If You Can’t Beat ‘Um, Beat ‘Um
Kleberg County, Texas, hugs the South Texas coastline and holds more cows than people. Kleberg is reliably Democratic, with Barack Obama winning by 5 percentage points in 2012.
Apparently, there are some people who are not dandy happy about that.
Kyle Benson, the head of the Democratic Party in Kleberg County, called police around 5 p.m. to report that he had been assaulted by an unknown man.
Speaking at the headquarters Thursday evening, Benson said he was checking early voting numbers alone at the office, located at Seventh Street and Yoakum Avenue downtown, when a man entered the office.
“A gentleman came in through the door, picked up one of the stakes for a yard sign, said that ‘I’d been warned,’ and swung at me,” Benson said.
The man swung the wooden stake, which was about 4-feet long and two inches thick, at Benson’s head, but Benson was able to block the attack with his left arm.
Benson took a swing of his own and landed a good enough punch that the man fled from the office, dragging his “Dan Patrick for King” sign with him. (Okay, so I just just made up the Dan Patrick part, but it could happen.)
Sooo, apparently not all Democrats are wimps. Well done, Kyle Benson. I’ll bet that felt good. And, as usual, the bully ran away.
1This is how states are purging their voter lists:
http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/index.html
The inimitable Greg Palast is on the case.
2A random act of violence in K’ville? whodathunk? Been there a time or two and this is very surprising based on what I’ve seen.
3The irony and contradiction of the Amurika for Amurikan partisans is that they hate our freedoms, our democracy and deny our history. But, just ask them, “they love Amurika.”
Nothing says “I love my country” like leveling a stake at the head of a man supporting the electoral process. Good on Kyle Benson for treating the bully to a knuckle sandwich. Hopefully he left a mark on the doofus for future identification by the police.
4Why did he call him a gentleman?
5Vickie, it’s a guy thing. It’s a useful tool for us similar to mnemonics; a reminder while defending ourselves not to go overboard neanderthal on someone richly deserving it. “The gentleman” as opposed to the *&!!# or #!!&* or otherwise dehumanizing the other person to justify escalating on their aggression. We’re not so far out of our caves that taking the moral high ground and “being the better man” doesn’t require self reminders.
6Calling someone a gentleman who is clearly not a gentleman is a subtle insult. The first thought that comes to mind upon reading the reference is that the jerk was not a gentleman. Point taken.
7Reading from the linked page, I’d be surprised if the stake swinger was a true believer. I can see him more as muscle. The real question is for whom did he swing the stake?
8When you have a faction that refuses to discuss the merits of an issue and instead claims that anyone who disagrees with them must be wanting to tear down the nation, you should expect this sort of thing.
9Really good point, Micr. That’s the most important question about the entire incident.
10“Republicans love America but hate about half the people who live here.” Can’t recall who said it, but good one.
11Zyxomma, i read that lengthy article about voter purge lists. I’ve done lots of phone banking and it does help correct voter lists but this article makes me wonder, would it be a good idea for people registering to put not only their TX driver’s license number but also their social security number on the registration card? The VAN allows all sorts of info to be recorded. People are so paranoid about information. I would be too if it did any good but it’s not that hard to find information. What got me was a year or so ago when Google merged similar sounding names/email accounts. For several months I was getting email from some friends and relatives of an ultra conservative group to their Aunt Marge. I tried everything to tell them that i wasn’t their Aunt Marge. Finally I said okay, I guess I’ll just join the group and I told them all I could think of, like I’m a liberal Democrat in Austin, Texas and shortly afterwards, the emails stopped.
12The ‘unknown man’ is probably imaginary. Was Benson’s arm broken? I am ‘a weak woman’ and would have swung hard enough to break it. Imagine the force of a man!
13MaYbe in such an area, one didn’t want to name too many names.
14Rhea, I think they only hate 47%.
15By “You have been warned”, does this “gentleman” mean a vile screed posted on his Facebook page?
Why is it the Nazis and the Fascists never realize that THEY are the bad guys… except in retrospect?
16Old Fart: They don’t even recognize it in retrospect.
“You have been warned” is Klanspeak. The warning comes with a beating or a cross-burning. It means “Get out of town or you’ll be dead.” None of the peace-in-our-time folks will like hearing what it takes to settle these “gentlemen” down into drinking themselves to death because the South hasn’t risen yet.
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