[The Pennsylvania state legislator and activist Brian] Sims filmed [his harassment of peaceful anti-abortion protesters] all on purpose. Then having done these things, having behaved this way and then, presumably, having viewed this film, he released it with great fanfare and regaled himself for what he had done and asked people to send money to, in essence, support their shared views, values, and cause.
We must reflect on this. This is the extreme Left acting out in public in exactly the manner they ascribe to conservatives: confrontational, intimidating, police tactics, berating women, threatening the First Amendment.
This stunning behavior — premeditated, confrontational, abusing the power of office, targeting women, contrived to gain political benefit — all occurred and was criticized by no one to date on the Left. No elected Democrat has come out and condemned Sims publicly.
Think about that.
We expect our troops to behave with more restraint and discretion against people trying to kill them. And our government punishes them when they don't follow those rules.
And those international rules were agreed to by nations who were (and are) often enemies. Obedience and enforcement are spotty. But it is progress over the past practices.
Can we not expect more from ourselves and the people on our side when people are only disagreeing with us?
I'm not talking about the government getting involved. Freedom of speech should be firmly defended.
I'd like to see major political organizations (parties and lobbying bodies) agree among themselves to rules of political discourse that they teach their members to obey.
As more groups join and adopt such rules, those remaining outside the rules of political discourse will be suspect by the public.
And groups (and even individuals) that accept duties under rules of political discourse can adopt rules of political engagement consistent with the global rules for specific events and platforms by their members.
Maybe if such a movement grows, social media platforms that are trying--very imperfectly and slanted it often seems--to enforce limits on words will instead adopt the rules of political discourse for their own users. If a user is suspended or ejected for violating rules adopted from outside the platforms by groups representing many points of view the punishment will have more credibility.
If those who violate the general rules and specific rules are punished by the groups they belong to or by the people who see their violations, we'd go a long way to shrinking politics as a driving factor in individual lives in the way that Sims has made his life and career revolve around extreme political attacks.
Sims (and many others on both sides, although I think the activist-media complex that abuses the other so much is dominated by the Left) acts the way he does because it works and a lot of people approve of or tolerate it. Think about that.
Tip to Instapundit.
