"When the Looting Starts, the Shooting Starts."
We should not “what about” what we have seen.
This summer, I defended President Trump for circulating the quote, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The phrase was first used by Walter E. Headley, Miami’s police chief in 1967, who uttered it during a violent crime wave.
I have consistently said that police should be willing to meet violent protestors with fire power. The President’s supporters were perfectly happy to retweet me and nod approvingly when I defending him and advocating for a strong police response this past summer.
But yesterday, when I advocated the same as violent protestors stormed the Capitol intent on taking over and shutting down our democracy, I got accused of supporting totalitarianism, got blamed for the lady who was killed, etc. by many of the same people who agreed with me when talking about Antifa protestors.
Of course, now the very same people mad at me are saying it was Antifa yesterday too.
The police should have been more forceful yesterday and shame on those who engaged. Undoubtedly, as in so many of these scenarios, I’m sure leftwing anarchists were in the crowd. But it was also undoubtedly Trump supporters from that rally. The guy who wore the elk hat is being accused of being a BLM supporter. Actually, he showed up at a BLM protest as a QAnon Trump supporting counter-protestor. His name is Jake Angeli and he is rabidly a Trump supporter.
A new Republican member of the West Virginia legislature who is a known Trump supporter livestreamed himself storming the Capitol and later deleted it.
A woman died in the Capitol yesterday not because of me, but because for two months a bunch of hucksters, grifters, conmen, and the President of the United States fomented a series of lies and conspiracies convincing many good people that an election was stolen. These people have no shame and will refuse any blame and a woman died because she was duped by them.
Even now, they claim it was not a storming of the gates, but a peaceful entry. The video evidence shows otherwise.
The Double Standard
Yes, it is absolutely true the media will cover all these things with a double standard. The “mostly peaceful protests” as cities burned turned into mostly peaceful protests in DC yesterday with no cities burning, but the media turned on yesterday’s protestors in ways they have never done with BLM or Antifa. In fact, many reporters and Democrats still dismiss that Antifa is violent.
To this day, the Democrats have not been truly held accountable by the press for encouraging riots. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, just last month, said civil disobedience should be uncomfortable.
Her comments about “concentration camps” at the border inspired an Antifa attack on a government office. She and Democrats are often given a pass for their rhetoric that provokes violence. See e.g. James Hodgkinson.
There is always a double standard. The media gave credence to the left’s “it was stolen” conspiracy theory about Russia. That too was mythology. The left and media are also prone to embrace their own conspiracies while demanding everyone reject nuts like QAnon. See, e.g.:
There is always a double standard.
Of course, there is also a double standard by many of the President’s supporters. They are fine shooting black protestors looting and rioting after police violence, but are upset anyone might hold a consistent standard when a bunch of white people break into the United States Capitol fueled not by rage over police violence, but rage based on lies and conspiracy theories.
It really is remarkable that two major acts of what the left would call white privilege were the anti-Kavanaugh white kids occupying the Senate in 2018 and the Trump supporters yesterday trying to do the same.
Also, and this is the most important point, two wrongs do not make a right. Just because the left gets a pass for provoking or engaging in violence does not mean the right should engage in violence.
The President’s Supporters
The President got well over 70 million votes in November. His supporters are overwhelmingly peaceful, kind, loving souls who are concerned about the direction of the country. Many of them feel marginalized and disrespected by institutions and the elite. Many of them feel their way of life is under attack. Many of them recognized the remarkable economic recovery orchestrated by this President before the virus.
They are good people. When the media covers the left, they bend over backwards to make sure we all know the crazies are really not the majority. But the blue checkmarks on Twitter also insists the crazies are the majority of Trump supporters and that is a lie.
The problem, however, is the President too often treats the crazies like they are the majority of his supporters. From telling the Proud Boys to stand by to showing up at that rally yesterday to giving air to Sidney Powell and others, the President promotes the crazies and gives the media license to paint with broad strokes.
The President
Yesterday, in Washington, the President absolutely provoked what happened. He spoke at the rally that formed through the spread of conspiracy. The President has not just spread conspiracy, but fanned its flames and stoked its embers. The behavior of some of his supporters yesterday can be directly traced back to him.
The right that was rightly outraged by leftwing rhetoric provoking James Hodgkinson and the right that was rightly outraged by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez fomenting Antifa violence and the right that was rightly outraged by Democratic politicians urging people to show up at Republicans’ homes and harass them in restaurants should absolutely be outraged by the President of the United States provoking some of his supporters to storm the United States Capitol yesterday.
If the President cannot accept his loss, which was lawful and legitimate, he needs to go ahead and vacate his office now. If he can’t do that and he can’t stop fomenting rage, violence, and insane conspiracies, he needs to be removed from office without delay.
This was a physical attack on the constitutional separation of powers fomented by the President of the United States and the Congress should respond. It comes just days after he tried to bully a state Secretary of State into throwing the election his way. For Congress, the Constitution should be more important than whoring for a President who’ll treat them like a bad one night stand the moment they are no longer useful to him.
Asking Questions
Finally, let me say I get tons of people saying they’re just asking questions and no one will answer them. You know who else was just asking questions? Satan in the garden. He was just asking questions of Eve.
The people just asking questions are just ignoring the answers. A whole lot of politicians are just asking questions because they are trying to build a base off the President’s base and think undermining the election will help them.
There’s a lot of shame to pass around and too few people left who possess a sense of shame.
Lastly
You will have no savior except Jesus Christ. God will smash all your idols so that you must rely on him. We are seeing that now. Those who turned from the Creator of all things to chose a sinner as a savior from those they hate or fear will have to give him up. Joe Biden will be President and all the people who were convinced God will stop it will have to realize God works mighty wonders, but does it his way, not our way. His will be done, not ours. We must not be so pharisaical that we see all our opponents’ sin and none of our own. We too must repent. We should not “what about” what we have seen. Idol worshippers will see their idols crumble.
Is Erick ever going to write something I disagree with? Lately he's writing the same things that run through my mind (but he's much more eloquent).
I’m not sure what they (government) expected to happen yesterday. The government has shut down all of Trumps efforts to get to the bottom of the election and if it was taken and then the worse part. They did not explain it to the country and present actual proof that trump was wrong and every state followed there election law to a T. They Did not prove all votes were real. If they would have then Trump would have had less power in his speech and might have just gone away. Just having the main stream media come on and say I “blocked by a judge or struck down” is not enough. They needed to show the case to the American people. The seed of the revelation that started this country was the Boston Massacre and colonist were just as much to blame at the reds and John Adams defended the reds.
I think the government needs to take there people a little more seriously or this is what you get. Also I’m sure antifa was involved in this as well.