Tiananmen square commemoration

Today is the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen square massacre. Hong Kong has been holding annual vigils to commemorate the victims massacred by China for 30 years.

However, for the first time since Hong Kong's handover to China, China has banned Hong Kongers from holding vigils under pain of imprisonment and potentially death. Indeed, Hong Kong has effectively lost its democracy and is under the control of China today, due to the new "security law". No more "one country, two systems"; now it's "one country, one system". It's all communist China. Yet Hong Kongers still came out in droves to commemorate Tiananmen square. This is real protest in the face of a totalitarian regime.

How many rioters (including Antifa) would dare to come out in "protest" if they didn't live in a free and democratic society but instead lived under the thumb of a nation like China? How many rioters would dare to come out in "protest" if they were essentially weaponless (no viable access to weapons like guns and knives) and knew the slightest hint of physical resistance or opposition could result in their deaths? Just how "brave" or "courageous" is Antifa when it costs them so very little to "protest" in comparison to Hong Kongers? (I might not make much of this comparison, but I've noticed some or many on the left comparing their "fight" with what happened at Tiananmen square, our government with communist China, and so on.)

31 years of commemoration.

photo: @appledaily_hk

#June4 #TiananmenSquareMassacre pic.twitter.com/5PS28EQI7d

— Alex Lam 林偉聰 (@lwcalex) June 4, 2020

The military has no role in stopping the riots

To those who claim the military has no role in stopping anarchists and other criminals from tearing apart our cities: read a book.

The military has intervened to maintain public order since the Whiskey Rebellion. Here are a few recent examples.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

In 1957, President Eisenhower ordered soldiers to enforce integration of Little Rock schools against a racist mob.

This was a dark episode in my state’s history, but Ike was right:

“Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of the courts.”https://t.co/WOo6Fyep9x

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

In 1967, President Johnson ordered the 82nd and 101st Airborne to stop deadly race riots in Detroit.

LBJ: “We will not tolerate lawlessness... This Nation will do whatever it is necessary to do to suppress and to punish those who engage in it.”https://t.co/ICyQ7JfbmH

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

The next year, 13,000 troops were called to protect Washington, D.C. from riots that erupted after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The city didn’t recover for decades, but federal troops staunched the bleeding.https://t.co/jw2L27DNmu

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush ordered the Army’s 7th Infantry and 1,500 Marines to quell the Rodney King riots burning down LA.

Bush 41 knew that King had been unjustly treated—“what I saw made me sick”—but he knew deadly riots would only multiply the victims.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

The carnage caused by domestic terrorists and other criminals threatens all law-abiding citizens, including peaceful protestors.

We must do everything possible within the law to restore peace in the streets—that mission can and should include our troops.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 2, 2020

Operation Antifa

This is brain dead for many reasons:

1. At least get the historical facts correct! This is a photo from the Normandy landings. Operation Overlord. However D-Day didn't take place in 1945, but 1944. June 6, 1944 to be precise.
2. Most conservatives in the US aren't white supremacists like the Nazis were. Most conservatives disown groups like fascists, white supremacists, the alt-right. And some conservatives have even been attacked by white supremacists or the alt-right (e.g. Ben Shapiro, David French).
3. As far as I can see, the only way to conclude most conservatives in the US are white supremacists is by committing a guilt by association fallacy, viz. most conservatives voted for Trump who foments white supremacy or racism hence they must be white supremacists or racists too.
4. And/or this is an equivocation, viz. Trump wants to build a wall because he's racist against Latinos. However the fact is most conservatives argue for border security (including the wall) because they don't want illegal immigration and they don't want open borders. That threatens our nation in multiple ways. In any case, being against illegal immigration and/or open borders is hardly equivalent to racism.
5. Most conservatives knew things would end very badly for conservatives if Hillary was voted in. However, Trump was a wild card. They didn't know what Trump would do. Maybe he'd be just as bad as Hillary, maybe even worse, but then again maybe he wouldn't be. Hence many conservatives gambled and took the wild card (Trump) over and against the known quantity (Hillary) whom they knew would be very bad for conservatives. That’s hardly voting for Trump due to racism.
6. Indeed, in the view of many conservatives, Hillary would have enacted racist policies because she has a history of preferencing other races/ethnicities over and against white people. She likely would have continued much of Obama's policies, many of which were based on identity politics, race wars, class warfare.
7. What's more, Antifa is just as bad as the alt-right. Both are violent. Both are bigoted. Antifa is bigoted against non-liberal whites. Not to mention Antifa is favorable toward groups which arguably threaten US safety and security like Muslims. Why haven't liberals and progressives disowned Antifa like conservatives have disowned the alt-right?
8. The Democratic party has been hijacked by its radical progressive factions. Look at how the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi can't even keep a junior representative like AOC down. Look at how radical all the positions of the current crop of Democratic presidential hopefuls are. Almost all of them (if not all of them) advocate socialism. At least a soft socialism. Yet even a soft socialism, like the social democracy one sees in many European nations, let alone communism, is quite arguably as bad as fascism and Nazism.
9. Liberals and progressives would likely have smeared any GOP candidate as racist. Not only Trump. After all, that's what happened with both McCain and Romney whom many conservatives believe are RINOs rather than true conservatives and who in any case certainly weren't racist. Yet liberals attacked McCain and Romney for being racist, which signaled to conservatives that liberals and progressives will stoop very low indeed. If that's what liberals are going to do anyway, then why should conservatives care what liberals think about their candidate?

Andy Ngo

Goodnight everyone except Antifa criminals who I plan to sue into oblivion and then sow salt into their yoga studios and avocado toast stands until nothing grows there, not even the glimmer of a violent criminal conspiracy aided by the effete impotence of a cowed city government.

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) July 1, 2019

1. The above tweet is from Andy Ngo's lawyer and is in light of what Antifa did to Andy. What happened to Andy was bad. He deserves justice. His Antifa assailants should be punished. I don't have any problem with them being "sued into oblivion" either. I'd be fine with seeing Antifa wiped off the face of the earth. As many have said, Antifa is a terrorist organization or becoming like a terrorist organization (though they're probably less well organized and less well funded than major terrorist organizations but I'm referring to what they are in principle).

2. I don't know Andy and I don't (and shouldn't) have access to Andy's medical records. That said, based on what's in the media and social media including Andy's own Twitter feed, it looks to me like Andy's injuries are relatively mild or at worst moderate from a medical perspective. For example, he was never unconscious and he was discharged after only one night in the hospital. And I suspect the "hemorrhaging" was exaggerated. In short, it seems to me Andy might possibly be exaggerating or overselling what happened to him, either intentionally or unintentionally.

3. In any case, suppose (arguendo) this is what's happening. Suppose Andy is exaggerating what's happened to him. If so, this raises an ethical dilemma. Is it wrong to exaggerate what happened in cases like Andy's?

Speaking for myself, I don't think so. That is, I don't have a problem with Andy exaggerating or overselling what happened to him (again assuming that's what he's doing). That's because not to do so would let Antifa, the liberal mainstream media, and progressives in general win. Furthermore, this battle is a battle in the larger war for the fundamentals of what it means to be an American (e.g. free speech). That's something our Chief Justice seems to miss - one can be so legally scrupulous that justice isn't carried out. Besides, progressives and the like-minded are attempting to downplay what happened to Andy. Not to mention it could very well have been Antifa's intention to do far more harm to Andy than they were able to do to him.

To put it another way, if we lived in a time and a place where we had a right and honorable legal system, where those who assaulted Andy would be justly punished, where most people were generally fair and reasonable-minded, and where the court of public opinion didn't matter so much, then Andy wouldn't need to exaggerate what happened to him. He would be given a fair hearing and justice would be fairly meted out, both against his assailants and for him. However, we don't live in such a time or place. Liberals and progressives have changed and are constantly continuing to change the rules of the game, as it were. All the more in a progressive town like Portland, in a progressive state like Oregon, where Andy is from and where this happened to him.

4. By the way, if I recall, Andy's family escaped Vietnam to settle in the US. They did so to escape communism. I wonder if his family sees parallels with groups like Antifa and the rise of communism in Vietnam. Such as the use of intimidation, bullying, and physical violence to shut down dissenting voices.