I watched along with all Americans the horrible scene this past Wednesday where scores of people breached the U.S. Capitol building, resulting in death and the destruction of property in the People’s House. I condemn this in the strongest possible terms and I call on all those who broke the law to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.
Violence and attacks on our law enforcement officers and federal buildings are always wrong and are never acceptable. This principle applies whether the violators are supporters of President Trump or of liberal groups like Occupy or Black Lives Matter.
The Left, however, right on cue, is attempting to use the Capitol attack as a means of smearing the President and his supporters. It is always the same. Following their mentor, Saul Alinsky, they can “never let a crisis go to waste.”
Democratic politicians and their echo chamber, and even a few Republicans, were quick to blame President Trump for “causing” the situation by stoking the passions of his supporters. They also were quick to paint with a broad brush those attending the pro-Trump rally as “insurrectionists” who embrace violence.
For anyone who cares to listen, the President has constantly condemned violence and supported law and order as he did so today in his address to the nation. Maybe the President has not responded as quickly as his critics would like, or with the words they would like, but those are entirely different questions from whether he has condemned the violence.
Further, the attendees at the rally marched to the Capitol with the purpose of expressing their position in the constitutional process of certification, which is their right. Out of the many, many thousands of attendees only a very small portion led and took part in this violence and evil.
Unfortunately, some people bent on anarchy, violence, and destruction and in violation of the peaceful process set forth by the Constitution took it upon themselves to break into the Capitol to disrupt the proceedings. Some number of other people with no criminal intent, likely overtaken by emotion and passion, followed those who had breached the building. This was not an “insurrection” as many members of the media have absurdly called it. It was a protest rally that tragically was led in the wrong direction by a few thugs. Again, they should be fully punished.
These genuine extremists in no way represent or reflect the beliefs of pro-life, pro-family, pro-freedom conservative activists. The left’s blanket attempt to paint Trump supporters as violent “insurrectionists” is as absurd as it is transparent. It will fool a few people; but it will confirm the belief of many that what the liberal media, political world, and big tech truly care about is silencing 75 million Americans.
The blatant transactional means by which the liberals are using the Capitol riot is nowhere more clear than how their response was much different when Antifa and BLM were burning down our cities. The media declared those riots to be “peaceful” and politicians on the Left largely said nothing to demand that participants be held accountable. No talk of insurrection then.
To state such truths is not “whataboutism:” it is simply recognizing and calling out the clear hypocrisy of the liberal establishment.
To those on the political Left: I, and other conservatives, know that violence, disorder and lawbreaking are evil. We have consistently condemned all of this. We would hope you would do the same.
Instead, you now pretend as if you occupy a moral high ground and demand the removal from office of President Trump via impeachment or invocation of the 25th amendment to attempt to crush a man you clearly hate.
It’s sickening.
I also condemn the comments of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in the aftermath of the event. Biden and Harris ran for office to contrast themselves with the president and promised to bring a divided nation together. Instead, they are further dividing the country, bringing racial issues into the discussion of what happened on Wednesday. There were black rioters storming the capitol; there were white officers seeking to stop them. To inject race into this debate is wrong, and despicable.
America is in a difficult position.
We are a nation divided. False visions of unity being offered up by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are as damaging as giving up all hope on recovering some shared social trust.
Those of us who reject liberalism also will continue to reject a unity that requires us to reject our beliefs. This is the unity of totalitarianism. This is the unity of forced conversion. Though surrounded with flowery words, this form of unity we will never accept. We will never abandon truth to conform to the Left’s false vision of life, God, man, and country.
The only type of unity we have will emerge out of a sober recognition of our political differences coupled with a deep respect for the dignity of each person.
One final thought.
The fact that Facebook and Twitter now believe that they have the right to silence the leader of the free world—with the almost unanimous support of the Left—proves what some of us have been saying for a long time. The unholy union of big tech and liberalism is now more powerful than the President of the United States. I would advise true liberals to be very careful about what they are supporting. There may be some time when their views are out of fashion, and the mechanisms of control could work in a very different direction.
Regulation of new monopoly power of social media and tech companies is absolutely critical if we are to be a nation that actually values and lives freedom of speech and association.
Whoever decides who is allowed to speak is more powerful than the one who wishes to speak. And right now, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey are becoming global overlords.
If our new technology masters can silence a President that they disagree with, they pretty much can silence anyone.
For our friends around the world who stand for faith, family, and freedom, I realize that your media is painting a false picture of conservatives in the US. I realize that you may feel hopeless about what we can do going forward to correct this image.
I have no easy answers. But I do know this. We despise the attacks on our police, we despise the attack on our capitol, we stand for God, family, country, for ordered liberty. Do not let our opponents define us. Stand for truth, stand for beauty, stand for love.
Never give up, never concede, never accept the false portrait that our global elites paint of us.
I end by inviting all God-fearing people of goodwill to prayer. Let us pray for the president and his administration, the incoming president and vice president and their administration, our cherished institutions and for ourselves and our families. Let us come together as never before to preserve our values, beliefs, and way of life.