Strong Words and Strange Reasons

Jenna Bush, one of President Bush's 19 year old twin daughters, was "caught" trying to buy alchohol from a restaurant. This has upset some of Bush's followers.

Americans have seen this mob thuggery mentality from Bush supporters before, most recently in post-election Florida. The "skills" of demonization, propaganda and pack assaults are nurtured by right-wing hate-filled press such as the FOX News Channel, talk radio, and certain Internet sites, including those named above. Eight years of vicious attacks on the Clinton family were only the baby steps of political warfare, it appears. -- American Politics Journal

I didn't even know that Bush had twin daughters, much less that they have been having some run-ins with the law, until this flap. Much is being made of the restaurant and its employees (1) calling 911, (2) calling the press, and (3) being targeted by pro-Bush partisans for harrassment. Note, too, that Jenna Bush may fall afoul of Bush's "three-strikes" legacy, so there are serious issues and irony at the core of these incidents, or so it would seem.

Let's recall one, not atypical, incident from the Clinton era.

Though no tape of McCain's quip has yet emerged, this is what he reportedly said:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno."

-- Salon.com

Note the extreme, if casual, cruelty of this joke (old news, of course). In one way, it is "harmless"; there's no exercise of power, no manipulationg of the law, no face-to-face attack. But these are mere technicalities. The best that can be said is that most people not only are capable of such cruelty, but on occasion indulge it in. McCain, at least, apologized (although, somewhat inadquately):

McCain apologized to President Clinton after news of the joke became public, but did not apologize to Chelsea Clinton or Janet Reno. "This is the bad boy," McCain said. "It was stupid and cruel and insensitive. I've apologized. I can't take it back. I was wrong, but do you want me crucified?" He added, "I will always maintain a sense of humor. Life is too short not to." -- www.wcla.org

It is unwise to generalize from a single incident to judgments about settled character and not just because they risk error. There is a paradox of punishment: undue harshness tends to nurture that which it aims to correct. Ironically, this is a large part of what's wrong with three strikes type laws.

We're dealing with animals. Posting someone's financial records on the internet pales in comparision to what the left has done. And it might make liberals think the next time they set out to destroy a person.

I'm done playing nice. I shun government teachers and let them know I shun them. I used to tip UPS drivers at Christmas. Now I make a point of telling them why they get no tip and why I will report them if they so much as do a rolling stop. These people want to degrade and mock everything in which I believe. -- from a FreeRepublic.com forum

(Note: The particular animals in question are the people who turned in Jenna Bush for trying to purchase alcohol under a fake ID.)

I've been trying for three days to figure out what to say about this, how to respond. One observation that strikes me every time I read this invective is how steeped in collective responsibility it is. Nastiness is measured against "what the left has done". Measures are taken to make sure that "liberals" will alter "their" behavior. All government teachers are shunned, and UPS drivers -- regardless of how they vote -- lose their tips and are harrassed. And it's "justified" because "these people" alledgedly possess horrid, personally targeted desires.

There's a bit of tension between the "what we do isn't as bad as what the Democrats/Clinton/left/liberals have done" and "we're just doing what they've done...we've learned from their tactics" lines of reasoning. Whether the first is correct or not, the second certainly seems wrong. Selective enforcement, personal harrassment, mob threats and violence, lynchings, villification, firings, and so on are time honored tactics of the right, as is the claim that "the left" is unruly, uncivil, uncivilized, dangerous, riotous, etc.

Could someone point me to any right-wing non-violence training? To major victories (in the U.S.) of a sustained, multi-year predominantly non-violent conservative protest movement? Heck, just point me to such a movement? The closest I can think of, off hand, is the abortion protests, especially clinic blockcades, although they don't seem to be mass-based and seem to rely a good deal on intimidation. Plus, as far as I know, they've never been fire-hosed or beaten by police.

I hestitate to endorse generic arguments against political violence. I've thought a lot about rights to resistance and revolution, and there seem to be some compelling, clear cases. The problem lies not in the (to me) clear cases, but in the "perversions":

Having determined these points, we have next to consider how many forms of government there are, and what they are; and in the first place what are the true forms, for when they are determined the perversions of them will at once be apparent.

Of the above-mentioned forms, the perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy, of the needy: none of them the common good of all. -- Aristotle, The Politics, Book 3, Chapter 7

Once the "true forms" of government are known, the "perversions" will be apparent because the structure and nature of each form of government is very similar to the structure and nature of its corresponding corruption. Thus, when I read or hear eminently justified calls to violence, I wince because I know that the same language and reasoning can be, with the seemingly slightest of distortions, transformed into that which I abhor. Few things are more annoying than the rhetoric of revolution in the service of that same old oppression...

...except maybe the rhetoric of civility used to promulgate incivility.

Where is the Bush White House? Why isn't he calling for his self-professed followers to leave the restaurant alone? The White House certainly has no qualms in protecting itself from "harrassment":

After a reporter asked about Jenna's no contest plea at a news conference with Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, Fleischer chastised the reporter and told him that his question had been "noted in the building" as stepping over the line. -- SunSpot.net

One can think that the restaurant played a bit mean and still rise above that provocation, surely. At best, this is a missed opportunity to be "an uniter". What more likely to my mind is that this will be one more bit of evidence into the settled character of the President and the people he gathers around him.