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Charlottesville Violence Not Our Fight
This weekend’s violence at the University of Virginia’s campus in Charlottesville, VA, was a clash between tribes. Inevitably, the opposing factions tried to prove their superiority by force, which is, fundamentally, the only argument that can be made for the supremacy of one tribe over another.
The fight was between two socialist factions – socialist because collectivism is the pathology of socialism, whether the national socialism of the right or the Marxist socialism of the left. Neither conservatives nor libertarians have a dog in this fight.
Published in General
Maybe, but this isn’t the usual “bankers control everything” conspiracy. He specifically named the Rothchilds. Best case scenario is that he sees the white nationalists as at least potential allies in waging his “Memetic War.”
As semiotically useful, perhaps?
I just finished reading For Whom The Bell Tolls. Frighteningly familiar.
Or another way of putting it, if you’re going to disown both groups, don’t at the same time try to paint your moderate opposition as owning both.
They can barely get a fifth of that. That’s how insignificant they are. As usual, the media wants to make them seem more influential than they are.
They always have to fit their chosen narrative … without any consistency. The few hundred nazi loonies are exaggerated, while the hundreds of thousands that make the March for Life event every January are ignored and underestimated.
http://www.wnd.com/2017/01/watch-live-march-for-life-in-washington-d-c/
I didn’t read all of the comments, so someone has already probably said this–but Trump’s advisors shoulda learned from the brief “All Lives Matter” fiasco.
You can’t say stuff like that; it dilutes the pure elixir of victimhood. We don’t hear that any more.
Remember “Disrupt J20” and the violence that went on after the election and at the inauguration?
No? remember James Hodgkinson, who tried to decapitate our legislative branch exactly two months –8 weeks! ago today?
For pity’s sake, for decency’s sake, remember him!!
But we–and Trump–are not allowed to even glancingly refer to the Left’s long violent intifada. Trump’s use of the two words “many sides” is now waved like a bloody sheet as proof positive of his intercourse with universally-despised Neo-Nazis.
“All lives matter” goes without saying–and it better remain unsaid–or else!
I can’t. This is but another example of uneducated ‘journalists,’ together with those who refuse to report in an unbiased manner. And why Hillsdale’s new journalism program – with emphasis on education and true journalism – is so needed.
(I, too, didn’t read all the comments so apologies if this was already covered.)
And diametrically opposed to this treatment …. “we have no definitive assessment of the motivation” … and … “people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts.”
His firing from NRO didn’t surprise me one bit. Long before that infamous essay, I wondered why NRO would give page space so someone who literally believed that certain races were genetically incapable of being educated beyond a certain level. (Though I guess he’s not technically a white supremacist, as he apparently believes that Asians are the supreme race.) Since NRO let him go he has apparently seen fit to let his freak flag fly.
Logically speaking, though, “white privilege” implies that non-white people are somehow genetically incapable of reaching the same level of achievement as white people do. So I’d also apply that same thinking to the academics who push “white privilege.” (Am I saying that leftists are racists? Why yes. Yes I am.)
That’s not a fair description of Derbyshire or “race realists”. It’s about statistics – if one population has an average IQ of 110 and another has an average of 90, you might notice differences in their average achievements. That says nothing about individuals from either group who may have very high IQ’s.
This is similar to the Google issue last week – the guy who wrote that memo just said that men and women differ on the population level, he never said there were no women who could excel in high tech industries.
Antifa, Black Lives Matter, the KKK, and neo-Nazis (who I doubt are politically interested enough to mirror the real Nazis they claim to admire, so are neither Left nor Right) are all hatemongering groups that should be unwelcome, if legally tolerated, anywhere.
Consequently, the President’s blanket condemnation of all of them seems appropriate. NRO’s notion that condemning all is equivalent to patting one side on the back is nonsensical. But it might be nice if Trump’s preference for blunt rhetoric called them all out by name.
I’m still unsure how significant the Alt-Right is, if it is even a homogenous movement. Idiot remarks and threats via Twitter or Facebook don’t worry me, deplorable as they are, any more than I worry about Pajama Boy starting a revolution or assaulting someone. In any case, a culture of civility must be revived if political and cultural opponents are to exist together. We shouldn’t turn blind eyes to idle cruelty and hate.
Few people belong to those hateful groups. So, like DC McAllister and others, I’m less concerned with them beating on each other than with popular media, politicians, and educators giving cover to one side. Republicans and conservatives have a delicate balancing act ahead: to condemn racism while also condemning the false accusations of racism which abound. The former doesn’t necessarily weaken the latter, but people of the Right unfortunately must always guard against the Left’s propensity for manipulating conversations into a petty and malicious game that disregards truth.
Per EJ’s first comment, it’s frustrating that a genuinely worthy cause — defense of history against the Left’s whitewashing — was overshadowed by a riot of thugs and miscreants.
Love it bc when drunk to the dregs it gives victims life and a reason to get up in the morning. You’re right that clumps of words have certain magic–like Black Lives Matter that other clumps don’t–All Lives Matter.
Unlike Humpty Dumpty or Noah Webster–words now mean not what we say they mean but what our victims–those we offend–say they mean. And it’s a game played to win by those who make and regularly change the rules–VICTIMS. I’m with Maurice Chevalier on this one: glad I’m not young anymore
Look the alt right and antifa are both enemies of civilization. They both would line us up against walls and have us all shot if they won.
This should not be about what side we are/were on.
The Unite the Right people had a legal permit to protest and a right to express their opinions peacefully.
The Antifa/BLM people did not have a permit and were there to incite violence.
Big difference.
The police chose not to protect the rights of Unite the Right, did not protect them from the Antifa attacks and chose to break up their lawful demonstration upon the excuse that there was violence (which the Police let happen).
Our side should be to protect people’s constitutional rights no matter how crazy you think their views are. Period.
BTW, after all their publicity, the “Unite the Right” group could only bring together around 200 people to protest. They obviously represent a infinitesimal fraction of those with conservative views. Defending their right to protest is by no means defending their racist views.
Conservatives should condemn racism and white supremacism in the strongest possible terms.
That is conjecture on your part. Some of the white supremacists were clearly looking for a fight and had equipped themselves accordingly.
Again, conjecture and speculation. Might be wiser to wait for a thorough investigation of what took place to materialize.
See my first comment above.
There is nothing conservative about this group.
They are right wing, in only the most basic level. They are as reactionary as the old hard line Royalists that sat in the National Assembly.
But if we go back that far, almost everyone on Ricochet would be sitting in the left side of the chamber. Including me.
You don’t have to go that far back. The American right has only been defined by a fusion of classical liberalism and traditionalism for the last half century or so. That the alt-right, in the form of the Birchers, was marginalized in American conservatism for most of that period is much less a function of ideological alignment then of the concerted efforts of classical liberal fusionists like William F Buckley.
Well, I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the Birchers were also fringe segment of Republican/conservativism at large, much like, and perhaps larger than the Posse Comitatis group that emerged around the same period. And ideological alignment isn’t a mindless mitochondrial motion, is it? Wasn’t Buckley the intellectual agent that initiated the realignment – or some might say the proper alignment – of conservative ideology to the Founders’ first principles?
Is expecting to be attacked the same as looking for a fight? The history of antifa suggests you can expect violence from them.
Perhaps I’m agreeing with you somewhat and saying the same thing…but I would say that the more racist-tinged groups that emerged post WWII and self-aligned themselves with the Republican Party should have been repudiated more vehemently and that some of these groups strayed from the guiding influence and example of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Even Buckley admits (in an Uncommon Knowledge interview with Peter and Christopher Hitchens) that he should have been more openly supportive of the Civil Rights movement – so there is that. With regard to Trump, he had the opportunity to disavow any support from white supremacists before the primaries in the South (Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi – as I recall) but only waited until after the voting and then only after he was badgered to do so.
In the late 1950s the John Birch Society held roughly at the same place in American politics as the Breitbart/alt right does today. Both started out as very conservative and anti-establishment, and came to embrace a variety of conspiracy theorists and bigots. I remember reading an interview with Buckley where he described how he gradually came to the conclusion that the alliance with the Birchers on shared (mainly anti communist) beliefs wasn’t worth all the baggage that came with it. I’ll see if I can find it. He also wrote a fictionalized account of it in his novel “Getting it Right.”
Okay.
Not okay. If you respond to, “We should defend the Constitution,” with, “We should condemn this group,” the clear implication is that the Constitution should not apply to that group. The Constitution applies to everybody, or it applies to nobody.
I completely agree with you.
I’m not sure where you’re getting this constitutional protection from condemnation. Could you help me out?
Considering that some armed themselves with torches (that could be used as lances), helmets, then one could possibly conclude that some were looking for a fight, and that some may have been eager for a fight, while others in the same group may have only wanted to defend themselves if they were attacked.
I think it’s problematic to ascribe pure and noble motives to any group that acts as a mob rather than pinpoint the motives of individuals within the mob. This is no way diminishes the violence and thuggery of the Antifa mob. When an Antifa thug grabs a Confederate flag or a KKK banner and the white supremacist holding that flag or banner yanks back or jabs at the Antifa thug…violence is liable to escalate…which it did. Let’s just say that the non-violent protest techniques of Gandhi or Dr. King were not in evidence here.
Let me expand and clarify my remarks. I actually didn’t disagree with the statement cited. But one should have the presence of mind to watch the manner in which a protest/rally is unfolding and make a determination whether the mob in question went beyond expressing their free speech rights and began to engage in violence – and even question through an examination of the evidence compiled at a later date whether the group’s intent was to engage in violence on the pretext of holding a peaceful rally – whether that’s the KKK/white supremacist/NeoNazi mob or the Antifa mob. Did they have a right to gather and spew the hateful, idiotic rhetoric they did? Absolutely. Were they under the impression that things could get out of hand? Were they prepared to resist the temptation to become violent and leave the scene peacefully? Or did they want to mix it up and inflict damage to their opposition?
I didn’t describe anyone as pure and noble. It was a stupid place for anyone to be. It’s still important who takes the first shot. Being ready to defend yourself is a lot different than throwing the first punch.
The Alt-Right is a gift to the radical left, and will be used to justify violence against, not only the Alt-Right, but against the right in general.