May 31, 2017

"Free speech or die, Portland. You got no safe place. This is America, get out if you don’t like free speech."

"Death to the enemies of America. Leave this country if you hate our freedom.... You call it terrorism, I call it patriotism. You hear me? Die.”

Those are 2 statements by Jeremy Christian, from his appearance in the courtroom as he was arraigned after the murders on the MAX Green Line train in Portland. I read those statements first "in the NYT, which uses the verb "shouted" and a photograph of Christian with his mouth wide open to convey the tone of his speech. I was unsatisfied with the NYT because it shifted to the subject of Mayor Tom Wheeler's rejection of permits for "alt-right" events in Portland.

Looking for more detail about the arraignment, I switched to The Washington Post, which has video of Christian making the above-quoted statements. The video makes a different impression:


I was surprised how scripted Christian sounded, as if he were delivering a memorized speech. I also heard an additional sentence, after "Leave this country if you hate our freedom": "Death to Antifa." I'd been inclined to think of Christian as a ranting lunatic, but the delivery of these lines makes him seem more controlled in his structure of beliefs — not that the beliefs are cogent.

Christian leaps from the love of freedom of speech to a sentence of death to those who don't like freedom of speech. "Free speech or die" seems like a variation on "Live free or die," but you have to misunderstand "Live free or die," which is supposed to express willingness to die for the cause of freedom, not a desire for other people to drop dead if they don't value freedom above everything else.

Perhaps it's disgusting to analyze the words of a person who has done something so evil, but Christian's words are being quoted and used. He's not being hidden away and denied a voice, so it's not as if I can close the door and say don't listen to the rants of a madman.

He's being quoted and used as a jumping off point for things people want to say, and what's particularly irritating — aside from the rank sensationalism of bloody murder — is the blithe assumption that Christian's agenda is racism. You can see that the arraignment quotes have no racist content at all. The statements from the murder scene (and in a recording made of him on a train on an earlier occasion) were anti-religion (and not just anti-Muslim). Where's the racism?

The WaPo article proceeds to talk about the "long and violent history of white supremacist and other racist activities" in the Pacific Northwest. It gives us a quote from a professor of urban studies at Portland State University, Karen Gibson: “The idea that Portland is so liberal supersedes this dark, hidden secret about racism.” Maybe so, but the article never establishes that Christian is a racist.

WaPo drags in Donald Trump:
Some residents said President Donald Trump has caused those racist demons to stir again....

“I don’t have that feeling like it can’t happen here — the way people talk about Portland — because we’ve got racism. We’ve got all kinds of things,” said Murr Brewster, who came to see a memorial at the city’s transit center. “It’s everywhere and the trouble is, it’s getting more and more prevalent.”
Primed, we hear next about Mayor Wheeler's effort to stop the planned rally, which, we're told, is billed on Facebook as "a Trump Free Speech Rally." Then this paragraph galumphs in:
Christian attended a similar rally in late April wearing an American flag around his neck and carrying a baseball bat. Police confiscated the bat, and he was then caught on camera clashing with counter-protesters.
That might put him on the pro-Trump side. But where's the racism? Was he armed with a bat because he wanted to fight the counter-protesters? That fits with "Leave this country if you hate our freedom. Death to Antifa."

Elsewhere, I'm seeing assertions that Christian was actually for Bernie Sanders. And here's a piece in The Oregonian, premised on a deep read of Christian's Facebook page: "His posts reveal a comic book collector with nebulous political affiliations who above all else seemed to hate circumcision and Hillary Clinton." And:
The question of whether Christian was a Trump supporter or a Sanders supporter, doesn't have an either/or answer, except: he definitely was not a Clinton supporter.

"Bernie Sanders was the President I wanted," wrote Christian in December. "He voiced my heart and mind. The one who spoke about the way America should gone. Away from the Military and Prison Industrial Complexes. The Trump is who America needs now that Bernie got ripped off."

But on Nov. 11, he posted that he was unable to bring himself to vote for Trump.

"I've had it!!! I gonna kill everybody who voted for Trump or Hillary!!!" he said in another post in early January. "It's all your fault!!! You're what's wrong with this country!!! Reveal yourselves immediately and face your DOOM!!!"
I'd say that sounds like a Bernie Sanders supporter. After Sanders dropped out and endorsed Hillary, he had nowhere to go. I don't know why white supremacists are getting blamed for Christian's insanely murderous rage. It would make more sense to blame the those who've been inflaming anger on the far left.

But back to the NYT, where this post began, because after reading The Washington Post, I did see more reason in the shift from what Christian said at the arraignment to Tom Wheeler's rejection of pro-free-speech rallies. Christian made free speech sound like an ugly, evil cause related to murder. Now, you should see that the violence Wheeler uses to justify repressing a free-speech rally is violence from those who oppose the rally, the counter-protesters. But Christian's extolling of free speech may obscure that. His jumbled, awful remarks at the arraignment are useful to anyone who would like to shape our brains to think: Free speech = Violence. And: To suppress speech is to suppress violence.

And who doesn't wish that the police could have arrested Jeremy Christian when they had him speaking and carrying a baseball bat at a rally?

363 comments:

1 – 200 of 363   Newer›   Newest»
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

"Death to Antifa." - Doesn't sound ambiguous to me.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I don't know why white supremacists are getting blamed for Christian's insanely murderous rage.

If we lowly commenters could apply tags, this would get a things not believed.

Kevin said...

what's particularly irritating — aside from the rank sensationalism of bloody murder — is the blithe assumption that Christian's agenda is racism.

What country have you been living in for the past 8 years? It passed irritating about...7.5 years ago.

Kevin said...

Maybe so, but the article never establishes that Christian is a racist.

These are the same papers who have no evidence of a crime but preach every day of Trump's certain impeachment, no?

Ann Althouse said...

"If we lowly commenters could apply tags, this would get a things not believed."

Which thing do you not believe?

That I don't know why....? In other words, you know why?

I guess it's a figure of speech, and your reaction shows why it's not the best figure of speech. It causes you to think: Well, I sure as hell know why!!!!!

I use that figure of speech to have a delicate touch and to resist saying things I don't know. It's actually literally true that I don't know, if you take the word "know" seriously.

Quayle said...

"...is the blithe assumption that Christian's agenda is racism."

Surely you are not surprised, Ann

Isn't the universality of racism or sexism or some-ism of certain people, the foundation upon which most leftist world views are built?

The starting presumption is that there is an inevitable power struggle between peoples of various groups.

That is perhaps a natural offspring of an atheistic belief in Darwinism where the weak are eaten by the strong.

So why should we be surprised such paradigms creep into everything - into every story.

Kevin said...

The question of whether Christian was a Trump supporter or a Sanders supporter, doesn't have an either/or answer, except: he definitely was not a Clinton supporter.

"Bernie Sanders was the President I wanted," wrote Christian in December.


See Oregonian, you just had to keep reading to the first line of the next paragraph and the answer is right there.

AllenS said...

Thankfully, he didn't yell "allahu akbar".

mockturtle said...

Why is this story generating so much more 'news' than this one: Mississippi Man Kills Eight in Shooting Spree?

David said...

" I don't know why white supremacists are getting blamed for Christian's insanely murderous rage. It would make more sense to blame the those who've been inflaming anger on the far left."

You live in Madison. You see the groupthink all the time and write about it very effectively. The Left has conditioned itself to believe that such actions are the responsibility of the Other that they detest.

And ignorance. I had a conversation recently with a seemingly intelligent and educated young woman who had trouble accepting my explanation that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were implemented by Republican politicians.

Kevin said...

But Christian's extolling of free speech may obscure that. His jumbled, awful remarks at the arraignment are useful to anyone who would like to shape our brains to think: Free speech = Violence. And: To suppress speech is to suppress violence.

Oooooh, so close.

Free speech = Racism. Racism must be stopped and therefore free speech is the enemy.

Violence in the suppression of free speech is not only welcome, it's required.

There, fixed it for you.

David Begley said...

"Some residents said President Donald Trump has caused those racist demons to stir again...."

Was similar speculation ever published about President Obama by WaPo or NYT?

David said...

"Why is this story generating so much more 'news' than this one:"

Dead white people in trendy city vs. dead black people in Southern backwater. Plus politics.

White Lives Do Matter.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

His racism has been established. You should watch the video from the April rally. There is video of him shouting the n-word. There's a segment where he hands over his bat to a police officer for safe keeping.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

This is a list of right wing/racist killings of people of color and the left. It speaks for itself. There is nothing equivalent for attacks on the right over the last decade.

The 2017 stabbing of Timothy Caughman in New York City (1 killed),
The 2015 Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting (3 killed),
The 2015 Charleston church shooting (9 killed),
The 2014 ambush attack on Las Vegas police officers (5 killed),
The 2014 Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting in Kansas (3 killed),
The 2014 Pennsylvania State Police barracks attack in Blooming Grove, Pennsylvania (1 killed),
A 2012 tri-state killing spree by white supremacists, David Pedersen and Holly Grigsby (4 killed),
A 2012 ambush of St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana police (2 killed),
The 2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting (6 killed),
The 2011 FEAR group attacks (3 killed),
A murder in 2010 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania (1 killed),
A 2010 suicide attack by airplane in Austin, Texas (1 killed),
The 2009 shooting of Pittsburgh police officers (3 killed),
The 2009 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting (1 killed),
The 2009 assassination of George Tiller (1 killed),
The 2009 murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores in Pima County, Arizona (2 killed),
The 2009 murders in Brockton, Massachusetts (2 killed),
The 2008 Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting (2 killed)

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

mockturtle said...
Why is this story generating so much more 'news' than this one: Mississippi Man Kills Eight in Shooting Spree?

5/31/17, 7:56 AM

We know why.

Dave from Minnesota said...

Mock, the Mississippi story should be bigger news. Another ill man goes on a rampage and murders 7 relatives and a policeman. But I suppose 7 blacks getting killed, along with a white policeman isn't newsworthy. I am not saying this as a conspiracy to surpress it, but I had to actually search online to find info on these crimes. Or the Jackson has had over 20 murders so far this year, including a 5 year old murdered after the car he was in was stolen.

Dave from Minnesota said...

ARReason....don't forget to add in the Owasso Michigan murder. Where a pro-choice guy went up to a pro-life protester and shot him in the head, saying "I hate pro-life people".

Dave from Minnesota said...

Or the gay man who murdered the reporter on live TV in Roanoke. You know they found a rainbow flag in his apartment.

Speaking of that, how about the 2 gay teachers from South St Paul who were anally raping boys. Even rented a hotel room in downtown Minneapolis during Pridefest so they could rape boys.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

It's actually literally true that I don't know, if you take the word "know" seriously.

I take the word "know" seriously, but not literally.

I think that you could say that you don't ever know someone else's motivations, and it would be literally true, no matter how obvious those motivations may seem.

I could say that I don't know where my car keys are, and it would be literally true. I assume they are in my pocket, that is where I always keep them, and I have no reason to believe I put them someplace else. But the way I am sitting I cannot currently feel them in my pocket, so I don't know they are there unless I check.

Dave from Minnesota said...

The 2015 Charleston church shooting (9 killed),....an Atheist killing Christians. I thought you Democrats hated Christofacists.

What about the policemen murdered in Dallas, Baton Rouge, and other cities?

CWJ said...

"This is a list of right wing/racist killings of people of color and the left."

The 2014 Overland Park shooting was no such thing.

traditionalguy said...

This guy is an old fashioned anarchist. He hates any control over his freedom. So much that he wants to control others who are in control.

That was Occupy Wall Street's gig.

Rae said...

Both sides of the political spectrum are playing a game of chicken. The left is expecting the right to back down as they always have, the right has thrown up it's collective hands, said to "hell with you" and is determined to barrel through.

There are people on both sides who WANT the confrontation, egging it on.

The collision is probably thirty years coming, and at this point I'm not sure it can be averted. Too much inertia.

narciso said...

The Austin one was a practical communist, so was the one at the Pentagon, the holocaust museum was also a lefty, Pittsburgh was also a an Obama suppirter

David Begley said...

ARM

So where does the 80 dead in Kabul from a Ramadan bombing fit into your calculus? Or the Memorial Day shoot-a-thon in Chicago?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

CWJ said...
The 2014 Overland Park shooting was no such thing.


"On April 13, 2014, a pair of shootings committed by a White American domestic terrorist occurred at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community, both located in Overland Park, Kansas. A total of three people were killed in the shootings, two who were shot at the community center and one who was shot at the retirement community.

The gunman, 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. of Aurora, Missouri, originally from North Carolina, was arrested in the attack and was subsequently tried, convicted of murder and other crimes, and sentenced to death. He was a Neo-Nazi and former political candidate."

"Miller was an Aurora, Missouri, transplant from North Carolina, a neo-Nazi, practicing neo-Pagan, and former politician who founded and formerly led the Carolina Knights, a paramilitary organization with ties to the Ku Klux Klan in the 1980s, with the organization later being disbanded by the Southern Poverty Law Center, after which he founded another group called the White Patriot Party. In the late 1980s, he was sentenced to three years in prison for weapons charging and plotting to assassinate Morris Dees, the leader and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "

William said...

His visible appearance is more consistent with that of a long haired hippie than that of a buzz cut militia member. That's not a fascist haircut......I can see why the two guys got involved. He doesn't look like an axe murderer, and his physical bulk doesn't appear to be that intimidating. He's crazier and more dangerous than he looks or sounds.

Ralph L said...

not a desire for other people to drop dead
Or more accurately, a desire to drop other people dead.

traditionalguy said...

John Brown is back. This guy wants to get violent confrontation to the death started. No more sweeping the conflict under the carpet with political compromise.

Ann Althouse said...

"His racism has been established. You should watch the video from the April rally. There is video of him shouting the n-word. "

Why don't you link to the video?

I'm talking about MSM articles that have assertions without the relevant background. If there is support, then it should be in the article. I did some of my own research, but I didn't get that. I am being critical of media here.

MadisonMan said...

Freedoms all Americans enjoy should not be constrained by the actions of one lunatic.

narciso said...

Van brunn was against the Iraq war and a 9/11 denialists

Ann Althouse said...

"This is a list of right wing/racist killings of people of color and the left. It speaks for itself. There is nothing equivalent for attacks on the right over the last decade."

What about the Antifa violence? Who is being violent now? You list isolated murders spread out over a period of many years, but I'd like to know which groups are stirring up violence now and cranking people up. Whether murder has happened yet is less relevant to me here than what the existing fervor is.

narciso said...

Miller if I recall had been an fbi informant, this why he wasn't rolled up in the last seperatist roundup

Dave from Minnesota said...

A leftwing St Paul city councilman (Fat Dave Thune) invited domestic terrorists to come to St Paul during the RNC in 2008. He even offered to find them places to stay while they planned their attacks. Is there a counterpart event where Republican city officials invited terrorists to come and attack Democrats?

madAsHell said...

who above all else seemed to hate circumcision and Hillary Clinton.

What a great punch line!! I'm just trying to figure out the joke.

Bob Boyd said...

Can Christian be a racist or is he innocent by reason of insanity?

William said...

The world is full of crazy and evil people. Some of them are racists, and some of them are egalitarians. I'm not drawing any false equivalences here. In the 19th century, a lot of people were murdered to establish white supremacy. In the 20th century, millions were killed on behalf of the proletariat. In our present moment, mass murder seems more a franchise of Islamic extremists than of white racists or Commie rebels. If you wish to kill a lot of people and feel good about yourself afterward, I recommend conversion to one of the more militant branches of the Islamic faith.

Anonymous said...

When I saw the words in Althouse's header, I thought a certain loud mouthed violent sounding commenter had said them.

traditionalguy said...

As MadisonMan says,"Freedoms of all Americans should not be constrained by the actions of one lunatic. And then the lunatic attacked the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry.

Why do I see an execution coming, followed by a Federal Troops marching song ?

narciso said...

How about the ll cool j lookalike lapd spree , dorner or other Obama fan, the Washington navy yard shooter

Dust Bunny Queen said...

is the blithe assumption that Christian's agenda is racism.

And thus continues the 'othering' by the media and liberal elitists who immediately cry racism or 'somesortofphobia' when there are people who don't agree with them.

Not that I agree with this guy either. He sounds like a seriously unhinged loon and should be taken as such and should have been given some sort of treatment or at least a time out. (Currently forbidden by various laws however)

But...noooooo....the media and the left will insist on trying to make him a representative of all those supposed "white supremacists" in the North West and lump everyone together into one big mass that is targeted for hatred and denigration.

They look at some Oregon truck driver, NE California cowboy rancher, Washington logger and scream: racist, supremacist, Trumpist.....instead of seeing just some guy trying his best to make a living and get by without fuss.

Did they learn nothing from Hillary's basket of deplorables? Do they not understand the backlash that is going to be coming their way if they keep this 'othering' up?

Anonymous said...

The guy was a Bernie supporter who also made comments supportive of Trump. He was consistent in his hate of Clinton.

Nyamujal said...

" I don't know why white supremacists are getting blamed for Christian's insanely murderous rage. It would make more sense to blame the those who've been inflaming anger on the far left."

Huh? That's a bold assertion based on the little evidence you have so far.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Ann Althouse said...
I'm talking about MSM articles that have assertions without the relevant background. If there is support, then it should be in the article. I did some of my own research, but I didn't get that. I am being critical of media here.

What about the Antifa violence? Who is being violent now? You list isolated murders spread out over a period of many years, but I'd like to know which groups are stirring up violence now and cranking people up. Whether murder has happened yet is less relevant to me here than what the existing fervor is.


In both these post you are trying to limit the focus for the purpose of advancing a narrowly partisan point of view. A ten year window is not unreasonable when trying to assess the primary sources of political violence in this country.

Do you listen to Mark Levine or Sean Hannity? There is no equivalent voices with the same high profile status on the left. Some people on the right are itching for a fight and that desire filters out into the community. Instead of constantly whining about the left, moderate people on the right, such as yourself, should start addressing the problems on their own side of the fence.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? - Matthew 7:3-5

Unknown said...

ARM apparently missed the BLM attacks on white people and cops. Just a few months ago a black guy in San Jose? Diego? Somewhere, was explicitly hunting white people and killing them.

After Dylan Roof, the outcry was tremendous. Racist! This black guy hunting white people, including I believe at a church? Crickets from ARM and the left.

Oh, and ARM? Many if not most of those on your list were white leftists, and as such your side has compete responsibility for them. Racism is a core feature of the left, and always has been. You know that.

--Vance

CWJ said...

ARM,

He's an elderly wacko who went out to kill jews, and ironically killed three Christians instead. None of whom were "people of color."

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Why is this story generating so much more 'news' than [Mississippi Man Kills Eight in Shooting Spree]?

1. The Mississippi incident was family violence. All those killed, excepting the Sheriff's Deputy, were related (blood or marriage) to the shooter. The Portland indicent was political violence.

In both cases the killings seem to be triggered by an intervention - of the Deputy in Mississippi, of other commuter riders in Portland.

2. In the Mississippi incident there is no news-worthy "racial" thread. All those killed, excepting the Deputy, were of the same "race" as the shooter.

Dave from Minnesota said...

AR, sometimes I check in on leftwing discussions. Democratunderground. DailyKos. Huffpost, etc.

You may want to see what they are saying. They really believe that elections are stolen from them, and therefore violence may be neccesary to achieve power.

n.n said...

Deep Plunger of Water Closet was also a disillusioned Democrat who responded to DNC disenfranchisement and other games, foreign and domestic.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

He [Christian]was consistent in his hate of Clinton.

He was more butthurt because of the betrayal of Sanders, his preferred guy, by the Clintons and the Democrats in general. According to what I've read so far, he is not a Trump supporter. Just unhinged by the betrayal and emotional jerking around by those he 'thought' were on his side. The Bernie people invested a lot of emotional energy in their guy.

Kind of like a guy who finds out that his wife has been banging the entire neighborhood behind his back and then snaps and decides to take them ALL out.

Anonymous said...

When I read comments by some Althouse commenters on the far right that are already promising some sort of civil war if Trump gets impeached or if anti Trumpers don't shut up, I wonder who really wants the violence, left or right. The right started this nonsense back when Obama became President. Bullets were hard to get as they were being bought in huge quantities. People were actually buying food staples like beans and rice in large quantities anticipating some civil war. This desire for violence and upheaval was born out of fear of America's first black President. If that's racist, oh well, it is what it is and we're living with the nutcases such hatred gave birth to, now.

Dave from Minnesota said...

Hammond, what about the 5 year old murdered in the Jackson car theft? Not saying that should be OJ style coverage, but you'd think that would be national news. Liberal blacks are right about one thing....if that had been a pretty blonde white girl from Colorado, it would be news.

narciso said...

Most of these nutbars I mentioned above should be institutionalized, meanwhile the Manchester line wolf cell is up to 13 now

Rusty said...

Ann said,
"What about the Antifa violence? Who is being violent now? You list isolated murders spread out over a period of many years, but I'd like to know which groups are stirring up violence now and cranking people up. Whether murder has happened yet is less relevant to me here than what the existing fervor is."

The TEA Party , Ann. Those vicious, bigoted middle class mothers and fathers who pay their taxes and attend their children's school functions are the cause of all the violent misery in this country.
Why just this morning my neighbor, Steve (an anti democratic name if there ever was one) was caught laying doen 'weed n feed' , anti environment asshole. But not only that. He Was Mulching! Fucker. I just know his kids eat right and strive to do good in school. And dare I say it? Attend church! Violent racist cocksuckers!

n.n said...

Why is this story generating so much more 'news' than this one: Mississippi Man Kills Eight in Shooting Spree?

All lives do not matter. It's a Pro-Choice society full of [class] diversity bigots.

That said, it also provides a cover for other issues, including: Obama's premature evacuation and elective wars that forced the refugee crises (e.g. redistributive change), DNC disenfranchisement of Democrats and their sincere effort led by the press to impeach or marginalize Republicans, the prophecy of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, spiritual destruction of people in urban jungles, etc.

Matt Sablan said...

""Death to Antifa." - Doesn't sound ambiguous to me."

-- It is the not-entirely-rational end point of "it's OK to punch a Nazi."

Bay Area Guy said...

Jeremy Christian is what we would call an "imperfect messenger". In fact, he's a lunatic murderer.

However, the Left is trying to tie him to Trump for political reasons. (What a surprise)

And, the reaction, of course, is to dispute or refute this (by citing a FB post where he claims to have voted for Bernie.)

All of this distracts from the central issue that the Left doesn't believe in Free Speech, and believes it can suppress and/or quash speech by Trump supporters because the Left deems it "hate speech".

There is no counterpart. Right wingers are not forming mobs at Texas A&M to shut down speeches of Bernie Sanders or Noam Chomsky.

Jeremy Christian should be prosecuted and convicted. He has no following and is not a martyr.

n.n said...

The TEA Party

Americans who wanted to know why a national Obamacare program was forced to prevent an audit of progressive costs (a la Freddie/Fannie) in medical care and other central corruptions.

wwww said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rusty said...

"Do you listen to Mark Levine or Sean Hannity? There is no equivalent voices with the same high profile status on the left. Some people on the right are itching for a fight and that desire filters out into the community. Instead of constantly whining about the left, moderate people on the right, such as yourself, should start addressing the problems on their own side of the fence"

Yeah. No shit. Remember that violent TEA Party rally in Washington DC? I was there and helped organize it. We encouraged people to bring their own trash bags and American flags, but we drew the line on lawn edgers.

narciso said...

Well I disagree because they just have given him a soapbox what you never do with crazy people.

Ann Althouse said...

"When I saw the words in Althouse's header, I thought a certain loud mouthed violent sounding commenter had said them."

Yes, I had the chilling thought this morning: If Jeremy Christian were in the comments here, would he blend in?

rhhardin said...

Lesson to NYT women: choose your boyfriends carefully.

Pajama boys are safe.

traditionalguy said...

The key point about this dude is that he wants a confrontation. He only yells out racist rants to cause confrontation. But when he is among Dems he rants about Hillary being bad. And among Trump's Deplorables he rants about Trump being bad.

Last time he attended a big demonstration for Trump and a counter demonstration against Trump, both sides kicked him out.

rhhardin said...

Racism has to be brought in so that you know that the murder is bad.

Fen said...

"A person who has done something so evil"

What did he do that was so evil? I admit I haven't had time to weigh through all the witness testimony, though I recall all the "witnesses";lying about Michael Brown being executed in the street (they recanted once under oath, and several the media leaned on testified they weren't really there).

But so far, I see alot of vague assertions that "two men tried to stop him from verbally harassing a Muslim" about Islam. Now, if that means they said "hey jackass knock it off" and he initiated the violence by physically attacking them with a knife, then sure - evil bastard.

But what if one of guys struck him first? It's even more likely when you consider how liberal Portland is and how lkberals have encouraged "punching Nazis in the face"

What if ones of the guys punched him in the face because he wuoldnt shut his mouth? Now, 2 against 1 and he draws a knife to defend himself. And whether lethal force was justified is another discussion (reasonable fear of loss of life or grievous bodily harm), but that's certainly not "evil".

I don't enjoy defending Nazis but, like flag burners, they are the canary in a coal mine, so...

Do we have any actual evidence of who initiated violence? Because media reports I've encountered (about 6) all seem to gloss over that, using weasel phrases like "the two men attempted to stop him from verbally harassing...". Attempted to ztop? How did they attempt to stop him? Thanks.

Ann Althouse said...

"Do you listen to Mark Levine or Sean Hannity?"

No. Give me some quotes from them where they recommend violence or insinuate that they are recommending violence.

"There is no equivalent voices with the same high profile status on the left."

Why is this the standard? I asked about Antifa and other protest groups that are fomenting real-world violence using social media.

"Some people on the right are itching for a fight and that desire filters out into the community. Instead of constantly whining about the left, moderate people on the right, such as yourself, should start addressing the problems on their own side of the fence."

But that IS what I've been doing all these years, criticizing people on my side of the fence. I only know liberals. This is my milieu.

Quayle said...

" There is nothing equivalent for attacks on the right over the last decade."

But, of course, your selection of "a decade" is random.

Let's look at a more full record in this generation:

I won't go even beyond The Weathermen, though there are surely more.

List is here.

Cherry picking much, ARM?

wwww said...
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Bob Boyd said...

Fen said..."Do we have any actual evidence of who initiated violence?"

Are there videos online? I haven't seen any, but I haven't looked for then either. Seems like there should be numerous cell phone videos of what happened.

Fen said...

Bay Area: "should be prosecuted and convicted"

Think we're missing a step in there somewhere. In America we all get due process. Even the Nazis do.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Instead of constantly whining about the left, moderate people on the right, such as yourself, should start addressing the problems on their own side of the fence.

The Professor is addressing the problems on her own side of the fence. The very fact that she is doing so is what is causing you to define her as being on the other side.

wwww said...
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narciso said...

The UK has 20,000 jihadist, the Manchester one wasn't on the list of 3'000 under obdervation. Oddly we areny talking about that or the implications for this country

n.n said...

The left is still trying to cast a [class] diversitist and Pro-Choice/abortionist as affiliated with the American right. Christian is a member of your tribe, nurtured by its twilight faith and Pro-Choice quasi-religious/moral philosophy that denies individual dignity and intrinsic value, selectively. With the rise of left-wing anti-nativism from Africa to the Middle East to Eastern Europe and globally, elective wars forcing refugee crises (e.g. Libya, Syria, Somalia, Ukraine), the national and international left need to take responsibility for the dysfunction they have created.

Fen said...

But hey, if people want to deny rights to Nazis and Marxists, I'm down with that. The Left can go round up all the Nazis, the right will round up all the Marxists. We'll have hangings followed by a barbecue, just like old times.

Deal?

Anonymous said...

"What did he do that was so evil?"

Right on time.

madAsHell said...

If Jeremy Christian were in the comments here, would he blend in?

Really??

Hillary just thought I was deplorable. Now, I'm unhinged!!

narciso said...

Yes nn so we don't talk about a slaughterhouse for moloch with planned parenthood, we discus letters and memos that are figment of the post and the times. We let mayor wheeler off the hook for gross negligence.

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Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Ann Althouse said...
But that IS what I've been doing all these years, criticizing people on my side of the fence. I only know liberals. This is my milieu.


No. You have created your own milieu in this comment section. As best as I can tell not a single regular commenter here voted for the Democratic Party presidential candidate. Given that this candidate won a majority of the vote in the general population, and assuming 100 regular commenters and a binary choice (Democratic candidate or not) the odds of this outcome are 2^100. I think we can safely dismiss the hypothesis that you only know liberals.

The voices you hear in this comment section are a reflection of your own voice. If some of them seem unreasonably angry you should ask yourself why that is.

Lyle Smith said...

AReasobableman,

Why were so many cops killed last summer? Right wing violence?

Matt Sablan said...

"But on Nov. 11, he posted that he was unable to bring himself to vote for Trump."

-- Man who said Bernie is who he wanted, but Trump was what the nation might deserve/get, who did not vote for Trump -- in the Media, known as an alt-right Trump supporter.

Yeah. I may be convinced about that whole "fake news" thing.

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Todd said...

WaPo drags in Donald Trump:

It could be a story on natural versus artificial sweeteners and they will figure out a way to "drag in Donald Trump". The left are losing it more and more each day. At this point I have to wonder if they can actually feel their sanity slipping or if they still think they are the same people they were 18 months ago.

narciso said...

Well that is the beginning of wisdom. To find a cohort who did fall for her flimflam that 1.2 billion dollars bought

Matt Sablan said...

"Given that this candidate won a majority of the vote in the general population, and assuming 100 regular commenters and a binary choice (Democratic candidate or not) the odds of this outcome are 2^100. "

-- Uh... that... that has a LOT of assumptions bundled in there. Also, it ignores Inga and others who are clearly far left, left, center-left.

Sebastian said...

"the article never establishes that Christian is a racist." Huh? He sorta defends free speech. Everyone knows that's racist. Nuff said.

"I don't know why white supremacists are getting blamed for Christian's insanely murderous rage." Faux puzzlement, right? Apologies if I fall for trolling. But why wouldn't "white supremacists get blamed? It's a perfect opportunity for progs to assign guilt by association, not just to those "supremacists" but to anyone vaguely associated with "free speech" or Trump or anythings else that displeases the left. They never miss an opportunity to seize an opportunity.

"It would make more sense to blame the those who've been inflaming anger on the far left." It would, wouldn't it? If progs played fair and the culture war was a game of croquet, sure; in the real world, it makes more sense to try and win by any means necessary, as whats-his-name used to say.

n.n said...

Fen:

The Left would suffer a conflict of interest to control people who deny individual dignity (i.e. [class] diversitists) and deem lives unworthy (i.e. Pro-Choice). Cleaning up the national socialists and Marxists will be a job for Americans in the center, maybe libertarians on the right, but the latter have a largely progressive liberal predisposition.

Matt Sablan said...

"The anti-skinheads/ anti-fa are this weird opposition group to the Pacific Northwest Skinheads."

-- Considering Antifa *also* go out of their way to attack non-skinheads just for saying things they don't like, I'm thinking calling them an opposition group to skinheads is deliberately missing a lot.

Ray - SoCal said...

The comment that lists out so called conservative attacks only bothers me. Both that such a list is so easily available, but it ignores the opposite.

Another very incomplete I just made up from memory list:

Bit out of date, unfortunately. Terrifying...
White Girls Bleed A Lot
http://whitegirlbleedalot.com/top-100-black-mob-violence-videos/

Berkeley Antifa Milo
Trump San Jose
Trump Orange County
Trump Chicago
Fresno shooting
Baton Rouge
Dallas

Reference:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448108/political-violence-extremism-portland-muslim-woman-left-right-alt-right

Tommy Duncan said...

"Some residents said President Donald Trump has caused those racist demons to stir again...."

I thought Trump was colluding with the Russians 24/7/365? Where does he find the time to stir racist demons and tweet at 3:00 AM?

Matt Sablan said...

If I recall, there are multiple shooters/murderers the media and the left incorrectly labeled on the right, you'd think they'd be way, way more careful of making the same mistake AGAIN.

Ann Althouse said...

"This skinhead/ anti-skinhead-antifa violence isn't new in the Pacific Northwest. This guy appears to be part of this. These groups didn't just appear in the last election. More then 20 years ago they would show up at shows like Fugazi to fight. It's not surprising that someone mentally unhinged and inclined to physical violence would hook onto this weird skinhead/anti-skinhead stuff to look for opportunities to indulge his impulse for violence."

This reminds me of my post the other day connecting "body-slamming" (in the Gianforte/Jacobs incident) to the slam-dancing in mosh pits.

Bad Lieutenant said...

AReasonableMan said...
"Death to Antifa." - Doesn't sound ambiguous to me.
5/31/17, 7:46 AM


And Hitler loved dogs.

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Anonymous said...

"No. You have created your own milieu in this comment section."

This is true. For so many years daily interaction with conservatives has left its mark. I live in a red county where I am surrounded by conservatives and they have left their mark on me as well, but if one is centered in their core philosophy, the vacillation can only move so far one way or the other, hopefully.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

As best as I can tell not a single regular commenter here voted for the Democratic Party presidential candidate.

Not voting for the Democrats does NOT equal racism, Islamophobia, white supremacist leanings or wanting to murder people.

Matt Sablan said...

""Liberals" in the post WWII American vernacular is associated with the civil rights movement of non-violence."

-- No. No they are not.

Michael K said...

Why is this story generating so much more 'news' than this one: Mississippi Man Kills Eight in Shooting Spree?

That is a question we all know the answer to. We just don't say it.

Paranoid schizophrenics often have quite well organized delusions. We had one on a ward one time that was so well organized that the family had put a letter in the chart explaining that he really did not have a five million dollar deal in South Korea and that he had attacked their mother and tried to kill her.

The most dangerous thing you can do with a paranoid schizophrenic is get between them and the door or to confront them,

A psychiatric social worker was killed in Santa Monica some years ago because she got between the patient and the door of the consulting room. The people who confronted this man almost certainly did not realize he is psychotic.

The deinstitutionizing movement of the 1960s left these people on the street with no treatment. Families are often desperate to get them help but they can do nothing.

The political adoption of these crazy people is a depressing development that we see clearly in these comments and everywhere since Trump was elected. The deterioration of the Democrats and the political left in general is so depressing that I am going elsewhere for internet exchanges.

I enjoy discussion of subjects in these posts but the comments are now over run with nasty trollish comments and I am tired of scrolling past them.

Ann Althouse said...

I looked for the n-word video myself. The closest I came was this article that has text saying he chanted the n-word and a video of him draped in the flag but saying ugly things that were religion-based. Something like: "Die Muslims. Die fake Christians. Die Jews."

n.n said...

Untempered liberalism is a Pro-Choice. Feminism is a chauvinistic ideology. Together they are quasi-religion established in our government that embrace the force of [class] diversity (i.e. institutional racism, sexism) and the violence of elective abortion.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

So ARM are you withdrawing this accusation.

There is nothing equivalent for attacks on the right over the last decade."

Many commentators have pointed out the 5 dead Dallas policemen, the two dead NYC cops and a few more assassinated policemen all killed by BLM.

Are you commenting in good faith or just propagandist.

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Paddy O said...

"Given that this candidate won a majority of the vote in the general population..."

It wasn't an equal geographic distribution. And the reasons for votes in the election aren't just about a general binary between two party candidates. They were each loathsome in different ways. One can be quite liberal and for that reason be especially opposed to Hillary. And conservative and against Trump. These were probably the two least suited representatives of political ideology possible.

And you're confusing blog Althouse with Real Life Althouse.

I totally understand Althouse's situation as I'm around mostly progressives. It results in analytical contrariness, which isn't trolling because it really wants to see an improvement in both sides. If I lived deep in the Bible belt, I'd probably have significantly more progressive comments as I'd be reacting to that context.

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Fen said...

Skinhead? Do we know with certainty? Because that dovetails with my meth psychos theory. Alot his actions remind me of a friend who suffered from it, similar behavior. And I've always joked that the reason there is not a powerful white supremacist movement is because they got sidelined with meth addictions.

I know the media reported he was kicked out of a rally because he gave a Nazi salute, but that could have been a sarcastic expression (to some jackass being all authoritarisn) or media distortion (Trump's "nazi" salute that was clipped mid-frame).

I'm not trying to dismiss the idea that he was a Nazi, it's just that the Left calls everyone a Nazi and I don't trust the media's version of events since all their lies about Trayvon Martin, Michele Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and Keith Scott.

Ann Althouse said...

Please produce a link to the racist video if you have it.

I'm not trying to defend Christian against the charge that he is a racist. I am trying to watch how other people are using him. Racists already look bad, so if Christian is one of them, he's making bad people look bad. But what's deceitful is portraying Christian as a type of person and some other people (the alt-Right) as the same type of people, in some horrible leap of logic:

Christian is a racist.
The alt-Right are racist.
Christian is a murderer.
Therefore the alt-Right are murderers.

Kevin said...

ARM: "There is nothing equivalent for attacks on the right over the last decade."

For starters:
Occupy violence.
BLM riots.
Targeted cop killings.
Antifa violence.

Nothing?

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Ann Althouse said...

"The grunge movement wasn't the punk movement. Slam dancing at grunge shows in the late 80s was it's own thing and not a punk show. The skinheads & antifa wouldn't show up at "grunge" shows to fight. They would show up at punk shows. I hate that word grunge, was marketed by SubPop."

How do you know what shows I witnessed?

I saw The Vandals.

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exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Dave from Minnesota said...
Hammond, what about the 5 year old murdered in the Jackson car theft? Not saying that should be OJ style coverage, but you'd think that would be national news. Liberal blacks are right about one thing....if that had been a pretty blonde white girl from Colorado, it would be news.

5/31/17, 8:48 AM

Well, it depends on who did the killings. An attractive young white couple was abducted and brutally raped and tortured to death by a gang of blacks in Tennessee a while back. And they were targeted specifically because they were attractive, young and white. The details are stomach-turning. How many people know the names of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom?

Also remember that Aussie baseball player, Christopher Lane, who was shot as he was out jogging? He was shot and killed by 3 black kids who were bored and thought it would be fun to just murder a white person at random.

Neither of those cases got a lot of press.

Anonymous said...

And you're confusing blog Althouse with Real Life Althouse."

Meade must've gotten confused too, if not for that there would be no Meadehouse, no?

mockturtle said...

Christian is a racist.
The alt-Right are racist.
Christian is a murderer.
Therefore the alt-Right are murderers.


You left out an important link in that syllogism: Christian is alt-right

Paul said...

Because Christian was pushed/shoved/assaulted by the three men he can argue he was attacked and thus disparity of force, and it was a self defense issue.

Expect that in court.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Dust Bunny Queen said...
Not voting for the Democrats does NOT equal racism, Islamophobia, white supremacist leanings or wanting to murder people.


Ridiculous straw man. No one said this.

Ann Althouse said...

"The voices you hear in this comment section are a reflection of your own voice. If some of them seem unreasonably angry you should ask yourself why that is."

1. You're here.

2. My answer to the question why this is? It's some combination of:

a. Right wingers have been kicked out of more places.

b. I don't censor for viewpoint.

c. Left-wingers take a verbal beating here and don't want to put up with it and prefer a more supportive environment.

d. Righties have been enjoying batting things around here for a long time and it's just too vigorous and irritating for people who come in from the left.

e. Righties are more into fighting back when their side is criticized, and lefties are more into shunning.

f. The right is looking for converts. The left is looking for heretics.

Kevin said...

There is no equivalent voices with the same high profile status on the left.

"Hillary Clinton officially announced Monday her post-2016 election plans: A political organization aimed at funding "resistance" groups that are standing up to President Donald Trump."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/15/politics/hillary-clinton-resistance-onward-together/

"But Sanders expressed optimism over the resistance, and issued a rallying cry to those who might feel scared by Trump’s rule. “These are very difficult and frightening times,” Sanders said. “But also understand that in moments of crisis what has happened, time and time again, is that people have stood up and fought back. So despair is absolutely not an option.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/10/the-resistance-now-bernie-bites-back-statue-of-liberty

Good to know neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders has the stature of Sean Hannity in your mind.

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Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

"f. The right is looking for converts. The left is looking for heretics."

Indeed.

Fen said...

ARM, first off, Althouse is (believe me) a liberal. Her joint is open to both liberals and conservatives. The reason her comment section is devoid of sane liberals is not because this is a conservative site, it's because Althouse champions free speech and the Left can't tolerate a venue that allows for feedback, so they avoid the place. Their philosophy.

Second, you complain about AM talk radio. But a key piece of information you are missing is that AM talk radio was created solely because conservative thought was pushed out of the network news (this waslong before FOX News). Conservative ideas were not being given fair and equal treatment so they set up a parallel venue where they could share political viewpoints. So the reason there isn't a liberal presence on AM radio is because they already control the print and television media. AM radio is the island of Elba, free speech in exile.

If you think that's outlandish, then try a little experiment for me - without looking it up, define what you think "conservatism" is. When you draw a blank, consider how peculiar it is that in an age of mass media, you really don't know what about 100 million of your fellow Americans belueve...

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

exiledonmainstreet said...
Also remember that Aussie baseball player, Christopher Lane, who was shot as he was out jogging? He was shot and killed by 3 black kids who were bored and thought it would be fun to just murder a white person at random.


Michael Dewayne Jones, the oldest assailant, was white.

"Police Chief Danny Ford dismisses the notion, prevalent in much of the case’s national media cover, that race played a factor in the killing. “You have a black person, a black person of mixed race and a white person,” he said about the suspects. “I don’t know where you can get race. It is not the case here."

Matt Sablan said...

Speaking of how monolithic Althouse's commentators are or are not. Out of curiosity... how often have the posters on the left... disagreed about something? I know I've had disagreements about things with lots of the other right/center-right/far-right posters; so I find it weird that we all kind of get lumped into one giant ball when we've got people from Chuck, to DBQ, to Fen.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Ignorance is Bliss said...
The Professor is addressing the problems on her own side of the fence. The very fact that she is doing so is what is causing you to define her as being on the other side.


No. This is an empty pose employed for rhetorical purposes. She is a liberal in the same sense that Chuck is a lifelong Republican.

The most parsimonious way to define Althouse's views is to look at who is attracted to them.

Anonymous said...

"ARM, first off, Althouse is (believe me)....."

No don't, extremists should not be believed.

Matt Sablan said...

"She is a liberal in the same sense that Chuck is a lifelong Republican."

-- Chuck voted for Trump; Althouse voted for Obama [assuming both are telling the truth, which we have no reason to doubt at the moment.]

That's... that's not the same sense at all.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Fen said...
ARM, first off, Althouse is (believe me) a liberal.


Fen (trust me), I will not be relying on you to distinguish between moderate right wing and liberal.

Ann Althouse said...

"The Professor is addressing the problems on her own side of the fence. The very fact that she is doing so is what is causing you to define her as being on the other side."

Correct.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"Speaking of how monolithic Althouse's commentators are or are not. Out of curiosity... how often have the posters on the left... disagreed about something?"

Very true, now that you come to mention it? ARM claims to be a "moderate." When does he disagree with the out and proud leftists? He might have, but I haven't seen it.

Ritmo was very critical of Hillary in the run up to the election.

But normally they all speak with one monolithic and their reactions are boringly predictable.

Anonymous said...

.....and the Left can't tolerate a venue that allows for feedback, so they avoid the place."

So why are we liberals here?

roesch/voltaire said...

Anti-religious sentiments and race/ethnicity are often conflated-- just ask the Irish Catholics. And then there is the video of Christian at at While Nationalist gathering carrying a baseball bat yelling racial epithets and throwing off one-armed Nazi salutes.
But of course AH would dismiss this as racist? Well yes, Christian claimed he was not a racist, but a nationalist," I support Balkanization for raises and religion lines," I guess the new slogan for the right is support my free speech or die, which is plainly not racist.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

ARM said: "The voices you hear in this comment section are a reflection of your own voice. If some of them seem unreasonably angry you should ask yourself why that is."

Unreasonable is a pretty subjective term. While I agree that some posters, on both ends of the spectrum, do seem to be more angry, what is unreasonable to you may be perfectly reasonable and understandable to others.

Everyone has reasons. Unreasonable is being unable to consider that the reasons that motivate someone else may be different than yours. Unreasonable is not being able to consider that perhaps your own reasons may be or could be subject to persuasion and being changed.

I'm a reasonable person and while I have my own strong views, I'm open to the idea that there are other and even perhaps better ways to view a topic. I'm not dogmatic about everything.

Persuade me :-) However, you must do it with logic, facts, without name calling or emotional outbursts.


exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

ARM wrote:
"Michael Dewayne Jones, the oldest assailant, was white.

"Police Chief Danny Ford dismisses the notion, prevalent in much of the case’s national media cover, that race played a factor in the killing. “You have a black person, a black person of mixed race and a white person,” he said about the suspects. “I don’t know where you can get race. It is not the case here."

I stand corrected.

My point remains about the Christian - Newsom murders however. If a gang of skinheads had done to a black couple what was done to those two (God forbid, because nobody should suffer the tortures they did), it would have been in the news 24/7 and there would have been riots.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Ann Althouse said...
"The Professor is addressing the problems on her own side of the fence. The very fact that she is doing so is what is causing you to define her as being on the other side."

Correct.


One vote for this view, one against. I wonder what Chuck thinks, given his expertise on this topic?

Kevin said...

Dust Bunny Queen said...
Not voting for the Democrats does NOT equal racism, Islamophobia, white supremacist leanings or wanting to murder people.


"Ridiculous straw man. No one said this."

No one? Here is a sampling:

"Yes, Trump supporters voted to implement racism and bigotry"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/4/1605960/-Yes-Trump-supporters-voted-to-implement-racism-and-bigotry

"Racism motivated Trump voters more than authoritarianism"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/04/17/racism-motivated-trump-voters-more-than-authoritarianism-or-income-inequality/?utm_term=.1e3019721d93

"If You Voted For Trump And You’re Not A Racist, You Have A Lot Of Work To Do"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/verna-myers/if-you-voted-for-trump-an_b_13063298.html

"ABC’s ‘Black-ish’: ‘A Vote for Trump is a Vote for Racism’"

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/01/12/abcs-black-ish-vote-trump-vote-racism/

"If You Vote For Trump, You OWN The Racism. Yes, YOU"

http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2016/11/08/vote-trump-racism.-yes/

"There’s No Such Thing as a Good Trump Voter"

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/there_is_no_such_thing_as_a_good_trump_voter.html

Fen said...

ARM: "not be relyong on you to distinguish betwwen moderate right wing and liberal"

Why not? You assume your pov is "moderate" because you swim in a sea of liberal media. But you don't even know what "conservatism" means... how moderate can you really be?

Your like those Occupy Protestors who pretend they are the 99%.

Fen said...

Oh, forgot to add tbat i was a liberal in my younger days, so i kinda know what liberalism is...

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm skeptical that either Althouse understands anti-skinheads/ anti-fa or skinheads. I don't associate with these people, but Althouse seems to be confusing a liberal-progressive hippie Madison type with someone who is skinhead/ antifa."

I spent a lot of time observing the Wisconsin protests in 2011, in person and editing Meade's videos and talking with Meade about what he saw.

There were tens of thousands of protesters over a period of weeks, and then it became an "Occupy" style protest in the summer. There were different types of people, and the mix evolved over times, but I can tell you, I saw a lot. Early on, there were a lot of public school teachers and university students. It was angry, but impressively nonviolent considering the level of anger and the mob scene that lingered. But there was a point when Meade and I felt that many people were breaking down mentally (or mentally impaired people were joining the "occupation") and we were genuinely worried that these people were becoming deranged. We saw violent imagery, such as hanging in effigy, and Meade and I were both threatened personally. I have video of this happening. I was also physically attacked, struck by a vuzuvela, which may sound funny. But there was a lot of ugliness, including from young women who seem to assume that their threats of violence don't count.

I've seen a lot around here and it's not what I'd called "hippie" style. And by the way, the real hippies — of half a century ago — lasted about 1 year before declining and you had some of them them evolving into insane murderers by 1969.

Yancey Ward said...

The more I read about Christian, the more convinced I am that the hectoring on the train was nothing but an act designed to get a reaction, to shock the prevailing local attitudes- in other words, he was being contrarian to the extreme. I think that if he lived in, for example Odessa, Texas, he would have been verbally abusing Baptists or conservatives. It goes a long way to explaining his infatuation with Sanders initially, then later with Trump- and it even explains his later disavowal of Trump.

Anonymous said...

Chuck is so abused on these comments sections for his heresy of being anti Trump, that makes me wonder if he'll be back. He hasn't commented for a while. Doesn't quite fit with the "liberals are looking for heretics" meme, eh?

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Indeed, Kevin, the Left calls us racist, uneducated, Nazis, etc. every single day.

Then ARM wonders why some posters are a bit testy.


Anonymous said...

"Oh, forgot to add tbat i was a liberal in my younger days, so i kinda know what liberalism is..."

Oh please.

Kevin said...

So why are we liberals here?

Althouse: "f. The right is looking for converts. The left is looking for heretics."

Fen said...

Inga stop lying. Chuck is not abused for his anti-trump comments, he is abused because he is a Moby, a "life long conservative" who thinks socialism will work if we just give it a fair shot.

And believe it or not, quite a few of us here have some bad things to say about Trump, even that Fen jackass. But we can't get a word in with all your hyperventilating over Two Scoops Gate.

Anonymous said...
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Ann Althouse said...

"The guy was a Bernie supporter who also made comments supportive of Trump. He was consistent in his hate of Clinton."

And comments against Trump. Those were the more recent comments. The earlier pro-Trump comments were a reaction to losing the Bernie option. I know people who made the leap from Bernie to Trump. I've talked about that before, and that's why there was a "Sanders + Trump phenomenon" tag to put on this post.

But Christian's more recent comment about Trump was: "I've had it!!! I gonna kill everybody who voted for Trump or Hillary!!!... It's all your fault!!! You're what's wrong with this country!!! Reveal yourselves immediately and face your DOOM!!!"

That's not a Trump supporter. He was a Bernie supporter. Whatever it's worth. I think he's mentally ill and incoherent, but if you insist on putting him somewhere politically, it's on the left, not the right. People on the left don't see Hillary as left. His hatred of Hillary doesn't put him on the right, not if he was a Bernie supporter.

Quaestor said...

Disorder thinking does not necessarily produce disordered speech. The phrase "ranting lunacy" should be avoided except as a matter of rhetoric — we read lunatic rants on this blog all too frequently. Expecting lunatic rants from real lunatics is unrealistic if nothing else. Read any paragraph of Ted Kaczynski's manifesto. (If you can find one. Run-on sentences and excessively lengthy paragraphs are diagnostic of some forms of psychosis.) Taken in isolation his thoughts aren't manifestly crazy, eccentric perhaps, certainly controversial, but not out and out nuts. His homicidal lunacy is evident in the document only when considered as a whole.

Another example of this is James Holmes, the Aurora cinema shooter. Holmes was a doctoral candidate in neuroscience. He was fucking nuts, but few realized that fact by listening to him speak. Holmes was sufficiently lucid after his arrest to a make a show of being nuts — the stupid smirk, the unblinking stare, the uncomprehending mannerisms. A court-appointed physician diagnosed Holmes as suffering from "schizotypal personality disorder", which is doctor-speak for "fucking nuts, but not actually psycho". However, the jury found Holmes responsible for the murders despite his so-called personality disorder.

Psychopathic killers can be lucid, even logical and persuasive. In fact, most are very lucid and persausive. They may experience psychotic episodes, but they usually learn to read the signs of an impending attack. The typical psychopath then retreats into privacy. This is why so many of these lunatic killings happen. The psychopath goes undetected until deadly violence erupts.

I Callahan said...

Oh please.

You can't even fathom this, can you?

Absolutely amazing...

Nyamujal said...

@exiledonmainstreet

"My point remains about the Christian - Newsom murders however. If a gang of skinheads had done to a black couple what was done to those two (God forbid, because nobody should suffer the tortures they did), it would have been in the news 24/7 and there would have been riots."

Well, there was another murder a week before the Portland incident. It was racially motivated and there were no riots, so...

"Sean Christopher Urbanski, 22, of Severna Park, Maryland, is charged with murder in the death early Saturday of Richard Collins III, 23, a recently commissioned US Army second lieutenant who was due to graduate this week from nearby Bowie State University.

Urbanski is a member of a Facebook group called “Alt-Reich,” which spews hatred toward minorities “and especially African-Americans,” University of Maryland Police Chief David Mitchell said."

http://ktla.com/2017/05/22/fatal-stabbing-of-black-student-at-university-of-maryland-investigated-as-possible-hate-crime/

A lot of these incidents don't get covered by Drudge, Alex Jones, Fox news or Zerohedge, so you'll never hear about them. You live in a media bubble where the only perpetrators of violence are Antifa types, so like all the other commentators on this blog you feel like your side is under constant attack.

n.n said...

Kevin:

A lot of [class] diversitists (i.e. judging/discriminating between individuals based on the "color of their skin"), including people claiming to be on the American right (i.e. people who respect the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, classical liberals tempered by Judeo-Christian religious/moral philosophy), center, really, projecting their sincerely held prejudice. Not surprisingly, [class] diversitists are also Pro-Choice acolytes who deny lives unworthy, deny rights of self-defense (e.g. Second Amendment, defensive wars), are often the most enthusiastic supporters of elective wars (e.g. Obama's legacy from Somalia to Libya to Syria to Ukraine), extrajudicial trials, forced immigration reform (a.k.a. refugee crises), legal assaults and violations of civil rights, mob/organized violence, etc.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

AReasonableMan said...

The most parsimonious way to define Althouse's views is to look at who is attracted to them.

I would think the best way to define the Professor's views, is to look at her actual stated views. I, and I suspect many of the other right-leaning moderates that make up the comment section here, come not because we agree with her political positions ( pro-choice, pro-SSM ), but because we appreciate her clear thinking and writing about issues, even when we disagree with her premises or conclusions.

Unless, of course, you are asserting that a commitment to free speech and the rule-of-law make one right of center. If so, then I guess the Professor does lean right.

I Callahan said...

A lot of these incidents don't get covered by MSNBC, ABC, CBS or UPI, so you'll never hear about them. You live in a media bubble where the only perpetrators of violence are KKK and skinhead types, so like all the other commentators on this blog you feel like your side is under constant attack.

See how easy it is to play this game?

n.n said...

The Reich and Nazis were a leftist enterprise. They denied lives they deemed unworthy (e.g. Pro-Choice/abortion, elective wars) and denied individual dignity (e.g. [class] diversity, anti-nativism).

Bad Lieutenant said...

AReasonableMan said...

No. You have created your own milieu in this comment section. As best as I can tell not a single regular commenter here voted for the Democratic Party presidential candidate.

NOT EVEN YOU????? Or onesie, or shiloh, piss be upon him? Cook, no, Inga, no, TTR, ?, um, keep going.

So how did all of you decrying Candidate Trump and assuring us he would lose, not vote for her? Doesn't that tell you something?

Even Jeremy Christian, a crazy murderer (accused), couldn't bring himself to pull the lever for her! When a D loses the killer nutjob vote you know something's wrong.

When are you going to stop and think about your own motes/beams? The answer to "Hey, buddy, you're bleeding" is not "Shut up, you're bleeding too."

Or if it is, we won't have to worry about you for much longer.

Your lack of insight is hurting you and whatever it is you want. If I believed that any of it was good, I would be worried.

As it is, just keep on the way you're going, Tuco.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

That's a terrible crime, Nyamujal. But I have the feeling we will all be hearing a lot more about it when it goes to trial.

"A lot of these incidents don't get covered by Drudge, Alex Jones, Fox news or Zerohedge, so you'll never hear about them. "

Oh,please. I never read Alex Jones or Zerohedge. Drudge links to liberal/left wing sites as well as to conservative ones.

And if you think Fox ignored Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown or Dylan Roof, your knowledge of Fox comes solely from the media bubble you clearly live in.

Anonymous said...

"That's not a Trump supporter. He was a Bernie supporter. Whatever it's worth. I think he's mentally ill and incoherent, but if you insist on putting him somewhere politically, it's on the left, not the right. People on the left don't see Hillary as left. His hatred of Hillary doesn't put him on the right, not if he was a Bernie supporter."

To me he seems like a man with a very loose touch with reality. A mish-mash of hateful rhetoric from both left and right. He used Nazi salutes, he hated Antifa, he fought with Trumpists, he hated Christians Jews and Muslims. He crossed all sorts of lines of the political and religious spectrum, hopefully he's one of a kind.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Nyamujal said...
@exiledonmainstreet

"My point remains about the Christian - Newsom murders however. If a gang of skinheads had done to a black couple what was done to those two (God forbid, because nobody should suffer the tortures they did), it would have been in the news 24/7 and there would have been riots."

Well, there was another murder a week before the Portland incident. It was racially motivated and there were no riots, so...


I know for a fact - you have proved it beyond a reasonable doubt - that you have not read this article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom

because if you had, you could not have forced yourself to make such an invidious comparison.

Kevin said...

Chuck is so abused on these comments sections for his heresy of being anti Trump, that makes me wonder if he'll be back. He hasn't commented for a while. Doesn't quite fit with the "liberals are looking for heretics" meme, eh?

I miss Chuck. I hope he is OK and that he comes back. Frankly the reaction to him needs to be dialed down at times.

But Chuck is not being disparaged for being anti-Trump. He's being disparaged for claiming "lifelong republican" status and then writing posts which - at times - come straight from the Huffington Post talking points.

There are thoughtful criticisms of Trump, for sure. But none of them come from WAPO or NYT headlines. And you have to understand that unlike a traditional politician, a thoughtful criticism of Trump can be met truthfully and respectfully with "that's exactly why I voted for the guy".

He was elected to be a disruptor. And you can't use the fact that he's disrupting things as evidence that he's unfit to be president, as so many who oppose his policies are eager to do.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"In both these post you are trying to limit the focus for the purpose of advancing a narrowly partisan point of view"

Now that made me laugh out loud. Well done, ARF.

Mark Caplan said...

Even the mainstream media concede that three men "confronted" Christian for his espousing heterodox views on the train. They indisputably were the aggressors. One of the men pushed him, according to witnesses. In the confined space of a train, Christian was unable to retreat. In view of all the recent violence in Portland carried out by Antifa terrorists, it sounds like Christian might have had good reason to believe he was being threatened with serious bodily harm before he defended himself.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for bringing this murder up. I was trying to remember the incident and find it in the news reporting. It was barely in the news for more than a day.

"Well, there was another murder a week before the Portland incident. It was racially motivated and there were no riots, so...

"Sean Christopher Urbanski, 22, of Severna Park, Maryland, is charged with murder in the death early Saturday of Richard Collins III, 23, a recently commissioned US Army second lieutenant who was due to graduate this week from nearby Bowie State University.

Urbanski is a member of a Facebook group called “Alt-Reich,” which spews hatred toward minorities “and especially African-Americans,” University of Maryland Police Chief David Mitchell said."

http://ktla.com/2017/05/22/fatal-stabbing-of-black-student-at-university-of-maryland-investigated-as-possible-hate-crime/

Fen said...

DBQ: "what is unreasonable to you may be perfectly reasonable and understandable to others"

Bingo. For example, my style is to push the envelope to the right, primarily to give more moderate right-wingers more maneuver space to bring their points home. It's a deliberate tactic: "that Fen is a nutjub but DBQ raises some valid points, I'll admit"...

Remove me from the field and the moderate right gets pounded for being "extreme".

ARM, if you haven't recognized that tactic by now, you may want to reconsider your assessment of your own intelligence and perception.

n.n said...

come not because we agree with her political positions ( pro-choice, pro-SSM ), but because we appreciate her clear thinking and writing about issues, even when we disagree with her premises or conclusions

That's it. Althouse is the very model of tolerance. She maintains a venue that stimulates and tolerates debate, inviting people to learn, discuss, and reconcile their differences. With a few exceptions, she maintains a cruel neutrality.

Birkel said...

Maybe I'm just a little bit lost here, but how do the skinheads make it into this conversation given what we can see of Christian's hairdo in the still from the video Althouse posted?

Am I now to believe skinheads are long haired? Something doesn't add up.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"Chuck is so abused on these comments sections for his heresy of being anti Trump, that makes me wonder if he'll be back. He hasn't commented for a while. Doesn't quite fit with the "liberals are looking for heretics" meme, eh?"

Chuck is/was a transparent moby. His schtick was well past it's sell-by date.

Marty Keller said...

"Why are we here?"

And the answer is?

Anonymous said...

"I miss Chuck. I hope he is OK and that he comes back. Frankly the reaction to him needs to be dialed down at times.

But Chuck is not being disparaged for being anti-Trump. He's being disparaged for claiming "lifelong republican" status and then writing posts which - at times - come straight from the Huffington Post talking points."

Chuck is no liberal. I have no reason to believe he isn't a lifelong Republican. He was attacked for his anti Trump stance, absolutely. This was a worse insult to the Trumpists here than if a liberal had made the same anti Trump comments. Chuck was seen as a heretic and he was punished for it.

Titus said...

"Yes, I had the chilling thought this morning: If Jeremy Christian were in the comments here, would he blend in?"

yes

Yancey Ward said...

I do think Chuck is a Republican- I don't think that was an act. Chuck's problem goes all the way back to the primary season where he was legitimately anti-Trump, but Trump won the nomination, and Chuck took that too personally and spent the entire Summer and Fall telling anyone who would listen that Trump's supporters had taken an election that could be won by the party and turned it into a guaranteed loss. I think Chuck was literally gleeful at the prospect of writing "I told you so"s after November 8th, and when Trump won in a manner that is difficult to imagine any other Republican in the field accomplishing (by winning IA, WI, MI, and PA), I think Chuck had a bit of a mental breakdown.

roesch/voltaire said...

Joseph Christian ,who describes himself as a white nationalist in favor of Balkanization, is therefore somewhere politically on the left according to AH has to be part of the new double speak in the trump era. Sometimes this discussion of right/left becomes a silly either or.

Earnest Prole said...

"He told us to go back to Saudi Arabia and he told us we shouldn't be here, to get out of his country.”

Ever since the murder of six million Jews, we refer to this kind of talk as racist. Those who say Hitler was trying to make a theological point are generally regarded as racists as well. You may believe you're sharpening up distinctions with your line of questioning, but you're blurring them as well.

n.n said...

Even the mainstream media concede that three men "confronted" Christian for his espousing heterodox views on the train. They indisputably were the aggressors. One of the men pushed him, according to witnesses. In the confined space of a train, Christian was unable to retreat. In view of all the recent violence in Portland carried out by Antifa terrorists, it sounds like Christian might have had good reason to believe he was being threatened with serious bodily harm before he defended himself.

Entrapment led to progressive aggression ending with a couple of elective abortions, which may or may not be classified as self-defense. The fruits of [class] diversity normalizing/promoting racial and sexist prejudice and social justice bullying. The Democrats need to reconcile their opposing factions, especially when spreading political myths through public venues including television (e.g. MSM, PBS) and public schools.

Matt Sablan said...

Eh, I'm happy not identifying Christian's political ideology. But, if people want to try and do the rhetorical flourish like they did with the guy who shot someone because he was upset no one would listen to his grammar conspiracy, I will push back, hard, on the assumption that the media/left would like to make that Christian is just your every day average conservative.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Inga said...
Thanks for bringing this murder up. I was trying to remember the incident and find it in the news reporting. It was barely in the news for more than a day."

I repaat: wait until it goes to trial. I am sure we will all be hearing quite a bit about it.

Did you know about Christian and Newsom? They were beaten, tortured and raped over a period of several days before they were shot and set aflame. Because they were white, young and pretty.


Quaestor said...

I suspect there are a few genuine psychopaths who visit this blog regularly. It would be unusual if that were not true. Jeremy Joseph Christian's Facebook antics are atypical in the extremely violent intent he often expressed, nevertheless social media has been full of rhetorical violence against President Trump and his supporters since Election Day, and it has gotten only worse. The beatings, the rioting, the vandalism, and pepper spray assaults — these are just sublimated homicides.

From 1933 to 1945 Germany was ruled by a homicidal psychopath, yet Hilter crimes were mostly executed by surrogates who were, for the most part, not crazy themselves. People can be talked into insane actions. Hitler killed or imprisoned any voice of reason that dared to speak up, consequently by use of all-pervasive propaganda and incitement he was able to force a whole people to become a nation of murderers.

Today the left has chosen to isolate itself in an echo-chamber of hate. I visited Kathy Griffin's apology site last night, and I was struck by the FUCK TRUMP comments. More commenters supported the decapitation video than denounced it. I fear it won't be long before there are real beheadings.

Kevin said...

"Chuck was seen as a heretic and he was punished for it."

No, Chuck appears to be - I don't want to label people in ways they don't label themselves - more of a moderate Republican or GOPe'er. I don't think he's a liberal who's hiding behind some label of "lifelong republican". I do think he believes that "lifelong republican" should get his ideas more traction than had they come from an avowed liberal, which is why he repeats the phrase so often.

The problem is that the definition of Democrat and Republican have changed in my lifetime. McCain and Graham could change parties and no one on the right would be surprised. Likewise, Lieberman and Webb could become Republicans and no one on the left would feel a sense of loss.

McCain and Graham are lifelong Republicans, for sure. But to many they embody what's wrong with the party today, not what's right. For many Trump voters, a vote for Trump was against the establishment GOP as much as it was against Hillary and the Dems.

mockturtle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

Inga: "Oh please"

LOL yup. My mentor was a pot-smoking hippie youth minister. And the gift he gave us was the ability to think for ourselves, to question everything. I was more liberal than Bernie Sanders.

But what did me in was the liberal position on the 2nd Amendment. I pulled on that string and the whole thing unraveled.

And it's not a unique journey, Inga. Most conservatives were liberal in their youth. Not that you would understand, you're not even liberal. Your political philosophy isn't even evolved enough to be defined.

You support a coup against a duly elected President of the United States.

And you pretzelled yourself into implying that death threats are protected speech.

I suspect your politics is based solely on what makes Inga feel good about herself.

Anonymous said...

"Even the mainstream media concede that three men "confronted" Christian for his espousing heterodox views on the train. They indisputably were the aggressors. One of the men pushed him, according to witnesses."

The three men thought the two teen girls were in danger, they were protecting them. Back to blaming the victims, I see. What happened to the teaching of The Good Samaritan? Is this how the right reacts to every incident of violence by the right now, to blame the victim? How many conservatives here think it was the fault of the three men? I don't want to lump you all together.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

roesch/Voltaire, the biggest proponents of Balkanization appear to be on the left these days, what with their championing of all-black dorms, the accusation of "cultural appropriation" leveled at white women who make burritos, etc.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Inga, an awful lot of conservatives are former liberals. We grew up.

n.n said...

Skinheads are a diversity class that alternately include bald men (and presumably women) who are black, white, brown, yellow, etc. Like other forms of [class] diversity, it is language derived from a classification model designed to promote discrimination/judgment, not based on the "content of a person's character" (e.g. principles), but rather the "color of their skin".

mockturtle said...

Quaestor: Personality disorder is not psychosis. Psychopaths and sociopaths are not [usually] psychotic. Both of these groups know right from wrong behavior and are not legally insane.

Anonymous said...

"And you pretzelled yourself into implying that death threats are protected speech."

Your stupid comments online are protected by the First Amendment dummy. If you were s serious about the death threat you made, then let us know. I'll be happy to report you to the authorities.


Matt Sablan said...

"The three men thought the two teen girls were in danger, they were protecting them."

-- If that's true (which it might be; Christian certainly seems the kind to threaten people), then that'll come out very easily. You know what the sad problem is though? The right would probably be way more willing to give the benefit of the doubt here if they hadn't been constantly burned with initial reports of violent incidents burying and hiding exculpatory evidence -- like injuries, eyewitness accounts that do not agree with the media's narrative, etc.

I have no reason to believe Christian *wasn't* acting crazy/threatening from what I know of him. But, I also have fallen several times to find out that, woops! "No injuries" means "Massive head wound" and "turned away and moving" meant "running forward after punching the victim," so if other people want to wait before taking a more solid stance one way or the other, I get that.

mockturtle said...

Exiled notes: Inga, an awful lot of conservatives are former liberals. We grew up.

As Churchill supposedly said, "If you're not a Liberal when you're twenty, you have no heart. If you're not a Conservative when you're forty, you have no brain."

Fen said...

Earnest, those aren't racist expressions, they are xenophobic.

Although... if I ran across some German Nazi immigrants in the 1940s, I would probably have told them to get their jew-gassing Aryan socialist asses out of my country too.

Fen said...

Would that be "racist" or "xenophobic" ?

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

I can assert that most of the liberals I know have never questioned their political assumptions, which have been frozen in place since they were 18 or so.

For many of them, voting Dem is simply tribal, like being born in a certain religion or cheering for the Packers. Dems = good GOP = bad. They give it no more thought than that.

Anonymous said...

"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear."
William E. Gladstone

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"His racism has been established. You should watch the video from the April rally. There is video of him shouting the n-word."

Not exactly. The full quote of his ranting is, "Fuck all you niggers! Fuck all you Nazis." And despite news reports to the contrary, he didn't shout that at "black people", he shouted it at what looked like a nearly all-white crowd of Trump supporters. He's a Moby troll, and of all persuasionl techniques, the most unfair and least reputable is Mobying. He was PLAYING THE PART, at least momentarily, of those he opposed, slandering them by pretending to represent the supposed true nature of the opposition. It's the left's favored rhetorical tactic.

His rantings since his arrest are pure Moby. He's trolling the public and the media, and leftists and liberals are eating it up like biscuits and gravy.

Quaestor said...

madAsHell wrote: "...who above all else seemed to hate circumcision and Hillary Clinton." What a great punch line!! I'm just trying to figure out the joke.

Here's one: Whaddya call an amputated foreskin?

Fen said...

Again Inga, I ask you to specify what "death threats" I made. That's a very serious charge, and if you are willing to defend it in a courtroom, you should notify the owner of this blog and contact the police.

mockturtle said...

"The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity." Benjamin Disraeli

Matt Sablan said...

"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear." -- William E. Gladstone

If Conservatives distrust the people... why do they want weaker government and stronger individual liberties? I've never read anything by Gladstone, but if this is one of his best known quotes, probably best I don't.

n.n said...

Matthew Sablan:

Christian does not have a principled alignment with the American "right", libertarian, or the American "center", conservative. I wouldn't even push left-alignment, because their actions, if not necessarily their principles, have boundaries. He is probably not insane, but rather a frustrated man that was broken.

In this thread, I am more interested in a hearing of the logic in semantics and reaching a reconcilable consensus, which seems to require a perpetual and escalating offense. Unfortunately, this is more than mere politics. This is a conflict of egos, which precludes a thoughtful exchange.

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