On
its first anniversary, it is worth revisiting what we may now refer to simply
as “Charlottesville.”
Thanks to the assistance of Republican
politicians and their apologists in Big Conservative media, the left didn’t
hesitate to transform this event into an ideologically and politically-useful
weapon.
Of
course, Charlottesville could serve the left’s agenda only if the official
interpretation of circumstances defies reality—as it does.
On
August 12, 2017, hundreds of people gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia for
what they called a “Unite the Right” rally.
They
would be met by an even greater number of leftists of various sorts,
self-described “anti-fascists” and “anti-racists.”
Violence
ensued.
Immediately, elites in Washington D.C. and their fellow travelers in Big
Media (of both the “mainstream” and “conservative” varieties) laid the blame
solely at the feet of “white supremacists.” Every politician, Democrat
and Republican alike, and every commentator, Fox News contributors and talk
radio hosts no less than their leftist counterparts on the other networks,
spared no opportunity to show the world that they were even more repulsed by this exhibition of “white
supremacy” than the next person.
Make no mistakes about it, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the
fever-pitched waxing of indignation, was political theater at its absolute
best—or worst. It is inexcusable that anyone who purports to be in the
know, let alone those, like politicians and media figures, who are expected to be knowledgeable of current events,
should not have been able to discern from the jump the gist of what
occurred in Charlottesville on that fateful day.
President Trump elicited much
criticism for claiming at the time that there were good people amongst both the
demonstrators and the counter-demonstrators, and that both sides contributed to
the violence. The President did misspeak,
but not in the ways in which his critics charge:
First,
it is manifestly absurd to characterize as “good” those—like the militant
leftists who converged upon Charlottesville—who routinely violate the
Constitutional rights to speech, assembly, property, and bodily integrity of, not
only those of their fellow citizens with whom they disagree, but as well those
of their fellow citizens who they deem insufficiently supportive of their
“anti-fascist” agenda.
Second,
not a single hair on the head of a single person would have been harmed, much
less would anyone have been killed, had it not been for the “anti-fascists” and
“anti-racists,” the “counter-demonstrators” who initiated the violence.
The facts:
(1)The organizers of the
Unite the Right rally acted lawfully, availing
themselves of their Constitutional right as Americans to peaceful
assembly. The organizers applied for their permit months in advance of their demonstration. It
was granted and then withdrawn. The organizers appealed and, thanks in no
small part to the American Civil Liberties Union—hardly a right-wing
operation—a judge determined that the city of Charlottesville had no legal
grounds on which to deny them a permit.
In
other words, the organizers of the Unite the Right rally acted in good faith,
with fidelity to the law, every step of the way.
(2)The counter-demonstrators,
in stark contrast, conducted themselves lawlessly: They
had no permit and never even applied for one. Quite the contrary: The
“anti-fascists” armed themselves with weaponry—clubs; bricks; bottles and
balloons filled with cement, urine, and feces; bear mace; baseball bats; bows
and arrows; and a makeshift flamethrower—and, quite
literally, hit the streets. They formed mobs
and took to intersections, blocking traffic and attacking motorists.
For this reason, because of
their lawlessness, their flagrant criminality, it is a misnomer to describe the
“anti-fascists” as counter-demonstrators. They composed a mob.
(3)It’s true that a few of the demonstrators were seen sporting KKK
and neo-Nazi paraphernalia. It is equally true that the vast majority of
the rally-goers who gathered in Charlottesville were doing no such thing, and
that several of these endeavored to remove those showcasing KKK and Nazi
symbols.
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The lion’s share of rally attendees
descended upon Charlottesville on that fateful day not to affirm “white
supremacy,” “white nationalism,” or any racial fiction that the media would
ascribe to them, but, rather, to demonstrate against the removal of a Robert E.
Lee statue, an act that symbolizes to many patriotic Americans the radical
left’s ongoing attempt to fundamentally transform Southern culture specifically
and that of the United States of America generally into something in the image
of their own ideology.
And, to repeat, there weren’t so much
as dirty looks exchanged, to say nothing of overt violence, until lawless
leftwing mobs, so-called “Antifa” and Black Lives Matter, in particular,
arrived and instigated every bit of it.
(4)The foregoing facts were
available at the time. Big Media—both the “mainstream” or “liberal”
media as well as such “conservative” media as Fox News, talk radio, National Review, The New York Post, etc.—just
weren’t interested.
Those who were interested had to go underground, to the
internet, to Youtube, to gather eyewitness testimony from those who were
actually in Charlottesville. The most reliable testimony comes from the
members of several “Patriots’” organizations, self-described “civic
nationalists” (as opposed to racial nationalists) who came to Virginia to keep
peace and safeguard the Constitutional rights of their fellow American citizens
(See here and here).
Most of these men (and some
women) are military and police veterans who remain committed to upholding the
oath to the American Constitution that they pledged upon embarking upon their
careers in law enforcement. These are the same people who those in Big
Conservatism (the Big Con) tirelessly “thank” for their
service. Yet when these retired soldiers and officers of the law were
physically besieged by leftist criminals andcorrupt
Charlottesville police alike, Big Conservatives were all too eager to side with
militant and radical leftists and blame the protestors and these
Constitutionalists for the unprovoked violence
that they suffered.
(5)This brings us to the next point: As some of us knew then, and
as the Heaphy Reporthas subsequently confirmed,
violence would have been averted not only had leftist street thugs shown the
same respect for the law as that shown by the Unite the Right
demonstrators. It would have been averted had the governments of Virginia
and Charlottesville—the governor and mayor, the state and local police—and the
University of Virginia conducted themselves more responsibly.
The governor declared a state of emergency, in effect canceling the
demonstrators’ permit at the last minute, while the Charlottesville mayor
ordered the police commissioner to in turn order his officers to stand down.
But even
this way of putting the matter is understatement. The police didn’t just do
nothing as innocent citizens were assaulted. They encouraged the violence by
forcing the Unite the Right rally attendees to vacate the premises by way of
walking through the wall of volatile leftists that were waiting for them.
From
these facts, we can deduce another: Contrary to the conventional (Politically
Correct) wisdom, far from being aggressors, the only party in this story that
is innocent of provoking violence is that of the rally demonstrators.
Fairness, however, forces us to go one step further: It is the rally
attendees, and them alone, who showed respect for America, for its traditions, laws, and the
Constitution, for preserving the history of their country, civility, free
speech, and peaceful assembly. No other actor in this melodrama can claim
credit for doing the same. Every other actor, in fact, revealed
themselves as decidedly anti-American.
A final point: While the overt left has long ago put us on notice as to
its desire to destroy (“fundamentally transform”) America as it has existed,
the response of Big Conservatism to Charlottesville proved, if proof was still
needed, that Big Cons are but an alt-left. Big Cons incessantly whine over the left’s suppression of free
speech whenever it is one of their own—like, say, Ben Shapiro—who is prevented
from speaking at a college campus. Yet their eagerness to buy hook, line,
and sinker the interpretation of Charlottesville favored by Antifa and Black
Lives Matter confirms that they care as much about protecting the free speech
rights of those to their right as they care about “supporting the troops” and
“blue lives” when law enforcement veterans are lumped in by the left with
“racists,” “fascists,” “white supremacists,” and, simply, “the alt-right.”
Never again can anyone within the Big Con be regarded
with seriousness when they espouse platitudes concerning the Constitution, free
speech, tolerance, civility, or, for that matter, respect for veterans and law
enforcement. Though few people have yet to grasp this, the truth is that
Charlottesville comes as close as anything to serving as the criterion, the test, for
determining one’s commitment to the Constitution, law and order, free speech,
civility, tolerance, and all of the rest.
The Big Con failed this test miserably.
Jack
Kerwick [send
him mail] received his doctoral degree in philosophy from Temple
University. His area of specialization is ethics and political philosophy. He
is a professor of philosophy at several colleges and universities in New Jersey
and Pennsylvania. Jack blogs at Beliefnet.com: At the Intersection of Faith
& Culture.
