Charlotttesville, Virginia is a small college city. It is the home of the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819.

Over the weekend, it became the home of a violent melee that resulted in scores of injured and one death.

The story of the run up to these events reveals a great deal. Charlottesville, like many college towns is fairly blue. And the town council decided to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee that had stood in Emancipation Park (formerly known as Lee Park) for decades.

Led by a local blogger, Jason Kessler, a number of people decided to hold a rally protesting the removal of the statue. They were given a permit to do so. Kessler called the rally ‘Unite The Right’ and made the stupid mistake of allowing white supremacists David Duke and Richard Spencer to be part of the rally, which of course allowed the entire rally to be characterized as ‘Nazis’ and ‘White Nationalists.’

This led to the recruitment of a large mob of Antifa, #Blacklivesmatter, and Black Blok ‘counter protestors’ to organize what amounted to an attack on the rally.

The city first tried to appease them by reneging on the permit, after which Kessler took the matter to court and won.

Over the weekend, the city was flooded with both Kessler’s protestors and the ‘counter protestors’, with most of both groups being from outside the area. Contrary to what some of the media would have you believe, there were few college students involved. Most classes at the University don’t start for a few weeks.

Instead, what you had was an attempt to ‘punch some nazis.’ The #blacklivesmatter, AntiFa, and the so-called Black Blok groups came there in force and armed with baseball bats, pepper spray, sticks, metal flagpoles, iron riser bars, urine bombs, knives and spray can bombs, which basically spurt fire at people at a nice distance with the aid of a handy Bic lighter.

In other words, the ‘counter protestors’ came to start something. It’s inevitable that violence was going to occur. These ‘counter protesters’ as the media religiously refers to them are the very same thugs that have been burning, shutting down free speech and bashing heads for several years.

Let me be very clear. There were obviously neo Nazis and active KKK members among the protestors, and I have nothing but contempt for such people. If I had been a Democrat member of the Senate at a certain time and place, you would never have seen me voting for former Klan Kleagle Robert Byrd as my majority leader. But even Nazis are entitled to freedom of assembly and free speech within certain clearly defined limits.

And with the exception of one cretin who drove his car into a crowd, the protestors weren’t the aggressors. If they had been the aggressors, there would have been a lot more casualties.

Here’s a factoid that bears this out. A lot of the protestors the media labeled under the catchall of ‘white nationalists’ came strapped. Yet despite being attacked by these leftist thugs, guess what? No one was shot. NO ONE. That’s a huge clue as to who came to peacefully protest and who came looking to perpetrate exactly what happened.

And what actually happened? Well, let’s see.

A number of observers on both sides have commented on the lack of police presence. As the New York Times, of all places, reported:

“There was no police presence,” Ms.Brittany Caine-Conley (a minister in training at Sojourners United Church of Christ) said. “We were watching people punch each other; people were bleeding all the while police were inside of barricades at the park, watching. It was essentially just brawling on the street and community members trying to protect each other.”

Brian Moran, Virginia’s secretary of public safety and homeland security, was watching the events from a command post on the sixth floor of a Wells Fargo bank on the downtown mall. There were sporadic fights. “I compare it to hockey,” he said. “Often in hockey there are sporadic fights, and then they separate.”

Suddenly, people were throwing water bottles, some filled with urine. Some used pepper spray; from his perch on the sixth floor, Mr. Moran saw smoke bombs being thrown. People started clubbing one another. The clergy retreated to a “safe house” — a restaurant nearby.

But according to many witnesses, the police waited to intervene. Ms. Caine-Conley called it “fascinating and appalling.”

Mr. Kessler, too, complained.

In a statement, he said the authorities had “exacerbated the violence” by failing to separate his followers from counter protesters. He said his group had “networked with law enforcement officials” months ago on a plan for maintaining safety, which he said was not followed, and he called the police “under equipped for the situation.”

What the New York Times and most of the media didn’t report was what the police did that exacerbated the violence.

Even a primary school teacher knows that when you have two kids fighting, the first thing you do is separate them. There are various ways police are trained to do exactly that. Instead, here’s what happened and I have this from people who were actually at the scene in Charlottesville.

Under orders from Charlottesville’s uber progressive Democrat mayor Mike Signer, the protestor’s permit was illegally revoked in defiance of the court order. This happened at 11 AM, after the confrontations had already been going on for some time. At that point, the demonstrators, who were vastly outnumbered by the ‘counter protestors’ were in the park with crowds of ‘counter protestors’ on three sides.

Then the mayor ordered Charlotteville’s police chief, Al Thomas to have the police form a shield wall on the one side of the park that was still open and tell the demonstrators (who still had a legal permit to be there reaffirmed by a federal judge) that they were an unlawful assembly. And that if they didn’t disperse immediately they’d be arrested.

Since the police let few if any of the demonstrators through their line, the only ways out were through the counter protestors. It seems like the mayor decided the protestors were all ‘nazis’ who needed a lesson from the Left’s own brownshirts. And let’s not forget, the police are not to blame. Just as in Chicago, Baltimore, Berkeley and many other cities, they were ordered to stand down and let the Leftist thugs act out.

What’s astonishing that so few people were injured, with the majority of serious injuries coming from the incident where one of the protestors drove his car into the crowd. The casualties could have been far worse.

Even faced with this carnage, the police pretty much let things go. As one observer mentioned, ‘Yeah, it (the car incident) was intentional.About 40 miles an hour, hit about 15-20 people, crashed into the two cars in front of it, and then backed up and sped away while cops were standing on the side of the road and didn’t do anything.’

The driver, James Alex Fields of Maumee, Ohio fled the scene is his car, a Dodge Charger, but was arrested several blocks away, jailed without bail and charged with suspicion of malicious wounding, failure to stop for an accident involving a death, second degree homicide and hit and run. I’d guess he’s going to be in jail quite awhile and deservedly so. I’m sure many on the Left who ordinarily cringe at the thought of the death penalty for the most inhumane, vicious murderers would happily lynch Mr. Fields and burn his bare feet with lit cigarettes as he swings.



Actually, the Left owes Alex Fields big time. He gave them something they have been desperately trying to get, a bloody flag to wave and a martyr for the cause in the form of Heather Heyer, the counter protestor he killed. She was certainly no Nazi, but she will now become the Left’s Horst Wessel and put to exactly the same use Horst Wessel was.

The comparison is spot on. The ‘resistance’ have been using the same tactics Hitler’s brownshirts did for some time.

#Blacklives matter were directly responsible for the violence in Ferguson over the faux Micheal Brown Hands up don’t shoot nonsense, and for helping to burn down and loot a large chunk of Baltimore after the city’s dysfunctional mayor said they could because of some career drug dealer who was trying to injure himself so he could sue the city..

The AntiFa and Black Blok thugs have been responsible for all sorts of violence, especially in Seattle and in Berkeley where they first attacked people standing in line to buy tickets to hear Milo Yianopoulos speak, injured a number of them severely, and then proceeded to do thousands of dollars worth of damage before the police were allowed by the mayor to rein them in.That’s exactly what happened here.

Ask yourself this. Has any politicians on the Left seriously condemned these groups and their vicious behavior? Heck no.Did the media wring their collective hands and condemn this sort of thing? Nope. In fact the media took joy in fanning the flames and absolving these miscreants of any blame. So we all know the answer to that one.

And just in case you still haven’t gotten the message, a planned news conference by Jason Kessler, the organizer of what was in fact a perfectly legal rally, came to an abrupt end when a man wearing a plaid shirt punched him and a group of lefty protestors literally chased him off the podium.

You see, what happened in Charlottesville and the way the media is presenting it gives the Left the opportunity to shut up anyone who doesn’t agree with them by any means necessary.

The Left applauds violence when it’s some of their own doing it, especially if they’re members of certain protected groups. Fascism is just fine and dandy then. Thanks to the ever helpful media, they’ve gotten away with this for quite some time. All one needs to do is see the Left’s reaction to President Trump’s call for both sides to take a good look at where this sort of thing is headed:

The president’s attempt to to rein things is was unfortunately a failure, because that’s not what the Left really wants. What happened in Charlottesville was merely the opening skirmish of a whole series of planned riots in places like Richmond, Va, Nashville, Atlanta, and Baltimore. And rest assured, there will be more.

And there’s something a lot of these places have in common, with Charlottesville. They all have uber progressive Democrat mayors who can be relied on to reign in the police and allow the Left’s brownshirts to act out, attack people and riot.

Charlottesville is the Left’s excuse for open season on labeling anyone who doesn’t follow the Left’s totalitarian diktats as a ‘Nazi’, a white supremacist, a ‘hater’ or a white nationalist. And shutting them up either by denying them a platform or physically attacking them. And of course, to do their best to slime a sitting president as one of the ‘Nazis.’

They’re correct when they call for getting rid of domestic terrorism. What they don’t realize is that it will likely not be defined by their terms if this nonsense keeps up.

You could probably put all of Richard Spencer and David Duke’s followers in a 200 seat hall and have lots of seats left over. That isn’t true of AntiFa, #blacklivesmatter, BlackBlokand other assorted Leftist groups engaged in this sort of activity. Nor do the neo Nazis have th epower, organization and financing the Leftist groups do.

Who the real threat to our liberties are and who the real Nazis are is becoming more and more obvious, isn’t it? The irony is hilarious.

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com and other publications.

Follow him on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

And connect with him on Linked In.