It's no secret that the political left in the United States today, as well as elsewhere in the Western world, is growing increasingly violent. In the past few years, right here in the USA, we have seen increasing political violence, riots, arson, vandalism, and even not one, not two, but three attempts on the life of President Trump.
And, then, of course, there's Charlie Kirk. We're still seeing the fallout over that infamous event, and we're still seeing the far left online (and, in some cases, offline) figuratively dancing in Charlie's blood.
So, where is all this headed? Those of us on the right are not nearly so quick to lean into political violence; for one thing, we have more to lose (jobs, property, assets, families) than most of the left, and despite the screeching of the left, we aren't as prone to violence. The news of the day proves that out very clearly.
But what the left doesn't seem to get is that, should we be pushed to violence, we're better at this than they are. Most military veterans are right of center, politically. Most gun owners, hunters, and sport shooters are right of center, politically, and if you draw a Venn diagram of legal gun owners and veterans, there would be considerable overlap. This is a door the left really shouldn't want to open, and yet here they are, banging away on it.
A few years back, a friend of mine, in correspondence, wrote this to me:
Does anyone think, for a moment, that the men who settled continents, conquered the elements, and defeated any challenger who crossed their path established concepts like individual liberty, rule of law, or private property to protect themselves from bands of marauding purple-haired Women’s Studies and Literary Criticism majors?
Or is it maybe a little more likely that we’ve chosen to bury our more vicious and murderous impulses under a set of standards of bourgeois restraint? Now, they’re insisting that that veneer of restraint is unfair. Holy s***! Have they thought for a second about what their own damnation of bourgeois standards and values implies about what they’ll be facing then?
No, clearly, they have not. And that's the fatal flaw in their reasoning. Because we're not locked in here with them. They're locked in here with us.
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Here's the thing: the vast majority of human history has been one of brutality, oppression, and violence. That continued until fairly recently; the late 18th century saw, in Western Europe and the New World, the Enlightenment that led to one small group of people in North America proclaiming the blessings of liberty. And boy, howdy, look at what we've done with it. But you can indeed see the endings in the beginnings; just as you can listen to Wagner and hear the roots of modern German death metal, just as you can look at Mozart and Freddie Mercury and see uncanny similarities, you can see a return to elitist brutality in the goals of the modern political left, who we might summarize thusly:
“Liberty? You’ll have as much liberty as we allow you. Property? It’s only yours after we take what we want to redistribute it to others who haven’t earned it, after skimming off… well, a lot. Individual rights? You have the right to labor on other men’s behalf. You have the right to submit to the rule of your betters for your own good. You have the right to your weekly potato ration. You have the right to labor to provide food and housing for unlimited Third World migration.”
But what they don't realize is that we're not locked in here with them. They're locked in here with us.
They forget what kind of people set up those institutions that protect and defend liberty, property, and individual rights. They forget how many people still value them today. People of commitment, determination, resolve, courage, both physical and mental, strength, likewise both physical and mental. They forget to what lengths people who decide they have nothing left to lose will go. Strength, true strength, does not arise from outrage; it arises from work and achievement. Confidence, real confidence, arises from the knowledge that you can do things no matter what obstacles others try to put in your way.
And they still don't realize that we're not locked in here with them. They're locked in here with us.
How much longer will regular folks allow people to be intimidated by street thugs with black masks? How much longer will people watch law enforcement in too many of our major cities stand by while those thugs run riot in the streets? How much longer will it be before people have had enough, before the counter-protests become counter-attacks? How much longer before the perpetually outraged suddenly, horribly, realize what wages their outrage has wrought?
It's only the restraints of civilized behavior that restrain the right, but those restraints are, within the great arc of human history, fairly new, and they are not unbreakable.
The message to those who would tear down those institutions that define civilization – liberty, property, individual rights – I can only offer one warning:
We’re not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with us.
