Here’s just a taste of what the progressives hurled at the Stafford Board of Zoning Appeals after a 6-1 vote that decided that a flagpole didn’t violate the zoning ordinances. From the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star:
“Where there’s not civil rights, there is civil war!” one man shouted after the BZA’s vote.
“Shameful!” bellowed another spectator with a T–shirt picturing an American flag and the text: “If you want a rebel flag, nothing beats the original.”
“Why didn’t you let us speak?” a woman asked. “Enjoy that flag and when the neo-Nazis show up, enjoy what’s coming.”
Of course, none of these threats of violence are anything new when it comes to the paid agitators of the political left.
We saw them during Antifa riots in places such as Richmond where reporters were beaten on the street. We saw them in Charlottesville whether it was protesting town halls, the leftist response to the alt-right rally, Congressman Steve Scalise being shot while playing baseball by a Bernie Saunders supporter, where 14 Antifa members were arrested in Portland for throwing explosives at law enforcement personnel, the violence at UC Berkeley when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro came to speak at a free speech rally…
Civil war if the progressive left doesn’t get its way, folks.
The topic here is a privately owned flagpole on a privately owned piece of land sporting a privately owned Confederate flag — all in plain sight of southbound I-95 (curiously, the treeline prevents an individual from actually seeing the flag heading northbound).
These flags have gone up as a project of The Virginia Flaggers, whose outrage over the demolition and erasure of all things Southern is duly noted. Flags come down on public property and even in places such as Washington and Lee University; ergo flags go up on private land, personal homes, and yes — with the goal of making sure others see it.
Thus a peaceful backlash against the progressive left ensues.
Of course, much like in Charlottesville, all the stops are being pulled — with every legal contortion being attempted in an effort to achieve the holy grail of any progressive… to do what they want.
“I can see it being difficult to sell my house now,” Milloy said in the interview, adding that the flag makes a lot of noise on windy nights. “I can see this affecting me in a lot of different ways.”
Flappy flags? Really? If it was an American flag… would the argument still hold?
Of course not. They just want what they want.
Failing the “flappy flag” test, the progressives tried a new tactic — claiming that the flagpole was a sign and therefore prohibited under the county sign ordinance. Strike two.
This tactic of bringing a mob to public hearings and then forcing lawmakers to bend to the will of the heckler’s veto is a tried and true tactic among the political left.
Yet let’s make something very clear here. Violence — or the threat of violence — is something that the political left has mainstreamed and virtually monopolized for decades. Arguments that attempt to push away “black bloc” Antifa or lone gunmen as “crazies” fall flat when — in an effort to justify their own bad behavior — leftists lump in every neo-Nazi effort as something cooked up in the offices of the National Review, or leverage lone gunmen in other situations as an opportunity to declare martial law against our Second Amendment.
…and then there is the “democracy by mob” tactic.
If you are of the political left and have made it this far, kudos for demonstrating the sort of empathy that conservatives find utterly lacking in the caricature the progressive left, mostly because it is a caricature that the left has created for themselves.
Consider the following.
At some point, conservatives are going to start reacting in kind, because they will learn that “effective politics” means some form of direct action cloaking the veiled (or unveiled) threat of political violence. That’s dangerous in the extreme. What’s more, there’s a name for this sort of activity — terrorism, and it is clearly defined by the U.S. Department of Justice:
Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.
Threatening civil war? Punch a Nazi (because everything you disagree with is “a Nazi”)? Bring a mob to a deliberative body?
…that’s domestic terrorism by definition.
The political left needs to take a good hard look in the mirror. Imitating the tactics of Antifa and what folks see on national television is an extremely poor decision, one that impacts American institutions in ways that only help our enemies. Shortcuts through process are dangerous indeed, and if the laws of the land can be misconstrued by force of numbers or the threat of force, violence, intimidation, or coercion?
That’s a bridge too far, folks — and Americans should take back up the claim of disagreeing with what others have to say, but being willing to defend to the death their right to say it. Even if it is a Confederate flag along the interstate.
