Violence...Jefferson...AOC...Mt. Rushmore...More

VIOLENCE

"The word violence has taken on pejorative connotations. We are nice people, and we do not like to think too much about violence. And perhaps it is the case that violence is a lamentable means even when it is used toward desirable ends. It wasn’t persuasion that freed the slaves, and it wasn’t the Emancipation Proclamation — it was men doing violence under the flag of the United States, led by General Ulysses S. Grant, a statue of whom was just pulled down by the cretins in San Francisco. (More than a third of San Francisco’s black population has been driven out of the city since 1990, and it wasn’t General Grant who did that.) It was not rhetoric that ended the Third Reich and stopped the Holocaust — it was violence. If you are lucky enough to live in a place in which you are secure in your person and your property (which is to say, not in Seattle), then you should know that it is not the milk of human kindness that keeps you so — it is violence and the threat of violence."  Kevin Williamson, National Review Online

JEFFERSON

"That Jefferson was deeply compromised by the slave system and yet rose above his own sectional and selfish interests to enunciate timeless principles should be considered an accomplishment, not a reason to relegate him to the ash heap. He always maintained that slavery was unjust and, early in his career, tried to abolish slavery in Virginia and prohibit the introduction of slavery in new western lands . . . The woke philistines who are targeting him are incapable of thought or discernment and want to jettison much of the country’s heritage. A historian once said, “If Jefferson was wrong, America is wrong.” Those who want to grind his memory to dust clearly accept both parts of that formulation — and indict not just Jefferson, but the America he helped define."  Rich Lowry, NRO 

AOC

"For my part, I’m sick and tired of AOC proclaiming herself to be the vanguard of some new politics that is about “holding our democracy accountable.” Her allies intimidate opponents, seek to remove statues of historical figures such as George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant, and demand that critics be censored or even removed from their jobs. That approach is an attempt to completely evade accountability and merely replaces the boss-ism of the clubhouse with the bossiness of the politically correct mob."  John Fund, NRO

ELECTION 2020

"But to Trump’s rear, the powerful tailwinds of summer and autumn are rising. And they are considerable: the enfeebled candidacy of a cognitively impaired Joe Biden who at some point must emerge from his basement and remind the world he is inert; the contention over Joe Biden’s hard left-wing diversity VP selection that is de facto the Democratic presidential candidate; the looming indictments of John Durham; the steady recovery of the economy; the likely eventual waning of the virus; the loosening of the lockdowns, especially given the asymmetrical blue-state exemptions given to millions of protestors and rioters who never practiced social distancing as they looted stores, entered restaurants to harass customers, and crowded together to shout and spray; and, most important, the growing public pushback against the looting, burning, shooting, and rioting. All that is a powerful collection of favorable windy currents."  Victor Davis Hanson, NRO

COVID-19

"For the wealthy and those able to work from home, the pandemic has represented an inconvenience. Life has gone on, albeit challenged by new technologies and new routines. Their lives have not been upended by the outbreak.

"That has not been the case for those outside the work-from-home bubble. Service workers have been laid off en masse, while many essential workers have had little choice but to work even as their employers have awkwardly and inconsistently adapted workplaces to a pandemic environment. That the outbreak has hit working-class communities hardest is hardly a surprise."  Andrew Stuttaford, NRO

GRIEVANCES

"Irrespective of the nature of their grievance — or of the strength of the feeling undergirding it — violent mobs can’t make decisions on behalf of everyone else. If, as is occasionally the case, it is necessary for public monuments to be altered, updated, revisited, or removed, that work must be done within the democratic process and under the rule of law. Bad taste is not an excuse for anarchy."  The Editors, NRO

MT. RUSHMORE

"With Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt all under attack, three of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore are now repudiated by the left."  Patrick Buchanan, Townhall