01-10-2021, 10:46 AM
[b]YOU’RE A GRAND OLD FLAGELLATE[/b]
Planning to burn a flag? Choose your standard carefully, because your decision might mean the difference between going to prison or becoming independently wealthy.
Planning to burn a flag? Choose your standard carefully, because your decision might mean the difference between going to prison or becoming independently wealthy.
Remember little Joey Johnson? He’s the Revolutionary Communist Party radical who was arrested in 1984 for burning a stolen (note: [i]stolen[/i]) American flag during an anti-Reagan protest in Dallas. Johnson’s case led to the landmark SCOTUS decision that struck down anti-flag-burning laws as unconstitutional. Yes, Americans, you have the right to burn flags, even flags that don’t belong to you, even flags you’ve purloined from folks who don’t want ’em burned.
It’s your sacred right!
Of course, that sacred right only applies to [i]American[/i] flags, which (SCOTUS sez) are not sacred. But [i]truly[/i] sacred flags must never be burned.
Like the Holy Flag of BLM.
Last week, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was arrested in D.C. for having burned a BLM flag he took from outside a “historic black church” a month earlier. He’s been charged with “destruction of property” (not theft, because it’s not the theft that matters but the desecration of a sacred object). Even though the burning happened a month ago, D.C. cops were still hot on the case, because there are no other, more serious crimes to investigate in the peaceful utopia that might soon become the nation’s 51st state.
Cops were lying in wait for Tarrio as he flew into D.C. from Miami. They staked out an airport to catch a guy who burned some cloth a month ago.
But of course, it’s not just “some cloth.” BLM banners make the Shroud of Turin look like a cocktail napkin. The BLM flag is the Koran of banners; defile it, you die. One gets the feeling that had Tarrio burned a Bible from that “historically black church,” neither the pastor nor the cops would have pursued the matter.
D.C. prosecutors are contemplating charging Tarrio with a “hate crime” enhancement.
Yep, dude would’ve been a lot safer burning a Bible.
Tarrio had already told [i]The Washington Post[/i] that he would plead guilty to the destruction of property charge and reimburse the “historically yada yada” church for the banner, but he’s pledged to fight any “hate crime” charges, as he steadfastly maintains that he destroyed the banner not out of racial animus (Tarrio himself is Afro-Cuban), but because BLM “has terrorized the citizens of this country.”
He’s likely to find out that truth is not a defense in his case.
For the flag-burning alone (not counting the potential hate-crime charges), Tarrio is facing a $1,000 fine and up to 180 days in jail.
Sure, it’s easy to bring up the fact that BLM terrorists have destroyed statues and monuments and burned entire buildings to the ground without facing arrest, but that’s too obvious a point.
Let’s return to little Joey Johnson.
After he was cleared of all charges by the SCOTUS flag decision, he continued burning flags for the next 25 years (to a “revolutionary communist,” that counts as a profession). In 2016 he lit an American flag on fire outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Police stepped in to douse the flames.
And the city of Cleveland was forced to pay Johnson $225,000 for violating his right to publicly burn American flags.
$225,000.
Think on that as you await your $600 Covid relief check.
And now that you’re in a bad mood…
[b]A DEFINING REDEFINING MOMENT[/b]
The news from D.C. following the Capitol unrest is nothing but grim. One pro-Trump protester—a fourteen-year military vet—shot dead by Capitol Police. Three other protesters dead via stroke, heart attack, and trampling, and a D.C. police officer—an Iraq War vet—succumbing to a head injury the day after the skirmish.
The news from D.C. following the Capitol unrest is nothing but grim. One pro-Trump protester—a fourteen-year military vet—shot dead by Capitol Police. Three other protesters dead via stroke, heart attack, and trampling, and a D.C. police officer—an Iraq War vet—succumbing to a head injury the day after the skirmish.
There’s just nothing fun or funny here.
But as always, there are things that can be learned, and instructive points to glean.
The left spent all of 2020 encouraging the wanton destruction wrought by BLM and Antifa. Cities were burned, hundreds of businesses large and small were reduced to ash, thousands of stores, homes, public spaces, and monuments were vandalized. And it was all good, because, as Chris Cuomo—the guy who makes every cast member of [i]Jersey Shore[/i] look like a genius, the guy who best exemplifies why “the Italians” are far, far removed from “the Romans”—said back in June (as BLM thugs were sacking cities across the nation), “Show me where it says protests are supposed to be polite and peaceful.”
Yep, back in the summer, raucous protests were just fine.
If cops, business owners, or concerned citizens dared to harm a BLM or Antifa thug in self-defense, they were guilty of murder. Because violent protesters were not to be opposed. The right to smash, punch, and intimidate is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Maybe that’s not spelled out in the Bill of Rights, maybe it’s not supported by 230 years of Supreme Court precedent, but it’s there, between the lines, in the left’s supplemental footnotes, right alongside the unqualified right to abortion.
But as of Jan. 6, that all changed. Now “impolite” protests are insurrection, treason, and terrorism. All of a sudden, the left has decided that the only good protest is one in which mannered gentlemen with muttonchops exchange platitudes whilst nibbling on cucumber sandwiches and sipping fine aromatic tea.
“I say, dear Cholmondeley, verily have I a grievance to air.”
“In faith, good Sinjin, I shall hear it out, old friend.”
“I do hope my protest has not caused thee undue vexation, kind sir.”
“No more so than has my measured response, I do pray, caused you.”
After almost a year of mass destruction championed and defended as “peaceful protests,” this is how the left now says it should be done. Funny how that works. The Democrats gain control of everything—the White House and Congress—and protests from this point on are supposed to resemble a Jane Austen novel.
But what’s especially interesting is how the left is redefining terrorism. Melissa Chan, an Emmy-nominated journalist who has written for [i]The New York Times[/i], [i]The Atlantic[/i], [i]The Washington Post[/i], [i]The Guardian[/i], and [i]Time[/i] (if there’s a place for vacuous leftists, she’s occupied it), made a big stink on the 7th about how the MAGA Capitol-stormers should not be described as “protesters” but “terrorists.” When pesky Twitterers resurfaced past tweets in which she’d proudly referred to violent and destructive BLM hoods as “protesters,” Ms. Chan tweeted the following:
Quote:Breaking into the Capitol is not the same as breaking into a Best Buy and I can’t believe I have to explain that. But if you think they’re the same, you should go to the Capitol and try to buy a Playstation 5.
In other words, attacking civilian targets doesn’t make you a terrorist; attacking government targets does.
Except, no. The widely accepted definition of “terrorism” is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
“Especially against civilians.”
And the Encyclopedia Britannica defines terrorism as something that strikes “places where members of the civilian population are familiar and in which they feel at ease.”
Like a Best Buy.
But, as we saw in 2020, definitions change quickly when they outlive their usefulness to leftists. So in the weeks to come, expect the definition of terrorism to drop any mention of “especially against civilians.” Because when given a choice between altering their behavior to be less uncivil or altering the language to redefine incivility, leftists will always choose the latter.