Politics

Marco Rubio justifies Antifa violence against political opponents, gets hammered on Twitter

As we reported on Wednesday, Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain, the alleged “Republican” from Arizona, sided with the violent far-left Antifa against President Trump.  But they weren’t the only ones.  On Wednesday, Breitbart and others reported that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., actually justified Antifa violence against political speech they don’t like.

“When entire movement built on anger & hatred towards people different than you, it justifies & ultimately leads to violence against them,” he wrote.

The Daily Caller said that Rubio’s statement “amounts to a total exculpation of antifa.”

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Breitbart explained what Rubio basically meant: “Your speech is violence; their violence is speech.”

Predictably, Rubio got hammered on Twitter:

As should anyone who values free speech.

https://twitter.com/QuipMaster/status/897863968991195136

That’s basically it…

https://twitter.com/crazyeyejoe1/status/897899354874404864

 

Calling this message the “money shot,” John Hayward further said that “Rubio embraces the essence of Whataboutism and agrees with the media that left-wing thuggery is a fact on the Charlottesville ground that must be ignored if we are to properly condemn white nationalism.”

He added:

McCain and Romney are politically irrelevant, but Rubio still has political ambitions. Imagine the priceless look of surprise on his face when he gets branded a Nazi because he favors pro-growth tax cuts, free-market reforms, or balks at allowing illegal aliens to vote. He’ll be so astounded at the way “hate speech” is expanded to cover his policy positions, and how the next wave of Antifa thugs justifies a violent response.

In the highly unlikely event that a reporter asks McCain, Romney, or Rubio “What about Antifa?” they would probably mutter some boilerplate about how of course violence is not the answer. The problem is that their position implicitly accepts (explicitly, in Rubio’s case) that violence is at least somewhat understandable when it comes from the left. The core criticism of Trump is that he wasn’t full-throated and unequivocal in condemning the Nazi wannabees, but the violence of groups like Antifa, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter never gets full-throated and unequivocal condemnation.

He went on to warn Republicans like Rubio who now seem to think it’s okay to assault those with whom they disagree:

Every Republican politician jumping on the “Only One Side” bandwagon is endorsing the idea that his or her own constituents are so vulnerable to the siren song of white nationalism that allowing a little group of racist pinheads to congregate in a public place is unacceptably dangerous. Believe me, ladies and gentlemen of the GOP, your acceptance of this narrative will come back to haunt you, no matter how moderate and reasonable you imagine yourself to be.

He continued:

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is one of the finest expressions of uncompromising principle in human history. In order to maintain that standard, we must protect speech and assembly rights for the unsavory, and then use free speech to demolish their toxic ideas. Professing allegiance to the First Amendment while authorizing vigilante gangs to shut down disapproved speech with the Heckler’s Veto — or clubs and broken bottles, when the Heckler’s Veto doesn’t get the job done — is not good enough. “The First Amendment doesn’t cover hate speech” is a much more dangerous, far more contagious fascist ideal than anything snarled over a tiki torch in Charlottesville.

“Frankly,” he said, “if you can’t win an argument with a handful of Nazis without resorting to violence, you suck at freedom. If you can’t damn the swastika without also cursing the hammer and sickle, you suck at history.”

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Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad
Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad – Source: Author (used with permission)

Joe Newby

A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Joe ran for a city council position in Riverside, Calif., in 1991 and managed successful campaigns for the Idaho state legislature. Co-author of "Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad," Joe wrote for Examiner.com from 2010 until it closed in 2016 and his work has been published at Newsbusters, Spokane Faith and Values and other sites. He now runs the Conservative Firing Line.

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