16. Americans Might Do Political Assassinations, but We Have Never Gone to the Dutch Extremes of Political Assassination
Around the world, Americans have a reputation for violence – some of it deserved, some of it overblown. However, bad as tempers have gotten in American politics – and one need only look at the news for the latest examples – things have usually, if not always, stayed within reasonable. Every now and then, tempers might get high enough in the US for political violence to erupt. Even on a massive scale, such as that time in the nineteenth century when Americans killed each other by the hundreds of thousands during the Civil War.
Still, bad as tempers have gotten in America, they never got so bad that American soldiers carried out an assassination of the head of government in the street, after which a frenzied mob seized the carcass, mutilated it, then proceeded to cook and eat it. On that, the Dutch have us beat. Notwithstanding the Dutch reputation for orderliness and politeness, there was a time in 1672 when a Dutch mob went wild on their Prime Minister Johan de Witt (1625 – 1672).
