A History of the Violent Left

A recent discussion concerning why the Left is inherently more violent than the Right failed to produce a single coherent thought or rambling from anyone that could name a single, conservative group or movement that was inherently violent in nature. Columnist Kelly O'Connell expounds on this idea while providing examples of the largely ignored history of violence on the part of Leftists in his recent article. First he explains why Leftists are so much more violent in nature...

"What is fashionably called “liberalism‚” today is not what the term originally meant 150 years ago, when it was used to describe the philosophy of freedom. The Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment all influenced the creation of original liberal theory. For example, the Founding Fathers were all political liberals and the writing of the Declaration and Constitution were the high points of the ideas of political liberalism. But at the turn of last century, socialists began referring to themselves as “liberals‚” and they poisoned the term from its original meaning, allowing leftists to exclusively adopt the term.

Socialist theory began in earnest in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Communism, Marxism, and anarchism all come from the same socialist root. Marx claimed his theory’s first stage was socialism, where all capitalist production is controlled by the state. Then comes communism, where private property is abolished by an all-powerful government. Finally, this phase is supplanted by anarchy. “Anarchism is the political belief that society should have no government, laws, police, or other authority, but should be a free association of all its members.‚” And violence was extolled by many socialist writers to help achieve their goals."

But what are some of the values/ideas closely held by conservatives that make them, generally speaking, much less prone to violence? O'Connell cites Amy Sturgis in explaining why yesterday's Classical Liberals are today's conservatives....

"1.An ethical emphasis on the individual as a rights-bearer prior to the existence of any state, community, or society;


2.The support of the right of property carried to its economic conclusion, a free-market system;


3.The desire for a limited constitutional government to protect individuals’ rights from others and from its own expansion; and


4.The universal (global and ahistorical) applicability of these above convictions.


Real Conservatism is not a violent movement, even though it does espouse a strong military for defensive purposes. But it does so for defensive purposes. Further, while Conservatism supports the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, this is also done for self-defense. To say that a person who supports gun rights is therefore violent would be like saying a surgeon’s goal is to hurt people because he uses knives on them.

Overall, American Conservatism is fixated on our democratic constitutional republic, believing only by following a well-established Rule of Law can we all be safe. Further, freedoms also results from keeping government small and its powers trimmed so that citizens might maximize their own rights. Property is considered sacrosanct, which is the foundation of our capitalist system. So, needless to say, murdering politicians is not a Conservative value."

Last week we looked at Lee Harvey Oswald who assasinated President John F. Kennedy. The history of leftist assasins in this country (US) is often not mentioned in the terms of two other examples. First, Leon Frank Czolgosz who murdered President William McKinley (above) who was said to have been heavily influenced by "famed anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman." Czolgosz was quoted as saying, "I don’t believe in the Republican form of government and I don’t believe we should have any rulers. It is right to kill them."


Another example is that of Charles Guiteau, assassin of President James A. Garfield. According to O'Connell, "Guiteau was infatuated with John Humphrey Noyes teachings on Utopian socialism, and produced his own work plagiarized from Noye’s book. Noyes founded the infamous Oneida community, which Guiteau joined. This commune abolished traditional weddings for group marriage. In fact, it was Noyes who coined the term “Free Love."

O'Connell wraps it up neatly for us in his closing arguments...

"The reason leftists are willing to murder in the name of politics is because they normally do not believe in God, a hereafter, or even any classic definition of morality. So whatever is done, as long as it serves Marxism, it is good.

According to P.H. Vigor’s A Guide To Marxism, since religion cannot deliver any sense of morality, it is up to humanism to create standards. But, as Virgor notes,

"Moreover, in any discussion involving ethics or morality, the fundamental point for a Marxist is that there is no such thing as an absolute Right and Wrong. Right and Wrong are relative for a Marxist: a thing which is wrong at one time, and in one set of circumstances, will be right in another…It is therefore simply not possible to settle an argument with them by reference to ethical principles—by saying, for instance, that the consequence of a particular policy would be murder, and you cannot commit murder. From a Marxist standpoint, you can—in certain circumstances"

The point here cannot be made too vigorously. There is no moral center found in socialism, Marxism, anarchism, or communism, as we discover in the Bible’s Ten Commandments. There is therefore no such thing as absolute wrong or right action to a true leftist. So,where resistance to Marxism is encountered, a sincere leftist always has the option of picking up a weapon to further his “liberalism.” In fact, virtually every Marxist revolution has involved murderous attacks to gain power.. And this is why leftists will always be infinitely more dangerous than Conservatives."