Another Partisan Murderer
Earlier today, I just got around to commenting on the recent shooting at a Unitarian church, noting :
I don’t think it’s fair to say that people like Limbaugh and O’Reilly are directly or even indirectly responsible for the shooting, but it’s pretty obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention that the limits of what’s considered acceptable commentary among mainstream conservative commentators has moved to the extreme right over the past 10-15 years. Sean Hannity has a book titled “Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism”, Michael Savage describes liberalism as a “mental disorder” and considers us “the enemy within”, Jonah Goldberg’s latest book features a Hitler-mustached happy face under the title “Liberal Fascism”, Ann Coulter’s best sellers describe liberals as being “Godless” and guilty of “Treason”, Bill O’Reilly routinely compares liberal activists to the KKK and Nazis, Glenn Beck describes Barack Obama as a “marxist”, etc. If this is the voice of mainstream conservatism, is it any wonder that the extremists on that side would grab a gun and shoot up a liberal church?
I’m starting to see a pattern here :
The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party died Wednesday, hours after a shooting at the party’s headquarters, police said. Police block off the streets surrounding the state Democratic Party headquarters Wednesday in Little Rock.Chairman Bill Gwatney died at 3:59 Wednesday afternoon after a gunman entered his Little Rock office and shot him several times in the upper body, Little Rock Police Lt. Terry Hastings said.
While we should reserve judgment until we know more about the shooter, when a party chairman gets murdered by a stranger who walks into his workplace demanding to speak to him, I think it’s safe to assume politics might be involved. Moreover, regardless of whether or not this guy was a crazy loner, actions like these don’t occur in a vacuum. I mean, is anybody really surprised when violent lunatics erupt from a mindset in which this passes for humor? (h/t)
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The question arises is how are these being punished? Are we seeing the beginnings of the undercurrent of what was hidden behind the civilised world of the Weimar Republic? From Weimar Culture by Peter Gay, pg. 20:
“…between 1918 and 1922, assassinations traced to left-wing elements numbered twenty-two; of these seventeen were rigorously punished, ten with the death penalty. Right-wing extremists, on the other hand, found the courts sympathetic: of the 354 murders committed by them, only one was rigorously punished, and not even that by the death penalty. The average prison sentences handed out to these political murderers reflect the same bias: fifteen years for the left, four months for the right.”
Forever in Gitmo vs. how long for these and other attacks?
Comment by Michael — August 14, 2008 @ 4:12 am
I couldn’t agree more.
Years ago, after the Reagan assassination attempt, cartoonist Jim Borgman ran a cartoon of the well-known scene at that event — people running toward the site. At the curb was a limousine with this bumper sticker: “Guns don’t kill people. Gun people kill people.”
The right’s obsession with the NRA and welcoming of hateful fringies is bound to explode like this. I loathe and detest Bush and Cheney; I’d never even jokingly suggest they should be killed.
Comment by Jack — August 14, 2008 @ 5:01 am
It reminds me of what a friend of mine used to say about the Oklahoma City bombing. He’d say, “In a hundred years there is no way history books will say, ‘In the early 1990s right-wing talk radio became very popular, filled with hateful diatribes on the evils of the federal government. In a completely unrelated event, some guy blew up a federal building for no reason.”
Hell, if Emma Goldman could be arrested for the assassination of McKinley simply because the assassin had been in the audience of one of her lectures once, I think it’d be fair to haul in O’Reilly & co and start charging them.
Comment by David Grenier — August 14, 2008 @ 5:50 am
You guys jump quickly to the “right-wing radio” as being responsible for this guys actions….have you ever considered that this guy is responsible for his own actions?
Have you ever thought that maybe…just maybe….the most striking clue in this article is that the Clintons considered the victim a “close confidant”? I mean…since were pointing fingers at people who seemingly have nothing to do with someones actions maybe we should point them at those closer to the cause….
Comment by Ryan — August 14, 2008 @ 8:16 am
From the post…
…and…
Comment by greg — August 14, 2008 @ 8:20 am
Greg. Yesterday I revisited some of the audio clips from the right wing radio hosts that I tracked.
Here’s one from a radio in SF. And you know that she DID get death threats. Management approves of this guy.
http://www.spockosbrain.com/BrianSussmanTargetPracticeonTheDixieChicksCD02122007H18M14.wma
Comment by spoc ko — August 14, 2008 @ 9:57 am
(#4 above)
Oh, I see…so he’s responsible for his own actions…unless those damned Clintons knew the victim. Then we have an obvious clue…that they’re responsible!
Comment by Doobie — August 15, 2008 @ 12:26 am
By the way, Tom Tomorrow featured Ryan in a cartoon: http://action.credomobile.com/comics/2007/11/conservative_jones_boy_detecti.html
Comment by Doobie — August 15, 2008 @ 4:39 pm