Charlottesville (With Pictures)

Fields driving his car into counterprotesters

The violence and terrorism in Charlottesville was not a fight between liberals and conservatives, it was a fight between people who think that only white Christian men deserve to have full rights and liberty and everybody else.

Tiki Torch White Nationalism

Let us be clear here.  Charlottesville was a clash between white supremacists and those who opposed white supremacy.

The emblem on the shirt is an Identity Evropa symbol

White supremacists and people protesting against white supremacy.

The "legal demonstrators" did not come prepared for a peaceful protest

Not between liberals and conservatives.  Not Democrats and Republicans.  Not Christians and non-Christians.  If you can't differentiate between Nazis and Republicans/Christians/conservatives/etc. that is not my failing, that is your failing.

Armed militia members were out in force

If you see the far larger group of people who stood up against a white supremacist rally as something other than people standing up against Nazis and racists, that is on you.

A shield wall

If you can look at an act of domestic terrorism and the one sided casualties caused by the armed and armored white supremacists and claim that the counter-protesters were to blame, that is your moral failing.

National Socialist Movement Flag

If you cannot condemn Nazis and the KKK without trying to bring up other people and events unrelated to the Charlottesville violence in order to avoid distancing yourself from Nazis, that is yourself supporting and aiding Nazis.

White supremacist marchers

Opposing Nazis and the KKK is no more a partisan issue than opposing ISIS or al Qaeda is.  Everyone should be opposing terrorists.  If you see the opposition to Nazis as being opposition to you, then you need to ask yourself why you are putting yourself on the side of the Nazis.  My expectation is that as a decent human being you should be opposed to Nazism, white supremacy, or whatever you want to call a specific strain of ethnic nationalism.
If you are on the Nazis' side it is not because I put you there.  You put yourself there by refusing to disavow them.

This is not a patriotic display

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Image of the Vanguard fascists from their Twitter page

If you are trying to tell yourself that the man, James Alex Fields Jr., who rammed his car into the counter protestors was in any way different from the fascists that held the Unite The Right protest let us be clear, he was one of the fascists protesting.  And I am not just saying fascist, here he is holding a fascist shield.  The bundle of sticks with an axe is the symbol for fascism.  Fascism is a reference to the strength of a bundle of sticks (a fascia) working together as opposed to a stick alone.

Image of Fields with the other Vanguard marchers

Fields is literally, not figuratively, a fascist.  A fascist who marched against the rights of people different than him.  A fascist who marched with a shield seeking violent confrontation with people who would oppose him.  A fascist who committed an act of domestic terrorism.

Why would anyone choose to be on his side?

Not Racism, Or At Least Not Entirely: Why the Malheur Occupiers are Still Alive

I will go into more depth here, but I will summarize why the Federal forces are taking a kid gloves approach to the the militants who are currently occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and I will do it with an image.

This little girl was Baylee Almon.  She was one year and one day old when this picture was taken in 1995.  She didn't get any more days.

That image is of Baylee Almon in the arms of a firefighter who pulled her from the wreckage of the Oklahoma City Federal building after the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil, other than 9/11.  That bombing attack, which killed 168 people (19 of whom were under the age of 6) and injured 680 others, was carried out in retaliation for the violent responses to anti-government militants earlier in the 1990's.

The Oklahoma City Bombing

Is the reluctance of the FBI to start slaughtering occupiers due to racism?  I would argue no, it is due to the very high body counts that have historically resulted from violent suppression of anti-government extremists, and the high chance of retaliatory terrorism.

The extreme-right brand of anti-government militancy is closely tied to extreme religious conservatism as well.  Despite our society's fixation on Islamic terrorism, it is actually Christian terrorism that historically was responsible for more deaths in the US.  One need merely look at the ongoing incidents of Anti-Abortion Violence for examples.  Murder, abductions, arson, bombings, and ramming buildings with cars are all actions that continue to occur.  Just a month and a half ago three people were killed in a shooting attack on a Planned Parenthood.

This is not to say that the Bundy Militants are abortion clinic bombers, but they are a part of a broader cultural segment that views the use of violence and threats to force their views on others as acceptable.  Of course, one could argue that the people arguing that the government should go in and kill all the occupiers are doing the same.  And I would argue that there is a great degree of truth to that, but there is a difference.  One side is arguing that only non-governmental groups and individuals have the right to kill and seize through force of arms in pursuit of political goals, and the other side argues that only governmental groups and individuals have the right to kill and seize through force of arms in pursuit of political goals.  Both sides are essentially arguing that people who disagree with them should be killed or at least threatened with violence, the disagreement is just on who is allowed to kill and threaten people.

Back in the early 1990's the Federal government clearly acted on the assumption that violent suppression of anti-government groups was the way to go.  This led first to the Ruby Ridge standoff.  A violent and deadly episode that resulted in acquittal for the people who were charged, but not before an agent, a dog, and a boy were killed.  There was a wrongful death suit that followed as well.

The End of the Waco Seige

The next year another anti-government/religious group got into a dispute with the Federal government.  This time it was the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas.  In this case, the Branch Davidians were suspected of stockpiling weapons... in a state where it was not a crime to stockpile weapons.  The end result was 82 dead Branch Davidians (76 in the fiery end, 5 in a shootout, and one other killed by agents) and 4 dead agents.  A large number of the dead in this case were also children.

The Oklahoma City Bombing was in 1995.  The massive scale of that violence shook the nation.

The next year, 1996, when Federal forces again had a confrontation with anti-government/religious extremists things went a little differently.  This time it was the Montana Freemen.  The standoff was resolved peacefully.  After 5 agent deaths and scores of anti-government types dead in two years the Federal government had decided that perhaps using a softer approach might be more effective.  A long period of relative peace between anti-government types and the government ensued for almost 20 years.

Enter the Bundys.

In 2014, 20 years of law-breaking on the part of Cliven Bundy resulted in the government trying to get him to stop illegally grazing his cattle on Federally owned land.  This led to a standoff between armed anti-government/Christian forces and Federal agents.  Including snipers aiming their weapons at agents.  The Feds backed down, and the Bundys kept breaking the law.  They are still using those federal lands without a permit.

(As an aside, under the land laws that apply most everywhere in the English speaking world, if anyone other than the government owned the land Cliven Bundy is using, at this point he would have a very strong adverse possession case, particularly after facing down the government.  The Bundys and their philosophical kin make frequent appeals to common law, and under common law the fact that the Feds backed down fully legitimized their flouting of federal regulations, as well as giving them possession of the land they have been unlawfully using.)

Part of the problem is that the roots of the anti-government/Christian movement go back a long way in our country's history.  How long you ask?  How about 1791?

In 1791, three years after the ratification of the US Constitution, Western Ranchers Farmers rose up against the federal government in opposition to what they saw as unconstitutional abuse of power in the form of taxing whiskey.  This was called the Whiskey Rebellion.  And from that point on the US government was pretty consistent in using lethal force to suppress acts of open rebellion.

When John Brown seized the Harpers Ferry Armory the Feds brought the hammer.  This raid helped trigger the US Civil War (itself often cast by supporters of the Confederacy as a dispute over Federal Government power), and most people today side with John Brown as an abolitionist, but we should not lose sight of the fact that John Brown was a religiously motivated extremist with a history of terroristic actions and violence in support of his abolitionist cause.  And while John Brown may have been on the anti-slavery side of the debate, it is worth considering what he was trying to do.  He was trying to start a conflict to end slavery.  He was successful.  Not directly, but as a martyr.

As a martyr John Brown's cause gained strength.  A martyr cannot be discredited.  The ideas that a martyr stands for are bulletproof.  The violent response by the government helped bring about the Civil War.

And that, I think, is part of the mindset that motivated the Bundys.  They see themselves as Godly and moral men fighting for a just cause, and if they are martyred they could trigger violence that could convulse our nation.

The Bundys are the inheritors of a cultural mindset that celebrates the Christian individual, and reviles the rule of law.  This mindset extends to the American Revolution, and after the failures of the Articles of Confederation, it was only three years after the United States became a country that armed conflict resulted from this mindset.  Even the concept of Manifest Destiny, that led to the current territorial extent of the Lower 48 states was tied to a Christian ideology that legitimized the use of force to drive people (Indians) from their homes.  And this anti-government/Christian ideology is on full display in the Republican Presidential nomination race.

(If you want yet another example, take a look at the Bath School Disaster.  The deadliest school massacre in US history was not committed with a gun, it was a bomb set off by a man angry about taxes.  Children often pay the price of this kind of violence.)

The Bundys may be threatening bullies and criminals, but there are a LOT of people in this country that agree with them.  And when the federal government has come down hard on people who stood for movements that had a lot of support it has led to a lot of blood.

After the blood and reprisals of the early 1990's the US government adopted a set of tactics that sought to impose the rule of law, and imprisonment on anti-government militants.  By imprisoning the Freemen they were rendered powerless.  They were not martyrs, they were criminals.  As long as this strategy kept working things didn't get as bloody as they had been,

But then in 2014, the kid gloves approach didn't result in the restoration of the rule of law.  It resulted in the victory of the Bundys, at gunpoint.  The Bundys threatened the US government with violence and the US government backed down.

The Bundys were empowered.

On January 2nd the Bundy opposition to the rule of law took a scary new turn.  After hijacking the cause of a real injustice (the Hammonds), the Bundys seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge station.  Now they are stealing and damaging federal property.  They are tearing down fences.  They are making roads across wildlife habitat and archaeological sites.  They are poaching.  Beyond the simple illegal occupation of the site (and of course promoting armed insurrection) there is no shortage of laws the Bundys are breaking now.

Just a small helping of destruction of Federal property...

While the Bundys may claim to be peaceful, they are armed, and if we are being honest, most of the militants at the refuge probably get a lot more range time in than your average law enforcement personnel (despite what you may have seen in movies, guns are not magic, they require practice to use well, and having a badge doesn't make someone a crack shot).  If we were talking about the Bundys standing up to the US Army this wouldn't matter.  With a couple thousand dollars expended in transportation and material costs an artillery strike could end the occupation without any need for soldiers to put themselves at risk.

But that is not what we are talking about.

The Feds want to resolve this by restoring the rule of law.  If the Feds kill all the militants at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge they will create martyrs.  Martyrs that have a lot of people who agree with them.  And that kind of bloodbath has historically resulted in more bloodbaths.  And more violence  And terrorism (the real kind).

Because while many may see the Bundys as a joke, they see themselves as true patriots fighting in the name of God, justice, and the American Way.  And a lot of people agree with them.

If the Feds can resolve this by arresting and jailing the Bundys and their compatriots, there is a real chance to defuse this dangerous escalation before it turns into the kind of blood we saw two decades ago.

So yeah, maybe the fact that the Bundys are white has something to do with why the government didn't go in guns blazing, but I don't think it is because the Feds are racists.  I think it is because the whiteness of the Bundys helps convince a lot of people that they are right, and that large number of people that support them makes killing the Bundys a very VERY bad idea.

The Bundys want to start a war.  They are opposed to the rule of law, science, Native land claims, protection of the environment, and any authority beyond themselves.  A violent response to their provocations brings the probability of more violence closer.  We should not be feeding into the type of rhetoric that feeds this kind of violent anger.

If there is any constant theme in my writing it is about the danger of divisive politics and rhetoric.  This is a prime example.  The Bundys are bullies and criminals, but when you ridicule them, or call for their killing, or claim that their continued existence is proof of racism, you contribute to the factionalization of our country.  Our history is replete with cautionary examples of what this kind of divisiveness leads to.

Please stop calling for the killing of the Bundys, and start hoping for the peaceful restoration of the rule of law.

Malheur is a breathtaking place.  It is one of the most important habitats in the West for migratory waterfowl.  If you ever get the chance, make the trip.

As Human Beings, We Cannot Turn Away Syrian Refugees

In the 1940's when the family of nations turned their backs to refugees, millions of them died. In the 1970's when nations turned their backs to Cambodian refugees, millions of them died. I would like to live in a world that does not do this again.

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Taken Without Permission from Facebook - Ralia, 7, and Rahaf, 13, in Beirut, Lebanon
Ralia, 7, and Rahaf, 13, live on the streets of Beirut. They are from Damascus, where a grenade killed their mother and brother. Along with their father they have been sleeping rough for a year. They huddle close together on their cardboard boxes. Rahaf says she is scared of “bad boys,” at which Ralia starts crying.
Copyright - Magnus Wennman / Aftonbladet / REX Shutterstock

I have not had time to write for this blog lately.  I have more I want to say, and this topic requires much more, but this is the essence of what I want to say.

We cannot make the world a better place by allowing millions of people to die for want of a home.  We cannot make the world a better place by closing our hearts and borders to refugees.

In the wake of the Paris attacks, it seems that far too many people want to just let the Aegean Sea swallow the waves of desperate humanity.  Closing our eyes and hearts to the suffering of other humans will not make us safer.  And denying succor to those refugees is a betrayal of fundamental humanity.

On a coldly practical level, one can certainly argue that allowing Muslims to die by the millions will be a great marketing campaign for ISIS.  If one wanted to hurry along a planet razing clash of civilizations that dwarfed any previous conflict in human history, aiding in the dying of helpless Muslims would be a good way to go about it.  So in the interest of the survival of our society, pure self interest should motivate you to support helping the refugees.

But we should not need to look at the political costs of abandoning humanity to understand that we cannot abandon our humanity.

There are 60 million human beings displaced right now.  Our climate is in flux.  War is rendering millions homeless.  At no time since the end of WWII have more people been displaced.  We owe it to the world's refugees to help them.  Not because of what it means for us.  Not because of politics.  But because they are humans.

Turning our backs on the refugees is a way of murdering them.   Turning our backs on millions of Syrians would be an act of negligent genocide.

The Syrian refugees, and all the other people fleeing from horrors, are people.  That should be all the reason you need to know that you cannot abandon them.

Dear Ottawa: Don't Let Fear Change You

The scene this morning at the Canadian Parliament

This morning at least one gunman, probably at least two, opened fire on Capitol Hill in Ottawa Canada.  At least one of the soldiers standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National War Memorial was injured, and US Today reports that the wounded soldier has died of his injuries.  The shooter sprinted into the Parliament building where there was more shooting.  A gunman has been confirmed dead inside Parliament.

In 2004 and 2005 I made my home outside of Ottawa.  I have many friends there.  I am a dual Canadian and US citizen.  I moved to Canada in large part out of anger at the fear driven changes in America following September 11, 2001.  I hated the evisceration of the US Constitution and the poorly planned aggression of the only country I had ever called home (I was born in Canada, but had never lived there before 2004).  I decided that I would take advantage of my Canadian citizenship and move to a country that had not abandoned its values and founding principles out of fear.

The thing that made me most happy to be in Canada while I lived there was the openness of Parliament.  Even before 9/11 the US Capitol was extremely secure.  The seat of American power is locked and walled away from the people of the US.  Walls and guards separate the White House from its subjects.  Before I moved to Ottawa it never even occurred to me that there could be a different way of doing things.  It blew me away when I moved to Canada that I could just walk right up to Parliament anytime I wanted.

Several times I decided that I wanted to walk around Parliament at night and peek in the windows, just because I lived in a country free enough to allow me to do so.  The only time security ever stopped me was when there was a light show being projected on the front of Parliament.  The guards just wanted to make sure that I didn't mess with the projection equipment, they had no problem with me poking around the Parliament building.  And yes, you read that last section right, they were having a light show on the Parliament building.  People were sitting on the Parliament lawn and listening to music and watching a light show.

.There was an openness to the Canadian Capitol that I found wonderful and liberating.  The government felt like it was of the people, not imposed on the people.  And whenever I started forgetting the dramatic nature of the difference between Canada and the US there was the nearby US Embassy to remind me.

The US Embassy in Ottawa is a post-modernist interpretation of a submarine, surrounded by neo-classical buildings and castles.  After 9/11 the US embassy blocked off a lane of traffic surrounding the building in the middle of downtown Ottawa with jersey barriers.  Inside of those Jersey barriers was a row of pylons with steel shafts that extended underground designed to stop tanks.  Inside of that row of pylons is a tall fence made of pointed metal and concrete.  The walls look to be several feet thick and the glass appears to be bulletproof, and there is no evidence of any windows that can be opened.  The entire structure is surmounted by a brooding turret.  When first I went to the embassy in 2002 there was a security checkpoint outside of the gate to the embassy.  After passing through that metal detector people were allowed one at a time to enter a door that opened on hydraulics.  After the first door closed a second actuated door would let a person out of the vestibule where they could pass through a more thorough security check like at an airport.  Once through this security I was able to go wait to speak to a representative through armored glass.

The dramatic difference between the open Parliament and the militaristic Embassy was painful to me.  In a city characterized by openness, monuments, and pretty buildings the US Embassy was fortified and designed to look like a ship of war.

Obviously I ultimately decided to move back to the US.  Despite my anger at many of the choices our country has made, I am an American.  There is a lot I love about the land of my birth, but America is my home.  I don't have to live here, I choose to live here.  I am fortunate to have the choice.

Many of the cultural differences between the US and Canada seem minor until you spend a significant amount of time in either country.  As I was living in the woods of Quebec outside of Ottawa there was one difference that seemed extra dramatic, and that was gun laws.  Where I lived there were a lot of bears.  Wherever you live in Canada you are not far from roadless wilderness.  Having grown up in Alaska, I wanted to have a gun for protection against bears.  However, in Canada the process is a lot more complicated than just going to a gun store.  I'm not going to go into the details of the process, you can look them up if you want to.

I bring up guns because today there was gun violence in Ottawa.  Sadly this means that now there is immediate reaction from pro and anti gun groups on both sides of the border.  At a time when Ottawa is still locked down and a family is being notified that their child was murdered while watching over a monument to the fallen, people are already mobilizing their political talking points.

The sad fact is that for a free country dominated by wilderness there is no sane level of gun control that could ever totally remove the threat of gun violence.  And even if guns could be totally controlled within Canada there is an open border between the US and Canada.  That said, this is an anomaly in Canada.  Canada does not have the levels of gun violence that we do here in the US, so claiming that this incident proves gun regulation to be useless is nonsensical.  I have been clear in this blog that I am a supporter of gun rights, but right now I want to be clear that I do not think that this is the time to be making arguments about gun laws.

There will be debate, but decency should compel us to have those debates at a later date.  Right now there has been an incident.  And while the death toll might not be huge, there has been a tragedy.  None of us know why this tragedy took place.  None of us know any of the details that might lead to an understanding of how or why this took place.  Now is a time to pay attention and to be quiet until we know more.

However, there is one thing I do want to say as loudly as I can right now.  Whatever might come of this tragedy, I hope that Canada will not allow the character of its capitol to change.  I hope that the fear created by this action does not lead to a separation of the government from the people of Canada.  This attack today struck at one of the most precious things Canada has, its openness.  I hope that the attack does not cost Canada that treasure.