Congressman John Lewis and Reverend C.T. Vivian, giants of the 1960s civil rights movement, are gone. They stood for the principles of non-violence. Although both endured brutal beatings, they did not riot, loot, burn, or murder their way to racial equality.
Their principles are being buried by the Democratic Party just as surely as their families buried their bodies.
Barack Obama lied at John Lewis’s funeral when he said, “we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was asked if the removal of a statue “shouldn’t. . . be done by a commission, or the city council, not a mob in the middle of the night, throwing it into the harbor?” Pelosi replied, “People will do what they do,” questioning only the safety, not the morality, of mob destruction of public property…
After federal police officers in Portland, Oregon, were injured by mob violence, including permanent eye damage from laser attacks, Pelosi called them “storm troopers.” They were defending an occupied federal courthouse against arson.
After over 50 days of violence, including attacks on a police station and the police union building in Portland, Joe Biden described the rioters as “peaceful protesters.” He also claimed that mere police use of armored Humvees makes them “the enemy.”
Maura Healey, Democratic attorney general for Massachusetts, said, “Yes, America is burning. But that’s how forests grow.”
This response will be a great comfort to immigrant Luis Tamay, whose Ecuadorian restaurant in Minneapolis was burned down by rioters. “No, Mr. Tamay, you weren’t the victim of arson. It was just part of a giant reforestration project. Don’t you feel better now?”
The Democratic Party governments of New York City, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon imitated fellow Democrat Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who, during the 2015 riots, said, “we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.”
Bill de Blasio ordered the police to use a “light touch” on rioters. The Minneapolis city government allowed a police precinct building to be burned. Seattle’s government deprived the police of tear gas and abandoned a police station and the CHOP zone to the mob. Portland’s city government demanded that federal officers and the barrier protecting the federal courthouse be removed. The state police left Portland after the district attorney announced he would not prosecute most cases against protesters.
In St. Louis, after Mark and Patricia McCloskey brandished firearms to deter mob trespassers who threatened to murder them, the Democratic city attorney Kim Gardner filed charges of unlawful use of a weapon against them. Before doing so, Gardner ordered the police lab to repair Patricia’s handgun, which was inoperable. The charging document indicated the gun was “readily capable of lethal use,” a required fact for that charge.
This is reminiscent of the treatment of Black voter registration activist Hartman Turnbow in Mississippi in 1963. After firing back at racists who burned his home, Turnbow was charged with arson.
The alliance of the Democratic Party with the mob, whether in 1963 or now, is a travesty of justice. Whatever political advantage may be obtained by supporting the mob, it must not nullify the government’s essential function, to protect the people from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
