Below is my column in The Hill on the ongoing destruction of memorials and statues. After this column ran, I learned that one of the iconic busts of George Washington University had been toppled on my own campus. I did not learn that from our university, which was conspicuously silent about this destructive act at the very center of our campus. There is something eerily familiar in the scenes of bonfires with police watching passively as public art is destroyed. Such acts are akin to book burning as mobs unilaterally destroyed images that they do not want others to see. There are valid issues to address on the removal of some public art but there is no room or time for debate in the midst of this spreading destruction. Even when there is merit to objections to literally or artistic or historical works, mob action threatens more than the individual work destroyed by such action. The media has largely downplayed this violence, including little comparative coverage of an attack on the Democratic state senator who simply tried to videotape the destruction of a statue to a man who actually gave his life fighting against slavery in the Civil War. As discussed earlier, history has shown that yielding to such mob rule will do little to satiate the demand for unilateral and at times violent action. People of good faith must step forward to demand a return to the rule of law and civility in our ongoing discourse over racism and reform.
Here is the column:
The scenes have played out nightly on our television screens. In Portland, a flag was wrapped around the head of a statue of George Washington and burned. As the statue was pulled down, a mob cheered. Across the country, statues of Christopher Columbus, Francis Scott Key, Thomas Jefferson, and Ulysses Grant have been toppled down as the police and the public watch from the edges. We have seen scenes like this through history, including the form of mob expression through book burning.
Alarmingly, this destruction of public art coincides with a crackdown on academics and writers who criticize any aspects of the protests today. We are experiencing one of the greatest threats to free speech in our history and it is coming, not from the government, but from the public. For free speech advocates, there is an eerie candescence in these scenes, flames illuminating faces of utter rage and even ecstasy in destroying public art. Protesters are tearing down history that is no longer acceptable to them. Some of this anger is understandable, even if the destruction is not. There are statues still standing to figures best known for their racist legacies.
Two decades ago, I wrote a column calling for the Georgia legislature to take down its statue of Tom Watson, a white supremacist publisher and politician who fueled racist and antisemitic movements. Watson was best known for his hateful writings, including his opposition to save Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager accused of raping and murdering a girl. Frank was taken from a jail and lynched by a mob enraged by such writings, including the declaration of Watson that “Frank belongs to the Jewish aristocracy, and it was determined by the rich Jews that no aristocrat of their race should die for the death of a working class Gentile.”
Yet today there is no room or time for such reasoned discourse, just destruction that often transcends any rationalization of history. Rioters defaced the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and a statue of Abraham Lincoln in London. Besides attacking those monuments to the man who ended slavery, rioters attacked statues of military figures who defeated the Confederacy, like Grant and David Farragut, who refused to follow Tennessee and stayed loyal to the Union. In Boston, rioters defaced the monument to the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the all black volunteer regiment of the Union Army. In Philadelphia, the statute of abolitionist Matthias Baldwin was attacked, despite his fight for black voting rights and his financial support for the education of black children.
This systematic destruction of public art is now often rationalized as the natural release of anger by those who have been silenced or marginalized. Even rioting and looting has been defended by some as an expression of power. However, a far more extensive movement is unfolding across the country, as people are fired for writing in opposition to these protests. In Vermont, Windsor School principal Tiffany Riley was placed on leave for questioning protest rhetoric on Facebook, where she posted, “While I understand the urgency to feel compelled to advocate for black lives, what about our fellow law enforcement?” She was denounced on social media as “insanely tone deaf” and is being forced to retire.
At the University of Chicago, there is an effort to fire Harald Uhlig, who is a professor and senior editor of the prestigious Journal of Political Economy. His offense was questioning the logic of defunding the police and other messaging from the protests. Writers like Paul Krugman of the New York Times denounced him, and he was accused of the unpardonable sin of “trivializing” the Black Lives Matter movement. Professors across the country are being targeted because they object to aspects of these protests or specific factual claims. Students also face punishment.
Syracuse University student journalists at the Daily Orange have fired a columnist for writing a piece in another publication that questioned the statistical basis for claims of “institutional racism” in police departments. Adrianna San Marco discussed a study published last year by the National Academy of Sciences that had found “no evidence” of disparities against Blacks or Hispanics in police shootings. Such a view could be challenged on many levels. Indeed, this once was the type of debate that colleges welcomed. Yet San Marco was accused of “reinforcing stereotypes.”
The merging of journalism and advocacy is evident in academia, where intellectual pursuit is now viewed as reactionary or dangerous. Many opposed a recent recognition given by the American Association of University Professors to an academic viewed by many as antisemitic. I disagreed with the campaign against the professor as a matter of free speech. However, I was struck by the statement that she “transcends the division between scholarship and activism that encumbers traditional university life.” That “encumbrance” was once the distinction between intellectual and political expression. As academics, we once celebrated intellectual pluralism and fiercely defended free speech everywhere.
However, we now increasingly join the mob in demanding the termination or “retraining” of academics who utter opposing views. In my 30 years of teaching, I never imagined I would see such intolerance and orthodoxy on campuses. Indeed, I have spoken with many professors who are simply appalled by what they are seeing but too scared to speak up. They have seen other academics put on leave or condemned by their fellow faculty members. Two professors are not only under investigation for criticizing the protests but received police protection at home due to death threats. The chilling effect on speech is as intentional as it is successful.
Such cases are mounting across the country as academics and students enforce this new orthodoxy on college campuses. What will be left when objectionable public art and academics are scrubbed from view? The silence that follows may be comforting to those who want to remove images or ideas that cause unease. History has shown, however, that orthodoxy is never satisfied with silence. It demands speech.
Once all the offending statues are down, and all the offending professors are culled, the appetite for collective suppression will become a demand for collective expression. It is a future that is foreshadowed not in loud cries around the bonfires we see every night on the news. It is a future guaranteed by the silence of those watching from the edges.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.
Good article by Professor Turley. The corporate mass media is pushing the mob. They have for the past month or more been encouraging lawless behavior, rioting, looting, arson, and attacks on the police. They do this because it will scare police, make them stay home, anarchy will proliferate, the people will be oppressed by the mob, and feel unhappy, and possibly blame and abandon Trump. Which the corporate mass media, dominated and controlled by Silicon Valley’s plutocrats, wants ardently, to get rid of Trump, because he has put a crimp on their profits dealing with the CCP and exploiting the slave labor in China to assemble Iphones and other such similar juicy opportunities,. These opportunities have been narrowed by Trumps’ fair trade agenda. They hate him for it. They are out to get him and they have backed BLM with money and egg them on to more violence. This is a form of “color revolution” aimed at our very own govenrment.
And yet, keeping Turley’s thesis in mind, how ironic. Because, the corporate mass media are the ones who profit most from our system in the first place. It seems to me, they do not believe that the mob will produce any results besides the ones they desire. They believe they can unleash anarchy and it won’t bite them in the backside.
Well, time will tell.
these statues are mostly dead democrats who were pro slavery for decades. these biden voters who are destroying this country internally have to be stopped because the liberal mayors and liberal governors.you can destroy statues because you can never erase history of the pro slavery democrats.
It’s Newton’s third law again. The difference is that right wing extremists poke and prod for decades, making for inequality, racism, bigotry, and privilege; eventually called the status quo and seen as stability, regardless how potentially volatile. Then when the reaction comes, it is abrupt, and hard to understand. It contains its own extremism, bias, bigotry, and dangers; however, it is momentary and unfortunately necessary to bring to the surface the inequities that have festered for so long.
Of course the equal and opposite reaction contains wrongs; but they have an advantage in the social evolution of our society to a better place; they grab one’s attention and force discourse, unlike the extreme that caused them, the status quo. “It’s the way things have always been.” Typically this applies to stuff like: racism, bigotry, inequity, etc.
Isaac,
EXACTLY!
Get it through your heads – the US is now in a Marxist revolution. Those who are tearing down statutes don’t give a flip about black lives or slavery, they’re using them as a pretext to inflame poorly educated students and convert them to their cause. It’s the fruition of efforts begun in the fifties when Marxist organizers used Martin Luther King and other blacks who had been indoctrinated at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee to bring chaos throughout the country. Where this is all going to end is anyone’s guess. Civil war is not out of the question.
The BLM mob just beat a Democrat state senator in Wisconsin into unconsciousness. The revolution eats its own. Savages. Brutes!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/tim-carpenter-wisconsin-senator-protest.html
HERE IS MY FREE ADVICE TO DARING PLAINTIFFS COUNSEL:
HOW TO MAKE BIG MONEY AND GET JUSTICE FOR SMALL BUSINESS-PEOPLE HURT BY RIOTS
sue BLM for civil racketeering and premise it all on the acts of riot and crime. Intentional torts. You could have hundreds of suits against BLM. BANKRUPT BLM
Trust me the discovery will produce the evidence, you just poke hard enough. Soros, will he bail them out? Join some donor orgs up the chain and find out!
Here’s AN IMPORTANT tip. Don’t worry about joining bad guys who are insolvent. You join them anyways. They will screw up and help the case every step of the way.
You get defaults if they dont show and if they do you prod them with discovery harder than anyone. They will step on their tails and start blaming other codefendants. It will be a sheetshow.
You want an example of how it works? Well, just take a look at how they sued all the racists after Charlottesville. There’s your template right there. In fact, one antifa group is a codefendant itself to such a lawusit, redneck revolt. Just look them up, there’s a whole assortment of them.
Big fees on contingency for lawyers who have the cojones to step up and take the cases. The better funded codefendants WILL settle but don’t settle too fast.
Your perfect plaintiff is a burned and looted small business owner. Preferably a black plaintiff. Shouldnt be too hard to find since they were much victimized by the lawless rioters.
Get those runners moving. And you can come here and thank me for the great idea in a year. I wont even require a referral fee, I just laid it out all for free.,
Turley: “History shows free speech is the loser in mob action.”
******
Of course it does. That is the intention.
Destroying statues is part of the new Cultural Revolution. They want to burn everything down, according to the current head of BLM. Don’t be fooled by their rhetoric, this is for keeps.
Put another log on the fire. Cook me up some bacon and some beans. Go out to the west and trash some hogs. They all live in California.
It’s the Twilight Zone. It finally happened. The library got nuked.
The solution is pretty simple – STOP CAPITULATING TO IDIOT CHILDREN who possess all of the depth of a petri dish. I’m not referring to those making money or power grabs, but the rest of us. We stopped parenting like adults many years ago, now it seems we are applying the same logic to law. Alarm bells have been raised for years. Ideologues and robber barons are fairly powerless without minions, and at some point our reticence is going to be very difficult if not impossible to reverse.
I am an ignorant deplorable and am asking for help from the lefties on the blog. Everyone knows they are smarter (in addition to possessing moral superiority) and better informed.
It seems the same people who claim to oppose censorship and book burnings by regimes such as National Socialist Germany, support censorship and the current trend towards hate speech laws, speech codes and big tech censorship happening now in the US. It also seems that have no problem with the tearing down of statues and history.
SOOO, Nazis opposed free speech but if I support free speech that makes me a “nazi”. In addition, I also suspect that I am probably a “nazi” because I oppose the removing of statues and history.
Seems inconsistent. I thought leftists were the greatest supporters of free speech and tolerance in the world.
Need help with this one. I am an ignorant deplorable, need an explanation why this is ok.
antonio
At least in terms of a discussion about what to do with certain artifacts, it is interesting that you bring up the Nazis. At least in terms of the confederacy, a discussion of what to do with confederate artifacts should take place within the same mindset as the mindset Germans used to discuss Nazi artifacts.
It is one thing for a German family to visit the grave sight of a family member who died in World War II. Quite another to plant a swastika at his grave.
@steve J
The point I was making was the inconsistency between the those who claim “tolerance” as their supreme virtue and their desire to shut down any speech they oppose.
Men such as US Grant thought the Confederates to be decent (though mistaken) men. There is no comparison between honoring the Confederates and Nazis. And generations of Americans including Dwight Eisenhower thought the same. Kept a picture of Robert E. Lee in the Oval Office. Maybe Ike was a secret “nazi”, eh and he needs to be “cancelled”? Congress passed legislation in 1929 recognizing the Confederates as any other American veterans. If the Confederates were traitors, so were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Oh, wait, there statues are being torn down also.
antonio
I did not mean my comment to be taken as a dispute with yours. Just an add on. In fact, you should be perfectly free to fly a swastika if you choose. As you point out, to ban it is to do something at least in part as to what the swastika stands for. But there is a mindset by some with regard to the confederacy that is a poison on our society and simply boggles the mind.
the logic of the mob is clear. the statutes are of white men so they are attacked. not only confederates. but this is why they are also attacking lincoln’s statute, and white abolitionists; this is why they are attacking washington and jefferson and in England, Churchill, of all people. figure that one out. they are all white, that’s all it takes for black mob to hate you. that white skin. the lesson is now proven over and again thousands of times.
this is why they attacked a Wisconsin Democrat senator. because he is white. he is just “collateral damage” for the ambitions of his own party leadership
how much more than will YOU a petty white liberal who does not even have a state office, how much more the Democrat leadership is willing to sacrifice you too?
the mob is a black lynch mob that wants to lynch whites today for all the lynchings they have been taught were done on their ancestors. and indeed there were lynchings, though perhaps not as many as they believe. or perhaps there were. it does not matter. those people are all dead, but we yet live. for now.
quite simply, if you wear the white skin you are the target whether you are Democrat or not. wake up you white fools liberal democrats. do you want to die just because?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/tim-carpenter-wisconsin-senator-protest.html
every cop knows the truth of this and now every black cop knows that he too is counted among the targets. there is now the side of anarchy which seeks to liquidate white people, riot loot and steal and attack cops and crush icons, to prepare for attacking us., that’s what comes after they beat down the police,. they take out the security first, the shepherds, then they will slaugher the sheep. this is how it happens.
or not, if we find new shepherds fast who will arrest this dynamic and take these jackals and liquidate them., Liquidate them. If they can’t be arrested then they must be terminated where they stand. They are terrorists to our lives and our law and order so let them be treated accordingly.
now just to be clear, I don’t mean to suggest law abiding black folks are the enemy. they are not. and even the street thugs are just opportunists,. but they can and will kill you opportunistically if you are caught at the wrong place and time., so that makes them a little enemy
the big enemy is who? Silicon valley chieftans who hate Trump so much they would unleash this chaos with their propaganda manipulations and money. And the likes of Geo Soros global financier who has been building up to this moment for years now with his billions of donations. Those are the big enemies.
For them we can destroy their rackets with antitrust law and we must, fast.
And sue Geo Soros for criminal conspiracy civil RICO damages to property and business and lives lost in he riots., he is the strongest hand behind all this chaos.
But it should not stop there. Empty his fat pockets of their gold, by national action. But do so by any means necessary. National confiscations of assets of his, just like he stood by and watched other people have their assets be confiscated when he was a kid, let him now watch his own billions be confiscated.
Hungary is showing the way to deal with this monster George Soros:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2018/12/04/why-hungary-forced-george-soros-backed-central-european-university-to-leave-the-country/#2138e5ec533e
Oh boy. Enegetic screed. Just have to ask, were you serious when you wrote this or was it designed to get a reaction?..
“the mob is a black lynch mob that wants to lynch whites today for all the lynchings they have been taught were done on their ancestors. and indeed there were lynchings, though perhaps not as many as they believe. or perhaps there were. it does not matter. those people are all dead, but we yet live. for now.”
perhaps if one day soon you are so unfortunate to get stuck in a car with a bunch of hooligans jumping on the hood of your car because you are white and in the wrong place and time and were afraid to run them over with your motorized battering ram, because your judgment stopped you– and then they swarmed the car and it was too late– and then at that moment, before they put your lights out, ask yourself, was I serious?
nonetheless, don’t just look to the hooligans on the street. they are a danger but the bigger danger is to let the United States be commanded by global capitalist swine like George Soros who wants the death of the nation state as such. This is my real dialectic I want to illustrate. The Westphalian order, or what remains of it, versus internationalism aka globalism.
Globalism is precisely a late stage of capitalism in which the competition between transnational corporations both in emerging and mature markets has become so fierce that they seek to slaughter the horse that brought them into history in the first place– the form of the nation state. Because it stands in the way of more profits. They want free trade aka an end to restrictions on commerce, and end to national taxes like duties and customs, an end to the restrictions on labor so they can even out wages across all their factory locations worldwide– they want an end to the nation state as such.
That legal entity has borders and laws and armies and spies that are strong enough, when properly lead, to neutralize the schemers of global finance like Soros. Even tiny liittle Hungary can give him problems he can’t fix. Because of the degree of sovereignty in the state which still remains.
the PRC has a strong nation state but they are so smart and rich now that they are paying off the likes of Soros with all their slave labor and many other forms of bribes, not to mess with them, but to turn on the US instead.
One day, if the US dies as a viable sovereign political entity, the PRC will outlive us.
And when they do, the Geo Soroses of the world– his heirs since he will be dead by then, already old– on that day their schemes will catch up with them, and the PRC will absolutely neuter whatever mischief makers in global finance remain. Right now it’s only the US and its lapdog the EU protecting Soros, and why? So he can pay BLM to wreck our law and order.
So it’s stupid to attack the US but lo, he is doing it. The nation he adopted as a refugee, he now wants to destroy. what a scum!
I don’t hate the baggy pants hooligans. They are poor and other than the power of riot, generally, not very powerful. Nor am I. I am a lot closer to them in social circumstance than I am a “Master of the Universe” like Geo Soros.
But hey, if they want to end me, it’s gotta be me who survives. So that’s just how it works. But that’s understood and not important to our discussion.
So sure I can say to them too: be smart and figure this out. All you get out of this mess is a new pair of sneakers.
Now if all these baggy pants hooligans were smart, they would be doing something constructive with their lives rather than rioting., But they arent’ smart. Too bad, that they have had their lives squandered and their human potential undeveloped by our awful, pathetic, shameful public fools system. That in every big city has been run by you loving Democrat liberals for decades. The baggy pants fool is angry, but he remains a pawn of the Democrat leadership even in all his frustration.
But hey it was the black community that turned its back on Marcus Garvey and went the commie WEB Dubois route a long time ago. Suckers! You been had. And they blame whitey, in general. Nobodies like me or the average nascar cracker when they should be looking at the Pelosis and Soroses instead.
Now I’ll say something else. It was up to Donald Trump to justify his existence by standing up to Geo Soros since day one., If he can’t or wont do it then maybe he got bribed off too, Then to hell with him. Let whomever take the brass ring has the courage to join the historic challenge and save the concept of the nation state as such. If the US does not do it then nobody will & we will end up slaves of the PRC in the long run too.
Maybe eight years from now it will be a Democrat– you never know.
Another energetic screed. Your energy is impressive, Kurtz.
Myself? I grew up in the ’70’s during forced busing in Denver. i’ve seen some madness, watching how fast a relatively stable social situation can become violent…, one time i even had to shut myself in a locker to avoid how quick it went sideways. And then through questionable life choices in my younger years i did place myself in social situations that were unstable in many contexts, let’s just say that…
None of which put me in the pro-Bannon view of the world which you seem to have taken up. Quite the opposite in fact. But it does make me feel more than a bit of sympathy to you because it must be a painful experience to see the world through a particular lens that is going through some changes by necessity.
George Soros, globalism, whatever the tropes and boogeyman dredged up by the movement that probably really started to solidify with the Birchers and now revel in the forms of media that spout the points you’ve touched on here don’t really mean a thing to me. I try to stay open minded enough to see why one might buy into that viewpoint but truthfully am at best entertained by it in a non flattering way and basically see it as the dying white male control of the market….
And basically, the minute the wall went down in Berlin, my young and wide eyed young self pretty much just said ‘ well, pure communism just proved itself unable to adequately face up to the degree of world challenge presenting itself…., next up, pure capitalism has to find a way to crash and burn because it’s equally not capable.’
Still feel that way, and feel like it’s the height of human folly to think control this of working out of economic and social forces is laughably impossible.
But gottdamn man, lynchings happened in Kentucky in the ’50’s. Legal in the sense that nothing happened to curtail them in any sort of formal way. I went to high school with kids who had relatives involved with Wounded Knee and also whole families that relocated to Colorado by virtue of being interned there by the government because they had a Japanese family history. This is just another chapter of electrical shake ups in a long history of electrical shake ups.
I do see why it’s seen as threatening to a group of white males though (even though I don’t count myself in that group). Ball room days are over, baby.
” pure capitalism has to find a way to crash and burn because it’s equally not capable.’”
What makes you think the US is pure capitalism?
Well, if you are not a white man, then let us know where you stand.
I find a lot of white liberals wearing the white skin may think they arent’ white, but, in crowd of angry black folks, you would understand otherwise. I find for example that Jewish people sometimes fool themselves into thinking they are not “white” even though that is not the history nor current thinking of Americans. If you are Jewish, you are white, in America, even if you ancestors are from Canaan going way way back.
Or if you are from some other group, maybe feel free to say which one., Because now more than ever, yes, groups matter.
The riots have made that painfully obvious.
I am not so conservative that I can’t operate in groups. I reject individualism. Some Republicans don’t like this talk. I dont care. I am ok with groups.
Now speaking to my own group, if you are coming from another, what do I get to confess “white privilege” or cry about the supposed historic crimes of my race? I make no such confession and I express no regret. I do not plan on giving back my home to Native Americans or any other aggrieved claimant. Do I get some money or a job or something? What is the price I am offered to deny my race or part company with it? I am just asking what’s on the table. Looks like NOTHING to me.
So what do you have to offer?
if white men are only presented with declining social outcomes, and punishment, then I refuse the offer to be subjugated. I would rather have something be stolen from me by force than give it up like a chicken.
Anyhow, Geo Soros and globalism is not a fiction made up by Birchers. I follow the World Economic forum for years and I have elaborated a rough sketch of the economic incentives that they have which undergird their policy recommendations. I have even expressed it in Marxist terms for those who can’t hear any other language. You can pretend it is a ficton or not, feel free. but it is there and it is grinding us down as a nation and it is certainly behind a planned destabilization campaign to “Get Trump” and “social justice” for black people is certainly NOT the objective no matter how many times lying corporations say it is.
Now I don’t have any pie in the sky to offer, nor millions to spare like them, so i can only offer honest conversation and my true sentiments. Which is, Im not going to be giving one thin dime to protesters,& if they attack me I will successfully defend myself, and in fact, I consider that they are already attacking my extended social circles and I call on the state to restore order and punish the crimminals.
And more importantly, I suggest we citizens collectively get less naive, ignore plutocrats and work to build America economically as a viable, peaceful, orderly and sovereign nation state.
Antonio, I shall try to help you understand.
“ SOOO, Nazis opposed free speech but if I support free speech that makes me a “nazi”. In addition, I also suspect that I am probably a “nazi” because I oppose the removing of statues and history.”
Nazis didn’t oppose free speech, as long as it wasn’t critical of their views. You could criticize the nazis all you wanted during their time, BUT you were often jailed or killed for doing so. You supporting free speech doesn’t make you a nazi at all. In this country free speech is protected from government retribution if it is critical of it or seeks punishment such as jail or censorship of that criticism. You can say whatever you want no matter how controversial or detested it is for everyone else. You can express views completely contrary or completely offensive to others without GOVERNMENT throwing you in jail or censorship BECAUSE it is offensive or contrary to the general public view. Only the GOVERNMENT cannot stop you from saying or expressing your controversial, offensive views.
What the GOVERNMENT cannot do either and the constitution itself doesn’t protect you from is the CONSEQUENCES of exercising your right to express those offensive or contrary views. If you say something racist either out of pure ignorance or in a backhanded manner due to racial bias the constitution or the government don’t protect you from others who are NOT the government such as other private citizens and private companies. People cannot use government to silence you, BUT people CAN call you racist or private companies CAN censor you for YOUR freely spoken speech’s consequences.
Freedom of speech comes with a caveat. Consequences, criticism, pushback, and getting ostracized because of it. Criticism isn’t censorship of speech. If you’re called racist because what you said WAS racist it isn’t an attack on your freedom of speech, it’s a consequence.
The majority of “leftists” as you group everyone opposite of your views, don’t support removing controversial statues by destroying or defacing them. HOWEVER because tensions are high and the demand for immediate actions won’t happen quickly enough some take it upon themselves to act now. This happens throughout history ironically. You didn’t see Iraqi’s seeking a committee to discuss dismantling Saddam Hussein statues did you. They wanted to make a point that they were no longer needed and proceeded to take them down, even American troops themselves participated in tearing down a statues, a…”work of art” too.
Svalaz, yes, there are consequences. But it’s ludicrous the degree to which people choose to take offense by reading into something never said or meant, twisting themselves into a pretzel to call something “racist” and shut down that free speech as well as getting the person fired, etc. You can talk about how government is the only one who supposedly censors, but when the free-speech victim is “cancelled”; loses job; gets harassed/beat up/killed by mobs; is banned from social media; etc. then the concept of free speech protection has been upended. You excuse those who didn’t want to wait for immediate action, and I presume that you’re all comfy in the idea that you’re protected from all the consequences that you discuss, but you just wait until your ideas no longer matter. There won’t be anyone left to defend you.
DV,
At the very least you recognize that there ARE consequences. That also includes the possibility that someone may have end up being offended. The constitution doesn’t protect anyone from other people’s reactions and they can criticize all they want. If an idea, even if it’s so patently offensive, can be freely expressed doesn’t mean it is protected from the reaction it gets. You can be shamed, ostracized or shouted down by anyone other than government. If you believe you have the right to express them you also have the RESPONSIBILITY to acknowledge that you can suffer from doing so. It’s part of the whole idea of what free speech is about.
Getting upset that others are “censuring” you because one CHOSE to exercise the right is to ignore the responsibility that comes with it. Many here like exercising it, but don’t want to accept or recognize the responsibility and consequences that come with it.
Svelaz, I don’t believe that RESPONSIBILITY should apply in the case of being guilty of holding a minority viewpoint that isn’t racist on its face. Remember the old Supreme Court case about pornography (“I’ll know it when I see it”)? The bounds of reasonable interpretation is way outside where they should be. Do you want to hold people responsible if saying “good morning” offends someone else? There are limits and we’re way beyond those. As I said, just wait until you say something that offends someone and you lose your job and are threatened with violence. With reasonable interpretation not going hand-in-hand with the speaker’s responsibility, combined with violent cult mobs, all you get is less freedom of speech until they come for you too. You shouldn’t be too comfy just because you agree or take sympathy with those who riot and cancel right now, because what is acceptable to them today won’t be enough tomorrow.
DV,
“ Svelaz, I don’t believe that RESPONSIBILITY should apply in the case of being guilty of holding a minority viewpoint that isn’t racist on its face. ”
A view may not be racist on it’s face, but racism in this country has been so prevalent just under the surface that hints of it or even implied still leaves the responsibility to the person expressing that view to clarify it. Choosing not to or simply expecting it to be accepted still doesn’t protect anyone from the consequences. There’s still a responsibility in making sure your views are clearly understood. The constitution doesn’t guarantee anyone protection from the consequences.
I don’t have to worry about mobs coming after me or censuring me for my views. I don’t have less freedom or liberty because they get offended. I can still state my opinion any time. Expressing a very controversial opinion to a group or an individual to their faces is very difficult and brave, but you would be directly responsible for the consequences of doing so. In blogs such as this it’s much easier and safer and still get criticism and insults. This is why you have actually racist views or bigoted views expressing here more freely, because it relieves you of the consequences and responsibility that is much different when it comes to doing so face to face.
I figured you would choose that first sentence to nitpick. It doesn’t matter what I say — you’ve decided to pin racism on anyone whom you disagree with. Yet you probably don’t see any racism in Affirmative Action eliminating more qualified people from positions in companies, universities and governments, or how it would feel to see WHITE LIVES MATTER painted on streets across the US. Whatever. I stand by my warning. You can cite responsibility all you want, but someday it won’t protect you.
I agree fully with JT’s denunciation of mob destruction of property, private and public, and for the same reasons, but also to include the counterproductive results for those who agree with some and even most of the goals of the mob, i.e., reviewing our history and the outsized glorification of those who’s primary accomplishment was defending slavery. As JT notes, that should be done by civic discourse and resolution, not mobs.
I make one other exception to this column and that is the level of his concern that this is unique in American history. His own recounting of Tom Watson and Leo Frank ended with Frank being lynched by a mob in Marietta which included many of the areas most powerful citizens. That was the result of many lynchings of blacks as well in this and earlier periods in our history. Given the time this current crisis has gone on and how widespread it is across the country, there have been very few deaths, no lynchings, not much violence, and crowds have been interracial. The right wing posters on this board and now JT wantto act as if the sky is falling and our democracy is in peril, but if anything, this shows the opposite – primarily peaceful protests by young citizens spoiled enough by freedom to march for an altruistic purpose – most are white – and with an expectation we can do better. As the original Kurtz would say, “Oh, the horror!”
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-the-angry-children-toppling-statues-nationwide-are-not-protesters-and-are-utterly-stupid
Tucker calls it. The mobs are terrorizing us.
I am no right winger. I used to be maybe but not now . I would use every socialist tool in the book to maximum effect if I could, to restore law and order and punish the enemies of our country who call themselves Americans.
Now let me elaborate on some of my socialist ideas. If I could I would issue a regulation and confiscated every thin dime that Geo Soros has in the US as a funder of terrorist activities. Do to him exactly what they already have the infrastructure to do to the various jihaadist terrorists. He finances terrorism here at home against Americans done by mobs who burn loot riot and kill innocent Americans. he is a financier of terrorism and he should have every single asset forfeited to the United States.
Then I would use socialistic antitrust laws to crush Twitter and Google and Facebook into a thousand pieces.
And I would fund PP ten times over and set up a lot more clinics in the ghetto and hand out free birth control, sterilizations, and abortions to the ghetto people who feel so sad and angry that they live in such an awful country and have such a hard time bringing up law abiding children. I feel it’s best that they have the fullest measure of “reproductive freedom” that government money can buy.
I would also tax Silicon Valley fragments which survive after being decimated with antitrust, impose use taxes for their free riding on the government paid for infrastructure called the internet.
I would take most of those revenues and pass them out equally to every native born and properly naturalized American in exactly equal amounts such as Yang suggested for UBI. Call me a socialist
I would target the corporate mass media liars with a whole host of regulations and taxes that would skirt the edges of their precious “first amendment” that they think only applies to their freedom and not ours. I would give them a lesson in “Socialism” that would leave them bankrupt.
I would impose a steeply progressive income tax on people earning over $10 million a year. If this only hit about a few thousand parasites in Hollywood and wall street, that would be a good thing to slow them down. It wouldnt raise much revenue, but it would chasten them.
I’d bring back the estate tax at a higher level too,. Let’s say $10 M too. start it at that level and then use exactly the same rates we used to have.
I would absolutely target the rich and we know the rich are mostly all Democrats who hate Trump. Let’s do it. Anybody with less than $10 million is not rich. Republicans who think they are rich because they are over a million are fooling themselves. They arent even close.
Oh, I have a whole long list of “Socialistic” tools I would use if I could. But i am a nobody so have no fear.
I’m just tossing a few ideas out there so dim witted Republicans who fear this socialist bogeyman can understand, “socialism” can be made to work for anyone in power, to crush their enemies. And crushing enemies is what must be done if you want to keep power.
Now Democrats know all this, they just don’t talk that way in private. It’s time for Republicans to grow up and embrace what opportunities remain before law and order is totally erased and the legacy population is completely sterilized and ground into the dust.
now the thing is, all these measures would harm the US as a global power. That’s right! It would be a less rich US but a freer one.
And I would default on sovereign debt too, and let the biggest bondholder outside the US suck on that. Which is guess who, the PRC
(music)
Springtime! For Hitler…
In Germany!
Autumn in Poland and France!
Trump has gone bonkers…
Repubs are dubs..
U.S. in chaos…people all snub!
Frankly, I don’t see an awful lot of people on the left or the right, putting much effort into discussing reform. The extremist elements that have taken advantage of the protests don’t care about the protestors. I don’t see an awful lot of people on the left or right bothering to mention that either. Rather, I see a lot of people conflating the two for divergent purposes.
As I have never seen meaningful reform of a government department in my lifetime, I doubt very much that it will happen here.
I’ll tell you one thing. Joe Biden is the quintessential white liberal Dr. King warned about. And if you want to put him into the White House, a push for reforms will have to continue from the ground up. Based on his past behavior, there is nothing to indicate he will do anything substantive of his own volition.
SteveJ, then you are too young – obviously, and so am I – to have witnessed the change in government staffs at all levels from patronage and nepotism personnel to the meritocracies they are now, nor do you remember the governmental transparency requirements – which are not perfect but pretty close – now in effect across these systems. There are also laws now on political contributions which our right wing SC has dome damage to with Citizens United, but which is still miles ahead of what existed – or more correctly, what didn’t exist – before, and even contract bidding. Surely you could have read about this history.
What do they do once they are in the Department. Do they deviate significantly from previous Departmental procedure? Do you see instances of African-American prosecutors using the plea-bargain tactics against poor minorities any differently than prosecutors in general?
What’s the right answer you’re looking for? Are you against plea bargains or their application, and should prosecutor’s be color blind or not?
Well what do you think a good part of the protests are about? How do you think the plea bargain is used today? The way it was 40 plus years ago? I’m afraid not. It is now used more often than not to intimidate citizens, disproportionately poor minorities, into pleading guilty to something.
Here we sit with roughly 5% of the world’s population with 20+% of its prisoners — disproportionately minority. A third of country is now arrested by the time they are 23, disproportionately minority. And the plea bargain, with its ever widening parameters, is now used in 95+% of all cases — disproportionately against minorities.
The current state of our judicial system is not the envy of the world. Maybe you have a point about the Russians after all. They invaded our country and turned our judicial system into what we have today.
Corruption is often just a corporate hack’s bad word for local political control.
Corruption is sometimes preferable to a bunch of faceless bureaucrats nobody knows calling all the shots.
Give me the old Chicago over the current mess any day.
@db cooper
Sir, I appreciate the sentiment but we aren’t voting our way out of this one due to changing demographics (among other things). Mitt Romney got 59% of the white vote and didn’t even come close. Trump got 58% and won because of a higher white turnout; had to tun the table and did so. In comparison, Reagan got 61% of the white vote in 1984 and won 49 states.
DEMOGRAPHICS IS DESTINY.
If I say it, it is a conspiracy theory, if a leftist says it, they are praised.
antonio
One correction, Lincoln didn’t end slavery, though his role shouldn’t be ignored. Slavery didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation, if you didn’t live in a state that was fighting the union it didn’t even apply, even then it barely mattered unless the slave managed to escape successfully to the north which had now banished runaway slave laws. The end of the Civil War didn’t end slavery, any state (Vermont, Kentucky) that didn’t vote to ratify the 13th Amendment just kept rolling along until the nation ratified the Amendment. The passage of the 13th Amendment made slavery illegal, but didn’t end slavery, In places as disparate as New Jersey and Oregon, people maintained slaves, the former Governor of the Oregon Territory kept at least one until 1878. Even then, it was still okay to treat people as slaves if they were prisoners. In fact, slavery in America still exists today thanks to a loophole inn the 13th Amendment. That is all.
https://democracyguardian.com/the-loophole-in-the-13th-amendment-why-slavery-still-exists-today-e9c44a3124f0?source=friends_link&sk=670108a52798b8dca48d48d93b4427fd
Sex slaves. Like those underage sex slaves kept by the likes of Jeffrey Epstein who then pimped them out to the likes of Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and others…..it’s still happening all over the world.
Enigmainblackcom, I read your linked story and found it interesting. If the prisoners received some wage for their work, would you consider “slavery” gone?
FWIW, I don’t like how low-priced prison labor contractors crowd out regular businesses (many of them defined as “small” under Federal Acquisition Regulations). I’d like to see prisoners be given the opportunity to do work but also be able to apply a wage from it to debts owed their victims or government first, and then towards a savings plan of some sort. Although this would ultimately cost the federal government more money, this would make the prisons be more competitive with private industry (assuming the FAR doesn’t still give them preference) which would help the small businesses currently being crowded out by prison labor contracts.
If the work was still involuntary, and wages were not consistant with the work. I’m not sure this form of legal slavery could be considered gone. Making it voluntary with reasonable wages might mark the end of legal slavery in America. That doesn’t address the illegal sex trade which in many cases is slavery by another name but isn’t being appropriately prosecuted because…
Please, Enigma, I get the point about prisoners, sounds good on paper, but in reality the prisoners all jump for these jobs. It’s hardly so awful as Parchman Farm, anymore
Mr Kurtz, I’m going to do what Squeeky loves so much which is to discuss the history of that little loophole in the Constitution. The reality is that when the Constitution allowed for prisoners to be slaves, the Southern States that just lost their slave base that tethered their economy, used that loophole to recreate slavery as best they could. They created dozens of laws, ironically called the Black Codes, which made a whole lot of things illegal for black people to do, which got them sent to prison camps, and later reassigned, sometimes to the exact same plantations they came from.
Your assertion that modern-day prisoners are leaping to take available jobs, some of them highly dangerous like fighting California wildfires isn’t true for all and may be speaking to the deplorable conditions in the prisons where tarring roads in 110 degree heat is an improvement over current life.
https://blog.usejournal.com/the-black-codes-the-period-between-slavery-and-jim-crow-62ae3084dc76?source=friends_link&sk=79e08738f3bd2969be041a536058f56b
Enigma you are stuck in Jim crow. this is not the situation anymore.
I acknowledge that after the Civil War there were bad things. Here is a book all about the abuse of prison labor at the infamous Parchman Farms.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0037B6QGG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
That’s pretty much over. There’s no valid comparison to the employment of prisoner labor as it’s done today. I would however recommend better wages for prisoners, who are clearly underpaid by an awful margin. This is harmful to free labor. I have little sympathy for prisoners but a lot of sympathy for unskilled laborers who have to compete with them and yes with illegal immigrants too.
There are those (mespo is one example) who suggest there is no such thing as systemic racism and ask I provide examples. The current prison work system is an example, particularly when it is fueled by mass incarceration on minorities to provide the labor. You say I’m stuck in Jim Crow (which was actually after the Black Codes) which isn’t true. I’m saying, that from the moment slavery ended, there have been attempts to replicate it as much as possible. When the Black Codes became illegal under the 14th and 15th Amwndments, they were replaced by Jim Crow, when Jim Crow mostly became illegal in the late 60s, mass incarceration fueled the slavery that still exists though you view it as simple underpayment. You act like Parchman Farms is an isolated example, not a common practice. You may also be viewing it through the hands oc Cool Hand Luke or Shawshank Redemption where white men were treated equally to black people in those fictional accounts so it isn’t racism. You seem to believe that America has substantially changed instead of slapping a new coat of paint on the same practices. Mississippi, where Parchman Farms is located is an example of everything more or less staying the same.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/06/doj-mississippi-prisons/
Enigma, thank you for your opinion. I believe we should give more weight to economic development in the black community, economic development of American industry as a whole, and greater weight towards social factors like family formation. in this way I have the thinking of a conservative, I confess..
Such systemic racism as you detect may exist, arguably, but even if it were so, it is small compared to the ongoing economic disaster which affects not only blacks but whites in this country, due to economic dislocations brought on by technology and globalism. and yes migration as a specific desired outcome of globalist ideology.
Do blacks identify with other Americans, however? Even white Americans? I wonder. You can speak for yourself. I want to find out if we have a common ground.
Since you are often telling me I am blind, and perhaps believe that I am a racist, however polite I may be, for the sake of argument, let me accept the premise. …. I am going to be selfish here for a moment for the sake of argument, so here’s the question:
what’s in it for me to concede any of your assertions? It seems to be if I admit to your contentions, then I am supposed to “help” you. Well, I will consider making a trade, but I will not make a donation. Or a payment out of fear.
If you have a meaningful trade to offer, I welcome it. If your trade is, “we won’t burn your house down if you give us money” then I deny the invitation.
Since I dont plan on giving money to you, your alma mater, NAACP, BLM, etc; perhaps you invite me to vote for a demented Joe Biden>? I decline.
So I am not sure what you are offering me or inviting me to do that will advance my interests in the form of a mutually beneficial trade.
if it’s not a trade, Im not interested.
Mr. Kurtz, My “assertions” are American History, one admittedly not well taught in schools if at all. Black Americans for the most part are loyal patriots as much as white ones. We have less loyalty to any other country than some of you have to the Confederate States of America. So if you accept my “assertions” of a systemic disparity between races, do what you can to end it. Keep your money, even vote Republican if you must but don’t accept and push the Party line if that acftually means voter suppression, or disparate sentencing, or separate but equal schooling that isn’t. You might do what you can to end mass incarceration, stop & frisk, and broken windows policing limited to minority communities. That would be a great start.
There is no voter suppression. There is no disparate sentencing of note. Parallel school systems were dismantled 60 years ago. A dearth of white people in urban school systems is not a problem per se. School systems designed and organized to do anything but impart salable skills is the problem.
Mr. Kurtz, I see the path you’ve chosen is denial which is the main reason the problems continue. Too many good people do nothing.
No voter suppression, Absurd..?? I guess PJ Media doesn’t cover that topic.
Nope. You are still stuck. Have you ever read Thomas Sowell’s “Intellectuals and Society?” If you are too lazy for that, he also discusses where you are wrong in lots of youtube videos. Or this guy, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sV5qU6e-YY
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I’m conversant in every century of American History. I have read Sowell’s book and others that you would like me to accept. I listen to all of you here, (except George who hasn’t said anything new in years).
Squeaky,“Intellectuals and Society”, top notch book that everyone should read.
Kurtz, Enigma is on the money. Great doc on netflix now about the 13th…
And it’s called: THE 13TH.
Go figure. Thing is, it highlights the second and third acts of slavery that continue to this day. it’ll challenge your viewpoints for sure. Not a reason to avoid it though. Lack of acceptance is futile.
‘Two decades ago, I wrote a column calling for the Georgia legislature to take down its statue of Tom Watson, a white supremacist publisher and politician who fueled racist and antisemitic movements. Watson was best known for his hateful writings, including his opposition to save Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager accused of raping and murdering a girl.’
So what to do about Dr.Seuss?
https://www.google.com/search?q=theodor+geisel+ww2&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS786US786&sxsrf=ALeKk01obgxOIU7H3vSHcrhMPkm4gQO_kw:1593180733150&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=B3nVvnNqwkti5M%252Ct2_LDs1DVkrmaM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kSOPRoJdLip0yKWLEACK9nY0WpPQQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi79qXd1J_qAhVOgXIEHX4HAvkQ_h0wBHoECBAQCg&biw=1366&bih=625#imgrc=B3nVvnNqwkti5M
Gerrymandering people into “identity” groups will, unsurprisingly, lead to groupthink. Mob mentality is a breath away from that.
Defacing and destroying those who rose above the crowd, especially through leadership, no matter their merit, is part and parcel of a mob. An individual is a threat to collectivist thought.
These are some excellent, short videos on crowd psychology and propaganda:
https://academyofideas.com/2013/11/methods-of-social-control/
I would like a rational explanation from Turley as to how and why his democrat party maintains even a shred of a link with this type of movement or action. The left is losing its reason to even exist within the confines of our fine nation. CHANGE MY MIND Professor that the left is morally bankrupt at this time.
Alma, as an apparent Trump supporter you have obviously surrendered any pretense to possessing moral judgement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COZPAa817xY
the kind of moral judgment you are talking about book, is actually mis-judgment.
that’s the kind of judgment that holds us back. not really judgment, but misjudgment.
we need to break from the Enlightenment tropes holding us back. abandon the bromides. quit looking to the past and look to the future.
the good news, is the viciousness of the rioters is breaking intellectual shackles that held people in a mental prison, before. The new situation is breeding new thinking.
Watching white truck driver Reginald Denny get dragged out of his car in 1992 by a bunch of baggy pants black rioters and get his head caved in with a brick, I won’t soon forget. I’ve seen it all over again so much the past month. New people are learning to cast aside the old tired bromides and false moralisms, faster than ever now
Look up that footage of Reginald Denny getting his head caved in during those LA riots if you can; its hard to find, google and youtube hide it, but it’s out there.
the correct moral judgment is this. We have a right to exist. We have a right to defend ourselves by all necessary means.
The difficulties or tragedies of history from before when we were born do not reduce nor cancel our right to exist and our right to defend ourselves.
That is the correct moral judgment, and whatever undermines it, is the incorrect judgment that defeats us.
here let me help on those pictures from 1992. i know they look a lot like what’s going on now, but this was then.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-filming-of-reginald-dennys-beating
that could be you or me lying there getting our heads caved in with a brick . because we are white and the blacks make an example out of us, to terrorize us
see how much that looks like the recent head stomping of a white man by a pack of wild blacks in Dallas?
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/article243133236.html
judgment that he deserved it or somehow must pay a historical price for slavery is a lie– a false judgment– judgment that defeats us
end that false moralistic judgment and form the new true judgment:
we exist, we have a right to live, we have a right to defend ourselves, however necessary
Mr. Kurtz,
What Enlightenment tropes are holding us back?
individualism for one
equality for another
Individualism because it requires group effort to overcome the plutocratic social engineering of our lives that’s turning us all into atomized slaves of digital commerce. and whether it’s the cowboy myth or mindless consumerism, it’s a social poison that leaves us empty, hollow, and weak. That’s individualism. Not individuation, which is a natural healthy process of each person realizing their own potential according to their own circumstances– but that is not what is meant by individualism as it operates in American culture anyways.
equality– not a precise equality like equality under law, which is viable; but a vague equality which justifies whatever it likes. that is a fiction that belies the inequality of wealth. from day one when rich men like Tom Jeff encouraged poor continentals to sign up for his war with king George, so he could be a king himself one day; to “freedom of speech” for a billionaire like Jack Dorsey to presume to scold and edit and censor the President of the United States on “his” platform Tiwtter. Trust me Prarie, you and me were not equal to Tom Jeff and we aren’t equal to Jack Dorsey. I guess Trump found out, Jack Dorsey is even more equal than he is!
Now my solution is not communism, but it is a form of nationalism that acts to defang the global plutocracy by whatever means are necessary.
And legalisms that stand in the way of decisive national action, to protect law and order for the common people, those legalisms are self limiting lies.
And bromides like “racial justice” which requires that white people give it all up to various organizations like BLM or NAACP who are the self appointed rectifiers of history in the name of black folks– well that is just a stupid fraud and such a trope is only for kids. Like Santa Claus except it makes you sad instead of happy. I’d sooner believe in santa claus than a fake creed that just will impoverish me and turn me into a willing slave of some “social worker” or bureaucrat.
Dispense with this tomfoolery and form coherent social circles of mutual interest. We used to call those families and communities. Act in solidarity with your people, whomever they may be, and don’t be tricked by high-sounding altruistic nonsense.
Mr. Kurtz,
“individuation, which is a natural healthy process of each person realizing their own potential according to their own circumstances– but that is not what is meant by individualism as it operates in American culture anyways.”
Individuation is also about being unique. It is about learning to stand on your own two feet. You may or may not realize your potential, as in achieve it, but you better understand the possibilities.
We need more individuated people right now. As we can see by the mobs, lots of people are deindividuated right now.
Mr. Kurtz,
We hold different opinions of Thomas Jefferson. I think he’d agree with you about individuation, in any case.
Voting for the senile, corrupt, leftist puppet, Joe Biden will bring more tyranny, more mob behavior, more silencing, more government, more taxes….less free speech….and less freedom overall. Then if the Democrats regain control of Congress you will watch helplessly as they quickly blow-up the filibuster and start ramming their radical agenda down our throats as fast and furious as they can. And if you think Chief Justice John Roberts will stop any of it, you’d be very wrong. Vote Trump 2020 as if your freedom and safety depend on it.
Cundy. Just sayin’.
The voting booth remains the last truly safe space. Use it well.
db, assuming there’s still a voting booth. Not sure about a mailbox when my votes are going to be competing with vote harvesting and votes by dead people.
Election Postponement – Not A Vote By Survey Monkey
President Trump must postpone the November election due to COVID-19, understanding that a fair and equitable election is impossible and that all other economic and social activities have been modified and/or suspended for reasons of the pandemic. To conduct a legitimate election, voters must appear and have their identity confirmed at a polling place. Democrats have already cancelled their convention. Communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) are promoting “vote-by-mail” knowing that they will be afforded an historic opportunity to manipulate and defraud the vulnerable voting system. Communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs), in order to seize unfair advantages, absurdly propose that America surrender its self-governance to Survey Monkey. Communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) employed our South Korean “allies,” K-pop, to enlist and encourage Tik Tok users to crash President Trump’s Tulsa rally. Communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) “harvested” ballots to conquer Orange County, CA and other districts. Lincoln won 1860 with 38.9% and 1864 with brute military force. Joe Kennedy erased a Nixon victory and bought the presidency for JFK through Mob purchases in Chicago. Is it conceivable that the communists will not maximally corrupt and manipulate “vote-by-mail” to obtain a November victory? Of course they will. To communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs), the ends justify the means. No ethic, regulation, law, promise, duty or point of honor will ever prevent them from attempting to steal power. The essence of the Republic must be preserved at all costs, as Lincoln would say. President Trump must postpone the election due to COVID-19 until such time as the pandemic is in sufficient and quantifiable decline.