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Politics : Ask Michael Burke
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To: Bilow who wrote (85872)11/25/2000 4:18:03 PM
From: George Acton  Read Replies (1) of 132070
 
>> Republicans using physical violence and intimidation? Hardly likely in a strongly Democratic county. More likely is that some guys put a stunt on for the benefit of the TV cameras. If there was a real riot, the (democratic) authorities would have called in the police and made mass arrests. <<

The tense and mood of your comments suggest that you are writing from within some kind of time warp. On the planet where I happen to reside, physical violence and intimidation have been described in the media and amply documented with sound recordings and photographic images. The incident was celebrated in the WSJ (the op-ed pages, not the sane part) as a "bourgeoise riot". In passing, I note that this seems to be one of the few remaining venues on the continent where Marxist social-class theory is still vibrant.

I am also mystified by the significance of its being a "Democratic county". Are Democratic counties organized down to the block level with cells of counter-demonstrators and militias prepared to retaliate for Republican violence? For decades, this parish (county) had a majority African-American population. It is not a correct conclusion that lynchings never occurred.

We have certainly had worse violence in connection with elections. Nonetheless, it is an easily identified threshold, and a bad one. As long as the pushing and shoving is confined to words, we can say the system is working to resolving the conflict in a way that maintains respect for law. A shouting mob invading a public building to disrupt an important meeting indicates a qualitatively different approach to conflict resolution.
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