This is the flip side of the coin

[pecunium]

There was a small kerfluffle when a Bush supporter alleged his daughter had had a Bush sign ripped from her hands (which seems a trifle less than troublesome than the kicks and hair-pulling Bush supporters have been giving to Kerry supoorters in police custody, but I digress).

Today I see this

Vandals target local Democrats’ office for second time "LAFAYETTE — Vandals set fire to signs and wrote pro-President Bush messages on the front of Lafayette’s Democratic Party."

Which of the two is worse (even if we assume, which the evidence suggests is a bit of reach, given that the Bush supporter has made the same, basic, allegations in the past two presidential elections)? The snatching of a sign from someone's hand, when they are at a rally for one guy, supporting the other, or the burning of signs; endagering property and the defacement of a building?

I know where I stand, and I know that it would make me less willing to support the candidate you were willing to try to pull this sort of half-assed kristallnact on behalf of.

Comments

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

That's unconscionable. (Did I spell that right?)

This is nuts. How the heck can you *do* that??

(I don't get graffiti, either.)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Never mind the pro-Bush guy having had identical stuff happen to him three elections running; the guy who took and ripped the sign from his daughter looks uncannily like one of the guy's two adult sons.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yup, "unconscionable" is spelled correctly, but I'm not sure it's the right word to use here. If a party or a major member of it did or condoned such a thing, yes, but hey, every party, group, or idea has a few supporters who are flat-out crazy. I try to remember the adage "An Idea is not responsible for the people who support it". Mind you, I consider some of the basic ideas of the far-right "NeoCon" Republicans to be ...erummm... less than sane and rational, but yeah, this kind of violence is nuts (and, I think, generally counter-productive in our culture).

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

**Yup, "unconscionable" is spelled correctly, but I'm not sure it's the right word to use here.**

I'm just glad that I spelled it correctly. I'm pretty good at it, but sometimes words sneak in that just look odd to me.

** If a party or a major member of it did or condoned such a thing, yes, but hey, every party, group, or idea has a few supporters who are flat-out crazy. I try to remember the adage "An Idea is not responsible for the people who support it". **

Good point. I wonder what the Republican office there has had to say about it? I'd be screaming at every single Republican in the city, telling them that this is flat-out unacceptable, and that there are still laws against defacing other people's property, etc, etc etc. Granted, I'm also of the opinion that speaking out against things is almost useless, as are "public apologies". These statements don't really *do* anything, at least in my opinion. They're more like verbal band-aids on an arterial wound.

(There are hordes of statements by "moderate" Islamic groups condenming the tactics used by the terrorists, but those are having zero effect that *I* can see.)

**Mind you, I consider some of the basic ideas of the far-right "NeoCon" Republicans to be ...erummm... less than sane and rational, but yeah, this kind of violence is nuts (and, I think, generally counter-productive in our culture). **

The political climate that's being fostered by *both* sides right now is counter-productive, IMO. We've somehow lost the ability to have a rational national disagreement. I'm not sure how that happened, but it did somewhere.

I wonder if it's related to a general decline in the politeness of society, as a whole? (That's my perception, mind you. I don't have statistics to back it up. Hrm. Must post ramblings on own LJ, not take up Terry's space....)

[antiquated-tory.livejournal.com]

Figures. The wacko anti-Bush element is mostly just annoying as hell, with their puppet marches, ludicrous statements and comparisons of Bush to Hitler.
The wackos on the other side, though, seem to be far more unprincipled, violent and vicious. Reminds me of some things Hunter S Thompson wrote about the Nixon people. Only W has me missing Nixon, a bit.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I agree, in principle, but when I see the nature of the supporters of the various parties and see a far greater level of violent action on the one, and not in the other (and given the nature of the system, the tertiary parties aren't really factors) I have to ask myself if there isn't some level of problem with the party.

For some reason the ideology of one seems to lead to more of this. Dave Niewert Orcinus has done a lot of work on the rise of fascism (hit the front page, on the left you'll find, ""Bush, the Nazis and America":
Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.") and while he doesn't think the Republicans are there yet, he does see a disturbing lot of parallels between the rhetoric they use, and the means/rhetoric used by other fascist regimes; on their way to power.

This is more of a, "Friendly Fascism." Think of it as "Compassionate Conservatism", on steroids.

The attitude that one who is against the present administration is against the Nation is disturbing, and one they have been trumpeting for years.

It worries me.

TK

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

You have to speak out, and you have to speak out even when it happens far from you.

I, as someone else said, don't want to discover I was, "A good German," should the situation get that bad. By speaking out (as the good Rev. Neimoeller reminds us) we make it less accceptable. The same is true when skinheads, and Klansmen appear.

People convince themselves such things are conscionable becuase they do not see it condemned... silence = assent. So silence can't be allowed to happen.


Feel free (see commennt to antiquated_tory above. Discussion is a good thing.

TK

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Well, of course that isn't relevant... or rather it is. You and I might see it as evidence of the guys lack of veracity (and that it all three reports were in the same paper would tend to confirm it for us) but the other side will paint it as evidence of how long-standing the perfidy of the evil lefties is.

I pointed all this out to some pro-Bush site yesterday (found it looking up the guy's name) and that was probably shouting down a well, but one pulls weeds where one finds them.

But I worry for the republic.

More cartridges, must get more cartridges. :)

There will be holdouts in the hills of Texas...

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

And John and I will be there. There's room for more, I'm sure!

[ladymeow.livejournal.com]

The ripping of the sign was staged. See the full story here