Steve D of the Booman Tribune has written a spectactular piece that nicely sums up my thoughts over the last few days after the cold blooded murder of Arkansas Democratic Leader Bill Gwatney.
Yet, after losing his job (or leaving it), the first action [Timothy Dale Johnson] decided to take was to murder a prominent liberal and Democrat, much like Jim David Adkisson decided to take his rage and anger at his personal situation out on the “liberal” church in Knoxville. Both chose to use firearms to murder innocent people they did not know personally. It is logical to assume that they both chose their targets to make a statement. Indeed, we know for a fact that Adkisson, the church shooter, wrote a specific hate filled manifesto detailing his reasons for targeting the most prominent “liberal” church in Knoxville for his massacre.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that within a few weeks, another disturbed individual who had lost his job … chose to shoot someone associated with “liberals” and “Democrats.” The right wing bloggers and talk show hosts can deny their complicity in these “random” actions, and, indeed, legally they are not responsible for the criminal actions of a few “rogue” individuals. However, their writings and commentary, widely disseminated on TV, radio and the internet, has spread a culture where violence against liberals, Democrats, feminists, gays, blacks, immigrants, Muslims and any other out group is frequently expressed as “comedy” or in fantasies of wish fulfillment. They can claim all they like that they cannot be held accountable for the aura of hatred they have engendered in American society, but their protestations ring hollow to me.
Indeed, since the rise of daily right wing hate speech on TV and radio in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we have suffered through the corresponding rise of right wing terrorism directed at liberals and Democrats. The Oklahoma City Bombing, a terrorist attack executed by a right wing whack job named Timothy McVeigh. Eric Rudolph, a right wing terrorist bomber responsible for the Olympic Park bombing and other bombings at abortion clinics throughout the South. Right wing supporters of Jerry Falwell were prepared to use homemade bombs against protesters at his funeral. In April 2007, 150 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers carried out simultaneous raids in four Alabama counties in a sweep targeting a right wing militia that yielded 130 grenades, a rocket launcher, and 2,500 rounds of ammunition. In May 2007, a right-wing vigilante arrested in a scuffle at one of the immigration marches in Washington D.C. was found to have a stash of automatic weapons and explosives in his home.
We have experienced another wave of African American church burnings in the 1990’s and 2000’s. We have seen numerous murders of gay men and women, like Matthew Sheppard. In Texas, a black man was dragged behind a truck for miles until he was dead. The violence and hate of the right is real, these crimes are real, and their motivations are clear. As is the moral complicity of the vile smear merchants on right wing radio and TV. Indeed, they all stoked this violence. They suggested it. And I am not entirely convinced they don’t want it:
“I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus — living fossils — so we will never forget what these people stood for.” — Rush Limbaugh
“I would have no problem with [New York Times editor Bill Keller] being sent to the gas chamber.” — Melanie Morgan
“”[T]he day will come when unpleasant things are going to happen to a bunch of stupid liberals and it’s going to be very amusing to watch.” — Lee Rogers
“And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.” — Bill O’Reilly
“Howard Dean should be arrested and hung for treason or put in a hole until the end of the Iraq war!”– Michael Reagan
“Some liberals have become even too crazy for Texas to execute, which is a damn shame. They’re always saying — we’re oppressed, we’re oppressed so let’s do it. Let’s oppress them.” — Ann Coulter
“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee. … That’s just a joke, for you in the media.” — Ann Coulter
“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” — Ann Coulter
“We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too.” — Ann Coulter
“And Joe Wilson has no right to complain. And I think people like Tim Russert and the others, who gave this guy such a free ride and all the media, they’re the ones to be shot, not Karl Rove.”– Rep. Peter King (R)
“Where does George Soros have all his money? Do you know? Do you know where George Soros, the big left-wing loon who’s financing all these smear [web]sites, do you know where his money is? Curaçao. Curaçao. They ought to hang this Soros guy.” — Bill O’Reilly
“Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?” Mr. Rove asked. “Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.” — Karl Rove
“These bastards like Clark and Kerry and that incipient ass, Dean, and Gephardt and Kucinich and that absolute mental midget Sharpton, race baiter, should all be lined up and shot.” — Kathleeen Parker
This is but a small fraction of what is out there. Hell, I could fill tomes with the murderous thoughts of one Michael Savage. You will find no corresponding liberal or Democratic talk show host or official saying anything remotely similar. Name your favorite hated liberal icon, like Michael Moore or Keith Olberman or Al Franken, and neither has ever made public statements recommending the murder of of conservatives.
Do all right wing conservatives feel this way about their political opposition? No. But they all have been conveniently silent, happy to laugh at these supposed jokes, happy to clap at the hate, happy to have such hate win them election after election. This is why I have no respect or regard for anyone with right wing views. This is why we really don’t want them to have guns. Because we know they are being motivated to use them. On us.