One of the more ridiculous things we’ve seen over the past four years has been a push by the left, often abetted by nominally conservative outlets, to define certain symbols and images as being associated with one of their favorite bogeymen. We’ve seen the American flag banned from schools, presumably because the idea that the school was in America made it unwelcoming to illegal aliens in attendance. Sometimes the results are hilarious, like the claim that the “ok” sign made with thumb and forefinger is a secret shout-out to fellow white supremacists. An internet meme, Pepe the Frog, also sets their sphincters aflutter. Their campaign against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia’s battle flag has reached psychopathic proportions…again, they are assisted by some prominent pseudo-right publications in this particular effort. The purpose of defining the symbols has less to do with the symbols than attacking anyone associated with them.

The riot in the US Capitol reinvigorated this whole nonsensical endeavor. The video imagery of the rioters and casual bystanders served as a veritable cornucopia of new symbols that needed to be banned.

Here is an example of this Bizzaro World perspective:

One symbol belongs to the #OathKeepers, one of the largest antigovernment militia organizations in the US today. Members of the group showed up armed to #BlackLivesMatter protests and polling sites in recent months. https://t.co/ADrzbPub6x pic.twitter.com/2FJdMwZGN0

— Insider News (@insidernews) January 17, 2021

“Decode the symbols.” You gotta love it; it’s like the goobers putting this together imagined they were a rather dim version of Dan Brown and writing their own version “Da Vinci Code,”  but about the 75 million people who voted for Donald Trump.

Some of the things they call symbols of a group aren’t. The “Armor of God” patch, for instance, is not associated with any group other than people who have read St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.  Because of the angst it is causing, I’m going to buy one. The Three-Percenter paraphernalia doesn’t signify anything more than you like the gear. The organization isn’t violent, nor is it white-supremacist. It is patriotic, which definitely sticks in the craw of most journalists. But thanks to this video, I just ordered a Three-Percenter sweatshirt.

One obvious thing is that this thread’s research didn’t research much deeper than the SPLC slime-list. Calling the Oath Keepers a militia is rather bizarre since its purpose is to encourage people in the military and law enforcement not to violate their oath and oppress everyday Americans. And if we’re tracking behavior and attributing motives, do you know who else showed up, armed, at BLM demonstrations:

NFAC, an armed black supremacist group, converged upon the Kentucky Derby today to protest against white people. pic.twitter.com/5qJKIXJG9U

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 5, 2020

I caught a lot of crap a few years ago for criticizing them (see The Malignant Nature of the Oath Keeper Movement). I’m re-evaluating that stance because when it was written in would never have occurred to me to imagine that the Intelligence Community and FBI would spy on and interfere in a US presidential election. I would have laughed in your face if you’d told me that those same organizations would conspire, at least twice, to have a lawfully elected president removed from office. If you’d told me I’d see police officers break up funerals, I would have quietly called for the nice men in white suits with the straitjackets and Thorozine cocktails to take you away.

Jacob Chansley, otherwise known as "Q Shaman," had tattoos of Viking and Norse symbology inked on his torso. While these symbols don't necessarily have racist origins, they have been appropriated by white-supremacist and neo-Nazi movements. https://t.co/slHQ8EVgUh pic.twitter.com/HWKQCpeQyN

— Insider News (@insidernews) January 17, 2021

By now, everyone knows that Jacob Chansley is a nutter and not even a Trump supporter. Note the verbal jiujitsu here. He has symbols. Some white-supremacists and neo-Nazis (we are never told exactly who these folks are) use some symbols that are maybe or maybe not like the ones he is wearing. Therefore? This argument is about as substantial as saying white supremacists and neo-Nazis correspond to each other in English.

I really don’t understand the wadding of panties caused by QAnon. I mean, two major newsrooms shared a Pulitzer Prize for spreading unfounded conspiracy theories about President Trump mainly sourced from a document that is no more trustworthy or substantial than and QAnon rumor. Is the point that the left is allowed to reward its conspiracy theorists publicly and no one else is?

One Capitol insurrectionist wore a "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirt, referring to the concentration and death camp in Poland that was used by Nazi Germany to kill 1.1 million Jews, Poles, Roma, and more. https://t.co/Cw9koTzVI8 pic.twitter.com/KSN6VGJwlx

— Insider News (@insidernews) January 17, 2021

The Gadsden flag joins the American flag in the annals of ignominy. Full disclosure, I’ve flown one for over a decade, and if you are offended, you don’t need to visit me. I’m not terribly sure what the “Camp Auschwitz” shirt is about other than bad taste. I think it’s a safe bet to assume it is not a call to kill Jews but rather a grim parody of where a lot of us feel like we are headed under a Biden-Harris regime.

Some symbols, like the Confederate flag, had never been seen inside the US Capitol. New footage reveals just what it was like to be among the insurrectionists as they took the building. pic.twitter.com/GFvMBZ7YYA

— Insider News (@insidernews) January 17, 2021

This is one of those things where crap is asserted without evidence. There is no evidence that the “ok” sign is more prevalent among white supremacists than it is among people signifying “ok” or making a harmless and meaningless gesture while speaking or among people trying to get a rise out of hyper-woke journalists out do decode the evil symbology of the right.

What you are seeing is a blatant attempt to pick out a few symbols carried by a few people at the US Capitol demonstration and by some of the rioters in the US Capitol, claim that these are symbols of extremism of one kind or another, and then use those unfounded and unsubstantiated claims to label anyone else using those symbols as some kind of “insurrectionist.”