Why Leftists Are Far Likelier to Use Political Violence Than Conservatives

Why Leftists Are Far Likelier to Use Political Violence Than Conservatives
By Kelly O'Connell Sunday, January 16, 2011

Tea Party members are violently ignorant, racist rednecks, hell-bent on revenge! Isn’t that the media’s unvarnished opinion? And if anyone were to use a weapon for a political crime, it would be—by default—a person from the right side of the aisle. Correct? This is true because modern liberals are the holders of humanity’s precious, dwindling stock of peace loving common sense and love for homo sapiens. While it is the idiotically reactionary Conservatives who need to act out their violent fantasies. Bill Maher recently claimed Conservatives think—“Wouldn’t it be fun to kill the people who disagree with us?‚”

Murders by the mentally deranged shooter of an Arizona congresswoman, a federal judge, and other ill-fated bystanders were instantly attributed to Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. This leap to judgment was horrifically mistaken. Killer Jared Loughner turned out to be an insane, leftist pothead, a registered independent who did not listen to the radio. But of course, the accusers refused to apologize for slander. So we are left to ponder why liberals get to assume the worst about their foes, and feel free to announce it, when history teaches us otherwise? Ironically, if anyone is violent, it is most likely will be a leftist. Why this is true, with proof of the thesis, is discussed in this article.
I Ideology: Conservative v. Liberal

The background of this topic is the belief systems of Conservatives versus Modern Liberals. Consider the following demarcations.
A. Modern Liberalism, aka Socialism

What is fashionably called “liberalism‚” today is not what the term originally meant 150 years ago, when it was used to describe the philosophy of freedom. The Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment all influenced the creation of original liberal theory. For example, the Founding Fathers were all political liberals and the writing of the Declaration and Constitution were the high points of the ideas of political liberalism. But at the turn of last century, socialists began referring to themselves as “liberals‚” and they poisoned the term from its original meaning, allowing leftists to exclusively adopt the term.

Socialist theory began in earnest in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Communism, Marxism, and anarchism all come from the same socialist root. Marx claimed his theory’s first stage was socialism, where all capitalist production is controlled by the state. Then comes communism, where private property is abolished by an all-powerful government. Finally, this phase is supplanted by anarchy. “Anarchism is the political belief that society should have no government, laws, police, or other authority, but should be a free association of all its members.‚” And violence was extolled by many socialist writers to help achieve their goals.

Socialist icon and Marx contemporary, Michael Bakunin, illustrates leftist morality in his Catechism of a Revolutionist:

The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion - the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose - to destroy it.

B. Conservatism, aka Classical Liberalism

Early writers of Classical Liberalism and the Enlightenment were fixated upon expanding freedoms in every conceivable arena. This was during the ending of the Renaissance, when the Reformation suddenly burst open doors closed by the Church for a thousand years.

The tenets of Classical Liberalism are listed by Amy Sturgis:

1. An ethical emphasis on the individual as a rights-bearer prior to the existence of any state, community, or society;
2. The support of the right of property carried to its economic conclusion, a free-market system;
3. The desire for a limited constitutional government to protect individuals’ rights from others and from its own expansion; and
4. The universal (global and ahistorical) applicability of these above convictions.

Real Conservatism is not a violent movement, even though it does espouse a strong military for defensive purposes. But it does so for defensive purposes. Further, while Conservatism supports the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, this is also done for self-defense. To say that a person who supports gun rights is therefore violent would be like saying a surgeon’s goal is to hurt people because he uses knives on them.

Overall, American Conservatism is fixated on our democratic constitutional republic, believing only by following a well-established Rule of Law can we all be safe. Further, freedoms also results from keeping government small and its powers trimmed so that citizens might maximize their own rights. Property is considered sacrosanct, which is the foundation of our capitalist system. So, needless to say, murdering politicians is not a Conservative value.
II American Political Assassins

For brevity, here is a list of America’s most highly successful political assassins, including the political affiliation of the four US presidential assassins.
A. John Wilkes Booth—Assassin of Pres. Lincoln

Booth (1838-1865) murdered Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 in Ford’s Theater. But Booth was not a modern Conservative. First, he was not a Republican, but a Democrat, of the “Copperhead variety,‚” aka “Peace Democrat.‚” He was a belligerent racist, a member of the Know-Nothing Party as a young man. This nativist group initially opposed immigration and religious liberty in America, and then naturally moved onto excoriating Lincoln’s politics, the Civil War, and especially Emancipation of Black slaves.

Booth originally planned on kidnapping Lincoln to trade him for Confederate prisoners of war. But he supposedly heard Lincoln speak on Emancipation and it so enraged him he changed his mind:

Upon this, Booth turned to the two of us and said, “That means ****** citizenship. Now by God I’ll put him through!‚”

The Know-Nothings favored State’s Rights not to create more freedom, but to take rights from Irish, German and Catholic immigrants, and Blacks.

According to author Jennifer L. Webber, in Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North, the war protestors of Lincoln’s time bear a shocking similarity to antiwar Democrats today. The following describes Lincoln’s “fire in the rear‚”:

Copperheads came perilously close to defeating Lincoln and ending the war in the South’s favor. Indeed, by the summer of 1864, they had grown so strong that Lincoln himself thought his defeat was “exceedingly likely.” Passionate defenders of civil liberties and states’ rights—and often virulent racists—the Copperheads deplored Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, his liberal interpretation of the Constitution, and, most vehemently, his moves toward emancipation.

The Conservative movement is not anti-war, or fundamentally racist. In fact, Republicans—the default Conservative political group—was started by Lincoln as the anti-slavery party. Further, Conservatives are not against immigration, but merely opposed to illegal entries. Third, Conservatives do not counsel deposing unpopular leaders by murdering them, as they believe in keeping the Rule of Law. Therefore, the Tea Party waited till the November 2010 election to express its peaceful protests.
A. Leon Frank Czolgosz—Assassin of Pres. McKinley

Anarchist Czolgosz (1873-1901) assassinated President William McKinley. He was heavily influenced by famed anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. Says one source,

“The attempt upon his life was not because he was William McKinley, but because he was President of the United States.‚” (The New York Times, September 7, 1901) Teddy Roosevelt, the Vice President agreed. According to writer Edmund Morris, in Roosevelt’s opinion “those bullets at Buffalo had been fired, not merely at a man, but at the very heart of the American Republic.‚”

Czolgosz is quoted

as saying, “I don’t believe in the Republican form of government and I don’t believe we should have any rulers. It is right to kill them.”

B. Charles Guiteau—Assassin of Pres. Garfield

Guiteau (1841-1882) assassinated U.S. President James A. Garfield on July 2, 1881. Guiteau was a self-trained lawyer considered likely insane from an early age, and suffered from extreme delusions. Guiteau was infatuated with John Humphrey Noyes teachings on Utopian socialism, and produced his own work plagiarized from Noye’s book. Noyes founded the infamous Oneida community, which Guiteau joined. This commune abolished traditional weddings for group marriage. In fact, it was Noyes who coined the term “Free Love.‚”
C. Lee Harvey Oswald—Assassin of Pres. Kennedy

The Communist Oswald (1939-1963) assassinated President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. The mentally disturbed Oswald, diagnosed with grandiose fantasies and a schizoid personality, trained as a Marine. But afterward decided to emigrate to the USSR, because of an abiding interest in Marxism. Writes one author,

Ever since he was handed a pamphlet about the Rosenberg prosecution at the age of 15, Oswald had sought out affiliations with political organizations, front groups and foreign nations that opposed the policies of the U.S. At 16, he wrote the Socialist Party “I am a Marxist and have been studying Socialist Principles for well over five years” and he requested information about joining their “Youth League.” He also attempted to persuade a friend to join the youth auxiliary of the Communist Party.

D. Sirhan Sirhan—Assassin of Bobby Kennedy

Leftist Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (b. 1944) murdered presidential candidate Robert “Bobby‚” Kennedy on June 5, 1968. The vociferously antisemitic Sirhan is said to have come under the influence of the Baath party, a French socialist movement, described thus: “Its main ideological objectives were secularism, socialism and pan-Arab unionism.‚” There are several explanations for why Sirhan killed Bobby Kennedy, perhaps not mutually exclusive. The first was anger of Kennedy’s support of Israel. Says one source,

Sirhan believed he was deliberately betrayed by Kennedy’s support for Israel in the June 1967 Six-Day War, which had begun exactly one year to the day before the assassination. He wrote, on May 18, 1968: “My determination to eliminate R.F.K. is becoming the more and more of an unshakable obsession…Kennedy must die before June 5th.”

Another writer claims Sirhan was acting at the behest of Palestinian terrorist leader Yassar Arafat.

Interestingly, Barack Obama’s mentor Bill Ayers, himself a violent leftist terrorist who tried to blow up Americansdedicated a book to Sirhan.
III Moving Beyond Defamation

It is intellectual apostasy to claim Conservative means the same as violent extremism without bothering to study the history. In fact, the opposite is true when one considers that all of last century’s Marxist revolutions were achieved by a minority in a bloody ascension. Also, remember 200 million innocents were killed by leftists like Mao and Stalin making liberalism the most violent and murderous belief system in history. The entire Inquisition killed 30,000 people, while Chairman Mao by himself murdered 77 million!

The reason leftists are willing to murder in the name of politics is because they normally do not believe in God, a hereafter, or even any classic definition of morality. So whatever is done, as long as it serves Marxism, it is good.

According to P.H. Vigor’s A Guide To Marxism, since religion cannot deliver any sense of morality, it is up to humanism to create standards. But, as Virgor notes,

Moreover, in any discussion involving ethics or morality, the fundamental point for a Marxist is that there is no such thing as an absolute Right and Wrong. Right and Wrong are relative for a Marxist: a thing which is wrong at one time, and in one set of circumstances, will be right in another…It is therefore simply not possible to settle an argument with them by reference to ethical principles—by saying, for instance, that the consequence of a particular policy would be murder, and you cannot commit murder. From a Marxist standpoint, you can—in certain circumstances

The point here cannot be made too vigorously. There is no moral center found in socialism, Marxism, anarchism, or communism, as we discover in the Bible’s Ten Commandments. There is therefore no such thing as absolute wrong or right action to a true leftist. So,where resistance to Marxism is encountered, a sincere leftist always has the option of picking up a weapon to further his “liberalism.” In fact, virtually every Marxist revolution has involved murderous attacks to gain power.. And this is why leftists will always be infinitely more dangerous than Conservatives.


Kelly O'Connell Bio
Kelly O'Connell Most recent columns

Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico.

Kelly can be reached at: hibernian1@gmail.com