Also, From the article:
"I could literally go on and on, but let's try to have some perspective here. Violence is a product of the fringe, on either side, and it's sickening to try to use it for political advantage."
True, but condoning and embracing it is worse, as the right wing media has done:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/25/fox-threat-emails/I would also remind them of the Knoxville UU shooting where the shooter was motivated by Michael Savage and Sean Hannity.
Point by point, you can refute the list as well:
First, who takes anyone seriously who writes, "I don't even need to mention the millions of babies killed every year by progressives or even the tens of millions of people murdered by their communist heroes."
These acts of "Liberal" violence, which took place over 40 YEARS include:
* It was not the fear of conservative violence that caused Ann Coulter's speech to be canceled this week.
Someone pulled a fire alarm during a shouting match between anti-coulter protesters upset by her racist comments about Muslim students riding camels and pro-coulter protesters mad that she was being called racist. Violence?
* It was a liberal who bit the finger off a man who disagreed with him on healthcare.
During a fight, which involves two individuals, people get hurt. Had the Liberal been aiming to bite off a finger, I guess you'd have something.
* It was Obama-loving Amy Bishop who took a gun to work and murdered co-workers.
Huh? Is the left claiming the acts of violence by every Bush-loving whack-job in the state of Alabama? Was their any intent to terrorize or coerce politically in this. No, just grandstanding atop random tragedy like this is simply shameful.
* Joseph Stack flew his plane into the IRS building after writing an anti-conservative manifesto.
Yes, that manifesto that contained elements that would have gotten him a standing ovation at the Tea Party convention that week and his attack on the IRS for taking his money was sooooooo liberal. He met with conservative tax action groups back in the day. His hatred was not fed by the left or condoned. I've seen plenty of posts that say the HCR will create a dozen Joe Stacks on the right though.
* It was liberals who destroyed AM radio towers outside of Seattle.
Was this condoned by any politician or media outlet on the left? Compare to Abortion violence on the right.
* It's liberals who burn down Hummer dealerships.
Again, radicals on the left, but I don't lump the people burning down clinics in an assessment of the current right-wing threats. Should I? While I have heard congressmen shout "baby-killer" from the floor of the house, as the author of this very article has sympathized with above, I see no similar shouts of ELF slogans in congress.
* It was progressive SEIU union thugs who beat a black conservative man who spoke his mind.
I see a lot of shouting and shoving, and the man on the ground there is in an SEIU shirt. Looks like two angry crowds got out of hand from that video. I know how the right has reported it, as a threat to all, as opposed to say, a recorded death threat, a note taped to the window, or an organized vigil with a coffin on your lawn. Of course, the author's point is that blowing something like this up into an organized act of intimidation would be wrong, right?
* It's doubtful that a conservative fired shots into a GOP campaign headquarters.
Really? Have you heard Tea Party rhetoric AGAINST the GOP? From the very article you link to:
"Corey Johns, the local Bush-Cheney campaign coordinator, said the office had received no threats."
They also point out that it may have been a response to their campaign of tearing down Kerry signs. (Side note here, in 1992 I worked the Clinton campaign in Knoxville. I had a man run his jeep up the side of a hill to smash my Clinton signs. Had I not scrambled up and grabbed a sapling, he would have smashed me as well. Election day, someone set fire to a mountain of Clinton signs on teh porch of teh wooden Democratic Party headquarters at 4 a.m. Had we not gotten there at 4:30, it would have burned to the ground... on election day.)
Compare to teh last 72 hours. Wow, different than Bohner egging them on, a series of death threats, then an act of vandalism. We call that progression of events escalation.
* In fact, Democrats have no monopoly on having their offices vandalized.
Great, that's three in six years on the right and how many this week. One is a campaign, the other a string of individual actions.
* Don't forget it was Obama's friend Bill Ayers who used terrorism as a tool for political change. SDS is still radical, with arrests in 2007 and the storming of the CATO Institute in July 2008.
Oh, So we can claim the right's acts of political violence over the last 40 years? I'll see your ayers and raise you one Timothy McVeigh, who has been quoted almost verbatum by the new Tea Party. His motivations and background are similar to the organized Oath Keepers.
Obama worked with Ayers after he had rejected violence as a means of change.
* It was a liberal who was sentenced to two years for bringing bombs and riot shields to the Republican National Convention in 2008.
He made molotov cocktails on site,at the urging of the FBI informant, was more Anarchist than Liberal, but otherwise similar to the yahoos driving around DC with sniper rifles to kill Obama I suppose. Then again, Liberal politicians don't use teh molotov cocktail as a symbol the way conservatives have started using crosshairs.
* It was a liberal who threatened to kill a government informant who infiltrated her Austin-based group that planned to bomb the RNC.
Yes, and condemned by all. Though reading the indymedia coverage, these people seem to feel they were entrapped by the FBI informant who encouraged the molotov cocktail building. I don't think they were encouraged by any left-leaning news outlet or politician.
* It was liberals who assaulted police in Berkeley.
Again, pretty fringe and unrelated to democratic policy. Should we start lumping every racial, homophobic and religious nutcase into our analysis of right-wing violence, because if we do, the post will roll on forever. I guess if the Dems own ELF then the Repubs get the white supremacists, right?
* It was liberals who intimidated and threw rocks through the windows of researchers.
Radical animal rights people, really?
* The two Black Panthers who stood outside polls intimidating people with nightsticks were probably not right-wingers.
"“We must organize to counter and neutralize these threats using all means at our disposal. This is a great time for our people, and we must ensure that peace prevails for our people.”
Wow, and they used the word peace...terrifying.
* Every time the G20 gets together, it's not conservatives who destroy property and cause chaos.
Yup, it is anarchists and marxists whose connection to the Democrats exists only in your fevered dreams.
You know, all this has proved is that the author is an apologist with a passing knowledge of google and no sense of history.
Hope you can use some of that. I don't mean to be so dismissive of some of those acts of actual violence. They should always be condemned, but they are not being propped up by a campaign of fear and misinformation and committed in a weekend, only to be justified by the right, with articles like this. They certainly haven't happened over the 40 years this guy has covered.
I don't want to get into a pissing match over which side is worse, though in body count alone, they win because of Oklahoma City. I do want to make a plea that this needs to simply stop, and anyone who doesn't condemn it should be held to account.
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