I found it pleasantly refreshing (and rather surprising) to read a rational and honest comment about Charlottesville and Trump in last Tuesday's Citizen by Gary Abernathy. Alas, it was too good to last as was evidenced by the next day's editorial.
Mr. Godbout says "Trump offered a half-hearted condemnation of the Nazis and the white supremacists." Half-hearted? Trump stated: "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence." How is that half-hearted?
Ah, but the real reason that Trump threw the media into such a frenzied outrage is that he condemned all sides in the incident. Why did he do that? And why do the left and the media object to that?
The white supremacists, vile scum that they are, had a legal permit (supported by the ACLU) to stage their demonstration. They did not come intending to precipitate violence or why would they have gone to the trouble of applying for a permit? But they certainly appeared to be prepared for it and no doubt expected it.
Unlike the Unite the Right demonstrators, the leftist groups (like BLM and Antifa) did not have a permit for that park. But why should they need a permit, since they have a habit of wreaking havoc in cities all over the U.S., such as Ferguson, Berkeley, Sacramento, Portland and more. Their intent on being there was to break the law, they came intending to do violence as is their wont, so a permit violation would be the least of their crimes.
The media outrage came not because Trump didn't condemn the white supremacists strongly enough (nothing he could have said would ever be strong enough for them) but because he included the leftist thugs in his comment. These groups are constantly given a free pass by the media and leftist politicians, their criminal activity is presented as "protests" and their rioting goes completely unpunished.
But Trump applied the same criteria and standards to everyone involved. What's wrong with that, isn't the law supposed to apply equally to every citizen? Shouldn't the president regard all citizens as equals? Apparently not, according to the media, and they distort his words in order to convict him of things he did not say.
For example:
Neil wrote that Trump said there were some nice white supremacists down there, protesting quietly, just minding their own business, with their torches and their arms raised in the Nazi salute. No he didn't. What he said was there were people protesting the removal of the stature of Gen. Lee who were not white supremacists.
As Gary Abernathy said in his article, "...a professor of anthropology ... encountered a handful of people who displayed the Confederate battle flag. He told me, with a sense of surprise, "They really don't see it as a racist thing. They see it as a sign of independence."
Neil wrote "The Nazis and the white supremacists ... are the people the president of the United States of America is defending and to defend their beliefs is racist." No, he was defending people who may have been there who were not Nazis and white supremacists.
Neil wrote that Trump is saying people who believe in racial purity, in dictators, in fascism and in murder and genocide need to be heard and treated with respect. I watched the video, he said nothing of the sort.
Such dishonest reporting only encourages the leftist brownshirt thugs, re-enforces identity politics of division and threatens democracy which depends on a free and unbiased press. It should not be allowed to stand.
Art Betke
Prince George
