I will not apologize for suspecting those who advocate violence might be guilty of violence [View all]

[Bjorn Against]

"I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands"
-Former NRA President Charlton Heston

"Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests." … "They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches."
-Right-wing radio host G. Gordon Liddy

"“Obama, he’s a piece of sh**. I told him to suck on my machine gun." "Hey Hillary, You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.”
-NRA Board Member Ted Nugent who was waving an assault rifle in the air as he spoke these words

These quotes represent just three of the many pieces of violent rhetoric that has come from the right-wing in recent years. The people who said these disgusting things were not just random right-wingers, they are people who were given giant microphones by the far right.

The right-wing leaders who uttered these disgusting words were not held accountable, G. Gordon Liddy continued to host his radio show, Charlton Heston's "cold dead hands" line was not only cheered by his supporters but was printed onto bumper stickers by the NRA, and Ted Nugent has continued to be reelected to the NRA Board of Directors and provided a microphone to make other violent threats.

Yesterday a tragedy struck in Boston, it happened on Tax Day just a short distance from the site of the original Boston Tea Party. As of right now we don't know exactly who set off the bombs in Boston, but it is certainly not a stretch to see the symbolism of Tax Day and suspect that it might be right-wing extremists who carried this attack out.

Now people tell me that we should wait for the facts to come in before we voice our suspicions, but I feel that we have been seeing the facts for far too long and I can not pretend that these facts do not exist. They may not be facts that point to a specific individual, but they are facts that do raise a lot of suspicions.

The fact is that we have heard far too much of the "from my cold dead hands" rhetoric, we have seen far too many nutty right-wingers tell us that they need an arsenal of guns to protect themselves from the government. They have made no secret of the fact that they dream of using their guns to violently overthrow the government, they want us to think that their guns are needed to protect us from government tyranny. Of course in their world tyranny means allowing gay people to get married and providing health care to poor people.

When I hear violent rhetoric I suspect that at least some of the people pushing that rhetoric are violent people themselves, and when a Tax Day attack happens they are going to be the first people I suspect. The reason I suspect them is based on their behavior, if they did not promote violence I would not suspect them no matter how much I disagreed with them. I disagree with nearly all Republicans, but the vast majority of Republicans I would never suspect of committing a violent act such as this one. There is a small group of them however that does seem extremely dangerous to me, the people who embrace Ted Nugent's violent rhetoric are the type of people who I believe are likely to be violent themselves.

In recent months we have seen right-wingers openly carrying assault rifles into State Capitol buildings in places like Oregon and Washington in order to intimidate law makers who are working pass gun legislation. We have seen the legislators who have introduced gun control bills sent numerous death threats. This is real and it is happening right now, I can't sit and pretend that this sort of violent rhetoric does not make me suspicious.

Maybe in the end I will be proven wrong, maybe it won't be a teabagger that gets arrested maybe it will just be some crazed teenager who was had a sick idea that he thought it would be fun to unleash chaos. Even if I am wrong however I will not apologize for being suspicious because it is the violent rhetoric of a certain group of people that made me suspicious of them, and if a person chooses to speak that violent rhetoric it is their own fault when the finger gets pointed at them when something happens.

The people who promote violence are not innocent, even if they did not have a direct role in planting these bombs they are still responsible for promoting acts of violence and terrorism.

I suspect this bombing was committed by a right-winger who is a fan of the sort of violent rhetoric that I posted at the top of this post. I am not going to make any apologies for voicing my suspicions before all the facts are in because there are more than enough facts to say that a certain group of people have acted in a way that has caused people to be legitimately suspicious of them. If they don't want people suspecting them of violence then they need to stop promoting violence.