Via Instapundit: Details remain thin. It is not clear, for example, how many alt-right demonstrators were there, though many reports indicate that they were substantially outnumbered by counter-demonstrators, largely drawn from the same crowd that has been rioting at the drop of Donald Trump’s name since November 9.
So, obviously, this was a fraught moment. But what would have been the outcome had the police and the Virginia National Guard—both on hand in strong numbers—done their duty, enforced properly obtained demonstration permits, and preserved the right of the warring parties to make their respective points without being physically attacked, one by the other and vice versa? It’s worth remembering that Charlottesville did everything it could to prevent the demonstrations, issuing permits only after being sued by the ACLU. And when push came to shove—literally—on Saturday, police and National Guardsmen were to be found only on the periphery of the brawling. Indeed, the Virginia ACLU reported that police were refusing to intervene unless specifically ordered to do so.
“There was no police presence,” Brittany Caine-Conley, a minister-in-training at Charlottesville’s Sojourners United Church of Christ, told the New York Times. “We were watching people punch each other; people were bleeding all the while police were inside of barricades at the park, watching. It was essentially just brawling on the street and community members trying to protect each other.”
Almost at first contact, Charlottesville mayor Michael Signer and Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and cancelled the demonstrators’ permits, whereupon police began funneling the alt-right protestors away from the designated demonstration site—and, some reports have it, toward the counter-protestors. The carnage followed in short order. Whether the breakdown in police protection was purposeful—that is, intended to quash a constitutionally protected demonstration and provoke a violent confrontation—is a question unlikely to be pursued in Virginia’s present political environment. As partisan eye-gougers go, Governor McAuliffe, a Democrat, is near the top of the list; Mayor Signer, also a Democrat, seems to be cut from the same cloth.
But deliberate or not, the effect was the same: when the sun went down over Charlottesville Saturday, the First Amendment was lying in the dust, and the civic ties meant to bind all Americans were just that much weaker.
(Link to more)
10 comments:
Local governments allowing streetfighting for fear of offending the SJWs by forcing them to obey the law. Happened out here in Berkeley when the fascists vetoed talks by Milo and Coulter. Appears to have established precedent for selective enforcement of the law in this particular context. But precedent for selective enforcement of the law generally had already been established by the Obama Admin's rampant selective enforcement. That made it okay.
The alt right is armed and the next confrontation will result in many casualties.
The time to stop this was at Trumps rally in Chicago. When the police refused to apply the law to protect the first amendment rights of Trumps supporters it all went out the window.
It is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
They followed in the wake of Berkley. The Governor called the mayor and pretty much told him the what-for and the mayor reacted by telling the cops to stand down. It's pretty simple. Charlottesville mayors administration and the PD have blood on their hands from their inaction due to PC/SJW sensitivities.
I told you all that this would be happening more and more and that leftists are nothing but a stain on the American fabric and they are proving it. If no one here believes that Neo-Nazi's or the Nazi Party or white supremacists aren't of the left then you are delusional.
"[T]he First Amendment was lying in the dust, and the civic ties meant to bind all Americans were just that much weaker."
The Mayor of Charlottesville Michael Singer is culpable for the situation escalating.
McAuliffe is a thrall of the Ozark Mafia and the mayor is your garden variety Lefty weasel, and this sort of thing is becoming Lefty SOP (remember the Trump rally in Chiraq?).
Too bad the media can't keep the story these 2 nitwits told the cops to stand down off the Interwebz.
PS Of all the "Republicans" who criticize trump on this, all are Whigs except the One true Ted
Count me in the camp that finds this political theater to be over the top and boring. I also advise not defending the first group, even if they showed restraint. They aren't alt-right, unless you think national socialism is right. These were straight up Nazis carrying the banner to make it clear. They get rights too, but they aren't entitled to my defense or support.
Yeah, I've heard the saying, "first they came for X and I did nothing", but these Nazis weren't first, they are just the most recent. And as far as I'm concerned, this was blue on blue (actually red on red as one side literally carried the flag of the USSR and the other the Nazi flag).
Terry McAwful Clinton is a pile of shit.
The thing is they did not attack just Nazi's. They attacked everyone at the event. They attack Trump supporters. They shout down conservatives on campus. They try to impose speech codes. Quotas. Ban whites from events.
Every action breeds an opposite reaction.
I kept saying that the Deep State, the media and the left had to stop trying to reverse the election by illegitimate means or they will be sorry. Well that time has come.
It is not going to stop. It is only going to get worse. All of the Republican GOPe Nevertrumpers who cry and shit in their pants mean nothing. President Trump will never appease them no matter what he says or does. The danger is that he will go so far to appease them that he will lose his base. The white working class. The hillbillies so to speak. He is straddling a thin line. If he comes down on the side of the cucks and the press he will be destroyed.
The mayor tried to revoke the march permit. The ACLU represented the alt right group and a Federal Judge allowed the permit. You don't read this in the MSM do you? The mayor then told the cops to stand down, in essence revoking the judges order.
the concept of a permit to exercise your first amendment right to peaceably assemble, protest, associate, and speak is offensive on its face. Permitting a right is denying a right, because if a city or a state or a federal government deny you a permit to protest, then your 1A right has been denied.
Post a Comment