Now these people, asked on Hollywood Boulevard by the Jimmy Kimmel show to find North Korea on a map, are clearly not a random subset of Americans. In fact, they’re probably better educated. I show this not to make fun of the people (though they seem to think that North Korea is near either Greenland or the Middle East), but to show how abysmally ignorant many of us are about what goes on in the rest of the world. As the Torygraph pointed out three years ago, a poll shows that the problem is pervasive:

A National Geographic poll [JAC: This was in 2006, but I doubt things have changed] of over 500 young Americans, aged 18 to 24, showed that six per cent failed to locate their own country on a map of the world.

Among those with a high school education or less, the figure was one in ten. Only one in three could find Great Britain on a map.

In the same group, two thirds of the respondents estimated the population of the US at between 750 million and two billion (actual figure: 298 million).

Three quarters said English was the most commonly spoken native language in the world. It is actually third, behind Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

There is an old joke that war was invented to teach Americans geography, but that no longer seems to be true.

In the same National Geographic poll, conducted three years after the Iraq War began, only 37 per cent of young Americans could find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.

The same percentage could point out Saudi Arabia.

Only one in four could locate Israel or Iran.

Even among college students, only 23 per cent found all four countries.

This morning there is not much new to add to the news about the Charlottesville battle between white supremacists and Nazi sympathizers on the one hand, and Antifa adherents, Black Lives Matter people, religious figures, and progressive anti-racists on the other. Last night Heather Hastie wrote a good analysis of the situation, and I refer you to her post, which I agree with completely. I’ll add just a few comments here.

First, I don’t know enough to say who was responsible for most of the violence. Clearly both sides came loaded for bear and ready to fight, but the right-wingers were clearly carrying shields, weapons, and even garb that made them look like cops. Given the pugnacity of both sides, a fight was nearly inevitable. I’ll wait to see if the violence was initiated by only one side, but I doubt it. It seems as if both sides contributed, since some right wingers got clubbed, which means that their opponents came with clubs, and probably not for self-defense.

On the other hand, at least one death (the others were in a helicopter crash whose details are murky) is probably to be laid at the door of the white supremacists. Their rally, ostensibly to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, became a coming-together of the “basket of deplorables”—the racists, nativists, and white supremacists that have burgeoned since Trump’s election. Confederate flags were paraded next to Nazi flags. When a state of emergency was declared and the bigots were disbanded, their opponents were walking triumphantly down a street when they were rammed by a fast-moving car. It killed one person and injured 19.

The photo below, from the New York Times, is horrific, and shows the moment of impact. The driver, James Alex Fields, Jr. of Ohio, was 20, white, and has been charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and failing to stop at the scene of a crash at which someone was killed. Curiously, although he was arrested, the NYT says that “the authorities declined to say publicly that Mr. Fields was the driver of the car that plowed into the crowd.” If that was the case, why was he arrested? I suspect he wasn’t on the progressive side.

I’ll add one thing here. Whoever drove that car was a reprehensible and violent person. And he may well have been motivated by racist and white supremacist ideology—an ideology I despise. But not all the demonstrators on the Right would have done that, so while I deplore their ideology and call them out as hateful bigots, we have to distinguish between those who commit and directly incite violence, and those who espouse sentiments that do not directly call for violence but could lead to violence as an unforseen consequence. That’s how the courts have interpreted the First Amendment: direct incitement is illegal, while speech that causes violence as a byproduct is not. (Do I have to repeat that I don’t like racist speech, either?) Remember that the American Civil Liberties Union, largely supported by Jews, went to court to support the rights of Nazis to march through Skokie, Illinois—a Jewish suburb. That march could have caused violence (it didn’t), but was not a direct call for violence.

Still, if this driver was trying to kill those who protested a racist and white supremacist philosophy, I blame that philosophy and ideology as a causal factor. It would be hypocritical to deny that racism played a role in the car incident while denying that Islamic doctrine didn’t play a role in recent cases when Islamists committed murder by vehicle. These are all terrorist acts designed to intimidate.

As a former conscientious objector, I cannot abide people trying to hurt each other, especially in demonstrations. Hurt feelings are not the same thing as wounded bodies. Whoever struck out not in self-defense is contributing to the violence, and clearly that involves some people on both sides. I won’t apportion blame here, for the facts are still emerging.  But I will say that those on the progressive Left should never encourage violence—even against those whose ideology and ideas we deeply despise. Our methods are peaceful protests, counter-demonstrations, and public speeches and writings. I wouldn’t even go to a demonstration with a weapon; I’d rather be beaten, like the Civil Rights protestors of the Sixties who practiced civil disobedience, or flee. So those on the Left who have encouraged or countenanced violence, even against racists and white supremacists, are doing our values—and the Constitution—a disservice.

Some bloggers, like P. Z. Myers and Dan Arel, who call for “first-strike” violence against white supremacists, are deeply wrong. In a recent post, Myers, who is becoming increasingly unhinged and pugnacious, wrote this:

We can at least appreciate this moment of linguistic simplification: KKK, alt-right, white supremacist, and Nazi all refer to exactly the same thing, one united collection of deplorable bigots, and we should likewise unite to oppose them all. No more Nazis. Shun them, scorn them, punch them in the face. Tear down their monuments, trash their flags, fire them from their jobs.

While this may be bluster by someone comfortably ensconced behind a distant computer, it’s asking for a violation of the law that goes far beyond civil disobedience. It’s also nonproductive: do we really win sympathy for the Left by punching people and “trashing their flags” (that, too, is unconstitutional)? Finally, not all these people are equal: some of the Righters incite and practice violence, and should be arrested; others are practicing free speech and should be countered with speeches and demonstrations, but not attacked. Finally, to equate the “alt-right” with the KKK and Nazis is ridiculous. After all, Myers has, as I recall, placed people like Dave Rubin, Sam Harris, and Steven Pinker on the alt-right. Does he really want his followers to physically attack these peope? (Needless to say, most of the comments on that and other posts by Myers are in favor of punching and other violence). Please—let us not call for such behavior on this site.

Finally, I place the right-wing sentiments, the racism and anti-Semitism evinced by the protestors at the door of Trump. As one reader commented yesterday, Trump is slow to condemn this kind of bigotry, and will do so only if forced, in effect saying, “There—I’ve condemned them; are you happy now?” Trump’s election emboldened the racists, the Nazi sympathizers, and the white supremacists, for they recognized that he was a nativist, too. Remember when, at a rally before the election, he incited his followers to beat up a heckler? Trump did call for calming the situation in Charlottesville, but in a masterpiece of weaseltude failed to condemn the racists and bigots, saying the violence was due to “hatred, bigotry, and violence on all sides.” That is chickenshit, non-Presidential, and an explicit display of his unwillingness to call out bigotry. Condemning “violence” is okay, but doesn’t go far enough.

After all, Democrats and even some Republicans decried this bigotry. These include attorney general Jeff Sessions,  Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, as well as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who posted these tw**ts:

The views fueling the spectacle in Charlottesville are repugnant. Let it only serve to unite Americans against this kind of vile bigotry.

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) August 12, 2017

Much as I dislike Ryan, I read this as a condemnation of anti-Semitism, nativism, and racism. Trump should have been the leader here, not a reluctant follower. As far as I know, he still hasn’t said a word about the Nazism, white supremacy, and bigotry on view in Charlottesville. That also goes for Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio, John McCain, and Mitt Romney

I urge the Department of Justice to immediately investigate and prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism. pic.twitter.com/AwJLsfUEHl

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) August 13, 2017

Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 12, 2017

McCain: "White supremacists &neo-Nazis are, by definition, opposed to American patriotism" and what makes USA special pic.twitter.com/NFAgmgQGlM

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 12, 2017

Racial prejudice, then hate, then repugnant speech, then a repulsive rally, then murder; not supremacy, barbarism.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) August 13, 2017

Finally, Matthew sent me this tweet, whose short clip, made in 1947, is eerily relevant today:

https://twitter.com/OmanReagan/status/896563796071731201