Reviewing this last week’s big stories:
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Less Hate — This Week
Tag: Antifa
Last week, photojournalist Andy Ngo was attacked on the streets of Portland, Oregon, while video-recording a Patriot Prayer march and its Antifa opposition.
As they attacked, one malefactor can be heard screaming, “F**k you, Andy!” Another cried, “F**king owned bitch.”
It was personal. They knew Mr. Ngo, who had been covering Antifa and other far-left activists rioting in Portland for several years.
Ngo’s new GoPro camera was stolen, he was hit on the head, had eggs and milkshakes thrown at him, and shot with silly string. The aim, apparently, was to humiliate and hurt and incapacitate.
Aside from the Antifa terrorists’ personal sense of aggrievement, there is that odd element where the putative “protesters” just do not want to be recorded. Which, after all, is the whole point of actual protest.
Odder yet, while Antifa is allegedly for equality and inclusion, the faces of the arrested malefactors appear largely white, and from what we know in the past, the black-clad, hooded-or-masked mob is mostly made up of white, twenty-something men.
A white mob attacking a gay Asian sure seems racist and homophobic.
So maybe there is a bit of truth to the notion that Antifa is mainly a bunch of guys unleashing their lust for violence and mayhem. “Anti-fascism” is just a not very plausible excuse.
But, significantly, it is one that major media continue to make for the group. And many in the media go further, apparently seeking to excuse Antifa by labelling Ngo as a “conservative” (!) and a “provocateur.”
There is no excuse for Antifa — or its apologists.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Normal & Not
“Most people are not lunatics,” Tucker Carlson reminded viewers last night on his Fox News program, adding that “normal people don’t like this.”
By “this,” the conservative television host meant what can only be described as an attack on his home by Smash Racism DC, an Antifa-like group comprised of people who are not normal.
Carlson wasn’t home Wednesday night, nor were his four young children, thank goodness, but his poor wife was. After hearing shouting and a man throwing himself into their front door so hard that he cracked it, she locked herself in a pantry and called 911.
“But it wasn’t a home invasion,” The Washington Post reported. “It was a protest.”
“What are they protesting?” asked Mr. Carlson. “They’re not trying to change my mind. They’re trying to threaten my family to get me to stop talking.”
The Carlson’s home and cars were vandalized by the mob of about 20 hoodlums. There were also chants of “Racist scumbag, leave town!” and “Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where you sleep at night!”
“Mail bomb,” one man shouted. And, of course, they doxxed Tucker Carlson by publishing his home address for the possible benefit of the next James Hodgkinson or any mail-bomber.
Instead of focusing on the political divide or the fear of further violence, a vacationing Tucker Carlson called in to his show last night to express gratitude … for an outpouring of concern, support, solidarity from across the political and media spectrum, expressing that it has “actually been really nice and affirming.”
Enough normal goodness remains in America, spread throughout the political spectrum, to unite us … at least against such behavior.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“In a sane democracy,” I wrote this weekend at Townhall.com, “the side with the most violent nutcases loses.”
Too hopeful?
Independent video journalist Tim Pool made a similar point yesterday, covering Antifa versus Proud Boys fights in New York, as well as Antifa taking over the downtown streets of Portland, Oregon. He cautions those who defend themselves from going too far, for the media will simply make hay of violence against Antifa, ignoring Antifa provocations.
“Antifa are the ones who are showing up to marches that are peaceful and starting the violence — and then everyone complains there’s violence,” Mr. Pool explains.*
Reasonable question: who is encouraging leftist mobs?
Perhaps two former Obama Administration officials, Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton.
“When they go low, we kick them,” Holder said last week. “That’s what the new Democratic Party is about.”
Mrs. Clinton insisted that “you cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for.”
Michelle Obama provided a civilized correction: “Fear is not a proper motivator,” she said on the Today show. “Do you want them afraid of their neighbors? Do you want them angry? Do you want them vengeful?”
Journalist Sam Francis had a term for what seems to be on the rise: anarcho-tyranny. Government leaders let mob violence go unpunished, but crack down hard on peaceful citizens for infractions of onerous regulations.
In Portland, this weekend, the mayor applauded a police decision to stand down, letting Antifa take over the streets.
And so the violence ramps up.
As the President likes to say: “Not good.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* “Well, if Antifa doesn’t show up,” Pool went on, “I assure you, the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer will walk in a big circle and then break up and go find beers somewhere.”
With “democratic socialism” again on the rise, a refresher course in history seems apt: socialism has demonstrated the strong tendency to end up in totalitarian tyranny, poverty, and genocide.
As I mentioned on Monday, Reason’s Nick Gillespie suspects that this response is not very convincing to people tempted by socialism. But really, why not? What about a history of horror could be appealing?
Which is why the question “Do Socialists Mean Well?” as answered by Grant Babcock, might help. Babcock answers in the negative.* “Socialism is not ultimately an end but a means. And as a means, socialism is evil.”
With an evil means, one’s chosen end is irrelevant, because of other results. “If I told you I wanted to end homelessness, you might say I had good intentions,” Babcock explains. But if he confessed to seek that end “by conscripting the homeless into the army … [n]ot only should you say I have bad intentions, you shouldn’t give me any moral credit for saying I want to end homelessness.”
True. But Babcock has to engage in his extended argument about means because, for purposes of his essay, anyway, he began with the premise that while fascists are evil because they seek directly to harm some people, socialists do not.
Uh, really? Most socialists make much of taking from “the rich,” however they define the rich — as “the one percent” or “the privileged,” etc.
Call it expropriation; call it theft: that’s a lot of anger and ill will directed to one group of people.
In that way, the appeal of socialism is too much like the appeal of fascism.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Babcock, by the way, denies the label “socialist” to social democrats who call themselves “democratic socialists” — by definition. On this matter, see “Bernie’s Slippery Definition of Democratic Socialism” and “Is Denmark Socialist?” on this site.
I was in Arkansas on Saturday when the downtown streets of Portland, Oregon, “exploded into its worst protest violence of the Trump era,” as The Guardian explains. “More than 150 supporters of the far-right Patriot Prayer group fought pitched street battles with scores of anti-fascist protesters. In total, nine people were arrested.”
Notice that “Patriot Prayer” — a group sponsored by a Republican Senatorial candidate, and which says it stands for free speech — was labeled “far right” while the “anti-fascist protesters” were not called “far left.”
Characteristically, The Guardian vagues it up. “Violence suddenly ‘erupted,’” noted a Romanian YouTuber of the British rag’s evasiveness. “Who started it? We don’t know.”
Well, from the videos I saw it looked like the “anti-fascists” started it. The “patriots” were marching down the street when a young man, with helmet and backpack, and a young women, dressed in black, marshaled antifa mobs towards the legal march, and then stones and bottles were thrown, and explosives, too … into the Patriot Prayer rally.
Note: the Patriot Prayer group had filed the paperwork for the march; antifa had not. The Portland police did not protect the licensed marchers, but did revoke their license, telling everyone to disperse (threatening “duress” to the non-compliant) after the violence broke out.
If you did not carefully look at more than one video, you might be confused. Indeed, not all videos showed the crucial break from peace to violence.
So, what other clues might one look for?
In old cowboy movies, whoever ganged up masked, and wore black, were usually the bad guys.
Antifa — thanks for providing the clues: masks, black fighting gear, and Luciferian handsigns.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
