“It is the manners and spirit of a people, which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.” —Thomas Jefferson (1787)

In less than 24 hours last weekend, there were nine people killed and more than 30 wounded in gunfights on the streets of Chicago — and those figures don’t include deaths and injuries from other weapons.

This was just an average Saturday night in Chicago, and it’s highly probable that 99.999% of Americans have not heard anything about those deaths. Indeed, even though most of the murdered were black, who can name a single victim of all the hatred and violence that is commonplace there?

The reason their names are anonymous is that their lives have no value as political fodder for the Democrat/Leftmedia propaganda machine or its so-called “Black Lives Matter” political surrogates. Those victims are simply tossed onto the pile of 430 homicides in Chicago thus far this year, to the dismay of those of us who believe that “all lives matter.”

Now consider this: Last weekend one person, Heather Heyer, was murdered in Charlottesville, Virginia, by a racist from Ohio – and the whole world knows her name. Why?

Charlottesville is, as anyone who has been there can attest, a great town. In January, I declined an invitation to attend the Trump inaugural fanfare, opting instead that weekend to meet my son in Charlottesville for a few days visiting friends and re-visiting historic sites.

This area is, in my opinion, the richest historic region in America.

Charlottesville is the site of Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home, which sits just above the town, and his beloved University of Virginia. Just beyond Monticello is James Monroe’s Highland home place. To the north is Montpelier, home of our Constitution’s author, James Madison. To the west is Lexington, home of Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Institute — and burial place of Virginia sons Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Northeast is George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and the home of George Mason. To the east are Richmond, Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown — the final battle site of the American Revolution.

Despite being the epicenter of such extraordinary history, Charlottesville is also lorded over by a disgraceful mayor, Mike Signer, and his leftist city council — a group of Berkeley wannabes who have led local historical purges of both Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee.

It was Signer’s proposed removal of a small statue of Lee from a city park that was the catalyst for the obscene riots last weekend in this otherwise quiet and idyllic town, and which cost a protester, Heather Heyer, her life. Clearly, Signer, hoping this conflict will propel him to higher political heights, has milked it for every ounce of political capital he could squeeze from it.

The riot Signer helped seed, was a clash between sociopathic forces — the antifa movement, the ironically self-styled “anti-fascists” leading the leftist anarcho-communist intifada against anyone supporting Liberty or any economic system other than socialism, and the alt-right, an anarcho-fascist fringe movement of white supremacists. Notably the alt-right racists had an ACLU-defended permit for their protest hate speech. The antifa socialists and black supremacists showed up in mass without a permit.

Eight years of racial antagonism and division by Barack Obama and his radical Democrat Party machine led to mass riots in more than 20 American urban centers, fomented by leftist groups operating under the banners of Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, antifa, et al. That violence erupted in Oakland, Akron and Pittsburgh in 2009; Santa Cruz, Oakland and Los Angeles in 2010; Oakland in 2011; Chicago and Anaheim in 2012; Brooklyn in 2013; Ferguson and New York City in 2014; Baltimore in 2015; Anaheim, Chicago, St. Paul, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Standing Rock, Oakland and Portland in 2016; and DC, Berkeley, Anaheim, Berkeley part 2, Berkeley part 3, Olympia and Portland in 2017.

Obama was very intentional and deliberate in achieving his objective to lower the bar on racial division triggers in order to create discord and shore up his dependent constituencies.

Of course, the Democrat Party, founded by slave-owner Andrew Jackson, still promotes the statist policies which have enslaved mostly poor black folks on urban poverty plantations for generations – more than were ever enslaved on Democrat agricultural plantations – and they are dying equally violent deaths.

Oh, by the way, it turns out that Obama, who has stoked the fires of racial hatred, is the direct maternal descendant of slave owners. (Oops.) Hard to erase that history, though references to Obama’s family ties to slavery are sparse because, again, that doesn’t fit neatly with the Left’s race-bait political narrative. (You certainly won’t hear CNN’s Anderson Cooper mentioning Obama’s sordid family history, lest Obama might remind Cooper, the son of heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, that his family also owned slaves! Of course, CNN has enslaved a lot of public opinion as well!)

While Republicans, Democrats and the mainstream media have correctly tagged one side of the hateful antagonists in Charlottesville as “white supremacists,” you won’t find any reference by any Democrat, or their Leftmedia propagandists, to the “socialists,” “anarchists” or “black supremacists” who were at the center of all the aforementioned mayhem.

Nor did a single politico or media outlet rightly tag Micah X, who murdered five police officers in Dallas a year ago, a “black supremacist.” A week later another black supremacist ambushed and murdered three police officers in Baton Rouge, but nobody called him what he was. They were both manifestations of the Democrats’ favorite political playbook strategy: foment disunity to rally constituencies. To leftists, dead police officers are just collateral damage.

Remarkably, the riot in Charlottesville has already received more mass media bandwidth than the attempted mass assassination in June of multiple Republican congressmen in Alexandria, Virginia, by a hate-filled Bernie Sanders supporter.

Perhaps “Virginia is [not] for Lovers” after all? Actually, Virginia is a great state when it’s not baiting anarchist haters.

Given the media feeding frenzy inspired by the riots in Charlottesville, allow me to impart a few observations.

First: Regarding President Donald Trump’s repeated condemnation of both the racists and the socialists…

Assessing the violence, Charlottesville police chief Al Thomas noted, “Other groups [opposing the alt-right faction] began amassing along the street and in the park. Gradually, the crowd sizes increased along with aggressiveness and hostility of attendees toward one another. … We did have mutually combating individuals in the crowd.”

This mutual violence was evident to everyone present, and it was affirmed in real time by New York Times reporter Hawes Spencer, who observed, “Protesters maced each other, threw water bottles and urine balloons — some of which hit reporters — and generally beat the crap out of each other with flagpoles.” At least NBC and BBC reporters showed enough integrity to report the violence on both sides.

However, after Trump dared to suggest that the violence was from both sides of the idiot line, Democrats and their Leftmedia propagators insisted that the leftist antifa groups were just a bunch of wholesome all-American “counter-protesters” defending our country against an epidemic of right-wing (Republican) hatred.

After concurring with the police chief and other observers about “mutually combating individuals,” Trump said, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides. No matter our color, creed, religion or political party we are all Americans first.”

But that denunciation wasn’t sufficient for Democrats and their Leftmedia — or for establishment Republicans, who knew full well that the Demo/MSM would label them as “soft on supremacists” because Trump dared to identify both ugly factions.

Sunday, the White House communications staff followed up: “The President said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred and of course that includes white Supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together.”

But even that was insufficient for the Democrats and their Leftmedia. Their goal was to elevate the conflict to the level that best serves the Demo agenda and the MSM’s ability to cash in on the chaos with ad revenue.

So Trump on Monday called a press confab and repeatedly condemned the racists in what was to be a unifying speech.

When a reporter declared Trump “said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides,” he responded correctly, “Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides.”

When a reporter said, “The neo-Nazis started this,” Trump responded, “…you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. … I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”

When a reporter questioned: “Who are the good people sir, I just didn’t understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?”

Trump replied, “No, no. There were people in that rally … there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. … The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people — neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them. But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest…”

So, it shouldn’t be necessary to clarify this every time there is a racially motivated assault somewhere in the world. Trump made it very clear he was not calling neo-Nazis and white nationalists “very fine people,” and declared “They should be condemned totally.” When asked again in a follow up question if he was referring to them as fine people, he reiterated, “No, no.”

But Democrats and the Leftmedia pitched that as too little too late and are now propagating the fake news narrative that Trump sympathizes with racists.

Fact is, there is nothing Trump could have said that would be sufficient for Democrats and their Leftmedia, because fomenting racial division is their domain.

Despite the Left’s howls about Trump’s condemnation of both the hate factions, one of the nation’s most liberal protagonists, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, warns that the they should not embrace those trying to “tear down America.”

Dershowitz implores his fellow Democrats: “Do not glorify the violent people who are now tearing down the statues. Many of these people, not all of them, many of these people are trying to tear down America. Antifa is a radical, anti-America, anti-free market, communist, socialist, hard-left sensorial organization… They use violence. Just because they are opposed to fascism and to some of these monuments, should not make them heroes of the liberals. … Doing what Stalin did, just erasing history and rewriting it to serve current purposes does pose a danger. And it poses a danger of education malpractice. I’m a liberal, and I think it’s the obligation of liberals to speak out against the hard-left radicals, just like it’s the obligation of conservatives to speak out against the extremism of the hard right.”

On Tuesday, in a contentious confrontation with MSM agitators, Trump dared again to suggest that the violence was mutual: “You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent, and nobody wants to say that. But I’ll say it right now: I think there is blame on both sides and I don’t have a doubt about it and you [reporters] don’t have a doubt about it either.”

He also condemned the removal of historic markers, saying, “This week it’s Robert E. Lee. I notice that Stonewall Jackson’s [statue is] coming down. I wonder, is George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You really do have to ask yourself, when does it stop?”

Of the Leftmedia “outrage” over Trump’s responses, Vice President Mike Pence said, “I take issue with the fact that many in the media … have spent an awful lot of time focusing on what the president said and criticisms of what the president said, instead of criticizing those who brought that hatred and violence to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia.” He is correct.

Second: The Bannon problem…

While I believe Trump’s response to the violence was measured — if very Trumpian — I also believe he has a problem on his staff by the name of Steve Bannon, chairman of his 2016 campaign and now his chief strategist.

Here’s the problem.

Jason Kessler is the white supremacist organizer of the “Unite the Right” protest in Charlottesville. He’s a University of Virginia graduate who lists on his résumé his last job as being a writer for “Daily Caller,” an online “conservative” news website co-founded in 2010 by Fox News host Tucker Carlson. For the record, despite the fact that I like Carlson’s commentary, our staff considers Daily Caller a well-funded titillation tabloid, and for that reason, it undermines the standing of genuine grassroots conservative publications. Indeed, as of this week, Daily Caller has scrubbed the commentary it hosted from Kessler.

Kessler’s colleague, Massachusetts native Richard Spencer, also a UVA graduate, was agitating the hatefest in Charlottesville.

Spencer is the founder of AlternativeRight.com, the alt-right homepage espousing, among other things, white supremacist views. After Trump’s election, Spencer led an alt-right conference group with “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” chants. When Trump tapped Bannon to be a senior advisor, Spencer claimed he was in “the best possible position” to influence policy.

That brings me to Bannon himself, who took control of Breitbart News in 2012 after the death of Andrew Breitbart. Bannon did to Andrew’s popular website what Jeff Bezos is doing to the once-respectable Washington Post — adulterating its content to comport with extremist political views.

Breitbart News described Spencer’s website as the “center of alt-right thought,” and in 2016, Bannon declared Breitbart “the platform for the alt-right.” Spencer concurred, noting that Breitbart “has acted as a ‘gateway’ to alt-right ideas and writers.”

This, of course, doesn’t make Bannon or Trump “white supremacists.” Bannon, like Trump, has a propensity for shooting from the hip and saying stupid stuff. And most Trump supporters would have no idea what the “alt-right” is because, in fact, it’s nothing more than a minuscule fringe political identity group. But the Leftmedia would have you believe it’s the very foundation of the Republican Party.

In November 2016, Trump responded to questions about Bannon’s appointment, saying, “I’ve known Steve Bannon a long time. If I thought he was a racist, or alt-right … I wouldn’t even think about hiring him.”

Fortunately, Bannon has resigned in order not to further distract Trump’s agenda.

Third: Regarding the Orwellian trend of “historical cleansing” underway by leftists…

The “progressive” use of violence to force the removal of historical monuments from public spaces should concern Americans of all political stripes. The Left’s aggressive “historic cleansing” campaign, supported by those sitting on the city council of historic Charlottesville, is a moronic but dangerous identity politics trend, which undermines knowledge and truth. It is tantamount to the socialist Soviet practice of “airbrushing,” the socialist NAZI practice of book burning, and the Maoist “Cultural Revolution” purges.

Longtime friend of The Patriot Post, distinguished George Mason University professor Walter Williams, has issued erudite warnings about the consequences of historical ignorance here and here, including the removal of historic markers to Confederate generals and the rewriting of American history.

The vast majority of Americans, including me, who strenuously object to tearing down and stamping out our historical heritage do not object because of some racist affinity. We object because this is our story, and because whitewashing it is an affront to American history and to our legacy of Liberty.

Predictably, seizing the mindless momentum, the Black Congressional Caucus issued demands for the first phase of monument removals in the U.S. Capitol building.

As 20th century philosopher George Santayana concluded in his treatise, “The Life of Reason”: “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

English writer Aldous Huxley put it more succinctly: “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”

Fourth: Virginia’s Clintonista Governor, New Yorker Terry McAuliffe…

Before tearing down statues became a leftist fad, McAuliffe characterized the Robert Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, “parts of our heritage.” After Charlottesville, McAuliffe now characterizes them as “flashpoints for hatred, division, and violence.” As for McAuliffe’s incendiary claim that the fascists had weapon caches. To the contrary, Virginia State Police found no “weapons caches” in or around Charlottesville.

And speaking of “New Yorkers,” the latest leftist to jump on the race-bait freight train is New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who has found some Lee and Jackson statues to remove in his state. Perhaps he should pick up a history book – New York is named for one of the most notorious slave traders in history, the Duke of York.

Fifth: The ACLU and Charlottesville Police…

Notably, ACLU observers on Twitter were among the first to report that the Charlottesville police had stand-down orders, allowing the violence to escalate: “Clash between protesters and counter protesters. Police say, ‘We’ll not intervene until given command to do so.’” But that order never came.

This was affirmed by Fox News reporter Doug McKelway, who was in the middle of the combatants. “When the tear gas started to fly, thrown by protesters, the police themselves began to evacuate. I asked the guy who was in charge, ‘Where you going?’ He said, ‘We’re leaving. It’s too dangerous.’ They had a chance to nip this thing in the bud and they chose not to.”

If police officers are wholly unprepared for the level of violence, they should retreat. But this retreat looked more like the “stand-down” order that accelerated the 2015 Baltimore race riots.

Sixth: Who is funding antifa, Black Lives Matter and all the other Marxist/black supremacist groups that have emerged since 2008?

Judicial Watch is suing America-hating billionaire socialist George Soros for his funding records of leftist political groups. Keep a sharp eye on the outcome of this lawsuit.

Finally, regarding the Republicans’ stampede to distance themselves from phony leftist charges of racism, seeking to distance yourself from something already far removed actually feeds the narrative that maybe it is not so far removed.

To paraphrase a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Republicans doth apologize too much, methinks.”

The Democrat Party and its Leftmedia outlets are colluding to publicize, and thus politicize, upcoming alt-right-versus-antifa venues for conflict in order to advance their agenda. In doing so, they hope to hang these riots around Republican necks.

But let’s be clear: Every drop of blood that’s shed in these riots — and there will be more of them — is on the hands of the Demo/MSM propaganda machine that is fomenting the disunity that propagates them — and Republicans had better start shining a light on that, as Donald Trump has done, rather than cowering behind a microphone.

Footnote: There is some collateral fallout from the protests which really illuminates the absurdity of both factions. Seems that haters are outing other haters, who are then being fired from their jobs.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776