Left wing or right im pro violence6/25/2023 According to the FBI, groups like Antifa avoid traditional hierarchies and leadership structures. And, they are extremely clever in masking their activities. Just two were locals – including a lawyer employed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. For example, 21 of the 23 people arrested in the Atlanta attack came from outside the State of Georgia. They travel across the country to targeted locations to unleash their destructive rage. They use sophisticated tactics to assault law enforcement officers, destroy property, and spread fear and disorder. Self-styled anti-fascist and anarchist groups, often exploit bona fide causes deliberately to organize and deploy street violence for political ends. It’s past time to recognize that these are not random or spontaneous outbursts of violence. This is not what peaceful protest looks like. The agitators - several of whom were arrested on terrorism charges - attacked law enforcement with rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and commercial-grade fireworks. Minneapolis, Kenosha, other such places, we saw courthouses and police facilities in Portland and Seattle, and even the very notion of government control, targeted with months of sustained violence.Īny notion that this was a phenomenon limited to a specific time or region gave way more recently to the specter of left-wing activists carrying out a sustained, violent campaign against a Public Safety Training Center under development in Atlanta. In 2020, the American people watched as riots raged, causing an estimated two billion dollars in damages and chaos across our country. The judge eventually had to be escorted out by federal marshals.īut it’s not just colleges and universities. ![]() And then the University DEI administrator who appeared didn’t act to establish order and contain the heckling instead she took the podium to deliver prepared remarks praising the disruptive intimidation and suggesting that Stanford rethink its commitment to free speech. Protesters shouted him down and refused to let him deliver his speech. In another recent incident, left-wing agitators at Stanford Law School disrupted a student-organized lecture from a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Our colleges and universities – once the symbol of free and open debate – are increasingly scenes of violent intimidation by left-wing extremists to silence those with whom they disagree. She was barricaded in a room for several hours before finally being able to leave. Here’s one of our witnesses, a former collegiate swimmer who found herself on the wrong end of a mob when she appeared at San Francisco State University last month to speak her mind about the state of women’s sports. Well, it’s time that Congress takes a closer look at what “mostly peaceful” looks like. And we all remember state-aligned media’s fervent effort to label fiery, violent rioting as quote – “mostly peaceful.” Violence in public discourse is always unacceptable – no matter the ideology behind it.īut, mention left-wing violence and the prevarications begin: Some will claim that it’s not that big of a deal, or that Antifa is a myth. But, this is not about grading extremism. Certainly, that issue has received no lack of official attention. I anticipate that my Democratic colleagues will reply with the official line from all the security agencies that right-wing extremism represents the most lethal, terroristic threat to the homeland. But it often seems that, of this, the federal government takes little notice. ![]() Time and again, across the nation, Americans have seen both episodic and in some cases sustained violence against people, especially law enforcement, and property damage from so-called anti-fascist and anarchist groups. However, another threat to free expression is the contemporaneous phenomenon of more and more left-wing, organized violence that likewise appears designed to co-opt and suppress open debate. The Subcommittee just reaffirmed that principle in a hearing inquiring into the Department of Homeland Security’s troubling and dangerous venture into censorship of Americans’ online expression, which some astute observers have termed the Censorship Laundering Enterprise. Peaceful protests, robust debate, and civil dialogue are all essential to our democratic society. ![]() Today’s hearing will examine the threat of organized left-wing violence and how the federal government, and the Department of Homeland Security in particular, can best help state and local law enforcement understand, anticipate, prepare for, and respond to these threats.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |