Our Peaceful Though Blustery Republic

What amazes me is that, for all our rugged, gun slinging, individualism, and despite the deep political divide of the last quarter century that is only getting deeper, we have had no political violence, to say nothing of assassination attempts. Things got pretty heated while George W. Bush was president.

Bin's Corner, a comedy sharing site, documents the violent rhetoric and gestures directed against the hanging chad, 9/11 president in "Death Threats Against Bush at Protests Ignored for Years". This site includes a link to the mockumentary, "Death of a President" in which the film simulates George Bush's assassination with sickening realism. He also includes an image from The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn in which the comedian had superimposed the words "snipers wanted" over George W. Bush's nomination acceptance speech in August 2000. Even Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) himself let slip the lingua Democratica of political assassination on the Bill Maher show in 2006.

By contrast, in the 1960s we had several actual assassinations and attempts: President Kennedy, his brother Bobby, Martin Luther King Jr, and then spilling over into the 1970s, attempts on Gov. George Wallace and President Ford...twice!

Notice that the violence of that decade was not a spill over from the Vietnam conflict. We've had wars before and since without domestic spillover. It was the political left, in particular the New Left, that brought violence to the streets and anger to the culture. So Sara Jane Moore, a radical child of their revolutionary counter-cultural movement, explained her attempt on President Ford's life, saying, "I'm not sorry I tried, because at the time it seemed a correct expression of my anger."

Since that time, assassination has not struck any of the most politically angry as the correct expression of their anger. Reagan's would be assassin, John Hinckley, was trying to impress actress Jodie Foster. He was crazy. No one took a shot at Bush the elder, at Clinton, or at W (though an Iraqi threw a shoe at him overseas). Obama has been perfectly safe.

You would not know this given the frantic alarm over "the rhetoric of violence and hate" that has been spewing from the now largely embarrassed left (or at least largely silenced, except for Paul Krugman) since the Tuscon shootings.

My column at Worldmag.com this week addressed that. ("The Rhetoric of Violence and Hate," Jan. 12, 2011)


Some revealing ironies came out if the "national conversation," so to speak. But Andrew Klavan at City Journal, ("The Hateful Left") writes, "The Left—which has been unable to discover any common feature uniting acts of Islamist violence worldwide—nonetheless instantly noticed a bridge between the Tucson shooting and its own political opponents."

In a similar vein, "Sawgunner" in one of his comments under my column remarks, "In years past H’wood types and their lib allies repeatedly re-assured us that graphic music videos, violent video games, misogynistic song lyrics IN NO WAY SHAPE FORM OR FASHION could ever influence anyone’s thoughts or conduct.But conservative talk radio?"

Wallis Won't Give Up

George Will has suggested that in time of national tragedies of the sort that happened in Tuscon we should have a moratorium on sociology. ("The Charlatans' Response to the Tuscon Tragedy," Washington Post, Jan. 11, 2011)

We have all come close to dying of a surfeit of sociology. The reasons for this bizarre behavior were obvious to some, even to our sociologist laureate, the Pima County Sherriff, Mr Dupnik.



So they quickly popped off on "the [Republican, conservative] rhetoric of violence and hate" as MoveOn.org put it, and, as Will documents it, "The Tucson shooter was (pick your verb) provoked, triggered, unhinged by today's (pick your noun) rhetoric, vitriol, extremism, "climate of hate.""

Jon Stewart rejects the pop sociology, too. People want to comfort themselves by drawing a straightline at times like this between the horrific event and a particular social cause. Change the cause (e.g., control or ban the rhetoric), and the bad thing will never hanppen again. But "you can't outsmart crazy."

Perhaps I'm sheltered in the quiet glen of conservative news and opinion sources, but I think that the rhetoric issue is settling down. (Has the president had a role in this. I haven't noticed the post-partisan uniter of the nation playing a significant role in it. But I hope that wasn't uncivil of me to notice.) People who rhetorically went over the top on rhetoric that goes over the top are being shamed into silence.


Of course, far be it from my brother in Christ Jim Wallis to be shamed into silence! Here he is with the Peace and Civility Pledge asking me to repent for my role in what Loughner did. Let’s not call anyone evil, he says. Reagan called the Soviets evil, and the left had a fit. How uncivil! But it is not uncivil to call evil by its name. But one should be careful in doing so, and provide strong arguments for one’s claim. That upholds reason as the basis for political discourse, and strips political evil of its rhetorical cover.

Jon Stewart's Good Sense

National tragedy brings us together and clears our heads to show how much more we have in common than separates us.

Jon Steward reminds us of that in this monologue.

I picked this up from the WSJ website.

The Political Rhetoric of Violence

In City Journal, Andrew Klavan has given us a fine retort to the leftist narrative that the Giffords assassination attempt by a mentally insane reader of Marx and Hitler was made possible by conservative and republican complaining about the size of government ("The Hateful Left").

But while little useful can be said about the murders themselves, the rush to narrative of our dishonest and increasingly desperate leftist media does have to be addressed. The Left—which has been unable to discover any common feature uniting acts of Islamist violence worldwide—nonetheless instantly noticed a bridge between the Tucson shooting and its own political opponents. The Chicago Sun-Times ran a slavering editorial blaming “the right.” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson suggested that the killings were inspired by right-wing rhetoric. Politico’s Roger Simon did the same.

Where is all this assassination rhetoric on the right? Share your stories.

"Get in Their Faces"

Obama told his followers several weeks ago "I want you to argue with them and get in their face,", and we have seen a general uptick in aggression, as several of David's posts here have shown. Here is another example of the thuggishness that has always typified hard Left. It is now going mainstream, apparently.


After releasing this morning’s numbers showing McCain ahead in Ohio and Florida, the Strategic Vision polling company received several death threats through the contact e-mail on the company’s web site. David Johnson, the CEO of Strategic Vision, shared the messages with National Review Online.

One of the messages stated:

My goodness, your polls stinks. There are 3 polls that have Obama by double digits and only yours has Obama down. WOW!. How come your poll is the only one giving Palin high favor ratings? I think you need to be careful tonight when you get in your car and might want to check underneath your car. SCRAP YOUR IDIOTIC POLLS OR ELSE!

Another stated:

A poll that gave Sarah Palin and Barack Obama the same favorability rating is wrong off the bat. Be careful going outside tonight because you might not see tomorrow.

A third message stated:

Why would your presidential election poll results be so drastically different from every other reputable poll taken over the same time period? Are they that dumb or are you guys that smart? Smart guys wind up dead.

The company has contacted the FBI and appropriate authorities, Johnson said. There was, thankfully, nothing in the messages that indicated that the sender had actually sought out the location of the company or its employees. Johnson noted that while the messages came from different addresses, they all came within a short period of time, and that it was possible they were from the same person. Johnson said he’s not fearful, but taking appropriate measures.
“It’s probably just a bunch of nut cases, but this is first time we’ve ever experienced something like this,” Johnson said. “It’s highly, highly unusual. We get messages in the vein of 'your numbers are wrong, the other guy's numbers are right' all the time. But this has never happened before.”

That's because we are into a new and despicable era in our political history; never before has the fascist Left been this numerous, and this out in the open. Force and fraud: the time-honored way of the world prior to the American experiment's first ever attempt at government through reflection and choice. The constitution and polity described by the Federalist Papers recede ever further into the rear view mirror.