“I told you so” leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, but the tragic news yesterday about Charlie Kirk took my memory back immediately to the debate on Bacon’s Rebellion after another tragedy in Charlottesville. Far too many of the usual suspects rejected my argument then that the condemnation of political violence had to go both ways or it would be worthless. A failure to jointly condemn violence right or left, KKK or Antifa, would simply feed the fire.
One of the speakers in favor of Dominion’s proposed natural gas plant in Chesterfield at Monday night’s public hearing told me someone from Roanoke on the other side quite openly and forcefully said any person who supported building the plant should be condemned to Hell. Similar attitudes appear in every political quarter and forum. It should sicken us all, but sadly it does not.
Yes, one of the worst offenders now sits in the White House, and the reports this morning are he issued on social media a list of recent shameless political attacks, omitting the attacks on liberals from his concern. It was just June when a murderer motivated by ideology killed one Minnesota legislator and wounded another, and it wasn’t that long ago that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was wounded by someone seeking to kill her.
It will never leave us entirely. Political violence goes back to the beginning, and within the past couple of days I reread Shelby Foote’s account of Lincoln’s assassination. But if all agree that all such acts are equally reprehensible, and if all agree to openly condemn such actors from within their own supposed camp, it will be a start. There are people who responded to that earlier debate over Charlottesville who totally lost my respect, and eight years later I doubt they have learned a thing. Let’s see.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Hosea 8:7 — SDH
