In the comments, Adam said:

I don’t see Cornyn or Delay’s statements as directly advocating violence.

Oh, c’mon, this is worse than Clinton parsing the meaning of “is”. No, DeLay did not sing, “I’m gonna git me a shotgun and kill all the judges I see!”* and Cornyn didn’t say, “How you doin’? Say, nice courthouse you got there, judge. It would be a pity if something bad were to happen to it, capische?“

But these are federal legislators, speaking in the context of recent courthouse shootings that killed one judge and a premeditated assassination attempt that killed a judge’s husband and mother, in reference to recent decisions regarding gay rights, abortion, the application of the death penalty, and euthanasia, which they’ve termed “judicial activism” and a “judiciary not accountable to the people” (which, strangely enough, is exactly what the Founders intended; a judiciary insulated from political pressure.)

Here’s Cornyn’s quote, reproduced in length, so y’all can determine exactly what the context was:

SENATOR JOHN CORNYN: …it causes a lot of people, including me, great distress to see judges use the authority that they have been given to make raw political or ideological decisions. And no one, including those judges, including the judges on the United States Supreme Court, should be surprised if one of us stands up and objects.

And, Mr. President, I’m going to make clear that I object to some of the decision-making process that is occurring at the United States Supreme Court today and now. I believe that insofar as the Supreme Court has taken on this role as a policy-maker rather than an enforcer of political decisions made by elected representatives of the people, it has led to the increasing divisiveness and bitterness of our confirmation fights. That is a very current problem that this body faces today. It has generated a lack of respect for judges generally. I mean, why should people respect a judge for making a policy decision borne out of an ideological conviction any more than they would respect or deny themselves the opportunity to disagree if that decision were made by an elected representative?

Of course the difference is that they can throw the rascal — the rascal out — and we are sometimes perceived as the rascal — if they don’t like the decisions that we make. But they can’t vote against a judge because judges aren’t elected. They serve for a lifetime on the federal bench. And, indeed, I believe this increasing politicalization of the judicial decision-making process at the highest levels of our judiciary have bred a lack of respect for some of the people that wear the robe. And that is a national tragedy.

And finally, I – I don’t know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that’s been on the news. And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in — engage in violence. Certainly without any justification but a concern that I have that I wanted to share. [Senate Floor, 4/4/05]

So, no, he’s not directly advocating violence, but he’s a federal official saying, “well, you can understand why they’re upset enough to kill; it’s them damn activist judges!” It reminds me of Chris Rock’s routine about OJ Simpson; how the fury must have built up in Simpson as he saw his wife canoodling about and giving the car he paid for to her twenty-something boy-toy: “I ain’t sayin’ he shoulda killed his wife… but I understand.”

Nevermind the fact that the Atlanta courthouse violence he was referring to was a guy escaping from sentencing for rape, kidnapping, and murder. Geez, if only the homos weren’t getting married, maybe he wouldn’t have had to committed that rape. And if judges are going to kill brain-dead women in Florida, why shouldn’t he get to knock off a person here and there? Nice to know our violent felons are so concerned about judicial activism.

And speaking of she whose name I will not type anymore, this is what DeLay had to say about that:

“We will look at an arrogant, out of control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at the Congress and president when given jurisdiction to hear this case anew and look at all the facts … The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.”

So, that’s not exactly directly advocating violence. It’s just the majority leader of the senate saying, “Look what these bastards have done! Somebody’s gonna pay!” though he leaves the “payment” up to interpretation. Now, given that DeLay and his ilk have been likening the judges in the case whose title I will not type anymore to murderers and torturers, and the audience to whom that is directed believe in things like “an eye for an eye” and “divine vengeance” and “onward Christian soldiers”, can we be surprised when the fringe elements of that movement interpret the currency of “payment” to be blood?

To be certain, sometimes those fringe elements are going to short circuit no matter what is said by whom. Jesus himself could swing on down for a visit and say, “what parts of ‘thou shalt not kill’ and ‘do unto others’ and ‘vengeance is mine’ don’t you understand?” and still some Evangelical whackjob might take a shot at a judge. But it’s a whole lot easier to believe the voices in your head when you’re hearing senators and TV preachers agree with them.

Take the recent case of Eric Rudolph, recently sentenced for bombing abortion clinics, gay nightclubs, and the 1996 Olympics (to protest abortion). When anti-abortion leaders speak about this at all, they timidly say something like, “Well, of course we don’t advocate violence, we renounce what Rudolph has done”, but it gets lost among the calls to “stop this genocide, save the womb babies from the sadistic butchers, 400,000 babies murdered, slaughtered by doctors of death, here look at the grisly pictures of the horrifically mutilated innocent infants, savagely eviscerated by that man, that agent of Satan, that abortionist!, but don’t hurt him in any way.” The Religious Reich coyly pays lip service to denouncing cases like Rudolph, but secretly they wish they had the freedom, power, or testicular fortitude to do the same.

That may seem extreme. Certainly some anti-abortion activists seek a peaceful, legal solution to denying a woman’s right to control her own body. They don’t all really want to kill judges and OB/GYNs. Well, if not, I say they are not truly morally committed or they are just cowards.

Think of it. They supposedly truly believe that we are engaged in the widespread systematic murder of infants. Not only that, murdering infants is legal and accepted. Cops won’t stop the murder of infants. They protest, they march, but to no avail. If someone were coming to kill your infant, wouldn’t you use any means necessary to stop them? Wouldn’t violence be justified? Wouldn’t you be a coward if all you did was stand by and protest as your infant was being murdered?

We all accept that violence may be justified in cases of self defense. We even accept that violence may be justified to protect others, to secure people’s rights, or to liberate the oppressed. We can strike back against an attacker. Cops can shoot those who threaten others. We go to war (sometimes) to stop genocide and liberate the oppressed. So, if you advocate something less than violence to defend, secure, and liberate the “womb babies”, then those embryos must be something less than human. Which is what we’ve been trying to tell you all along.

To be fair, I use this same argument on the environmentalist/animal rights fringe of the Left as well. Put up or shut up. They can’t call for reasonable, peaceful solutions if they keep spewing inflammatory rhetoric about global destruction or comparing chicken farms with Auschwitz, rhetoric that would logically call for solutions of force. Calling for peaceful solutions demands rhetoric deserving of a peaceful solution. And the rhetoric of DeLay and Cornyn doesn’t sound like men seeking peaceful solutions.

*Bonus Garrett Morris misquote for Classic SNL fans out there.