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Republican Rioters?
There was a brilliant post earlier today that expressed concern that modern Democrats were treating Republicans like enemies, not like friends and neighbors with whom they disagree about, say, tax policy. Leftist groups like Black Lives Matter, Antifa, NFA, etc are burning cities all across America, and Democrats are not criticizing them. In yesterday’s hearing, congressional Democrats treated AG Barr not like an American colleague with whom they sought common cause, but as an enemy agent unworthy of common courtesy. They exuded hatred. Democrats are getting more and more vicious, and have no apparent interest in debating policies like adults. This post stimulated a lively debate, in which a couple people responded with, basically, “Yeah, well, conservatives hate liberals too!”
I read the comments on the thread, but I didn’t participate, because I couldn’t get past the absurdity of the basic concept. I just kept thinking, “Ha! Republican rioters! Right!”
But why is that so absurd?
At its root, conservatism is based on the concepts of freedom expressed by our Founding Fathers. That all men are created equal and are bestowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A government of men has no standing to limit rights bestowed by God. People have the right to do as they please, as long as they don’t hurt anyone else. There are lots of varieties and details, but at its root, conservatism is based on individual liberty.
On the other hand, the left, at its root, is based on coercion. Before a government can give anything to anybody, it must first take something from someone else. The left seeks to control people. Perhaps with good intentions. Perhaps to save the world with a coordinated attack on global warming. Perhaps to get people to think the right thing about transsexual marriage or something. Perhaps to reduce income inequality by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Perhaps to right the past wrongs of slavery 200 years ago. Perhaps, well, perhaps whatever works today. But regardless of their current tactics, leftism eventually boils down to coercion. Forcing people to do something that they might not otherwise do.
So to the left, rioting and violence make sense. It’s an open threat. “Give us control, or we’ll destroy you!”
Why would Republicans riot? “Feel free to do whatever you were going to do anyway! Or we’ll destroy you!”
When you see a political movement that depends on threats and violence to gain followers, that movement seeks to control you. There is no other reason for them to threaten you.
When the political leaders of that movement shout down their colleagues across the aisle, rather than allowing them to speak, there is only one reason for them to do that. They seek control. If Democrat policies encouraged individual liberty, and the Republicans sought to control people, the Democrats would have encouraged Mr. Barr to speak, to expose his tyrannical ambitions. They shut him down because they don’t want anyone to hear what he has to say. Democrats know their policies are unpopular, and for good reason. There is no other reason to shut down debate.
It’s not difficult to discern the ultimate motivations of those who use violence and vicious political theater to achieve their goals. You know what their goals are. You don’t need to know the details of their policy proposals. They usually don’t have any, anyway. All you need to know is that they seek to control. There’s no other reason to bring Molotov cocktails to a “peaceful protest.” There’s no other reason to scream at the Attorney General in a congressional hearing.
That’s why Democrat rioters are so widespread. And that is why they are dangerous.
And that’s why Republican rioters don’t exist.
The very concept is absurd.
While this post was stimulated by a couple of comments on another thread, please note that I’m discussing ideas here. This is not intended as an attack on anyone, and I hope the authors of those comments don’t take it that way. I also hope that any discussion that ensues on this thread fill focus on the ideas in the post above, and not personal attacks. This request is generally unnecessary on Ricochet, but I just wanted to clarify my intentions. Thank you.
Published in General
If you support the party that wants to control others, you therefore support the use of threats and violence to control others. There is no other option.
Biden Supporter = Violence Supporter
Republicans will riot eventually, but it will be against the use of violence and control. Our Lexington moment is coming. What do I mean by that?
https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battles-of-lexington-and-concord
That day, the British lost the ability to march with impunity around New England. Never again could they march out into the countryside. They would only control cities they held, with backs to the sea.
This land cannot be occupied and controlled if enough of the population refuses that control. The very elements the Democrats would use to control us, they dismiss. Are the police the Democrats fire and drive away going to come back to oppress their neighbors? Will the anarchists in the streets sign up as thugs, like the ones in A Clockwork Orange? I doubt it. The Democrats may destroy America, but they will not find they can rule it.
Another excellent post, Doc.
And if Republicans are ever pushed so hard that they do riot, it will be scary – considering how well armed they are.
Not so fast – Republicans aren’t the only tough guys out there. Even with @bossmongo on our side, we’d have our hands full with these badasses:
Republicans, those who are yet true conservatives, act the way one would expect in accordance with this. America has a full, complete and operable system for citizens to act civilly to propose changes. We even once had a media that provided a avenue for this, to get a message out. Conservatives express opposition to Democrat and other policies and proposals which they find objectionable. And we make fun of those things that are preposterous.
What we have been seeing this year is not in the same category. Democrats have not been very successful in getting what they want because much of it is so unAmerican it just won’t fly. So the Democrat politicians have embraced the ways of the mob.
It really is an insult to have someone who actually says they favor pretty much the same things for governing as you do and then have them also tell you that those who are aligned with you act just as bad and do the same things as the mob. There is no comparison.
I saw an Instapundit piece that pointed out where the media accused white supremacist for some violence in Richmond and it turned out to be a well-known white communist woman.
Are you kidding me. Man, I needed that.
Doc, I think that you’re incorrect about this one. Coercion is always required, or there is anarchy. I don’t think that conservatives have a problem with this. I think that you are confusing conservatism with libertarianism.
I hear your point.
But there is a big difference between Antifa and the Tea Party. And I think there is a very good reason for that.
Wow. Check out that impressive upper body strength.
Well he’s mentioning Republicans. Republicans have become much more liberal (in the classical sense) in the recent era. If someone is a free speech absolutist, they are either a Libertarian or Republican. If someone defends the freedom of religious people even if they think those religious ideas are silly, they are a a Libertarian or a Republican. If someone is against cancel culture, well, there are few lefties who are (now) against that but it’s primarily a Libertarian or Republican thing.
Guys please, PLEASE put your masks back on. Oh and, jeesis, put your hands down! You’re the actual Antifa, right? Please don’t ever do anything like this again – you’re shaking our faith in your dangerossitude.
C’mon, with me:
“We are badass! We are awesome! Antifa RUUUUULES! Gimme five!”
”We are badass! We are awesome! Antifa RUUUUULES! Gimme another five!”
”We are badass! We are . . . wait, Big Bang Theory is on”.
And it is also based on the violent French Revolution.
I wish A Tale of Two Cities were still required reading in American high schools. It might wake up some of the kids. It might help them realize the danger of the left’s agenda.
I wish they studied communist dictators too.
It is rather funny to think of Boss Mongo up against these clowns. :-) :-)
I blame Michelle and Barack for this. Wow, did they stoke fear of Republicans and Trump, and they kept it up even after Trump was elected. This started four years ago.
And where are they? Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard. Of course.
Yes, but I think he is talking about limited federal government conservatives who support those things delegated within the Constitution to the federal government.
At least 5 of the 6 know how to make a fist.
Don’t any of them know what to do with one, though.
It comes from pushing a mouse around 18 hours a day.
I gotta start pumping mouse.
Nah, that suggests intelligence and a work ethic. Probably more like a joystick and remote control. In mom’s basement.
Social media has turned up the volume to 11, but what we’re seeing in essence is similar to the Democrats who wrested control of the party during the 1972 election cycle following McGovern’s win. Remember, they didn’t simply hate Nixon and the U.S. military — the ones running the DNC Convention in Miami that year shut down both the party’s southern Democrats and the Bill Daley Chicago Dems, the latter as payback for how Chicago police reacted at the 1968 DNC Convention.
In both ’72 and 2020, what fuels the anger and the arrogance is the idea that they’re in the majority now, and there will be no negative consequences from voters for their actions. While there does seem to be a little awakening this week to the idea that firing mortars at federal buildings or blinding U.S. Marshals and other law enforcement personnel with lasers might not be winning voters over to Team Biden, you also had Ron Brownstein’s column late last week, which boiled down to telling swing voters “Vote for Joe if you know what’s good for you.”
The concept of swing voters essentially being Patty Hearst and the Democrat activists the Symbionese Liberation Army is a new voter coercion concept that wasn’t tried in ’72, but is pretty commonplace in other countries where brutal regimes are commonplace. The scary part is the only way the Dems moderated after 1972 was to get their heads handed to them by voters in that election — a win by Biden here (and a Biden who seems more and more to be headed to John Gill-like levels of control over his own people), would simply enable the angry and violent wing of the party to push their act past 11 in future elections, based on the idea that what worked once will work again (combined, probably, with things like national mandatory mail ballot voting, to really up the ante on the ability to control final results).
I learned first day in computer class that you’ve gotta hold your mouse firmly.
There is a distinction between libertarians and anarchists. libertarians believe in enforcing laws to protect rights. There is a difference between libertarians and Libertarian Party members. The presidential candidate for the LP recently tweeted advocating “anti-racism” and “#BlackLivesMatters”. That is cancel culture. The LP has lost its purpose in life with the legalization of weed.
Leftist violence = protected speech. Anti-leftist speech = criminally punishable violence.
Rioting ceases to be “absurd” when one party is so afraid of the other that they consider them to be an existential threat to the nation itself. Given all the heated rhetoric about how we’re one election away from the Constitution being torn to shreds, why wouldn’t riots be believable?
A couple of years ago, one of the young guys I work with was going on about how good Antifa was, and dropped the “punch a Nazi” line.
I stood up and walked over to him. I got a little too close, and I’m a couple of inches taller and about a hundred pounds heavier.
“One of the two of us has actually punched Nazis before. It’s not you.”
He shut up.
Their ideas are so good, they think, that it is just common sense that everyone can see how great they are. And when people don’t go along, the next step is “if you don’t wear a mask, you’ll be fined and/or lose your business license” for example. Anne Applebaum, in ” Behind the Iron Curtain” wrote that the communists thought their ideas so good, no one would vote against them. The first election in Poland after WWII, the communists plastered their message all over the place, in your face, and lost (not really, they then cheated to win).
Republicans and conservatives have better, more productive things to do with their time.
By the way, the Michigan protest the Dems were bringing up that happened during the shut down, were almost what they described in that people had guns. They didn’t damage or burn one building, kill one person, etc. They actually protested with symbols to remind government why the 2A is still relavant, that some Dems said were scary to them. Here is an important point missed by them: The same group had scheduled a protest the happen after the riots started in MN and elsewhere, and cancelled it because they did not want it to get out of control. That should be emphasized that this group was actually law abiding and did not require calling in the Feds, because they were smart enough to know how opportunists work.
Some Ricochetti coined a term for inapt comparisons between Left and Right:
https://ricochet.com/729243/wedoittooity-in-which-i-vehemently-disagree-with-andrew-klavan/
My question is – if these are the toughest guys since they are in the picture, what does the guy taking the picture look like?!?!?!
IDK. You don’t think the Left’s protest and its “Size Matters” attitude isn’t giving the Right any ideas should Biden win?