This past week, a lot has been written and spoken about regarding the significance and meaning of January 6, 2021. President Joe Biden said on that day, “Democracy was attacked. Simply attacked. The will of the people was under assault. The Constitution, our constitution faced the gravest of threats.” Vice president Kamala Harris said. “Certain dates echo throughout history… Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendar but a place in our collective memory. Dec. 7, 1941, Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 6, 2021."
What happened at the Capital on January 6, 2021, was a horrific event, crimes were committed, but it was a riot - a political protest that turned into a riot. Every person who engaged in rioting that day, should have been arrested and held to the full account of the law. It does not matter if there were false flags in the crowd urging people to breach the Capital, and break the law. That is no excuse. Every person who is in full control of their faculties, has the ability to determine whether or not they will engage in criminal behavior. Simply because somebody urged you to commit a crime does it mean you are absolved from responsibility of your actions. Simply because other people were rioting that day or previous days, like the five months of BLM riots, does not justify a riot on January 6 at the Capital.
We must stop behaving like the other side. The other side is filled with hateful, violent, mean spirited, racist thugs who believe that their ends justify any means. The left is totally devoid of any concept of principles. To the left, principles are not guides for how to conduct their life. To the left, principles are tools they use or ignore at specific times two achieve their political aims and obtain power.
Attorney General Merrick Garland called the riot at the Capital unprecedented. It is scary to think that the sitting Attorney General of the United States either does not know the meaning of the word unprecedented, or has no knowledge of the history of political violence in this country where he would characterize the riot at the Capital as unprecedented. For everyone’s edification, here is a list of acts of violence committed by the left that were as bad, and many times, much worse than anything that occurred at the Capital on January 6, 2021.
April 14, 1865
Far left activist, John Wilkes Booth, enters Ford theater and shoots President Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head. Lincoln passes away 12 hours later. Is anyone going to argue that what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was more of a threat to Democracy than this?
July 2, 1881
Democrat writer and lawyer Charles J. Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield twice with a .442 revolver; Garfield survived the shooting for eleven weeks, before succumbing to his wounds on September 19, 1881.
September 6, 1901
Left-wing activist, and anarchist, Leon Frank Czolgosz shot President William P. McKinley twice in the abdomen at point blank range. McKinley died eight days later on September 14, 1901 of an infection that had spread from the wound.
July 2, 1915
Former German professor at Harvard, Erich Muenter, planted a package containing three sticks of dynamite in the Capitol near the Senate Reception room. The dynamite exploded around midnight when the Senate had been on recess. A Capitol Police officer was injured in the blast.
March 1, 1954
Four leftist Puerto Rican-Americans shot up the House of Representatives, injuring five congressmen. The gunmen claimed they acted to demand independence for the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. The injured congressmen survived their wounds, and all four gunmen received prison sentences. President Jimmy Carter commuted one of their sentences in 1977, and granted clemency to the other three in 1979.
November 22, 1963
Far-left activist and communist sympathizer, Lee Harvey Oswald, shoots and kills President John F. Kennedy from the six floor of a book depository in Dallas, Texas as Kennedy’s procession of cars drive through Dealey Plaza.
March 1, 1971
The far-left group, the Weather Underground bombed the US Capital, causing over $300,000 in damages. The Weather Underground said it was in protest of the ongoing U.S.–supported bombing of Laos. Close friend of former President Barack Obama, Bill Ayers was one of the bombers. He got off on a technicality, and went on to be a professor at a prominent Chicago University.
January 29, 1975
The far-left, Weather Underground bombed the FBI headquarters, destroying 20 offices on three separate floors. The Weather Underground eventually claimed credit for 25 other bombings—including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, the California Attorney General’s office, and a New York City police station.
November 7, 1983
A far-left group, the Armed Resistance Unit, detonated a bomb on the second floor of the Senate wing of the Capitol. The device exploded in the evening and no one was injured, but the bomb caused over $1 million in damage. The group responsible claimed it was in retaliation for military actions in Grenada and Lebanon. Seven people, including two left-wing extremists, Linda Evans and Susan Rosenberg, were arrested in connection with the attack. On his last day in office, President Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of Evans and Rosenberg, reducing their sentences by 24 and 42 years respectively.
July 24, 1998
Russell Eugene Weston jr. shot and killed 2 Capital Police Officers to prevent the United States from being annihilated by disease and cannibals.
February 18, 2011
Over 40,000 left-wing activists stormed the Wisconsin State Capital, paralyzing the proceedings of democracy and shutting down the vote on Republican Governor Scott Walker’s “budget repair bill.”
June 25, 2013
An unruly mob of thousands of left-wing pro-abortion demonstrators took over the Texas State Capitol, interfering with the democratic process, and causing the Senate to stop their hearings on proposed legislation.
June 14, 2017
A Bernie Sanders supporter, James Hodgkinson, walked onto Eugene Simpson Park in Alexandria, Virginia where Republican congressmen were practicing for the annual congressional baseball game, and asked if they were Republicans or Democrats. 66-year-old, Hodgkinson opened fire, wounding House GOP Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and four other Republicans.
September 24, 2018
128 left-wing activists were arrested during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination and confirmation hearings. The mob of protesters forced their way past law enforcement, breached police lines at both the Senate and the Supreme Court. They took over a part of the Hart Senate Office Building, within the Capitol complex, and beat on the doors of the Senate and the Supreme Court while they were in session. Then-Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., was accosted on an elevator by several women during the event.
May 29, 2020
President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and their son Barron were rushed to a secure bunker when a group of left-wing protesters breached temporary barricades that had been set up around the White House complex. Secret Service reportedly arrested and charged at least four protesters with unlawful entry at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
June 2020 – October 2020
Far-left activist groups, Black Lives Matter and Antifa, organize and execute hundreds of riots in over 50 major cities throughout the United States which killed over 30 innocent people, sent thousands of police officers to the hospital, burned down hundreds of buildings and caused billions of dollars of damage – all were vocally supported by Democrat political figures like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Barack and Michelle Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, and many others.
July 2, 2020
A mob of Antifa rioters set fires inside the fence protecting the federal courthouse in Portland, shaking the fence, launching projectiles over it, and tried to take it down. Several rioters breached the fence, while others flashed lasers at the federal police officers’ eyes as they were protecting the courthouse. The next month, the courthouse was shut down completely over domestic terrorism threats.
March 21, 2021
The day after the fence around the federal courthouse in Portland is removed, Antifa rioters set fire around the courthouse, and forced their way into the building, chanting “f*** the United States!”
October 14, 2021
Far-left climate activists fought with law enforcement officers outside the Interior Department, shouting “Go inside! Go inside!” They injured numerous police officers, and eventually forced their way in where they vandalized the federal building. The injured police officers were eventually transported to the hospital.
Each one of these events perpetrated by the far-left was as bad, and in many instances, significantly worse than what happened at the Capital on January 6, 2021. But let’s make no mistake at what the left is trying to do. They are painting January 6 as an insurrection, so they can label every conservative as an insurrectionist in order to turn the justice department against their political opponents, just as they have weaponized the FBI against parents who object to the teaching of Critical Race Theory at school board meetings.
January 6, 2021 was not an insurrection, but it was a riot, an ugly, out of control riot. And we, on the right, must be better than January 6. We are not like the other side. We do not riot. We do not use political violence to achieve our goals. We don’t have to because we are on the right side. We are on the side of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We are on the side of individual rights and freedoms. We are on the side of personal responsibility. We are on the side of law and order. We are on the side of the United States of America. We are the side that wants to build up our country, not tear it down like the left is hell bent on doing. We can win almost every political debate based solely on the merits, so we do not have to play their games of lies and violence. Simply because the left commits acts of violence and gets away with it, does not make it right and just for us to follow suit. We are better than that. We are better than the left. We just have to keep showing it.
Judd Garrett is a graduate from Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.
Judd, you open yourself to negation, derision and cancellation when you fail to properly define evil incarnate e.g. to say John Wilkes Booth was “far left” leaves the average reader perplexed when connecting the dots is critical to understanding.
Each and every one of the incidents was perpetrated by those at war with God; those who reject the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” with many predating Marx who said he fully intended to “dethrone God”. Was the evil that was Hitler any different than the evil that was Stalin which cost more millions of lives than the Holocaust even before the Nuremburg Laws?
Until human beings come to accept evil incarnate actually exists…and like a force of nature…
Judd is a great writer and I feel this is his best piece to date.
I was ashamed of our country Jan 6 , 2021 but more ashamed of America last week.
Mike Haley
Fourteen incidents were associated with Democrats/Leftists. Zero were associated with Republicans/Conservatives. Not counted were ANTIFA incidents, because they are against government, not really pro left or Right. So, statistically, rioting is a Leftist tactic, not any choice of Conservatives. I might add that those generally identified by the media as ultra Right are demonstrably too stupid to effectively organize anything except street demonstrations displaying their social stupidity.
Thanks so much for the history recall. It really helps with putting things into perspective. Sad that the media is so biased in their reportage and silent with regards to putting everything into the proper context.