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What Can Be Said About the Events in Charlottesville
Let me say up front I am not a Nazi, a white nationalist, or a sympathizer of them. I am also a military history buff who knows a lot about the Civil War and am firmly pro-union and very unsympathetic to the southern cause. I don’t buy a word of the lost cause or other mythologizing of the old south. So, anyone reading this can please not waste their time accusing me of being a white nationalist or confederate sympathizer. I am most certainly not.
Second, before we get onto the important work of using the events of yesterday to slander our political enemies, I think we might want to at least look at the facts as we know them. The facts are, as best I can tell, as follows. A white nationalist organization known as Unite the Right decided to have a national rally in Charlottesville, VA to protest the removal of the city’s Robert E. Lee statue.
After months of work and hype on social media, Unite the Right managed to get 200 marchers to show up in Charlottesville Friday. On Friday night they marched around with tiki torches and waved flags without incident. On Saturday a group of Antifa counter protesters showed up. The counter protesters proceeded to attack the Unite the Right Marchers and a riot broke out.
According the the Virginia ACLU, the Charlottesville police stood down and did nothing to control the situation. During this riot a supporter of the march, it is unclear if he is a member of any of the organizations there, slammed his car into a crowd of counter protesters killing one person and injuring 19 others. It is unclear if the driver had planned to do this to any counter protesters before the march or if he just took the riot as an excuse to do it.
Those are the facts as we know them currently. What they mean can be debated. Any debate about this subject should be based upon facts, not assumptions or hasty generalizations. What can we reasonably conclude from the known facts? Three things I think.
First, the white nationalist movement is still the same small, insignificant movement it always has been. Despite months of hype and work, the Unite the Right rally drew 200 people. The white nationalist KKK movement has been able to draw a couple hundred people at a national rally for my entire lifetime. So let’s stop with the nonsense about this being some significant rally or that the white nationalists are any more popular or emboldened today than they ever have been. They are not. It’s the same small group of morons that have always been there. The proof of that is in the numbers. If there had been 10,000 people at that rally, I might reconsider that. But there wasn’t.
Second, what played out yesterday in Charlottesville is just a repeat of what happened in Berkeley, Middleburg, NYU, and other places over the last year and a half. Some group Antifa finds objectionable has a speech or a rally. Then Antifa shows up and starts assaulting people and the police stand down, let them do it, and let the riot happen. That is exactly what happened yesterday. It should surprise no one that one of these riots has now resulted in someone’s death. The fact that the death was the result of the actions of the enemies of Antifa rather than Antifa itself, changes nothing. This was going to happen eventually.
Third, this is exactly what Antifa wanted. Their plan is always to attack their enemies hoping they fight back and then get blamed for the resulting violence. And time and again the police let them do it. Every time some self-righteous writer like David French gets up and talks about this being the result of the “alt right,” whatever that is, they are doing nothing but emboldening Antifa and encouraging this to happen more in the future.
You want this stuff to stop, and you should, don’t waste your time virtue signaling about the dreaded Virginia Nazis. They are an insignificant group that are defended by no one and whose only use seems to be to allow Democrats and writers like David French to slander their political opponents. Prosecuting and condemning the person who did this is an essential start. But you can’t undo the harm he did and you can’t deter or prevent the actions of truly violent people.
What can be done is to hold local police accountable for doing their jobs and preventing situations like the one in Charlottesville from happening in the first place. As the President said, the solution to this is for police to restore law and order. There are no other answers or deeper lessons here. It is just that simple.
Published in General
From the LA Times (about the Sacramento riot last summer):
about another rally in Anaheim last year:
I am sorry, but not surprised, to add Hugh Hewitt here as well. He has become something else these last months.
So if you have these implements of desctruction, you can shut down all peaceful protests?
These two sides both get a thrill out of the physical violence. Both sides showed up ready for violent action. I have a hard time with the idea that the white supremacists were not there to start a fight. Violence and fascism go hand in hand (this applies to both sides).
What you can do is not allow signs that are attached to 2×4’s, flags that are attached to poles, shields, and yes you can confiscate knives, baseball bats, brass knuckles, and short pieces of pipe.
When people show up at a protest dressed for battle then there is a good chance that there might actually be a battle.
I have never heard of Antifa – this is new. You are right – the skin head, KKK groups have always been around and attract few. Yet the headlines are all about the “alt-right” and little to nothing about this new group called Antifa. I bet if you peel back the onion layers, it’s well funded and organized, unlike the skin head idiots. Police are not taking control of the violence and now there are those demanding the removal of more civil war “statues” – they’ve always been there – why the fury now? The trend seems to be, not locals fighting and protesting, but serious thugs coming from other states and throwing gas on the fire. We’re seeing this in other cities.
Displays of stupidity are protected by the First Amendment. But there are realities that if you advertise a bunch of racists gathering for an event, it’s going to get an equal if not greater stupid reaction.
Why are we using pretzel logic and even getting involved? Trump proxy? If any lefty demand you answer that this is an environment created by *your* vote you tell them this happens if Hillary were President as well and that you are responsible for the actions of one person: you.
There might be an argument to be made for keeping Robert E Lee statues but that argument should be by better voices I know reside in that city. I went to the University of Virginia and while my professor has passed on, I’m sure there are much better people to voice a proactive stance than Jimmy White Power and his Home Depot LARP gear and better people to voice the dissenting view than a 20 year old who only found out about the park and the statue yesterday.
I’ve never understood counter protest (“Hey let’s go where two groups of angry screaming morons are because it’ll be fun!”). But from a philosophical point of view, shouldn’t we hold our fire until Antifa attacks at a place where you have more of a higher moral ground, assuming that it won’t be also spun as “hate.” Like, if Ben Shapiro or Dennis Prager fans had issue with the unshowered emo progressive ninja army, that’s when you throw everything into a propaganda war, although it appears school administrators are a step ahead of us by anticipating problems. Instead we’re fighting for idiots like Milo or the cosplay Vern Schillingers who are using pro wrestling gimmicks to align themselves with our legitimate differences, and that might be okay if it just came off as a theoretical First Amendment purity fight. But we know how that turns out, we get called racists. I think the danger of this culture fight and feeling the need to retaliate we become at times like the thing we hate….we start crying wolf about oppression over anything the left does to shut things down and it loses its impact in a world where the media is already against us when you’re defending this.
Just because the narrative is to tie your vote to this, this is not a time to fight the narrative, but rather dismiss it as stupid lest it become us virtue signaling that we’re for unpopular speech. I’m not sure that’s in doubt.
Paid counter protesters?
Then it’s WORKPLACE VIOLENCE!!!!!
Your point is very well taken. I agree. But it’s academic. Trump should know how what he says will be taken in the current political environment, and should not put wind in the sails of the left. Again, with a properly worded response, he could have left his opponents with nothing to use, and it would have cost him nothing. It’s extremely frustrating and I’m just getting tired of it. Or, maybe he’s doing it on purpose.
New? Newer than the KKK I guess. Antifa were behind Berkeley riots and others, they were behind getting invited speakers – non white supremicist speakers – blocked from speaking. They are about violent suppression of speech they disagree with. Emphasis on violent. They are real fascists having real impact unlike the impotent KKK. Part of the shame of all this is that people don’t know Antifa in the same way they know KKK. President Trump’s remarks make so much sense in that light.
What’s the evidence of that? Seems like they’ve literally been pushing for impeachment since day one. Besides, what the heck is wrong with “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides.”? Aren’t there in fact many ugly sides to this incident? Forget politics for a moment, what about truth?
His statement was true objectively, and morally sufficient, but self destructive and insufficient politically. I knew it the moment he uttered it. Why didn’t he? He doesn’t have to say something that isn’t true. He just needs to speak the truth in a way that doesn’t empower the lies of the left. After all, he was the one who insisted upon naming Islamic extremism by name, so obviously the leftists would insist he do the same here. What harm is there to condemning white supremacism specifically? It would be true, and it would undermine the lefts ability to counter. If there really is a political downside to condemning white supremacism by name, we may as well hang it up now. You can’t argue that white extremism is negligble in our society and at the same time be afraid to lose their votes.
You give Baltimore too much credit Doug, just ask iWc.
Well written post John.
Let’s try to sort out some facts here.
This Unite the Right group applies for and is denied a permit to demonstrate in a local park, but is eventually granted a permit by a judge over the objections of the local municipality of Charlottesville.
Charlottesville, a University town home to a major University, was trying to deny a lawful demonstration, much like Berkeley, California before it, where also violent clashes occurred when a conservative group tried to have a speech on several occasions with a celebrity right wing speaker.
First off, we now have had several occasions where a University town has tried to deny a lawful protest by the Right, even though it has been many decades, where a similar protest I believe by a Left Wing group was ever denied by that town.
Secondly, just like Berkeley and other similar situations, we have seen violent counter protestors led by the Soros backed Antifa show up heavily armed and with the obvious intention to violently attack the lawful protestors, which is in fact what occurs. And again just like Berkeley and elsewhere, the Police stand down after witnessing these violent attacks and refuse to protect the lawful protestors, but in this case what appears to be a member of the lawfully protesting group whether after being attacked or not, intentionally or not, rams his car violently into a crowd of the counter protesters killing at least one and injuring many others.
One should not be surprised at a violent reaction to a situation where the police unlawfully refuse to protect lawful protestors, particularly when the lawful protesting group has been linked to a violent past and also where we now have a recurring pattern where police in a Left Wing city refuse to protect lawful protestors.
If the Rule of Law still prevailed we would expect to see a Federal investigation into the numerous instances of Antifa, Black Lives Matter and others traveling across State lines to incite violence, and also the refusal of local police to lawfully protect our citizens. But unfortunately, it appears that Jeff Sessions, our current Attorney General, has no stomach for enforcing the law equally, or for investigating any illegal activity pushed by a Left Wing group.
One should expect that the anger and violence will spread from this incident when the full truth is heard. Only a return to equally pursuing justice and a return to protecting equally all the rights of all our citizens calm the situation and prevent further violence.
There’s no harm is condemning white supremacists specifically. There’s also no harm in applying condemnation to all sides of this ugly affair and trying to tamp down passions and unite – except for the political harm manufactured by his opponents. If he had named the white supremacists AND Antifa AND Black Lives Matter – would that have avoided this? I don’t think it would have, yet it needs to be done. Does there need to be a pretense for the left? No, they do it anyway. So why aren’t we calling them on it instead of calling out President Trump for: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides”?
Because we elected him to defeat the left. That means anticipating their moves and taking them away from them. Anyone could see this statement didn’t do that, because of the last three words. I can think of a great speech he could have given that could have unequivocally condemned the kkk as evil “losers” and even socialists, then asked people to imagine how “beautiful” it would have been if no one had shown up to see their demonstration. “Wouldn’t that have been a beautiful thing? I think it would have been beautiful….” But no, professional rioters show up to give the losers all the attention they want. “Maybe they’re secretly on the same side? It wouldn’t surprise me.” People should act like adults and ignore bullies. But no, these rioters just want to glorify themselves and end up giving publicity to the kkk.
This would have bee a very satisfying, and very Trumpian, speech.
I would have taken that too. However, that formulation downgrades the antifas of the world as spectators of the real losers’ demonstration. In my opinion they’re more than that – they’re equal to the white supremacists in danger and unAmericanism, and exceeding them in violence. But I wouldn’t have quibbled at that, certainly not to the extent we’ve seen on Ricochet. And I think the left and others would have pilloried him anyway for equivalence.
I’ve watched several of the videos of the car running into people, and I’m still not sure exactly what happened.
There was a street with lots of people walking around, and a couple of cars moving through the crowd slowly. Another car comes down the street, and just before getting to the other cars appears to speed up dramatically. This car rams into the car in front of it and pushes that car into another one. Several people are sent flying, but we don’t see where they were before – presumably between the cars, as a couple wind up on top of the first car that was hit from behind.
A number of people converge on the last car and start smashing it with clubs. Almost immediately that car goes in reverse and goes back down the street at pretty high speed. More people are hit as it goes backward.
Was the one person killed when he was going forward or in reverse? Why did he speed up and hit the other cars from behind? He didn’t steer into the people on the sidewalk, but did hit people in front of him. At least one person appears to have hit the car as it was going down the street – did the driver panic? I saw one comment that purportedly quoted a policeman saying that the man was just frightened.
It’s still not clear to me that he meant to drive into people when he started down the street, but I don’t know why he accelerated the way he did.
I provided evidence to support my claim that antifa uses violence to shut down speech they don’t like, and they have done so repeatedly and recently. You should provide evidence that white supremacists, who by the way routinely obtain permits to protest, have recently attacked people during rallies. I’ll wait in vain for you to do so.
There’s a Robert E. Lee statue on my hometown court square. It’s been there for 100 years. It hurts no one. Why can’t we just make our peace with the past?
They showed up with helmets and shields. As if for a fight. If they wanted to protest peacefully, they would not do that. Peaceful protesters don’t gear up for battle.
The murder of Heather Heyer is an example of white supremacist violence.
I was with you, John, up until the above sentence. The alt-right exists, and to deny it is what plays into the hands of the left.
Ask John Podhoretz, or Ben Shapiro, or others, who have been viciously attacked, with anti-semitic screeds, because they didn’t support Donald Trump. Trump is not a bigot. But, in failing to understand that there is a hateful alt-right, he is enabling people on the left to unleash their vileness.
George,
I’m sorry, Ed. G, you have it wrong.
George:
I don’t see it because it is hardly there. It is in the minds of people like Prager, Trump, and you. If we lose the House in 2018, Trump is impeached, and we get a President like Elizabeth Warren in 2020, it will in part rest upon your shoulders. And all the dogmatic statements in the world will have brought us nothing but the single-mindedness of control that the left has mind for all of us!
Ostrich, meet sand.
I thought that the President had said something like “there were good people on both sides.” My facebook feed is filled with posters embedded with photos of Nazis shooting at innocent people, circa WWII, and the header above the photo being: “Trump says there were good people on both sides.” If Obama had said the same thing, he would have been praised for diplomatically letting both sides cool down. But as many of us suspect, if Trump cured cancer tomorrow, he would be blamed for not doing it sooner.