After the tragedy in Charlottesville, the only person who came out of it looking good was President Donald Trump. He was the only one who had the guts to stand up and speak the plain, unvarnished truth. There really are two sides, there really is blame on both sides, and the behavior of the “counter-protesters” (to use the Record’s euphemism) really was every bit as despicable as the Nazis in attendance, if not more so. Whatever else you might think about Nazis, they have the right to believe what they want, and say what they want. But the “counter-protesters” seem to believe they have the right to assault people they disagree with, and silence speech they don’t like. Imagine if everyone behaved like that.
For the last two years, we’ve seen a steady stream of violence from the left, and the media has largely turned a blind eye. Charlottesville is not the first example of a right-wing protest or rally being attacked by the left, but it’s the first one that seems to have seared itself into the national consciousness. Do you know why? Because for the first time, the media got the villain they wanted. Without the man who drove his car into the crowd, it’s just another story of leftist violence for reporters to uncomfortably mumble about. With him, they get to write the stories they want to write: domestic terrorism, Nazis, rising hatred, brave resisters, and of course…”it’s all Trump’s fault!”
It is not my purpose to defend Nazis. But what we should be most worried about is not Nazis, but how common it is to label someone a Nazi. Have you ever noticed that the media never refers to anyone as being right-wing anymore? It’s always ‘far right’ or ‘alt-right’ or ‘right-wing extremist’. And that’s when they’re not just being straight-out called white supremacists or Nazis. These have become mere labels designed to dehumanize people so they can be conveniently slotted into a ‘villain’ column, comfortably hated, and their points of view ignored. It’s a full-blown moral panic over a mostly irrelevant enemy. Ever read The Crucible? We’ve seen this before.
The media won’t even pay lip service to the idea that people on the right might have legitimate concerns. Remember what the Charlottesville protest was originally about? They were protesting the removal of a Civil War monument.
Well guess what? I’m with the Nazis on that one. I think Civil War monuments should stay. I don’t think you have to be a Nazi to be against the effacing of history. I was against it when the Taliban did it in Afghanistan, and I still am. And the fact is, the protest was peaceful until thugs in masks carrying bats came in to shut it down. It was morally indefensible, yet somehow defended by almost everybody. And it was followed by a wave of vandalism against Civil War monuments across the U.S., including the Lincoln Memorial. Yes, THE Lincoln Memorial.
There is a genuine totalitarianism growing on the left; one that rejects ideals of free speech, tolerance and the rule of law, embraces the violent suppression of dissent, has no respect for civility or tradition, and it seems to have enormous sympathy from the media, the universities, and Hollywood. That should terrify all of us more than Nazis do.
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