Truth and the Ability to Speak It Under Direct Attack An Occasional Paper for the Center for Security Policy By James Simpson 18 April 2019 The common complaint that "free speech" should be protected, even when it's ugly, implicitly accepts the Left's argument that we are trying to protect the First Amendment rights of Nazis, White Supremacists, and others with a bad smell. But it really isn't about protecting free speech. The Left and their Muslim allies can and do say anything they want, no matter how malodorous, obscene, dishonest, misleading or defamatory, and get away with it every day. It is about truth vs a totalitarian agenda, and the despots want to shut us up. By James Simpson The attack that claimed fifty lives at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand brought immediate, predictable responses from Democrat politicians, the media, the organized Left and Muslim groups. Commenters from CNN to New York Mayor Bill De Blasio blamed "intolerance, "an epidemic of hatred and fear," and other shibboleths.1 Presidential hopeful Cory Booker blamed "The rising tide of white supremacy and Islamophobia…"2 Virtually all placed some blame on Trump. Nihad Awad, director of The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), blamed President Trump directly, "We hold you responsible for this growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the country and in Europe…"3 The timing of the attack couldn’t have been better. A real cynic might even suspect it was part of the plan.4 As Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show Friday, "You can’t immediately discount this. The left is this insane, they are this crazy."5 Democrats and their allies in the radical Left have been calling Trump and conservatives, "racists," "bigots" and "neo-Nazis" in a chorus to the heavens for the past two years. Their efforts to condemn "hate speech" ran into a brick wall, however, when newly-elected 1 Tim Harris, "Eddie Glaude: New Zealand Mosque Massacre Shows 'Epidemic Of Hatred And Fear Engulfing The World,'" Real Clear Politics, March 15, 2019, accessed April 9, 2019, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/03/15/eddie_glaude_new_zealand_mosque_massacre_a_sign_of_how _dark_our_times_are.html. 2 Jacqueline Tempera, "New Zealand attacks: 2020 presidential candidates react to terrorist attack by alleged white supremacist," Mass Live, March 15, 2019, accessed April 9, 2019, https://expo.masslive.com/news/g66l- 2019/03/64d0da78182842/new-zealand-attacks-2020-presidential-candidates-react-to-terrorist-attack-by-alleged- white-supremacist.html. 3 Robert Spencer, "Hamas-linked CAIR exploits New Zealand massacre to try to shut down opposition to jihad terror," Jihad Watch, March 15, 2019, accessed April 9, 2019, https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/03/hamas-linked- cair-exploits-new-zealand-massacre-to-try-to-shut-down-opposition-to-jihad-terror. 4 Cliff Kincaid, "The Green Killing Machine and the Red Jihad," America's Survival, March 15th, 2019, accessed April 9, 2019, https://americasurvival.org/2019/03/the-green-killing-machine-and-the-red-jihad.html. 5 Tim Brown, "Rush Limbaugh On New Zealand Shooting: 'You Can’t Immediately Discount This' False Flag Theory," The Washington Standard, March 16, 2019, accessed April 9, 2019, https://thewashingtonstandard.com/rush-limbaugh-on-new-zealand-shooting-you-cant-immediately-discount-this- false-flag-theory/. 2 Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar began spewing a litany of hateful, antisemitic remarks, which she has persisted in, despite condemnation from both sides of the aisle. Her statements have put an embarrassing spotlight on the growing, naked antisemitism among the Left. Calls for a resolution against Omar were proposed by a few Democrats, and a strongly- worded resolution was drafted against antisemitism specifically.6 But when their leftist base protested, any effort to take a principled stand went out the window. House Speaker Pelosi's eventual answer, House Resolution 183, condemned "intolerance, discrimination, and bigotry," and was voted favorably by the House on March 7.7 H.R. 183 is a masterpiece of sophistry. It has been described as a "watered down, do nothing resolution," but it is much more than that. The resolution does not mention Omar at all. It is no longer exclusively, or even primarily, about antisemitism, but now condemns "anti-Muslim bias" on an equal basis, as if the world's Muslims have suffered "oppression" throughout the millennia as Jews have. The notion is laughable, but it's not funny. Resolution 183 also went out of its way to change the subject on antisemitism by throwing every ethnic group they could think of into the mix. By making it about everything, they made it about nothing… almost. By calling out "discrimination" and "bigotry," Pelosi and Co. flipped the narrative from condemnation of Omar's antisemitism to make "White supremacists," "White nationalists", and "neo-Nazis" the focal point of its criticism right up front. Paragraph four states: Whereas White supremacists in the United States have exploited and continue to exploit bigotry and weaponize hate for political gain, targeting traditionally persecuted peoples, including African Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants, and others with verbal attacks, incitement, and violence;8 How have "White supremacists" gained politically anywhere in recent decades? 6 "Resolution: Rejecting anti-Semitism as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States," U.S. House of Representatives, accessed April 9, 2019, https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000169-4b08-dc75-affd-dfb9cd250000. 7 "H. Res 183: Condemning anti-Semitism as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values and aspirations that define the people of the United States and condemning anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry against minorities as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contrary to the values and aspirations of the United States," U.S. House of Representatives, March 7, 2019, accessed April 9, 2019, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres183/BILLS-116hres183ih.xml. 8 Ibid. 3 H. Res. 183 did raise the issue of the Pittsburgh attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh last fall. And the shooter was indeed an antisemite filled with pathological hatred for Jews. But the question needs to be asked: who has been peddling the antisemitic tropes that animated this man's hatred? Donald Trump? His conservative supporters? President Trump is the best thing that has happened to Jews in recent memory. So, who has been transacting in that antisemitic currency? Ilhan Omar's most outrageous statements parroted the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" narrative that Jews are evil and control the world with money. And she did this mere months following that horrific event. The Left and its Muslim allies increasingly have been attacking Jews, and the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement to financially destroy Israel relies on those false antisemitic narratives. Of course, the resolution could not resist mentioning Charlottesville, a name that has become a rallying cry for the hard Left. Whereas on August 11 and 12, 2017, self-identified neo-Confederates, White nationalists, neo-Nazis, and Ku Klux Klansmen held White supremacist events in Charlottesville, Virginia, where they marched on a synagogue under the Nazi swastika, engaged in racist and anti-Semitic demonstrations and committed brutal and deadly violence against peaceful Americans;9 Notice how "White nationalists" are now included in the mix? Anyone who is white and believes in our nation -- in other words all loyal, patriotic Americans who happen to be white -- is a "white nationalist". Suddenly, the largest racial group in the U.S. is equated with neo-Nazis and the KKK. That is critical. And as we shall see further on, people of color who believe in our nation and its founding principles and traditions get lumped in too. You don't even have to be White to be "white." Furthermore, Charlottesville was one protest by 500 people. Very few Americans support neo-Nazis or the KKK, but at Charlottesville they were outnumbered two-to-one by counter-protesters who were allowed to confront them, despite not having a parade permit. And the counter-protesters were not "peaceful Americans." They were followers of the Marxist Antifa, the modern-day descendants of Black Shirt communists who fought against the Brown Shirt fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s. 9 Ibid. 4 Both sides were violent, as President Trump correctly noted, and videos of the event show that the Antifa types initiated much of the violence, as they usually do. This isn't a defense of Nazis, it is simply the truth. And the mayor of Charlottesville, and the other officials that facilitated that confrontation share the blame. White supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other similar groups are the most marginalized of any in the U.S. I can tell you from direct experience overseeing federal law enforcement agencies for the government in the 1990s that these groups have been thoroughly penetrated by law enforcement agencies for decades. Resolution 183 makes no mention of the thousands of unprovoked attacks by Antifa types throughout the U.S. over the past two years. Nor does it mention the many instances of Islamic terrorism since 9-11, claiming 159 lives and 503 injured in the U.S. alone.10 Unfortunately, it has become politically incorrect to surveil Antifa and other communist groups that vastly outnumber the neo-Nazis, or the many mosque-based breeding grounds for Islamic terrorists in the U.S. That threat is much greater, as we have already seen with the many deadly attacks carried out by Muslims, raised since infancy in the jihadist doctrines of the faith, whose passions were enflamed by jihadi imams either online or at the local mosque.