Things escalated last night in Washington D.C. as Black Lives Matter supporters took the the streets. This has been a nightly thing following the conclusion of the RNC, which saw “protesters” taking to Lafayette Square to assault police and behead a Trump mannequin. We also witnessed targeted harassment of those leaving the event, including a tense situation involving Rand Paul.

Now, new shocking videos are emerging showing BLM harassing residents and encouraging the killing of police.

BLM leader: “I want to to put these police in a f—ing grave … I want to f—ing burn the White House down… I f—k police up in New York, I f—k police up in DC”pic.twitter.com/x2Defrrxar

— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) August 30, 2020

Current scene on Black Lives Matter plaza: pic.twitter.com/SgHWmpvxWW

— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) August 30, 2020

It goes without saying at this point, but if any “right-wing” group had any of its leader and supporters behaving this way, it’d be plastered everywhere as proof they are terrorizing people. But BLM enjoys almost full immunity from mainstream criticism because being for “social justice” is a get out of jail free card in our modern body politic.

And that’s really the double standard at play here. BLM is continually parsed and given the benefit of the doubt as we are assured that “most” supporters of the movement want nothing to do with the violence and harassment going on in our streets. What is missed is that that’s not really noteworthy or an excuse to normalize BLM. In any radical movement, it’s usually a smaller percentage of people that engage in violence and destruction. That doesn’t stop society from labeling those radical movements as negative. Why does BLM get special treatment in this regard? The answer is that it doesn’t.

It’s leaders are self-proclaimed marxists and even at the most “peaceful” of BLM protests, you’ll often hear insane rhetoric toward police, our governmental system, and calls for violence. Yes, the local leaders may be different than the national leaders, but to say they aren’t connected is gaslighting. It also ignores that the local leaders often show themselves to be just as radical as the national organization. It may not be universal because nothing is, but the radical, violent rhetoric and/or actions happen enough that it can’t simply be ignored or shoved aside as not representative.

In the end, this is why I simply can’t get behind BLM, no matter how much they try to play with the semantics to try force me to say their slogan via societal pressure.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)