Provocation And Counterattack

     Every now and then, it’s important, even for the most confrontation-averse of us, to go on the attack. In politics and public discourse, the unwillingness ever to attack, even when a clearly positive opportunity presents itself, is a fatal weakness. No battle can be won by remaining permanently on the defensive. All that even the most successful defense can achieve is to endure.

     However, spotting the time and place to attack is a variety of discernment that requires refinement. The exchange proposed here is a good example of how one can attack the Left’s current favorite rhetorical tactic, often with devastating effect. However, the typical cringing reflex reaction most whites have to being called a racist inhibits the perception of the opportunity.

     David Harsanyi’s article at The Daily Signal presents a good case for study:

     “Words are violence” has always been an illiberal notion meant to stifle speech and open discourse. Popularized by a generation of coddled and brittle college students, it now guides policy on editorial pages at newspapers such as The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, and most major news outlets....

     You may also have noticed another progressive slogan gaining popularity these days: “Silence is violence.” It’s no longer enough not to peddle wrongthink in the op-ed pages of the local paper, but now you must also actively champion woke progressive positions or you, too, are tacitly engaged in violence and racism.

     This is a neat trick: To speak out in the wrong way is violence. Not to speak out is violence. Not to speak out in the way progressives dictate is violence. This is why your apolitical local lawn care company is sending out emails promising to dedicate themselves to Black Lives Matter. No one wants to be accused of harboring counterrevolutionary sympathies.

     Harsanyi stops short of the obvious inference, possibly because he doesn’t want to be accused of felonious incitement. Yet I, your fearless Curmudgeon Emeritus, will state it openly, and in large font at that:

If words are violence,
And silence is violence,
Then I’m ready for some real violence!
Are you, Lefties?

     At which point the Left, which is acutely conscious of its minority standing – why else would it be attempting censorship by intimidation? – will swiftly back off. Being outnumbered and outgunned five to one will normally elicit a plea for an armistice, Jim Morrison’s silly notions notwithstanding.

     Here’s another, ironically presented by someone who might know better, superannuated guitarist Peter Frampton:

     This is dishonest, and dishonesty always signals an opportunity for a counterattack. The simplest method is to highlight the dishonesty and the agenda it conceals:

     “If you don’t like my saying that ‘White Lives Matter,’ you clearly think they don’t. You think the thousands of white victims of black criminals are insignificant, whereas the nine unarmed blacks killed by the police last year are all-important. You think blacks should be immune to the law and law enforcement, even as black rioters and looters demonstrate how important to the protection of white lives and property the law and the police really are. That makes you a supporter of thugs. Keep your hands where I can see them and back away from me slowly, dude; I’m armed.”

     Yes, there’s anger in the retort. Anger is appropriate at such a time. If you’re a decent American, you’d better be angry right now. What I’ve cited here are important tactics in a campaign intended to take your country from you. Anyone who grasps that is either angry as hell or part of the Leftist insurrection.

     Have a few words from KT at Ace’s place:

     [D]uring the Korean War, the ChiComs got American POWs to cooperate with them by encouraging small concessions. And I've noticed that people are starting to pay more attention to the Marxist training of the activists who started BLM.

     Could that have anything to do with people feeling manipulated by the phrase, "Black Lives Matter"? Could it have anything to do with people losing their jobs for saying "All Lives Matter"? Why all the efforts to explain why it is necessary to repeat the mantra, "Black Lives Matter"?

     The Left and its black racialist adjunct aren’t striving to “explain” anything. They’re working to suppress facts and the convictions the facts support, and to program us with a sense of guilt for nonexistent offenses. Ceaseless repetition of a simple maxim, a tactic revolutionaries have used for many decades, can do little more...but it can do that much, if we fail to counterattack it with energy and, yes, anger:

Activist: Black Lives Matter!
American: Prove it, scumbag.

     Have a nice day.