We Are Not Going Back to 2020

The last thing I want to see is another human life lost in a confrontation with law enforcement. Death should never be treated casually, politicized cheaply, or celebrated by anyone with a functioning conscience. A woman is dead, and that matters. Her family and friends are grieving, and that matters. As Christians, we should pause long enough to pray, to mourn, and to remember that every life bears the image of God.

The woman killed in the encounter was Renee Nicole Good, who died during a confrontation with federal immigration officers in Minneapolis.

But compassion does not require dishonesty. And grief does not require us to abandon truth.

Featured Snippet Takeaway: Justice requires truth, accountability, and restraint, but justice without chaos means refusing propaganda, rejecting riots, and acknowledging personal responsibility even when tragedy strikes.

I lived through 2020. I watched cities burn. I watched businesses destroyed. I watched law enforcement vilified wholesale. I watched personal responsibility disappear under slogans and moral grandstanding. I watched truth become negotiable and violence become excusable as long as it wore the right ideological uniform.

I am not going back.

Compassion and Truth Are Not Enemies

One of the most destructive lies in modern culture is the idea that compassion requires the suspension of judgment, facts, or reality. We are told that if we acknowledge personal responsibility, we are heartless. If we refuse to demonize authority, we are immoral. If we do not immediately adopt the approved narrative, we are complicit.

That framing is false. It is not biblical, and it is not honest.

Scripture never separates compassion from truth. Jesus wept over death, but He also spoke plainly about sin, responsibility, and consequences. The prophets grieved injustice, but they also condemned rebellion and disorder. The Bible does not present a moral universe where feelings override facts.

So when a tragic encounter with law enforcement occurs, we do not honor the dead by lying about what happened. We honor the truth by telling it carefully, fully, and without ideological distortion. The basic facts of this incident, including the existence of video footage and disputed accounts of what occurred, have been reported factually by Reuters.

What I Saw With My Own Eyes

I watched the video. I did not watch it as an activist or a legal analyst. I watched it as a human being.

What I saw was not a calm interaction where someone complied fully and was inexplicably killed. I saw a volatile situation where commands were not followed, tension escalated quickly, and a vehicle was moved forward while a law enforcement officer was visibly in front of it.

That matters.

A vehicle is not a neutral object in a high stress encounter. Every law enforcement officer is trained to treat a moving vehicle as a potentially lethal threat, even at low speed. That training exists because vehicles have been used to kill officers and civilians countless times. Ignoring that reality does not make anyone safer.

Saying this does not mean I believe the woman deserved to die. I do not. Saying this means I refuse to erase human agency simply because the outcome was tragic.

Personal Responsibility Still Exists

One of the defining characteristics of the cultural collapse in 2020 was the elimination of personal responsibility. Individuals became symbols. Actions were excused. Authority was assumed guilty by default. Any discussion of choices or consequences was labeled cruelty.

That mindset did enormous damage.

When someone refuses lawful commands in a high risk encounter, they are increasing danger for themselves and everyone around them. That is not a political statement. It is a reality of human interaction under stress. Acknowledging that reality is not victim blaming. It is truth telling.

Personal responsibility does not vanish because an event becomes emotionally charged. It does not disappear because the person involved is later portrayed sympathetically. Responsibility is not negated by grief, outrage, or narrative pressure.

Justice demands that we acknowledge this, even when it is uncomfortable.

Authority Is Not Evil by Default

Another claim I am already hearing is that law enforcement should not have been there at all. That argument is not rooted in facts. It is rooted in ideology.

If the premise is that immigration law itself is illegitimate, then any enforcement of it becomes immoral by definition. That worldview is not about this incident. It is about rejecting borders, law, and authority altogether. I have written before about how institutions collapse when neutrality and order are abandoned, which is why this moment fits a broader cultural pattern discussed in When Corporate Neutrality Dies, Freedom Follows.

Scripture does not support that position.

Romans 13 teaches that governing authorities exist to restrain evil and preserve order. That does not mean authorities are infallible. It does not mean abuse never occurs. It does mean that authority itself is not inherently wicked, and that rebellion is not a virtue.

We cannot build a society where every exercise of authority is presumed criminal and every act of resistance is presumed righteous. That road leads to chaos, not justice.

Adrenaline, Fear, and Human Limits

Those who analyze these encounters from a distance often forget something basic about human nature. Officers do not experience these moments in slow motion. They do not have perfect information. They do not operate in sterile conditions with unlimited time to deliberate.

High stress encounters flood the body with adrenaline. Decision making compresses into seconds. Training kicks in. Fear is real. Uncertainty is real. Mistakes are possible, but so are genuine threats.

Judging these moments as if they occurred in a classroom or a courtroom is dishonest. Holding officers to standards that ignore human limits does not produce justice. It produces scapegoats.

This does not mean accountability should never exist. It means accountability must be grounded in reality, not hindsight fantasy.

The Pattern We Have Seen Before

We have seen this movie before.

A tragic incident occurs. Facts are unclear. Emotions run high. Before investigations conclude, a narrative is locked in. Law enforcement is declared evil. Institutions are delegitimized. Protests turn into riots. Violence is justified as righteous anger. Anyone who urges patience or restraint is shouted down. We saw the same dynamic unfold during earlier ICE related unrest, which I addressed directly in ICE Protests: The Truth Behind the Chaos in L.A..

That pattern did not bring healing in 2020. It brought destruction.

Entire neighborhoods were left in ruins. Trust in institutions collapsed. Crime surged. Communities suffered most, especially the vulnerable. The promised justice never materialized, but the damage remained.

Repeating that pattern now will not produce a different result.

Justice Without Chaos

What we need instead is justice without chaos.

That means insisting on truth before outrage. It means allowing investigations to run their course. It means acknowledging both tragedy and responsibility. It means refusing to turn grief into a weapon. It means rejecting riots, demonization, and ideological mob pressure.

Justice without chaos does not mean blind loyalty to law enforcement. It means fair evaluation based on evidence, not slogans. It means accountability where wrongdoing is proven, and restraint where it is not.

Most importantly, it means refusing to sacrifice order on the altar of emotional manipulation.

Why I Refuse to Go Back

I refuse to go back to a time when truth was optional, authority was illegitimate, and chaos was celebrated. I refuse to go back to a culture that cannot distinguish between compassion and indulgence, or between justice and vengeance.

I refuse to pretend that every tragic outcome proves systemic evil. I refuse to erase personal responsibility to satisfy ideological demands. I refuse to accept a moral framework where the loudest voices determine guilt.

This is not hardness of heart. It is clarity of conviction.

A Biblical Call to Restraint and Wisdom

Scripture calls us to be slow to anger, quick to listen, and grounded in truth. It warns us against mob justice and partiality. It commands us to uphold both mercy and righteousness.

We honor the dead best by refusing lies. We protect the living best by rejecting chaos. We preserve society by insisting that truth, order, and responsibility still matter.

Grief is real. Tragedy is real. But so are consequences.

We do not heal by burning everything down. We do not find justice by abandoning reality. And we do not honor God by surrendering to propaganda.

I lived through 2020.

I am not going back.

Arch Kennedy
Bold, Unfiltered, and Unafraid

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