In any case, there was a pro-lifer shot recently - would you blame that on inflammatory left-wing rhetoric? or just one misguided violent person?See, that whole 'got shot' thing, that's where I start blaming guns a little bit too. "One misguided (interesting choice of words) violent person" - aren't there a whole lot more than one? Isn't the Texas/Texas A&M football game in College Station pretty much a stadium full of misguided violent people? And, as long as there are violent, if misguided, people lurking about out there, wouldn't it be prudent to at least stop arming them.
But that's not equal either is it?
There are sure differences between the rhetoric on both sides. And, time after time, we find that one side has laid in a righteous stock of weapons and ammo to back themselves up with if the black helicopters ever show up. The level has changed since the election. So has the local. The intentional disruption of town hall meetings is not the equivalent to some peace march in San Francisco. One is an actual disruption of a democratic process, the other a rather routine minor annoyance.
That has turned out to be true in practice as well as theory. The reality of both right and left wing political terrorism in the United States is that the right is a hella lot better at it. The two 'biggest' left wing terrorist deals in the recent past were the Weather Underground (Weatherman, later - of course - Weather
people) and The Unabommer. In the most violent act of their years the Weather Underground managed to blow themselves up. Granted had them been able to pull off what they wanted to do the outcome may well have been horrific, though competence was never their strong suit, that, and since they hated the military, they never went in and learned all them great skills, like how to handle explosives.*
Theodore John Kaczynski, AKA The Unabomber, was better than the WU, at least he could hit a target, but face it, long-winded, disjointed cultural rants are great if you're into crazy (and he was, big time, and he wrote a lot of it down, I highly recommend it if your into crazy of a politcal/social/cultural milue.) but most people tend to wisely avoid it. And old Ted, he had specific targets who received one of a kind, totally handmade bomb made just for them. It was very targeted.**
I'm not even sure where the Branch Davidians would fall. That's Millennialism, and that's not really political either.
But the right. Lets review shall we? James Earl Ray. Tim McVae. Eric Robert Rudolph (he was really good, the most competent of all the American political terrorists - he hit abortion clinics and gay bars
1 and
AND the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics. I'm impressed to the point of being shocked that he evaded a huge manhunt for five years), Your Freeman's Movement, the Christian Identity Movement, Aryan Nation, the various Militias, the Ku Klux Klan, Macheteros, Neo-Nazis, The Order, Posse Comitatus, and of course, the Skinheads.
The left is not, nor never has been that organized.
And I've never called for Beck to be put in jail, though an insane asylum might be an act of kindness. But, that stuff is entertainment. Michale Bachman is a sworn and elected official of the United States, and she ought act like it on occasion.
Well, I tend to think that nothing like this is going to get "swept under the rug" (not with the media outlets available to stay after it)Well I don't think it 'goes away' either, because the murder of a federal worker, even a temp one, while working a federal job is a big time federal crime, and the federal police are going to make sure it doesn't go away. Ask Eric Rudolph how relentless that pursuit is, you don't screw with it.
And I'd like to add a personal note. This is not new. It's been part of the American Experience since the beginning. It crops up on the right, and on the left. But there is a book, a book so singular in its scope and execution that gets dangerously close to the truth.
It was worked up to book length, awesome it is, but here is the original article, so you can get it in a few pages. The book is of the same title,
The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstadter
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.htmlOh yeah, remember this was done in '64, not this year.
I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.*The WU was planning the bombing of a Non-Commissioned Officers' (NCO) dance at the Fort Dix U.S. Army base and Butler Library at Columbia University in New York.
** And I'm only tossing old Ted in the left wing because really where does a neo-Luddite social critic who lived as an anarcho-primitivist fall in the political spectrum. Bonus Points for ID 'crazy' as the answer to that. The Luddites were kind of left, in a way - but weren't they really 'conservatives' trying to stop the kind of 'progress' that would - and did - destroy their lives. And the actual theory and practice of the anarcho-primitivist is defined (Just like us, now they can, and do, fight over who is the most anarcho-primitvist of them all) as slightly left, but is anarchy really of the left? Seems the modern conservatives think a lot less of government then their opposition does, and in that they are lot closer to the whole anarcho thing, but I don't see anything particularly 'right' or 'left' about political views, when you begin by hating all politics and government.
1. And I'd almost offer cash money to the person who can explain both gay bars (lesbian bar at that) and abortion clinics, other than a particular take on a particular religion. I mean, are those not pretty much EXACTLY the women who would almost never go to an abortion clinic? Exactly, how many 'unwanted pregencies that need to be terminated are caused by gay people? Really? I'm I the only one who looks at that stuff and just thinks 'crazy'?
