American Greatness Quietly Withdraws Bayonet

The name calling has gotten hot and heavy in the recent Ahmari v. French dust up but I haven’t seen any calls for anyone’s death. For that, you need to go to the inappropriately titled Center for American Greatness. In a recent column about Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico, associate editor Pedro Gonzalez took exception to Cato Institute’s David Bier’s views of Trump’s proposals. In response to Trump’s threat to impose tariffs if Mexico did not reduce the number of asylum seekers getting to the U.S. through Mexico, Bier tweeted:

In response, Gonzalez wrote:

Not only do we have troops at the border now, but on the same day Bier called on Mexico to open the floodgates from Central America, a U.S. Marine fired his weapon while on duty along the southern border. The Marine reported he had been attacked inside his vehicle by three people. Around the same time, a mob of angry Hondurans attacked the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa. Technically, this was an act of war. Bier doesn’t seem to mind.

In a perfect world, as opposed to this clownish vale of tears, Bier’s remarks would put him at the business end of a bayonet—and to say so is not more incitant than calling on a foreign power to facilitate Invasion U.S.A.

Nevertheless, Bier’s reaction is what we have come to expect from the libertarian-right.

According to Gonzalez, David Bier should die for expressing his views on Trump’s immigration policy. Sohrab Ahmari wrote that civility and decency are secondary values. In practice, this means civility and decency don’t matter. Winning is primary. Re-ordering for that Highest Good is primary. In Gonzalez’s perfect world (re-ordered?), Bier’s First Amendment expression would put him at great risk. Apparently dissent and disagreement isn’t a characteristic of American greatness at American Greatness.

But that glorious day is not now. Apparently, someone got to Gonzalez and let him know that the re-ordering is not complete. He removed the suggestion that Bier’s immigration views made him worthy of death. The link above is the Google cache (preserved here). There was no explanation for the removal. Was it because a funding source complained? Or did some secondary value bubble up somewhere but without courage to say so?

8 thoughts on “American Greatness Quietly Withdraws Bayonet”

  1. Gonzalez: “…Bier’s remarks would put him at the business end of a bayonet—and to say so is not more incitant than calling on a foreign power to facilitate Invasion U.S.A.”

    I wonder if Gonzalez considered “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails” an incitement of a foreign power to facilitate “Invasion U.S.A.”? Invasion of the US through the Internet and its networks in order to influence a presidential election (cyberwar) has more and worse ramifications than asylum seekers crossing a border.

  2. I’ts really about Individualism vs Collectivism. The founding fathers were for individual rights, the democrats and many conservative republicans are for group rights over individual rights. I think Dr. Warren agrees with the Collectivism side and that on a global scale. Our founders had to risk their lives for our individual rights, so the battle is real.

    1. The first sign of someone having a bad education about the history of this nation is when they speak of “the founding fathers” as though they had a single point of view. They did not, and in fact their views were spread across a very wide spectrum. As an example, Thomas Paine was by far one of the most influential, if not the most influential of the founding fathers, with his writings considered among the if not the most influential at the start of the Revolutionary War (Common Sense, most notably), and by all accounts he would have made the modern far left blush with many of his views.

      People think the “founding fathers” started with Jefferson and ended with Washington, and ignore all of the other founding fathers with wildly divergent points of view.

      Also, individualism is not in tension with collectivism. Individuals can be part of a collective and still have equally strong individual rights. That is a false dichotomy.

  3. Aside from having myopic opinions, how does Pedro Gonzalez imagine he is qualified to speak with authority on “American greatness?” Of equal importance, what are the qualifications of the entire editorial board at “American Greatness” aside from their ability to form self-satisfying, self-serving opinions far from the adult world of complex reality?

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