Racists, Charlottesville, and Republicans

The Ku Klux Klan marching to 1924 Democrat convention in NYC

I could never be a member of the Democratic Party, if only because of their history. If you haven’t already seen this very informative video featuring Professor Carol Swain about the Democratic Party’s long history of racism in America, you should watch it now.

I will never join the Republican Party either, because I can’t abide the stupidity of their current leadership in Congress, or the fact they don’t seem willing to keep their campaign promises. ( see John McCain.)

I love my friends on Facebook. They know me well. Yesterday when I started posting pictures of puppies, kittens, and flowers on Facebook, they recognized the calm before the storm. Some wondered if they’d missed it. Nobody missed anything.

Yesterday, the pot was still simmering. We’ve finally reached a full boil. It’s time for me get it off my chest and toss in my two cents on this recent debacle in Charlottesville. I’ll start with the reasons for both protests, why it became violent, and my opinion on who were the bad guys.

The short answer is, everyone involved.

Charlottesville began when a few politicians decided that some statues of Confederate generals so grievously offended them that they must be removed from public property, announcing their plans in advance. Some might believe the announcement was a necessary public service, but more cynical minds could suspect the Democrat politicians running both the city and the state had schemed to manufacture the crisis to come.

Large numbers of skinheads and neo-Nazi thugs blatantly used the event as an excuse to draw attention to themselves, using unsubtle reminders of their despicable past. Perhaps there were a few peaceful protestors on the side who didn’t want the statues removed, but if they had any sense, when the Nazis showed up they would have left. About the only things missing were hoods and sheets.

When my Yankee friends mention the Civil War I often jokingly ask, “Did you mean the War of Northern Aggression?” but in reality, the Civil War was a necessary evil fought largely in order to end a much greater evil. Yes, there was the issue of state rights versus federal rights, but that issue stemmed from the fact Southern states wanted the right to perpetuate human slavery.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 to promote freedom, in direct opposition to slavery. Personally, I couldn’t give a rat’s rear-end about a statue of Stonewall Jackson. In fact, I will go as far as admitting that I’m pleased that a statue of a man who deserved no honors, Roger Taney, was recently removed from the Maryland state capitol grounds.

But at the same time I’m very concerned at the direction this is heading, where political correctness allows radicals to purge history. Thomas Jefferson was one of the most important Founding Fathers. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, served as the third President, and founded the Democratic Party. But he also owned slaves, which means that somebody with a thin skin is going to want all the great things he accomplished to be ignored. Al Sharpton has already called for defunding and removing the Jefferson Memorial from Washington, D.C.

While I am a staunch supporter of free speech, I have to wonder at the people the media choose to give a platform. Al Sharpton has no business lecturing anyone about race relations. He has freedom of speech, and I have the right to ignore him. Now we even have moronic local politicians calling to have the carvings sandblasted off Stone Mountain.

I have never owned a Confederate flag and never will. I’m not proud of the fact that once upon a time, America allowed slavery. I’m also not proud of everything I’ve done in my life, either. If we forget our mistakes of the past, we will be doomed to repeat them.

But I don’t have any blood on my hands. On the other hand, Al Sharpton does.

As a human being in the early 21st century, it is hard for me to grasp the idea that a person might own another person, and that once upon a time, a man named Dred Scott was considered a piece of property, not a human being. Then I must remind myself that slavery still exists today, in part because people like me don’t do enough to make it stop.

For the record, David Duke and Al Sharpton are birds of a feather. Both men incite hatred and violence based on the color of skin, not the content of their victim’s character.

One the most hateful and divisive pejorative that someone can call another human being is “Nazi”, but “KKK sympathizer” is a pretty close second. So describing those people as “Trump supporters” is a great way to demonize your intellectual opponent, but it isn’t a very effective way of fostering dialog, if the goal is to reach a common understanding, and maybe even agreement.

Both the KKK and neo-Nazis are deplorable. And so are/were the Socialists and Communists. Nobody (in their right mind) wants to be associated with an ideology willing to murder millions of human beings simply because of their race or their belief in a different god than their God. Yet during World War II over six million Jews were slaughtered like sheep by Hitler and his Nazi scum. There is even a special name for this sordid historical event, called the Holocaust.

It was a special kind of evil. But if anything, the Communists were even worse. While virtually everyone has heard of the Holocaust (a few wackos who don’t deserve mention might deny that it happened, but the evidence is irrefutable, really) not nearly as many are familiar with the Soviet Holomodor in the Ukraine that allegedly killed 20 million people by forced starvation. The one thing Fascists and Communists clearly have shared in common is a willingness to use violence and terror to silence, intimidate, and murder their opposition.

Which takes us back to Charlottesville — on the one side, we had mostly neo-Nazis and on the other, we had mostly Socialists and Communists, or roughly translated, the AntiFa crowd. A few good people might have been on either side, but most of those involved in the protests on both sides were bad actors. Unfortunately, that includes the police and politicians.

Don’t forget, the people in charge here were Democrats. Rahm Emanuel famously said that a crisis was a terrible thing to waste, but I’m not sure that he meant that it was a good idea to create one.  If the police were on-site (as reported) but ordered to stand down and allow the violence to happen, the politicians have blood on their hands. If the police were there and left out of fears for their own personal safety, they aren’t worthy of having the badge and gun. So the Democrats in charge should be firing the police chief or supervisor who was responsible, if they weren’t responsible themselves. In that event, a resignation would be in order. And if the police weren’t there on the scene at all, reporters better stop lying to me…but then again, if the cops weren’t there, where were they?

Democratic mayors in Berkeley and Baltimore allowed rioters to destroy private property, so maybe they thought it would be okay if only property got hurt. This isn’t exactly a new tactic.

However, the AntiFa protestors are violent, intolerant extremist thugs. They name their organizations with acronyms such as BAMN, which stands for “By Any Means Necessary.” Just let the implications of that phrase sink into your mind for a moment.

If you still don’t get the picture, then watch this video as a supporter of Donald Trump not hurting anybody is smashed over the head with a heavy object by a coward wearing a mask, hiding in the crowd.  I don’t understand how “good people” in a crowd could see someone hiding in their midst commit such a despicable act and do nothing, unless they agreed with the tactic.

Recently I’ve seen a lot of people on the internet choosing one side, and in my opinion, they’re choosing the wrong side if they choose either. Any side willing to use violence when their rhetoric fails to persuade is beneath contempt. That includes the neo-Nazis, radical Islamists, BAMN, Black Lives Matter, and any other extremist organization with members willing and eager to injure, maim, or kill those with whom they disagree.  There are none righteous, not even one.

When did the Republicans become a haven for racists and Nazis? The better question might be, when did the Democrats stop? Yes, Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law in 1965, but he also allegedly claimed to have said he’d “have those n*****s voting Democrat for 200 years.”

If we’re going to destroy the history of Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic Party would be an excellent place to start. If Republicans are perceived as the new home for racism, we can get rid of them, too. Maybe e should start new political parties and get rid of the useless baggage. We could call things what they are: conservative, moderate, or liberal.

For the record, I am a fiscal conservative, and a social moderate. That means as a social moderate/libertarian, I think it’s none of the government’s business what you do inside your own home, even if it’s using heroin. People shouldn’t be arrested for stupidity.  As a fiscal conservative, it is my opinion that I should not be asked by the government to supply your heroin or pay for your rehabilitation. Creating a fund to help the less fortunate and asking for a charitable donation is fine — I’ve been known to be generous with my money in the past. But I’m not accustomed to giving away money that doesn’t belong to me.

Redistributing my income and calling it a tax is not fine. It’s legal theft. There is something wonderful in sharing what you have with those less fortunate according to your own free will, but nothing good or noble about taking money from one person and giving it to another by misusing the power of government to collect taxes.

If you disagree with me, terrific. We can argue about it all day. A very wise man once told me, “All God wants is ten percent.”

Now as a habit, I tell people who get angry and start making personal attacks that they’ve lost the debate, so make sure you don’t lose your temper and start with the labels like “Nazi” or “racist” because you’ll get hammered (verbally, of course.)

Naturally, as a writer, words and reason are my preferred weapon of choice. I’ll never throw the first punch that starts a fist fight. Perhaps my favorite line of all time was from the movie Time After Time, because it echoes my personal philosophy: “The first man to raise a fist is the man who’s run out of ideas.”

I don’t like to fight, and I don’t particularly enjoy arguing with people online, or in person. I haven’t thrown a punch since high school.I’d like to earn income from my novels, and my publisher is afraid that my persona on social media is going to kill future book sales. So I’m wondering if this effort to do something for the common good will hurt me personally.

[This is a brief commercial timeout complete with video, courtesy of Secondhand Sight. It would be very nice if you bought one of my books from Amazon today. If you’ve read them already, buy a book as a gift for a friend. Ebooks are only a few dollars and there are free Kindle readers for the PC. Or, if you’d like a signed copy of a print book or novel, send me a private message and we can work out the details. As you can see, I’m still trying to figure out a way to profit from writing all the time. I need to earn my keep, as they say. Thank you — The Management.]

So I really wish I could be quiet, and just mind my own business while the world goes to hell. I may be a novelist, not be a pugilist, but if someone else throws the first punch, I will finish the fight.

As always, feel free to share this with your friends, if you wish.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.