A Review Of Recent Right Wing Violence

Cheney said Obama has made this country less safe, and voila, three successful and deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. soil within a two week period of time. By your logic I guess that proves Cheney was right.

R u serious Rev?

About 3 weeks ago I told my neighbor — a die hard southern republican — that I would no longer discuss politics with him. I told him I thought it was demeaning to the office of the Presidency to defend it against the things being said by the wingnuts who are are currently speaking for the Republican Party. He told me he did not agree with many of the things being said as well and I said then "SAY SO." I say the same to many of the people who post on this blog — disavow the hate speech being spewed forth — grow up — rebuild your party — and come back to the table and help fix the mess we are in and then we can argue ideals all day long but argue we will with the good of America in mind.

Mary if you were on the Titanic when it was sinking, would you have time to rebuild the boat or even change your mind about your trip? We haven't got a party nor are we bitching just about Obama. It is our entire govt. We want people to understand that the ship is sinking. Many like You and Rev seem to be dedicated to the captain of the ship no matter what he is doing, even if it is breaking the country, socializing everything and taxing us to death. What I want to know is why is it okay for BO to use the same strategies that McCain stood for and many that Bush used and you folks aren't pissed. Here is the answer, you are caught up in the rock star and not what the rock star represents. I guess who we follow is determined by our values and what we value in life. I and most want freedom and liberty. Our current govt, and I mean from the top down are chipping away at these ideals and looking for total govt control. Many of the Dems in the house are beginning to see what is happening and don't like what they are seeing. I feel you will see a turning away of total Dem control in congress.

Also this isn't the only place many of us write. I have written so many letters to our officials, on both sides, not bitching or offering advice but trying to get explanations, that I have stopped getting the form letters in the mail. Also I am no longer welcome with open arms at our township council meetings. These folks are just as corrupt and wasteful as the guys at the top.

So, Below, I guess there are numerous accounts of your being critical of GWBush .

Average I do not like everything the current administration is doing and I do say so and disagree with it but probably not on this blog. Why? — because there are several snarky and disagreeable commenters here and I find that I automatically go in to defense mode, shut out everything they say, and just start defending. Not a good reaction but that is what I do and I expect that is what a lot of Obama defenders do. When comments are overly sarcastic — you know who you are — or not thoroughly researched I usually have no interest in them. That is why I disappear from the blog for long periods of time. I work on fixing what I can. Republicans would be better served to use their energy to take back their party and then work on changing things for the better. I cannot take them seriously when much of what I hear from them is hateful or deceitful.

I thought it was the kind of grown up dialogue you were looking for, Mary. Isn't that how Dems dialogue these days?

And of course I'm sorry I insulted the Reverend's sensibilities. But of course I was talking about two 18 year old girls–the Obama cousins not the daughters! There was no rape, just good old grown up political satire!

I noticed you didn't touch on the recent left-wing violence. Most recently, the black terrorist that shot at uniformed military personnel, and killed one and injured another. He was a black shooter, so he must be democrat, correct? He also hated American military, which would also make him a left-winger, just like those in Berkley. We could also get into environmental activists torching new homes,

The Reverend will never admit that there are about 100 acts of left-wing violence for every instance of right-wing violence. And that holds true worldwide for over the last hundred years, not just in America. Left wingers were responsible for the murders of about 120 million people in the twentieth century alone (Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc), but do you EVER hear the Reverend condemn left-wing speech or refer to it as "inciting violence" ? Nope. Never. He only condemns right-wing speech, based upon one or two violent acts. Dishonesty to the tenth power, that's our Reverend.

Actually if anyone read the report from the DOD they would learn that King is correct that there are many acts of left wing terrorism throughout history. But in the US at the present time the right wing terrorism is the main concern. That may change sometime in the future and the report states we would be foolish to discount the potential for left wing terrorism in the future. It is the old pendulum — situations change (ohhhhhh what a scary word) and if we are to adjust to the changing world we must be cognizant of that fact and of the causes and reasons for change. By the way the title of Rev's post is "A Review of Recent Right Wing Violence" so why in the world would he be posting about left wing violence and define "recent." And considering the reaction of the posts to his post — accusations and attacks on his sanity — why in the world would he write second post on left wing violence. The conservatives on this blog shut down discourse when they react the way they do and they certainly do not make their point. I also frequent blogs where discussion and debate takes place and OMG sometimes I change my position because someone has made a valid point that I never thought of before and guess what — I thank them.

Please, let's DO review the recent history of violence. Scott Roeder, anti-abortionist, murders Tiller. James von Brunn, white supremacist, anti-semite, socialist, and anti-christian, attacks the Holocaust Museum. The Black Muslim convert (can never remember his name, because he isn't ALL OVER THE NEWS, imagine that), anti-military and anti-government, shoots two army recruiters, killing one.

I count that as ONE act of right-wing violence, and TWO acts of left-wing violence, if we are counting in a political manner (which I'd actually prefer not to do, but since the Reverend is wallowing in it, so be it).

Soooo, where's the big concern over right-wing violence again ? The ONE murder ? Um, shouldn't we be TWICE as concerned about the left-wing violence ?

And if you want the actual truth about whether more violence comes from the left or the right, please see my post (which is an answer to the Rev's posts on this subject) "Leftists Are The Biggest Mass Murderers In History" over at the All Da King's Men blog. The truth will set you free.

And Rev, regarding your question, do you consider the Dems anti-war rhetoric to be responsible for the shootings of the two army recruiters ? Certainly, you don't need me to provide examples of that for you. The examples are numerous.

I didn't know those two exact words were the ONLY ones that might provoke violence. How about Dick Durbin comparing Bush and our troops to Pol Pot and the Nazis ? Is that inciteful enough ? How about Obama saying our troops were "air raiding villages and killing civilians" ? Would that do it ? How about calling Bush a torturer ? Lots of Dems said that. How about "Bush lied, kids died" ? Have we reached inciteful yet ?

And by three liberal tv commentators, I assume you mean – 80% of all tv commentators. But speaking of one of those three you're talking about, is Keith Olbermann ever NOT inciting hatred against conservatives ? That's his whole schtick. Last night, he called Newt Gingrich the second worst person in the world just because Newt paraphrased a line from the Declaration of Independence.

This is a very old post that I happened to stumble upon, but I felt The Reverend inadequately addressed the ideological issue put forth by Da King. The issue is the result of a general misunderstanding of the one dimensional political spectrum, which has been historically and academically based upon "attitudes towards equality", the left being more equality and the right being less so. I wouldn't call James Von Brunn or Hitler ideological beacons of egalitarian society.

Also, I see repeatedly a general problem in political discourse among those who are not well educated in this area to assign ideologies freely and dishonestly to the opposition. I will give two examples in the following paragraph. Fascism is a nationalist ideology that derives itself from a post-wwI intellectual movement that felt that nations will always be in perpetual conflict due to cultural differences (among others), and the only solution was to create a strong militaristic nation with a strong national identity. Intellectuals of the fascist movement felt that the 19th century was the year of the individual and the 20th century was the year of the collectivist, thus their nationalism led to a coalition with the national socialists and opposition to international socialism as well as ideologies derived from classical liberalism, including social liberalism [contemporary conservatism did not exist at this time to any appreciable degree]. Given the general fall of more radical forms of socialism, it would be a reasonable conclusion, and is seen today to be the case, that neo-fascists have all but given up on national socialism in favor of free markets. That certainly does not sound like social liberalism nor contemporary conservatism (though those rare paleoconservatives out there may be a bit more at home). The other ideology typically thrown around is socialism in order to invoke the red scare. There are two kinds of socialism: that from Marxism and then democratic socialism. Marxist socialism was the ideology that Karl Marx derived from his critique of capitalism whose end result was communism as a stable state. Socialism was to be a revolutionary period in which a strong leader led the proletariat in redistributing property for the public good and placing the workers in control of the means of production. In the end, the government would be dissolved and people would essentially work together collectively for the public good, replacing capitalism altogether to perhaps a more resource based economy. Democratic socialism, on the other hand, is meant as a stable state that eliminates the problem that came from dictators (probably the single greatest problem in Marxism) and does not seek to reach communism (there are other differences one may look up). Marxism has been widely marginalized in the world and always has been in the United States to this day where there remains no appreciable Marxist movement. Marxism is far left or hard left or whatever you wish to call it along with collectivist anarchism, but democratic socialism and social democracy are considered center-left ideologies.

The ideology the Democratic Party falls near is social liberalism (though the more protectionist ones may be a bit nearer to social democracy), which was derived as an individualist philosophy from classical liberalism seeking to optimize individual liberty in an age of exploitation from powerful private interests. Social liberalism is considered, in most places in the world, to be a centrist ideology while being a very mild center-left in the UK and US. Contemporary conservatism is boldly center-right in the United States. However, there is not an absence of far-right rhetoric in the United States today that does, at the very least, insinuate non-democratic action. Non-democratic solutions to problems is a good indication of a move to far-right/left ideology and today the rhetoric in the most watched media source in the United States is legitimizing far-right movements that take violent action for political means. Yes, indeed, there have and may be in the future violent far-left movements (and believe me, I will fight those as well). However, using historic examples are not extremely relevant to the climate today (as one did in a previous comment). The point is, overall, not to lose intellectual integrity by resorting to calling centrist to mildly center-left movements far-left or socialist (or fascist for that matter, as the fascists were indeed right-wing on the one-dimensional political spectrum).

To be clear, classical liberalism is, for all intents and purposes, what the founding fathers followed. However, it was meant for small commercial and farming communities and did not predict industrialization and the information age (would Thomas Jefferson find an independent media today that he admired back then?). The founding fathers, while certainly had very good ideas for the time, are not the sole intellectuals in history and should indeed be treated as critically as anyone.

I noticed one person referring to abortion as murder as being an objective conclusion. I would like to see this derivation, as there it seems there is no true objective standard, but only subjective beliefs as to where life starts.