Wednesday, July 26, 2017

GOP congressmen call for returning to 19C methods of conflict resolution, only this century, against women, too.


Another Republican congressman has revealed that his fantasies include acts of violence against Republican women senators.

The first was Texas congresscritter Blake Farenthold, who inherited way more money than smarts or morals.

He said he'd like to waddle onto a dueling ground with Senator Susan Collins over his frustrations, which he apparently sublimates in notions throwing millions off health care.


This afternoon, Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter shamed his family, too:
Carter characterized Trump’s attack as “perfectly fair,” before suggesting that Murkowski and Collins deserve a beating. 
“Lemme tell you, somebody needs to go over there to that Senate and snatch a knot in their ass,” he continued. “I’m telling you, it has gotten to the point where — how can you say I voted for this last year but I’m not gonna vote for it this year. This is extremely frustrating for those of us who have put so much into this effort.”
The Farenthold/Carter jabber awakens memories for American political historians.

In 1856, during debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and extending slavery over the Mississippi, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner charply criticized South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, a sponsor of the bill.

Butler's nephew, South Carolina Congressman Preston Butler, was outraged:
He later said that he intended to challenge Sumner to a duel, and consulted with fellow South Carolina Representative Laurence M. Keitt on dueling etiquette. Keitt told him that dueling was for gentlemen of equal social standing, and that Sumner was no better than a drunkard, due to the supposedly coarse language he had used during his speech. Brooks said that he concluded that since Sumner was no gentleman, he did not merit honorable treatment; to Keitt and Brooks, it was more appropriate to humiliate Sumner by beating him with a cane in a public setting.
So, three days later, on May 22, 1856, Congressman Brooks, 37, walked into the Senate chamber and up to the 45-year-old Senator Sumner's desk, where he beat him with the gold head of his walking stick. Brooks trapped Sumner under his desk; after Sumner ripped it from its floor bolts to escape, Brooks chased him up the aisle, beating him until the cane broke, then kept beating him with the section to which the head was still attached.

When Sumner slumped into unconsciousness, Brooks held him up by his lapels to continue the beating until other members finally intervened.

A motion to expel Brooks failed in the House. He was fined but not jailed by the DC court. He resigned his seat over the issue; his constituents promptly voted him back into office. There he mocked Sumner for feigning illness and said if he'd'a wanted to kill the senator, he'd'a used a different weapon.

Sumner, in fact, suffered severe head trauma and was unable to return to the Senate until 1859, and suffered chronic pain until his death in 1874.

Brooks won another term in November 1856 but died of croup in January 1857, before he could take office. Both men became heroes of their sides of the slavery question.



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