Antifa anarchy, Portland’s apathy

Ngo’s diligent professionalism landed him in the hospital recently. He suffered a brain hemorrhage from the antifa thugs’ attacks on him. Some of his photo equipment had also been destroyed. The attack was captured on video by a local reporter, Jim Ryan. It shows a group of masked young men hitting Ngo in the head repeatedly, spraying him with what appears to be pepper spray, and throwing milkshakes, which Portland police believe contained quick-dry cement, in his face.

The antifa activists knew whom they were attacking. Ngo has been targeted for online harassment by antifa affiliates for months because he documents the worst side of the group’s demonstrations: their vandalism and violence against opponents, which are largely ignored by the media, presumably because those organizations are sympathizers. Ngo knew the risks when he went to the protest. Earlier that day, he expressed concern for his safety after antifa had singled him out in one of its online forums. But the fact that he knows these people’s loathsome characters and behavior does not mean he is somehow to blame for being among them to report their outrages.

Antifa’s retributive violence is alarming. They attacked a man who posed no physical threat. Perhaps more disturbing than that is the fact that the rioters felt safe attacking an unarmed person in broad daylight. They knew or were confident that they would not be punished. Violence against citizens isn’t permitted under Portland’s laws. It’s a crime. Where were the police whose job it is to enforce these laws? What we have in Portland is a deliberate and cowardly failure of government, with dire consequences for Portland and the rest of the nation.

Let’s start with why antifa attacked Ngo. He criticized the movement, frequently documenting its actions of flagrant and public violence. Ngo had just as much right to be at Saturday’s protests as the thugs who staged it. This is why they attacked him. The idea that a conservative journalist could stand in their midst and question their behavior was unacceptable. These are their streets, they believe, and they may assault anyone they want.

Perhaps there is another reason antifa attacked Ngo. He himself explained it well when he said its activists find meaning in violence. They don’t believe in pluralism, tolerance, and debate, which most Americans have traditionally taken for granted. Instead of working through a system they don’t believe in, antifa rioters use violence to advance a destructive, cruel, murderous revolution that, thankfully, they are powerless to effect.

“Antifa” or “anti-fascism” originated in the mid-1920s as a unifying banner for opponents to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, but in the decades since, the label has been used by a wide range of movements and regimes. It has no inherent meaning, because it is defined by what it is against. The term was exploited to justify Red Army violence, mass rape, and post-war repression in Eastern Europe, as well as internal repression in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Here’s a fun fact: On the dark side of the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall was referred to as the “Anti-Fascist Barrier.”

But fascism is functionally extinct in modern America, as it should be. That means that before 2017, vague notions of capitalism had to serve as antifa’s bogeyman. Today, President Trump serves as a more corporeal trigger for their always unjustified violence.

Typically, when dangerous factions rise up, legitimate governments counter them by stepping in to protect and secure the life, liberty, and property of its citizens. So, why did antifa thugs think they could get away with attacking a citizen in broad daylight? Because Portland’s law enforcement accepts antifa’s presence and permits its violence. The city and its police are complicit. There is no strict equivalence, but the closest historical parallel is to police in the Deep South generations ago who aided and abetted racist violence in the civil rights era, standing aside to allow brutal attacks and murders.

Portland police stood back and allowed antifa to harass and intimidate Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees as they left work. Portland police did nothing to aid an elderly man caught in the middle of an antifa protest as he tried to drive away. Portland police allow antifa protesters to hide their identities with masks (another interesting historic parallel), which conveniently allows them to avoid charging culprits, since they can’t identify anyone.

For their part, the rioters mock law enforcement and flaunt their lawbreaking, and the police respond by announcing over loudspeakers that everyone has the right to “exercise First Amendment rights safely,” as if assault and vandalism were constitutionally protected activities.

The most important thing about any law is its enforcement. If it isn’t enforced, it doesn’t in truth exist. Safety is an illusion if laws are not enforced. Mob rule is anarchy.