At present, the public mind is not prepared to receive the truth.
Robert E. Lee, 1866
Why quote a Confederate general as we watch the country dividing into hostile camps? Because Robert E. Lee tried to calm people’s emotions after the Civil War, and there is evidence he lamented the war at its inception. From the point of view of the vanquished, he saw the limitations of violence. He saw that force can destroy and oppress, but it cannot persuade those who inwardly and steadfastly disagree.
Lee’s letter to Jubal Early (quoted above) is an acknowledgment that the public mind cannot absorb certain truths in real time. People may have romantic notions of what is possible, including notions that are unrealistic to the point of absurdity. According to Richard Weaver, Lee’s statement “denies the principle that the voice of the people is at all times the voice of God. It declares rather that the mind of a people, like that of an individual, may become so deranged with anger that it is simply not receptive to the realities.”
There is a distraught mentality that “cannot interpret objectively” and “does not want to hear reason and may be offended by a proposal in proportion as it is reasonable.” People, he added, “must be in a state of grace to listen to the truth.” According to Weaver, Lee understood the momentary popular passion of the defeated South. He knew that the “syllogisms offered by victor or vanquished served only to increase the prevailing rancor.” Lee’s policy was “to say nothing until reason had a chance to resume sway on both sides.”
It happens that Lee was not an enthusiastic secessionist in 1860-61. In a letter to his son, dated December, 14, 1860, Lee wrote of General Scruggs’s opinion that the Union “will be dissolved in six weeks….” Of this Lee wrote, “I hope, however, the wisdom and patriotism of the country will devise some way of saving it, and that a kind Providence has not yet turned the current of His blessings from us.”
Lee touched on “the aggressions of the North”; yet he offered serious criticisms of the South as well: “I am not pleased with the course of the ‘Cotton States’… In addition to their selfish, dictatorial bearing, the threats they throw out against ‘Border States’ … if they will not join them, argues little for the benefit or peace of [Virginia]….” Further down in the letter he made an even more striking criticism: “One of their plans seems to be the renewal of the slave trade. That I am opposed to on every ground.”
These are striking words from the man who would become the Confederacy’s most famous general. Even more striking was his letter of 23 January 1861, in which his true feelings were eloquently spelled out. Lee had just then received a copy of Everett’s Life of Washington, and wrote: “How his spirit would be grieved could he see the wreck of his might labors!” Lee added: “I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union.” Some lines further he said, “Secession is nothing but revolution.”
The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for ‘perpetual union,’ so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution…. Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me.
Some may quibble with Lee’s assertions about the preamble of the Constitution. Yet the purpose of the Constitution, as stated in the Preamble, is “to form a more perfect union.” The principle of Union is embedded in the country’s very name. At the same time, we can all understand Lee’s statement that a Union maintained by bayonets has “no charm for me.”
Richard Weaver, in his essay titled “Lee the Philosopher,” says that Lee did not relish his role in the Civil War. When called upon to write his memoirs, or to help others with theirs, he found himself unready to remember the war years. He regretted his military education. His oft-quoted statement that “duty” is the most sublime word in the English language turns, at the end of Lee’s life, toward an altogether non-military sense of things.
Lee’s antique greatness, said Weaver, is found in his humility. “He believed that there is an order of things,” wrote Weaver. “That order is providential in the sense that mortal wisdom is not to be compared to infinite wisdom. This truth, however, conveys nothing of fatalism or determinism; the individual is not exempt from exerting his will in the world … according to his light.”
No man’s education is complete, said Lee, until his death. One should, therefore, accept defeat and failure as part of life’s educational plan. Is this pessimistic? The hysterical optimists of our day might say so. The real pessimists, in truth, are those who load everything onto this worldly existence of ours; as if anyone gets out of here alive.
In terms of national reconciliation, Lee knew that we must place our hopes on our sense of justice; that reconciliation is “impeded by protest and controversy.” Lee’s opinion of war as an instrument of national policy is therefore not far to find. Some say that war can settle everything. On the other side, some say war settles nothing. Weaver tells us that Robert E. Lee, toward the close of his life, “began to face frankly the limitations of soldiering as a profession.”
The following testament of faith was found among Lee’s papers in 1887 by Colonel Charles Marshall:
My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them, nor indisposed me to serve them; nor, in spite of failures, which I lament, of errors, which I now see and acknowledge, or of the present state of affairs, do I despair of the future. The march of Providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient, the work of progress is so immense, and our means of aiding it so feeble, the life of humanity is so long, and that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave, and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.
Many Americans, on seeing the present turn of affairs, could take solace from these words. The rage of the moment, and the fear of the moment, does not put men in a philosophic frame of mind. The division of the country today is terrifyingly real. A New Religion has appeared in our midst, secular in its hatred of our traditions and our ancestors. The polarization of the country has reached a fever pitch, where political oppression is openly contemplated by the side that is now coming to power. We do not know what the future holds. We know that the New Religion is kin to the ruling philosophy of Marxist-Leninist China. We know that the Chinese are aiming nuclear weapons at us: that China’s military is poised for war.
There is an interesting set of photographs from a Ukrainian website (linked below), which ought to give us pause. We see an allegedly pro-Russian operative, Sergei Dubinin, posing with the QAnon Shaman at the Capitol building last Wednesday. Here is a disgraceful image: The ridiculous American clown and the foreign operative, arm in arm. Think carefully, if you can, what is wrong with this picture. Who benefits if America is divided? Think to yourself what is at stake if our national unity is lost. What happens to us if we fail to uphold freedom, patriotism and a strong military position in the world? I admonish the left, especially, as they tilt toward Bolshevism. We are Americans. We respect freedom of speech. We respect the principles of the Constitution. The Devil take those who would use last week’s events to establish a tyranny. Such a policy would divide us, once and for all time, to the benefit of a deadly foreign enemy.
Of course, we do not know who Sergei Dubinin is. Yacov Apelbaum says that Dubinin is a pro-Ukrainian activist and not a pro-separatist, presenting a translation of Dubinin’s alleged arrest warrant by the Lugansk Ministry of Internal Affairs. Curiously, Dubinin is depicted in photographs wearning a Bandaraite T-shirt with anti-Semitic implications (suggestive of far right anti-Jewish affiliation). In Ukraine, it is a Russian tactic to depict Ukrainian nationalists as anti-Semites. At the same time there are Ukrainian anti-Semites, of course. Apelbaum is a pretty solid researcher. (Clowns, Hammers, Scorecards, and a Con Man | The Illustrated Primer (wordpress.com).)
Links and Notes
(1) Хто “штурмував” Капітолій? – Myrotvorets News
— Source: myrotvorets.news/kapitolii-shturmuvaly-boiovyky-ldnr/
See also Apelbaum’s claim that Dubinin is not pro-separatist: Clowns, Hammers, Scorecards, and a Con Man | The Illustrated Primer (wordpress.com)
According to a Ukrainian Website, Pro-Russian LDNR militant Sergei Dubinin is wanted by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry since April 2017 for his activities in Eastern Ukraine (Donbas). He was allegedly in Washington, D.C. last week.
(2) Richard M. Weaver, The Southern Essays of Richard M. Weaver, edited by George M Curtis, III and James J. Thompson, Jr., pp. 171-180.
(3) Rev. J. William Jones, D.D., Life and Letters of Robert Edward Lee, Soldier and Man.
Jeff I have read the Weaver essay you discuss. I always respected Lee, but never until I read his quotations did I realize what a great man he truly was. The orc mob who tear down his statue are insulting a man whose nature was to theirs as a mountain to an ant. I think that Mark Antony’s words in Julius Caesar apply perfectly to him. “This was the noblest Roman of them all.”
The greatness of these old soldiers and generals of the Civil War is very striking. Their greatness is in the moral sphere, where they clearly tower over us. And Lee was certainly one of the greatest among them; especially in his humility — which our arrogant politicians of today do not possess.
Please explain the benefits to China of a mutually destructive war.
How is China going to be destroyed? We are being taken step by step.
The generals of the Confederacy tended to be men of great faith, and saw the duties they performed to be those that God had sent them to do. The book/movie “Gods and Generals” provided some great insights into these men. If we only had men like that in our government today, we would never have seen what we have over the past couple of years.
The Will Durant quote, “The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without God.”
Those who just usurped the elections can definitely live without God, although when the grave consequences of their actions produce the kinds of results that happened in Kosovo/Serbia and Montenegro they we all be wondering how it could have happened.
If you can’t accept the beliefs of other large groups of people, and that they also deserve to be represented in American government, then America is not the pinnacle of freedom it has been portrayed as. And it never will be. You demand a theocracy.
Jeff, you don’t believe a war between the USA and China would destroy China?
The objective of war is to win, not to destroy your own country. If you have the right strategy, and a little luck, and your enemy is stupid — then victory is always possible. The purpose of weapons is not to destroy countries. Weapons exist to destroy the enemy’s armed forces. This applies to nuclear weapons too. China will attack if and when she stands a good chance of winning; namely, after our nuclear deterrent is past its shelf life.
Thanks for writing about General Lee. He was a truly great man. If anyone is interested in a definitive work on him, try Douglas Freeman’s 3 volume set if you can find it.
You’re right, his most enduring quality was his great humility and selflessness. Where are we to find men like him nowadays? Towards the end of his life while he was doing a tour of the South, a young mother came up to him with her infant son and asked what advice Lee would give him. He looked at the mother and said: “teach him he must deny himself.” It pains me to see our efforts to erase him from our memory now.
Matt Steen please understand: the effort to remove confederate monuments from public spaces is not to “erase them from memory”. Rather, it is an effort to move monuments of historically divisive figures into more appropriate places, such as museums and historical archives. Regardless of the reputability of these figures, having them in public spaces is a constant representation of the principles they defended; in Lee’s case, the confederate willingness to die for slavery. In my opinion, America is only strengthened by the acceptance of this reality, and the relegation of these monuments to more appropriate spaces (like the various Civil War museums in Virginia).
Instead of insisting these historical figures can only be remembered through their monuments standing in public spaces, Conservatives should accept the modern reality that divisive statues can be antagonistic and traumatic to many of their fellow Americans. History can still be preserved without Robert E. Lee forever looming over Monument Avenue. Any claim otherwise is willingly ignorant.
“historically divisive figures” Considering even Abe Lincoln and Jefferson statues have been attacked, this just goes to show the extreme stupidity of you and your ilk in going down this destructive path.
You have to consider the perspectives of your fellow countrymen, and not automatically dismiss them as below you, in order to maintain peace. This is also required of the other side. The other side sees the way we were raised and educated as already representing your perspective, through indoctrination to blind one-sided patriotism as children. Over time we have become educated to the perspectives of those different from us, and now choose to represent those perspectives as a counter to the automatic programming we were exposed to at a young age, towards the ends of a more peaceful society. This is why you feel dismissed and look at the other side as hypocrites: you don’t see us bending to your perspective, so we are the enemy.
The only enemy any of us face is the person unwilling to learn something new. If we keep allowing ourselves to learn together, nothing can destroy America.
That’s a bogus, intellectually dishonest load of “presentism” if ever I read it. Please go to the trouble of actually doing some thinking before you elect yourself to the moral high-road.
Wherein I am immediately dismissed as below AETHELSTANISBACK for suggesting he learn something about his fellow countrymen. Thank you for proving my point.
Please explain what trauma some may experience gazing at a statue.
Perhaps these antagonized folks might be ferried across the ocean to a Chinese prison for a few days, for an exercise in comparative trauma.
Trauma can be triggered a million different ways, viewing a statue included. If you understood how trauma works at all you wouldn’t ask that question. The objective is not to make a trigger-free world, but to remove some of the biggest and most prominent triggers if we can help it; because that’s what a compassionate populous does for each other. Let’s just start with the most controversial monuments first: the Lee statue in Virginia and Stone Mountain in Georgia. Can you explain the down sides of moving these highly controversial monuments into museums in order to improve the daily lives of the people they trigger? Is there any argument besides “we shouldn’t have to”? Who does it insult if these monuments are no longer in public view? Who do they honor by remaining prominent?
A very large part of American racism is claiming victimhood and oppression by simply being asked to understand your fellow compatriot. It’s not a tall order, but you act like it’s impossible and don’t even try. Most Americans aren’t aware they are being racist when they do this.
This is neurotic. Please stop before I call Dr. Freud.
“Please explain what trauma some may experience gazing at a statue.”
Constantly reminding someone whose grandparents were slaves, and whose family has had less opportunity in this world because of that, that members of their immediate community are proud of what that statue represents, is traumatic. Do you not understand this? Does that person matter to you? Or is the statue more important than doing something simple that would help heal that person and everyone else who feels that way? It would help heal the country in ways you can’t imagine.
But it doesn’t happen, because white people can’t grasp the concept that removing statues that vast numbers of Americans know is racist, isn’t racist. It actually fights against the silent and insidious racism that so easily passes from generation to generation of white Americans, myself included. I didn’t need a book or professor to show me my racism, I saw it and felt it working in my life. I watched it work in my family, and my friends. It was evident within the difficulty of breaching the issue with even them, the people that love me. By not acknowledging the truth of our own racism, we only keep it alive for the next generation.
This concept of racism is being used to erase our heritage and our past. Here is a communist theme for breaking down our shared memory of the national past, and paralyzing us with a disingenuous guilt. I do not care for the Confederacy or its glamorization; yet Lee was a great man who accepted defeat with grace and humility. You’re going to tell me it’s evil to have his statue in Richmond? But he is a big part of our history, especially in that city which he defended in the most terrible war of the nineteenth century. Indeed, we should be reminded of him whether or not we agree with the ideas of his erstwhile country. Everyone can be offended by anything if they want to be offended. That is the privilege of the over-sensitive neurotic. In that case we cannot have any statues. And that would be silly.
These splendid works of art were, until 2020, perfectly acceptable by Americans.
Now we qre told that Conservatives have to accept the ‘modern reality’ that divisive statues can be antagonistic and traumatic to many. Put on your big girl’s pants will you?
A statue can be antagonistic? A solid object can antagonize a human being? A statue can be traumatic to many? If you are traumatized by a carved stone you should seek help.
Winston Churchill’s response would have been succinct.
“Poppycock.”
Try telling the ChiComs you want them to take down their giant portraits of Chairman Mao.
Why must is always be Conservatives who have to concede, or bend the knee to the illiterate mob.
Here’s a novel idea: it you don’t like looking a Robert E Lee, I am sure you can find a route that doesn’t go past his statue. Or, get your gay boyfriend to hold his manicured hands over your eyes so you can’t see the nasty hero.
If possible, could we leave the few remaining statues intact? 180 were torn down in the peaceful riots in the summer of 2020. Billions of dollars of damage was done. The left encouraged them. Does anyone recall or am I living in a parallel universe?
The nihilistic left has been taught exactly the opposite. They are entitled to such things and are entitled to make others pay for their entitlements. The nihilists are going after what they see as low hanging fruit. They’ve made some noises about the founders, and have defaced statues of both Washington and Jefferson. Cancel culture will get around to them fairly soon.
Are the statues gone? Is there growing sentiment to remove them? No, and no.
Are some stupid people expressing their opinions in a juvenile and disrespectful way? Yes.
If they are moved to museums in the future because of popular demand, is America finished? No.
All these predictions about the coming “Leftist Crackdown” on America are eye-rollingly paranoid and detrimental to our society. And I say this as a “Leftist”. Regardless of what everyone on this website believes, losing majority control of American morality will not be the end of the world.
“And I say this as a “Leftist”.”
That is quite obvious.
What is the point of this comment?
Jeff,i too have never believed in this ‘fall of communism’.I remember in the 90’s seeing a news-item on dutch tv.Gorbachov was making a walk-about somewhere,and the images showed ‘angry soviet citizens’ freely hurling accusations at him.Immediately i wondered how these people (who normally would have been too terrified to even express their feelings to close family members) could have been so suddenly emboldend.Obviously this was all theatre- set up for the benefit of a naieve Western audience.And obviously,when people try to deceive you,their motives ought to be suspect.
But what do you think is going to happen next?.Are the Chinese just going to wait for Biden to effectively invite them in?Or might they try to take advantage of the current chaos.Is an attack imminent?
The Chinese have to be careful not to tip their hand and expose their motives to their erstwhile American partners (stooges). If our leftists understood China’s real intentions, their knees would knock in fear. Instead, they fear us — their fellow Americans. It’s a sad and misguided left we have — blind to their real enemy, which is foreign threat from a ruthless totalitarian dictatorship.
“It’s a sad and misguided left we have…”
I do not know that they are misguided as much as they have a delusional bear hug on what they think is a teddy bear, when it reality it is a very ravenous grizzly bear.
thanks for the reply.i had my doubts about Trump.he seemed pridefull;and doesnt that invite a fall?didnt like his diwalli celebration either nor his ymca theme.,seems like the Americans were prepared to bear his imperfections though -good on them!feel pretty gutted now.so distraught,such injustice.,also in europe the consequences will be horrific.
We shall see how things go from here.
There won’t be civil war, until the US Government, brings in Chinese troops to evict people from their homes, as part of the pending, Sino-American Union.
Although I’ve been in a perpetual state of rage for days now (though I’m actually feeling good at the moment), I don’t think there’s any logical solution to our problem other than a new secession movement.
Even if the election isn’t stolen again, it will not be necessary. Illegal immigrants will receive amnesty with the path to citizenship. The media still says there are “only” 11 million of them, as they’ve said since the early 2000s. The number should at least be 20 million per studies I recall posted on Breitbart, though it could be as high as 50 million. And out of that number, we’ll be lucky if only 60-70% will vote Democrat every election cycle. How do I know that’s the minimum number? Because that’s how the legal ones have been voting for decades and getting worse every year, with the exception of Cubans and also Texas Hispanics (Trump only won 40% of Texas Hispanics, but if not for what I believe is massive fraud in Houston and Austin, I suspect he would have gotten 47-50%, just like in Florida). Biden also promises a more than 700% increase in refugee numbers, which, like under Obama, will likely be distributed strategically amongst red counties.
And this is only the most obvious method the Democrats plan to use to change voting demographics in this country in their favor. The Democrats will be using a thousand different tricks to ensure they remain permanently in power, such as making mass absentee voting permanent if they can get away with it, or by the weaponized use of government housing to insert reliable Democrat voters into Red Counties (and not to mention destroying those same conservative communities with massive surges of crime).
As Joe Biden himself has said, white people are becoming a minority in this country, and that’s “a good thing” according to him. These immigrants by and large do not truly assimilate. They do not become Americans. No reason to! The public education system doesn’t even make our native born children real Americans. All this mass immigration stuff is just to speed along the process: they’re importing an entirely new population of people who will not share our values, will not respect our history, and will be trained by the schools and the media to actively hate us. Imagine a foreign country suddenly being imported into your nation, floated over in the sky and dropped by maybe “Brainiac” from the Superman comics (he steals cities and can move them around) right into the heart of Texas, or Georgia, or Florida. That is basically what the Democrats are planning to do on a vast scale. 20 million people on the low end, the population of New York! Or 50 million, more than 11 million more people than the population of California!
As a Hispanic, I know of the disloyal heart of immigrants from first hand experience. Hispanics will always favor other Hispanics (generally speaking) over non-Hispanics. They call themselves Mexicans, Guatemalans, whatever, even after generations of being here and they no longer speak a word of Spanish. They by and large are not loyal to the country and do not share our values. And the values they do hold are absolute trash. Case in point, my ancestors were hanged by Pancho Villa and the family farm utterly destroyed. Many many dead. Cattle and valuables stolen. But today, Pancho Villa is a national hero of Mexico, a man who was nothing but a bandit, a rapist and a killer.
Moving on: besides the importation of an entirely new demographic to ensure they never lose an election again, consider all the OTHER things that are coming down on us like an anvil.
(1) European hate speech laws entirely enforced by the private sector, including cutting off our ability to raise money, advertise or make money from advertising (Google dominates online advertising), or to even open bank accounts. A baseball player yesterday lost his insurance coverage because of statements he made on Twitter. Trump will lose all means to raise money for a 2024 campaign (though they will likely find some way to jail him anyway so you can say that doesn’t matter much). Trump staff are already threatened with being blacklisted from professional work. Laura Loomer reports that she lost the ability to raise money using traditional payment processors years ago, with Mastercard/VISA, etc., upholding the right to blacklist businesses or non-profits that violate their “standards”. All of this and more is coming for us all, inevitably.
(2) Our Second Amendment rights will be severely hampered, and I do not trust SCOTUS to protect us. Biden promises to end lawsuit protections for manufacturers, meaning the victims of gun crimes… will be able to sue Winchester or Magnum Research for selling the gun that was used to shoot them! Next will also go the “Internet loophole” for gun sales and sales of bullets and gun-parts. This means if I want to buy a gun from Budsgunshop.com, even though all gun deliveries must go to an FFL dealer for background check and pickup, I’d better do it now before these laws come down.
Even if we’re lucky and Biden fails in the courts, the ATF–after years of slumbering–had a phone call from team Biden and already set to work raiding manufacturers:
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20201216/after-colluding-with-biden-batfe-raids-polymer80
He’s not even President yet and they’re already doing his bidding to attack manufacturers and gun owners.
(3) The Democrats are promising to pack the courts. Though Biden refused to answer questions on the topic during the campaign, a staff member told Veritas undercover people that it is merely a tactical silence! With all this power going to their heads, will the Democrats really frown upon packing the courts in their present mood? They might wait until after 2022 (but why bother when they already stole the election once and can keep doing it again), but it’ll happen.
Unfortunately, we are utterly powerless to do anything to stop these things. In a very short period of time, America will cease to be America.
Now, we can talk about the sanctity of unity, how much George Washington would weep at secession, blah blah blah, but there is no other option other than secession. That will certainly be my focus from here on out, in my limited way, here in the State of Texas. And I don’t think the Founders, who created America through violent revolution, are going to be to ashamed of me and those who agree.
If we do not win people on the left over to our way of thinking — given the degree of leftist control over our institutions — nothing will save us. You have outlined the crisis very well. But you see, secession will never work. It is not practical. This country can barely defend against China and Russia now, when it is fully united. Split off chunks and you accelerate the demise of the whole. Texas cannot defend itself. It’s that simple. Think it through. Emotionalism will not give you a winning strategy. Oh yes, the situation is dire. I oppose the left’s agenda because it undermines our defense both culturally and militarily. Our unity and the values that are necessary to a coherent defense are erased by the left’s very way of talking — especially by their divisive race-oriented “critical theory.” They do not see the threat of communist powers or subversion from within. They have succeeded in ethnically dividing us, by painting whites as racist and causing fear in minority groups they are building into a majority. We will all die together when the country’s economy fails and our nuclear deterrent is no more. The left’s policies are the enemy’s policies and they must be opposed. The left now claims to be the center, the mainstream. If that is true, say your prayers. The left is in favor of suicidal policies. A big country like this can disintegrate very fast. We have to oppose insanity and show that the danger is real. Short of that, we are going to suffer things that are impossible to relate in full. Starvation, civil disorder, civil war and foreign invasion. That is what Biden’s policies signify. He is a corrupt tool of the communists supported by thugs, subversives and enemy agents of influence. His administration will prove it to everybody. Even Terry George will sound like me when all is said and done.
I wonder how many more years you will have to be wrong before you acknowledge you’re chasing a delusion.
My view looks like a delusion, to you, does it? The loss of freedom for conservatives who are kicked off Twitter and Facebook, looks like a delusion? Are you blind as well as stupid? Meanwhile, little Antifa punks can post whatever they want. A thousand cops injured in last summer’s riots, billions in burnt and looted buildings, 36 people dead, and now patriotic Americans are being accused of sedition and insurrection because of one chaotic break-in at the Capitol? They are going to pass a domestic terrorism bill against us. They are taking away our access to the internet. Don’t you think that all goes to prove my narrative? My friends are having their Twitter accounts suspended for expressing their opinions. Do you have any idea how stupid you are coming here and posting? A totalitarian takeover is happening right in front of your eyes and you’re okay with it. Every culture has its rules and ideals. You think American culture is evil? Wait till you see the communists in full possession of power. That will shut your ignorant little pie hole once and for all.
“win them over to our way of thinking”– Therein lies the rub of the other problem. We cannot win them over.
On Facebook I saw hundreds of posts, one after the other, celebrating the death of Ashli Babbit, some even saying that more should have been shot for “breaking the law.” Remember, these same people, if a BLM/ANTIFA member was shot in one of their BLM marches, would be shrieking about murder without even knowing any of the facts.
Today, I saw the sister of a friend calling her brother a “domestic terrorist” and threatening to inform the FBI… because he admitted to having been at the protest, though he did not take part in any illegal entry, which should be obvious to her.
We have tried to win them over for years. We have used logic and facts to do so. We have entire websites dedicated to showing the double standards and hypocrisy of the left, the lies of the media, and the destructiveness of their agenda. None of it works. It can’t work on people who can celebrate and justify the shooting of a Trump supporter and go back to condemning all cops, no matter what they do, as soon as the media signals them to do so.
Since we can’t when them over we come to the conclusion, “nothing can save us.” This leads me to think, “then we might as well try for secession anyway, since death is inevitable either way.”
Our enemy is not the whole left. Our enemy is that part of the left that wants to kill us all. We must correctly distinguish between those who can be reasoned with and those who are irrational haters. We must avoid that kind of blind hatred on our side. That’s the whole reason I quoted Robert E. Lee. Ulysses S. Grant also understood this.
Nothing can win over extremists, which is why we should not let extremists lead the charge. All the people you just mentioned are extremists. Stop giving them credence and listen to the far more reasonable people who are towards the middle. Leave the extremists on the fringe. Stop letting them boil your blood.
Your shortsightedness makes you angry and scared. Being kicked off Twitter does not indicate a totalitarian takeover. Ignorance and stupidity are not protected by the first amendment. Twitter (et al.) are private businesses that can refuse service to anyone acting stupid, just like the local grocer can. It’s absurd to claim victimhood because a restaurant kicks you out for being an obnoxious asshat, is it not? Are you suggesting businesses should have to put up with idiocy and unruly behavior within their doors? Surely you’re smarter than this. Twitter does have a lot of power in its platform, but does that mean it doesn’t get to operate itself anymore? Do businesses that reach a certain size and responsibility become public entities controlled by the people? Sounds a lot like your dreaded Communism to me.
As for local street riots for racial justice vs. riots in active government buildings of the entire nation to protest election fraud that doesn’t exist because their president lost – there is no comparison. Why would you ever justify a partisan raid on the houses of congress to try and overturn an election, by highlighting the violent frustrations of a society dealing with the continued existence of racial injustice? Of course the future looks dire if you think this way! You don’t see any victims of the repercussions of slavery in the modern black community, so the political party they support at large must be evil. Their anger and outrage is completely unwarranted to you, even in the year 2021 where police officers (and civilians) can execute people on video without legal penalty.
We are simply demanding equal enforcement of the law, which requires the deep seated racist roots within all American law enforcement apparati to be forcibly removed. The only way to do this is by rebuilding law enforcement from the ground up with new leaders and new training. This can be done if we will it as a nation.
I never justified a raid on Congress. Why do you misrepresent me in your reply? And yet, amazingly, it is YOU who are justifying violence, which included last summer’s attack on the White House in which Secret Service personnel were injured. I condemn the storming of the Capitol. What about you, Terry? You think the massive violence of last summer was justified — so blind that you don’t see your own hypocrisy, which you have shown for all to see (and I want everyone to see it). You don’t care about this country. You’re all caught up in your own personal pain, whining about the racial insensitivity of people who are worried sick about their country and its survival. They aren’t thinking about you, Terry. They are thinking about this thing that is engulfing us and threatening us all with calamity. You don’t care about the fairness of what Twitter or Facebook or YouTube has done. It doesn’t matter if they are private or public. These monopoly social media are persecuting conservatives on account of their political views. Talk about trauma and insensitivity, Terry. Are you here to gloat? Well, we see you. We see the dishonesty of your arguments, and the hypocrisy. You should be ashamed. But that is not something you are capable of feeling.
I’ve listened to intolerant leftist demands for tolerance for gay/bi/trans and wonder how these spoiled children will act when the sharia punishment given to the gay(s) in Arabia, Iran, or Syria is experienced here.
Terry George’s inability to look at a statue and not be wounded is beyond sad. Lenin’s statue in Seattle, or Churchill’s in London, or Albert Pike’s in D.C. give pause to reflect on the nature of political power – there are reasons to question whether the character of any of them is worthy of the public square. However, people who have no knowledge of a historical character don’t care, people that have a one-sided opinion maybe either offended or inspired, and people with a deeper appreciation for the narrative of history, the challenges of leadership and the role characters play are less willing to make a black-white judgement. While each of the characters I mentioned have been lauded, each could be condemned, and I have found aspects in each of them to admire. They have shaped the world around us, far more than I would dare or aspire to, for I am reluctant to sacrifice my fellow man (gender-neutral.)
The “Qanon shaman” has been identified as Antifa/BLM. He has been seen in photos of previous Antifa/BLM riots as a participant in those riots. He’s admitted to being a Q fan, which requires a lot of cognitive dissonance from an extreme leftist.
This is completely wrong. Do more research.
You do research, ignoramus.
Show me where you’ve found anything about him being Antifa, besides photos of him at BLM marches (counterprotesting). Stop this nonsense.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jake-angeli-viking-capitol-blm/
The only hope of gaining cooperation from the left, is to allow them to dominate US. At least that would keep China and Russia at bay awhile longer,
You can gain cooperation from the left by acknowledging that the criminal justice system is still weighted against black people. You can learn this by reading black writers, understanding history from the black perspective, and empathizing with the modern black experience. Denial that black (and brown) America still suffers at the hands of racism, without the acquisition or support of the aforementioned education, will only ever justify violence from the left. Because that denial is violence. And it is still being perpetrated against the majority of Americans who are against it.
Thomas Sowell books for a start and maybe Clarence Thomas.
You’ve never read Thomas Sowell Apparently. This is a complicated subject by no means to be settled by leftist demagogues. There is no “justice system” per se. There are jurisdictions of various kinds, with different problems. A blanket statement or judgment over such a vast system is not only too broad for proof, but technically difficult to analyze. The raw numbers however show that more people died in last summer’s “justice riots” than in the last several years of police shootings of blacks. So there is something out of kilter in your analysis when your solution involves more innocent deaths than the thing your are protesting.
I suspect the left will not come around until the Chinese communists are unmasked as enemies.
Look, nobody in there right mind would want to be President; especially now. Let Harris take a crack at it. Next term, Trump gets reelected.
An analysis of videos of the death of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt at the U.S. Capitol indicates Antifa activists provoked the fatal gunshot from a police officer.
Japanese investigator Misako Ganaha explained in a video interview with Epoch Times reporter Joshua Philipp on his “Crossroads” program that she analyzed two lengthy videos, affording two different angles of the incident near the House chamber.
One of the videos was posted by a “Jayden X,” who was later identified as Antifa organizer John Sullivan of Utah.
D.C. police said the unnamed officer who shot Babbitt, a 35-year-old San Diego resident, was a plainclothes Capitol Police officer.
Ganaha pointed out to that just prior to the shooting, two men who had been agitating the crowd broke the glass on a set of doors.
Immediately after the glass was broken, a shot was fired as Babbitt attempted to go through the doors.
One of the men who broke the glass can be seen going down a stairway and changing into clothing he had stored in a backback.
Ganaha, who lives in Okinawa, Japan, said it was clear to her that the two men were not Trump supporters.
She said she’s seen the same Marxist “agitate and divide” tactics employed by leftists in her home country.
Clearly there were Trump supporters inside the Capitol building, she said, but “the ones who were leading the crowd, or agitating the crowd, were not Trump supporters,” she said.
“I think they had a plan.”
An important part of the tactic, she said, is for somone in collaboration with the agitators to serve as a “witness” to mainstream media, which tells the story “without analyzing.”
Media simply repeats what the witness says, explained Ganaha, “so the world does not know the truth.”
“The world is watching and we should know what the truth is,” she told Phillip. “And, then we can move on to what to think or what to decide, what to talk, what do next.
“We just need the truth.”
Sullivan, who posted one of the videos, told media that Antifa had organized an event at the same time and location as the pro-Trump rally.
He insisted in a video he posted Friday to Periscope that he was inside the Capitol building only “to record.”
“I was there to let people see that situation in the best possible way,” claimed Sullivan, the founder of a group called Insurgence USA.
He asserted in an interview with Fox 13 in Salt Lake City that his video disproves those who claim Antifa members dressed as Trump supporters invaded the Capitol.
He said he was detained and questioned by the FBI but was not charged with any crime. In June, Sullivan was arrested for organizing a protest in Provo, Utah, where a person was shot.
On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged the FBI and DHS to place everyone who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6 on the no-fly list as “insurrectionists.”
See Philipp’s interview with Ganaha:
https://youtu.be/5nvqvvsqJ_s
https://www.wnd.com/2021/01/analysis-concludes-antifa-provoked-shooting-ashli-babbitt-capitol/
Yes, I shared that on the last blog. I think her comments were excellent! Seeing the person running down the steps and quickly changing clothes was so telling! Michelle Bachman also shared what she saw that day compared to other times when the VP was in Congress:
It’s not just blacks, it’s the poor.
Dear Terry George:
Everything you say and believe is patently wrong. The U.S. criminal laws are, and have been for 70 years, colorblind. The Left has run all the major cities where most black people reside for a couple generations now. Many of the judges are black and most liberal/Left. So where and what exactly is the injustice? And why shouldn’t black offenders bear personal responsibility for their misdeeds? And the 80% rate of fatherlessness in black families be blamed for disparities in criminal activity?
And what country is the shining beacon against which you can compare the United States as unjust? Nigeria? Nope, they want to emigrate here. China? Nope, one of the most racist countries in the world (e.g. Uyghurs). Perhaps some Utopia that has never existed? Tell us.
The most malicious thing that anyone can do to the black community is to infantilize them by relieving them of personal responsibility and regarding them as oppressed fools. How paralyzing.
But Leftists like you really don’t give a crap about real black people (for example who suffers the most by withdrawing police from inner cities?). It’s all about theory, virtue signaling & feeling good about yourself for wokeness. Pathetic.
Nope, it’s not. It’s about learning and commiserating with the lives and plights of others. It’s about understanding trauma and how it reverberates through generations if not properly healed. It’s about being open to the possibility that you are wrong, and you don’t have all the information you need to forge a well-informed opinion. If you won’t do any of these things then you will always feel like the world is against you.
This is almost mawkish.
Spoken like a broken man without a heart.
You are projecting again, Terry. Not good to give yourself away like that.
😄
Lovely, useless rhetoric.
But again, against which country should the United States be compared in order to declare it unjust and racist? You never tell us.
This isn’t about another country, what are you even asking? Talk to your fellow countrymen of color and you will see the issue. Read more than just the conservative voices who have been lucky enough to evade racism and you will better understand what racism is and feels like. Just because some black people don’t encounter racism doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. White people have to eradicate it within themselves and each other or it will remain. Maintaining the delusion that racism is gone is what keeps it here.
This way of writing, Terry, is very divisive. You are accusing us of racism — however indirectly. Mean behavior is all around us. This is life, Terry, and nobody here is advocating racism or bullying. Why are you reacting to us as if we are? Nobody here has said anything racist. Americans should be Americans. I have read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” Terry. Have you? I have read “These Mean Streets,”
have you? I have black friends. I know the legacy of slavery. It was appalling and wrong. But we don’t have Jim Crow or the KKK calling the shots. Our new demon is the radical left. That is who is threatening human freedom and liberty, Terry. When they come to arrest me it won’t be Bubba from the Klan. It will be an Antifa punk with a national police badge.
“When they come to arrest me it won’t be Bubba from the Klan. It will be an Antifa punk with a national police badge.”
This is just so patently absurd. When you’re still rambling about this nonsense over the next 20 years and not being silenced or invaded by China I hope you remember how ridiculous you have always been.
Now that’s a strange thing to write Terry. If I’m so absurd, why do you buzz around here like a door fly?
Ahh, Terry, tell me about it.
How about coming from a dysfunctional family where you’ve been beaten, so hard that you have permanent injuries. Those permanent injuries leave you partially disabled. You go to the state employment office, but they give you no references because of your skin color. You become homeless and camp in a public park because you don’t want to be part of a typical homeless encampment. You have to pay your own way through college, because there are no set-asides or special privileges, again because of your skin color. Oh, I’m talking about the early days of “Affirmative Action” when whites were discriminated against.
Is there racism against people of color? Most of what I’ve seen is from leftists, who think that Blacks are inferior to whites. They then rob Blacks of education opportunities by dumbing down what they teach when they teach Blacks. They say that Blacks are too dumb to get ID for voting. After robbing Blacks of a good education, which also robs Blacks of many job opportunities, those leftist whites then say that Blacks need the paternalistic help of nice whites. Bleah!
I just can’t take leftists like you seriously when you talk about racism.
It’s telling how you automatically dismiss my “rhetoric” as useless. It shows that you can’t even grasp the concept of trauma and how it affects us. I assume you have a closet full of trauma that has gone unaddressed throughout your life, and you still suffer because of it. I am sorry for you.
If you are Black, Terry, I do have some idea of how white society has affected you. Not a good thing, I can see. But you must avoid feeling sorry for yourself. There was a lot of discrimination against black people, as we ALL know, and it was not enlightened. In fact, ethnic hatred runs strong in many groups. The Jews have taken a beating over the last century (did you notice?). This is part of history. But America today is a very different country from that of 100 years ago. It is about as non-racist as it gets. So I’m begging you: Stop beating that dead horse already.
“As non-racist as it gets” implies you are willing to let elements of racism flourish in or around you. I am not. This is where we differ.
But Terry, your whole Schtick is racist. Don’t you read your own copy?
R.O., good points, but why, in your writing, do you follow the new leftist rule that we should capitalize ‘Black” and lower-casing “white”? That is bowing to the racism.
We should either capitalize both words (Black, White) or lower-case both words (black, white). Capitalizing one and not the other is supporting the idea that one race is better than the other. None of us should kowtow to this new rule, in our writing!
I really enjoyed your article Jeff, thank you!
The declassifying of documents has begun:
Trump Declassifies Sensitive Document On Strategy To ‘Defend, Dominate, Deny’ Indo-Pacific From China
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trump-declassifies-sensitive-document-strategy-defend-dominate-deny-indo-pacific-china
In Final Act, Trump Admin To Present ‘Bombshell’ Findings Blaming Wuhan Lab For COVID-19, WHO Cover-Up
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/final-act-trump-admin-present-bombshell-findings-blaming-wuhan-lab-covid-19-who-cover
Oh, that looks interesting!
Can’t get the SCOTUS to even look at evidence of greatest fraud ever? No one from top Military brass talking about evidence of foreign interference? FBI and CIA against sitting President? There was never any hope of Trump declaring Insurrection. Frankly Trump was only elected because the Commys didn’t have their vote fraud system dialed in yet. What’s next? No swamp clearing. No Trump 2024. Trump should have stood his ground and refused to leave the White House. He would have been peacefully denying the election fraud. Surely many Top Brass would have it that have been silent previously?
Trump’s rise and fall are best analogized as the long last gasp of the white conservative majority. This is not the end of the world. Let go of your fear and you may actually enjoy the twilight of your lives.
If that was all it was, Terry, I would not be worried at all.
By statements like this, you make yourself the enemy of a whole race. What you are gloating about is cultural, if not ethnic, genocide. And yet you accuse everyone on this blog of insensitivity to trauma. Admittedly, this conversation has become heated, and you have been attacked, but I sense a darkness beneath your compassionate exterior.
Unrealistic thinking cannot help us now.
Definition:
An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Internet%20Troll
Yes, Terry is a troll who monitors this site. I usually delete his tweets. But I thought, at this juncture, we needed a reminder of what our enemy’s thinking is like. He is a lying, devious, self-pitying, pathetic, half-baked stooge. Why he monitors us is anyone’s guess. But he does watch us.
There are supposedly some wealthy leftists who pay people like Terry to post on conservative websites to distract and disrupt threads as much as they can.
The more they post the more money they make. Otherwise, they would all just be sitting in mom and dads basement playing video games and eating hot-pockets and ding-dongs.
I just tried (twice) to upload a comment here with a link to Trump’s message to the nation that he posted on Rumble tonight. The system deleted my message both times, refusing to let it post. I emailed Jeff about it. He said he believes WordPress censored it because it disapproved of the link. Scary if that’s true!
I’m going to try to post this comment now, without the link, to see if the system accepts this link-less version of the comment. If it does, I will immediately try to post a second comment, containing only the link. If that second comment doesn’t appear below my first one, that corroborates Jeff’s contention that WordPress is now censoring links.
Very good!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1349558195610673152
This is a very strange broadcast for a man who tried to found a political party in Hungary, who allegedly aspired to be Hungarian prime minister under Jobbik, who worked for the unlustrated Hungarian Defense Ministry, and kicked Jimmy from Brooklyn off his radio show in an angry exchange over communism.
SORRY, FOLKS, I POSTED THE WRONG LINK THERE, IN ERROR: (IT’S A LINK TO A VIDEO BY GORKA ON TWITTER, NOT THE LINK TO TRUMP’S VIDEO ON RUMBLE).
SO HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I TRIED TO POST JUST NOW USING THE CORRECT LINK FOR TRUMP’S MESSAGE: THE SYSTEM AGAIN DISAPPEARED IT!
THIS DEFINITELY SEEMS TO INDICATE THAT WORDPRESS IS EITHER CENSORING RUMBLE VIDEOS IN GENERAL OR VIDEOS FROM TRUMP IN PARTICULAR!
JUST, WOW!
I do think Rumble is a blocked site.
https://rumble.com/vcrepj-ep.-1434-the-purge-continues.-the-inside-story-the-dan-bongino-show.html
For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, you can watch the speech here:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-calls-on-americans-to-promote-peace-amid-reports-of-planned-demonstrations_3655924.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-01-13
Peoliso new rule – No firearms permitted on the floor. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republicans-protest-circumvent-new-metal-detectors-inside-capitol-after-riot-n1254011
Secret Service can have firearms to protect House members but by no means can a Rep have his or own firearm. ‘We are from the Government and We are here to help’.
Did you hear about what Louie Gohmert did yesterday? It was priceless!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/louie-gohmert-dunks-pelosi-quotes-support-black-lives-matter-riots-house-floor-liberals-freak/
Why can’t Congresspeople retain gun rights? Hello?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republicans-protest-circumvent-new-metal-detectors-inside-capitol-after-riot-n1254011
Good!!!
Twitter, Facebook: $51 Billion Combined Market Value Erased Since Trump Ban
https://www.theepochtimes.com/twitter-facebook-51-billion-combined-market-value-erased-since-trump-ban_3656442.html
Articles of impeachment to be filed against Biden
Accused of being ‘easily bought off by foreign governments’
Bob Unruh
Published January 14, 2021
https://www.wnd.com/2021/01/articles-impeachment-filed-biden/
With impeachment now routine in the Nancy Pelosi-run U.S. House, a freshman Republican member has announced she will file articles of impeachment against Joe Biden one day after his inauguration.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., announced on Twitter — with the hashtags #ImpeachBiden and #BidenCrimeFamily — she will file the articles on Jan. 21, charging abuse of power.
In an interview Wednesday night with Newsmax, Greene said, “I would like to announce on the behalf of the American people we have to make sure that our leaders are held accountable.”
She said Biden is “willing to abuse the power of the office of the presidency and be easily bought off by foreign governments, Chinese energy companies, Ukrainian energy companies.”
Thank you to Mr. Nyquist and his brilliant analysis in this article and all his writings and talks. Entirely refreshing, entirely healing stuff. Thank you.
😁
NASA Researcher Pleads Guilty to Concealing China Ties
A senior NASA scientist pleaded guilty on Jan. 13 to lying about his ties with a Chinese-backed program designed to harvest talents from the West and transfer intellectual property to China, the Justice Department announced.
Meyya Meyyappan, 66, joined NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) in 1996 and has been the chief scientist for exploration technology at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley since 2006.
Prosecutors said that Meyyappan had participated in China’s state-run Thousand Talents Plan and held positions at universities in China, South Korea, and Japan without NASA’s knowledge. The Thousand Talents program has recruited thousands of experts globally since its inception in 2008, according to Chinese state media reports.
More: https://www.theepochtimes.com/nasa-researcher-pleads-guilty-to-concealing-china-ties_3657026.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-01-14-3
Project Veritas is about to expose something on Twitter’s Jack Dorsey
https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII
Trump declassifying everything on “Obamagate/Russia”
Watch it before it disappears:
Skip ahead to minute 26 for John Solomon.
Antifa in Portland
https://youtu.be/wiCTUbwWfCY
Antifa in Portland
https://youtu.be/wiCTUbwWfCY
Pat Buchanan to Democrats: ‘Calling Trump names will no longer cut it’
https://www.wnd.com/2021/01/d-c-now-left-owns/
The death of a Capitol cop has enabled the left – which spent the summer after George Floyd’s death trashing “racist cops” and shouting, “Defund the Police!” – to posture as fighting allies of the men in blue.
Liberals who implored us to understand the grievances of the rioters, looters and arsonists last summer have become sudden converts to the church of law and order.
In anticipation of Wednesday’s inauguration, 25,000 National Guard have been deployed in and around D.C. to defend against right-wing mobs or would-be assassins. Three or four times as many troops are here in D.C. as there are U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria combined.
Most of America’s major cities – New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, D.C., Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis – are run by liberal Democrats, and, coincidentally, all experienced surges in shootings and killings in 2020.
While the figures on the criminal perpetrators are rarely reported, it appears that not a great many of the violent and lethal crimes were the work of rogue cops or white supremacists in MAGA hats.
Now, Democrats have it all. If they wish, they can abolish the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, make D.C. and Puerto Rico states, forgive all student debt, and vote for slavery reparations.