Civility

No doubt what happened to Timothy Burke was somehow the result of angry liberal bloggers:

He goes into reverse and starts screaming at me. I can’t really hear it except for a lot of f-bombs until he gets close. I yell back, “Why were you tailgating me like that? I was already going well over the speed limit!”

He’s now right in front of my driveway. Older guy–55? 60? Big walrus mustache, grey hair, relatively slight build, but kind of tough-looking.

“BECAUSE YOU’RE A FUCKING FAGGOT, FUCKER! YOU FUCK! I SHOULD HAVE FUCKING HIT YOU! I SHOULD HIT YOU NOW!” He goes on in that vein for a bit. [. . .]

I yell back when he stops for air, “What is your FUCKING problem? What did I do to you?”

He leans out to point at my car bumper. Which is entirely unadorned except for a Kerry-Edwards sticker from 2004.

“YOU FAGGOT YOU VOTED FOR THAT WAR CRIMINAL. I’M GOING TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU.” Guy is turning a shade of purple. I don’t think he’s just putting on a show. He actually sped up, nearly rammed with his car at high speed and is now seriously contemplating attacking me over a bumper sticker. I’m so astonished that I’m speechless. He looks at me, looks at the house, and I think he’s noticing that there’s another car there and therefore maybe someone who is going to call the cops if something happens. Plus, I’m thinking the same thing myself, and getting out my cell phone. Machismo be damned: we just entered psycho territory. He pulls away and speeds off, yelling all the while. I spend about ten minutes kind of trembling as the adrenaline drains away.

Meanwhile, the wingnutsphere is busy lying about the Frost family, showing up at their workplace, etc. in an effort to intimidate them.

Comments

If only we'd invaded Burma, somehow this tragedy could've been avoided.

max
['Instead, people will be voting for that war criminal Clinton.']

Posted by max | October 9, 2007 12:40 PM

A 60ish women in Colorado gave us the finger for having the temerity to display an Obama bumper sticker.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | October 9, 2007 12:47 PM

But you know, some liberal on the comments section of some blog somewhere once called a Republican a "prick," so both sides do it.

Posted by Doug-E-Fresh | October 9, 2007 12:52 PM

Surprise! Some crazy people hold political opinions! Some of them even blow stuff up!

Posted by Wilson | October 9, 2007 12:59 PM

To be fair, I once shouted a few obscenities while passing an old coot with a "Don't blame me, I voted for Jefferson Davis" bumper sticker. I leave neoconservatives alone. But neoconfederates really, really piss me off.

In my defense, this bastard was also driving 15 mph under the speed limit on a two lane highway. If you're going to promote slavery and treason, at least do it at full speed.

Burke's antagonist sounds like a real gem.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | October 9, 2007 1:00 PM

This summer at a restaurant in Franklin, Tennessee I overheard a gaggle of old white ladies discussing "Borack Obama." When his name was mentioned, one of them narrowed her eyes and hissed "devil man," which amused me greatly.

Posted by Dr. Victor Davis Handjob | October 9, 2007 1:02 PM

I won't display political bumperstickers, because I'm not that great a driver. What if I cut someone off or sit too long at a green light? People may take it out on the candidate I support.

Posted by M. Peachbush | October 9, 2007 1:05 PM

I always wonder about people like this. Does he go off like this every time he sees a bumper sticker he doesn't like? Wouldn't that happen literally every day? Has he spent his whole life doing this? Is he normally a calm guy, but was having a bad day, and a Kerry bumper sticker was the last straw?

Relatedly, I drove around Dallas with a Howard Dean bumper sticker on my car for about 8 months in 03-04. Never had a problem. In fact, quite the opposite - several times I got friendly smiles and/or waves from other motorists.

I took it off when I went on a road trip to Atlanta, though. Didn't want to push my luck driving through the Deep South with that thing displayed.

Posted by strannix | October 9, 2007 1:07 PM

Not to get melodramatic, but I think living under constant political tension is the wages of constant war-time tension and the alignment of political parties on purely ideological grounds. I'm sure everybody has a story of getting flipped off by someone with a Bush bumper sticker, and I'm sure a lot of people have given a dirty look or two to people who still have their Bush '04 sticker on their car.

Again, not to be melodramatic, but this is one of the hidden costs to the body politic during war-time, and perhaps the coarsening of interaction and hardening of hearts ought to be considered before rushing into wars...

Posted by P | October 9, 2007 1:07 PM

How lame. The guy didn't even try to run over Timothy Burke. Pathetic. A left-winger surely would have tried run over Burke, as a couple of years ago when a deranged left-winger tried to run over Katherine Harris.

But as I've always said, when it comes to being thugs, right wingers are mere cheap imitations of left-wingers, who can always be counted on to be REAL thugs.

Posted by Al | October 9, 2007 1:21 PM

A guy just called into the Kojo Nnamdi Show lamenting the politicization of the discussion of Blackwater and saying it's almost like things are more polarized here in the US than they are in Iraq. I'm glad he used said "almost", since we do seem to be a bit behind in the sectarian killings and suicide bombings here.

Posted by KCinDC | October 9, 2007 1:25 PM

However, I will say that I enjoy the Democrats highlighting a family that would rather live in a half-million dollar house than pay for health insurance for their children. Family values!

Posted by Al | October 9, 2007 1:29 PM

But as I've always said, when it comes to being thugs, right wingers are mere cheap imitations of left-wingers, who can always be counted on to be REAL thugs.

That made my day.

"Our thugs aren't as bad as your thugs!" he said, in triumph.

DU

Posted by The Mechanical Eye | October 9, 2007 1:36 PM

Ah, I see MattY is in full hack mode.

From this:

Sorry, no sale. The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man's job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it's incredibly tedious. And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you're welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets.

Here's just one example of something more organized than some nut getting upset over a bumper sticker:

findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200404/ai_n9357403

Here's another:

nysun.com/article/41020

And, the classic:

digitalsurvivors.com/archives/communistbodycount.php

Posted by TLB | October 9, 2007 1:37 PM

A half-million-dollar house for a family of six, you say? What unimaginable wealth! Wow, they must eat filet mignon every night and jet to Paris and Hawaii every weekend. Presumably they also wear tuxedos, ball gowns, pearls, top hats, and extravagant cigarette holders.

(I notice the wingnut talking point has officially changed $400,000 (originally bought at $55,000) to the magic "half-million".)

Posted by KCinDC | October 9, 2007 1:39 PM

Is Al serious? I can never tell. I don't always get irony when it's transmitted over the internet.

Posted by ANMIK | October 9, 2007 1:42 PM

Al, you are truly ridiculous. Yelling threats at a man in his driveway after having followed him is seriously wrong, as is driving your car around in a public space, not hitting anybody although disrupting free movement and creating a menacing atmosphere with a weapon (as a car certainly can be used). It would be unwise to do a catalog of every example of extralegal or illegal intimidation by the right and then compare it to those of the left. People up to no good have a great variety of political opinions, although I would say that the right, with its stronger ideological preference for violence, has a greater number of them.

Posted by Moral Panicker | October 9, 2007 1:42 PM

1) Attack with an automobile is considered assault with a deadly weapon by police. If someone tries it with them, they shoot/kill the driver.
It is a serious felony.
2) Surveillance equipment is very small nowdays. Carry a small video recorder, get the license plate and the perp will be in jail and his assets will be yours.
3) If you have any information, I would report the incident to the police. Given the heavy preponderance of surveillance cameras today, the incident may very well have been caught on tape somewhere --along with the guys' license plate.

4) If attacked in traffic -- and your life is in danger -- you can bounce the asshole into the trees with the PIT tactic. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIT_maneuver .
The video at the bottom shows it being applied.

5) Obviously, practicing things like PIT causes ..er.. wear and tear on the car. So unless you know an Avis rental agent with a sense of humor, I suggest you sign up for a course at BSR in Summit Point, West Virginia -- about two hours?? outside Washington DC. That's where "government employees" go to learn to drive. Unfortunately, they seem to be heavily overbooked at the moment. Maybe Blackwater will have some openings -- especially if Maliki throws them out of Iraq.

Posted by Don Williams | October 9, 2007 1:45 PM

The right wing is better armed on average, so I'm more concerned about their wackos.

Posted by KCinDC | October 9, 2007 1:45 PM

It's amazing how much more sympathy conservatives have for a small business owner and his family who want to own their home and send their children to good schools when he struggles to make ends mend because of high taxes, than when he struggles to make ends meet because of spiraling health insurance premiums, huge medical expenses, and the unwillingness of private insurers to carry children with pre-existing conditions.

The Horatio Alger tales downshift into vulgar Marxist outrage without missing a beat.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | October 9, 2007 1:49 PM

Why isn't Obama or Edwards or somebody at the Frosts, or on TV defending them against the idiots, or just explaining the need for SCHIP? I mean, we could have some great theater and politics here and maybe teach folks a thing or two as well.

Posted by David in NY | October 9, 2007 1:51 PM

A half-million-dollar house for a family of six, you say? What unimaginable wealth! Wow, they must eat filet mignon every night and jet to Paris and Hawaii every weekend. Presumably they also wear tuxedos, ball gowns, pearls, top hats, and extravagant cigarette holders.

I don't think a half-million house means jetting to Paris for the weekend. It most certainly does mean that the guy could afford health insurance if he cared about his children as much as his house.

(I notice the wingnut talking point has officially changed $400,000 (originally bought at $55,000) to the magic "half-million".)

You aren't following the story. The Frost's house is worth at least a half million. A smaller house (2000 sq ft, as opposed to the Frost's 3000 sq foot house) a couple of houses away in the subdivision sold for $485,000 recently.

Posted by Al | October 9, 2007 1:59 PM

As far as the Frost family goes TLB, it should be easy to make a distinction between criticizing the positions supported by the young boy and bothering him and his family. Furthermore, I would say that while "hiding behing identity and biography" can be "tedious," the Republicans do this too, except instead of being positive and relational (I believe what I believe because I am who I am), it is all attack (John Kerry as war criminal etc. etc.).

As for citing the human rights abuses of communism as an indictment of the American left-of-center, you are truly a clown, although I understand the last link was more rhetorical than evidentiary. The Karl Rove incident was very wrong as it involved a disruption of his privacy, although there was no threat of violence to Turd or the family Blossom. The incident at Columbia seems to have been a public protest of a public event that got carried away even if it did not amount to everything the NY Sun reports it as having done. Those incidents however were planned and were not an outgrowth of spontaneuous rage (although it is true, I don't know this guy. He may have just been having a really bad day and he almost certainly has deeper problems than his political affiliations.)
In conclusion, we should all just get along.

Posted by Moral Panicker | October 9, 2007 2:03 PM

I think it's really telling that conservatives like Al believe this family should have to sell their house to pay for health insurance. Surely he can't mean that it was an extravagant purchase in the first place, since it only cost $55,000 at the time.

There are two visions for America; both are valid. I don't happen to subscribe to the vision that says a family should have to sell their home because their kids were injured in a car accident, but Al has every right to do so. At the end of the day, we'll see which vision is more persuasive to the electorate.

Posted by Steve | October 9, 2007 2:05 PM

My liberal friends, this is what guns are for.

Posted by Xanthippas | October 9, 2007 2:05 PM

Al, we have no interest in the mold and filth such as yourself engaging in such an unhinged obsession with a working class family who played by the rules only to expose themselves to the stalkers and harassing nuts of the right. Now shut the hell up and leave them alone.

If they'd had been bankrupted by medical expenses, you'd have held them up as an example for why America needs to cap malpractice awards. You're almost pissed that their lives weren't ruined because of SCHIP. And you'd be doubly pissed if they retired without a nest egg, forcing them to depend 100% on social security. They did EVERYTHING you wanted them to, and you people do nothing put spit on them. And you'd spit on them no matter what they did, simply because you're a demented, angry human being. Families making 45k/yr can't win with you people.

Posted by Tyro | October 9, 2007 2:06 PM

I would like to emphasize that all Decent People Who Are Not Up to No Good should all just get along and stop worrying about what kinds of assets are moveable enough to be included calculating a family's wealth as far as affording health insurance goes or in accusing the other side of being full of crazies.

Posted by Moral Panicker | October 9, 2007 2:10 PM

I think it's really telling that conservatives like Al believe this family should have to sell their house to pay for health insurance. Surely he can't mean that it was an extravagant purchase in the first place, since it only cost $55,000 at the time.

I don't know why whether it was an "extravagant purchase" has anything to do with it. The issue is: they have plenty of assets to pay for health insurance - indeed, they have far more assets that I do. But they choose to leave their assets tied up in real estate (and remember that the Frosts also have the rental property, beside their large house), rather than pay for health insurance. That's a choice they are making. It's not like they can't pay for health insurance - they are choosing not to because they'd rather keep their real estate assets. That's fine, we're all free to do so (even though I think refusing to use your available assets to pay for health insurance is a really bad choice), but now they want me to subsidize that choice.

BTW, why can't they get a home equity loan to pay for the health insurance? If they bought the house for $55k sixteen years ago, it's not like they are carrying a huge mortgage already.

Posted by Al | October 9, 2007 2:17 PM

Does anyone remember Bob Dernier? He was a middling outfielder in the '80s who played for the Phillies and Cubs. He was a speed guy, usually batted lead-off I think. No great shakes, but hey - he played pro ball, which I never did.

Anyway, I have a Bob Dernier bat and, if this nutjob had followed me home, I would have loved to show it to him.

Posted by Woody Bombay | October 9, 2007 2:17 PM

But they choose to leave their assets tied up in real estate (and remember that the Frosts also have the rental property, beside their large house), rather than pay for health insurance.

Most people don't think of their home as a "real estate asset," to be freely liquidated whenever they might need some spare cash. That's another difference in the conservative perspective. "Come on, they could just sell their home!"

This debate is going to be a very, very revealing one for the American people. I'm glad conservatives couldn't help but dig into this family's personal finances, because an awful lot of voters are going to recognize their circumstances as entirely typical in this country.

Posted by Steve | October 9, 2007 2:22 PM

Al seems to be a bit dense.

See there's this thing going on in Baltimore called "gentrification".

It goes something like this:

A. You buy a house in the early 90's in a, oh let's say a center city, B'more neighborhood for around 50k. Your house, built is the mid-nineteenth century, does indeed come in at about 3,000 sq ft. It also sits cheek by jowl with abandoned row houses, open-air drug markets, incidents of property crime, every once in a while, a homicide,

B. You spend the next decade hoping like hell, the house maintains its value and the cops still show up when you call.

C. Cut to late 2000. The housing boom hits Baltimore City. Housing refugees from DC are snapping up houses, then gutting and renovating them at an incredible clip. Your nieghborhood gets a bit pricer, and a bit nicer. The cops, do indeed show up when someone breaks into your garage for the second time this month.

D. Late 2007: The boom starts to slow, houses linger on the market, nothing's moving. Lucky you, you live in a $400,000, with a property tax bill to match. (Baltimore City has the highest property taxes in the region.) You'd love to sell and move, but everything is now expensive (thanks DC transplants), oh and the mortgage lending market has collapsed.

And that's how that family could be living in that, oh so expensive house, and still not be able to afford health insurance.

Posted by Sharon | October 9, 2007 2:25 PM

Al, the fact remains that the family qualified for SCHIP under the rules. Many of these rules specifically discount unrealized fictious gains from a person's primary residence because those gains are ephemeral. Plus, you're not taking into account how much the house may have been worth at the time of the accident.

And this is precisely the problem with your anger at the Frost family-- you're upset that they did not face the full brunt of the economic consequences you feel they deserved, in part because suffering middle class families are a good way for Republicans to exploit fears of the electorate, and in part because you feel that others less fortunate than you should suffer in order to justify the decisions you made that made you more well off. It's the sort of anger and resentment, whipped up by the hate mongers of the right that caused the unhinged guy in a car to threaten the subject of the original post. Personally, I think your class resentment at a family for not suffering as much as you think they deserve is unwarranted and immoral. The fact that your iideological cohorts are now engaged in a full-out campaign of harassment and character assassination while they stand by the morally corrupt leaders on their own side (Rove, Rumsfeld, etc) is reprehensible.

Posted by Tyro | October 9, 2007 2:25 PM

Or, you could do the short form- the family can afford a $55k house- in a time when houses start at $200k.

Yup, let's all sell our houses so we can go to the doctor. Maybe he'll tell us that living under a bridge is bad for our health.

It's always the same story- the Repubs demand to be shown some actual person who is harmed by their policies, and then when you show them that person, the goons turn out in force.

Posted by serial catowner | October 9, 2007 3:06 PM

Gotta love Al's recommendation that families go into debt to pay for their health insurance. You know, Americans just aren't in enough debt already! And, then if they take that other great piece of advice to sell their house ... where are they going to live and how much is it going to cost them? I heard there's this weird thing that happens in real estate -- when your house appreciates, so does every other house!

Posted by Steve V | October 9, 2007 3:07 PM

I'm also loving the assumption that the family could now get private health insurance, at any price, with the pre-existing conditions their children suffer from.

The ironic thing (well, one of them anyway) is that if the Frosts had sold their property to pay their medical bills, they'd no doubt be dismissed as leeches and trailer park trash by the people who are decrying their "rich" lifestyle now.

Posted by Persia | October 9, 2007 3:19 PM

Al, what's happened to you? You used to be sort of clever, now you've become coarse. Stupid and ugly. Has the ongoing collapse of the Bush administration deranged you?

Posted by mq | October 9, 2007 3:26 PM

you're upset that they did not face the ... consequences you feel they deserved ... others less fortunate than you should suffer ... in order to justify the decisions you made that made you more well off ... not suffering as much as you think they deserve

Leaving aside the harassment of the boy and family, which is repulsive, I take issue with the idea expressed here that objecting to government help for this family is an indication of moralizing sadism. Speaking as someone whose net worth is probably a fifth of this family's, I'm boggled that a federal program partly funded by my tax dollars would effectively transfer money from my family to his. And that's not because I want him or his family to suffer, but because I generally want government redistribution of wealth to flow from richer to poorer and not the other way around.
I have to say that if this story has legs, I don't think it will play out to Democrat advantage. This family is a lousy poster child for the SCHIP program.

Posted by bbartlog | October 9, 2007 3:37 PM

bbartbog, speaking as someone who makes quite a bit more than the Frosts and realizes just how difficult it would be to raise a family of 6 on 45k/yr without benefits, I would say that the SCHIP program is working precisely as it was designed to.

What we're seeing from conservatives is resentment. What I think will happen, of course, is that conservaes will realize that demonizing a self-employed middle class white family that really exists is quite a bit more difficult than demonizing a mythological black "welfare queen."

There are a lot more middle class people who have trouble affording health insurance than there are right-wing activists acting out their resentments against a family who had a policy difference with the president. This story "has legs" in the sense that people with little clue or knowledge how real people live think that the story will have resonance (see Schiavo, Terri).

I've learned a few things, though: right-wingers have little idea about how insurance works and what it is, don't know how much health insurance costs, and have no experience running a small-indepedent businesses that brings in a modest income.

Posted by Tyro | October 9, 2007 3:50 PM

Speaking as someone whose net worth is probably a fifth of this family's, I'm boggled that a federal program partly funded by my tax dollars would effectively transfer money from my family to his.

Unless you, like Al, think they ought to sell their home because their kids were in an accident, then their "net worth" is pretty irrelevant.

They're trying to raise two kids on an income of $45,000 a year. If you make significantly more than them, and you're complaining about a "transfer of wealth" simply because their house is worth something, I don't think most people will agree with you that they ought to be selling their house to buy health insurance. And if you don't make significantly more than them, I'm not sure where your concern comes from at all, because they assuredly pay taxes just like you do.

I don't think people are revolted at the notion of helping out middle-class families who catch a bad break, at all. It could just as well have been your kids or mine who got injured in that car accident.

Posted by Steve | October 9, 2007 3:54 PM

"Al" is simply a slimy slug with values to match. When I spot the name I spit and move on. Al is the ultimate in slime. It would never dawn on me that anything the slug writes is less than moral ponography. Who cares?

Posted by Jennifer | October 9, 2007 4:07 PM

The EXACT SAME THING happened to my son in New Jersey about a year or so ago. Same bumper sticker, same type older guy, same SUV, same reaction, same language, same everything.

Posted by shnooky | October 9, 2007 5:45 PM

Man, I hope Al and his ilk all keep talking like this. It's providing a real moment of clarity that will speak very loudly and directly to a lot of middle-class Americans.

Posted by hum | October 9, 2007 5:51 PM

Minus the direct harassment and stalking of the Frosts, I should add.

Posted by hum | October 9, 2007 5:52 PM

"The right wing is better armed on average, so I'm more concerned about their wackos."

This reminds me of a line I read once in some post-Apocalyse America fiction. A group of travelers get waylaid by some resistance group. The leader of the travelers says, "We're unarmed." A voice comes from the resistance group: "Then you must be a damned fool."

Also reminds me of Clint Eastwood's movie:

Hackman: You just shot an unarmed man!

Eastwood: Then he should have armed himself!

Al is right - most right wing thugs are punks who would never put anything but their mouth on the line. This includes him. "Real leftists" go out and blow stuff up - and usually blow themselves up as well.

Ah, I'm reminded of another fun movie: "Deal of the Century". Gregory Hines is a techie working for low-life arms dealer Chevy Chase. At one point he gets in his car and starts to back out of a driveway. He just bumps another car driven by a Latino man and his girlfriend. Hines gets out and offers to pay for the scratch on the car. The Latino is one of these "hyper" excitable types who goes off on Hines while his girlfriend screams at both of them. The Latino grabs a baseball bat and starts smashing Hines car windows.

Now Hines is trying to be a born-again Christian so he's trying to cool the guy down. But it doesn't work.

So finally Hines loses it. He opens his trunk, pulls out the US military flame thrower he's been working on, and hoses the guy's car down with it.

"That's a nice flame job there, man! Lemme give you a little touch-up!" WHOOOOOSSSSSHH! "Just a little touch-up!" WOOOOOOSHSSSSSHHH!

Next scene, he's sitting on Chevy's couch with his head in his hands, going, "Man, I am screwed up!" to which Chevy replies, "Yes, you are."

This is how you deal with overly aggressive people - fuck them up totally. Put them in the hospital for three months to meditate on their mistakes.

Or, if there are no witnesses, blow them away so they aren't a problem for anybody any more. This is risky, however, so it's a procedure to be used only as a last resort.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 9, 2007 5:57 PM

So they live in a more expensive house. Some questions to ask: could they get a less expensive house in the area? Probably not. Living in a less desirable area could incur other costs anyhow. Could they move to a cheaper area of the country? They could, but there could be employment implications. Not everyone has that flexibility.

Suppose they could magically downsize from a $500,000 to a $250,000 home. This would free up $250,000 in assets. Lets say they yield 5%/annum. That's $12,500/annum. I don't think this would provide health insurance for a family of six. And that ignores the other issues I mention.

The rental proprety is already an invested asset so converting it to something else doesn't necessarily yield anymore income.

Posted by mpowell | October 9, 2007 6:03 PM

"That's fine, we're all free to do so (even though I think refusing to use your available assets to pay for health insurance is a really bad choice), but now they want me to subsidize that choice."

How much would that cost you? I bet less than a nickel.

Posted by Reality Man | October 9, 2007 6:28 PM

Suppose they could magically downsize from a $500,000 to a $250,000 home. This would free up $250,000 in assets. Lets say they yield 5%/annum. That's $12,500/annum. I don't think this would provide health insurance for a family of six.

I think it would just about cover the amount - the Frosts said they could get health insurance for about $1200/month. That's $14,400/year, or only $1900 more than the interest at 5%.

But one other thing - why are the Frosts the "poster child" for the Democrats anyway? As I understand it, Bush wants to limit the SCHIP program to families earning 200% of poverty - that means $55,220 for a family of six like the Frosts. So the Frosts will be covered even in the program Bush proposes. How odd.

Posted by Al | October 9, 2007 6:59 PM