Today is, of course, January 6th, the third anniversary of an event that has been sold as either akin to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor or the Second American Revolution, depending on who you ask. But what that event was not was either insurrection or revolution. It was, at most, a spontaneous act of hooliganism. On this anniversary of that day, a little perspective is in order.

The History

Before January 6th, 2021, there were three attacks on the U.S. Capitol itself, all of which met the several criteria of attempted rebellion or insurrection: An organized (in other words, planned) armed, violent act against an established authority. 

The first of these events was carried out on July 2, 1915, when a Cornell University professor, one Frank Holt, smuggled three sticks of dynamite into the Capitol. He was unable to place them in the Senate chamber, so he placed his improvised bomb in a reception chamber instead. When the bombs detonated, the chamber was damaged but no Senate members or staffers were hurt. Holt was, apparently, angered that the U.S. was selling arms and munitions to Imperial Germany's Great War enemies.

Next, on March 1st, 1954, a group of Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire on the House of Representatives from a gallery. Five Congressmen (two Republicans and three Democrats, not that this matters) were injured by gunfire, one seriously, although he recovered.

Finally, on March 1, 1971, the infamous leftist militant group Weather Underground placed a bomb in a men's restroom a floor below the Senate chamber. A bomb threat was phoned in, and 30 minutes later, the bomb detonated, but due to the explosion happening at night, no Senate members or staffers were hurt.

These were actual acts of rebellion. They were organized and planned. They were violent - two using explosives, the other, firearms. They were carried out against the established authority - the United States Congress.

The Jan 6th, 2021, events were none of those things. They were spontaneous; there was never any direct threat against any member of Congress. There were no arms or explosives involved. As I have been saying since this happened, this was, at most, hooliganism. And yet, the legacy media keeps beating the "insurrection" drum, and the event continues to impact the ongoing Presidential campaigns.

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These three events were not the only overt events of rebellion in the history of the United States. A few of the more notable incidents include:

The Draft Riots of 1863. While these were spontaneous, arms were employed. After President Lincoln announced conscription during the American Civil War, which policy allowed the wealthy to buy their way out of being drafted for $300, there were protests across the Union. In New York City, these protests exploded into riots, with a million and a half dollars in damage from arson and looting; a Union Army infantry regiment had to be recalled from the area of Gettysburg to restore order.

The Election Massacre of 1874. On Election Day of 1874, in Barbour County, Alabama, an (actual) white supremacist paramilitary group, the White League, attacked freedmen attempting to vote. At least 15 freedmen were killed and approximately 70 were injured, with a thousand more driven away from polling places. This allowed the League to influence elections by a wide enough margin to allow Democrat candidates, favored by the League, to win a majority of the state elections, removing Republicans from office.

And finally, the BLM/Antifa riots of the summer of 2020. These riots, occurring only months before the Jan 6th, 2021 events, cost well over a thousand times the J6 events in terms of property destruction. Small businesses were burned down. Thousands of law enforcement officers were attacked, and at least one actual political assassination was carried out.

These were actual acts of rebellion. They were organized and planned. They were violent, with many instances of arson, looting, and physical attacks on law enforcement and citizens. They were carried out against the established authority - the civil authorities of the cities, counties, and states where the riots took place.

The Jan 6th, 2021, events were none of those things. They were spontaneous; there was never any direct threat against civil authorities. There was no looting or arson. The only firmly established death was the inexplicable shooting of an unarmed protestor by a Capitol Police officer.

And let's not forget the largest act of rebellion in our nation's history, the Civil War, which cost at least half a million dead and an uncountable amount in property damage and loss.

January 6th

The events of January 6th, 2021, were certainly unfortunate. The people involved showed poor judgment; by entering the Capitol, they gave the legacy media and national Democrats a "hook" on which to allege charges of insurrection, which this was not, but facts often receive short shrift in politics. These acts, as I've been saying since they happened, rise to the level of hooliganism - and that is all.

Why, then, are January 6th protestors being punished completely out of proportion to what was meted out to BLM/Antifa protestors - or to the people blocking bridges and roadways today, protesting Israel, climate change, or whatever the outrage du jour is? Because, also as I've been saying for some time, equal treatment under the law is effectively a dead letter in this country. In the United States today, the crime itself isn’t the issue; it’s whether the criminal has engaged in wrongthink before or during the crime. Rioting, arson, and property destruction are OK, as long as it’s for a good cause.

These things aren't about justice. They are about the side. Remember that, and it all starts to make sense.