The whatever-you-want-to-call-it that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, which resulted in death and injury, was one thing. The free-speech rally, as it was called, in Boston, that resulted in no deaths and many witty signs was another. So, what happens at the next First Amendment exercise that’s more like Charlottesville? Another installment in the battle between good and bad: two sides, two sides, right?

But actually, there’s a third: the law. When you whack someone with your tiki torch, lit or unlit, it’s assault. Same if you punch the guy holding a flag with a swastika on it. You get arrested, go to court and maybe do time. Or, if you hit someone — for whatever reason, attack, defense — and do it just right, the person dies. It happens more often than you might believe. In an eye blink, your entire life changes.

By the rule of law, a lot of people at the Charlottesville clash should have been arrested. For whatever reason, the police weren’t doing their job.

The Charlottesville combatants telegraphed what they anticipated, and prepared accordingly. Helmets, pepper spray, shields, things to hit shields with. For some of them at least, contact was what they were coming for. If there’s another one of these get-downs, do you think people will be less likely to mix it up, or more? You already know the answer. We Americans are not known for our restraint or for coming down off of anything.

Do you think those militia guys with their mismatched, mail-order tactical gear brought their rifles to just show them off? It would be great if that was the case, but what happens when one of them genuinely feels threatened, or that his freedom is being infringed upon, enough to open fire into a crowd?

The AR-15 is one hell of a weapon. It’s a perfectly designed killing machine. The round it fires is backed by a massive charge. It will go into and out of your soft midsection in less than a second and keep on going through a few more of your fellow protesters.

What if law enforcement feels under attack and fires on members of the militia? Remember what Ted Nugent stated in 2013:

“I’m part of a very great experiment in self-government where we the people determine our own pursuit of happiness and our own individual freedom and liberty, not to be confused with the Barack Obama gang who believes in we the sheeple and actually is attempting to re-implement the tyranny of King George that we escaped from in 1776. And if you want another Concord Bridge, I got some buddies.”

The last time Ted and I spoke, I reminded him that I do my best to quote him accurately. I’m not trying to make the man go get his buddies! This is what Ted said.

David Duke wants you to fear the Black Lives Matter movement

David Duke and other comrade Trump supporters might want you to fear America’s Black Lives Matter movement, but I think it’s the White Lives Matter folks you want to be wary of. Something, perhaps several things, that they consider to be rightfully theirs have been taken from them: their homeland, strewn with the fossil remains of Native Americans who were slaughtered like buffalo into near-extinction; their right to celebrate their battle heritage from the big one in 1861.

In Charlottesville, they chanted that they would not be replaced. Who seeks to replace them? Apparently, according to them, people like Jared Kushner. Things could get complicated.

What will be the result of Steve “the Barbarian” Bannon shoving his anal invader into place and plopping his venal plentitude back into the captain’s chair on the battleship Breitbart, named after the bug-eyed pantzencrapper Andrew Breitbart? Bannon said, “I’ve got my hands back on my weapons,” whatever the fuck that means. What will come from this man now that he’s unshackled and free to get America back on track, since he’s concluded that “the Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over. We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else. And there’ll be all kinds of fights, and there’ll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over.”

Is the Barbarian saying that he’ll be running the MAGA offensive from Breitbart (which should be pronounced the way Neidermeyer pronounces “pledge pin” as he berates Flounder in Animal House), allowing comrade Tweety Bird more time to try to dislodge the many square feet of underwear jammed in his asscrack from the unending he-man wedgie he’s getting from the Mueller Justice Overdrive? What will that U-S-A look like by the end of the year? A few Concord Bridges sold to some of his buddies?

There seems to be only one person in the public eye who, for whatever reason, isn’t taking recent events with the seriousness they deserve. One who doesn’t see it as his job to speak forcefully and decisively, without hesitation or equivocation. Everyone knows who that is.

Sometimes, it’s as if there is no one in charge at all. What if that’s the plan? What if that was Bannon’s intent all along? What if he got into the White House, into Trump’s head, dizzied him up with all kinds of insane bullshit Trump will never understand but will go along with, and then either quit or got fired, mission accomplished? What if we have to take this satanic hippo seriously for the next few months?

Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the playlist for his Sunday KCRW broadcast.

More from the mind of Henry Rollins:
Make America Filthy, Hungry, Broke and Stupid Again
Ask Yourself What Side of History You Want to Be on
Don't Let the Trump Show Distract You From What's Really Going On

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