All's Fair In Love And War

Principles aside, on some level, when dealing with those who wish you ill, we need to be willing to meet fire with fire.

It stops when no one side possesses a preponderance of power.

A major controversy erupted in the day or so following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Thousands of left-wing Americans took to social media and posted, in one way or another, a mix of glee over the fact the former president was nearly murdered and disappointment over the fact he wasn’t.

I shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but many of these people ended up paying a heavy price for the actions, primarily in terms of losing their jobs or just being publicly exposed. I’m not going to get into all these incidents - you can browse popular X account “Libs of TikTok” if you want to see who these people are - but the one which sparked the most outrage concerned an elderly Home Depot employee:

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What did she say that led to this?

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Many others got caught up in this wave of “cancel culture,” this time coming from the Right. They included a firefighter, a restaurant employee, teachers, and more. These incidents sparked a moral panic, on the Right, ironically. Many regarded this as over-top, “punching down,” as it were, on normal everyday Americans trying to get by in life, whose only mistake was to express a “wrong opinion.”

Wrong opinion? Really? Threatening or wishing death on a president is all that is now? This may be somewhat outside my swim lane, but the topic is stirring up spirited debate, it’s relevant to the crisis the country finds itself in, and I have a lot to say on it myself. Open as I am to other arguments, if this is just a matter of otherwise innocent people losing their jobs over wrong opinions, then I’ve totally missed the memo. Except I haven’t.

Before going further, let me make something clear: I’m not celebrating the fact any of these people lost their jobs. I think it’s all unfortunate, honestly. However, I most certainly don’t sympathize with them, either. In fact, I’m totally indifferent to their fate. I just can’t be bothered to care. Here’s why.

Threatening The President Is A No-No

We had, until very recently, an absolute taboo against making threats or casting death wishes against the president. Everyone, from an early age, was taught this is a red line never to be crossed. Anyone claiming that these people who were fired were simply expressing a “different opinion” are being dangerously disingenuous. Calling for someone’s death is just an opinion now? When did making threats against the president, even in an implied or joking matter, become totally acceptable? Those calling for a more “principled” approach seem to have dispensed with the principle against threatening the president.

Mind you, it’s a federal crime. I can’t believe anyone needs to be reminded, but here it is in Title 18 of the U.S. Code, Section 871:

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

The law has since been interpreted to include former presidents, like Trump. How this law has been applied in practice is beyond the scope of this entry. It’s enough to say that not only is it against the law, there has never been, during my lifetime, any debate over whether threatening the president or former president is within the bounds of acceptable behavior. It’s one thing to express such sentiments behind closed doors; it’s another to do so out in the open, where plausible deniability becomes impossible.

I’ve been very consistent on this principle. Last year, I criticized the way many came to the defense of Craig Robertson, a 75-year-old Utah man who spent years making threats against President Joe Biden and other public officials until it all caught up to him in August 2023, when the FBI served a warrant at his home and ended up shooting him dead in the process. There are still those out there who think Robertson did nothing wrong; I disagree, but if he crossed the line, doing more than just expressing an opinion, so did his leftist counterparts.

The fact is, you cannot do things that attract the attention of law enforcement and claim victimhood. Had LibsofTikTok not been the one to point out these social media posts, someone else surely could’ve and reported them to law enforcement. It’s conceivable they could’ve then investigated these individuals as a consequence. Whether the investigation turned up anything or not, ask yourself: how many of these people would end up keeping their jobs? How many employers would take the risk to safety and the reputation of their businesses by keeping on the payroll someone who wished the president dead not even 24 hours following a real-life assassination attempt?

Most important: who’s most responsible, in the end? Who’s most at fault for their own actions?

No, You Actually Can’t Say Anything You Want

The law has made clear that free speech absolutism doesn’t exist. You can argue against this from a philosophical standpoint all you wish, but until the law reverses that precedent, there are limits to what you can and can’t say publicly. Anyone who thinks these people should be given a pass are effectively arguing that making threats should be decriminalized. I wonder how they’d feel if those threats were directed at them or their loved ones, instead? Would they magnanimously reply with, “It’s their right to threaten me!”?

Perhaps we’ve become desensitized: after all, presidents are constantly under threat to the point it’s just a part of the landscape. And perhaps that’s precisely the problem: we’ve forgotten that words matter. Speech alone isn’t violence, but a threat is quite clearly violent. There’s just no other way to take something like, “I’m going to kill you!” outside some mitigating context. Arguing that threats aren’t violence is to take the logic that speech isn’t violence to a ridiculous logical extreme.

I think another reason we’ve become desensitized is because many of these comments are made on social media. Something else we’ve taken to a logical extreme is the idea that social media doesn’t represent reality. I’ve never fully bought into this line: social media is reality in the sense it’s people saying the quiet part aloud. Really, though: what difference does it make? Does the fact they said what they said on an electronic platform diminish the message? Does it make it less real, less significant? If anything, it makes it more significant: on social media, we have the luxury of thinking before writing (we should be doing that even when speaking). These people had all the time in the world to consider whether this was something they really wanted to put out there for all the world to see. The idea this was just an innocent mistake is preposterous.

As you’ll soon see, people were canceled for much, much less. Someone was once fired from their job years ago for the following social media post:

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That was it. No threat, nothing remotely close to what Home Depot lady said. Their worst transgression was having an opinion which ran against social sentiment. There was no death threat, no death wish cast upon anyone. What you say matters so much more than your right to say it.

We Are At War, Whether You Like It Or Not

This is probably the most controversial aspect of my argument: we are fighting a cold civil war in America, whether anyone likes it or not. The Left has been waging this war not just on the Right, but against America as a whole, for years, if not decades. Through a combination of hard and soft power, Americans have been forced to self-censor as we watched our fellow citizens become dis-empowered, disenfranchised, and un-personed as though we live in a totalitarianism.

It’s a war which arguably peaked in 2020. Check out this thread to see the lengths the Left, with state sanction, went to persecute those who dared oppose or even question the Regime’s diktats. Here are some examples:

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Here’s an example of a working man who was victimized by the Left’s reign of terror:

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Children have been fair game as well. This occurred just earlier this year:

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What ought to strike you when learning about these incidents is how ridiculous the reasons behind them were. The reactions were horrendously disproportionate to the actual harm done, which in most cases, was none at all. You don’t see anywhere close to a similar reaction to an actual crime, be it murder, rape, or carjacking, absent some other factor like race.

These are just the incidents we know about. There are many, many, more we’ll never hear about, whose victims will never have a chance to tell their side of the story. Most important, none of their supposed transgressions are anything remotely close to what Home Depot lady did, which, if not legally prohibited, then certainly legally precarious. To show her tremendous sympathy is equally disproportionate to what she said.

Principles aside, on some level, when dealing with those who wish you ill, we need to be willing to meet fire with fire. The willingness to kill your assailant or a home invader doesn’t make you a murderer and it definitely doesn’t make you as bad the person who victimizes you. Likewise, it also doesn’t matter how much money someone makes or what their status in society is. If anything, going after lower-level offenders is just as important as going after the bigger fish.

It’s perhaps not the best example (you can read about it here), but when late right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh was subjected to a cancellation attempt, see how he responded:

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The point isn’t that Limbaugh did the right thing or was a victim here. It’s to say that when people are coming after you, you need to go after those who are actually coming after you. That includes the little fish as much as the big fish. How much they make hourly or how much power they have is irrelevant. If someone physically attacks you, it doesn’t matter if they making a living cleaning bathrooms wearing an apron or managing a multi-million dollar portfolio wearing a suit. You defend yourself, period. Mercy can be a virtue, but it can also become a liability when exploited.

I also reject the premise that these people are powerless. None of us truly are, we just lack power relative to others. I can’t say the following with any certainty, but it’s very possible these people who were “canceled” for wishing death on Trump were themselves part of mobs calling for others to be canceled for being politically off-side or even participated in violent protests. We all make bad choices in life, but not all of us continue to make bad choices. The fact is, we are each capable of causing tremendous harm to others in both word and deed.

Really, how much mercy does a person like this deserve? Not only is she celebrating the attempt on Trump’s life, she’s also celebrating the one fatality in the incident, Corey Comperatore:

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Imagine someone said that about your loved one: would how much they get paid matter to you at all? Sure, it’s not up to us to be outraged on behalf of others, but all societies have a range of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. This sort of thing used to be unacceptable.

To say we shouldn’t go after these people because of their place on the totem pole is like saying the 20-year-old enemy soldier shouldn’t be attacked in a shooting war, since he’s just following orders. It’s complete, utter nonsense:

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Nobody would ever say we shouldn’t have killed Nazi soldiers because they were just following orders and Hitler was the “real” bad guy with all the power. The Nazi soldiers were going to kill either way and nobody’s getting to Hitler without getting through his underlings, first. It seems like the honorable, just thing to go straight to the top and leave the “lesser” beings alone, but it only exposes you to further victimization. The fact is that the people up top aren’t much without people at the bottom willing to enforce their will. History shows that, often the people at the bottom are the ones who are utterly fanatical, if only because it allows them to feel powerful by effectively being a commissar.

If we want to see a day when cancel culture, at least as practiced by the Left, becomes less of a thing, deterrence needs to be re-established. This means posing tangible costs on those who break the rules, their rules especially. This not only means we cannot discriminate, but we need to be willing to go after our social peers. Not only is it easier to affect change at our level, our peers are, sad to say, the people who pose the greatest direct threat to us, since we deal with them on a daily basis. The idea we ought to go exclusively after people in positions of authority is a fantasy; we can’t even vote these people out of power, not really. You really think you’re going to square up with a police sergeant and win? Dream on. Not without greater institutional power is anyone going to successfully de-throne the bigger fish.

Taking the “high road” works only with those who share the same moral values. The onus of de-escalation is on the side with the ability to enforce cancel culture. While we should all be careful about how vindictive we ourselves become (don’t go around looking for people to cancel!), it’s not up to any of us to check fire. It’s also absolutely not our responsibility to come to the defense of those who wouldn’t feel a single drop of guilt over any of us suffering a similar fate.

None of this makes you an immoral, unprincipled person. If anything, it upholds the most important principle of all: protect yourself and yours.

Save Your Outrage For the Real Fight

What stands out most to me is how a lone elderly retail worker losing her job was enough to trigger this much outrage on the Right. It makes you wonder what else can stir up sympathy for those who wish ill upon us. Suffice it to say, anyone whose heartstrings are this easily pulled are going to get cold feet when it comes time to do the really ugly stuff, like mass deportations.

In many ways, I hate what I’m saying. I hate the fact things have gotten to where they are. But we must always live in accordance with reality. Sticking to the principle of never punching down, never playing dirty, it’s all a useless gesture in the face of those who have no limit to the depth they’re willing to sink to in order to have their way. It’s how they became so powerful, by crushing anyone who stands in the way, especially the weaker and more vulnerable. As we’ve seen, they’ll go after old and young, rich and poor.

People are creatures of incentive. We do what we’re allowed, what we can benefit from, and what we can get away with. On that last part, not everyone is like that - some of us have more integrity than others - but generally, we make choices based on the range of consequences we can expect. All those wishing death upon Trump said what they said because they thought they could get away with it. Maybe they had good reason to think so, too. The problem with living your life on the basis of what you can get away with, however, is that when everyone else quits playing along, you’re completely exposed. Individuals like Home Depot lady can only get away with what they say as long as more powerful players are willing to provide cover for them. The way to fight back is to put them in a position where they’re completely exposed, with nobody around to protect them. We’ll never be able to put up this fight unless we’re willing to go after everyone who opens fire. There’s such a thing as prioritizing threats, but ignoring threats is always a fatal error.

What’s the preparedness application here? Same as it ever was: live in accordance with reality. We don’t live in a free speech world, we are surrounded by those who wish us ill, and, as much as many of us would like to pretend otherwise, we’re not in this together. We are a divided society and it’s no longer about petty politics. It’s about two diametrically opposed visions of what this country is and ought to be. Neither civility nor politics can overcome such a divide. If you think you can continue to remain above the fray and never pick sides, well, don’t worry: a side will be picked on your behalf.

Finally, don’t say stupid stuff! We all have a good idea what’s appropriate to say publicly and what’s not. Yes, the rules change daily. Yes, the Regime makes crimes out of absolutely nothing. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Threats against the president never were okay and anyone who thinks that particular rule has changed will be in for a rude awakening, as many discovered this past week.

Silence is golden. Think before you speak. It’s not fair that some people get to say whatever they want while others have to hold fire. But the power imbalance is a reality we have to live with. Don’t fall into their trap, but make sure they fall into theirs.

We’re Not All Meant To Do Everything

I think this is something we need to talk about as well. Following the assassination attempt on Trump, controversy erupted over the performance of the protective detail assigned to the former president. Specifically, they zeroed in on the women on the job.

Images like these were the cause of controversy:

Lest you think this is merely sexists “pouncing,” as the media likes to put it, on an opportunity to indulge in their prejudices, here’s Richard Hanania, who takes pride in being an anti-reactionary, explaining what the problem is:

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Looks are deceiving, but let’s not take that principle too literally, either. If something looks wrong (and this does), there’s a reason for it. I haven’t seen anyone make an argument in favor of why there was no problem here, aside from the usual feminist babble. Typically, when seeking to protect someone, you want the protectors to be someone bigger, fitter, and stronger than the one being protected. It’s just common sense, but what do I know: common sense is lacking these days.

I’m the last person in the world to ever criticize someone willing to take a bullet for others. I think we all should be willing to take a bullet for others; I can’t remember who said it, but someone who isn’t willing to die for others isn’t fit for living. That said, a willingness to die for others doesn’t mean someone should have a career where they get paid to protect others. It’s one thing to be willing to give up your life on behalf of others, it’s another to expect compensation for it and to do it day in, day out. That’s not something everyone can do, nor should they.

David Reaboi had as fair a take on it as any [bold mine]:

There are plenty of careers and opportunities for a woman like this, who’s obviously brave and committed—unlike the others, she seems to have handled herself with professionalism. But it’s not this.

The problem here isn’t just DEI; it’s the fact that she and the authorities place her opportunity or self-actualization ahead of the job. I know she wants desperately to do this—and it’s probably the most important thing in her life. But that’s not the most important consideration.

Once upon a time, saying that men and women should be allowed to do the same jobs as long as they were held to the same standard was a perfectly acceptable stance to hold. When this failed to increase the representation of women, it was decided to lower standards across the board to fix this. But women have always been held to a different standard due to biological differences. This is something feminists and others pushing for more female representation have never had a problem with. As far as they’re concerned, the lack of women was never due to incapacity, it was due to male oppression.

But as Mary Harrington writes, they can’t have it both ways:

In the chapter, I drew a comparison between this situation and the arguments made by sex-realist feminists against the presence of trans-identified men in women’s prisons. I showed that every sex-realist argument against making prisons co-ed on the grounds of radical gender egalitarianism also applies in the context of making combat units co-ed. Most importantly, the differential aggression levels between the sexes mean sex mixing increases the group’s risk overall. In the case of co-ed prisons, including trans-identified men places female inmates at risk; in the case of combat units, including smaller, weaker, on average less physically aggressive women places male team-mates (or in this recent incident, a Presidential candidate) at risk.

Put another way, women cannot, on the one hand, routinely point out that men pose a threat to them due to physical and psychological differences, but also claim that women are just as capable of doing the same jobs as them. Those physical and psychological differences are, in fact, what makes men more appropriate for certain jobs, in turn making women less appropriate for them. Put still another way, if the average man poses a disproportionate level of danger to the average woman, why would making that woman into a police officer be a good idea, when her job would be to confront such dangerous men?

More from Harrington:

If sex-realist feminists want culture and policy to acknowledge that women are more physiologically vulnerable in some contexts, we have to be willing to consider that in some other contexts this may constrain the roles that are open to women. If the price of (say) keeping gender woo out of prisons, or reserving some intimate care roles for women, is that front-line combat roles should be reserved for men, this seems eminently reasonable to me. If we’re going to be sex-realist, let’s be sex-realist across the board.

As always, I keep it practical on this blog. The reality is, no matter your stance on gender roles, bad ideas never survive first contact with reality. The diminutive female Secret Service agent attempting to shield 6’3” Donald Trump is a perfect example. It might look like women’s empowerment, but in a practical sense, it’s not. It’s no different from a small child trying to shield their larger parent. It’s a wonderful thing that a child loves their parent enough to try protecting them, but any adult who expects a child to take the bullet for them is an idiot and a coward. It’s just not something that’s supposed to happen.

We’re living in a time when the people in charge are trying all sorts of things that defy classic wisdom out of an attempt to change the rules we live by. Some of the people doing this are zealots, but still others, I think, are just going with the flow. To go with the flow, however, one must engage in reality-denial, while hoping that reality never calls them on their bluff. It’s a dangerous game, but it’s what people do when they think they’re untouchable and can get away with anything.

It calls to mind this scene from the movie The Enforcer, the third film in the Dirty Harry series:

That was 1976. The reason I wanted to show you this scene was because of the part where the female officer answers Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan with “It’s my ass! And my luck.” It’s precisely this mindset, the idea that just the mere willingness to die on the job, is enough to qualify someone for such dangerous tasks, that’s a huge part of the problem. The fact is, nobody really wants to die on the job. What they do want are the benefits that come with doing jobs where death is a higher-than-usual outcome.

Consider: among the most dangerous occupations in America are tree trimmers, loggers, and roofers. They have fatality and injury rates far above that of law enforcement officers. However, there’s no push for more women in these jobs. Why is that? Could it be due to the fact they not only don’t pay well, but they lack the status that comes with being a cop, pilot, and other higher-paying, high-profile occupations. That and they’re genuinely physically strenuous jobs in the sense your body is constantly under stress and strain.

Nobody can nor should do everything. That’s just the way it is. A man who is 5’5” would never be charged with protecting a 6’3” man. So why should a woman of the same size? Women who work in male-dominated professions claim to be held to a higher standard on the job; while this might be true in shades, it’s also true that men not only need to compete with other men, they also need to compete with women who have a leg up simply for being female. Nobody should be surprised that someone who gets the job based on a lesser standard, dealing with less competition, gets held to a higher standard once on the job. If there existed any realistic standards, there might not be any women in these jobs at all.

Nobody wants to be told they can’t do something. I get it. But if we don’t tell them, reality will. Reality won’t say mean things, but it won’t be merciful, either.

Fairness Is A Two-Way Street

What are your thoughts on what we discussed here? Do you think the cancellations were fair game? Or did they go too far? If they went too far, what would’ve been the appropriate response? What are your thoughts on women doing dangerous work, such as protective services? Is this a something we need to revisit?

As long as we’re talking with one another, let’s keep it civil.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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