After the Southern Poverty Law Center scandal of actually funding and encouraging racist protests, it appears that at least one individual has created his own orchestrated racist incident. In Chicago (where Jussie Smollett committed his infamous racist hoax), a burning cross was denounced by Mayor Brandon Johnson as a sign of the racism in society. Johnson, however, refused to address the fact that the cross burning was actually the work of an anti-Trump liberal student. University of Illinois senior Merlin Lu said it was never intended as a racist symbol, but the question is whether it could still be charged as a hate crime.
In posting a reward for the culprit soon after the incident, Rev. Michael Pfleger declared that “this bold rise of racism must be condemned by every race, faith community, and Chicagoan as was done with the swastika and treated as a hate crime.”
It turns out that this was not evidence of the rise of racism but another possible hoax. Lu bizarrely claimed that he was unaware that a burning cross had racist connotations and insisted that there was no racist message intended.
Others suspected that this was a type of false-flag effort to outrage the left.
Johnson later denounced the incident as a “symbol of hatred is one that we must continue to reject, and I wholeheartedly reject it. I can’t speak to anyone’s motives; I can only speak to the impact, and the impact was devastating.”
It seems curious that Johnson would not “speak to motives” when he knows that this was set by a leftist radical.
The question is whether it is still a hate crime under Illinois law. Under Section 12-7.1, the law states:
(a) A person commits hate crime when, by reason of the actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, citizenship, immigration status, or national origin of another individual or group of individuals, regardless of the existence of any other motivating factor or factors, he or she commits assault, battery, aggravated assault, intimidation, stalking, cyberstalking, misdemeanor theft, criminal trespass to residence, misdemeanor criminal damage to property, criminal trespass to vehicle, criminal trespass to real property, mob action, disorderly conduct, transmission of obscene messages, harassment by telephone, or harassment through electronic communications as these crimes are defined in Sections 12-1, 12-2, 12-3(a), 12-7.3, 12-7.5, 16-1, 19-4, 21-1, 21-2, 21-3, 25-1, 26-1, 26.5-1, 26.5-2, paragraphs (a)(1), (a)(2), and (a)(3) of Section 12-6, and paragraphs (a)(2) and (a)(5) of Section 26.5-3 of this Code, respectively.
The notable language is “regardless of the existence of any other motivating factor or factors.” The inclusion of property damage could allow a charge to be brought.
The case could rekindle the debate over intent for threats. Many professors and pundits on the left have long argued that the standard should be how a message is received rather than how it is intended. That issue arose in the decision in Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023), concerning the standard for the “true threats” exception to the First Amendment. In an opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan, the Court reversed the conviction. While rejecting an “objective” standard, the Court declared that such cases had to be based on evidence of the defendant’s state of mind under a “subjective standard.” Accordingly, the government must prove recklessness, but not necessarily intent: “The State must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence.”
Recklessness would be a dangerous standard for the defense of Merlin Liu. He insists that he was entirely clueless about what a burning cross represents in our culture. Yet, if Chicago does not bring a hate crime charge, it could be cited in future cases in suggesting that intent or “motivating factors” do matter in such cases.
I have favored stronger scienter or intent standards in true threat cases. It seems like a hate crime should, at a minimum, also be based on an intent to cause such alarm or fear. That does not mean that Liu’s defense of ignorance will work. However, in my view, prosecutors should have to show more than how others perceive a protest.
Unlike Johnson, the prosecutors and the Court will have to “speak to motivations” before this case is concluded.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
“Others suspected that this was a type of false-flag effort to outrage the left.”
To sate its lust for absolute power, the Left borrows freely from any totalitarian ideology. From communists: the proletariat is suffering. From fascists: state control of (social) media. From Nazis: blood libel.
Here we see the Left borrowing freely from the tactics of totalitarians: A Reichstag Fire. Which is then used as a pretext for Reichstag Fire decrees — where the Left usurps what few liberties remain.
The majority of these incidents are either false flags or left wing nut delusions.
Whether it is the Duke Lacross incident.
Jusse Smollet.
The Swastikas at UNC (or most swastikas anywhere).
The Nascar noose,
or any of myriads of other incidents.
Virtually ALL alleged racist incidents are either left wing nut false flags
OR they are antisemitism FROM THE LEFT.
Actual racism – including on the right has not disappeared entirely – and it never will.
It is massively diminished in my lifetime.
To the extent racism is rising it is exclusively on the left.
Either in the form of rising left antisemitism,
Or the rising left white savior complex.
Reverse discrimination is RACISM – it is the delusion that some race is inferior to others and needs a special hand up.
So much wrong with this comment, where to start.
The “NASCAR noose”, it was not a ‘left’ thing at all. The FBI conducted a thorough investigation into the noose found in Bubba Wallace’s garage stall at Talladega. The FBI confirmed that the rope was an actual, professionally tied noose used as a garage door pull. It was not a hoax created by Wallace or “left-wing nuts”; it had been physically tied there by an unknown individual in late 2019, long before Wallace was assigned that specific garage. It was a real object, not a delusion or a manufactured setup.
“Actual racism has “massively diminished” to the point where almost all reported incidents have to be faked.“. Huh…BS.
According to audited, annual hate crime statistics published by the FBI and the Department of Justice, bias-motivated crimes have risen significantly over the past decade. Thousands of racially motivated crimes are investigated, verified, and successfully prosecuted every year by bipartisan federal and state authorities. The existence of a few high-profile hoaxes (like Jussie Smollett) does not statistically invalidate the thousands of real, violent hate crimes occurring annually.
That government or corporate outreach programs (like California’s supplier diversity goals) are “racism” driven by a belief that certain races are inferior and need a “hand up” is again…utter BS.
As outlined by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and federal civil rights data, supplier diversity and affirmative outreach programs are macroeconomic tools designed to fix historic market exclusions, not a statement on racial capability. Historically, minority- and women-owned businesses were shut out of massive utility and government bidding networks due to corporate monopolies and old-boy networks. The programs aim to open up the bidding pool to foster more capitalistic competition, which drives down prices for consumers.
It’s literally ensuring a free market style of competition designed to reduce the monopoly ultra large corporations and companies don’t crowd smaller competitors run by minority groups. Monopolies are anti-free market. Opening up the bidding pool to more capitalists is the goal. Allowing for real competition.
I’m curious, would you call the killing of Austin Metcalf a racially motivated hate crime?
Ignoring spin you are correct that the “noose” in the garage stall was not a noose at all – a noose is a very specific thing – all rope or cabled with a loop at the end is not a noose.
But you are incorrect that there was no hoax by the left – a hoax does not require you to create the thing you misrepresent. It is a hoax to misrepresent something created by others as something different from what it was.
The left misrepresented the loop in the cable in a nascar stall as a noose – that is a HOAX.
Or would you prefer that term “fake news’
Once again you are wrong.
Correct. The Democrats are actually a combination of Marxists, Fascists, Socialists, Communists, and anti-Capitalists. Every ideology that Americans fought to be free from.
Hold up a minute. References to what Liu has said it didn’t mean. But why did he burn a cross, what was his intention? We are only hearing half of this.
Does not matter what it meant – the first amendment protects offensive speech. It also protects offensive speech that is a hoax.
Repeatedly I have had to address the fact that for lying to be a crime – fraud, it must cause ACTUAL harm. In the specific instance of Fraud – fraud must involve the loss of or the loss of the use of Proprty or money – so CORRECTLY says SCOTUS in an opinion by none other than RBG.
Crimes are ACTS – intent matters ONLY to the extent that most crimes require that you KNOW what you were doing was wrong and do it anyway.
Juries might be interested in your specific motive, but the law only requires thart you committed the act identified in the crime, and that you knew it was wrong and did so anyway.
John say displays the total lack of awareness with facts.
“Crimes are ACTS”. Setting a cross on fire on public property is an act. Not speech. Therefore the act of setting it on fire and damaging public property is a crime. That is why he was charged with arson and other crimes related to his conduct, not his speech.
There was actual harm. Damaging public property. We should remember that ignorance of the law is not an excuse. The mere act of setting the cross on fire on public property is all that matters here. The intention or ignorance of the law is irrelevant.
(Does not matter what it meant – the first amendment protects offensive speech. It also protects offensive speech that is a hoax.) Byt what about hate speech legislation? doesn’t that infringe on my 1st amendment rights and why hasn’t this been tested as unconstitutional by SCOTUS?
All “Hate Crime” designations are UnConstitutional!
Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, mandates that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”
If you protect gays, blacks, minorities more than normal people, whites, the majority…that IS NOT Equal!
if a white man is murdered…his killer should receive the same punishment as a gay black man killer!
How about we just uphold LAWS…if you threaten ANYONE, if you intimidate “Anyone”….you should be punished equally!
If you attack a random white old lady, Black Old LAdy or a jewish man…SAME PUNISHMENT!
Your punishment should NOT be defined by the victim….it should be defined by the CRIME!
I don’t care your reason…I care about the CRIME!
Attach a church, jewish temple, muslim Mosque….SAME Punishment!
You are correct that you can not make hate itself, or hateful speech or any act that is not otherwise a crime into a crime by calling it a hate crime.
But SCOTUS has allowed states to enhance the punishment for acts that are otherwise criminal for a variety of reasons – including discriminatory animus.
WE enhance the punishment of people who prey on the elderly.
We can enhance the punishment for acts that are otherwise criminal if they are done for discriminatory reasons.
I am not sure I completely agree with SCOTUS on this but it is the current state of constitutional law.
JS The problem with hate crime enhancements is that they unbalance justice by their inherent assumptions of identity group hierarchies. The law is biased. That is a bad thing.
Don’t forget the two-tiered system that the left likes to operate under. They truly believe that they are above the laws that everyone else has to follow.
no one hates America…more than Democrats!
You idiot.
and commies apparently too!
It takes an idiot to know an idiot.
But YOU’RE the hater. hatemonger.
Democrats still KKK…fear and intimidation…are their tool…they are AGAINST Freedom and America!
Democrats want failure….makes clients!
Democrats have kept blacks on failed plantations for 250 years!
Then want money to care for their kept blacks…who they make sure fail…so they have customers!
END THE MONEY going to failure! End all Federal Aid to cities, states, non-profits and colleges
Outlaw Public Unions, the political army of the Democrats!
1st the dems havent existed for 250years. secondly, just one quesiton, why did stom thurmond and trent lott switch from being a democrats to being a repbublicans?
They grew up… Many libs never did
Lott worked for a democrat congressmen – and won his seat when that congressmen retired – but he ran as a republican.
why
Democrats have basically been fascists from their founding: Pro Slavery, Pro Centralized POWER, Censors, reminder FDR rounded up Japanese people…based on LOOKS! Democrats fought a Civil War to destroy American 1860’s, and now 2020’s. Democrats want centralized power, which is then controlled by people like Soros, Reed Hoffman, foreign countries. If you are pro illegal…you hate America…period!
We need to Decentralizal power and destroy the Democrat Party!
– Cut 50% of Fed gov spending
– Move 75% of DC to Heartland
– End fed aid cities, states, college, unions & non-profits
– Cut SNAP 75%
– 1% tax Gross wall street trans & money goes offshore
– 20% duty on ALL imports
– Tax all non-profits anyone gets $100k: colleges, hospitals, etc
– Remove tax credits renewables, affordable housing, etc
– Jail Trump persecutors & Dems protectors, illegal helpers, etc
– Outlaw public union, they are a political army for democrats
– Ban union/company $ politics, only voters can fund politics
– voting 1 day, in person, with ID, I don’t care if you vote, I care if you cheat
– 12 year limit on federal office….judge, president, senate, congress
– Roundup all illegals to raise wages and give Americans Jobs
– END all bonuses financial world till every dime of FED money is paid off
“Outlaw public union, they are a political army for democrats.”
Police unions first.
Are we up to a million hate-crime hoaxes yet? Funny that it’s such a scourge people have to keep making it up.
That’s a pretty pathetic cross. Two two by fours, really? A simple image search turns up some serious cross burning. I’m generally immune to symbols and I have to say I don’t get the cross burning thing. Are they attacking Christianity? Trying to make an fearsome avenging version of the cross. I just don’t get the logic.
Where was the “cross”? It looks like a public park. In which case he started a fire where he should not have started a fire. Fine. Make him clean up his mess and pick up trash for 40 hours of community service.
The hate crime law is weird. All of those special groups defined when the list of crimes below is all that is needed. It’s a legislative virtue signal.
Justice is not blind when it starts looking at group identity. That’s why you see such disparate penalties for the same crime based on the race of the participants. Such bullcrap.
Where was this young man brought up? I am asking by his last name. Is he a visiting student or was he born here? As a visiting student, I am sure he was given an in depth lesson in world history. If here, by his explanation it could show our education in American history is lacking. Are young people aware of the symbolism of a burning cross? Do public education lessons in American history go that far anymore? American students today have 58 more years of American history to learn about than I had to learn. A cross is a religious symbol. It is also a political symbol. My assumption is that everyone knows/should know that. And when someone publicly and openly lights it on fire, they are sending a message. In our country, I know what that message was/is.
You’re asking the right questions. Someone is thinking.
After since Democrats started the “Civil Rights Revolution” in the late 1950’s, they have worked tirelessly to convince blacks, and now other “people of color”, that all their troubles are due to a conspiracy by the white race. As a result, people like sports commentator Jemel Hill and Rep. Jasmine Crockett have resulted. Hoaxes like the one that is discussed in this column, even if untrue and suspected from the beginning to be untrue, are important in keeping the pot boiling.
its called Cointelpro and it was a conspiracy by the FBI to target black folk to prevent them from achieving equality. redlining was a conspiracy by mortgage lenders and real estate agents to prevent black folk from pourchasing homes in certain areas and then prevent mortages from being sold in those areas consequently no generational wealth through home owenership wasa built. republicans and democrats did this. so its not party but there is one common link between them. can you guess? you can? come on, you know. They were white. So yea they might have a point that racism is a problem in this country.
God save us from stupid.
Conintelpro targeted the LEFT – communists, socialists, antiwar groups – absolutely SOME left wing groups were black.
But the goal of conintelpro was NOT to keep blacks down – it was to keep the left down. Hoover was likely racist – as was LBJ, but his FOCUS was fighting communism not blacks.
As we see today – and people like Hoover correctly diagnosed in the 60’s – communism and socialism are destructive and evil – they are responsible for more bloodshed than anything else in history. More blood has been shed by Communists BY FAR than by Nazis – though Nazism IS socialsim.
The problem with Hoover and the anticomunists of the 60’s was NOT that they justifiably hated communism.
It was that they used government power to thwart an ideology – a dangeorus and hateful one – but this was still an abuse of peoples rights.
It is our constitutional right to beleive stupid and bad things – government may not opress your beliefs – not even bad or stupid ones.
Government punishes bad ACTS – regardless of motive
—-
Actual redlining was a series of laws passed at the turn of the 19th century to prevent blacks from moving into white neighborhoods.
These were struck down by the supreme court using the Contracts clause early in the 20th century.
Contra left wing nuts – in free markets actual racial discrimination is extremely low. Why ? Because few banks or real estate agents are going to turn down profits because of the race of the buyers.
Absolutely the Boston Fed in the 80’s published one of the stupidest papers from the FED ever claiming that minorities should have had their eligibility for loans enhanced for absolutely absurd reasons . Further as a result of that governments pressured lenders into writing more mortgages to people with bad credit – if they were minorities,
and that was a major contributing factor to the housing bubble in the early 21st century.
No bank or credit bureau tracks your race – they did not even back in the early 20th century.
Systemic discrimination against minorities ONLY occurs when GOVERNMENT drives it – usually by laws.
Why did states pass jim crow laws ? Because people in the free market refused to discriminate as political leaders wanted.
Discrimination does occur in free markets – but it is SMALL and NOT systemic. Why ? Because discrimination reduces profits.
John Say, do you ever research the crap you spew? It’s so obvious it’s bull dookie.
“Conintelpro targeted the LEFT – communists, socialists, antiwar groups – absolutely SOME left wing groups were black.”
Some? Try all of them. It was specific to Black civil rights groups. FBI documents prove that the Bureau created a distinct, specific branch of the program titled “COINTELPRO: Black Nationalist-Hate Groups.”
The FBI targeted non-communist, deeply religious, and peaceful civil rights figures—including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)—long before they ever spoke out against the Vietnam War or expressed left-leaning economic views. The targeting was fundamentally driven by a desire to maintain the racial status quo.
“No bank or credit bureau tracks your race – they did not even back in the early 20th century.”
Nope. Wrong again.
The entire system of modern mortgage lending was built on tracking race. Following the National Housing Act of 1934, the federal government’s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) created “Residential Security Maps” for hundreds of American cities. The free market did not prevent them from racial discrimination. It took legislation to make it illegal. Not the free market.
These maps explicitly used racial demographics as the primary metric for risk. Neighborhoods with Black residents were colored red (hence “redlining”) and explicitly labeled in bank ledgers as “hazardous” solely due to the racial makeup of the inhabitants. Private banks used these explicitly race-coded government maps for decades to systematically deny loans to minority applicants.
“Nazism IS socialism.”
LOL! Nope. Wrong still.
While the Nazi party used the word “Socialist” in its original name (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) as a cynical marketing tactic to attract working-class voters in the 1920s, their actual governance was the exact opposite.
Upon taking power, Adolf Hitler banned all socialist and communist parties, executed or imprisoned their leaders, dissolved independent trade unions, and pioneered the mass privatization of state-owned railways, banks, and steel mills.
“Systemic discrimination does not happen in a free market because it reduces corporate profits.”
Whoa, that’s a doozy. Still false.
This assumes market participants always act with perfect, non-biased economic rationality. Decades of empirical economic data prove otherwise. Even after redlining was outlawed by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, private banks continued to engage in systemic discrimination because bias skewed their perception of risk.
Landmark federal investigations and settlements (such as the DOJ’s historic settlements with major banks like Countrywide and Wells Fargo) proved that private lenders systematically steered qualified Black and Latino applicants into high-interest, predatory subprime loans, even when those applicants possessed the exact same credit scores and financial profiles as white applicants. Discrimination was highly profitable for predatory lenders.
Yep systemic racism was profitable. The free market did not correct it or prevent it.
“Contra left wing nuts – in free markets actual racial discrimination is extremely low. Why ? Because few banks or real estate agents are going to turn down profits because of the race of the buyers.”
Here’s the problem. Black Americans have been financially crippled for centuries and segregated by White policies, so when they come to a bank or real estate agent they have fewer funds and fewer resources than White Americans. The banks look at that and decide to go with the side that has the money and the resources to pay back the loan. That side isn’t the Black American. Will banks also turn down impoverished White Americans? Sure. But there wasn’t 400 years of effort to force White Americans to be impoverished.
Re: ” people like sports commentator Jemel Hill and Rep. Jasmine Crockett..” Jasmine Crockett came to the conclusion that appearing too upper middle class and sounding ‘too white’ was not going to serve her well in cultivating support from ‘the folks’, as Obama refers to them, so as to further her political career and aspirations. Hence, she adopted an alter ego of ghetto attitude, speech, and activism for public consumption. She’s learned from others of her ilk in the Democrat Party as to what it takes to persuade ‘the folks’ that they are still down on the plantation and in need of the government’s hand up, which never happens. A mindset which Obama cultivated in them subsequent to his ascendency. The manifestation of the soft bigotry of low expectations for the intelligence of one’s constituency. and suppression of their self-determination. “No man can put a chain on the ankle of his fellow man without finding the other end fastened around his own neck”……Fredrick Douglass.
Sen. John Kennedy adopted the cartoon accent for similar reasons. He’s working for the oil and gas industry but needs to appeal to backwater farmers and crawdad catchers.
Slavery: Conspiracy or Fact?
Jim Crow: Conspiracy or Fact?
Red Lining: Conspiracy or Fact?
400 hundred years of undermining economic independence leaves a cultural mark. It’s hardly been 50 years since hanging a Black man in a small town was considered “must have deserved it.” The people who did that are still alive and have told their children about what they did.
To me, the notable language in that statute is: “by reason of the actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, citizenship, immigration status, or national origin of another individual or group of individuals, ”
Was Lu directing his stupid stunt at others specifically because of what he knew or perceived as their cultural attributes as cited (an idiotic basis to define criminality, imo, but leave that for another discussion) in that description, or was he just trying to garner attention from whomever might react, including those who could be mislead about his motivation? I suspect the latter, which would seem to fail to meet the definition as articulated.
Unaware of the symbolism???
Also a senior and unaware?
Also stupid. I assume he has a cel phone because we all know that is now the 5th appendage.
GOOGLE-Search: Burning cross, symbolism thereof? Obviously he needs a physical exam to determine if all his fingers were broken and he could not type. But even that is not an excuse anymore since APPLE has given us “Hey, Siri!”
Such total idiocy. At all levels.
You presume, as you and your ilk spew here non-stop, about how stupid and ignorant today’s youth are. Right?
You presume to know that everyone in the world must know what a burning cross in the USA signifies? Who TF uses google old man? You spew total idiocy.
ATS – todays youth are poorly educated – that is the FAULT of the Left.
93% of of political contributions from educators go to democrats.
It is inarguable that the failures of modern education fall EXCLUSIVELY on the left.
As to the rest of your argument – it is irrelevant what people elsewhere in the world know regarding a burning cross.
This incident was in Chicago – the USA.
One thing we can assume with near 100% certainty is that the left wing nuts who teach our children have absolutely over and over stressed the evils of the KKK and the intimidation of burning crosses in the south. It is far more likely that a HS graduate knows of the racism behind a burning cross than who fought in World War II.
Google, Siri, Alexa, Claude, DDG – no one cares WHAT tool you use – whatever you were not taught in school or have forgotten – the screen generation can check it in a second.
says the honky boomer. nap time grandpa
Oh good grief, John Say is hopelessly wrong and contradictory. I mean seriously.
On one hand, John Say claims that “todays youth are poorly educated” and that this failure falls “EXCLUSIVELY on the left.
But then he states it is “near 100% certainty” that these same educators have “absolutely over and over stressed the evils of the KKK and the intimidation of burning crosses.”
How can he logically argue that left-wing educators have simultaneously failed to educate the youth while successfully ensuring that every high school graduate perfectly understands the complex historical weight of a burning cross? It’s obvious he just likes to bash the left for no reason other than that they are the ‘left’.
The claim that the failures of modern education fall “EXCLUSIVELY on the left” because of teacher campaign contributions is an oversimplification of how public education works in the United States. But to John everything wrong with public education is the left’s fault.
Public education curricula, budgets, and standards are heavily dictated by local school boards and state legislatures, not individual teachers’ unions. Often run by the right as well. It’s definitely not “EXCLUSIVELY” failures of the left.
Educational policies over the last few decades—ranging from No Child Left Behind to the expansion of charter schools and standardized testing mandates—have been bipartisan (both left and right) efforts. That’s not how you apply the term “EXCLUSIVELY on the left”.
Geez luise John. Get a grip. Your hatred for the ‘left’ has made you factually illiterate. Google and AI are there to help you check before you spew nonsense.
X – are you really AI or AI-educated as some claim? I defend you. AI could never be as ugly and ignorant and retaliatory as you are.
Google is general term for researching a subject on the web. Where else do people get information these days. Perhaps he took a lesson from the Southern Poverty Law Center or was paid by them to do it.
Brandon Johnson and those who maliciously babble are the ones who engage in hate crimes.
Still does not beat Trump’s faux pas.
It always comes back to Trump with lefties. Trump has been the most effective POTUS for ALL Americans in the 21st century and more effective that most from the 20th century. Biden wasn’t even a POTUS and was only an extension of Obama the Marxist.
Democrats
What are you gonna do with them?
Obama built this.
You clueless clown.
Stay away from mirrors.
TDS got ya down so you hang here searching for some way to lash out but youknow deep down TRUMP! has you in his grip and he’s squeeezing and crushing you and you can’t take it.
It’s awesome to watch.
Let the dumbocrats destroy themselves. no one votes for the side that supports this kind of nonsense which is why the MSM has to hide these stories.
Typical of the generations that have grown up coddled in the (relatively speaking) most peaceful and prosperous times the world has ever seen. There are no crises in their lives and they missed out on the actual work of actual social struggle, so they manufacture crises. They cosplay activists just like they cosplay adults. I don’t think there has ever been a more inert and juvenile group in history.
They are spoiled children acting out that still take their laundry home to mom and dad, even just metaphorically, long after college has ended. We can’t pass the torch to these fools.
A rather ignorant comment. Keep in mind your generation laid the social and political groundwork for the following generations. You failed them and stupidily wonder why its all happening and blame the system you created. Seriously, you geriatrics are fools.
Nice try, but very foolish. The actions of youth are youth’s alone. If they were so intelligent they wouldn’t do these things.
“The actions of youth are youth’s alone.”
Meh. I think that significant blame should be shared with the public education system that has done its very best (and has been largely effective) to indoctrinate those youth. Of course, I have little doubt that the poster to whom you replied would fight tooth and nail to prevent any meaningful reform to correct that fault.
If you were intelligent you wouldn’t write those things.
How did a child get in here? Where’s his parents? smoking meth??
@Anonymous
You are very confused about my age, the breadth of history predating your parents, with whom your myopic view of reality seems to begin and end (but that’s the whole point of revisionism and indoctrination, after all), and your presumptuousness points the finger toward the actual ignorance. Then again, you are very confused in general, daily, so. . . .
Confused, myopic, reality, revisionism, indoctrination, presumptuous, ignorance, confused. Reads like you ate a thesaurus. Clown.
Use your words…
Or maybe he just had a good education.
Regardless – if the shoe fits ….
Some of us saw it coming and tried to change the system from thd inside. ( retired teacher here) We were overwhelmed by a wave of progressive stupidity mostly at the administrative level. Result: the public schools produced and are currently producing young people who think no consequences for bad behavior is normal.
The foolishness of youth on display for all to see.
Shall we add TDS to your list of accomplishments?
Read a book, stay in school and your mom told me to say: STOP VAPING.
ATS – there is truth in both James and your remarks – absent the spin..
For the past 500 years each and every generation has had life easier than the prior generation – and done better.
Each generation has given to their children a more peaceful and prosperous world.
And with each generation there are less and less consequential social problems to solve.
“social justice” has always been a stupid oxymoron – justice is individual. Rights are individual, it is morally wrong to treat people as a group – that is racism.
Further – social activism has never accomplished anything.
The most fundimental factor driving the improvement of mankind is rising standard of living – not any of the nonsense the left fixates on.
Yes kids today – like every prior generation are more coddled than ever – Most every parent that ever was wants their children to have a better easier life than they had – and we have generation after generation succeeded.
Buit there is a difference between a generation that has it easier than its parents – that has been true for 5 centuries, and a generation that is fed complete and total nonsense by an increasingly falling of the left edge of the world loony education system.
And those of YOU on the left did that. To a very large extent parents who want their kids lives to be easier – did NOT want their children fed garbage by childless clueless left wing nut kids who think they understand the world – but do not understand themselves.
Re: “Typical of the generations that have grown up..” …..and they are now standing at the head of our classrooms brainwashing the next. The advocates for the Woke Volksinitiativ and their Cancel Culture Gestapo. Give them your children for twelve years and they are theirs forever. Little wonder the confidence in this nation is dwindling with the like of Elizabeth Warren and others of their ilk persuading them that they are not getting enough of other people’s money.
I saw a false flag YouTube video yesterday about a NYPD cop who detained 2 young, black FBI agents in plainclothes sitting on a park bench eating lunch. It was an AI concoction with still photos and a narration track. YouTube hosts such provocative slop. It should be possible to sue the content creator for Public Frauds. (No, I don’t want them to be prosecuted — we have a 1st Amendment that constrains a prosecutorial strategy). But civil lawsuit puts the power to confront this deceitful theatrical-infowarfare in ordinary people’s hands, and that’s where it belongs.
Here’s the link to the YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUes1Drb_4g
First step: repeal Section 230.
Second step: pass law making Public Frauds for Political Effect a Civil Tort.
Johnathan’s advocacy for a requirement of intent mans the ramparts against the vice of of a utilitarian approach to speech. But l see another issue. Buried in the Illinois statute is “transmission of obscene messages”. Even before SCOTUS handed obscenity over to States contemporary community standards, one of its pillars was “utterly without redeeming social value”. Even the liberal outcry points in that direction. But that’s not a speech crime l see. My hunt starts with one of Johnathan’s bigger concerns. What in the hell is an Illinois college senior doing not knowing that burning a cross is utterly without redeeming social value? That puts the crosshairs on the campus.
Re :”I saw a false flag YouTube video yesterday…”Those yet to be diagnosed as negative for stupid are their lawful prey. Such is the manifestation of the soft bigotry for the intelligence of the low information citizen.
re: “deceitful theatrical-infowarfare”
Here is a sobering assessment of current and future the state of the art in deep fake videos from Hany Farid, an acknowledged expert in the field (I hate giving credit the NYT, but they did publish the original article). I already considered videos claiming to document fact to merit distrust, after all, Hollywod developed, perfected, and promoted video art and technology over the past century primarily to portray fiction in a convincing manner, but this development slams the lid on any remaining credibility such media had claim to. I do think that the discovery and evidentiary requirements to successfully pursue civil lawsuits might prove too steep a slope for all but very deep pocketed litigants for now.
The World’s Leading Deepfake Expert No Longer Trusts His Own Eyes
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/us/ai-deepfake-hany-farid.html
“I don’t trust anything. Every image I see, I’m drawing lines for shadows and doing geometry in my head, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. It’s over. Within a year or two, our whole visual system will be utterly useless.”
Nobody does racism like the left does racism. When they can’t find racism to stir up voters and donors, they create racism to stir up voters and donors. The SPLC said it sees nothing wrong with that.
Nobody does racism like white boys do racism. American history proves it, its all there in black and white.
And you stupidly think it’s just a liberal thing? Gawd are you ignorant.
how come you don’t DENY all the racism manufactured buy the dopey leftys? Because you know it’s true and cannot debate the fact!
I believe you are in fact Juicy Smolette until you prove otherwise. Juicy get help! you’re hurting on the inside!
Over the course of a few months the Huti massacred 800,000 Tutsi in Rwanda.
No racism is not a “white boy thing”.
India has a long long long history of discrimination based on the shade of your skin.
The Chinese are committing Genocide against the Uighurs as we speak.
Few nations – certainly not the US are more racist than the Japanese.
In fact historically and globally Caucasians are the least racist people in the world.
They are also the most successful – having spread throughout the world and encountering every other race their is.
It is “white Boys” that ended slavery across the world.
Please identify a single non-white nation that is also diverse or even pretends to value diversity.
If you are idiot enough to beleive that America is the font of racism rather than the answer to it – you were abysmally educated.
John Say….sigh….
“Please identify a single non-white nation that is also diverse or even pretends to value diversity.”
India: Features over 2,000 distinct ethnic groups and 22 officially recognized languages. Its constitution explicitly outlaws discrimination based on caste, race, or religion.
South Africa: Officially known as the “Rainbow Nation,” its post-apartheid constitution recognizes 12 official languages and contains some of the strictest anti-discrimination laws in the world.
Singapore: A non-white majority nation that legally enforces ethnic integration in public housing to ensure diversity and prevent racial segregation.
Brazil: A majority non-white, highly diverse nation that legally classifies racism as an unbailable, non-prescriptible felony crime.
“Caucasians are the least racist because they were “the most successful – having spread throughout the world and encountering every other race.”
Riiiiight.
This is standard white supremacist rhetoric from the 19th century repackaged as a modern comment. The “spread throughout the world” was achieved via violent colonialism, forced displacement, and genocide (such as the scramble for Africa and the colonization of the Americas). These empires actively created legal systems based on racial hierarchies to justify dominating the people they encountered.
“ It is “white Boys” that ended slavery across the world.“
A bit simplistic, and not accurate.
Slavery was not ended as a benevolent gift from Western powers.
It was actively dismantled by the resistance of enslaved people themselves, most notably during the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), where enslaved Black people overthrew French colonial rule and established the world’s first free Black republic.
Many non-white civilizations had abolished forms of slavery centuries before Europe. For instance, the Achaemenid Empire (Ancient Persia) banned forced labor under Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BCE.
In the Americas, independent nations like Mexico abolished slavery in 1829—decades before the United States did—and explicitly offered freedom to escaping American slaves.
The existence of ethnic violence, colorism, or genocide in other parts of the world does not statistically or legally erase the reality of racism within the United States. Human rights abuses are not a zero-sum game; pointing out a crime in China or Rwanda does not magically exonerate ongoing racism in this country.
This is why historical ignorance is dangerous. Because folks like John Say start to believe their ignorant views are the truth. Yikes.
If a hate‑crime statute is supposed to capture the scope of the fear you deliberately unleash, this cannot be written off as “one dumb stunt in a park.”
When you reach for one of the most historically terroristic symbols in American life, light it on fire in a major city, and frame it as a message to “MAGA” and “Christian nationalists,” you are not trolling a few pedestrians. You are trying to send a warning shot to a political‑religious community that numbers in the tens of millions.
We cannot literally file 78 million separate counts and stack them into life without parole, and we should not pretend otherwise. But sentencing absolutely can, and should, account for the breadth of the intended target, the history of the symbol, and the obvious risk of igniting something far uglier than his little performance piece.
If we are going to criminalize “unsafe feelings” when speech comes from the right, then a burning cross aimed at “MAGA Christians” in a public park ought, at minimum, to earn the highest end of whatever range the statute allows.
Calm sown old man, he’s just a stupid kid. And you’re a stupid old man.
And you are a stupid kid with your rants to those with whom you disagree. Lighten up! Get out of your basement and get some fresh air!
Where’s Paul Harvey when we need him???
The general feeling from the extreme left is that if conservatives won’t act like extreme racists, then we will do it for them. Trump’s little helpers.
The left strikes again… figures.
But wait… They will find a way to blame Prez Trump.
Dustoff strikes again with his unequaled stupidity. If it wasn’t for Trump no one would be burning crosses. Obviously you don’t get that.
Hate to break that little heart of yours.
KKK was created by you libs. You have never changed,
If Trump did not exist -= you would have to create him.
The right is not the problem
Trump is not the problem.
Racism is not the problem
YOU are the problem.
Because you say so? That’s not an argument.
Problem is Trump does exist. He just made a horrendous deal with Iran. After claiming mulitple times to have “won”. He had no leverage or no control over the strait, ever. He lost any leverage the moment he decided to attack without considering the fact the Iranians could shut down the strait.
What did we get out of this deal? The moron in Chief sure feels proud of lowering gas prices that he raised with his attack on Iran.
Trump loves Ameirca! All Americans!
Democrats Hate America….every single democrat voter truly HATES AMERICA!!!!
There fixed it for you!