Calling responsible Conservatives to speak up against Tea Party violence. Many say they speak for you. Please prove them wrong.
About Me
- Steven Barnes
- For the last thirty years or so I’ve been a lecturer, coach, novelist and television writer. For the last forty years I’ve been involved variously in the martial arts, and for all my life I’ve studied and enjoyed yoga. Not that I worked at it as hard and honestly as I should have—I’d be a combination of BKS Iyengar and Bruce Lee if I had. After publishing about three million words of science fiction (including the New York Times bestsellers The Legacy of Heorot and The Cestus Deception) and having about twenty hours of produced television shows (including The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Andromeda, and Stargate, as well as four episodes of the immortal Baywatch), I’ve got opinions on the writing life. After earning black belts in Judo and Karate, and practicing the Indonesian art of Pentjak Silat Serak for the last fifteen, well, I have some opinions there, as well. And having struggled to live consciously since childhood...well, those opinions are probably strongest of all.
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23 comments:
Victor Davis Hanson responded:
"I’m sorry, but all this concern is a day late and a dollar short. The subtext is really one of class -- right-wing radio talk-show hosts, Glenn Beck idiots, and crass tea-party yokels are foaming at the mouth and dangerous to progressives. In contrast, write a book in which you muse about killing George Bush, and its Knopf imprint proves it is merely sophisticated literary speculation; do a docudrama about killing George Bush, and it will win a Toronto film prize for its artistic value rather than shock from the liberal community about over-the-top discourse."
My own response, for what it's worth:
Yes, threats of violence are uncalled for and unacceptable. Freedom of speech flourishes best in an environment where people are respectful and courteous to their ideological opponents. And I wish the Dems had figured this all out before they themselves happened to have majority political power over both houses of Congress, and one of their own in the White House.
--Erich Schwarz
By the way: I'm speaking out against threats of violence, not actual violence, because as far as I know, there's no proven incidents of overt violence by Tea Party activists -- just the Dems suddenly deciding that, because they've got 55% of the country furious at them, the most intemperate rhetoric from the most childish 0.01% of that angry majority represents the entire 55%.
But yes, I am against actual proven violence, as well.
--Erich Schwarz
And no, it's not just Democrats who get threats of violence, as the Jewish Republican Congressman Eric Cantor can attest.
--Erich Schwarz
In particular, I'm against actual threats of violence, not claimed ones that end up being retracted silently.
--Erich Schwarz
Violence and threats of violence are completely unacceptable.
As is selective outrage.
Steve, where was your condemnation when Kenneth Gladney was beaten and called the N-word by SEIU thugs supporting Obamacare last year?
Will you be condemning the following sentiments from Washington Post Columnist Courtland Milloy? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032304018_2.html)
I know how the "tea party" people feel, the anger, venom and bile that many of them showed during the recent House vote on health-care reform. I know because I want to spit on them, take one of their "Obama Plan White Slavery" signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads.
Years of Bush being burned in effigy, T-shirts with "Kill Bush", as Erich notes, the DOAP movie, left-wing pundits foaming with rage on their shows, racist slurs directed toward conservative minorities- These things were never the subject of your outrage.
Racist comments by Democrats and Dem supporters? Explained away and ignored. Racist comments by Republicans or Republican supporters? Proof of utter racism.
And NOW you're outraged that anger and venom is being directed towards politicians and programs you support?
Day late. Dollar short.
Erich, from your link:
"The coffin was used in a prayer service for the elderly who will suffer under Obamacare and for the unborn who will be slaughtered under this plan. The protesters prayed for their loss of freedom thanks to this nationalized democratic plan."
This is such stunning bullcrap, it amazes me that you don't even bother to qualify or footnote the information you bring to the table. At the moment, I have to tell you that your credibility is somewhere in the vicinity of zero.
I'm sure you can come up with something better than this stupidity.
> Day late. Dollar short.
I get it. Since the other side has done some pretty freakin' horrible stuff before, it makes what our side has done this time not quite so bad, right?
Speaking for the kooks...
Generally speaking, being around politicians - people who wish to rule - makes me want to kill them.
Obama's an exception for, well, racist reasons, sort of; he's a symbol of equality, freedom, peace, healing, tolerance... the list goes on. I'm suppressing my kook tendencies for as long as he's in office; I'll vote for him again and hope he gets a second term, breaking my Vote Against the Incumbent rule and my Vote Libertarian rule. When Bush was in office I was happy to engage in, heh, criticism of government; I'm much more circumspect now. I don't hate the Fed less, I still wish to see Lon Horiuchi set fire to, I just care more about cultural integration.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hPSXB0pVWgnTggpu-KnVqhophahwD9ELT6600
No one shot at Cantor. Possibly Cantor could have waited for the police to let him know what had happened before he started spreading misinformation....
I'll be blunt, the language thing doesn't worry or impress me much. Conservatives use violent language much more easily than liberals do -- it's just who they are. (On both sides -- an awful lot of liberals are wusses.)
OTOH, I could put up a list of liberals who'd been actually killed that would run on a damn good while -- half a dozen among abortion providers just off the top of my head.
So I don't worry about language too much.
The threat of violence against people for their politics is completely and utterly unacceptable and should be prosecuted to the highest severity allowed by law.
Racist ideology weakens the American nation and anyone practicing it should be publicly shunned and shamed and driven from any serious political organization.
I'm a conservative and I heartily endorse the above statements, especially in how they apply to anyone in the Tea Party movement.
"Richmond police say the bullet that hit a window of Republican Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor's office had been randomly fired skyward."
And how many of the alleged episodes of "tea party violence" are of similar nature? Certainly, the coffin episode was.
I note that you didn't bother to refute Cantor's point that he's gotten a steady stream of anti-Semitic threats. Instead of complaining about them publically, he's instead chosen to quietly go about doing his job as a Congressman. Had he been a supporter of Obamacare, that would be news. Since he's a Jewish Republican, it's not.
What Cantor's now asking the quavering Dems to do is act the same way that he's been acting. As long as the level of rhetoric directed against the Dems matches that level routinely directed against Republicans, I'd say that that was a fair request.
--Erich Schwarz
"This is such stunning bullcrap, it amazes me that you don't even bother to qualify or footnote the information you bring to the table."
What is "this"? The views being quoted in the article? Sorry, but I live in a free society (for now) and the anti-abortion protestors still have the right to views that aren't shared by you (or me, for that matter -- I'm pro-choice and have always been).
I have footnoted my views, which is why you had a nice shiny URL hyperlink to go to.
If this is the standard Internet demand that I've seen many dozens of times in net.rows, namely, "Write me a 100-citation review article on your own time," well, no. Sorry. I'll just have to accept your ad-hominems as the cost of my having enough of a life to only write as much as I already do here.
--Erich Schwarz
"Years of Bush being burned in effigy, T-shirts with "Kill Bush", as Erich notes, the DOAP movie, left-wing pundits foaming with rage on their shows, racist slurs directed toward conservative minorities- These things were never the subject of your outrage.
Racist comments by Democrats and Dem supporters? Explained away and ignored. Racist comments by Republicans or Republican supporters? Proof of utter racism.
And NOW you're outraged that anger and venom is being directed towards politicians and programs you support? "
I'm not going to take the time to dig through the archives but I recall Steve, at the time, posting that, while he disagreed with the former administration he thought such things were going to far.
Sure, he's a little more vocal about his outrage when the attacks are levelled against something he cares deeply about but his posted views are actually pretty consistent.
Frankly it's an embarrassment to think that the Tea Party might agree with me about anything, much less be considered part of my 'group'. Beyond disagreeing, I find their best tactics laughable and their worst despicable.
"the Dems suddenly deciding that, because they've got 55% of the country furious at them, the most intemperate rhetoric from the most childish 0.01% of that angry majority represents the entire 55%."
Excuse me, but isn't the above statement the same kind of generalization you are objecting to?
"The Dems" have decided that violent behavior among the teapartiers represent all non-Dems? That kinda kills your point.
BC Monkey--
I only heard about Gladney yesterday. Looked at the video, and it showed ANOTHER man on the ground...and then Gladney and somebody tussling. And then he walks away, apparently little the worse for wear (except for what looks like a stiff shoulder). The next thing I know, he's in a wheelchair. I really, really want to read the police and hospital report. Certainly sounds like a fight of some kind, and my automatic assumption is that when two people fight with one person, the two are more at fault, but until I read those charges and the hospital report, I have questions.
BC Monkey--
What outrage? I'm not outraged. I'm concerned that if violence ramps up and someone gets killed, it will hurt the RIGHT. You are completely misreading me. If DOAP had been an American film, I would have thought it in incredibly poor taste. It was Canadian, remember?
Comment by Milloy? Asinine violent rhetoric. He should apologize and renounce such talk.
correcting the record:
"Cantor was very happy to find out that police attributed this particular incident to random gunfire and as his statement made clear yesterday, that we need to move on."
RICHMOND, Va. - Richmond police say the bullet that hit a window of Republican Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor's office had been randomly fired skyward.
"Cantor was very happy to find out that police attributed this particular incident to random gunfire and as his statement made clear yesterday, that we need to move on."
However, as I pointed out earlier, and as others repeatedly neglected to note, the death threats to Cantor from an Obama donor who has since been arrested were quite real.
--Erich Schwarz
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