Correct. Extreme rhetoric is not by any means limited to one side. Currently, with Obama in the White House, the left’s rhetoric is stilled and the right’s through the roof. When Bush was in power, the left had quite a bit more volume.
No one side is innocent. No one side is solely guilty.
Uh, yeah.
Honestly, from my perspective, I don’t care who is more at fault. If they are both forced by public opinion to be decent, I think that will be a bigger change for the right than for the left, but it doesn’t matter which one actually makes the bigger change so long as both make it.
I do hold politicians to a higher standard than private citizens. Dan Savage is a sex columnist. He is not equivalent to a politician (and frankly, I don’t trust your summation of his actions. You aren’t a trustworthy source in my experience). Alec Baldwin is an embarrassment and still not equivalent to a politician who has garnered actual votes.
But none of this matters. I’ll agree the left should be held to the same high standard I hold the right to. Fine. I’ll say that none of them should indulge in violent rhetoric. Okey dokey. That you think this affects the left as much as the right means that you should be willing for the right to give it up. Works for me.
Because they are our public servants, the people we decide collectively will work on finding solutions to the problems in our society. They are the ones responsible for making the system work. So when they work to sabotage the system, it is far far worse then when people outside the system do it.
Really, this question is just silly. If it’s violence in the name of political ideology that we’re talking about, why wouldn’t the actual politicians’ opinions hold more sway than famous actors who dabble in politics when they’re not making movies?
Um, that would be Vietnam, and I am saying that as someone more liberal than most liberals.
That is, if you count JFK and LBJ as liberals.
Bullshit. I want an example of a politician known on the national scale from the left who ever unambiguously suggested violence against the opposition as a political solution… and wasn’t immediately smacked down by the rest of the party.
(I’ll be impressed with just the first part).
So - a politician says in a speech that when his opponents bring a knife to the fight, he’ll bring a gun.
Is this just an amusing metaphor, or violent rhetoric that he shouldn’t use in the future?
You have reached a point of embarassing yourself wherein it embarasses me to watch you.
Who led, Bricker? Who was the alpha lemming who led us into this ghastly situation?
You were here, I was here. I said, at the time, as we were being offered the resolution for military force, I said the man is a lying sack of shit. He says he only wants this authority to improve his negotiating position, to show he has the backing of the people. I said he was leading us to war.
What did you say? Was it something along the lines of patting me on my pointy little head and saying that I had no proof, that my charges were ridiculous? Bet it was. Was I right, and you wrong? Yep. Were we pissed about that? Yeah, sure, you betcha! Big time and downtown. These men made our country an international criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Yeah, that chaps my hide.
And now you want to paint an equivalence? My anger at GeeDub wasn’t justified? I shouldn’t have said all those mean things? I know why I am so angry, what I cannot fathom is why you are not.
Amusing metaphor.
That was easy.
Sure. Mr Moto is right on the money. A leading Democratic politician said, of his opponents, “They’ll bring a knife to the fight, we’ll bring a gun.”
And if he actually does show up the next day with a gun?
Yes, and metaphor was all that in play when Sharron Angle mentioned “Second Amendment solution.”
So you tell me when someone on the right unambiguously suggested violence against the opposition as a political solution.
What’s the fucking metaphor of “Second Amendment Solution?”
That’s not a metaphor, it’s euphemism.
How was that metaphorical? “2nd Amendment solution” is a metaphor for what?
The purpose of the Second Amendment is to permit the people to defend themselves against government tyranny. So metaphorically, invoking the Second Amendment is a call to resist government tyranny – not by firearms, but by citizen involvement and solidarity.
With what?
This has the stink of desperation on it. Don’t embarrass yourself further, Bricker.
I was with you until this. This is bullshit and you know it.
Not by firearms? Not by fucking firearms?
Remind me again what the Second Amendment gives me the right to keep and bear again? I’m sure it was … what … teddy bears … puppies … rainbows … I’m sure it was something along those lines.
This is a ridiculous attempt at spin. It doesn’t even make sense. The 2nd Amendment has never been a metaphor for “citizen involvement and solidarity.”
Here is my take on who should exercise control of their mouths (reposted from another thread):
Here is an short, probably incomplete list of people who should probably exercise some control, and try not to suggest how " the time may be coming when an armed revolution would become necessary in order to take the country back from a government that had begun deliberately defying the will of the (a minority of the people who did not vote for the party in power)"
This is simply my opinion. These folks should exercise some self-control, as it is clear that they can potentially reach millions of people, and are theoretically in a position where they are taken seriously:
-Running for State or Federal office on one of the two main party tickets.
-Elected to State or Federal office.
-Hired by a network or cable news show to give serious commentary on politics.
-Hosting a serious current events show on a major TV or Radio network.
Now. We have seen some examples from the Tea Bag wing of the Republican party who may fit this mold. People who have participated in some extreme rhetoric.
Contrasting these people with left-wing obscure message board posters, or leftie washed up actors, or whatnot, is just wrong
And for the record, I think that Obama quoting the movie “The Untouchables” during the election about bringing a gun to a knife fight was a poor attempt at humor, and he should have apologized. Oh wait, he did.
Something that’s always perplexed me about this one is that no one seems to care if the criticism is something real. I mean, when people go over the top with crazy “muslim communist sleeper cell agent” hate on Obama, others will step in and say well people said a lot of bad shit about Bush!
But people said bad shit about stuff Bush actually did. People criticized a fucking completely unnecesary war that wrecked a country, killed hundreds of thousands, and put us in massive debt. The rhetoric may have been extreme, but it was an extreme action that garnered legitimate criticism.
Whereas from day 1 - and I don’t mean day 1 from Obama’s presidency, but day 1 they heard he was even running for president - you’ve had over the top OMG CRYPTO SOCIALIST MUSLIM MIND CONTROL DEMON criticisms before anyone even knew who he was or what he stood for. There’s a ton of criticism for stuff that doesn’t actually exist - for example, people are outraged that Obama raised their taxes when he did no such thing and actually cut them for everyone.
It’s so desperate to me that the right makes attacks against bad things that Bush actually did equivelant to completely false and more angry attacks against stuff that Obama didn’t actually do.
But that’s how the false equivelance thing goes. “Oh, a blogger that 6 people read said something bad about Republicans, therefore Angle calling for the assassination of her political opponent is offset!” or “Bush got criticized for wrecking Iraq for no reason, therefore it’s fair that people call Obama a communist for raising taxes!”
As to your other points - you do bring up semi-valid points by pointing out stuff like the reticles on the states on the democratic map and all that - but they don’t really pass scrutiny. If the only thing here was Palin’s map, it wouldn’t really be that objectionable (but targetting specific names is indeed a bit more scary than targetting states) - but it’s the fact that it comes with a whole lot of violent and apocalyptic rhetoric. It’s the whole context that makes it scary.
When they try to invoke the idea of armed revolution, second amendment solutions, liberals are traitors are trying to destroy the real america, that health care reform is going to put the government in charge of euthanizing you, etc - that creates a context in which a “we must take them out”/reticles on people’s names is some scary shit.