Right Wing Encouraging Violence, “Riots” and “Revolution”; Showing Images Of Rape

by Thomas Wellborn

A trip around the innertubes shows a not-very-pretty compilation of language and postings by those on the right whose incendiary imagery is troubling.  Even some respectable conservative leaders have used language which might give aid and comfort to some the wackos whose unstable behavior we’ve witnessed of late in the form of phone calls and mailings to congresspeople that paint a dark picture of those who lost the health care debate.

These statements are protected by free speech rights, of course, and yet when liberals have made extreme statements or done extreme actions, their free speech rights have been questioned by conservatives who, in some cases, want boycotts against companies who sponsored shows with speech they deemed offensive. In his book Slouching Towards Gommorah, Judge Robert Bork has a chapter called “The Case for Censorship” where he rails against what he thinks liberals have done to the culture.

More to the point, Bork is not content merely to criticize; he wants the government to do something about it. “Sooner or later,” he claims “censorship is going to have to be considered as popular culture continues plunging to ever more sickening lows.” So committed is he to this cause that he dedicated an entire chapter in his 1996 book Slouching Toward Gomorrah to making “The Case for Censorship.” In it, he advocates censoring “the most violent and sexually explicit material now on offer, starting with obscene prose and pictures available on the Internet, motion pictures that are mere rhapsodies to violence, and the more degenerate lyrics of rap music.

But when it’s time for some conservatives to make extreme statements and use extreme imagery, they’re all for freedom of speech. The cartoon making the rounds this weekend that says “Obama rapes liberty”  shows the president getting out of bed where the Statue of Liberty, undressed, has her face in her hands.  This has conservatives jumping to defend free speech.

The free speech that protects flag burning and incendiary comments that they often protest, also gives them the right to say the things they’ve been saying.

Palin: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”

Huckabee: Members of Congress “should be tarred and feathered as the original tea partiers would have done.”

Morris: “Those crazies in Montana who say, ‘We’re going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.’s going to take over’ — well, they’re beginning to have a case.”

Erickson: “At what point do the people … march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp?”

Savage: “We’re going to have a revolution in this country”; “These people are pushing the wrong people around.”

Stossel: “[I have] Barney Frank in effigy” hanging above my sofa.”

Perry, Newsmax: [Obama] “is inviting a [m]ilitary intervention.”

[Radio host Jim] Quinn calls for “riots”: “Our country was built on revolution, and it’s about time we took it back.”

Chuck Norris: “[W]ill history need to record a second American Revolution?”

Conservatives love to talk about accountability.  With the vile actions directed at those who won the health care debate, do they have any?

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