...that he couldn't find a clue if someone came up and handed it right to him:
Try a thought experiment: What would conservatives have said if a group of loud, scruffy leftists had brought guns to the public events of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush?We don't have to resort to hypotheticals here -- because, well, they did just that, and of course the media barely even yawned at it.
This is not about the politics of populism. It's about the politics of the jackboot. It's not about an opposition that has every right to free expression. It's about an angry minority engaging in intimidation backed by the threat of violence.
...
The simple fact is that an armed citizenry is not the basis for our freedoms. Our freedoms rest on a moral consensus, enshrined in law, that in a democratic republic we work out our differences through reasoned, and sometimes raucous, argument. Free elections and open debate are not rooted in violence or the threat of violence. They are precisely the alternative to violence, and guns have no place in them.
Politics of the jackboot? Once again you see a lefty completely ignoring his own side's propensity to violence. If anyone's being violent here, it's quite obviously the union thugs who are backing the left here, and that sort of thing is quite well-documented. And yes, Dionne does bring up the race issue, but the thing about that is, it's his side that's fanning the flames of racial discord here -- or would he rather us not remember one of those union thugs asking at one of those protests, "what's a *racial slur here* doing handing out signs here?" or something to that effect? Of course, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Dionne's going to blame those of us who carry guns for our alleged intimidation of the other side, but its still pretty disgusting that he would ignore the misdeeds of those on his side of the argument.
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