Posted on 08/14/2017 12:32:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
One sentence stands out as a unifying principle in the aftermath of a bleak weekend in Charlottesville. After that, everything devolves into the pandering and posturing which are the daily din of the current age. So here’s that statement, and a Q and A flowing therefrom:
The intentional vehicular murder of protesters Saturday was an act of domestic terrorism, seemingly motivated by supremacist hate. Such acts need to be identified as such by every American, starting with the President of the United States.
There. Now the complexities:
Q: If that’s so obvious, why didn’t President Trump dwell at length on the racist/supremacist/Nazi flavor of that violence? Is it because he secretly harbors those views, or basks in the welcome support of those who do?
A: No. It is because he knows his haters stood ready to beat his brains in if he didn’t exude precisely the right flavor of revulsion, not just toward violent racists, but toward the ill-defined “alt-right,” or portions of his own staff who have been conflated into supremacist, even Nazi status by the left. His calculation was to deliver broad criticisms of bigotry and hate, which could be criticized by no one, thus driving his most inflamed critics crazy.
Q: How did that work out?
A: Not well, due to one problem: Basic human decency, as well as proper presidential decorum, required a calling-out, by name, of precisely the ideology that led to the murder of Heather Heyer. This was a particularly glaring omission from a President who spends a lot of time (rightfully) busting the chops of anyone reticent to identify radical Islamic terrorism by name. Other Republicans did it effortlessly; they should have been led by the President of their party.
Q: So did critics go after him with skill and precision?
A: Of course not. Democrats in particular overplayed their hand exponentially, suggesting Trump has a Klan base he wishes to satisfy, and a racist heart he wishes to conceal.
Q: But isn’t it problematic that a portion of the Trump base harbors those poisonous views?
A: Of course. Every politician would love to be supported by nothing but virtuous souls. But Republican voter rolls will contain the occasional racist, just as Democrat voter rolls will contain the occasional Communist and a bevy of violent radicals they rarely distance from at all.
Q: So is Charlottesville evidence of a growing wave of active racism rearing its head, energized by Trump?
A: Hardly. Most of the protests taking place at confederate monuments around America are not foremost about race. They are a response to the voices who seek to erase every vestige of the Confederacy as if failure to do so equates to wistful nostalgia for slavery. If a black man walked into a crowd at a Robert E. Lee statue and said, “I’m no fan of this guy, but I don’t think we should erase every Southern monument,” he’d be met with handshakes.
Q: So are there non-racist reasons to support leaving the monuments alone?
A: Of course there are. Most of the people arguing against their removal do not wish the South had won the Civil War.
Q: But if the monuments are becoming a rallying point for actual Nazis and supremacists, isn’t that a reason to dismantle them?
A: This was a point made by National Review’s Rich Lowry and others, and it is highly regrettable. You don’t let a sliver of idiots determine public policy on monuments, or anything else. If a broad and thoughtful debate leads to the removal or relocation of some statue or another, that’s one thing; knee-jerk haste is another.
Q: “A sliver?” How widespread are the people who embody the actual racism and virulence on display in Charlottesville?
A: A tiny minority, and it continues to shrink. An unfortunate by-product of the Trump ascendancy is that the micro-culture of ugliness within his base feels a spark of energy of late, bringing them out of the caves into which they had been chased in recent decades. This is how you get idiots like David Duke on video talking about the Charlottesville protests as “fulfilling the promise of Donald Trump.” (After the President’s Saturday condemnation of bigotry, Duke lashed out at Trump for “attacking” the original protesters.)
Q: So what’s the best thing President Trump can do now?
A: Show up a little late with what he should have shown up with at the outset—a specific rebuke to racists, and a clear statement that while some of them may support him, it does not mean he supports them.
Q: And what’s the best lesson for the nation?
A: That while our society’s racial enlightenment has been a remarkable journey, not everyone has traveled that path. When real hate is discovered, there should be no delay in identifying it and denouncing it by name.
But we should also be aware that the vast majority of Americans have long displayed exactly that behavior, and there are Trump-haters afoot, trying to paint him (and thus his millions of voters) as partners in that vile intolerance. This cheap political opportunism must also be resisted at every turn.
Premise not proved at this point. Stopped reading there.
He is just getting his info from the BSM. They purposefully inflated the body count.
“The intentional vehicular murder of protesters...”
Mr. Davis apparently thinks more than one protestor was “murdered” in Charlottesville.
I didn’t know that. Thank you.
Exactly.. That ticked me off! FoxNews once again showed themselves to be as bad as the Marxist Media.
Yeah. I am done with Fox. Over it.
More evidence: https://imgur.com/a/d3sFx#734YblC
Davis clearly declared the driving incident a "murder" and even claimed multiple protesters died, the latter of which is objectively not true.
Davis and you did not inform yourselves of the issue before posting!
Of this there can be no doubt.
False flag, trying to stir up/ create/ provoke some r w opposition.
We should...
1. do our dd and expose the charlatans, and their motives and their m.o. and...
2. plan ahead to de-escalate whenever and where ever they appear next.
The Media should be labeled a domestic terrorist group.. They purposely gin up racial conflict and violence with their agenda driven “reporting”.
State police ID troopers killed in helicopter crash near Charlottesville
It’s funny that people are using ear pepper spray on people. The kind that you use for people is way stronger. Bear pepper spray is so weak as to be useless against a grizzly bear and lack bears usually don’t bother people so they never need it. But if you need protection against bears use the stuff cops use on people.
Mind you I'm taking the "bear pepper spray" thing from people who were getting sprayed. If bear pepper spray really is that weak, maybe it was regular pepper spray, or they added something to it, and so people assume it must be for an animal. There is at least one fellow in hospital with possible permanent blindness.
IF this were true then the rest would follow. BUT...
“intentional” This has not been proven. It would be difficult to prove, or even know, unless one had telepathic abilities, and could go back and read the driver's mind at the moment of the incident.
“vehicular murder” Implies a reading of prior intent, which is lacking at the present.
“protestors” As far as I know, only one person was killed.
“motivated by supremist hate” Again, the assumption that the writer knows the driver's thoughts and feelings, which in fact he/she has no way of doing.
This sentence is a prime example of the behavioral/affective twisted thinking of ‘mind-reading’, the assumption that one knows and understands the thoughts and feelings, usually negative, of another, without evidence.
Accepting it as the premise for what follows is a logical fallacy. Let us not fall into the reasoning errors of our enemies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.