I'm dying to hear about the "3-D chess" Trump is playing with his announcement on Monday that he's breaking his promise on Afghanistan and throwing more forces into that utterly pointless war. Will he be sending the transgender troops? 

But then the Emperor God gave a magnificent speech in Arizona Tuesday night. Curiously, when he talks to voters -- as opposed to his Cabinet and White House staff -- there's very little about sending more U.S. troops to die in the human meat-grinder of Afghanistan. 

Trump got thunderous applause from his 30,000-person focus group for the wall, stepped-up deportations and Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- recently convicted of contempt for "racially profiling" Hispanics. But you could hear a pin drop when he mentioned Afghanistan, Nikki Haley and Gen. John Kelly. (At least he had the good sense not to bring up Goldman Sachs' Gary Cohn again.) 

There were long faces all over cable news after Trump's speech, which surely triggers the reward center in his brain, like giving a mouse cheese. 

What was so refreshingly different about the Trump campaign was that the candidate didn't use any of the idiotic, consultant-written bromides offered by every other GOP presidential candidate for at least the past 30 years. Instead, he looked around the country, saw what the problems were and said he'd fix them. 

Here are the highlights from every speech by any Non-Trump candidate for the past several decades: 

"I listened to the American people." 

"People are frustrated." 

"This election is about the future!" 

It may not seem like it at first, but another one of those head-scratching cliches is: "Peace through strength." During the campaign, this was a staple of knuckleheads like Jeb!, but I'm sorry to report that our hero used it on the Arizona crowd, referring to his decision to send more troops to die in Afghanistan for no earthly purpose. The Swamp is sticky.

During the Cold War, America was facing an aggressively imperialistic, nuclear-armed Soviet Union. By contrast, the main threat to Americans' safety today comes not from a country, but from millions of individual savages spread throughout the globe. 

Americans aren't being slaughtered by invading Soviet troops, "Red Dawn"-style, but by Islamic terrorists on tourist visas flying commercial airplanes into our skyscrapers, and by first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants setting off bombs and shooting people at the Boston Marathon, American military bases, community centers and gay nightclubs. 

Americans are raped, addicted and murdered not by the Red Army, but by millions of illegal aliens waltzing across our wide-open border. 

Our freedoms are being taken away not by a foreign power, but by our own government -- in order to protect us from terrorists, international crime rings and Mexican drug cartels operating in our own country. 

Defeating a non-country adversary may seem an impossible task, but the savages are perfectly containable. Today's enemy has no capacity to harm a hair on a single American's head -- as long as we don't let them come here. 

We don't need a military victory. We need an immigration moratorium. 

The Non-Trump Republicans promised us only more immigration and more wars. PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH! 

How does a military buildup help Kate Steinle? How about the 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11? Did Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan protect soldiers at Fort Hood or nightclubbers in Orlando? Did it do anything for Grant Ronnebeck, who was fatally shot by an illegal alien robbing a convenience store in Mesa, Arizona, in 2015? 

More than 1,600 American troops died in Afghanistan under Obama, and not one American is safer. 

All we need to do to win the current war is: Keep our nuclear weapons in working order and stop allowing enemy forces into our country. If we must have troops constantly deployed somewhere, the only place they'd actually be useful is 10 feet into Mexico. (Let a court try to stop that!) 

During the campaign, Little Marco dismissed as unrealistic Trump's proposed temporary suspension of Muslim immigration to our country -- including the more than 2 million Muslims we've taken in just since 9/11. Instead, Rubio proposed we do something achievable, like remake the entire Middle East with wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan. 

Trump, and only Trump, promised to put our country first and protect our interests when it came to immigration and foreign wars. He didn't care that political correctness dictated putting America's interests dead last. 

But since becoming president, instead of draining the swamp, the swamp seems to have drained Trump. His agenda has been drowned out by the agenda of Washington's Uni-Party. 

That's why all we ever hear about is tax cuts and war (unless Trump is speaking to one of his 30,000-person focus groups). 

Rather than actually being like Reagan and winning the war we're in, Trump has decided to continue Obama's unconstitutional "executive amnesty" -- opposition to which gave the GOP stunning victories in 2014 and 2016. This week, he grabbed the hot poker of Afghanistan, allowing ecstatic Democrats to scratch that disaster off Obama's Greatest Hits list. Now, it's Trump's war. 

I don't know why Trump would surround himself with people who oppose his agenda, but on Tuesday night he heard again from the people who see him as our country's last hope. He should listen to them. 

COPYRIGHT 2017 ANN COULTER 
DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION 

 

 

 

 

August is National Back to School Month, and college students will be renting properties near campus, many as first-time renters. It's important to know that renters have certain rights and responsibilities.

 

Before signing a lease, it's helpful to keep these tips in mind:

 

Leases are not required but most landlords will provide one, as it outlines the expectations of the tenant.

 

Read the entire document and don't sign if you don't understand something. Be sure to keep a copy of your lease.

 

Walk through the premises to identify any problems that should be fixed before you rent.

 

Florida law requires landlords to comply with building, housing and health codes; keep the roof and other areas in good repair; and keep plumbing in good working order.

 

The landlord can enter at reasonable times with proper notice to inspect, make necessary or agreed repairs, or supply agreed upon services.

 

When you decide to move, give the required notice as stated in your rental agreement and be sure to settle all accounts. Terminate utility service the day you leave and notify the landlord, post office and others of your address change.

 

One of the most important responsibilities as a tenant is to leave the premises in a clean condition for the next occupant. Note any damages in writing and reach a final agreement.

 

If your landlord fails to do what the law or rental agreement requires, you may be eligible to terminate your agreement without penalty. You must first notify the landlord of the issue in writing. The landlord has seven days to correct the issue.

 

Unless the issue involves failure to pay rent, a landlord must go through the same process when the tenants fail to meet their obligations.

 

For a free copy of the full text version of the Landlord/Tenant Law, Chapter 83, Part II, Florida Statute, or give us a call at

1-800-HELP-FLA (435-7352)

 

 

 

 

CNN delighted in reporting the results of a recent poll question that asked: "How much do you trust the things you hear in official communications from the White House? Do you trust almost all, most of it, just some of it, or nothing at all?"

 

If a regular viewer of CNN were to choose anything higher than zero, you'd assume he was a victim of the opioid epidemic. Given the size of CNN's audience as a percentage of the national population, this was an issue.

 

Forty-three percent picked "some of it," as people tend to do in a poll. Twenty-four percent chose "almost all" or "most," and 30 percent picked "nothing at all."

 

Proving once again its inability to say anything at all positive about President Trump's administration, CNN presented these poll results as "only 24 percent trust the White House" and pitched it as a glorious victory for the "objective" media and independent "fact-checkers."

 

On his show "Reliable Sources," Brian Stelter turned to Angie Drobnic Holan of the liberal site PolitiFact and said: "I admit this is a softball, but does this poll show the strength of journalism? That, yes, the public may be skeptical of our work, but they are paying attention to our reporting and they are learning about Trump's fibs and falsehoods?" (She said yes.)

 

But guess what CNN didn't ask in this poll to test public confidence: "How much do you trust the things you hear from CNN (or the rest of the press)? All of it, some of it or not at all?" Guess what else CNN never asked during former President Obama's first summer: "How much do you trust the things you hear in official communications from the White House?"

 

Eight years ago, CNN conducted a National Report Card, and in addition to grading the politicians, it asked the public to give a grade to the news media. It surely winced at the results: Forty-nine percent gave the media an F, and 19 percent gave them a D. (Just 4 percent gave them an A; 11 percent gave them a B, and 18 percent gave them a C.)

 

In July, a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll asked how much people trust the Trump administration and the media. Thirty-seven percent said they had a "good deal" or a "great amount" of trust in Team Trump, while only 30 percent said the same about the media.

 

In January, a Quinnipiac University poll asked point blank, "Do you think that most members of the news media are honest or not?" The media were rated dishonest by 57 percent and honest by 39 percent. The parties were very divided: Democrats voted 65 percent honest to 29 percent dishonest, while an overwhelming number of Republicans picked dishonest, 86 percent to 13 percent.

The media are trusted ... to please the Democrats.

 

Before the media celebrate the "fact-checkers," they should try a poll on "fact-checkers" themselves. Stelter interviewed and honored PolitiFact's Holan and Washington Post "Fact-Checker" Glenn Kessler on his show. Both are trustworthy - you can trust them to go soft on Democrats.

 

Check out their tilt since Jan. 20. PolitiFact has a category called "Pants on Fire" for what it rates as egregious falsehoods. Since Inauguration Day, it has given Republicans this rating 21 times and given it to Democrats just four times.

 

The Washington Post "Fact-Checker" team is even worse. When you count up the claims receiving a "Four Pinocchios" rating for obvious lies, there are 35 such ratings for Republicans (23 for Trump alone) and only four for Democrats.

 

It has been documented endlessly over decades that these watchdogs are as liberal as their friends in the "news" media. In 2016, their tilted ratings were used to make the bizarre claim that Hillary Clinton was "fundamentally honest." Clinton is just as honest as the press that tried so hard to get her elected using "fact-checkers" as a weapon.

 

 

L. Brent Bozell III 

and Tim Graham

 

 

 

 

The latest safety technologies in cars have the potential to significantly reduce crashes. Consumer Reports looks at which safety systems owners like and the brands that do them best.  

 

- Forward-Collision Warning (FCW). This technology provides a visual, audible and/or tactile alert to warn the driver of an impending collision with a car or object directly in its path. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) data shows that FCW reduces rear-end accidents by 27 percent. Eighty percent or more of Infiniti, Tesla and Subaru owners were very satisfied with the FCW system in their vehicles. 

 

- Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB). If a car equipped with AEB senses a potential collision and you don't react in time, it starts braking for you. IIHS data shows rear-end collisions are cut by 50 percent on vehicles with AEB and FCW. Infiniti, Tesla and Subaru owners were the happiest with AEB, with more than 74 percent of vehicles rated at very satisfied. 

 

- Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC). Lasers, radar, cameras or a combination are used to keep a constant, safe following space between your car and the car ahead. If highway traffic slows, some systems will bring the car to a complete stop, then bring it back up to speed when traffic gets going again. Others only work at certain speeds. Ninety-two percent of Tesla owners were very satisfied with their ACC system, the highest among all brands. 

 

- Blind Spot Warning (BSW). This is a technology that detects and warns of vehicles you can't see alongside your car. It gives a visual, audible and/or tactile alert to indicate that it's unsafe to merge or change lanes. The system may provide an additional warning if you use your turn signal when there is a car in the lane next to you. Consumer Reports found that the blind-spot warning safety feature registered high satisfaction scores across most auto brands, but especially for Lexus, Hyundai and Toyota. 

 

- Lane-Departure Warning (LDW) and Lane-Keeping Assist (LKA). With LDW, visual, audible and/or tactile warnings - such as steering wheel or seat vibrations - alert the driver when the car crosses lane markings. The system does not activate when you use your turn signal. In addition to sensing when you drift from your lane, LKA provides steering input or braking to correct the vehicle if it starts to exit the lane. More than 77 percent of Cadillac, Hyundai and Tesla owners were very satisfied with their LDW system, followed by Lexus, Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep. 

 

- Rear Cross-Traffic Warning (RCTW) and Rearview Cameras. The RCTW systems give visual, audible and/or tactile notification of an object or vehicle that is out of rear camera range but is approaching as you're backing up. Some systems will automatically brake to avoid a crash. Owners were happy with the rearview cameras across most manufacturers. Tesla, Lincoln and Ram topped Consumer Reports' survey, with very satisfied ratings above 90 percent. RCTW received praise, too, especially the systems from Kia, Subaru and Hyundai, each rated at 89 percent very satisfied. 

 

 

CONSUMER REPORTS

 

 

 

 

Today NOAA issued the scheduled update for its 2017 hurricane season outlook. Forecasters are now predicting a higher likelihood of an above-normal season, and they increased the predicted number of named storms and major hurricanes.

The season has the potential to be extremely active, and could be the most active since 2010.

 

Forecasters now say there is a 60-percent chance of an above-normal season (compared to the May prediction of 45 percent chance), with 14-19 named storms (increased from the May predicted range of 11-17) and 2-5 major hurricanes (increased from the May predicted range of 2-4). A prediction for 5-9 hurricanes remains unchanged from the intial May outlook.  

 

“We’re now entering the peak of the season when the bulk of the storms usually form,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “The wind and air patterns in the area of the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean where many storms develop are very conducive to an above-normal season. This is in part because the chance of an El Nino forming, which tends to prevent storms from strengthening, has dropped significantly from May.”

 

Bell noted other factors that point to an above-normal season include warmer waters across the tropical Atlantic than models previously predicted and higher predicted activity from available models.

 

In just the first nine weeks of this season there have been six named storms, which is half the number of storms during an average six-month season and double the number of storms that would typically form by early August. An average Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1-November 30, produces 12 named storms, of which six become hurricanes, including three major hurricanes.

 

“Today’s updated outlook underscores the need for everyone to know their true vulnerabilities to storms and storm surge,” said FEMA Administrator Brock Long.

 

“As we enter the height of hurricane season, it’s important for everyone to know who issues evacuation orders in their community, heed the warnings, update their insurance and have a preparedness plan.”

 

The updated outlook is based on the current and evolving atmospheric and oceanic conditions, the most recent model predictions, and pre-and early-season storm activity. The numbers announced today include the season activity to-date. The Atlantic basin has seen six named storms (Arlene in April; Bret and Cindy in June; Don and Emily in July; and Franklin in August). Two of these storms, Cindy and Emily, struck the United States. Cindy made landfall on June 22 at the Louisiana-Texas border and caused heavy rain, inland flooding and multiple tornado outbreaks.

 

Emily made landfall on July 31 in Anna Maria Island, Florida. Franklin is predicted to make landfall in Mexico overnight as a hurricane.

 

Today’s update also decreases the chance of a near-normal season from 35 percent to 30 percent, and a below-normal season from 20 percent to only 10 percent from the initial outlook issued in May.

 

As we move into the peak of hurricane season, when hurricanes are most frequent and at their strongest, NOAA urges coastal residents to make sure they have their hurricane preparedness plans in place and to monitor the latest forecasts.

 

 

 

noaa.gov

 

If newly named White House Chief of Staff John Kelly succeeds in bringing some order to the chaos that has so shaken the Trump administration, we hope he'll get the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ponder this: the interim report of the president's commission on opioid abuse. If they follow the commission's advice, they will save thousands of lives.

 

The members of the bipartisan commission, which includes North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, asked the president to declare a national emergency to deal with the deadly epidemic. "With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to Sept. 11 every three weeks," the commission wrote in its report. "Your declaration will empower your cabinet to take bold steps and would force Congress to focus on funding and empowering the executive branch even further to deal with this loss of life."

 

Opioid overdose has become the nation's leading cause of death in people under 50. Overdoses kill more people than car crashes and gun violence combined. Calling this a crisis is an understatement. And the problem is getting worse -- it's out of control.

 

And yet, it appears the president is leaning toward the advice of his attorney general, who has proposed escalating the nation's war on drugs. Sessions wants to go after drug dealers with a vengeance and seek maximum penalties. Trump wants to seal our border with Mexico, the route taken by many of the natural and synthetic opioids into this country.

 

They're both ignoring something important: We've been trying to do just that for more than 40 years, and we've failed. The nation's war on drugs has been a trillion-dollar debacle. Sealing the border simply inspires smugglers to find new and better routes. Locking up the small percentage of drug distributors who are caught offers opportunity to the aspiring successors lined up behind them.

 

It's time for a new approach. One that the president's commission advocates is waiving a federal rule that puts tight limits on the number of Medicaid recipients who can qualify for residential addiction treatment. The interim report also recommends expanded access to medications that are used in opioid addiction treatment.

 

Gov. Cooper, in an interview on PBS this week, said: "The report is incomplete. We're whistling past the graveyard if we don't recognize that, in order to provide treatment, that we have to increase Medicaid funding to the states, and we have to make sure that every American has good, quality health insurance that covers substance abuse and addiction treatment."

 

Declaring a national emergency and freeing up Medicaid funds for addiction treatment will be a big step. So would additional federal funding to expand addiction-treatment programs.

 

The governors of four states -- Arizona, Florida, Maryland and Virginia -- have declared states of emergency because of the opioid crisis. A fifth -- Alaska -- has declared a disaster. North Carolina needs to join them. But that's no substitute for a national declaration of emergency backed by the kind of help all the states need to defend themselves against an epidemic that is killing Americans at an unprecedented rate.

 

 

The National Football League's preseason is underway, and national anthem-hating quarterback Colin Kaepernick still doesn't have an NFL job. One can easily identify the liberal journalists by their anguish over this so-called injustice. You can also identify them by their di

Washington Post sports columnist Jerry Brewer pulled out a very large straw man on Aug. 17 in a column headlined "Days of Docile Black Athlete Have Ended. Get Used to It." He doubled down in the text, saying: "Sorry for the inconvenience, sports fans, but the days of the docile black athlete are over. This isn't a time to stick to sports. This isn't a time to be afraid because Kaepernick has been blackballed." To argue that Kaepernick's critics want "docile blacks" is character assassination. 

 

Then, Brewer added that the national anthem lasts about two minutes, as does an interview after the game about that anti-American kneeling stunt. He spewed: "If you think that's too much of a distraction from sports -- the ultimate distraction -- you're living an awfully petty life. I'm sorry you didn't get to put extra sprinkles on your ice cream, but there are more important matters."

 

Brewer surely knows that Kaepernick's antics didn't cause two minutes of liberal concern or conservative outrage. We've had an entire summer of ESPN and other liberal sports pundits like Brewer demanding that Kaepernick somehow has an inalienable right to a job in the NFL after his antics.

 

Most of these liberals impose their own righteousness about America's "systematic racism" without acknowledging that Kaepernick went beyond this quiet pre-game stance. They ignore that he wore socks in training camp featuring pigs with police hats on them. They ignore that he wore a T-shirt with former Cuban leader Fidel Castro on it as he supposedly advocated for freedom of speech. 

 

When challenged by Cuban exile Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald about the T-shirt, Kaepernick proclaimed that communist Cuba was better than America. He said, "One thing that Fidel Castro did do is they have the highest literacy rate because they invest more in their education system than they do in their prison system, which we do not do here, even though we're fully capable of doing that."

 

Salguero called that out as false, as phony as the Castros winning 100 percent of the vote. When he told the quarterback that Castro's regime broke up families (including his own) as they sought to escape, Kaepernick attacked America again. "We do break up families here," he said. "That's what mass incarceration is. That was the foundation of slavery, so our country has been based on that as well as the genocide of Native Americans."

 

It's not a matter of "extra sprinkles on our ice cream" to smear the police as porcine, racist killers and smear America as founded not on liberty and justice but on slavery and genocide.

 

But Brewer, that professor of logic, thinks that Kaepernick's complete evisceration of America is somehow what makes this country ... great? He said: "But if America is still America -- beautiful despite some ugly features, slow to evolve but persistent, a compassionate democracy -- history will judge Kaepernick ultimately not as a rogue and defiant objector, but a man ahead of this time who helped spur an important athlete revolution."

 

What liberal journalists are demanding here is that every famous person in front of a microphone exploit that platform to call for a leftist revolution. Athletes, actors, musicians, reality TV stars and everyone else should always be shilling against the horrid country that America was -- and presently is under the Republicans. "History" (always equated with liberalism) will grade them as heroes ahead of their time.

 

L. Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham 

 

 

"They had found a leader, Robert E. Lee -- and what a leader! ... No military leader since Napoleon has aroused such enthusiastic devotion among troops as did Lee when he reviewed them on his horse Traveller."

 

So wrote Samuel Eliot Morison in his magisterial "The Oxford History of the American People" in 1965.

 

First in his class at West Point, hero of the Mexican War, Lee was the man to whom President Lincoln turned to lead his army. But when Virginia seceded, Lee would not lift up his sword against his own people, and chose to defend his home state rather than wage war upon her. 

 

This veneration of Lee, wrote Richard Weaver, "appears in the saying attributed to a Confederate soldier, 'The rest of us may have ... descended from monkeys, but it took a God to make Marse Robert.'" 

 

Growing up after World War II, this was accepted history. 

 

Yet, on the militant left today, the name Lee evokes raw hatred and howls of "racist and traitor." A clamor has arisen to have all statues of him and all Confederate soldiers and statesmen pulled down from their pedestals and put in museums or tossed onto trash piles.

 

What has changed since 1965? 

 

It is not history. There have been no great new discoveries about Lee. 

 

What has changed is America herself. She is not the same country. We have passed through a great social, cultural and moral revolution that has left us irretrievably divided on separate shores. 

 

And the politicians are in panic. 

 

Two years ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called the giant statues of Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson on Richmond's Monument Avenue "parts of our heritage." After Charlottesville, New York-born-and-bred McAuliffe, entertaining higher ambitions, went full scalawag, demanding the statues be pulled down as "flashpoints for hatred, division, and violence."

 

Who hates the statues, Terry? Who's going to cause the violence? Answer: The Democratic left whom Terry must now appease.

 

McAuliffe is echoed by Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, the Democratic candidate in November to succeed McAuliffe. GOP nominee Ed Gillespie wants Monument Avenue left alone. 

 

The election is the place to decide this, but the left will not wait. 

 

In Durham, North Carolina, our Taliban smashed the statue of a Confederate soldier. Near the entrance of Duke University Chapel, a statue of Lee has been defaced, the nose broken off. 

 

Wednesday at dawn, Baltimore carried out a cultural cleansing by taking down statues of Lee and Maryland Chief Justice Roger Taney who wrote the Dred Scott decision and opposed Lincoln's suspension of the right of habeas corpus.

 

Like ISIS, which smashed the storied ruins of Palmyra, and the al-Qaida rebels who ravaged the fabled Saharan city of Timbuktu, the new barbarism has come to America. This is going to become a blazing issue, not only between but within the parties.

 

For there are 10 Confederates in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, among them Lee, Georgia's Alexander Stephens, vice president to Jefferson Davis, and Davis himself. The Black Caucus wants them gone. 

 

Mount Rushmore-sized carvings of Lee, Jackson and Davis are on Stone Mountain, Georgia. Are they to be blasted off? 

 

There are countless universities, colleges and high schools like Washington & Lee named for Confederate statesmen and soldiers. Across the Potomac from D.C. are Jefferson Davis Highway and Leesburg Pike to Leesburg itself, 25 miles north. Are all highways, streets, towns and counties named for Confederates to be renamed? What about Fort Bragg?

 

On every Civil War battlefield, there are monuments to the Southern fallen. Gettysburg has hundreds of memorials, statues and markers. But if, as the left insists we accept, the Confederates were traitors trying to tear America apart to preserve an evil system, upon what ground do Democrats stand to resist the radical left's demands?

 

What do we do with those battlefields where Confederates were victorious: Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville?

 

"Where does this all end?" President Trump asked. 

 

It doesn't. Not until America's histories and biographies are burned and new texts written to Nazify Lee, Jackson, Davis and all the rest, will a newly indoctrinated generation of Americans accede to this demand to tear down and destroy what their fathers cherished. 

 

And once all the Confederates are gone, one must begin with the explorers, and then the slave owners like Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison, who seceded from slave-free Britain. White supremacists all. 

 

Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay of Kentucky and John Calhoun must swiftly follow. 

 

Then there are all those segregationists. From 1865 to 1965, virtually all of the great Southern senators were white supremacists. 

 

In the first half of the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson and FDR carried all 11 states of a rigidly segregationist South all six times they ran, and FDR rewarded Dixie by putting a Klansman on the Supreme Court.

 

While easy for Republicans to wash their hands of such odious elements as Nazis in Charlottesville, will they take up the defense of the monuments and statues that have defined our history, or capitulate to the icon-smashers?

 

In this Second American Civil War, whose side are you on?

 

Patrick J. Buchanan

 

When the Dodge Charger of 20-year-old Nazi sympathizer James Alex Fields Jr., plunged into that crowd of protesters Saturday, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer, Fields put Charlottesville on the map of modernity alongside Ferguson.

 

Before Fields ran down the protesters, and then backed up, running down more, what was happening seemed but a bloody brawl between extremists on both sides of the issue of whether Robert E. Lee's statue should be removed from Emancipation Park, formerly Lee Park.

 

With Heyer's death, the brawl was elevated to a moral issue. And President Donald Trump's initial failure to denounce the neo-Nazi and Klan presence was declared a moral failure.

 

 

In June of 2015, 21-year-old Dylann Roof gunned down nine Christians at an evening Bible study in Charleston's Emanuel AME Church. A review of Roof's selfies and website showed him posing with the Confederate battle flag. 

 

Gov. Nikki Haley, five years in office, instantly pivoted and called for removal of the battle flag from the Confederate war memorial on the State House grounds, as a "deeply offensive symbol of a brutally offensive past." 

 

This ignited a national clamor to purge all statues that lionize Confederate soldiers and statesmen.

 

In Maryland, demands have come for removing statues and busts of Chief Justice Roger Taney, the author of the Dred Scott decision. Statues of Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson, President Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee have been pulled down in New Orleans.

 After Charlottesville, pressure is building for removal of the statues of Lee, Jackson, Davis and Gen. "Jeb" Stuart from historic Monument Avenue in Richmond, capital of the Confederacy. 

 

Many Southern towns, including Alexandria, Virginia, have statues of Confederate soldiers looking to the South. Shall we pull them all down? And once all the Southern Civil War monuments are gone, should we go after the statues of the slave owners whom we Americans have heroized?

 

Gen. George Washington and his subordinate, "Light Horse Harry" Lee, father of Robert E. Lee, were slave owners, as was Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson. Five of our first seven presidents owned slaves, as did James K. Polk, who invaded and annexed the northern half of Mexico, including California.

 

Jefferson, with his exploitation of Sally Hemings and neglect of their children, presents a particular problem. While he wrote in the Declaration of Independence of his belief that "all men are created equal," his life and his depiction of Indians in that document belie this. 

 

 And Jefferson is both on the face of Mount Rushmore and has a memorial in the U.S. capital. 

 

 Another term applied to the "Unite the Right" gathering in Charlottesville is that they are "white supremacists," a mortal sin to modernity. But here we encounter an even greater problem. 

 Looking back over the history of a Western Civilization, which we call great, were not the explorers who came out of Spain, Portugal, France, Holland and England all white supremacists?

 

They conquered in the name of the mother countries all the lands they discovered, imposed their rule upon the indigenous peoples, and vanquished and eradicated the native-born who stood in their way. 

 

Who, during the centuries-long discovery and conquest of the New World, really believed that the lives of the indigenous peoples were of equal worth with those of the colonizers?

 

 

Beginning in the 16th century, Western imperialists ruled much of what was called the civilized world. Was not the British Empire, one of the great civilizing forces in human history, a manifestation of British racial superiority?

 

And if being a segregationist disqualifies one from being venerated in our brave new world, what do we do with Woodrow Wilson, who thought "Birth of a Nation" a splendid film and who re-segregated the U.S. government?

 

In 1955, Prime Minister Churchill, imperialist to the core, urged his Cabinet to consider the slogan, "Keep England White."

 Nor is a belief in the superiority of one's race, religion, tribe and culture unique to the West. What is unique, what is an experiment without precedent, is what we are about today.

 

We have condemned and renounced the scarlet sins of the men who made America and embraced diversity, inclusivity and equality.

 

Our new America is to be a land where all races, tribes, creeds and cultures congregate, all are treated equally, and all move ever closer to an equality of results through the regular redistribution of opportunity, wealth and power. We are going to become "the first universal nation."

 

 "All men are created equal" is an ideological statement. Where is the scientific or historic proof for it? Are we building our utopia on a sandpile of ideology and hope? 

 Nevertheless, on to Richmond!

 

Patrick J. Buchannan