They've Got To Be Carefully Taught

[This post will be updated periodically as I find additional quotes from Republican leaders and their apparatchiks.  I think it's important to maintain a repository of this Republican track record.]

Wondering where the "Liberal Hunting License" mentality could come from, and why people think that's OK?

Courtesy of William Rivers Pitt:

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus - living fossils - so we will never forget what these people stood for."

        - Rush Limbaugh, Denver Post, 12-29-95

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"Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans."

        - Rep. Don Young (R-AK), Alaska Public Radio, 08-19-96

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"Get rid of the guy. Impeach him, censure him, assassinate him."

        - Rep. James Hansen (R-UT), talking about President Clinton, as reported by journalist Steve Miner of KSUB radio who overheard his conversation, 11-01-98

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"We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs."

        - Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), Mother Jones, 08-95

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"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

        - Ann Coulter, New York Observer, 08-26-02

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"Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past - I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble - recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an 'enemy of the people.' The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, 'clan liability.' In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished 'to the ninth degree': that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed."

        - John Derbyshire, National Review, 02-15-01

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"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."     

        - Ann Coulter, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, 02-26-02

And then:

"This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today."

         - Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay, Statement regarding Terry Schiavo, 3/31/2005

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"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. . . . And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence."

        - Senator John Cornyn (R - Texas), April 4, 2005

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"Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don't go around peeing on the furniture and such."

        - Grover Norquist, Republican Leader of the K-Street Project, November 4, 2004

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"Let me put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America's men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

        - Karl Rove, Political Advisor to George W. Bush, June 22, 2005

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"Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care, couldn't care less."

        - Bill O'Reilly, June 20, 2005

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"While our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line each day to defend our safety and to protect our freedoms, I am sure the least they expect is the backing and the support of their leaders at home.  To the contrary, what we've seen from Democrat leaders is a growing pattern of jumping at any chance to point the finger at our own troops, bending over backwards to promote the interests of terror-camp detainees while dragging our military's honored reputation through the mud."

        - Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), chair of the House Republican Conference, June 23, 2005

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"[It] is just inconceivable and truly incorrigible that in the midst of the war, that the Democratic leaders would be conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops. ... [The Pelosi/Waxman proposal for an independent commission to investigate conditions at Guantanamo Bay is] simply another example of some Democrat leaders trusting the words of terrorists over the proven decency of U.S. troops."

        - Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), June 23, 2005

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"The Republican leadership priority is to have our troops hunt down, kill or capture terrorists before they try to attack us again at home. The Democratic leadership priority is to actively engage in the politics of division and distraction that can undermine our national security in favor of a left-wing agenda."

        - Ron Bonjean, Spokesman, Republican House Leader Dennist Hastert, June 23, 2005

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"And I think people like Tim Russert and the others, who gave [Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV]  such a free ride and all the media, they're the ones to be shot, not Karl Rove."

        - Rep. Peter King (R-3rd Dist. NY), Scarborough Country, July 12, 2005

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"Wouldn't it be great if anybody who speaks out against this country, to kick them out of the country? Anybody that threatens this country, kick 'em out. We'd get rid of Michael Moore, we'd get rid of half the Democratic Party if we would just import that law. That would be fabulous. The Supreme Court ought to look into this. Absolutely brilliant idea out there."

       - Rush Limbaugh, August 11, 2005

Comparing liberals and Democrats to animals.  Calling them traitors.  Metaphorical violence.  Apologia for real violence.  I can't imagine where we've seen that before. And I certainly can't imagine how that sort of thing from Republican political leaders and their apparatchiks could possibly lead to the Liberal Hunting License mentality.

[Hat Tip:  Moment of Triumph for many of the more recent quotes.]

Comments

[ryan]

I think it's due to their polemic/binary thinking - a basic/deep flaw in American culture. If I believe in an absolute good and an absolute evil, then decide I am good, then everything and everyone that doesn't agree with me is evil. We all watch sports and learn to cheer our team and hate the other... well, that's training all our brains to apply that thinking to other races, sexes, religions, and, if we're belligerent enough, other ideas.

[Azbob]

i have been a closet cynic my whole life. I am now born full of tremendous hatred and scorn. I am the looniest of the loonies now. It seems that we are in bed with those with whom we oppose. WAKE UP people, you are in the midst of the greatest scam ever perpetuated upon people. Ah, shit, go shop at Walmart and I will continue to live in my cave...

[Ian Welsh]

Very nice collection Paper. You gonna cross-post it, or do I have to? ;)

[Scaramouche]

If you want more of this trash talking check out Rush Limbugh's Top 50 Bumper Stickers

[iocaste]

Boston Globe:

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said the high court is so out of control, it needs a constitutional amendment to say that ‘‘unless a judicial vote is unanimous, you cannot overturn a law created by Congress.’’ In a story in Newsday, Donohue said, ‘‘I’m going to try to do my job to intimidate the Senate Judiciary Committee so they do their job more carefully.’’ Asked by Newsday if he really meant to use the word intimidate, he answered, ‘‘Absolutely.’’

[Ben Jones]

So John Derbyshire is openly Stalinist. Who knew?

[Ted Barlow]

Thanks, paperwight, I'll have to save this link.

[dru]

"Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don't go around peeing on the furniture and such."

- Grover Norquist, Republican Leader of the K-Street Project, November 4, 2004

And here I thought Norquist was a nut. Nope, he's accurately describing most of today's Dems.

[Lex]

Why do the Republicans hate America?

[snuh]

yeah, they're all pretty bad, but hats off to derbyshire for managing nevertheless to distinguish himself:

"now, on principal, i'm not a nazi. but wow, those nazis sure were awesome!"

[The roots of racism]

[Text removed for inexcusable incoherence. --PW]