When thuggery is OK

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Rich Lowry @ Politico:

It was an ugly spectacle in Lansing the other day. A Republican lawmaker predicted blood on the streets. Profanity-spewing Chamber of Commerce goons went after union demonstrators. Anarcho-capitalists tried to push their way into a state building protected by the police.

The events chagrined editorialists around the country and Sunday show producers scrambled to book the most excruciatingly thoughtful guests they could find to hold forth at length about the importance of civility in politics.

Of course, none of these things actually happened. The inflammatory rhetoric and small-time thuggery in Michigan were all the work of the left in response to a new right-to-work law and will surely pass all but unnoticed by the people who consider it their calling to tsk-tsk about “the tone” of political debate.

Civility is one of the most absurdly abused of our political values. It is always centrally important to our functioning as a democracy — right up until the time someone proposes crossing the unions. Then, it goes from “can’t we all get along?” to “nothing to see here.” Then, out come the Hitler signs, the accusations of dictatorship, the huge inflatable rats, the sit-ins, the threats and even the fists, and all anyone can think to say is, “Isn’t it a shame someone had to go and get the unions angry?”

State Rep. Douglas Geiss achieved his 15 minutes of notoriety by taking to the floor of the Michigan Legislature to warn “there will be blood” in response to the right-to-work law. He couched his prediction in terms of past corporate-union conflicts, namely the Battle of the Overpass in 1937, when Ford Motor Co. toughs assaulted United Auto Workers organizers.

But why would Michigan companies want to beat anyone up over a right-to-work law? Come to think of it, why would anyone consider a law allowing people hired at a unionized shop to decide freely whether or not to join a union an incitement to violence? No one is forced to join the Rotary Club, yet Rotarians peaceably go their way without any bloodshed.

Outside the Michigan Capitol, as the right-to-work law was debated, union protesters tore down the large organizational tent of the pro-right-to-work free-market group Americans for Prosperity and punched Fox News contributor Steven Crowder. This wasn’t exactly the Battle of the Overpass, when Walter Reuther got kicked down flights of stairs. Crowder sustained a chipped tooth and small cut on his forehead. But it was notable who was doing the punching.

At least it should have been. Some on the left have condemned Crowder for having the temerity to get assaulted (or as Stephen Douglas said of Charles Sumner before he was caned by Preston Brooks: “That damn fool will get himself killed by some other damn fool.”). A writer at Gawker argued, in effect, that it was really stupid of Crowder to get in the way of a mob involved in the good, clean work of trashing other people’s property.

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More and more Conservatives and Republicans are having their eyes opened by the fascism of the left.
They are coming to see that the dems want to deny us our freedom of speech, support discrimination against us, and even support violence.
The left really doesn’t understand how this can backfire on them.

Ramirez had a political cartoon the other day that beautifully reduced the Liberal ”thinking” on this matter:
In amongst many bumper stickers on an Edsel was one that read:
PRO-CHOICE….EXCEPT FOR WORKERS
His other ‘toons are here:
http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez/

It has been really sad to see the Old-Stream Media trying to sweep this violence under the rug for THEIR side.
One wonders how far they might take this.
Riots might become headlined as:
Mostly peaceful demonstrations.