On its first anniversary, it is worth revisiting what we may now refer to simply as \u201cCharlottesville.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thanks to the assistance of Republican politicians and their apologists in Big Conservative media, the left didn\u2019t hesitate to transform this event into an ideologically and politically-useful weapon.<\/p>\n
Of course, Charlottesville could serve the left\u2019s agenda only if the official interpretation of circumstances defies reality\u2014as it does.<\/p>\n
On August 12, 2017, hundreds of people gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia for what they called a \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally.<\/p>\n
They would be met by an even greater number of leftists of various sorts, self-described \u201canti-fascists\u201d and \u201canti-racists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Violence ensued.<\/p>\n
Immediately, elites in Washington D.C. and their fellow travelers in Big Media (of both the \u201cmainstream\u201d and \u201cconservative\u201d varieties) laid the blame solely at the feet of \u201cwhite supremacists.\u201d\u00a0 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 <\/em>repulsed by this exhibition of \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d than the next person.<\/p>\n Make no mistakes about it, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the fever-pitched waxing of indignation, was political theater at its absolute best\u2014or worst.\u00a0 It is inexcusable that anyone who purports to be in the know, let alone those, like politicians and media figures, who are expected <\/em>to be knowledgeable of current events, should not have been able to discern from\u00a0 the jump the gist of what occurred in Charlottesville on that fateful day.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 The President did <\/em>misspeak, but not in the ways in which his critics charge:<\/p>\n First, it is manifestly absurd to characterize as \u201cgood\u201d those\u2014like the militant leftists who converged upon Charlottesville\u2014who 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 \u201canti-fascist\u201d agenda.<\/p>\n 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 \u201canti-fascists\u201d and \u201canti-racists,\u201d the \u201ccounter-demonstrators\u201d who initiated the violence.<\/p>\n The facts:<\/p>\n (1)The organizers of the Unite the Right rally acted lawfully, <\/em>availing themselves of their Constitutional right as Americans to peaceful assembly.\u00a0 The organizers applied for their permit months <\/em>in advance of their demonstration.\u00a0 It was granted and then withdrawn.\u00a0 The organizers appealed and, thanks in no small part to the American Civil Liberties Union\u2014hardly a right-wing operation\u2014a judge determined that the city of Charlottesville had no legal grounds on which to deny them a permit.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n (2)The counter-demonstrators, in stark contrast, conducted themselves lawlessly: <\/em>They had no permit and never even applied for one. Quite the contrary: The \u201canti-fascists\u201d armed themselves with weaponry\u2014clubs; bricks; bottles and balloons filled with cement, urine, and feces; bear mace; baseball bats; bows and arrows; and a makeshift flamethrower<\/em>\u2014and, quite literally, hit the streets. <\/em>They formed mobs and took to intersections, blocking traffic and attacking motorists.<\/p>\n For this reason, because of their lawlessness, their flagrant criminality, it is a misnomer to describe the \u201canti-fascists\u201d as counter-demonstrators.\u00a0 They composed a mob<\/em>.<\/p>\n (3)It\u2019s true that a few<\/em> of the demonstrators were seen sporting KKK and neo-Nazi paraphernalia.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n The lion\u2019s share of rally attendees descended upon Charlottesville on that fateful day not to affirm \u201cwhite supremacy,\u201d \u201cwhite nationalism,\u201d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n And, to repeat, there weren\u2019t so much as dirty looks exchanged, to say nothing of overt violence, until lawless leftwing mobs, so-called \u201cAntifa\u201d and Black Lives Matter, in particular, arrived and instigated every bit of it.<\/p>\n (4)The foregoing facts were available at the time.\u00a0 Big Media\u2014both the \u201cmainstream\u201d or \u201cliberal\u201d media as well as <\/em>such \u201cconservative\u201d media as Fox News, <\/em>talk radio, National Review, The New York Post, <\/em>etc.\u2014just weren\u2019t interested.<\/p>\n Those who were <\/em>interested had to go underground, to the internet, to Youtube, to gather eyewitness testimony from those who were actually in Charlottesville.\u00a0 The most reliable testimony comes from the members of several \u201cPatriots\u2019\u201d organizations, self-described \u201ccivic nationalists\u201d (as opposed<\/em> to racial<\/em> nationalists) who came to Virginia to keep peace and safeguard the Constitutional rights of their fellow American citizens (See here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 These are the same people who those in Big Conservatism (the Big Con<\/a>) tirelessly \u201cthank\u201d for their service.\u00a0 Yet when these retired soldiers and officers of the law were physically besieged by leftist criminals and<\/em> corrupt 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 <\/em>violence that they suffered. <\/em><\/p>\n