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October 18, 2008

Ah, the Years to Come

Justin Katz

The forces of tolerance strike again:

While the Democrat-leaning media continues to scare undecided voters with bedtime stories about some mythical angry McCain supporter whom nobody has seen, here is a real district attorney's complaint documenting an unprovoked assault by an enraged Democrat against a McCain volunteer in midtown Manhattan: "Defendant grabbed the sign [informant] was holding, broke the wood stick that was attached to it, and then struck informant in informant's face thereby causing informant to sustain redness, swelling, and bruising to informant’s face and further causing informant to sustain substantial pain." ...

I followed him down the stairs to the subway until I could get the police and I said, "You're not going to get away with it." And as soon as he saw the police he immediately went calm. He still had the stick in his hand, and you could see the injury on my face, and he admitted it. He was arrested. He actually said, "I don’t know why I did this. It's just those signs, and this election, it has me so upset."

And again:

In a violent display of intolerance, an opponent of Proposition 8 attacked and seriously injured a man who was volunteering on Sunday for the initiative to define marriage as between and a man and a woman.

Prop. 8 supporter, Jose Nunez, 37, was brutally assaulted while waiting to distribute yard signs to other supporters of the initiative after church services at the St. Stanislaus Parish in Modesto.

The assailant grabbed about 75 signs and yelled at Nunez accusingly, "What do you have against gays!" Although Nunez replied that he had nothing against gays, he was attacked anyway. The assailant punched Nunez in the left eye and ran off with the signs.

Nunez, his eye dripping with blood, walked into a building on church grounds where a fellow parishioner called 911. Police and paramedics responded to the scene.

An Obama supporter attacks a woman; a same-sex marriage supporter attacks an immigrant. Stoked to a frenzy with messianic visions and black-and-white certitude of good and evil along political lines, the Left can hardly be expected to calm itself should it grab the levers of power.

Comments

This type of behavior is aggravated by comments from Obama like "get in their faces"referring to how convince your friends to vote for him.
Meanwhile,as the media suppresses reports of these incidents they trumpet some alleged remark of "kill him"which can't even be verified.The one encounter I had with Obama supporters was some who came to my door a while back.They weren't rude or anything-I just told them I was a McCain supporter and not about to change,and off they went.
I notice that Obama is already planning a lavish victory party at the Waldorf Astoria(I think)-shades of Animal Farm.
I wonder if any uneaten caviar will left over for the Revolutionary Guard,uh,sorry....ACORN members.

Posted by: joe bernstein at October 18, 2008 10:37 AM

Justin,

Your last paragraph is something I'd expect from the folks at rifuture or andrew sullivan. Violent or inappropriate behavior in reaction to political ideology is hardly one-sided between red and blue.

This is beneath you.

Posted by: msteven at October 18, 2008 11:00 AM

Oh, pshaw. Of course folks on the Right go too far, and of course, the tides go in both directions, but in our current circumstances, there is a marked and pervasive zealotry on the Left that does not bode well no matter the outcome of the election.

Show me a McCain supporter beating an Obama supporter, or an advocate for traditional marriage punching out a lesbian groom, and I'll show you wall-to-wall media coverage and great public rending of garments. I show you the reverse, and in accord with the current rulebook, you show me equivalence.

You think the post beneath me; I believe you to be more insightful than your comment indicates.

Posted by: Justin Katz at October 18, 2008 11:13 AM

A rightwing kook walks into a church full of "libruls" with a shotgun and shoots a half dozen "libruls" because they are "libruls"
Next day RI future blogs about it

No coment at Anchor Rising ???

Cops find "Hate" books by Hannity Limbaugh and Bill O in his house ?

Malkin blames "libruls" for not having guns in the church, to protect themselves

Posted by: Uncle Sam_my at October 18, 2008 3:44 PM

I condemn this acts and believe the responsible people should be charged accordingly. As far as media coverage- is it fair?- as in- Is the world fair? Is life fair? Justin, do you agree with Rep. Lewis when he warned Senator McCain that he was playing with fire and that to paraphrase Rep. Lewis, this fire can consume us all. Your examples of this fire are indeed disturbing. Our democratic system was meant to form governments without bloodshed. To have fundementaly different ideas compete without war. The increasingly extreme language in this campaign should be allowed but it should also be placed in the larger perspective of this country's hopes.

Posted by: David at October 18, 2008 4:37 PM

Ah, the rich irony of a religious conservative who often bases his political judgments on theology looking down on the "messianic visions" and "black-an-white certitude" of political liberals. You really are too much Justin. The Republican party is for all practical purposes a subsidiary of the evangencial movement in many parts of this country. I am far less troubled by people who hold political beliefs with certitude than with those who hold metaphysical beliefs with the same degree of certitude.

Posted by: Pragmatist at October 18, 2008 4:49 PM

I wonder if you'd care to cite an example of my basing "political judgments on theology." Or are you just employing the materialist device of assuming that every view held by a religious person must ultimately derive from that religion and therefore must all lack substance? (Note, here, that admitting religious beliefs and observing how they meld with more secular affairs doesn't amount to making political judgments on the basis of those beliefs.)

Whatever the case, I recommend you reconsider your own judgment that it's worse to believe in an incorruptible God but redeemable, though flawed, human beings than in incorruptible human beings and political systems.

Posted by: Justin Katz at October 18, 2008 5:17 PM

Justin,

I certainly agree with you about the inequity of media response to such events. Not to mention if McCain had broken his word on the public money issue, that would have been much yelled from the rooftops by the msm. But your post didn’t mention media bias. It did say something like this “… Stoked to a frenzy with messianic visions and black-and-white certitude of good and evil along political lines, the Right can hardly be expected to calm itself should it grab the levers of power.” I only changed one word. And I believe if you had read that anywhere, you’d be responding to it.

To change the subject slightly, I consider the endorsement of Colin Powell to just about put the nail in the coffin for McCain’s campaign. It strikes me as strange that someone like Powell, who is like McCain in being a slightly right-of-center Republican and would seemingly appeal to the same type independent voter, would choose to endorse Obama whose politics is far to the left. And then I read a comment from Powell like “… who can lead us out of the financial crisis”. Makes me really wonder what his agenda is when a non-politician like Powell would actually court the notion that a President has that type of authority in an endorsement.

Posted by: msteven at October 19, 2008 8:58 PM

Pragmatist,

Oh, I meant to comment on this.

"I am far less troubled by people who hold political beliefs with certitude than with those who hold metaphysical beliefs with the same degree of certitude."

Really? You find people who have hope and faith in God (wouldn't they be considered metaphysical?) more troubling than those who are politically partisan? Wow. Does that apply to all people of faith or just Christians? In any case, Justin is absolutely right, I'd strongly suggest you rethink that logic.

Posted by: msteven at October 19, 2008 9:07 PM

Very convenient. The victim was an immigrant from Mexico. That means the Yes-on-8 people are very inclusive and so not bigots and so not anti-gay bigots. It's less likely that opponents of 8 will beat up someone than supporters of 8 will make it up. That's what I believe anyway. Jose Nunez probably doesn't exist. The "source" of the story is a pro-8 wetsite. There's no indication that the writer tried to validate any of the claims and every indication that s/he simply wanted to repeat them.

Posted by: arturo fernandez at October 20, 2008 8:25 PM

Arturo,

A quick Internet search will yield confirmation from police and a picture of Mr. Nunez's eye, although it'll be tough for me to argue against an assertion of conspiracy.

I will keep your inclination to treat reality as you wish it to be, rather than as it is, in mind next time you purport to put forward a reasoned argument on behalf of same-sex marriage.

Posted by: Justin Katz at October 20, 2008 8:47 PM

"Does that apply to all people of faith or just Christians?"

Interesting question. And the answer is ...?

Posted by: Monique at October 20, 2008 9:36 PM