“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” – John Stuart Mill, 1867
I watched the coverage, disgusted at what I saw. My three little girls watched beside me; the oldest asked me why all those people were fighting on TV. I tried to explain it to her, but how do you adequately explain a march of Neo-Nazis in 2017? I ended up telling her that some very hateful and badly-behaved people were yelling and throwing things at people they thought looked different from them.
And as I sat there, I thought to myself that someone should stand up and stop this. Someone should stand up and clearly condemn the marching with torches, the Nazi salutes, the chants of “blood and soil.” Someone should unequivocally state that this is not a group supported or condoned by the Republican Party. That we, as a nation, are better than this. We are the nation of all men created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That yes, although any and all persons have free speech rights, that their words and actions were nonetheless deplorable and unacceptable, and that their hatred resulted in the death of a young woman.
I then watched our President equivocate, make excuses, and blame everyone. I watched him refuse to take a clear stand. I watched him clearly reading his script of Nazi condemnation, written for him because apparently he cannot think of how to condemn this behavior on his own. And then I watched as he took an obvious off-script turn and looked up to tell the crowd that he condemned the hatred, bigotry, and violence “on many sides – on many sides.”
There are sides here: they are the sides of good and evil. There can be no good in emulating the behavior of Nazis. There is nothing redeeming there – we cannot allow our President to try to allege that there were “fine people” in a crowd of torch-bearing, heil-shouting white supremacists. To do anything but utterly condemn them is to excuse and justify their actions.
Tina Fey’s biting commentary on Weekend Update, where she shoved cake in her mouth while lamenting the horrors of what happened in Charlottesville, is a nod to Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake.” Although some have derided Tina for what they believe was a recommendation that people stay home and stay quiet instead of fighting NeoNazi terrorism first hand, I believe that Tina’s intent (as she is a very intelligent woman, despite my disagreeing with some of her politics) was to point out, through satire, how many of us are watching this horror unfold and are sitting at home, filling our faces with cake, and doing nothing other than generally expressing our horror to our similarly-situated friends. That we are the very definition of privilege to have the ability to sit at home, peacefully, and watch these things unfold on TV, and then take no other action than to generally complain on Facebook.
Edmund Burke is often attributed with the quote: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” John Stuart Mill’s quote at the top of this article states a similar refrain: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
In the several days after the violence in Charlottesville, a picture made the social media rounds. It was a black and white photograph from the 1940s,depicting a group of mothers, standing naked, holding their babies close to their chests, clutching their young children’s hands, and waiting to be killed by Nazi bullets. I first saw it as I sat in the Prince William County Courthouse, having just finished arguing a motion. It wrenched my heart wide open: I pictured myself, standing in that line, humiliated and terrified, holding my one year old little girl close to me, the other two girls standing at my sides, looking up at me, questioning why this was happening to us. I looked at that photograph, and then I looked at my suit jacket on my arms, my bag of court paperwork beside me on the bench, my ability to vote, to practice law, to represent clients and argue motions. To quote my favorite musical, Hamilton, how lucky I am to be alive right now.
And then I knew that I couldn’t just sit here and weep at the horrors of history while I ate cake and did nothing. That I have to stand up. That I have to tell the world that I am a Republican Woman who does not accept or condone how our President has handled his Presidency thus far. That I respect the office of President too much to allow his behavior to go unchallenged. That I have to get involved, to make myself heard, to speak on behalf of others who I know feel the same as I do. That I have been given this moment in history, this incredible opportunity to be a mother and a practicing attorney, and that to sit quietly on the political sidelines would be to squander that opportunity.
That the only thing needed for this present evil to triumph is for me to do nothing. And I will not do nothing. I will not be silent. I will not be quiet anymore. I don’t know yet the precise plan that is unfolding, but I will not sit by and bemoan our nation’s state without taking action. Edmund Burke is also credited as having said: “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” Even if I can only do a little, I will do something. And I will do it now.
47 comments
Foul language warning on the videos I posted.
I have found that watching livestreams of events is a good way to get a fuller understanding of what actually happened. There was no “march” as a permitted event. The pro-monument people, which included Trad Worker’s, NSM, Richard Spencer’s group and Kessler, the organiser, were to have a rally in Emancipation Park. Because of a failure to secure entrances, they were forced through a crowd of Antifa, BLM and others along Market. It seems an elementary principle of crowd control that groups hostile to each other should be separated, but this was not done. The mask law was not enforced, and assaults occurred in full view of officers who were apparently not permitted to make arrests without CPD approval. Some video:
More video:
And some more:
Dear Heather:
The SJW’s, Antifa’s, liberals and communists et al want us to spend each day claiming we’re not the KKK, white supremacists, white nationalists or nazis. This is because when we do we’re not able to further our own causes or properly counter attack. The point we should be making is that if you and a thousand persons like you, or like Mother Theresa, were protesting in favor of the statues remaining, they would beat you to a bloody pulp. Further, they would blame the violence on you and the media and especially newspapers like the RTD would quickly join them. If you haven’t been called a racist lately its because you’re not actively opposing the politically correct nonsense, liberal policies or you’re just spending too much time claiming not to be one of the aforementioned.
From the Boston Resist Antifas:
There is no room for capitalists, conservatives, libertarians, “classical liberals” or supporters of the US constitution in our city. You MUST leave.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0480487b5469a23d23c3d7023416982bd745599603a88f8ac28ebdba0d70339e.jpg
There is no room for capitalists, conservatives, libertarians, “classical liberals” or supporters of the US constitution in our city. You MUST leave.
It’s obviously a fake account. You fell for it, Warmac, but that’s not surprising.
http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/08/how-to-spot-a-fake-antifa-account.html
Townhall stated it was taken off the Boston Resist Facebook page. You do know that posts can be removed. so, am not sure this is fake.
Pleeeese. Can we stop with the pearl-clutching? Someone’s outrage/apologist gland was squirting extra vigorously I see. When I have the strength to comment on this pablum, I will.
What will you do?
Clutch her pearls it seems.
That really did make me laugh out loud. I imagined the pearl clutching followed by a swoon right onto the fainting couch!
Glad I could make you laugh.
World’s top ten genocidal dictators:
1. Mao Zedong
China
Death toll: 45 million to 75 million
Years in power: 34 (1943-1976)
Worst offense: Great Chinese Famine
Type of regime: Communist
Cause of death: Heart attack
2. Joseph Stalin
USSR
Death toll: 40 million to 62 million
Years in power: 12 (1941-1953)
Worst offense: Gulag camps
Type of regime: Communist
Cause of death: Heart attack
3. Adolf Hitler
Germany
Death toll: 17 million to 20 million
Years in power: 11 (1934-1945)
Worst offense: The Holocaust
Type of regime: Fascist
Cause of death: Suicide
4. Chiang Kai-Shek
China
Death toll: 10 million
Years in power: 18 (1928-1949)
Worst offense: 228 Massacre
Type of regime: Military
Cause of death: Kidney failure
5. Hirohito
Japan
Death toll: 6 million
Years in power: 62 (1926-1989)
Worst offense: Nanking Massacre
Type of regime: Monarchy
Cause of death: Cancer
6. Vladimir Lenin
USSR
Death toll: 4 million
Years in power: 7 (1917-1924)
Worst offense: Russian Civil War
Type of regime: Communist
Cause of death: Cerebral hemorrhage
7. Tojo Hideki
Japan
Death toll: 4 million
Years in power: 3 (1941-1944)
Worst offense: WWII civilian genocide
Type of regime: Military
Cause of death: Executed
8. Yahya Khan
Pakistan
Death toll: 2 million to 12 million
Years in power: 2 (1969-1971)
Worst offense: Bangladesh genocide
Type of regime: Military
Cause of death: Unknown
9. Saddam Hussein
Iraq
Death toll: 2 million
Years in power: 34 (1969-2003)
Worst offense: Kurdish genocide
Type of regime: Authoritarian
Cause of death: Executed
10. Pol Pot
Cambodia
Death toll: 1.7 million to 2.4 million
Years in power: 4 (1975-1979)
Worst offense: Cambodian genocide
Type of regime: Communist
Cause of death: Unconfirmed
Four of the top ten were communist. None were capitalist.
13. Enver Pasha
Turkey
Death toll: 1.1 million to 2.5 million
Years in power: 5 (1913-1918)
Worst offense: Armenian genocide
Type of regime: Military
Cause of death: Killed in battle (according to most accounts)
What a load of over-emotional, hyperbolic BS (no offense to the author).
There are 2 points that I’d like to make here:
1. This entire incident has been ridiculously blown out of proportion. In a nation of 325+ million, an estimated 400-500 people held a neo-nazi march in an insignificant VA city. So? Who cares? Is everyone worried these clowns are going to pile into a bus, head to DC, and take over the gov’t by force? Are you worried that legions of your fellow Americans will look at the pictures of them marching around with their tiki torches and say: Wow, me too! Give me a break. These people are a JOKE, a bad punchline, and their movement will accomplish nothing. That should be obvious to anyone with a lick of sense.
2. My message to Republicans and conservatives: STOP APOLOGIZING FOR THESE PEOPLE! Conservatives did not create neo-nazi’s or their warped ideology. You are not responsible for them or their actions. Stop letting Democrats and the media bully you into apologizing for something that was never your fault in the first place. Show some damn backbone.
Not only stop apologizing but go on the offense against the antifa.
As I said…. there is no need to disavow what we never avowed in the first place.
Agree…totally ridiculous. EMBARRASSING, actually.
Actually, worse than embarrassing. The author is a lawyer.
Perhaps you should think about doing the right “something,” then. Putting the blame on the people that actually caused the mayhem in Charlottesville would be a good start. I would put the culpability on ALL groups that attended the party solely to cause unrest. In the grand scheme of things, President Trump’s condemnation of ALL participants in the riots was so far down that blame list, I have to wonder why you decided to attack him in this forum? Any sane observer should have put the person that gave the PoPo that “stand down” order right at the tippy top of that list. Sadly, this “little” something you have chosen to do seems so weak and inadequate.
I would also ask Heather if she is familiar with the Armenian Genocide or Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Has she read A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
She should also look at the collectivization of the Soviets. And then she should look at the what Antifa is, who funds them, and how many people (mostly LEO) they have killed and then she can get back to us about this march and who was starting the violence.
As a long time conservative activist, I can honestly say I’ve never met any fellow conservatives or Republicans who did not openly condemn and deplore the wickedness of the neo-Nazi movement, the klan, and other look groups that the left has tried to associate Republicans with. I’m sure there are some out there but I’ve not met them. However, to discuss this specific incident without calling attention to the violent radical left and the Governor and mayor who allowed the radicals to march into the crowd and start mayhem – deliberately in my view – is a triumph of emotion over facts. The Nazi’s are evil. The Marxist rabble is evil. And both are a cancer in the world, not just the US. Both are the enemy of freedom loving people.
When emotions triumph over the rule of law, you end up with a lynching. Who will hold the rope? I certainly won’t until the trial is over and the verdict rendered.
As you say, neo-nazis are evil and antifa are evil. I am unwilling to become evil because I am angry and frustrated by both of their evil.
No one needs to disavow something that they never avowed in the first place. And as odious as the ideas of Nazis are, THEY were not the ones throwing things. That was the communist Antifa thugs.
They were the ones murderring people with cars though.
If Fields was being a murderous bastard, he will be tried and convicted. That has no bearing at all on whether we should be allowing communists to violently suppress free speech in this country. Even the free speech of people we vehemently disagree with.
If? Now she’s a defense attorney!
When you decide innocence or guilt without the benefit of a trial then you are no better than the neo-nazis. It is about time we remember that being Americans has something to do with the Constitution and the rule of law. If Fields is convicted then punishment will be assigned and it will then be quite severe.
I see you edited your original comment to somehow be even more sympathetic to Nazis, that is amazing.
I don’t have to sympathize with the people exercising their constitutional rights to know how very dangerous to us all allowing suppression of those rights is.
With friends like Amy, who needs enemies? Conservatives’ worst nightmare. She might be a plant. Her message was designed to remind people there was killing and maiming, pure homicidal evil from one side.
A conservatives worst nightmare is people who want to forego the rule of law and grab the rope to lynch somebody. Her message doesn’t at all account for th evils that have been occurring around the country thanks to antifa.
You praised Death Wish and Bernie Goetz in another thread, and now you’re calling their behavior a conservative’s worst nightmare? Are you confused, Warmac?
I am tired of your lies and mischaracterization. You are a consistent apologist for antifa and you belong on media matters.
Lies? You DID praise them, said when harassment reaches a point a person reacts. Here you write against what you favored there on the thread “Statues and Unpersons.” It is there for anyone see you did just that, and now you reverse course and say it is a conservatives worst nightmare. Which is it?
I do not apologize for anti-fascism. I am anti-fascist. Clearly and unmistakably so. Confront them at every turn. That’s how good people think. It’s how Mitt Romney, Republican candidate for POTUS and a leading conservative thinks. Me too.
It’s good you tire of being confronted because your sycophantic behavior is disgusting to right-thinking people. Indeed, it goes so far as to indicate sociopathy.
Unlike you, I await a criminal trial. I remember OJ and his famous run – and then an acquittal against the facts. I also remember a civil trial using the same facts and an utterly different conclusion.
Wow, that is a very liberal attitude to have.Congrats.
A believer in the constitutional rule of law.
Hey, me too!
[…] You can read it here: http://thebullelephant.com/i-will-do-something-and-i-will-do-it-now/ […]
Heather, I share your passion for condemning the behavior of Nazi sympathizers. This summer, as I stood in what once was the Nazi Party headquarters in Nuremberg, the cruel and evil nature of that despicable regime was made even more chilling. As you may remember from your history, the Nazis targeted the disabled, infirm, gypsies as well as Jews; anyone not in conformity with their view of German purity. Such targeted evil still exists in our world, I suppose as testimony to man’s fallen nature. In your impassioned pursuit of such evil, I encourage you to widen your vision to include the far Left political force that has reared its ugly head once again in our country (not since the 1960’s). Their violent tactics of anarchist destruction are recognizable and have been on full display during the Occupy movement, Black Lives Matter mayhem, Antifa protests, and on college campuses such as Berkeley where THEY stood in the way of Free Speech rights guaranteed by our First Amendment. In their righteous anger against Nazi sympathizers, the American people must recognize and condemn the violent political Left who share the same targeted hatred toward those who do not conform to their agendas.
Why do I suspect Mrs. Steele is a ‘Never Trumper’?
…and living in a “mad-hysteria-bubble”.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-in-a-mass-hysteria-bubble
That’s great stuff. Thanks for posting the link.
Hear hear!