The Black Flag of Anarchy
A reader named Kevin Johnson opines:
Saying “the Left is a violent mob” is kind of like saying “the Right are all fascists.” It’s asinine virtue-signalling. How Americans fool themselves into believing they have actual alternatives in the GOP and DNC, I will never understand.
Keep on drinkin’ that establishment kool-aid and everything will turn out fine!
This is a rhetorical game played by Leftists of the Left and by Leftists of the Alt-Right alike, wherein two opposite things are said to be equal. It appeals to the natural egalitarianism in fallen man, all of whom fall short of the glory of God, to assume that not only are venal versus mortal sins somehow equal, but that virtue and vice are somehow equal.
False equivalence is a game because it is not serious. It is not a philosophical nor political stance: it it is a mouth-noise, what we call phatic speech, merely intended to signal the virtue of the utterer by lifting him above the fray, as he judiciously pronounces a curse on both our houses. Like saying that the Jews are equally at fault as the Germans for the Holocaust, on closer inspection, one can easily see which side of the issue is elevated by the comparison, and which is undermined. The comment by Mr. Johnson is not meant to bring the Right up to share in the high moral ground of the Left: it is to silence any criticism of the Left and its perennial violent mob mentality.
Saying “the Left is a violent mob” is exactly like saying “the Right are all fascists”, except for the tiny niggling detail that one statement is true as Gospel and the other false as Hell.
Let us see if we can see which is which, shall we?
Here is an article from the Origonian concerning a Bernie voter who brought an American flag to an Anti-Fascist protest rally, and was duly beaten in the head by a baseball bat by Antifas. For those of you not keeping score, both Antifas and Bernie voters are Leftwing.
Paul Welch came to the downtown protest Aug. 4 to let his political leanings be known.
With pride he clutched his U.S. flag as he moved among the crowd of like-thinking demonstrators.
Soon a group of black-clad anti-fascist protesters, also known as antifa, demanded he lose the flag, calling it a fascist symbol. Welch refused, and a tug-of-war ensued.
It ended with Welch taking a club to the back of the head, lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood.
Only Welch was not a Proud Boy, a Patriot Prayer supporter or among the other conservative activists who descended into the area that day, many from out of town.
He was one of hundreds of progressive Portlanders who had turned out to oppose the right-wing rally held at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park.
GRAPHIC VIOLENCE WARNING. Those queasy at the sight of blood, best not to look. Those interested in seeing the future promised by the Left, should they gain and retain power and influence, however, should peer closely.
Welch is a registered Democrat in Oregon, voting records show. He cast his ballot for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary and Hillary Clinton in the general election, he said.
The 38-year-old line cook is also no stranger to street protests in Portland. He said he attended the Women’s March held during the weekend of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
So do I need to make a comment here?
I hope readers are aware of the riots that took place on college campuses when speakers on the right were threatened and assaulted by the violent mob of the left. A full list would be wearisome indeed. Here are a few:
- Ben Shapiro escorted by police from CSULA due to angry protesters
February 25, 2016
- Protesters at Claremont McKenna College distrupted a speech by author Heather MacDonald
April 6, 2017 - Student protesters confront author Charles Murray at Middlebury College
March 2, 2017
“The three of us got to the car, with the security guards keeping protesters away while we closed and locked the doors. Then we found that the evening wasn’t over. So many protesters surrounded the car, banging on the sides and the windows and rocking the car, climbing onto the hood, that Bill had to inch forward lest he run over them” - Protest at University of Chicago over Corey Lewandowski
February 15, 2017
A group of masked protesters at the University of Chicago tried to stop Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager, from speaking. - Protests at UC Berkeley over Milo Yiannopoulos
February 1, 2017
A planned talk at the University of California-Berkeley by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled Wednesday evening after protesters threw smoke bombs and flares at the student union building where he was scheduled to speak. Violent left-wing protesters stormed the building and forced Yiannopoulos to be evacuated by police. - Man shot during protest of Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of Washington
January 20, 2017
A 32-year old man was shot while he was protesting a campus event featuring commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. Please note that this was one Leftist anti-free-speech protester shot by two other Leftist anti-free-speech protesters. - Mob at UC Davis forced the school to cancel a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos
January 13, 2017
And I have not even listed the times Ann Coulter has been forced from the podium by Leftist mobs.
I invite anyone reading these words to list the time the Right has formed a mob and forced a campus speaker from the podium?
What about a Rightwing mob silencing someone else, not on campus? In some other venue perhaps?
What about a Rightwing mob of any sort? The last mass protests on the Right of which I have any knowledge were the Tea Party, who routinely left the areas of their protests cleaner than when they came.
Ah! But there was that one Alt-Right guy who ran over an innocent woman in Charlottesville. Well first, Alt-Right means Alternative to the Right, that is, in other words, not the Right. They are a White Identity Politics groups, sort of like ‘White Lives Matter.’ They are collectivist socialists held in contempt by conservatives, who also hold conservatives in contempt. Second, it often goes unremarked that the driver was being chased by Antifas thugs with baseball bats, trying to maim or kill him, and he accelerated his car recklessly trying to get away.
I found a convenient list of some of the recent violence, both moblike and individual. Forgive me if it repeats certain items:
June 2016:
– Protesters jumped on cars, stole hats, fought with and threw eggs at Trump supporters outside a Trump rally in downtown San Jose, Calif. Trump supporters sued San Jose over the violence.
July 2016:
-A Hillary Clinton supporter lights a flag on fire and attacks a Trump supporter in Pittsburgh.
August 2016:
-Anti-Trump protesters attacked pushed, spit on and verbally harassed attendees forced to walk a “gauntlet” as they left a Trump fundraiser in Minneapolis, Minn., and beat an elderly man. Protesters also attacked Trump’s motorcade.
–A Tennessee man was assaulted at a garage sale for being a Trump supporter.
-A Trump supporter in New Jersey was attacked with a crowbar on the street.
September 2016:
-Protesters in El Cajon, Calif., chased and beat up a Trump supporter.
October 2016:
-A GOP office in North Carolina was firebombed and spray painted with “Nazi Republicans get out of town or else.”
November 2016:
-A high school student was attacked after she wrote that she supported Trump on social media. The perpetrator ripped her glasses off and punched her in the face.
-The president of Cornell University’s College Republicans was assaulted the night after Trump won the election.
-Students protesting Trump punched and kicked a Maryland high school student wearing a Make America Great Again hat.
-A high school student was arrested in Florida after he punched a classmate for carrying a Trump sign at school.
-A group of black men in Chicago attacked a white man while raging against Trump.
-Maryland high school students punched a student who was demonstrating in support of Trump, and then kicked him repeatedly while he was on the ground.
-“You support Trump. You hate Mexicans,” a California high school student yelled at a Trump supporter, before viciously beating the girl.
-An anti-bullying ambassador was arrested for shoving a 74-year-old man to the ground in a fight outside Trump tower where people upset over his win had gathered. The woman tied to Black Lives Matter caused the man to hit his head on the sidewalk.
-A Texas elementary school student was beaten by his classmates for voting for Trump in a mock election.
-Two men punched and kicked a Connecticut man who was standing with an American flag and a Trump sign.
December 2016:
-A Trump supporter was beaten and dragged by a car.
January 2017:
-A Trump supporter was knocked unconscious after airport protesters repeatedly beat him on the head.
-A Trump supporter was attacked after putting out a fire started by anti-Trump protesters.
-When Trump protesters encountered a driver with a pro-Trump flag on his car, they surrounded the vehicle, ripped off and began burning the flag, and pounded the car. They also punctured the tires.
February 2017:
-California GOP Rep. Tom McClintock had to be escorted to his car after a town hall because of angry protesters. The tires of at least four vehicles were slashed.
-Protestors knocked a 71-year-old female staffer for California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher unconscious during a protest outside the representative’s office.
-Milo Yiannopoulos speech at the University of California-Berkeley was cancelled after rioters set the campus on fire and threw rocks through windows. Milo tweeted that one of his supporters wearing a Trump hat was thrown to the ground and kicked.
March 2017:
-Masked protesters at Middlebury College rushed AEI scholar and political scientist Charles Murray and professor Allison Stranger, pushing and shoving Murray and grabbing Stranger by her hair and twisting her neck as they were leaving a campus building. Stranger suffered a concussion. Protesters then surrounded the car they got into, rocking it back and forth and jumping on the hood.
April 2017:
-A parade in Portland, Ore.,was canceled after threats of violence were made against a Republican organization.
-Fears of violent protests shut down Ann Coulter’s UC Berkeley speech. Campus police had gathered intel on protesters who were planning to commit violence.
May 2017:
– Republican Rep. Tom Garrett, his family and his dog were targeted by a series of repeated death threats deemed credible by authorities.
-FBI agents arrested a person for threatening to shoot Republican Rep. Martha McSally over her support for Trump.
-Police in Tennessee charged a woman for allegedly trying to run Republican Rep. David Kustoff off the road.
-Police in North Dakota ejected a man after he became physical with Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer at a town hall.
-A former professor was arrested after police said they identified him on video beating Trump supporters with a U-shaped bike lock, leaving three people with “significant injuries.”
June 2017:
-James Hodgkinson opened fire on a congressional GOP baseball practice, injuring five, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
-Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney received an email threat that read, “One down, 216 to go,” shortly after the shooting at the Republican congressional baseball practice.
-A man driving a white Malibu reportedly fired several shots at a man driving a truck displaying a “Make America Great Again” flag in Indiana.
So tell me again, please, why exactly it is unfair or absurd to accuse the Left of a moblike, violent essence to its political worldview? Are all these listed events exceptions? All of them?
Where is the equal list of Rightwing fascist enormities? Produce it. Show me.
The midterms are coming up. I do not care how much Trump offends your personal sensibilities with his rough humor and his Yankee incivility, his adulteries and private sins. The choice is between him, a fighter willing and able to defeat the CNN-DNC incestuous agitprop machine, and the barbarians serving the dark gods of chaos and anarchy.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
