Well, even then, I’d argue that much of that was in response to being called “terrorist sympathizers”, “un-American”, “traitors” and the like for not buying into BushCo’s bullshit.
Of course…it’s a constant back and forth acceleration of the rhetoric. That’s what I’m saying. And both extremes thing that when THEY say whatever spewing rhetoric is currently in vogue, it’s absolute truth, whereas when it’s coming from the other side it just adds to the fury since it’s all lies and hate. It’s a vicious circle that, IMHO, directly lead to what happened this weekend…and if it continues will lead to more such incidents in the future.
-XT
I don’t recall any mainstream “leftists” encouraging gun violence against Bush & Co. Being rude is not quite the same.
Refresh my memory!
I neither mentioned mainstream leftists nor gun violence. I’m also not going to play the 20 cites game on this one. If the extent of the rhetoric against Bush and the Republicans you recall were some references to his resemblance to a chimp then all I can say is you weren’t paying very close attention for that 8 years, and leave it at that.
-XT
So, you’ve got nothing! And His Chimpishness was only one of the criticisms I mentioned…
In other words, “I can’t find an example.”
[QUOTE=Bridget Burke]
So, you’ve got nothing!
[/QUOTE]
As backup for your strawman of what I said? Nope…absolutely nothing.
[QUOTE=Euphonious Polemic
]
In other words, “I can’t find an example.”
[/QUOTE]
“So, you don’t want to play 20 cites on the question of whether water is wet, ehe? IOW ‘I can’t find an example’”.
Sure man…I absolutely can’t find a single example of heated political rhetoric from the left wrt to Bush or the Republicans from the last 10 years. They just don’t exist. Keep telling yourself that…
I dont recall left wingers bringing guns to political debates or town hall meetings, maybe you can dispel this delusion I have.
Can you find examples of elected officials from the Democratic party ( or candidates) using violent rhetoric regarding Bush
[QUOTE=Capitaine Zombie]
I dont recall left wingers bringing guns to political debates or town hall meetings, maybe you can dispel this delusion I have.
[/QUOTE]
You want me to dispel your strawman? I’d try fire…that usually helps. What seemingly I have to do is inject some reading comprehension to SD board left wingers to enable them to read what I actually wrote.
[QUOTE=madmonk28]
Can you find examples of elected officials from the Democratic party ( or candidates) using violent rhetoric regarding Bush
[/QUOTE]
Why would I want to, since, again, this isn’t what I said?
-XT
Well, when you get tired from hanging on your pedestal, you can come down and illuminate us with your impenetrable words of wisdom.
I’ve noticed that righties always fall back on the “both sides do it” argument, but unless you can prove that Democratic candidates use violent rhetoric against Bush, or that armed lefties attended public events, then all you are proving is that one side is much more reasonable than the other.
[QUOTE=madmonk28]
I’ve noticed that righties always fall back on the “both sides do it” argument, but unless you can prove that Democratic candidates use violent rhetoric against Bush, or that armed lefties attended public events, then all you are proving is that one side is much more reasonable than the other.
[/QUOTE]
Well, you may feel I need to justify something I didn’t say, or that I’m a righty…or, for that matter, that ‘righties’ say ‘both sides do it’ (in my experience, centrists say this…righty types generally say the same things that lefty types do, i.e. that it’s the other side that uses political rhetoric and heat, and that our side is just talking truth), but you’d be wrong. I’m militantly indifferent to calls for me to justify stuff I didn’t say, I’m only a righty to lefties on this board, and saying both sides do it is, IMHO, a mere statement of fact, if we are talking about what I actually wrote, as opposed to the strawman of what I wrote.
[QUOTE=Capitaine Zombie]
Well, when you get tired from hanging on your pedestal, you can come down and illuminate us with your impenetrable words of wisdom.
[/QUOTE]
I love my pedestal since it gives me such a fine view of the left and right wingers acting like children. I doubt I’ll get tired of hanging from it any time soon, but hope springs eternal. As for illuminating you all with my impenetrable words, it’s really more fun to see the knees jerking and hands waving, and being the hedonistic type I doubt I’ll be denying myself that pleasure…
-XT
At least, you could send us your Son.
You should be above this sort of misdirection, Marley. The problem is hardly that the government passed some laws that some people disliked. The problem, as I’ve clearly stated at least a couple of times now, is that Congress for the first time has passed legislation forcing people to buy things with their own money from private companies, and the speaker of the house (and probably the leader of the senate, although no one has yet said so) directly encouraged her membership to defy the will of the people, even if it cost them their job.
This is not the way our government was established to work. Lawmakers are elected to represent the people and to follow their will, and when you get to the point where lawmakers are willingly defying the will of the people and doing what they want to do instead, we no longer have a representative government. The 2nd Amendment was established just to guard against this sort of thing, and people are increasingly beginning to fear that our governement is no longer in the people’s hands. It does no good to throw the bastards out once they’ve saddled the country with even more debt and created undemocratic laws that nevertheless are very difficult to impossible to repeal.
The problem in this country isn’t so much that it’s moved extraordinarily leftward over the last several decades, it’s that it has been forced to the left during the last several decades, thanks mostly to an activist liberal judiciary and politicians counting on the phenomenon that while people strongly disapprove of what Congress is doing and has done, they still will be inclined to re-elect their own guy. And so many on the right feel the leftward progression hasn’t been due to a gradual shift in the citizenry’s political inclinations, but rather has been forced upon it by dint of judges and lawmakers working to achieve the type of country they want to see rather than the type of country most of the populace wants. (You’ll note that in recent polls, liberals make up 20% of the populace while conservatives make up 40%, with everyone else being fence-sitters.) This means that liberal lawmaking is taking the country in a direction it doesn’t want to go, and IMO it’s doing this much too fast.
So we may get to the point xtisme and the rest of us are afraid of where another civil war of sorts breaks out because the government is no longer being controlled by the people. Again, the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is for precisely this reason.
The right is damn mad in this country, and it has been for a longer time and for more reasons than the left has been mad about our wars. That anger is beginning to bubble to the surface and many people are beginning to think it’s time to “take the government back” - which, if you’ll note, is a key part of the message coming from Sarah Palin and the Tea Party and which is finding more than considerable resonance with much of the citizenry, a citizenry which is largely right/center-right in their political beliefs desires.
So in short, it’s too much too soon being forced upon a country that doesn’t want it, and the right is at long last being shaken from its normal tendency toward complacency. And unless things begin to change pretty soon, I fear the result is gonna be ugly…as it is indeed starting to become even now.
Sure. And lefties fall back on “they started it” and “but they’re so much worse than we are.” And both sides reflexively assume that someone that disagrees with them belong to the other party because no one person can simply come up with an idea or an opinion of their very own without help from a party supervisor. Centrists meanwhile feel superior in every way to those who are dependent upon a party for their political views and identities.
Does that about cover everything?
[QUOTE=Harborwolf]
Centrists meanwhile feel superior in every way to those who are dependent upon a party for their political views and identities.
[/QUOTE]
Plus we apparently feel we are god like as well (though, personally I see myself as more a fat, balding Hispanic Fantastic Mr Fox type character :p).
Other than that caveat I’d say you are spot on.
-XT
Nice deflects, but can anyone provide cites for a Democrat of the same stature as Palin or Angle using violent rhetoric against Bush? If not, I think the only conclusion is that one side is much more reasonable than the other.
Who’s deflecting? The issue isn’t who is doing it worse or who started it. The issue is whether or not that type of extremist language is wrong. Do you agree or disagree?
You can call it false equivalence if you want. Whatever makes you feel slightly better about your side. I personally believe that if this kind of talk is ever going to stop, both sides need to stop doing it and all that arguing over who started it or who does it more just delays the process. But hey. You want to argue over who is second to worst and who’s the worst? Be my guest.
I do think that the extremist language is wrong, but that it is coming from one side. I still have not seen an example of Democratic candidates the kind of extremist language you denounce. Can you provide some examples so that I may evaluate them?