The Charlottsville Riot a Week Later: A Few Thoughts

by Jack Le Moine

On the Rioters

• The Alt-Right White Supremacists are evil.
• The Alt-Right is not The Right which means it is not Conservative.
• The Left-Wing rioters are not innocent. They deserve blame, too.

On Confederate Statues and Monuments

• They are in public; people cannot avoid seeing them.
• They honor Confederates who served in a bad cause.

These two points place them in a completely different category than:

• Books
• Libraries
• Museums

These serve to educate, not to honor.
When removing historical objects, this is where to draw the line on Confederates: things that educate yes; honor no.

On Early Presidents (of the US)

• They should not to have had slaves. That was evil.
• They are honored for the things they did that did other owning slaves.
• Confederate leaders are honored for their Civil War records – service in an evil cause.

On Trump

• He should have condemned the alt-right extremists more than he did.
• Anti-Trump outrage would have been more convincing had his opponents in the media and elsewhere not been so over-the-top on previously condemning everything he said and did.
• There was a lack of coordinated Administration messaging to this event.

On Hate Groups

• Need to distinguish between genuine hate groups and innocent conservative groups.
• The Southern Poverty Law Center has a spotty reconrd on doing this.

Here’s video by a reporter who embedded himself in the group.