The Compassionate Modern Left

If you've been following come of the comments to previous blog posts, you know there's a poster or two who love to post absolutely venomous comments about me. I'm used to it, having taken shots from the left and the right over the years, but it is indicative of a larger phenomenon. The faux left has gotten mean.

Here are a few of their "greatest hits":

- Anti-war protestors vandalized House members' offices, including throwing red paint on a sign that read, "Support the Troops."

- Anti-war protestors burned an American soldier in effigy, chanting, "Bye-bye GI...In Iraq, you're gonna die."

- Before President Bush's State of the Union Address this year, vandals spraypainted graffiti on the Capitol Building, claiming it as "the people's house."

- Liberal posters on The Huffington Post have posted death threats against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow.

- Bill Maher suggested that more people would be alive if Dick Cheney were killed.

- People who believe global warming is caused by man have called skeptics of their arguments "global warming deniers" and compared them to Holocaust deniers.

- At an anti-war protest held in Washington, DC, on March 17th, anti-war protestors were seen vandalizing federal property and pushing and insulting people who were there to protect the Vietnam War Memorial from vandalism attempts.

- Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele had Oreos thrown at him because he was an African-American Republican. He also had his credit report pulled illegally by Democrats.

- Editorial cartoonists have portrayed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with exaggerated features designed to demean her race and her personally.

And all of these (and many more I didn't mention) have occurred within the past six months or so. This is not to say there aren't hateful people on the right, but an honest assessment of the current state of affairs shows the majority of the hate and negativity has come from the left, not the right.

Whether it's lame attempts at civil disobedience like throwing pies at Ann Coulter or criminal activites like trying to run over Katherine Harris when she ran for the House of Representatives in 2002, the left tries to justify all of its activities under the auspices of dissent. There is a fine line between legitimate dissent and criminal activity, though. Marching or speaking at an anti-war protest in and of itself isn't a reason for the police to keep tabs on you. When you step beyond peaceful assembly and into what would normally be considered criminal activity, it's no longer legitimate dissent; it's criminal activity!

It's past time we stop considering what the angry left does in the name of dissent to be justifiable. It's little more than a violent temper tantrum that always has the threat of being physically violent. And these goofs preach to us about diversity and compassion?