Chilling Threat of Violence in Portland

[Mountaineer]

Via Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic

Chilling Threat of Violence in Portland

On the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated, perhaps 3 million Americans took to the streets in peaceful protest to register their opposition. When news of his travel ban broke, I stood at LAX watching Angelenos sing the Star Spangled Banner and Amazing Grace. Across the nation, peaceful protest against President Trump continues. But a violent fringe has been using Trump’s rise as a justification for political violence, as if his authoritarian impulses justify authoritarianism from his opponents.

This tiny faction knows that most of their compatriots on the left are committed to nonviolence, so they frame their aggressive actions as a narrow exception to the rule.

Most famously, they insisted that it was okay, or even righteous, to punch white supremacist Richard Spencer because he was “a Nazi.” That position impels the debate down a slippery slope. And now, activists in Oregon caused the cancellation of the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade, a community event in the southeast quadrant of Portland, by threatening to forcibly drag “fascists” off the parade route if they weren’t excluded.

It is interesting, and sad, to see some on the left implementing exactly what they feared from some on the right.

I enjoy a good salad dressing, but it requires something, an emulsifier or vigorous shaking, to bring the various ingredients together. Left alone, oil and vinegar do not mix well. That is what I see happening in our country; both sides of the divide promote divisiveness with little value for the other, or for those in the middle who for whatever reason, still have their emulsifying agent (Christianity? Work ethic? Understanding and appreciating history?) in place. God help us when we devolve into the really vigorous shaking stage (shades of 1776).

[moda0306]

Looking back to when John Brown was killing slavery advocates in Kansas, as well as all the other historical examples of the openlyviolent wing of "progressivism," I'm really not surprised nor uniquely concerned by this. I'm far more concerned by the hundreds of millions of sheeple who are fine when a department store block streets for a parade but are up in arms any time a protest does.

I'm not advocating violence so much as not concerned by every fringe bit of it that the news puts in front of us while Monsanto and Nestle and the CIA slowly murder us.

[Benko]

It is interesting, and sad, to see some on the left implementing exactly what they feared from some on the right.

It is expected that the left is doing what they accuse the right of. This happens all over the place. Using violence to help stop "fascist speech" is just so typical. Not you and maybe not lefties you know, but just listen to the news, read posts by typical lefties.

Left=projection.

[dualstow]

Via Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic

Chilling Threat of Violence in Portland
It is interesting, and sad, to see some on the left implementing exactly what they feared from some on the right.

I never thought I would be terrified by the left in my lifetime, but it has happened over the past few years. The Middlebury mob, and others like it, which we have discussed recently. The Black Bloc. I can't say I was upset about a white supremacist getting punched in the face.
But, speakers getting shouted down on university campuses? Unis are supposed to be bastions of free speech.

I'm disgusted with the left these days, and not only the thugs that glom onto their protests.

[moda0306]

Via Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic

Chilling Threat of Violence in Portland
It is interesting, and sad, to see some on the left implementing exactly what they feared from some on the right.

I never thought I would be terrified by the left in my lifetime, but it has happened over the past few years. The Middlebury mob, and others like it, which we have discussed recently. The Black Bloc. I can't say I was upset about a white supremacist getting punched in the face.
But, speakers getting shouted down on university campuses? Unis are supposed to be bastions of free speech.

I'm disgusted with the left these days, and not only the thugs that glom onto their protests.

You're terrified? Could you elaborate as to how these types are a meaningful statistical threat to you? To me it's standard stuff. We've seen this before. The left-wing anarchist/communist/labor movements of the late 19th and early 20th century, for instance.

[dualstow]

I've seen sharks before, too, but somehow that doesn't console me when I'm in the water with them.

[moda0306]

I've seen sharks before, too, but somehow that doesn't console me when I'm in the water with them.

Cept you're figuratively in a lake where your chance of dying of one of a few thousand other ways is leagues higher than having some anarchist toss a Molotov cocktail at you.... errr getting bitten by a shark.

The tacit acceptance of government violence and unmitigated pollution by most liberals and the vast majority of conservatives is far more dangerous to human life than left wing protestors. And it's not even all that historically unique.

If you could recreate the 1919 anarchist bombings today, I can't even imagine the massive hysteria we'd have in response. Yet it still wasn't be a fraction of the threat to folks than Harry f'ing Anslinger... a conservative that used established institutions to keep them blacks in their place.

[Maddy]

Their whole purpose is to sabotage the social fabric and legal underpinnings of Western society, a process which has been proceeding according to script since at least the 1950s and which in recent years appears to have been embraced, to one degree or another, by a majority of the Left. That is statistically unlikely that any one of these misfits will crack my head open is not my concern; however, the damage they are doing to the culture and the rule of law is.

[moda0306]

Their whole purpose is to sabotage the social fabric and legal underpinnings of Western society, a process which has been proceeding according to script since at least the 1950s and which in recent years appears to have been embraced, to one degree or another, by a majority of the Left. That is statistically unlikely that any one of these misfits will crack my head open is not my concern; however, the damage they are doing to the culture and the rule of law is.

So all the left-wing quasi-socialist labor movements of the 1800's weren't challenging "Western society"?

Also, were all the sheeple within the the US populace that tacitly or overtly supported police brutality, the drug war, and the US government engaging in domestic and foreign crimes and atrocities as big a threat to the "rule of law" as the lefties protesting?

Watching people get up in arms about the rule of law has become a joke to me. Nobody cares about the rule of law. Fucking nobody. All they care about is making society the way they want. Law and enforcement thereof is just a tool to do so. If we enforced all laws tomorrow we'd all be in jail, including our politicians and elites. Right next to those Mexicans we don't want on "our" land.

The "left" of the 1960's just did things in a more brash way than the people in the generation before them. Their parents weren't pissed because they were breaking the law. They were pissed because they were rejecting their partially bs puritanical cultural beliefs for similarly bs anti-establishment cultural norms.

When I see conservatives advocate for arresting presidents for war crimes then I'll believe, maybe, that they actually care about "the rule of law."

[moda0306]

I'll add that if it wasn't for "the left" in this country during the 1960's, the level of profiteering imperialist atrocities by the perma-war right and "center-left" (think LBJ) would have been far, far worse. This country needed to wake the f up, and it wasn't going to be the sheeple still in a trance from the post-WWII high about what America "stood for" to do the job.

[Benko]

Moda,

Didn't the 1960s left actually believe in free speech?

[moda0306]

Moda,

Didn't the 1960s left actually believe in free speech?

I haven't seen a good poll on the degrees to which "the left" of the 1960's believed in some ideal degree of free speech. Some absolutely did. Others were probably authoritarian Marxists. Others most likely potheads who didn't like cops and liked easy women so they joined a group. One of my favorite lefties is Noam Chomsky. He is certainly a good free speech advocate imo.

But the point isn't that their philosophy is perfect... it's that without them there would've been no check on our "new right" and "center left" committing atrocities within the FBI, CIA, state department and military. Neither the left nor the right were stalwarts of the best aspects of so-called "Western Civilization." I don't see any reason why some hippies on the left should get so much negative attention to that affect.

More importantly than if some powerless hippies advocated free speech is whether secretive, violent entities such as the ones mentioned above are a threat to it. And they certainly were then, as they are today.

[Maddy]

Moda, I strenuously disagree that concern for the rule of law is just a pretext for wanting things the way you want them. In the relatively short period of time that my life revolved around law (30 years, more or less), I witnessed a literal dismantling of a magnificent, incredibly orderly, body of law that had evolved in incremental fashion over several centuries--to the point where the law had become a disorganized hotbed of sophistry and the court system was one big wheel of fortune. It would take far more time than I have this morning (and more thought than I care to give it right now) to provide a coherent description of what I saw occur, but suffice it to say that it caused me to abandon a profession that I loved and to give up on a cause that I believed in passionately.

[moda0306]

Moda, I strenuously disagree that concern for the rule of law is just a pretext for wanting things the way you want them. In the relatively short period of time that my life revolved around law (30 years, more or less), I witnessed a literal dismantling of a magnificent, incredibly orderly, body of law that had evolved in incremental fashion over several centuries--to the point where the law had become a disorganized hotbed of sophistry and the court system was one big wheel of fortune. It would take far more time than I have this morning (and more thought than I care to give it right now) to provide a coherent description of what I saw occur, but suffice it to say that it caused me to abandon a profession that I loved and to give up on a cause that I believed in passionately.

Could you elaborate for me a bit? I'd be curious to get an idea of how your perception of our legal system has changed over time.

[Benko]

Moda,

Regarding rule of law: how do Rs treat their own who break the law e.g. how do fellow congresscritters treat their own who break the law? How do Ds treat their own who break the law? How many Ds condemn violence?

"without them there would've been no check on our "new right" and "center left" committing atrocities within the FBI, CIA, state department and military"

Whatever virtues of the left decades ago, the point is what the left is doing now. And as a local radio personality said, you can tell what the left is up to by what they accuse the right of.

[dualstow]

Moda,

Didn't the 1960s left actually believe in free speech?

Ha!

[WiseOne]

Maddy, I'd love to hear your perspective on how the law profession has changed, if you have time one day.

It sounds like something as cataclysmic as what's happened in medicine, and maybe the causes are the same. I was thinking about this more lately, after a very prominent (as in department head-level with an international reputation) colleague decided to semi-retire early. He told me it was because he just couldn't take clinical practice anymore, due to what it's become in the last several years. It's a devastating loss, as there probably aren't more than 10 people in the U.S. in his field, of his caliber.

[Maddy]

I'll give some thought to the subject as I toil in soil today. This being the first opportunity to get things in the ground post-monsoon, it's my priority today. Meanwhile, WiseOne, it would be very interesting to get your perspective on how the practice of medicine has changed. Maybe a new thread?

[WiseOne]

You're on! After you. I've griped about medicine more than you have about law, so you get the floor first.