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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
The alt right is a term that is frequently misused, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s true, the alt right isn’t an offshoot of the fusion of classical liberalism and traditionalism that has characterized the American right for half a century, but that doesn’t mean it’s leftist. The alt right is very similar to a number of right wing populist movements in Europe.
Can we settle on self-proclaimed white supremacists?
I’ll go a little bit farther and say that a definition of the right which excludes the alt right is artificial and inaccurate. If you want to say the alt right isn’t a part Of traditional American conservatism, I’ll happily agree. But the right is broader than that.
I’m not sure how that is a compromise in this particular dispute.
Of course there is one prejudice which is shared by the hard left and the hard right.
I have condemned the neo nazis without reservation; I am not “clutching at free speech straws”. I am defending the Constitution of the United States, which gives everyone the right to free speech, including people who should be condemned without reservation. The people who showed up today to fight with the white supremacists are the same people who who burning things down at Berkeley and attacking people when Charles Murray was trying to speak. They should also be condemned without reservation.
“I may disagree with what a man says, but I will defend to the death his right to say it”. I can’t remember which Founding Father said that, but it’s what I believe, and for you to accuse me of “clutching at free speech straws” is pathetic. If you are only willing to defend the speech of people you agree with, then you don’t really believe in free speech.
Also, the neo-nazis had a permit. Those who showed up to oppose them did not. This may seem like a small matter, but if you believe in free speech and the rule of law, it isn’t. I don’t want to live in a country where anitfa can shut anyone down by showing up and getting violent, and those who believe that they will only use this tactic with neo nazis are wrong.
It was actually a quote misattributed to Voltaire by one of his early biographers. Not arguing with your point, but a pedant’s gotta pedant.
Well, it’s what I believe, regardless of whether anybody actually said it or not. Even if no one said it, someone should have :)
The point is that neo Nazis and kkk have no political traction or relevancy in this country. The left has been escalating racial alarmism over recent years even as racism has been reduced to near zero. We elected a black president! Racism exists of course, but has absolutely no political power or relevancy. This infuriates the left, because they need a boogeyman to fight in order to give their own movement relevancy. Their alarmism increases precisely because what they claim to be alarmed about is diminishing to nothing.
So that’s why they showed up today. Nothing bad would have happened, in terms of racial justice, if they had stayed home. They showed up to glorify themselves.
So pointing out that the neo Nazis are part of the right is pointing out something that is trivial. No one cares what they think, and they have no power. Ignore them. If you don’t, you’re doing it for reasons that have nothing to do with promoting the good. It’s like showing up to counter protest a pro-bestiality rally.
I completely agree that neo-Nazis are a trivial part of the right in and of themselves. What I don’t think is trivial is that much larger segment of the right that is in denial of that fact. Neo-Nazis are indefensible and they are on the right, but fortunately we don’t have to agree with or defend everyone on the right.
From reading and watching I’d have to say the consensus answer is “YES.”
Opposing the removal of a confederate monument is not white supremacy. Opposing the removal of a confederate monument while carrying swastika flags and armbands and chanting racial epithets is a pretty strong sign of being a white supremacist.
I have two things to say regarding this subject:
and
There. Have I offended everyone?
We have alt right and neo con.
Why don’t we have an alt left or neo lib or neo prog ?
Because the first two are constructs of the left. We need to stop using the lefts jargon or turn it back on them.
Then how ’bout I just attribute the quote to Judithann Campbell next time I use it?
Hey there Judithann. I don’t for a moment dispute the right of Neo Nazi scum to protest- or the right of others to defend their right to protest. I’m just exercising my own right to say that in the real World any conservative who would take the time to defend these people runs the serious risk of tainting the conservative cause. There are many other examples of suppression of free speech which are entirely deserving of attention without running the risk(certainty) of doing grave harm to our movement (if, as a foreigner, I may be so bold as to identify myself with that movement?).
I will further exercise my right to say if you see a White Supremacist, run a mile. And if you don’t, I reserve my free-speech right to berate and condemn you.
Both alt-right and neoconservative are terms that were initially self-applied by people who identified as such. The left didn’t create either term, though it frequently misapplied both.
Well shame on them and the fools on the right that keep using these terms. They gave the left a bat to bludgeon us with.
Neo Nazis have been demonstrating in America for decades, and their fiercest defender has been the ACLU-not exactly a conservative organization. Until fairly recently, liberals used to believe in free speech too, which is why historically they have defended the rights of neo nazis and klansmen. If you are only willing to defend speech which you deem “deserving”, then you do not really believe in free speech. In America, all speech is deserving, regardless of whether we agree with it or not-unless someone is literally calling for violence, in which case, the answer is to alert the police; the answer is not to form a mob and start a riot.
Why are you giving leftists a pass on this? Are you seriously suggesting that it is sometimes ok for liberals to start riots, if the people they are rioting against are really despicable?
Good to know that you believe in your own right to free speech; if only you believed in it for others too.
No, it is far more powerful as ancient wisdom than it would be as something I said :)
I see where you’re coming from here, and I had the same thought when I read about it, but it doesn’t apply in this case. Apparently David Duke, Richard Spencer, and the actual KKK were involved this time.
That said, Antifa were on the other side, and if you asked me to guess who threw the first punch, I’d say it’s pretty obvious.
It recall’s Kissinger’s famous remark about the Iran-Iraq war: “It’s a pity they can’t both lose.”
Do the left use neocon? I’ve mostly heard it used by conservatives to describe other conservatives they disagree with or dislike.
We’re pretty good a bludgeoning our own, we don’t need help from the left.
Ted Cruz statement:
I’m going to wait and see.
We’ve had one Bernie brother shoot up a baseball game
We’ve had another attack some Muslim women
One antifa kid shot another antifa kid because he thought he was a white supremacist.
I figure it will take 2 days before I will know what it is I should be condemning.
Oh, please.Where was Cruz’s statement against BLM? They’re “hatred, “racist,” and “mar Our great Nation with bloodshed.” They’re also “repulsive” and “evil.” And We all have a “moral obligation to speak out against the lies,bigotry, and anti-Semitism, and hatred that They propagate.” Plus, those “bigots want to tear Our Country apart,” too.
Actually, Cruz accused BLM of celebrating the murder of police officers. According to the WaPo, Cruz was leading the GOP backlash to BLM (0f course, WaPo thought this was a bad thing).
I’m with Cruz. I don’t like Nazi, the KKK, or white supremacists. Seems like an easy call to me.
This is an important point. I totally join Ted Cruz in condemning white nationalists, but who doesn’t? White nationalists do not have the power to tear us apart. Everybody knows that, which is why virtually everybody condemns them-because no one, or virtually no one is afraid of them, because everybody knows that they have no power as a group. Which is why it so ridiculous when groups like antifa claim that they have to “fight” white supremacists. All ten of them.