We are hearing a lot of rhetoric from the left side of the Congress about threats to member safety because of their position on the Healthcare Bill.  Republican Eric Cantor has pointed to evidence of a gun shot through a window at his own office to demonstrate this is not a partisan issue.  He pointed out that threats have happened for years on both sides and appropriately scolded the Democrat leadership for attempting to make this a political issue.   Despite this, charges of threats and potential violence continue to be lodged by Democrats with the majority reportedly coming from black congressmen who indicate they have had racial epithets hurled at them.  One claims to have been spat upon.  Additional charges have been levied that someone hurled a homosexual epithet at Barney Frank.   The only thing truly absent in all these charges despite the numbers of people with today’s “at your disposal” recording abilities is evidence that any of this actually occurred.  Despite this, John Boehner has condemned violence and has strongly indicated there to be no room for violence against any member of the Congress.  

The normal, immediate reaction is to agree with Congressman Boehner.   Our representatives should be able to do their jobs in Congress without fear of physical reprisal.   But, then, that’s really in theory, isn’t it?  Apparently so to the media because they only seem interested in threats depending upon whose ox is being gored. 

When a movie was produced about a fictional assassination of George W Bush, where was the outcry from the left that now exhibits concern when they are the supposed targets?

When Alec Baldwin suggested that Henry Hyde should be stoned to death and his family all killed, where was the outcry from the left?  

When John Kerry and Bill Maher discussed using a bullet at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to rid themselves of a problem all we heard was laughter.   No, I don’t believe Kerry was serious but who knows whether that anonymous caller to Louise Slaughter’s office was serious either?  

When political commentators like David Horowitz, Jim Gilchrist or Ann Coulter are chased from college campuses out of concern for their safety, where is the outcry from the left?  

Why has a new concern been reached because of the Congressmen and women who claim they had insults hurled at them and if they were so concerned for their safety, why did they not use the underground ingress or were these radicals actually attempting to provoke people into hurling insults or to spit at them?  Under these circumstances may I admit some doubt as to whether this actually did happen?  We are asked to believe a member of Congress without evidence when we have substantial evidence that those hurling these charges are themselves dishonorable liars, cheaters and abusers of the public trust. 

But my question goes deeper than simple comments as to whether it happened or whether their outrage is or is not hypocritical.  I must also ask the following:

Don’t I want a representative of mine to be fearful of his/her constituents if he/she should go to Washington, ignore our letters, lie to us, cheat us and abuse us?  Don’t I want this same person to worry even a little if he/she does not live up to their fiduciary responsibility to read and actually study legislation they intend to vote upon, especially when it affects 16% of the nation’s economy?  Don’t I want my representative and both my senators to spend as much time listening as they do talking about legislation they have never read?   A century and a half ago representatives who would deprive their constituents of liberty and steal from them might be tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail.

Yet, still my question goes even deeper than this.   You see, my immediate reaction was to agree with John Boehner.   I don’t want to see such things happen as would destroy our republic.  But, how long should we expect free people to be ignored?  How long should we expect free people to be cheated, lied to and abused before we might expect those free people to rise to their own defense?  It would seem that anonymous telephone threats are pretty tame as are racial, ethnic or sexual insults.  This is only name-calling but it is an indication that this Congress has destroyed the comity of this nation by ignoring our Constitution, by their abuse of the legislative process and by extortion and/or purchase of votes to achieve their end.   Now some would say that armed violence should NEVER be an answer but isn’t this REALLY why we have the 2^nd Amendment and would we as free Englishmen in 1775 have told Sam Adams or Paul Revere that armed conflict is NEVER an answer to a similar tyranny that was being foisted upon them without concern to their opinions or their liberties?   So, my real question is this, “When is it proper for a public to turn to violence to defend itself against a tyranny imposed by those elected to represent and govern, but who choose to rule?”