Prior to the Kentucky Senate debate in Paducah last night, a woman with a history of politically-inspired vandalism who was dressed in disguise approached Rand Paul to present him with a Move-On.org “award,” and was pulled to the ground by Paul supporters, one of whom needlessly pushed her back to the ground momentarily with his foot.
The police can and should review the videos to see if a crime was committed, and fortunately the woman was not seriously injured (unlike a Paul supporter who was injured by Jack Conway supporters in an unrelated incident). The Paul campaign immediately criticized the violence on both sides.
As I have documented dozens of times before, the left-blogosphere has concocted allegations against Tea Party members for much of the past year in an effort to paint opponents of Democrats as extremist and violent. Really for the first time, they have an incident they can blow out of proportion for political purposes.
Indeed, the mainstream media has refused even to report about how Congressman Maurice Hinchey recently assaulted a reporter who was asking questions about Hinchey’s possible conflicts of interest.
There is tension in the air. People need to step back, on both sides, and not try to take an isolated incident to create a greater political pretext.
Update: Soccer Dad reminds me of the attack on a Bobby Jindal supporter, and of course, there was the Kenneth Gladney incident.
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Comments
"People need to step back, on both sides, and not try to take an isolated incident to create a greater political pretext."
You're kidding, right? That would not be consistent with implementing the Alinsky strategy.
Precisely.
We have a system that has served us reasonably well for a long, long time.
BOTH sides must leave violence out of it. This isn't Iran.
She was representing Move-On.org, so she said. They appear to have nothing to say about this apparent wack-a-doodle victim, except to milk the foot stomp. This could have been a nice story about the fragile state of Obama's faithful but instead we just have a guy using his foot on a woman. Very bad and Rand Paul didn't need this.
The time is NOW to walk the talk and work smarter not harder.
Just a few more days and all that pent up frustration can be taken out at the ballot box…
Foot, schmoot. If it weren't the foot on her shoulder it would have been the others holding her back and down. All of it is assault if you want to ignore her rushing the stage. If you pay attention to her actions prior to be stopped, then you know she was dealt with appropriately.
So the focus on the guy with the foot is just a target of opportunity by the left. They would pick something else over which to be outraged in this incident if the foot had never come near this crazy woman.
Typical right-wing method of operating that I've seen used hundreds of times over and over again.
Rather than condemning the actual act, dig deep in history to find an unrelated equivalent(s) in this case Congressman Maurice Hinchey assaulting a reporter and John McCormack being thrown to the ground (both despicable acts).
It's called "Tu quoque" and it's a logical fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
If you've ever listened to Sean Hannity you'll notice this is one of his favorite rhetorical device.
Rather than address the act, find unrelated examples to prove that two wrongs make a right.
Of course the media isn't talking about the Paul supporter who was assaulted and injured by the Conway supporter. He stomped her foot, clearly wearing a surgical boot, and caused her surgery to rip open.
The media isn't talking about that, and the Democrats sure ain't apologizing for it either.
Looks like a typical leftist trick – resort to violence and than claim the other side used more violence than you did, so the other side was wrong. We've all seen it a million times.
Why are we even talking about this when Congressman Hinchey is walking around free to assault others at any time?
If the leftist had been in jail for vandalism
as noted at the Doug Ross Site.
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/10/paid-moonbat-activist-who-lunged-at.html
The world wouldn't be wasting their time on this today.
Good Work Davemartin 777
You ignored the post and what the professor said…including his affirmation that the police be involved. Then you used the "tu quoque" fallacy to argue that he was defending the over-reaction when in fact he was simply pointing out the hyperbole of your side and its penchant to ignore its own dirty hands. Note that the Paul campaign did exactly what you advocate: decrying violence on both sides. As for "digging deep in history to find an unrelated equivalent(s)." That is simply laughable. I would have to say this is a typical left-wing method of operating – not understanding the post, not reading it carefully, running off at the mouth with emotive language and simply making no sense whatsover.
"tu quoque" is only a logical fallacy if used to suggest what side A did was not wrong because side B does it too.
That isn't the case here, where it is used to show that the predominance of incidents is side B against side A, despite the majority of howls of outrage coming from side B.
Frankly, anyone who rushes a candidate these days with less than open empty hands should expect a rough handling. There are too many loose cannons floating around the political scene to take the risk. The Secret Service takes a dim view of such behavior around elected officials; no reason to assume that a candidate's security detail would be any different. How quickly we forget what happened to George Wallace.
@davemartin: You must be kidding, right? What are you? A MoveOn plant. Nice talking points.
And the digging doesn't have to be real deep.
"one of whom needlessly pushed her back to the ground momentarily with his foot"
That language is apparently chosen to minimize the significance of the contact, which I don't think is well advised.
Kinda like saying Muhammad Ali "momentarily placed his gloved hands against the head of George Foreman before Foreman made contact with the canvas."
The reports are that the protester received a concussion.
Now having said that, I agree with the rest of the post.
This was an apparently brutal incident and it deserves condemnation. That said, I don't see how it reflects in any way on Mr. Paul or his other supporters. It was, AFAIK, an isolated act by one guy.
OTOH, the Coakley incident, although far less violent, DID negatively reflect on "Marsha" because it involved a campaign aide AND she was present when it happened. Moreover, she was the AG and probably prosecuted people for less serious misconduct than occurred right under her nose that evening.
Dave Martin: you are "technically" correct on the argument method however you are incorrectly identifying the premise of the actual argument that you've heard "hundreds of times." The premise is NOT that each act is good or bad because it is obvious. The premise is that one side (the Left)does these dastardly things almost with impunity and it is ignored by the MSM while similar acts done by the other side (the Right or those that support the Right) are not afforded that luxury and are actually exaggerated. The same premise applies to the spoken words from both sides of the spectrum.
Professor said:
There is tension in the air. People need to step back, on both sides, and not try to take an isolated incident to create a greater political pretext.
I read your blog regularly but rarely comment, however I felt it important to do so here. I don't think most people realize that historically when groups are painted as evil and a moral outrage is generated against them (often 'justified' using historical 'facts') then the outcome is always the same – massacres and genocide. This is exactly what is being attempted by progressives against normal people in the US using the MSM and all other media outlets. We will have no choice at some point in the future as the violence and attacks will be brought to us and not vice versa. This is not a call for violence as I abhor it. It is a call for people to realize what is happening, prepare accordingly and realize just how evil and ruthless progressives are.
You're right, Cyd. Already, unjustly demonized tea party patriots such as yourself are being sequestered to their ghettos in the suburbs, forced to live in somewhat similar dwellings, dress in somewhat similar clothing, and drive somewhat similar cars. Of course, they are made to wear an identifiable stamp in the form of an American flag lapel pin. How long before you are forced into highspeed bullet trains, funded by We the People, to the gulags and concentration camps where the Obamamonster will feed you into the firepits that fuel a million billion abortions? Jesus Christ. Why do you people hate gays? You're the campiest, most theatrically overwrought performance artists I've ever seen.
Anyhow, don't spare the glitter when you bedazzle your Obama soshulist tea party placard – now's the time to go all out. Yours in Christ, allahu akbar, etc.
The problem that we face is that we have to be twice as well behaved, and any mistake, no matter well intended or not, will be misconstrued, twisted, and manipulated. At the same time, there are multiple examples of leftists committing violence, all on video. These, of course, are conveniently ignored.
JoePo,
Speaking of "odious f*cks", an ounce of introspection is worth a ton of your drivel.
And when you are finally done "studying", probably "hate America" studies, at that point you may begin to realize strawmen argumentation does not constitute much of anything except wasting everyone's time, especially mine having to read it. Good luck with that studying!