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The Cease Fire That Won’t Be
What does it mean when a group of people, ages 20-50, swarm a federal courthouse and literally throw bombs at it? It means, much as it meant on April 12, 1861, when forces fired on Ft. Sumpter. It means a revolution is already underway. As the media continues to gaslight us with the “peaceful protester” narrative, video from folks on the ground like Andy Ngo show the real effects of this mayhem.
Now, with the governor of Oregon, a Democrat, agreeing to stop the violence, VP Pence has agreed to remove Customs and Border Protection from Portland. While that seems like a win for the bad guys, this is actually pretty brilliant strategy move by Republicans. It cuts sufficient rope from the spool to allow the governor, and the rioters, to hang themselves. Because, let’s be honest: the rioting won’t stop, it will intensify. There will be a full-scale frontal attack, likely with more than fireworks, on the federal courthouse and other federal buildings. The buildings will be seized. Lives – and justice – will be put at risk. Federal judges will get to see up close and in vivid color what injunctions protecting rioters from the full force of the law really accomplish. The nation will get to see that the word of a Democrat governor has all the worth of used toilet paper without any of its utility. The property will have to be retaken at a cost in lives and dollars that should be – but likely won’t be – borne by the state of Oregon.
For Democrats, this could be their time to shine. This could be their time to show they actually can accomplish something useful. Imagine if the riots stop, the courthouse gets left alone, and peace descends on Portland. It would prove the Democrats right, and President Trump wrong. But, it won’t.
Let me explain why.
I was ten years old when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a group of brave souls marched across a bridge in Selma. They did not carry guns. They did not riot. They were peaceful. They made speeches. Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech later on the Washington Mall is still regarded as one of the most masterful in history. His Letters from a Birmingham Jail (smuggled out in toilet paper) should be required reading for every law student. He led by example. He accomplished so much more than even he realized.
People of all races and religions saw that what Dr. King wanted was basic humanity and human dignity for a large swath of the country that could not obtain it. He pushed for change. Nonviolence won, in the end, because it worked through the democratic process. Although filibustered by Democrats for something like 65 days, the landmark Civil Rights Act brought thousands of young men who went to high school with me their first real experience with quality education. It brought them some pride in who they were. I remember, at the time, being offended by hearing “I’m black, I’m proud,” but today I understand it wasn’t meant as an attack on me, but as an affirmation that needed to be said. Many in that era had determined they had nothing to be proud of. How can you understand that if you’ve always been proud of who you are? But for them, it was a new and liberating experience.
While the Black Panthers, SDS, and the Weathermen took the violent route and claimed victory, it was Dr. King who won the day. Sadly, like Moses, he did not live to see his people reach the promised land. But the opportunities he created are still changing lives. And most importantly, the national consensus that the status quo was wrong came about by peaceful protest that showed how indifferent to human dignity and basic liberty certain Americans were in 1965. Now, 55 years later, those gains are about to be diminished, and if not diminished, certainly tarnished, by a bunch of young white people shouting “Black Lives Matter” when they do not, in fact, believe that. Rather, the entire organization is aimed at a Marxist revolution. And the first shots have already been fired. The first casualties have already been claimed.
Anyone with a little understanding of human psychology understands variable scale reinforcement. It’s why the slot machines near the entry have the most frequent (but lowest) payouts. If you occasionally give a gambler back a bit of what they lost, they will continue to lose money all night long. Because they get the rush from the occasional win. Very few gamblers play the slot machine for 30 minutes, hit a payout, and walk away. They go back looking for the next payout.
It’s the same thing with these Portland rioters. While there may be a temporary peace long enough to let the federal people depart, once they can reliably be thought to be gone, the full-scale assault will begin, and neither the mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, or the governor of Oregon will be able to stop it, or in truth, will want to stop it. They’ll declare, as Durkan did in Seattle, a “summer of love” and refuse to cooperate with retaking the courthouse. They will, instead, blame Trump. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I hear you asking “But if they got the feds out, why would they do this?” Because their goal was never to get the feds out of the courthouse. Their goal before, now and in the future will be to overthrow the duly elected government and impose a socialist order. If you think I’m making this up, look at some of the signs being carried in Portland that have nothing to do with black lives or police brutality. “Tax the Rich” “No Walls No Border” “Justice is Tyranny.” Oh, sure, there are a few token signs saying Black Lives Matter, but the majority are people in black clothing, black masks, with iron shields, clubs, frozen water bottles, and gas masks, are so lily-white they hurt your eyes and couldn’t give two cents about black lives.
These people do not swear off violence. They idolize it. They revel in it. They can’t wait to prevail over the feds and start ransacking the courthouse. Because their goal is not “peaceful protest” or even incremental change. It’s full-on revolution. Until you understand that, Portland makes no sense.
Anyone with eyes can see this is what is going to happen. As you read this, you know it’s true. So, surely you’re asking, why would Trump let that happen?
Because if that happens even CNN won’t be able to avoid covering it. And people all over the country will see two things: (1) Democrats can’t be trusted to keep their word; and (2) Democrats don’t care about the safety of their citizens or the continuation of the Republic. It will be a huge awakening moment, nationwide. It will have down-ballot consequences for Democrats in an order of magnitude that even they don’t understand at this point.
The television advertisements with footage practically write themselves.
Not a single Democrat in Congress condemned the violence in Portland when they had the chance. They pressed for a federal retreat. It’s clear they don’t care about you or your personal safety. If this level of violence comes to your town, who do you want representing you in Congress? Someone who couldn’t take the time to condemn anarchy and thereby supports it, or Ms. X, a Republican, who keeps her word?
I do hope that the violence ends. I would love for the Democrats to be right, and for the Republicans to be wrong here, because I am tired of seeing good men and women injured by fireworks and improvised explosives.
But I won’t be wrong.
Write this on your calendar. The cease-fire will be temporary, if it happens at all. You heard it here first.
Published in Law
This ceasefire, if that is what it is, is not being negotiated between the parties involved in the violence. The Feds, on one hand, yes. But on the other there is no one person with which to negotiate. After all, they are anarchists. For that reason, there can be no ceasefire. I agree with you, this will fail. The Democrats who seem to be speaking on the side of the anarchists, an act that already diminishes them, do not have the will and the guts to enforce with violence any violation of a truce. Therefore this latest act is doomed to failure.
@cdor You see this clearly. Thanks for the validation. And that’s an excellent point. The wrong parties are “negotiating.”
You are correct. I doubt that it will happen at all. Or if it does, that it will last. If it’s broken, they will try to say that it wasn’t their fault (!) or that some intruder tried to sabotage it. If it happens and it’s violated, no second chances.
Quibble: The order to launch operations against Fort Sumter came from Jefferson Davis with the near-unanimous support of the Confederate cabinet. It was not a riot by a bunch of rabble. If the mayor of Portland or the governor of Oregon ordered a siege of a federal courthouse it would be a much better analogy.
I agree with all before in the post and the comments. Maybe one small counterpoint. I don’t consider the agreement negotiation to involve the anarchists at all. It involves the governor of Oregon and the mayor of Portland. I agree there should be no expectation that either of them will perform as obligated so the violence is likely to continue. Then the question becomes how much damage and destruction to federal interests will be permitted before the federal law enforcement steps in to do the state and local authorities’ jobs. We are faced with the issue of failures in news reporting so it might have to get really bad in order for the voting public to get the message.
According to the Portland Oregonian this morning, the federal officers are withdrawing and are going to clean the graffiti from the courthouse before they leave.
Guess who won in that “negotiation?”
Here are the possibilities in order of likelihood:
The fifth possibility seems the least likely based on Mr. DeWitt’s reasoning. The third and fourth are also unlikely; the governor has to make a good faith effort if she’s going to retain a future in politics. That leaves the first and second possibilities: The governor really tries to stop the violence and either succeeds or fails.
The Oregon National Guard probably has the power to stop the rioting. If they fail, then, it would be through incompetence – either the governor’s or that of the leaders of the Oregon National Guard. Conceivably, the Portland Mayor could intervene politically and keep the Guard from succeeding.
That’s just it. You remove Customs and Border Patrol, but what about the other agents there? They will still protect Federal property, so the rioters and arsonists will move toward easier targets, like state and city government buildings. Wallow in your own nightmare, Portland and Oregon . . .
I agree with every word of this post. Brilliant.
They claim there is no “organization.’ I call that nonsense. There is an organization. I am sure that just as Davis launched Ft. Sumpter, that organization’s leader launched the Portland Debacle. But you’re kind to correct my history and I thank you for that. The distinction you make is not lost on me. I acknowledge that not everyone there at the courthouse every night might be bought in on the whole Marxism thing.
Most recent thing I’ve seen from Chad Wolf is “we ain’t leaving.” So someone has their wires crossed.
Even so, they are definitely allowing themselves to be co-opted as supporters of rioting.
Why did Trump stand down? I think these riots will ultimately require gunfire to quell. Like Napoleon’s grapeshot. And he knows the country is not ready for that. Mona Charen said today that the Republicans need to hit rock bottom. (I don’t agree at all, but cite for the principle). Maybe the Democrats, too, but certainly Portland and Seattle.
As I understand it, the governor agreed to send in the state police who will, in cooperation with the Federal Protective Service, protect the federal buildings. Only if that is successful, will DHS withdraw the CBP police from Portland.
There’s the funny part.
While the Border Patrol agents might be withdrawing, they were certainly not the only Federal officers there.
There’s not only Federal Marshals (who should be enough), but I’d bet there’s going to be some more from other agencies in there by the time the Border Patrol guys roll out.
Not only that, it sounds like a great way to draw fire – have them spend the day cleaning the graffiti, load up in trucks, and pull out – just as the fresh new guys roll in.
Shutting down the Antifa rioting would be to 2020 and Joe Biden what Bill Clinton’s Sister Soljuah moment was to 1992. The differences here are:
1.) Biden doesn’t have the power to control his own destiny here — it’s up to Gov. Brown to shut the violent protests down after making the deal to have federal officers removed;
2.) Clinton wouldn’t have gotten his Sister Soljuah moment if the Democrats hadn’t lost three straight presidential elections going into 1992, where the far left side of the party was willing to clamp its collective pie-hole and allow Clinton to pander to moderate voters, because they were desperate to get back into power.
The Antifa rioters and other Democrats are nowhere near their ’92 mindset. They’re in their 1972, ’84 and ’04 mindset, which was that they lost control of the White House four years earlier not because voters rejected their political ideology, but because the bumbling idiot at the top of the ticket wasn’t progressive enough. The Antifa types think the Tide of History is on their side, and America will be a socialist nation in the near future.
Since the West Coast pols — and West Coast voters — are among the most sympathetic to that mindset, it’s going to be interesting to see if Brown has the huevos to potentially sacrifice her own political career in Oregon to make the Democrats and Joe Biden look good nationally, by showing swing voters the party is not totally into the idea of rioting and looting the nation’s major cities, or in defending police and/or hindering their operations into ineffectiveness.
Byron York’s podcast just up sheds a little light on a confusing situation. Apparently all we know is based on two tweets by Gov. Brown and one by DHS Acting Sec. Wolf, which are contradictory. It does not sound as if there is a meeting of the minds.
The Fort Sumter analogy fails because prior that war, states were, as they should be now, sovereign. Lincoln purposefully sent military reinforcements to keep South Carolina from gaining control of its own harbor entrance. Lincoln acted recklessly and in disregard for international law.
Oregon, et al., have not seceded, and no longer have the legal right to secede, therefore the remainder of your comments are correct.
Well said, Mr. DeWitt. You are spot on in your analysis.
I agree. But like the Dem pols who support the riots, their support stops when the rioters show up at their front doors . . .
This is true. Lincoln was told he could send supplies, but not reinforcements. To send reinforcements would be seen as an act of war.
At this point why are we only using non-lethal means against rioters? I understand the political and media-relations reasons. The legal protection to peacefully protest is clear, but there is no due-process obligation when being violently attacked. I agree that we don’t want to accidentally harm non-violent protesters or innocent passers-by, but these attacks are regular and predictable. There is no argument now that you didn’t know it was likely to get ugly. At this point if you are innocent or a “non-violent” protester you are knowingly putting yourself in a riot zone, and that’s on you.
The Antifa anarchists will keep doing this because they are evil people, they are not suffering any consequences for their actions, and they are having fun. In fact they are having a blast: gathering in crowds of like-minded people, hurting the “bad guys”, and breaking things. They are getting that cathartic rush of venting their spleen and feeling righteous in the process.
Everyone understands the difference between a peaceful protest (MLK on the DC Mall) and a violent one (Seattle, Portland, etc.), the former being good and protected, that latter not. The questions arise where the line gets gray. If you are running a peaceful protest and it gets hijacked by violent elements, the first time is on them. If you do it again and have not taken efforts to eject violent elements, then it’s on you. If you have tried to eject them and failed, yet continue to “mostly peacefully protest” the violence is on you. You have allowed yourself to become a shield for violent elements and can no longer be considered exercising your Constitutional rights. Instead you are participating in the curtailment of other people’s Constitutional rights. Because that’s what rioters are doing, they are depriving others of their Constitutional rights.
George Soros is smiling….
I’m a rule-oriented, law-abiding type so not engaging the use of my right to protest in the middle of an activity where laws are being violated is an easy decision for me. Others can do that but the self-deceit, if real, is foolish.
Congrats Anthony! Instapundit just linked to your post.
Yay, but now the whole world will see your misspelling of Fort Sumter. :)
This is a superb analysis and I send my most heartfelt appreciation to you for this post. I have passed it along to a group of friends, with an emphasis on the above line, and I do have this question about that statement– why in the world is it so difficult to wake people up to this fact? I am quite certain that practically everyone these days is watching the scenes of truly barbaric behavior on their nightly news, and yet there seems to be a kind of disconnect with a lot of people I know as if somehow this will never get to them. We are very fortunate to live in what folks around here call a “bubble”; it is very peaceful serene (except in hurricane season, obviously), quiet and lovely. So here, it is hard to imagine it getting to us.. but right across the bridge in Pensacola, the death of George Floyd brought the same kind of gatherings seen all around the country although, to be sure, not of a violent nature –yet. But, the ingredients are definitely there to be quickly ignited by a single spark at the opportune moment.
I hear, more and more lately, from friends and on sites such as this one, expressions of concern that the President is paying a terrible price for–at least this is the impression being pushed, of course, by the lamestream media– letting these scenes play out in vivid color night after night and he is definitely coming across as not being the strong leader many thought he was when we elected him. Right or wrong, does not matter, that is the image being portrayed so in that sense one can reasonably surmise that their tactics ae working, as disgusting as that is to have to say.
This ties in with my point with regard to @retaillawyer‘s comment above; I know that among the folks we know any suggestion of the use of real, as opposed to non-lethal, force would be met with shreiks of accusations, said or merely thought, of sounding like “White Extremists” or any one of a number of readily handy shibboleths being used these days. But for the life of me I cannot understand how our government has allowed, for going on two months now, the destruction of a great deal of Federal property and the attempted destruction of entire Federal Courthouses. That is a clearly felonious act and should be dealt with swiftly. I am not convinced that a country which has accomplished what our Beloved Nation has is not capable of protecting its own property more effectively.
Thanks again for a brilliant post.
Sincerely, Jim
The only way this is consistent with the remainder of the analysis is that Trump prevails and these riots are stopped either by locals or federals. The only question is how much violence do we get before it ends.
Twenty-five years ago, race was relatively socially unimportant. There was still an undercurrent of racism, but great, tremendous strides had been made in popular awareness and in general acceptance, and it looked like we would reach a colorblind society. And a colorblind society is the antithesis of a race-oriented society. Things changed under B. 0bama. The BLM movement is not anything new, it is exactly the same as 0bama’s point of view, only written larger. It is nearly unbelievable that white America elected its first black president, and that very president spear-headed the destruction of racial acceptance and integration.
I’m going to steal this quote.
I think race will destroy this country. Not racism, but government policies to help racial minorities. The welfare system destroyed the family. Affirmative Action led to the “dumbing down” of K-12 education so that minorities could “compete” on a level playing field. Demands for equal treatment led to the elimination of discipline in many schools, making it all but impossible for teachers to control their classes.
Affirmative Action also led to minority students going to universities at which they were unprepared to compete rather than to those at which they could earn a degree and graduate. As a result, minority students became angry and demanded and got “grievance” study programs at some of our most prestigious institutions. Graduates of these programs are now fanning out into HR departments across the country and creating toxic work environments. Other graduates are infesting journalism where they rewrite our history.