January 17, 2020: "The Arc of the Moral Universe" Can Be Bent Backward

 

1/17/20: Humanity alternately advances and retreats. With the governor’s house and legislature in Virginia controlled by Democrats for the first time in years, and new laws to restrict gun rights under consideration, a pro-gun rally is scheduled in Richmond on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 

Leaving aside discussion of the Second Amendment, neo-Nazi groups are calling for their forces to converge on Richmond and stir up as much trouble as possible.

 

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Bending the “arc of the moral universe” backward.

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According to The New York Times extremists have been calling the planned gathering the “boogaloo.” In the white supremacist lexicon, that would be any event that might hasten the onset of a race war.

 

“The arc of the moral universe is long,” Dr. King once famously said, “but it bends toward justice.” Unfortunately, we need to remember that groups and individuals are often set on bending it backward. The F.B.I. recently arrested three members of a neo-Nazi group, The Base. The Times notes, “One of the men, Patrik J. Mathews, 27, a main recruiter for the group, entered the United States illegally from Canada….He was arrested along with Brian M. Lemley Jr., 33, and William G. Bilbrough IV, 19.” Mathews “was trained as a combat engineer and is considered an expert in explosives. The Canadian Army discharged him after his ties to white supremacists surfaced.” 

So, proof, I guess, that Trump is right. We do need a border wall. Then, again, Lemley is a U.S. Army veteran. So, forget the wall. 

And Mathews is Canadian, so, wrong border.

Mathews.

 

The F.B.I. also arrested Richard Tobin, a young New Jersey man, last November. Tobin was said to have been recruiting for The Base, luring recruits with promises they might get to kill black people with machetes.

 

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IN WORLD NEWS, bowing to climate change realities, the German government says it will phase out coal by 2038. A total of $44.5 billion will be set aside to compensate affected workers and companies.

BLOGGER’S NOTE (4/19/22): When I checked back for information, I learned that in November 2021, Tobin was sentenced to spend one year and one day in a federal prison for his plotting. I also discovered that he had hoped to kill Jews, as well as African Americans. 

Mathews and Lemley Jr. had already been sentenced, in October, to spend nine years in prison. In a separate trial, Bilbrough was sentenced to five years behind bars. One of their ideas had been to break Dylan Roof, the infamous Charleston, S.C. church shooter, out of jail. Now they can join him. In federal court, Mathews told the judge: 

“I’m not someone who hurts people. I’m not a mean person,” he said.

 

“I try to be people’s friends. I picked the wrong set of friends to do that. It’s one thing to be a friend, be a buddy. It’s another to get involved in illegal activity. It’s insane and all my fault.”

 

Moral of the story: Don’t pick neo-Nazis friends.