Is Lt. Governor Kinder a Maoist?

In audio from a St. Louis radio station appearance posted on YouTube, Lt. Governor Peter Kinder appeared to advocate violence as a form of government power and what he said also could give the appearance that he gets his inspiration for that type of power from Chairman Mao and Karl Marx. In the audio in question, Kinder says - and this is a direct quote - "I believe that power comes out of the barrel of a gun as Mao Tse Tung taught and as Karl Marx taught."

I believe that if an elected official in the executive branch of Missouri state government wants to exercise power from the barrel of gun, Missourians should know about that. There are more details to follow on the context of this statement, but that can wait.

First, I thought a statement from the Lt. Governor's office might be in order. Here is the text of an email I sent to Peter Kinder's Chief of Staff:

Mr. Bill Kenney
Chief of Staff
Lt. Governor of Missouri

Dear Mr. Kenney,

I will be running with a quote from Lt. Governor Kinder on my community radio show and on my blog.

On a YouTube video associated with 97.1 News Talk Radio, I heard Lt. Gov. Kinder say "I believe that power comes out of the barrel of a gun as Mao Tse Tung taught and as Karl Marx taught. Power comes out of the barrel of a gun. Power doesn't come to the people who make decisions in a self-governing republic with rights derived from our creator."

I find these remarks to be quite disturbing coming from an elected official in the State of Missouri, and I wanted to give Lt. Gov. Kinder's office the opportunity to respond. Is Lt. Governor Kinder a Maoist? Is he a Marxist? It certainly sounds like it from the quote, which is word for word with no edits between its start and finish.

Ordinarily I also pay considerable attention to context, but, quoting the Lt. Governor again, "what if it is edited, for length, in some respect. 60 Minutes, for almost 45 years, has won Emmy's and Pulitzer Prizes for selective editing... so for them to make this their defense, and say that well, Andrew Breitbart is well known for selective editing, my goodness, Mike Wallace and Morley Safer and all those people at 60 Minutes have prospered the 45 years for doing precisely that...:

The Lt. Gov. is villifying educators in part based on their having attributed to them statements of others that they quoted, and he has suggested that they are terrorists.

Unlike the Lt. Governor and Andrew Breitbart, I will note the context in which his statements were made, but I will prominently feature the fact that he said that power comes from the barrel of a gun as taught by Mao and Marx, and hope to get a statement so I can make the whole presentation as fair and balanced as possible.

And tell the Lt. Governor for me that if and when I get an Emmy or a Pulitzer for my editing, I will invite him to the ceremony.

sincerely,

Tom Klammer
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Now, despite Lt. Governor Kinder's dismissal of context as irrelevant in such cases, I have to disagree, and so I will add a little bit of that context, and say that I don't believe Lt. Governor Kinder is a Maoist or a Marxist - for one thing he probably lacks the understanding to know what that would and would not mean, but more to the point, he was attributing that viewpoint to someone else, and trying to quote them saying power comes from the barrel of a gun. But let's not get bogged down in details. Kinder said it. I heard it. End of discussion.

links:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/article_a4fe9894-c41c-5858-bb70-4260b3915397.html