The Left’s White Nationalist Panic Is A Secret Assault On Free Speech

By Andrew Klavan    @andrewklavan

The left’s recent grandstanding about the supposedly rising tide of White Nationalism is a scam. It’s an attempt to further censor mainstream conservative voices on social media.

Like Leftism, White Nationalism is a low and stupid idea. Like Leftism, White Nationalism assumes there is something inherently “white” about Western Civilization. Like Leftists, White Nationalists feel this whiteness is somehow under attack by “the browning of America.” The only difference between the Left and the White Nationalists is which side of this imaginary race struggle they’re on.

To me, these narratives of the Left and the White Nationalists are tales told by idiots, signifying nothing. Western Civilization is a matter of culture and ideas. That these are somehow the property of some skin color or a set of genes strikes me as simplistic nonsense. If a black man discovered fire, should white people sit in the dark? If a white man framed the self-evident truths of the American founding, should every other race give up on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

It seems a lot smarter to say a hearty thank you to whoever came up with the best notion and take it on as your own. Good ideas belong to all mankind, no matter where they come from. What the Left calls Cultural Appropriation I call the blessings of civilization. Keep them coming.

So yes, Leftists and White Nationalists are all a bunch of knuckleheads, but it does seem that, nowadays, here in the U.S., the latter are more prone to violence than the former. Is that violence on the rise?

Very doubtful. Although the FBI reported a 17 percent rise in hate crimes in 2017, the actual number of such crimes in America — 7,175 up from 6,121, with around 3,000 of those being crimes against property — is still low. Part of the rise is accounted for by the fact that more police departments reported in. And, of course, not every hate crime is connected to a movement or philosophy like White Nationalism. Some are just the work of hateful shmucks.

In a well-researched piece in the Wall Street Journal by Jo Craven McGinty, Michael Jensen of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, says this: “There has been a steady rate of far-right extreme crimes since at least 1970, when we started collecting data. What has changed is the emphasis on reporting far-right extremism. It produces the perception that there is a new increase. It’s not true.”