Many people involved in politics swear by the notion that “the ends justify the means,” which is typically the sign of a self-serving actor attempting to justify questionable if not downright evil action in order to get what he or she wants. While pursuit of “the greater good” is often put up for public consumption, the driving force behind this sort of action is almost always personal gain of some sort. This is what most politicians do for a living, which is why they are justifiably hated by the general public.
The moment you justify one very wrong action to achieve a noble goal, what’s to stop you from next even more unethical action, or the next and the next? Nothing. This is what’s so dangerous about going down such a path. Indeed, those who fight monsters often end up becoming the exact thing they claim to be fighting. The world doesn’t benefit from this, only the person who has gained power as a result does, at least superficially. Ultimately, even that person doesn’t benefit when all is said and done. A person who attains their goal by sacrificing principles is a tormented, miserable person. They may seem to “have it all” from the outside, but deep down they hate themselves and what they’ve become. There is no peace. I believe karma eventually catches up to everybody one way or the other.
– From May’s post: Do Ends Justify the Means?
One of the primary motivating factors that drove me to start writing publicly on a daily basis, was a recognition that the chaos and cultural lack of cohesion resulting from the thievery of the financial crisis and the increasingly corrupt, socioeconomic paradigm we live under would provide the pretext for “the state,” whether governed by a Democrat or Republican, to further dismantle civil liberties and usher in a country increasingly defined by less freedom. This was a motivating concern under Obama and it remains a motivating concern under Trump.
As I’ve warned repeatedly over the years, at some point the “war on terror” would be brought home to the good ol’ USA, with all enemies suddenly being labeled domestic terrorists. This is happening right now, thanks in large part to all the media hysteria about antifa and neo-Nazis.
Personally, I try to keep things simple and think it’d be wise if others did did the same for the sake of our future. I believe offensive violence is almost never justified, while self-defense almost always is. The purported objective of any group is irrelevant. The worst tyrants in the world always claim to be working for “the people” as they lock people up in gulags or concentration camps to torture and kill them. Ends don’t justify the means. The means are everything.
The reason I’m writing this post is to demonstrate that antifa is playing right into the hands of those who wish to further the objectives of a burgeoning police state. They provide fuel for unconscious people on the other side of the political spectrum who see their thuggishness and then squeal to the government to “do something about it.” If I didn’t know better, I’d assume antifa were probably a bunch of deep state operatives trying to convince the groveling public to cry out for a strong hand government solution. Since I have no evidence to back this up, I’ll just go ahead and call them useful idiots.
Importantly, it’s not just those dressing up like ninjas punching people for wearing polo shirts who are the only useful idiots. Those on the “right” begging the government to call them terrorists are just as foolish. As I tweeted yesterday:
Don’t use words the government wants you to use.
The government wants us to start calling each other terrorists.
Don’t do it.— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) August 31, 2017
For more on that angle, see my recent article titled: Stop Asking the Federal Government to Label Groups You Dislike ‘Terrorists.’
Unfortunately, it seems this train has already left the station. The results for those of us who love freedom might not be pretty.
As Politico reported earlier today:
Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.
Since well before the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly, DHS has been issuing warnings about the growing likelihood of lethal violence between the left-wing anarchists and right-wing white supremacist and nationalist groups.
Previously unreported documents disclose that by April 2016, authorities believed that “anarchist extremists” were the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets. They were blamed by authorities for attacks on the police, government and political institutions, along with symbols of “the capitalist system,” racism, social injustice and fascism, according to a confidential 2016 joint intelligence assessment by DHS and the FBI.
Those reports appear to bolster Trump’s insistence that extremists on the left bore some blame for the clashes in Charlottesville and represent a “problem” nationally. But they also reflect the extent that his own political movement has spurred the violent backlash.
“It was in that period [as the Trump campaign emerged] that we really became aware of them,” said one senior law enforcement official tracking domestic extremists in a state that has become a front line in clashes between the groups. “These antifa guys were showing up with weapons, shields and bike helmets and just beating the shit out of people. … They’re using Molotov cocktails, they’re starting fires, they’re throwing bombs and smashing windows.”
Almost immediately, the right-wing targets of the antifa attacks began fighting back, bringing more and larger weapons and launching unprovoked attacks of their own, the documents and interviews show. And the extremists on both sides have been using the confrontations, especially since Charlottesville, to recruit unprecedented numbers of new members, raise money and threaten more confrontations, they say.
The way to stop this is actually pretty simple. Don’t get sucked in. Don’t pick “a side,” and don’t pressure others to do so. It’s just gang warfare and it won’t lead to anything good.
Moreover, we must denounce offensive violence as a political tactic and marginalize those who advocate it. 90% of people don’t want anything to do with street violence irrespective of how much you despise the system, and believe me, I despise it. Don’t give into the negative energy. Negative energy creates negative outcomes.
Now back to Politico.
Even before Charlottesville, dozens and, in some cases, hundreds of people on both sides showed up at events in Texas, California, Oregon and elsewhere, carrying weapons and looking for a fight. In the Texas capital of Austin, armed antifa protesters attacked Trump supporters and white groups at several recent rallies, and then swarmed police in a successful effort to stop them from making arrests.
Rallies are scheduled over the next few months across the country, including in Texas, Oregon, Missouri and Florida. Authorities are particularly concerned about those in states where virtually anyone, including activists under investigation for instigating violence, can brandish assault rifles in public.
“Both the racists and a segment of violent antifa counter-protestors are amped for battle in an escalating arms race, where police departments are outmaneuvered, resulting in increasingly violent dangerous confrontations,” said former New York City police officer Brian Levin, who has been monitoring domestic militants for 31 years, now at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “It’s an orchestrated dance. The rallies spill over into social media and then even more people show up at the next rally primed for violent confrontation.”
Some of the DHS and FBI intelligence reports began flagging the antifa protesters before the election. In one from last September, portions of which were read to POLITICO, DHS studied “recent violent clashes … at lawfully organized white supremacist” events including a June 2016 rally at the California Capitol in Sacramento organized by the Traditionalist Workers Party and its affiliate, the Golden State Skinheads.
According to police, counter-protesters linked to antifa and affiliated groups like By Any Means Necessary attacked, causing a riot after which at least 10 people were hospitalized, some with stab wounds.
“By any means necessary” is basically the dictator’s blueprint. Anyone who espouses such ideology is an unconscious threat to society.
At the Sacramento rally, antifa protesters came looking for violence, and “engaged in several activities indicating proficiency in pre-operational planning, to include organizing carpools to travel from different locations, raising bail money in preparation for arrests, counter-surveilling law enforcement using three-man scout teams, using handheld radios for communication, and coordinating the event via social media,” the DHS report said.
Several state law enforcement officials said that all of those accelerating factors have come to pass. And recent FBI and DHS reports confirm they are actively monitoring “conduct deemed potentially suspicious and indicative of terrorist activity” by antifa groups.
The two agencies also said in their April 2016 assessment that many of the activities the groups engaged in “are not within the purview of FBI and DHS collection” due to civil liberties and privacy protections, including participating in training camps, holding meetings and communicating online.
Read the above paragraph over and over until you get it. The feds will claim they need the public to give up more civil liberties to fight “domestic terrorists.” If you’re dumb enough to give into this, I don’t know what to tell you.
All that said, I will not stand here and tell you that unconscious gangs fighting in the street isn’t a threat. It’s certainly becoming an issue, but we need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and not respond emotionally. Indeed, I think the recent approach voiced by the mayor of Berkeley is wise. He suggests treating groups like antifa as gangs.
Here’s some of what he said:
BERKELEY (CBS SF) — Mayor of Berkeley Jesse Arreguin on Monday said it is time to confront the violent extremism on the left by treating black-clad Antifa protesters as a gang.
“I think we should classify them as a gang,” said Arreguin. “They come dressed in uniforms. They have weapons, almost like a militia and I think we need to think about that in terms of our law enforcement approach.”
This is a preferable approach to using the word “terrorist” since the latter definition causes people to lose their minds and justify a destruction of the Constitution. Let’s not be stupid.
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Who says antifa isn’t a ploy to justify the police state?
Berkeley is Janet Napolitano’s lair, either she’s “in on it” (Antifa attacks) or as a dumb as a box-o-rocks, the Berkeley attacks were led by Berkeley staffers and protected by Berkeley management (placed by Janet) and best of all “they” have archived copies of the Berkeley computer and email systems on her orders since 2015. From Janet’s Wikipedia In August 2015, network monitoring hardware was installed on the UC Berkeley campus network at the behest of Napolitano.[74] Critics fear that this hardware can be used to monitor all network traffic, including academics’ emails. Despite internal criticism, the decision to install the hardware was kept secret until January 2016, when a number of professors addressed it in a public letter.[75]
Agreed.Makes one wonder just who’s behind those masks
We believe that nothing happens by chance in our nation, and although like you, Michael, we can’t prove who is behind Antifa, they certainly are what Delamer Duverus would have called useless, worthless, Raca, or waste material. Delamer Duverus was the Editor-in Chief of the weekly newspaper, The American Sunbeam, and he was considered a radical by many, but only because he told the truth. (Don’t look up The American Sunbeam on Wiki because they won’t change the lies they write.)
My husband worked with Delamer Duverus for 16 years or so and was probably tagged as a radical also. We must assume this is why a man wormed his way into our life, and eventually got our husband aside and tried to do a Timothy McVeigh on him, to encourage my husband to start a patriot group. My husband would have nothing to do with him and it wasn’t long until we discovered he had done the same thing with others in the community. Someone said he worked with the police as some sort of trainer. Who knows. We knew he was a plant.
We saw this years earlier when we met this preacher at a Patriot rally in Pennsylvania. He was an Identity preacher. Sure enough he interested a friend of ours and we all went over to her home to hear him preach his Identity lies, and then we all got out our guns and rifles and practiced target shooting. Well, it just so happened that Delamer Duverus published a leaked CIA document about their secret “Earl of Dysart” op which was the use of the Identity movement to get people involved with racism so they could be controlled. The Identity idea is that the 12 tribes of Israel were the white races and it was they who were spread over Europe and then America. I think I remember it rightly.
Again it was Delamer Duverus who wrote that the bloodthirsty beast Joshua had invented the 12 tribes to give his polyglot people a history when they had none, and that the original texts spoke about 12 races, which would make sense because the Earth has 6 segments, with two races to a segment.
Of course, I come here thinking I might find a solid liberty site and immediately I find the stinking under belly of Jew-hatred and Jew-blaming. Liberty “Blitzkrieg”? Just couldn’t help yourselves? Notice you always point out bad Jews like Rothschilds and banksters but ignore liberty Jews like Mises, Rothbard, Aaron Russo’s Freedom to Fascism, Aaron Swartz who fought the Feds for internet freedom, the JPFO, gee who else, I dunno Jesus maybe? Seriously how everyone not see (Nazi?) how you guys infiltrate and undermine every libertarian/free-market website with your poison lies. Yes, there are some “Jewish” people in the NWO who are not good people, and many more non-Jews as well. The Nazi bankers were very powerful and internationally criminal, as well as others nations, the Arabs are extremely influential economically. But the original international banking cartel were the Knights Templars and the heart of it remains Rome, the Vatican Bank, the Pope is chairman of Crown Bank of London, and Washington DC was Freemason built formerly known as Rome, Maryland. Look at Switzerland, banking capital, always neutral, their flag is the Templar flag colors inverted, study their history, founded by white knights with red crosses. Blame the Jews all you want, those few Jewish banking families are mid-level servants, court-Jews, scapegoats when things get hairy for the empire. Jewish banking goes back to Pope’s usury laws. Again, Rome. You’re probably a Jesuit disinfo agent.
Hi, I just want to make something clear. My father is Jewish and I am quite vigilant about not allowing bigoted commentary on this site. If you go through the comment section of Liberty Blitzkrieg, irrespective of the post, you will find very little hateful commentary, whether it be directed at Jews, blacks, Muslims, women, etc.
The comment section of this site is supposed to encourage conscious people sharing intelligent and conscious ideas. That doesn’t mean it’s an echo chamber and I don’t want it to be, but I am as careful as I possibly can be to remove trolls or people just trying to spread hatred and bigotry, which I believe is unconscious and counter-productive to a healthy dialogue.
I really hope you will look around some more and see that the commentary is generally pretty high quality, especially compared to many other sites out there. I have worked hard to create a strong community of decent, thoughtful readers and I think that is very much the case for the most part. I encourage you to keep an open mind, the people who comment here tend to be of very high quality.
The website name is an obvious play on my last name. I appropriated the term for my own pro-liberty message. Read my posts and you will find zero “Jew bashing” anywhere within the thousands of posts I have written.
Also who ignores Aaron Swatrz? I have written about him constantly over the years. It’s so bizarre that you come to the site and within a few minutes, not only make a false judgement, but also spread lies. This is not the behavior of a good actor yourself, so you really need to take a step back and think about the kind of behavior you are exhibiting.
I think you are writing the truth without having been caught up directly in the web being woven?
I have been the victim (well, the target still standing) of provocation and webs of lies and deceit and harrassment, from people looking to progress their own agenda by standing on the heads of decent folk, discrediting them. They use social media to impose a perverted version of the truth on the general public, discrediting good. They niggle, poke, run when confronted, all the cowardly stuff.
Their simple tactic is effective if you react.
The gut reaction of any red blooded male is to retaliate and want to smash their dumb faces in, but they are cowards and would going crying to the authorities if called out. So, the smartest and easiest way to hurt and frustrate and stop these negative types of idiots long term, is to NOT react.
They hate it, flailing and swinging against someone who they know is actually too strong to be bothered to react. Add no fuel to a fire and the fire will wither.
And to counter, keep behaving well and positively. “Disengage” while being constructive and developing positive lines of communication and collaborations with good people.
When the idiots have to go out their way to be confrontational, that’s when you know you have won, they have exposed themselves, easy pickings. Hope this makes sense.
You’ve got it, Andy. As Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
1taLa, I came home from war and read that Friedrich Nietzsche line and it burned into me…that was 48 years ago and it is still feels like an ugly brand on my mind.
Divide to rule. Amen.
I understand the sentiment to ignore and stand above the fray.
The problem with this tactic is that the other side will keep encroaching, it is part of their battle plan. If one side refused to defend something, the other side simple occupies it. The question becomes what do you stand for and where do you decide to defend?
If one defers defending long enough, there is nothing left to defend. Peace is a two sided affair. The current state of affairs is that one side does not have the right of assembly. The government does not defend it and the “opposition” attacks those who try to exercise that right. So in effect the right of assembly has been lost to most law-abiding Americans. If they attempt to exercise it they will be met by violence. If they attempt to defend themselves, they will be prosecuted by the authorities. These Americans are living the perfect example of a dilemma.
I don’t have an answer, but I think that any answer at this point in time given how long this has gone on and how much the MSM encourages it will not be pretty or peaceful. I am a disabled veteran, I understand the cost of violence, I had hoped to live out my days in a peaceful civil society. I may not get that heartfelt wish.
You’ve certainly put your finger on the core of the dilemma. And it isn’t just in America but everywhere now. I call it the collapse of civilization and like climate change, it’s either too late, or there was nothing possible, to do anything to stop this thing from completing itself. To quote Frank Herbert in the Dune novels: “We are in the crucible. We have entered a time when everything is going to turn against us.”
Hi Dennis,
I appreciate what you are saying. I don’t have specific answers either – that’s Michael’s job 🙂
What I have learnt, to counter aggression, I think the important part is that we feel it is OK to take some hits. But most importantly, we aren’t planning on standing there passive till the waves rise up around our neck.
Engage with allies, and quietly shore up defences. I say quietly, because it seems that “they” seem to think that unless the reaction against their force is to blatantly meet force with force, out in the open, those under attack are weak. Let them think that, they are so wrong.
1taLa, Dennis,
Personal Snowflake – Antifa experience: I faced about 200 snowflakes sprinkled with Antifa (for aggressive riot seasoning) at an ACT for America anti Sharia Law rally about 6 – 7 weeks ago. I was one of 8 volunteer bodyguards for the main speaker’s FREE SPEECH. A 26 year old fearless former Muslim (who is searching spiritually) he needed bodyguards. Without the city police and state troopers steadfastly in between us there would have been bloody violence. However, we had a corps of former military that were outnumbered…but formidable.
Once the hammer and sickle red flag was waving in front of me I had a vicious visceral reaction (Nam Vet…still able to rock & roll) and came home with a serious check in my spirit over my reaction…for two sleepless nights.
Massive violence is coming…I don’t know if I’ll go to another confrontation. I have been praying about it, a part of me wants to stand boldly. Its not the Antifa violence I’m worried about…its staring into the abyss again…and what I’m capable of.
I have already seen the Monster in the mirror once.
Dennis, sadly your heartfelt wish will be KIA.
Best Wishes Bro
“Resist not evil”, Mark. Stay away from them and ignore them.
The last thing you need is to purposefully put yourself in a place where there will be a confrontation.
Most of them are astroturf, anyway.
Overall solid post. Couple nit-picky things that are critical of a couple of the quotes…
One quotes about DHS lists “left-wing anarchists” and “right-wing white supremacist and nationalist groups”.
The problem here is that while it is accurate to label certain anarchist ideologies/groups as extreme far left-wing, there are also far-right volunteerists and minarchists, some who may mistakenly refer to themselves as anarcho-capitalists, who are simply anti-government folks. Likewise, the white supremacist groups like the neo-Nazis, KKK, and Traditional Workers Party are fundamentally, politically, and historically socialist, collectivist, anti-capitalist, anti-individualist, left-wing.
The notion of a political spectrum where Communism is on the one extreme, and National Socialism on the other, is a fraud and leaves no room for individualism, personal liberty, or free markets.
The true spectrum, the only one with any merit is the spectrum with Total Government Control, total Collectivism, Totalitarian Communism on the far-Left…. and ….Zero-Government Control, absolute individual freedom to do anything whatsoever, Anarchy
America by the way, was founded as, and should be close to a far-right monarchy, i.e.- the government that governs least governs best.
The other problem quote was from the Berkley, CA guy (big surprise) equating these Antifa thugs to gangs, which is fine that’s accurate but then equates gangs to militias! Militias are our 2nd Amendment right and duty as Americans! Vast majority are not racist, they are all-inclusive, all-American responsible well-trained and regulated American citizens exercising and protecting all Americans’ rights and freedoms as our forefathers deemed necessary. We need a lot more responsible well-trained well-armed citizens and fewer militarized government employees with guns enforcing bad laws.
One of the problems is that the one area where I, a pacifist, would endorse violence is the one area where it will least likely come about. I would rather see the Deep State and all its thugs get due process, and live out the rest of their miserable lives in the filthy, brutal prisons they helped to create and profit from.
However, if the French, Russian and American Revolutions taught us anything, is that entrenched power will NEVER relinquish it’s grasp without a fight.
I would not kill a neo-Nazi, who is just an impotent fly buzzing in my ear. But if there was no alternative, and a guarantee for top down change, I would willingly be exocutioner and pull the guillotine rope.
Genaro…thanks…I have always headed directly into the center of the arena…and I know you are right about them being brain-rinsed radical astroturf.
I am defiantly pulling back but depending on what happens will bide my time to carefully pick my stands and when necessary actions.
Most of us on the Right are just asking for current laws to be enforced against Antifa. They have been getting away with violence for a year. Also, it would be good if the corporate media and the non-violent Left would condemn them. Some are actually likening them to the troops at the D-Day invasion.
If the freedom loving people do not see the civil authorities protecting them, they will take matters into they own hands. You can see how that can get out of control.
Sometimes “The ends Justify the Means” – there are no absolutes, including that one. These word plays are all just trickery in place of substance – trying to convince readers of something.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-03/mnuchin-congress-should-add-harvey-funds-debt-ceiling-bill
while antifa becomes an issue. goldman sachs is figuring out how to extract money from tax payers by hooking up their contractors with 7 billion dollars of broken window money.
i love texas. the federal government should focus on passing laws that make it easier for people to fix things on their own. not focus on stealing money from tax payers for goldman sachs to take their cut off of ‘aid funds’ less than 1/3 of which will actually go to helping people /end users.
IT’S GRAFT(TURTLES) ALL THE WAY DOWN.
I totally agree with you Michael about what is going on it this country. A strategy of tension is being created in this country for the purpose of further eroding our civil liberties. I found it telling that Nancy Pelosi called out Patriot Prayer as a White Nationalists, hate group, before their rally, when they were nothing of the sort. Afterwards, Antifa predictably engaged in violence to shut down their rally, and later she was praised for condemning Antifa’s violent tactics, oblivious to her role in fanning the flames. As to who is doing this, yes, it is “useful idiots,” many of the them young, who don’t have any understanding how deep state agent provocateurs work. Look into Charlottesville. It looks like it was a deep state created event People claim both BLM and Nazi were shipped in on the same bus caravans. Also, notice how Hollywood is creating a lot of Nazi themed movies recently, and ones carrying forth that meme that sometimes you have to use violence for the greater good? (Wonder Woman and other comic book movies). We are all being collectively played.
How many times in the following excerpted paragraph is the word I? :
The reason I’m writing this post is to demonstrate that antifa is playing right into the hands of those who wish to further the objectives of a burgeoning police state. They provide fuel for unconscious people on the other side of the political spectrum who see their thuggishness and then squeal to the government to “do something about it.” If I didn’t know better, I’d assume antifa were probably a bunch of deep state operatives trying to convince the groveling public to cry out for a strong hand government solution. Since I have no evidence to back this up, I’ll just go ahead and call them useful idiots.
Quite a few times! Learn to write without using the word I more than is absolutely necessary. Hone your writing skills to eliminate unnecessary wording or redundant wording. Your thoughts have merit, although your writing style is tedious with a lot of superfluity.
pensiamentopeligroso,
Liberty Blitzkrieg is a blog mainly consisting of one man’s (often wise and thought-provoking) opinions, not a news source claiming (dishonestly, usually) to be unbiased. It is more honest to use “I” when stating an opinion instead of just claiming opinions as facts as others often do.
PS If you really find it tedious to read, there is a very obvious solution to your problem…
Not mentioned here is the claim that police (in Charlottesville) were told to stand down and thus allowing the violence to escalate. This is good for the police state. Probably agent provocateurs infiltrating both sides to help ratchet up the violence.
I have a few remarks about the opening paragraphs:
“Indeed, those who fight monsters often end up becoming the exact thing they claim to be fighting.”
A lot of times those fighting the monsters (those in grander authoritative positions – Presidents, congress etc.) are already monsters, just hiding in sheep’s clothing. Fighting the so-called monster doesn’t move them since it’s all theater to them anyway.
“Ultimately, even that person doesn’t benefit when all is said and done. A person who attains their goal by sacrificing principles is a tormented, miserable person. They may seem to “have it all” from the outside, but deep down they hate themselves and what they’ve become.”
These people are not tormented, they have no empathy, so feel nothing in doing some horrific things. Those who took down Saddam and Gaddafi didn’t flinch when hundreds of thousands of people were killed and countries left in ruin in the aftermath of their actions. Indeed, they are quite elated, as Hillary Clinton when she was asked about Gaddafi’s death, “We came, we saw, he died”, and then chuckled about it. No karma for these folks. They seem to have some Teflon coating deflecting all karma.