Enter Sandman(n)

“I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.” - Ronald Reagan

Enter Sandman(n)
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
January 22, 2019

In 1991 Metallica released “Enter Sandman,” a song dealing with the nightmares of a child. Nicholas Sandmann, a junior attending Covington Catholic High School is enduring a nightmare, not of his own choosing, thanks to the dastardly rush to judgment by members of both the left-wing media, and supposedly sophisticated celebrities.

Supposed for their profession places them, by choice, in the eyes of the media on an almost constant basis. Yet their behavior toward and treatment of children from Covington, Kentucky has been more than reprehensible.

Branded the face of hate by the media and others, including members of the so-called ruling class, teenagers, boys, like Sandmann and his fellow travelers - literally, as they were in Washington, DC for the March for Life, have received threats of physical violence, the outing of their personal information via doxxing, and even death threats.

What heinous crimes did these boys perpetrate to earn themselves and even their parents death threats? Their crimes were numerous: they are white males; they are Catholic; they are pro-life - after all they were on the Washington Mall participating in the 46th Annual March for Life; they stood silently in the face of adversity thrust upon them by adults; and most egregiously they wore red Make America Great Again caps. Apparently those MAGA caps are such the lightning rod to make people apoplectically lose their minds. (More on those MAGA caps below.)

Additionally, these boys from Kentucky - Covington is across the Ohio River from Cincinnati - were accused of mocking, jeering, disrespecting, and even accosting an American Indian elder. Reality proved those accusations to be patently false, thanks to video footage both exonerating the students and demonstrating who the bona fide culprits were. Yet, even video proof the boys were not behaving like miscreants did not dissuade many of their accusers from reversing their language and tone. Even guilty until proven innocent was not sufficient enough for the pompous and the preening.

For those who actually held judgement until viewing the video in its entirety saw an entirely different picture, commencing with the despicable verbal assaults unleashed on the boys by a group calling itself Black Hebrew Israelites. This group of unctuous rabble rousers has no connection to anything Hebrew or Israel, are virulently anti-Semitic, and condemned by both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. When the the ADL and the SPLC agree on anything, take it to the bank. 

The Black Hebrew Israelites is an organization defended by freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN), in spite of its unconscionable vitriol directed at the Covington youths. Tweeting with utter malfeasance, Omar wrote: 

          “-The boys were protesting a woman’s right to choose & yelled ‘it’s not rape if you                  enjoy it’
          -They were taunting 5 Black men before they surrounded Phillips and led racist                      chants”

This coming from the same person, Omar, who not only is an anti-Israel supporter of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement, but wrote in 2012, “Israel has hypnotized the world.” None of what Omar Tweeted was true. If Omar bothered to watch the video, she would have heard the Black Hebrew Israelites shouting to the Covington students that they are “babies made out of incest, child molesting faggots, terrorists, and dirty ass crackers.” That seemed to have gone completely unnoticed by the left-wing media, perhaps with one exception. 

The Washington Post referred to the Black Hebrew Israelites as “goading” the Covington teens. But that wasn’t good enough for the likes of Laura Wagner from Deadspin, who offered up a cadre of lies - the complete antithesis of reality, even after the longer video went viral.

As for Omar’s Tweet regarding the surrounding of Phillips, she is referring to American Indian Nathan Phillips, 64, and an elder of the Omaha Tribe, originally from Lincoln, Nebraska. The Covington students did not surround Phillips, in fact, he approached them banging his drum. This was in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Sandmann stood silently and motionless for several minutes with his classmates behind him. Neither Phillips nor the students violated any laws, but apparently Phillips told the teens to go back to Europe. Phillips, a political activist having made false claims of harassment in the past, also lied repeatedly about serving in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. While Phillips did, in fact, serve in the United States Marines, he was disciplined for going AWOL three times. 

Phillips knew he could stoke some flames by approaching white males wearing MAGA hats, and that is precisely what transpired. Actress Alyssa Milano called the MAGA hats the “new white hoods,” alluding to KKK garb. White hoods? The Covington students are Catholic - the KKK isn’t recruiting Catholics. I could wear a MAGA hat, and I know the Klan isn’t recruiting Jews. I have dear friends who are black Trump supporters, and I’m certain the Klan won’t be breaking bread with them any time - ever. But according to Milano, we’re all Klansmen.

The MAGA hat was also subject of an interview conducted by Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s Today show. She asked Nicholas Sandmann if wearing his MAGA hat was the impetus of the fracus. Is it now a crime to don a political hat, t-shirt, or any other supportive paraphernalia? Would Guthrie have asked a victim of rape or sexual assault if her clothing were the cause of her attack? I’d bet heavily against it.

On the other hand, actress Jamie Lee Curtis initially wrote disparaging comments about the Covington Catholic students, then later wrote an apology - lesson learned about rushing to judgement. Sadly, this lesson has not been learned by many, and a possible lawsuit could be forthcoming.

Perhaps a lawsuit will be the one thing to get people thinking about the repercussions of their actions and words, about the repercussions of jumping to conclusions and rushing to judgement. Unfortunately, society has become less civilized and the extreme progressives are seeking, in the most desperate, worst possible manner, to remake the United States in ways even our parents’ generation would never recognize. 

Verbal and physical attacks on those with whom one disagrees, silencing and censoring those with whom one disagrees, safe spaces on college campuses, wealth redistribution and now confiscation, political correctness to the point of thought control, support of illegal immigrants to the detriment of American citizens, abortion on demand through birth in some places, a rejection of American history in schools, a rejection of the Constitution, and a rise in overt anti-Semitism are what we the people are facing. If the forces of good and decency don’t fight this head on the Republic will be lost.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.