t it horrible to learn how many women have endured truly awful treatment at the hands of sexist, violent, brutish men?”
But that moment is over. “Women” are no longer that high up the oppression food chain. In fact, use of the word “woman” or arguing that “women” feel unsafe is just more evidence of binary (outdated) thinking, ie., unenlightened bigotry. (White) women’s tears are responsible for more lynchings than the holocaust. No one feels sorry for women any more. Duh. If you want real sympathy you have to be a man (dressed as a woman).
Now, if Penny can show that he was defending the safety of a TRANSWOMAN (preferably black) THEN he would be a hero. Except still military and white and with that toxic mustache, ew--men! Gross!
Thank you- I was about to say something similar. I’ve not heard any glee on the right- everyone acknowledges that this was tragic, but that the blame lies with the government of the City of New York, defunding police, and other woke menaces.
This is media-fueled nonsense. The NYC police aren't "defunded"--more than 3,000 transit cops alone were ADDED in the past year. The problem is their deployment. They are all outside the stations, with a few on the platforms. None are patrolling the subways themselves, which could have prevented this disaster.
The author missed a great chance to really nail this when she brought in the Right. By and large, the Right has been consistent in condemning violence. The two sides she started with - I'd call them the fashionista Left and the feminist Left - do have very different views, as she described. However, because BLM and transgenderism are the Left's current fads, the fashionistas have more or less abandoned traditional feminism. To me that's the real story here. Neither the Right or traditional feminists have really changed their outlooks. And I dare say most on the Right now have more in common with traditional feminists than the fashionistas do.
Exactly. Everyone I know on the right condemned the Jan 6 riot. It was not an insurrection, but it was extreme civil disobedience and if we don't tolerate it from BLM we shouldn't tolerate from our own. Personally, I no longer hold myself to such standards of consistency. The Left runs the game and they expect us to play be outdated rules.
it is hard to discern what point she is trying to make. Something about the consequences of wealthy white women policing for language instead of violent criminal behaviour ?
What happened in the subway doesn’t even meet the definition of vigilante.
I am sure Daniel Penny wishes he arrived on that subway platform 10 minutes later & he would have avoided all of this.
Progressives are complete nihilists. They are children, who magically believe a sandwich and an apartment cure violent schizophrenia and drug addiction. Ensuring the safety of women on the subway used to be a societal norm, not an ideological agenda item.
The moment we were bullied into accepting people defecating on the sidewalks, like it was a slit trench in a 3rd world country, is when we all had anarchy forced into our lives.
The NYT’s is no longer a reputable paper. When the Times returns the Pulitzer they won spreading the false Russiagate hoax, perhaps they will start to rehab their reputation. Until then, one must assume they are merely pandering to their UES & UWS, NYC subscriber base
I thought the same thing. I don't know of any Republican, have not seen anything written by someone on the right, that "gleefully" claimed that Neely had it coming. There ALWAYS has to be some criticism of the right, even if one is clearly not warranted.
I'm on the right. It's not an "argument" to note that there are excesses on the right; it's an observation.
Neither you nor many of the Replies here have read the piece carefully. You are fixating on the obligatory "To-be-sure" blurb ALWAYS present in any such commentary. On balance, it is squarely opposed to progressive shibboleths. Take the win.
I could take it much easier without being falsely accused of taking joy from the death of a clearly unfortunate person. I am bone weary of that tripe. It not only diminishes the author's credibility in my eyes it absolutely establishes the contempt she and her kind have for me and my kind. Justify that as you will.
I subscribe to the Free Press because THEY are bone weary of the binary.
I disagree with Bari Weiss on any number of things. But we share some common ground between the extremes.
And I can appreciate the gist of Kat Rosenfield's piece without getting distracted by her mention of obvious excesses on my side of the issue. You don't take joy in how this has all gone down. Neither do I. Some on my side do. Shame on them. I'm not them.
It would not be hard to condemn that behavior if were true. The author said Republicans - as in all Republicans - gleefully thinking Mr. Neely deserved what he got. That is patently untrue. And her thought process and behavior makes things worse. As does ignoring that it is being said and done. Kumbaya is not an effective strategy with people who malign you at every turn.
No, NOT "as in all Republicans". There's no article. In English, "Republicans [without an article]..." CAN mean "all Republicans," and that is how you (obviously) choose to interpret it.
But it can also mean "some" Republicans.
Consider this Twitter poll: "Did Jordan Neely deserve what happened to him?"
"No, it was murder" 32.1%
"Yes, he had it coming" 67.9%
Now, you might agree with me that only a fool would take a poll with those two answers. But 168,000 people responded, total. So.
So. That is not a masterful parsing of the language. She said Republicans. Your suggestion it would only mean all Republicans if she used "the" is inaccurate as the is singular and she used the plural. If you don't understand that the statement is rightfully offensive to about half the population I cannot explain it to you. As for your Twiitter "poll" that is likewise useless. Poll of whom? Even if it was supposed to be Republicans (which I doubt) how would you verify it? Some Democrats have been known to vote in Republican races to sway things so some would certainly do so in a Twitter poll. Personally not only do I think responding to such a poll is foolish, I also think Twitter period is pretty foolish. But many so-called journalists rely on it as source material too.
What, exactly, is the obvious excess on the right in this case? That most of us were right about the threat posed by the “victim”? Seriously, you keep just mindlessly saying “both sides” and then expect us to take it as a compliment
Pointing out what Republicans have been saying for years while at the same time dismissing Republicans as "gleeful" in saying so is not squarely opposing the Left. I'm good without Liberal's handing me such a condescending "win", thanks anyways.
The biggest problem for the Left (Democrats) in this country is that the Right is usually right. When Biden claims "white supremacists" are the biggest threat, he really means anyone that doesn't believe Democrat bullshit.
The headline of this piece says it all: The FP team just can't bring themselves to declare what is obvious. Old prejudices die hard.
While I have seen a couple of comments, in sections such as this, from people ostensibly on the right perhaps "gleefully" claiming that Neely had it coming, I have not read anything of that sort in an actual article. The vast majority of what I've read "from the right" has argued that Neely was a known danger to public and never should have been on the subway in the first place.
I think the point the author is trying to make is that those same talking points (i.e., Penny had the right to step in and try to defuse the situation or keep other passengers safe) can be made in a more compassionate way than merely saying Neely was a danger to society and had it coming. The mental health system in America has degraded since the villainization of mental health institutions, and people like Neely are left to fend for themselves; they have the tools available that someone with a rational mind could utilize, but people in his mental state may not be thinking rationally. It’s the failure of a system (possibly coupled with some poor choices) that resulted in a tragic situation where one man died on the floor of a grimy subway car, and another is being prosecuted and persecuted for trying to do the right thing. Overarching point, I think, is that we could all afford to show a little more compassion and think about things in a more nuanced way.
I have yet to hear anyone say Neely had it coming. The problem is with people who interpret Neely had 42 arrests, had walked out of treatment, and did not otherwise accept help as thinking he deserved to die. What kind of person thinks like that? What kind of person blithely assumes that is the Republican position? The answer is a smug, arrogant and ignorant person. Or group of people.
Distinction without a difference. You put rabid dogs down and stuff your feels; we've had enough of them. Taking notice of your feels has achieved what exactly? Precisely. Now do one. End of.
No feels here, just replying to OP with my thoughts on the question he asked. Is your comment suggesting that instead of trying to help people suffering from mental health issues, society should just euthanize them?
I cannot answer for him, but actually Steven knows that whereof he speaks as he has previously acknowledged his own mental health issues and has discussed, in a limited fashion, his issues with treatment.
I think that’s an appropriate general rule, but every good general rule needs exceptions, and a good exception to that general rule would be if someone is at risk of harming others.
When they have a record like Neely of harm whether to others or self, their ability to have the right to decide about treatment should be very limited.
Sorry. When I wrote "Neely and others" the implication was that Neely and others like him are that population that do harm to themselves and others.
Neely needed a place that would help him. He had threatened his family so it wasn't his home. It wasn't the streets and probably he would not be safe in a general prison population.
The objection to CARE by "mental health advocates" would have empowered those who are a danger to themsleves and others to walk away from treatment. There are similar advocates in NYC. The CARE laws are very restrictive and are far from a Martin Niemoller moment. When you look at any major city in CA or at NYC, there is a need for the laws that support people to climb out from the spiral of mental illness so they don't harm themselves or others.
OK, let’s play it out. Suggest a more nuanced version of what should have happened. But for each possible scenario, tell us how likely you think that one was to have happened.
An example would be that we seriously consider bringing back institutionalized mental health treatment. So, in that version, Neely would have been hospitalized during his last interaction with mental health/social workers (I believe it was at the Coney Island subway station?) and Penny wouldn’t have found himself in a situation where he felt like he needed to act to protect himself and/or others on that subway car. Regardless of what happened to Neely, none of the liberal or conservative talking points seem to be primarily focused on a solution; just more political rhetoric that gets each party’s base riled up.
I am 100% in favor of bringing back institutionalized mental health treatment, as are most people on the right. It protects the mentally ill person, their families, and society at large. Win-win-win. But this isn't a "real" example bc that type of care has been gone for decades and likely isn't coming back. A real example would be a) 5 men corner Neely, who quits raving with the show of force & the police arrive, b) the subway police are present to begin with & incident doesn't occur, c) Neely attacks & mauls a woman & Penny isn't there to help, d) Bragg himself is on the train, Neely attacks him, he is hospitalized & has to resign, NY wins!
This Republican is a staunch supporter of involuntary commitment. But FWIW, although I am not familiar with the specifics of NY law, I bet dollars to donuts that a family member or other who cared about him could have obtained a guardianship and hospitalized him.
You have to have a knowledge about guardianship and how to file it. Wondering if at any of the police, attorney, etc. ever pulled the family aside and talked about guardianship for the mentally ill. (Assuming that somewhere in court or in custody, there were strong indications that he was struggling with mental illness.)
There are many tragedies where laws or access are changed so that similar tragedies do not occur. May Al Sharpton donate his time to make information available about how to file for guardianship so other families are not suffering as the Neelys are.
It can be costly. And there are usually annual reports. But it looks to.me like maybe this would be a good thing for people to get assistance on. There are legal non-profits for almost everything. Why not this? Even if the ward is destitute a guardian can file the paperwork for medicaid and other benefits.
Since I read this so-called “brilliant piece” six or so hours ago, I have pondered with increasing confusion the author’s argument. I have finally concluded that its point, based upon the situations it describes (e.g., intolerance demanded towards an undesired would-be suitor “sliding’ into a women’s DMs - although I have no idea what that is - versus the tolerance demanded for a deviant ejaculating on a woman in a crowded subway car), is, sadly and for the most part, as clear as black and white.
“Malicious glee”? You can fuck right off. This was a sad situation but this young man acted bravely in the face of a dangerous situation. He should be celebrated not indicted. The “mental health system” should be indicted.
Sixty years ago there were ten times as many people in institutions per capita as there are today. The residents of these institutions were portrayed in media in many horror and crime films as extremely dangerous and this was generally accepted to be true. Now, we have higher rates of mental illness but the same sector of society freely roams the streets, and we are somehow surprised that they can be violent and threatening.
We traded off the problem of disgusting abuses perpetrated by those in charge of the mental institutions with a problem of freely acting dangerous mentally ill people.
I think both parties in congress think it's fine, not just the woke left. This is a bipartisan failure, but the Washington DC country club is too busy with insider trading and starting foundations to launder foreign money to care about Americans who need help.
I sometimes think the Right has a branding problem that they just stubbornly refuse to correct. They willingly cede the ground of compassion to the Left, which hypocritically milk it for all its worth. How did the Right get stuck with "Don't Say Gay" when it's not even true at all, and the conservatives are literally taking common sense measures to safeguard kids 3rd grade and under (until the recent change of the bill? How did all their work of protecting women and children end up being branded as "Anti-Trans", with no right wing counter message of the left being anti-women and anti-children? It really baffles me. It's like the right is afraid to upset the base with even the slightest allusion to words that would show their more compassionate side. They just let the Left run away with it all, and sheeples who don't look deeper just hear these messages and their views are colored that way. To that extent, it's the right's own fault.
The answer to this is the MEDIA. It's not that the Right has a problem defending themselves, they defend themselves constantly, they're just not heard. If 95% of the media-verse screams the Right means "don't say gay," the bulk of the public only sees MSM & they believe it. The Left is dependent on the ideologically stupid vote (progressives) and the uneducated vote.
Correct, and the Media is just Democrats unabashedly acting on their personal biases. KellyAnne Conway was on CNN (I think it was Amanpour) complaining about the Media collusion to crush the Hunter Biden story, and the host told her straight out, "We're not helping you with your messaging."
That doesn't explain why the Right doesn't brand their initiatives better in right wing media to counter the Left's. No branded messages ever come out from right wing media that ever sounds caring of people. They always sound combative. Their base loves that I guess. But to a lot of regular people not hyper political, they appear mean and heartless.
The problem is there isn't much right wing media in which the Right can do their branding.....really hard to get a message out that isn't instantly twisted & lied about. So the Left ignores what the Right actually says & does & when the Right objects, they just do it some more. I guarandamntee you the Right cares far,far more about the country & all of its citizens than the soul-killing Left----they just emote a lot so people won't get their feelings hurt while they drive all of us over the cliff. The Left governs with their emotions & that's very dangerous. Give me a pragmatist who can govern any day. Where do you propose the Right crafts their messaging? Fox? That's one network in the face of many, many more Left outlets. Reading Substack?----yes, but this is a small reach to dedicated readers. It's not exactly the Today Show. P.s."mean & heartless" is exactly what the Left wants you to think. That's why they send that message a lot.
Thanks to a string of almost all Democratic politicians—the compassionate party!—we have an unprecedented mental health crisis. Please run an article about where the very large sum of money given to DeBlasio’s wife to deal with this issue went to.
I saw that too. It's so sad that progressives can't see the malice that lies at the heart of their failed outcomes. Their failed schools, their failed crime policies, their destruction of the black family thru project housing. When you love someone, you want the best for them. This ain't it.
Malicious glee and if a person is attack it is because they made eye contact, looked too long, or weren't respectful. Where do these idiots come up with logical rules for a situation that occurs because the aggressor is not logical?!
I have listened to several right leaning commentators and never once did I witness anything approaching "malicious glee". I heard lamenting about the tragedy of such a death and frustration that this type of situation had occurred in the first place. The FP can't seem to get out of its own way at taking every opportunity for the cheap shot against the right.
Yes. How about naming the people on the right expressing glee? Can't? Then stop with the straw man to try to seem even handed. Just condemn the left's terrible policies that lead to tragedy and their hypocritical response to it.
I have to agree. I followed the link to the one example the author cited and it was... a YouTube clip of a musical number from the movie Chicago. That’s a Substack sleight-of-hand.
Lost in the inevitably reductionist attempt to jam everything into a political binary is the fairly obvious fact that the man who killed Neely did so accidentally, and that it was the kind of accident that arose from a valorous attempt to make everyone more secure, including, tragically, Jordan Neely himself.
This is exactly what is happening all over the US: Lost in the inevitably reductionist attempt to jam everything into a political binary is the fairly obvious fact that the man who killed Neely did so accidentally, and that it was the kind of accident that arose from a valorous attempt to make everyone more secure, including, tragically, Jordan Neely himself.
This event is a microcosm of nearly every major left/right assumption on a multitude of issues from violence to mental illness to immigration to education to social issues. For every event there is a complex story of a human life, full of good choices and bad, opportunities and limitations. To force the left/right binary on complicated stories only causes further division.
While these unnamed Republicans are “expressing glee” (according to the author), AOC and Alvin Bragg are striking their usual self-righteous pose. Both of these crusaders would need a change of underwear if they were ever confronted with the danger the subway passengers were that day.
Sadly, I may follow suit. I do enjoy the commentary, but the articles themselves far too often go out of their way to try to present some both-sides argument and simultaneously ignore the elephant in the room.
Kat Rosenfield, meanwhile, has written a brilliant piece for UnHerd that explores our collective hypocrisy over different types of crime, particularly in our post-MeToo era......
"Our collective hypocrisy????" No. The hypocrisy and insanity of the left. Period.
Daniel Perry is a hero. And Neely was not some gentle Michael Jackson mime. He was arrested over 40 times, including sucker punching a 67 year old woman so hard that he broke her orbital bone, nearly killing her. Attacking others and pushing people onto subway tracks and trying to abduct a seven year old girl. New Yorkers are forced to endure violent, foul and highly dangerous vagrants every day. When someone actually reacts - as any sane person would do - the progressive left trots out their paid, racist demonstrators and the odious, rotund little Soros prosecutor charges him with manslaughter. This is lunacy. This is bizarro world. This is a society devolving into chaos and madness. I'd love for a leftist to tell me that Penny is a criminal. I'm so sick of this I might reprise a full "Neely" on them. The defense fund for Mr. Penny is well over $2 million. Many are small contributions of $5 or $10 dollars - demonstrating that America is getting sick of progressives and their hand wringing idiocy.
No, Daniel PENNY is not a hero. He's not a villain either. He's a decent guy trying to do the right thing. He should not have had to do anything, Neely should have been locked up somewhere. Penny made a mistake, which he has acknowledged, and that should be the end of it. Shit happens.
It infuriates me to see the pic with him in cuffs. Unnecessary. Totally theater.
How is he not a hero? He intervened when most New Yorkers simply slink away like cowards. Like when the poor woman was dragged around by her hair or another was raped on a subway platform by a violent vagrant one Sunday morning. New Yorkers filmed it but didn't try to stop it. Disgusting.
It’s difficult to conclude that he is a hero without having more information on Neely’s conduct preceding the intervention. For example, if Neely was an imminent threat to others, and Penny’s actions prevented someone from getting hurt, the hero label may make sense. If he wasn’t, or if the threat was minimal, then the label doesn’t make sense. I’d be interested if there was video footage capturing the time before Neely was restrained. Without the footage, we’re left with eyewitness statements, and based on what I’ve read, that is not enough to say he is a hero (which is a different question than whether he is guilty of manslaughter).
Oh please. When most New Yorkers simply scurry away because they're too afraid to get involved or lock the door like those two "brave" security guards did when a violent vagrant almost beat an elderly woman to death, what Penny did was heroic. It's easy to parse out and second guess a situation long after it's been diffused. You'd both be singing a different song if you were there with your kids and only Penny and the two guys who helped him stood between you and a violent lunatic.
I'm not sure this is any different than living in a country with so many guns in the hands of civilians that it results in 45,000 gun deaths, half of which are murders. This is what some Europeans think is crazy...............
Genuine question -- does Europe have the problem the US does where criminals are actively NOT prosecuted/punished out of some perverted sense of social justice?
The charges are definitely political. Will watch closely at the trial and would bet at this time a conviction is unlikely given his criminal record and the fact that 3 men actually had to hold him down. IMO, this is an accidental death pursuant to aggressive and threatening behavior of the deceased.
By and large an excellent piece. As a member of the “right”, however, I take no glee in the death of Neely. Lots of sadness. Pointing out the problem and saying I told you so isn’t dancing on the grave for most people.
If you had to deal with this shit on a daily basis you might have a different view. No American citizen should be forced to endure this sort of degradation. The deal is we pay taxes for a government that is charged to "ensure domestic tranquility." When it can't or won't the deal is broken. And the government becomes illegitimate. Neely was a violent menace who'd been arrested over 40 times. I really don't care anymore.
That’s exactly what Penny’s attorneys are hoping, that many New Yorkers on this jury will have had enough as well. When I heard Neely s attorneys and family ask why didn’t someone help him or try to speak with him....really, where were you the last ten years of his life? You only want to cry wolf when things go horribly wrong. So incredibly sad.
I was discussing this article with my husband and mentioned the video of the woman being dragged around by her hair. He wasn’t aware of the incident, but I had seen the video and was sickened by the train full of emasculated cowards who sat there and did nothing while she screamed for help. He said it sounded like the Kitty Genovese situation. The irony is that the circumstances of Genovese’s murder were twisted by the media to make the bystanders look more callous than they were, because it told a more compelling story. Here we had *actual video* of people ignoring this woman as she begged for help while being assaulted in front of their eyes...but I don’t remember the story blowing up and provoking outrage among New Yorkers. Too bad there weren’t a bunch of Goody Metoos there, who could have quickly ended the attacker with some mic-drop tweets.
And if Daniel Penny had been there, it would have ended very differently. With the woman saved. But Penny still charged with manslaughter. This is madness. Rewarding indifference and cowardice and punishing bravery and selflessness. How much longer do we put up with this. Bragg needs to be removed.
I wonder how many of the people who now want Penny’s scalp have ever had to fight a schizophrenic criminal. I thank God that I am able to live in rural Georgia, far from the sewer that is NYC.
I think at this point, NYC is one big asylum. I live half an hour away and used to love going in for theater, shopping, music and fine dining. Now…nut jobs in train cars couldn’t drag me there by the hair.
Bruce, you have a lot of great observations, but the Kitty Genovese story about no one intervening has been debunked. And her killer, Winston Moseley, died in prison while serving a life sentence. If anything, those were the good old days when we convicted and punished murderers.
Thanks. But I don't think the Genovese tragedy of indifference was entirely "debunked" although clearly the NY Times's original story was completely exaggerated, as you point out. (And as the Times is wont to do). In the good old days, people knew right from wrong and bravery from cowardice. Today, under Democrat "progressives" every day is Opposite Day. The world turned upside down.
Good point. I guarantee you any one of his loving family members could have obtained a guardianship for him which would have legally entitled the guardian to make decisions on his behalf including a decision to hospitalize him.
I totally agree. There is nothing here to celebrate. I think our marine did what needed to be done because he felt the man was a real threat.
Tragic circumstances and accidents always happen but we must deal with them.
Kneely should have been in a mental hospital so as not to be able to create the situation. A man cannot help being mentally ill and it is up to us as a society to keep him out of situations where he can be dangerous to himself or others..
There should be more cops down there so that a young marine does not have to be put in the situation of choosing to stand by while someone is potentially harmed or stepping in and risking what he is facing now.
Both those men should not have had to be in the situation they were put in or was allowed to be created.
One paid with his life.
The other may pay with a long jail sentence but will absolutely have to pay by living with it, living through a trial and having his character assassinated online.
Perhaps it is the vocal elements: some views on the right expressing a form of glee and some on the left clearly exploiting the tragedy for political purposes, exposing their hypocrisy in the process. I guess I am a member of the "right" as well, and I take no glee either. Very sad. But jailing Penny is not going to make these situations go away.
Do you? I haven’t seen any yet. Why don’t you point out a couple of specific posts so we can see what you’re calling “glee.” Maybe your reading comprehension is just really poor.
"In 2022, for instance, a video did the rounds, of a woman begging for help while a deranged man hauls her around a train car by her hair."
I recall that people were surprised that nobody helped when this happened. But if people (mostly men, one would assume) feel like they might get arrested for doing something, it certainly is a large discouragement. NYC seems to be a place where the authorities won't do anything about the problem, but if the citizens take matters into their own hands they'll get in trouble with the law. How is that fair?
I've only ridden the subway a few times in NYC since Covid, and every single time it's been a shit experience. A man shoved me on the platform for no reason, or it's constant delays and construction. It's become even more atrocious than usual and I avoid it all possible costs.
Nothing is done because largely no one talks about it publicly because to complain about the violence publicly would make one appear as something less than fully woke. There is no telling how far the collective delusion of moder progressivism will take society toward complete lunacy.
It's strange that an off color Tweet can be violence and cause horrible trauma, but a deranged large man threatening people on the subway is fine? I'm not sure that their ideology is completely coherent
Transgressions by the ingroup are no big deal, transgressions by the outgroup demand a response with the full weight of the state behind it, because equity.
As a conservative Republican, I’d like to set the record straight. I’m not gleefully crooning “He Had it Coming.” Society, maybe. Not Neely, who desperately needed help. Where was the family? Church? The police? Oh, right. Canceled.
Jordan Neely went after my 11 year old daughter and I in the subway. I had to physically put myself in between them. He kept yelling that I killed his mother. Luckily a train pulled in where we got on. I stopped him from following us on by putting myself between him and the subway car and screaming at him what would happen if he touched me or tried to get past me. It worked and he did not get on. I was lucky but even though the platform was crowded and the train was full, no one helped me and a transit worker walked past us like it was nothing out of the ordinary because it wasn't.
Yes, Charles, I agree. Aaron should report his experience with Neely to Penny’s defense team; however, wanna bet the Left would say, “Well there you have it - IF ONLY Penny/others on the subway HAD YELLED AT HIM, then he would have stopped”
And there will be more “nothing out of the ordinary “ responses now that NYC has made clear that there are no protections for good Samaritans. I’m so sorry this happened to you and your daughter.
Prosecution of Daniel Penny will make it even less likely that people will get involved when they see a threat to someone else. No one is celebrating Neeley's death but many applaud the courage it takes to confront a threat.
I resent that the author only briefly mentions the 911 calls and the eyewitness accounts. I’m disgusted that she paints a picture of those on the right as “gleefully” celebrating this death. More propaganda designed to divide. No mention of his 42-times arrest record. Meanwhile she’s silent about Arianna Preston. So sick of people sugarcoating the wrong things. I weep for my gender.
“That Neely slipped through the cracks is not the only sign of institutional failure here.”
————————————————————-
He did not “slip through the cracks” unless by “cracks” you mean the very intentional and overtly shitty policy that the psychopathic morons we call ‘Democrats’ have been pushing for five plus decades.
I guess if you change it from “institutional failure” to “intentional failure” then the sentence works okay.
By all means keep voting for these degenerate perverts.
Another happening around the same time as the Neely/Penny subway situation:
A black man (Carlton Gilford) has been charged with fatally shooting two white strangers in the back of the head in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as part of what authorities are calling a racially motivated hate crime. Yes, a black man went hunting for white men and he bagged two of them.
This incident has received very little coverage. Did I miss TFP article, did it even make TGIF? Did Kat Rosenfield cover this story? Did she compare and contrast this story to #MeToo and the BLM movement?
Media coverage (or lack thereof) of the two events is telling, but not unexpected.
I had to search for this, and found a report on Fox News, and reports in the New York Post and an Indian publication called Repulicworld.com, both based on the Fox report. That's all.
I just looked using his name and I see lots of articles. NYP, Newsweek, Daily Mail, even Yahoo News (citing the Fox News story), as well as lots television news stories. This is a link to part of the probable cause adfidavit:
Good training involves increasing your awareness of your surroundings. It’s called situational awareness, SA. For example, when I go to a restaurant or anywhere else out of my home, I always sit facing the door. At a movie theater, I’m in the last row. My wife and my friends know this and they, themselves are aware what I’m doing and why I do it. No one fights me for the seat. This makes them more self-aware, too.
I don't know a single conservative who expressed any enjoyment, let alone glee, at the death of Jordan Neeley. Every single one expressed sadness at a society that has devolved to the point that criminals are celebrated and law-abiding citizens vilified. One where you can tell a progressive that you perceived a "racist dog whistle" in the way someone walked down a sidewalk and they will gasp in horror, but tell them that a homeless drug addict threatened you and they'll tell you that you have no right to feel unsafe because that person is "marginalized".
Just about everything in that dystopian hellscape is upside down. I feel for the millions of normal people there who are just trying to live their lives and are forced to tolerate, forgive and "develop resilience" to the anti social behavior of people who should be off the streets and getting help. Once again, the rights of the many are abandoned to establish a path for the dispossessed.
I usually enjoy these articles, but I felt I had wasted my time on this one when I finally reached the end of the rambling discourse, knowing less about the author's conclusions than I did when I began the marathon.
I can only feel compassion for Mr. Neely's family and for Mr. Penny. As a parent of a son who has gone down that road in another country (thankfully), I am horrified by what my son did in order to go to prison and drug rehab. We had no idea what was going on with him and even if we had, the laws (US) are written so that in the midst of what has been diagnosed as mental illness, we could not have forced him into a rehab mental health facility in the US. I can only barely imagine what Mr. Neely's family is going though. At the same time, Mr. Penny and others appear to have witnessed a situation rapidly spiraling out of control. In that case his training kicked in and he stepped up to protect others in his subway car. I have to say I would have been even more devastated than I am now by my son's situation, if he had permanently injured or killed someone. When people have a mental illness it is not compassionate to leave them on their own to forage for food or to try to find a safe place to sleep on the streets. The compassionate thing would be to take them in to a facility offering help, even against their will. Mr. Penny stepped in to protect a civil society when the state (NYC) failed to do their duty.
I had heard on the Five last night that Daniel Penny's fund was almost 2 million and Neely's fund was "only" 150k. Jessica Tarlov expressed dismay that Neely's family didn't get more money! How much would they need to pay for his final resting place??? They certainly do not need "compensation" for their loss, as they did not have any relationship with him. !! Amazing!
According to Penny's fundraising site the momey's are to be used for both the cri.inal defense and civil matters. So if true they may get some of that money.
Part of that $2+ million raised is for civil suits too. I was dubious about the fundraiser for Penny's defense after what happened with the Rittenhouse funds, but I was reassured by the explanation of what the funds are for.
My co-worker who leans left and I lean right, says it best. In the realm of women's safety from men, it won't stop until the men who are upstanding turn to the friend/coworker/family member/person in society and says, that behavior isn't tolerated and puts them in their place. Women can say stop all day long. But the power of the male peer group is the power. It's like transgender athletes. If men started saying this isn't acceptable and stood on the starting block, the starting line, the field with women, it would end. It seems like the backfiring of the toxic masculinity cry is that men aren't standing up for their female counterparts. We need to stand united to stop the ills of society that ultimately affect all of us, not just a gender class.
There are men standing up for these women. And they get roundly hassled and canceled for their efforts. And lets face it, parts of feminism have been deriding any kind of valor or chivalry for decades.
Men have been told to sit down and shut up for quite a few years now. You can't get too upset when they do what they are told.
I would add that we must start glorifying the idea that men (and women) OF VIRTUE is what is most needed! And, yes, standing up together, not pitting ourselves against one another! Women and children always have and always will suffer in systems where there is a lack of virtue, but I place a good bit of responsibility squarely on the sorely misguided (although well-intentioned) women who insisted that the answer to ill-behaved men was to become more like them AND resent them….all at the same time!
This is BS. There are criminal.laws to keep everyone safe. Especially women. All an unsafe woman has to do is speak up. And there are many resources available to help her do so. I think the problem lies in what unsafe means. Hearing an off- color joke? Hearing something you do not like?
Saying Republicans are gleefully claiming Neely had it coming is just another version of the tired "Republicans pounce" trope used by NYT. Republicans can never just be right, there is always some kind of malicious intent which can be used as an excuse to dismiss what they're saying regardless of the validity. Republicans are not gleeful about being right about woke hypocrisy. In fact, we are really sick of it!
Can someone please state this author's argument in simple terms? That's not a rhetorical question, I genuinely don't get the argument. The Right is wrong because they point out that they were right all along about Neely posing a very real and serious threat to everyone on that train? That Daniel Penny choked out Neely because the Left took MeToo too far?
I never saw the end of this piece coming! I thought 99% of it made sense until the author said the MeToo movement made people act out of intolerance? No, maybe this highly trained Marine knew a situation that was about to escalate, or could escalate since it seems the subway is a place of anything goes, so he stepped in. I guess this is an opinion piece. I enjoyed the Karen in the Park article way back which is what made me a fan of Common Sense and this substack. It had facts and journalism. This is a hypothetical opinion piece?
Please don't make too much of Penny's training. The truth is that anyone with even a minimum of training - or no training, at all - could react to one of these lunatics and kill them accidentally, either with a well placed blow or if they fell into a train or on the tracks. And the result would be precisely the same. If they were white, Bragg would charge them. Because Tom Wolfe presciently predicted that New York would sooner or later devolve into a sewer of racial politics. Created by the very white progressives who now shriek that Penny is a "murderer."
I think the outrage is really about Penny acting with bravery. We're supposed to cower and capitulate; it does the authoritarian Left no good to have uppity marines intervening in the intentional chaos.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The liberal progressives do not want American's to protect themselves, much less stand up for themselves. They want everyone to be in victim status and only the government can help them. Since there wasn't a cop on the train to handle the situation, the masses were supposed to cringe in fear and happily accept the violence that this man wanted to inflict on others, even if that meant that this man was going to kill or maimed them.
We know for a fact that leftists absolutely condone murder as part of an "overall approach" to criminal justice reform: https://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/overdose-death-highlights-deferred-prosecutions-in-milwaukee-county-b99101314z1-224745852.html/
Money quote: "Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into treatment program, who's going to go out and kill somebody?" [Current Milwaukee County District Attorney] John Chisholm said in a 2007 interview with the Journal Sentinel. "You bet. Guaranteed. It's guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach."
Yip absolutely no good!
Some people have the ability to say so much with just a handful of words. I envy that. Well said Mike Eyre. You nailed it.
I will preface my remarks by saying, "I am on the right and I am not gleeful that this deranged man died. The author uses pretty broad bush to libel conservative."
Now on to my comments. If a black ex marine choked out an insane, belligerent white man he would be a hero to the left and in NY he would never be charged. Hell, they might even paint murals of him and name a library after him.
My brush is pretty broad but not as broad as Kat's. I think, my analysis of the left is right on the money.
I think Thiel is right. The left is evil.
Even though I thought the authors 'gleeful' comment was a cheap shot - I for one am truly gleeful that at least one member of the 'huddle masses' decided 'ENOUGH of this bullshit' - and acted. The Michael Jackson impersonator took the loss - but shit happens when you act like an unleashed asshole. Good for Mr. Penny for having the balls to act.
It is sad that every media and political response (and I mean EVERY) response to an event is viewed through the lens of the race/gender/sexual identity of the parties involved. As you mention, reverse the races of the two people and this doesn't even make the local news, let alone national news.......
Well I think military training may have you scan a scene differently than nonmilitary people. And I would not have a clue how to choke hold someone, but I am 5 ft 2 inches so it also is a matter of size, male versus female, and our backgrounds. I do own a gun and think at times, I would not mind concealed carry for my safety. I also respect the power of the weapon and would not want to harm anyone beyond the intended harm. I hope I never need to get to that point of carrying my gun when I am out and about living life. The whole scenario is sad, as I am sure both men didn't wake up thinking this is how my day is going to go today.
If you're on Cape Cod why would you carry? I have a CT carry permit and I never carry. In NYC, however, you will never get a carry permit. Instead you must - on a daily basis - be threatened by violent vagrants, some of whom may carry a knife. Think about it.
There are a lot of drugs in/around Hyannis. I was there on a golf trip in July before Covid, walking back to the hotel from the 19th hole late at night and had a few guys try to mug us (which was dumb as one guy with me was a pro fighter who tried to persuade them to back off). Strangely, plainclothed police were there very quickly and de-escalated things.
"Strangely?" Maybe the police were there because they're allowed to do their jobs. As opposed to the NYPD.
I don't plan on carrying. I would like to have the skills to do so. And hope I never need to. If it comes to that, I will have to find a new place to live. And hope that doesn't happen.
Get yourself a small 380 automatic with a laser sight, load it with hollow points. Go to a shooting range and take lessons on how to use it and follow the old dictum, "If you draw your gun, you intend to use it and if you use it shoot to kill." If you pull your pistol don't be like a bleeding heart Democrat and wring your hands and over analyze the situation. Act!
If you are in a situation where you see danger and feel threatened. split seconds count. Shoot the SOB. The person who acts first usually wins. It takes longer to react than to act.
If the person who is threatening you is within arms reach or closer than 10 or 12 feet, shoot. Otherwise, they will disarm you and most likely kill you.
For someone with a military background who’s reasonably afraid he or someone else is about to be attacked, the reaction is instinctive. It seems highly unlikely that the Marine meant to kill Neely; the fact that he did will weigh on him for the rest of his life. And the progressive Left’s desire to turn him into a villain and exploit Neely’s death, spinning this incident for partisan game, is as gross as it is callous.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/jordan-neely-wasnt-murdered
You are correct, the action is instinctive. I wasn’t a Marine, but was an Army Ranger. Although I find myself to be more of a pacifist nearly 50 years later, I find myself running forward to protect others even when it is far from the best idea. My heart in this incident is with Penny. He did the right thing even though it turned out tragically. We were trained to move toward the threat and neutralize it, which is exactly what he did.
We were trained to move toward the threat and neutralize it, which is exactly what Penny did.
I spent 3 years in the army. two and a half of these years on jump status. Like rangers we are taught to run towards the gun fire.
What no critic seems to consider is that Neely struggled the whole time and, thus, helped cause his own death, that and his threatening behavior. People like AOC make me sick, but it makes me even sicker that people vote for her.
The Jordan Neely affair is just the most recent example of Democrats attempting to make it seem like Scott Adams had a point.
(for those who are not great with the English language please google what “attempting” and “seem like” mean before you become hysterical)
Jeez Kevin. Had to google that. Quite a contretemps. I guess that "honest conversation about race" is only a one-way street?
https://manhattan.institute/article/medias-existing-while-black-coverage-of-crime-merely-twists-facts-and-worsens-racial-divide-in-us
I don't know whether I am missing something, but the reports are that 3 people were holding Neely. If it took 3 people to restrain him, aside from the fact that this *might* indicate that he was very dangerous, why is the narrative that Penny killed him? And didn't he die later in the hospital?
Cause maybe the other two guys were minorities and Penny was the only white guy?
That's what I keep asking! There is no proof that Penny was responsible for the death of Neely. He was breathing after Penny put him in recovery mode. Just like George Floyd, the amount of drugs in his system was significantly responsible for his death.
I haven't heard anything about drugs in Neely's system. Has that been reported? George Floyd had 11 mg of fentanyl in his blood. 2-3 mg would kill most people. Naturally, fentanyl was not considered a primary cause of death for Mr. Floyd.
You haven't heard because the toxicology report is being slow walked. This was supposed to go to a grand jury but after the train track protests Bragg hurried the arrest. Penny and his attorney were told it would take months and that turned into days. I don't doubt that Neely also was full of substances. Let's hope there's honesty and transparency in those reports.
You are 100% correct. Racial politics have completely poisoned rational discussion. Justice isn't blind anymore, it's who gets voted into positions.
With respect, a courageous person with training or common sense wouldn’t strike a blow. They would do what Penny did.
Like most here I want Mr. Neely acquitted. He never should’ve been arrested. Why were the other two men not arrested? One I realize carries a get out of jail card.
I disagree on two matters. First I found the writer’s style lucid and analysis balanced. Second using chokeholds. I’ve been to many restraint trainings, witnessed scores of restraints, participated in a few. I’ve never been taught this technique. I never have seen it applied. Maybe marines are taught the technique. I understand why.
Too many conservatives find satisfaction in Jordan Neely’s fate. Almost all liberals want him elevated to sainthood. Neither response is healthy. Politicians from both sides are eager exploit these divisions.
You want Mr. Penny acquitted, I presume.
Bonfire of the Vanities was one of the best books I ever read, and eerily predictive of 2023 politics.
I'll have to look at that again. Read it so long ago.
I re-read it about five years ago. Held up well and was, as I mentioned, quite the truth-teller about modern race-based politics.
Yeah. Pro-tip: Unless you're physically attacked probably best to not engage in anticipatory/preemptive self-defense by holding a rear naked choke for 15 min.
Well, it wasn’t 15 minutes - between 4 or 6 is what evidence suggests - and Neely appears on video to have taken a deep breath afterwards. Toxology report inexplicably delayed.
That is what I have been saying. Neely was breathing on his own after Penny released him. The coroner made.a death determination in record time and there has been no autopsy. Death from choking is highly doubtful.
Wait, WHAT?!? No autopsy? How the eff do you charge someone with manslaughter if there’s no medical evidence for the cause of death? I assumed the coroner had ruled that choking was the cause of death based on the usual indicators such as crushed windpipe and conjunctival petecchiae (neither of which were present in George Floyd, btw).
The point of a rear naked choke is to cut off the carotid artery, it has nothing to do with the windpipe. It really doesn't matter if he was breathing or not.
It has always been farcical that people thought that Garner and Floyd died from the chokehold and neck compression - neither compressed the airway to any major extent. Their lungs were compromised by compression from their own body weight due to positioning and the men on their body. Neck was largely unimportant.
The basic biology of a chokehold is that you make a V with a notch pointing out from nape of neck - that keeps no pressure on the airway and all pressure goes to the left and right side cutting off blood flow in the carotid on each side. One passes out quickly if done well and the hold can be released. If done very poorly, like in this case, bad things can happen even if no ill intent.
No. He was dead.
After the FBI reveal yesterday, will the toxicoligy report even be trustworthy?
Remember everyone, Comprof will only ever parrot talking points.
As an objective person, it bothers me that Neely is dead, and how he died really shouldn't be a matter of dispute. There is clearly a very thin line between being a hero and a villain in this country. In my opinion (and obviously I wasn't there), Penny acted bravely but also stupidly. He had the man subdued and took it too far.
Well, not according to witnesses on the train. Was 15 min. So, that's what the eyewitness "evidence suggests."
Wrong. It took about 15 minutes for the police to respond. Neely was being restrained for only a portion of that time, basically until.he stopped resisting. Sometime around then he was described as unconscious. That implies that he was still breathing.
As someone who has choked a fair number of criminals in a prior career (that was not law enforcement), I can tell you that it's quite possible to shift from applying the choke, to merely cradling the head with arm around the neck.
That's what it appeared to be here - but I wasn't there and video can be hard to judge. So I don't know for sure either way. Just wanted to point this out.
According to Mayor Adams, it was less than 6 minutes. Which is why he told everyone to calm down and wait for the facts.
It's always the drugs, isn't it?
STFU
Lol. Oh....touchy.
Words aren't violence, right?
No, Compost, *you* are the one who thinks words are violence, because you’re an adolescent. You also think people need to have a warrant in order to think criminals should be in prison and that China is a diverse country.
Bruce simply told you to shut up because you are trolling for $17/hr on behalf of George Soros and, unlike me, he does not find it entertaining.
Why am I not surprised you're a pro at getting attacked physically.
High school wrestlers have more than sufficient training for this situation.
Common Sense/The Free Press has many opinion pieces. This one just strikes me as psuedo-intellectual babbling about what is a pretty simple issue: progressive governments have created crime-ridden cities where a situation like this is inevitable, then as always they use the incident to further racial greivance to cling to power while society decays around them.
But in all honesty, I try to remember that I can be dense, have my own biases, and often miss larger points from opinion pieces such as this one, so I'm open to this article making more sense than I currently understand, which is why I ask the question of what actually is the point here.
I agree with you. The situation is not that complicated and doesn't need extensive analysis. Hypocrisy due to different standards for different identity groups. This is called tribalism and is what the rule of law is intended to eliminate.
I don't know how or why the "Me Too" movement needs to be inserted into this situation. Phony feminism has always reeked of hypocrisy. AOC never uttered a word when Elizabeth Gomes (a woman of color) lost an eye after a brutal attack in a subway station last fall.
It’s a juxtaposition of two political stances by the same progressive group that shows the hypocrisy of their underlying position. If you believe male aggression should be zero tolerance (MeToo), you’d should apply that same philosophy to crime in public places and be accepting when the outcome is strangers stepping up to stamp out male aggression. It’s the “why” at the core of the belief.
It’s no different than when the Right pointed out the hypocrisy of the Left’s favorite pro-choice motto “My body, my choice” when they wanted to mandate COVID vaccines.
I presume the perp wasn’t white.
In is so insane to me. The behavior described in this article about the typical subway ride in NYC is that Bad (capital B) yet people shrug it off. Rules-no eye contact, don’t intervene (I saw the video of the poor woman simpering for help to no avail), put up with sexual aggression (ejaculation on your coat?!) - WTF. And now we are taking political sides when someone does try to help...insanity. What the hell is wrong with these people??
I think the point of the article is to point out that all these “righteous” arguments are contributing to an atmosphere of fear and consequently “vigilantism”. I would add that there are supporting facts, like the increase in gun in ownership, especially among women.
I don’t know all the facts in this case, but I have heard of “suicide by cop” - when someone who wants to die provokes a cop to shoot them. Will “suicide by vigilante” become a thing?
I feel for the jury who will decide this case.
“I feel for the jury who will decide this case.”
—————————————
Don’t. They will all be Democrats and they will convict him after going in the back room for 25 minutes to have cookies.
Exactly....his lawyers should petition for change of venue.
Yup....pretty sure he has no peers in NYC.
Yeah, like to Texas.
I see your point. And I think that is precisely what happened in the Trump case which was a classic #method. But that was a civil case. The Penny case is a criminal case, is not #metoo (despite this authors take),and I am guessing there will be subway riders on that jury.
Sad, Kevin, but proven to be true, especially in NYC
Having sat in a jury in Chicago in a criminal trial, my experience was that everyone took their role VERY SERIOUSLY. And yes his lawyer should be very selective.
Well either that was the best voir dire in human history or they were all from the Actors Studio.
Although in Chicago to get prosecuted you basically have to operate concentration camps so maybe they were actually being serious.
You don't know New Yorkers. Especially those who ride the subways, Democrat or Republican. He will get a light sentence or none at all. Bank on it.
You don’t know Democrats. The jurors will be virtually assured that their names will be made public.
(You’re probably right on a low-profile case.)
Hey, Kevin. I’m late to this conversation (I’m out of the country), and it’s certainly a vivid comment section. And you appear to be in fine form.
But don’t be too sure of the preordained conviction. Penny’s lawyers will argue quite persuasively that he acted in defense of the other passengers and himself, and that the threat appeared real enough for two other passengers to get involved as well. To kill was not his motive, only restraint. I say this will be a hung jury.
Now, I’m going to the beach..
I truly feel sorry for Neely. He won't be tried by a jury of his peers, he'll be tried by a jury of Uber liberal New Yorkers. He doesn't stand a chance unless a change of venue is granted.
Neely is the dead perp. Daniel Penny is the veteran charged with manslaughter.
Correction: yes I meant Penny! It was before coffee this am.....
I wouldn't be so sure. New York has ultra liberal areas for sure, but it also still has plenty of working class areas as well.
I think you meant Penny? His peers ARE his fellow New Yorkers. Unless he hires an idiot lawyer (which is doubtful) he will get a fair trial. Don't believe the BS propaganda about New York. We are not Chicago or San Francisco.
New Yorkers, not Chicago or San Fran? Coulda fooled me.
New Yorkers, not Chicago or San Fran? Coulda fooled me.
There is always a need for the left to create a false equivalence.. there's never a situation where the left is just wrong and the right is correct... I struggle to see what the author is trying to argue here..... the view that "the right" found any "glee" in this tragedy is a baffling take.. Pemulis perfectly laid out what the issue is... it's really that simple... so while it is tragic, it's certainly accidental and absurd that Penny was charged for doing what the NYC police is unwilling or unable to do.
When I lived in a wealthy-ish community in California, the police blatantly told the homeless to go to San Francisco or they would be arrested, so they did.
Cities are kind of like public schools--they pretty much have to take anyone who shows up. Suburbs can be a bit more exclusive by virtue of cost and aggressive policing.
Assume the NYPD starts arresting every person who acts crazy. Where are all these people going to go? Jails are full. Treatment facilities are full. Some people say "ship them to other places that aren't full" but what town or city would WANT to take them?
Evacuate the upstanding citizenry and have Space Force nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way, to be sure. /s
"Where are all these people going to go?" Congress where they belong.
I agree Scott, there are no easy answers to these questions. When I see the homeless in person or on video, most of them appear to be serious addicts of one form or another. Instead of providing them with needles and safe places to shoot up, maybe we should try rehab with some housing options if they meet specific requirements.
I volunteer at a group home and there are very tight regulations for who can stay there and for how long. There are also case managers to help them become productive citizens. Much of this sounds rose colored and I understand that, but the other option is what? If we keep letting these junkies doing this there will be entire city blocks that will be uninhabitable.
I fully agree with you. There is too much carrot and not enough stick. I fully support putting people into treatment programs but if they refuse then they should go to jail. For example, in the recent NYC subway incident, Neely was ordered into treatment but simply walked out. That should not be allowed to happen.
So 'jails are full' and that's it, we give up?
No, we need to give street addicts the option of treatment or jail. And "treatment" need to mean REAL treatment, not the ability to skip out after a day or two if they don't like it.
How about Mexico?
I am an American with permanent residency in Mexico. It took me four years, fingerprinting, and financial records to get this standing. Mexico has stringent immigration laws. The U.S. should adopt some of them.
I get that. I honestly wouldn't have put MeToo and this unfortunate man's death in the same conversation. So for that, I am expanded in my thinking. This is good. For me, I guess to to me.bot putting them in the same convo, makes drawing the conclusion she makes hard to do.
I'm still not sure what the conclusion actually is lol
It’s a very repetitive argument that goes like this: MeToo said we have to be easily offended, so why is everyone surprised this guy was offended? Conversely, if you want to argue that the subway should be a place of tolerance (or at least ambivalence) to even the greatest social transgressions, then quit getting so mad at old inappropriate white guys in the office.
The problem with conflating MeToo-at-the-office with the-schizophrenic-in-the-Subway scenarios is that Penny was likely never part of MeToo so to cast him as a MeToo Warrior is a poetic truth at best. He is however a man who was trained to defend his country so he stepped up when things escalated and a tragedy was the result.
The more salient issue to me is how Neely and so many other vulnerable homeless mentally ill individuals are free not only to hurt others but to be hurt by others. And layered over that is a different hypocrisy - not the MeToo inconsistencies but the very real fact that laws apply differently to different people. In the Intersectional Olympics, if you’re in the “victim category” you can do no wrong. And if you’re in the “aggressor category” you can do no right.
That to me is a much scarier place to be than who gets offended by a handsy boss. It’s made the subway a lot scarier too.
Wow! This is the best comment and sums it up perfectly:
"In the Intersectional Olympics, if you’re in the “victim category” you can do no wrong. And if you’re in the “aggressor category” you can do no right."
No further discussion needed... Thank you!
Great comment Shirley - completely agree. If the marine was black and the lunatic was white we wouldn't even be talking about this. The progressive mindset is similar to a mountain outhouse - a black hole that smells terrible.
Very well put.
I think this piece is written by a progressive for other progressives. Saying it's hypocrisy to be 100% offended during MeToo and 0% offended by actual danger. Something silly like that. The sort of argument that the Right sees instantly bc it's obvious & we don't need word salad to say what we mean. Neely was a threat to society and to himself; NYC did nothing for him but let him roam freely, endangering others; Penny sees a dangerous situation & steps in to protect others; Neely dies, Penny is arrested. Only in NY & CA would this happen and thank God I don't live in either state. The Left's positions on everything require that you believe lies & reject reality------this has always been true.
Amen
Thank you for your comment. My thoughts exactly.
Agree. Another psycho bubble
The point was to illustrate how women won't put up with any kind of true or perceived threat in the office, violent or not, but don't seem to be all that grateful for a defense against a seriously menacing threat on the subway. I thought it was a very good point to make.
It isn’t clear to me how Kat Rosenfeld feels about the actions Daniel Penny took on May 1. It seems she can’t decide whether men should simply avert eye contact while she is “groped, flashed, or… ejaculated on” by another man or risk becoming a “vigilante” by physically interceding when she and others are menaced by a psychopath. If there is a line somewhere between the two, she doesn’t say. Maybe her “sensitivity” to the issue prevents her from providing clarity. Not exactly a profile in courage, and therein, it seems to me, is the problem. For any man who was raised right, and any woman not cowed by feminized weenies like Ezra Klein who are determined to emasculate men, both are wrong. Maybe the next time she is ejaculated on things will become clearer.
PARDON ME KTON I'M ONLY ALLOWED TO POST IN "REPLY". MY COMMENTS BOX IS BLOCKED.
Responsible moral/social intervention in a dangerous situation demonstrating personal agency, stewardship and empowerment can not be tolerated. Especially if the citizen is a man. All citizens are required to stand tail tucked, eyes downcast, submissive and fearful. Or, risk a ball gagging, life destroying de-platforming cancellation .Unless of course, you are a fascist anti-fascist acting in service to the toxic feminist D.E.I. commissariat that fronts for the DNC/CCP/WEF juggernaut. Then you can loot burn and murder at will. Chaos and societal disintegration serves the totalitarian surveillance state. It's only one intentional outcome of the psyop. Last year a woman riding the subway was assaulted and raped as her fellow passengers sat and passively tried to "avoid making eye contact". Mr. Penny is a threat to the weaponized lie that has subsumed our lives. The woke DNC/CCP/WEF juggernaut has no moral center.
Toxic feminism (now the D.E.I. commissariat) has long and profitably worked hand in hand with the world capitalist totalitarians waging the class war that has looted the American economy, gutted its industrial base, suppressed wages and continues to strip the dignity away from everyday American life. The hateful misandrists, many of whom called for the open murder/castration of men, funded by totalitarian capital, were able to move forward with their plans to capture and poison the American national dialogue, destroy the family, launch a war to drug and destroy boys, criminalize and remove fathers from the home, reduce education to Marxist indoctrination and ultimately make speech and thought criminal acts. Their dystopian sterility and success is apparent in their ability to de-humanize language and declare the words "mother", "father", "man" and "woman" abusive and dangerous. I'm sure they find great glee in the Dylan Mulvaney spectacle and the castrations being performed by Boston "CHILDRENS" Hospital.
There is a line in the sand drawn by a lie. The lie has no moral center or legitimacy. It represents the lowest common denominator pay me venality. Its inhabitant's are the definition of narcissistic hubris and avarice. The Constitution remains our only legitimate engine of survival.
The natural and obvious outcome of successfully removing God from society.
You’d think a god would be able to do something about that. Especially when people, including children and babies, are suffering and dying. But hey, not one of our 10,000 gods stepped in to stop the Crusades or the Holocaust or the Killing Fields of Cambodia or the Inquisition. Or childhood leukaemia, for that matter. Let alone pedophilia. I guess we just need to worship more? (Like during the Crusades and the Holocaust and the Inquisition-- when God was everywhere and church attendance was way up!) Thanks for the tip!
Typical response. Thanks for nothing.
"MeToo" was before "Trans rights are human rights"/ "Trans is the Civil Rights movement of our time"/"Trans Day of Vengeance". Women and girls no longer matter. Take their sports, make money off of them with barbaric "Trans Medicine"...
And, I'm still waiting to read the Audrey Hale Manifesto.
"If you argue that a woman can be traumatized by bawdy humor in the office or awkward come-ons in a bar, surely you would agree that she’s entitled to be fearful when trapped underground on a metal tube with an erratically behaving stranger twice her size."
Is she entitled to be fearful with intact men in the ladies room and in women's prisons?
Here's a great video on the ladies room topic:
"🎶 In The Ladies! 🎶 (A MrMenno Parody)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwUe7-4-_TY
38K views 1 year ago #GenderLies
If anyone can identify as a woman, then the laws and spaces meant to protect women become meaningless. Who do you think belongs in the ladies? 🤔"
I think her emphasis is that MeToo’s emphasis on constant vigilance itself is the problem.
Agree...seems she somehow redirected with the last comment.
I think fundamentally it is about the mentality of MeToo/Progressive thought and how it on the one hand will brook no acceptance for verbal slights and awkward behavior that in any way make women feel uncomfortable and must be punished with loss of job or cancellation, but on the other is willing to not only accept truly threatening behavior but to condemn a man who steps in and provides protection against that threatening behavior.
Its about the idea that if every single behavior by men that is in anyway perceived by women as being uncomfortable or sexist, if words can cause trauma, and that these behaviors MUST be punished, why do they then tolerate the risk of real trauma and real potential danger and condemn a man who stands up to protect them.
In other words, if every perceived social transgression must result in punishment, then why excuse real world, physical threats? If you are going to insist on punishment for any perceived transgression, that you must be VIGILANT in monitoring for them and punishing them, then you can expect to create VIGILANTES, whether they are online and seeking to destroy a career or if they will hold down a homeless, mentally ill man.
I also think it is about questioning what things in life we need to tolerate and what we actually need to stand up to. Where do we just need to be resilient and where do we need to actually take action.
“if words can cause trauma, and that these behaviors MUST be punished, why do they then tolerate the risk of real trauma and real potential danger and condemn a man who stands up to protect them?”
Remarkably simple. Most of them just hate men.
To be perfectly honest, I do not think it is men they actually hate. I think they hate themselves and they hate the stress that they put on themselves. I think they look at men for two reasons. First, they do not see us stressing in the same ways and second because it is always easier to look outward at "the other" as the source of your misery, it allows you to be angry instead of depressed.
First wave feminism, in the days of women not being able to even have a CC in their own name etc, made a whole lot of moral sense. This was genuinely righteous rage. Where things went off the rails is with second wave feminism and its determination that women MUST turn away from anything remotely related to a traditional gender role and MUST shoot for the high level career and that this was the only path to happiness and fulfillment. What they never allowed for was two things. First, that women may choose careers but that those careers are not always the ones that are high paying. Second, that feminism or no, women still want children and a home and those two things collide with the high powered feminist vision. Plus, I think women began to find out what men already knew, that work and career are not nearly as satisfying as they thought and being a provider is stressful. Yes, being a stay at home mom can be stressful and hard work, but at least you are taking care of your own and not other peoples needs and you do not have to worry that a bad day at the office can mean you do not have an income or healthcare for your kids. Lot more satisfaction from teaching your kid to read than in getting that last report written.
So, I think women today are miserable because they face a series of impossible or miserable choices. They can live up to the feminist ideal of career and independence or they can choose to have a family and risk some level of dependence and criticism from their feminist sisters. Then, look at the dating situation young women face. The sexual revolution gave women a lot of choices. The pill and the push back against slut shaming quite literally encouraged women to engage in sexual encounters the way they thought men did, even if it was a small subset of men. Going to a bar and getting laid has not exactly been as fulfilling as they thought that was gonna be. The list goes on and on. It even includes being encouraged to expect unreasonable things from men or they are to be ashamed for "settling". They have insane social pressures about how to live their lives and how to look etc. that are impossible to meet and often do not really want. The sad thing is that most of those pressures are imposed, not by men, but by themselves and their female peers.
But, as I said, it is easier to be angry at an outside force than to be sad or depressed about forces you actually control or the expectations of your peer group.
Good points. On the dating thing though my understanding is that they try to meet on dating apps and the desirable men (good-looking with income and assets) are apex there. Which disrupts the age-old phenomena of many men competing for the desirable woman and replaces it with a harem culture of sorts. And it also leaves many young men out in the cold completely.
Spot on again. Thank you.
Wrung Out, you make some good points.
As a woman who came of age during first wave feminism and lived through the second wave, I agree with you 100%. I have often wished I could go back and tell my younger self “no, you can’t have it all. No one can, not even men. Make choices for your life or those choices will be made by default.” I would add the final irony: that we women were betrayed by the very women’s organizations that purportedly represented us, when they sacrificed us on the altar of Democrat politics during the Clinton administration.
Interesting that you say that.
A good friend of mine told me that she felt like she got mislead on a lot of things, or at least given bad advice by people with an agenda. One of those was that she could put off having kids until her career was set. Well, as most of us find out, careers are almost never set, particularly in this economy. She put off getting married until her mid 30's and then wanted a couple of years of marriage before trying to have a baby. Well, at 39 she decided it was time. After a lot of heartbreak and money spent, they never did have a child. They gave up and went with 3 dogs.
Now, she is not a miserable person by any means, but there is a sadness to her sometimes. We have been friends for 30 yrs, I can read her like a book.
It is not fair, if fair is the right word, but why God or Mother Nature, take your pick, decided that a 15 yr old girl can get pregnant seemingly by just looking at her boyfriend and a 35 yr old adult woman has to struggle, I just do not know. But fair or not, ( the old adage about fair having nothing to do with anything comes to mind) it is what it is.
I dunno, but it seems to me that we need to find a better way. We cannot ask women to give up a career for all of their adult life because they chose to have a child when their bodies were still in high gear for it, but neither do we want them to have to sacrifice being mothers. Nor should any couple have to go through what my friend and her husband did, all that time, all that money, all the sacrifice. Even at the societal level we need children. We need a new way of looking at people and at how careers are started and we need to find ways that allow people to carry on a career and be a parent.
What a sad story, and one that happened to countless women in my generation. I think part of the agenda was to show women that we didn’t have to depend on a man financially, and part was to move women into college and out into white-collar careers, the vanguard of a huge societal change. It was only later we learned that Mother Nature will not be defied (something we apparently need to relearn today). Our bodies are governed by ancient rules, one being that a woman’s ability to conceive naturally drops precipitously at a pretty young age, 30-35. That made sense when the average lifespan was 40, not so much now. But it’s a reality we can’t ignore so, if a woman desires both a family and a career, we as a society have to make space for that. It would require, in my opinion, a major change in attitude towards the job of having children and raising a family. It’s of great benefit to society and deserves at least as much respect as any other job. Anyone who doesn’t think so has never tried it! Perhaps we need to consider ways of compensating women who opt to delay a career and have a family first. Other governments - Hungary comes to mind - are experimenting with family-friendly policies like this.
It would have been interesting if your friend had a child. Would she have gone back to her "career" and hired someone else to raise him or her?
Damn solid summary right there. Well done.
Lemon, you are not Wrung Out, you are Right On! LOL
That seems pretty straightforward. I think they hate white people, too. So it’s just racism and sexism.
Just like with Audrey Hale. Words = violence but murder not so much. Audrey is the victim. Jordan is the victim. Barf.
Thank you for explaining this succinctly to the folks who can't see through their own ideology and understand what is a really interesting take on this case. Funny, that it is mainly aimed at the "me too" activists, but the right wing ideologues have the most issue with it????????
Dave & Pemulis, yes BOTH sides are guilty as charged, when it comes to the extremest (Right & Left). However, I believe most people fall into this huge swath of middlers just Right & Left of middle. Hence why TFP appeals to us.
The sad fact about this entire situation is Neely being the victim and Penny the murderer. (The Left looking for another George Floyd?!).
Because Neely was Black, with a long criminal record, “He was a victim of this racist society! If you don’t recognize this then you must be racist, too!” And, “ Penny is a WHITE Marine! Well, say no more! Lock that racist, vigilante up for murder!”
Although I mainly live in Texas, I own a condo in Brooklyn Heights and am well aware of the too many indigent, mentally ill people that roam the streets and ride the subway there.
No, not all are Black, menacing and threatening with criminal rap sheets. Neely, like Floyd, was!
Also, regardless of Penny being a Marine he, WITH HELP from 2 other men, held Neely down, while repeatedly asking people to, “Call police! Call 911!”
It is unfortunate Neely died, but to think Penny (or the others) murdered him intentionally is absurd! In fact, watch the videos, if the other 2 men had not helped Penny hold him down, then it’s clear Neely would have put up a much bigger fight to possibly break free. He was kicking and punching, and Penny needed help subduing him. When adrenaline is surging, you tend to have some almost superhuman strength.
After taking their reports, even the police said no crime had been committed, and let Penny go home.
Then there’s Bragg ...
Most right wing "idealogues" have been making these points for years. Hearing a liberal supposedly calling out the Left while actually just making a vague "both sides" argument instead is what frustrates us.
What points have your tribe been making for years?
That MeToo makes it so that women see ordinary men as dangerous predators lurking around every corner while at the same time creating a society that is increasingly violent. That woke people claim to be bleeding hearts for vulnerable populations while ignoring every real problem facing and eminating from those communities. Funny how you and this author try to pin this on "me too activists" when it is actually stemming 100% from the liberal tribe
I think the author is conflating the MeToo crowd with the liberal tribe. They are one and the same in this story.
So, the me too movement may see men as inherently dangerous (that's hyperbole by the way), but they aren't creating a society that is violent. While I would generally agree with you that liberals, in general, downplay violence within vulnerable societies, right wing groups exaggerate the violence and for example want to fill prisons with non-violent drug abusers. I have been critical of both sides myself. And don't pretend that the current liberal and conservative positions aren't further into the opposing ends than before leaving those of us in the middle, so to speak, left out.
Thanks for your response. I'm genuinely not trying to be dismissive but my response to almost all of that is "yeah, no shit".
They will accept awkward behavior that makes a woman feel uncomfortable - a man who believes he's a woman disrobing and displaying his genitalia in a woman's locker room. This is a feature not a bug of the system. For the left, it's all about the intersectional hierarchy.
It is not gleeful at all.
If you know that a drunk driver is going to crash into another car and you can’t stop it, in that case, given the guaranteed shitty outcome, you are just hoping they crash into another drunk driver instead of the mother driving to church with her three kids.
Same thing here. Democrats institute intentionally destructive policy, emptying the prisons and coddling the psychotic, and all you can do is hope that the victims are Democrats.
We would all prefer zero victims but unfortunately half of the country is comprised of pagan collectivist scumbags whose only chance to feel virtuous, since they hate God and truth and reality, is to be catastrophically tolerant in a way that is so deranged you often can’t describe it.
Kevin Durant? is giving Bruce Miller a run for his money over here....."pagan collectivist scumbags" LOL. I may need to start making a bingo card of your choice descriptors to add to my enjoyment here!
😇😇
"Collectivist scumbags" I could go with. The "left" have always been Judeo-Xtians in drag though, whatever the blend. Pagans weren't and aren't terribly good at collectivism; this is mostly why barking wibble won out over them in the Fourth Century and looks like doing again today.
Speaking of drag, yesterday morning on the CBC a drag queen was interviewed and accidentally admitted that drag queens reading to children, "doesn't have to be sexual," revealing the opposite.
“Can someone please state this author's argument in simple terms?”
——————————————————-
ARGUMENT: I have emotions and I’m using them to make important decisions and it hasn’t worked out well so now I’m doing this.
Bravo!
This is simple manslaughter. He did kill the guy, but accidentally. The fact that it got to that, though, was a clear indication the System failed. If you let lunatics run the streets, bad things happen. This is such a simple truth that you have to be a left wing lunatic to fail to grasp it. Order has value. Chaos is only funny if you are young, strong, and don't care about anything or anyone.
And I will add that I did martial arts for a long time, and we practiced chokes a lot. Our instructor was always very careful to tell us not to choke anyone too long. It's hard to tell when somebody goes out. Many cops have gone to jail for the same thing, which is why many departments stopped using choke holds.
But you have to admit that all the rules go out the window in real violent situations. Plus Penny was not a cop. And the real cops were nowhere to be seen for 15 minutes or more. Plus one who has practiced martial arts, you know well that many moves used in a street encounter can accidentally kill. Even a blow that causes an assailant to hit the floor can kill. And Bragg still would prosecute. Penny. Or you. Or me.
I think Bragg is a political animal and functionally an agent of lawlessness, chaos and unnecessary death. Having said that, how long did he hold the choke hold? We were taught—and this was to increase our odds if winning the battle with the law—to hold no more than thirty seconds or so, or when they went limp. If you are in a good position you can then apply it again if they start struggling again.
I get the fog of war, but having a solid choke on someone with no other combatants present is a really really goid place to be.
I do my best simply to state the truth as I see it, and thats how I see it. The situation was created by a broken system but somebody is still dead.
A "somebody" who had over 40 arrests and whose actions easily could have killed someone several times. Sorry but I have to deal with this lunacy and chaos on a daily basis. So I have zero sympathy for Neely and a ton of respect for Daniel Penny. Dealing with things in a martial arts class is way different from the spontaneous fear and panic that can - and does - erupt when one of these ranting vagrants suddenly spirals out of control. The marquis of Queensbury rules do not and cannot apply. Otherwise you could be the one dead. Daniel Penny should not have been arrested.
"Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6," as the saying goes.
You have the right to your opinion. I simply disagree. That does not mean we cannot agree on the obvious fact that the Left is trying to bring back the worst periods of the past 50 years, and succeeding. And of course whenever they "succeed" they lie about it as long as they can. Breaking things and lying about it is pretty much the whole scope of their work.
You're right, of course. We conservatives often disagree, which makes it fun to be us instead of the leftists with their dreary orthodoxy. And the important thing is that we agree on the big picture of liberty, free speech, the Constitution and personal responsibility. Apologies if I was too aggressive.
Right. If you're behind your opponent (choke hold) you can get him to the ground, and then you control that situation for as long as you need to. No reason to keep the choke.
We never took them to the ground if we could help it. But the principle is the same. If you've done it correctly they are not getting out, so you have time.
I do not think it is that clear. Penny was on his back, Neely was on top of him and two other people were interacting with Neely. Could those interactions caused movements Perry misinterpreted? Also reportedly Neely drew breath after being released. Plus the use of deadly force in defense of self or others is usually allowed. If for example Perry stabbed Neely in self-defense and he died, would anyone argue that the stab was too deep?
We're all guessing. But in America Penny is entitled to a presumption of innocence and to be convicted only on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Will he get that in New York? You tell me. Looks to me like Democrat pols such as AOC and the NYC Council have already concluded he's guilty of "Murder!" Can he possibly get a fair trial in NYC? Doubtful.
A lot of the time the devil is in the details. I honestly have not educated myself on the specifics, and if I were being more careful than in the event I was, would have remained judiciously silent.
It can be generally posited, though, that the chances of the media reporting honestly on any event where they've taking an ideological position is zero. This applies if they are trying to indict an innocent person, or exonerate a patently guilty one. Noise fills the air, and following noisy but ignorant opinions, which is just how the people running all this like it.
Penny put himself, either intentionally or not, in a very vulnerable situation. I believe Penny acted with extreme bravery, but he was physically capable of controlling Neely more effectively. Unfortunately, once Neely was on top of Penny, instead of the other way around, it would have been very difficult for Penny to get control of the situation. I can't imagine Marines are trained to fight people like that.
That makes sense. I have heard that the training thing is overblown. If he was justified in the use of deadly force though, the rest should not matter.
Agree with you that Penny acted with bravery and perhaps impulsively rather than setting the situation where he could have had more leverage. It is also possible that a person having a psychic episode or on drugs are very strong because in that moment(s) their body has no pain feedback.
Unfortunately, yep.
And what happens when the martial artist rubber hits the road? The street fighter wins. Sport is not reality; you are going to die very quickly if you think otherwise.
Wow. It's been a few minutes since I've seen that one.
The argument seems to be, correctly, that the left’s reaction to any threat rises in inverse proportion to its seriousness. Oh, and the standard gratuitous and lazy swipe at the “right” (meaning normal people) for being correct but having impure emotions (gleefulness).
Centrist argument claiming that it is both understandable and sad that a man died. Is that confusing?
The argument is mostly that the left is hypocritical for worshiping and defending victimhood in one case (“poor, poor white snowflake gender-fluid gen-z employees at the Times who endured a questionable joke from a white guy!--kill the bastard! Or at least his whole career!”) vs shrugging off the victimhood of subway riding women who genuinely feel unsafe (“meh, he’s black--let him threaten you, he’s earned the right from 400 years of oppression--your actual safety isn’t that important). Viola, hypocrisy! Viola, a blog post!
This author is failing to account for the left’s rapidly shifting hierarchy of values. True, during MeToo women had their 5 minutes of sympathy: “isn’t it horrible to learn how many women have endured truly awful treatment at the hands of sexist, violent, brutish men?”
But that moment is over. “Women” are no longer that high up the oppression food chain. In fact, use of the word “woman” or arguing that “women” feel unsafe is just more evidence of binary (outdated) thinking, ie., unenlightened bigotry. (White) women’s tears are responsible for more lynchings than the holocaust. No one feels sorry for women any more. Duh. If you want real sympathy you have to be a man (dressed as a woman).
Now, if Penny can show that he was defending the safety of a TRANSWOMAN (preferably black) THEN he would be a hero. Except still military and white and with that toxic mustache, ew--men! Gross!
YES, this!
Thank you- I was about to say something similar. I’ve not heard any glee on the right- everyone acknowledges that this was tragic, but that the blame lies with the government of the City of New York, defunding police, and other woke menaces.
This is media-fueled nonsense. The NYC police aren't "defunded"--more than 3,000 transit cops alone were ADDED in the past year. The problem is their deployment. They are all outside the stations, with a few on the platforms. None are patrolling the subways themselves, which could have prevented this disaster.
The author missed a great chance to really nail this when she brought in the Right. By and large, the Right has been consistent in condemning violence. The two sides she started with - I'd call them the fashionista Left and the feminist Left - do have very different views, as she described. However, because BLM and transgenderism are the Left's current fads, the fashionistas have more or less abandoned traditional feminism. To me that's the real story here. Neither the Right or traditional feminists have really changed their outlooks. And I dare say most on the Right now have more in common with traditional feminists than the fashionistas do.
Exactly. Everyone I know on the right condemned the Jan 6 riot. It was not an insurrection, but it was extreme civil disobedience and if we don't tolerate it from BLM we shouldn't tolerate from our own. Personally, I no longer hold myself to such standards of consistency. The Left runs the game and they expect us to play be outdated rules.
I agree.
it is hard to discern what point she is trying to make. Something about the consequences of wealthy white women policing for language instead of violent criminal behaviour ?
What happened in the subway doesn’t even meet the definition of vigilante.
I am sure Daniel Penny wishes he arrived on that subway platform 10 minutes later & he would have avoided all of this.
Progressives are complete nihilists. They are children, who magically believe a sandwich and an apartment cure violent schizophrenia and drug addiction. Ensuring the safety of women on the subway used to be a societal norm, not an ideological agenda item.
The moment we were bullied into accepting people defecating on the sidewalks, like it was a slit trench in a 3rd world country, is when we all had anarchy forced into our lives.
The NYT’s is no longer a reputable paper. When the Times returns the Pulitzer they won spreading the false Russiagate hoax, perhaps they will start to rehab their reputation. Until then, one must assume they are merely pandering to their UES & UWS, NYC subscriber base
I thought the same thing. I don't know of any Republican, have not seen anything written by someone on the right, that "gleefully" claimed that Neely had it coming. There ALWAYS has to be some criticism of the right, even if one is clearly not warranted.
I'm on the right. It's not an "argument" to note that there are excesses on the right; it's an observation.
Neither you nor many of the Replies here have read the piece carefully. You are fixating on the obligatory "To-be-sure" blurb ALWAYS present in any such commentary. On balance, it is squarely opposed to progressive shibboleths. Take the win.
I could take it much easier without being falsely accused of taking joy from the death of a clearly unfortunate person. I am bone weary of that tripe. It not only diminishes the author's credibility in my eyes it absolutely establishes the contempt she and her kind have for me and my kind. Justify that as you will.
I'm bone weary of the binary.
I subscribe to the Free Press because THEY are bone weary of the binary.
I disagree with Bari Weiss on any number of things. But we share some common ground between the extremes.
And I can appreciate the gist of Kat Rosenfield's piece without getting distracted by her mention of obvious excesses on my side of the issue. You don't take joy in how this has all gone down. Neither do I. Some on my side do. Shame on them. I'm not them.
Why is that so hard?
It would not be hard to condemn that behavior if were true. The author said Republicans - as in all Republicans - gleefully thinking Mr. Neely deserved what he got. That is patently untrue. And her thought process and behavior makes things worse. As does ignoring that it is being said and done. Kumbaya is not an effective strategy with people who malign you at every turn.
No, NOT "as in all Republicans". There's no article. In English, "Republicans [without an article]..." CAN mean "all Republicans," and that is how you (obviously) choose to interpret it.
But it can also mean "some" Republicans.
Consider this Twitter poll: "Did Jordan Neely deserve what happened to him?"
"No, it was murder" 32.1%
"Yes, he had it coming" 67.9%
Now, you might agree with me that only a fool would take a poll with those two answers. But 168,000 people responded, total. So.
So. That is not a masterful parsing of the language. She said Republicans. Your suggestion it would only mean all Republicans if she used "the" is inaccurate as the is singular and she used the plural. If you don't understand that the statement is rightfully offensive to about half the population I cannot explain it to you. As for your Twiitter "poll" that is likewise useless. Poll of whom? Even if it was supposed to be Republicans (which I doubt) how would you verify it? Some Democrats have been known to vote in Republican races to sway things so some would certainly do so in a Twitter poll. Personally not only do I think responding to such a poll is foolish, I also think Twitter period is pretty foolish. But many so-called journalists rely on it as source material too.
What, exactly, is the obvious excess on the right in this case? That most of us were right about the threat posed by the “victim”? Seriously, you keep just mindlessly saying “both sides” and then expect us to take it as a compliment
Sorry, my bad. I've been approaching our dialog from the wrong angle. You'll appreciate this:
Twitter poll: "Did Jordan Neely deserve what happened to him?"
"No, it was murder" 32.1%
"Yes, he had it coming" 67.9%
Because, those are the only two options, ain't it?
Pointing out what Republicans have been saying for years while at the same time dismissing Republicans as "gleeful" in saying so is not squarely opposing the Left. I'm good without Liberal's handing me such a condescending "win", thanks anyways.
The biggest problem for the Left (Democrats) in this country is that the Right is usually right. When Biden claims "white supremacists" are the biggest threat, he really means anyone that doesn't believe Democrat bullshit.
The headline of this piece says it all: The FP team just can't bring themselves to declare what is obvious. Old prejudices die hard.
While I have seen a couple of comments, in sections such as this, from people ostensibly on the right perhaps "gleefully" claiming that Neely had it coming, I have not read anything of that sort in an actual article. The vast majority of what I've read "from the right" has argued that Neely was a known danger to public and never should have been on the subway in the first place.
I think the point the author is trying to make is that those same talking points (i.e., Penny had the right to step in and try to defuse the situation or keep other passengers safe) can be made in a more compassionate way than merely saying Neely was a danger to society and had it coming. The mental health system in America has degraded since the villainization of mental health institutions, and people like Neely are left to fend for themselves; they have the tools available that someone with a rational mind could utilize, but people in his mental state may not be thinking rationally. It’s the failure of a system (possibly coupled with some poor choices) that resulted in a tragic situation where one man died on the floor of a grimy subway car, and another is being prosecuted and persecuted for trying to do the right thing. Overarching point, I think, is that we could all afford to show a little more compassion and think about things in a more nuanced way.
I have yet to hear anyone say Neely had it coming. The problem is with people who interpret Neely had 42 arrests, had walked out of treatment, and did not otherwise accept help as thinking he deserved to die. What kind of person thinks like that? What kind of person blithely assumes that is the Republican position? The answer is a smug, arrogant and ignorant person. Or group of people.
Distinction without a difference. You put rabid dogs down and stuff your feels; we've had enough of them. Taking notice of your feels has achieved what exactly? Precisely. Now do one. End of.
No feels here, just replying to OP with my thoughts on the question he asked. Is your comment suggesting that instead of trying to help people suffering from mental health issues, society should just euthanize them?
I cannot answer for him, but actually Steven knows that whereof he speaks as he has previously acknowledged his own mental health issues and has discussed, in a limited fashion, his issues with treatment.
Thank you for clarifying, Lynne. What confused me was his comment that “you put rabid dogs down.”
There are many in NYC and other places that believe that Neely and others have the right to walk away from treatment.
I think that’s an appropriate general rule, but every good general rule needs exceptions, and a good exception to that general rule would be if someone is at risk of harming others.
When they have a record like Neely of harm whether to others or self, their ability to have the right to decide about treatment should be very limited.
So then you agree with my comment?
Sorry. When I wrote "Neely and others" the implication was that Neely and others like him are that population that do harm to themselves and others.
Neely needed a place that would help him. He had threatened his family so it wasn't his home. It wasn't the streets and probably he would not be safe in a general prison population.
The objection to CARE by "mental health advocates" would have empowered those who are a danger to themsleves and others to walk away from treatment. There are similar advocates in NYC. The CARE laws are very restrictive and are far from a Martin Niemoller moment. When you look at any major city in CA or at NYC, there is a need for the laws that support people to climb out from the spiral of mental illness so they don't harm themselves or others.
OK, let’s play it out. Suggest a more nuanced version of what should have happened. But for each possible scenario, tell us how likely you think that one was to have happened.
An example would be that we seriously consider bringing back institutionalized mental health treatment. So, in that version, Neely would have been hospitalized during his last interaction with mental health/social workers (I believe it was at the Coney Island subway station?) and Penny wouldn’t have found himself in a situation where he felt like he needed to act to protect himself and/or others on that subway car. Regardless of what happened to Neely, none of the liberal or conservative talking points seem to be primarily focused on a solution; just more political rhetoric that gets each party’s base riled up.
I am 100% in favor of bringing back institutionalized mental health treatment, as are most people on the right. It protects the mentally ill person, their families, and society at large. Win-win-win. But this isn't a "real" example bc that type of care has been gone for decades and likely isn't coming back. A real example would be a) 5 men corner Neely, who quits raving with the show of force & the police arrive, b) the subway police are present to begin with & incident doesn't occur, c) Neely attacks & mauls a woman & Penny isn't there to help, d) Bragg himself is on the train, Neely attacks him, he is hospitalized & has to resign, NY wins!
This Republican is a staunch supporter of involuntary commitment. But FWIW, although I am not familiar with the specifics of NY law, I bet dollars to donuts that a family member or other who cared about him could have obtained a guardianship and hospitalized him.
Neely is infinitely more valuable to his family dead than he ever was alive.
You have to have a knowledge about guardianship and how to file it. Wondering if at any of the police, attorney, etc. ever pulled the family aside and talked about guardianship for the mentally ill. (Assuming that somewhere in court or in custody, there were strong indications that he was struggling with mental illness.)
There are many tragedies where laws or access are changed so that similar tragedies do not occur. May Al Sharpton donate his time to make information available about how to file for guardianship so other families are not suffering as the Neelys are.
It can be costly. And there are usually annual reports. But it looks to.me like maybe this would be a good thing for people to get assistance on. There are legal non-profits for almost everything. Why not this? Even if the ward is destitute a guardian can file the paperwork for medicaid and other benefits.
Agree 100%
Since I read this so-called “brilliant piece” six or so hours ago, I have pondered with increasing confusion the author’s argument. I have finally concluded that its point, based upon the situations it describes (e.g., intolerance demanded towards an undesired would-be suitor “sliding’ into a women’s DMs - although I have no idea what that is - versus the tolerance demanded for a deviant ejaculating on a woman in a crowded subway car), is, sadly and for the most part, as clear as black and white.
“Malicious glee”? You can fuck right off. This was a sad situation but this young man acted bravely in the face of a dangerous situation. He should be celebrated not indicted. The “mental health system” should be indicted.
I don't think there is a mental health system available to indict
Jordan Neely was in a residential mental health program, entirely taxpayer funded, and walked out.
He would still be alive today if it had been an asylum out of which he could not have walked.
Sixty years ago there were ten times as many people in institutions per capita as there are today. The residents of these institutions were portrayed in media in many horror and crime films as extremely dangerous and this was generally accepted to be true. Now, we have higher rates of mental illness but the same sector of society freely roams the streets, and we are somehow surprised that they can be violent and threatening.
We traded off the problem of disgusting abuses perpetrated by those in charge of the mental institutions with a problem of freely acting dangerous mentally ill people.
I know, my comment was a tongue in cheek jab at the mental health system in general.
It died many years ago. Mentally ill patients now reside on the street instead of mental institutions. The woke left thinks that’s just fine.
I think both parties in congress think it's fine, not just the woke left. This is a bipartisan failure, but the Washington DC country club is too busy with insider trading and starting foundations to launder foreign money to care about Americans who need help.
There is. Just a totally inept one.
I sometimes think the Right has a branding problem that they just stubbornly refuse to correct. They willingly cede the ground of compassion to the Left, which hypocritically milk it for all its worth. How did the Right get stuck with "Don't Say Gay" when it's not even true at all, and the conservatives are literally taking common sense measures to safeguard kids 3rd grade and under (until the recent change of the bill? How did all their work of protecting women and children end up being branded as "Anti-Trans", with no right wing counter message of the left being anti-women and anti-children? It really baffles me. It's like the right is afraid to upset the base with even the slightest allusion to words that would show their more compassionate side. They just let the Left run away with it all, and sheeples who don't look deeper just hear these messages and their views are colored that way. To that extent, it's the right's own fault.
The answer to this is the MEDIA. It's not that the Right has a problem defending themselves, they defend themselves constantly, they're just not heard. If 95% of the media-verse screams the Right means "don't say gay," the bulk of the public only sees MSM & they believe it. The Left is dependent on the ideologically stupid vote (progressives) and the uneducated vote.
Correct, and the Media is just Democrats unabashedly acting on their personal biases. KellyAnne Conway was on CNN (I think it was Amanpour) complaining about the Media collusion to crush the Hunter Biden story, and the host told her straight out, "We're not helping you with your messaging."
That doesn't explain why the Right doesn't brand their initiatives better in right wing media to counter the Left's. No branded messages ever come out from right wing media that ever sounds caring of people. They always sound combative. Their base loves that I guess. But to a lot of regular people not hyper political, they appear mean and heartless.
The problem is there isn't much right wing media in which the Right can do their branding.....really hard to get a message out that isn't instantly twisted & lied about. So the Left ignores what the Right actually says & does & when the Right objects, they just do it some more. I guarandamntee you the Right cares far,far more about the country & all of its citizens than the soul-killing Left----they just emote a lot so people won't get their feelings hurt while they drive all of us over the cliff. The Left governs with their emotions & that's very dangerous. Give me a pragmatist who can govern any day. Where do you propose the Right crafts their messaging? Fox? That's one network in the face of many, many more Left outlets. Reading Substack?----yes, but this is a small reach to dedicated readers. It's not exactly the Today Show. P.s."mean & heartless" is exactly what the Left wants you to think. That's why they send that message a lot.
You are right. The mechanism.is gaslighting.
Thanks to a string of almost all Democratic politicians—the compassionate party!—we have an unprecedented mental health crisis. Please run an article about where the very large sum of money given to DeBlasio’s wife to deal with this issue went to.
I saw that too. It's so sad that progressives can't see the malice that lies at the heart of their failed outcomes. Their failed schools, their failed crime policies, their destruction of the black family thru project housing. When you love someone, you want the best for them. This ain't it.
Malicious glee and if a person is attack it is because they made eye contact, looked too long, or weren't respectful. Where do these idiots come up with logical rules for a situation that occurs because the aggressor is not logical?!
Yes, that phrase is 100% projection by the writer. Democrats always expose their personal prejudice by how they paint the rest of us.
Thank you.
I have listened to several right leaning commentators and never once did I witness anything approaching "malicious glee". I heard lamenting about the tragedy of such a death and frustration that this type of situation had occurred in the first place. The FP can't seem to get out of its own way at taking every opportunity for the cheap shot against the right.
Yes. How about naming the people on the right expressing glee? Can't? Then stop with the straw man to try to seem even handed. Just condemn the left's terrible policies that lead to tragedy and their hypocritical response to it.
I have to agree. I followed the link to the one example the author cited and it was... a YouTube clip of a musical number from the movie Chicago. That’s a Substack sleight-of-hand.
Having said that, I came across at least one instance of just the kind of thing the author probably had in mind (https://open.substack.com/pub/peachykeenan/p/the-bonfire-of-the-sanity). So they are out there.
Lost in the inevitably reductionist attempt to jam everything into a political binary is the fairly obvious fact that the man who killed Neely did so accidentally, and that it was the kind of accident that arose from a valorous attempt to make everyone more secure, including, tragically, Jordan Neely himself.
This is exactly what is happening all over the US: Lost in the inevitably reductionist attempt to jam everything into a political binary is the fairly obvious fact that the man who killed Neely did so accidentally, and that it was the kind of accident that arose from a valorous attempt to make everyone more secure, including, tragically, Jordan Neely himself.
This event is a microcosm of nearly every major left/right assumption on a multitude of issues from violence to mental illness to immigration to education to social issues. For every event there is a complex story of a human life, full of good choices and bad, opportunities and limitations. To force the left/right binary on complicated stories only causes further division.
Agreed, this ruins the credibility of the author.
THIS.
While these unnamed Republicans are “expressing glee” (according to the author), AOC and Alvin Bragg are striking their usual self-righteous pose. Both of these crusaders would need a change of underwear if they were ever confronted with the danger the subway passengers were that day.
The decision to cancel my annual paid membership here is further validated everyday with these ignorant and facile articles.
Sadly, I may follow suit. I do enjoy the commentary, but the articles themselves far too often go out of their way to try to present some both-sides argument and simultaneously ignore the elephant in the room.
Kat Rosenfield, meanwhile, has written a brilliant piece for UnHerd that explores our collective hypocrisy over different types of crime, particularly in our post-MeToo era......
"Our collective hypocrisy????" No. The hypocrisy and insanity of the left. Period.
Daniel Perry is a hero. And Neely was not some gentle Michael Jackson mime. He was arrested over 40 times, including sucker punching a 67 year old woman so hard that he broke her orbital bone, nearly killing her. Attacking others and pushing people onto subway tracks and trying to abduct a seven year old girl. New Yorkers are forced to endure violent, foul and highly dangerous vagrants every day. When someone actually reacts - as any sane person would do - the progressive left trots out their paid, racist demonstrators and the odious, rotund little Soros prosecutor charges him with manslaughter. This is lunacy. This is bizarro world. This is a society devolving into chaos and madness. I'd love for a leftist to tell me that Penny is a criminal. I'm so sick of this I might reprise a full "Neely" on them. The defense fund for Mr. Penny is well over $2 million. Many are small contributions of $5 or $10 dollars - demonstrating that America is getting sick of progressives and their hand wringing idiocy.
"Daniel Perry is a hero."
No, Daniel PENNY is not a hero. He's not a villain either. He's a decent guy trying to do the right thing. He should not have had to do anything, Neely should have been locked up somewhere. Penny made a mistake, which he has acknowledged, and that should be the end of it. Shit happens.
It infuriates me to see the pic with him in cuffs. Unnecessary. Totally theater.
I blame Eric Adams and his ilk.
How is he not a hero? He intervened when most New Yorkers simply slink away like cowards. Like when the poor woman was dragged around by her hair or another was raped on a subway platform by a violent vagrant one Sunday morning. New Yorkers filmed it but didn't try to stop it. Disgusting.
Because life is never that melodramatically simple, Bruce.
Again: basic decency. Not heroism. "Hero" used to mean something. Penny would deny being a hero, I'm sure, and it's not false humility.
It’s difficult to conclude that he is a hero without having more information on Neely’s conduct preceding the intervention. For example, if Neely was an imminent threat to others, and Penny’s actions prevented someone from getting hurt, the hero label may make sense. If he wasn’t, or if the threat was minimal, then the label doesn’t make sense. I’d be interested if there was video footage capturing the time before Neely was restrained. Without the footage, we’re left with eyewitness statements, and based on what I’ve read, that is not enough to say he is a hero (which is a different question than whether he is guilty of manslaughter).
Oh please. When most New Yorkers simply scurry away because they're too afraid to get involved or lock the door like those two "brave" security guards did when a violent vagrant almost beat an elderly woman to death, what Penny did was heroic. It's easy to parse out and second guess a situation long after it's been diffused. You'd both be singing a different song if you were there with your kids and only Penny and the two guys who helped him stood between you and a violent lunatic.
Why oh why are people willing to.live like this? Worse to continue to vote for the policies that enable it? It boggles my mind.
I'm not sure this is any different than living in a country with so many guns in the hands of civilians that it results in 45,000 gun deaths, half of which are murders. This is what some Europeans think is crazy...............
Genuine question -- does Europe have the problem the US does where criminals are actively NOT prosecuted/punished out of some perverted sense of social justice?
Do you have a link for Penny’s legal defense? I plan to contribute.
Yes,, thanks for asking and for doing that.
https://www.givesendgo.com/daniel_penny
The charges are definitely political. Will watch closely at the trial and would bet at this time a conviction is unlikely given his criminal record and the fact that 3 men actually had to hold him down. IMO, this is an accidental death pursuant to aggressive and threatening behavior of the deceased.
Think about this. New York's Penal Law defines Manslaughter in the second degree when "[a person] recklessly causes the death of another person."
Daniel Penny was trying to subdue a violent vagrant, with a long arrest record who was a threat to himself and his fellow passengers.
Andrew Cuomo ordered NY nursing homes, with thousands of vulnerable elderly residents, to accept Covid positive patients.
Which one - Penny or Cuomo - recklessly caused the death of another person?
Which one is being indicted?
Are we still living in America?
By and large an excellent piece. As a member of the “right”, however, I take no glee in the death of Neely. Lots of sadness. Pointing out the problem and saying I told you so isn’t dancing on the grave for most people.
If you had to deal with this shit on a daily basis you might have a different view. No American citizen should be forced to endure this sort of degradation. The deal is we pay taxes for a government that is charged to "ensure domestic tranquility." When it can't or won't the deal is broken. And the government becomes illegitimate. Neely was a violent menace who'd been arrested over 40 times. I really don't care anymore.
That’s exactly what Penny’s attorneys are hoping, that many New Yorkers on this jury will have had enough as well. When I heard Neely s attorneys and family ask why didn’t someone help him or try to speak with him....really, where were you the last ten years of his life? You only want to cry wolf when things go horribly wrong. So incredibly sad.
How many years ago was it when New Yorkers wailed about Kitty Genovese and shrieked "why didn't somebody do something?""
I was discussing this article with my husband and mentioned the video of the woman being dragged around by her hair. He wasn’t aware of the incident, but I had seen the video and was sickened by the train full of emasculated cowards who sat there and did nothing while she screamed for help. He said it sounded like the Kitty Genovese situation. The irony is that the circumstances of Genovese’s murder were twisted by the media to make the bystanders look more callous than they were, because it told a more compelling story. Here we had *actual video* of people ignoring this woman as she begged for help while being assaulted in front of their eyes...but I don’t remember the story blowing up and provoking outrage among New Yorkers. Too bad there weren’t a bunch of Goody Metoos there, who could have quickly ended the attacker with some mic-drop tweets.
And if Daniel Penny had been there, it would have ended very differently. With the woman saved. But Penny still charged with manslaughter. This is madness. Rewarding indifference and cowardice and punishing bravery and selflessness. How much longer do we put up with this. Bragg needs to be removed.
I wonder how many of the people who now want Penny’s scalp have ever had to fight a schizophrenic criminal. I thank God that I am able to live in rural Georgia, far from the sewer that is NYC.
I think at this point, NYC is one big asylum. I live half an hour away and used to love going in for theater, shopping, music and fine dining. Now…nut jobs in train cars couldn’t drag me there by the hair.
With Adams.
Bruce, you have a lot of great observations, but the Kitty Genovese story about no one intervening has been debunked. And her killer, Winston Moseley, died in prison while serving a life sentence. If anything, those were the good old days when we convicted and punished murderers.
Thanks. But I don't think the Genovese tragedy of indifference was entirely "debunked" although clearly the NY Times's original story was completely exaggerated, as you point out. (And as the Times is wont to do). In the good old days, people knew right from wrong and bravery from cowardice. Today, under Democrat "progressives" every day is Opposite Day. The world turned upside down.
Good point. I guarantee you any one of his loving family members could have obtained a guardianship for him which would have legally entitled the guardian to make decisions on his behalf including a decision to hospitalize him.
If the government won't police the people will. And that won't end well for the criminals.
We are seeing the rise of vigilantism.
I totally agree. There is nothing here to celebrate. I think our marine did what needed to be done because he felt the man was a real threat.
Tragic circumstances and accidents always happen but we must deal with them.
Kneely should have been in a mental hospital so as not to be able to create the situation. A man cannot help being mentally ill and it is up to us as a society to keep him out of situations where he can be dangerous to himself or others..
There should be more cops down there so that a young marine does not have to be put in the situation of choosing to stand by while someone is potentially harmed or stepping in and risking what he is facing now.
Both those men should not have had to be in the situation they were put in or was allowed to be created.
One paid with his life.
The other may pay with a long jail sentence but will absolutely have to pay by living with it, living through a trial and having his character assassinated online.
Perhaps it is the vocal elements: some views on the right expressing a form of glee and some on the left clearly exploiting the tragedy for political purposes, exposing their hypocrisy in the process. I guess I am a member of the "right" as well, and I take no glee either. Very sad. But jailing Penny is not going to make these situations go away.
I do see some gleeful on the Free Press comment section, unfortunately
Do you? I haven’t seen any yet. Why don’t you point out a couple of specific posts so we can see what you’re calling “glee.” Maybe your reading comprehension is just really poor.
Really? Where? Or are you choosing to interpret comments that way?
"In 2022, for instance, a video did the rounds, of a woman begging for help while a deranged man hauls her around a train car by her hair."
I recall that people were surprised that nobody helped when this happened. But if people (mostly men, one would assume) feel like they might get arrested for doing something, it certainly is a large discouragement. NYC seems to be a place where the authorities won't do anything about the problem, but if the citizens take matters into their own hands they'll get in trouble with the law. How is that fair?
I've only ridden the subway a few times in NYC since Covid, and every single time it's been a shit experience. A man shoved me on the platform for no reason, or it's constant delays and construction. It's become even more atrocious than usual and I avoid it all possible costs.
Nothing is done because largely no one talks about it publicly because to complain about the violence publicly would make one appear as something less than fully woke. There is no telling how far the collective delusion of moder progressivism will take society toward complete lunacy.
It's strange that an off color Tweet can be violence and cause horrible trauma, but a deranged large man threatening people on the subway is fine? I'm not sure that their ideology is completely coherent
Transgressions by the ingroup are no big deal, transgressions by the outgroup demand a response with the full weight of the state behind it, because equity.
To be fair police officers face prosecution too.
As a conservative Republican, I’d like to set the record straight. I’m not gleefully crooning “He Had it Coming.” Society, maybe. Not Neely, who desperately needed help. Where was the family? Church? The police? Oh, right. Canceled.
Oh, don’t worry--the family has shown up in force, now that the carcass is ready to be picked.
Any one of whom without a bad criminal record could have obtained a guardianship and obtained the help he needed.
Amen, sister!
If Benjamin Crump isn't on the scene then he shortly WILL be!
There is a movement that opposes involuntary holds for the mentally ill. A person struggling with their mental health gets to decide their treatment.
Jordan Neely went after my 11 year old daughter and I in the subway. I had to physically put myself in between them. He kept yelling that I killed his mother. Luckily a train pulled in where we got on. I stopped him from following us on by putting myself between him and the subway car and screaming at him what would happen if he touched me or tried to get past me. It worked and he did not get on. I was lucky but even though the platform was crowded and the train was full, no one helped me and a transit worker walked past us like it was nothing out of the ordinary because it wasn't.
You should report this to Penny's defense team.
Yes, Charles, I agree. Aaron should report his experience with Neely to Penny’s defense team; however, wanna bet the Left would say, “Well there you have it - IF ONLY Penny/others on the subway HAD YELLED AT HIM, then he would have stopped”
Please do as others suggested and notify the defense. Thomas A. Renniff. 888-646-0025.
And there will be more “nothing out of the ordinary “ responses now that NYC has made clear that there are no protections for good Samaritans. I’m so sorry this happened to you and your daughter.
Prosecution of Daniel Penny will make it even less likely that people will get involved when they see a threat to someone else. No one is celebrating Neeley's death but many applaud the courage it takes to confront a threat.
I'm sure they were all "Noo Yawk tuff."
Despicable.
I resent that the author only briefly mentions the 911 calls and the eyewitness accounts. I’m disgusted that she paints a picture of those on the right as “gleefully” celebrating this death. More propaganda designed to divide. No mention of his 42-times arrest record. Meanwhile she’s silent about Arianna Preston. So sick of people sugarcoating the wrong things. I weep for my gender.
Also, no mention of the other 27 violent deaths in the subway since 2020....
“That Neely slipped through the cracks is not the only sign of institutional failure here.”
————————————————————-
He did not “slip through the cracks” unless by “cracks” you mean the very intentional and overtly shitty policy that the psychopathic morons we call ‘Democrats’ have been pushing for five plus decades.
I guess if you change it from “institutional failure” to “intentional failure” then the sentence works okay.
By all means keep voting for these degenerate perverts.
When you can drive a truck through them, they are no longer cracks. To still call them that is simply excuse making.
But they made bike lanes!
My dream is for every Democrat to get carjacked by a released prisoner who is standing in the bike lane.
Bike Lanes Matter!!
Floyd Landis > George Floyd
Another happening around the same time as the Neely/Penny subway situation:
A black man (Carlton Gilford) has been charged with fatally shooting two white strangers in the back of the head in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as part of what authorities are calling a racially motivated hate crime. Yes, a black man went hunting for white men and he bagged two of them.
This incident has received very little coverage. Did I miss TFP article, did it even make TGIF? Did Kat Rosenfield cover this story? Did she compare and contrast this story to #MeToo and the BLM movement?
Media coverage (or lack thereof) of the two events is telling, but not unexpected.
I had to search for this, and found a report on Fox News, and reports in the New York Post and an Indian publication called Repulicworld.com, both based on the Fox report. That's all.
Daily Mail did do a story on it too when it happened, but its hard to find. and you've had more luck than me- I can't find much anymore
I just looked using his name and I see lots of articles. NYP, Newsweek, Daily Mail, even Yahoo News (citing the Fox News story), as well as lots television news stories. This is a link to part of the probable cause adfidavit:
https://www.fox23.com/page-2-of-carlton-gilford-arrest-report/pdf_41b8ab44-e3d9-11ed-98c2-a741f68801d0.html
Don't' blame our black fellow citizens.
Blame Joseph Robinette Biden and the lunatic Democrats who push a culture of grievance and resentment.
My blame was directed towards media coverage of the two events - both by MSM and independent organizations.
I had not heard of this. Stories like this are why I am armed, 24/7/365.
Unfortunately would not have helped you. They were shot in the back of the head without forewarning.
Maybe - or maybe not.
Good training involves increasing your awareness of your surroundings. It’s called situational awareness, SA. For example, when I go to a restaurant or anywhere else out of my home, I always sit facing the door. At a movie theater, I’m in the last row. My wife and my friends know this and they, themselves are aware what I’m doing and why I do it. No one fights me for the seat. This makes them more self-aware, too.
I don't know a single conservative who expressed any enjoyment, let alone glee, at the death of Jordan Neeley. Every single one expressed sadness at a society that has devolved to the point that criminals are celebrated and law-abiding citizens vilified. One where you can tell a progressive that you perceived a "racist dog whistle" in the way someone walked down a sidewalk and they will gasp in horror, but tell them that a homeless drug addict threatened you and they'll tell you that you have no right to feel unsafe because that person is "marginalized".
Just about everything in that dystopian hellscape is upside down. I feel for the millions of normal people there who are just trying to live their lives and are forced to tolerate, forgive and "develop resilience" to the anti social behavior of people who should be off the streets and getting help. Once again, the rights of the many are abandoned to establish a path for the dispossessed.
I usually enjoy these articles, but I felt I had wasted my time on this one when I finally reached the end of the rambling discourse, knowing less about the author's conclusions than I did when I began the marathon.
I can only feel compassion for Mr. Neely's family and for Mr. Penny. As a parent of a son who has gone down that road in another country (thankfully), I am horrified by what my son did in order to go to prison and drug rehab. We had no idea what was going on with him and even if we had, the laws (US) are written so that in the midst of what has been diagnosed as mental illness, we could not have forced him into a rehab mental health facility in the US. I can only barely imagine what Mr. Neely's family is going though. At the same time, Mr. Penny and others appear to have witnessed a situation rapidly spiraling out of control. In that case his training kicked in and he stepped up to protect others in his subway car. I have to say I would have been even more devastated than I am now by my son's situation, if he had permanently injured or killed someone. When people have a mental illness it is not compassionate to leave them on their own to forage for food or to try to find a safe place to sleep on the streets. The compassionate thing would be to take them in to a facility offering help, even against their will. Mr. Penny stepped in to protect a civil society when the state (NYC) failed to do their duty.
I can only feel compassion for Mr. Neely's family.....
Save your "compassion." They're already picking over his carcass. I'm sure Sharpton will be leading the charge.
I had heard on the Five last night that Daniel Penny's fund was almost 2 million and Neely's fund was "only" 150k. Jessica Tarlov expressed dismay that Neely's family didn't get more money! How much would they need to pay for his final resting place??? They certainly do not need "compensation" for their loss, as they did not have any relationship with him. !! Amazing!
According to Penny's fundraising site the momey's are to be used for both the cri.inal defense and civil matters. So if true they may get some of that money.
Part of that $2+ million raised is for civil suits too. I was dubious about the fundraiser for Penny's defense after what happened with the Rittenhouse funds, but I was reassured by the explanation of what the funds are for.
My co-worker who leans left and I lean right, says it best. In the realm of women's safety from men, it won't stop until the men who are upstanding turn to the friend/coworker/family member/person in society and says, that behavior isn't tolerated and puts them in their place. Women can say stop all day long. But the power of the male peer group is the power. It's like transgender athletes. If men started saying this isn't acceptable and stood on the starting block, the starting line, the field with women, it would end. It seems like the backfiring of the toxic masculinity cry is that men aren't standing up for their female counterparts. We need to stand united to stop the ills of society that ultimately affect all of us, not just a gender class.
Huh? Daniel Perry did just what you suggest and look what it got him.
Yes, he’s become a folk hero to much of the country.
We'll see if that protects him from the part of the country that is vilifying him.
There are men standing up for these women. And they get roundly hassled and canceled for their efforts. And lets face it, parts of feminism have been deriding any kind of valor or chivalry for decades.
Men have been told to sit down and shut up for quite a few years now. You can't get too upset when they do what they are told.
I would add that we must start glorifying the idea that men (and women) OF VIRTUE is what is most needed! And, yes, standing up together, not pitting ourselves against one another! Women and children always have and always will suffer in systems where there is a lack of virtue, but I place a good bit of responsibility squarely on the sorely misguided (although well-intentioned) women who insisted that the answer to ill-behaved men was to become more like them AND resent them….all at the same time!
This is BS. There are criminal.laws to keep everyone safe. Especially women. All an unsafe woman has to do is speak up. And there are many resources available to help her do so. I think the problem lies in what unsafe means. Hearing an off- color joke? Hearing something you do not like?