Politics and Violence

Preposterous Lies

Elizabeth received a strange letter from her congressman. “We have to be on guard against our enemies… and not be afraid to name them.” A brave, forthright stand? But wait, he didn’t name the enemies.

That left us wondering: Who are our enemies? Muslims, Jews, Arabs… Russians, Iranians, North Koreans… capitalists, the Deep State, Yankees… liberals, conservatives?

And what does he mean by “our”? A politician’s enemies are more likely to be our friends than our enemies. Our most dangerous enemies could be the feds themselves! But people love simple and preposterous lies. They much prefer them to the truth. Truth is elusive. Difficult to discover. Infinitely nuanced. Hard to hold onto.

Each tiny bit of truth comes at a high price: A love lost. A marriage ruined. A business bankrupt. Money wasted. And a sorry soul burning on some ash pit in Hell. Nor does truth make you feel good. Like a magnifying mirror, it shows blemishes. You squirm in your seat when you see it. Often, you want to turn off the lights.

Not so with myth. It comes right over to you, fawns over you, airbrushes your photo, and Botoxes your face. It flatters you with weak light and strong angles. It pretends you are the noble master and it is merely the humble slave… willing to do your bidding.

Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin, Ayatollah Khamenei - Click to enlarge

As we have pointed out before, there is currently a paucity of useful enemies, so perhaps it’s not too big a surprise the congressman didn’t think of actually naming any. Here are some of the people currently high up on the list: Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin and the Ayatollah Khamenei (with his teleprompter).

Myth of the “Enemy”

Today and tomorrow (unless we get distracted), we will look at popular myths. The myth of the “enemy” is always a hit with the masses. Politicians love it, too. It encourages taxpayers to turn over more of their wages – for their own protection, of course.

It invites citizens to give up their liberties – in this time of grave danger! It rousts up the population to think and act with a single mind, united to meet the common foe, under the brave and unflinching leadership of our patriotic politicians. And woe to the person who resists. He is “soft” on our enemies. Or an outright traitor.

If you believe the polls, millions of Americans will choose their next president based on which one will do a better job of protecting them from terrorists. Apparently, terrorists – particularly foreign-born terrorists – pose a substantial threat.

Of course, there are always terrorists. Robespierre invented the term when he referred to himself by that word. By then, Terror had become official policy in Revolutionary France, proclaimed by the National Convention on September 5, 1793:

It is time that equality bore its scythe above all heads. It is time to horrify all the conspirators. So legislators, place Terror on the order of the day! Let us be in revolution, because everywhere counter-revolution is being woven by our enemies. The blade of the law should hover over all the guilty.

There are always people who are willing to use violence in pursuit of political ends. After all, that’s the name of the game.

Maximilien Robespierre - Click to enlarge

Meet the original terrorist: Maximilien Robespierre, who instigated what became known as the “reign of terror”. In March of 1794, he had a falling out with his friends and fellow revolutionaries Danton and Desmoulins and sent them to the guillotine (he felt they were “too soft” on the terror policy). Only three months later he ended up guillotined himself (without trial, natch). Here is his rationalization of the terror policy from the somewhat misnamed “Report on the Principles of Political Morality”: “If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country… The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.” Combine terror with “virtue”, and you’re free to implement a spot of democratic “despotism of liberty”. This is statist logic at its finest.

No Credible Threat

Violence is what politics is all about. If no violence were involved, it would be no different from the rest of life – with its give and take, its persuasion, its bargaining, its negotiating, and its civilized commerce.

Without violence, a meeting of the Committee of Public Safety in 1793, or a Joint Session of Congress in 2016, would have no more importance than, say, a gathering of the Kiwanis Club or Elvis impersonators.

Politics is different. The politician – no matter how mild-mannered – always has a loaded gun in his britches. The terrorist merely brings it out and waves it around.

From Zionist zealots in Judea, to the Sons of Liberty in Boston, to Irish irredentists blowing up London subway stops, to the KKK in the South after the War Between the States.

In 1920, the IRA attacked over 300 police stations – symbols of British rule – and killed a dozen policemen. They also burned down the docks at Liverpool. In 1946, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel, killing 91 people. The head of the group, Menachem Begin, went on to become prime minister of Israel.

Germany’s Red Army Faction launched 296 bomb attacks – in addition to assassinations, kidnappings, arson, bank robberies, and shootouts with the police.

Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin - Click to enlarge

RAF leaders Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin are having a laugh at their trial. Between the first attack of the Red Army Faction in 1970 and its official dissolution in 1998, three generations of terrorists were active under the RAF banner. A handful of them remain at large to this day.

Photo credit: AP archive