Look, on the one hand I’m appalled by it on general principles, on the other hand I can’t believe that any of my Lefty readers here would have a reaction substantially different than Philosoraptor’s and on the gripping hand I am not entirely certain why Philosoraptor feels the need to apologize quite so comprehensively: he wasn’t part of the crowd who threw punches at a bunch of protestors, after all. Mark Kleiman has some further comments, including a couple ones about the Instapundit’s coverage.
For myself, I’m going to join Philosoraptor in calling for a zero-tolerance policy for this sort of thing, on either side. This sort of garbage is largely absent from American politics these days, and I’d like to keep it that way.
I really hope this stuff doesn’t escalate. It’s going to be a nasty, nasty year in any case.
Despite the overarching battle lines of the political blogosphere (and the rest of the political world), the Thug/NotThug spectrum is actually much more significant and pervasive than the Liberal/Conservative spectrum.
So I don’t know why people of both sides are so eager to sublimate the first to the second.
In other words, guys throwing punches at peaceful protestors are mindless asses and should be treated as such. The fact that he was a Democrat is about as significant as the color of his hair, and Instareact’s Kos-like sweeping generalizations are as ridiculous as they are predictable.
Important point is that this kind of thing happens from the other side constantly, and the left ain’t whiney enough to make it blog news.
Check out Neiwert(Orcinus) on Freepers recently in California.
At A Small Victory the discussion centered on charges of brownshirt tactics by a large number of lefties. These accusations are obsurd for reasons sidereal has already pointed out. One really idiotic blog post and a few over the top comments on Margolis’ site and DU and its the 1930’s all over again. give me a break.
Those Boston union guys gave him … a scraped knee? Man, the ones here in Philly were going to implant steel plates in the skulls of the Real World crew, without the aid of medical personnel. If freepers do come here, best advice is not to call them “thugs”, “freak”, “commie”, “mindless”, “fools”, and “pillow biter.”
The conventions are going to be a lot of fun, aren’t they?
Jesus General has some thoughts on the altercation. I like the Margolis quote from his blog comments this is the general here: “They were very lucky. Matt tells us that he ‘felt robbed of the experience of really pounding a unionworker.’ (2:07 am comment)”
I’ve been the steelworker union meetings where things like this happened between themselves. The president of the local couldn’t close a meeting without people rushing the stage (closing the meeting, in this case, usually meant the meeting would end without some controversial issues being brought up). So incidents like this are appalling but not surprizing.
Another thing, I’d like to hear what the union’s take on this is. Freeper tactics are not always the type that promote sweetness and light.
Democrat Union Workers are violent
The average “union” Democrats in Boston are violent simpletons who resort to name calling and violence when they lose an argument, and trust me, they lose them quite easily. You won’t get a much of a discussion on the issues…
On the one hand, violent attacks during protests are to be decried. On the other, making this one incident the fault of everyone left of center is ridiculous.
On the gripping hand, Mithras’ implicit equating of Margolis to some random weenie on the internet is just silly, and (hopefully) a placeholder for an actual argument, when one occurs to him.
You guys using three hands in argument is just beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse.
bob,
The VRWC lizardoid faction is actually saving one hand for emergency use.
BTW, there are also VRWC arthropod reserves at hand (kept entirely separate for obvious reasons).
Mithras’ implicit equating of Margolis to some random weenie on the internet is just silly
The weenie in question was there and took the pictures behind the link. Margolis says that “words were exchanged” – which words? The red is not just to make the text pretty, Slart.
The weenie in question was there and took the pictures behind the link.
Oh, you don’t say? He was actually there? Well, Margolis must therefore be guilty of instigating the whole thing. Because, you know, some weenie was somewhere in the vicinity.