Racists on the March? Send in the Pro-Life Movement!

If you're looking for a solution/something useful to do, see the end of this piece. But I wanted to try once again to explain why I'm posting about all of this to such a degree. A friend said:

"You should not be easily moved to fear. It is unwarranted."

I'm not Jewish, or black, so yeah, I personally don't have nearly as much to fear. But I am Catholic, and I am an American, and the son of a Coast Guardsman. The Nazis and the KKK are enemies of the US. They are enemies of humanity. They are enemies of the Church. Their ideologies are to be opposed absolutely, especially when they are manifesting in marches and rallies.

We who are white, who are safe and far away from these things, can all too easily assume they are nothing to be afraid of, nothing to worry about. The ideologies were defeated. Sauron was destroyed, after all, and Voldemort died trying to kill a baby, and all that's over and done with. Right?

Tell that to the folks who attend the synagogue in Charlottesville. Tell that to the black people who have to live near or alongside people who put on their klan gear on the weekends. Tell that to the non-whites watching the Vice documentary this past week.

I am not afraid--I am in Massachusetts, deep in the North, deep behind Union lines. But I am furious and afraid on behalf of all those people who shouldn't have to be furious and afraid. Not, I hope, out of moral preening, but because Jim Crow endured because so many of us thought it silly to be afraid, thought Martin Luther King a troublemaker and the Civil Rights movement a whole lot of fuss about nothing. I'm writing all this because of Munich, and Chamberlain, and a very near thing for Britain because they disarmed throughout the 1930s, for all that Churchill never stopped speaking. I'm writing all this because let's try not to leave the Jewish people alone in the face of the Nazis again, or the black folks alone in the face of the Klan again.

"Furthermore, you are not asking people to simply state their opposition to Nazisism. You have affirmatively stated that unless someone supports punching people in the face for speaking words of hate, then that person has lost his mind."

No. If you can find it and repost it, I'll acknowledge I made a mistake. But what I've been saying or trying to say is that unless someone is able to empathize and understand why BLM or Antifa or an ordinary citizen punches people in the face for being public neo-Nazis and KKK, then that person has lost his mind. I cringe every time a conservative tries to equate Antifa or BLM with the neo-Nazis and the KKK because it's ridiculous on its face. Antifa and BLM have never held all of Europe in their thrall, never built concentration camps or ovens, never put stars on the Jews or sent forth death squads, the SS. They've never held the South in their thrall, sending and receiving slave ships on which millions died, never torn apart families, had breeding programs for their slaves, never sent forth night riders to lynch or bomb civil rights leaders. To attempt such a comparison is obscene.

"I am concerned that it strikes such fear in your heart that I will not advocate instigating violence. Hopefully you let go of some of that fear long enough to see that those who are not actively advocating for and justifying violence can still be fiercely opposed to the evils of Nazism and White supremacists."

Of course the right can be fiercely opposed to the evils of Nazism and white supremacists, but act and potential are two different things. This is why I keep saying this should be easy--there're all the intellectual and historical resources in the world for Republicans and Americans of all stripes, especially Catholic Christians, to oppose Nazism and white supremacist ideologies.

I'm seeing a lot of Catholic Christians and Republicans very intently defending the president and attempting to equate BLM and Antifa with neo-Nazis and the KKK.

I'm not seeing the Republicans on Facebook fiercely opposing Nazism and the KKK.

The Federalist describes the present mess well:

... He [President Trump] is also working to destroy and discredit the American Right, pitting us against one another in vicious internecine arguments. Right now there are otherwise good people who, out of partisan habits or long-borne outrage at biased media, are trying to concoct excuses for why Trump’s Q&A wasn’t so bad and all the criticisms of it are just fake news.

It’s time for that to stop. It’s time to stop looking at the latest Trump statement in relation to how bad you think the alternative is on the Left, or how biased the media is, and instead to compare it to what we should actually expect from a president. In a country where 99 percent of the population is opposed to Nazis, it should be the easiest thing in the world for an American president to unite the country by appealing to our shared values. Only Trump could take one of the most uncontroversial ideas in American politics, the Indiana Jones Rule, and turn it into a wrenching national argument. ...

Thank God, Republican leaders in Congress are clearly speaking out against Nazism and the KKK; the bishops have spoken clearly and forcefully; various members of the president's different councils have resigned or spoken out on the Charlottesville march. But Trump supporters on Facebook? Making very clear that they'd like everyone to believe BLM and Antifa are just as bad as neo-Nazis and the KKK.

And I'm really sad about that because this shouldn't even be a thing. This is the easiest challenge in the world, really, because conservatism stands against the sort of easy disregard for the common good that led to the Confederacy and the Civil War; conservatism stands for human rights and against totalitarian governments, as happened throughout the Cold War; Christianity calls us to love our neighbor, whoever they may be, and to know that all are one in Christ Jesus, no matter their race, no matter their skin color.

This was such an easy one to knock out of the park--but here we are, arguing instead.

So here's my proposed solution.

Dear conservatives and Christians of my acquaintance: I hold that when the Nazis and the KKK try to get on board the conservative end of the spectrum--that is, when the left hasn't had to lift a finger; the Nazis and the KKK are doing the work themselves--then the Republicans need to be leading the counter-demonstrations out of sheer love of country. Nothing to do with trying to "distance" yourselves from the Nazis. Tell the left, "We've got this. We'll do the counter-protests. We'll unite the right and stand between the 'Unite the Right' rally and the synagogue. Don't bother sending in BLM or Antifa. We'll bring the Knights of Columbus, the pro-life movement, and all the churches. We'll be the ones to get rid of the KKK and the Nazis because you've always been wrong about them being conservative or Republican. We know Christianity demands us oppose these groups. Don't worry. We protest Planned Parenthood; we'll protest the Nazis and the KKK." Why? It's an easy win; all of us are bound by conviction to oppose Nazism and the KKK; and the left is doing it wrong, as this piece makes clear.

... “The main thing that [hate groups] seek is attention and publicity to disseminate a message of hate,” Robert Trestan, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Boston office, told NPR’s “All Things Considered” during an interview about today’s planned “free speech” rally on Boston Common, which some are concerned will be a magnet for hate groups. “And so the best-case scenario is they come and they speak at the Common and there is nobody there to listen.” And Moises Velasquez-Manoff, a contributing op-ed writer at the Times, explained earlier this week that according to experts, “Violence directed at white nationalists only fuels their narrative of victimhood — of a hounded, soon-to-be-minority who can’t exercise their rights to free speech without getting pummeled.” “I would want to punch a Nazi in the nose, too,” Maria Stephan, a program director at the United States Institute of Peace, told him. “But there’s a difference between a therapeutic and strategic response.” Progressives would be eagerly echoing and retweeting this sort of logic if the wonks in question were talking about ISIS rather than the National Vanguard. Why should their insights suddenly be ignored?

If this line of thinking is correct, anyone disgusted by organized displays of explicit hatred should adopt a stance along the lines of this: “You know what? Let the Nazis rally. Let them try to promote a dying ideology the entire nation finds execrable. Down the road we are going to set up a big, inclusive show of solidarity that will be ten times larger. And anyone who is scared or intimidated or angry should come there, rather than risk their well-being facing down the dregs of society.” To be sure, this approach may not be as satisfying as punching Nazis, but it may increase the odds that in the future, there will be fewer Nazis to punch in the first place. ...

Let's do it right, peacefully, and far more effectively because if Christianity and conservatism makes plain the neo-Nazis and racists have no home on the right, they have no hope of a political home anywhere.

You want BLM and Antifa to become irrelevant? Publicly oppose racism in an organized fashion so they don't have occasion to riot.

Now I know the left has consistently moved the football.

And I sympathize to a degree with why conservatives are reluctant to respond to liberal challenges to condemn the Nazis, the KKK, and racism. I absolutely know how the left can attempt to demonize people or positions; I've seen the same sorts of things at Gonzaga; I agree that the ideological legacy of Communism perdures and must still be extricated from politics.

But conservatism, Christianity, and patriotism calls us to oppose the Nazis and the KKK. A pragmatic concern for ending the spectre of Antifa and BLM violence in this country calls us to publicly, clearly, consistently oppose racism, the white supremacists, and the neo-Nazis wherever they arise so that the left doesn't feel the need; so that it's taken care of.

Using the force of reason and public witness against racism is part of the new evangelization, after all, and a necessary part of developing a culture of life, leading to a civilization of love.

So come on--win big, win easily, and do the right thing, the thing demanded by conservatism and Christianity themselves--stand against the racists so the left doesn't have to, even if (when) segments of the left aren't grateful or gracious, when they wish you weren't there so they could attempt to tar you with the same brush. Do the right thing, as the pro-life movement has been doing for so long, even when it's hard, or thankless, or painful, or misunderstood.