Moral Equivalence

Saying that both sides bear responsibility is now the same as declaring a moral equivalence. Or at least, that is the current Trump-bashing narrative and they are sticking to it. 

McCain and Romney tweeted something similar but I will use the failing NY Times as an example:

Trump Defends Initial Remarks on Charlottesville; Again Blames ‘Both Sides’

...

WASHINGTON — President Trump reverted Tuesday to blaming both sides for the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va., and at one point questioned whether the movement to pull down Confederate statues would lead to the desecration of memorials to George Washington.

Abandoning his precisely chosen and carefully delivered condemnations of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis from a day earlier, the president furiously stuck by his initial reaction to the unrest in Charlottesville. He drew the very moral equivalency for which a bipartisan chorus, and his own advisers, had already criticized him.

“I think there is blame on both sides,” the president said in a combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan. “You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.”

So "similar" means "equal"? If (and there is little "If" about it IMHO) the antifa was violently suppressing the free speech and free assembly rights of a different group that is wrong, regardless of whether the other group is 'wronger'. Ordinarily this is not so complicated, but since the other group includes neo-Nazis and KKK sympathizers the normal rules of logic are out the window.

FUN WITH NUMBERS: Trump did succeed in bring the 'alt-left' (reported by CNN to be a made-up word, unlike the rest of our language) into the news. The NY Times editors will eventually get around to defending the antifa as the authentic voice of progressive rage but meanwhile we have this:

Trump Asks, ‘What About the Alt-Left?’ Here’s an Answer

By Linda Qiu    Aug 15, 2017

“What about the ‘alt-left’ that came charging at, as you say, the ‘alt-right’?” he asked. “Let me ask you this: What about the fact they came charging — that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do.”

Antifa, or anti-fascist activists, certainly used clubs and dyed liquids against the white supremacists, according to the New York Times reporters Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Hawes Spencer, who covered the violence in Charlottesville. Other counterprotesters included nonviolent clergy members.

But there is one stark difference between the violence on the two sides: The police said that James Alex Fields Jr. of Ohio drove his car into a crowd and killed at least one person, Heather Heyer. Mr. Fields was charged with second-degree murder.

Sure, this time. At a Sacramento antifa showing (although the Times did not seem to know who they were, of at least, failed to report it) ten people were injured, including two who were stabbed and in critical condition. The Sacramento Bee has more. Last April an antifa member clubbed several Trump supporters with a bike lock, casuing severe injuries. Last June Politico explained why Portland will be burning.

But the key progressive talking point promoted by the Times is this:

But overall, far-right extremist plots have been far more deadly than far-left plots (and Islamist plots eclipsed both) in the past 25 years, according to a breakdown of two terrorism databases by Alex Nowrasteh, an analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute.

White nationalists; militia movements; anti-Muslim attackers; I.R.S. building and abortion clinic bombers; and other right-wing groups were responsible for 12 times as many fatalities and 36 times as many injuries as communists; socialists; animal rights and environmental activists; anti-white- and Black Lives Matter-inspired attackers; and other left-wing groups.

Well, yes. But the past 25 years includes the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, and obviously the 9/11 attacks. From Cato:

Nationalist and Right Wing terrorists are the second deadliest group of terrorists by ideology and account for 228 murders and 6.9 percent of all terrorist deaths. The chance of being murdered in a Nationalist or Right Wing terrorist attack was 1 in 33 million per year. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the second deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history after 9/11, killed 168 people and accounted for 74 percent of the murders committed by Nationalist and Right Wing terrorists. Left Wing terrorists killed only 19 people in terrorist attacks during this time but 15 since 2016. Nationalist and Right Wing terrorists have only killed 5 since then, including Charlottesville. 

So looking at the last year, or perhaps even the last five or ten, would give quite a different result than "right-wing groups were responsible for 12 times as many fatalities" as left-wing groups.

And not to engage in a false moral equivalence, but killing for domestic political ends is bad even if the other side does more of it. A subtle idea, but perhaps it will break through at the Times.

SINCE YOU ASK: Here is the Maryland Global Terrorism database. The 7/7/2016 Dallas fatal shooting of six police officers is included as "anti-white extremists". 

 

 

Comments

[DebinGA]

Ryan is Speaker and McConnell Majority Leader because of their cowardly "better him than me" Congressional peers, not voters. Unfortunately, I don't see a reasonable scenario where they get the boot. Ryan got the spot when heir apparent Kevin McCarthy-CA suddenly became the focus of infidelity rumors. No such luck with Ryan and McConnell.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 2m2 minutes ago

Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!

[Frau Logisch]

Praise Gaia! Overnight Baltimore is free! --not of murders or murderers but of Confederate statues.

“It should have happened sooner, I’m pleased that the city made a move,” Christine Manganaro told WJZ’s Amy Yensi.

“It’s not an erasure of history,” Manganero went on to say. “There’s lots of places where we learn about our history —
libraries, archives, public school. This is actually not the site of any significant activity during the Civil War so it’s not a historic site.”

Makes sense in a New School kinda way. Rachel Jeantel would certainly agree.

[GUS]

The LEFT created the violence in Charlottesville, they planned it, they paid for it and they REPORTED it. All designed to gin up their base. DOESN'T WORK. Only fucking morons and SJW's buy this horseshit.
Our mentally ill troll even admits it was a set up. How has this changed the political balance in America?? It hasn't. The left has created more shit stew in their own midst. The left is going to be eaten by the Crocodile of their own device. LEFTISTS stirring up trouble ends in death. They'll end up dead, but at what price.

[squaredance]

I think it is fair to say that this sort of operation was planned long ago, and it was most likely planned with the assumption that Hillary would win.

This kind of direct provocation using false flags events--and this is most definitely a false flag event--coordinated with complicit state and municipal governments, the media and street thugs, would be used as one front to roll up opposition with the full force of government behind it,

Much of the Russian narrative, and the "fake news" agitprop had the same original assumptions and goals.

Like much of what we have seen since the election all of these fronts have merely (hastily?) been repositioned now that Hillary lost,

(and it seems that even now some Clinton Foundation monies have been openly thrown at this seditious nonsense; the whole conception of operations like this has the arrogant ,inept and overconfident stitch of Hillary all over it.)

These all textbook Marxist Leninist/Maoist strategies and tactics.
The only thing new here is that they are tired openly on the street in the USA>

We dodged one with Hillary, but we are in a Civli War. It will get worse.

And, of course, it has absolutely nothing to do with "slavery" or "The Confederacy".

Time will tell just how "woke" the American people are. Surprisingly, what we are not seeing thus far is the usual somnambulism. I think that the mid terms will be the key indicator.

There will be much more confrontation. There will be blood.

Trump has it in his power to decisively roll back this "Cold Civil War", but to do so some high profile people need to face charges and go to jail. The Left have certainly thrown caution to the winds and are wide out in the open now.

The real problem here is that the Left have to be removed from some of our core institutions. This is hard indeed.

In any event, Trump's comments show that he is no fool and that he knows what is going on. There must be enough people like Bannon in the inner circle to shine a light on what is really going on

[maryrose]

It is most definitely an erasure of history.
How interesting that she felt the need to say that it wasn't.
It was done in the dead of night so no one could stop it or object to it.
Deb in Ga.:
In a rare disagreement we dishonor soldiers who fought for their states in a historical time very different from the present.
Les Nessman:
Excellent post.

[Jim Eagle]

GUS,

Not to gin up their base so much as to delegitimize the Trump presendency. Russia didn't work and with the DWS and Paki IT thing they knew that they needed another plan to corrupt his credibility.

I call it sedition. And it is being practiced within the Alinsky model. The fact that CBS devoted 100% of its news (sic) to the subject tells you that the "resistance" things they have finally found the lever that will remove Trump to show others his type will never be allowed to rise again.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Jack,

They have been swearing that since David Plouffe tweeted that sentiment.

They may think this lever will work, but I am not so sure.

Trump has more tools at his disposal.

If that DOJ thing shows lefty collusion with the Nazis, that would be a game-changer.

Also, someone with money who ACTUALLY had the best interests of the nation at heart could buy one of the networks. Fox is lost, I am afraid.

The campuses are terrible, too. My grandson got together with 3 friends and rented an apartment so they would have a safe haven from the BS in the dorms and in many of the liberal arts classes. He only gets minimal scholarship money for living expenses since he is living off campus, so he has worked 4 jobs this summer in order to be able to afford it. That is how terrible it is.

[Porchlight]

GUS, your 1:23 is perfect.