White Supremacy And The Discourse Of Far Left Panic

How is it possible those on the Left are susceptible to emotion? Isn't they a paragon of reason and logic? Will political violence be normalized?

https://hotair.com/archives/2017/09/26/chait-white-supremacy-discourse-far-left-panic/

Chait: White Supremacy And The Discourse Of Far Left Panic
JOHN SEXTONPosted at 9:21 pm on September 26, 2017
Jonathan Chait published an interesting piece in New York magazine yesterday arguing that the far left is shouting “white supremacy!” in order to create a kind of stampede, a panic which reduces the political debate to Manichaean simplicity. You are either for Antifa on the far left or you are helping the KKK.
The term “white supremacist” has described a different group of people than standard Republicanism. It meant a member of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, or some other similar organization that argued explicitly for white power. News articles linking mainstream politicians to white supremacists might mention some secret link between the two — such as the revelation that Representative Steve Scalise had given a speech to a white-supremacist organization — but they were understood to be different movements. Every mention of white supremacists that appeared in the New York Times in the 12 months before Trump’s candidacy referred either to American politicians before the civil-rights era, or to explicit advocates of white power, such as those Scalise was discovered to have met with (but not Scalise himself)…

All of a sudden, the term is being attached to Trump. The president’s “ideology is white supremacy,” writes Coates.
It’s no accident that Ta-Nehisi Coates comes up in this discussion. He is the touchstone of this argument, the person making it intellectually respectable to label Trump and potentially all Republicans white supremacists. But as Chait points out, this is less about revealing truth than it is about conflating distinct categories to instill panic and suggest it’s time to abandon outdated notions like free speech:


The method here is to panic liberals into abandoning liberalism. In normal times, liberals accept the right of even the most heinous opponents to engage in peaceful political expression, because giving either the government or violent street fighters the right to silence opponents of the left is a power that could just as easily be turned against the left itself. But if Trump is not merely a potential authoritarian but an actual one, and the appearance of a handful of Nazis (a demonstration in Charlottesville drawing upon supporters across the country mustered only a few hundred) is the onset of Weimar Germany, then liberalism seems like an insufficient response.

The equation of Trump with Hitler is a way of using history that treats American democracy as a failed experiment. All its procedural niceties, like freedom of speech even for those with the most heinous beliefs, are suddenly unaffordable luxuries.
Chait quotes an article that appeared in Jacobin:

There is a side that asserts our common humanity and fights fascism, racism, and hate. It was represented in Charlottesville by the leftist groups who took to the streets to confront the far right. The other side is the one that took innocent lives on those same streets. The stakes are high. We have to choose.
The far left is essentially adopting the “clash of civilizations” rhetoric they have denounced for years and reframing it as an existential battle between the KKK and Antifa. I could swear the left was eager to denounce this sort of thinking up to about nine months ago. Forcing people to align with the extremists doesn’t make them extremists but it does empower the extremists.

Panic is dangerous because it is so contagious. Antifa is growing and free speech is under threat from the far left in many places. As Chait correctly points out, there’s no limiting principle here. Once political violence and extremism are normalized, there’s no predicting what happens next. The only way to stop it is to return to recognizing that not everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is a white supremacist. There are a lot more reasonable Americans on both sides of the aisle than there are violent extremists on either side.

 

Here's more:

https://hotair.com/archives/2017/09/25/sadly-ny-times-back-questioning-value-free-speech/
Sadly The NY Times Is Back To Questioning The Value Of Free Speech
JOHN SEXTONPosted at 9:21 pm on September 25, 2017

One month ago I wrote a post giving the NY Times credit for publishing a solid defense of free speech. “It’s good to see the paper publish something that defends free speech as a blessing rather than a problem that needs to be solved,” I said.

Today, I’m sorry to say, the NY Times has slipped back into quite literally questioning the value of free speech. An op-ed by Professor Aaron Hanlon suggests speeches by conservatives have become too costly to police and should probably be reconsidered on a cost-benefit basis. That would be bad enough but Hanlon also downplays and excuses the reasons for those excessive costs, i.e. violent, far left protesters like Antifa.


In a typical year, the University of California, Berkeley, allocates around $200,000 to pay for security at campus protests. But since this past February, the school has spent some $1.5 million. That enormous sum excludes the $1 million the administration expected to spend this week on Milo Yiannopoulos’s chaotic and disorganized “Free Speech Week.”…

And it raises a thorny question for those who believe that free speech should trump all else: Should public institutions be spending taxpayer money allocated for higher education on speakers who aren’t there for teaching and learning?
Hanlon is correct that an absurd amount of money is being spent on security, though it’s worth noting that a recent audit showed there were other financial problems within the UC system that go well beyond the money spent on protecting conservative speakers. In any case, I think most people on the right and left would agree this is not an ideal situation. The question is this: Why is so much spending necessary? And here, Hanlon completely whiffs on the answer:

Undoubtedly, left-wing “antifa” groups have contributed to the security risks and costs at Berkeley, taking the bait that speakers like Mr. Yiannopoulos lay out and battling far-right militia groups who show up looking for a fight. But we should keep in mind, as the historian Mark Bray points out, that antifa groups form specifically to counter white supremacist and Nazi violence, having done so from the days of Hitler and Mussolini. Antifa groups are a symptom, not a cause, of the threat of white supremacist violence.
To say that Antifa has “contributed” to costs at Berkeley could be the understatement of the year. When Antifa shut down a previous speech by Yiannopoulos in February members of the group beat several people and did $100,000 in property damage. That doesn’t include the damage done to the school’s reputation as the home of the free speech movement. And that’s a pittance compared to the $1 million in damage Antifa did in Portland this year. Political violence is costly.

When Ben Shapiro came to Berkeley earlier this month, the school felt it necessary to close the balcony of the theater where he was speaking (lest Antifa kill someone), shut down 7 nearby buildings, set up concrete barriers and spend $600,000 to keep the event safe. As I pointed out here, local banks closed early and boarded up windows. Does Professor Hanlon think they were worried about zealous capitalists trying to withdraw too much money?

The bland reference to “historian Mark Bray” suggests Hanlon isn’t being remotely honest with his audience. Bray isn’t just a historian – he’s a far left former Occupy spokesman who is now the single most prominent defender of Antifa’s violence in the public sphere. Maybe that’s worth mentioning when using him as an expert on Antifa.

But the most offensive thing here is the idea that Antifa is merely a “symptom.” This is an attempt to get violent kooks off the hook for their own inexcusable behavior. Hanlon does this by bringing up the historical reaction to the Nazis. But do Nazis explain the surge of Antifa violence that took place in Germany this summer or, for that matter, in Washington in January? You almost get the impression Antifa doesn’t need much of an excuse to get violent.

Getting back to Berkeley, the amount of money spent to keep speakers safe is a proportionate response to the threat of left-wing violence. How do we know? Because in its response to a lawsuit brought against the school by the college Republicans this is the exact argument Berkeley made [emphasis added]:

The email explained that UCPD had, based on a “comprehensive review of potential sites and security arrangements,” “determined that, given currently active security threats, it is not possible to assure that the event could be held successfully—or that the safety of Ms. Coulter, the event sponsors, audience, and bystanders could be adequately protected—at any of the campus venues available on April 27th.”…

Plaintiffs contend that Defendants enforced the “unwritten, High-Profile Speaker Policy against YAF and BCR,” while allowing Vicente Fox Quesada, the former president of Mexico, to
speak on campus at 4:00 p.m. on April 17, 2017, and Maria Echaveste to speak on campus from 6:45 to 8:00 p.m. “without incident or interference from Defendants.” (Id. ¶¶ 78-79, 91.) Plaintiffs do not allege any threats to security accompanying the speeches of Mr. Fox or Ms. Echaveste.
In other words, there weren’t any right-wing mobs looking to shut down or shout down left-wing speakers. There were credible threats (and recent history) of mob action by the left against right-wing speakers. This is what you call a clue! Professor Hanlon seems to have missed it.

Finally, the suggestion that Hanlon makes that Ben Shapiro is somehow a representative of the threat of white supremacist violence is absurd. He is a Jewish conservative who has been a frequent (in fact, the most frequent) target of alt-right anger over the past year. And yet, there were credible threats he would be shut down if not for the extensive preparations by law enforcement.

The cost of protecting conservative speakers on campus is far too high, while the cost of protecting progressive speakers is minimal. The solution to this problem is not to suggest schools should give up trying but to demand that the people making the threats stop making them. It’s a shame so many contributors to the NY Times can’t seem to get that.

 

Marc Thiessen writes in The Washington Post:

What these players don’t seem to understand is that Americans gave their lives so that they could have the freedom to play a kids’ game for a living. When players disrespect the flag, they disrespect that sacrifice. And it would not matter if they had done so to protest Donald Trump or Barack Obama — their actions would be equally offensive. If NFL players want to protest the president, they have plenty of other ways. Attend a rally. Speak out on Twitter. Tell the media after the game, “I stood up for America but I stand against Donald Trump.” But don’t show contempt for the flag.

Were President Trump’s comments urging owners to fire players who refused to stand incendiary? Sure. Were they politically calculated? No doubt. But that does not change the fact that he is right. And he did not start this fight. Colin Kaepernick and a handful of players did. Moreover, Trump is not the first president to speak out against disrespect for the flag. In 1988, Republican George H.W. Bush excoriated his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, for vetoing a bill requiring Massachusetts teachers to lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance. As president he proposed a constitutional amendment to outlaw desecration of the flag.

Yes, athletes do have a constitutional right to engage in speech that is offensive to millions of Americans. But the First Amendment does not protect them from the consequences of their offensive speech. There is no constitutional right to play professional football. If an NFL player stood on the sidelines and hurled racial epithets, his speech would be protected by the First Amendment. He would also be fired.

The NFL’s game operations manual says that “all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem” and must “stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking” or face discipline “such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s).” The league regularly penalizes players for dancing in the end zone, but it allows players to violate the rules regarding the national anthem with impunity.​

Thiessen is correct. President Trump is correct. Enough is enough.