amgreatness.com/2019/09/04/antifa-gives-progressives-a-tin-pot-dictator-high/
What are you supposed to do if a mob attacks you? If you have reason to believe that the mob intends to hurt you or could kill you, do you have the right to defend yourself with deadly force? Do you even have the right to say you would? Given proper policing, such questions should not even arise. But if they do, the First and Second Amendments should answer them. Increasingly, that is no longer the case.
Antifa, short for the German word antifashistisch, is a congerie of anarchists, socialists, Communists, liberals, and social democrats who disrupt, break, beat, and make it physically impossible for those whom they deem fascists, capitalists, white supremacists, etc. to carry on their activities. Antifa’s slogan is “abolish capitalism, antifascist action, smash fascism.” Their members dress in black, wear masks, and fight under black and red banners. Footage of their violence is readily available online.
In recent years, similarly violent groups have “occupied” Wall Street, shut down freeways in Chicago and Oakland, California, disrupted Trump’s campaign rallies, trashed Washington, D.C. during the 2017 presidential inaugural, and chased conservative speakers from college campuses.
The most interesting thing about this left-wing violence is that it happens almost exclusively in places where the police power is in the hands of progressives—whether mayors or university administrators—whose police stand aside as the violent ones do their work, and who have not prosecuted them. Moreover, since the persons whom these groups attack physically are the very ones whom the media and the Democratic Party attack verbally, it is not surprising that the media tries to put the best face on the violence.
Hence it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the violent groups merely do the dirty work of progressives—indeed that violence in society is essential to progressives’ quest for power. The progressive powers’ constraint of the victims’ right to self-defense caps the conclusion.
Antifa is not a problem in and of itself, any more than any mob would be. Where they lack officials’ protection, Antifa’s numbers and their capacity for mayhem are no match for ordinary police forces—nor for armed citizens.
