How About a Love-In?

What a crazy day in Charlottesville.  A bunch of people with literally no mainstream political support anywhere gather, there's an even larger counter-rally, some violence ensues, the whole country is looking at Charlottesville now.  Ironically, almost none of the people are actually from around here.  I don't know about this time, but the last time there was a rally a few months ago, KKK members came in from another state.  I assume local members would have come if there were any.

I don't believe this rally was instigated by left-wingers to make the right look bad, but I do believe that left-wingers couldn't have done a better job themselves than these bozos have done for them.  Down to the stupid name, "Rally to Unite the Right," which it has in a way -- even top members of the Republican party who usually disagree on everything have condemned the rally.

I'm not the organizing sort, but I have a pretty good idea of how I would implement a rally to defend the statue of Robert E. Lee.  My first principle is that it is not about race, so no group with the word "white" in their names would be invited.  Beyond that, it would not be an angry rally but rather a love-in:

(a) everyone is encouraged to bring a canned food item for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank;
(b) no torches allowed, but candles are welcome;
(c) minimal speeches, chiefly of people saying what things they are grateful for;
(d) prayers for unity;
(e) all counter-protesters given a flower and thanked for their civic participation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country Music

I noticed a long time ago that there isn't much difference between the sound of country music and rock music nowadays. If I'm surfing my radio and I come to a station playing jazz, classical, or rap, I recognize it right away; but if I come to a country or rock station, I often can't tell which it is until the song is half over. Country songs often have screaming guitars that would fit equally well in a hard rock song, and only a minority have a recognizably country instrument such as a fiddle or a banjo. All the same, no one could listen to a country music station for more than a few minutes without realizing that it is definitely not a rock station. What are the differences? There are some stylistic differences. Country songs are more likely to have a boogey beat or certain western-sounding bass lines. They also tend to be more formulaic: if you can't predict how a country song ends, you probably don't listen to much country music. But those things aren'
Read more

Science and Philosophy, Part I: Hume and Popper

I've been listening to a lecture series on philosophy recently, and, even though I haven't gotten past the Greeks yet, it has reminded me of a number of issues that trouble me about science. I want to take the opportunity to express my concerns here. Along the way, I will probably oversimplify philosophy a great deal -- not on purpose, but rather because I have only a simplistic understanding of it. I welcome responses to clear up my misconceptions. One of my issues with science is the famous idea of Karl Popper that it can never establish positive claims, only falsify wrong ones. The history of this goes back to David Hume, the 18th century Scottish sceptic. He shook up the philosophical world by claiming that science could never prove anything through induction -- that is, drawing conclusions about physical laws based on observations. The classic illustration is the sun's rising. Even though the sun has risen every day for our whole lives, and for countless human l
Read more

Three stages in liberal denial of media bias

I was 15 years old in 1984, and an avid follower of politics and the news. When Reagan was making his decision whether to run for re-election, I was opposed to it. It wasn't that I didn't like Reagan; I loved him. But I was convinced that he wouldn't stand a chance in the election, and I didn't want to see him lose. Of course, he went on to win one of the most lopsided elections in history. Why was I so wrong? Because I had been watching network news (the only kind, back then) and the coverage was overwhelmingly negative. Since that time, I have watched with disbelief as liberals have criticized Fox News as unbalanced, culminating in the amazing spectacle of the president himself declaring that Fox is not a legitimate source of journalism. Meanwhile, these same liberals refuse to acknowledge that ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, etc. (ad nauseum) have any bias of their own. What makes this all the more incredible is that a number of studies have been produced demonstr
Read more