Responding to Leftist “Protesters:” Self-Protection, Self-Defense, and Going Feral

On Inauguration Day, January 20, a mob of howling leftists arrived at the campus of the University of Washington to prevent Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos from delivering a scheduled speech.

Milo is a foreigner, a particularly flamboyant homosexual Jew who is a provocateur par excellence. The consummate troll, Milo delights in shattering such Politically Correct icons as feminism, Black Lives Matter, Islam, gay activism, and the like while gabbing about his black boyfriends.

He is also an unabashed Trump supporter who affectionately refers to the President as “Daddy.”

In other words, despite his membership in more than one of the Left’s protected classes, Milo’s political background has made him an object of the Left’s hatred.


When four or five anti-Milo (and anti-Trump) thugs and self-styled “protesters” began aggressively pushing and shoving an attendee at the Milo event, the threatened peace-maker pulled out a gun and pulled the trigger.

One of the aggressors was shot.

No charges were filed against the shooter.

Interestingly, this episode received remarkably little coverage—even though it was captured on video. I suspect that there are at least two reasons to account for this.

First, the video clearly reveals the thuggish conduct of the anti-Milo forces. Most of those in the so-called “mainstream” media are, after all, of the same ideological mindset as the latter. Thus, media apologists have an interest invested in concealing from the public leftist activists’ not infrequent bursts of unprovoked violence.

The second reason, however, that may explain the lack of coverage of this shooting is more interesting: It reveals to the world an all-too-rare instance of a Trump supporter fighting back against leftist agitators that clearly meant to do him bodily harm. Moreover, it shows this would-be victim defend himself by way of a legal firearm.

I submit that while journalists and commentators, the overwhelming majority of whom are left-leaning Democrats, would have happily supplied ample coverage of a case of Trump-supporting belligerents and, say, their minority victims—hell, so badly did they want to cover such cases that they produced no small measure of fake news involving hoaxes—they do not want to depict the leftist “demonstrator” as the proverbial bully who got what he had coming to him.

They do not want for those millions of Americans who reject the radical left-wing politics of the rioters—let’s call them “the Deplorables”—to defend themselves, to meet the violence of the left with the same.

A friend of mine, a man of the Left, has on more than one occasion felt the need to underscore to me that not all leftists condone violence. Of course, I reply, this is true. Yet equally true is that all of the politically-oriented violence presently on display in our country is emanating exclusively from the left. Nor is this a new phenomenon.

That individual leftists eschew violence is a good thing, to be sure, but that their ideology has historically been accompanied by aggression and bloodshed is a brute fact that demands an explanation. At the very least, decent or otherwise non-violent leftists have an obligation to refrain from fueling the flames of bigotry by promoting hysteria and lies about their opponents. Preferably, they should loudly, resoundingly reject the violence whenever and wherever it occurs.

“Snowflakes” is the current term of choice that many have given to those who refuse to accept Trump’s election. Some of the latter lend themselves to this kind of ridicule. However, the danger with applying “snowflake,” “cry baby,” and the like to all who have taken to the streets is that it threatens to render innocuous a not insignificant number of this group that in reality pose a grave danger to society.

Those who bombard police and civilians, men, women, and children, young and old, with obscenities, bricks, bottles, and any number of other weapons should not be mocked. They should, they must, be dealt with accordingly. Those right-leaning commentators who continue to treat the phenomenon of leftist violence against innocents as if it was a laughing matter are guilty of acting as irresponsibly, as recklessly, toward the members of their audiences as they would be guilty of doing the same if they encouraged their children to laugh at the bullies who routinely assaulted and terrorized them for their lunch money.

I am not encouraging violence. But I am encouraging self-protection and self-defense.

Self-protection consists in avoiding those circumstances—like mobs of angry, screeching, irrational people—that increase one’s odds of being in a physical altercation. It consists in a heightened awareness of one’s surroundings. Self-protection, the avoidance of trouble, should always be the chief objective.

If, though, due to no fault of one’s own, one finds oneself without any option but to fight in self-defense, or perhaps in the defense of others, then one must do what must be done in order to get oneself and/or others to safety. This may very call on one to get downright nasty.

It may call on one to become…feral.

It’s a tragic commentary on the times that a survival guide for otherwise peaceful Americans is now necessary to deal with violent thugs suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

But this is no laughing matter and the thugs promise to only become more emboldened is they are sure that those on whom they set their sights will be easy marks.

The fuse to the powder keg has been lit.

Jack Kerwick received his doctoral degree in philosophy from Temple University. His area of specialization is ethics and political philosophy. He is a professor of philosophy at several colleges and universities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

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