The following video was shot before the attack on Steven Crowder in Lansing last Tuesday. If you want to “selectively edit” it yourself, you can skip to the 1:10 mark. That’s where Tony the Union Goon, the attacker whose last name is still unknown, first appears:

Now, whether you think it’s worthwhile to try debating with these guys — I tend to think not — that’s all Crowder was doing. He was expressing his opinion about Right to Work, and trying to get somebody to actually engage the argument instead of deflecting and threatening and namecalling. He wasn’t inciting anyone, unless you’re so thinskinned and unsure of your own beliefs that simple disagreement is a threat.

But Tony the Union Goon didn’t see it that way, as witnessed at the 3:00 mark. Crowder was posing for a picture with somebody, Tony waved his sign in front of the camera, and Crowder told him to stop. So of course, Tony the Union Goon calmly and logically retorted: “Don’t f*** with me. You’re a f***in’ idiot! You’re a rat son of a bitch!”

Which one was the provocateur? Crowder, merely for existing in a space where he had every right to be, no matter how unwelcome he was? Or Tony the Union Goon, for deliberately harassing Crowder and then cursing him out for saying something about it?

And then, a little later, this happened:

To our friends on the left: After witnessing these two incidents in sequence, do you still think Crowder is to blame for the whole thing? If so, why? Are you able to explain your reasoning, for lack of a better word, in English that’s simple enough for us dumb teabaggers to understand?

Of course, no matter how much evidence is produced, it won’t stop the palace guard — AKA the mainstream media and the left-wing blogs they rely on for information — from trying to blame Crowder. Ignoring it didn’t work, and it makes unions look bad, and they can’t have that. So they’re trying to claim Crowder “selectively edited” his video of the attack, because the shot starts off with Tony the Union Goon picking himself up off the ground. Some of our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters are insinuating that Crowder put the guy there, while others are saying it outright.

Just one problem with this brilliant theory: As Dana Loesch notes, Crowder had his back turned to the guy until just before the attack. Loesch goes through it frame by frame, and you can see it yourself at the 38-second mark in the above video. I’d really like one of these instant forensic video experts to explain how you can knock a guy down with your back to him.

And here’s Crowder a split-second before the first punch:

Does Crowder look like the aggressor here? Really?

By the way, if your response to all this is that Crowder got what was coming to him for daring to walk into a crowd of union guys, I hope you realize how poorly that reflects on unions. And please let us know if that extends to everybody in that tent, which those union thugs tore down right on top of them. And to Clint Tarver, who was just giving away hotdogs and was called the n-word and had his property destroyed for it. Presumably they all had it coming too, right?

Liberals and the media (PTR) will do whatever they can to avoid talking about the real story here: union violence. Just as they did with all the “mostly peaceful” Occupy violence. If they can’t ignore it or downplay it, they’ll come up with a way to blame the wronged party. The narrative must be preserved at all costs.

Four more years.

Update: From last night:

Right now I have a former police officer, heavily armed at my house protecting my wife. The threats are severe. Prayers appreciated.

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) December 14, 2012

Update: Crowder files complaint with Michigan state troopers.

Update: Union supporter to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder: “We’ll be at your daughter’s soccer game!”