Mike Gallagher of the Salem News Channel could hardly believe what he heard from Jory Rand in the latter’s report on the “unrest” in L.A. a few days ago. Rand, a news anchor at L.A.’s ABC T.V., suggested the riots reported in his city by some conservatives were really little more than crowds of people “having fun watching cars burn.” I have read dozens of statements by Leftist apologists verging on the absurd, but his was truly ridiculous.
The cause of the “unrest,” of course, was the arrival last Friday of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] authorized by Trump to deal with the issue of illegal immigrants in the city whose criminal proclivities might in fact compromise the lives of law abiding citizens there. On his Daily Wire podcast, Ben Shapiro highlighted the three distinct narratives posted by Leftists in their attempt to promote Trump as the villain in the unfolding scenario. On the one hand, Shapiro says, there are those [i.e., Rand] who maintain the violence reported in downtown L.A. has been grossly exaggerated. On the other, there are those who acknowledge the seriousness of the violence while seeing it as justified given the apparent irrationality of Trump’s obsession with illegal aliens. While she no doubt loathes Trump, Karen Bass, the city’s mayor, nevertheless declared a state of emergency and imposed a multi-day curfew on the city’s downtown core, pointing out that on the evening prior to her announcement, 23 businesses had been looted. The chaos, in other words, was serious and, however justified, not to be tolerated.
In response to this violence, Trump dispatched both members of the National Guard and a squadron of marines to L.A. to deal with the situation. Appalled, Gavin Newsom declared the move typically authoritarian and unconstitutional, a violation of California’s state sovereignty. While his opinion was validated on Thursday by California District Judge Charles Breyer, his ruling was overturned almost immediately when Trump challenged it with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled in his favour.
In defending Trump’s decision to send ICE agents to L.A., Ben Shapiro said they were in fact doing exactly what they were designed to do and opposition to their mandate represented disdain for the Rule of Law and indeed the very idea of a Nation State with definable borders. That many of those rioting in L.A. were waving the flags of foreign nations would seem to validate that opinion. The question is, of course, was Trump defending America’s Democracy or betraying it?
In a press conference held Thursday, Florida’s Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey celebrated his state’s “conservative” approach to the Rule of Law which seemed to be inciting many to move there in an attempt to escape the very sort of violence tolerated in “progressive” California. Attorney General James Uthmeier concurred, saying that while peaceful protests were perfectly admissible in his state, violence of any sort would result in prison sentences if not worse. Pull a gun on an ICE agent in Florida, he said, and you may very well end up dead. I have no problem with that statement whatsoever, fully convinced that the safety of its law abiding citizens is the foremost obligation of the government in any civilized society. How, one wonders, would Gavin Newsom feel about L.A.’s “protesters” had they vandalized his personal residence as they did the 23 businesses cited by Mayor Bass?
Newsom’s comments condemning Trump for apparently trying to stifle the “free speech” of all those who disagree with him, are perfect examples of the Hypocrisy that permeates the contemporary Left. Make any statement today not in line with Leftist Ideology and one is likely to be fired, “cancelled” or even imprisoned for what is simplistically declared to be “hate speech.” Examples of the “politically correct” trying to censor all dissenting views abound throughout the “progressive” West. Yet Trump sending in the military to put an end to the threats of violence, the burning of cars and the pillaging of private businesses in L.A., is deemed by Newsom to be Undemocratic. It’s truly insane!