Incidentally, the writer was named "NABJ Journalist of the Year" in 2019 so you can add that to your list of "Awards I Don't Need to Care About Anymore."
If America were another country,...
Well, at least she appears to believe in "American exceptionalism."
...we would be talking about how post-Civil War America is still in desperate need of a UN-sponsored Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program for white supremacists and segregationists.
By all means, let's fulfill the fevered dreams over every conspiracy theorist scanning the skies for unmarked black helicopters and reviewing the notes he took on his 47th viewing of Red Dawn, because I see no way that could end badly.
From the National Review,
We've gone from a country that papered over its past sins to one where newspaper editors fantasize about putting the United Nations, an organization teeming with tyrants, anti-Semites, racists, and terror states, in charge of weeding out wrongthink.
The pendulum swings, sometimes so hard it knocks the sense out of people.
I'm guessing she assumed no one would actually click through, or that she has no idea what DDR is, or she does, and doesn't see any problems.
Maybe a little of all three?
In any case, I did click through, and did some more research beyond. Here is what UN Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration looks like:
Disarmament means the physical removal of the means of combat from ex-belligerents (weapons, ammunition, etc.).
See, people giving her a hard time about this had no idea that all she meant was that the United Nations would send troops from other countries to American soil to physically remove people's guns and ammunition.
So stop hyperventilating, wingnuts.
Demobilization means the disbanding of armed groups.
I don't see any possibility of conflict there.
Reintegration means the process of reintegrating former combatants into civilian society, reducing the number of people immediately ready to engage in armed combat.
Probably no Constitutional issues, either.
Of course that's the point. "If America were another country," she says sadly.
But it's not. Returning to the National Review:
It's alarming, to say the least, to see left-wing punditry obsessed with limiting free expression — sometimes the speech of those with genuinely reprehensible views, but often the speech of their political foes, rationalized through collective guilt. Progressives have convinced themselves, or pretend they have, that far-right extremism is rampant among ordinary Americans. So much so, that if we weren't weighed down by pesky constitutional protections, we could use some international intervention to straighten things out.
Attiah's tweet referenced another constitutionally problematic opinion piece in the Washington Post titled,
"Guns are white supremacy's deadliest weapon. We must disarm hate."
It was written by Sharon Risher, who lost her mother, along with eight other black Americans at the hands of a mass murderer.
That was a horrifying event, universally condemned as it should be. However, it does not grant her absolute moral authority to spew nonsense. That's not how it works in a constitutional republic.
The defining photograph of the attempted insurrection on Jan. 6 was that of a man strolling through the broken halls of our national Capitol, amid the smashed windows and assorted rubble of the failed coup, proudly brandishing a Confederate flag on his shoulder and hoping to overturn an election decided largely by Black voters.
The election was largely decided by American voters. I could slice and dice the electorate to argue that Biden's margin of victory was decided by Latino voters, or by people who thought Voyager was the best Star Trek series ever. (Okay, I don't have any data to back up that last one, but it's possible.)
She then moves to conflate the Capitol riot with the murder of her mother.
In the months leading up to that tragic day, my mom's killer posed for pictures with the Confederate flag, sometimes even slinging it over his shoulder just like that insurrectionist in the Capitol did.
And she's just getting warmed up.
The similarities between these two days don't end there... My mother's killer was armed with a handgun; the Capitol insurrectionists were armed with enough live ammunition to shoot every member of the House and Senate five times.
I'll remind readers that the only one who used a firearm that day was a federal police officer, because she didn't seem to think that was relevant.
But the truth is that taking down symbols of hate means very little unless we also disarm people who are inspired by them — and on that front, our nation has lagged woefully behind.
Yes we have.
She says we must "disarm hate."
But what is hate? She would claim the Confederate flag is a symbol of hatred. For some it surely is, for others it simply is not. Anyone who took a moment to actually talk to someone about it would understand it. I wouldn't fly it, but in America, we don't get to make such decisions for others.
Is voting for Trump a sign of hate? Supporting enforcement of immigration laws? Opposing Joe Biden?
There's a reason "hate" is not illegal, because the power to define the term is the power of a dictator.
I was enraged by what those rioters at the Capital did. They are being arrested, as many should be. They will have a trial before their peers, and if found guilty, may very well be stripped of their right to own firearms.
That's how it should be done, and is being done.
And that's exactly where it should end.
