These are the threats made against Democrat Bart Stupak after Sunday's health care reform vote. They are chilling on their own but the fact that they emanate from folks who claim to be "pro-life" gives an extra batch of ice to the chill.
And of course some on the right have trivialized incidents like these, which is the opposite of the reaction to the 2008 Proposition 8 vote when gays and lesbians protested in anger.
Remember how Michelle Malkin wept and cried with pseudo disgust over us "gay bullies" who supposedly attacked people via protests and boycotts?
Nowadays she is taking to personally attacking a Congressman who dare call attention to the excesses of the anti-healthcare protests. Quite a hypocritical switch -- but business as usual for Malkin.
Remember how Mike Huckabee told only one side to the Phyllis Burgess incident (i.e. the anti-gay protester who was pushed and her styrofoam cross taken from her after she elbowed her way through crowd of anti-Proposition 8 protesters so that she could get on camera). Remember how the religious right portrayed the gay community on the whole as thugs who were allegedly threatening people, vandalizing churches, and shouting people down?
We were inundated with story after story of how gays and lesbians were "beating up" on "innocent" Christians and those stories were connected with earlier phony stories about gays and lesbians supposedly assaulting people. It got so bad that I wrote a post calling for us to get a handle on the lies.
And remember this comment:
Of course, activists say they are merely utilizing their political freedoms and rights, but, the fact is, I see a lot of sore losers who are intolerant of any outcome but the one they desire. Some are acting like toddlers who throw a temper tantrum until they get their way. Are they fighting for their rights or at last showing true colors of intolerance against anyone who believes contrary to them?
That was actor Chuck Norris speaking about the Proposition 8 protesters. As far as I know, he has been silent about the threats against Congressmen coming from various tea partiers.
Meanwhile the publication in which he ran that piece of vile, World Net Daily, is now in a surfeit of stories about "socialism," how Obama is trying to destroy the United States, how he is not a United States citizen etc. etc.
And on other right-wing blogs and such comes even more shallow defenses of the threats and violence we are seeing.
Apparently to some on the right it doesn't matter whether the protests are truly violent or not. It's all about whether the supposedly "true Americans" are protesting rather than the "undesirables."
That conundrum is as annoying as Republicans seeking court aid in overturning health care reform after years of accusing judges of being "unelected" and "activists."
But that is another column for another time.