Thugs
Jesus. First Joe Smith’s security team “arrests” a persistent journalist trying to ask the candidate tough questions. But now, we have people working for the Rand Paul campaign–not just random supporters–tackling a woman who disagreed with the candidate and did nothing more than approach with a sign, pinning her to the ground, and then stomping on her head and neck. Not an exaggeration:
You will note that (a) she never seemed to get within 20 feet of the candidate, maybe not even that close; (b) did nothing illegal or threatening–she just walked up with a satirical sign, and (c) people started getting hysterical, a guy screaming, “WHERE ARE THE POLICE AT??? GET THE POLICE OUT HERE!!! GET THE COPS!!!, someone tearing off her wig, as another guy in a campaign t-shirt helps tackle her, and while she is pinned to the ground, very carefully and intentionally put his foot over her head and neck, then stomped down.
The guy doing the stomping probably would have continued if not for one person–just one in the mob–thought head-stomping was a bit too much, and said, ”No no no no no no, come on.“
All they were missing were jack boots. I mean, Christ–if I had been that woman, I would have been terrified.
This wasn’t accidental bumping. This wasn’t responding to a security threat. This wasn’t in any way, shape, or form justified or justifiable. The woman had exactly as much right to be there unmolested as anyone else. Grabbing her and tackling her by themselves was unforgivably illegal assault, even without the head-stomping.
I wrote the above last night, and more information has come out. The guy who stomped on the woman’s head is indeed an official Rand Paul campaign worker, a guy named Tim Profitt, the campaign’s county coordinator and someone whose endorsement was touted in a full-page newspaper ad for the campaign. The guy, ironically, was wearing a button reading ”Don’t Tread on Me“ (apparently it’s OK the other way around). Profitt ”apologized“ for it, citing concern for Paul’s ”safety“–but that was belied by the fact that they knew exactly who the woman was and what she was trying to do. This was not some mysterious stranger breaking through the crowd, but someone they had earlier identified and tried to block off purely because they knew she wanted to criticize Paul publicly. Safety, my ass.
You have right-wingers not only carrying provocative signs inciting violence, but carrying assault rifles outside Obama events, and they go unmolested–but a woman carrying a fake oversized check to make a political point gets head-stomped. Maybe she should have brought the assault rifle.
Now, had it simply been a unsupported claim of physical assault, it would be open for skepticism on the way it was reported–like soccer players, such people often fake or wildly exaggerate assault-victim stuff, or honestly mistake normal crowd contact for assault. Someone claiming ”They stomped on my head!“ without support is easy to doubt. However, this was caught directly on tape.
Take as a contrary example the story of a guy named Randy Arthur, who in early August , 2009 (amid the summer Tea Party frenzy to disrupt Democratic town hall meetings) got his shirt ripped and his chest scratched, supposedly when he was ”slammed into a wall“ by overzealous security guards (not campaign workers) for a town hall meeting featuring Democratic Representative Kathy Castor in Florida. It was one of those meetings overrun by bused-in Tea Party people who were chanting, screaming, and otherwise shutting down any chance at clear communication. In this case, the exact scuffle was not caught on tape, making it impossible to see how much was unjustifiable and how much was Arthur himself scuffling–videos of the event clearly show an extremely hostile crowd, and Arthur admits trying to hold a door open as security was trying to close them to maintain fire marshal codes in the already-overcrowded auditorium.
Similarly for the story of Kenneth Gladney, a star in right wing circles–a man allegedly ”beaten“ by left-wing SEIU union thugs. They have video, they claim–except that the video starts with the union guy who supposedly caused him numerous grave injuries on the ground, and Gladney standing nearby; the ”assault“ shown is Gladney being pulled off the union guy and falling down as a result. Not only does Gladney appear completely unhurt, popping up off the ground and walking around like nothing is wrong, but the union guy shows injury, holding a hurt shoulder. A few days later Gladney is carted out in a wheelchair at right-wing events, as if he was beaten to within an inch of his life, to hear right-wingers repeat the tale.
No, the Rand Paul event incident was as clear-cut as it gets. It doesn’t matter if the woman who was stomped suffered injuries or not; the treatment she received at the hands of campaign workers is unjustifiable and inexplicable. The people involved in these movements all too often come across as violent, arrogant, self-righteous thugs who rail at others allegedly oppressing them, but all too willing to lash out at others.
Yup. This is idiot Red State America.
His wife, also a Paul donor, is a county employee, hypocritically enough. I wonder how this thug came to be retired at his age. Ex-military or police? A “disability” early retirement wouldn’t surprise me.
Maybe this will be Paul’s “Maccaca” moment. His opponent is a pretty solidly qualified and well-spoken Democrat from what I’ve seen (state AG).
All these idiots wanting “less government” either don’t understand that the opposite of “government” is “privilege” — that’s what the latin roots are, ‘private’+’law’ —
“a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people”
or they think they’re the ones who’ll get to do the stomping, like how it was back in the good ol’ days when the rich ran everything as their fiefs.
Kentucky has its history of labor organizing strife and company towns. The SE third is some pretty rough hill country. My family emigrated from WVA in the late 19th century to escape that life because those hills can’t provide much.
Of course, Kentucky is right up there in the “Red State Welfare” department — $1.50 of Federal bennies for every tax dollar sent.
“Kentucky Stomper: I Stomped Because Of Back Pain”
LOL. I smelled this guy a mile away. Medical retirement from the police I bet.
Back pain my @ss. That was full fledged hatred and looked like he would have continued had the other guy not pulled in and waved him to stop.
I recently had my vehicle drop through a sink hole (with me driving it). The accident compressed my spine a bit. My day job is heavy industrial manufacturing plus overtime. I have back pain; there was no way in hell that reaction was caused by back pain or a pain induced spasm. That was hatred pure and simple.
Hachi:
First, ouch. I have a herniated disk and that’s bad enough–you take care of that. Sounds bad.
I think his claim was that had his back not been hurt, he would have bent over and helped pin her down. Still BS, of course–two heavyset men were already pinning her and she was not struggling–she just went passive as soon as she hit the ground. [Edit: upon review, she not only went into the fetal position on the ground, but she was almost in one for a while before they even pinned her to the ground. The very picture of surrender and non-aggression.] Had she been a burly, 6-foot-tall man on PCP and freaking out, his help might have been needed. But you are spot on in your reaction to what he did: it was just vile hatred. You could see it as he pointed at her after he was waved off, whatever epithet he spat with the gesture lost in the noise of the fracas. But just the fact that he stopped when he was waved off showed at least that he understood at the time that he had done something wrong–else he would have continued. But he certainly was not repentant.
I looked back at the town hall where the Randy Arthur incident happened, and like most others of the time, it was the same thing: an angry mob. These people were not in the least about getting their point across, they simply wanted to shut down the opposition. They weren’t responding to anything said, they just came to scream so loud that no one else could be heard. But they were pretty damned scary about it–shouting, chanting, pushing, shoving–just aggressiveness through and through. Angry, fearful, hateful emotion in overbearing crowds. In short, as mentioned above, a mob.