This Liberal Carried an American Flag to Protest Fascism in Portland. Antifa Cracked His Head Open With a Bat. - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Robby Soave:
August 21, 2018: "Paul Welch is ... a liberal who voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary, and for Hillary Clinton in the general election. On August 4, he attended a far-right rally in Portland, Oregon, as a counterdemonstrator intent on signaling his opposition to the 'tacitly fascist event,' he told The Oregonian....
"It was, of course, wrong to attack Welch regardless of his political views. Even if Welch had been a Trump-worshipping alt-right troll, the masked man still had no right to try to take Welch's flag and club him over the head when he resisted. This was an ill-founded and immoral initiation of violence, full stop.
"But it's also a good reminder of why Antifa's resistance strategy, punch Nazis in the streets, wherever and whenever they appear, is deeply misguided. Not everybody who attends a protest is a Nazi. Not everyone who waves an American flag is a fascist.... A broad endorsement of violence as a resistance tactic is certain to result in innocent people getting hurt, and to turn the moderate masses away from whatever it is Antifa supposedly represents. As a general matter, civil resistance works and violent protests backfire."
Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/08/21/antifa-portland-evan-welch-violence
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August 21, 2018: "Paul Welch is ... a liberal who voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary, and for Hillary Clinton in the general election. On August 4, he attended a far-right rally in Portland, Oregon, as a counterdemonstrator intent on signaling his opposition to the 'tacitly fascist event,' he told The Oregonian....
"The right and certainly a lot of smaller groups like Patriot Prayer might rush to things like the flag and try to take it up as, 'This is our symbol exclusively,'" [Welch] said. "Part of my thinking was to take it back.""But then, two members of Antifa confronted him and demanded he hand over the flag, which they characterized as a 'fascist symbol.' When Welch resisted, they attacked him. The concussion landed him in the hospital for two days.
Aside from a few odd looks, Welch did not encounter any problems when he joined hundreds of other counter-protesters who gathered at City Hall late that morning.
In fact, Welch said, he saw several other people with American flags sprinkled among the group of progressives, union members and social justice activists.
"It was, of course, wrong to attack Welch regardless of his political views. Even if Welch had been a Trump-worshipping alt-right troll, the masked man still had no right to try to take Welch's flag and club him over the head when he resisted. This was an ill-founded and immoral initiation of violence, full stop.
"But it's also a good reminder of why Antifa's resistance strategy, punch Nazis in the streets, wherever and whenever they appear, is deeply misguided. Not everybody who attends a protest is a Nazi. Not everyone who waves an American flag is a fascist.... A broad endorsement of violence as a resistance tactic is certain to result in innocent people getting hurt, and to turn the moderate masses away from whatever it is Antifa supposedly represents. As a general matter, civil resistance works and violent protests backfire."
Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/08/21/antifa-portland-evan-welch-violence
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