Bullets as a metaphor

Actually that’s the time frame I was thinking of, about eighteen years.

Apparently it has coincided with the acceleration of time for me. :rolleyes:

I was sure this topic was going to be the former Wasington DC basketball team, the Bullets.

Having read the posts anyway, I’m going to say +1 to Post #17.

Is that a narrow ruling on that one comparison, or can we take it as a broad ruling that the more general comparison made in the OP is, to use a technical term, bunk?

To paraphrase Billy Crystal’s Princess Bride character, “It’s only mostly bunk.”

By that I mean there’s obviously a principled difference between the line in the OP and the lines complained of circa the Tuscon shooting.

But there were those few who, at the time, either out of rhetorical excess or honest conviction, that ANY reference to bullets, shooting, targets, and the like was ill-conceived. The majority of people, I grant, had a more restrained view, and thus wouldn’t find this instance problematic.

But posts #17, #19, and #21 all seem to agree that the idea is not completely bunk.

As opposed to people injured by anti-logging fanatics, and sundryother ecoterrorists. Or the scientiststhreatened with death and having their homes firebombed by animal rights activists or anti-GM thugs and Luddites? Or all the people killed by the Unabomber? And all the other people threatened or attacked during the wave of left wing violence that occurs every single timethere is an IMF or G8meeting. Or the people who have blood thrown on them in the streets by anti-fur protestors? Or the people who have been beaten, killed and maimedby Unions? And all the other people harmed by the Left Wing thuggery and terror tactics across the country.

On the contrary, the violence of the Left in this country was and always has been understated and treated more leniently than the violence from the Right.

Yes, yes. I know that it is poiintless arguing with Der on this topic. He has his blinkers on firmly and will now either tell us that all those violent acts were not perpetrated by “the LEFT” despite the fact that the actors were all committed to leftist ideology. Or else he will attempt to justify it and say that the Leftists need to utilise violence because “The Man” makes them powerless.

Wanna take bets which tactic he adopts? :rolleyes:

Who are regarded as extremists by virtually everyone, and certainly don’t have support right up to the Congressional level the way the Right Wing thugs do. You are trying to create a false equivalency, as is standard with the right. You are trying to equate the far fringe of the Left with the mainstream and near-mainstream Right.

That’s outright nonsense.

And what violence is attributable to the mainstream and near-mainstream Right?

Your earlier examples of violence from the right were:

[ul]
[li]People killed by anti-abortion fanatics[/li][li]People who died in the Oklahoma City Bombing[/li][li]Gays beaten to death by right wing thugs[/li][li]People harmed by the right wing thuggery and terror tactics across the country[/li][/ul]

Which of those were perpetrated by the mainstream and near-mainstream Right?

All of them.

Der Trihs has just stated in GD that Timothy McVeigh had , and I quote, “support right up to the Congressional level” when he detonated a bomb that killed 180 people, including 15 children.

I won’t even ask for a reference for such a stupid claim. It’s so far beyond retarded that I’m struck speechless. Seriously, what the fuck do I say to that?

What will be interesting is to watch the response from the Leftists on this board? If Bricker had claimed that Democratic Congressmen had supported the Unabomber the outrage would be deafening and the thread would spiral out of control for days and spawn a dozen pit threads.

It will be very telling to watch the response to this claim from Der Trihs that Republican Congressmen gave support to McVeigh.

I think we might have a definitional problem here. So far as I’m aware, people who died in the Oklahoma City bombing were the victims of Tomothy McVeigh. What standard, specifically, allows you to include McVeigh as mainstream and near-mainstream Right, and exclude, say, animal rights activists from the mainstream and near-mainstream Left?

He didn’t explicitly say what you claim he said - he said that “Right-wing thugs” in general get support up to the Congressional level. He then said that the attack was carried out by the “mainstream or near-mainstream right”, which is obviously hooey.

Of all the groups listed, however, the only one that I think can be considered “near-mainstream”, at least support-wise, is the anti-abortion movement. Some of the organizations that have carried out attacks (or, more accurately, have had members carry out attacks) have been praised for their non-violent work by elected officials.

The militia movement got some institutional support at one time, but I think that’s pretty much gone. I honestly don’t remember the amount of support it received circa OKC. The outrage at aspects of it being identified as a potential cause of domestic terrorism is a type of support, although a minor one.

There is certainly still some institutional homophobia, but I don’t think its fair to lump every gay-bashing with GOP politics.

On the left, I’d say that some animal-rights and environmental groups are “near-mainstream”. They are pretty quickly disavowed when they commit violence against people - destruction of property is perhaps too readily accepted. Free-trade protesters and internationalist are far less mainstream these days, IMO.

For whatever reason, at last domestically, most of the political violence does seem to be from the right these days (obviously modulo however you want to characterize Islamist violence).

All that said, I’m sure I’m not alone in basically ignoring Der Trihs. The content-to-inflammatory-rhetoric ratio is just too low. I try to focus my efforts on discussions with potential.

No, he said, and I quote: “the American Right has been pretty openly threatening and occasionally using violence against its opponents for years”. and he specifically used the Oklahoma bombing as an example of “American Right Wing thugs using violence” with “support right up to the Congressional level”.

So yeah, that is what he said.

So, exactly like Greenpeace or PETA or Unions are praised for their non-violent work by elected officials despite their members carrying pout violent acts?

So once again, exactly as the right quickly disavows anybody who commits violence?

Domestically most of the political violence seems to be from the Left these days. IMF/G8 protestors, Unions, PETA, Greenpeace etc. All those groups commit orders of magnitude more violent political acts than any right wing group. Even if you lump Islamist violence into the Right (which seems incongruous given the US Right’s hatred and fear of Islam) it still doesn’t come close to the violent acts committed by the Left.

The difference being that the violence of the Left is understated and treated more leniently than the violence from the Right.

For example, a card-carrying Leftist political activist assaulted Rupert Murdoch while he appeared before a governmental inquiry last week. The attack was carried out for Leftist political reasons. Think about that for a second. A 20 year old political activist assaulted an 80 year old man giving testimony to a Parliamentary inquiry. The incident was reported only because the event was already highly publicised, but it was not reported as “Left Wing” by any media organisation. Simply bringing a gun to a political rally is “Right Wing Violence”, while actually committing assault on an old man appearing before a Parliamentary inquiry is not “Left Wing Violence”. Can you imagine the media reaction if a Skinhead made an identical assault on Jesse Jackson at a Senate inquiry?

The same applies to almost any Left Wing violence: no mention of the fact that it is Left Wing violence and the whole incident is played down, despite the fact that the criminals are convicted of assault. In contrast any Right Wing violence will almost inevitably be trumpeted as being exactly that and the magnitude of the violence is played up.

These acts of Leftist Violence occur routinely, and routinely involve running street battles with police, yet you will almost never see it described as “Left Wing” violence and it will always be minimised. Every abortion clinic assault is trumpeted as Right Wing Fundamentalist violence, while the multitude more Union Assaults or PETA firebombings go largely unreported and are never reported as Left Wing violence.

In short, I can not agree, in any way at all, that most of the political violence does seem to be from the right. For every act of violence from the right their appear to be at least two from the left.

We agree on that at least.

I don’t even know what that means, other than a pathetic attempt to salvage some scrap of validity in the OP. A bigger man would just admit an error and move on.

Timothy McVeigh and abortion clinic bombers had Congressional support? Where the fuck are you from?

ETA - in reference to the original post, I don’t see an equivalency between the gunsight targets and Hoyer’s remarks. One is a metaphor, and the other is a threatening metaphor.

If you don’t know what it means, then how are you sure there’s not an admission of error?

Do you get the Princess Bride reference?

Quoth Blake:

There are a couple of Pit threads about prominent right-wingers who are saying that, y’know, the Oslo killer had a legitimate point. That’s not exactly disavowing.

*There is still some institutional homophobia[/]???

So anti gay sentiment is pretty much a thng of the past, with a few lingering after effects that need to be worked out? It is not a part of the current political dialogue? The institutons just have to catch up to the openess and tolerence that is a feature of our political system?

Let’s get this quite clear shall we?

You seriously are suggesting that no prominent left-winger has ever said that any person who committed left-wing violence had a point? That not one single prominent left-winger has ever said that Lenin, or Nelson Mandela or Che Guevera?

Just clear that up for me, then I can bury you under references to the contrary.

Then we can go on to both agree that “he has a point” is not mutually exclusive with “he was a crazy fuck and his actions are despicable”.

You do realise that that nutcase had a manifesto that ran to thousands of pages, right? And int hat manifesto he quoted numerous Right-wing sources form the past several decades? So what are you suggesting: that the very same sources that he quoted should disavow their own words and actions? That they shouldn’t admit that he had a valid point even when he did have one?
The Unabomber also had a lengthy manifesto in which he quoted many Left wing sources. Do you believe that they should also disown their own comments?

I personally think that Hitler and Lenin both had some reasonable points. I assume that you also agree with that. Does that mean that we support the violence such people committed?

Or are you perhaps arguing that once some nutcase commits a violent act in the name of some idea, the left always disavows the idea, not just the violence? Isn’t it a little dishonest to claim that an idea that you support doesn’t have any validity, just because it was parroted by a nutcase?

I honestly have no idea what point you are trying to make here. It appears that you are arguing that the left always dishonestly denies its own words and beliefs and promulgates ignorance, and that this is a good thing.

I hope that isn’t what you are arguing and that you can clarify just what you did mean.

It certainly isn’t.

But did I miss that? Who said what?

Pat Buchanan said that Breivik was right in thinking that a large-scale conflict between Islam and Christian forces in Europe was inevitable.

Much of Breivik’s opinion re: Islam and Europe is completely in line with right-wing nationalist sentiments in Europe, and in their supporters in the US.

As the gay-bashing issue, sven, I think we are in agreement but your post somewhat confused me. I’m saying that the political leaders tend to disavow gay-bashing, but their political positions still cater to a large number of homophobes (and gay-bashers, no doubt) that are members of their party.

Personally, it seems pretty obvious that any elected official will denounce violence committed by their side. That’s just common sense. I do, however, notice that most of the actually violence being committed in the name of political causes these days seems to be coming from the right.