On April 8, the Tacoma News Tribune published an editorial about alleged death threats against U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). The editorial stated: “In the furious arguments over health care reform, legitimate conservatives have sometimes been accused of fomenting violence with bitter and angry rhetoric.”
The next day in Olympia, almost three dozen leftists dressed in black, wearing masks and calling themselves anarchists chanted obscenities at law enforcement officers. The anarchists attacked a newspaper photographer, spray-painted buildings, broke windows and threw newspaper boxes into the street. Police arrested 29 leftists. Two officers were hit — one in the head and one in the groin.
In February 2008, an anti-war concert at Evergreen State College resulted in severe damage when a deputy’s car was overturned and looted. The name of the hip-hop group, Dead Prez, conveys something of what the anarchists were fomenting at the gathering.
No guns were involved in recent local anarchist attacks. Nor were guns used in 1999 when anti-globalist anarchists went berserk and smashed up the streets of Seattle. A bullet shot through the window of Republican Eric Cantor’s office in Virginia is one recent example of gun violence related to health care. Where are the other examples?
Even an allegation of a threat by anyone connected with Christianity, Tea Parties or patriotism is now being amplified in a virtual reverberating echo chamber that seems to be cranked up to some kind of weird national crescendo.
“Wackos on the right have guns,” according to the Tacoma News Tribune. To put things in historical perspective, however: On Aug. 7, 1970, 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson, armed with an automatic weapon, took Judge Harold Haley out of a Marin County courtroom. The left-wing militants took the judge, deputy district attorney and three jurors hostage to demand freedom for the “Soledad Brothers.”
Judge Haley, Jonathan Jackson and two prisoners were killed as they attempted to drive away from the courthouse. The judge was killed with a sawed-off shotgun fastened to his neck with adhesive tape.
Angela Davis purchased the guns. She had been an acting assistant professor in the philosophy department at UCLA and a member of the Communist Party USA. Davis is now a distinguished visiting professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at Syracuse University — and a frequent speaker on subjects like racial and gender justice.
Leftists often assert that violence is necessary in order to advance social justice. Legitimate gun owners are as likely to be union members, Democrats, gay activists, liberals, leftists or people of color as “Tea Party” activists. Some of us talk a lot about the Constitution because we have this old-fashioned idea that it is the bedrock of the American legal system. On the other hand, left-wing groups like the New Black Panther Party have received favorable treatment from the Obama administration despite a record of intimidating voters at polling places and violent, racist rhetoric. How long before the American left repeats the historical and deadly pattern of violence that continues to rage worldwide?
