Confederate Civil War re-enactors pepper sprayed during North Carolina parade
*Probably* just a coincidence
The scorched-history tactics of American press and progressive social justice warriors, which were in full display this past week, may have inspired the pepper-spraying of of Confederate re-enactors who were marching in a North Carolina parade.
Police arrested a man after Confederate veteran re-enactors were pepper sprayed during the 2017 Soldiers Reunion parade in Newton on Thursday.
Two victims were treated at the scene for pepper spray exposure and released, Newton police said.
Police arrested Karl Smith, 56, of Morganton and charged him with two counts of misdemeanor assault. He was released by a magistrate on a written promise to appear in court.
The group of re-enactors regularly appears in the annual parade.
According to a police report, Smith sprayed the re-enactors when they stopped to fire their weapons.
Two parade participants notified officials around 5.30pm about Smith’s actions.
Police seized a small canister of pepper spray and a loaded .38-caliber revolver for which Smith had a valid concealed-weapon permit.
It appears that Smith wasn’t the only person protesting, though he was the only one to attack the Confederate actors. Another, and unrelated activist, used Chalottesville as a springboard for his small demonstration.
“With the recent stuff that went on in Charlottesville it felt like an important time to say, ‘There’s a better way’,” says Jesse Smith, who was peacefully protesting the Confederate re-enactors.
The group was flying Confederate flags and their booth was set up next to a statue of a Confederate soldier. They had no comment for NBC Charlotte. Smith, however, had a direct response to their actions.
Just to realize what the Civil War was about, slavery,” says Smith. “ Racism is America’s first and original sin and we still haven’t gotten past that.”
But….I thought electing Obama was suppose to solve all of our race problems! Interestingly, a CBS interview with black women who are Trump supporters show that many Americans are moving forward, and point the finger at the former President for making race relations worse.
“I have been a Republican before Donald Trump, I will be a Republican afterwards,” [Janelle] Jones said. “I honestly don’t think we will see this issue a racial divide addressed until we remove identity politics out of the political process.”
These Republican women say if a president deserves blame for making racial tensions worse it’s former President Obama, not Mr. Trump, and the identity politics they believe Democrats have practiced for the last eight years.
As a side note: Legal Insurrection readers may recall I participate in historical re-enactments. Several of my friends spend a lot of time, money, and energy on recreating Civil War battles. Many of us have enjoyed their efforts on the big screen, such as in the fabulous “Gettysburg”.
Many people can recite the opening of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but I would like to highlight another portion of his speech:
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate-we can not consecrate-we can not hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
President Lincoln did not segregate the Union and Confederate troops in his speech, but instead recognized the sacrifices of all the troops to help heal the nation and seal the breach.
Self-righteous and violent activism undermines Lincoln’s efforts.
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Comments
What a coincidence. The alleged “Alt Right” protesters in Charlottesville was composed of mere “enactors” too.
Given the track record of the Lie-Stream Media, it’s highly probable all those NC “alt-right” folk were just Democrats, Leftists, and Progressives dressed up to start another Reichstag fire.
Snark
FIX BAYONET’S AND ADVANCE TOWARD THE ENEMY – OR A FEW HUNDRED MINI BALLS SENT IN THEIR GENERAL DIRECTION WOULD WORK TOO!
It will reach that point soon enough and the ammo will be of somewhat more modern type.
That, unfortunately, is a possibility. Not yet a probability, but perhaps solely because John and Jane Q. Public are still too engrossed in reality TV to get off the couch and pay attention to what is going on. The Nazi/KKK fan boy thugs are few in number, fewer even than the Antifa/BLM thugs (perhaps because it isn’t a paying job for the Nazi/KKK thugs?). What am I saying??? I can’t criticize the Antifa/BLM boys, they are the MSM/Democrats favorite pets.
“Antifa/BLM boys, they are the MSM/Democrats favorite pets….”
Not ‘pets’ – but their brownshirts. Wait till they start arming them.
Police seized a small canister of pepper spray and a loaded .38-caliber revolver for which Smith had a valid concealed-weapon permit.
This would also qualify as “Going Armed to the Terror of the People.”
This is a common law offense. State v. Dawson, 272 N.C. 535, 541-42 (1968); State v. Huntly, 25 N.C. 418, 418 (1843); State v. Staten, 32 N.C. App. 495, 496-97 (1977) (citing Dawson).
Elements: A person guilty of this offense
(1) arms himself or herself with an unusual and dangerous weapon (by common law, a firearm qualifies).
(2) for the purpose of terrifying others and
(3) goes about on public highways
(4) in a manner to cause terror to the people.
Punishment: Class 1 misdemeanor. G.S. 14-3(a).
The Magistrate should not have released the individual without the requirement of a bond. This is particularly the type of offense that shows danger to the community.
It’s a good thing that he didn’t do this in Texas. If he had, it would have at least been a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to 1 year in jail and $4000 fine.
Wouldn’t of applied. That offense requires the weapon to be visible and some action that would scare people. Sure you can make the argument but since the perpetrator clearly has several other charges that can be used it seems pointless. The reason it seems to be used at all is that NC is a open carry state and when someone acts out while OCing it can be used.
I think that the pepper spray might itself qualify. Futher, it does not mention if the pistol became visible at any time during the incident.
When something like this comes up, I’m all for throwing as many charges as can be stacked up at the person performing the act.
How many charges would it have been if it had been a white supremacist pepper-spraying a black civil rights march reenactment?
This stuff is a matter for routine law enforcement. Attacking anyone, in any attire, with noxious chemicals has a prescribed legal penalty, and our police and judges know perfectly well what it is. Loss of license to carry (if that state requires one) should be routine as well when a person has shown a clear propensity toward violent attacks. Still routine law enforcement.
That is, it’s not really a political crisis. Yet.
In South Africa, there are groups of re-enactors also…. in full military gear…. of the Wehrmacht.
Just a silly reminder, about the drive to purge our history of slave owners would became founders of this country…. Mohammed (PBUH… or else), “The Perfect Man” , was a slave owner.
Bob,
The country was founded on a slave economy with every aspect of the country supporting that economy. Unlike others I don’t find that repulsive and know enough history to realize that the only strange thing about slavery is that it is not more prevalent now. It will return. The left is using ignorance of history to get black people back to the Democratic party. That is disgusting.
There is no way to justify the actions of that man.
But since you love reenactments, might I suggest a few other events you could reenact as important parts of history.
– The Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner
– Life on slave plantation – for yuks the whites and blacks can trade places
– The lynching of Emitt Tlll
The north should probably get its own list. I start with:
– Boston Busing
– Death of Yusef Hawkins or Michaek Griffith (both were blacks who were in a white NY neighborhood for perfectly legitimate reasons
What exactly is there about the Civil War that makes people want to reenact that event over and above most others? It was horrific. The weaponry got way ahead of the medicine.
Dysentery was the most common fatal disease, according to the Civil War Preservation Trust. Soldiers also died from typhoid fever, a bacterial disease transmitted by lice, as well as malaria, pneumonia, smallpox and yellow fever. Anybody want to reenact dysentery or are you all just going to Southern Disneyland?
Someone, here, accused me of airbrushing. If you guys really believe in ‘equality of opportunity’, why don’t you act like it?
Someone, here, accused me of airbrushing. If you guys really believe in ‘equality of opportunity’, why don’t you act like it?
Nice try to twist words, but fail.
The modern Conservative recognizes that equality is the equal opportunity before God, man and the law of the individual to prove unequal talent.
We’ve given you your equal opportunity YellowSnake. You have shown your level of talent to be less than mediocre.
“What exactly is there about the Civil War that makes people want to reenact that event over and above most others?”
To be brunt, it’s none of your damn business what others wish to do. It’s still a free country. While you are working to turn it into a fascist state, you are yet to be a complete success.
You are an ignorant commie prog.
Something tells me you are not winning or you would have an answer instead of trying, unsuccessful, to insult me.
Yellow,
People reenact all wars and battles. As a southerner, I know the South was fighting a noble war for its freedom. We still want our freedom. We hold our flag close and honor our dead with memorials.
I guess you think chattel slavery was noble cause. Its days were numbered, anyway. Do you understand that it was only maintained by brutal internal violence? They had to prohibit slaves from learning to read. They had to maintain militias and slave catchers. They forced through the Fugitive Slave Act. Surely you have head of ‘Twelve Years A Slave’!
They had to breed them together or with their white masters. Pretty picture. I understand that playing soldier can be fun. I was a kid. But the nobility is only there if you do maintain a blind eye – remember the war did not end in 1865. In one way or another, it is still going on. There was separate, but unequal. There was peonage and convict labor. There was terror.
Coretta Scott King’s father owned a lumber mill, which was burned down by white neighbors. So even when blacks played the system and won, they were often deprived of their winnings.
At this point if the Northeast and the West Coast could figure out how to secede, they might be inclined to separate. We are not coming together any time soon.
I agree with Barry, what difference does it make to you what people do in their spare time? You sound like a typical ‘leftist’, thinking you always know what’s best. It truly is none of your damn business.
You are absolutely right that it is not my business. I certainly wouldn’t do what Karl Smith did or try to prevent an event. But the comments don’t stick to comments on reenactments. They make a lot of comments about liberals that are ridiculous.
I was mainly pointing out that it is a Disney version of history. There are museums and scholars that can show the real thing. But you don’t want the real thing.
That’s OK. I love to sail. I spend long periods of time moving at a snail pace. It is silly when I sometimes take a plane traveling 600 knots to get to a boat. But I don’t fantasize about being a pirate because the reality of piracy was nothing like how it is portrayed in Pirates of the Caribbean. These people don’t know the difference or deny the reality.
Righties want to control things, too. They want to control sex (birth control, education, disease prevention, abortion, LGBTQ, etc).
If I live downwind or downstream, they don’t care about my air or water – that is control. They want to cut down the last old growth forests in this country. I could go on. But I hope you get the point. Money trumps everything.
The Right doesn’t have a patent on truth, virtue or morality.
“Righties want to control things, too. They want to control sex (birth control, education, disease prevention, abortion, LGBTQ, etc).
If I live downwind or downstream, they don’t care about my air or water – that is control. They want to cut down the last old growth forests in this country. I could go on. But I hope you get the point. Money trumps everything.”
Full of shit as usual. We just do not want to pay for your abortions, birth control, etc.
It is you commies that want to control everything with your fake issues.
You are happy to see the “old growth” go up in smoke as a result of your stupidity.
You couldn’t sail a toy in a damn bathtub.
Please, please do not denigrate card carrying members of the Democrat Party! Please give them time to purge and whitewash (“blackwash?”) all the vestiges of their actions over the last two centuries… it takes time since there are SO MANY examples to be expunged!
Aw,alaskabob, please stop crying. Stop your self-pity. Your problems are your own fault.
It’s very telling that you think slavery is funny.
I guess you don’t understand
Satire
Not that is telling on a site dedicated to political discussion.
When you argue with a fool, you then have two fools arguing.
Today, we have 7 (including the fool.)
YellowSnake,
I think you should get busy putting together the re-enactments you would like!
It’s a free country!
No, I am more concerned with the present. When I want to learn some history, I will go to a museum, watch the Ken Burns documentary or read a book. I am sure there are things I could learn by participating, but glorifying the Civil War is not on my bucket list.
As I wrote elsewhere, I have no objections to reenactments. But the vibe, here, ignores the fact that the leaders of the Confederacy were traitors who were fighting a rearguard action against the ending of slavery. By 1862, the south was enlisting black slaves as soldiers. Were they planning on putting them back in chains after the war?
The whole convenient fiction that people of color are inferior continues to live on among some conservatives. The irony is that if you want to make America great again, don’t discriminate by race, creed or color. We need the best, period. Sorry if some whites lose their privilege.
“The whole convenient fiction that people of color are inferior continues to live on among some conservatives.”
More of your commie prog bullshit.
Conservatives believe black folks can get along just fine with out the government taking from others to give to them. It is you progs that believe they are inferior and need help.
Fine, except the government is not taking from others and giving anymore to blacks than it does for everyone. The government taxes to pay for schools, textbooks, libraries. Are you going to claim that blacks have equal schools?
When it comes to all those other alleged takings, it turns out there are more whites that are getting government services; even if you adjust for population size.
You are the one who is suckered by right-wing propaganda telling you that your life is miserable and you are a loser because the government is taking from you and giving it to them. The truth is that you are a loser because you believe a grifter like Trump. It turns out you a loser because you cannot think for yourself. You keep calling me a commie. But I can think for myself. You obviously need a website to tell you why your life stinks. Hitler came to power by blaming the Jews. You think your misery can be blamed on pampered blacks. Do you understand analogies? Probably not.
Nice try commie, no cigar.
I grew up in America. I have no misery nor fear, except one. That commies like you will be successful in destroying the worlds greatest country. Great due to freedom and liberty, something commies like you hate.
You are, as all progs do, trying to call me a racist. I.Don’t.Care.
My comment that you don’t give a damn about black folks does not mean I think you care about white folks, or that I somehow think white folks do not get government goodies taken from producers at the point of a gun.
Welfare ruins all regardless of color. But you like the ruin, it’s what you do. You are a commie. A paid propaganda hack. A miserable cretin.
It’s a nice soapbox you climbed on to spout your own racism and bigotry but…
The re-enactements are a form of living museum not really meant to glorify war, slavery or the Confederate Army. The guy pepper sprayed may very well have been just playing a role(a role he may dispise), could have been needed to just complete the re-enactment, you and your type assualt him for being nothing more than a patriot! You don’t know JACK!
Whats more important is how un-American it is to demand that other Americans only be allowed to speak the truth as you see it.
This “vibe” you speak of is something that exists in your mind and just because you are bias doesn’t mean everyone else feels as you wish to impose on others!
People reenact famous wars from a past era. The US revolution, the English civil war, the US civil war, I’m pretty sure there are Napoleonic War reenactors, it’s just a popular recreation for a lot of people. And reenacting it means someone has to play the bad guys. Every reenactment of a battle in the US revolution involves some people playing redcoat. Do you object to that too?
God does not appear in the constitution and as you put it: “You believe”. What “law of the individual to prove unequal talent” – never heard of it. Who has been proved unequal?
I have been proved less than mediocre? I posit that you are not qualified to judge. Why don’t you go reenact dysentery.
“I have been proved less than mediocre?”
You’re the dumbest prog parrot that has infested these pages.
I think what angers you is that I can puncture you closed little world. I can actually make a cogent argument. I can dispute you in a way that threatens to collapse your Jenga world.
Logic is scary to you. Facts are to be ignored by you. Consistency is beyond you. You couldn’t pass a real literacy test if your life depended on it. Yet you consider your self superior? Why?
Wow. Ego much? Can you even fit your head through a doorway?
I benefit from the expansion of the universe.
But, did you read the comment I was responding to? On the web, everyone is brilliant. Everyone thinks they understand and use logic. It’s like Lake Wobegone where everyone is above average. I don’t try to prove my intelligence. I just try to give better than I get when the response is an ad hominem or a flat out insult.
If I get a thoughtful response, I try to respond thoughtfully. I hope I have done that with you.
You are a commie prog, paid to spread lies and disinformation.
Yes, God isn’t in the constitution &mash; and neither is equality. If you want to claim that equality is a fundamental American value you must resort to the Declaration of Independence, which says that our rights come from our Creator.
Shesssh, you are disturbing his self-esteem. Makes you a meanie!
Lincoln, whose administration did not accept the South’s secession, recognized all of the soldiers at Gettysburg as Americans. Viewed this way (a view that has become common), the great tragedy of the Civil War was that it was fought by Americans against Americans. This makes the war particularly poignant and of particular interest to many Americans. When they re-enact, players on both sides are playing the parts of American soldiers. Secession and rebellion, after all, is what made this country. Secession and rebellion were very American things to do.
Satire, right?
“Don’t orwell me, bro.”
Yellow, people so reenactment of all manner of periods in history. I’ve known medieval reenactors, Revolutionary War, Civil War, fur-trapper reenactors, WWI, Roman, and, yes, even WWII. People get interested in a period of history, get together with others who have a similar interest, and at some point it turns into a costume party. It’s never 100% accurate — yes, the stuff we don’t like is left out — but it’s not meant to be. It’s recreational, and a way to hook up with people you can relate to, even if it’s in such a restricted way.
At least they’re not trying to recreate the street battles of the 1930s, like “Antifa” is.
The guy who pepper-sprayed the reenactors should never have been released, and should have his concealed permit revoked. He attacked them, likely trying to provoke a reaction that he would have used to commit murder. He’s not sane, and is a danger to the public.
Damn those slave-owning Pharaohs and TEAR DOWN THE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS!
Damn those slave-owning Romans, and TEAR DOWN THE COLISEUM!
Damn those African-slave traders, and DESTROY ALL AFRICAN ART!
In fact, here’s the full list of places that need destruction, according to the loons of the American left and their handlers:
(Except for their violence, the left has become laughable. And it’s going to be laughable when the Auntie Fah brownshirts are put down in the streets, or imprisoned.)
2 Africa
2.1 Sub-Saharan Africa
2.1.1 African participation in the slave trade
2.2 Africans on ships
2.3 North Africa
2.4 Modern times
2.5 Libyan slave trade
3 The Americas
3.1 Among indigenous peoples
3.2 Spanish America
3.3 Brazil
3.3.1 Resistance and abolition
3.4 British and French Caribbean
3.5 Anglo North America
3.5.1 Early events
3.5.2 Slavery in American colonial law
3.5.3 Development of slavery
3.5.4 Early United States law
3.5.5 Civil War
4 Middle East
4.1 ISIL slave trade
5 Asia
5.1 Classic era
5.1.1 Ancient India
5.1.2 Ancient China
5.2 Middle Ages
5.2.1 India
5.2.2 China
5.3 Modern era
5.3.1 Japan
5.3.2 Korea
5.3.3 South-East Asia
6 Europe
6.1 Classic era
6.1.1 Ancient Greece
6.1.2 Rome
6.1.3 Celtic tribes
6.2 Middle Ages
6.2.1 British Isles
6.2.2 Barbary pirates and Maltese corsairs
6.2.3 Venice
6.2.4 Mongols
6.2.5 The Vikings and Scandinavia
6.3 Modern era
6.3.1 Portugal
6.3.2 Spain
6.3.3 Netherlands
6.3.4 Barbary corsairs
6.3.5 Crimean Khanate
6.3.6 British slave trade
6.4 Modern Europe
6.4.1 Germany
6.4.2 Soviet Union
6.4.3 Allied powers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery
I think that if blacks really got a fair shake today, they wouldn’t much about the statues. This is a war for hearts and minds (not yours). You fight it with whatever you’ve got. The statues were put up as part of that war; so the people who were warred on want them down.
Didn’t your mother ever teach you that two wrong don’t make a right? Wouldn’t you be proud to live up to the ideals of our Constitution (including its amendments)? It is no accident that the Founding Fathers provided an amendment process.
President Lincoln did not segregate the Union and Confederate troops in his speech, but instead recognized the sacrifices of all the troops to help heal the nation and seal the breach.
No.
Just no.
The Gettysburg Address occurred at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery in which only Union soldiers are buried.
When Lincoln said “we have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this,” he was not talking about Confederate soldiers as they were not trying to preserve the Union, but break it apart.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate we can not consecrate we can not hallow, this ground The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.
This has to be in reference to the Union soldiers. It is the only reading of the pronouns that make sense.
It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
What cause is Lincoln referring to? The cause of the South or the North? We know the answer because Lincoln had already said the cause for which the men the cemetery held were only Union soldiers and their cause, as he said was to those who fought “that this nation might live.”
President Lincoln did not segregate the Union and Confederate troops in his speech, but instead recognized the sacrifices of all the troops to help heal the nation and seal the breach.
You do realize that this speech was given on November 19, 1863, while the war was still going on in both the eastern and western theaters, right?
The main fighting in the east would not end for another year and a half and in the west slightly longer.
Logically and historically, that series of paragraphs in the original post make no sense whatsoever.
This. I was about to make the same point. I don’t know what Leslie Eastman can have been thinking.
It’s a common fallacy that has been pushed along to make Lincoln seem something he wasn’t.
There are lots of fallacies when it comes to Lincoln. Perhaps that is because we want to study / examine / judge a complex man in a complex time and extremely complex time in simple terms.
People like “simple” and scoff at complex. Understanding the simple is easy. Even trying to understand the complex takes time and effort.
There is little doubt that Lincoln was against slavery as evidenced by the fact that the South seceded after the 1860 election but before Lincoln was inaugurated. The Southern leaders were scared of Lincoln and his stance on their “peculiar institution.”
At the same time, Lincoln knew that in order to change slavery he had to 1) win the war and 2) reconcile the nation. That is why as the South started to fall apart, after Appomattox, Lincoln directed Grant to allow Confederate soldiers to be able to keep horses and one weapon to support themselves and their families. Lincoln was against the ideas of many in the North that the South and its citizens needed to be punished. He knew that the quickest way to become one nation again was to not dwell on the past.
Lincoln was a brilliant lawyer, a great orator, a pragmatic President and a inspired tactical politician.
Maybe I’m confused on how conceal carry works but I didn’t think it would shield you in the commission of a crime!
At a minimum he should lose his permit but I think he should be charged with the assualt with a weapon charge!
Meanwhile in Scotland at the re-enactment of the Battle of Bannockburn protestors are aghast at the Scottish flag with its cross of St. Andrew. It has to be a first cousin once removed of the Confederate battle flag or even worse. This must mean that Robert the Bruce was a Nazi.