The cycle of obnoxious violence from some of Senator Kerry supporters — especially union workers — continues. John Fund, of WSJ’s Opinionjournal.com nicely [url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110005741]tallies recent occurences[/url] across the country and one other incident he did not mention can be found in another post of mine where I wrote of another occurence where a Bush/Cheney 2004 [url=http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/17/224350.php]sign was torn from the hands of a four-year-old girl [/url]and ripped to shreds at a Kerry rally.

John Fund also does not mention any of the several attempts in NYC to disrupt the Republican National Convention. One partisan tried to rush the Vice President, others tried to scream out messages to drown out speakers, convention delegates were harrassed going in and out of their hotels and at restaraunts, etc.

By themselves, these situations could be labelled a nuisance. Together, these incidents show a rising level of thuggery on the part of liberal partisans as well as a coordinated effort, in some cases, to disrupt the democratic process in America.

And while Kerry, Edwards, McAullife, and other DNC leaders employ scare tactics to incite their base to vote in the upcoming election by spinning tales of Republican efforts to disenfranchise them, their operatives are working across the nation to disenfranchise anyone who would vote for someone other than Kerry. The latest disturbing trend, as highlighted by Fund, is a wave of break-ins which have occurred at GOP Campaign offices throughout the country.

During these break-ins, several volunteers have been assaulted and injured. At one Kerry rally, a [url=http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/17/224350.php]four-year-old girl was assaulted[/url] by a union member. In one of the GOP Campaign offices in Florida, a group of union workers forced their way into the office, resulting in a broken wrist for one of the volunteers.

Additionally, a GOP Campaign office in tenessee had it’s windows shot out one morning, an office in Ohio was burglarized and laptop computers stolen, and one campaign office director in Florida locked herself in her office and frantically dialed 911 when her office was broken into. Now, for me, the question is, if Afghanistan could carry out peaceful elections in their war-torn country, why can’t we? Perhaps the Afghanis should be looking down their noses at us rather than Kerry/Edwards and company looking down on the Afghanis.

And the true irony here is that all of this is a near-exact parallel to the 2000 Florida recount where Gore first chose to challenge the certified results of the election in court, continually stated his sincere desire to have “every vote counted” and warned of Republican efforts to “disenfranchise” Florida voters, then then sent his operatives across the state to disqualify hundreds, if not thousands, of absentee ballots on technicalities. Absentee ballots were targeted, of course, because they were thought to be pro-Bush military votes.

But there’s a larger worry for me than even this latest and greatest DNC campaign of thuggery… Where might this increasingly agressive behaviour lead?

There is no doubt AT ALL that Kerry and company are inciting anger and outrage in their base in the hopes of getting them to the polls on November 2. When Kerry, Edwards, McAuliffe, and other party leaders continually insist that President Bush “stole” the election, is an “illegitimate” President, is seeking to actively disenfranchise voters, “lied to the American people,” sent our family and friends off to die for nothing, etc., etc., they are trying to get their supporters ANGRY.

Now, if you’re a football team, fine. You can at least, in that case, go out on the field and take out your aggression on the opposing team.

But, as a leader hoping to become President, this has consequences that go far beyond getting people to the polls. And we see those consequences manifest in the thuggish behaviour of Democratic partisans today.

But what happens if Kerry loses the election, or if it LOOKS as if he’s poised to lose? Will that anger just go away, will it intensify, or will it channel itself in some other direction?

The fact is this; anger leads to more anger, and then hatred, then, unfortunately, to regrettable actions. We’ve already seen some violence, but, if this cycle continues unabated, and Kerry winds up losing the election, will there be worse violence than we’ve seen already?

I think so, and I’m very worried about it.

I’m worried that the next step in this cycle of violence is the burning of campaign offices, open assaults on campaign workers who might, for instance, be out distributing flyers, and even deaths; accidental or otherwise. If you get someone angry enough, bad things happen. Well, guess what? DNC leaders have succeeded in getting their people angry, and bad things have already happened.

I realize that there are times when it’s appropriate to be angry, and to want justice, but what DNC leaders are pushing right now is the kind of anger that can quickly burn out of control, causing unintended damage. It’s already causing damage to the democratic system in this country, and that’s bad enough.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com