False equivalency is all they’ve got now.
Sarah Palin ratchets up the violent rhetoric with gun imagery against Democrats:
For anyone who HASN’T gone to the blog mentioned in the OP - here’s a sampling of what’s in it:
Guy also claims
Which is why he’s organizing an ARMED march on Washington DC, with loaded pistols and unloaded rifles:
from the Dave Ross Show blog, from KIRO radio in Seattle:
I wouldn’t say that all of the political left is in favor of those shenanigans. Nor would you suggest that all of the political right is in favor of the stuff that’s been going on over the last 36 hrs.
I suspect that you, as a lefty, are not in favor of websites like this. Nor should you be. But I’m not 12 yrs old so I’m not going to go around screaming that every lefty should denounce every lefty extremist organization.
As for Palin and targeting states… you really equate the ‘targeting’ of states that the GOP will focus on, in the hopes of winning electorally I assume, with the supposed violence we’ve heard about today?
Well, I appreciate your thoughts, I really do. I simply disagree.
You start off saying I’m wrong, that both sides don’t do this. Then you say in your second sentence “There are fringes on both sides, and they consist of small numbers of lunatics who get violent once in a while.” Yes. We agree on that.
You say the GOP politicians are in bed with the tea party and ‘encourage their worst excesses’. But not violence? If not, then what’s your point? If so, I’d have to ask for some proof.
The tea party is not an arm of the Republican party. According to that famous right-wing mouthpiece, the LA Times, the Tea Party has tapped into a latent anger in this country against both parties.
If your premise is that the GOP’s more fringier (if that were a word) elements are intentionally whipping up the tea party into a frenzy because they want to incite violence, I don’t buy that. If you’re suggesting that they want to tap into the emotion to boost the numbers of what’s likely to be a ‘throw out the bums’ year, I totally buy that.
Not as such, no. And I don’t think you’ll find Democrat politicians helping ELF with fundraising lunches, nor will you find a major media outlet helping masked G8 hoodlums to bus into their protests. You are comparing apples and oranges.
You “assume” that the gun targets are for “targeting” states to win democratically? and you probably “assume” that when Palin twittered “Don’t Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!'”, she meant “reload your enthusiasm”, right?
They politicians use images and words like this for a reason- they know full well the subcontext and the meaning. They are playing to a crowd that is dangerously incited. They are playing with fire.
Tell you what: Provide some quotes from sitting Democrats in the House or Senate that express their support of ELF, any of the Black Block Anarchist Groups, or whoever it is that burned down black churches (by the way, it is the Sea Shepherds that ram boats, not Greenpeace) . I’m not even talking about support of their illegal acts, just someething like “I, Senator Dem, applaud the ELF and their policy goals.” Other posters can then post quotes from sitting Republican Senators and Reps that applaud the Tea Party movement. Do you honestly think you will get similar amounts from each side?
Now, let’s talk about actual incendiary rhetoric. I challenge you to find the choicest quotes you can from Democrats that demonize Republicans over Health Care. Other posters can find the choicest quotes from Republicans. Do you honestly think that that there is going to be an equivalent set of quotes from each side?
I think Rep. Driehart’s response to Rep. Boehner’s calling him a “dead man” makes the point fairly eloquently. "“I told him it was inexcusable,” Driehaus said. “It doesn’t really matter the way you meant it, nor the way I accept it. It’s how the **least sane person **in my district accepts it.” (bolding mine)
I tend towards the free speach absolutist end of the spectrum, but at the end of the day, words do have consequences. If you are whipping people up into a frenzy with overheated rhetoric about how we are losing our freedoms and how the country is doomed and then using rhetoric about violent resistance, you shouldn’t be too surprised if someone acts on those words. There is probably not legal cupability, but in my opinion, there is certainly moral culpability. I don’t think Republican politicians are intentionally trying to incite violence, but for them to claim that it was not foreseeable that the rhetoric they are using could lead to violent results is ludicrous.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Republican leadership is hoping for some serious violence, for the terror factor; and to kill off some Democrats so they can be replaced with Republicans. They of course will cry a few crocodile tears if some Democratic Congressman or Obama gets killed, while making some comments about the “understandable outrage” of the public which they sympathize with even if the “deplore the violent methods of its expression”. To make their approval clear, while legally covering their ass. Just like they do when some doctor gets killed by the anti-abortionists, or Democrats get anthrax in the mail, or some other right wing violence happens.
If you look at my earlier post, you’ll see I said neither side has a monopoly on violence. But the level of involvement from high-profile politicians and elected officials is not the same.
They encourage the ignorance, the paranoia, the stupidity, the religious terror, the xenophobia, and the insanity, and pretend not to see the violence and threats of violence that go hand in hand with it. That’s my point. If you scare the living shit out of someone and tell them their life is in danger, you can’t be surprised when they do something crazy to “protect” themselves.
Correct. The Republican party is making itself an arm of the Tea Party. And props to you on choosing the word “arm,” since these people keep threatening to shoot their political opponents.
People are frustrated with both political parties, no question. But you don’t see Keith Olbermann and Dennis Kucinich promoting Tea Party events, while Fox personalities and people like Michelle Bachmann are all over them.
No, the Republican politicians don’t want to incite violence. They want to take electoral advantage of the people who are threatening violence. They believe this rabid fear will lead to gains at the ballot box, so they are looking to tap into the fear - and encourage people to be afraid. The fear is inseparable from the violence, however. When you terrify people like this and the people have guns, violence is going to follow.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that only Democratic and pro-health care bums are getting death threats? And that only right wingers are supporting this way of throwing them out?
I apologize for assuming you’re a liberal. It won’t happen again. I get something similar at me all the time, and it’s a little annoying.
As for your moving the goalposts (we talking about the Facebook thing or the Twitter thing?), and Palin playing to imagery of guns; it’s pushing the line, but come on, Palin is widely known as a bigtime gun hunter/2nd amend rights nut, and so are her supporters I’d guess.
I guess you’re suggesting that she’s doing this intentionally to get some right wing whackjob to go murder some abortion doctor? Or maybe she just realizes that tapping into the strong emotions are good thing for her, and her party? It’s a long cry from actually pointing at her targets and saying, “you know, it’d be great if someone took him/her out…”
No, I’m not going to waste my time. I’m the one saying that politicians don’t do this, you’re not. I challenge you to quote the GOP politician who is specifically inciting violence or insurrection. Do you think that Boehner was serious about wanting to get someone killed?
I think it’s that way because the Democrats just virtually rammed down the throats of the American people a bill that many feel will ruin the country, and emotions are running hot. Whether the bill was good or not is immaterial; people feel powerless, especially the way it was handled. And the fact that a majority was against it doesn’t help things.
What reason would anyone have to target GOP? What power do they have? The Dems could have passed this anytime they wanted - as I’ve mentioned before, the only thing bipartisan about this bill was the opposition to it.
When you say ‘only right wingers’ are supporting throwing them out (ie killing or wounding or whatever) - you mean politicians? Or just crazies?
Oh, garbage. They bent over backwards trying to make the other side happy. Far from being “rammed” down the throats of the American people, this bill is watered down drastically from what most people wanted according to the polls.
What, exactly, do you expect the Democrats to do when faced with an opposition that is determined to never compromise, never make any proposals of their own, to do nothing but oppose any attempt to do anything? Just sit on their hands?
Like some sort of wierd ectoplasmic penis?
How very Hentai!
I don’t usually say this, but if you’re stupid enough believe this crap I will probably stop wasting my time discussing it with you. People were depicting Obama as a Nazi long before this bill was passed. Last summer, people were wandering around town halls discussing a health care reform bill with guns. The Tea Party movement got started on taxes, not health care - even though most of them don’t know Obama has cut taxes. If you pretend this phenomenon started this week with the health care bill, you’ll come to the misleading conclusions that people are just frustrated. Some of them are, but this has been going on for Obama’s whole term and before.
These people felt powerless starting Jan. 20, 2009. It’s not about this bill. If you think this insanity just started this week, you’re clueless. Remember when somebody yelled “Kill him” [meaning Obama] when a vice presidential candidate said he was friends with a terrorist? Really, there’s a long history and a grand spectrum of partisan idiocy, but find me the Democratic candidate who said something like that about Cheney or Bush.
If there are lunatics on both sides of the aisle - something we both concede - why is this only happening now? Which Democratic Senators and Congressmen were inciting this kind of thing during Bush’s terms? There were two wars and the USA PATRIOT Act wasn’t exactly popular. When did 10 Republican Congressmen get death threats?
You know, this bill took 14 months to pass. Where were you?
There is increasingly no difference between the politicians and the crazies. And I notice you didn’t answer my question about the Tea Parties: if they’re dissatisfied with everyone, why isn’t MSNBC promoting them, and why don’t they have liberal Demcorats speaking?
I’m sorry, but even if they do have 3 million people who are willing to take up arms (:rolleyes:), you can’t wage a revolution unless you have young, able-bodied people. The average age of Fox Viewers is, what, 65? What’s the average age of Tea Partiers? Conservatives in general? All of this talk of revolution and civil war is laughable coming from the same people who want the government to keep their hands off their Medicare.
Oh, and I’ll just toss in that just because one group of psycho loons blows something up somewhere, it doesn’t give you carte blanche to then blow something else up free of guilt just because “they did it first.” Nor does it allow you to justify such actions by others on the same grounds. Violence is violence regardless of who may have done what.
“You thrust your pelvis----hunh! You thrust your pelvis----hunh! You thrust your pelvis----hunh!…”
- Duckman
Careful, Lucy. That pelvic thrust will really drive you insaaaaaane…
And yeah, looks like that bullet was at the end of its journey. Reports say it broke the glass… but didn’t even penetrate the curtains behind the glass. That’s a dead bullet. Depending on what it was, it’d have to be a couple hundred yards away.