American Outliers: Part II
- Jun 17, 2017
- 5 min read
I met Rick Write when he and a group of California patriots came to New Orleans, after they’d heard about the Antifa attack on May Day.
They’d driven 41 hours straight on no sleep, coming in during the wee hours of the morning. They’d heard we’d needed help—they’d heard we’d been physically assaulted—and they’d decided that they weren’t going to let things get ugly. They’d heard about the police standing down, about the threats made on us. They came despite the risk, and through the digital age, we all became linked.
Rick is one of the “originals”. He was ambushed by the mob of protesters at the UC Berkeley event that Milo Yiannopoulos was slated to speak at. Since then, he’s gone on to contribute to The Red Elephants and Taking Back America, and has gone to political events across the country.
A former Marine infantryman, he’s a native of northern California. More recently, he’s covered the This Is Texas rally in Houston, and the hearing for Eric Clanton, a Berkeley ethics professor on trial for assault.
Me: Were you always conservative? Were you always active in politics?
RW: Conservative? No. Involved in politics? From a young age.
Me: What do you mean by ‘not conservative’?
RW: I have conservative values, but I’ve never fallen into the political spectrum as a conservative, though? Politically, I fall into more of a libertarian or classical liberal category, but my values fall more in line with conservatives.
Me: When did you begin following conservative media personalities?
RW: I’ve always followed them. I listened to Rush Limbaugh before the internet age, and then later Ludwig Von Mises once the internet age became popular. I started researching more in depth into The Federalist Papers, some of the not-so-published facts about Ben Franklin. I also followed several ‘left’ personalities, too. I listened to NPR quite a bit when I was younger.
Me: What sparked your involvement with the Patriot Movement in California?
RW: I got tickets to see Milo, and then was stuck inside a riot because I wanted to see a flamboyant, conservative, gay, Jewish political comedian who was apparently a Nazi, according to the rioters. It was that moment that I realized that society had truly lost its mind.
Me: Can you take me through the events of that evening?
RW: I showed up and parked several blocks away, because I heard that there might be protesters. I walked in, and there was already a huge crowd in a bit of a ruckus. Pretty soon, I see people are gathering and there’s a tipped over generator that bursts into flames. I was trying to avoid being attacked, so I went over to an area that was a bit more calm, turns out that’s where the conservatives and the college Republican club were, and we were surrounded. We were yelled at, threatened, a man threatened to give me AIDS, and about four or five of us were surrounded by 200 plus protesters. There was no way to tell who was on our side at that point. People started walking around bloodied up—people that I’d met—and because I was wearing a sweater, I threw on my hoodie and tried to duck out of the crowd. The rest of the night, I just blended in and I was able to avoid getting attacked, except for one point where, completely unprovoked, I was surrounded by 15 to 20 people, with my friend who’d gone there with me. The police’s response was to pepper ball the center—where we were—to disperse everyone. Turns out, the crowd had just beaten up someone else. In one way, I can respect the police decision, but in another way, it shows the police weren’t doing their job, because they let it get to that point.
Me: You were at the April 27th Battle for Berkeley, correct?
RW: Yes. And April 27th, there were bombs involved. One kid tried dropping off a typewriter in the middle of the rally.
Me: What was the tipping point for you?
RW: The tipping point for me was Milo. I’d taken a day off of work, I’d taken money and time aside, and I was attacked. Not even for my beliefs, but someone elses’ beliefs. I knew something had to be done now.
Me: What happened after Milo and the 27th?
RW: After that, I began coordinating with other groups for defense strategies and other patriot groups to insure that these events could take place.
Me: There wasn’t a whole lot of time between the 27th and May 7th in New Orleans. What made you decide that you needed to go to New Orleans?
RW: I heard through a veteran group that a fellow veteran’s wife was attacked and Antifa had attempted to kill her. They went for her femoral artery. And Antifa rolled up in military vehicles, after they declared war. I did what any salty, disgruntled Marine vet would do—jumped into my car and drove 41 hours straight.
Me: What did you expect New Orleans to be like?
RW: From the information I’d gathered, I thought it would be a full-blown war.
Me: How do you think the Southern patriot movement from the California patriot movement?
RW: California is a lot more racist than the South. Most of California life is based off of what others identify you as. The South wasn’t like that at all. The South was much more hospitable.
Me: Had you ever been to the South before?
RW: Only fly-throughs.
Me: You’re pretty involved now. What’s the biggest positive thing you’ve noticed?
RW: This is the fastest growing counter-cultural movement I’ve ever seen, and I think it’s largely due to the internet.
Me: How has getting politically involved impacted your life?
RW: I lost my job because of it. It affected my family and friend relationships negatively, but it’s created several new opportunities and friendships with like-minded people.
Me: Do you see any change being made in California?
RW: I see a huge uprising, where people who were afraid to talk are no longer afraid. By area, California is a majority red state, but the population in San Francisco and LA—where people don’t understand where their food comes from or how to run a business properly—is voting in rules for the whole society. It’s caused many California businesses to leave. It’s primed for a complete collapse of it’s economy. I can only hope that our movement can correct the problem enough that when it fails, it recovers quickly.
Me: To anyone that’s wanting to get involved, what would you say?
RW: If you wanna get involved, you can’t be afraid. I’m not gonna lie and say it’s not dangerous, but it’s far less dangerous than anything anyone else has had to do to evoke change in our society—historically speaking. We’re not at the point where we’re saying, “I have but one life to lose for my country”, thankfully.
Rick is currently working on several different ventures, and can be found on Facebook and Twitter.
Stay tuned for American Outliers: Part III!
-AM
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