Once again, truly conservative leaders prove that we on the Right always condemn violence. This is unlike the Left, which has a way of covering some acts of terror with a cloak of love.
“It’s tragic and heartbreaking to see hatred and racism once again mar our great Nation with bloodshed. Heidi’s and my prayers are with the loved ones of those killed and injured in the ongoing violence in Charlottesville,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz wrote on Facebook. “The First Amendment protects the rights of all Americans to speak their minds peaceably, but violence, brutality, and murder have no place in a civilized society.”
He continued:
The Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists are repulsive and evil, and all of us have a moral obligation to speak out against the lies, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred that they propagate. Having watched the horrifying video of the car deliberately crashing into a crowd of protesters, I urge the Department of Justice to immediately investigate and prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism.
Of course, this is exactly the kind of blunt condemnation required of a conservative leader in such times. It has to be made clear to everyone that although the Left condones “the right kind of violence” (see the Antifa movement), we on the Right want to have nothing to do with any of it. It doesn’t matter whether you call yourself “Nazi,” “white supremacist,” “alt-right,” “Islamist,” “Hindu,” or “communist,” we condemn all of it.
That Cruz did so is important, but what’s even more important is that Cruz then tied this blunt condemnation to his conservative worldview:
These bigots want to tear our country apart, but they will fail. America is far better than this. Our Nation was built on fundamental truths, none more central than the proposition “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”.
We conservatives don’t condemn violence despite our “ideology” (it can actually be argued that conservatism isn’t an ideology, but simple realism, as Edmund Burke believed), but because of it. Although the current president doesn’t seem capable of explaining this, there are other great conservative politicians who are. Thank God.
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