Among many others, Patterico posts this video of Bill Maher on Rachel Maddow, advocating Occupy Wall Street protests throwing bricks through Rupert Murdoch’s apartment window in order to see Fox News be “more gentle” towards the OWS people. This in response to Maddow’s wondering “if a sense of dangerousness is what gives them power.”
Maddow specifically raises the specter of the Tea Party as a potentially violent mob; I’ve been to a Tea Party rally, and seen coverage, often hostile, of many more, and never once saw anything like the kind of ugliness and incitement that people sympathetic to the OWS point to with some glee.
This reminded me of a media firestorm that arose surrounding one of the very few calls for, not violence, but vandalism, by people who own guns and know how to use them. I posted this comparison in comments at Patterico:
Does anyone remember the socialist/progressive response to Mike Vanderbeogh’s “The Window War” at Sipsey Street Irregulars?
This story advocated breaking windows of both Republican and Democrat party office windows, with stones inscribed with the Second Amendment. The first window was at the local Republican office.
Anyone remember the banshee howls from the socialist progressives in response?
Note the differences:
- Attacking party office windows, not private homes.
- Attacked both parties.
- Specific, consistent message.
- Said message a passage from the Constitution.
- First strike at leaders of own party.
- Directed at “leaders” attempting to abrogate a right (bear arms), not citizens exercising a right (free press).
- Proposed to short circuit, not to initiate, more violence.
- A demand to be left alone, not to be taken care of.
- Promulgated by someone seen as being on the fringe, not a major media figure. (Mike has since become a leader in exposing the Gunwalker scandal, a gross betrayal of the Constitution by those sworn to uphold it that deserves literal tar and feathers, if not ropes and trees.)
And yet Maher gets laughter and cheers from those who booed and castigated Vanderbeogh.
Tags: Bill Maher, Maddow, Maher, Occupy movement, Occupy Wall Street, OWS, Rachel Maddow, Window War