The growing power of the angry mob

According to numerous sources, last night, outside a political debate in Kentucky, a group of Rand Paul supporters threw a MoveOn member to the ground, incapacitated her, and one person stomped on the back of her head.

You read that right. Stomped on her head.

So, let’s be clear here, America. Maybe there’s been some confusion as of late. Not many people have stood up and opposed this sort of behavior. We’ve kind of let it slide.

But this is fucking unacceptable.

At absolutely no point does your supposed political superiority entitle you to physically abuse another person. Neither does it entitle you to vandalize schools. And you know how you’ve been encouraging others to artificially change the rankings of liberal books on Amazon without ever having read them? Yeah, that’s underhanded and disgusting, too.

It’s not just Tea Partiers who are doing it. According to the same report at the Rand Paul curb-stomping event, apparently a Conway supporter stepped on the surgical boot of a Rand supporter, causing an incision to split open (although admittedly, the article does not indicate whether this was an intentional or accidental act). Stories of partisan Americans using their perceived political superiority to justify gross violations of respect and decency unfortunately seem like the norm these days.

This is simply not okay.

I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican or a Tea Partier, you have absolutely no right to harm another person. Period. That should be the end of discussion, right there. Neither do you have the right to act like an immature, spoiled eight-year-old, damaging the property of those you disagree with or lying through your teeth in order to make yourself look better. And you certainly don’t have any justification in trying to “seduce”– or maybe “sexually assault” is the better term– a CNN reporter as part of some convoluted scheme to discredit CNN on FOX News. Nothing gives you the right to act in these utterly shameful, disgusting, and depraved ways. I don’t see how this could possibly be a point of contention.

And yet.

And yet there are those who will use the video of the MoveOn member’s assault as smear fuel against Rand Paul’s opponents, claiming the video was staged. They will watch the video, will watch the mob drag that woman to the ground and watch her assailant stomp her head into the curb, and they will claim it was all a setup by Conway’s campaign, or by liberals, or by whoever the “other” is. By doing so, they get to pretend like they’re not part of the problem, instead turning responsibility back upon the clearly wronged party and perpetuating this vile, hate-filled political climate.

I am sick of this.

This needs to stop now. We need to stop perpetuating a political climate of hate. We need to condemn, publicly, loudly, and frequently, every violation of common decency committed by those who think their political perspective justify acting like sociopaths. We can’t continue to rationalize escape explanations when it’s politically convenient, because every time we do that, we implicitly admit that that behavior is acceptable. If we want to demonstrate any integrity of character, we need to stand up against all of this hatred, all of this intolerance, all of this closed-minded, self-congratulating, anti-human bullshit, whether it comes from the Left, the Right, or the Middle.

I don’t want to live in a country where the mob feels it can violate the freedoms of those it disagrees with. If we reach that stage, we will have ceased to be a democracy.