Back in junior high and high school, the word would spread around school that two meatheads were going to square off after school. The reason for the pugilism was secondary to the event itself. Nobody really cared about the reason.
Today we have the right vs. the left. As a conservative thinker living all my life in this bastion of liberalism, I have an observation. Right or left, the Constitution protects our right to free speech. We cannot suppress that right just because we don’t agree with what’s being spewed.
I absolutely abhor the hate coming from the neo-Nazis, the KKK and the white supremacists. I also abhor the left’s insistence that they don’t have the right to spew it.
Now back to the meatheads. One day a large crowd gathered for the fight and one of the combatants did not show up. I think he had a dentist appointment that he forgot about when he agreed to the fisticuffs. Anyway, the crowd dispersed, there was no spectacle and everyone went home.
Imagine if the counterprotesters didn’t show up in Charlottesville, Virginia. There would have been no spectacle and everyone would have gone home.
I have a ton of issues with the many protests being staged in my hometown, but I don’t go to them to antagonize the protesters. I believe there is no spectacle and just go home.
John C. Rhoades
Florence