Violent Rhetoric of the Lunatic-Fringe Left

You don't just sneak back in quietly, do you? :)

On an article on Ace of Spades about this same subject, Hoffa's violent rhetoric, there's a comment that I thought at first was a joke, being almost exactly like a sarcastic comment previously posted, but which I think may be serious.

"Let's remember, Sarah Palin painted a "target" pointing very directly at Gabby Gifford's district. I don't see how anyone fair could ever really compare what Hoffa did to that. He didn't target specific people and didn't mention Guardsmen at all. So let's be real, what Mr. Hoffa did just wasn't remotely the same...."

Joke or not, some people seriously think like that! One can hardly summon the energy to address the fallacies inherent here, but I bring it up for one reason: the "targeting" that the Palin map did clearly regarded elections, and of all the people targeted, only one got shot, by a loon whose politics are irrelevant except that he was unlikely to have ever seen or heard of the map. The Loughner-Palin connection is just one of those "say anything" lefty-lunatic memes, of course. Like, Bachmann was thinking of John Wayne Gacy instead of John Wayne. Jaw-droppingly ludicrous.

However, when you have someone exhorting unions with what is clear violent rhetoric, the idea that they're only talking about elections gets a little iffy. Maybe a lot iffy. Sarah has hunted moose. Unions have a long reputation for severe violent tactics, and I'm sure I don't have to offer any of the wealth of evidence for that one. Another commenter in the same Ace page said, "The Hoffa remarks reached far and wide, and I've fielded two out-of-the-blue inquiries from acquaintances in real life about what is involved in buying guns and keeping them in the home since yesterday morning."

So, there's silly spin like the Sarah-shot-Gabby connection, and the lunatics who believe it, which may be politically reprehensible, but is physically harmless. And then there's the real threats, the kind that lead to real violence. The kind that Jimmy's dad found out about, I'd say.

I admire Sarah so much, and I'm sure she knows she's not just sacrificing her privacy and painting a target on herself, just by speechifying, much less if she runs; she's putting her very life on the line.

Sorry for my keyboard running over. I'll just end with: This is going to be one interesting election.