This has been, in the health care debate, The Week of the Gun.
David Frum shoots back:
It’s not enough for conservatives to repudiate violence, as some are belatedly beginning to do. We have to tone down the militant and accusatory rhetoric. If Barack Obama really were a fascist, really were a Nazi, really did plan death panels to kill the old and infirm, really did contemplate overthrowing the American constitutional republic—if he were those things, somebody should shoot him.
But he is not. He is an ambitious, liberal president who is spending too much money and emitting too much debt. His health-care ideas are too ambitious and his climate plans are too interventionist. The president can be met and bested on the field of reason—but only by people who are themselves reasonable.
The problem with this quote is some idiot will only read the first half then attempt something even stupider than what's going on. Stupid Stupid Stupid.
#1 Posted by formerlyanonymous, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 02:31 PM
The left has been agitating this for years and are standing on the precipice of the whirlwind. Plays and mockumentaries about the assassination of President Bush, threats last November of riots and revolution if Obama wasn’t elected, the constant droning about how Bush-Cheney-AIPAC planned 9-11, the former president burned in effigy at too many demonstrations to mention and some douche like Frum tells us to calm down?
I say to the drones, you want a fight, bring it on … I’m locked and loaded.
#2 Posted by Doug Jakubowski, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 03:24 PM
And just as a reminder, the only act of violence to date were those SEIU thugs who beat down Kenneth Gladney in St. Louis.
#3 Posted by Doug Jakubowski, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 03:33 PM
"Only act of violence," you say? That's odd, because I remember reading about Scott Roeder and Richard Poplawski in the papers... maybe that was just a figment of my imagination.
Doug Jakubowski doesn't have the balls... that's why he lobs insults across cyberspace, because that's the second-best thing to having balls.
#4 Posted by Hardrada, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 03:47 PM
Hardrada,
What the hell do you think you're talking about.
Try, try, to stay on subject for a tenth of a nanosecond, puhlease.
We're talking about reducing violence in the health care debate and that the only violence documented to date does indeed stem from SEIU thugs.
If you don't restrain yourself to reality I'm going to be forced to hunt you down with an axe.
#5 Posted by vanderleun, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 04:47 PM
You're sticking to a carefully framed conversation about violence at health care town halls because you're trying to forward your agenda.
I'm talking about heavily armed right-wingers using violence to hold the democratic process hostage.
Richard Poplawski wanted unfettered access to guns. He should have campaigned for a pro-gun presidential candidate, but he didn't care much for democracy... and when he got angry about the election not going his way, he decided to shoot some cops.
Scott Roeder should have campaigned for an anti-abortion president. But he didn't care much for democracy, so when a pro-choice president was elected he decided to shoot a doctor instead of trying to peacefully change the law.
And now we have lunatics like William Kostric who want small government. They're upset that Obama was fairly elected after campaigning on a platform of expanding public health coverage.
So instead of campaigning for candidates who oppose public health care, the guy shows up at Obama's town hall packing a loaded gun, carrying a sign with vague threats about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.
I am absolutely sick and tired of this attitude you scumbags have of "Nice democracy you have there... be a real shame if something bad were to happen to it."
Enough is enough with these thinly-veiled threats of civil war. If you're serious about it, then get on with it and stop with these sneering intimations of violence.
#6 Posted by Hardrada, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 05:27 PM
I am greatly afeared that that horse is outta the barn.
Banking back the rhetoric isn't gonna put the genie back in the bottle. The Right's eliminationist rhetoric has struck a chord. Racism is rampant (albeit mostly tacit and implicit).
Frum and his fellows are hoist on their own petard. Give them joy of it, and hope nobody actually gets hurt (though it was clear to me that Beck, and Limbaugh, at least, were doing their Regal impressions: "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest," hoping that they could shake loose another Scott Roeder, who'd mebbe get off a "lucky" shot at Obama).
NOW they're backing away from it? They've aroused and fed the beast. How they now kill it is their problem, but it IS their problem...
#7 Posted by Woody, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 05:33 PM
Posted by Doug Jakubowski on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 03:24 PM
So, when you fascist brown-shirts start hunting liberals and immigrants and other despised groups, it'll be our fault for antagonizing your violent, raggedy asses?
'Zat right, Doug?
#8 Posted by Woody, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 05:38 PM
The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference they deserve a place of honor with all that is good - George Washington
Just the ranting of another right wing terrorist I suppose, but Washington's words have never rang more true. Self defense is the birthright of every American and no tyrant will take that away from us.
As for the rest of Woody's rant, the murderers he wrote about would have killed regardless of the political climate and ifa civil war comes to this great nation, a lot of people are going to have to be held accountable for the checks they have let their mouths write.
And Hardrada, if you are so sick of us, I’d love to see you do something about it.
#9 Posted by Doug Jakubowski, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 06:36 PM
I am doing something about it, Doug. I campaign against everything you stand for. I canvass and work phone banks on behalf of candidates who oppose you. If I have things my way, you'll be relegated to the dustbin of history, and nobody will remember the violent lunatics who tried to threaten the rest of the country back in 2009.
But I plan on doing this the proper, American way: by peacefully refuting your arguments and defeating you on election day.
But I won't, for example, tell people to "fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box," and ask people to decide "what is worth dying for," and call on them to "pledge their lives," like Virginia Republican Catherine Crabill threatened last month.
That's because I'm a civilized person who respects democracy, not a provincial, two-bit lunatic who freaks out when some guy I didn't vote for decides to spend my tax dollars on something he sincerely believes will help the country.
#10 Posted by Hardrada, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 07:02 PM
You can find lots of quotes for and against guns and the right to bear arms. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and Alexander Hamilton notwithstanding, here's a few against:
"Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins."
- Ayn Rand
"To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws."
- John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States 475 (1787-1788)
Loaded guns have no place in a public meeting. Check your guns at the door please.
The health care town hall debates should be fought with words, not guns. And, as Obama says, we should speak with each other, not over each other.
Whether you're for or against health care reform, let's be civil about it okay? Didn't your parents teach you any manners?
#11 Posted by chrisw21, CJR on Thu 13 Aug 2009 at 07:38 PM
Some breathtakingly myopic comments here. "Plays and mockumentaries about the assassination of President Bush, threats last November of riots and revolution if Obama wasn’t elected": How on earth can anyone think it is reasonable to compare a play -- which is by definition a work of fiction -- to people showing up with actual firearms at events the President is speaking at? Or to people shouting "kill the n-----" at rallies held in support of the republican VP candidate, who stood their smiling and saying nothing to discourage her enraged mob of supporters? And as for supposed "threats last November of riots and revolution if Obama wasn’t elected," I read widely about politics and I don't recall any such threats. Is it possible that these "threats" were only circulated among paranoid wingnut websites? Who exactly made these threats and why did you consider them credible? I don't know why I'm even bothering to try to respond to the sort of person who thinks he is presenting himself in a positive way by signing off "locked and loaded." Mr. Jakubowski, why not try a little self-awareness, and start signing off your comments like this instead: "I'm tremendously fearful, and eager to display my propensity for violence . . . because I think it's more important to come across as potentially violent than to come across as intelligent"?
#12 Posted by Wha?, CJR on Fri 14 Aug 2009 at 05:18 PM