{"id":1672,"date":"2017-06-01T10:13:58","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T14:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1672"},"modified":"2017-06-01T10:14:56","modified_gmt":"2017-06-01T14:14:56","slug":"1672","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/06\/1672.html","title":{"rendered":"“White Supremacist\/Terrorist” Jeremy Christian: Fact vs. (Leftist) Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent article<\/a> on the \u201cwhite supremacist,\u201d \u201cIslamophobic\u201d \u201cterrorist\u201d attack in Portland that occurred over the Memorial Day weekend courtesy of a \u201cTrump supporter,\u201d I noted that, as of yet, we knew remarkably little of what actually happened.<\/p>\n

That is, we knew not nearly enough to substantiate the leftist press\u2019s angle on the events that transpired on a Portland train.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Christian went on an \u201canti-Muslim\u201d rant against two Muslim women, so went the official line.\u00a0 Three men, \u201cheroes\u201d is how they were being described, came to their defense.\u00a0 The men stood up to \u201cracist hate.\u201d For their efforts, the \u201cwhite supremacist<\/a>\u201d and \u201cTrump supporter<\/a>\u201d stabbed them, murdering two of them.<\/p>\n

I had questions, but there is one question the answer to which could make all of the difference as to whether Christian is guilty or not of murder: In what exactly did the intervention of the good Samaritans consist?\u00a0 If Christian did not pose an imminent bodily threat to anyone, and if the three passengers got up in his face or otherwise aggressed against him, <\/em>then while their intentions may have been noble, he still could have been justified in thinking that his <\/em>well-being was imminently imperiled.<\/p>\n

The night that my essay was published, an attorney from Portland sent me a copy of the affidavit for this case.\u00a0 It answered some of my inquiries.\u00a0 Additionally, the wording of this legal document confirmed<\/em> my skepticism concerning the PC template through which the media has labored to process this event.<\/p>\n

Media Claim #1: Christian verbally attacked two Muslim women<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

FACT: <\/strong>When Christian boarded the train, two \u201cjuvenile females\u201d were already on board. \u201cOne was an African-American and one<\/em> was an African-American Muslim who was wearing traditional Muslim dress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christian, who was \u201cseen taking large drinks from a bladder style container of purple liquid that [was] later identified by [Christian] as Sangria wine,\u201d proceeded to shout \u201cstatements seemingly <\/em>targeted at the girls and at others <\/em>that included: \u2018Get the f**k out!\u2019 \u2018Pay taxes,\u2019 \u2018Go home, we need American here!\u2019 \u2018I don\u2019t care if you are ISIS,\u2019 \u2018F**k Saudi Arabia!\u2019 and \u2018Free speech or die.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidently, Christian didn\u2019t specifically target the two girls, instead launching into a rant that \u201cinvolved\u201d comments that could be construed as hostile to Islam but which, as this sampling of quotations makes clear, were not limited to such remarks.<\/p>\n

And this account dovetails well with the fact that, just one day prior, Christian, while riding the same train, was indeed captured on video<\/a> cursing Islam, yes, but Judaism and Christianity as well.\u00a0 A staunch atheist, Christian thought that monotheism\u2014not Islam only, but all forms of monotheism\u2014is the biggest problem facing the human race.<\/p>\n

The two young women, incidentally, simply moved their seats away from him.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t sound as if he pursued them.<\/p>\n

Media Claim #2: The two men who lost their lives at the end of Christian\u2019s blade, and the third who was stabbed (but who survived), risked their lives for the sake of combatting \u201chate\u201d and in order to spare the \u201ctwo Muslim females.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

FACT: <\/strong>According to the affidavit, this is not true.\u00a0\u00a0 The three men who are being hailed as \u201cheroes\u201d\u2014Taliesin Namkai-Meche, Micah Fletcher, and Ricky Best\u2014didn\u2019t initially mix it up with Christian.\u00a0 Rather, it was a man named \u201cMr. Forde\u201d who initially tried to \u201cintervene and verbally deescalate the situation [.]\u201d\u00a0 He didn\u2019t \u201cstand up to hate\u201d or, necessarily, seek to protect \u201ctwo Muslim women.\u201d\u00a0 Mr. Forde simply tried to calm Christian. He was \u201cunsuccessful,\u201d for Christian \u201ccontinued shouting.\u201d Forde recalled him saying, among other things, something about \u201cdecapitating heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young women \u201cwere clearly alarmed\u201d by Christian\u2019s outbursts and \u201cmove [ed] away\u201d from him.<\/p>\n

It was only after<\/em> Forde\u2019s unsuccessful attempt to diffuse his volatility that Christian made \u201ca sudden move in the direction of\u201d Namkai-Meche who, the affidavit implies, was an innocent bystander until this point.\u00a0 Namkai-Meche was sitting down.\u00a0 When Christian moved in his direction, understandably and perhaps with an eye toward preventing himself from being pummeled upon, he stood up.\u00a0 This angered Christian, who responded by getting into Namkai-Meche\u2019s face and shouting: \u201cOh, do something bitch!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was at this point that Micah Fletcher stood up next to Namkai-Meche.\u00a0 This apparently incensed Christian more. Yelling, \u201cDo something!\u201d he \u201cshoved Micah Fletcher in the chest.\u201d Christian began pulling out a \u201cfolded knife\u201d from his pocket.\u00a0 Fletcher shoved Christian back. The latter stumbled. Christian challenged Fletcher to \u201chit me again.\u201d Fletcher told him to get off the train. Christian then swung at him with his knife out, stabbing Fletcher in the neck. Immediately, he turned and stabbed Namkai-Meche in the neck.\u00a0 But it is when Christian went in for Namkai-Meche\u2019s neck the second time that Ricky Best, the military veteran that Christian would murder, intervened to stop the stabbing<\/em> of the two men.<\/p>\n

Christian \u201cpushed\u201d Best into Namkai-Meche, who was trying to \u201cstaunch\u201d his bleeding, and then proceeded to stab both of them.\u00a0 Fletcher was as well trying to attend to his own wound as he left the train car to seek medical help from passengers on the platform.<\/p>\n

Namkai-Meche and Best would die from their injuries.\u00a0 Fletcher\u2019s wound missed being fatal by mere millimeters.<\/p>\n

When Christian was apprehended, he told officers that he had \u201cjust stabbed a bunch of mother**kers in their neck.\u00a0 Just a punk ass bunch of mother**kers.\u201d\u00a0 He also said: \u201cGet stabbed in your neck if you hate free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon spitting, Christian remarked: \u201cI\u2019m tearing out mother**ker\u2019s throats, you think I give a f**k who I spit on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can die in prison a happy man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m all good.\u00a0 I stabbed the two mother**kers in the neck and I\u2019m happy now. I\u2019m happy now. I can rest easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThink I stab mother**kers in the neck for fun? Oh yeah, you\u2019re right I do.\u00a0 I\u2019m a patriot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christian said to one of his victims: \u201cI told him, you ain\u2019t gonna heal punk.\u00a0 And he still wants to put hands on me.\u00a0 Die bitch. F**king die. Stupid mother**ker. That\u2019s what liberalism gets you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope they all die. I\u2019m gonna say that on the stand.\u00a0 I\u2019m a patriot and I hope everyone I stabbed died.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notice, in this litany of rantings, not a single syllable could remotely be construed as \u201canti-Muslim,\u201d let alone \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d or \u201cracist\u201d (it was a white-on-white attack, after all).<\/p>\n

Christian is vermin who deserves the ultimate penalty for his crimes. His victims deserve our sympathy.\u00a0 Ricky Best acted heroically in trying to stop two men from being stabbed, and Micah Fletcher acted honorably and bravely in standing alongside Taliesin Namkae-Meche after the latter acted sensibly in rising to ward off what undoubtedly appeared to be an imminent attack on his person by Christian.<\/p>\n

Yet none of these three men risked and sacrificed their lives in order to protect two Muslim women.\u00a0 First, there weren\u2019t two Muslim women.\u00a0 Second, no women were in need of being rescued, for Christian was on a rant that wasn\u2019t obviously directed toward them and which included comments that had nothing to do with Islam. The only person who did try to persuade Christian to stop his tirade\u2014Mr. Forde\u2014is receiving relatively no media coverage, and is certainly not being hailed as a hero.\u00a0 Forde, clearly, doesn\u2019t fit the narrative.\u00a0 He also was unharmed.<\/p>\n

Media Claim #3: Christian was a \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d and \u201cTrump supporter.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

FACT: <\/strong>This claim is the most bogus of all.\u00a0 Christian\u2019s Facebook posts<\/a> leave no doubts as to where his political allegiances lay.\u00a0 He was an enthusiastic Bernie Sanders<\/em> supporter, one who was all too willing to elect to the presidency the first Jew that would ever occupy that office.\u00a0 Christian despised both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.\u00a0 The former he accused of wanting nothing more than to make America \u201cwhite again\u201d\u2014a peculiar reason for a \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d to dislike anyone, much less a man who aspired to assume the power of the American presidency.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d who expressly denies that he\u2019s a \u201cracist,\u201d going so far as to mention that he has non-white family members and threatening to \u201cknock out\u201d anyone who would dare to call him a \u201cracist.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d who explicitly expresses unqualified \u201csolidarity\u201d with American Indians at Standing Rock and equally unqualified opposition to the Dakota access pipeline.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d who admires Malcolm X, someone who, by Christian\u2019s lights, would have been a true \u201crevolutionary\u201d\u2014unlike Martin Luther King, who he dismissed as a \u201cplagerizing [sic] weak-sauce revolutionary.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d that despises a presidential candidate (Clinton) for allegedly denying Hispanic \u201crefugees\u201d from Honduras entry into America and allegedly, suppressing \u201cBlack Lives Matter Activists.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d who, in rallying support for Bernie Sanders, writes: \u201cPower to the People!!!\u201d and \u201cEnd The Prison And Military Industrial Complexes!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d who tries to discourage others from being \u201cRacist\u201d and, instead, encourages them to become \u201ca Misanthrope\u201d (i.e. to hate, not on the basis of race, but universally?).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of Trump supporter who endorses the description of Trump supporters as \u201cfascist f**ks,\u201d \u201cNazis,\u201d and as being as \u201chateful\u201d and \u201cangry\u201d as their candidate.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of Trump supporter that describes Sanders as \u201cthe one genuine candidate since Ross Perot and maybe Nader [.]\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of Trump supporter that self-describes (after Bernie got railroaded) as \u201ca totally apolitical Born Again Nihilist.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of Trump supporter who invites others to join him \u201cin smashing some Clinton Crime Family and Trump Mafia supporters;\u201d admits that between Clinton and Trump, the former is the candidate who he \u201chate [s] the least;\u201d and refuses to vote for Trump. On November 11, 2016, Christian posted: \u201cJust want all my FB Peeps to know I could not bring myself to vote Trump like I said I would.\u00a0 I abstained from voting for the first time in my adult life.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of Trump supporter who asks: \u201cWhy f**k aren\u2019t we out in the streets demanding a President [Sanders] that has a positive poll rating???\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of Trump supporter who says that he \u201ccan\u2019t wait for Jeff Sessions to be assassinated for his unamerican hate speech,\u201d and who calls in the same post for the murder of \u201cas many DEA Agents\u201d and \u201cas many BOP Guards in the Federal Prison\u201d as possible.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sort of Trump supporter who had on multiple occasions been ejected from Trump events and who had been reported to<\/a> the Portland Police by Trump supporters<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

The left has been on the hunt for The Great White Oppressor for a long time. The need for a \u201cwhite terrorist,\u201d and, specifically, a terrorizer of Muslims, was undoubtedly felt all that much more acutely this past week as England fell prey once more to but another Islamic terrorist attack and Muslims in Egypt inaugurated Ramadan with a bang by slaughtering dozens of Christians, including Christian children. So what did the punditry class do?<\/p>\n

It invented a \u201cwhite supremacist\/terrorist,\u201d transformed him into a Trump supporter, and created some Muslim victims.<\/p>\n

But this meme, like so much else emanating from the left these days, is a lie.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it\u2019s just more Fake News.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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