The Manufactured Martyr

The human-psyche has a terrible track record of attaching ambiguous titles of hero, victim, villain, and, of course, martyr. Our Internet-era only exploits this inherent flaw. This is not political in looking at fact-based cultural dynamics.

Propaganda, Power, and Everyday Violence

Graduate students would initially scoff at my personal examples, historical examples, and inevitable prophecies in industrial relations and conflict management classes when exploring the ability to propagandize and emotionally justify, everyday people, to engage in violence and criminal conduct – union leaders throwing a punch wearing a $1,000 suit, opposing attorneys whispering violent threats in your ear, Boy-Scout leaders flinging deadly bolts from slingshots, family-men drilling gas tanks and severing wires and hoses – incendiary devices (real and fake), to NFL players hoisting rifles. Then they researched it! Scoff no more. Healthcare professionals promote harmful and debilitating concoctions of pharmaceuticals, household chemicals, and even poison-ivy resin – hoping you’ll take the bait.

When Instability Meets Incitement

Add some tapped individuals with a touch of sociopath or impulsive-explosive disorder, and people will inevitably be hurt, even killed. How to create a riot with just your bridge-group? Do the research – don’t be shocked.

Amorphous Rhetoric and Moral Justification

A critical step is the planned execution of amorphous rhetoric – short, simple, catchy perhaps, always an emotional outcry of moral justification – designed to evaporate rationale, logic, and norms of right and wrong, integrity, and atrocity. A suicide vest bomber can be a martyr, or a terrorist, depending on your point of view, but always a propped-up believer cleansed of critical-thinking, consequences, and otherwise instinctive logic.

Crowd Control Is a Science, Not a Guess

Crowd control and security is a science of crowd dynamics learned through mistakes and successes, no less than going from a Mercury space capsule to the SpaceX Falcon 9. There are layers. Each layer has a higher level of response. De-escalation and threat elimination are always a goal. Like a solid Jenga tower, as each piece is removed, we know the result – it’s just a matter of which piece and when.

Security Layers and Consequences

Show your ID and boarding pass to the TSA agent – don’t comply and you’ll quickly experience another discreet layer of security. Get a weapon to your gate and expose it – you can have a self-tutorial on security layering.

The Lessons of Public Venues

Until 2013, most fans found it incomprehensible that the NFL and NBA would require metal detectors and only a one-gallon, clear purse.

We KNOW that proximity and loud noise cause confusion, disruption, interference with communications, adrenaline output, and avoidable mistakes.

Fans scream to break decibel records and display creative posters (accepting censorship). Yet, cowbells, megaphones, sirens, vuvuzelas, whistles, and air horns are strictly prohibited at sporting events. Despite the occasional errant streaker or buxomous female, fans know not to interfere with players on the field, court, ice, or pitch. There are consequences for interfering with the lawful execution of the tasks on the field of play – even though the task can get rough at times. It’s not even okay for a journalist with a press pass to run into the action with a microphone at a player’s butt to get the inside story. Shocking, right?

Civil Structure and Public Space

A public street, a public school, a public venue, an airport, a subway, or a theatre – from politicians to courts, we make some fine line distinctions to mold a normative mindset – a civil structure.

Flashmob Mentality and Manufactured Chaos

We have been de-synthetized to flashmob mentality. The mysterious appearance of fifteen musicians in the square, a motorcycle birthday parade for a disabled child, to a rampage of smash and grab teens in a shopping mall – now stalking law enforcement officers carrying out their lawful duty. The conductor lurks. It’s NOT organic. It’s the way it is, right?

The Search for a Martyr

Rodney King, Michael Brown, George Floyd, a murderous Mangione, and Minneapolis. Media-controlled images, videos, and scripts, speculating and seldom telling the whole story. If we can’t have a hero, we need a martyr.

When History Is Rewritten

A six-year-old refugee whose mother sacrificed her life to escape Cuba – doors smashed and the boy held at assault-rifle gunpoint by SWAT-clad officers. But that was 1999, and Bill Clinton was President with his Attorney General, Janet Reno, and Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State, seeking to appease a ruthless dictator, Fidel Castro. He was deported – and the Internet grotesquely erases the chalkboard of facts, revising history to overwrite a story of happiness and success.

Misinformation and Media Retractions

In Minnesota, a hoax story that ICE detained a five-year-old boy from Ecuador, and used him as bait was broadcast on major media outlets and used by political figures to vilify federal law enforcement. In fact, at his car, the father ran from law enforcement, and he was detained, leaving the boy abandoned. The mother inside the house refused to open the door and accept custody, even though she was assured she would not be detained. Once the media swarmed in, she claimed she did not refuse custody and inconsistently alleged she was being baited to come out and be detained. Eventually, various media outlets issued some retractions.

Facts Over Politics

It’s not a left or right issue. Undesired, unfortunate events that happen in real-time are politicized for fuel to the believers before the facts are known.

Enforcement Across Administrations

Obama appointed Tom Holman as Director of ICE in charge of removals and awarded him the Presidential Rank Medal, the highest award for a civil servant. Trump recalled and appointed Tom Holman to the same position.

Over 3-million illegal aliens were deported under Obama. Trump, first-term, 1.2 million. Even 545,000 deportations under Biden, countered by the open borders reception of ten to fifteen million illegals. No outcry, no protests, no riots.

As of January 2026, 675,000 deportations under Trump – mostly convicted or charged felons, gang members, terrorist ties, or with existing deportation orders.

The Jenga Moment

ICE and Border Patrol detainment efforts are active in a plethora of jurisdictions. Minneapolis? On the heels of multi-billion-dollar fraud by immigrants and the money trail creeping toward elected officials, with the breadcrumbs rapidly leading to other states. WE NEED A MARTYR, and the lemmings, incapable of critical thinking, abandon their normative values to fall in line, while the puppet-masters smile at a safe distance.

The Final Layer of Security

Tragic? YES. It always is and is intended in the Jenga game. The officers are victims as well – they did not want to shoot. They were the last layer of security with the standdown absence of the primary, secondary, and third layer. Thus, allowing for circumstances that likely would not have occurred using a normal and requested security operation.

Freedom, Order, and the Slippery Slope

Sacrificing freedom for security is a fool’s journey. Yet, pretzel-twisting the civil structure that protects that freedom, and contorting anarchy as the rights of freedom, is inevitably the gathering avalanche to smother that for which it stands, while we watch a shadowy socialistic police-state evolve and prevail. Trust in us… We know what we’re doing.

— Henry Cox