Peaceable demonstration and protesting has the ability to change hearts and unite people in a way that can actually effect positive change. On the other hand, mass destruction is absolutely not going to help. At best, it damages a community that is already suffering. At worst, it creates a larger racial divide. Intellectually, I think almost everyone realizes that, but for some reason, these scenarios continue to play out. Elected officials should never simply set laws aside because they are afraid of any particular group. When you allow lawlessness, you have to be prepared to live with the consequences of lawlessness.

I absolutely understand the collective outrage about the death of George Floyd - I was as appalled as anyone about what happened. I won't pretend to understand what it feels like to be a black person, either. However, it bothers me a bit that this is being boiled down simply to race. Is it not a tragedy anytime an unarmed civilian ends up dead at the hands of a police officer? I feel like the more we try to categorize statistics by race, the more racial division we all feel. We are all human beings, no matter our skin color. Why must we continue to focus on ethnicity so much? I think there are a lot of people that attempt to use events like this to flare up racial controversy when in reality we should all be upset about any human rights violation, regardless of the skin color of the parties involved.

I support the right of all Americans to peaceably protest any cause they deem worthy. However, the situation in Minneapolis - and in many other cities -has gone far beyond being about protesting the murder of a civilian at the hands of a bad cop. At this point, a bunch of ill-intentioned people are using that event as an excuse to incite anarchy.

The unfortunate truth is that human beings have seemingly unending potential to be vile and ruthless creatures, especially in large groups, and the only thing keeping order and peace is the threat of punishment by a legal system that is willing to enforce the law. I totally understand that reckless law enforcement is what sparked off this entire ordeal in the first place, but one atrocity does not mean you simply abandon law and order. If you remove the potential negative consequences to lawless behavior, this is what you get. It's incredibly disappointing, but we've seen this happen time and time again. At this point, this outcome should be predictable and as far as I'm concerned, it's a dereliction of duty for any elected leader to allow this kind of behavior.