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Should Liberals Go Heeled?

By Kleinheider Posted on April 1, 2009 at 3:56 pm

Ilissa Gold thinks it might be wise to take your whistle with ya if you’re fixin’ to leave your house as a progressive:

But I wonder if it’s something that all progressives, regardless of sexual orientation or other factors, have to worry about. The violent rhetoric from the right about rising up and overthrowing the government is growing. Republican leaders are actively calling for a “revolution”. Militia activity has been on the rise in the last few years, and is expected to increase with Obama’s presidency.

And while you’d rather think of people like Jim Adkisson shooting up a Unitarian church in Knoxville as an evil aberration, you do have to wonder how many others like him are out there, whose minds have been so poisoned by the violent right-wing rhetoric that they could snap at any moment, and look to take out those whom, again, they perceive as “weaker”.

This isn’t going to stop anytime soon, and I’m of the opinion that we need to be prepared. I’m not saying all liberals need to (or should) carry, nor am I saying that anyone should rely on weapons at the expense of reaching out to others through dialogue and eudcation. But it’s a civil liberties issue, as far as I’m concerned–if the Bill O’Reillys and Glenn Becks and Michelle Malkins of the country have the right to spread violent rhetoric, then those of us at whom the rhetoric is aimed have the right to defend ourselves. We cannot be caught off-guard again.

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Comments

20 Responses to “Should Liberals Go Heeled?”

  1. Mark Rogers writes
    April 1st, 2009 4:07 pm

    I assume you are including the ELF right-wingers who are conducting terror attacks across the West. And the crazy mob in London is really a groups of pro-capitalists playing an elaborate April Fool’s joke on the world?

    And the death threats to AIG executives and their families?

    Perhaps the people you worry about simply saw the respect you chic liberals have for Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground?

  2. CoverBothSides writes
    April 1st, 2009 5:13 pm

    Sigh….(rolls eyes). Really? Really? Is this serious or is this some kind of April Fool’s Day joke? Was this chick writing this same kinda stuff when GWB was in office and all the big lib groups (MoveOn, CodePink, DailyKos, HuffPo, etc.) were calling for practically a revolution to get him out, impeach him and Cheney, try them for war crimes, imprison Senators, etc.?

    And this is probably splitting hairs, but anyone who has watched or listened to much of the people she mentions should know that O’Reilly is in a totally different class than Beck, Malkin, Hannity, etc. He is way more fair than any of the others and has often stated the high regard he holds Obama in, even if he disagrees with his policies. Hannity, Rush, Beck, Phil Valentine, etc. can all go jump off a bridge for all I care. But O’Reilly has been #1 for 100 months because he is truly fair and balanced (and entertaining).

  3. GoldnI writes
    April 1st, 2009 5:14 pm

    Not defending them, but when a liberal shoots up a conservative church or blows up a pro-life clinic, rather than making threats, get back to me.

  4. Bob K writes
    April 1st, 2009 5:50 pm

    Mark already mentioned ELF. Add ALF to that list too. Oh, and the Unabomber wasn’t exactly a Ditto-head, now was he?

  5. Bob K writes
    April 1st, 2009 5:54 pm

    And if you want to go back a few years we can add the SLA,the Black Panthers, and that troop of Boy Scouts that Bill Ayers was the leader of. Nice bunch of Gandhis, eh?

  6. GoldnI writes
    April 1st, 2009 5:56 pm

    And Jim Adkisson wasn’t some hippie who hated Baptists.

    So I guess then that you don’t believe liberals should carry? Would that throw too big a wrench into your worldview?

  7. Bob K writes
    April 1st, 2009 6:06 pm

    Goldi, stop being obtuse. You asked for someone to demonstrate when the Left had ever been violent. I provided ample demonstrations. Going from that to thinking that I said (a) extremists on the Right had never done such a thing, or (b) that I somehow thought the 2nd Amendment applied only to conservatives, is a spectacular leap of illogic even for you.

    Don’t bother responding; you’re just digging a deeper hole.

  8. Mark Rogers writes
    April 1st, 2009 6:13 pm

    GoldnI,

    I have no problem with Liberals carrying guns as long as there is a backgroud check and you get the proper safety training.

    It is your suggestion that someone like the mentally-troubled killer in Knoxville is reflective of Conservativism that is offensive and unworthy of you.

    I could see Spaz or some other lesser intelect make that case but not you.

  9. LeftWingCracker writes
    April 1st, 2009 6:33 pm

    Mark and Bob, you never said she was inaccurate. By the way, Ayers and the Underground are so 1974, you DO know this, right?

    tim McVeigh and the abortion bomber sure as hell weren’t lefties, last I looked.

    Talk about obtuse.

  10. Bob K writes
    April 1st, 2009 6:37 pm

    Dude, talk about reading comprehension:

    “if you want to go back a few years . . . ” It’s right there in black and white. Thanks for reiterating what I already said.

  11. spaz writes
    April 1st, 2009 6:51 pm

    Oh, please.

    ELF commits property crimes and the Black Panthers robbed banks. While no one condones what they did, let’s be honest: left-wing radicals in this country don’t actually kill people like the right-wing terrorists in this country do (see: Timothy McVeigh, Operation Rescue, and the KKK). And the Unabomber was not a liberal - he was an apolitical Luddite.

    Mark and Bob are using the same type of moral equivalence that conservatives always use: “both sides do it” they say, as if one is just as bad as the other. But they’re not. Face it, the Right is chock full of sociopathic racists who, when they can’t lie, cheat, or steal their way into political office, have to commit acts of terror to get their way.

    And they’re going to die by the sword too before this is all over. If the wingnuts don’t settle down and get a grip, I have absolutely no doubt that President Obama will use Bush’s Patriot Act and the warrantless wiretapping powers to start locking up the crazies that deserve it.

    The other thing that may bite the wingnuts in the ass is their unflinching support for the Second Amendment. What makes you think liberals can’t or won’t use guns to protect themselves and their families? And unlike Dick Cheney and Bob Barr, we can actually shoot straight!

    Y’all better start reigning in your nutjobs because the Republican Party - what’s left of it - is going to be wiped out because of them before long.

  12. GoldnI writes
    April 1st, 2009 7:41 pm

    Bob, I didn’t ask you to give me examples of where the Left had committed acts of violence. I don’t deny what ALF and ELF and the other woodland critters did. I asked them to show me where liberals have actually gone and killed conservatives. The Weather Underground only managed to kill each other.

    And no, I’m not convinced that there aren’t more Jim Adkissons out there, who are ticking time bombs.

    Maybe when I’m home this summer, I will get licensed, if that’ll help destroy the notion that liberals can only either be weak or terrorists.

  13. Mark Rogers writes
    April 1st, 2009 7:47 pm

    LWC,

    The real distinction is that the vast majority of Conservatives and Republicans reject the actions of McVeigh and the abortion bomber while the Left has prominent figures who still defend the Panthers and the Weathermen. Ayers, for example, is unrepentant.

    Spaz,

    Any reply to your litany of exaggerations and inaccuracies would be wasted much like the resources society invests in your continued existence.

  14. Bob K writes
    April 1st, 2009 9:12 pm

    Goldi,
    I have every confidence that you will hurt far fewer innocent people with your concealed carry license than you will some day with a law license.

  15. Donna Locke writes
    April 1st, 2009 10:06 pm

    I have every confidence that you will hurt far fewer innocent people with your concealed carry license than you will some day with a law license. Ha!

    Anyway: “Every movement overstressing one direction calls forth in time an equally extreme movement in the opposite direction. What is rigidly bound in form and convention tends to explode into formlessness. It may do so violently if socially oppressed — through revolution — or at the psychological level in psychosis; or it may withdraw inwardly into the mystical state in which one identifies with an unformulatable Reality….. Whether the revolutionary action is violent or peaceful, bitterly resentful or loving, the one desire is to reach beyond established forms.” — Phase 65, symbolized by a revolutionary magazine asking for action — Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformations and Its 360 Symbolic Phases

  16. I link, therefore I am writes
    April 2nd, 2009 7:03 am

    [...] Nashville liberal blogger Ilissa Gold sounds the alarm on murderous right-wingers, and the respectiv… [...]

  17. SayUncle » Liberals and guns writes
    April 2nd, 2009 9:53 am

    [...] Clenched-fist salute to ACK. [...]

  18. Someone You Know writes
    April 2nd, 2009 6:17 pm

    Kleinheider and Everyone Else,

    What SayUncle said and don’t forget the water, food, and …

  19. Rah writes
    April 3rd, 2009 6:28 pm

    There have been so many liberals that have supported murderers like Ayers, Hezbolla and the PLO all murderous organizations. I remember Leon Klinghoeffer that was pushed off the Achille Lauro in his wheel chair Conservatives do not support murder. Ther is noo atatute on murder so 1974 does count. I do not think there is sell by date on murder.

    We believe in self defense but that is not murder. McVeigh was a murderer who did not care about the innocents he killed. Name one conservative that has made that man a friend after his deed as the Obama did with Ayers and his wife who did murder police officer and others.

    Alos we consevatives do support gays and liberals to get a CCW and learn to be self reliant. athen maybe you won’t want the government to rule us so much.

  20. JTHC75 writes
    April 3rd, 2009 7:48 pm

    I’m a conservative and I totally support liberals arming themselves. Why shouldn’t they exercise their right to protect themselves? Look at groups like the Pink Pistols–these guys and girls figured out a long time ago that the cops are not going to get there in time to fight off violent gay-bashers.

    I do find it ludicrous to think that conservatives, as a group, are going to be a threat. We do have our loonies, but the vast vast majority of us are peaceful and law-abiding–just like you liberals!

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