As you might have heard, the good folks at Gawker are asking themselves: “Do We Really Have to Condemn the Union Protestor (sic) Who Punched Fox News Comedian Steven Crowder?”
To many, this attitude is surprising. Liberals are portrayed as nonviolent and peace-loving. And some of them are. But some on he left prefer an “ends-justify-the-means” mentality. And that seems to be on full display right now.
Gawker’s argument essentially boils down to this: Crowder was asking for it!
But that’s not the only argument being made to rationalize or justify the violence.
For example …
@daveweigel @schneider_cm @mattklewis that was very tame. Stealing from workers and workers literally fight back, r u surprised?
— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) December 11, 2012
* * *
@mattklewis Violence being committed against working families right now, but you can focus on a meaningless fist fight, bravo #ForestTrees
— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) December 11, 2012
In other words, the justification is that Right to Work laws constitute “stealing” from workers. And since stealing is a violent act?–the workers are within their rights to retaliate.
To be sure, these opinions are in the minority. But the fact that outlets and individuals feel proud to broadcast this sort of message should be alarming.
There’s also hypocrisy involved here. Would liberals condone violence if the situation were reversed? And how would the mainstream media handle it if a conservative political leader promised “There will be blood,” just before a beat-down occurred.