On a lovely Saturday morning in August, a little gathering was set to take place in sleepy Charlottesville, Virginia. Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer, and a few other well-known white nationalist agitators put together a rally they called “Unite the Right.” They even went so far as to get a permit from the city to hold the rally, and when the city officials tried to revoke the permit and move the rally to a more open and favorable spot in town, the went to court and got the original permit reinstated.

Meanwhile, a group called “Peoples Action for Racial Justice” also obtained a permit for a legal assembly to be held at the same time as the “Unite the Right” rally, in another park nearby. 

As could have been predicted, the two groups clashed, and lots of violent and boisterous confrontations ensued. Remarkably, not a shot was fired, notwithstanding the large numbers of heavy firearms that were present. The Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, made an observation as he praised the local law-enforcement community for dealing with a potentially dangerous situation with aplomb. “The Charlottesville police did a magnificent job. They had to be very careful,” the governor said. “We had been planning for this for a while. We had to show tremendous restraint because ... these people all came armed. I’ve never seen so many weapons. These people were wearing better gear than my own state police were wearing. They had body armor, helmets. I mean people were walking around with semi-automatic rifles through the streets.”

Aside from the noise, things were going as well as they could, but then “it” happened.

A 2010 Dodge Challenger came barreling down an avenue, at a high speed, and rammed into a line of cars and a crowd of people who were setting out to march across town to counter-protest the Unite the Right gathering. A young lady was killed and 19 other people were injured. The alleged driver, James A. Fields has been charged with murder.

Obviously, nobody wants to see this sort of thing happen. This is not a left or right issue, this is basic humanity. The rally organizers are an odious bunch, espousing white supremacy, and genetic superiority of whatever race they suppose makes up the “white” race, i.e. whatever it is that they think THEY are, and espousing the inferiority of the “black” people, who, in reality, probably share many genetic markers with them, since most black Americans have an ethnically diverse lineage which includes European ancestry. In short, these ralliers are largely ignorant. They hold up Adolf Hitler as a hero, not realizing that we went to war to stop him, at the cost of thousands of American lives. The other side, glorifies socialist and communist heroes, not seeming to realize that we went to war in Korea and Vietnam to stop the spread of Communism, and lost thousands of Americans in the process.

The important thing to remember, is it is not okay to “punch a Nazi”. It is not okay to harm a “commie” or anyone else, for that matter. If somebody’s speech is offensive to you, the best thing you can do is to ignore it. These people thrive on controversy. They count it a victory if the rally makes a splash on the news. This rally did, but it came at the cost of a 32 year-old woman’s life. 

Violence begets violence.