Antifa and the "Mainstream" Media's Normalization of Leftwing Violence

I added in the bit about the "mainstream" media -- the rest is John Sexton's headline.

Read his post, and if you like the quotes, check out Megan McArdle's article: "We Didn't Normalize Trump. We Normalized the Left's Violence."

Over 200 years, many people have suggested ways in which we might be better off without freedom of speech, or religion, or assembly -- or any of the other rights enumerated in the nine other initial amendments...

That's normal. What should never be normal is what we are now witnessing: those folks appointing themselves a freelance constitutional convention, editing out the rights they find vexing, and enforcing their new rules with the power of their fists. But that is what has happened.

If we have to spend $600,000 to ensure that these people cannot arrogate to themselves powers we won't even allow our government, then that's probably a price worth paying. What we cannot afford to do is become inured to how outrageous it is. Every time it happens, we have to remind ourselves that all this security is the price we’re paying to protect ourselves from thieves who want to steal our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. And that it is possible to once again live in a world where this is not normal.

She doesn't mention the part that makes antifa more dangerous than white supremacists: White supremacists are despised by 99% of the population and have next-to-zero institutional support. But the media makes excuses for their fellow-travelers in antifa every day, and local law enforcement directed by liberal mayors give antifa license to practice their Free Speech Vigilantism.

That a rioter should attack a citizen is not an enormous concern. Such things happen. Murders happen. That is not a sign of any kind of a falling society, but only of a fallen mankind, which we've known about forever.

But when major institutions like the media and mayor's offices become the mob mouthpieces and private security firms for remorseless terroristic criminals -- then that is a sign of a society on the verge of collapse.

A crime committed by a miscreant is a sin. But a crime committed by a miscreant with PR cover provided by the "mainstream" media, and the winking tolerance of the government itself, is an unbearable threat of approaching tyranny.

posted by Ace at 07:30 PM

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