By John Kluge
Item originally published here. Republished with author’s consent.
Not Robert E. Lee.
Let me say up front I am not a Nazi, a white nationalist, or a sympathizer of them. I am 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.
Editor’s note (8:32 pm central): there are several people involved at Glibs. I took it upon myself personally and without discussion to post this article. I thought it was well-written and would provoke a respectful and engaging discussion from the readers. It is in no way the consensus opinion of everyone involved and shouldn’t be considered such. -sloopyinca
Oh, boy, this should be good.
…and it was. Thank you.
6:38 Fusionist said it better
Well done John
“hey are doing nothing but emboldening Antifa and encouraging this to happen more in the future.”
I’ve been saying pretty much that, all day long.
Assuming that the narrative about the driver even holds.
Remember the first few days after the Trayvon Martin story broke? He was heard begging for his life, there were two gunshots, lie after lie after lie. It took months to get the real story, and even then a lot of people never got to hear it.
I have heard two dammning things. I have no idea if one is true, both are true, neither are true.
1. Driver’s high school teacher said he wrote a paper advocating Nazism, and that the teacher was so concerned she bucked it up to the principal and they had a meeting with him and his mom.
2. His social media is apparently out and proud Nazi.
They also said he attacked the mother with a knife, which is not exactly good for him as far as reputation is concerned. But as you’re saying, it’s really hard to tell what really happened yet. One thing for sure, antifa showed up there looking for trouble and they got it, and got off blameless once again. Now they are even more emboldened and looking for their next bigger shit show. Eventually a lot of people are going to regret not condemning these fuckers along with the neo-nazis, a lot sooner. Not the hard left of course, an antifa is a key feature of the left, not a bug.
You can be a nazi all day, that’s not a crime. If a mob of people attack your car you’re allowed to defend yourself. That’s also not a crime.
Like I said, the first week of the Trayvon Martin shooting I read a report that repeated, as fact, that there were two gunshots, with time in between, and Martin was heard crying and begging for his life in between. Every word of that was a lie. George Zimmerman was and is a grade A asshole. That is not a crime. What he is not is a murderer.
“You can be a nazi all day”
Sure, but if hes an out and proud Nazi on his current Derpbook page, and wrote a “HITLER DID NOTHING WRONG!!!” paper in high school, hes gonna have a damn hard time making the “I was just out cruising the streets and people started wailing on my car!” defense.
This is true, and maybe the ‘play stupid games win stupid prizes’ axiom is applicable, but that doesn’t change my primary argument.
Bringing up Zimmerman is an excellent point, but I would argue that a major thing that saved Zimmerman at trial was that he wasn’t white, and that he had black family members who took the stand in his defense.
Principals over Principles is a sad fact of life.
I think if that racist judge had allowed evidence about Zimmerman’s future bad behavior, the jury would have convicted him.
/sarc
Reading the blogs of actual lawyers/law students dissecting the Zimmerman trial really showed how the entire public discourse around it was almost entirely fictional.
I was at a family gathering around the time the whole Trayvon Martin incident, and I said that despite Zimmerman being a grade A asshole, the verdict in his trial was correct. It got silent and suddenly I was being yelled at by 2-3 people at the same time.
When 75% of the witness and professional testimony supports the ‘Zimmerman was innocent of the charges’ story (including a doctor noting that she had to pull pieces of concrete out of the back of Zimmerman’s head), while 20% is discredited because their stories don’t match up with what they said to the media, and a single physical witness to showed up after the event is the only thing that brings out some doubt, it’s pretty obvious the only way you’re convicting him is via witch hunt.
That brings back memories. The Zimmerman case drew me out of lurking at TOS.
Ah, George Zimmerman. I wonder what Fluffy is up to these days?
[Citation needed]
etc?
Not exactly “pulling pieces of concrete” (?? from the shattering of the concrete as the hulk slammed it his head into the ground?) is it?
Rao is not the doctor who examined Zimmerman, nor did he examine him physically at anytime. He’s a guy the prosecution used to try to discredit Zimmerman’s account. Of course, he also said this:
Evidence supports George Zimmerman’s claim that Trayvon Martin was on top of him when Zimmerman fired the shot that claimed Trayvon’s life, a forensic pathologist testified Tuesday at Zimmerman’s murder trial.
“The medical evidence is consistent with Mr. Zimmerman’s statement,” said Vincent Di Maio, an expert witness for the defense.
…Di Maio also testified that Zimmerman’s head injuries could have been caused by coming into contact with concrete and that such injuries can be very dangerous. That testimony supported Zimmerman’s claim that Trayvon was slamming his head into a sidewalk.
Though ‘pieces’ was probably the incorrect word to use, makes them seem larger than what they were. ‘Very small pieces’ and ‘flecks’ indicating that his head made contact with the ground forcefully is more accurate.
Urgh. Brain fart. What I meant to say is that a forensic pathologist who actually examined Zimmerman supported his story based on the evidence. My brain somehow mixed Rao and Maio together, my mistake.
FTR, I am confident that Martin was on top of Zimmerman, striking him. How much force he was striking him seems academic to me, for almost all argumentative purposes.
But I’m a stickler for details and to the best of my knowledge it doesn’t seem like Zimmerman actually sustained significant injury related to the very dangerous activity of having ones head punched into the ground.
There are quite a few statements of fact in this article, but not a single link to support them. I think some sourcing in the form of embedded links is in order.
Also, bullets, lot of bullets.
He means bullet POINTS, Preet!
Does anyone have Preet’s email? We really need to get him lurking on here.
Kingcuntymccuntface@gmail.cunt
That was mean. I actually thought it was real for a second.
It’s actually Urban Meyer’s email address.
Talk about mean.
Also, wouldn’t his end in .edu?
I don’t think college football and education have anything in common….
Well now you sound like Cardale Jones.
Me too. I wonder who I just emailed. Now I feel kind of bad for having been so mean to whoever actually has the email address Kingcuntymccuntface@gmail.cunt. Might have just been some suburban housewife who hardly deserves the invective I heaped upon her.
Ken Schultz hit hardest.
[immediately registers a buttload of .cunt domains]
I see you are Ready for Hilary!
What with all those .cunt domains, he can be Hill’s main dawg this go round.
Awesome!
**Widens gaze**
Invite him via Twitter.
psh.. I don’t touch the stuff.
Let’s not everyone forget that Trump fired Preety Poo. Trump’s one of the good nazis!
Just as long as you get the Nazi descriptor in when describing him, your gonna be safe from the latest purge.
Well played.
HA….Whatever. All posts are edited by the wood chipper algorithm from what I hear.
OT – I decided to write my own New York Times story:
TRUMP’S LATEST HATEFUL TWEET
Today, Donald Trump Tweeted the phrase “Have a Nice Day” accompanied by a yellow smiley face.
“For oppressed women and people of color in the United States it is never a nice day in Trump’s America,” said the Justice for the People Association.
The Asia-Pacific Peoples Coalition issued a statement that “by showing a smiling yellow face, Trump is contributing to the racist image of Asians as a contented ‘model minority.’ In reality, Asian-Pacific Americans face constant struggles and stand in intersectional solidarity with our POC brothers and sisters.”
The tweet was issued at 1:10 PM Eastern Standard Time, but as critics pointed out, in some parts of the world it isn’t “day” at all, so it was inappropriate and insensitive, and reflective of a Western hegemonic bias, to wish people a “nice day” at that particular time.
“We sleeping but Donar Twump wake us up, because he lacist!”
Um, ah, hmmm…I hope I didn’t encourage that.
Hey man, it’s not like I said “Wang Fong Wing Wang!” or anything like that, that might be lacist.
It’s fine. Just don’t go pee pee in my coke.
Sounds about right.
Geeze Eddie, you could have turned that into a stand alone front page story. Throw in some food puns, a statue or two and maybe even work in some deep dish and you are there.
I skimmed the first part, and thought it was a direct quote. You’re good, seriously easily NYT material. You should send it to them and see what they think.
*standing ovation*
“Asian-Pacific Americans face constant struggles and stand in intersectional solidarity with our POC brothers and sisters.”
Except when it comes to college admissions.
“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.”
This is a key feature. If this were the other way around, the media would still be blaming the right.
Se I’ve heard conflicting reports.
I’ve heard antifa charged the park.
I’ve heard the cops ordered the pro-statue protesters out of the park into the antifa.
I’ve heard that the vicious white racists Nazi thugs charged into the peaceful leftist flower children.
Where’s the video?
CNN had the video of that moment on a loop in their initial coverage. I’ve described it here before, but it is completely gone from CNN.com.
The antifa kids had a wedge shaped shield made of two pieces of plywood. They used this to drive into the nazi crowd as they were forming up to march. Violence ensued.
I linked to the Rolling Stone article earlier. It had a photo of the antifa guys with their shield, just after the initial clash. They’ve taken the photo down now.
The initial violence wasn’t that bad, maybe 6 on each side directly involved in getting hit… plus some liberal application of pepper spray. But it “broke the seal”, giving permission to everyone to start being more violent. Kinda like when the lady throws her big-gulp at a marcher. Sure, a big gulp ain’t that dangerous, but getting hit in the head by a big gulp kinda gives you intermission to hit back.
And everyone knows that a bunch of Nazi idiots in homemade riot gear are gonna fight back. They sit around in their basement masturbating about the coming race war. Of course they are gonna be violent if you confront them.
They aren’t? From what I’ve seen it’s been painted entirely as the “alt-right riot”.
This is a key feature. If this were the other way around, the media would still be blaming the right.
At what point have they not been blaming the right? And I am damn pissed at this “right” label. A National Socialist Nazi is not on the right. It is infuriating.
Thank you, John. Concise and spot on.
As the President said, the solution to this is for police to restore law and order.
Won’t that distract from the fund-raising?
Is this John John?
Anyway well written.
It’s him or his doppelganger.
I definitely recognize the name from somewhere.
It’s our John. He’s been exploring the western half of North America.
Hmmm… I would have expected the statue pic to more more along these lines. NSFW.
http://www.fistofblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/fat_lady_sculpture.jpg
I recognize the style from somewhere.
The use of contractions threw me off a little bit, but the ending sentence really clinches it.
And “Middlebury” became “Middleburg,” which isn’t quite as good as his other typos, but I was thinking of some city in Middle Earth.
I was just about to post this exact question.
http://www.teenvogue.com/story/complacency-racism-white-supremacy-charlottesville-thigh-high-politics-lauren-duca
“For white people who don’t self-identify as disciples of Richard Spencer, David Duke, and/or the ancient demon Beelzebub, there is extreme anxiety around the accusation of racism. We see this fear of blame in Trump’s statement. “Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama” seems to say, ‘Hey, there’s been a tense racial climate in this country forever. It’s not anyone’s fault!’ Except the opposite is true. American white supremacy has been a problem forever, and it is all of our fault, fellow white people.
White people benefit from white supremacy. Period.”
I found this on an acquaintance Facebook page. He’s the sort that despite holding degrees from DePaul and Northwestern along with being successful (career wise), always complains about white privilege and how every one is racist.
You’d think if white people benefit from white supremacy they wouldn’t have to worry about accusations of racism, the accusation would just get dismissed because a racist society didn’t care.
I have very little anxiety about being called a racist by morons. Perhaps you should suggest to your acquaintance that he improve his literacy beyond high school and stop reading garbage magazines for idiot teenagers.
He never had the balls to say it to my face, but he sort of views me as an Uncle Tom simply due to the fact I never get hysterical about perceived instances of racism.
What was very telling about him and his philosophy was when we were both discussing police brutality. He was focusing on the racial part and when I told that perhaps we should focus on the reduction of police/government power along with some accountability, he argued that government power wasn’t the issue. Racism was the issue and we have to somehow get rid of the racists on the police force and criminal justice system.
Ah, your friend has a condition known as ‘Terminal Retardation’.
Sadly, there is no cure.
Projection. He is a racist, therefore everyone is a racist.
I think the crazy thing is that despite him being all about blacks and their struggles, the dude without ever realizing it has a disdain for poor blacks and has a sense of elitism towards the black community.
Most leftists are racists just merely by the fact that they view all minorities and foreigners as their inferiors who must be taken care of and told how to behave, how to vote, etc.
How did I go from agreeing with the author to hating him in the same paragraph?
Racism! It can do anything!
I’ll be thinking about all my fucking white privilege tomorrow when I’m back hanging drywall. And in a couple weeks when I go back to my community college to continue getting my degree for something that doesn’t involve hanging drywall, I’ll be thinking about white privilege and what it will mean when I graduate with my dodgy associates rather than a DePaul diploma. When I’m hunting for a room in a couple months because my landlord is taking over my space while he renovates, I’ll be sure to meditate on all that white privilege. Being white is a total trump card, I tell you.
“For white people who don’t self-identify as disciples of Richard Spencer, David Duke, and/or the ancient demon Beelzebub, there is extreme anxiety around the accusation of racism.”
Umm, no there isn’t. Fuck off, cunt.
My wife who is from an upper class white family once confided in me that despite never owning a slave in her life or being shitty towards someone of a different race, assholes like this author and my acquaintance can lob accusations of racism and privilege at her without any sort of evidence.
I was pretty shocked when she said that because she is an avid Democratic voter.
I can’t think of a better example of how idiotic the American race arguments are than the person of one Barack Obama and the discussion around him. If you look into his genealogy, his white mother is a direct descendant of a black slave, while his Kenyan side is historically upper class land owning Luo members of the pre-Kenyan city states. I.E., the city states that were one of the major export points for Africans into the Arab slave trade. Now I haven’t done a great deal of digging (and I’m sure documentation of the period isn’t great) so there’s no smoking gun that he’s directly descended from slave traders, but his ancestors were still influential members of a society practicing slavery.
So Obama’s white side has the ancestry of slaves, while his black at least substantially profited from being the upper class in a society heavily dependent on slavery. But his black side apparently means that he has some substantial insight into the history of slavery in the U.S.
Mind. Blown.
Good. Make more me-s!
But persons of mixed race throw off all the calculations. What’s the proportion of reparations paid vs. received? Do we use the one-drop rule? Do you cut a check to yourself?
Euphemism.
Racism is a kinda go-to insult. You can’t call people “cracker” any more (not that it was ever a particularly effective epitaph) so you go with “racist”. It means “evil whitey” in common parlance.
My ex wife and I had similar experiences.
I had a supervisor in my early 20’s who was a pretty nice lady, but was pretty racist in her views. There were only a couple of white people in her group, and just two of us were college kids. One weekend shift she started playing the race card hard, calling me a racist. (this was in the heat of the OJ Simpson trial, so things were a little amped-up on the race front). I was astounded. “You’ve met my fiancee’. You know that isn’t true.”
She doubled down with the jungle fever accusation.
She didn’t really mean much by it, other than “I want to win this argument and shut you up”. But it was still pretty striking, because we knew each other pretty well, as we had worked together for about 5 months at the time and often took meals together. So I had plenty of time spent trying to noodle out where she was coming from. I finally figured out that she wasn’t analyzing anything. She just needed a go-to insult that would put me in my place.
Man, Teen Vogue is quickly becoming the go-to source for prime derp.
+1 Anal sex tutorial
Hey! That’s the one good thing they’ve done!
Pshaw. Like you didn’t know all that already.
+1 pitcher of kamikazes and a little finger
*heard from a friend
No, but i love to take copies of that issue and leave it in pediatrician’s waiting rooms.
Rita Hayworth gave better face than Arianna Grande.
Well, if you put teens and derp together, yeah you’re going to get serious derp. It’s like giving a teen alcohol and a car, not a good idea.
They’re up there with Everyday Feminism. Ready for both to go out of business. (Speaking of which, why is it taking EF so long?? They promised us that they were dying months ago!)
Perhaps it’s like all the Long Island furniture stores that have had giant GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE! banners for a decade.
My grandfather fled Nazi Germany. Fuck you, Teen Vogue writer.
(Of course, Grandpa was stupid enough to join the Bund when he came to the US, and that got him interned for several months after Pearl Harbor.)
Will writers ever stop being lazy. I know they are using ‘white supremacy’ as a stand alone when they really mean ‘belief in white supremacy’ or some such, but it is really jarring.
Either that or leftists are way more racist than I thought.
That’s how I read it. Keep in mind that “all whites are racist” is not a fringe belief any more.
This was a really good submission, John. Thanks for taking the time to write this article. If only you could submit this to the NYT or Washington Post but you would probably be doxxed and ran out of town.
Look Ed, I have half a brick. I just need to know whom…who?…whom to throw it at!
/ looking for a target for my impotent rage
“To all of the “nice white people,” I say this: Stop furrowing your brow over “the partisan divide,” and loudly declare your position in this fight against hatred. There is no such thing as bias when it comes to white supremacists. To hell with fairness and respectability. Burn politeness to the ground and get vocal. Talk to your friends and family members. Be willing to make sacrifices and insist on taking a stand for what is right. The president is talking about “many sides,” and one of them is white supremacy, so you better make a clear f*cking choice about which side you’re on.”
Oh, I get it, “nice white people” is like “good Germans,” right? Very cute.
How about this – take responsibility for your own sins, and don’t let anyone blame you for the sins of people who share your race or color.
What this country needs is teenagers burning politeness to the ground and self-righteously doing what is self-evidently (to them, at least) right. That will heal our country! If not, well, just yell louder.
threading fail. Well, never mind, time to burn threading propriety to the ground, grrr!
That’s called being responsible and accountable for your own actions. These days that’s offensive and triggering.
I’m going to tell all of the white people I know to stop being white.
I’m a vile mixture of Italian, Scottish, German and English.
I don’t think I qualify as white.
We’re all a bunch of mutts
Amen. This can’t be spoken enough. Fer fucks sake. Get out of any closed society, we are a bunch of mixed race mutts.
Damn, you’re veritable conglomeration of drunken tomfoolery.
Well, duh.
Debauchery… the new fragrance from tundra!
60 percent of the time, it works every time!
German, Welsh, English, Irish.
I think I qualify as drunk.
Scottish, Irish, German. I know I qualify as drunk.
Off-white?
Cultural Appropriation!
Ridiculous. I would never live in a country and not even make an attempt to learn the fucking language.
Yeah, but in fairness German sounds like ball bearings being poured down a garbage disposal.
So hawt
No; that’s Schwyzerdutsch.
Well, Dutch too.
Danish too, though more gargling than garbage disposal.
I think some dialects of Arabic sound more appealing than German.
Neither would I.
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.
Simple as defining ‘Law and Order’. There have been some good defenses of free speech lately that make the point that ‘hate speech’ is a horrible concept because ‘”Who decide’s what is or isn’t ‘Hate Speech'” I’d argue the same can be said for ‘Law and Order’. You want the police to start bashing heads that aren’t sufficiently docile? guess who decides what docile enough is?
Is “law and Order” a constitutionally guaranteed right?
I know it’s risky taking things from the preamble, but you might infer it is intrinsic to constitutional rights from the phrases “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility.”
Yes, it is always risky taking things from the preamble except it is always then explained in the enumerated powers and the bill of rights. Otherwise they would not have had the enumerated powers or bill of rights and just stopped at the preamble the way my simple mind sees it. Why expand on it? The founders laid out how we should establish justice and insure domestic tranquility and one of those rights guaranteed to do that was respecting another persons freedom of speech. Regardless of what complete pricks who should burn in the fires of hell we might think them to be.
Agreed. But I was just responding to your question as to whether law & order is a constitutional right. I think a reasonable person could conclude that it a constitutional role of government while at the same time supporting untrammeled freedom of speech.
We are saying the same thing. You made the argument I was trying to make to Hyperbole but I went the wrong way around the ball.
I had an ex “friend” claim that we should be confiscating more and more of wealth because it could be used “for the general welfare”. I know you are not of that ilk, but people who use the preamble for stomping on liberty or private property…….god help us,
Totally agree. In fact, if you take “General Welfare” as the phrase was originally used, it’s also about defending liberty.
I think the entire Constitutional framework assumes enforcing a certain degree of “law and order.” The founders weren’t anarchists, to put it mildly.
I believe the reasonable person standard applies here. No need for hyperbolic arguments.
Yeah, if the government can’t be bothered to stop a rampaging mob, then why bother having a government? At least with full blown anarchy we would be allowed to shoot the people throwing flash bangs into cribs.
Some cops get so focused on the order part that they forget the law part.
Then there are rioters who care for neither the law part nor the order part.
Dealing with rioters tends to strain the rule of law, which is why it’s a good idea to cool the political temperature in hopes of reducing the number of riots.
There’s an endless regress here. No, as I said in another thread, ‘Law and Order’ cannot protect you from an existing despot, as a despot defines Law and Order as he wishes. Having ‘Law and Order’ is not by itself a guarantee of anything. The Law might be evil, and if it is so the Order accompanying it will be so as well.
That said, there are ideals I think valuable, and I do not think it possible to hold them in any effectual sense without enforcing some degree of ‘Law and Order.’ I think it particularly important that the law be procedurally neutral, though what that means in practice is complicated- I’m a computer scientist, so I’d really like this all to be very rigorous, but I’m afraid it’s not an equation that can be solved in any definitive fashion.
I think that the Western legal tradition, while it has often been used to thwart the ideals I value, has also been the most powerful force advancing them I am aware of. It has been not perfect- far from it. It has countenanced, and indeed upheld great injustices. But its arc has bent upward over time, IMHO. If you feed it garbage precepts you get garbage back, and how to determine what is garbage and what is not is… well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man, and that is the problem, isn’t it? It’s an indissoluble problem, IMHO.
Still, I suppose I take a more Hobbesian view than you might expect (I mean, my ideals are essentially right-anarchist- I don’t think my ideals a practical way of ordering a society, though.) Very little of what I value can exist in a society in which any irate faction is allowed to inflate its importance by violently taking to the streets. The free communication of ideas is a value I think important, not just as an end, but as a means to an end.
Still, you’re right- there are no guarantees. Law and order can uphold my values, or it can be used as a weapon to destroy them. There’s no getting around that. I think it impossible that my ideals could exist in a modern technological society without some degree of ‘Law and Order’ though, so it’s a bit like Pascal’s wager (though more sensible, cause Pascal’s wager is actually pretty dumb, when you think it through- he should have stuck with the math thing.) Also, it does have kind of a cool theme song, right? “DahDahDahduh…”
Certainly don’t feel sorry for this ahole but how far would be have gotten on his own without the government influence and fake fbi bomb and fake fbi detonator.
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/08/14/oh-fbi-stops-fight-club-bomber-oklahoma/
I had the same reaction. It’s almost entrapment. He was certainly a hateful loser on his own, but the long-running setup encouraged him that he was correct in his thinking and needed to take action. And then they took most of the action for him!
He’d probably be in his mom’s basement typing out crap on the internet if they hadn’t gone after him.
Or running over leftists in the street with his car.
the solution to this is for police to restore law and order.
An authoritarian manifesto.
Is there any place on the Internet for libertarians?
Erm wouldn’t you need someone running the site to reject/revise improper content?
This was done unilaterally with no discussion among the editors.
Is there editorial control?
Point is unless you have someone keeping a tight lid on content you will get some unlibertarian stuff published. Assuming that said editors have no defiencies too of course.
Yeah, I posted this on my own, so I own it. But I think as was mentioned, there’s a reasonable person expectation that defines law and order. I would take that to mean the police maintain order by protecting the rights of people, even Nazi assholes, to peacefully congregate. You know, in accordance with that law of the land we refer to as the first amendment.
Thank you.
Equal treatment under the law. The Illinois Nazi illustration is a great one – and up until this year (this sort of thing has remained mostly civil – compared to WTO protests, Occupy, Anti-war, etc).
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the cops to intervene when people start bashing each other over the head. Even if it’s just to separate them and be like, “Okay, knock that off.” The fact that they are just sitting there while stuff like the “Battle of Berkeley” goes on does embolden antifa as well as make the opposition decide to take matters into their own hands, “since the cops aren’t doing anything.”
No need to virtue-signal when your site publishes a decent piece.
No shit. Nice piece John. Don’t apologize, Glibs.
The facts are that maintaining public order is a core function of the state. Period, full stop, even in a night watchman minarchy, you know, the bit where the role of the state is to keep your fellow citizens from violating your rights.
What comes next if it doesn’t won’t be more freedom and liberty, people.
PornHub?
Lobstertube circa 2011.
PornHub is a good site.
+1 New Private Window
I don’t think its ‘authoritarian’, or even anti-libertarian, to have police break up riots. ‘Law and order’ can be used to justify plenty of authoritarian impulses, but in this scenario it is the correct path to avoid political violence.
I’m good with law and order if we’re talking about police acting to stop rioting. I think there’s a reasonable standard there.
If the law and order restores the right to free speech for even disgusting people is that not a libertarian ideal? I am getting weird vibes as to what a libertarian ideal is in these times. Do we allow speech but just choose to not associate with it, or do we shut it down so we don’t have to ever make that choice? I think the thought of running over people is a given as being a bad thing.
Not to pile on, but there really isn’t anything unlibertarian about the government stopping people from violating other people’s rights. In fact, some of the most unlibertarian situations that existed (Jim Crow South, Communist Cuba) operated precisely by having the government look the other way while some participants engaged in violence.
Excellent post.
Random thing I just saw: Weigel is one of the people on twitter ginning up the “identify all the Nazis and ruin their lives!” talk (see: The NY Times article I linked in the last thread)
If you doxx someone or aid in doxxing them and you are wrong, you should go up for libel. That would calm some of these virtue signaling fuckheads down.
This. It’s about time for law suits to be filed against these scum.
I don’t think it is libel if it is the truth.
bless his heart
So he really is ENB?
http://m.townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/08/14/conservatives-must-regulate-google-and-all-of-silicon-valley-into-submission-n2368118
Erm what makes you so sure there will always be the Right Top Men in power?
His conclusion may be flawed, but I think his premise is pretty solid.
He does have a point. For one thing, the left are going insane about equality and discrimination. Yet, institutions controlled by leftists, such as academia, routinely discriminate against anyone right of Mao and do so openly.
And against Whites and Asians.
Nothing. Skimming the article, he’s well aware and gives zero fucks.
I think (unless I’m confusing him with a different Kurt Germanname) this is one of the guys who alt-right take inspiration from, and no wonder. The article is quite simple – “When they are in power, they fuck our businesses without mercy. We are in power now – let’s fuck their businesses. Because when we lose power, our businesses will be fucked regardless. Just fuck them in a way that makes it really, really hard to unfuck later.”
So tribalism. And libertarianism will lose.
Libertarianism can’t win, it can only disrupt.
Nah. Libertarianism can’t disrupt. It can only stand over on the side and say, “guys! Guys! You are doing it wrong!! Hey! C’mon! Listen to me! I said you are doing it wrong!!”
People who aren’t libertarians (e.g. townhall.com) generally give zero fucks if libertarianism wins or loses. *insert Reason.com crack here*
And yeah, once one side goes in on tribalism, other side(s) will copy them. It’s also a lovely feedback mechanism, too. Best part is that you only need 5%-10% of a group to go full retard and the violent conflict will start an escalating cycle of retribution.
Alternative is one tribe fucks the other tribe into eternity while they grin and take it. Usually that requires either a vast population mismatch, or overwhelming force of arms.
Oh, you’d like a non-tribal alternative? Too late by decades.
I have a hard time arguing with that logic.
Give or take a little, 5000 years of human history don’t happen just because everyone non-libertarian is pants-on-head retarded.
I haven’t seen any associations of him with the alt-right, he’s just got issues. Kurt Schlichter is a man who has openly admitted that he’s willing to throw away any principles he has in order to make the left suffer. He’s obsessed with vengeance against them and is pretty accurate representation of when you don’t really believe in anything and are consumed by hate.
That said he’s funny once and awhile.
All Kurts look the same to me.
Seriously, I initially thought he was the baseball-failed game studio-Advanced Squad Leader-guy.
Well duh, that’s Curt Schilling. I don’t know how you got the two confused. This is the bug crazy former military guy who isn’t Tom Kratman.
>This is the bug crazy former military guy who isn’t Tom Kratman.
Tom “No, I’m not using crucifixion as a metaphor” Kratman
Tom “Rosie O’Donnell crying in a trench while I put a gun to her head and pull the trigger” Kratman.
Who on planet Earth isn’t X “Rosie O’Donnell crying in a trench while I put a gun to her head and pull the trigger” Y?
Most of us don’t publicly voice our deepest, darkest desires.
Tom “Patricio Carrera is absolutely not a Marty Stu” Kratman
People often see things in terms of “rule or be ruled” and that’s often a correct analysis of the options – and a self-fulfilling prophecy to boot.
And you get to whip yourself into a frenzy of self-righteousness – you see, when *I* oppress you it’s because I was forced into it by your actions against my previously-peaceful self.
See, once again, this is the kind of shit I’ve been warning about. If the left think they can keep this up and there will be no severe consequences for them as well as the ‘enemies’ they are trying to oppress and take free speech away from, they’re insane. This shit cannot continue or the government steps in and then we all lose.
It’s clear he’s morally wrong. But, is he strategically wrong? Have you seen any evidence whatsoever that the left will refrain from using their Top Men to screw over everyone else when they’re back in power no matter what the right does while they’re in power. From a certain strategic vantage point, if liberty is fucked in either case, doesn’t it make sense to make sure the other guy bears the brunt of the fucking?
OT – I can’t remember who it is around here who’s crazy about Bella Thorne, but she’s really been upping her Look-At-Me game lately.
https://www.yahoo.com/style/red-carpet-looks-2017-teen-slideshow-wp-233225754.html
I could do without the ‘actor from Cats!’ makeup.
“hottest red carpet” — maybe, but I need to see the evidence.
Vanessa Hudgens is packing.
Wasn’t John posting her DM stories under ‘youth is wasted on the young’ at the other site?
Let me say up front I am not a Nazi, a white nationalist, or a sympathizer of them. I am a military history buff who knows a lot about the Civil War and am firmly pro-union and very unsympathetic to the southern cause.
Sorry to say John that after reading what you wrote and all with you are not a Nazi, a white Nationalist, or a sympathizer of them. You Mr Smarty pants may very well be a history buff about the Civil War and side with the Union and are unsympathetic to the south…..Blah blah blah. Whatever, no getting around it you are a fucking racist.
Yeah, you called it dude.
i’m getting really tired of the need to do this.
i feel like absolutely no one who needed to read Scott Alexander’s “crying wolf” thing actually did
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/
“I am not a Nazi”
That’s exactly what a Nazi would say
I tell people I’m a Love Nazi
?baby, your heart is my sudetenland
and i hear it crying out for liberation?
?why… must you deny…..
the armored columns of my loveeeeee?
waiting for the ‘invade poland’ euphemism.
Nice choice.
Also, your cat needs a hat, and maybe a monocle…oooh, and maybe a katana.
Just so long you keep it tasteful.
I vant to blitzkrieg your heart
tear your floorboards apart
and find feelings I can’t easily dispose of
Send you off on a train
A trip not made in vain
where I’ll be there to shower you with love
Or sing!
They actually seem to be pretty proud of it.
“before we get onto the important work of using the events of yesterday to slander our political enemies”
Deft turn of phrase, enjoyed it.
Gives me a real Weimar feeling. Thing is 1932 Germany didn’t have any good realistic options. Either Nazis or Commies (the two combined had about a majority of the vote and seats on the Reichstag) or a military coup. The President had been ruling by decree for two years.
Meh, I think this is overblown. Europe regularly has shit like this happen. Despite our reputation we have been above average with the civility of our civil discourse and we are just starting to dip down as of late.
BTW I’ll keep saying this but we need regular content like this. I am going to put my own awesome gun themed hot take in this weekend.
Armed protesters – not one shot fired. An armed society is a polite society.
I talked about that briefly over the weekend, but no I’m doing something unrelated to this weekends hilarity.
I apparently misread the first post.
It’s comforting to know that when the glorious revolution gets under way, that the left are going to show up hurling bottles of urine and poo at those assault rifles.
Do you think they got credit for that? Ha ha ha.
Looks like TOS sticking with Trump is Hitler. Looking for more cocktail party invitations I guess.
Good grief, do they just get their talking points directly from the left? They’re parroting them word for word here.
Glibertia has descended on their arses.
BTW, anyone seen Gilmore lately?
Um, there are comments by him right above you.
G’damnit, people have got to stop changing their avatars any time they want to! How are we supposed to know who they are!?
/end Ken rant
(sigh) no one recognizes me without my beautiful hair.
Sorry, Robbie.
Yeah, about 10 minutes ago upthread.
If you’re like me, you might be thrown by his avatar change. It was a day or two before I realized that was him.
His old one was better. And easy to recognize.
FINE
Um.
I like it.
No!!!!
He went back to his salute to the great orange Trumpalo.
I liked the kitty DJ.
Rasta cat DJ was cool. Orange dude with giant hair is cool. *reaches out hands* Lets all just support Gilmore as he decides what he chooses to be K? It is apparent he is 1/3 black woman. We need to support him now.
(group hug)
Yesss!!! 🙂
Same classic Gilmore posts with new… same old look? Either way this made my day.
Needz moar hat.
It’s so easy to mis-manage a brand.
ITS NEW GILMORE….BUT WITH THAT CLASSIC FLAVOR!
That’s easy for Hitler to say, you died at your peak! Like Kurt Cobain!
What kind of law and order are we talking?
Special Victims Unit.
I don’t know, lawyer stuff.
Send Ice-T to sort it out?
I’m in favour!
Is that the one where they only investigate Retard-murders?
we arrived in Boston today (after somedays up in Maine) and my God, this must be the virtue signal capital of the world. There’s a huge billboard that declares how Mass. gun laws keep everyone safe. Plus a church by Copley sq. had a banner about Immigrants and refugees welcome! That’s not even counting the Special Green initiatve in the hotel which is where housekeeping doesn’t even come in your door. Like, Okay, I get not changing out the towels or sheets, but not even dumping the trash? Or is this just to cover for a lack of housekeeping staff because they can’t afford to pay them whatever stupid minimum wage laws they have here?
“That’s not even counting the Special Green initiatve in the hotel which is where housekeeping doesn’t even come in your door.”
Wait, they welcome immigration, but they don’t have any hotel house keepers? I don’t get it, landscaping doesn’t last all year in Massholio!
English football team sees Boston’s Special Green Initiative and raises stakes:
https://www.forestgreenroversfc.com/games/away-fans
“FIFA has called us the greenest football club in the world. There are lots of reasons for that – the solar panels on our roof, the solar powered robot lawnmower, the rainwater recycling system beneath the pitch, and the eco trail around the ground. In terms of the football itself though, we play on a fully organic pitch – which means there are no pesticides on our grass whatsoever…We’re the world’s first vegan football club, so you’ll get a very different food experience here at The New Lawn – and we think you’ll love it. Instead of stodgy meat pies and chips, you’ll get freshly made fajitas, veggie burgers and our signature dish, the Q-Pie, a vegan pie made using leek and Quorn ingredients.”
Puke.
…
Ha, knew it.
Hey — if that’s what they want their brand to be, fine. As long as it’s not forced upon me by my intellectual betters in authority.
“you’ll get freshly made fajitas, veggie burgers and our signature dish, the Q-Pie, a vegan pie made using leek and Quorn ingredients”
You’ll get a punch in the face if you try to serve me that shite.
Isn’t a punch in the face a normal part of going to a euroweenie fuotball match?
Oh, Q-pie!
-Toshiro Takashi
declares how Mass. gun laws keep everyone safe*
*excludes marathons, crockpot bombs, and stranglers; YMMV
You’d over-compensate if you were the most racist city in the country, too.
“That… and decades and decades of keeping the blacks out!”
Mayor Marty Walsh is a cunt.
Are you in Back Bay? I saw one of those billboard across from the convention center.
Well, Boston is just crawling with universities and colleges. No surprise that it manifests the current campus idiocy.
It seems that all the networks and cable news, including Fox, are criticizing Trump for his statements, because he didn’t specifically name something like nazis or white-whatever early enough.
Trump said at a ceremony for the signing of a bill to reform the Veterans Affairs health care system, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides ― on many sides”
Then he tweeted:
“We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!”
That was on 1:19 PM – Aug 12, 2017. And it looks like the tweet was deleted. I think that was before that woman was killed. Regardless, it was before anyone knew who did it, and or had any certainty which of the “many sides” he belonged. Now what it it turned out that someone from Antifa killed an innocent bystander?
Since then, Trump has said, “”Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
So rather than tweeting a hot take, as he often does, he waited. Or it was in response to the backlash to his earlier statements. Yet, apparently that wasn’t good enough.
I’m worried about Trump. He seems to be trying to play their game now, which is exactly how he falls into their traps. Go back to old Trump, Trump. The one that didn’t give a fuck.
That was probably the most presidential thing he has said since taking office. Someone dying changes that in no way whatsoever.
“Now what it it turned out that someone from Antifa killed an innocent bystander?”
I don’t think we’ll be waiting very long to find out.
Really. “We demand a faster rush to judgement!!”
Maybe I’m just allowing myself to be immersed in it too much, but I really think the country is getting more retarded by the day, and the pace is accelerating.
Could we be hitting peak derp???!
j/k we’ll never hit rock bottom.
My point that that almost of the actual violence recently has been from antifa up until now.
My second point is that condemning “nazis” is about as superfluous as condemning child molesters. They are already universally reviled.
My third point is that communists are just as evil and murderous as the Nazis were. So why should Trump take one side? Charlottesville was like the Eastern Front in WWII. It was assholes on both sides.
“My second point is that condemning “nazis” is about as superfluous as condemning child molesters. They are already universally reviled.”
Unless they’re Important Filmmakers.
The nazis could come out tomorrow, wearing the German Nazi uniforms and say they support the left and socialism and the left will fully embrace them and you’ll never hear another bad thing about them from the left. You’ll get NYT and WaPo articles in droves saying that Hitler was misunderstood and that he was actually a good guy.
You’ll get NYT and WaPo articles in droves saying that Hitler was misunderstood and that he was actually a good guy.
So, pretty much what they did in the 1930s, basically.
“And it looks like the tweet was deleted.”
Woops! My bad. It’s still there.
Much of this is simply TDS, but of course there’s the Cult of the Presidency, where we expect the President to be our Emoter in Chief.
At least President Washington, when proclaiming days of prayer, managed a certain gravitas:
“Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be– That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks–for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation–for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war–for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed–for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
“and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions– to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually–to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord–To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us–and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.”
Although in fairness I don’t think he used more sentences than our modern Presidents in their tweets.
Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
You know, this was the most libertarian thing I think I’ve heard a president say in response to something like this. He said racism is evil and then made sure to note that those who cause violence in its name are criminals. Not the people who think racist things, but those who commit violence.
I don’t know if it was deliberate. I don’t care. But it’s good to hear a president saying that the violence is what makes the crime, not the thought while at the same time taking the time to say the racism itself was evil (but not necessarily illegal on its own!)
It was also appropriate to decry the violence in general before he knew the particulars of what had happened. Knee-jerk reactions have no place for people holding the levers of power.
IOW, he handled this well. A lot better than the state or local leadership, who have been all too happy to ascribe collective blame to people who weren’t anywhere near what happened on Saturday.
I agree. Yet nearly everyone in the media, both progressive and conservative, is attacking him for it.
Eboni Williams made an rather eloquent argument this afternoon:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5541075989001/?#sp=show-clips
Even though I disagree with her. I don’t think Trump decided to “equivocate” not to turn off the “portion of the base that is absolutely racist”.
He has, IMHO, been a bit overly coy about white supremacists in the past, and even in his initial statement about this. I don’t think it means he sympathizes with them- I think he’s just not very bright about some things. When you’re the President of the United States and _actual_ Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are in love with you I think you ought to be repudiating them at every turn.
At the same time, I think you ought to be calling out Antifa as well, and I think you can only do that credibly after having gone after the similar assholes who have very vocally supported you.
He has a Jewish daughter, and son-in-law who has an important position in his administration. I also think that white supremacists are an insignificantly tiny fraction of his supporters. Regardless, he clearly repudiated them, “the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans”.
Sure- eventually. I’m not accusing him of supporting Klansmen or Nazis. I do think he’s been a bit tone-deaf about their support for him though.
Re: my comments on ignoring the inoffensive statues. WTF is up with these jackasses??
Just saw this trending on twitter…this is the kind of thing that does make me want to put my foot up someone’s ass.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see Silent Sam bite it this week at this rate. Good gravy. Not even a historic character…that’s the friggin definition of generic, non-threatening, etc.
I want to see someone brought up on charges for this one.
Isn’t Silent Sam the one who fires his rifle when a virgin walks by?
Yep, generic confederate soldier – they’ve been trying to get rid of him for a few years now and after this impromptu BS, I wouldn’t be surprised if he bites it.
Also not “generic” per se, I guess – he’s memorializing 321 UNC students who died in the war fighting for the South – so of course, nothing to do with official university history or anything worthwhile like that.
Who the fuck is Silent Sam?
I only know ofTelegram Sam.
He’s my main man.
Pic. Apparently he did get the BLM/KKK “murderer” graffiti treatment back in 2015 and I missed it.
yes
about the virgin, I mean
I’m waiting for them to go full Taliban and demand this gets dynamited.
A bunch of fucking commie assholes and not a damn one of them will get a day in jail.
How did the members of the mob know where the courthouse was? Oh, they must have used Google Maps…how else would they know?
Look out, Stone Mountain…. Hello, foreseeable Rappelling Accident!
It’s a good thing the neo-nazis are inbred morons, because you don’t exactly have to be a genius to realize that when your adversary is a bunch of white people who like to hide their identities behind black masks, carrying out false flag attacks is child’s play. And if you were going to attack a bunch of people while pretending to be antifa, what target would be more believable than a conservative like David French?
Wife has been binge watching Person of Interest about this big brother spy machine. I’ll say one thing. They know how to cast the hotties. One episode after another.
Well how many of you guys thought removing the CSA battle flag from South Carolina Capitol would be the end of it?
It’s like watching the infamous Stalin photograph get airbrushed over time. I mean, there’s an argument to be made for removing statues that celebrate bastards due to sensitivity and changing mores, but it’s hard to see this as anything other than a deliberate cultural purge of the deplorables, and I seriously doubt it will end with the CSA. Frankly, I doubt it will end in anything other than civil war, as attempting to erase people is the sort of thing that people tend to take as an existential threat, and not without reason — once it becomes clear that erasing deplorable culture doesn’t produce utopia or produce total submission and agreement, erasing deplorables themselves will be the next, final solution.
The cultural revolution comes to mind.
It was only the beginning. And if they manage to take down every civil war monument in existence, that will only embolden them further. These states and cities are extremely foolish to yield to this bullshit.
I remember Matt Welch supporter the removal from South Carolina only to be shocked that they removed the Dukes of Hazzard. What did he think was going to happen.
Yield? You don’t think a lot of them sympathize?
Well how many of you guys thought removing the CSA battle flag from South Carolina Capitol would be the end of it?
Because people have misunderstood their motivations. At the end of the day, the social justice cadres couldn’t give a tinker’s dam about confederate battle flags or statues. It’s the act of making others take it down, of forcing others into compliance, that they value. All that submitting to their demands will accomplish is getting a new, more onerous, set of demands. It isn’t about getting something they want. What they want is to force your acquiescence. In, preferably, the most humiliating way possible. These are broken people. And their fondest desire is to break others.
How long until Jeff Davis and Co get the cadaver synod/Oliver Cromwell treatment?
I recall a couple of times (within the last 20 years or so) the news covered KKK parades and crap, and when the 2 dozen idiots showed up in their dunce costumes, nobody watched except the press, and anybody who saw the news reports either rolled their eyes or pointed and laughed.
There was even an “adopt a highway” deal where a KKK group wanted to adopt and clean the highway. That one went up to the Supreme Court. The “klan” won but then never cleaned the highway so they were booted from the program.
In other words, ignoring or laughing at them and moving on has been working for a long time. Let’s get back to that.
Can someone explain to me how these monuments seem far more controversial today than among the veterans?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Olds
And it’s not like the old Chinese Empires didn’t have some nasty practices.
Dudes a badass
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40920495
That is so fucking sad.
“Life is short, so we’d better ‘commit our crimes’ while we’ve still got the chance. My crime of subverting the Communist regime is a great honour for me.”
Words to live by
Since the backlash is also against Calhoun and now Taney who weren’the even Confederates you know Washington, Jefferson and Madison will be next. And said remember who wrote the Bill of rights.
I’m surprised they have made it up on the hill yet to start vandalizing Monticello.
“haven’t”
Well, judging from the physique of the average SJW, I would in fact be surprised if they could climb the hill on which Monticello sits.
Uh I’m sure a certain snake eyed Hungarian Nazi collaborator can stroke a check for some buses.
Private property with armed guards I’d imagine.
Its private property (not that the antifa scum give a shit). Armed guards – I don’t recall any, but its been a long time.
When are we going to rename August, abolish leap day and rename New York and Albany?
we’re going to need to make a rule that you can only make the same whine once i day, and i’m pretty sure we heard that one this morning.
The attempt to rename Ryerson in Canada got some pushback. The guy is a well liked figure and created the public school system and the university is a teacher’s college so it has real cachet.
So I don’t this will end until they go to far, like demanding that DC or New York be renamed.
Or Amherst and Yale changing their names.
Ned? Ned Ryerson?
A Canadian!
Technically, New York wasn’t named after the slaving Duke of York, but of the city in England of which he was Duke.
Just the good old boys, never meaning no harm.
Except peerage titles are considered names….
So how would you hand wave Albany then?
Obviously, New York and Albany were chosen because they were places associated with his titles. But with the Duke gone, the places he used to be Duke of…are still there…did I get that right?
The guy with the title I’m most closely related to has unfortunately had daughters, etc. I’m like his 4th cousin twice removed, and I have no idea how many relatives there are in the way, but we’re not a very fruitful family, so if I were a Brit I might hold out some hope. I don’t think I’d want to be a Baronet (an Earl, well I’d be all over that,) but it would awesome to be able to style myself ‘Barcaldine.’ Sir Walter Scott, etc. Also, the Red Wedding Episode of Game of Thrones seems to have been based on a widespread misunderstanding of the Barcaldine role in the Glencoe massacre, so there’s that.
Have you seen Kind Hearts and Coronets? The guy has to kill Alec Guinness eight times to finally reach the dukedom. Spoiler alert: When he’s cut down, he *doesn’t* become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
No, haven’t seen it, I’m afraid. I imagine the most my distant cousin has to fear from me is that I’ll eventually come stay at the Bed and Breakfast he’s turned the ancestral castle into and be like ‘Hey, I’m from the States, and did you know we’re cousins? Kind of distant, but family’s family right? I grew up hearing about this place- there’s a long tradition of remembering relationships with minor Scots nobility in my family. So hey, can I get a discount on a room, being that we’re family and all?”
Actually, I’m inclined to think he might prefer that I just try to assassinate my way to the Baronetcy, especially since I imagine I’d be pretty ineffectual at it.
Beverwyck.
Harvard Law dropped their shield because it honored their original benefactor who owned slaves.
Made me proud I’ve never given them a nickel.
I don’t see why it’s so hard to remember historical figures in the sense of “here’s a statue of some guy; he did some good things, but he also did some bad things.”
Aristotle believed that slavery was the normal state of existence for some humans; do we have to burn all his books, disregard every contribution he ever made to philosophy, and scrub his name from the history books except where he is condemned as an evil slaver?
“Who’s Aristotle?”
-Social justice warriors.
Right, right… Aristotle didn’t have anything to say about subverting the cisgender hegemony and creating safe spaces for trans bodies, so they would have never heard of him.
Pretty sure I’ve seen basically that very thing suggested. I wish I could remember where.
Ever read about the Phillipeville massacre from the Algerian war? The Algerians massacred a bunch of French people which provoked a massacre of Algerians. This helped to undermine Algerian moderates and make the native/colonial schism too big.
I know the likes of Spencer hope this is happening…
And the massacre gave them a lot of publicity…
I totally agree with your analysis but for two points of contention.
First, my impression is that Unite the Right isn’t an organization as such; it refers to the rally event itself. The Friday neo-Nazi thing was a Richard Spencer production and not necessarily affiliated with the statue rally held Saturday. Essentially, the Klan and the Nazis crashed the party, but the organizers weren’t willing to distance themselves because they held common cause over the statue removal.
Second, the police on the ground were following commands issued from higher ups. As in previous Antifa encounters, they were either ordered to stand down until it was too late to do anything about the rioting or they were deliberately undermanned and under-equipped. The innocent explanation is that the city wanted to avoid inflaming an already tense situation with a strong police presence in riot gear. Obviously there are less innocent explanations.
Obviously there are less innocent explanations.
When the same thing happens over and over, at some point its not accident or negligence or anything but intentional.
“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.”
I’ve got those facts penciled in, but I don’t have a lot of faith in them.
Remember back when the Bush administration told us that Saddam Hussein was looking for yellowcake in Niger? Then someone involved piped up and said that story was a crock. Whose facts to believe?
I said the same thing then, and I’ll say it now: These facts are a red herring.
These facts do not matter. There is nothing anyone should start believing or stop believing–because someone plowed his car into a crowd of people.
I thought the Iraq War wasn’t in America’s best interests regardless of whether Saddam Hussein looked for yellowcake in Niger, and how I feel about Robert E. Lee, Donald Trump, the Alt-right, antifa, or anything else will not change because someone plowed his car into a crowd of people. If you found out the facts were actually the opposite of what you thought, how would your opinion of these things change and why?
If the answer to that question is that they wouldn’t change at all, then you’re looking at a red herring.
“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.”
Yes, this is what black blocs have been doing for decades. They inform the media of where they’re going to be, instigate violence with the police, and then fade back into the crowd–hoping that the police will be caught on camera beating up an innocent protestor. And that is why the police are smart just “let the riot happen”. They’re not there to create a spectacle for the left to exploit.
The solution to that problem isn’t for the police to get caught on camera beating the shit out of people to stop a riot–that’s what antifa wants. The solution is to catch antifa on camera provoking the police, instigating a riot–and their opponents doing nothing in response like they were trained by MLK and Gandhi or, if they can’t bring themselves to do that, maybe they should try being agent provocateurs themselves. The left has been engaging in that tactic since forever, too–they did it at Trump rallies.
If that guy hadn’t plowed his car into the crowd, that’s what we’d be talking about right now–how the media isn’t showing the left’s violence. If the alt-right wanted to get a smart message out, right now they’d be telling their people that by plowing his car into the crowed, that guy blew it for everybody.
This is precisely what Antifa provokers intended. What I don’t understand is the cops letting it get to that point.
Had these idiot protestors been told by sober and wise minds they probably would have gotten their message out better had they sat at home on their couches chomping down on KETCHUP chips and Tweeting about it from afar.
Who in their right minds GOES to stir up shit for such a non-event?
People who think the state is going to back them up on it.
What I don’t understand is the cops letting it get to that point.
Their boss is an antifa supporter. I can’t think of any other explanation.
Well said, John. Maybe I’m going to sound really callous here, but the one sentence summary of this entire affair is – two gangs of collectivist scum got into a brawl and one of them (Heyer was a communist, an IWW member) got killed. It’s really nothing to lose sleep over.
Commies vs Nazis. We have seen this movie before. It doesnt end well.
True. But, John gets at the only real solution. You have to arrest and throw the book at any of these clowns engaged in violence. Period. Full stop. No exceptions. Without violence these gangs fall away. They can’t sustain themselves in peaceful discourse.
Excellent take, John. I just shared this on Derpbook where I am already in a running battle with a group of proggies who refuse to admit any fault by Antifa or BLM, because there is only one side that should be condemned because “Nazis”. When I pointed out that condemning only one side for political violence that has been perpetrated by both is not a moral principle but just raw political opportunism, I got shrieked at that I was a bigot who supported the Klan and the Nazis, even though I had specifically condemned them both.
One thing missing from all the idiocy in the accusations of racism in this country is any discussion of what the country would look like if it were actually racist.
Where’s all the Johnisms? Great read, keep it up.