Sometimes, the raw facts are all we need:
I want live ammo and shoot-to-kill orders, and I want them now.
First, a few links:
Please read the linked stories. They tell a consistent tale: a tale that depicts a trend. The trend is toward increasing disruption, vandalism, and violence against persons in a growing number of locales – by a growing number of insurgents.
I have no idea how many times I’ve written this, but it seems to require further reiterations:
Most of the insurgents are not principally motivated by a political ideology or aim. They might profess such an aim when interrogated under police restraint, but it’s merely a smokescreen for a more important motivation: the simple love of destruction. For it is a well-confirmed fact of human nature that an individual is principally motivated by the immediate satisfactions of his activities...and I’ve written that before an unknown number of times, as well.
Now for a neologism: the rioters’ conduct is Cthulistically motivated. A passage from that progenitor of horror fiction, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, is on point:
[M]ankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.[From “The Call of Cthulhu”]
Let there be no doubt that a significant fraction of Mankind would thrill to such a gospel. They are Cthulists, whether or not they are familiar with Lovecraft’s mythos. Wanton violence and destruction is their chief delight. Such persons have existed in every place and time, for have we not records of their deeds that reach back as far as human recording extends?
There is an element of playing at being gods in such conduct, for every wholesome faith maintains that life is “God’s to give and God’s to take away” (Alasdair Ian Stewart ). Justly acquired property, be it said plainly, is an extension of one’s life through the investment of labor. To destroy life and property is the Cthulist’s most joyous exercise, his expression of a “freedom” that raises him to the level of the divine.
Many Americans are itching to close with the Cthulists and put an end to them – literally. I am one such, despite my years. But many others, probably a majority, are disheartened for the future of our nation...and sick with fear that what the Cthulists have inflicted upon Portland, Minneapolis, Seattle, Louisville, New York City, and other places will soon be inflicted upon their homes and suburbs. For some who might never imagined that any such thing could happen to them, the fear has already become a reality.
Of only one thing am I certain: The Cthulists already at work, by demonstrating that you can get away with it, are attracting new allegiants by the day. Their ranks are swelling. They’re being funded and equipped by persons who want to topple the American order. If permitted to enlarge further, they will soon overwhelm any police force that might think to quell them. Only the mobilized field army of the United States will have a chance to put them down.
Time is not on America’s side. Verbum sat sapienti.
Beware, Gentle Reader. I’m about to make extensive use of the word they. I’ll be using it without saying explicitly who I mean by it. That will make what follows sound somewhat...conspiratorial. Even a trifle loopy. But you’re easily bright enough and well-informed enough to know of whom I speak. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here in the first place, right?
They prefer the isolated, undefended target:
You can read about such incidents in innumerable stories heavily bruited about on the Web. The pattern is surely clear by now: if you’re isolated and unable (or unwilling) to defend yourself, you’re a choice victim and therefore more likely to be targeted than the large, coherent group or the conspicuously armed citizen. The cases where they have met powerful, numerically superior, or armed opposition serve to highlight their tactical preferences.
What do they hope to achieve in this fashion? Why, the same as any terrorist anywhere or anywhen: terror. First, they seek to paralyze normal social and commercial interactions. That induces a first-stage atomization that creates more targets. Second, they seek to intimidate and subjugate: both those whom they target overtly and those who envision themselves as likely targets-to-be. Third, by their seemingly unopposed advance, they seek to create the impression that they cannot and will not be stopped. That induces some among the powers-that-be to think in terms of “negotiation” and “compromise.”
(Let us pass for the moment over the folly of negotiating or compromising with them. Other governments have done it many times. There’s no reason to think ours is somehow protected against that variety of madness. Indeed, were another man in the White House, we might have seen it already.)
And they have allies. Their allies aren’t necessarily explicit about it, though being not too terribly bright, they do occasionally let the mask slip. Those allies speak in “reasonable” tones. They strive to make a degree of surrender sound like “the most prudent course.” And they “but” quite a lot: “Of course, no one condones this violence, but...”
Allies with political altitude have already assisted them substantially. The police stand-downs and reductions in funding for police departments make the allies’ allegiance plain. The lockdowns and related mandates have parted us from one another – and from one another’s support and defense – to a highly convenient degree...convenient for them.
And they are exploiting those allies’ assistance to the fullest.
...we’ve seen one demonstration after another of the power of a militant minority with a short, coherent agenda. That militant minority is capitalizing on the diffuseness of its opposition: i.e., us. Their aims are few, while ours are many. It’s easier for us to say “I can’t do anything about it,” or “someone else will take care of it,” than to engage in the struggle. Thus we cede the initiative to those who seek to destroy what we claim to cherish.There may not be a solution. Decent persons at a distance from such scurrilities are difficult to rouse to action. They have their own lives to live: their own responsibilities to discharge, their own bills to pay, and their own worries to worry. Rallying the majority of the population of the nation against the hatred and lunacy the Left has unleashed is difficult even to imagine. It didn’t happen in Revolutionary times – the consensus among historians of the era is that no more than 10% of American colonials were enthusiastic supporters of the Revolution, much less actively engaged in making independence from Britain happen – and it’s less likely in our current era.
As I wrote above, they are a mobile force that preys on conveniently isolated and / or undefended targets. They have a planning corps, a source of funds and other resources, a scouting apparatus, and sufficient mobility to strike anywhere in these United States. We’ve all seen the pictures of their fleets of buses.
They have the initiative. We’ve been playing defense – to the extent that we’ve been “playing” at all. That’s why they continue to advance.
And so it will be until we seize the initiative, seek them out wherever they are, and destroy them — and all their political allies – to the last man.
Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long in the enemy's rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water, the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How may it be said that these two cannot exist together? – Mao Tse-tung
From Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit comes this bit of reportage:
Don’t believe your lying eyes.
Believe the fake news “journalists” at the Washington Post.This is the crap salad the far left WaPo is serving today.
Now you know why no one trusts the mainstream media.
About 93 percent of the racial-justice protests that swept the United States this summer remained peaceful and nondestructive, according to a report released Thursday, with the violence and property damage that has dominated political discourse constituting only a minute portion of the thousands of demonstrations that followed the killing of George Floyd in May.The report, produced by the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, also concluded that an escalation in the government response to protests and a sharp uptick in extremist activity means the United States faces a growing risk of “political violence and instability” ahead of the 2020 election.
It calls to mind a brilliant video that features one of my personal heroines, Brigitte Gabriel:
The “peaceful majority” shields the militant minority that undertakes the “work” of “revolution.” It is always that way. Never in history has a revolutionary movement comprised more than about 10% of the population among which it operated. The Antifa / Black Lives Matter forces rampaging through our cities come to far less than 10% of the population of this nation.
The “peaceful majority” tactic shielded the Nazis as they rose to power. It shielded Lenin’s Bolsheviks as they rose to power. It shields Muslims as their jihadis ravage Europe. And it is shielding the violent revolutionaries doing their damnedest to terrorize Americans into surrendering their rights to the Left.
Herewith, have two widely contrasting opinions on “what is to be done:”
There is no question that dispatching military forces to quell the violence in the afflicted cities would have grave consequences. Those consequences might take decades to play out completely. And Schlichter has a powerful point about the unfavorable operating environment the military would confront in such places as Portland and Seattle. Arresting rioters and turning them over to civil “authorities” unwilling even to hold them, much less prosecute them, would be pointless. Events have already demonstrated that.
But as Will Briggs points out, there are other methods, including live fire:
...it is not legal to riot, burn, loot, pillage, commit mayhem and murder, even if done in the name of “anti-racism” or whatever other slogan the rabble uses to justify their rapine. It is, however, legal to use force, even deadly force, to quell riots. Further, everybody knows all these things and the reasons behind them. So opening fire is justified, though perhaps not prudent. I say it is prudent, and hope to convince you of that.Everybody also knows progressive mayors, governors and most of our oligarchs are encouraging the riots, asking their own people, as it were, to shit in their own backyards and then light themselves on fire. These rulers have no love for their peoples, and are acting immorally to increase their own power. These rulers thus have no moral authority and can and must be usurped by higher authority. Part of “opening fire” would include the arrest, trial, and hanging of those mayors, governors, and oligarchs convicted of treason and dereliction of sacred duty.
Opening fire might indeed lose Trump the election, because propagandists would scream “Literally Hitler!” with demonic fury—well, with increased demonic fury. These propagandists would be believed by a sufficient number of the easily persuaded. If Trump loses because of opening fire, right wing purges would begin in earnest next January, and our approach toward the leftist singularity would accelerate....
It is clear the left—the forces behind Forgetful Joe—will do all they can to steal the election. It takes less effort than you think to get away it, too. There’s no need to cheat in, say, California and New York. These are going blue no matter what. Have free elections there, and tout how honest they were! But states like Michigan might go red, and tip the balance. The left only has to cheat in progressive controlled Detroit and Ann Arbor and leave the rest alone to win.
Whether it would be wise to go to all-out, live-fire military suppression of the riots – including the arrest, trial, and punishment of the various mayors and governors tacitly and / or openly encouraging them – thus depends upon a single question: Would the consequences of doing so be worse than the consequences of allowing the riots to continue?
Under the laws and precedents relevant to the suppression of riots and insurrections, the “peaceful majority” acting as a shield to the violent rioters is in the same position as an accessory to murder: just as culpable, legally, as the man who pulled the trigger. But the legal aspects of the matter are only part of it. What about the social and political consequences? Can we estimate them with any assurance?
One consequence might be the restoration of confidence in the greater American public that the federal government will act to protect public order when necessary. That’s an important conviction to restore and strengthen. But another would be the inculcation of a “win or die” mindset among the diehard revolutionaries. Thus there could be a brief flare-up of even more intense violence from the portion of the insurrectionists who have not yet been dealt with. I believe that such a flare-up would be brief, and no harder to extinguish than the riots of today...but I could be wrong.
The Democrats have made it plain that they intend to steal the elections by whatever means prove expedient, as Will Briggs wrote above. Thus, the difference between the political consequences of going to live fire and the political consequences of allowing the riots to continue is unpredictable. And that assumes that the elections were to take place after the riots had been suppressed by the military.
There are no rainbows nor unicorns in our immediate future. There’s strife, and violence, and a deepening of the already deep divisions in the populace. We’ve earned those things with our inanition as the Left has made inroads into our communications, education, and entertainment sectors, and has entrenched itself in our “deep state” bureaucracies. Millions of Americans actively support the insurrectionists. They root for the overthrow of the federal government and the elimination of the rights Americans have enjoyed for more than two centuries. And like “the poor,” they will be “with us” even after the riots have been put down.
If the military is called upon to suppress the riots, innocents will suffer. But innocents are suffering now. In which case would innocents suffer less – and does it matter which innocents we have in mind?
Of only one thing am I perfectly sure: as Brigitte Gabriel has said of Muslims, the peaceful majority are irrelevant. They are merely a protective shield around the revolutionary minority. Ponder the Mao Tse-tung quote at the start of this tirade.
We face a choice of evils. Which is the lesser of the two?
No other choices are available.
By now my Gentle Readers are aware of what happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin last night. Perhaps you’re also aware that various “leaders” on the Left are calling for more riots, more looting, more violence, and in more places around America. And you simply must be aware that Nancy Pelosi has called President Trump and the Republicans in Congress “domestic enemies” and “enemies of the state.”
Americans who still love this country and want to see it defended have been waiting for a federal response. There hasn’t been one yet. There are no indications that there will be one any time soon. President Trump appears to have decided to give the afflicted states’ governments a chance to put down the rioters and reassert public order – which those governments have declined to do. Meanwhile, cities are being destroyed by AntiFa acting under the banner of “Black Lives Matter.”
How long will the president wait?
These aren’t “civil rights demonstrations.” They’re not “peaceful protests” about “police misconduct.” They’re insurrections. Unless they’re treated as such, they’ll continue to spread. Without a federal response, either AntiFa will own the country de facto, or armed civilians will eliminate it down to the last masked, black-garbed cur, without bothering to secure approval from “the authority of the law.”
In either case, justice as a formal process based on written laws and codified judicial procedures – i.e., justice as Americans have understood it for two centuries – will be dead.
There are already some signs that the public understanding of these events is maturing toward armed confrontation. Consider the McCloskeys, whom endless media outlets have defamed as “pointing guns at peaceful protesters.” Seldom does such a story mention that the “peaceful protesters” destroyed a gate that closes off a private street into a private, proprietary community. Even less often does such a story mention that the “peaceful protesters” shouted threats to the McCloskeys’ lives and property...nor that they returned in hopes of actualizing those threats, only to be deterred by a well armed security force.
In recognition that the disease is spreading, private citizens and neighborhoods are quietly forming “laagers:” zones whose householders are armed, and whose outskirts are discreetly monitored against the possibility of incursion. My neighborhood is one such: heavily armed and uneasily braced for whatever might come to us. Should trouble come to call, we won’t fire warning shots; ammo’s gotten too damned expensive.
I don’t want that. I doubt that you do. But it’s the sort of attitude civilians must take: civilians are not organized enough to go on the offensive. (Besides, our wives would never permit it.)
Still, we have a federal government that commands a large, well armed and organized army. That army is capable of more than post-hurricane disaster relief and ousting Middle Eastern tyrants – and We the People pay for its upkeep. We need it to march. Why does it sit idle?
The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence. [Constitution of the United States, Article IV, Section 4)
What good is that “guarantee” if the federal government should refuse to act against the AntiFa / Black Bloc / Black Lives Matter insurrectionists?
AntiFa is already advancing into quiet, entirely residential areas as depicted here. To what end, when there’s nothing there to loot? David Thompson provides an analysis:
This is what happens when malevolent narcissists don’t get slapped and thrown to the ground. The kind of psychology we’re seeing, over and over again, overwhelmingly from the left, is an exercise in bad faith, a fundamental dishonesty....This isn’t politics. This is recreational sociopathy.
The Mao-lings who obstruct and intimidate random motorists, or who harass random restaurant customers, scaring their children, or who scream amplified profanities at random people trying to sleep, while shining lights into their bedrooms - they don’t do these things because they care about civil rights, or policing, or whatever this week’s Issue Of Great Concern happens to be. They do it because menacing other people - and spoiling someone’s day, or night, arbitrarily - is gratifying. If, that is, you’re a certain kind of person. They are, as it were, pleasuring themselves.
Let’s close with a brief video from England:
And Rudyard Kipling’s apocalyptic poem:
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy — willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.
Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not suddently bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.
If the English are already at the tipping point, how far from it are we? Dare we draw any nearer to it?
Buy ammo. And pray.
A certain Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known to most who know of him as Nikolai Lenin, advised his fellow Communist agitators and insurrectionists to “Probe with the bayonet. If you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, push.” To those who seek to bring down a country, it’s sound tactical advice. Just as in ground warfare, the soft points in a nation are the places to attack. Hurling your forces against their strongest positions only guarantees a high body count.
The coverage of the violence and vandalism that has overtaken many American cities makes it clear that the Antifa / “Black Lives Matter” insurrectionists have selected genuinely soft points against which to “probe.” Indeed, in Seattle, the police have been deprived of all non-lethal crowd-control weapons. They face a choice between firing live ammo at the insurrectionists and doing nothing. So Seattle’s police chief has told them to do nothing:
In other words, Seattle has gone belly-up to the insurrectionists. The city’s “forces of order” have shrugged and walked away. While nothing quite as stark has happened in any other riot-torn city yet, the mayors and police of those cities have exhibited a similar degree of inanition.
What remains are the active-duty United States Army, the National Guard, and the armed citizen.
I’ve said more than once that we cannot remain on defense. We are at war, and have been for some time now. Those prosecuting the war have cast aside all pretense. Many of the insurrectionists are carrying firearms. Some have already exchanged fire with others who would oppose them. If the insurrectionists are not thrown onto the defense by some equally capable force, we will lose the country. The forlorn hope that “the police will protect us” has been shown to be a phantasm.
On that score, Michelle Malkin, herself a recent victim of the insurrectionists, has a few thoughts for you:
It's not "socialism" or "communism" under which we suffer. Our dangerously chaotic, selectively oppressive predicament is more accurately described as "anarcho-tyranny." The late conservative columnist Sam Francis first coined the term in 1992 to diagnose a condition of "both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny — the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes."...Anarcho-tyranny is how hoodlums can toss statues into rivers with impunity, while citizens disgusted by Black Lives Matter street graffiti are charged with "hate crimes" — as David Nelson and Nicole Anderson in Martinez, California, were by a George Soros-funded district attorney two weeks ago.
Anarcho-tyranny is how rioters can shut down highways and byways on a whim without fear of arrest, while commuters trying to escape the window-smashing barbarians obstructing traffic are charged with "assault" — as poor Jennifer Watson of Denver, Colorado, was this week.
Anarcho-tyranny is how hordes of gay pride activists marching shoulder to shoulder can defy social distancing guidelines with gushing approbation from radical left-wing medical "experts," while anti-lockdown and anti-mask mandate protesters are deemed public health menaces who now face snitch hotlines, fines, house arrest or jail time.
Anarcho-tyranny is how 1,000 black militia members can take over the streets in Georgia and point their guns at motorists as they demand reparations, while white citizen militia members in Idaho, Utah and New Mexico have been smeared publicly as racists and face injunctions for peacefully defending their neighborhoods.
Sam Francis’s vision was prescient. Our countrymen in the riot-torn cities would surely agree.
I haven’t got anything more to say that I haven’t said more than once already, and I’m not going to wear out my fingers with pointless repetition. Instead I’ll let one of my favorite colleagues, David De Gerolamo of N.C. Renegade, close this essay:
War is not coming. It is here. If you need any more proof than the shortage of available firearms and ammunition, look to the censorship of the news from the front. War may not be at your doorstep today, but any sapient individual understands that time is of the essence.As COVID-19 has now become the government’s means to control us, our work and our food supply, do you think they will abate? The time to have prepared for your supplies is in the past. The time to recognize that the war is here is now. The actions we take today will impact how our children will live in the future. From what I see and hear, Communism is winning and we are kneeling.
It’s time to get off our knees: to lock, load, close with the enemy, and destroy it. All the less demanding options we’ve relied upon have failed us.
Have a nice day.
The deliberately fomented rioting, looting, and destruction of the past week have transformed several American cities into war zones: places where you don’t belong if you’re not willing to be taken for a combatant. While the “rationale” is “police racism,” supposedly exemplified by the still-contested death of George Floyd and the fully justified shooting of Rayshard Brooks, the real motivation is to render the country, or a large part thereof, ungovernable. The Left intends thus to effect a transition of federal power from Right to Left.
There are two conceivable federal responses to this insurrection:
If there’s a third approach that differs significantly from those two, I can’t think what it might be.
Unfortunately, federal law presents an ambiguous argument. The first responsibility, according to the Insurrection Act of 1807 as amended in 2007, lies with the state governments. The president is authorized to use federal forces only if “domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.”
The argument turns on the meaning of the word incapable. In those cities worst afflicted by rioting and looting, the state governments have largely declined to act. But incapable does not mean unwilling. State garrisons of the National Guard might well be adequate to the task, were they permitted to undertake it. We can’t know in advance of the attempt.
It seems from this that the president lacks a legal basis for using the U.S. Army. In effect, the unwillingness of the state governments to act has denied him the legal rationale he would need. However, there’s a fly in the ointment the size of a B-52: the possibility of a Presidential Finding that by tolerating the rioting without responding to it, the relevant state governments have aligned themselves with the rioters and are therefore in a state of insurrection.
And the legal tangle doesn’t end there. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution puts the authority for suppressing an insurrection in the hands of Congress. While the Insurrection Act seems to be Congress’s full and appropriate contribution to the matter, persons adverse to the use of federal force against the rioters and complaisant state governments could still argue that funding for such an operation requires explicit Congressional appropriation.
A fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, eh, Ollie?
As the calendar advances toward November 3, the political consequences of the riots and the possible responses to them are likely to overshadow the practical consequences to the rioters, their organizers, and the cities and states that continue to tolerate them.
It seems indisputable that the organizers of these riots have as their object the removal of President Donald Trump from the Oval Office. Indeed, a founder of “Black Lives Matter” has said so openly. That makes the political reaction to the riots among ordinary Americans a critical consideration.
Tucker Carlson, with whom I (and a great many other viewers) usually agree, seems to be demanding a forcible federal response:
He’s likely to get a lot of concurrences for that view, especially from decent Americans in or near the affected cities. However, Kurt Schlichter has an argument for not deploying federal forces:
There are two types of operations relevant here – kinetic and information. A kinetic operation is actual warfare. It’s violence designed to defeat the enemy and cause his surrender by either physically destroying him or occupying his territory and compelling surrender. An information operation is designed to affect the perceptions, and thereby the actions, of the target. Kinetic ops tend to do something to the enemy; an info op tends to get the target to do something to himself.Elections are usually information operations. They attempt to build a narrative and play on perceptions and cause the target to take the action that will lead to victory. That is, get the target (the electorate) vote for the candidate the info operator wants elected.
Okay, so what is the 2020 elections, with the rioting, vandalism, violence and occupations?
This still an information operation, not a kinetic one.
They want to convince us we are powerless, that everyone else supports their commie agenda, that we cannot win. Their tactics are designed to create that impression and crush our morale. These include the 24/7 media hype, the outright media lies, the movie stars with their dumb PSAs, the staged statue attacks, the corporate solidarity proclamations, the social media cancellations, and the craven kneeling by people who are supposed to stand up for us. But another tactic, familiar to any student of insurgencies, is to provoke an overreaction by those in power in order to undermine its moral authority. They want is to make us (including the president) think this is a kinetic operation, and get our side to make fundamental strategic errors by failing to recognize the true nature of the threat. They hope that such a mismatch between perception and reality will then lead to gravely damaging blunders. One of those would be Trump succumbing to his legit frustration and sending in a bunch of federal troops to crack skulls in Seattle.
Which argument – the demand for bold leadership and swift suppressive federal action, or the counterpoised demand to let the riots hang the Left electorally – is likely to prevail in the president’s mind? Trump is a supremely practical man. He’s guided by his convictions about what will work. If Carlson is correct, only a swift federal response will guarantee Trump’s continued occupation of the White House. If Schlichter is correct, that would be the mistake that would make Trump a one-term president.
My viscera speak as does Carlson. My reasoning powers speak as does Schlichter. I suppose it’s a good thing that I’m not president at the moment.
If President Trump can face the relevant state governments with the prospect of consequences unacceptable to them should they continue to refrain from acting against the rioters, he might achieve both the objectives in view: the quelling of the disturbances and his re-election (hopefully with a cooperative Congress) in November. Let’s not kid ourselves; Trump’s re-election is vital to the restoration of economy, the securing of the borders, the reformation of important federal institutions, and something approaching sane federal governance. A Biden Administration would be a witch’s brew of corruption, Constitutional violations, arrogations of authorities never granted, and general chaos as those behind him rise to the levers of power and act to implement the far-left agenda that has captured the Democrat Party.
And all a voluble novelist / commentator from Long Island can do is wait and see.
No one’s going to like what I’m about to say. Hell, I don’t like what I’m about to say. But it must be said, and loudly at that, so here come the big letters:
At this point, Minnesota’s “forces of order” cannot or will not restore order in its largest cities. Moreover, the violence is swiftly spreading beyond its origins. The prospects for statewide chaos are grim – and should it be permitted to continue much longer, it will endanger other states as well. A comparable variety of unrest is manifesting in several other cities as we speak.
The Constitution authorizes Congress to federalize “the militia” – in this case, the National Guard is the closest approach – in case of war or insurrection. (Article I, Section 8, paragraph 15) If Congress fails to do so of its own initiative, President Trump should call a special session and put the question openly before it. Should Congress still fail to act, the president would have the same authority to act that President Washington exercised to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, and President Cleveland used to suppress the Pullman Strike.
This sort of development was explicitly contemplated by the Founding Fathers, and provisions made for it in the Constitution. Indeed, it’s one of the two inarguable justifications for the maintenance of a federal armed force. If there’s no will to use that force, there is no justification for the federal government whatsoever.
I told you up front that you wouldn’t like it. I don’t either. But facts are facts.
