Note from Quin: It so happened that various outlets this week wanted coverage, from various different perspectives, of the sad events a week ago in Charlottesville. Here are three of them (obviously, another full column is above this one, too) — one about the conservatives who did happen to respond well, one about the violent radical leftists who increasingly violate the law and common decency, and one, my regular weekly faith reflection, on weekly readings that fit quite well with the need to find a useful, constructive response to the Charlottesville events.
PJ Media: Binding up the nation’s wounds (via faith):
After the last ten days we’ve just experienced, with racism and vandalism and riots and terrorism in multiple places and with public figures sometimes responding badly to these horrors, the passages today from Genesis and Psalm 133 are wonderfully appropriate tonics.
In the first, Joseph shows extraordinary forgiveness, generosity, and love for his brothers who had sold him into slavery many years before. In the second, the psalm begins with the assertion that it is “very good and pleasant… when kindred live together in unity.”
All of us could use a little bit of these perspectives, these attitudes, right now. We should remember the words of Abraham Lincoln in his second Inaugural Address, as the Civil War drew to a close: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds….” [Full piece here.]
Conservatives stand tall vs. racists:
(Quin Hillyer, Liberty Headlines) As the Left and the media uses the tragedy in Charlottesville to rail against conservatives in general, plenty of conservatives were issuing what can only be described as thoughtful, constructive reactions to that tragedy.
A Monday column in USA Today by Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is worth seeing at some length:
Our response to the events in Charlottesville, Va., should mirror our response to the murders at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston. Condemnation of racism. Swift justice for a terrorist. And unity for the community that grieves….
[Full Hillyer news story is here.]
Leftist violence is bad, too:
(Quin Hillyer, Liberty Headlines) The radical, leftist, so-called “Antifa” (for “anti-fascist”) group that comprised at least part of the “counter-protesters” in Charlottesville last weekend has a long, documented history of violence.
Even the British Broadcasting Corporation has noticed. “Antifa is anti-government and anti-capitalist, and their methodologies are often perceived as more closely aligned with anarchists than the mainstream left,” it reported on Monday. “Antifa does not shy away from militant protest methods, including the destruction of property and sometimes physical violence. They were present at the 2017 Berkeley protests of far-right speaker Milo Yiannopoulos and at violent protests against Donald Trump’s inauguration; they were also present at Charlottesville.”
The radical site The Root featured a column on Wednesday whose headline says it all: “Yes, Anti-Fascists are Violent… and Necessary.”….
[Editorial comment: NECESSARY? REALLY?!?]
[Follow this link for the full story.]
