As many on this blog know, I have been highly critical of Donald Trump. However, there has been a campaign of violence against Trump supporters that is highly unnerving and dangerous. While there were a few incidents of Trump supporters acting violently, there has not been the same level of outrage at the widespread violence against Trump supporters and police at these events. Now, a liberal Huffington Post columnist Jesse Benn has defended the “violent response” to Trump — a reckless and provocative column that seeks to legitimate mob justice. What Benn is describing is not democracy but ochlocracy — a sad statement of the state of affairs in our country. While I recently wrote about liberals finding “their inner Nixon,” this seems to be a case of finding Benn’s inner Mao. Benn insists “Violent resistance matters. Riots can led to major change.” Perhaps but what is certain is that violent resistance always leads to violence.
Benn’s column “Sorry Liberals, A Violent Response To Trump Is As Logical As Any,” embraces the value and even beauty of mob violence. He calls it “logical” in the face of what he views as Trump’s extremism.
Yet, a lot of people seem shocked and appalled at this perfectly logical reaction. In the face of media, politicians, and GOP primary voters normalizing Trump as a presidential candidate—whatever your personal beliefs regarding violent resistance—there’s an inherent value in forestalling Trump’s normalization. Violent resistance accomplishes this
Benn praises violent mobs in Europe and suggests that it should be a model for the United States: “Understanding European anti-fascists use of violent tactics to shut down large rallies from White Supremacists can be illustrative here. Because while Trump isn’t leading full bore White Supremacist rallies, there is value in making it clear that even his fascism-lite has no place in civilized society.”
It is a view that rejects not only the rule of law but the lessons of Martin Luther King. Faced with opposing views on issues like immigration, Benn wants to answer with violence and even make such mob rule a noble act.
Benn has doubled down on Twitter, relishing the response and the prospect for more violence:
Benn is a familiar voice from history. The man in an angry mob calling for violence to silence those with opposing views. With a rising number of his countrymen embracing Trump, his answer is to beat them and intimidate them. His is the voice that Martin Luther King and Gandhi defiantly stood against at the risk of their own lives. Now some liberals have come to embrace the tactics of segregationists and anarchists who reject the political system as the means for change in a democracy. If Benn were simply some crank writing for HuffPost, it would be of little concern. However, the images from the streets across America show that he has a growing following of people who are claiming the right to silence those who disagree with their views and will not yield to their demands. Make no mistake about it. This is not a movement. It is a mob.
Today the left want to hurt you if you do not agree with their out of wack progressive agenda!
The majority of the so called “protesters” who are actually rioters don’t even know why they are there other than to attack people who are trying to attend a rally.
The violence and waving Mexican flag’s will back fire big time.
20 years ago the left was asking people to be tolerant!
I do not cater to Americans who have lived here all their lives or for many years but still cannot speak English or American without some Kraut accent or other accent– such as Henry Kissenger or old lady Huffington. Shut the uk up if you can’t sprech.
I would like to thank Oky1 for the excellent Alex Jones vid/with Binney. It goes to the reason why Larry Pratt talks about bullets over ballots (I disapprove of violence, except in cases of self defense).
Also, if you keep watching the video, there is a segment with Binney speaking alone and giving ideas about how to stop the despotism not only in the NSA but in the federal government. I have not listened to it all because I have to go, but so far it appears he is a better spy/analyst than a political philosopher. :o)
Our greatest hope of stopping the despotism is through NULLIFICATION. Nullify, nullify, nullify. Is there a company in your state helping the NSA gather data on you? Make it illegal. Is there a facility in your area (use the map Binney provides) that is gathering personal phone calls, email, etc on citizens? Outlaw it, send them a cease and desist, get a warrant, and send in the duly constituted militia to surround the place. Forbid delivery trucks to enter in. Forbid employees to enter in. Don’t like federal gun control? Make it illegal. Want draconian gun control? Make it legal. Want to smoke dope? Make it legal. Want to stop homosexual marriage and abortion? Make them illegal. This is how federalism is supposed to work.
There is a reason for the 2nd Amendment. And that reason is a rogue and despotic federal government that we now have.
Steven,
You posted a link (June 10, 7:19p)) to Crooks and Liars for a story about Larry Pratt suggesting bloodshed. I abhor any such suggetion. But he did not suggest targeting a group of people lawfully exercising their politcal rights. He suggested what the founding fathers suggested: arms resistance to despotism. And a high court overturning the 2nd amendment is despotism of a most serious kind that usually mass murder or enslavement. (Stripping citizens of guns is a precusor to it).
What Larry Pratt and all Americans need to learn about before it comes to bloodshed, is nullification. That is the only remedy we have not resorted to enough. The marijuana laws in Colorado and California are nullification laws and they lead the way out of our current discontents and faction.
If crazy Californians and New Yorkers do not like guns, they can ban them. If gun nuts in Kentucky and Arkansas love them, they can keep them. Then the role of the courts is to see that the states respect each others laws.
Marxists are always violent, if not now, then later.
I am in my 62nd year of life, a barely 5 foot 3 female who walks with a cane. It’s okay, I am better now and do not need the walker. I am grateful to God anyway. I started wearing a Trump t-shirt in September before he declared his run for the presidency. I wore the shirt just the other day. This guy wants a law abiding peaceful older woman attacked.
I suspect the violent fellow is a Democrat. They are the criminal types of America.
randyjet:
The Left is no longer the party of my grandparents. There are not just a few outliers. This is a trend, and it’s up to you guys, to fix it. There have been enough posts and news stories about the erosion of free speech on campus, Black Lives Matter mobs, and the like.
You guys can turn this ship around.
If you are going to grow a beard then grow a beard. You look like a dork when you have a little trickle of hair hither and yon on your face like this dork. Somebody needs to kick is ass.
So how about this even more threatening rhetoric on the right.
http://crooksandliars.com/2016/06/gun-owners-america-official-threatens
bigfatmike….actually, it isn’t true that “all the apparatus of state did not demonstrate an interest in protecting the civil rights movement”, as claimed by Dan.
Federal troops were sent to Little Rock to protect Black students, integrating a previously segregated school system.
The FBI did investigate at least some crimes against civil rights workers, and arrests were made in some cases.
Jury nullification resulted in “not guilty” verdicts for some.
RFK’s Justice Dept. was involved in resolving the “standoff” in Alabama when Gov. Wallace blocked the doorway to bar Black students from entering Alabama’s segregated college system.
JFK proposed, but never passed, sweeping civil rights legislation.
LBJ’s administration passed that legislation, overiding a Senate filibuster.
The President and Congress are part of the “apparatus of government”.
So it’s not accurate to claim that there was no support for the civil rights movement on the part of the government and law enforcement.
@tnash80hotmailcom: “So it’s not accurate to claim that there was no support for the civil rights movement on the part of the government and law enforcement.”
Thank you for pointing out an important aspect that I overlooked.
“The police, the FBI, and all the apparatus of the state did _not_ demonstrate an interest in protecting the civil rights movement. ”
Yet the civil rights movement prevailed,albeit with much work left to be done. Does anyone doubt that the FBI today will track down and arrest violent bigots – just ask some the Klansmen arrested in their dotage, just ask Thomas Blanton, just ask James Ford Seale. In the words of the SPLC “This arrest should send shudders through the ranks of others who committed heinous hate crimes but have not yet faced justice,”
“If you are not willing to commit, and risk, political violence, then you are likely to be communicating the fact that your movement can be ignored.”
So you are ready to go out and buy an assault rifle, ten 30 round magazines, and a thousand rounds of 5.56 NATO ammunition? That’s were it leads. That what you are talking about – right?
Pure moronic nonsense, enthused with the romance of violence.
“If Trumpistas were being allowed to run around beating on people, I would eagerly join the effort to put them down with force”
But would you? Like the rise of fascism, we have already seen this too. The police, the FBI, and all the apparatus of the state did _not_ demonstrate an interest in protecting the civil rights movement. And you will have noticed that the Occupy movement, which was committed to non-violence, felt the full weight of the police state, from surveillance to travel bans to thuggery.
If you are not willing to commit, and risk, political violence, then you are likely to be communicating the fact that your movement can be ignored. I need hardly point out that the Founding Fathers would not have accomplished anything if their treason had been merely rhetorical.
I don’t care what side of the political spectrum you are on. The only thing worse than advocating for bigotry, that I can think of, is advocating for political violence.
There is absolutely no indication that Trumps position cannot be defeated trough the usual political process and any violence from his supporters controlled through the efforts of LE.
There is no justification for violence from any side – left or right.
“During the Nazi rise to power, the fascists were allowed to have a monopoly of street violence. Some people are committed to overturning this precedent. I can’t support them, in part because of my own physical cowardice. But I can’t feel that they are necessarily wrong”
This is not Nazi Germany and no one is giving the Trumpistas a “monopoly of street violence.” Trump is clearly using elements of fascist rhetoric, but he believes in nothing. He is a pathological, antisocial personality. Even if he does win (I doubt he will) he will be treated as a joke by most people outside of his true believers and he will accomplish nothing. I think he’d be impeached after within two years because he is not even smooth about his lying and personal immorality.
When Trump’s minions attack, people have a right to defend themselves. The Trumpistas should be prosecuted, and some have been prosecuted already. Same goes for the Anti-Trump protestors, some of whom are criminals–Guilty of offenses such as assault, battery, arson and criminal damage to property–not demonstrators.
These are basic liberal ideas, Dan! Benn, as Professor Turley suggests, is a Maoist thug. He has a fetish for riots and bloodshed, but like you, is probably too much of a coward to actually get in the mix. No doubt he will want some poor person or minority to be on the front lines so he can keep sending his screeds to Huffington Post instead of spending time in a trauma room.
Dan, at least you have the integrity to admit that you are a hand-wringing pansy who is afraid of violence (Being afraid of violence never stops it, but I digress). But that doesn’t make it right for you to tacitly support the violence of those who wish to attack people for assembling freely to listen to an idiot. In my occupation, I have to deal with REAL aggression and violence almost every day. Perhaps those of us who encounter violence regularly treat it more seriously than vigorously bleating sheep such as Chairman Benn and yourself. If Trumpistas were being allowed to run around beating on people, I would eagerly join the effort to put them down with force (While you and yours cowered behind me). But that is not happening.
I heard on one of the online radio shows I listen to a caller claimed to be a member of Hell Angles & that they hated seeing the Trump supporters attacked & plan to start showing up at events as a protection force.
Also, Trump friend, Roger Stone & Alex Jone have been putting pro Trump group street rally to show up at Cleveland next month.
( And to further fuel violence, the city is forcing groups who support and oppose Trump to share a single parade route, demonstration areas and a “speaker’s platform” that individuals can “reserve” for 30-minute increments, all of which will trigger chaos given the anti-Trump protestors in California who chased down and physically attacked Trump voters.
“They’re inviting a bloodbath with the way they are setting it up,” said Ralph King of Citizens for Trump. “Instead of separating and just giving the permits out to where people wanted to have different marches and parades, now you have a fishbowl.”
Many of the anti-Trump protestors were funded by Hillary ally George Soros, and it’s a given that Hillary will blame the inevitable violence in Cleveland on Trump despite the city’s mishandling of the event – and the fact he can’t be held responsible for the behavior of leftist agitators. more……)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/cleveland-to-ban-trump-supporters-outside-rnc.html
randyjet – “If we were facing fascist gangs attacking Clinton or Sanders rallies, THEN I would be in favor of the left fighting back in the same way.”
Do feel the same way for Trump supporters fighting back? Or will you just say, see, there they are, being violent. Is it really only ok for Clinton and Sanders supporters to fight back?
Physical attacks on the enemies of Leftists has, of course, been promoted by many high levels of authority. Obama has been promoting this for some time. Clinton and Sanders have similarly promoted such attacks. And the Mainstream Media has taken and created every opportunity to do the same. And, of course, all of them blame the enemies of Leftists to justify those attacks, often using their favorite labels for the enemies of Leftists, calling them racists, bigots, xenophobes, or Nazis.
When I was younger and a member of the Young Socialist Alliance at the U of Houston, during the oil crisis of the 70s, we thought it would be good to find out what EXXON had to say about the situation. So we sponsored a spokesman for them to address an open meeting at the U of Houston. He spoke and afterwards we asked a number of pointed questions, and we thanked him for his time and effort. So I take great exception to the idea that the left has a tradition of muzzling those who we disagree with.
I quite agree that this guy is not on the left. He is a reflection of the Stalin/Mao school of politics. While Trump is reactionary, and promotes political violence at his rallies, he is NOT fascist, and is not even close to that yet. Using history of Germany in the 30s, when there was a REAL fascist movement, the Nazis were the violent political ones who had the support of the police and army. The SPD and the KPD and other parties then started their own militias to defend themselves. Trump has not come close to anything like this. In such circumstances violence is certainly justified. If we were facing fascist gangs attacking Clinton or Sanders rallies, THEN I would be in favor of the left fighting back in the same way. I hope this guy has his forum pulled since he is a curse and his views are so distorted that he is an embarrassment to us..
Off Topic regarding your recent post about coral bleaching. I rarely read The Guardian, but my sense is it would not publish a positive story about the coral recovery. If true, then you may have missed this story.
“Scientists from Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) examined 12 reefs off the Townsville coast, between Northern Hinchinbrook and Cape Bowling Green. AIMS found 11 reefs had continued to recover since being damaged by Cyclone Yasi in 2011.
Scientists also found coral cover on seven of the reefs were at its highest levels since they were first surveyed 30 years ago.”
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-08/great-barrier-reef-survey-off-north-qld-finds-increase-coral/7492870