In this episode of Life Matters, Our host Brian Johnston explores the deeply disturbing video of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020. The worldwide distribution of the clear killing has created national and cultural turmoil that echoes throughout the known world.

Johnston shares his outrage at this apparently unjustified use of force and the killing of a man that has not had a trial. It is a public declaration that we, all of us, recognize that George Floyd had a right to be alive. We witnessed the violation of his right to life.

Officer Derek Chauvin was the perpetrator and his apparent disregard for the safety of George Floyd during his apprehension appalled all viewers. Brian pointed out the familiarity of Chauvin’s last name and the fact that the term ‘chauvinism’ is a common phrase referring to the attitudes and values of a certain Nicolas Chauvin of the early 19th Century. These values of Statist authority were again displayed by Derek Chauvin. But it is essential to realize the crime was against an individual... both Chauvin and the incited mob apparently view it instead as a 'crime against a group.' And the reason our culture is doing that is because we have forgotten, if we ever understood, that it is individuals who must be protected, and an individual's actions must be held to account, in a just society. Pitting groups against groups leads to greater conflict and is, in itself, a violation of higher law.

The original Nicholas Chauvin, after whom 'chauvinism' is named, was an officer in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army. Napoleon, a revolutionary statist, superimposed the will of the state as the final arbiter of right and wrong. In the world of French Revolutionary thought, your Creator is of no consequence. Napoleon was a dictator whose inspiration was drawn from the French Revolution. The value of individual lives is always minimized in a progressive world order, and certain groups must be punished while other groups are elevated to power. Each human life itself is seen as a mere cog in history.

Both Derek Chauvin of the 21st Century, and Nicolas Chauvin of the 19th Century saw themselves and their fulfillment, as agents of the state. Their fulfillment was in embodying the power and decisiveness of state authority. That is the opposite of the principles of the American Republic. The American principles of government are built upon the intrinsic value and worth of each individual.

Created Equal: The Clarence Thomas Story In His Own Words. Clarence Thomas is one of the few United States Supreme Court justices who has ardently advocated the essential principle of natural law. As such, he has been clear that the value in our rights do not emanate from the group of which we may be a member, but our rights emanate from the fact that our individual lives have been given to us as a gift from our maker.

Justice Thomas while a college student had himself been leeward into the groupthink cultural hatred that is fostered by the progressive worldview. Justice Thomas had been a black radical. It was only on returning from a riot that Clarence Thomas felt overwhelmed by the uncontrolled hatred in his heart and knew he could not free himself from that emotional cancer. In the film, he is quite clear that his prayer asking God to free him of hatred became the first step in his walk of faith.

Finally, Commissioner Johnston turns to what has become a pervasive starting principle in all of America’s public schools, which now views human beings as merely animals, and teaches the same. This view rooted in the Darwinian concept of evolution, minimizes the uniqueness of mankind’s creation, unique gift of life, and responsibility under a higher law. In the evolutionary worldview whoever or whatever is most evolutionarily advanced becomes the ultimate authority. This denial of higher law and greater truths has robbed the American educational system The result is students who are incapable of recognizing higher laws. Perhaps most telling is Charles Darwin subtitle, clearly stating that his principles invoke a racial superiority system (On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life). It is progressives who separate human beings into racial groups and declare their proper hierarchy in society. Natural law, on the contrary, deems each and every human life as worthy of protection and accountability. That is the basis of the right to life.

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221: The Killing of George Floyd