Thugs Real, "Tyranny," Not So Much

More importantly: We have not focused at all on how the militarized rhetoric on the right is tightly connected to our national failure to enact the gun regulations that might have saved lives in Arizona.

The descriptions of President Barack Obama as a “tyrant,” the intimations that he is “alien” and the suggestions that his presidency is illegitimate are essential to the core rationale for resisting any restrictions on firearms. The conversation of American conservatism is being shaped by the assumptions of the gun lobby to a much greater degree than mainstream conservatives should wish.

[...]

But in part from e-mail exchanges with ardent foes of gun control over the years, I came to realize that the real passion for a let-anything-go approach to guns has little to do with culture or hunting. It is rooted in a very peculiar view of how America has maintained its freedom. Rep. Ron Paul, as is his wont, expressed it as plainly as anyone.

“The Second Amendment is not about hunting deer or keeping a pistol in your nightstand,” the Texas Republican declared in 2006. “It is not about protecting oneself against common criminals. It is about preventing tyranny. The Founders knew that unarmed citizens would never be able to overthrow a tyrannical government as they did. ... The muskets they used against the British army were the assault rifles of that time.”

And at a Washington rally last year on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., linked this view to the current occupant of the White House.

“Fellow patriots, we have a lot of domestic enemies of the Constitution, and they’re right down the Mall, in the Congress of the United States—and right down Independence Avenue in the White House that belongs to us,” he declared. “It’s not about my ability to hunt, which I love to do. It’s not about the ability for me to protect my family and my property against criminals, which we have the right to do. But it’s all about us protecting ourselves from a tyrannical government of the United States.”

Is it any wonder that the gun lobby argues that restricting high-capacity magazines is just one step down the road to dictatorship?

[...]

Of course most conservatives don’t subscribe to Broun’s theory. What I don’t understand is why the highest priority of so many who are not Brounites has been to resist any questioning of far-right rhetoric by pretending that doing so is the equivalent of holding those who speak that way responsible for what someone else did.

No. Jared Loughner, the accused killer, is accountable for his own actions. His politics are confused at best and he clearly has mental health problems. That is what most liberals are saying.

But, yes, this is the time to acknowledge that there is something deeply wrong with the militarization of American conservative rhetoric. Doing so is not—and there are many problems with the term—what Sarah Palin has called a “blood libel.” The approach to guns, violence and “tyranny” promoted by loud voices on the right has been instrumental in blocking measures that could at least have contained the casualties in Tucson—or at Virginia Tech or Columbine. Extremism in defense of feeble gun laws is no virtue.

By E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Another Media Villager cops out. Really, E.J., it's perfectly fine to reach the conclusion that "the approach to guns, violence and 'tyranny' promoted by loud voices on the right" clearly demonstrates the essential anti-democratic thuggishness of these bastards. And that there are, at minimum, two potentially violent thugs (both M.D.s, heh) sitting in the House of Representatives.

Additionally:

But there is one habit of conservative rhetoric that is relevant to the events in Tucson, and it would be helpful to single it out for condemnation instead of indulging in broad discussions about the “climate of hate.” It’s the suggestion that Americans have an inherent “right of revolution” which entitles them to deploy violence when they are convinced that government officials are trammeling on their liberties, and that we are at a stage of history where such fears are legitimate.

This is the nasty underlying implication of Sharron Angle’s remark last year that “Second Amendment remedies” might be necessary to deal with policies supported by her Senate opponent, Harry Reid. And it’s been the subtext of many years of conservative rhetoric about how the Second Amendment is the crown jewel of the Constitution because it ensures a heavily armed citizenry that can take matters into its own hands if government goes too far. In combination with Tea Party militants’ open assertions that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and marginal increases in the marginal tax rate represent an intolerable tyranny, reminiscent of the British oppression that made the American Revolution necessary, this belief that Americans should be stockpiling weapons in case they have to stop voting against government officials and start shooting them is extremely dangerous. And yes, this is the sort of thing that could help motivate a nutjob like Jared Lee Loughner to exercise his own right to revolution against the socialist tyrant Gabby Giffords.