August 22, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The growing tensions in America between statue-toppling leftists and Republicans could culminate in a “new civil war,” according to Rush Limbaugh and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.
American Thinker commentator Tom Trinko thinks so as well. According to Trinko, the first “shots” in this “war” have already been fired, “after Charlottesville when many Democratic leaders claimed that they had the right to use physical force against anyone they didn’t like.”
There was outrage and mourning across America after a white nationalist drove his car into an anti-racism gathering in Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. The anti-racism rally was in response to a far-right rally opposing the removal of a Confederate statue. Some attendees of the far-right rally touted Swastikas.
One of the rally's organizers tweeted that Heyer's death was “payback.”
The nationalist (and sometimes overtly racist) “alt-right” and left-wing “antifa” (anti-fascists who tend to act like fascists) groups represent the most extreme sides of this civil war.
But it really comes down to a battle between big government, anti-free speech fascists who want to “distort, erase, and impugn our history,” according to Limbaugh, and those who don't.
“Facing a continued loss of power because their radical agenda is toxic to most Americans, the Democrat leadership … have decided that they have the right to physically attack anyone who stands in their way,” wrote Trinko. “Like their Nazi and Communist forefathers, today’s Democrat leaders are comfortable sending swarms of Brownshirts out to beat into submission anyone who stands between them and power.”
“While the first American Civil War was fought to protect that particularly Democrat institution slavery, the new civil war Democrat elites are starting to wage is about transferring power from the people to the rich white oligarchs, judges, and government bureaucrats,” he continued. “The time for pretending that Democrat leadership is patriotic is over. It’s time to shout from the rooftops that the Democratic leadership is a fascist cabal intent on overthrowing democracy.”
Buchanan, Limbaugh, and Trinko argued that Democrat and left-wing leaders are subverting the rule of law and freedom of speech in an alarming manner.
“Like ISIS, which smashed the storied ruins of Palmyra, and the al-Qaida rebels who ravaged the fabled Saharan city of Timbuktu, the new barbarism has come to America,” wrote Buchanan. “This is going to become a blazing issue, not only between but within the parties.”
The problem with removing “offensive” statues, those on the right argue, is that it doesn't stop with just taking down Confederate monuments.
A statue of Joan of Arc was vandalized in New Orleans. “F*** Law,” someone wrote in red graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial after Charlottesville.
A mob of people, including a pro-North Korea Marxist, in Durham, North Carolina attacked and pulled down a Confederate monument.
Activists took a sledgehammer to a Christopher Columbus monument –in Baltimore, Maryland, the oldest in the country – because of the “white supremacy” and “genocidal terrorists” it symbolized.
Last night, activists in Baltimore took a sledgehammer to the oldest Christopher Columbus monument in the US. Then they uploaded this video: pic.twitter.com/MxN9YrT7cF
— Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) August 21, 2017
BREAKING: Federal prosecutors: Man arrested after attempting to plant explosives at Confederate statue in Houston park.
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 21, 2017
Can't we all just get along?
One of the reasons a new “civil war” seems inevitable is because of the unwillingness of the far left to recognize Trump as the legitimate president of the United States. There's also an unwillingness of the “antifa” movement to follow laws that don't allow them to throw what some would call violent tantrums.
(For example, the Boston Police Department recently asked that protestors “refrain from throwing urine, bottles and other harmful projectiles at our officers.”)
But not everyone arguing for the removal of statues is doing so in the same manner. Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a pro-life activist and pastor of Church on the Hill DC who has done extensive work with racial reconciliation, supports removing statues of Confederate figures. Mahoney has engaged in peaceful, nonviolent activism for more than 20 years.
Another issue with which some conservatives take issue is the lumping together of mainstream pro-life and pro-marriage groups with neo-Nazi “hate groups.”
The nation's “new civil war” also seems to manifest itself in larger, more “mainstream” conflicts, as big companies like PayPal take the side of the Southern Poverty Law Center and crack down on conservative clients.
“Americans are more divided morally, ideologically and politically today than they were during the Civil War,” wrote Dennis Prager at Townhall. “For that reason, just as the Great War came to be known as World War I once there was World War II, the Civil War will become known as the First Civil War when more Americans come to regard the current battle as the Second Civil War.”
“Given increasing left-wing violence, such as riots, the taking over of college presidents' offices and the illegal occupation of state capitols, nonviolence is not guaranteed to be a permanent characteristic of the Second Civil War,” predicted Prager. And the conservative side of this new war “rarely [fights] back with anything near the ferocity with which the left fights.”
Priest: the most important side to be on is God's
“Should controversial statues be removed today?” asked Monsignor Charles Pope at the National Catholic Register. “That is not for me to say; it would be imprudent for me as a priest to 'take sides.' It is a prudential decision best left to local communities to resolve after discussion and debate.”
“I will note that I have served African-American Catholics for many years and realize the pain that such things often cause, but I also understand the fear engendered in others by the removal of statues in the middle of the night at the direction of government officials who are rather suddenly reacting to national political pressures rather than local and community-based concerns,” wrote Msgr. Pope.
“Further, there seems to be no end in sight to this escalating issue. I would remind people on both sides that pain is a part of life and that we cannot have everything as we want,” he continued.
The popular preacher's proposed solution? “A stance of patience, gratitude, and admitting our flaws, current and historical, is better than one of angry discourse or violence … Statues can remind us of where we once stood. More important than any statue, however, is where we now stand. Do we stand with God? Are we near Him or far off?”