Weekdays at 12noon on 770 AM: The Truth
 Michael Medved

Confusing Victimhood and Heroism

March 1, 2012 @ 12:02 pm

In February, the City of Seattle dedicated a freshly carved totem pole to honor the "First Nations Woodcarver" John T. Williams.

Killed by police in a 2010 shooting ruled "unjustified," Williams hardly counted as the sort of community leader normally commemorated with a towering, center-of-town monument: he was a homeless alcoholic with more than 30 convictions in the 20 years before his death, including multiple counts of "lewd conduct" and "indecent exposure."

Meanwhile, the same day the new totem honored Williams, the Northwest mourned a veteran state trooper, Tony Radulescu, killed during a routine stop by a violent career criminal, but no officials proposed a monument. A society that commemorates victimhood above heroism, and honors a drunken, pointless, accidental death more than sacrifice in the line of duty, is a society deeply, and perhaps incurably, confused.

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Comments (17)


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  • cigarfan wrote...
    confusion dissipates with observation
    March 1, 2012 11:21 am
    Medved states: "A society that commemorates victimhood above heroism, and honors a drunken, pointless, accidental death more than sacrifice in the line of duty, is a society deeply, and perhaps incurably, confused." Side-stepping Medved's sickening condescension, all one has to do is turn on the TV to see the officer's funeral being broadcast. I don't think they did this for John Williams.
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  • HLC wrote...
    Michael I couldn't agree more.
    March 1, 2012 1:56 pm
    I do wonder why his family pays more attention to him in his death then they did in life. Maybe his history could have been changed.
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  • Drool wrote...
    "Accidental Death"?
    March 1, 2012 2:20 pm
    The cop accidentally pulled the trigger a half dozen times?
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  • cdbtx wrote...
    Well put
    March 1, 2012 4:06 pm
    Mr. Medved
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    And then there's the phony victimhood of the right wing.....
    March 1, 2012 8:58 pm
    "Nobody has proposed a monument honoring fallen officers!"

    Sad thing is, an entire herd of sheeple will read that and say, "Yeah, they put up a monument to a drunken Indian, but don't do squat diddly for the cops!"

    Is it truly a lack of information, or a deliberate attempt to mislead?

    http://www.wslemf.org/updates.htm

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  • cdbtx wrote...
    *LOL* Gould had to dig very deep for that
    March 2, 2012 7:25 pm
    and it does nothing more than to validate Medveds point.
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    cdbtx and "digging deep".......
    March 2, 2012 11:45 pm
    Obviously, you have never spent time on the campus in Olympia.

    Most of you guys will never get this, but the "totem" pole isn't really a memorial to the life of John T. Williams. He made a series of really terrible choices, and was rendered socially disfunctional by his alcoholism.

    The pole should serve as a reminder that here in the United States every person should be entitled to the protection *of* the law, and that people not committing a crime should not be forced to live in fear of random assassination by a rogue law enforcement officer.

    Even the SPD repudiated the actions of the killer-cop, and pressured him to resign from the force. Clearly, they knew more about the situation than any of us who got the information filtered through a variety of talk show hosts and news networks. The firearms review board said, "The shooting was not justified, and we recommend the cop involved never again be allowed to carry a gun as a Seattle Police officer."

    Of course, since it's the SPD everybody over by the right field foul pole probably assumes the cops are all "liberals". :-(

    So think of the pole in this way. Among other things, it honors the valor and integrity of the Seattle Police Department. An organization that had the moral courage to admit when one of its officers committed a grave, tragic, and deadly breach of acceptable police practice and killed a man who (at the moment, at least) was not committing any crime.

    Shame on you, Mr. Medved, for calling this an "accidental" death. Even the SPD admits it was a homocide.

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  • Howard goldman wrote...
    I love the Seattle Cops..
    March 4, 2012 7:24 pm
    I have more faith in the Seattle PD than ever. They saved my life, when a black woman attacked my wife for no reason. This woman was much larger than my fiancee at the time(now my wife) and punched her in the face and began to loot her purse. I kick the woman inthe solarplexes and she went down but then yelled for help and 5 black guys with weapons were about to descend upon us. Then 2 Seattle police cars came up and took controll of the situation. The Blacks all started yelling racism, but when it was pointed out that the ATM camara on the corner and the camara in the 7-11 across the street taped the whole thing, they plead guilty. I got a call from a network(which shall remain nameless) about the story because my wife is Latin. But when they met us, they told us they would not produce the story because we looked in their own words "too white". So if the cops didn't show up, you wouldn't have heard about this story. But those cops saved our lives and we love them. I always leave an open door for them, and greet them with open arms. I would not be alive for them, and we are forever grateful.
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  • sportsguru wrote...
    Howard goldman
    March 6, 2012 10:22 am
    ha,ha,ha, good story. I don't believe it but it was a good story anyway.
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  • Howard goldman wrote...
    "Story"
    March 6, 2012 4:47 pm
    Funny how that word plays out. You have liberals who hate police officers more than Muslims hate Hindus, tell us John Williams was this peaceful guy. So the liberals use white guilt, and manipulate a jury to bilk Seattle for hundreds of thousands of dollars and where does it go? A huge portion goes to AIM, which is the only way they can get political contributions. But I am the bad guy because I come from a society that invented the wheel...Try finding a "wheel" in the naitives path with no European intervention.
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Howard Goldman is a Muslim?
    March 7, 2012 6:22 am
    Howard Goldman wrote: "I come from a society that invented the wheel." How impressive.

    The first known examples of the wheel are from ancient Mesopotamia, (modern day Iraq). They go back about 3500 years, so either Mr. Goldman is the oldest guy posting to mynorthwest.com or he's from modern day Iraq.

    Perhaps Mr. Goldman meant that he is from the society that substantially *improved* the wheel? Historically, the first major improvement of the wheel occurred in Egypt- maybe 1000 years after it was invented in Mesopotamia. Perhaps Mr. Goldman is Egyptian?

    Egyptian or Iraqi, there's a high statistical probability that if he is from the "society that invented the wheel" Mr. Goldman is a Muslim. It will be fascinating to observe his comments regarding Islam as time goes by.

    (European wheels were essentially just rounded off planks until about the 1700's, it took the modern Europeans many, many centuries to surpass the original Egyptian improvements to the wheel).

    http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/wheel.htm

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  • Howard goldman wrote...
    Liberal history at its finest
    March 11, 2012 8:47 am
    Since Islam is a religon and not a race, I will take your illustrative ignorance, by means of your logic, as signifigant. So let's take your thesis of 3500 years of Mesopotamia, which would put us back to what 1488 BC? Since you appear to be intelligent, please answer where Islam was in Mesopotamia, since the Prophet Mohammad wasn't born until 570 AD? They actually haven't determined specifically as to who invented the wheel, because it was certainly evident with the Romans. By the way, the last I Look, not all Arabs are Muslim. In fact Indonesia has the biggest Islamic population by far, these days and they like the Pakistanis (who has the second largest Muslim Population) are not Arab. I was just pointing out that since people go on about the Naitive Americans, they fail to point out that there was no wheel used by Naitive Americans without European (Read WHITE) intervention
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  • SeattleD wrote...
    Accidental death?
    March 7, 2012 7:07 pm
    Why didn't Ian Birk ever claim he accidently shot Williams?
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  • Toolbridge wrote...
    A monument to 911 victims
    March 10, 2012 9:34 am
    So Medvid is saying a monument to 911 victims is not appropriate as this would be Victimhood? An apt title for you arctile Medvid. You are confusing Victimhood with Heroism.
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  • earl247 wrote...
    Chuck Gould got owned
    March 13, 2012 3:40 pm
    That was funny enough to get me through the rest of my evening of gratuitous Obama shots in the First Four games.
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