Political Mud Slinging

Sometimes it is best to sit back and watch as news breaks, particularly where atrocities and terrorism are concerned. With the coming of twenty four hour media, there has been a greater tendency to jump to conclusions which later prove to be utterly wrong.

When the news of the dual attacks in Norway broke, the broadcast media, in their usual rush to appear important and ‘discuss’ matters, were quick to suggest the killings were the work of evil Islamists. Time, as we now understand, proved otherwise.

Yet, one thing which rarely changes, once Islamists have been ruled out, is the willingness of the Left to demonise the political Right. I was immediately struck by the similarity of reaction in leftist media to the atrocities performed by Anders Breivik and those carried out by Jared Lee Loughner in Tuscon in January. On both occasions, the Left were particularly quick to label the perpetrators as ‘right-wing extremists’, and thus tarnish millions of people by association.

In the very sad case of the Tuscon shootings, Loughner targeted the Democrat and House of Representatives member, Gabrielle Giffords at a local advice surgery. During the incident she suffered a severe gunshot wound to the head, while a local Judge and five bystanders, who were caught up in the shooting, died of their injuries.

Initial reports suggested that Giffords had been killed in the attack, though these statements were relatively quickly retracted when it became apparent she had survived, albeit in a critical condition. Yet it didn’t take long before the finger was pointed at the Right in the United States, especially the Tea party movement and its followers.

It was mainly brought to the fore by an outburst from the Democrat supporting local Sherriff, Clarence Dupnik, who said in an interview:

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

Later, Sherriff Dupnik retracted his initial statement, saying that his investigation had not yet found such evidence. But it was all too late – the damage was already done. This spark lit the touchpaper and a predictable Left-wing witch hunt began in earnest.

It was those Tea party fascists wot dun it, screamed Jane Fonda on her Twitter account within mere hours of the incident. She managed to blame Sarah Palin and radio host Glenn Beck for good measure too, while Paul Krugman in The New York Times darkly suggested a nefarious Tea party conspiracy and assassination attempt.

Eventually it became apparent Loughner was neither right-wing nor a supporter of the Tea party, but such facts didn’t get in the way of the Left blaming the Tea party and Republicans for stirring up anger and resentment by using ‘violent’ political rhetoric and symbolism.

A similar process of events have now taken place in Norway. Once it became very clear that Breivik was the murderer, and his so called manifesto had been discovered on the internet, another witch hunt and mass pillorying of the Right began again.

The Guardian’s Seumas Milne took the time to link some arguments Breivik made in his manifesto to the ‘staple themes’ of conservative newspapers, commentators and websites in this country, saying:

The continuum between the poisonous nonsense commonplace in the mainstream media in recent years, the street slogans of groups like the EDL and Breivik’s outpourings is unmistakable.

Right-wingers are all the same and to be viewed with equal levels of suspicion and mistrust. Melanie Phillips was smeared for the heinous crime of being quoted by Breivik, and BBC journos have obsessively pursued the line of investigation that there were solid links between Breivik and ‘right-wing’ groups in Britain. Yet, despite the repeated statements from officials and Ministers in Norway, the BBC hasn’t given up, believing a connection to be only a matter of time.

More worrying still, as Autonomous Mind uncovers, is the threat to our liberties from the European Union. As is usual, the EU are attempting to turn a disaster into a beneficial crisis involving a further transfer of powers and integration. What is more, they are to begin development of an EU network in order to ‘monitor the growth of the radicalisation of discourse on the internet’:

It is frightening that the EU, with its goal of eradicating the nation state, will be deciding whether its opponents are too radical, whether their views can therefore be shared on the internet, and will define what constitutes xenophobia and whether that should be punished – all backed by European courts and European arrest warrants.

Whether or not such a network will be built and succeed in its goals is another matter. But that the EU should even be considering such plans is deeply disturbing. No doubt those same people on the Left who have smeared the Right by association with Breivik will be full of praise for the new EU radicalisation network. This is how freedom can die, in the pursuit of security – of which, in the end, we shall have neither.

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