Portland, Oregon has seen its share of peace signs. It was a hotbed of flower power in the 60’s in opposition to the war in Viet Nam. The slogan back then was, “make love, not war.” Leftist radicalism was at the root of Oregon politics. That the left did not live up to the “love” part was always understood. Eugene, Oregon was also the sight of vandalism. The University of Oregon ROTC building was torched and vehicles at a car dealership were destroyed. Tree spikers risked the lives of loggers in order to stop logging. Still, it was a national problem.
Some groups were violent or threatened violence. Patty Hearst was kidnapped on February 4, 1974 by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). The next year, another domestic terror group, the Weather Underground, bombed a State Department Building. No one was killed, but the following year they perpetrated 25 bombings. The group was corralled by improved police work but lasted into the mid-‘80s when the last members of the group stopped the attacks, although some did not answer for their crimes for decades. The Revolutionary Black Panther Party carried guns and advocated for black nationalism and was perceived as a threat to order by the police of the day.
Since the 60’s, the sense of moral entitlement has been retained, but now violence from the Left has been directed at conservatives, the most recent of which has been Andy Ngo. By way of background, Ngo, an Asian American of slight build and pacific temperament, is conservative writer. He also happens to be gay. None of this is relevant to the issue of the crime committed against him except it bears on the motive for the hate crime perpetrators who caused him brain and other injuries. He was known to Antifa thugs and so it was not surprising when they spotted him during one of their controlled riots. In a recent Fox News interview, he stated that he was struck with a brick or other hard object and was dazed as a result. As he ambled off the scene, visibly shaken, he was continuously assaulted and humiliated by masked assailants.
Meanwhile police lined the street and did nothing to stop the assault. When Ngo, dazed and confused, was able to make his way to an officer away from the frothing demonstrators, he was told by the officer that he could get a ride in an ambulance, but only if he walked to the police station. Ngo was eventually evacuated to a hospital where he says he was diagnosed with bleeding in his brain and numerous cuts and abrasions caused by the pummeling he took, including, he thought, from milkshakes laden with cement. Throwing milkshakes on conservatives has been a recent method of protest by protesters in Great Britain.
The attack on Ngo was part of a wider unpermitted conflict labeled by the police as a “civil disorder,” thus defining the conflict below the status of riot. The Oregonian [July 2, 2019] described some of the Antifa violence that occurred in addition to that against Andy Ngo, as follows:
“Gage Halupowski, 24, of Portland, faces a second-degree assault allegation, accused of repeatedly using a baton to strike a man near Pioneer Square. Police said Halupowski also turned on a second man, Adam Kelly, who tried to help the man who was no the ground and bleeding. An officer watched Halupowski deliver a ‘full overhead swing that struck the top of Kelly’s head from behind’ and reported that the ‘sound of the blow was sickening,’ causing many in the crowd to collectively gasp, according to a probable cause affidavit. Kelly received more than 20 staples to close wounds to his head and suffered a concussion.”
Violence against Conservative supporters of President Trump has been a recurring tragedy. The Trump campaign and the Trump presidency have been subject to violence of one kind or another—everything from egg throwing to vandalism, to bodily threats, to political suppression by indifference.
Those who blame the president need to know that they will not succeed in their tactics. Attacks on free speech as has been seen at the University of California at Berkeley teach violence.
The same The Oregonian article also noted that “ . . . public safety advisor Robert King was telling reporters that police are directed to enforce all laws as they’re ‘able to’ and work to keep feuding demonstrators separated. Would they act the same if their salary was paid as the city was able? Would the city’s Mayor and Commissioners behave differently if they were paid as the city was able?
Recently, violence in this country was attributed to White Nationalist. Political violence is not justified in a Democracy. Judging by the City of Portland, violence is allowed. Violence will beget violence regardless of the inner political meaning intended by its sponsors.
Some have blamed President Trump for hostility and violence in America. Two recent gun attacks sparked sadness and outrage in the country. One in El Paso, Texas where twenty were recently reported killed and twenty-four wounded and Dayton, Ohio were nine dead and twenty-six wounded were also reported shocked the nation. The President denounced White Supremacy, although White Supremacists were not involved in both cases. The perpetrator in Dayton was said to have been a support of the left-wing Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren. The El Paso shooter released a racist “manifesto” condemning Hispanics entering the United States which was, in his view, damaging to the environment. The Left seized on half the truth and blamed President Trump, which caused him to, once again, condemn White Nationalism. Most Americans have, by now, become used to the half-truths and lies propagated by the “fake news” media. They ignore Madonna having thoughts of threats of bombing the White House, Kathy Griffin holding a severed fake Donald Trump head, and many other vicious attacks on the President.
No president has ever had to endure the kinds of political attacks that President Trump has had to absorb. The highlight of these might include the false charge of collusion that has dogged his presidency since the beginning of this presidency. Based on no justifiable facts, nineteen Lawyers were assembled to provide a report to the Attorney General on Trump’s involvement. Th result of the investigation was a legal document known as the Mueller Report. It revealed no criminal guilt against the President, yet the nineteen Democrat lawyers writing the report were sure to insinuate there was proof of a kind, only if Congress continues to investigate the President. Even the lack of evidence does not stop the accusations. And in dogging the President, the President’s opponents have not only called him racist, misogynist, treasonous, and many other names, but maligned him and his family, including his children and wife, and anyone who touches him.
Not only that, but members of Congress and many others have encouraged their supporters to verbally assault the President, Cabinet supporters, and employees of the President in public places—anywhere they might be in order to attack the President. Yet they claim President Trump is the cause of internal conflict in America. The Big lie is always preferable to the Left and is reminiscent of Nazi claims against Jews.
Political violence in America is not new. The Civil War took 700,000 lives and claimed to make the point that violence is the answer to divisions in America. But the left in the 20th and 21st century has set the tone by directly assaulting Democracy. In America, there is no place for hate speech of any kind. From Andy Ngo to President Trump, the Left knows no bounds in their attack on Democracy. Small targets to big targets receive whatever treatment is necessary to discredit the Conservatism that created America and culminated in a Constitution that set the limits of government and defined personal freedoms. The Left assures us that their moral superiority is all that we need. The worst-case scenario for America is to allow complacency to replace the noble values our country has fought for over its history. The Leftward vision projects a one-party state run by elite bureaucrats and politicians who design governmental policy in backrooms based on secret manifestos of their own which are designed to remove individuality and decent from their decisions. In Congress, the left labels itself “the resistance.” The election of President Trump exposed the failures of the Left and revealed much more truth than they could have envisioned. Just the same, Americans must lawfully oppose in a long struggle the uncivilized barbarism of the hallucinating heads on the necks of left-wing agitators whose nihilistic bias is the enemy of America.