Charlottesville Defendants Turn Trial into a Platform for Hate

Dick Polman on Nov 11, 2021

You see the problem here.

In 1924, the chief judge grew so exasperated with the defendants that he blurted, “This is not a theater!” (Oh yes it was.) And in 2021, the press is quoting Melissa Ryan, an anti-extremist activist, who laments that our courtrooms “just weren’t designed for this kind of stress and behavior.”

But what else can we do? Let the extremists skate free, for fear that putting them on trial will put them on stage? The only choice we have is to hold them accountable in courts of law and trust that most Americans will not respond favorably to their amplified hatred. After all, we’re not crazy the way Germany was.

Right?

Oh dear, what do we have here:

“The Spotsylvania County School Board (in Virginia) has directed staff to begin removing books that contain ‘sexually explicit’ material from library shelves and report on the number of books that have been removed…Two board members, Rabih Abuismail and Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned. ‘I think we should throw those books in a fire,’ Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to ‘see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.'”

Mark Twain supposedly also intoned that “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” There’s no actual proof Twain ever said that, but sometimes it seems to ring true.

Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com