Who Is the Hero Jake Gardner?

Zmirak poses a question that extends beyond the "Who Is?" title of this piece.

You can read about Jake Gardner at Zmirak's post.  Skip to the last third for the obituary which tells you all about Jake, and will break your heart; but here's a small part of Zmirak's payoff commentary:

...A Jake Gardner is an American who busts his own chops, plays by the rules, keeps his word, breaks up fights, treats people fairly, fears God, distrusts the government, doesn’t envy his neighbors and stands up for his rights, but doesn’t pick on the weak. He’s not the sullen government worker who watches the clock and maxes out his sick days. He’s the teacher who stays late to tutor troubled students. Or the weary mom who volunteers 20 hours a week at the crisis pregnancy center, helping illegal immigrants or teenage moms to keep their babies instead of killing them. She’s a Jake Gardner, too....

Now we move to the heart of the matter.

... The Jake Gardners are what keeps any decent country running. So if you want to wreck the place and squat in the rubble, they are the people you need to target. To cow, intimidate, break, and batter into learned helplessness. So the next time a mob oozes down the street they won’t try to help their neighbors, as Kyle Rittenhouse did. They won’t even try to protect their own elderly dads, as Jake Gardner did. They’ll let felons hopped up on drugs loot their businesses right in front of them. As Jake Gardner wouldn’t, which is why our home-grown Bolsheviks knew that he must be destroyed. As a lesson to the others. The first rule of Kristallnacht is that victims don’t get to fight back on Kristallnacht. (That’s why you must disarm them first, as the Nazis disarmed their foes.)...

We know that.  So what?

 ...If a million Jake Gardners or Kyle Rittenhouses had stepped forth in 2020, the riots that made Kamala Harris and Al Sharpton and George Soros [and the execrable pair of Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes] titter would have stopped, dead in their tracks. Maybe all those judges who were spooked into ignoring the 2020 election fraud would have had a little more courage. We might have an honestly elected government today....

A few more Koreans on rooftops, a lot fewer Problem Children loose on the street.

Is that "vigilantism"?  Nope.  "Vigilantism" does not happen in the moment, as did Jake's actions.  More to the point:  Jake simply stepped out--armed--to defend his business, his block, and his dad.  Deadly force came into play when Jake's life was in grave danger.  Were Jake backed up by another dozen business owners, would that street have burned?

These are the times that try men's souls.

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