President Trump was slammed by liberals after denouncing the “display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides” in the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Virgina “Unite the Right” rally.
The mainstream media was in an uproar over President Trump’s statement, claiming that he was creating a false equivalence between right-wing extremists and those counter-protesting. However, Trump’s statement is consistent with local police reports. “We were hoping that it would not elevate to this level of the violence that we witnessed amongst the participants in the crowds, on all sides. They were throwing bottles, they were throwing soda cans with cement in them,” said a Virginia police spokesperson, according to The Independent Journal Review.
Corinne Geller, the Virginia police spokesperson, went on to explain that protesters “were launching chemicals into the crowd,” without singling out either side.
Videos capturing the Charlottesville protests makes it abundantly clear that both sides arrived at Emancipation Park looking for a fight. White nationalists and Ku Klux Klan stood on one side, with Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters on the other. Both were armed with makeshift shields and bats.
Even left-wing New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg called out left-wing violence. “The hard Left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding ‘antifa’ beating white nationalists being led out of the park,” she tweeted.
White supremacy is a horrid and backward ideology that has no business in a modern society. However, white supremacists enjoy the same rights as all other Americans. It is easy to defend speech that one agrees with, but freedom of expression is truly tested when even despicable speech must be defended.
Neo-Nazis are despicable, but racist ideology should be beaten with ideas, not bats. If white supremacists are the intellectually stunted people that many liberals assume they are, then it should be effortless to vanquish them in the marketplace of ideas. Americans should not settle disagreements with violence. The ideas of neo-Nazis are horrid, senseless, and full of hate. Confronting them with violence only exemplifies the very ideology they espouse.
The Left is making this bad situation worse. By refusing to acknowledge that the Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters are just as guilty as the white supremacists for bringing violence to Virginia, the Left is only expanding the gulf dividing the Left and the Right.
As the Left continues to muddy the water, referring to moderate Republicans as alt-right extremists, it becomes increasingly easy for moderates to embrace extremist views. The more the mainstream media refers to President Trump as a racist, the more average Americans are willing to accept the term for themselves.
When characterizing half the country as neo-Nazis, the Left further pushes their victimhood ideology. The truth is, very few people in this country agree with neo-Nazis and the alt-right. But it’s awfully convenient for the Left to pretend many people do. That is the only way to justify their indignant cries that the country is racist, they’re victimized, and the government must protect them.
A young person hearing this nonsense will be discouraged from ever learning what conservatives really think because they’ve only heard all conservatives are neo-Nazis and are worthy of beatings with bats. This is just one way that the ungodly Left is dividing the country.
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