The University of Washington became the latest scene of Antifa violence this week with an attack on a conservative reporter and several other people. Antifa often attacks reporters who are critical of their actions and the videotape shows at least one person bleeding after the attack on reporter, Jonathan Choe, and his team.
The University of Washington issued a statement that campus police “are busy keeping the Turning Point USA event and other areas of campus as safe as possible. We take any assault seriously, and UWPD will be investigating these incidents, gathering statements and video footage that may be available.”
Despite the denial of its existence by figures like Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), I have long written and spoken about the threat of Antifa to free speech on our campuses and in our communities. This includes testimony before Congress on Antifa’s central role in the anti-free speech movement nationally.
As I have written, it has long been the “Keyser Söze” of the anti-free speech movement, a loosely aligned group that employs measures to avoid easy detection or association. Yet, FBI Director Chris Wray has repeatedly pushed back on the denials of Antifa’s work or violence. In one hearing, Wray stated “And we have quite a number” — and “Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a fiction.”
We have continued to follow the attacks and arrests of Antifa followers across the country.
Some Democrats have played a dangerous game in supporting or excusing the work of Antifa. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer. During a prior hearing, Democratic senators refused to clearly denounce Antifa and falsely suggested that the far right was the primary cause of recent violence. Likewise, Joe Biden has dismissed objections to Antifa as just “an idea.”
It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
Bray emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech: “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”
Bray admits that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists… From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.” It is an illusion designed to promote what Antifa is resisting “white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, ultra-nationalism, authoritarianism, and genocide.” Thus, all of these opposing figures are deemed fascistic and thus unworthy of being heard.
Bray quotes one Antifa member as summing up their approach to free speech as a “nonargument . . . you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”
We previously discussed the case involving another Antifa member who was convicted after taking an ax to the door of Sen. John Hoeven’s office in Fargo. He was given no jail time, and the FBI even returned his ax. He later mocked the government by posting on social media “Look what the FBI were kind enough to give back to me!”
For those who have sought to deny the existence of Antifa, this is Antifa.
When Biden basically denied the existence of Antifa when in a ‘debate’ with Trump (2020 campaign), that was one of the first signs that Joe’s cognitive decline was manifested, in public. Joe’s unsteady but relentless decline in brain function has to be a focal point in the Republican campaign against Joe’s being re-elected. And shame on Jill — for encouraging, even for just allowing, Joe to be used this way by the donkey party, and by those who are Joe’s
handlers.
“I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
This mantra has been rendered meaningless in the 21st century by anonymous postings put out to deceive, scare and intimidate, assassinate character, and otherwise silence one’s perceived enemies. The thing it totally misses is the responsibilities that parallel freedom of speech and thought — namely to be able to express yourself with civility (showing respect for others’ freedoms of thought and speech).
The overreach that “I disapprove of and won’t defend” comes in 4 broad categories:
— intentional deceits to advantage one’s self-interests over others’ interests (frauds)
— intending to bully, threaten, scare & intimidate others into self-censorship (silencing, cancelling, doxxing)
— urging others toward lawbreaking or incivility
— unhinged rants of the mentally ill, immature, inebriated, or paranoid (those not of sound mind to be given serious attention)
Tolerating these overreaches ultimately destroys the trust that holds a people together. This is the quandary we’re facing every day. The mantra JT quotes is naive idealism at its extreme.
The only way back to sanity is to seriously take up the topic of the responsibilities that accompany freedom of speech, then tackle the problem of the best means of enforcing norms (NOT govt. prosecution). I would start by repealing Section 230, because unmoderated social media emboldens irresponsibility.
Move to Canada, they are trying to serve-up the kinds of laws you want to bridle the citizenry with.
Regarding antifa, they are simply a giant duck-duck-goose act, where a goose (geese) will be slaughtered/martyred in a lame attempt to invoke Kent State and a subsequent children’s revolution. YAWN.
With all the eavesdropping the NSA, etc has at hand, groups like antifa and blm acting illegally is simply managed by the dnc and meant as fodder in the play for today.
Funny thing is, you cannot create a martyr out of a 90-IQ white junkie raised by marxist asshats. No one cares.
You kind of wander around somewhat passive-aggressively. Are you saying that Free Speech as we understand it at present (and for a long time before that) in the United States is a bad thing, and that the Democrats Antifa-Paramilitary groups should have carte blanche to disrupt, vandalize, burn and murder? That works both ways, you know. Personally, all I see when I see ‘Antifa’ is a bunch of chubby screeching women dressed in black and with an affinity for same sex fur trading.
Then govt. should have zero role in it, otherwise govt prosecution is the only result govt role will have in it.
Legislation is definitely not the answer. We have legislation, its called the Constitution, namely the first 10 Amendments i.e Bill of Rights. That’s the only legislation needed or applicable.
I agree whole heartedly with you that the anonymous postings have created a cesspool where any meaningful discussion or conversation is nearly impossible, but legislation is not a solution. Legislation of speech is the end of freedom.
The only way change will come to the problem is self regulation, meaning folks need to start stepping up and put their own names, their own identities behind their own words. And I believe it will happen in time, as folks grow tired of the infantile nature of the discourse that anonymity invariably produces, and start self identifying and respecting and acknowledging only those who do. Over time autonomy will become a pariah and any discourse thereby irrelevant to the majority. Over time our words will police themselves, and our interactions will naturally elevate as we elevate ourselves.
This is how all real change comes. At least with regards to society. Forced, compelled or legislated change seldom lasts beyond forceful authority.
When I was a small boy growing up in the then small but historic town of Fredericksburg Va, I remember dressing up one summer evening in 65 to walk down to the big movie theater on Caroline street with my Mom and sister. This was my first ever motion picture seen on the big screen, and the first time I’d experience color, (or the amazing sounds of the big bass speakers they had everywhere hidden behind curtains) and was a big night for me, so I remember it well.
My Dad was pouring concrete and would meet us later at the theater after he went home and got cleaned up and dressed in his Sunday suit. My Mom was wearing her fine Sunday clothes as was my sister and I had on my red blazer with the crest on the breast pocket (not sure what that crest ever meant lol, but it was there) and my clip on tie. I was puzzled why we were all dressing up just to go see a picture show but I went along with it figuring it was just my strict Baptist parents doing their thing (they were really Dutch Reformist but Baptist was the closest thing we could find in Fredericksburg at the time).
When we got to the theater I noticed all the men and women waiting outside in the line, all wearing nice suits, ties, women in fine hats and I realized it wasn’t some quirk with our family, this was a people thing. So I asked my Mom why people get dressed up just to go out to a picture show. I’ll never forget her response. She looked at me and said “its because people behave better when they are nicely dressed”.
She was right of course, they do, and they did. My more than half a century on the planet has more than shown me that as the decades advance. But there was another lesson there for me too, one I’d not glean until years later but nonetheless poignant, and that lesson is this was a societal thing, not a legislated one. There were no rules governing how we had to dress to get into the theater beyond the basic “shirts and shoes” required and I believe men’s shirts had to have a collar, this of course imposed by the private theater not some legislative body.
And that’s a lesson that’s stuck with me, that behavior, decency, personal responsibility and integrity, these things can’t be dictated by fiat. We can make laws but those laws don’t change perception.
We all know there are reasons some people must post anonymously. In some limited cases a person has a public facing role and can’t speak openly per the terms of their contractual obligations. In some other cases even rarer some may face some specific persecution or even bodily threat for speaking out against something, these sorts of situations usually being associated with whistle-blower protections and concerns. But these are the exceptions, not the norms.
In most cases the people commenting in here anonymously, which is pretty much everybody do so so they can speak more freely than if they put their own good (or not so good) names behind their words. Many others do so so they can hide behind various handles so they can appear to have more support for their positions or so they can appear to “gang up” on a given commenter and badger or harass them repeatedly without appearing to be doing so. Others just do it because its easy, and everybody else is doing it.
Whatever the reason an individual chooses to regularly comment anonymously the fact is most don’t need to do so. And when more and more commenters start choosing to put their own names behind their own words, then the value and integrity of those comments will rise in the eyes of others, and gradually more and more will do so and in turn the value of doing so will rise with the general community until they are the only comments the general readership will value.
This is why men like Jordan Peterson point out and correctly so, the enormous value of simply “doing the right thing” even if no one else is doing so, and how simply just a single individual choosing to do the right thing can have a positive impact on the society and world around them as a whole. And how each time one chooses not to, can likewise have an equal albeit opposite impact.
Typo correction; Spell check misinterpreted my mangled spelling of anonymity as autonomy, but I meant the former, not the latter.
pbinca is here to parade his graduate degree in a complete lack of self awareness:
This mantra has been rendered meaningless in the 21st century by anonymous postings put out to deceive, scare and intimidate, assassinate character, and otherwise silence one’s perceived enemies…
Can you say “My Soviet Democrat party commissioned foreign agents to write our ‘Russia Dossier’ to deceive and scare voters in the 2016 election”?
Can you say “Jake Sullivan, now our party’s National Security Advisor, created the lie about Trump being tied to Alpha Bank during that election”?
Can you say “Now Secretary of State Anthony Blinken engineered enlisting 50+ former intelligence agency bureaucrats to lie that the Biden laptop was Russian election disinformation in the 2020 election”?
When are you Soviet Democrat Useful Idiots going to stop blathering platitudes while you keep drooling over and voting for the very politicians whose campaigns are based on and dependent on lying about their opponents rather than running on their actual policies?
….the professor’s right, but here’s the rub.
H.R. 6090, the Antisemitism Awareness Act.
See, sooner or later, even the most stubborn deniers of reality will have to concede the great and awful truth.
There ain’t “2 sides”. There is no republican or democrat party. There’s just one party.
The Control party.
And they’re all in it, ….together.
…and lest the reality deniers try to kid themselves that this is about protecting Israel, allow me to illuminate.
The Bill ain’t about Israel.
Its about you.
A research group at MIT did a study on modern society. What they came up with was a complete and total sociatal collapse by 2040. Them they said it will happen sooner. We’re going to hell in a hand basket. Independent Bob.
Been saying for years the invention of the bureaucratic welfare state has been a complete and utter catastrophic disaster. The bill WILL come due. The only question is when. The worst part is virtually everyone knows collectivism always leads to failure but the so called “intellectual class” refuses to budge.
When you give tens of millions of people who can not govern their own life the right to say how the country is governed, why do you expect any outcome other than failure?
These self-proclaimed hunger strikers setting up camp on some random elite campus are crying because people aren’t coming out to them to give them health care. So . . . is this parody, or comedy, or are these people actually serious? It’s often so hard to tell these days.
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1787919997240496570
The comedy at Princeton never ends:
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1788296714836689137
GWU Hamas spring breakers are drunk on power. And virtue signaling. Like a Muslim drum circle at a Grateful Dead show.
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1788303094926758086
(Warning: salty language)
@oldman
Trust me: these spoiled little sh*ts smoke a big bowl of *themselves* every morning and think, dang, I am some GOOD sh*t.’ Pbbt. Impossible to take seriously. Administration is a disgrace to a disgrace. That no one will address it is an even more cowardly disgrace. Disgusting, all of them.
Put your crack pipe down.
“hunger strikers”
Apparently, they’re on hour 105. Looking forward to *day* 105.
ANTIFA = BROWNSHIRTS FOR DEMOCRAT [FASCIST] PARTY