Violence advocated by persons in authority positions. This is one of my hot buttons. This includes teachers bullying students, law enforcement officers who think it is OK to beat up people they arrest even if they are not resisting, and other such horrors.
It is wrong.
The spokesperson for Rep. Nan Hayworth is Jay Townsend and they are members of the Republican Party. There are people in Rep. Hayworth’s district who have a Facebook (FB) page where they discuss issues happening in their district (NY-19). The FB post of 25 May concerned the price of gasoline and who was to credit or blame [http://www.facebook.com/NY19CDC/posts/419354794763507]. While I thought the post jocular in tone, apparently Mr. Townsend thought otherwise, as he immediately (the 2nd comment) began attacking the President with some rather spurious comments. One of the commenters disagreed and stood up for the President.
At this point Jay Townsend personally attacked the commenter, blew a bunch of smoke that had nothing to do with the conversation, and ended with this,
“Let’s hurl some acid at those female democratic Senators who won’t abide the mandates they want to impose on the private sector.”
It had nothing to do with the price of gas or anything happening in the district. Folks wanted to know where he was going with this line of thinking and asked, but all specific questions to him went unanswered, though he kept posting more nastiness until the moderator threatened to ban him. Eventually, he just stopped posting.
I won’t post here on all the articles concerning this abuse of power, but if you put “Jay Townsend acid” in a Google search, you should get most of them. As of 5:00 p.m. Pacific time today (1 June), these things are true:
- Jay Townsend is not commenting on his statement about attacking women with acid.
- Rep. Nan Hayworth is not commenting on Mr. Townsend’s statement concerning attacking women with acid.
- Rep. Nan Hayworth has not fired her spokesperson.
- The Republican leadership has not censured either of them.
Short of being in a hand-to-hand struggle to save one’s life, I can think of no justification for ever throwing acid on another person.
Ever.
It is wrong.
And inciting others to do it for you is even worse.
Thanks to Ms Juanita Jean and the girls at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc. for bringing this to my attention.