Antifa Combats Patriot Prayer's 'Violence and Hatred' With Violence and Hatred
A Portland, Oregon-based antifa organization has gone viral in the worst way after video surfaced of its members attacking a group they claimed spread “violence and hatred” with, well, violence and hatred themselves.
According to Fox News, the protest came as the group Patriot Prayer — which says it’s nothing more than a peaceful pro-First Amendment group — was throwing a going-away festival for one of its members.
“Tiny’s Freedom March” was billed as a demonstration in honor of member Tusitala John Toese, who’s close to Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson.
However, Rose City Antifa says that Patriot Prayer is nothing more than a front group for white supremacists. This is mostly due to the fact that Patriot Prayer refused to cancel a June 4, 2017, rally after a white supremacist murdered two people aboard Portland’s light rail system and the fact that fringe white nationalist groups have often gathered around Patriot Prayer rallies — although it’s somewhat unclear if their intent was to join Patriot Prayer in a show of strength or engage with antifa counter-protesters.
So, the antifa group decided to counter the 5 p.m. “Tiny’s Freedom March” with a 4 p.m. “Call to Resist Patriot Prayer Bringing Nazis to Portland.”
“We will not allow racists and fascists to parade through Portland’s streets, threatening activists and targeting at-risk communities,” a Facebook announcement said.
“No matter how many times they try to sneak back in, this city will stand united against them. We ask the community to join us at 4:00 pm on June 3rd in Terry Schrunk Plaza, to show Patriot Prayer, just as we showed them last year, that their violence and hatred has no place in Portland.”
What transpired, however, seemed to show that the “violence and hatred” may have a place with the Rose City Antifa group.
We warn you, some of these videos are intense and contain profanity. Viewer discretion is advised.
Police advising people to stay away from this area. There’s about 30 Patriot Prayer folks and a much larger antifa presence. They’re burning American flags now. @fox12oregon pic.twitter.com/nBJDSgJgtl
— Brenna Kelly (@BrennaKellyNews) June 3, 2018
“Stay together” says Joey Gibson with Patriot Prayer. Already rowdy here at Terry Schrunk Plaza. I’ve seen punches thrown and already been caught in a whiff of pepper spray. I got here 5 minutes ago. @fox12oregon pic.twitter.com/WtBW51CLpv
— Brenna Kelly (@BrennaKellyNews) June 3, 2018
As you can see, there’s a significantly larger antifa presence than there is a Patriot Prayer presence, and it doesn’t exactly look like they were there to preach how love trumps hate or anything like that.
Breaking: Beatdowns at the Patriot Prayer and counterprotest in downtown Portland. Intense video pic.twitter.com/T2H6FveIbb
— Michael (@michaelbivins44) June 3, 2018
This is more or less what we saw last year, too, and at other Patriot Prayer events: Antifa thugs showing up merely to attack people who were gathering peacefully.
Now, I don’t particularly know what to make about Patriot Prayer or founder Joey Gibson. Both are controversial and, quite frankly, there isn’t enough available information about them, either from Rose City Antifa’s guilt-by-association news release or from these videos. However, what I do see is a lot thugs starting trouble.
Another fight. And some sort of pepper spray pic.twitter.com/FOlnbvjBrB
— Kandra Kent (@KandraKPTV) June 3, 2018
And, given the fact that there seemed to be a lot more antifa people than there were Patriot Prayer people, one could easily surmise this is basically First Amendment bullying. Had there not been an antifa assembly, we can safely assume we wouldn’t have seen any fights.
According to KOIN, there were at least three arrests, but the station didn’t say which side they were on. What we do know, however, is that the people at Rose City Antifa didn’t intend to peaceably assemble. What they intended to do was physically bully a group that they outnumbered massively to prove that they could stamp out any minority opinion.
As for what that opinion may have consisted of, I don’t know and I don’t particularly care. The First Amendment is for both the best and worst among us. To stamp it out via intimidation and violence is wrong no matter what the circumstances.
We’ve seen this behavior from antifa groups countless times. It’s time to stop treating this as an organization that wants to legally protest for change and start treating them as a network of deliberate terrorists.
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