Guess where the suspects in the beating death of Christopher Kernich come from

Timothy A. writes:

The initial story that you linked indicated that the two black men being held for the beating (now murder) of Kent State student Christopher Kernich were from Akron, which would lead one to assume that they are products of the slums of Akron. Actually, the two suspects, Ronald Kelly and Adrian Barker, are both from Shaker Heights, Ohio, graduating from highly regarded Shaker Heights High School. They are currently students at the University of Akron. Shaker Heights is an integrated, solidly upper middle class community.

My daughter, a student at Shaker Heights High School, recognized both of the perps from the photos.

The constant barrage of Race Relations indoctrination students receive in the Shaker Heights schools doesn’t seem to have deeply affected these two fine young men.

Here is the story with the confirmation of the Shaker Heights angle..

LA replies:

That’s stunning. So this most brutal, sudden, savage, and gratuitous of racial murders was committed by graduates of Shaker Heights High School. Shaker Heights. Probably the best known liberal integrated well-to-do suburban town in the country.

LA writes:

Here’s the last part of the article, from cleveland.com:

Kernich was a standout athlete at Fairborn High School, graduating in 2005, according to the Dayton Daily News.

Kernich played football, baseball and basketball. His senior year he was listed as 6 foot 4 inches and 185 pounds, according to the Dayton Daily News.

Former players notified Fairborn football coach Roy Thobe of Kernich’s death, the paper said.

As a senior, the paper said, Kernich ‘totaled 1,240 yards receiving and scored 21 touchdowns.

He broke his leg in the fourth quarter of the school’s season-ending game, which made him miss his senior year basketball season.

Kernich was a junior studying pre-business management at Kent State, according to a statement issued Saturday by Kent State University President Lester A. Lefton.

“Losing a loved one is never easy, particularly if it is a result of a senseless tragedy,” Lefton said. “Chris’ death is a tragic reminder that violence, whether provoked or unprovoked—regardless of the reason, is never the answer. May we learn something from this incident, for our own sake and in Chris’ memory.”

The president of Kent State doesn’t have it in him to use the word murder. He calls this savage murder of one of his students, this deliberate extinguishing of a human life, this act of ultimate evil, a “senseless tragedy,” as though it had no moral meaning, as though human beings did not carry out the act, but it just happened by itself. Damn him. And damn 100 years of liberals, from Clarence Darrow to the present, who have used this same nihilistic language that cancels out good and evil, that cancels out our humanity.

Roger G. writes:

Amen amen amen.

I was a boy when I first read of Darrow and the Leopold and Loeb case, and I was disgusted with him even then.

Roger continues:

Here are links (here and here) on the infamous Leopold and Loeb trial.

LA replies:

I’m reading with rapt attention the Wiki article on Leopold and Loeb you sent. I’ve read things about the case before and saw the movie Compulsion, but as I read this now it’s hitting me as though I had never read about it before. It’s just about the most complete portrayal of evil I’ve seen.

How monstrous, that the judge, after hearing Darrrow’s plea that the murderers were not really bad but under the influence of Nietzsche’s philosophy, gave the pair life, instead of death.

However, in the midst of this moral horror, there is a light note:

At Joliet Prison, Leopold and Loeb used their educations to teach classes in the prison school. On January 28, 1936, Loeb was attacked by fellow prisoner James E. Day with a straight razor in the prison’s shower room, and died from his wounds. Day claimed afterward that Loeb had attempted to sexually assault him. This was never proven and Loeb’s throat was slashed from behind. Nonetheless, an inquiry accepted Day’s testimony and the prison authorities ruled that Day’s attack on Loeb was made in self-defense. According to one widely reported account, newsman Ed Lahey wrote this lead for the Chicago Daily News: “Richard Loeb, despite his erudition, today ended his sentence with a proposition.”

Unfortunately, after that combination of justice and humor, it gets worse. Leopold, perhaps as a result of participating in a malaria study, was released from prison in 1958 and lived until 1971. A man could commit such a crime, be sentenced to “life plus 99 years,” and then be freed to walk free on God’s earth. He and Loeb should have been executed in 1925. Letting them live was a horrible injustice. The judge who bought into Darrow’s relativistic b.s. and gave them life was Cook County Circuit Court Judge John R. Caverly—a name that should live as a symbol of the ascendancy of nihilism in America.

LA continues:

For new readers, nihilism does not mean what is commonly thought, a belief in absolutely nothing (since no one believes in absolutely nothing, if that’s what nihilism meant, there would be no nihilists and the concept would be irrelevant); nihilism means the denial that good and evil objectively exist. As such, it is the dominant moral belief of liberal society. See “The meaning of official nihilism,” by Jim Kalb; “Philosopher says we must create meaning and goodness,” my letter to a philosopher who denies inherent moral meaning and then says we must create meaning. See also my brief discussion of the four stages of nihilism.

November 25

David B. writes:

A few days ago, I watched my DVD of the film “Compulsion” again. Orson Welles played the character based on Clarence Darrow. This film forms most people’s view of the case, especially the sympathetic view of Leopold.

Orson Welles, in his interminable speech, keeps saying things like “love” and “compassion” against the “mob” and “hyenas.” Opponents of capital punishment use these words to this day. There was a commenter at the Knoxville News-Sentinel site who kept calling those who wanted the defendants in the Knoxville Atrocity executed the “bloodthirsty mob” to whom the authorities were catering.

A book was published in 2008 on the Leopold-Loeb case, “For The Thrill of It,” by Simon Baatz. Chicago in the 1920s was seen as a place of self-indulgence and hedonistic escess. The book shows how Darrow used the “abuse” excuse to convince the judge to spare the life of the killers.

The book reports that Caverly was a liberal judge. Is that a big surprise?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 24, 2009 11:00 PM | Send