Weigel

I wrote on Friday about two phenomena -- the conservative critique of "union thuggery" at Wisconsin solidarity rallies around the country, and the relative lack of thuggery. At this point, a few hundred thousand of people have joined protests; as of this weekend, conservatives have publicized seven or eight instances of violence coming from union members. The latest comes from Sacramento , and it follows the pattern of the violence reporters -- a union member blew up at Tea Party Protesters. (Surely one reason there has been no violence in Wisconsin, apart from harsh words and an unexplained "hit" to Fox News's Mike Tobin , is that there are no counter-protests.)

So there's a ratio of 50,000 or so peaceful protesters to every thug. It's good to expose the thugs, because I don't really care if some counter-protester or FlipCam-wielder gets on their nerves -- if they can't control their tempers, they should seek help. But is there a standard here, some way to determine whether it's fair to characterize a protest as violent? There are protests and riots that do massive property and personal damage, inflicted by a large number of the protesters. I'm thinking of stuff like the car burnings in France in 2005 to protest the deaths of a few Muslim youths. There are violent protests, and then there are protests where violence breaks out along the fringes.

But here's my problem -- I find coverage of the violence pretty boring. By all means, put their pictures on TV and make sure they're caught. But you could do the same with people who start barfights or get road rage and punch the guy in the other line driving the Subaru. Hey, maybe some of the people who blow up at Tea Partiers start barfights, too. But some of them are driven to rage. Somebody's attacking their pension or their livelihood, and they can't get at him, so they'll get at that guy waving the Gadsden flag.

I'm thinking about this in the context hardline libertarians think about the power of the government to make them pay taxes. Now, these aren't the same gripes. People angry about public worker pensions are angry about taxpayer money being take elsewhere; people angry about the IRS are angry about their money being redistributed. But tax protesters, like, say, Edward Brown, scoff at the idea that they're being violent. Why can't people see that taxpayer money is being redistributed to pay for armed men to confiscate wealth? How is that non-violent?

I didn't actually talk to anyone who committed violence in Wisconsin, but I did talk to people who saw the conflict in similar terms -- the government literally threatening the lives of people with its cuts. One of them was Padrick Dean, who volunteered for medic duty at the Capitol, wearing a badge that said "Bones McCoy." I asked him some logistical questions, and he answered, but he wanted to make a point about why he was there.

"Tell Scott Walker 'thanks' for shortening my life from two years to one year," he said. "I have bone marrow cancer, and he's going to take away the only health care I can afford."

If you boil them down, both of these are sort of arguments against "big government." The libertarian argument is obvious; the liberal argument, if reduced, demonstrates the problems that arise when people expect certain benefits from the state, and are denied them. There's more to the liberal argument, though -- they see the government playing a role to protect them from damage from the private sector, like pollution or tainted food.

The adherents of either argument agree that there is much more to political violence than scuffles between ordinary people, powerless and angry, that get caught on tape.