Why political violence is rising, armed forces must be exclusive and other commentary
Conservative: Why Political Violence Is Rising
The killing of Brian Thompson follows years of assassination attempts, political riots, intimidating protests and bomb threats, muses Charles Fain Lehman at The Free Press. Yet it’s not really “new. The late 1960s and early 1970s were wracked by political violence.” But then “political violence became almost unimaginable. What changed? We stopped justifying” it. Sixties-style violence “was ended by the National Guard and the FBI’s targeting of far-left groups,” which shows it can “be ended by something other than addressing so-called root causes through radical social change.” That is, by rejecting the idea “that violence was merely the effect of structural injustice.” This means that “every time someone utters the line ‘violence is never justified, but . . . ’ they are increasing the rewards for engaging in exactly the violence they are nominally condemning.”
Defense desk: Armed Forces Must Be Exclusive
“Less than 1% of our nation has served in the armed forces, making the U.S. military an exclusive organization,” observes Navy vet Hung Cao at RealClearPolitics. Yet a judge “ruled that the U.S. Naval Academy’s race-conscious admissions policy did not violate the Supreme Court’s recent decision to curtail affirmative action.” Huh? “Never once while in combat or performing special missions underwater have I . . . ever wondered about the skin color” of fellow fighters. “The military is not a place for social experiments. We have the hard task of defending a nation.” “It’s time for President Trump’s new military leadership team to stop the deterioration of our military readiness.” “Our job is to defend a nation and preserve peace, and we need an exclusive team to do that.”
From the right: How the Feds Weaponized Banks
“Don’t blame the banks” for news of tech and crypto entrepreneurs, Melania Trump and others being debanked, as they’re “merely acting under government pressure,” notes The Wall Street Journal’s Allysia Finley. “The Bank Secrecy Act requires banks to” monitor customers and “file Suspicious Activity Reports” to the government “if they suspect illicit activity.” Banks face heavy fines if they fail to. This reporting gives the FBI “a trove of reports to scour without a warrant,” and it’s “how the Obama administration cut off banking access to politically disfavored businesses.” But “why did Mrs. Trump and others get canceled?” Because “FBI officials suggested banks file SARs on ‘suspicious’ people so the bureau could have more financial data to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. When government makes a suggestion, it’s an order.”
Culture critic: Flunking the Assassination Test
“The arrest of Luigi Mangione for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson” poses “a test of America’s ability to distinguish right from wrong” — and “far too many Americans have flunked that test,” thunders the Washington Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti. “Luminaries of the anti-corporate progressive Left” “have turned this shocking crime into what they might call a ‘teachable moment’” as they “reduce politics to the binary of victim and victimizer and justify the behavior of designated victims as acts of resistance.” No: “The moment you let morality out the door, the second you rationalize terrorism, you open yourself to nihilism and self-destruction.” That’s “the lesson of radical politics from the Jacobins to al Qaeda. The idea that some Americans would walk down the same dark road out of frustration with health insurers is horrifying.”
Blue-collar beat: Bidenomics’ Hidden Fail
Bidenomics “aimed to benefit a well-educated elite, not blue-collar workers and those of modest means,” argues City Journal’s Judge Glock. Biden’s student-loan-forgiveness, climate spending etc. “benefited industries with workers more likely to hold college degrees.” And “expanding union power” failed to “entice the working class” because “today’s unions are not the blue-collar bastions of previous generations,” as “Americans encountering a union today are more likely to find a group dedicated to the interests of white-collar people” than “to those of manual laborers.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
