Defensiveness

There is a tendency when the narrative goes against one to become defensive, and some conservatives are doing that with the pipe bomb incident, circling the wagons to talk about earlier incidents by liberals or how non-dangerous the current crop of bombs is. I notice that the president did not do this, and people who support him should follow his example. He was quick to condemn this as un-American. There is no place for bombing or even the threat of bombing in American discourse. One might hope there's no place for it in other countries either, but our concern is our own house at present.

We seem to have been lucky that the bomber is not that competent - or we may find he never meant to do damage, only to frighten, like a person waving an unloaded gun around. That he is politically motivated is fairly obvious, whatever other motives he might have.  It goes back far enough that Trump seems to be an add-on, though one he has focused on recently. Every political group has people like this, and pretending that no, our group only has people who get understandably angry when provoked by the evil of our opponents is seldom accurate.  I certainly object loudly enough when fringe leftists do that, I can hardly swear it off when it's some sort of conservative who does it. (I allow that in all instances, we are usually dealing with a person who is quite disturbed and perhaps not fairly assigned to any group.)

Even if conscience did not move us, mere practicality should. We cannot condemn in others what we would not condemn from our own party, race, or religion, or no one will listen. That other incidents have been buried and less-remembered may strike us as unfair, but lots of things are unfair in the world. If you think that reporting is unfair in America, it is worse in most other places.  We are still responsible for our own actions, and if we judge the actions of others, we are judged by the same measure.