On Charlottesville
I’ve been mulling over what to write about the recent events in Charlottesville, and I think the best way to start (I’m a bit pressed for time today) is to link to this post by William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection. I’m in very substantial agreement with what he says there, so just read it and then come back here.
I’ll add that this past weekend while the events were unfolding I was at a big family celebration that took up most of my time, so I didn’t follow the news with my usual intensity. But I couldn’t avoid this news, in part because it was brought up several times in conversations with relatives. As is often the case for me, those relatives were pretty much of like mind with each other—the range was liberal to left, at least for the vocal ones (there may be one or two closet conservatives)—and so I can report that all of the talkers seemed to assume that the demonstrators were Nazis and Trump is a Nazi and that the only side that was violent in the Charlotteville confrontation was the Nazi side. My only contribution to the conversation (and I think this was only on the first day) was to mention that even Nazis have a right to demonstrate peacefully, a la Skokie and the ACLU.
Alas, when you’re talking to a group during a social engagement, you can’t provide a link like that, and if they don’t get the reference it goes unnoticed. I got a few blank looks, and that made me think that this particular crowd had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned Skokie and the ACLU. If so (and I’m not 100% sure I was right about that), then the free speech foundation of at least the beginning of the entire episode—supported by the tradition of even a group as far left as the ACLU—would have been lost, and we therefore were starting out with a lack of common ground.
I hate Nazis, neo or paleo. I have no sympathy for either white supremacists or those who hate white people. And violence has no place in demonstrations, and the city of Charlottesville should have had enough police there to make sure to nip any violence in the bud.
As far as Trump goes, he should have issued this statement of his at the outset instead of after a delay. However, I do not think the delay means he has any sympathy with neo-Nazis or white supremacists, either. Excerpt:
Racism is evil — and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,” Trump said in response to the attacks in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.
“Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America,” Trump said.
Of course, it won’t satisfy his critics. Nothing would, including if he had said those words at the outset. He would have been accused of lying for political gain.
As somebody on Insty said, nothing’s going to satisfy the people who told us Romney was Hitler.
As somebody said on Insty, nothing will satisfy the people who told us Romney was Hitler.
Readers of this superb blog should be very skeptical of the accounts appearing in the MSM purporting to explain this event, as almost all are untrustworthy and biased. The violence came almost entirely from the side (called counter-protesters or demonstrators in the media) of the Antifa and BLM thugs against the marchers (few of whom identity with either the KKK or the Neo-nazis) who had a legal and constitutional right to protest against the removal of a statue of historical significance. The behavior of the governor, the mayor and the vice-mayor, a bigoted black man named Wes Bellamy, was egregious. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that the young man who drove the car had been menaced by leftist thugs and acted out of panic and fear, rendering him clearly guilty and responsible but hardly a terrorist.
Not too long ago “everyone” knew about the Skokie case. When I went to law school it was a major con law case. Now, I’m not sure if it’s been edited out. If that case supported the left in any given circumstance, “everyone” would know it well because it would have been referenced by their thought leaders on the tv.
Not all or perhaps even most of the Unite the Right demonstrators were KKK, neoNazis or white supremacists, who are indeed racist scum.
I recommend reading this article to get a balanced perspective on events that the MSM is leaving out; “Alt-Right Activists Condemn Violence, Dispute Mainstream Account”
A witness vacationing in the United States from Finland stated;
[my emphasis]
This article by Daniel Greenfield provides context, while pulling no punches;
“ONE EASY WAY DEMOCRATS CAN STOP NEO-NAZIS”
“Charlottesville is what happens when the Left empowers extremists.”
I’ve tried to avoid this but did see the video of the car backing up (the car hitting the one in front and causing the death was missing.). The antifa guys were mobbing it as it backed up and were armed with batons that they were using to smash the car windows. There’s no doubt in my mind that they would have murdered the driver had they gotten into the car. I’ve never heard of peaceful protesters showing up with weapons.
I think Trump punted, and I am disappointed. I know that some of the protestors, not necessarily all, are extremists. There is no reason to admire those who are. On the other hand they are citizens, and have as much right to protest peacefully as anyone else.
Trump has been pretty silent about the protests (riots) that have occurred repeatedly since he was elected. While it is appropriate to speak now, if belatedly, he should be emphatic that the fringe on either end are equally despicable when they create mayhem.
In fact the groups who are demonized in all reports had a permit, which was reportedly revoked at the last minute on Saturday morning. It appears that those with authority and responsibility realized that other groups intended a confrontation. At about 8:39 that morning, the Democrat Governor declared a State of Emergency, so that reinforcements would be available to maintain order. So, what happened in the next hours as the “counter protestors”, who had no permit, were allowed to harass those who arrived thinking that they had a legitimate permit? Were the State police and National Guard that the Governor had authorized on scene? That is not clear. Were the police ordered to stand by passively as the situation deteriorated? The Mayor says no; but, that is what they did.
By the way, I saw this quote from the CBS station in Charlottesville (note that the link has now surprisingly been deactivated):
31 Jan. 2017
In front of a crowd of cheering people, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer declared Charlottesville a Capital of the Resistance.
“I expect everyone here to live to that name,” Signer told the crowd. “The Capital of the Resistance, that means something. We will resist.”
http://www.newsplex.com/…/Mayor-Mike-Signer-to-declare
As I understand it, the alt-right organized this demonstration (complete with a permit) to show their solidarity, and to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville, VA. Most of the people there were alt-right (whatever that means), while some others showed up with Confederate flags, and a smaller but visible number had neo-Nazi flags and symbols.
That’s the first problem: the failure of the alt-right organizers to control their message. They should have told those with neo-Nazi symbols to get lost. They should have taken a bullhorn and said to the crowd, “If you’re here with a swastika, you’re not part of our group, and we have nothing to do with you.” And it would have helped their message to be proactive like that, with all the media around.
The reality is that there are very few KKK members and neo-Nazi types. Those types are also typically basement-dwelling fruitcake losers. But they are very visible in such crowds, and the media and the Left will focus only on them.
The second problem was the failure of the local government with crowd control. There were people there with masks, and improvised shields and clubs. Many people were sprayed with mace or tear gas, while others were pelted with bags of urine or rocks. Numerous scuffles and fights broke out. Yet only three people were arrested. Why not thirty? Where were the police?
And the very next day, one of the alt-right organizers was rushed by the crowd (of counter-protestors) and chased away, as he was standing at the microphone. Again, just as with Berkley some months earlier, a failure of the police and crowd control.
We need to start thinking about what may happen next time, whenever such groups are together, the alt-right (if that is the right term), and the counter-protestors (the “anti-fa”). The latter seem to like street clashes, and feel morally justified in what they do (since their opponents are “fascists”). And with current trends, there are likely to be more Confederate statues and memorials removed.
Neo-national socialists, color supremacists, [class] diversitists, and abortionists, too. Left vs Left. Hopefully, the Left will lose.
I have reasons to believe this alt-right movement was created by Soros or other progressive puppet masters to delegitimize the right and their messages. If KKK and David Duke truly supported Trump they would have endorsed Hillary and registered as democrats. If you are an notorious racist and have a functional brain the last thing you would do to drag the reputation of politicians you supported through the mud by openly endorsing them.
Racism is evil but let’s be honest 99% of things the left claimed to be racist weren’t racist at all.
There’s an American journalist I know who for some time now constantly refers to “the Temp WHO” instead of ever even referring to Trump by name. Temporary White House Occupant.
She posts multiple times a day on Facebook. Never-ending agitprop in aid of her obsession.
Today there is a guy who says “If you don’t condemn the Republikkkans you are as guilty” etc etc. So I guess he’s taking names.
Someone wo’s been a good friend of mine, whom I’m allied with professionally, is extremely riled up…. which is sad to see.
I think the Left has been waiting to get a martyr to publicize and the fact that Heather is a young female is wonderful for them. They’re ecstatic.
I suspect the guy’s defense will be either mental incompetence or, if evidence might support it, the “I don’t want to be the next Reginald Denny” defense.
1 vs hundreds killed by the left and the left designated victim groups. Ramos and Liu, the five police executed by BLM on live TV, the gay club massacre, the baseball practice republican hunting, can you believe that these losers still dare to keep scores?
I strongly suspect that the governor and mayor told the police to stand down do that there would be violence that would make Trump look bad. The fact that Trump spoke imprecisely was a bonus.
Trump then committed the unforced error of trashing on Twitter the CEO of Merck. Stupid.
The MSM, of course, when nuts. For people that don’t closely follow the news or don’t appreciate how the Dems operate with the MSM, it only causes them to have a bad opinion of POTUS.
If the attack was pre-mediated he would have used a Truck instead of a $50,000 Challenger with license plate unhidden.
I’ve always said that the only reason the ACLU defended the Nazis in Skokie was because they didn’t consider the Nazis to be a threat to the big political and societal push from the left. No one listens to Nazis anyway so they are useful for ACLU bragging rights. But let conservative bloggers who make persuasive points that might convince some leftys that they might be wrong and the ACLU keeps quiet whenever the conservatives are censored from Twitter or Youtube. That last sentence was sloppy but you know what I mean.
Yankee, I wonder why you thought the organizers had a responsibility to remove people from the streets whom they did not approve of, or by what means they would do it.
I am not sure how the term Alt-right came into existence or exactly what it means; but, it seems to be used pejoratively. Specifically, I do not know if it applies to the organizers of the demonstration in Charlottesville. The stated purpose was to protest a movement to deny American history, and destroy any symbol of Southern Heritage as a matter of political expediency. Folks don’t like that. Of course, it is convenient to label any attempt to preserve this heritage as racist. But, I expect the reaction would be similar if Politicians decided to destroy the Civil War statues and memorials that dot former Union states.
There is further irony attached to all of this when observed from the progressive and diverse state of California, where the movement to secede from the United States is now proceeding to an authorized petition drive.
By the way, I see by your choice of the screen name “Yankee”, that you personally approve of a regional identification that some might consider a trigger. I wonder if I the Diversity Police would pay me a call if I adopted “Rebel”.
This will be used to intimidate other towns to remove all Lee statues (followed by Jefferson and Washington?) It will never stop.
Oh it will stop. And the stop will be bloody. Depend upon it.
Nazis had a right to march, especially seeing as how they went through the proper channels to obtain a permit.
If they’d been ignored instead of confronted with a self-righteous leftwing mob, that girl would still be alive.
The only thing I’m interested in finding out is who told the cops to stand down.
I’m not sure if I’ve said it here, but I’ve said it in a lot of places. I don’t know these people, any of them. I don’t know any Alt-Right, or BLM, or Anti-Fa, or Neo-Nazis, in fact I don’t think I know anyone that would ever consider going to one of these marches, protests, or anti-protests.
And, yet, I know lots of people with whom I disagree, and who disagree with me, about politics and public policy. This group of knowns includes: family, friends, work mates, acquaintances, and people I meet through my work.
I’m old enough to remember when Streaking, i.e.; running naked, across a baseball field was a thing. The number of these incidents increased until someone had the bright idea to stop filming them or talking about them on the broadcast of the game. Soon enough they weren’t such a popular thing to do.
Wouldn’t the most effective way to deal with offensive speech and ideas be to collectively yawn and then go about our daily business? I don’t know but sure would like to give it a try.
Posted the on the Alan Dershowitz thread. Should have posted it here.
IMO, there would have been no violence at Charlottesville if the contra white supremacists (mainly Antifa & BLM,) had stayed home or just peacefully protested. Both sides were equally to blame. They both came expecting a fight, and when you do that you usually find one. The police were too confident that things would be peaceful and were not ready. It took them time to regain their footing and get control. I doubt any police forces will be caught off guard in the future.
IMO, the best way to treat the neo-Nazis is to ignore them. They are trying speak their piece and to gain converts. When people ignore and shun them, they get no traction. Unfortunately, I’m afraid this battle will bring more young hot bloods to their cause. With the MSM piling on it further alienates any young men who feel discriminated against because they are white. I see what is going on as stirring the pot. Condemn both sides equally. No violence, period! Then maybe we can all just get along.
It’s very hard to know what the correct political line is from day to day.
ForEx, if Obama never uses the words “Islamic Terrorism,” but only “violent extremism”, we’re supposed to believe that he nevertheless regards them as evil. But if Trump condemns “violence, bigotry, and hatred,” but doesn’t use the words “Nazis, the KKK, and white nationalists,” we’re supposed to believe that he doesn’t regard them as evil.
Or if Bill Clinton says we must stop illegal immigration because it lowers wages and takes jobs away from American citizens, that’s good, but if Trump says the same thing, it’s bad.
Or, we’re supposed to not believe Barak Obama’s publicist when she said he was born in Kenya, but we are supposed to believe some publicist for an Azerbajani pop star when he says some Russian woman lawyer has top-secret info, right from the Kremlin, that hurts Hillary Clinton.
Yes, it’s not easy being politically correct these days!
P.S. For those of you who don’t get it, that’s sarcasm, folks!
J.J.,
“The police were too confident that things would be peaceful and were not ready.”
That does not fit with reports that the police stood passively by allowing the violence to escalate. Nor with reports that the police intentionally funneled the people protesting removal of the Lee Statue right through the Antifa thugs and BLM “counter-protesters”.
It does not fit the local government agencies knowing ahead of time of the volatile mix forming and one that the police made no effort to keep separate before violence erupted.
It is a virtual certainty that police were directed by the local leftist power structure to behave as they did because they didn’t act as police but essentially as mercenaries for hire who had been told not to interfere.
Antifa and BLM anarchists showed up armed and the police let them use those weapons.
You can also bet that had the left known ahead of time that an armed militia planned to be there, a false flag incident would have occurred and sooner or later… will occur. It’s too obvious a ploy not to happen, just a matter of time.
Hey, Oldflyer:
I believe that the organizers were not well-experienced with such events. Physical removal of anyone is not possible; only the police can do that, and only if they have cause to arrest or detain. But those on the alt-right organized the event, got the city permit, and brought their microphones. Just a few simple words beforehand would have helped them and their message. Now they run the risk of everyone being labeled a “Nazi” or a “fascist” because of the presence of a few kooks and screwballs.
The media is really stupid about reporting things. So if anyone runs an event like that, keep your messages short and simple, and don’t let some fringe group distort what you want. Your goal should be to persuade, not to shock. If you have a microphone or a bullhorn, you can use it to laugh at or denounce any publicity-hungry freaks that show up. You can do the same whenever there are counter-protestors who are misbehaving.
Look at the video on Sunday, the day after the car attack, when one organizer, Jason Kessler, started making a speech, blaming the police for their inaction on Saturday, then had to flee when a crowd of counter-protestors rushed him. Have the police not learned anything at this point? And back to my earlier point, from what I have read of Jason Kessler, he appears unreliable and incompetent with such political events. And now other attendees are being identified in photos from that weekend, and getting fired from their jobs. What a mess.
As for my screen-name, I chose it because I live in New England, where my ancestors settled well over 200 years before the start of the Civil War, fighting first the Indians, and then the British. Why should I have any quarrel with those who have similar regional pride? Leave those statues of Robert E. Lee alone!
I knew if I read this comments thread I’d leave depressed. But I didn’t think I’d see such equivocation and defense and excuse making (even implied defense for the murderous b_stard driving the car!!)
Same old conspiracy theories and victimhood.
This weekend was awful. It also reminded me why I never supported Trump and didn’t sear my conscience voting for him.
White supremacists and neo-nazis held a stupid rally. If you’d look beyond the right wing media bubble you’d notice that a lot of them were armed (open carry state – losers dressed in cammo and carrying their big guns) and at least enough of them were carrying swastikas and symbols of fascism to be a shocker in the year 2017. “Blood and Soil”, and all that. I’m sure there were some (relatively) non racist people interested in preserving the confederate monuments as well. But one of these b_stard skilled a young woman with his car. She was murdered. And 20 other people were injured.
That’s not the fault of the counterprotesters.
Trump, of course, was classless. Took him two days to denounce neo Nazism (that’s hard to do?). In both his speeches he spent significant time touting his economic record. He probably farts at funerals too. He did, in one of his tweets “give his regards” to those hurt. And went after the pharmaceutical company crowd who couldn’t take the stain of it all anymore.
Between this and the stupid threats I’ve been reading on Twitter of “conservatives” advocating for civil war and I know I made the right decision to leave the GOP, because it’s already left me.
But Gorsuch…
But Hillary…
Yeah…
This, the new GOP, needs to be fixed before its too late.
My phone continues to hate me. Replace “skilled” above with “killed” and “company crowd” with “company ceo”
Wondering if I can find common ground on this subject: Anyone agree that Bannon, Gorka and Miller need to be done? I can’t imagine that any good (whatever that might be) they are doing for this administration is outweighing the bad. All of them have ties to the so-called alt right. Trump would be better off without them. (Bannon should be banished for the way he’s sullied Andrew Breitbart’s name, if for no other reason)
Everyone has the right to believe in anything，if blacks can believe in something as outlandish as all white people are racist Ready to enslave all black people once again or trump is ready to put all immigrants in concentration camps and protest against makeup conspirancy theories like those, why cant some white people believe in white genocides conspiracies and protest against that too? When the left accuses the right of believe in fear mongering conspiracies they themselves believe in many conspiracies as well, to me there is no bigger conspiracies than climate change and institutional racism. If the left believe someone can be brainwashed as easily as a little white supremacist parade, how are they sure that they weren’t brainwashed into believing whatever they are believing?
And so the broad brush smear continues apace, for both Left and Right. Well done.
No, no one needs to be “done” for their ideas that we don’t like. How about we just argue against their ideas and defeat their public policy proposals? The rest will take care of itself.
Fundamentally a kkk rally is equivalent to a Blm rally. Some whites believe they are the victims of racism and protest against that while on the other side black people think they are the victims and protest against that. The only difference is there is something called affirmative action that is proven to discriminate against qualifying Asians and whites while there is absolutely no proof or statistics that prove institutional racism exists or police treating blacks differently, if anything blacks are given so much special treatments over everyone else.
Exactly when Pres. Trump made his statement and whoever he condemned or didn’t condemn would not have made an ounce worth of difference.
Any earlier, and he would have been accused of fanning the flames with little evidence. Any later, he would have been accused of being disconnected from mainstream life.
Condemning every participating side has got him nothing but scorn. Condemning only the white supremacists while ignoring the alternately hued supremacists, as he did today, has got him nothing but scorn.
Too much, too soon. Too little, too late. Not much of a difference with zero positive outcomes. No one was pleased, everyone was disappointed. By the old political axiom about pleasing some people and earning the wrath of others for the same act – Pres. Trump must be doing something right.
G.B.: “That does not fit with reports that the police stood passively by allowing the violence to escalate.”
That statement was based on the Charlottesville police chief’s presser. He claims his men were not equipped for violence and had to leave to get into riot gear. I’m accepting his version of things until something more authoritative comes along.
It appears the ALCU is accusing the police of letting the violence happen. So, maybe their version is correct.
There are many oxen to be gored in this event. I doubt we will ever know exactly what happened. We do know that fighting doesn’t occur unless there are two parties to the fight. A pox on both their houses.
This entire mess was a setup by the Left.
UC Berkeley, remember?
This time Antifa had the ACTIVE support of the State Governor and the City Mayor.
This only happens in states / areas run by the Left.
The politicians need to start suffering the consequences of their actions and rhetoric.
I remember arguing the ACLU case for Skokie with a hippie woman named Tinkerbelle … who was my aunt.
My best surfer buddy became a Green Beret and later the second-most powerful paramilitary neo-nazi in the southeast during the 80s.
A woman I worked with in Louisiana once took me aside to confide her entire family was in the Klan and how beautiful it was to burn a cross in DC over the holidays.
My last physical memory of my father was his tears on learning of MLK’s assassination.
These are the people I think of when I read about Charlottesville.
We are such a complicated country with such a complicated history.
Oldflyer Says:
August 14th, 2017 at 5:42 pm
I am not sure how the term Alt-right came into existence or exactly what it means; but, it seems to be used pejoratively.
* * *
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/08/yesterday-charlottesville-today-seattle.php
(from the Comments)
Dafydd Abhugh
John,
“NBC describes Patriot Prayer as “alt-right,” a term I had never heard until the 2016 presidential campaign. I still have never met anyone who says he or she is “alt-right.” Maybe someday someone will explain what it is supposed to mean.”
I may have an answer. Bear in mind that I’m trying to remember literally from decades ago, so I may well misremember myself.
Way, way back in the days when there was no Farcebook, no Twits, no “social media” (or even antisocial media); we all communicated on what we called “bulletin boards,” a.k.a. BBs.
I vaguely remember some very small BBs, but also some very large BBs with many thousands of people logging in to read responses and write one’s own.
The BBs categorized their posts so as to be able to find areas of interest.
At some point, I recollect people wanted to create their own categories, rather than being forced into the cats that the BB owner chose. Most BBs complied, letting them set up what they called “Alt” categories, Alt being the alternative to the mainstream.
I rememer catetories like Alt-Cooking, Alt-Motorcycles, Alt-Russian Literature, etc. In the listings on the BBs, it would look something like Alt-Literature.Russian.Tolstoy.War-and-Peace, Alt-Literature.Russian.Tolstoy.Anna-Karenina, etc.
But there also were political categories. I remember seeing both an Alt-Right and an Alt-Left, where people could either calmly discuss their differences or smear each other… mostly the latter.
When BBs died out (more or less) they were replaced by the social media. But evidently, somebody more recently resurrected the phrase Alt-Right. I cannot say for sure that this is origin; but I can say that I used to post on BBs that included both Alt-Right and Alt-Left.
But that was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
* * *
Some of you may remember Dafydd from BigLizardsBlog; he stopped posting political comment there quite some time ago. (IF this is the same man, of course.)
The day after in Seattle.
“The rally, organized by the conservative group Patriot Prayer, came one day after violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left three people dead and dozens injured.
Counter-protesters — including antifa, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Veterans for Peace, Indivisible Seattle, Black Lives Matter, and the Freedom Socialist Party — marched “in solidarity against hate,” specifically against what they called “the bigotry, racism and violence” of the “far-right” organizers. Solidarity Against Hate counter-protesters waved communist flags, yelled “f**k America,” squirted police with silly-string, and burned the American flag.”
The Seattle police were able to minimize the violence. But the left was ready to rumble.
Read it all here:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/14/violent-antifa-protesters-try-to-shut-down-pro-trump-patriot-prayer-rally-in-seattle/
Bill,
I, too, didn’t think I’d find here “such equivocation and defense and excuse making”. And, yep, it’s depressing.
Also agree that Bannon and friends have to go. David French just wrote a piece on this, as least with regard to Bannon — “Fire Steve Bannon”:
I haven’t landed anywhere with “alt-right.”
I have done more than my share of spelunking at sites like Stormfront. As I’ve mentioned, a good friend became a powerful neo-nazi leader, so I wanted to understand.
Just to be clear — my friend was a remarkable person and a more than decent guy if you didn’t fall on the wrong side of his ideology. If I had to depend on someone not to leave me behind in a firefight, he would be at the top of my list.
Nonetheless, as far as I’m concerned, he fell for some of the effed-up crap in the world.
But no worse than the swill Ta-Nehisi Coates is selling in the pages of The Atlantic. No worse than anything I read from pro-Palestinian Westerners.
Aside from reading some Milo pieces I found amusing and thought-provoking, I’m playing catch-up here.
i defend it because it is more like road rage than terrorist attack. I understand the frustration being a white man today too being vilified for things that happened hundreds of years ago while constantly being blamed for everything that is wrong in the world. You have these thugs violently blocking streets everywhere using violence to interrupt a perfectly legal rally despite how distasteful it is, this is a violent incident incited by Antifa thugs. Anyone can be driven mad too under this climate. isn’t that the same exact excuse the left uses to rationalise the Blm cop shooters.
white people especially whites males are attack, anyone with eyes can see that. Alt right might be racist but many of their concerns are legit and if left not corrected by swinging the overly left leaning pendulum back to the middle the real next hitler will truly emerge. I am going to give you an scenario, what if a truly racist white supremacist second coming of hitler becomes the president by pretending to be a hard left progressive?
During the Obama years, when MSM pundits were swooning over a future Obama-Dem hegemony for the next fifty years, I kept thinking, “What if whites start voting as a bloc like blacks and hispanics?”
This is still a majority white country. If that happened it would be “Game Over” for Democrats.
To no small extent I would argue that’s what has happened at the local and state levels, and now the White House.
I think that’s the real secret of Trump’s victory.
I also think it’s regrettable that it has come to this, but it should come as no surprise, nor an occasion to excoriate whites for racism — unless one is willing for the sake of consistency to excoriate all bloc voting as racism or tribalism.
Trump just pulled an Obama a couple of days ago and the media jumped all over him for it while letting Obama off the hook.
Muslim terrorist kills a bunch of people in the name of Islam, screaming Allahu Akbar, and Obama goes: “Islam had nothing to do with this. We need to stop the Hate.”
Media applauds.
White guy drives through a crowd, killing a SJW, and Trump goes: “Hate is terrible, on all sides. I condemn it.”
Media melts down.
Any truth to the claim that the guy who drove the car had been a Hillary supporter?
Sean – it doesn’t look like it
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/14/charlottesville-attack-suspect-what-know-about-james-alex-fields-jr.html
Reports are he was interested in Nazism.
About the rally and the murder – it shouldn’t be hard to say “while I understand people’s anger at the removal of cherished monuments, I absolutely and without reservation condemn white supremacy and neo-Nazism”. And “What James Alan Fields did was not an accident or some soros-funded leftist/antifa conspiracy. It was murder and it appeared to have racist and/or neo-nazi motivations.”
It’s not that hard. If I was still GOP I’d be doing everything I could to disavow and disassociate from this stupid, racist rally. And I wouldn’t be making anything that even appeared tangentially like an excuse for what Fields did. He’s going to get his trial. He’s been charged w 2nd degree murder.
White men are not a put upon minority in America in 2017. It’s ridiculous to think so. We’ve been in the driver’s seat forever and still are.
Bill. WRT white men being threatened. As my sainted mother used to say, “It’s the thought that counts, dear.”
And so we see a professor calling for white genocide. Another advising EMT responders to let the M-F ers die.
You wouldn’t want people not to take genyoowine perfessers seriously, now, would you?
“It’s not Islam, it’s a lone nutcase.”
That works for Muslims.
It’s not all white, it’s just a lone nutcase. Hmmm. Maybe I should try that again. Nope. Still doesn’t work.
You’d have to be paying a very little bit of attention to believe not as many as one person would be paying attention to such things.
What I believe doesn’t matter and what you profess to believe doesn’t matter. Some guys are taking this stuff–nutcase professors and any number of other public statments–seriously. You should be explaining to white people why these professors and others who say and do such things are full of crap. That’s the sort of thing that would help.
“It’s your fault you’ve been listening to black radicals and taking them serioiusly.”
Richard, can you understand the perspective of a young black man who’s concerned about being killed in a traffic stop? Put yourself in those shoes? Or imagine a different reality where it was a number of young white men who had been gunned down by black cops for, by many accounts, not having done anything wrong?
We hear all sorts of voices. Some are threatening to us. Can we listen to those threatening others?
What’s more frightening to you? A professor spouting racial evil or a police officer with his hand on his sidearm?
Can we listen to each other? Understand fear on both sides? Come together?
The alternative is to just keep screaming at each other, misrepresenting each other, and that’s what leads to cars plowing into crowds.
Finally, is it impossible to look at the overwhelming statistics and be able to admit that, as white guys (and speaking generally here, but it’s a wide generality) we are quite aways away from being the victims that our politicians and talking heads are trying to convince us we are? Maybe we have a responsibility to not live like victims.
Bill. Since I’m not black, I’m told I cannot imagine anything having to do with the black experience.
The point, as I said, is not what I believe, but what some people may take seriously.
As I said, the most useful thing would be to broadcast as widely as possible that people–even professors–who say such things are full of crap. That way, nobody, or at least fewer people, will take them seriously.
Instead, we get chin-pullers about how they might be right.
Chris Rock has a piece on how not to get in trouble with cops if you’re a black man.
I have visited a social justice site recently where they’re talking about how Michael Brown was killed by a white policeman. And Trayvon Martin was killed by a half hispanic who was blacker than Homer Plessey but who was white for the purpose.
Most of us know better. Actual gunned down for no reason is quite rare. But watching the theme quietly reintroduced leads one to believe that resentment is being exacerbated.
The point is not “we”, but some who are unenlightened enough to take, say, black professors seriously. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Make sure nobody takes black professors seriously. That’s going to sell, by golly.
You’re kind of stuck. We shouldn’t take black radicals seriously as to what they propose but we should understand why they propose it and simultaneously be absolutely certain it couldn’t possibly happen.
As to what frightens me more: Hitler never laid a hand on anybody, as far as we know. He incited other people to do his work for him, so a black professor spouting racial evil is not necessarily completely harmless. Not many of the street operators of BLM have advanced degrees.
As to police; some time ago, at a traffic accident, I wandered around behind the cop writing up the report to see if he’d react. No problem. I had him, and I had his gun if I’d wanted it. Either he wasn’t paying attention, or he’d judged me as not a threat. Given the number of attacks on cops by black guys, he might have felt differently if I were black. With good reason.
Anyway, I think you need to attend white supremacy meetings and tell them black radicals are silly and full of crap, even the professors, and nobody should take them seriously. That will defuse a good bit of the angst.
Since you are not black, you can’t imagine how being black is like
Since you are not white, how do you know that Whites don’t know how being black is like.
It is like asking a man how does having an orgasm as female feel like or the other way around, you will never get an answer.
@Richard – seems you missed Bill’s point.
“Of course, it won’t satisfy his critics. Nothing would, including if he had said those words at the outset.” – Neo
Okay, but is that the standard we are looking for to judge an action?
No.
Our standard ought to, at minimum, be what we espoused and critiqued the dems for in the past, and based on what we said were “our” principles.
By that standard, trump fell well short this weekend.
.
If this weekend was the only example from trump along these lines, then they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
But, the 2016 campaign gave plenty to see this muted response for these groups as consistent. He’s also showed us we cannot believe all/any of what he says.
Until trump, the GOP could easily brush aside the left’s claims and characterizations. Now, not so easily, regardless of trump’s actual beliefs, if we can take his words as truth.
.
There are some on the left who never would find it satisfying, as they play pure blue vs red team politics. We don’t need to worry about what they think.
However, there are plenty of folks not strictly aligned to one or the other side that we need to persuade.
If we are not applying our standards to our own side, we lose credibility and trust with those folks.
Maw. Then piease take a shot at it.
Since you are not black, you can’t imagine how being black is like
The problem isn’t one of imagination. It’s one of not listening.
Lots of people “imagine” all the time that they know what it’s like to be someone else, but they’ve never actually taken the time to listen.
They pick the worst examples of the other group as normative. Then react defensively when someone does the same to them.
They refuse to listen. These are the people who scream “All lives matter!!” when someone says black lives matter. I used to feel the same way. I finally realized maybe I didn’t understand. You wouldn’t yell “all babies matter” at a woman grieving the loss of her baby. Even though all babies do matter. The response would communicate that the loss really wasn’t that important.
It is very hard to imagine anyone completely innocent would bump into law enforcement so often. The higher Police shootings of black males is completely proportional to the higher crime rate committed by black males. There is no institutional racism, Black males due to whatever reasons committed more causing them to have more encounters with cops result in them get shot by cops more. It would be racism if Cops shoot black in the same rate as everyone else while Blacks commit disproportionately more crimes than everyone else.
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime
There is no institutional racism against blacks but evidently there is institutional racism against Whites and Eastern Asians.
Affirmative action is racism, how many more years of head start provided by affirmative action do the black people need to catch up with everyone else? In fact they are falling further and further behind, Affirmative action is counter productive, and no democrats ever care to evaluate it’s effectiveness. If something hasn’t been working for the last 60 years it never will.
actually i would argue that the white people’s evaluations of black situations are more accurate than blacks’ as there is no emotional attachment or bias to cloud their judgements.
Bill. I can understand the perspective of a lot, but nobody is going to allow me to say so if I’m not of the appointed group. So I must listen to an individual who is telling me, implicitly, that he is explaining all and everyone in his group thinks the same way.
Not much profit there.
Suppose he’s promoting the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie. I figure he’s ignorant because it suits radicals that he be misinformed. Or he knows better but hopes I can be fooled in order to strengthen his aggrieved position which gives him moral authority to require of me…..something or other.
Ditto Trayvon Martin stalked and murdered.
Or if he tells me that the Frank Lombard case at Duke, and the Jesse Dirkhising case (aka “who?” for both) are wildly anomalous while the Matthew Shepard case happens all the time, then I can listen, but I’m not likely to be drawing the conclusions he hopes.
Are you willing to listen to a good hearted young person from a midwestern town who, after moving to an urban setting, says with anguish, “I didn’t want to be racist….”?
Is the guy going to claim a young, fit black man assaulting a cop was “unarmed” as if there were no reason for the cop to be all upset and stuff?
One does not need the worst examples to be concerned. Especially if it doesn’t happen to you.
Back when my kids were in high school, my son playing JV and varsity basketball and football happened by the luck of the draw to be at an inner city school when the team had its parents night.
Pathetic doesn’t start.
Both JV and varsity years, the football team had maybe three guys with two parents.
The basketball team had none.
This wasn’t my idea.
There is no such thing as white supremacy, no white people in America think they should rule the world because they superior than everyone else. White people are afraid of being persecuted and liberties taken away for being whites and their concerns are legitimate. White supremacy is a make up narrative created by the left to discredit all concerns of white people, since they have the monopoly of victimhood they have to deny white people’s rights claim victimhood to continue their persecution on them.
White supremacy is a phony word created by the left to legitimatize them taking away white people’s rights and liberties. Black people can be proud for being black, gay people can be proud for being gay, if you are white and be proud of being white, oops you are in a hell of troubles.
When a person is denied the right to even be proud of what he is, how is that not persecution? Liberals attack Christians for denying gay people’s rights to be happy of their sexual orientation, why are they now denying white people’s right to feel happy of their skin color, why. I hate the left because they fight racism with their own racism and that is the wrong way to go about it.
Dave:
I have read the writing of some American white supremacists who definitely think they are superior and therefore should rule because they are white.
looking at the progressive protesters’ behavior while taking down the Lee statue you believe these people truly stand for love? give me a break, given the power these people would have no problem killing all conservatives, they would just rationalize their actions by calling it “nazi eradication”
Neo:
how do you verify that they were truly written by a white supremacists but not some progressives as a hoax to prove that white supremacy exists? How many hoaxes of false racism have we seen since Trump was elected?
Neo:
In fact everyone has the right to believe they are better than anyone else while deserving to rule the world and share that thought with the world online except white people. If a Chinese guy on internet posted a message that Chinese people were smarter than everyone else and deserved to rule the world he wouldn’t receive one complaint. White people have a lot less liberties than everyone else, black people can held a gathering that specifically exclude all white people, think white people can do the same?
I am gonna stop posting for a while, creating a cluster of posts was not my intention but this weekend made me real real mad.
When Barack Obama invited to lunch the head of Black Lives Matter, he signaled to the country that black racist violence that had resulted in the shooting deaths of seven white policemen was OK with him, and also OK with the Democratic Party and liberals throughout the country. Contrast that with the liberal frenzy regarding Trump’s statement about Charlottesville. Democrats have formed a strong alliance with many of the worst elements of the black community and act as though blacks can do no wrong and that whites must forever do penance for slavery. As a former Democrat, I am sick and tired of it all.
Richard Aubrey Says:
August 14th, 2017 at 3:15 pm
As somebody said on Insty, nothing will satisfy the people who told us Romney was Hitler.
* *
Writing on the wall and all that stuff.
Oh, and the Tea Party rallies were vicious groups of violent predators.
Who cleaned up after themselves and never started a fight.
The Left really hated them for that.
Sean Says:
August 15th, 2017 at 1:16 am
Trump just pulled an Obama a couple of days ago and the media jumped all over him for it while letting Obama off the hook.
Muslim terrorist kills a bunch of people in the name of Islam, screaming Allahu Akbar, and Obama goes: “Islam had nothing to do with this. We need to stop the Hate.”
Media applauds.
White guy drives through a crowd, killing a SJW, and Trump goes: “Hate is terrible, on all sides. I condemn it.”
Media melts down.
* * *
QED
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/08/trump-tells-the-truth-and-the-press-goes-crazy.php
John Hinderaker · Dartmouth
Trump unfortunately is not very articulate, like most businessmen. So it is easy to pick apart many of his impromptu statements. But his basic point here is clearly right.
Trump unfortunately is not very articulate, like most businessmen
I love Trump but I do wish he could kick his vocabulary up to, say, 8th grade level every now and then. Yes, as simplistic as his messaging is, he gets the deeper underlying issues correct. But still.
People told me in 2015 and 2016 that Trum would protect us, so I should shut up and sit down like a good cuck. Something along those lines.
Funny, how that turned out.
People laughed when I said that Detroit was hiring private police who was better than the state and city police.
now I laugh at them, as they naively think the police unions was going to protect their arse.
Good luck with that, Alt Right.