Honestly, did you expect anything other than a full on defense of these assholes coming from him?
Oh, I’m prepared to cheerfully buy that Obama is getting more death threats and that many are racist in inspiration, I just want it noted that the “threat pipeline”, as it were, has widened in just the last few years. Any president elected in 2008 could easily have faced an increase in threats, simply because the routes by which threats are made and recorded has increased. Comparisons of numbers alone won’t be fair until the size of the pipeline stabilizes.
That there are sizable numbers of Americans who are morons on issues of race, I’ll disagree not at all.
I find the whole situation absurd. Right now in GD there is a thread that asks “Is there any real risk of a right wing coup de etat?”. The very question is nonsense, yet people are taking it seriously.
That is not the first instance of this pervasive fear. I’m finding it hard to describe because it makes no sense to me whatsoever. I can only characterize it as bizarre. It’s the same thing that drove people to say that Bush was going to usurp the Constitution and hold onto the Presidency. It’s the same fear that said that Bush was going to invade Iran. There are myriad examples of this fear of right-wingers. Hell, the reason why Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck get so much play here is because people think that they are causing people to instigate violence.
But, really, what is there to be afraid of? The tenor of these discussions is apprehension of what will happen, all the way to where **Diogenes quite literally claims to fear for his personal safety over a bumper sticker. I’m simply at a loss. None of the things that I mentioned have come to pass, the President is alive and well, the Democrats still have a majority in the House and Senate… is this a symptom of victory or something?
With nothing else to fight about it seems to me that the Democrats have spent their time invoking the bogeyman. Ooooh, those right-wingers! They’re coming to get us! Well, let me let you in on something: they are NOT coming for you. There is not a person in Minnesota that cares enough about you to kill you over a bumper sticker. My God, are we so self-important that we think that people are coming for us?
So, SecondJudith, my comments were meant to convey the absurdity of the whole thing. This irrational fear (which is absolutely NOT confined to Democrats) is making people say the stupidest things. And I have no idea where it comes from.
People, people, people. Listen to Airman. There’s nothing to be frightened of. Just a lot of hot air. Not that he’s defending them— no, you’ve got it wrong. It’s that we are over-reacting to their violent, racist rhetoric. It’s not like they have any real plans to wreak havoc for a smaller government.
It’s all irrational fear of Teabagger overblown threats. That’s it. Nothing to worry about here. No need to call them names or nothing like that.
And yes, I’m targeting Airman and leaving Evil out of it. Airman can have moments of clarity. Evil fucking sucks the teabag titty, no use talking to him.
If one person can get his car rammed by a teabagger for having an Obama sticker, why can’t it happen twice? Why is that an unreasonable thing to worry about? It’s not a hypothetical scenario. It’s actually happened.
The coup d’etat stuff is neither here nor there. Of course it can’t happen. The penny ante violence and vandalism is very real, though.
You’re right AD - it’s inconceivable that someone would phone in a domestic violence call and then lie in wait in order to kill police officers because of their concerns over government encroachment under Obama.
I agree that it’s a nonsensical concept, but don’t pretend that the discussion materialized out of nowhere. It’s a direct result of the inflammatory language being bandied about by many on the right, employing words like “revolution” and “tyranny” and “watering the tree of liberty.” It’s a disingenuous ploy: be as aggressively threatening as possible, and then mock those who take the threats seriously as cowards and hysterics. Every day that violence doesn’t occur is further evidence of the left’s paranoia, and when it does it’s an isolated, unconnected incident. If backed into a corner, don’t be afraid to drag out the Seattle window-breakers and the Weather Underground, as proof that Their Kooks are just as bad as Our Kooks.
But one of the things on your list actually happened, so I don’t understand why you’re saying the fear is irrational.
Now now…act your name. Tell me where I’ve gone wrong. I’ve simply voiced my opinion based on my life and media experience.
It might really frighten you to know that I’ve been in complete control of the information flow to thousands of people for many years now.
Now, now, that’s SA’s shtick.
The following post is sincere and sarcasm free.
I’m appalled that you’ve been treated that way, Dio. People should be free to display their beliefs without being targeted and bullied by others.
Meaning what, Bosstone?
I fail to see the difference to me if I’m killed or injured in an organized uprising by violent winger groups bent on overthrowing the government or if I’m killed or injured in an “isolated incident” by a violent winger bent on overthrowing the government, assumedly by starting with me first. They’re ridiculous, uninformed, stupid, racist, bigoted, intolerant, violent shitheads who, if they lived in the kind of fascistic authoritarian government they so obviously lust to have, would have been rounded up and imprisoned or shot long ago. I just LOVE people who take full, unquestioning advantage of the protections afforded by their government to circumvent and remove said protections from others they don’t agree with. I love it almost as much as I love the “party of family values” using thousands of dollars of donated money to party at a bondage themed titty bar. It’s all part of the endemic cognitive dissonance inherent in the whole conservative movement. Fucking idiots.
Anyone who breaks the law needs to go to jail. If you throw a brick through a window or make a threatening phone call, you need to be held accountable for your actions. I don’t care what your political beliefs are. Passion is no excuse for law-breaking.
Correct me if I’m wrong (I may be confusing you with someone else), but aren’t you one of the posters here who has a concealed carry license? If so, what are you afraid of? Why do you think there’s any chance of anyone coming for you?
It’s irrational to blame something that has been happening for as long as I have been alive on “teabaggers”. Hey, we’ve been fighting for thousands of years, so World War II is the teabaggers’ fault!
People who have attacked abortion clinics and doctors that perform abortions are reprehensible, but they should not be associated with this current nonsense. They have their own misguided motivations and will continue to have them long after the Tea Party nonsense is forgotten. Ultimately what it comes down to is that the Tea Party idiots have become the Democratic Party’s bogeyman. anything that happens is the fault of the teabaggers.
Let’s not make it more than it is.
SmartAleq, I have long been associated with conservatism on this board, and I still have beliefs that most people would consider conservative. Yet I have not killed or threatened to kill anybody, I have not advocated any sort of violence, and I condemn the people that do. So now, having done so, am I to continue to bear the cross for them? You speak of cognitive dissonance. In a country of 300 million+ people, are you so self-assured that you can with confidence condemn all 150 million “conservatives” for the actions of a few tenths of a percent of them? You act like it’s a big, monolithic movement. It’s not, and it has no chance of being one. It’s a couple thousand illiterate morons getting on camera. But you have no qualms about showing people like me the back of your hand. Cognitive dissonance, indeed.
This is exactly so.
I figured this would come up sooner or later. So be it.
I have no concern whatsoever that anybody is coming for me. There is nobody that is gunning for me. Other than my big mouth there is nothing about me that is the least bit controversial, and even that isn’t as big as it used to be. I carry a weapon because you never know when you might need it. It’s that simple. It’s no more or less than an insurance policy. Do I anticipate trouble? No. Does having one make me go places I wouldn’t ordinarily looking for trouble? No. Can I go without it? Absolutely. I simply choose not to. So there you go.
No, I don’t believe the country is on the verge of an insurrection, or a revolution, or what have you. I do believe that there are individuals connected to the tea party who are potentially dangerous to those with whom they disagree.
Perhaps our communication is at cross-purposes. I have never said or implied that the rabid right is a danger to the country. I most positively have concern that individual members of the rabid right are a danger to individual leftists, and that that danger is only increased by the mob atmosphere that resulted in the killing of Dr. Tiller, and that inspired such as Eric Rudolph.
I’m pleased to note that you personally condemn those who create such an atmosphere, but in attemping to state that leftists have no reason to worry about violence from the right on a personal level, you are being incredibly naive.
Well, now, just a second here. Its possible that if a violent tea-bagger knew what I thought, he might wish me harm. But actually come all the way here and do something to me? Get past the gate, the guards, the trip wires?
So, threat on a personal level, nah. Hell, probably have relatives who are tea-baggers, and they didn’t try to shoot me when I was a peacenik freak. And as bad as the stench is, it ain’t worse than 1968.
Well, I don’t get high anymore, even when the stench make my nostrils go, “Ooh, yeah”, or perhaps I’d agree with you. I don’t entirely disagree, I guess . . . In general, the man does not come down on the likes of you and me, et al, as happened then. Nevertheless, I’m fairly sure that you wouldn’t have made your post if I was one of the lefties who kiss your ass.
I absolutely feel that I am correct in worrying about the reaction of crazies to a display of my political beliefs, and it absolutely worries me that the guiding lights of the right cannot summon the guts to challenge the crazies, rather than utter “It’s wrong, but I understand,” or, “It’s wrong, but it’s nothing to worry about.” I don’t carry a gate with me into the grocery store, nor a guard to the gas station, nor a tripwire to the zoo. Do you?
Honestly, I can’t believe you made that post, though I suspect I shouldn’t be.