Rally 'Round The Flag, Boys!

It's a pretty easy thing to claim white supremacy in a town where whites make up just a little under seventy percent of the population. Like Charlottesville, Virginia. Congratulations, you win. Not satisfied with this statistical edge, however, a rally was put together to protest the potential removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a park there. Organizers called their get-together "Unite The Right," probably in reference to their politics, not their actual correctness. The white nationalists who are concerned that their history and their heroes are being cast aside like so many pigeon-dung-infused chunks of granite. Come to think of it, getting rid of a statue is a pretty big endeavor and probably involves heavy equipment.
So what did these guys have in mind? Laying down in front of the bulldozers? Chaining themselves to the crane that would lift their stony hero from his perch? They found themselves surrounding a statue of Thomas Jefferson Saturday night. My suspicion is that the light of their Home Depot Tiki torches didn't allow them to distinguish the author of the Declaration of Independence from the leader of the Confederate Army during our nation's Civil War.
And now it's probably time to mention the frequency that the Confederate Flag gets displayed alongside the flag of Nazi Germany. What do they have in common? Well, both of these nations lost their wars, and fell into - how shall I say it? - disfavor. A bunch of young men screaming at the top of their lungs surrounded by symbols of historical losers sends a very sad message. All that anger comes from somewhere. As I have often reminded us all, Denis Leary once made a list of all the things his five year old hates: "Naps. End of list." His point was that hate is something you have to learn. It doesn't just spring forth organically. All that hate that brought people from both sides came from a great big pool of fear. A lake. An ocean. The thought of losing the position at the top of the pecking order is horrifying to many. The thought of never being allowed that opportunity is just as horrifying for those who have not been allowed to breathe free.
Hence the Tiki torches and the yelling and screaming. The governor of Virginia called for a state of emergency to deal with the violence that has erupted in the wake of Uniting the Right. Oh, and the fondness these guys have for that freedom of assembly doesn't stop there. It continues on to the glorious Second Amendment, which brought a whole lot of guns to the show. Lob some tear gas, baseball bats, and elevated tension, and you've got yourself an emergency.
All of which doubles back on the continuing whirl of our political landscape. Some seven thousand miles away, a very scary young man leading a country now emboldened by their nascent nuclear weapons capability is wondering if it's worth wasting a missile on us. We seem to be perfectly capable of beating ourselves to a bloody pulp. Over a statue. I hope they don't do anything drastic until they figure out which one they really want to tear down.