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Jan. 25, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
47:10
4290 The Truth About the Covington Confrontation
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On Saturday, January 19, 2019, a short video clip circulated showing a boy wearing a Make America Great Again hat staring into the face of 64-year-old Nathan Phillips.
Phillips, a Native American activist and claimed Vietnam veteran, was beating a drum and chanting into the boy's face.
Now this short clip, and sometimes you could just see a photo, was accompanied with a narrative that suggested that the student, whose name was Nicholas Sandman, was staring down Phillips trying to intimidate him.
Which seems like a tough thing to do when you're talking about an ex-marine who's claimed in-theater combat experience, but this was the narrative.
An interview with Phillips after the incident showed him wiping away tears, talking about how he was intimidated by the student, scared.
and also had him mention his he was thinking about his dead wife and you know just the usual swirl of sympathy now voices on the left and even some shamefully on both sides on the right rushed in to condemn the boys some even calling for them to be physically hurt physically attacked so what happened okay so
It was a group of high school students from a Catholic school who were participating in the March for Life, which is a pro-life movement, of course, and they were waiting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
And they were told to wait there before boarding their bus, which was going to take them back home.
Now, during this time, and my heavens above does this ever go for a long time, I'll link you to The video below, there was a group called the Black Hebrew Israelites.
Yes, like you, I had a better life before I knew what these brothers were all about.
They are a black nationalist group that was formed in the late 19th century and the boys were viciously verbally abused by these, this group of blacks, the Black Hebrew Israelites.
Now, I did watch... I couldn't stomach the whole thing.
You can go through it if you want.
It's about two hours or so.
So I did watch the beginning.
Now, before the Phillips incident, the blacks, from the black Hebrew Israelites, tell Native Americans that the Native Americans lost their lands because they were worshipping buffalo and eagles.
Buffalo and eagles.
That seems pretty offensive to me, but because they turned their back on the one true God, that's why God took So the blacks, during the course of this rather endless experience, the blacks are relentlessly screaming at the Covington boys and others, and they call these boys crackers, faggots, and pedophiles, incest babies, And future school shooters.
Now, this, of course, comes from the myth that only white kids shoot up schools.
Actually, not true.
This is from a 2012 psychology article today about school shooters.
Several shooters have had an African heritage.
In 1984, Tyrone Mitchell, a 28-year-old African-American man, opened fire on a schoolyard in Los Angeles, shooting 12 people.
Mark Lapine's father was from Algeria.
Lapine conducted his rampage at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989.
Peter Odegizwa, who killed people at the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia in 2002, was Nigerian.
Latina Williams, as a female shooter, was also African-American.
So, anyway, I just, whether people are going to listen to data or not, but that's sort of the myth.
And of course, a lot of Asians as well.
Now at one point the black activist called one of the black Covington students the N-word and threatened that his friends are going to murder him and steal his organs.
So clearly what we want to focus on when it comes to racial abuse and abuse in general is the white boys trying to muscle, mind muscle their way through this maelstrom of abuse and racism and vicious verbal attacks.
Now, there are some notes, if you want.
And about an hour 25 in the video linked below, the black shout, you give faggots rights, which prompted booing from the students.
At an hour 6, 45 seconds, they threatened an innocent bystander with violence.
Hour 740 called the kids incest babies.
Hour 1520 calls the kids future school shooters.
And so on.
I mean, it's monstrous.
I mean, can you imagine?
Imagine if there was a mostly black group of teenagers waiting on the steps for a bus to peacefully go back after participating in a march for life.
If some white nationalist group was screaming verbal abuse, often racially escalating verbal abuse at these young black boys, people would go completely mental.
And rightly so, because it's horrible, horrible behavior.
And now, of course, it doesn't matter.
The facts don't matter.
The anti-white hatred is metastasized.
So, throughout the video, the black Hebrew Israelites are repeatedly threatening these kids with violence, and it seems, to me at least, like they're attempting to provoke them into attacking first, because then you see if the white boys push back or say anything back, that's going to be cut out.
No context, no lead up, and then, oh, white racism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Nathan Phillips.
So, after being verbally abused for what seems like pretty much an eternity, the boys asked their chaperones if they can sing their school songs to drown out this incessant abuse coming from the blacks.
One of the native activists also told the boys, you white people, go back to Europe where you came from!
This is not your land!
So then, a group of Native American activists begin marching towards the boys.
So, just so you understand the scenario, there is a group of blacks who is viciously pouring torrents of verbal and racist and homophobic abuse at these Catholic boys, and then this brave Marine, Nathan Phillips, this brave Marine, ex-combat veteran, assesses the situation.
And says, hmm, the problem here is not the crazy black guys hurling verbal abuse at the natives and the boys.
I'm going to go and confront the boys, because I'm a hero.
I'm brave.
I'm not a cowardly bully out to race bait and destroy people's lives.
No!
Of these two situations, adult men pouring verbal abuse at children, I'm going to go confront the children, because I'm a hero.
So vile.
Makes my skin crawl.
I'll tell you.
I'll be straight up with you guys.
So, Nathan Phillips marched up to one boy and started drumming and chanting loudly in his face.
Good luck trying that in Saudi Arabia.
Or Nigeria, for instance.
I mean, imagine.
Imagine.
Chanting loudly in his face.
Kind of an invasion of personal space.
Now, the boys are kind of confused.
They dance along a little bit, but we're gone.
So, the boy remained calm and even gave a signal to his friends to remain calm.
Now, personal anecdote time means nothing other than I thought I'd share it.
So when I worked up north as a gold panner and prospector, I was panning away and I felt something poking into my back, which I thought might have been a blown tree limb or something like that.
And I reach around and I find something cold and hard.
And I turn around and there's a native who's I guess out for a walkabout and he's pointing a shotgun straight at my chest.
Now this, of course, is not quite the same situation, but I really want to point out things can be a little bit alarming for white guys when a non-white comes up to you and is kind of in your face.
Because if you step back and he follows you, if you push back, if you attempt to assert any space and there's cameras around, you know what's going to happen, which is going to be taken out of context and blah blah.
So he tries to stay calm, gives a signal to his friends to remain calm.
The end of that story, by the way, just in case you're curious, is chatted with the guy.
He didn't seem to be particularly angry, seemed kind of confused.
I had some wine in the camp, we gave him some wine, we chatted for a little while, and he went on his way, and my heart rate returned to normal.
So, yeah, so Nathan, sorry, the boy remained calm, even gave a signal to his friends to remain calm.
Now there's no video of the event that show the boys making any racial comments or chanting, build the wall, as Phillips.
Now, you understand build the wall has nothing to do with natives because natives are already in the country.
Natives would not be excluded from coming into the country by a wall being built.
And in fact, this whole build the wall thing would be hugely great for Hispanics and for blacks.
I mean, there was an operation in the 1950s under Eisenhower that took a lot of illegal aliens out of America.
The net result, which has been proven many times, was that the wages for agricultural workers went up, the wages for the lowest rungs of the economic ladder went up.
So, I don't understand how Build the Wall is negative towards blacks or Native Americans because they would actually stand to benefit from less illegal immigration, which would open up job opportunities and bring up wages and all these kinds of things as well.
I don't know.
So, but build the wall in MAGA is just, it's a dog whistle.
It's not even a subtle dog whistle out to the anti-Trump hysterics, right?
Now, a few boys did do the sports gesture tomahawk chop.
That could just be immaturity.
It could be trying to be funny.
It certainly did not appear to be hostile or disrespectful in any way, but it certainly happened.
So, what happened was, so eventually the bus pulls up and the kids cheer and start running towards it, shouting, let's go home, let's go home.
Desperate to get out of this horrible situation.
But, this is the sad part of the story.
They will never be able to go home.
Because the media has now portrayed them as vicious racists, as bullies, as horrible people.
And so they never get to go home.
The home that they left, they can never go back to.
Now, their lives are irrevocably changed.
And there is no going home.
Again, there's no... Tap your heels three times and go back to where you were before.
So initially, Nathan Phillips, the native activist, told the Washington Post that he was singing a traditional song when the teenagers just surrounded him.
Claiming that some were chanting, build that wall, build that wall, right?
So here he is, just sitting, minding his own business, singing a song.
And then he's just, he looks up, he's surrounded by these dangerous teenagers who are mere months away from thinking about shaving.
So then he says, well, he tried to get away from the boys, reporting, quote, I've got to find myself an exit out of this situation.
Marine!
You're in the middle of a square.
You're not surrounded, you can just walk.
Anyway, so even if we accept what he said, doesn't make any sense.
Now, not one boy, of course, says build the wall in any video that has been published.
And this is the amazing thing, like think about history as a whole.
Think about history as a whole.
One of my great lessons about history happened, here we go, story time.
One of the great lessons I got about history happened the very first day that I took history when I was at York University.
And what happened was I was chatting with the teacher a little bit beforehand.
So, you know, getting, getting to know very happy to be there.
And I sat in the front cause you know, I'm Apple polisher par excellence.
And she was talking about something to do with the British North America act.
And then she turned and she threw her glasses at me.
I caught them.
I get good reflexes.
I caught them.
And then there was a pause.
And then she said to the class, what just happened?
And you wouldn't believe the answers.
The answers were nothing happened.
The answers were he threw his glasses at you.
The answers were you dropped your glasses.
I mean, the answers were like, the answers were crazy.
And this is something people had just seen.
So here we have something that's filmed from multiple angles.
The media lies incessantly and rabidly about this and then puts out these mealy mouthed half retractions afterwards.
So this is history.
When we have cameras.
Can you imagine what history was like before?
Smokingly crazy.
So later, our brave Mr. Phillips told the Detroit Free Press that he decided to intervene when the white Covington Catholic boys confronted four blacks.
And these are the black religious group members who were hurling abuse.
And he said, there was that moment when I realized I've put myself between beast and prey.
These young men were beastly, and these old black individuals was their prey.
I mean, I'm not going to put the video here, but you can go watch the video.
They're not old black individuals.
These young men.
They're what?
Men!
The high school boys!
The boys!
Not men.
Not twelve whiskers between them all.
But yeah, so the narrative that he put forward was that he was surrounded, he's just sitting there singing a song, he just gets surrounded by these boys chanting, build that wall, build that wall.
But then he changes his story and says, well no, I decided to intervene because these feral young Catholic boys were just about to put the prowl on these old black guys who were blah blah blah, right?
He even suggested that the boys might murder someone.
Now remember, these black Hebrew Israelite members were calling the boys racists, bigots, white crackets, incest babies, faggots, and so on, right?
Now, Phillips did admit, during interviews, that the black Israelites were saying some harsh things, but some of it was true, too!
Of course, the reporter did not ask him which one of these particular phrases would he consider to be true.
Hey, just some harsh things.
Yeah, they were saying some harsh things.
But, see, the thing is they weren't smiling while white.
And, you know, the thing is, too, I mean, anybody with half an ounce of empathy or sympathy or just basic human knowledge of emotion, you look at the boy's face while this snaggletoothed Wizened old guy is banging a drum and chanting, singing, whatever the hell it is.
I mean, you can see his cheeks are red.
You know, like in Japan, you can actually get an operation to take that blush down because it's a symbol of weakness for some.
So it means he knows he's in, like, there are cameras all around, there's a native guy, he's in his face, what's he supposed to do?
You know, if he dances along, he's mocking.
If he stands there stone-faced, he's intimidating.
If he smiles a little bit, he's mocking.
Like, you understand, you can't win.
The whole point is it's all set up.
In a multicultural society, one group has to give way, because there's no common philosophy and rationality with which to resolve disputes.
So one group has to give away, and that group is whites.
The whites have to give way, the whites have to back down, the whites have to apologize, the whites have to grovel, the whites have to pay off.
It's just the way things are.
It's what happens.
It's one of the fine prints of the multicultural society.
So.
Phillips complained, complains in the interview, that the boys turned on him with a, quote, mob mentality.
It was ugly what these kids were involved in, he said.
It was racism, it was hatred, it was scary.
Vietnam vet, ladies and gentlemen.
Ex-marine.
Scared by boys standing there.
So, he lied.
I mean, the video proved that he was not surrounded by these boys.
The video proved that he approached these boys.
So, there was this tsunami of vitriol against students from journalists, celebrities, and even professional conservatives.
Vile.
Absolutely vile.
So this from the Washington Post.
In an interview Saturday, Phillips, 64, said he felt threatened by the teens and that they swarmed around him as he and other activists were wrapping up the march and preparing to leave.
A lie.
Phillips, who was singing the American Indian Movement song that serves as a ceremony to send the spirits home, said he noticed tensions beginning to escalate when the teens and other apparent participants from the nearby March for Life rally began taunting the dispersing indigenous crowd.
No evidence of that.
Phillips said a few people in the March for Life crowd began to shout, build that wall, build that wall, though such chants are not audible on video.
Wow, wouldn't that be interesting?
If it wasn't the boys from the high school who were chanting build that wall, build that wall, but the spirits that Phillips was trying to send home were actually chanting build that wall, build that wall.
Hmm, just something to think about.
So he said, it was getting ugly and I was thinking, I've got to find myself an exit out of the situation and finish my song at the Lincoln Memorial.
I started going that way and that guy in the hat stood in my way and we were at an impasse.
He just blocked my way and wouldn't allow me to retreat.
Again, basic common sense.
You don't have to be a Warhammer expert to figure this one out.
You walk in some place, even if what he says is true, you walk in some place, some guy stands in front of you.
What is it, 30 degrees?
You still got 330 degrees of motion.
I mean, what does this guy do if there's a pillar in front of him?
He wants to get somewhere, but there's a pillar in front of him.
He just... Stares at it.
Stares at the pillar.
Until... Well, there's no other... You can't go around it.
You can't turn around.
There's a pillar.
Come on.
Come on, people.
So.
Phillips referred to the kids as beasts and the hate group members as their prey.
He said, there was that moment when I realized I put myself between beast and prey.
These young men were beastly and these old black individuals was their prey and I stood in between them and so they needed their pounds of flesh and they were looking at me for that.
Just a feral bunch of Catholic school children.
If it wasn't so serious, it would be hilarious.
So one Covington student said, We are an all-male school that loves to get hyped up, and as we have done for years prior, we decided to do some cheers to pass time.
In the midst of our cheers, we were approached by a group of adults led by Nathan Phillips, with Phillips beating his drum.
They forced their way into the center of our group.
We initially thought this was a cultural display since he was beating along to our cheers, and so we clapped to the beat.
What else are they supposed to do?
According to this student, the smiling student was grinning, Sandman, because he was enjoying the music, but eventually became confused along with everyone else.
In the video, you can hear a number of boys asking, what is going on?
Might I just stand there waiting for the bus?
Oh, by the way, good job chaperones for getting in there.
I mean, given how the media played this out, I can kind of understand it.
But I don't think it's particularly nice for the chaperones who are around, right?
Because they asked the chaperones if they could sing school songs to drown out the abuse from the black Israelites.
So should not the chaperones have come down and said, you know, that's great, you know, thank you for the song, but we're going to just wait alone.
It's like that great line from Spinal Tap, but we're just going to wait over here rather than here.
But anyway, sorry, that's out of context.
Makes no sense.
It's a good movie though.
Anyway.
So this is what Nick Sandman, Covington student, in the middle of the controversy, he issued a statement.
Here it is in full.
He says, I am providing this factual account of what happened on Friday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial to correct misinformation and outright lies being spread about my family and me.
I am the student in the video who was confronted by the Native American protester.
I arrived at the Lincoln Memorial at 4.30 p.m.
I was told to be there by 5.30 p.m.
when our buses were due to leave Washington for the trip back to Kentucky.
We had been attending the March for Life rally and then had split up into small groups to do sightseeing.
When we arrived, we noticed four African-American protesters who were also on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
I'm not sure what they were protesting, and I did not interact with them.
I did hear them direct derogatory insults at our school group.
The protesters said hateful things.
They called us racists, bigots, white crackers, faggots, and incest kids.
They also taunted an African-American student from my school by telling him that we would harvest his organs.
I have no idea what that insult means, but it was startling to hear.
Because we were being loudly attacked and taunted in public, a student in our group asked one of our teacher chaperones for permission to begin our school spirit chants to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group.
The chants are commonly used at sporting events.
They are all positive in nature and sound like what you would hear at any high school.
Our chaperone gave us permission to use our school chants.
We would not have done that without obtaining permission from the adults in charge of our group, who scattered like leaves in the wind when the confrontation occurred.
Sorry, that's me adding.
That's me adding.
He ended up by saying, the adults in charge of our group.
Sorry, I will stop editorializing.
He went on to say, at no time did I hear any student chant anything other than the school spirit chants.
I did not witness or hear any students chant build that wall or anything hateful or racist at any time.
Assertions to the contrary are simply false.
Our chants were loud because we wanted to drown out the hateful comments that were being shouted at us by the protesters.
After a few minutes of chanting, the Native American protesters, who I hadn't previously noticed, approached our group.
The Native American protesters had drums and were accompanied by at least one person with a camera.
The protester, everyone has seen in the video, began playing his drum as he waded into the crowd, which parted for him.
I did not see anyone try to block his path.
He locked eyes with me and approached me.
Coming within inches of my face, he played his drum the entire time he was in my face.
Drummers.
Oh, sorry.
That was me.
He goes back to say, I never interacted with this protester.
I did not speak to him.
I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves.
To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me.
We had already been yelled at by another group of protesters.
And when the second group approached, I was worried that a situation was getting out of control where adults were attempting to provoke teenagers.
I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation.
I realized everyone had cameras, and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict.
I said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand.
During the period of drumming, a member of the protesters' entourage began yelling at a fellow student that we stole our land and that we should go back to Europe.
I heard one of my fellow students begin to respond.
I motioned to my classmate and tried to get him to stop engaging with the protester as I was still in the mindset that we needed to calm down tensions.
I never felt like I was blocking the Native American protester.
He did not make any attempt to go around me.
It was clear to me that he had singled me out for confrontation, although I'm not sure why.
The engagement ended when one of our teachers told me the buses had arrived and it was time to go.
I obeyed my teacher and simply walked to the buses.
At that moment, I thought I had defused the situation by remaining calm, and I was thankful nothing physical had occurred.
I never understood why either of the two groups of protesters were engaging with us, or exactly what they were protesting at the Lincoln Memorial.
We were simply there to meet a bus, not become central players in a media spectacle.
This is the first time in my life I've ever encountered any sort of public protest, let alone this kind of confrontation or demonstration.
I was not Intentionally making faces at the protester.
I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated, or be provoked into a larger confrontation.
I am a faithful Christian and practicing Catholic and I always try to live up to the ideals my faith teaches me to remain respectful of others and to take no action that would lead to conflict or violence.
I harbor no ill will for this person.
I respect this person's right to protest and engage in free speech activities, and I support his chanting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial any day of the week.
I believe he should rethink his tactics of invading the personal space of others, but that is his choice to make.
I am being called every name in the book, including a racist, and I will not stand for this mob-like character assassination of my family's name.
My parents were not on the trip and I strive to represent my family in a respectful way in all public settings.
I have received physical and death threats via social media as well as hateful insults.
One person threatened to harm me at school and one person claims to live in my neighborhood.
My parents are receiving death and professional threats because of the social media mob that has formed over this issue.
I love my school, my teachers, and my classmates.
I work hard to achieve good grades and to participate in several extracurricular activities.
I am mortified that so many people have come to believe something that did not happen, that students from my school were chanting or acting in a racist fashion toward African Americans or Native Americans.
I did not do that, do not have any hateful feelings in my heart, and did not witness any of my classmates doing that.
I cannot speak for everyone, only for myself, but I can tell you.
My experience with Covington Catholic is that students are respectful of all races and cultures.
We also support everyone's right to free speech.
I am not going to comment on the words or account of Mr. Phillips as I don't know him and would not presume to know what is in his heart or mind.
Nor am I going to comment further on the other protesters as I don't know their hearts or minds.
Either.
I have read that Mr. Phillips is a veteran of the United States Marines.
I thank him for his service and I'm grateful to anyone who puts on the uniform to defend our nation.
If anyone has earned the right to speak freely, it is a U.S.
Marine veteran.
I can only speak for myself and what I observed and felt at the time, but I would caution everyone passing judgment based on a few seconds of video to watch the longer video clips that are on the internet as they show a much different story than is being portrayed by people with agendas.
I provided this account of events to the Diocese of Covington, so they may know exactly what happened, and I stand ready and willing to cooperate with any investigation they are conducting.
So, what happened?
Well, of course, a large number of media outlets rushed to condemn the boys as racists.
By the way, all the exonerating videos were available when the Papers went to press when they published.
There was no, ooh, this came out later.
All of them were available if they had simply reviewed them.
But you know, when you've got a hysterical race-baiting agenda, which usually means that the Mueller investigation is about to collapse, that's what you go.
Now, this is really sad.
The boys' school, as well as the Diocese of Covington, joined in almost immediately condemning the boys and issuing a public apology, all apparently without even waiting for evidence or listening to the boys' version of the story.
Hmm.
Catholic Church sacrificing boys.
Ah well, first time for everything.
They said, This behavior is opposed to the Church's teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person, Covington Catholic High School and the Diocese of Covington said in a joint statement.
The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action up to and including expulsion.
The statement reads, We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips, specifically a Native American general, in general, January 18th, after the March for Life in Washington, D.C.
We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips.
Yeah, how did that self-flagellation go, guys?
Calm everything down?
Everything better now?
No.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore separately condemned the students, tweeting that the boys had shown disrespect toward a Native American elder.
Now, after the unedited video emerged, some media outlets began to backtrack, right?
So Jake Tapper retweeted at Reason Magazine Video footage strongly contradicts Native American veteran Nathan Phillips' claim that Covington Catholic High School boys harassed him.
The media got this one completely wrong.
And James Woods pointed out, well worth following, at Real James Woods, there are verified accounts on Twitter who have offered bounties to anyone willing to physically assault these children.
Perhaps this is a story you might investigate on your network.
Spoiler!
Pretty sure they didn't.
And, you know, strongly contradicts, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, come on.
So, after the extended footage was viewed, without apology, the Baltimore Archdiocese released a clarifying statement saying that, quote, the circumstances of this confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial are now being reported as more complex.
And it will be the responsibility of school authorities, parents, and others involved to determine the actual circumstances Responsibility and consequences.
Really?
It's right there in front of your eyes.
It's on video.
This guy lied.
The abuse was coming from the blacks to the boys.
And at least one native activist to the boys.
Go back to Europe.
Come on.
That's racist.
Well, you know, we can't decide.
It's up to other people.
I don't know what's right in front of my face here.
How can I know?
I'm only human.
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of St.
Louis said he joined, quote, in condemning the actions of the Covington Catholic students towards Mr. Nathan Phillips and the Native American community yesterday in Washington.
This was up for a while.
Don't know if it still is.
So, you know, Bearing false witness is not good, right?
One of the ten.
So what are the Catholic teachings in this matter?
Sources, of course, are below.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church instructs that anyone who, quote, even tacitly assumes is true without sufficient foundation the moral fault of a neighbor is guilty of, at least, rash judgment.
Also, whoever, quote, By remarks contrary to the truth harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them as guilty of calumny or slander.
That's pretty bad.
You know, you can murder someone's reputation as well as their body.
That's pretty bad.
But it's okay.
It's okay, you see.
Because from the Catholic catechism, you know exactly what to do if you commit a terrible sin like calumny or slander.
From the Catholic Catechism they say, every offense committed against justice and truth entails the duty of reparation, even if its author has been forgiven.
When it is impossible publicly to make reparations for a wrong, it must be made secretly.
If someone who has suffered harm cannot be directly compensated, he must be given moral satisfaction in the name of charity.
This duty of reparation also concerns offenses against another's reputation.
This reparation, moral and sometimes material, must be evaluated in terms of the extent of the damage inflicted.
It obliges in conscience.
That's pretty bad, right?
I mean, the damage inflicted is horrendous.
These kids got to look over their shoulder probably for the rest of their lives.
They've got death threats, murder threats, assault threats.
People are cheering.
Bounty's been put on assaulting them on social media.
I mean, that's about as bad.
And they're kids!
It's about as bad as it can get!
Where is the reparation?
Where is it?
Do they even read their own books?
Now, one thing has happened, according to a source at the school.
The Bishop of Cummington has told the school administration that he doesn't want these kids doing any more interviews.
We're joining in an unjust attack on your reputation.
My contribution, though, is to say stop defending yourself.
Ah, no wonder churches are so involved in profiting from the migrant crisis.
Now, this is about as bad as things can get.
National Review deleted its article posted Sunday at 2.55am titled, The Covington Students Might As Well Have Just Spit On The Cross.
Nicholas Frankovich wrote, and I quote, it appears that most of the teenagers in this video are from a Catholic high school near Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.
They mock a serious, frail-looking older man and gloat in their momentary role as Roman soldiers to his Christ.
Bullying is a worn-out word and doesn't convey the full extent of the evil on display here.
What is wrong with you, Nicholas?
These are kids.
who worship Jesus Christ.
Roman soldiers are the ones who delivered Christ to his death, nailed him on the cross on Calvary.
Calling children Christ-killers, who are Christians themselves, is about as vicious an insult as can be imagined.
So, that was deleted.
And, um, But he also wrote, decide for yourself who is more pleasing to Christ, Phillips or his mockers.
As for the putatively Catholic students from Covington, they might as well have just spit on the cross and got it over with.
What?
I don't know.
I don't know what to say.
I mean, I can't believe how appalling that is.
Now, this man later posted this.
Early Sunday morning, I posted a strongly worded Rich Lowry's description, condemnation of the conduct seen far and wide on video of a group of high school students at the conclusion of the March for Life on Friday afternoon.
I was preachy and rhetorically excessive, and I regret it.
The overheated post I wrote has been taken down.
Let this apology stand in its stead, both here on the corner and in the memory of readers who justifiably objected to my high-handedness.
Come on, man.
You put children in danger, you understand that?
You accused Catholics of murdering their God, or the Son of God.
And what does it mean to say, well, I was excessive?
Excessive?
That means some level of what you did was good, but you just, you went too far.
So, some level of Christ-killing is fine.
Maybe just Christ-maiming.
Maybe just, you know, Christ-elbowing.
Maybe just Christ-head-butting.
But not Christ-killing.
That's excessive!
Overheated.
I wouldn't... I'm trying to keep this vaguely family-friendly.
I am not going to read off the script of neon letters that is going through my brain right now.
But, uh... I don't know.
I don't know.
Bill Kristol.
Guy who loved him some.
Dead Iraqis.
Loved the Iraq War.
Defended the Iraq War.
Bill Kristol deleted his tweet, evoking the late Senator John McCain, asserting that McCain would have called Phillips to express regret, according to, there's a screenshot by the Twitter bot that captures deleted tweets.
Bill Kristol said if some kid wearing a McCain 2008 cap had been filmed behaving this way, John McCain would have already called Mr. Phillips to express regret.
And he would have used the occasion to remind his supporters, they should treat others with respect.
Will Trump do anything like this?
Quick question, Bill.
If they'd been Jewish kids, well, Too easy.
Tim Wise!
Okay, I guess I can't keep it family-friendly.
I remember this.
I guess I can analogize it.
So Tim Wise wrote, this cocky... He did a picture of Sandman.
He said, this cocky shite-kicker should be expelled till he shows true contrition, as should all who egged him on.
White arrogance and entitlement at its best.
Entitlement to be heard, harassed, and demeaned.
He's now entitled to removal from his, quote, religious school.
So it's a boy.
A cocky, shite-kicker?
After it became clear that the students had done nothing wrong, was there a... I mean, you know, we can all go off half-cocked.
Well, actually, generally, I go off fully cocked.
But we can all go off half-cocked, and what you need to do is say, gosh, you know, how did I get swept up in this mob hysteria?
Like, what prejudice do I have that this narrative sunk into my brain this way?
How horrible, right?
How horrible.
So you need to look in the mirror and figure this stuff out.
And if you don't, if you double down or if you kind of half-grudgingly apologize, you've learned nothing and you're still part of this dangerous mob.
So after it became clear the kid's nothing wrong, Mr. Wise tweeted, one, having watched the entire video of the DC confrontation between a bunch of Kentucky white boys and an indigenous elder, I gotta say y'all, I'm trying to say these kids did nothing wrong.
Hi!
Two, what the black Hebrew Israelites were yelling at them previously is irrelevant.
Those guys represent no one and surely not indigenous peoples.
When the elder was drumming, those cocky-ass shite-kickers are doing tomahawk chops and shit.
Shite.
Three, because to them, that's all Indian people are.
Some folks that their shite-kicking ancestors stole land from and might makes right, so who cares?
Well, their moral compass is broken.
I hope they're expelled.
their parents are failures and so are they.
Blacks yelling racial abuse at whites is irrelevant.
it.
But a white man smiling during an uncalled-for confrontation?
Well, that's just terrible.
Dear oh dear.
Reza Aslan is an academic who has 288,000 followers, posted a picture of Sandman and said, Honest question, have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid's?
Kid.
child.
Bakari Sellers said he is a deplorable.
Some people can also be punched in the face.
I believe that was deleted, screenshot one.
He's an ex-politician and CNN pundit, deleted this tweet.
Horrendous.
wrote, when you have a bunch of white kids screaming build a wall at indigenous folks, it's very apparent that the wall has nothing to do with border security, it's simply a monument to white supremacy.
So he posted that, and that had 120,000 likes, 38,000 retweets, and then he said, alright folks, since I didn't hear it in the video, I'm deleting the tweet, screenshot it here for transparency.
Do I think the kids mocked and disrespected him with the tomahawk chops?
Of course!
But I don't see them yelling build the wall, which was the entire premise.
38,000 retweets for this.
First, criticism.
60 retweets for the second.
That's the point, right?
Everybody knows.
You get the word out there.
It's the old saying, right?
That a lie can get twice around the world while the truth is still getting its boots on.
The New York Times!
Originally said, boys in Make America Great Again hats mob native elder at indigenous people's march.
And then, fuller picture emerges, a viral video between Native American man and Catholic students.
So he's gone from an elder to a man.
Catholic students have been un-mobbed.
They're no longer mobbing them.
And, um, fuller picture.
You know, it's just a fuller picture.
It's just a fuller picture.
It's not a direct contradiction of every narrative that occurred before.
And the result, of course, of all of this horrible stuff on the media is that the Covington Catholic School had to be closed and was only recently reopened under police guard.
That's where it leads to.
Everybody knows.
So, Vietnam Vet.
So, of course, right, the guy's 64, the math did not seem to add up.
And then a correction was published regarding Nathan Phillips in the Washington Post and it read, quote, earlier versions of the story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Marine War.
Phillips said he served in the U.S.
Marines but was never deployed to Vietnam.
According to retired Navy SEAL Don Shipley, Phillips records revealed that he was in fact a refrigerator technician.
So he should know how to face down a cold stare.
A refrigerator technician who went AWOL, absent without leave, several times and was never deployed outside of the U.S.
So, Phillips said he was a Vietnam-era veteran and so on, just trying to tie the words Vietnam and veteran together.
I mean, everybody knows this, right?
Shipley adds that Phillips never served as a recon ranger, as he had previously claimed.
Some people don't even know what that is.
Not like I do, but... yeah.
In an older Facebook video, though, Phillips appears to say, and I quote, I'm a Vietnam vet, and I served in Marine Corps 72-76.
I got discharged May 5th, 1976.
I got honorable discharge, and one of the boxes in there Shows it was peacetime, or what my box says is that I was in theater.
I don't talk much about my Vietnam times.
I usually say, I don't recollect, I don't recall those years.
He says, apparently, he says, I'm a Vietnam vet.
That's horrible.
It's horrible.
Inevitably, the memes appear saving the fridge.
Um, Fridge over the River Kwai, Saving Private Freon, all this kind of stuff.
So, yeah.
Look, the upshot of this story is that...
It is a turning point in our culture.
We can either rise toward the light and learn to love each other or we can continue to blame other groups for all of the problems that we have and inflame racial tension, racial hostility to the point where we're just going to end up with a race war, whether it's explicit or implicit, whether it's through the power of the state or in the blood of the streets.
And it is my absolute desperate desire To find ways to de-escalate, but not to the point where whites just have to abandon any kind of survivability in the countries that whites originally created.
I mean, that is not an option, and this is why we're facing a particular challenge.
Whites being knights, whites giving way, has not de-escalated things, but rather has made things worse, as appeasement generally does throughout history.
In the video, again linked below, you can listen at an hour 27 minutes, one of the black men says, ain't gonna be no peace until blood is shed.
Ain't gonna be no peace until blood is shed.
Now, I think life is not particularly complicated in this area.
I don't think that people say things they don't mean.
I just accept what people say, that that's their intention and that's their plan.
And that's a very dangerous situation.
It's a very dangerous situation.
Here's something that's going to really surprise you.
Maybe not if you're white, but listen, if you're not white, it's hard for you to really understand the racism that whites are exposed to on a continual basis.
A continual basis.
We are blamed for the reason the third world is poor.
We are blamed for the reasons that blacks and Hispanics don't do well.
We are blamed for systemic racism.
We are blamed for just about everything that you can conceive of.
And it's really toxic.
Where was the white privilege of these students?
They supposedly have this massive white privilege and power.
Why didn't they just pull the massive white privilege, power, and lever and have all of the blame cascade to Nathan Phillips?
Well, they don't have that lever.
I don't have that lever.
No white has that lever.
So, if you're not white, and a white acts in a racist manner towards you, you complain about it, and every known being in the universe comes down on your side and attacks the white.
And that's fine, you know, maybe it can get a little hysterical at times, but okay.
But if you're white, and a non-white acts against you in a racist manner, people don't even see it.
They'll blame you.
It's your white privilege.
Well, it's just blowback for colonialism, or it's blowback for suppression of other groups and so on.
Like, somehow, as a white, I'm responsible for what people did hundreds, or sometimes even thousands of years ago.
Come on.
This is not going to work.
This is not going to work.
And we've been warned about this danger from multiracial society.
You can go back and look up a speech called Rivers of Blood.
There was genuine concern in the 60s, right?
The communists wanted a multiracial society, and they actually, since the 1920s, have vowed to use racial conflict to bring down the West, to destroy the free market, to destroy the freedoms of the West.
We don't want to go this way.
I don't know exactly whether words alone can stop us.
I'm desperate to try.
The war of words can hopefully avert the war of swords, but from what I'm seeing online, it appears to be less and less likely every day.
That's a terrible thing.
We can accept our differences.
Blacks are better at some things.
East Asians are better at some things.
Whites are better at some things.
Natives are better at some things.
We can celebrate these differences.
Or we can look at every perceived gap and ascribe it all to monumental, pathological white racism.
And what we get out of that is the fundamental destruction of our society.
You can indulge in the sin of hate and bigotry.
But the wages of sin Individually and collectively.
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