| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Violent Tribalism on Display in Charlottesville |
| 2017-08-17 |
| [Townhall] When it comes to political violence such as we witnessed in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend, there are no partisan "sides" to the issue. In an enlightened society, you either believe violence is an acceptable means to an end, or you do not. In this parity, there is no room for equivocation, where the perceived nobleness or virtue of one’s agenda can excuse it. Initiating force against any group or individual for the sake of achieving a political goal or simply making a political statement, is morally and legally wrong. Full stop. Last weekend was a national embarrassment in every sense of the word; from the pathetic display of a bunch of wimps carrying Tiki torches trying to look tough, to yet another appearance of masked "Antifa" thugs sucker-punching anyone with whom they disagree. Initially too, President Trump, missing what could have been a defining moment for his young presidency, tip-toed over the violence rather than offering a dose of his trademark blustering and rage to blast the neo-Nazis who reflect the worst side of humanity. Instead, Trump, like so many others on the Left and Right, once again attempted to distill the deplorable conduct into a political blame game, insinuating one side would have been "right" if not for the provocation of the other. Attempting to ascribe degrees of blame to the protest groups in Charlottesville misses the point entirely about today’s political violence. The Alt-Right’s venomous racism is no more, or less, contemptible than the Alt-Left’s belief that offensive speech must be banned at any price. Violence is violence, regardless of the politics behind it. If there is a side to the violence in Charlottesville, both of these groups are on it and deserve our scorn as practitioners of a toxic, post-modern mindset that there is no objective truth other than how they see it, and that protecting their truth is the true pubic good. In fact, aside from differing political agendas, these neo-Nazis and Antifa-ites are cut from the same cloth. Both wallow in delusions of self-righteousness, and embrace violence as an acceptable, if not noble, means of achieving their political goals. Most of all, they suffer from the same paranoia of oppression that drive them into virulent tribalism. "Tribalism is a product of fear," declared philosopher Ayn Rand, "and fear is the dominant emotion of any person, culture or society that rejects...reason." The reality is that our true enemy today is not a Nazi flag or a black balaclava; those are only physical manifestations of tribalism. Rather, our real enemy is the philosophy of those who use such symbols. It is the rejection of reason in favor of emotional sophistry driven by fear and designed to produce more of it. This is the source of today’s violence, and reflects the fact that only violence can exist in the vacuum of reason. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #3 Political violence has well established roots. Interesting bit on the bombers and their prison sentences: Robert Fassnacht was a 33-year-old postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. On the night and early morning of August 23/24, 1970, he had gone to the lab to finish up work before leaving on a family vacation.[20] He was involved in research in the field of superconductivity. At the time of the explosion, Fassnacht was in his lab located in the basement level of Sterling Hall. He was monitoring an experiment when the explosion occurred.[21] Rescuers found him face down in about a foot of water. He was survived by his wife, Stephanie, and their three children, a three-year-old son, Christopher, and twin one-year-old daughters, Heidi and Karin. Injured in the bombing were Paul Quin, David Schuster, and Norbert Sutler. Schuster, a South African graduate student,[22] who became deaf in one ear and with only partial hearing in the other ear,[23] was the most seriously injured of the three, suffering a broken shoulder, fractured ribs and a broken eardrum; he was buried in the rubble for three hours before being rescued by firefighters. Quin, a postdoctoral physics researcher, and Sutler, a university security officer, suffered cuts from shattered glass and bruises.[2] Quin, who became a physics professor at U. W. Madison, always refused to discuss the bombing in public.[23] Wiki Link |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-08-17 08:18 |
| #2 Violent tribalism at Charlottesville? It is a tested model the left has used since at least the 1960's and perhaps even before. The model is: 1. Some dog-whistle event is sponsored by some group. 2. The sponsoring group is usually the left. If an opposing group shows up, all the better. 2. It is usually sold as a "peaceful" protest. 3. A relatively small group of thug elements shows up to introduce violence. These are the hard-core professional activists, the head busters. 4. Violence then occurs. 5. Maybe someone dies, say someone on the left. 6. The MSM goes nuts and demonizes whoever is against their agenda. 7. They (the left and its propaganda arm, the MSM) hope fervently, that the death will be due to some stupid act by a white male extremist who is at the sponsored event. 8. The hapless person who gets killed often is some innocent. 9. The press and the left goes into a feeding frenzy with their martyr and endless stories about this 'terrible, terrible, most horrible event.' I've observed this same model or some variation of it used over and over during the past fifty years or so. During the 1960's, there were hard core sponsored thugs working behind the scenes to promote violence in such things as Kent State. Bill Ayers and associates traveled to the Mideast prior to the Arab Spring to "express solidarity." You'd think the press would catch on but most likely they don't 'catch on' because they are ideologically in step with those who promote these events. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-08-17 06:25 |
| #1 I don't see that's so unexpected about it. The progressives/melanin enriched/sexually aberrant keep treating white males the way Europeans treated Jews. But, these are not Jews: they are not a minority forbidden to own weapons. The fact that every antifa/BLM demonstration does not encounter sniper fire, shows how tolerant (maybe too tolerant) white male americans are. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-08-17 05:33 |