The Party of On-Offense Violence
Reflections on Justice Alito's Family Going into Hiding, with Augustinian Notes on Defending Republics
The “Democratic” Party.
The party of slavery, then segregation, and then abortion.
The party of CRT-taught hatred, of mandated vaccinations, of mandatory affirmation of transgender ideology, of censorship, of election-stealing, of corruption as far as the eye can see in the Biden circles, the FDA/CDC, the Clinton circles, the FBI, and the MSM, of opened borders, of bankrupted small businesses, of rioting, of ignoring the Constitution where it cannot be de facto altered, and yes, of threatening you and your family with violence if you dare to cross it, even if you are a Supreme Court Justice.
Of obscene silences…
Reports indicate that this weekend, Justice Alito and his family were moved to an undisclosed location. Presumably after more threats, which followed the scenes of protestors gathering at the homes of Justices.
I believe we await confirmation from an official government source that Alito and his family have been moved, but the basic facts about this shameful incident would remain clear enough even if that part of it hasn’t happened.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki refused to denounce the doxxing of the anti-Roe Justices, and was in no way corrected by President Biden, the man who had the either the gall or the obliviousness to quote St. Augustine in his inaugural address, about what the people of a republic ought to “hold in common.” (In the passage selected, Augustine was himself quoting Cicero, but quotations from the late Roman republic more fitting to the spirit of today’s Dems could have come from Clodius, Crassus, or from what the mob shouted at “Cinna the Poet” as he pled for his life.)
Last year, following a particularly passionate anti-mask protest, I laid down some Rules for Democracy Rescuers, that is, some commandments for populist-conservative activists. The first among these was this:
1) Thou shalt not commit or threaten to commit on-offense violence in democratic politics.
I went on to explain why doxxing is an implicit threat, and thus violates this rule:
There is a lot of childish leftist talk about speech being violence, but protesting outside someone’s home…really is a form of intimidation. Politically speaking, it belongs to the same class as on-offense violence, and it is the kind of behavior that if it spreads, will drag us down to a Weimar-Germany or late-Roman-republic type situation, where brawls and terrorist attacks become everyday “politics.”
Kingdoms rise, and kingdoms fall, and so do republics.
Today, the Anglican Church of North America’s lectionary for morning prayer had us read the passages from Luke (6:20-36) on turning the other cheek.
For he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil…
Perhaps you are familiar with the better discussions in the Christian tradition, such as the ones undertaken by Augustine, on the difficulties involved in applying those verses to political evil, and especially when it rears its head in a republic. I will not rehearse them here, other than to recommend one particular collection of Augustine writings, and to provide a couple quotations from the Letter 138, to Marcellinus which it contains, albeit out of the order in which they appear:
Indeed, if Christian teaching condemned all wars, then the advice given in the Gospel to the soldiers asking for salvation would have been to throw down their arms and to quit the military completely. What they were told, however, was, “Terrorize no one, accuse no one falsely, and be content with your pay.” (Lk 3:14) …he certainly does not prohibit them from serving as soldiers. Hence, let those who say that the teaching of Christ is contrary to the republic give us an army of the sort of soldiers that teaching of Christ commands.
Augustine’s speaking as if Rome were still some kind of “republic” in the days of the late Empire, is something of a problem, I admit. But anyhow, here is one overall conclusion drawn from his earlier analysis of the “turn the other cheek” verses:
…the precepts of patience are always to be retained in readiness in the heart, and benevolence, which prohibits the returning of evil for evil, must always be abundant in the will. However, with respect to those who, contrary to their own will, need to be set straight, many things must be done with a certain benevolent harshness. Their welfare rather than their wishes must be considered…what is not wanted and what is painful is nevertheless done to one who appears to require healing through pain, even against his will. …He whose license for wrongdoing is wrested away is usefully conquered, for nothing is less prosperous than the prosperity of sinners, which nourishes punishable impunity and strengthens the evil will, which is, as it were, an enemy within.
We should have no illusions about how difficult such a “wresting away” would be with respect to the evil I speak of today. The depravity of the Democrat Party regarding the deployment of violence in politics, alongside its other open depravities listed above, must be regarded by any judgment that is Biblical, or that is otherwise serious, as merely the tip of an iceberg of a larger Corruption that underlies nearly all parts of our society, including under various pillars of the Republican Party. One must see that the Democrats’ bizarre declarations on topic after topic that Down Is Up, even if they are about to lose many offices this November due to such madness, could hardly have taken place without a capture of most of our society by great evil.
I know not what comes, nor if I will live to see the organization of a new party of the American Left, one I would oppose but could at least have a dutiful civic respect for; but as to the present-day Democratic Party, I will keep holding up the mirror.
Will I be doing so in Anger? In Rebellion against those verses in Luke? In Pride? In passion for what Pascal speaks of—with some push-back from Tocqueville and Lawler when it comes to political matters—as “Diversion?” I would like to classify it as—sorry, but U2 lyrics are on the brain today—“(Pride) in the Name of Love,” but suspect I don’t quite make the cut. I do know I am with Augustine in terms of the end I seek, regardless of anything in my own passions and motivations in seeking it which needs correction. (I also know that Machiavelli-friendly types, who might like to dismiss me as hopelessly divided between my commitments earthly and eternal, can read Augustine themselves, and read more about my position on political violence in our time, as I laid it out in my “Rules” piece.)
That said, I make no apology for thrusting this mirror, with its various images, of Justice Alito in hiding, of past brawls in Rome and Berlin, and of future Supreme Court Justices sprawled bloody and beaten in the gutter, into the faces of our oh-so-professional guardians of “Normality.” For it is their silence that has bred a Party as openly heinous as this one.
P.S. Even Psaki’s handlers realized this morning how ugly their party looks in that mirror, so they made her issue a wee little statement against threats of violence. TLTL, and no—see their relationship with BLM—, they won’t abide by it.
People are beginning to awaken to the lunacy and violence on the Left, and maybe more importantly, that the Democrat party and their Fascist Eugenicist Globalist allies are funding it. I suppose there's going to be a lot of violence this summer. Something tells me, the Supreme Court Justices will be fine, though.