A Tale of Two Hate Speeches
- Posted by Lord Bitememan on June 11th, 2009 filed in General Hate Crimes · Jeremiah Wright · Memorial Shooting
Let me preface my remarks by saying this: James von Brunn is a vile racist murdering son of a bitch who should get his turn on the chair for what he did. Fifty James von Brunn’s aren’t worth one Stephen Johns, we are worse off without Johns, and will little miss Brunn when his small shriveled 88 year old heart finally gives out on him. That said, I already see the precursor for another tragedy developing. . . the tragedy of society’s double standards. Brunn left a note explaining that the motivation of his actions centers around this lovely passage right here: “The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America’s money. Jews control the mass media. The 1st Amendment is abrogated –henceforth.” Unfortunately this vile little man is getting tacked on to his very well deserved murder charge a hate crimes charge. I say unfortunately not because I don’t want Brunn to face justice to the hilt (I believe I prefaced this calling for his execution), but because hate crimes are not only a crude government instrument of thought control, they are also a sad vehicle for society’s double standards.
At the same time that this miserable excuse of a man was committing these heinous crimes, we were also being treated to a rant no less odious from the illustrious Jeremiah Wright. Wright too echoed Brunn’s paranoia about Jews, stating “Them Jews aren’t going to let him talk to me,”elaborating further “They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is.” Brunn’s hate speech is rightly regarded for what it is; vile, pernicious, hurtful, wrong. The problem is when it comes to Wright, the tune changes. Then we start hearing “free speech,” and “who cares, he’s not in office.” But what Wright said is so frightfully similar to what Brunn said. It illustrates a deep dysfunction on our social conceptions of hate that Wright’s is dismissed, while Brunn’s is to be prosecuted. Either the opinions of both men are criminal, or the right to free speech should confer, like most other rights, even when you do wrong. In fact, most of our rights exist to protect us when we are in the gears of justice. We have rights against unreasonable search and seizure, rights to protect us from bearing witness against ourselves, rights to face our accusers, rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, and rights to due process. These are not suspended when we have committed crimes. It makes little sense, then, that one’s right to free speech and editorial freedom would cease to extend to the times when we break laws. After all, even a thief can sue you if he slips and falls on your sidewalk while robbing you. We are left with one of two notions, either Brunn’s right to speech precludes criminality of his opinions (we can still fry him for murder, and you bet I’d be the man to throw the switch), or the speech itself is fundamentally criminal, in which case we should prosecute Wright.
Buffoon says:
Good stuff
Greg says:
You of all people who have written rebuttals to those who would chatter on this very blog about buying guns and ammo should be hip to the fact that Von Brunn is an ugly subset of the right wing, just as Jeremiah Wright is of the left.
The difference is that there is so much talk about “get a gun, get ammo”, etc. on blogs like MVRC, Von Brunn’s actions are emblematic of the sentiments of some people who comment here and on similar blogs.
Wright is a kook, therefore liberal blowhard, Keith Olberman named him “worst person” yesterday. You can find a lot of nasty comments on Daily Kos, and Huffington Post, but you won’t find the same level of “how to” seriously get survivalist with weapons and such.
Winning a popular majority of votes but losing the election in ‘00 left a stinging pain that caused people to call Bush illegitimate, and “not really president”. There was no equivalent call to arms on the left. When serious impeachable actions were brought to light, that is what we called for. Impeachment.
The stuff that tea baggers “He’s not American”, Sarah Palin “Pals around with terrorists”, right wing bloggers, Hannity and Limbaugh have put out about Obama led to Von Brunn taking this lunatic action.
This is a fundamental difference between our sides.
Lord Bitememan says:
So, what I get from this, Greg, is that you think anti-semetic hate speech on the left is fundamentally harmless, but on the right it is a threat to the Republic. You think the left is fundamentally introspective, wise, and averse to violence, whereas the right is violent by nature and devoid of the capacity to examine itself. Sorry, Greg, but your shit stinks too. I’ve been to enough “peaceful” protests in my life to know one thing, angry, ill-informed leftist group think is every bit as violent as nutjob survivalism. The right produced Erich Rudolph and Scott Roeder. The left produced ELF, Weather Underground and ALF. Certainly anti-semitism in the black community played no small part in the killing of Yankel Rosenbaum during the Crown Heights riot of 1991. So no, there’s nothing less dangerous about the hateful rhetoric coming out of the left. Patting yourself on the back because the left didn’t go bonkers in 2000 falls under the category of Chris Rock congratulations. . . you’re supposed to live with the results of an election. The right did in 1992 and again in 1996. You garner little sympathy from me for abiding by America’s social contract, just as the right garners my abjuration when they flip out over Obama winning.
raz0r says:
Von Brunn is not from the right side. Take five minutes to read his site. He hated Jews, Christians, Dubya, neo-cons, and a few more. Not a right side dweller.
And I love how Greg mentioned right-wing blogs, Hannity, etc. Again, on von Brunn’s site, he mentioned his distaste for them. Von Brunn was not a rightwinger.
What he is, is a sociopath. Put him down like we would a rapid animal and be down with it.
And Greg’s full of it if he thinks the left didn’t go apoplectic when Dubya won in 2000. The liberals at work (I’m in the minority there) used language that would make a sailor blush and echoed comments from DU and the KosKids asking for painful deaths for Bush and Cheney.
Greg says:
You could call the unabomber a leftist terrorist, and I accept that. There are plenty of examples of left wing extremism, particularly environmental and animal rights terrorists. Yes, anyone who acts out violently is a sociopath, and yes they often hate people on both sides of the political spectrum. Von Brunn at his core, is a white racist. If a white racist is asked to choose between a right or or left wing ideology, he gravitates to the right. As I type this, we have Republicans from South Carolina, and Tennessee posting to Facebook about gorillas and Michelle Obama, and emailing an image representing Barack Obama as a pair of eyes on black. You have a racist in the Minuteman movement (Shawna Forde) who’s group allegedly killed a father and daughter in Arizona.
With no clear leadership apparent in the Republican Party, there are a lot of people who will never be liberal who gravitate between conservative and libertarian ideology looking for something to engage in. Most of these folks are law abiding citizens, but if you turn over enough rocks in that end of the pool you find people like Forde and Von Brunn.
My point is that we thankfully have to go back years to find examples of left wing terrorism, which I do not condone, while recent examples of right wing motivated violence are currently increasing.
You guys don’t want to admit that there is a correlation between the right wing commentators, grass roots movements, and the uptick in these violent incidents.
If only the site search on MVRC worked better, I could present more than a few examples of people talking about buying more guns, etc. For what exactly? You know what I’m talking about.
Lord Bitememan says:
“My point is that we thankfully have to go back years to find examples of left wing terrorism”
Hardly. The Earth Liberation Front has been active very recently And Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad was a product of the radical inner city Islamic movement that converted him, taught him to hate the US establishment, and ultimately drove him to kill to army recruiters in Little Rock very recently. So yes, leftist radicalism has motivated people to violence and even murder, and you don’t have to go back years to find this. If anyone doesn’t want to admit that their side has a propensity to violence, it’s you.
Lord Bitememan says:
Greg, if you care to read why you’re totally full of shit on this, I refer you to this article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/17/hysteria_from_the_right_and_left_97034.html
Greg says:
Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad seems like an Islamic terrorist indeed. So under your world view, the left is responsible for Islamic fundamentalist extremists. Next you’ll say that Mohammed Atta was a product of the left.
Religion and politics drive these terrorists above all else. At least the left has a strong non-religious component that pushes back against intolerant religion based bull crap.
raz0r says:
Greg, again, von Brunn was not a rightwinger. He has more in common with anarchists and neo-national socialists.
And I like how mention leftwing terrorism and rightwing violence, as if the terms are interchangeable. While terrorism is violence, violence is not terrorism. So if you want to talk about leftwing violence vs. rightwing violence, then the left wins hands down. They practically own the subject.
They are in the streets destroying private property (remember those wonderful protests in Olympia last year). Defacing recruiting centers (hello Berzerkely). Storming stages because a conservative is giving a speech (can you say Ann Coulter). And those are run of the mill for leftist violence.
Then you have groups like ALF and ELF, as LBM has mentioned. Leftists and violence have gone hand in hand since Marx wrote his manifesto.
Lord Bitememan says:
Greg, the left definitely takes ownership of the Nation of Islam in the black communities in this country, yes. I don’t care if the left also has a throng of atheists in its midst. The right is fanatically pro-Israel, and Von Brunn’s actions were fundamentally conducted through an anti-Semitic lens, so if you want to lump someone as incongruous to the right as Von Brunn in with us, you get Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, simple as that.