Are Democrats the Party of Mob Violence?
Street anarchy is happening again in Portland, Oregon, as violent activists were protesting the police shooting of a black man, Patrick Kimmons.
As it was this summer, when antifa anarchists violently protested at federal immigration offices and threatened their employees, the Democratic mayor/police commissioner gives the violent protesters free reign.
On Saturday, Oct. 6, protesters marched through downtown streets and we saw angry anarchists on television take over an intersection, intimidate and forcefully redirect drivers, including an elderly driver who didn’t understand what was happening, there in the center of the “City of Roses.”
No Democrat could be found to denounce this violence.
CNN’s Don Lemon heads the list of network commentators who defend mob harassment in the streets or restaurants where they may physically harm citizens or their property or even to intimidate customers.
These network talking-heads insist these aggressive actions are legal ways to politically “protest” and are a First Amendment right, rather than a mob action. Of course, if it were Republicans “protesting” in this unhinged and dangerous way, one wonders how legal it would be viewed.
A dictionary definition of a mob is “a large and disorderly crowd of people, especially one bent on riotous or destructive action.” The First Amendment to our Constitution gives “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The anarchist methods of the far left should remind you of the French Revolution rather than the American Revolution.
Civil discourse starts with people being civil to others, even those with whom they may disagree. Yet, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has stated that “…civility can start again” only when the Democrats take control of the House and or the Senate. Until then, it would seem she approves of George Soros and other Democrat activists assembling and even paying “a large and disorderly crowd of people, especially one bent on riotous or destructive action.”
Montana’s Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) responded with caution, civility and reason:
At a time when Republicans are being shot, stabbed, doxxed, beaten, mailed powder, run out of restaurants, and sent death threats, Hillary Clinton urges Democrats to be even more uncivil. What an irresponsible statement. Every Democrat should denounce. pic.twitter.com/TdEmISWnzM
Eric Holder, the Obama administration’s former attorney general who was held in contempt of Congress, told a group of cheering Democrat campaign activists last Wednesday that the time for civility in politics is past. “It is time for us as Democrats to be as tough as they are, to be as dedicated as they are, to be as committed as they are … Michelle [Obama] always says ‘When they go low, we go high,” Holder said. “No. No … When they go low, we kick ’em.”
Kentucky’s Senator Rand Paul, whose wife acknowledged that, out of fear for herself and her family, she sleeps with a loaded gun beside her bed, fears this hotly charged political atmosphere will move from mayhem to murder. In a radio interview, he predicted that if this incivility continues “someone is going to be killed.” May God help us!
In violent and uncivil times like ours, the plea of the psalmist David may become our prayer as well: “Confuse, O Lord, divide their tongues, for I have seen violence and strife in the city” (Ps. 55:9). eoa}
Ordained to the ministry in 1969, Gary Curtis is a graduate of LIFE Bible College at Los Angeles (soon to become Life Pacific University at San Dimas, California). He has taken graduate courses at Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois and Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California. Gary served as part of the pastoral staff of The Church on The Way, the First Foursquare Church of Van Nuys, California, for 27 years (1988-2015), the last 13 years as the vice president of Life on The Way Communications Inc., the church’s not-for-profit media outreach. Now retired, Gary and his wife have been married for 50 years and live in Southern California. They have two married daughters and five grandchildren.