Tea Party and Free Speech

… that you believe that.  

… they guy manhandling her has one of those ‘don’t tread on me’ buttons that have been adopted as tea party iconography.

His endorsement of Rand is listed in an ad that ran that very same day. And, he’s in more pictures with Rand than the Rand family dog.

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p>He’s also a tea party activist in Kentucky. And Rand Paul is the – and proudly so – tea party candidate.

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p>Even the Kentucky media understand the tea party role in this:

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The nasty race for Kentucky’s U.S. Senate seat got even nastier this week, hitting what can only be hoped is rock bottom.

It happened when several of Rand Paul’s supporters wrestled a MoveOn.org activist to the ground on Monday evening before the last debate between the Republican Dr. Paul and Democrat Jack Conway and, once she was supine against a concrete curb, stomped on her.

Take a good, hard look, Kentucky, at the shot seen ’round the world, because this is what people are seeing of us: Men throwing a woman to the ground and then stomping her.

While some look at that picture as emblematic of what conservative policy changes promised by tea party candidates such as Rand Paul will do to women, should he and others like him be elected, this disgraceful event deserves to be condemned just on its face value.

Kicking someone when they’re down is not acceptable behavior, not even when the person on the receiving end is regarded as an outside agitator trying to get too close to a candidate, not even during highly charged campaigns that have already stretched the bounds of civility.

Dr. Paul’s supporters looked like thugs in the video, because they were acting like thugs.

Dr. Paul’s staff “disassociated” his campaign from the man seen doing the stomping, who had been Bourbon County coordinator for the candidate (his name appeared in a newspaper ad the same day as the fallout from the video-captured stomp went viral). Dr. Paul’s campaign issued a statement saying that aggression or violence would not be tolerated “whatever the perceived provocation.” (They declined, however, to return the stomper’s campaign contributions of $1,950. What’s with that?)

As for the stomper, who has now been served with a criminal summons for the disturbance, incredibly he told a Lexington television reporter that police were really at fault, that his foot work could be chalked up to his bad back and that the woman he stomped should apologize to him.

The Lexington fracas is troubling by itself, but when coupled with another upset involving another tea party senatorial candidate earlier this week, it begs voters to pay even more attention.

On Sunday, a day before the Lexington takedown, an online news editor was handcuffed and detained by security guards hired by Joe Miller, Alaska’s Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, after the editor trailed the candidate with a video camera in a public school where a town hall meeting had been held. The editor’s apparent offense was being too pushy with his questions and writing for a liberal blog. Police let him go.

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p>And my favorite part:

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Kicking someone you don’t agree with?

Cuffing someone who asks your candidate questions?

Is this what the freedom-loving tea party is about?

Elections have consequences, people.

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p>Pot. Kettle. Black.

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p>Is this what the “freedom-loving” tea party is all about?