Yeah, it’s not that we don’t have a thriving garden lately… I wouldn’t count Bricker among the sprouts, though.
Do you know my race?
I’m going with 100m hurdles.
Frankly, this is what I thought of when I said I’ve come to realize this is weak sauce.
The accusation made originally, which I am still disputing, is that political figures from the right are more or less the exclusive users of violent imagery or rhetoric. That is, I contend, not true, but this Twitter business, as you point out, has absolutely zero relevance to the argument.
So, I dropped it.
Hah! Proves how much you know.
It’s Daytona.
No, you’re just really bad at spotting them.
This. Bricker, you’ve done a public service.
Well, let’s not throw the rhetorical baby out with the bathwater.
The argument I was trying to make was that violent rhetoric and imagery is not limited to the right. Several people seemed to this I was pointing the failure of the left to condemn it, and helpfully assured the world they were condemning it. Reassuring but not on point.
Where my argument fell flat on its face was that there’s no equivalence between random Twitter users and GOP politicians. To make my case correctly I need to show left-wing politicians, pundits, opinion-makers, etc., using violent imagery. With all due respect to SupaMcNASTY, he or she doesn’t qualify. I get that. Bad choice on my part.
However, that doesn’t mean that your more general comment follows, either. “Outright bullshit” seems to encompass a great deal more than simply violent imagery. In my view, there’s a great deal of outright bullshit pulled and/or publicly condoned by left-wing politicians.
One excellent example is the spark that started the Scott Walker recall, where it was a left-wing politician that declared that the legislature’s meeting to pass the anti-union bills violated the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law. This was said, repeated as though gospel, and swallowed credulously by many people both in the world and here.
This despite the fact he that originator of that claim must have known his claim was false, as would anyone who simply looked at the law, which had a clearly written exemption for meetings of the legislature. It wasn’t arcane legalese, but plain English.
SO – no. I was wrong to offer up random Twitter users as meaning anything, but that doesn’t mean that equally sweeping and wrong statements from you are going unchallenged.
Limited to? No. But it would be surprising if the right didn’t currently have something of an edge in this area.
For years, expanding access to firearms has been an issue dominated by the right. I don’t think that’s in dispute: very few Republicans are pro-gun-control.
Folks who are most interested in violence today are going to be interested in guns, since that’s the best way to commit violence today.
Folks who are most interested in guns will be interested in expanding (or not limiting) access to guns.
Therefore, that segment of the population that’s interested in violence is going to be drawn to the right.
Think of it as a Venn diagram: violent circle inside of the want-guns-circle inside of the protect-guns-rights-circle inside of the right-wing-movement-circle. By no means is everyone, or even a majority of people, on the right prone to violence; but there’s reason for strong ties there currently.
There are, of course, violent people on the left as well; you could draw similar circles with revolutionary ideology and show leftists. But revolutionary ideology is all but dead in the US. You might also draw similar circles with violent crime and the left’s advocacy on behalf of prisoners; but I think the number of politically-active violent criminals is very low.
So it seems to me that the right is more comfortable with guns and with gun metaphors.
Just some examples:
Democrat rally: USAction’s William McNary tells Walker to “knuckle up” (putting up his hands in boxing stance) and Reverend (!!) Ray McJunkins of Springfield’s Union Baptist Church said they’re going to “cut off his [Walker’s] head”
http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/blog/democratic-hate-speech-put-rick-scott-against-wall-and-shoot-him
Democrat Representative Paul E Kanjorski:
“That Scott down there that’s running for governor of Florida… Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him.”
Democrat Representative Louise Slaughter claiming that GOP is like Nazis, and that they were sent to Washington to “kill women.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20051805-503544.html
Democrat Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton saying that shutting down the government is “the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians.”
Sandra Bernhard wishing that Palin be gang-raped.
http://nhjournal.com/2011/02/23/dem-rep-to-unions-time-to-get-‘bloody’/
Democrat Representative Mike Capuano: “I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going. Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary,”
Well, three out of six ain’t bad. However, if you get to pretend that Sandra Bernhard is a Democratic policymaker, we get to call you out for Ted Nugent. Same goes for the Baptist minister you quoted and the North Carolina pastor who wants to put gays in concentration camps.
It’s a fool’s errand to try and prove that one side does it more than the other. Impossible to prove, and waaaaay to prone to confirmation bias.
It might make sense to argue about which politician, of the highest rank in each party, has used violent imagery to get his point across. But even then, I think we might come up with a draw.
The last sentence of your last paragraph is a great example of the last sentence of your first paragraph. You identify as a moderate, and so you expect there’d be a tie.
I think that’s foolish. Why on earth would we expect a tie–some sort of cosmic yin-yang balance?
If you go to Illinois, I’ll bet you a thousand bucks there’s worse corruption among the Democratic politicians than among the Republicans. If you go to Greece, you’ll probably find more violence amongst the non-free-marketers than among the free-marketers. If you go to California, there’s probably going to be more drug-dealing by Democrats than by Republicans. And if you go to the United States, you’ll probably find more violent rhetoric among Republicans than among Democrats.
This seems unremarkable to me.
Yeah, wake me up when a major news outlet uses an image of crosshairs over Scott Walker’s face, or when a politician suggests in oblique language that he should be “taken out”, or when a politician hints that something like the civil war ought to happen in a place like Wisconsin to roll back the results of this election.
Basically, wake me up when a person with a name says a thing.
I don’t identify as a moderate. There are other choices besides left and right, and not being one or the other doesn’t make one a moderate.
No. Because use of violent imagery is much more common than you probably think. It would not surprise me if someone could find an example of Obama using violent imagery. And it wouldn’t surprise me if we ended up in an rat hole arguing about what exactly constitutes violent imagery. Or, per the post of this, that one’s sides violent imagery is more violent than the other.
I don’t deny that it’s common. I don’t deny that people on the left sometimes use it. My argument is specifically that Republicans, by dint of their stance on gun issues, are likelier to attract people who want to use violent gun imagery, or to talk about using guns violently.
Gun imagery and the use of it is pretty prevalent in AMERICA, since we see it constantly. I don’t think it’s restricted to any political party or even any political philosophy. I’ve heard liberals talk about busting a cap in someone (as a joke or exclamation) about as often as I’ve heard conservatives or moderates. If you break it down by Republican verse Democrat it’s even more ubiquitous, since ‘Democrat’ encompasses a huge swath of Americans, many of who hunt or use guns (and gun imagery) constantly.
-XT
So what? There are many, many ways to use violent imagery without bringing up guns. And even if your hypothesis had some merit, of what use is an untestable hypothesis? It ends up being a “just so” story.
But if you think it is testable, test away!
Once again the it is not that there are nutjobs and assholes on both sides, it is the fact that conservative assholery is far more mainstreamed, thank you Fox News.
On behalf of all Progressives and all Persons Possessing a Conscience everywhere (known in Bricker parlance as; The Left) I sincerely apologize that one of our leaders, the formerly revered and esteemed Philosopher Emeritus, Mr. IWusGettinSumHead, has made hurtful, violent and clearly viable threats on The Twitter. I and my brethren refudiate and denounce these h8ful wrds. Excuse me while I take down his shrine and put Krugman’s back up.
Hey, Vinny! Isn’t that your Mom?