Randi Rhodes & The Coming Civil Disorder

Posted on Wed 10/17/2007 by Sniper One

Abraham Lincoln once said to Harriet Beecher Stowe, “So this is the little lady who started this great war.” In some ways, you could say that many of us on the right could look at Randi Rhodes today, and utter the same thing.

The very idea of “Nazi Brownshirts” walking the street threatening citizens for their core ideology should be repugnant to everyone. Yet, here we have the left very much accusing the right of doing that exact thing.

“Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own?” Elliott — no doubt only “dangerous” in the most loving, progressive way possible — breathlessly asked his audience. “Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we’re winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?”

The answer for many was a resounding, “Yes!” Over at Rhodes’ official messageboard, more than a few suspected a “Nazi Brownshirt” attack. “If you’ve watched The Sopranos you know how easy (and cheap) it is to buy that kind of hit,” one intoned darkly. “IF this was a political hit from Blackwater or whoever, there is going to be the wrath of G-d on the perpetrators,” another added. The proprietor of TalkingRadio wailed, “These whack jobs appear determined to whatever it takes to silence the opposing point of view.” And a visitor to Think Progress, the blog of the Center For American Progress — a self-declared “nonpartisan organization” paradoxically fighting against the “Radical Right-Wing Agenda” — posited Rhodes was “probably beaten up by some nutball in the Mallkin [sic] Mongoloid Mafia…that’s the type of viscous [sic] rabid people they are.”

When it was suggested that perhaps assigning blame before having all (any) of the facts might be a bit premature, an angry commenter at Watching the Watchers — “Independent Media Criticism That Bites” (presumably they mean “With Bite”) — snarled that there was “no reason not to suspect conservatives.”

“They’re vicious, violent, and unprincipled, just like unaffiliated muggers,” he wrote, adding, in retort to one conservative who protested, “We are not animals,” “Well, you’re sure not human…not if you can still call yourself a conservative after seeing what your people really have in mind for this country. I won’t say ‘our country’ as I’m now ashamed to admit that I was born American, and technically still am one, although I’ve washed my hands of your nightmare psychologically, and soon, physically as well.”

However it is not the right that is attempting to silence talk radio with the “Fairness Doctrine“. It is not the right that is smearing people like Rush Limbaugh, and General Petraeus with falsehoods. Nor is it the right that is defacing the Vietnam Memorial, or Military Recruitment Centers around the country.

Those are all things that the left is doing.

As near as I can tell, just like in Lincoln’s time, there is a civil war brewing, one that will turn brother against brother, and friend against friend. The kettle is already on the pot, and in some areas the tempers are already well past boiling. The only thing left to happen is the one single spark that will ignite both sides and bring war upon us all.

I feel as if I am standing in a room full of gasoline vapors, filled with hundreds of other idiots with cigarette lighters. It seems we are just waiting to see who is the biggest idiot in the race to see who lights up first.