Jordan Neely, Right wing culture of violence, vigilantism - Violence as Good Samaritanism ~~ Sam Thielman and Parker Molloy

 https://foreverwars.ghost.io/daniel-penny-good-samaritan/?ref=forever-wars-newsletter

and 

https://www.readtpa.com/p/i-think-youre-confusing-the-good?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2282&post_id=121574870&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

NB Note - disturbed by the lionization of the cold blooded murderer of Jordan Neely as they did with murderer Kyle Rittenhouse to the tune of raising over $2 Million for his legal defense.  Sam Thielman and Parker Molloy address the bizarre right wing conflation of cold blooded murder with "good samaratanism".

A Strangler in a Strange Land

By Sam Thielman • 15 May 2023 View in browser

Daniel Penny killed Jordan Neely with his bare hands on video, but every institution in New York seems to be on Penny’s side. Why? Edited by Spencer Ackerman THE GOOD SAMARITAN is a parable Jesus tells in the Gospel of Luke about the problem of community. It’s very short. It goes like this: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? (Luke 10:30-37, NRSV) A couple of Jesus’ parables are quite hard to understand and occasionally border on perverse. This is not one of them. You can tell because he ends the story with a question. The Samaritan was a better neighbor than the priest or the Levite, both of whom owed the wounded man aid and didn’t give it to him because it is much, much easier to come up with a reason not to give a dollar or a sandwich or attention than it is to take a moment for every person who seems to need it. Everyone who lives in community with suffering people—which is to say, everyone, full stop—knows this. I often tell myself that I can’t help everyone who seems to need it; if I did, I would end up just like them, and wouldn’t that be horrible? Imagine falling through the ever-widening cracks in our society to a place where I must live moment to moment at the mercy of strangers on their way somewhere. Perhaps you are going home from work, or to pick up your kids at school, or to the grocery store or a date or the movies, and I am trying impossibly hard to express exactly the amount and kind of desperation that will convince a passerby like you that the pleasure of taking pity on me will be worth the cost of acknowledging me. A life of forever bothering people. Live long enough in New York and you will not be able to avoid getting to know the homeless people in your neighborhood by sight. This can be a real pleasure—people are people whether or not they’re poorer than you are, and you may learn that poverty strikes them down irrespective of inherent intelligence or charm or personal decency. But the knowledge of these people can also be frightening. People in dire straits have fewer compunctions, and this can feel dangerous. It can also be horrifying. Today, I saw a woman I have often seen begging on the subway, usually in extreme distress. Often she talks to herself constantly, sometimes undressing. Today she was outside Dunkin Donuts this morning, screaming. She only has one leg now. This is a person I am in community with. I don’t know what to do for her, but she is, as Jesus himself would have it, my neighbor. Please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription! DANIEL PENNY, THE SUBWAY STRANGLER, tall, lantern-jawed, his hair in trembling blonde ringlets, wearing a clean suit and handcuffs, was marched into a police car in front of cameras on Friday in the company of his lawyer Tom Kenniff. For what bystanders estimated to be fully 15 minutes, Penny choked a homeless man named Jordan Neely to death on the subway not quite two weeks earlier, after which the police questioned and then released him. At least two New York City newsrooms withheld his name from the public while video of the murder circulated on Twitter. It’s still not clear to me why Penny’s name was first released by an antifascist activist who goes by @sxarletred on Twitter, and not by a New York City news outlet. When a guy is running around choking out his fellow subway passengers—Penny was a free man until his Friday arrest, and is free again after posting bail—his name seems to me to be of urgent public interest to any of your readers who ride the subway. barbarism critic  #StopCopCity @SxarletRed Meet Daniel Penny from West Islip, NY 2:08 AM • May 5, 2023 12.2K likes • 5.4K retweets This, too, is a story of community, and of “quality of life” crimes, which are broadly imagined to be a scourge rendering this city unlivable by people who do not live here. Kenniff ran for district attorney of Manhattan, where he did not grow up and does not live, against Alvin Bragg, now the city’s first Black D.A. Kenniff's platform was one of putative concern for victims of crime in New York County, which he contended, against mountains of evidence, had been made worse by a new law making it harder to imprison poor people using the cash bail system (which, again, troubled Penny not at all). To Kenniff, who lives in a place where homeless people are most often visible through the windshield of his car, “crime” means being dirty, being loud, loitering, drinking a beer held in a paper bag, smelling bad, or sleeping in a doorway or a cardboard box. It does not mean putting prisoners in solitary confinement for no reason, or beating protesters, or separating mothers from their babies, or choking a man to death on the subway. Those things, in Kenniff’s mind and in the minds of many conservatives, are merely the work of dutiful citizens fed up with a state of disorder brought about by a culture of permissiveness. This perspective is hardly exclusive to people outside the city, but it is much more common there, and perhaps that is why so many NYPD officers including the commissioner simply don’t live here. New Yorkers tend to live at the mercy of armed officials who commute into our community to police it. I suppose it ought not to shock me that Kenniff’s position is shared by so many people, some of them supposedly compassionate, but it does. Many of them have seen fit to exhume Neely’s criminal record in considering the motivations of his killer. “Most notably, in November 2021, Neely punched and seriously injured a 67-year-old woman as she exited the subway,” wrote David French, one of the New York Times’s conservative columnists, in a fatuous piece preoccupied with various misdeeds attributed to Neely—who, again, was killed in public on video—and “the rule of law” on Friday. French, from his home in Franklin, Tennessee, deplores the lack of “meaningful consequences,” for the assault, which included a year and three months on Rikers Island. Rikers is so notoriously inhumane that it must by law close its doors in 2027 and was ordered last month to pay $53 million to people who were held for extended periods in pretrial detention in brazen violation of the most basic laws of this country. But again, those are not the laws with which conservatives like French are concerned: Neely spent 15 months in jail while the case awaited resolution, but ultimately he was not sentenced to prison. Instead he was told to report to a treatment facility, where he was to remain for 15 months and stay drug-free. [“Drug-free” is not quite accurate here since Neely was also instructed to remain on his antipsychotic medication.] He left after 13 days. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but in spite of subsequent encounters with outreach workers and at least one with the police, he was not taken back into custody. Think of the many failures that put Neely on the train that day. Treatment efforts were inadequate. The sentence for his unprovoked assault did not match the severity of the crime — and, in any case, it was not enforced. When he walked away from the facility, the police failed to arrest him again. One can both be troubled by the problems of mass incarceration and recognize that just sentences for violent crimes should remove the perpetrators from the streets for substantial periods. In short, Neely should not have been in that subway car; he should have still been in the treatment facility or in jail. But he was on the subway, and his conduct was deeply disturbing. While reports are still incomplete, Neely was reportedly aggressive and menacing toward his fellow passengers. A witness stated that he was yelling, “I don’t have food. I don’t have a drink. I’m fed up.” He also reportedly said: “I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.” There is no evidence that Neely assaulted anyone, but And here my patience with French ends. The Wall Street Journal went further still. In a piece called “Charging Daniel Penny, the Subway Samaritan,” bylined by its editorial board, the Journal writes: Was Mr. Penny wrong to intervene? The details of what happened will presumably be presented at trial, but it’s clear his intention wasn’t to kill Neely. It was to protect himself and others. As a 24-year-old veteran, he may have felt a particular responsibility to do so. We sometimes call such men good samaritans when they intervene to stop a shooter or step between a young woman and a harasser. If “we” do this, “we” should not. The Good Samaritan didn’t stop the man on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho from being assaulted. He arrived after the fact. Batman and The Shadow are not Good Samaritans. They are vigilantes. That is the term we use for civilians who meet violence with violence, or who use violence preemptively, and there’s a reason the only good ones are found in pulp novels, movies, and comic books. It is a fantasy of a fundamentally immature and selfish kind of person, the kind who is insulated from the peculiar horrors of community. This was not merely the Journal’s misreading of the story of the Good Samaritan, but a kind of mass hallucination among conservatives. The National Police Association and Ron DeSantis, both of which are as eager as Kenniff to publicly oppose Alvin Bragg, both mentioned the parable, with DeSantis managing to cram in some full-throated anti-semitism, as well: National Police Association @NatPoliceAssoc NY subway good Samaritan Daniel Penny head held high, shoulders back. @ManhattanDA Alvin Bragg used the escorting officers, who had no choice, for a shameful photo op. Bragg has stopped good Samaritans from stopping criminals. Penny's defense fund is here givesendgo.com/daniel_penny 4:13 AM • May 13, 2023 12K likes • 3.1K retweets Ron DeSantis @RonDeSantisFL We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left's pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens. We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine... America’s got his back. givesendgo.com/daniel_penny 2:32 AM • May 13, 2023 52.8K likes • 10.1K retweets There is a kind of public bloodthirst on the American right and thus among our right-leaning institutions at the moment. The simmering resentment atop which the scum of conservative politics has for so long floated is beginning to boil. I don’t know what this will ultimately mean and I’m leery of historical comparisons. My unscientific sense, though, is that a worryingly large part of the general population—not even corrupt or prejudiced officials, but civilians who hold no office or public authority—feels emboldened by the way real, credentialed, powerful authority has begun to ostentatiously defer to murderers. Institutions, both the press and the government, are always more plastic than we think they are; they will bend so that they may countenance every kind of evil so long as they can do so in a way that reinforces their positions. Increasingly, these institutions, from the Times to the Journal to New York City’s elected officials, have become comfortable holding up callous, public murder—of leftist protesters, of homeless people, of prisoners of war—as excusable, not just on the basis of unfortunate extenuating circumstances, but in the name of a kind of hateful reverse morality. Personally, I find myself too often tempted to meet this kind of crazed violence with equally passionate resistance; to go out looking for the fight that is constantly being threatened. But that’s not what I’ve been told to do by a figure no less central to my religious practice as a Christian than Christ. The job is not to administer the beatings, it’s to tend to the beaten. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Open in app or online I Think You're Confusing 'The Good Samaritan' With The Punisher Right-wing media's bloodlust is getting a lot more overt these days. That's probably not great. PARKER MOLLOY MAY 15 Hello, readers. Parker here. Today’s newsletter is about Daniel Penny, Jordan Neely, the “good Samaritan” parable, and a dangerous right-wing culture of violence. It’s a lengthy one, so let’s jump right in. “And who is my neighbor?” The story of the good Samaritan is a passage from the Bible that you're likely familiar with, regardless of your level of religiosity. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus narrates a parable about the importance of helping those in need. This was in response to a man who, seeking an understanding of what it means to "love your neighbor as yourself," asked, "And who is my neighbor?" 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” The meaning of the parable is unequivocal: we should assist others in their time of need, recognizing them as our neighbors despite any disparities in life experiences, ideologies, religions, or wealth. The good Samaritan encounters a desperate, dying man and aids in his recovery, simply because it is the right thing to do. At least I thought the meaning was clear. Jordan Neely was your neighbor First, the facts: Jordan Neely, 30, boarded a northbound F train at approximately 2:00 p.m. on May 1. According to the New York Times, Juan Alberto Vasquez, the journalist whose video of the altercation went viral, recounted that Neely “began screaming, causing people who were sitting near him to move away.” Neely “said he was hungry and thirsty and took off his jacket, throwing it down on the ground.” At one point, Neely said, “I’m tired already. I don’t care if I go to jail and get locked up. I’m ready to die.” Keeping People In A Constant State Of Fear Makes The World A Violent Place PARKER MOLLOY · MAY 3 Read full story Daniel Penny, 24, put Neely in a chokehold, holding him there for “about 15 minutes,” according to Vasquez and police (via NBC News). Neely lost consciousness and was pronounced dead at Lenox Health Hospital. The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner determined that the cause of Neely’s death was “compression of the neck” (via CBS News), with officials labeling it a homicide. On Friday, Penny was charged with second-degree manslaughter in Neely’s death. If convicted, he could spend up to 15 years in prison (via NPR). There’s no evidence that Neely physically assaulted anyone on board the train that day, just that he was loud and acting erratically.¹ Daniel Penny being escorted out of NYPD’s 5th Precinct on May 12, 2023. (Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images) Daniel Penny, good Samaritan? I don’t think so. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board published a defense of Penny, calling him “the Subway Samaritan.”² From that editorial: Decades ago the U.S. made a decision to end the institutionalization of all but the most dangerous mentally ill, but too many of them now wander the streets and occasionally turn violent. Several have pushed unsuspecting passengers onto the subway tracks to their deaths, in stories New Yorkers know too well. Was Mr. Penny wrong to intervene? The details of what happened will presumably be presented at trial, but it’s clear his intention wasn’t to kill Neely. It was to protect himself and others. As a 24-year-old veteran, he may have felt a particular responsibility to do so. We sometimes call such men good samaritans when they intervene to stop a shooter or step between a young woman and a harasser. I’ve long come to expect the WSJ to churn out some truly vile opinion pieces, but the paper wasn’t alone in framing Penny as a good Samaritan. Florida governor and aspiring dictator Ron DeSantis tweeted a link to Penny’s legal defense fund, accompanied by the text, “We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens. We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine… America’s got his back.” Scumbag Congressman Matt Gaetz called Penny a “HERO” and the “Subway Superman,” and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk called Penny’s indictment an “unjust prosecution.” As of 1:20 p.m. EDT on May 15, Penny has raised more than $2.1 million through his GiveSendGo link. Conservative New York Times columnist David French used Neely’s death and Penny’s arrest to argue that New York City isn’t tough enough on crime (the current mayor is a “tough on crime” former cop). A few excerpts: On Friday, 11 days after Neely’s death, prosecutors charged Penny with second-degree manslaughter. To prove the charge, they will have to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Penny “recklessly” caused Neely’s death. Under New York State law, a person is deemed to act recklessly when he “engages in conduct which creates or contributes to a substantial and unjustifiable risk that another person’s death will occur.” The key word in that definition is “unjustifiable.” That’s because New York State law provides a defense of justification, which permits a person to use physical force on another person when it is “necessary to defend himself, herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by such other person.” And: Neely should not have been in that subway car; he should have still been in the treatment facility or in jail. But he was on the subway, and his conduct was deeply disturbing. While reports are still incomplete, Neely was reportedly aggressive and menacing toward his fellow passengers. A witness stated that he was yelling, “I don’t have food. I don’t have a drink. I’m fed up.” He also reportedly said: “I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.” And most confusingly: What if Penny had done nothing? Would everyone — including Neely — have emerged from that subway car unscathed? We can’t know for certain, and that lack of certainty creates the conditions for violence. Would everyone “have emerged from that subway car unscathed” had Penny not put Neely into a chokehold until the life drained from his body? Yeah, probably! How casually some have justified the killing of a man should astound us, but I find myself feeling numb to the hypocrisies (the “tough on crime” people defending the killing of a man who didn’t commit a crime that day) and banality (naturally, the right pushed to defend and laud Penny) of it all. A New York Times article about the right’s support for Penny. They’re confusing the good Samaritan with the Punisher. You know the Punisher, right? Frank Castle? The Marvel Comics vigilante with the skull on his chest? Or… sigh… the guy with the logo that a worrying number of police officers seem to be sporting these days? I’d say that’s a more fitting comparison for Penny³ than calling him a good Samaritan. Plus, it'd make the response to his actions a bit more coherent. Following Neely's death, I observed a division among conservatives into two factions. The first faction defended Penny's actions, rationalizing what they portrayed as an unfortunate result—for instance, suggesting that this was merely an accident, and Penny was unaware that his chokehold could lead to Neely's death. I believe David French belongs to this category. The second, and arguably more alarming group, not only defends Penny but also glorifies him. This includes figures such as DeSantis, Gaetz, Kirk, and the WSJ Editorial Board, along with the New York Post crowd. This group has always existed but seems to be increasingly emboldened. George Zimmerman got this treatment. Kyle Rittenhouse got this treatment. Daniel Perry got this treatment. The people who assert their right to march through public spaces heavily armed, citing the Second Amendment as their justification,⁴ are often the same ones who claim that feeling uncomfortable, inconvenienced, anxious, or threatened grants them the right to terminate a life immediately. How often have we heard the justification of a police shooting with the phrase, "But the officer thought the man had a gun!"? This presents an inconsistent and incoherent worldview. These individuals defend lethal violence against marginalized groups—people of color, aggressive protesters, the unhoused, those with mental illnesses, LGBTQ individuals, religious minorities, etc.—while simultaneously maintaining that they possess a divine right to patrol the streets armed with enough ammunition to wreak havoc in an El Paso Walmart. As a composer named Frank Wilhoit⁵ once wrote: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time. The future is Florida, and that has me worried PARKER MOLLOY · JUNE 25, 2021 Read full story For what seems to be a large chunk of the country, that’s definitely true. They haven’t always been as brazen about it as they are today, however. Some will just openly admit that’s their goal. For instance, earlier this year, during an interview with Glenn Beck, DeSantis said the following (emphasis mine): We’re creating a model for what a free society should be. Yes: freedom for you to not be constrained by government — all conservatives have always believed that — but also, freedom for you to live your life without having the pathologies of the Left imposed upon you from all the other institutions in society. This is precisely what DeSantis has done during his time as Florida’s governor. He’s implemented wildly anti-freedom policies that micromanage the lives of Floridians while claiming, falsely, that he is all about “freedom.” It’s depressing stuff. 1 2 Yes, I’m fully aware that “good Samaritan” is a term loosely used to describe a person who helps strangers. My argument is that it doesn’t apply here. 3 And comparing him to the Punisher isn’t necessarily a condemnation. Frank Castle is a total anti-hero who does the things he does because he believes his actions are justified. That’s literally what Penny did in this case. 4 SCOTUS kind of invented this… and recently, too. See: DC vs. Heller 5 The quote has been falsely attributed to political scientist Frank Wilhoit, but, fascinatingly enough, was actually coined by a composer of the same name. There’s a really interesting Slate piece about this that includes an interview with Wilhoit (composer).