Learning from Ferguson

As a society, it's essential to our nation's future that we learn lessons from the criminal upheaval in Ferguson last week.

It's a sad but safe bet that there will be other Fergusons in other locations. And by learning lessons this time around, hopefully we can avoid the chaos and destruction that has left our neighbor to the north in shambles.

In the wake of some future perceived injustice, the same sad tale is likely to unfold.

That's why these lessons are so important.

We learned that a tepid police response may not be the best approach to address violence and destruction.

We learned that the prospect and promise of National Guard intervention is counterproductive unless you actually use that Guard to protect public and private property.

And we learned that the legal definition of "inciting a riot" is a useless tool unless enforced.

The law says "a person is guilty of inciting a riot when one urges 10 or more persons to engaged in tumultuous and violent conduct of a kind likely to create public alarm."

Standing with a microphone, urging the throng to "Burn the b---- down," would seem to fit well in that legal definition.

Those, of course, were the words of Michael Brown's stepfather Louis Head following the grand jury announcement last week.

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder -- in calling for Head's arrest -- has voiced the thoughts of countless others who share the same opinion of those incendiary and vile words.

Yet, in our hope that the turmoil will subside, no one in the legal community has yet to call for his arrest.

Not to be outdone in the arena of idiocy, the always quotable Louis Farrahkan, head of the Nation of Islam, joined in the racially charged debate.

Farrahkan told an audience that protesters should "tear this [expletive] country apart" if their demands are not met.

He called those subversive actions the "law of retaliation." He also urged his audience to "teach your babies how to throw the bottle" as if it were a Molotov cocktail.

Despite these blatant examples of urging violence, neither Head nor Farrahkan have any worries about arrest.

Yet to ignore these obvious criminal actions is to place future communities, police and property in danger.

An arrest for inciting a riot is less about punishing an individual than assuring future anti-social criminal actions will be aggressively addressed.

To be sure, there are ample lessons to take from the Ferguson fiasco. Until we learn from these examples, we'll be virtually certain to repeat mistakes and put property and lives in danger.

With taxpayer funds, Ferguson will be rebuilt. The police force will likely become more diverse. And eventually, life will return to normal once again.

But those changes will mean little until society mandates that the rule of law is more important than any civil disobedience or violent protest.

Michael Jensen is the publisher of the Sikeston Standard Democrat.