Sharks and Jets ─ spoiling for a fight, looking to rumble when cops are out if sight. Did West Side Story just play a return engagement in real time recently in Virginia? And yes, just like the musical, someone even got killed in the fracas. The recent events in Charlottesville just brought the story into a 21st century setting. Anyway, that is how I interpret the senseless brouhaha in Thomas Jefferson’s home town ─ a street riot between two brawling gangs, each determined to shut down the other.

The absurdity of this farce is heightened by the fact that its purported cause is a couple of long-deceased generals whose memorials are deemed to be “offensive” to the radical left which has taken particular pains to spin events into the familiar narrative about hate and racism. True, the moronic white supremacists involved were itching to make gaudy headlines by whatever means, egged on by their radical counterparts on the left. What I find truly hateful though is the attempt by self-appointed “culture thugs” on either side to shut down the rights of anyone else to disagree with their obsessively self-righteous positions. Continue reading →