The New Political Violence

[Swede]

There are a few seeds of similar unrest evident today. The country is awash in twisted conspiracy theories about the nation’s first African-American president. During last year’s campaign, a handful of individuals appeared at rallies claiming that then-Sen. Barack Obama was a Muslim terrorist who would ruin America. Obama’s assertion of a bold agenda, at a time of great economic crisis, has further inflamed anti-government anger—evident at Tea Party rallies across the country. In a handful of cases, the anger has sparked acts of vandalism and, with the enactment of Obama's health-care overhaul, threats to the safety of elected officials.

The understandable worry of the moment is that extremism will find a way to triumph -- transforming essentially political debates about health reform and the federal debt into violent acts committed by lone nuts against largely liberal officeholders. It's worth recalling, though, that the country overcame even the most tragic spasms of violence of that earlier era—and that despite the string of vicious actions that marked the 50S AND 60S, the threat to our politics and our way of life was somewhat overblown.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-09/the-new-political-violence/?cid=hp:mainpromo2