Frank Knotts Wants to Kill Ron Sams
The sheer weight and repetition of violent rhetoric aimed at Ron Sams is a big red flag. That fact that Knotts feels victimized by those in the DE GOP that do not buy into his extreme brand of social conservatism is typical of the kind of paranoid ravings that tend to presage the type of violence that is becoming a hallmark of the Teabag Republicans.
“There is an epic battle headed our way.” “This battle has been in the making for many years now. Some have tried time and time again to be the peace makers, to no avail.”
“Here in the state of Delaware we have seen the opening skirmishes. I am proud to say that the “Concord and Lexington” of this war may well have been fought right here in my home county of Sussex.”
“So now the GOP faces a fight from within. It is a war of their choosing.”
“…at the last Sussex County GOP meeting the shot heard round the state was fired. The battle was waged. From the reports that I have heard it was not pretty.”
“In attempting to squash the uprising, he (Sams) has added fuel to the fire.”
“We will either wrest control of the party from the establishment elite, or we will tear it down and start over.”
“Those on the left within the GOP will tell you that those of us on the right within the GOP are going to destroy the party by waging this war. Well that may well be true.”
“…when you hear some party wonk tell you that Frank Knotts and his like are destroying the GOP, remember that this is a war of their choosing.”
Knotts needs to recant and apologize for his violent, unhinged rhetoric. There is no room for these types of threats in a Democracy.
“Those on the left within the GOP will tell you that those of us on the right within the GOP are going to destroy the party by waging this war. Well that may well be true.”
The internal divide isn’t left/right- it’s sane/insane. Knott’s remark here is nihilistic- if I can’t have it may way, better that it is destroyed. Is that what passes for conservatism now?
“remember that this is a war of their choosing”
He might have added- “lower your shields and surrender your ships. Existance as you have known it is over. You will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”
Knott’s idea of “choice” here is interesting- you exist, you have not unconditionally surrendered, therefore we must destroy you. It reminds me the choices offered to us by the militant jihadists: convert, accept permanent second class status (dhimmitude)… or die.
Frank, go away and start over- please.
I agree that there is nihilism at the very heart of Knott’s doctrine, and I admit that I laughed at your comment…but I didn’t want to given the overlapping constituencies that Knots is speaking on behalf of in the post: Gun Nuts, Angry A-holes, and people who cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Holy crap! is all I can say. I went and read the whole post to make absolutely sure I knew the message. What is going on downstate?
Knotts thinks that the very act of not agreeing with him is an act of violence. In his delusional, paranoid state, he will regard what ever violence he commits as justified in the name of self defense.
There’s a whole lotta crazy talk going on over at Mike Huckabee’s newest blog site. The rhetoric is really heating up, crossing the line and getting quite specific.
The next Sussex GOP meeting is on Feb. 14th – or as a certain DP commenter is calling it: The Valentine’s Day Massacre.
They really need to shut this talk down, and it’s amazing that you will be censored for swearing, but threatening, creepy talk is a-okay with David A.
But, then again David adds to the insanity with comments like this:
Yup, that’s Team Huckabee’s new Coordinator for the state of Delaware.
Is there any issue on which they don’t see a slippery slope and “reason” accordingly?
Considering that, in their radical-right revolutionary fervor, they sound a lot more like Russian revolutionaries than American ones, which group is the Bolsheviks and which the Mensheviks?
“What is going on downstate?”
Frank Knotts is apparently a truck driver and brings all the intellectual skills you would expect of one to his rantings.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but how, exactly, does falsely accusing one man of wanting to murder another help tone down “violent, unhinged rhetoric”? Perhaps you disagree with Frank Knotts’ views (as I do, on a number of issues), but making an outrageous claim about him that can be easily disproved does far more harm to your side than to his.
What happened to meeting on the battlefield of ideas? It seems like some of you are more interested in attacking individuals than challenging their views. Perhaps you’re having fun, but you’re probably not persuading anyone. I challenge the writers for Delaware Liberal to move beyond such silliness, stop slandering individuals who disagree with you, and focus on respectfully explaining your beliefs to readers. With such an approach you might even — gasp — change a conservative’s mind.
Chris, you know as well as I do (and a few thousand others down here in Sussex) that Knotts and Ayotte and totally unhinged. They have disrupted county GOP meetings with their ranting ever since the November election. They’ve made their veiled threats about turning to violence if they can’t get their way. Their “my way or the highway” attitude is going to destroy what is left of the GOP not only in Sussex but in the state. And sitting on the sidelines cheering them on like a set of Nero triplets are Vance Phillips, Christian Hudson, and the Fat Man from WGMD.
Slavins employs a time honored wingnut strategy. To point out that Republucans are using violent threats is to use violent threats against Republicans. It is the “I’m the real victim” speech all over again.
It not just the Truck Driving that is doing in Frank – It’s all those hydro-carbon fumes he breathes in all day – It is after all – Oil-delivery season at its peak………
and as OSHA is a Governmental Agency he feels that their regulations are probably an infrignement on his rights to breathe in toxic (above the PEL, permissible exposure limit,) air – inhaled hydro-carbons, and other benzene derivitives are not good for ones brain, STEL or Long-term.
That said, his insanity, possibly culminating in an involuntary commitment, which will happen either when his brain fails or when he commits a violent act, and is then adjudicated into a facility that will monitor him, drives UP MY taxes, and taxes for the rest of us.
all of course due to the fact that government regulation is a bad thing from the outset…..
Do they really not see the falicies of their own drivel???
@Chris – you must not live to Sussex to even THINK this comment:
“stop slandering individuals who disagree with you”….
try a few pages of DP and read Colley, Rick, Knotts and the King – Ayotte
then search the internet for their other crazy posting like red-State or Resistnet
Its all there
then, get back to us on that comment of yours…..
think there is a connection between this story and the “uprising/war in the Sussex GOP?”
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110115/NEWS03/110115009/Worker+choked++bound+in+Laurel+gun+store+robbery
or just your average criminal, err T-Bagger , errr criminal
Good lord! A lot of contrived hyperventilation over an extended metaphor…don’t cha think?
“With such an approach you might even — gasp — change a conservative’s mind.”
Highly doubtful. Conservatives are too defensive to ever change their minds. Hell, I’ve yet to hear one say that maybe all their gun-nut fantasies are harmful to dialogue.
Don Ayotte, for example, helpfully called Chris Coons a Marxist “in theory and practice” because of his college op-ed piece and because he raised taxes as county executive. Challenged on this piece of — to use QP’s word — hyperventilating hyperbole, he refused to back down.
Most conservatives don’t know what Marxism is, its relation to socialism or communism, or the difference between democratic (small d) liberalism and any of those philosophies. Most conservatives don’t know Shinola from their elbow, or the shit they spout from the assholes that pass for their mouths from either one. (Just wanted to extend a metaphor for QP, since he’s such a fan of them).
Not to speak for the posters here, but I don’t think they’re interested in debating anything with conservatives. Personally, I’ve never met a conservative online who was interested in learning anything that doesn’t comport with his already stated adherence to a “philosophy” that exists mainly to comfort existing biases. What they want from “debate” is to “win” something, because it makes them feel superior.
For evidence, please see any online “discussion” between liberals and conservatives on the issue of global warming.
So kindly excuse those of us who feel any conservative call for “dialogue” is, at best, disingenuous bullshit.
Well said Geezer. I would add that I think history shows that what is metaphorical language for some is often literal language for wingnuts.
I’m tied of war and death metaphors. Perhaps people could find a way to more creative and doesn’t sound vaguely threatening?
I’m tired of war and death metaphors, as well, but I’m resigned that they won’t go away.
What makes me extremely uncomfortable is the use of Ron Sams’ name in multiple posts containing this sort of language. It really personalizes the language.
My reaction to jason’s piece was similar to Chris Slavens’. I had already read the Frank Knotts piece that jason referenced and didn’t remember Knotts saying he wanted to kill Ron Sams. I went back and re-read the piece thinking I might have missed it. Nope. Didn’t see it.
Do I think the rhetoric and the intentions he did express were over the top? Absolutely. But I don’t see how it’s helpful to accuse him of even worse. Maybe Frank Knotts is beyond reach, but there might be people on the fence who will actually be pushed in Knotts’ direction if they see him as being wrongly accused. Again, how does it help? What purpose does it serve? And doesn’t that sort of thing make it harder to call the other side out when they make false accusations? These are not rhetorical questions. Maybe I’m missing something here and, if so, I really want to know.
And since when has it been impossible to be a truck driver and an intellectual? I have to say I found that talk pretty shocking. Again, what purpose does it serve? How do comments like that help to bring more people over to a more progressive way of thinking?
Predictably the folks over at DP are already making a martyr of Frank Knotts over jason’s post.
I think it interesting that Republicans can tell metaphorical language. from literal language simply by knowing the political affiliation of the speaker.
Ron Sams is as nice and decent guy as anyone will ever meet. He is a devoted husband to a wife who a couple of years back suffered a devastating head injury. For anyone to want to declare war on Ron says more about them than anything about Ron.
Yes. I think the latest tirade by Knotts lays bare the teabagz once and for all. While it is the kind of cliché ridden nonsense that they have become inured to from overuse – it is also the kind of violent hyperbole that unstable people are victimized by.
“And since when has it been impossible to be a truck driver and an intellectual? I have to say I found that talk pretty shocking.How do comments like that help to bring more people over to a more progressive way of thinking?”
It’s not impossible; never said it was. It’s quite improbable, though, as Mr. Knotts shows every time he types. As far as “helping bring more people over to a more progressive way of thinking,” I’m under no illusions that anyone typing what Frank KNotts does has any interest in that, or that people reading a politically oriented blog have any interest in that, either.
If I were going to try to win anyone over to a more progressive way of thinking, I’d aim at Tim Sheldon, who seems to think that if you can’t afford to pay to use a library or a park, well, fuck you. He’s a goddamn Democrat, he’s got so-called progressives like Dana Garrett shilling for him, and he’s about as progressive as Frank Knotts, except for the fact that he wants to use your money to enrich his union brothers. Blog readers? Who cares if they become progressive? I’ll start with the elected Democrats, thanks.
It is even hard to see the hyperbole in your headline because it is so far from reality. SHAME ON YOU! No one even hinted at violence let alone killing Ron Sams. You are either suffering from temporary insanity or are making a failed joke. Otherwise Chris is right. It would be slander. Unless you think the American revolution methaphor somehow means he and his “ilk” intend to bring muskets and take over (he never mentioned any weapons or force just said it is our Lexington or Concord), then fine. You are just unable to comprehend writing of any depth.
I disagree with the approach he is comtemplating. It won’t do much to for advertising, but at least I have an honest disagreement. This post is dishonest to its core and the headline is an attempt to smear an honest man by associating his name with something he never hinted let alone said. Have you no SHAME.
So you will not be killing anyone? I just want to be clear that you are not among the Republicans that want to massacre people they disagree with.
jason, apparently you’ve seen this response from Frank Knotts over at DP
http://www.delawarepolitics.net/the-word-police-are-out-in-force/
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is exactly the kind of thing I described as ‘poking the bear’ in another thread: doing something there is no need to do which will almost certainly have a bad outcome.
Please explain: what was the potential upside of saying Frank Knotts wanted to kill Ron Sams when Frank Knotts didn’t say that? I don’t see it. The highly probable downside was very easy to see: you give the person you accused the ability to make you look bad without breaking a sweat.
I’ve been puzzled by some of your posts because I assumed the reason people came here was to exchange ideas wih those of both similar and differing positions and possibly change their own or someone else’s thinking. But I’m new here and maybe I was wrong. Maybe some people participate as a way to vent or agitate or entertain themselves and others. And maybe that’s considered okay. As I said, I’m new here. It’s not my place to say. But I’m disappointed to see people on a site named delawareliberal doing things that make liberals look bad.
Jane, wars involve killing. If Frank was using figurative language who is to say that I was not? T
There seems to be assumption on the right that anything they say is to be taken metaphorically. My headline challenges that assumption and, in light of recent events, I wonder why that assumption is nit challenged more frequently.
@ MJ “And sitting on the sidelines cheering them on like a set of Nero triplets are Vance Phillips, Christian Hudson, and the Fat Man from WGMD.”
Amen- you have gone right to the heart of the matter. Here is what I think needs to be done- organize a boycot of businesses that advertise on Curley’s show. I am sure someone has a collection of his most bloodthirsty, over-the-top remarks collected somewhere. It is time to deploy them. That radio show fuels the fires and spurs on people like Trucker Frank and “Sussex Angel” and Don Ayotte and the rest of the demented lost souls over there. And god knows Curley has said enough to chill any reasonable person to the core.
Knotts wants to squeeze the trigger on anything not sinking to his depth of extremism but he finds safety in pulling strings of the gullible rather than to man up. He’s so very angry because he’s so very ineffectual.
jason, I’m sorry but ‘they do it so why can’t I’ sounds like something you’d hear on the playground. And again, to my ears, your statement was more outrageous than anything FK said. He was using a battle/war metaphor to express his opinions about what’s going on in his party. I don’t care for the metaphor, and I don’t care for his opinions, but I’m not sure he said anything that was an out-and-out lie. You did. And it was a lie about killing someone. At a time when people have actually been killed. How is this helping?
I’ll say it as plain as I can. I am hoping the right will begin to back away from some of the extreme views that have been expressed these last few years. IMHO, the types of comments you’ve been making don’t help.
@Joe- and there is the heart of the matter too – He, like Ayotte are angry, old, sour men, because they are just that, ineffectual.
Don’t apologize for having an different opinion Jane. Just don’t shoot me over it. We are all Americans after all./ We are all in this together right?
“they sound a lot more like Russian revolutionaries than American ones, which group is the Bolsheviks and which the Mensheviks?” – GEEZER
Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin made the exact same analysis on one of his shows in December, only his Bolshevik/Menshevik overlay applied to Obama and the dizzying array of truculent statists inhabiting the titular left.
Interesting to see it raised by Geezer.
“Just don’t shoot me over it. We are all Americans after all./ We are all in this together right?” Jason330
Together in not shooting you over “it”?
Or just together in our “We are all Americans after all” gaga bliss?
[Of course, I kid my old (old!) friend Jason]
David – when was the last time you attended a Sussex GOP meeting? If you’ve been to any recent meeting, then you know that Knotts and Ayotte want blood, literally, not figuratively.
Tyler: I doubt he used it correctly. I chose it because the Bolsheviks dubbed themselves the majority after one close intra-party vote went their way. Sorta like last September. Plus, of course, being compared to communists is a surefire way to tweak conservatives.
Only a snob like Geezer would suggest that truck drivers as a group are largely ignorant. His elitism pervades almost the entirity of his thought. Until people realize that about him, they will never understand him or how at his core he is not a progressive. Beyond that his narrow understanding of what constitutes intelligence hasn’t been held for decades. Read Gardner on intelligence, Geezer. Learn that intelligence takes multiple forms and expressions. Learn that and you might lose your snobbery.
Ah, the Dana Garrett progressivism litmus test. Tell me, Dana, how does your buddy Tim Sheldon’s suggestion that people who use parks and libraries should be charged a user fee for them fit into your definition of progressivism?
Congratulations on your descent into 100% ad hominem attack. Serves me right, I suppose, for encouraging you so much when you were starting out at blogging.
Just for the record, you don’t know enough about my thought to be talking about the entirety of it, but if you’re going to be an internet stalker, you should look through the archives for the times I have acknowledged that I am not a progressive.
By the way, I stand by my comments about truck drivers. I don’t think many of them are listening to the great books on tape.
I don’t know about Sheldon’s position on the matter. I would have to examine the particulars. In any case, I am not willing to take your word for it since I know from personal experience that your word means nothing. Interesting that you claim that you haven’t held yourself out here as a progressive. But you have elsewhere in your life. Let’s just add hypocrisy to your burgeoning list of shortcomings. As for understanding the entirety of your views, I understand more than you realize…even how your snobbery is a reaction to your background.
Geezer said:
“I stand by my comments about truck drivers. I don’t think many of them are listening to the great books on tape.”
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that what you’ve been saying/implying – people who drive trucks are not very smart – is true. I want to stress that this is your opinion, not mine, but let’s assume for the moment that it’s true.
Tell me, please: What purpose does it serve to say this outloud? Honestly, I’m completely baffled as to WHY someone would say something like that.
It is possible to have a thought and not express it. It is possible to say something in a private conversation with a trusted friend and then not broadcast it in a public forum. Have you considered these options?
Clearly people who are not liberals read this site. Apparently you are okay with giving these people the impression that this sort of thing is part of liberal thinking. Speaking for myself, which is all I can do, I wish you wouldn’t.
“I don’t know about Sheldon’s position on the matter. I would have to examine the particulars. In any case, I am not willing to take your word for it”
All I know about it is what has been written here. Funny that such a normally up-on-things guy who’s a personal friend of Sheldon’s wouldn’t know anything about it.
“since I know from personal experience that your word means nothing.”
Look, I don’t know what I wrote here that breached a confidence, but I did not do so purposely. You have told me many, many things that I imagine you might not want bandied about publicly. Let me know if I’m now free to talk about them.
“Interesting that you claim that you haven’t held yourself out here as a progressive. But you have elsewhere in your life.”
If you’re talking about how I label myself at my job, it’s to short-circuit constant carping from the right. Other than disagreeing with you on the role of unions in political activity, on what issues am I “not a progressive”? Since you’re such an expert on me, that is?
“Let’s just add hypocrisy to your burgeoning list of shortcomings.”
Back to the Manichean world view you propounded from the tent-show pulpit, I see. Once an intolerant Christian, always an intolerant Christian, eh?
“As for understanding the entirety of your views, I understand more than you realize…even how your snobbery is a reaction to your background.”
Would that be as a second-generation Italian, or something else? Really, it’s fascinating to have a half-hinged, self-righteous ass expound on you. Want me to return the favor?
“For the sake of argument, let’s assume that what you’ve been saying/implying – people who drive trucks are not very smart – is true.”
I’m not saying they’re not smart. I’m saying they’re typically not well educated.
“Tell me, please: What purpose does it serve to say this outloud? Honestly, I’m completely baffled as to WHY someone would say something like that.”
I’m putting his ignorance in context — snarkily, of course. Plus, as Dana likes to point out, I’m an elitist snob.
“Clearly people who are not liberals read this site. Apparently you are okay with giving these people the impression that this sort of thing is part of liberal thinking.”
I make no claim to represent “liberal thinking.” I’m certainly not interested in pretending to be respectful of the ideas of the world’s uneducated.
“Speaking for myself, which is all I can do”
Me too.
Geezer, I realized after I posted that, since people of all politcal stripes are welcome to post here, posters’ opinions shouldn’t be taken as a reflection on liberals as a group. That was the way I was thinking when I wrote and I believe I was wrong on that point.
However, whether you’re a conservative, a moderate, or whatever, I still don’t understand why anyone would want to make a statement that denigrates an entire group of people based on their occupation. Unless, as I said to jason, your purpose is to vent, agitate, or entertain rather than influence. And I guess I answered my own question?
Jane, I find myself agreeing with most everything you write and am thrilled you’re now a commenter.
I ventured over to Delaware Politics and saw your comment about over-the-top rhetoric being applied to President Obama. How’d that work out for you? Didn’t seem like they saw your point. 😉
Pandora, thank you for the compliment. You’re very kind.
My response over at DP was me giving in to an immediate impulse (often a very bad idea) because the post struck me as such an extreme example of pot/kettle. After I posted I thought ‘Oh, I am going to get slammed.’ I thought people would be apoplectic but it’s been surprisingly civil:)
Don’t be surprised. We try to be a civil group for a bunch warmongering rabble as they paint us over at DL. 🙂
I have to say that your opinion on Frank’s intelligence based on the fact that he drives a truck, is ludicrous. What makes you think that an office job takes more intelligence than handling volatile substances . You have to have your shit together when you deal with volatile liquid gas day to day . The consequences of a mistake in his job probably far out ways the consequences of most jobs.
I have to say that your opinion on Frank’s intelligence based on the fact that he drives a truck, is ludicrous.
No one questioned the intelligence of truck drivers. The education level of truck drivers was called into question. There is a huge difference between education and intelligence.
I’m not a psychologist, but I see a lot of projection here.
reading comprehension guy, geezer initiated this line of discussion by referring to truck drivers’ “intellectual skills.” To me that’s clearly broader than ‘education level’ but honestly I don’t think substituting the term ‘education level’ for ‘intellectual skills’ improves the tone of the discussion. The implication is the same.
By my use of the term, I meant “intellectual skills” to mean a combination of intelligence and education.
If you’re so worried about the tone of the discussion, why don’t you complain about the dozens of nastier comments made about conservatives every day? Don’t take that to mean I wish you would — the last thing the site needs is a schoolmarm. But you wouldn’t have to search very hard to find far more vituperative insults about the intellegence, not to mention the morality, of conservatives, by a wide variety of posters and commenters.
I have met many conservatives who are intelligent and moral, which doesn’t stop me from sometimes calling them all, as a group, stupid and immoral. I’m sure there are some intellectual truck drivers out there, but I’m willing to bet they’re far outnumbered by those who can’t find a less demanding way to make a buck while listening to country music.
Look, it was a lazy generalization. Are those now cause for faux outrage? I understand why Dana Garrett jumped on me — he looks for any excuse. But if Jane is going to operate as the “play nice” police, well, she’ll be doing a lot of typing here.
Sheltered lifestyles in the confines of no consequence academia, lead to Buffoonery and snobbery.
“I went to college!”…Sheldon J Plankton
As I acknowledged, it was a cheap-shot generalization on my part. So is your comment.
Geezer, the difference I see is that most of the nastiness, on this site anyway, is directed at people’s opinions or actions. I think most of us feel that people’s opinions and actions are fair game. Your negativity was directed at a basic characteristic of the people themselves.
I don’t want to run this into the ground. I didn’t respond to keep this going. You brought up a good point about why I singled out your comment to respond to. I didn’t realize myself why I did until you brought it up. I thought I should explain.
I guess I consider a job to be a choice, not a “basic characteristic” of a person. Let me reiterate my apology — it was just a rash, insulting generalization, not meant to be taken as a manifesto. As noted above, I don’t mind being called on it or defending myself for it, and I’m not going to change my opinion just because it offends people. I hold far more offensive opinions than that one. I’m sorry it brought out my stalker, but I’m used to that — though I would point out that “snobbery” is an odd charge to lob at someone whose entire wardrobe was purchased at Goodwill.
Just to clarify, by basic characteristic I was referring to intelligence, not occupation. People can choose/change their occupation but…..
And let me be the first to show my appreciation for your last comment. Wise and witty:)