The appearance of the Tsarnaev brothers is just one more in a long series of people like Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine, Kathy Boudin, Ted Kazinsky, Omar Abdel-Rahman, Nidal Hasan and a lot of others, some with an Islamic agenda, some non religious, all with a leftist point of view (and please, don’t tell me about Tim McVeigh. He was a jerk too). But they all have one thing in common: None of them seemed to care that there is a clear line that exists between the right to express our ideas freely and committing violent acts in the name of those ideas.

First Amendment rights? Yes. The freedom to express our thoughts and beliefs openly? Absolutely. The foundation of this country rests on these principles. But those rights do not allow us to plant bombs in the middle of a large group of innocent people. Along with these rights, there is an attendant level of personal responsibility, and a duty to make ourselves clear without resorting to violence.

The founding fathers understood this, and if they made any mistake about any of it, it was in assuming that everyone else would also understand it without having to have it explained to them. The Tsarnaev brothers destroyed the life of a man named Bill Richard. They didn’t know Bill Richard, but they saw fit to injure his wife and his daughter, and they murdered his son Martin. They also killed and maimed a lot of other people, and they apparently thought this was all justified because they were upset that the rest of us aren’t all Muslims.

It happens that I am a Christian. But that is my personal choice, and the only reason it’s relevant here is that I am willing to sit and discuss things with other people who happen to think otherwise, whether they’re Christian, Muslims, atheists, or whomever. I respect their right to believe what they believe. Anybody, however, regardless of what he thinks, who believes their point of view allows them to go around blowing other people up has forfeited their right to freedom, and has no right to any respect from any decent person.

Progressives seem willing, even eager, to offer ideas that prove they don’t understand any of this. Check out this article on Breitbart to see how far down the rabbit hole some progressives have fallen:

• Accused Marathon Bomber Gains Fans Online

I’m a peaceful man, but anybody who thinks like this needs to know that showing up in my driveway with a “Freejahar” bumper sticker would be a very bad idea.

Previously posted at nukingpolitics.com on Apr 23, 2013 by springeraz.