Finley blames the victims

Nolan Finley has a column in the Detroit News about the recent spate of violent threats toward Democratic politicians who supported health care reform, including Reps. Bart Stupak and Mark Schauer of Michigan. And while he offers the usual rote condemnation of violence, he can’t resist blaming it on the victims because of their “deafness” to the complaints of those who engage in such rhetoric.

Democrats stubbornly refused to listen to the tremendous public outcry against their health care package. They attempted to minimize the protests and marginalize the protesters. But now that they’ve shoved the bill down America’s throat, they’re feigning shock — and even fear — at the vehemence of the backlash.

Though he does say that such threats are “a wholly unacceptable way to react to losing a political fight, and should be dealt with seriously by law enforcement agencies,” Finley then reverses that by claiming that Democrats are only “feigning” shock or fear at receiving such threats.

Finley apparently can’t imagine why Stupak would feel threatened by receiving a fax that said, “All Baby Killers come to unseemly ends Either by the hand of man or by the Hand of God.” Perhaps he should ask Dr. George Tiller, but he’ll have to settle for asking his family because Tiller was gunned down by an anti-abortion nut who thought he was acting as the hand of God too.

Or he could ask the families of the three Pittsburgh police officers who were killed by Richard Poplawski, a right-wing extremist who stockpiled a mountain of weapons to take on the oppressive government because he was afraid they were going to take his guns away.

There is violence on both left and right extremes in this country, from animal rights extremists who blow up research labs to racist groups that target minorities. But to pretend that any politician who fears such violence is merely feigning, especially when they are actually receiving those threats via fax, phone and email, is to play ostrich to ignore reality.

And Finley’s argument that this is all because Democrats “refused to listen” to the “outcry” of opponents of their policies and therefore brought on such threats themselves is patently irrational.

If members of the anti-war movement, which held massive protests against the war in Iraq that rival anything the tea partiers have done, had made death threats toward Republicans who supported the war, can you imagine him condemning the GOP for their “deafness” toward the public outcry and claiming that it was all predictable because they “rammed the war down the throats of the American people” despite those major protests?

Good luck finding such rationalizations on an issue on which he agrees with the person being threatened. Such arguments apply only to those he disagrees with.