The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘By Any Means Necessary’

Posted on | June 27, 2016 | 33 Comments

The radical left hates the First Amendment and loves violence:

At least five people were stabbed in a statehouse skirmish [Sunday in Sacramento] between members of the white-nationalist Traditionalist Workers Party (TWP) and “anti-fascist” activists from a group called By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). The white-power group had gotten a permit and was demonstrating in front of the California capitol. BAMN members came brandishing wooden bats and shouting “f–k fascists. Beat the fascists. Beat them.” One member Yvette Felarca told CNN she was “very, very proud” of the counter-protest that had produced such violence.
“We’ve got to build a movement in this nation,” said Felarca, noting that her group was full of people of many races and sexual orientations “standing together saying we will not accept or allow racist, genocide organizing to take place on the front steps of the capitol of California. And we would do it again.” . . .
Meanwhile, the anti-facists “came ready to fight,” as California Assemblyman Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove) put it. They arrived wearing plastic shields and carrying wooden batons. They got physical with reporters that had come to cover the white nationalist rally. . . .

Read the rest by Elizabeth Nolan Brown at Reason, who argues that “violence against people protesting peacefully — no matter how odious their ideas — will never be a winning step strategically.” Last night I was watching  coverage of this on ABC News, which reported that violence “erupted” at the rally without making clear what actually happened, i.e., the “anti-fascist” group attacked the TWP people. This kind of violent extremism is actually caused by media bias, I would argue. The liberal bias of the media allows thugs like BAMN to believe they’re doing something heroic. Liberal media bias also helps create the “white nationalist” fringe. The media provide one-sided coverage of news about issues related to race, which is only treated as an “issue” in order to promote left-wing attitudes and help elect Democrats. This helps foster a paranoia that leads people to seek out fringe views.

 


Comments

33 Responses to “‘By Any Means Necessary’”

  1. NeoWayland
    June 27th, 2016 @ 8:41 am

    ?If you can’t convince them without force, you’re doing it wrong.?

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 27th, 2016 @ 10:36 am

    While the Blues Brothers is funny, the way to deal with people you disagree with is not violence.

  3. Steve Skubinna
    June 27th, 2016 @ 11:15 am

    Okay, if your response to a gathering of people you don’t like is violence, you don’t get to call yourselves “anti-fascist.” It isn’t a hard concept to grasp.

    But thanks for establishing the new normal in political discourse. I guarantee you will not like where it ends.

  4. guinspen
    June 27th, 2016 @ 11:18 am
  5. Quartermaster
    June 27th, 2016 @ 2:06 pm

    I’ve warned a number of budding Fascists they w0n’t like where the destruction of the rule of law leads. So far, they aren’t listening.

  6. Quartermaster
    June 27th, 2016 @ 2:06 pm

    Reason rarely works with criminals.

  7. cargosquid
    June 27th, 2016 @ 2:13 pm

    They don’t seem to realize that “rule of law” is the ONLY thing protecting them.

  8. TheOtherAndrewB
    June 27th, 2016 @ 3:09 pm

    These alleged anarchists would not last 15 minutes in a truly anarchic society. They would wave their sticks at someone more dangerous than themselves and would be shot or enslaved. The only social upheaval they can handle is when they are protected by the police from true anarchy.

  9. mole
    June 27th, 2016 @ 7:34 pm

    They have become used to getting away with increased levels of violence against “the others” (including mainstream Trump supporters) for way too long. Sooner or later they will target a group that decides turning up and waiting to be hit is a mugs game and they may as well take the offensive.
    That said its a case where it would be nice if they wiped each other out. Fascism in the name of anti-fascism is still, you guessed it fascist.

  10. mole
    June 27th, 2016 @ 7:41 pm

    I was watching Lois Theroux “Crime in Johannesburg” and it shows what happens once law and order breaks down enough.
    Militias and private security step in and being a criminal becomes far, far more dangerous.
    As silly as it sounds its shades of the movie “Watchmen” with Rorschach screaming “You are locked in here with me”.
    The law is as much to protect the stupid criminals from beatings/death as it is to protect property.

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xycnjl_law-and-disorder-in-johannesburg_lifestyle

  11. NeoWayland
    June 27th, 2016 @ 8:17 pm

    Pardon, but which group is the criminals?

  12. DeadMessenger
    June 27th, 2016 @ 8:37 pm

    The ones that violated the law.

  13. DeadMessenger
    June 27th, 2016 @ 8:40 pm

    Well, yeah, because anarchy is far right, while fascists are far left.

  14. NeoWayland
    June 27th, 2016 @ 9:56 pm

    That’s what I would say.

    But some would call the white nationalists criminal too.

    Me, I just call them despicable.

  15. DeadMessenger
    June 27th, 2016 @ 10:42 pm

    Agreed. Their ideology is morally repugnant, imo, but the notion of policing someone else’s thoughts and words is also morally repugnant. In fact, it’s far worse. I think we agree on that, but that also, unlawfulness ought to be defined by certain actions, not thoughts, words or feelings. (Trigger warning!)

    Don’t know where this idea leaves us in terms of, say, two people talking on the phone about potentially committing a crime that could put people in danger. I haven’t thought it through to its conclusion, but living in a real-life Minority Report scares the heck out of me, and seems to be where we’re headed.

    At any rate, the lawbreakers should’ve been immediately rounded up and tossed in the hoosegow, as should also have happened in Ferguson and Baltimore, et al. I don’t recall if you ever said that you had kids, but same as with children, if you let something slide once, the child is going to try to take advantage every other time after that. So I guess I’m also saying that certain segments of society behave like large, immature, spoiled, and hence dangerous, children.

    You’d think our ancestors spinning in their graves would be enough to cause a tectonic shift by now. =)

  16. Joseph Shmeau
    June 28th, 2016 @ 2:15 am

    But that’s the way it is with “anti-fascists”. They act exactly like fascists.

  17. Donna Smith
    June 28th, 2016 @ 3:28 am
  18. NeoWayland
    June 28th, 2016 @ 7:23 am

    The best way I know to test ideas is to share them and let others criticize. When people don’t agree, ideas are refined and can get stronger.

    If my ideas can’t withstand competition from something morally repugnant, honor demands I fix the ideas pretty damn fast.

    I can’t afford to take any of my ideas for granted because I never know who I’m going to meet. Ideas WILL be tested whether I like it or not. I might as well accept that and prepare for it before I begin.

    Start with truth, and remember that liberty demands more than just black and white.

  19. Steve Skubinna
    June 28th, 2016 @ 9:20 am

    Come to think of it, the Soviets made a big deal of being anti-fascist. In fact, that’s where today’s progressives get their definition of fascist as “somebody I don’t like.”

    Just think, had the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact held up, fascists today would be as cute, cuddly, and quaint as Communists are.

  20. Quartermaster
    June 28th, 2016 @ 9:29 am

    Huey Long (AKA “The Kingfish”) said that if Fascism came to the US it would come in the guise of anti-fascism.

  21. Quartermaster
    June 28th, 2016 @ 9:34 am

    The WNs were exercising their rights and the anti-fascists were acting like criminals. One may not care for the ideology of white nationalism, but they have the right to promulgate it. No one, on the other hand, has the right to riot and attack people simply because they don’t like the ideology of those they are attacking. Down that path lies Weimar Germany where such things were a common occurrence.

  22. gunga
    June 28th, 2016 @ 1:41 pm

    Welcome to the jungle it gets worse here every day
    Ya learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play
    If you hunger for what you see you’ll take it eventually
    You can have everything you want but you better not take it from me
    In the jungle, welcome to the jungle
    Watch it bring you to your knnn knne knees, knees
    I want to watch you bleed

  23. DeadMessenger
    June 28th, 2016 @ 3:36 pm

    Which is what we’re talking about here. Nobody likes what the WNs had to say, but they had every right to say it.

  24. DeadMessenger
    June 28th, 2016 @ 3:37 pm

    Sounds reasonable to me.

  25. NeoWayland
    June 28th, 2016 @ 4:38 pm

    Now shush, you can’t tell anybody.

    Where would I be if everyone knew my core strategy?

  26. Adobe_Walls
    June 28th, 2016 @ 5:37 pm

    Excellent analogy.

  27. Adobe_Walls
    June 28th, 2016 @ 5:38 pm

    I find this very encouraging.

  28. Quartermaster
    June 28th, 2016 @ 7:30 pm

    I wouldn’t say “nobody.” The movement is picking up adherents slowly, for now. Stuff that we’ve seen in Ferguson and Baltimore, and the antics of BLM, have given some people a push into a number of forms of white tribalism as people see what the left is really all about.

    Like it or not. Think it’s despicable all you like, if things stay on the road they are on, they are going to pick a lot of people just as the resistance movements of the period 1867-1877. The Klan and Wade Hampton’s Red Shirts, along with 2 or three other groups, became powers to be reckoned with as the corruption of the Yankee occupation grew. It almost lit off the war again, and it would have been far nastier than Lincoln’s war ever was.

    If the trash doesn’t stop, diversity is going to get us into a low intensity conflict, if not worse.

  29. DeadMessenger
    June 28th, 2016 @ 9:42 pm

    Don’t you think that SHTF is ordained?

  30. Quartermaster
    June 29th, 2016 @ 5:05 am

    No. While there are a few things that God fore ordains, most things simply occur with God simply allowing them to happen. God does have exhaustive foreknowledge, however, since he inhabits eternity and so sits outside time with a ring side seat.

    There are people that equate foreknowledge with predestination, but both Paul and Peter taught that they are different things.

  31. Daniel Freeman
    June 30th, 2016 @ 12:21 am

    Conditional prophecies imply that there’s a real choice. My favorite is Jonah, because of his self-centered annoyance at his warning being negated by Ninevah heeding it.

  32. Daniel Freeman
    June 30th, 2016 @ 12:45 am

    I think that’s an insult to fascists, who — as I understand it — started out reacting to commies’ anarchic street violence. There is nothing new here; even the pinkos’ fake pose of virtue is older than brown shirts.

  33. News of the Week (July 3rd, 2016) | The Political Hat
    July 3rd, 2016 @ 8:10 pm

    […] “By Any Means Necessary” The radical left hates the First Amendment and loves violence […]