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Note: I wrote this in August 2009. Drew Kline of the Union Leader promised to run it but didn't. It would have appeared just days before Carol Shea Porter held town hall meeting in Federal Buildings for safety sake. Please note that I quote NH INSIDER writer Richard Barnes freely. I asked Richard's permission and he granted it.
Political Violence in HH
Recently the Union Leader, Portsmouth Herald and Nashua Telegraph ran editorials with a similiar complaint--they took Carol Shea-Porter to task for not holding live town meetings during the August Congressional recess. Two of these editorials made reference to the days when an unknown Carol Shea-Porter earned a reputation by asking then-sitting Representative Jeb Bradley very tough questions at live meetings.
I'm an activist-Democrat but I think that all three papers bring up legitimate points about live town hall meetings. But I'm afraid that there is a glaring omission in each editorial.
It's this: All three editorials fail to mention the very real and growing probability of political violence in NH.
Put another way--Jeb Bradley faced Carol Shea-Porter armed with tough relevant questions while Representative Shea-Porter and her followers and the public
are facing armed, viciously angry and anonymous people.
What evidence do I have? Plenty--some firsthand. I've been threatened with death myself. What brought on the threat? I was wearing a Carol Shea-Porter hat at the recent Obama town hall meeting in Portsmouth. A protester and I had a few words, then he urged me to throw the first punch even though I had my hands behind my back. He followed by repeating, "I want to kill you." I believed him.
That incident is anecdotal--more revealing evidence is just a mouse click away.
As some readers may know I wrote a column for three years at NH INSIDER a predominately conservative web site. I was a "voice of the left" so to speak. Over the years I engaged in hundreds of debates in the comments section.
Richard Barnes, a conservative colleague at NH INSIDER has written extensively about gun rights and constitutional issues. Richard's column is widely read--last week he was rated fifth in NH web traffic by Blog Net News.
Following the reports of guns at the recent Obama event in Portsmouth, Richard wrote a series of artivles on the subject including Democrats Fear of Open Carry ( 1 and 2) and Guns Around Obama.
I engaged Richard in the comments section of his blog about this. We had a long discussion with many revelations, but it all boiled down to my last question and Richard's answer.
My question: "Have we reached the point where armed patriots are going to go beyond threats?"
Richard's answer: "It wouldn't shock me if we had. People can only be pushed so far before they push back."
Richard also believes that a number of people are carrying hidden weapons. He writes," I'm aware of at least one person who went to both the Republican and Democratic debates during the election who concealed-carried."
A commentator to Richard's column went even further stating: BTW, for anyone confused, there may have been hundreds of people carrying guns at the event. If you don't think so, spend some more time thinking about it."
At least one prominent conservative shares my alarm and has the back bone to confront an ugly trend. David Frum, the former (GW) Bush speechwriter and Republican strategist wrote a telling piece that appeared on August 13, inThe Week.
In Frum's words: "Nobody has been hurt so far. We can all hope that nobody will be. But firearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient--the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters."
Frum sites many examples including this: "Just yesterday, the radio host Sean Hannity openly contemplated violence--and primly tut-tutted that if it occurs, the President will only have himself to blame."
All of this is only the tip of the iceberg of course. The evidence is all around us. Militia groups are on the rise and with a black President, racists are spreading their resentments on fertile ground.
Lastly this: Political murder happens. A year ago on August 13, 2008, Bill Gwatney, the Chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, was gunned down in his office by a disgruntled man with a gun. No solid motive was ever reported.
I guess the man "snapped."
Will someone "snap" here? The odds are rising every day.
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