August 13, 2017

"[T]he types who surfaced in Charlottesville on Saturday are certainly human beings of the most repellent and disgusting sort, murderous too..."

"... pretty much violent, evil sociopaths. I wouldn't mind if they were all rounded up, put in a space ship, and sent on a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri.... What happened in Charlottesville isn't us. It's just a small group of real bad people. Indict them, convict them, and lock them up for a long as possible. The rest of us should move on."

Writes Roger Simon in a post that's been linked to twice in the last 2 hours at Instapundit — first by Ed Driscoll...
ROGER SIMON: Is Charlottesville Really What’s Going on in the USA?

Read the whole thing.
... and second by Glenn Reynolds...
I WAS GOING TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT CHARLOTTESVILLE TODAY, but honestly I don’t think I could do better than Roger Simon. I do want to echo his comment that, for all the racial tension we see in the media and in politics, out in the actual world black and white people seem to be getting along pretty well. I wrote something about that here.
Somehow, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I look at those people — with their cheesy tiki torches, their cosplay shields, and their lack of female companionship — and I see them as lost souls. I'd like to invite them down off the ledge and into a more rational, loving human existence.

I wouldn't throw them in a basket of deplorables or shoot them on a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri. I wouldn't "Indict them, convict them, and lock them up for a long as possible." If any individual commits a crime, enforce the criminal law following the same standards of due process that apply to everyone else and impose a fair sentence. But don't go after people because you hate them as a group, and don't use criminal law to squelch thought and speech.

Less hate. More love. Less censorship. More speech.

255 comments:

1 – 200 of 255   Newer›   Newest»
Paco Wové said...

"Indict them, convict them, and lock them up for a long as possible"

For what?

mockturtle said...

If any individual commits a crime, enforce the criminal law following the same standards of due process that apply to everyone else and impose a fair sentence. But don't go after people because you hate them as a group, and don't use criminal law to squelch thought and speech.

Exactly!

Bob Ellison said...

Signalling virtue is as strong on the right as on the left.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

Bad ideas will lose in the marketplace of free speech. Our concept of freedom of speech inherently protects the least popular most hated speech.

David Smith said...

When I read the lead, I assumed that it was the Antifa-types that were being described.

How long has it been since anyone could fail to get an "Amen" for deploring the KKK or Nazis? I didn't expect to see Simon jump to the conclusion that everyone who objects to sending our past down the memory hole is either KKK or Nazi, but at 70 it's worthwhile being surprised now and then.

rhhardin said...

It's institutional deep state virtue signalling. They can't help themselves.

Hari said...

I think Roger Simon and Glen Reynolds are indulging in a bit of virtue signaling (they are the good right and distinguish themselves from the bad right).

Interestingly, Trump is being condemned for taking Ann's approach and appealing to what should be best in people as opposed to condemning what has (who has) been declared to be worst in (among) people.

Anonymous said...

Bob Ellison: Signalling virtue is as strong on the right as on the left.

Hell yes!

Jim at said...

If someone hates a 'hate group', wouldn't that make you a part of a 'hate group' as well?

Or are some people allowed to hate and others not?

Kevin said...

First they said there was no place in society for white nationalists.

But I did not speak out, because I was not a white nationalist.

ALP said...

RE: Less hate, more love.

Kurt Vonnegut has a great take on this concept, embedded in an essay I can try and find. He states that expecting humanity to love one another is a tall order - maybe try for something more attainable. His phrases it as:

"A little less love and more common decency."

Common decency being a more realistic goal.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The hard left, the media and the Democrat party need to keep people angry, tense, and in a state of "OMG!" about reality so that they can harvest more victims.

buwaya said...

Best to assume, always, that I have no inherent virtue and that I am capable of anything under the right circumstances. And so is anyone else.

Michael K said...

That group is mostly young white males who feel under siege and that is a very unhealthy situation.

The neo-Nazi and "White Supremacy" stuff is mostly because no one else will sympathize with them.

Back in the 90s there was a group near Hayden Lake Idaho that was Aryan Nation and had a few hundred members.

With the unfortunate distinction of being near a 20-acre compound that was for two decades the home of the Aryan Nations, a white-supremacist group, Hayden Lake -- and much of surrounding North Idaho -- has long had a serious image problem. People here still recall a scene a few years ago from a television show, ''Chicago Hope,'' in which a black doctor accused a white colleague of prejudice and told her, ''Maybe you should move to Idaho.''

I know northern Idaho very well and that area used to be a very high end summer resort.

In 1992, the BATF tried to recruit Randy Weaver, a former soldier and "survivalist" who lived in the mountains "off the grid" to infiltrate that Aryan Nation group. He declined and was not a member of it. To blackmail him into agreeing, they entrapped him by offering to pay him to make a sawed off shotgun, illegal under federal law, and then contrived to "lose" the summons for a court date.

The result was a siege and the murder of his wife and son by FBI snipers.

Those days might be coming back.

Mutaman said...

Isn't Glenn Reynolds the fellow who was kicked off twitter when he advocated "Run them over"?

Yes that's the fellow:

"In 2016, on his Twitter account, Reynolds suggested running over protesters objecting to the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina."
Wiki

Nice chap.

Earnest Prole said...

If you've lost Ed Driscoll, you've lost both the right and the dim.

n.n said...

Yes, [class] diversity (i.e. judging people by the "color of their skin") is state-established, sponsored by the liberal 1%, and a progressive condition. As is denying life to those clumps of cells deemed inconvenient, unworthy, or profitable.

Anonymous said...

David Smith: How long has it been since anyone could fail to get an "Amen" for deploring the KKK or Nazis?

Brave Sir Robin was a registered Republican.

I didn't expect to see Simon jump to the conclusion that everyone who objects to sending our past down the memory hole is either KKK or Nazi, but at 70 it's worthwhile being surprised now and then.

Wouldn't surprise me.

Rae said...

I support freedom of speech - as long as it is expressed honestly. Everybody there was trying to provoke violence, and they got it. Nobody that went down there, whether they were White Nationalists, Antifa or BLM, had good intentions.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

When the having to do something becomes too heavy to do because of the fact that you have to do it, including condemn acts that could be tied to you.

Obama didn't have to worry about that, so he ran unscripted to the microfiches.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Mutaman -

unless I'm mistaken, you have that all out of context. It was all in response to being car-swarmed.

What would you do it your car was swarmed by angry people with baseball bats?

Mutaman said...

"Ann Althouse, everybody:

NPR writes “she knew he was attending a rally in Virginia” but didn’t “didn’t know it was a white supremacist rally.” Notice the assumption that it’s simply a fact that it was “a white supremacist rally.” I’m not sure that’s established. I don’t think you can assume that everyone who attended that rally has a “white supremacist” ideology, but I think there’s a big effort right now to lump the entire alt-right into that category.

Between this and Glenn Reynolds’s “if Obama had only prosecuted unarmed New Black Panthers for nonexistent legal violations, we wouldn’t have had all of these problems” the right legal blogosphere has really covered itself in glory this weekend. "

Lawyers Guns and Money
8/13/17

rhhardin said...

It's time to list Derbyshire's categories all lumped together as white supremacist

http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2016-12-02.html

1. strong immigration restrictionist
2. biologians
3. white supremacists (white race is best)
4. white separatist
5. white advocacists
6. white nationalists
7. white dominationists

only the last necessarily wish others ill in addition to believing stuff that might be wrong.

See ibid for definitions. They're all reported as white supremacist.

Paco Wové said...

Mutaman- so your excuse for putting words into the judge's mouth (white supremacists!) is that some other leftists also decided to call these people "white supremacists"? Just yesterday, I thought they were "white nationalists".

Mutaman said...

"unless I'm mistaken, you have that all out of context"

Well you could look at it in the context of Reynold's long history of repulsive bigotry.

David said...

The alt righties had a permit. Not are all of them white supremacists.

The Cville police blew it by not keeping the protesting lefties and the righties separate. Perhaps this idiot would have driven a car into the crowd anyway, but allowing nose to nose confrontation was very bad policing.

YoungHegelian said...

With the unfortunate distinction of being near a 20-acre compound that was for two decades the home of the Aryan Nations, a white-supremacist group, Hayden Lake -- and much of surrounding North Idaho -- has long had a serious image problem. People here still recall a scene a few years ago from a television show, ''Chicago Hope,'' in which a black doctor accused a white colleague of prejudice and told her, ''Maybe you should move to Idaho.''

The Right wing has its nutjobs in compounds in the outback of Idaho.

The Left wing puts its in endowed chairs.

David said...

"I support freedom of speech - as long as it is expressed honestly. Everybody there was trying to provoke violence, and they got it. Nobody that went down there, whether they were White Nationalists, Antifa or BLM, had good intentions."

Maybe not everyone, but this states the problem pretty well.

We have been approaching this moment for a long time. It may well get much uglier.

Mutaman said...

"Just yesterday, I thought they were "white nationalists".

A rose by any other name.

YoungHegelian said...

@Mutaman,

Well you could look at it in the context of Reynold's long history of repulsive bigotry.

Indulging in a bit of lefty virtue signaling on our own, are we, this fine Sunday afternoon, Mutaman?

Mutaman said...

"Ann seen running from house to house looking for ten righteous men at the neo-nazi rally. She's been assured if she can find them then the white power movement shall be spared."

LGM
8/13/17

Owen said...

Mutaman: "Isn't Glenn Reynolds the fellow who was kicked off twitter when he advocated "Run them over"?

Yes that's the fellow:

"In 2016, on his Twitter account, Reynolds suggested running over protesters objecting to the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina."
Wiki

Nice chap."

Either you know the rest of the story or you don't. If you don't know it, you should know that your remark lacks context and is materially misleading. Please inform yourself more fully before you share your insights.

If you do know the rest of the story, you are being deliberately deceptive and I have no interest in anything you want to say.

Have a very nice day.

Paco Wové said...

Convenient. So can we lump you in with the antifa also? Since distinctions are all meaningless now, apparently.

Mutaman said...

"For fuck's sake, it was organized by Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer, both of whom are overt white supremacists. It included -- by invitation -- a number of overt white supremacist groups like the "Identitarians", the Ku Klux Klan, etc. Althouse is probably "not sure" the sun comes up in the morning if she thinks it would benefit her right-wing politics."

LGM
8/13/17

tcrosse said...

I'd like to invite them down off the ledge and into a more rational, loving human existence.

It's the Real Thing

DanTheMan said...

>>if Obama had only prosecuted unarmed New Black Panthers for nonexistent legal violations

These look rather "existent" to me. Or are you saying skinheads with nightsticks can go to black neighbors and 'patrol' during voting?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU

Paco Wové said...

You're sure getting all pissy just because Althouse caught you in a lie, Mutaman.

Mutaman said...

question:

"Why would anyone who is not a white supremacist themselves go out of their way to say anything remotely positive about these people?

Because as Althouse and the rest of the right is fully aware, their base is largely racist goons. They've spent the last 10 years circulating pictures of Obama with a bone in his nose, making jokes about watermelon and fried chicken at state dinners, and narrowly avoiding serious internal injuries from straining so hard to not say "n****r" in public. Now, with Trump and his band of neoNazis in the White House, it's no longer possible to hide the racist nature of the GOP.

But Althouse, Reynolds, and every other "respectable" wingnut has to at least try to spackle it all over."

LGM
8/13/17

mockturtle said...

Hey, Mutant-man. Why are you hanging out on a 'right wing' forum?

Mutaman said...

"You're sure getting all pissy just because Althouse caught you in a lie, Mutaman"

Trump University logic.

Paco Wové said...

Let it out, Mutaman! Let all that hate against those vile righties out! You'll feel so much better!

YoungHegelian said...

@Mutaman,

A rose by any other name.

Ah, yes, the Lefty lumping of your opponents in one bin.

But, of course, you can't do that to the Left. "I'm not a commie, I'm a socialist". "I'm not that kind of communist, I'm a Trotskyite". It really is like the scenes in "Life of Brian" with the "People's Front of Judea", isn't it? Ideological hair-splitting as a way of life.

But, tell us, mutaman --- what important figure on the left since 1925 didn't at some time or another publicly suck cock for lefty regimes that murdered millions of their own citizens?

Anonymous said...

Mutaman: Well you could look at it in the context of Reynold's long history of repulsive bigotry.

Lol. Where's Shoutin' T when you need him?

(Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot! Bigot!)

Your holy words have no power here, grasshopper.

James Pawlak said...

Sunday, August 13, 2017
Some Other Race Hatred
After the "Lame Street Media" near-sighted focus on a few Whites in Charlottsville we should remember the following AND many more like examples of Black racism.

(August 31, 2017) “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon,” activists with the St. Paul, Minn. branch of Black Lives Matter chanted while marching behind a group of police officers down a highway just south of the state fair grounds.

(July 9, 2016) Five officers are dead — four Dallas police officers and one Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer — in what authorities called a sniper ambush on police officers at the end of a peaceful protest against nationwide officer-involved shootings Thursday night. Seven officers and two civilians were also injured in the shootings. All are expected to recover.


(For Years)

rhhardin said...

Some people would not make great literary critics.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

How can condemnation in the 'strongest terms' be measured, without making it sound as if it's just Trump about Kim's nuclear threat?

Don't you have to save "fire and fury" for the big stuff?

I know race is big, but I think Trump might be correct to save the tougher talk for the more dangerous of the dangers.

I got a notice of a Scott Adams periscope saying Trump response was "bad". don't know what he meant by that because I couldn't watch it just then.

mockturtle said...

Time for a Solzhenitsyn quote: "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Michael K said...

Nobody that went down there, whether they were White Nationalists, Antifa or BLM, had good intentions.

I'm not so sure but there were certainly people organizing with bad intentions.

The movement to remove the Lee statue had bad intentions. I know that.

The Antifa thugs who went there to fight had bad intentions.

The kids who were parading around and not committing any violence unless provoked may have been naive but I'm not sure about intentions.

Mutaman is an obvious leftist troll who suddenly appeared as this week's paid stooge.

brad said...

You know who might actually deserve sympathy and consideration? The young woman who was murdered, and her family. Her mother has some words the human beings here might want to consider. "I want her death to be a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion"

Even for you, Ann, this is a low. Sophistic hair splitting to feed your commenters has left you flat out defending Nazis. At some point in your life I suspect even you would have felt shame to hear this.

Achilles said...

Mutaman said...

"Because as Althouse and the rest of the right is fully aware, their base is largely racist goons."

This is the far left today. They are generally worthless people. They are actively racist and their only goal is to tear down polite society. La Raza, BLM, antifa, Muslim brotherhood, cair etc all find homes in their ranks.

I am not the caricature you describe. But I will fight enemies of freedom like you. I fought your friends in Iraq and aAfghanistan. I bet you are soft and squishy compared to them.

Renee said...

We forgot to 'love your enemies', which is hard.

Thank you Ann for this post.

Unknown said...

Not many presidents could make threatening nuclear war the second worst thing he did in a week.

Expect worse and more soon. Next up is war.

Birkel said...

Wait, does Mutaman think the Black Panthers hadn't already been convicted of their 2008 election law violations?

I am giving you a DuckDuckGo subscription, bro.

Gospace said...

Funny. I've never seen a picture of Obama with a bone in his nose. None of the meme photos posted by me or any or my conservative friends had that image. Only reason I can think of a liberal having seen one is because they created it as an image to denounce after claiming conservatives made it.

rhhardin said...

Nobody ever tells me I've reached a new low.

Yet everybody must reach a new low at least once.

So rarely remarked on.

Michael K said...

Sophistic hair splitting to feed your commenters has left you flat out defending Nazis

brad you seem to be a real person but what do you think might happen if you block a street in a mob that is beating on cars with rocks and clubs ?

I feel sorry for the young woman's family but this is why they were there. They were daring someone to run over them,

I hold no brief for the driver if this was his intention. But she knew what she was doing.

She was no child in a crosswalk. Dial it down with the rhetoric.

holdfast said...

So it was White National Socialists vs mostly-white International Socialists?

Yeah, they both deserve to lose.

But if you tote up the score for the last year or so, it's the mostly-white International Socialists and their BLM/Nation of Islam allies who have been accumulating the largest body count (including cops ambushed and assassinated by BLM-linked or inspired terrorists). Plus of course a Bernie Bro attempting to assassinate the entire GOP Congressional baseball team.

Anonymous said...

brad: You know who might actually deserve sympathy and consideration? The young woman who was murdered, and her family.

I agree. She does seem to have been lost in the uproar.

Even for you, Ann, this is a low. Sophistic hair splitting to feed your commenters has left you flat out defending Nazis.

This, on the other hand, is spluttering nonsense.

Hey brad, here's some words you might want to consider:

"I want her death to be a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion".

I don't think hysterically misconstruing other people's thoughts, in order to interpret them in the worst possible light, and implying that some of the people here who disagree with you don't qualify as human beings, is what that grieving mother had in mind.

rhhardin said...

If your first comment is really really low, all the following ones are higher. Perhaps this would be a good strategy.

Paco Wové said...

"If any individual commits a crime, enforce the criminal law following the same standards of due process that apply to everyone else and impose a fair sentence. But don't go after people because you hate them as a group, and don't use criminal law to squelch thought and speech."

"Even for you, Ann, this is a low."

What's "low" about that, Brad?

brad said...

Wow, actually attacking the victim, you seem nice, Michael. And well grounded in reality.
I know none of you will call a spade a spade here, don't waste your words on me. It's just nice to annoy Ann and remind her I'm still not her sometimes. Go ahead and resume your rationalizations for racism and extremism now.

rhhardin said...

You'd still be at the mercy of local lows, if not new lows. It's hard to make every post higher than the last.

Thoughts don't occur in that order. It's not like the word order in French.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Somehow, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I look at those people — with their cheesy tiki torches, their cosplay shields, and their lack of female companionship — and I see them as lost souls.


What is it with you always harping on the lack of female companionship. You keep plucking that string, it's going to break, and it's already outa tune. Did you make that kind of mockery about the Million Man March? Oh my God look at all those black men who can't get a girl. Was that the problem with the Nazis? German girls wouldn't put out? My information says otherwise.

Do you know that you're doing it? Or are you just trolling and if so who?

buwaya said...

Call all of these people racist goons and they may soon become actual racist goons. You certainly don't want to fight that many racist goons.

Michael K said...

"I know none of you will call a spade a spade here,"

Racist !

Just kidding. You seem to be a standard leftist so I do not expect valid arguments.

You people deal in feelings.

Why was that unfortunate young women in the street ? Watch the video as I did. They were chanting "Our Street. Our Street !"

buwaya said...

Brad is not Anne?
This is an unusual position, that something like that needs an explicit denial. That is, unless brad is an Anne sock puppet. But that is out of character, IMHO.

Michael K said...

"It's just nice to annoy Ann "

Definition of a troll.

Thanks.

Jupiter said...

In a nation descending into tribalism, everyone must at some point choose his tribe. Roger Simon tells us which tribe he chooses in his first sentence. He expects those of us who are not members of that tribe to grant him special consideration, because he is, after all, a member of that tribe. Just as the BLM tribe expects that those who are not and cannot be members of their tribe will grant them special consideration. The only tribe that dos not get to demand special consideration is my tribe. We are supposed to continue to pay the bills for all these assholes while they call us names and assault us.

Ralph L said...

Why haven't we seen video of the violence that got the rally shut down? Both sides should have documented it.

And why were those people blocking the intersection?

If the fringes can't vent peacefully, they'll vent violently (some will do it regardless).

Jupiter said...

And on the subject of the Charlottesville Incident, if it turns out that the driver was trying to escape people who were beating on his car with baseball bats, do those people bear any responsibility for the dead woman and the injured? Or were they merely exercising their Constitutional right to block traffic and beat on strangers cars with deadly weapons?

Bad Lieutenant said...


brad said...
Wow, actually attacking the victim, you seem nice, Michael. And well grounded in reality.
I know none of you will call a spade a spade here, don't waste your words on me. It's just nice to annoy Ann and remind her I'm still not her sometimes. Go ahead and resume your rationalizations for racism and extremism now.
8/13/17, 1:30 PM



Inga! Welcome back!

MayBee said...

I've got no kindness toward people who want to self-identify as Nazis. So gross. And being a racist bigot seems like it would take so much energy when you could spend that energy actually enjoying life.

But you can't have Black Lives Matters marches, and the Women's March, and LaRaza Marches without some white males on the under side of luck deciding that they want theirs.

CWJ said...

"It's just nice to annoy Ann and remind her I'm still not her sometimes."

Somehow, I think she may be thankful that she's not.

Bay Area Guy said...

In modern day America, there are many more people who oppose racism, than those who promote racism.

The Left, however, likes to seize on trivial unimportant folks like Richard Spencer to exaggerate the threat of racism and, often, justify a "non-peaceful" response by Antifa goons.

We see the Playbook.

Anonymous said...

brad: Wow, actually attacking the victim, you seem nice, Michael. And well grounded in reality.
I know none of you will call a spade a spade here, don't waste your words on me. It's just nice to annoy Ann and remind her I'm still not her sometimes. Go ahead and resume your rationalizations for racism and extremism now.


Why do they always flounce in and out of here like this? It's like they're all butthurt that their surely amazingly original and trenchant lefty snark didn't blow all the nazi goons away. "I called you a bigot, Nazi! Why are you yawning and laughing?!?"

It's always the same. Flounce in, flap, flap, prissy little moue, flounce out.

Though in brad's case that "It's just nice to annoy Ann and remind her I'm still not her sometimes" is engagingly cryptic. Is there some sort of weird tranny doppelgänger thing going on here that I'm not privy to?

readering said...

I live in a city of 85000 that is 10 per cent non-hispanic white. No problem.

Mark said...

You know who might actually deserve sympathy and consideration? The young woman who was murdered, and her family.

So why don't YOU give her some, rather than using her and exploiting her death for your own crass political objectives?

wwww said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jupiter said...

MayBee said...
"I've got no kindness toward people who want to self-identify as Nazis."

It is rather perplexing, why white Americans would identify with that particular bunch of Zocialists. And it hardly seems likely that they are adherents of German Nationalism. Maybe they are thinking about Lebensraum. But tell me, MayBee, why are you so unsympathetic toward people who call themselves Nazis, but willing to give a pass to people who call themselves Communists or Socialists? The universities are full of people who espouse the discredited political philosophy of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, and your taxes pay them to do it.

Michael K said...

do those people bear any responsibility for the dead woman and the injured?

Hugh Hewitt has a post saying that the driver is not the only one who should be lawyering up.

"That intersection is part of the pedestrian mall."

Most pedestrian malls do not have traffic signs saying "Do not enter" going away from it. That was a one way street the mob was blocking.

That is not a good idea.

MayBee said...

Jupiter-
But tell me, MayBee, why are you so unsympathetic toward people who call themselves Nazis, but willing to give a pass to people who call themselves Communists or Socialists?

I don't believe I said I am.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

How dare those Deplorables exercise their unalienable right peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances!!!?

Jon B. said...

I completely agree with Ann about this. These people are sad losers; what's gained by vilifying them?

Hagar said...

A very bad article by Roger Simon. Reminiscent of the German press reaction 90-odd years ago when the SA rabble attacked socialist labor rallies. The German middle class and the press backed the Nazis all the way in very similar language.

The "white nationalists" may be some odd birds, but they were holding a city sanctioned rally and do not seem to have been bent on any kind of violence. Several were carrying long guns of the "scary-looking" variety, but there are no reports of gunfire despite the ruckus. Their peculiar shields, etc., seem very mild compared to the public spectacles witnessed at your regular hometown LGBT rights parade, which I believe it is considered "hateful" to object to.

In fact, it does seem that it was the "nationalists" who were set upon by the Antifa anti-protest protestors just as 90+ years ago, it was the socialists who were set upon by the Nazis.

And that this one guy lost it and rammed the crowd, however it happened, it is in no way comparable to the jihadists renting trucks for the express purpose of running down peaceable townsfolk and tourists out sightseeing.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
AMDG said...

These Alt Right Goons and the Antifa are two sides of the same coin. They are both a byproduct of the SJW culture in American universities.

Anonymous said...

MayBee: But you can't have Black Lives Matters marches, and the Women's March, and LaRaza Marches without some white males on the under side of luck deciding that they want theirs.

That's just what they can't seem to get through their thick heads.

The problem is that they deny human nature, don't understand human social dynamics, and believe that words have magical powers to fix the disasters they bring down on everyone's head thereby.

They believe that if they just keep screeching a lot of stupid shit about "white privilege" and "microaggressions", or whatever, they can maintain control of all the forces unleashed by their cack-handed attempts at social engineering. "I just did a tweet-storm of all the slogans I learned about 'structural racism' and 'legacy of slavery' and 'whiteness' and 'legacy of colonialism'! No way white men can organize as an identity group pursuing their own interests now!"

Daft cunts, the lot of 'em.

Achilles said...

brad said...

Go ahead and resume your rationalizations for racism and extremism now.

Says the supporter of La Raza, BLM, CAIR, Affirmative Action, Planned Parenthood, and a member of the party of Slavery and Jim Crow.

MarKT said...

The problem there, Ann, is you then couldn't take a gratuitous shot at Trump and signal your liberal virtues. That just won't do.

Anonymous said...

After all the fuss is over, perhaps someone will attempt to determine why these so-called "white nationalists" feel the way they do. They may be purely a bunch of whackos, or some of them may have some legitimate (to them, anyway) gripes that they can find no other way to express. Are they that much different from the BLM folks, or the anti-globalists? No, I don't think so.

As many have noted there was an element of both groups that was there for the physical confrontation that they ultimately got. One of the interesting facets of this is that the organizer of the rally actually used the court system with the aid of the ACLU to obtain permission for the rally. Then, when told they were in violation of Va's "unlawful assembly" statute, apparently they obeyed and disbursed in a raucous, but fairly orderly fashion. Were it not for the idiot driver the "white supremacists" certainly showed as much, or more, restraint and respect for the law as the "counter-protesters.

Paco Wové said...

"Though in brad's case that "It's just nice to annoy Ann and remind her I'm still not her sometimes" is engagingly cryptic. Is there some sort of weird tranny doppelgänger thing going on here that I'm not privy to?"

Probably a reference to this, which I believe was before your time here. Note the "Brad" in the comments.

Birkel said...

Jon Bornholdt,
Isn't the point of making an Other that you become the In-Group that is fully valued as a human? If the Other is less valuable than you, as an existentially troubled person worried about your own worth as an individual, then doesn't your elevation above the Other make you worth something? That's the value in Othering to those who need an Other.

That is every bit as true for the journalists who Otherize people as it is for both sides involved in the clash yesterday (setting aside who did what to whom first) who indicate a need to Otherize.

The problem, as many here and elsewhere have noted, is that when people who are Otherized notice they have been placed BELOW on some pecking order, they will have less need to play by the rules of an organized, peaceful society. A society that has reached a statis can be quite stable even with unequal classes of people because those placed BELOW do not have the means to disagree. The problem with the people who wish to change a system like ours, by which the Otherizing is an active process, suffer hubris. When they are on the side of Angels, how can the Other object when place below, after all?

The gain in Otherizing is psychological. A well-adjusted person has no need to prop themselves up by diminishing others. That you have to ask what is gained is a good sign for you personally and a bad sign for society.

Paul McKaskle said...

Minor point on the neo-nazi march in Skokie. The leader had originally tried to obtain the right to conduct a march in a park in the City of Chicago. When he was denied that right he then scheduled a march in Skokie, which also denied permission. After the courts had upheld the right to conduct that march the leader was able to obtain permission to march in the Chicago park and cancelled the Skokie march. So the Skokie march never took place. Even so it certainly had an effect on the citizens of Skokie.

The ACLU suffered some loss of support (at least for a while) for having defended the right of the neo-nazis to march.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"You know who might actually deserve sympathy and consideration? The young woman who was murdered, and her family"

At least she died doing what she loved -- virtue signaling and protesting against our constitutional rights.

Anonymous said...

Hagar: And that this one guy lost it and rammed the crowd, however it happened, it is in no way comparable to the jihadists renting trucks for the express purpose of running down peaceable townsfolk and tourists out sightseeing.

Even if this one didn't just "lose it", and really did carefully plan his murderous assault exactly as a jihadi does, it doesn't let a single violent antifa off the hook for their own violence.

To read some people, you get the impression they think it works like this: "Hey, side A managed to murder someone! Woohoo, every criminal charge against side B gets dismissed!"

HT said...

There are some among them who would respond to Ann's rare overture of loving kindness, but I'm not sure the driver of the car was one of them, based on preliminary reports so far. Some people are just diehard racists and there's nothing you can do to coax them out of it.

Anonymous said...

Paco: Probably a reference to this, which I believe was before your time here. Note the "Brad" in the comments.

Wow. Stupid/Crazy/Asshole trifecta.

Birkel said...

If the dear readers would like, please let me know what you think of my 2:11 PM comment.

Ralph L said...

They are both a byproduct of the SJW culture in American universities.

But one was mostly outside the university looking in.

Big Mike said...

Normally I find the writings of Roger Simon to be on point, but here he is simply wrong. One doesn't have to subscribe to their beliefs to defend their right "peaceably to assemble." From where I sit, and prior to the incident with Fields and his car, they did absolutely nothing wrong, including taking the minimal steps necessary to defend themselves. When ordered to by police they peacefully disbursed, though the police -- wrongly, in my opinion -- failed to create a safe route for them to exit the park.

The antifa were bused into Charlottesville with the express intention of fomenting violence, they initiated such violence as occurred (including, in all probability, the incident with Fields), and they are unrepentant of the outcome. If anyone deserves to be sent to Alpha Centauri, it's the antifa.

MayBee said...

HT-
That is very true. But for being a die-hard racist, he didn't aim at a crowd of black people.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Mutaman - "Well you could look at it in the context of Reynold's long history of repulsive bigotry."

There is none. Or- name it. You can't. You disagree with him, because you are a fascist left winger progressive, so therefore GR must be a bigot, in your narrow little world.

Achilles said...

Birkel said...

Isn't the point of making an Other that you become the In-Group that is fully valued as a human? If the Other is less valuable than you, as an existentially troubled person worried about your own worth as an individual, then doesn't your elevation above the Other make you worth something? That's the value in Othering to those who need an Other.

History is full of Socialists/Leftists using this strategy to seize power despite being a minority and proceeding to kill off large segments of the population. Nazi's/brownshirts in Germany and Antifa/BLM/democrats have parallels.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Mutaman - you didn't answer my question.

What would you do if you were car-swarmed by angry people with baseball bats?

Earnest Prole said...

Hugh Hewitt has a post saying that the driver is not the only one who should be lawyering up. "That intersection is part of the pedestrian mall."

Yes, we all await the great Virginia jaywalking trials of 2017.

Chuck said...

Brava, Althouse. Posts like this is why I self-identify as an Atlhouse fan. I am not an Identitarian; but I am an Althousian.

And same to commenter David:

David said...
The alt righties had a permit. Not are all of them white supremacists.

The Cville
[sic] police blew it by not keeping the protesting lefties and the righties separate. Perhaps this idiot would have driven a car into the crowd anyway, but allowing nose to nose confrontation was very bad policing.

That's right. Althouse called this one before it even happened! It really does not matter, how offensive the speech might have been on the part of the pro-statue, pro-white, pro-nationalist demonstrators. They obained a legal permit to demonstrate. Complete with a federal district court hearing, pre-demonstration. Thereafter, good public policy and good civil order -- police and civilians alike -- is to counter speech with more speech, and not aggressive confrontational violence. Police should head off aggressive confrontational violence, and they know how to do that although I'd be slow to "blame" the police. Sometimes it cannot be stopped despite the best efforts of police.

Althouse is of course being a bit of a contrarian, relying on pure free speech principles. But I love her for it.

I saw the horrific video of the vehicular attack with the Dodge Challenger. That guy needs to go to jail, perhaps for life. But I also saw lots of video of lefty counter-protestors, some armed with clubs and baseball bats, looking for trouble and eventually provoking and/or engaging violently with the demonstrators. You can call the demonstrators Nazis, or neo-Nazis, or white supremacists or anything else that you'd like; in the end, the first principle of free speech is that it must protect offensive and even illegitimate speech. Or else there is no free speech.

Althouse has got this right; and to her great credit, she had it right all along.


Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Shorter leftwing Mutman:


"You're all bigots and racists!"
That's as far as the leftwing brain can take him.

Big Mike said...

"Why would anyone who is not a white supremacist themselves go out of their way to say anything remotely positive about these people?

Do I have to subscribe to their beliefs to note that they have a Constitutional right "peaceably to assemble," and that that right is worth defending? Do I have to be a white supremacist to note that they did everything in accordance with our laws, including dispersing at the order of the police, though it was not safe to do so?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Mutman - Calling everyone in sight a "racist bogot" - that's how Hillary loses.

Anonymous said...

@Big Mike Agree completely with your 2:31.

Michael K said...

"Yes, we all await the great Virginia jaywalking trials of 2017."

No, the incentive to riot against a group with a PERMIT might incur some liability.

Blocking a public street is a form of action that carries risk and the demonstrator assumes it. There have been cases where attempts to sue a driver have been rejected by courts.

If this was done intentionally with malice, that is another thing.

I would love to see discovery into ANTIFA and see where their finding comes from. There might be some deep pockets there,

They obtained a legal permit to demonstrate. Complete with a federal district court hearing, pre-demonstration.

Yes. It will be interesting to see what videos can show about who did what to whom.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

chuck - Excellent post @2:29

[first part] I saw the horrific video of the vehicular attack with the Dodge Challenger. That guy needs to go to jail, perhaps for life. [second part] But I also saw lots of video of lefty counter-protestors, some armed with clubs and baseball bats, looking for trouble and eventually provoking and/or engaging violently with the demonstrators.

First part covered by MSM. Second part - not.

Michael K said...

Where their funding comes from....

Chuck said...

Birkel said...
If the dear readers would like, please let me know what you think of my 2:11 PM comment.

I didn't understand most of that comment. But as for your last paragraph:

The gain in Otherizing is psychological. A well-adjusted person has no need to prop themselves up by diminishing others. That you have to ask what is gained is a good sign for you personally and a bad sign for society.

Isn't that a psychological profile of Donald Trump? Trump loves to diminish others. Even when the diminishment is just weird. Like his attack on John McCain's service and POW status. Or his continual diminishment of all things Obama. And his demonizing of Hillary Clinton. Trump's diminishment of Jeff Sessions, and Mitch McConnell. It's all actually a very big deal with Trump; his need to diminish and Otherize his opposition. Even when "opposition" status is only in his head.

Trump should just sub-contract all comments on the Charlottesville incidents to Ann Althouse. If he paid her a thousand dollars a day it would be worth it.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

@Big Mike

Worth a repeat:

Do I have to subscribe to their beliefs to note that they have a Constitutional right "peaceably to assemble," and that that right is worth defending? Do I have to be a white supremacist to note that they did everything in accordance with our laws, including dispersing at the order of the police, though it was not safe to do so?

Big Mike said...

@Khesahn, and not my comment at 2:23? Well, thank you anyway.

Anonymous said...

@Big Mike I didn't read Simon so I had no view on that. As to the Antifa crowd I agree they are as, or more, guilty than the "white supremacists". There was nothing peaceful in their intent to disrupt the "rally". To me it's clearly a case of "a plague on both houses", but the MSM will never report it or have an opinion on it until one of theirs becomes victim.

Unknown said...

"The Right wing has its nutjobs in compounds in the outback of Idaho."

There's at least two in DC.

Unknown said...

My first though is that we should treat them the way my father did in 44 and 45 but that would be a criminal act now. My second though is that indicting them, jailing them an welding the cell door shut seems a very reasonable way to handle terrorists marching through An American city under enemy flags,

Chuck said...

Dickin'Bimbos@Home said...
chuck - Excellent post @2:29
...

First part covered by MSM. Second part - not.

Yes, the MSM is going to cover all of this as, "Somebody died because white nationalists demonstrated." And when that is the coverage, then the logical (illogical, actually) conclusion will be, "Stamp out white nationalists; and don't ever allow them to demonstrate."

Professor Althouse is seeing the one or two chess moves ahead to that conclusion and again I just have so much admiration for her in this subject matter.

It takes advocacy skill to make the case that needs to be made. Althouse is demonstrating it in this post, and most of all in her post from early Saturday morning, after the (peaceful) torchlight march and before the street fighting broke out in the late morning and early afternoon. She made it clear; what needed to happen was for the white nationalists to make their protest, and for everybody else to stay away and let it run its course. Any counter-demonstrations needed to be only that; separate demonstrations advocating a different viewpoint. Althouse had seen things successfully conducted that way before. She was as right as she could be.

Jupiter said...

"Why would anyone who is not a white supremacist themselves go out of their way to say anything remotely positive about these people?"

At least two reasons;

1 "These people" don't call themselves "white supremacists". The organizer of the protest made it very clear that what they want is to be treated as equals in their own country.

2 "These people" were protesting the politically-motivated destruction of monuments. The City of Charlottesville chose to signal their Progressive virtue in a particularly destructive, divisive and provocative way. "These people" protested that destructive provocation, and were attacked by organized criminals. As has become usual, the police sided with the organized criminals.

Big Mike said...

Were you actually at Khe Sanh? I though it was the 1st of the 9th stationed there,

n.n said...

out in the actual world black and white people seem to be getting along pretty well

... people seem to be getting along pretty well. The problem stems from color guards, the [class] diversitists, the minority leaders, the "=" (i.e. exclusive of black, divisive of white, parceling the transgender spectrum), the SPLC (the anti-No Labels), the elective abortionists and Planned cannibalists, the anti-nativists, the DNC (already well known but confirmed by an insider leak and an affiliated press), the social justice adventurists, etc.

Hagar said...

"These people" was the term Robert E. Lee habitually used for his USA opponents.

Paco Wové said...

"My second though is that indicting them, jailing them an welding the cell door shut seems a very reasonable way to handle terrorists marching through An American city under enemy flags,"

For the crime of public assembly with a permit?

Anonymous said...

Jeet Heer of the New Republic is reporting, with approval, that "woman killed was IWW, those injured IS and DSA". I don't know about IS ("international socialists"?), but the other two are the Industrial Workers of the World ('Wobblies', revolutionary hard-left thugs since 1905) and Democratic Socialists of America (Bernie Bros who just voted to boycott Israel). I suspect we've seen them in action before in Berkeley and other places and am really eager to see the names and hometowns of the injured.

I'm also beginning to wonder if the one killed (despite the pretty face and innocent smile in the press picture) and the four or so in critical were the same ones we saw swarming the car with clubs and face masks after the first collision, who were then run over when he backed up. After seeing that particular video, and the fact that the guys with clubs were on top of his car clubbing the Hell out of it within 2 seconds of the collision, and came from behind him, I'm beginning to think the guy may be acquitted. It certainly looks he was being chased by a violent mob trying to kill him.

Fabi said...

Chuck@2:29 gets a PGA Championship Sunday golf clap for that deft comment.

Birkel said...

Chuck:
I take you at your word that you didn't understand. We have reached an accord.

Etienne said...

Don Gathers, deacon at First Baptist Church in Charlottesville, says the police response was "reprehensible" and an "embarrassment."

Gathers was present. That is quite a denouncement.

Obviously the Mayor and Police Chief need to resign, at a minimum.

Michael K said...

"I'm beginning to think the guy may be acquitted. It certainly looks he was being chased by a violent mob trying to kill him."

That and the Army discharge are probably going to be very important and are being ignored, pretty much.

Fernandinande said...

I wouldn't throw them in a basket of deplorables or shoot them on a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri.

Oh. The "violent, evil sociopaths" talk made me think he was talking about violent sociopaths.

The same violent sociopaths - the same sociopathic group(s) - who physically attack biology professors and harmless old academic speakers.

hombre said...

People of the right can actually have peaceful rallies. People of the left and their stooges cannot. Whenever the left shows up, violence is imminent.

In the pictorial display in the Mail I saw masks, clubs, pepper spray, the paraphernalia of Antifa, being employed by people identified as "alt-right." Attacking along side them were black men and men wearing pink-rimmed sunglasses. You know, just what you would expect from white supremacists and alt-rights (whoever they are).

Lyle said...

Yep, they're citizens and people. Can't shoot them into outer space. That would ironically be Hitlerian.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Jupiter said...
"These people" were protesting the politically-motivated destruction of monuments. The City of Charlottesville chose to signal their Progressive virtue in a particularly destructive, divisive and provocative way.


Do not the people who comprise the polity of the City of Charlottesville get to choose who they do and do not provide civic honors to without fear of interference from non-residents?

Che Dolf said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Birkel said...

ARM:
I agree with you that "outside agitators" should not be able to tell Alabamans how to run their local school system. (/sarc)

Do you understand the long history of previous racist Democrats into which you just entered? Can you be this flipping dense about the history of the party you support? Scratch a Leftist and find a Totalitarian.

Che Dolf said...

Althouse said "I'd like to invite them down off the ledge and into a more rational, loving human existence."

If you mean that, which I doubt, then invite Pax Dickinson to record a blogginheads discussion with you.

...their cosplay shields...

So smug, so divorced from reality. Yes, they look like little league centurions, but this why they armor up: video

Anonymous said...

I don't think the people of Charlottesville, much less the people of the surrounding area (Albemarle County) have been offered any say on whether to remove the statue. Maybe they should have a referendum, instead of leaving it up to the Mayor or City Council or whoever. Whichever way the vote went, it should theoretically help pacify the losers, since they would know they're a minority.

buwaya said...

"Do not the people who comprise the polity of the City of Charlottesville get to choose who they do and do not provide civic honors to without fear of interference from non-residents? "

The tradition in most ancient cities with a "multicultural" orientation, such as Jerusalem pre-1948, but this was typical, was to have quarters for each ethno-religious group within which they had rights and responsibilities. Jerusalem for instance had Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Armenian quarters, each of which had its own institutions and monuments. The idea of total power being in the hands of one ethnicity lording over the rest, whether democratically acquired or not, was simply asking for trouble.

No doubt Charlottesville has significant disagreement about such matters, and no doubt this is ethno-culturally divergent.

M Jordan said...

I despise the KKK, white supremacists, and right wing racism in all forms. But who should be surprised by its rise when the left gives free rein to their exact mirror images on the left: the so-called Antifa, BLM, and all such forms of left wing racism.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Dr Weevil said...
I don't think the people of Charlottesville, much less the people of the surrounding area (Albemarle County) have been offered any say on whether to remove the statue.


Of course the people of Charlottesville have had a say, they elected their government and they can dismiss them if they wish at the next election.

From wiki:
Charlottesville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities.


As an independent city it does not require the input of either other Virginians or the residents of Albermarle County in making its decisions regarding the awarding or non awarding of civic honors.

mockturtle said...

I wonder if we can find out if the bused-in antifas were Soros funded.

Birkel said...

ARM,
Governor Wallace appreciates your support against the outside agitators.

You are loathsome and a loyal Democrat.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Blogger mockturtle said...
I wonder if we can find out if the bused-in antifas were Soros funded.


You understand that the fascists weren't residents? Given the political makeup of the city (80% voted Democrat in the last election) the anti-fascists were clearly more representative of the city's residents than the fascists. The rent a crowd here is the fascists.

buwaya said...

"The rent a crowd here is the fascists."

The outsiders were, properly speaking, more Nazi than fascist. The current operational American ideology is very close to classic Fascism of Mussolini's sort.

There is no money in Nazism so I doubt these people were paid.

Birkel said...

ARM: "The rent a crowd here is the fascists."

Yes and we want to know whether George Soros paid to bus them into Charlottesville. They call themselves anti-fascists while wearing masks and carrying weapons but everybody can see their lies. They are the Black Shirts of the Left.

Big Mike said...

You understand that the fascists weren't residents?

Which fascists are you writing about? The self-proclaimed "white advocates," who obeyed the laws and have a right "peaceably to assemble," or the fascists who calle themselves "anti-fascists" to confuse people like yourself?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

This is a quote from one resident:

"After this weekend, there should be no excuse for anyone to not take white supremacy seriously. Certainly the neo-Nazis who came to Charlottesville to intimidate minority communities take themselves seriously: They showed up with assault rifles and guns, wearing camouflage. They marched through a college campus with lit torches, yelling Nazi-era slogans and phrases like, “You will not replace us.”

The intention of this “alt-right” rally was clear, and it had nothing to do with a statue. It was about intimidation. We need to call this violence — which culminated with the death of a 32-year-old woman — by it’s name: domestic terrorism."


Anonymous said...

Outsiders are only a "rent a crowd" if they were paid to come. Were the Nazis? And are you quite sure that none of the lefties, especially the black-mask-wearing club-wavers, were from out of town? As already noted, I really want to see the hometowns of the wounded - on both sides.

Of course, I know that Albemarle County has no legal say over the Lee statue, I just think the residents of a metropolitan area might want to consider the wishes of their near neighbors. Charlottesville undoubtedly gets some portion of their tourist dollars from Civil War buffs looking at monuments, though probably a lot more from Revolutionary War books looking at Jefferson-related monuments. Do the voters really want to pay more taxes just to thumb their noses at out-of-town tourists who no longer visit? Maybe those in Charlottesville do.

mockturtle said...

You understand that the fascists weren't residents? Given the political makeup of the city (80% voted Democrat in the last election) the anti-fascists were clearly more representative of the city's residents than the fascists. The rent a crowd here is the fascists.

Yes, ARM, I do. I understand that right-wing groups were behind the protest and probably financed some of the costs. It would be nice to know who funded the antifas. Or did they bus themselves there in a great, spontaneous display of outrage?

Paco Wové said...

A "rally" is terrorism? Square that with the 1st Amendment for us, ARM.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Another resident:

"once we got to Emancipation Park, I found myself being talked at by a man wearing a red shirt. Red Shirt told me that Africa was for the black man, and America was for the white man. He told a white woman, who was holding a sign promoting peace, that she was a race traitor, and despite her wide hips, he’d be willing to show her what a real man was all about. He spouted racist theories about the testosterone levels of black women and the difference in brain sizes between the races. I was unnerved; he truly believed what he was saying."

Anonymous said...

Oops, "buffs" not "books".

Michael K said...

WE now have confirmation that the police, as in Berkeley, were told to stand down and let the riot happen.

McAuliffe was asked if he also condemns ANTIFA and he refused to answer.

Birkel said...

ARM is quite content to demand other people exercise neither their First nor Second Amendment Rights while calling others fascist.

Irony overdoses are no laughing matter.

Michael K said...

"There is no money in Nazism so I doubt these people were paid."

I am still wondering about Soros' motivation. Is there money to be made from chaos ?

He certainly made a lot of money attacking the British Pound.

Paco Wové said...

ARM, are you working yourself up to the "speech I don't like is violence and should be suppressed" argument so beloved of the modern left? Just checking.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I want to know who brought the baseball bats.

Roughcoat said...

So the Skokie march never took place.

But several marches were held in Marquette Park on Chicago's southwest side. The National Socialist Party of America was headquartered in the Marquette Park neighborhood, which had a large Lithuanian population -- it was the center of Lithuanian culture in North America. The Nazi rallies in the park were attended by small but vocal crowds of enthusiastic onlookers, neighborhood locals, not surprising since a disturbingly large number of Lithuanians were involved in the Holocaust as killers in German paramilitary death squads and as concentration camp guards. The Marquette Park neighborhood was also a home to a goodly sized Irish population; I used to do my drinking at one of the best Irish pubs in the Western Hemisphere, located just two blocks from the park at 63rd and S. Kedzie. All the Irish and Lithuanians are long gone, having decamped rather hastily and en mass from the neighborhood in the 1990s for safer environs in the southwest suburbs. Now it is partly black, partly Mexican. The neighborhood has since become gang-ridden and hideously violent. The process of racial change, which occurred swiftly, and the rise in violent crime that accompanied it, is why the whites left. My favorite pub is shuttered and derelict although it still has faded shamrocks emblazoned on its weathered door.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Another resident:

I’m the opinion editor of The Cavalier Daily, the student newspaper. Several weeks I ago I wrote a column arguing that the alt-right rally that took place over the weekend should be allowed to go on.

I feel foolish about that.

The alt-right has shown itself to be a domestic terrorist organization. Their use of intimidation, terror and violence in the pursuit of their goals more than justify this categorization.

On Friday night, we witnessed armed white supremacists march through university grounds with lit torches, threatening, harassing and physically assaulting students who were organizing peacefully — or who were just trying to go about their business despite the shocking events unfolding in their backyard.

This march and the alt-right’s actions on Saturday weren’t about discourse or peaceful assembly. They organized, applied for a permit and came to town with the full intention of inciting violence and agitating both the community and the national media. Richard Spencer has already vowed to come back “1,000 times if necessary” to “humiliate all those people who opposed us” and “win.”

I still believe in the sanctity of the First Amendment. True progress and healing can be achieved only through open, honest dialogue. But what happened in Charlottesville doesn’t, and perhaps never did, qualify as protected speech.

Anonymous said...

Paco Wové (3:49pm):
Don't forget the corollary. Speech I don't like is violence, and violence I do like is speech.

David said...

"Is there money to be made from chaos?"

Yes, in large amounts.

But also lost.

If you control the timing and tempo of the chaos, your odds get considerably better.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hey ARM - is this your kind of free speech? (thank you che dolf)

ARM has unattributed quotes from the .003%. Proof we're all going to bigot hell.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

ARM - so when leftwing facists beat people, that's cool?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Heather D. Heyer, who was killed by one of the fascists, was also a resident of Charlottesville.

“Heather was a very strong woman,” said Alfred A. Wilson, manager of the bankruptcy division at the Miller Law Group in Charlottesville, where Ms. Heyer worked as a paralegal. He said she stood up against “any type of discrimination. That’s just how she’s always been.”

buwaya said...

"The intention of this “alt-right” rally was clear, and it had nothing to do with a statue. It was about intimidation."

So are all political rallies - well, that is always one purpose.

There is a constant stream of this stuff from organized ethnic groups.

http://remezcla.com/lists/culture/latino-activism-changed-the-world-2016/
https://www.unidosus.org/events/

So why are these people OK, and those in Chalottesville not OK?

Etienne said...

The driver was certainly reckless, given the number of jaywalkers on the street, but I don't see this as a hate crime.

Once people started trying to kill him with clubs and chemical weapons, the only option was to flee.

You can see the antifa chasing after him for blocks. He certainly was not safe to remain at the scene of the accident.

Paco Wové said...

"so when leftwing facists beat people, that's cool?"

It's pretty clear ARM is too busy copy-pasting the NYT to talk to us deplorables.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Be fair, no one responds to Crazy April. There is a threshold of crazy below which no one wishes to venture.

Hagar said...

Well, ARM, here in Albuquerque quite a lot happens without input from the citizens.
In fact, I distinctly remember once when a prominent member of the City Council (Democrat, of course) stated on camera that he was against submitting a proposal to a referendum because "they will just vote it down"!

Fabi said...

"ARM is quite content to demand other people exercise neither their First nor Second Amendment Rights while calling others fascist."

This.

Chuck said...

"The intention of this “alt-right” rally was clear, and it had nothing to do with a statue. It was about intimidation."

As is the intention of most gatherings of the Black Bloc. "Do what we are demanding, or you'll see some trouble."

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Killing a woman in her own town is a first amendment right, or is it the second?

Birkel said...

Governor Wallace and ARM make a fine pair, each advocating to keep "outside agitators" out. Both hostile to exercising civil rights too.

Pinandpuller said...

What should have happened to the "ladies"who grabbed Bernie's mic?

Anonymous said...

Everybody lay off ARM. He was AWOL for an extended period, and I was worried about him. Alas, my worries were justified. He has returned a broken man.

The first few days after his re-apperance, he was at least up to Cookie level old fart harrumphing, mustering up the energy for a few virtual fist-shaking Trump Is A Disaster one-liners. I thought full recovery was only a matter of time. But, sadly, he declined further, and seems no longer capable of anything but Inga-grade copypasta exercises, forced in his feebleness to rely on random hacks to carry his indignation for him.

Look, everybody, there but for the grace of God...
So stop being so mean to him.

Hagar said...

and, oh yeah, I believe they did pass the proposal in the City Council, and it was executed by the administration.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hey ARM, I might be crazy, but at least I didn't vote for the person who would take a sledge hammer to the First Amendment.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

I am just a conduit for the voice of the people of Charlottesville. It is a humble role and one I take on without expectation of reward.

Unknown said...

"Everybody lay off ARM. He was AWOL for an extended period, and I was worried about him. Alas, my worries were justified. He has returned a broken man.

The first few days after his re-apperance, he was at least up to Cookie level old fart harrumphing, mustering up the energy for a few virtual fist-shaking Trump Is A Disaster one-liners. I thought full recovery was only a matter of time. But, sadly, he declined further, and seems no longer capable of anything but Inga-grade copypasta exercises, forced in his feebleness to rely on random hacks to carry his indignation for him."

Says the alt right white nationalist shack of human excrement. Who are you to criticize anyone?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

@Paco

It's pretty clear ARM is too busy copy-pasting the NYT to talk to us deplorables.
Indeed.

& He has no answers to any of our questions.

mockturtle said...

Look, everybody, there but for the grace of God...
So stop being so mean to him.


You are right, Angel-Dyne. He should be pitied, not maligned. OTOH, maligning is a lot more fun!

Chuck said...

I want to do something that I've almost never done here; I want to retract something I just wrote.

Just a few posts above, I inartfully agreed with the notion that some protest groups' intent is to intimidate. Certainly the rioters in Ferguson, in Baltimore, in Dallas, in Detroit in 1967, all had in mind the notion of intimidation of civil authority. Burn buildings; loot; block roads and highways; snipe at police.

I actually don't think that "intimidation" is fairly applied to the original intent of the Unite the Right demonstrators. They should have been left alone, and they wouldn't have intimidated anyone.

Of course, they wouldn't have "united the right" in any event. They still would have been regarded as social outliers and miscreants. But I don't think "intimidation" is fairly applied to them.

buwaya said...

I think the native residents of Wall Street (to the extent that there are any) were nearly unanimously opposed to Occupy Wall Street.

MadisonMan said...

I'm afraid the people who were photographed at Charlottesville are headed directly to Pariah-land. Witness the people being fired from their jobs now.

I don't know if that's a great idea for people expressing a viewpoint, however repellant. Because what is repellant today, and what becomes repellant tomorrow, can be vastly different, depending on the whims of Hoi Polloi. Is there a reason that tolerance for an objectionable viewpoint is so hard? Why the rush to "improve" or "educate" the people with whom you disagree? Is it that hard to just accept people as they are, warts and all?

Unknown said...

"Look, everybody, there but for the grace of God...
So stop being so mean to him."

"You are right, Angel-Dyne. He should be pitied, not maligned. OTOH, maligning is a lot more fun! "

Celebrate your sociopathy!

Paco Wové said...

"But don't go after people because you hate them as a group, and don't use criminal law to squelch thought and speech."

Sorry, Althouse – ARM is here to inform you that the better class of citizens have decreed that your primitive notions of law are Not OK.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Unknown Inga - no one is celebrating your sociopathy. That's for sure.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Dr K:
"I know northern Idaho very well and that area used to be a very high end summer resort."

The skinheads in Hayden Lake have essentially been pushed out by its vicinity to Coeur d'Alene by the cost. Much too expensive. My partner is kicking herself for not having bought back then, when she was tempted, but was scared off by the militias and white supremacists. We get to the CdA resort a couple times a year, most recently for her birthday in July. Beverly's for dinner and Dockside for Sunday brunch. Best food around. Serious money still around Lake CdA. CdA and Hayden Lake have now all but grown together, esp along the US 95 strip. Usually bypass the whole mess by cutting north a bit west of there and cutting over at Rathdrum, tying back into 95 above Hayden, when heading to Bayview or Sandpoint on (lake) Pend Orielle (where most of the sailboats seem to have moved from CdA). Sandpoint, about 45 miles N of CdA is now booming too, getting pretty expensive. They have the better lake and a ski area. Tend to fly out of Spokane, instead of Missoula, because they have Southwest, which is why we go through the CdA area frequently.

Unknown said...

"...no one is celebrating your sociopathy."

I'm enjoying yours.

Anonymous said...

Ingabot: Says the alt right white nationalist shack of human excrement. Who are you to criticize anyone?

Who do I have to be?

"Shack of human excrement". Is that the delicate way of saying "brick shithouse", or something?

I love you Ingabot. You are an underrated and misunderstand poetic genius.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

There was some dispute earlier about the correct appellation for James Fields and his cohort. Apparently he attended the event as a member of the "white supremacist, neo-Nazi group Vanguard America". Vanguard America’s manifesto is apparently entitled "American Fascism". We all have some claim to victory here. The good vibes just keep flowing.

Bruce Hayden said...

Think that this was the end of the governor's political career. Likely couldn't be elected dog catcher (even if he weren't term limited as governor) state wide, after giving the stand down order for the state police on hand there and refusing to condem the Antifa people, after condemning the white nationalists whose protest the Antifa people came to (and did) physically disrupt.

I think that it is becoming more and more evident that Dem politicians are not about to shut down Antifa violence, and that their cities are going to continue to be the places where the fighting occurs. Normally, I say fine - they want to make their cities intolerant violent hell holes, fine. But the UVA campus is special. Very historical and beautiful. Don't really care about places like Berkeley, but I loved Charlottesville.

Etienne said...

1000's of people die every year playing in streets. It's not the drivers fault.

Drivers should certainly should slow down, as reckless driving should be prosecuted, but the responsibility solely belongs to those playing in the streets.

Unknown said...

"Shack of human excrement"

Be grateful I didn't say warehouse full of shit.

Bruce Hayden said...

"The driver was certainly reckless, given the number of jaywalkers on the street, but I don't see this as a hate crime.

Once people started trying to kill him with clubs and chemical weapons, the only option was to flee.

You can see the antifa chasing after him for blocks. He certainly was not safe to remain at the scene of the accident."

If they were chasing after him for blocks, then it was very likely self-defense. We shall see. As I pointed out in previous threads, bats, like cars and guns, can legally be deadly weapons, and wielding them as some did yesterday can be legal justification for the use of deadly force in self-defense.

Mike Smith said...

Ann: Your comments were right on the money.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Bruce Hayden said...
I loved Charlottesville.


If you love it as you say, can't you find some time to condemn the fascist agitators who just killed a resident of the city? They didn't ask for this. They want no part of the fascists coming into their town and killing people.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Bruce Hayden said...
it was very likely self-defense.


This is insane.

Saint Croix said...

Beautiful post, AA

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