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Hate Speech: The Right’s Magic Bullet
The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov had a rule: if you show a gun in the first act, by the time the curtain falls, it has to go off. For weeks and months, that gun, the weapon of angry rhetoric and intemperate rabblerousing, has been cocked and loaded in plain view on the American stage; Saturday morning outside a shopping mall in Tucson, Arizona, it went off again and again and again.
The target, Gabrielle Giffords, a member of the United States Congress, lays critically wounded, one of thirteen shot and still alive. Six others are dead, including a respected Federal judge who happened to be there but who previously had received death threats from anti-immigration extremists, a member of Congresswoman Giffords’ staff and a nine-year old girl, Christina-Taylor Green. Just elected to her school’s student council, she had been brought by a neighbor to Congresswoman Gifford’s constituent event so she could see how grown-ups put democracy into action.
Instead, this child – born on 9/11 -- became just one of the latest victims of more political violence in America, violence fueled by an incoherent rage against government and elected officials who cannot instantly bring back prosperity and the jobs lost overseas or restore in a blink some idealized vision of a nation that might once have been but is no more. And all of it egged on by right wing leaders and their cronies lurking in the swampier reaches of the Internet, hate radio and television
We now see the deadly effect. The root causes are many and less distinct: fear of the future and what it may or may not hold, hostility inflamed by the economic injustice and uncertainty that force too many to live from paycheck to paycheck without anything saved or the slightest guarantee of security -- a gnashing of teeth and sharpening of claws because others may have what you have not. Or this: the simple fact that there are just too many damned guns in this country. One in four Americans owns at least one. The NRA would order gun racks in the cradles of newborn infants if they could. Too many weapons are used not for hunting or target shooting or legitimate protection, but for combating feelings of inadequacy and weakness with fantasies of firepower -- fantasies that crazed gunmen too often try to make reality. That someone like Jared Lee Loughner can walk into a store and buy a weapon that fires 30 rounds a clip is probably not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they talked about "a well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State."
No one can prove that the vitriolic talk from the right was in the killer's mind as he carried out his attack, but no one can prove it wasn’t, either. So in the absence of evidence to support either side, why doesn't the right just volunteer to put an end to all the ballistic language and images it's been employing for many years now? Why not cease and desist if there's any doubt about the impact on lunatics of provocative violent-saturated words and images? Sarah Palin must have suddenly felt queasy about those crosshairs over Giffords’ congressional district that were still up on her website, because the mama grizzly, half-term governor took them down soon after the violence (although as of this writing they were still on her Facebook page). But then she sent an aide to do a radio show in which she agreed with the sympathetic interviewer that the crosshairs were more like “surveyors’ symbols”! Why prolong that kind of stuff? Why not just knock it off and apologize or simply shut up?
The fact is, it has been the right's goal to poison our political discourse for years. Remember the notorious “GOPAC Memo” back in the 1990’s, created for the Republicans’ leadership training institute and endorsed by Newt Gingrich? Titled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” in it, candidates are instructed in what words to use when defining their opponents (i.e., liberals). "These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contract,” the memo said. “Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals, and their party” (in other words, demonize them).
Among them: intolerant… lie… pathetic… radical… sick… steal… traitors. Gingrich and his allies deliberately set out to employ toxic language against their opponents, and are still doing it. They will say anything to get a vote, especially now that the angriest and most irrational so often make up a majority of those who bother to go to the polls. This kind of talk is part and parcel of their strategy, and no matter what motivated the Tucson killings, it needs to stop.
Their lock and load rhetoric is reinforced by the rambling ranks of those who go on the Internet to spout any conspiracy theory, distortion of history or outright lie that helps them make it through the night. Add, too, the men and women of radio and television, the Limbaugh’s, Beck’s, and their ilk who use the airwaves as a cudgel, battering viewers and listeners with the certainty of their illogic, their thinly veiled messages of bigotry and meretricious embrace of Constitution, religion, flag and family.
All of them will huff and puff that this is an isolated incident by a madman that cannot be blamed on their bombast and bluster. But let’s call it out for what it is, let’s debate what in our gut we know to be true: even if it was not their intent, it’s likely the words of the right on radio and TV and in the books they publish spurred on the man who killed two and wounded six in a Knoxville, Kentucky, church in July 2008, and the murderer of George Tiller, one of the few doctors in America who still performed late-term abortions for women with problem pregnancies whose health was at stake from life-threatening complications, or whose infants would be born dead or dying. Their invective, whether inadvertently or not, has encouraged the vandalism and threats faced by so many of our candidates and elected officials, including the now desperately wounded Congresswoman Giffords. Her shooting, and the death and wounding of so many who came to meet with her are just the latest example of ideologically-motivated bloodshed.
“Let me say one thing,” said Clarence Dupnik, sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, where the shootings took place, “because people tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.” He singled out radio and TV and said, “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.” An elected Democrat, he was immediately attacked by Republicans and the right, his statements dismissed as partisan and inappropriate.
"The facts weren't even out there, Rep. Giffords had been carted away in a stretcher, we didn't even know her condition, but the war had already started. The folks on the hard left were already out there blaming the tea party." So complained Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation. He told The Washington Post, "If we ever needed an official political obituary to political civility in this country, we've seen it.”
Mr. Phillips, that obituary was written long ago, thanks to you and your friends. Enough.
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Show AllLiberals and Conservatives, Democrats and Republicans are all pro-capitalist and therefore pro-corporate. This has always been true. Liberal is corporate. The views of the Liberal establishment can be quite different from the liberal or democratic base, that is, the majority of the population. So, average Americans who identify as liberal or its more contemporary version, "progressive" can think about the world very differently than their ostensible "leaders" in politics or the press. Most progressives would argue that are no progressives in the Obama administration. The right-wing however, makes no such distinctions. Obama is not only a Liberal and a Progressive, but a socialist as well. Like conservatives, liberals often have their very own definition of what liberal means contradicting Liberalism as a political philosophy.
The basic idea of Liberalism is that in a highly stratified class society, the most privileged (the ruling class: the rich, big corporations and small business wanna bee's) owe some sort of minimal social safety net to the least privileged (those most exploited by the ruling class). Liberalism provided a mask of legitimacy to an unequal society. In the last 40 years corporate America has decided that maximized profits are more important to them than legitimacy. The corporate state has abandoned Liberalism in all but rhetoric. So, what working Americans see is Liberals as forked-tongue and duplicitous. Liberals haven't delivered on their lofty rhetoric in decades while the standard of living for most Americans is declining (and corporate profits have never been better). See Chris Hedges' "The Death of the Liberal Class".
Well said.
Thank you. I always enjoy your posts!
Michael Winship here are two connected questions for you. One: Do you consider President Obama to be in the Political Right?
Here is my second question. Whom do you consider to be more responsible for political murders, Sarah Palin or President Obama who claims that he has the right to execute even from the air without trial any American citizen who is deemed to be a terrorist or help terrorists. For me the choice is easy. It is the occupant of the White House. There will always be unstable persons who think: "I will do the execution for you Mr. President". It is astonishing, absolutely astonishing that almost no one points at a real culprit, albeit perhaps not the only one: the guy in the White House.
If in all the death obsessed hoopla about this Tuscon tragedy we see that only federal judges and congressional representatives merit media mention by name, shouldn't one note/notice/call attention to the fact/ that we non-elites are not worthy of any media mention.
Not by name. Not by non-elite profession. Unless you're a nine year old.
In the Amurkkkan system some, neither innocent nor distinguished enough to count, die as numbers.
I think of *The Black Keys.* Lawnmowers turned rock gods.
If the next of their ilk were at the Tuscon Safeway, we'll never know.
We must say they were drinking beer, eating hamburgers, and the living of their Simpsons' life is or was not worth knowing.
How long not to think of them, Shadow D? Don't worry, we won't.
And oh so significantly, we'll never be told.
Don't let the amazement let you forget.
No love...only hate division and fear...the power brokers got to love you guys attacking each other instead of the people that created these conditions,and continue to manipulate you.
All the problems in our society (joblessness, poverty, crime, lack of educational and decent housing opportunites for many people, racism, sexism, and constant, unnecessary wars being waged by our government abroad), not to mention many others, and the anger that results from the feeling that no justice has ever been served, have existed well before Sara Palin and her ilk even came into the picture, and have been made far worse by the presence of far too many guns around. Sure, Palin's an ignorant, nasty person, and I don't like her, but I feel that I cannot, in good conscience, put the blame solely on Palin and her ilk for society's problems, or for the gun violence that has always existed well before the horrible deaths in Tucson, AZ.
Do the MLK, RFK, and the JFK assassinations, not to mention the blood that runs red in the streets of many of our poorest urban areas come to mind, anybody? What about all the Jared Lee Loughners, the Virginia Tech shooters and Columbine shooters who've had access to guns because our system and our gun laws are lax enough to permit people like that to have access to firearms, when they really shouldn't. The same is true of people with mental health issues, mental instability, substance and alcohol abuse, and anger-management issues. Too many rogue gun-dealers are all too willing to sell firearms to such people without thinking twice.
JILL: Your concluding paragraph is certainly important, but your post otherwise reads like a libertarian nod to all sorts of "free" speech. Given the particularly insidious, omnipresent nature of hate speech, I find it odd that your moral arguments seems to aim like an attorney--at establishing causation beyond any reasonable doubt. A society ought not be black and white, where freedom means anything goes. The atmosphere of hate speech echoing through the right wing segments of media subliminally factors into how unbalanced persons behave. I've made this same point with respect to the degrading types of pornography that are rapidly proliferating.
Are you one of the posters that uses the fallback position that guns don't kill people, people do? Here again, the issue, rather than being "black or white," ought to come down to degrees (or shades of gray). After all, there's a world of distance between a semi-automatic rifle and a hand pistol. They both kill, but with what level of efficiency? A society that only sees one extreme or the other and loses all capacity for nuance, is a society that becomes divisive by design.
You have issues with her but you're too busy fighting her and you're part of the reason why she's gone mad on this site. Why don't you just ignore her and let her cool off? She won't attack you if you won't attack her. I'm not siding with her or you. Both of you should stop provoking wars. I want the old Sioux Rose back who wasn't so belligerent before you and Shawn Berry messed her up.
I was giving some general history but you're right. SR lost it on her own and hasn't been the same since. Keep a friendly outlook and if and when she attacks first, you can be sure others including her own friends will call her out on it.
there a phrase in the I Ching that states..
>>A house that heaps good upon good is sure to have an abundance of blessings. A house that heaps evil upon evil is sure to have an abundance of ills. Where a servant murders his master , where a son murders his father , the causes do not lie between the morning and the evening of one day. It came about because things that should have been stopped were not stopped soon enough.
There is not one THING that lead to this. It is many things and it goes back to before Jared even born.
In fact this was out of the Wilhelm/baynes translation. Oddly several days ago I had pulled this book off my top shelf on some whim. I had not looked at it for years. As I tend to do with the book I opened it to a random page and this the phrase that stood out.
It seemed so relevant. Almost like I was destined to find it.
It from the "Comments" section on K'un the receptive.
GW NORTH: Thanks for the quote. My favorite is KUA #43, from the Richard Wilhelm edition. Its insights gathered over 2000 years ago, it's still the best treatise on how to regard evil (in my mind) ever written. I found the synchronicity quite compelling in that Bush was the 43rd prez, and obsessed with evil. The I ching makes it quite clear that evil cannot be fought by direct means without the "innocent" party being forced to take up evil's own methods. The teaching is to not engage evil at all; but rather to center all of one's energies on doing what is right, good, and helpful. If only the U.S. government used the I ching in deciding on its course of action after 911. Imagine all the horrors that might have been avoided, the lost lives never taken, and money left in the till for such things as greening the nation's infrastructure, creating good jobs, providing for a sound education for the young, and making health care more accessible than the pursuit of The Impossible Dream.
You are both welcome.
Who cares if the Repubs apologize and tone down the smack talk? Better if they keep it up, but by itself it doesn't matter. What matters is the response from everybody else, especially the Dems. Sheriff Dupnik seems to understand this. The rest of the Dems, so far, have instead crawled under their desks, mewling bland pieties and otherwise once again, for the 800th time, not acknowledging that the Repubs have just handed over their heads on a platter.
This is what passes for debate among the mouthpieces of the elite.
Jared Lee Loughner is just the tip of a rotten angry iceberg called lax gun laws and right wing hate speech.
I think he is the tip of a rotten angry iceberg of people who feel that the use of guns will empower them in a way that, to them, nothing else can.
Where would the urban gangbangers be placed on the left right spectrum? Their acquisition of firearms would not be inhibited in the least by tougher laws. Same goes for the drug cartel folks.
We look to be heading towards a free-for-all shoot-'em-up action movie big finish.
People who have no power over their lives - which is the case for all of us - look for ways to gain power.
Winship writes:
"This kind of talk is part and parcel of their strategy, and no matter what motivated the Tucson killings, it needs to stop."
If trash talking, irrational rants, speech inciting violence through the use of violent sports and martial metaphors, and the language and the iconography (in the case of the SarahPAC map) of firearms usage is indeed part of their strategy, how can Winship even begin to hope that his call will be taken seriously by the speakers under discussion?
The article has a good start, but then it gets bogged down in a form of wishful thinking. Indeed, the very war and sheer cacophony of nasty and violent words that arose nearly immediately after the terrorist act by Loughner, and shows no sign of waning, demonstrates very clearly that Winship's calls for a cessation of violent speech is, well, little more than a nice thought.
The virulence of today's political discourse is both a symptom and a constitutive feature of a massive real (non-linguistic) violence that pervades the State's machinations here and abroad and the interests it serves.
These interests are inherently violent since they rob this contry's labor force, its treasury, and the riches of vulnerable and feeble nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.), and drive millions of our residents and citizens into unemployment.
OIKOS: Thank you for a post that perhaps unwittingly supports my contention that in the U.S. Mars, god of war, rules... in spite of all the pseudo tributes (barring those efforts on the part of a sincere minority) to Jesus.
"If It Were Up to Me"
by Cheryl Wheeler
Maybe it's the movies, maybe it's the books
Maybe it's the bullets, maybe it's the real crooks
Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the parents
Maybe it's the colors everybody's wearin'
Maybe it's the president, maybe it's the last one
Maybe it's the one before that, what he done
Maybe it's the high schools, maybe it's the teachers
Maybe it's the tattooed children in the bleachers
Maybe it's the Bible, maybe it's the lack
Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the crack
Maybe it's the hairdos, maybe it's the TV
Maybe it's the cigarettes, maybe it's the family
Maybe it's the fast food, maybe it's the news
Maybe it's divorce, maybe it's abuse
Maybe it's the lawyers, maybe it's the prisons
Maybe it's the Senators, maybe it's the system
Maybe it's the fathers, maybe it's the sons
Maybe it's the sisters, maybe it's the moms
Maybe it's the radio, maybe it's road rage
Maybe El Nino, or UV rays
Maybe it's the army, maybe it's the liquor
Maybe it's the papers, maybe the militia
Maybe it's the athletes, maybe it's the ads
Maybe it's the sports fans, maybe it's a fad
Maybe it's the magazines, maybe it's the Internet
Maybe it's the lottery, maybe it's the immigrants
Maybe it's taxes, big business
Maybe it's the KKK and the skinheads
Maybe it's the communists, maybe it's the Catholics
Maybe it's the hippies, maybe it's the addicts
Maybe it's the art, maybe it's the sex
Maybe it's the homeless, maybe it's the banks
Maybe it's the clearcut, maybe it's the ozone
Maybe it's the chemicals, maybe it's the car phone
Maybe it's the fertilizer, maybe it's the nose rings
Maybe it's the end, but I know one thing.
If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns.
And we have ANOTHER right winger here providing cover. How pathetic. People like you are clearly shaken by the consequences of this. It is about damn time.
"Mike, this man was made mad by an uncaring and crazy culture where both side of the spectrum are culpable."
Are you serious? If that was the case then the violence would be equal, and it isn't. If it was the right wing wouldn't have to reach such absurd equivalencies, bringing up the 40 years ago Weather Underground and the property damage of the ELF. There is no leftist equivalent of the militias, McVeigh, the killer of Dr. Tiller, the would be Tides Foundation killer, the people involved in the gun show movement, the abortion clinic bombers, amongst many, many others. I posted this link above, it needs to be read and taken in. There is nothing at all approaching this from the left. That argument is people like you trying to cover for the monster you have created. Grow up and look in the god damned mirror.
http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/guns-democracy-and-freedom/insurrection-timeline
Hey listen, Wilbert1!
As somebody who lived through the tumultous late 1960's and early to mid-1970's, I'm of the opinion that unprovoked violence is unprovoked violence, whether it's on the Right, the Left, or the Center, and the American people fall for it, hook, line and sinker. Pointing out things that happened in the past or having a somewhat different outlook than you do, or being against mandatory school busing because it was such a disaster here in Boston, since it failed to get to the root of the problem(s) that it set out to correct, and pointing out that the tactics of a lot of the hippies back in the late 1960's and early 1970's helped bring about this country's present listing over to the Right doesn't make me a rightwinger! Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it, buster!
"As somebody who lived through the tumultous late 1960's and early to mid-1970's, I'm of the opinion that unprovoked violence is unprovoked violence, whether it's on the Right, the Left, or the Center"
Who is disagreeing with this? What I am saying is that it makes no sense to damn the left for the explosion in right wing violence and threats of violence. Learning from history is important, using it however to create a false equivalence is another. Yes, the violence on the left turned people off, but the left hasn't BEEN violent for decades, nothing in comparison to the right now. I would also argue that the economic decline of the US, the elimination of unions, the explosion in wealth inequality, the de-industrialization of the country, the financialization of the economy and the horrible trade policies the elites have created have far more to do with the mess we are in than the bombs set off by the Weather Underground and mandatory school busing. Would Obama have been elected during the time of mandatory school busing? Of course not, so we obviously have moved forward in some ways, however superficial.
I would also argue that the move to the right are a result of the internal contradictions, the structural problems, of capitalism. There ARE problems as far as domestic profitability. There WAS a profitability crisis that began in the capitalist market economies (from the US, the UK, Germany and South Korea) beginning really in the early 1970's. Wages had grown steadily as had rents, especially on things like energy. Profits WERE squeezed. The only way to change the situation was to lower taxes, open up foreign markets, to liberalize trade and finance and to attack unions (since unions raised wages and hurt profitability). There were options but the leaders, and maybe many people who didn't quite understand the structural problems we were facing, weren't willing to consider other options. If you listen to the right wing now, they admit this. They say that profits in the "real" economy of production are hard to come by domestically (especially in relation to other, poorer countries) and that wages have to be reduced, unions basically eliminated, "costly" environmental protections eliminated and social programs gutted. Some of it is ideological, some of it is a result of the problems the domestic economy is facing. We once again have other options that aren't being considered, so here we are.
WILBER: This poster uses a light, breezy, apparently good-natured manner to conflate issues that are unrelated, and direct attention to minutiae so that some readers are drawn away from the core issues of concern.
He has no interest in hearing the truth, he's here to dim its bulb. And he is not alone. This particular thread has many of his cohorts on hand. Note how they reinforce each other's points to present the picture of a widely held consensus.
Almost always one from "the pack" will be tasked with pointing out the singular flaw (as if any human being lacks them) on the part of the article's author. Then THAT becomes the issue, so a case can be falsely construed to steal all legitimacy from that individual's voice, while negating said person's life-long dedication to a cause or defining principle. it's a covert way of knee-capping important voices on the Left. Then the same group will announce there IS no Left. It's the CD version of a "Catch-22."
Siouxrose, the discourse in this country is maddening. The right outright rejects reality. The "center" sticks their noses up at both polls and seems incapable of drawing any distinctions. It's a pox on both you houses even if things aren't equal, the stances on the issues the same or equally valid or realistic. Who the hell is the "center" to lecture anyone anyway? The "center" has always been there to play useful idiot to those in power. Leading into the Iraq war the "center" certainly couldn't be bothered to do anything. They saw the right trying to scare the hell out of people and they saw the left angry and yelling back. They, like now, said we were both crazy and couldn't be bothered to look into the facts either. The left was entirely right about Iraq, we have thousands of dead Americans, millions of Iraqis dead and three TRILLION down the drain and for what? Same goes with the economic policies of the last 30-40 years. The right has been on the offensive, the left has been in the streets, had some victories like in Seattle a decade ago. Economists on the left have been accuratly predicting the mess we were heading into but they were on the left, some were radicals, and they aren't any better or more realistic than the right we're told. The "center" either supported the right's destructive economic policies or once again refused to look at the facts regarding the issues being debated. If they had they couldn't possible agree with the right, at least from a self interest standpoint. They didn't though, because the left and the right is always equally valid or invalid to these people. The "center" likes to sit on the sidelines and judge, never really doing anything. To do something means you take the time to really understand an issue (if you are passionate about that issue it isn't really even considered work) you believe in something strongly after learning about that issue and decide to have a strong opinion and to do something. The center doesn't. They have no deep understanding, imagination or guts. The right cares about the issues they focus on but, again, they have at best a casual relationship with reality and are prone to violence.
So here we are. A country that is a mess, with one well funded, illogical side on the offensive, the center as usual on the sidelines and the left in decline and ineffectual. We're screwed.
Because it has always been there. I recently read about the Church Committee findings. They said that at least 400 journalists were hired by the CIA to spread propaganda in newspapers and journals. I remember Chomsky's writings on the media coverage of Vietnam too. He showed in a couple of his books the "far left" critiques of the war at the time within the establishment, in other words the outer bounds of debate. I forgot the names of the journalists, but they were clear. We really did want to do good, they said, we had good intentions and it would be wonderful if we could bring "democracy" to Vietnam but mistakes were made and the war was unwindable. They didn't say anything about what we did to the provisions of the 1954 Geneva Convention (like not allowing elections because we knew who would win), the fact that we killed 3-6 million people in SE Asia or that we supported brutal, corrupt dictators that had no popular support. We made mistakes and we wish we didn't because we meant well.
In Latin America people know the media is corrupt and in the pocket of the local elites, it goes without saying. In the old USSR people knew not to believe what the state media was told. It should go without saying that we are in a similar situation and always have been. We used to have a labor press in this country and don't any longer. At least we have sites like this.
Understood. I can't do anything about your long time disputes with SR. You'll have to work it out with her. All I can recommend is that you let her be the first to attack and vent so that she'll get into trouble for starting it first. She'll eventually be forced to come around when others call her out. It worked for Two Americas and now SR is nice to him.
You don't have to be nice to that poster but I was just suggesting a change of strategy.
Hints:
1. Different enemies require different strategies for defeat.
2. You can't defeat your enemy if you're fighting on their turf.
3. Separate your enemies allies before defeating the enemy.
4. Never interfere with your enemy when it is defeating itself.
5. When an enemy can't be defeated by war, defeat them by peace.
I was just offering a few suggestions. I only said enemies because rbtl and sr treat each other as enemies. "The Art of War" doesn't mean war out. It just means winning without getting hurt. I've been here since 2007 and I've read and rarely post so I know who's who. I just wanted to make it easy.
"Sorry, but I am simply not that interested in either working things out or defeating the person in question."
You said SR attacked you a few years ago when the comments section first opened up and you two got into a fight. Am I supposed to take it that you like losing and causing trouble?
"Not to mention that empires are ALWAYS created and expanded by fighting on the enemy's turf--Rome, the Gringo empire, England's, Spain's, etc."
But empires don't end with someone calling for everyone to "pack their bags and go back to their country's origin". When I was talking about enemy turf, it was a different context but forget about it.
"I am disinclined to take strategical advice from someone who is so clearly ill-equipped to offer it."
I've never been ill-equipped to offer advice and I rarely get a rude reply but go ahead. It doesn't affect me. You and SR can fight amongst yourselves.
Only a blind idiot would assume that I have arrogance. I'll leave you alone and let you continue the meaningless pissing match on your own. Bye now.
Make all the accusations that you want against me, Siouxrose, but I stand by everything I've said here.
"So in the absence of evidence to support either side, why doesn't the right just volunteer to put an end to all the ballistic language and images it's been employing for many years now?"
--- True. The right should definitely put an end to their 'ballistic language and images.'
Maybe the right should instead learn how to communicate like Obama... you know, using Orwellian doublespeak to hide your violence in an eloquent-mind-fuck-type-of-rhetoric, rather than showing your violence in outright-belligerent-hate-rhetoric.
Obama's rhetoric is so much better... just ask an Iraqi, an Afghan, or Pakistani.
"The entire population of Sweden is armed and dangerous! Seriously, they are ready to go, if their govt becomes fascist, or an invasion of sex-crazed Norwegians heads their way. "
I'm not sure if Gwnorth and JenniferB would agree on that. I hear that people are much nicer there than in this country.
Well lets just say in Sweden it would be unlikely for a Swede to shoot someone who knocks at his door to ask for directions.
Or for a Swedish Tow truck driver to shoot someone who was angry because it was his car being towed.
They are considerably more mature when it comes to the use of guns. Too many people in the USA live in cloud cuckoo land where they think all they have to do is pull out their guns and the Constitution will be honored, the bad policeman will go away and let them alone, bills will get paid and there will be "freedom and liberty" for all.
Good lords I even see that sentiment expressed over and over again on these supposedly progressive boards. Like some others I wonder at the sudden influx of people claiming to be "progressive" trying to outdo one another in their gushy praise for a weapon that is designed to KILL.
Liberties in the United States of America have eroded faster then virtually every other Western Country outside the United Kingdom and all those guns did nothing to stop that. Indeed the reason for that erosion of Liberty is The WAR machine and that same MEME of bringing people "Freedom" by Violence.
When I was in Sweden last year, there was no way I could even tell that gun ownership was high. Sweden is a nation of sweethearts, men and women, despite the Julian Assange case that being used to trash and blame feminism in Sweden. I have not been to Norway but I love their Norwegian products. I hope to visit Norway someday in my life. I would give credit to their education, health care, food, and lesser emphasis on religion in those two nations. Even where some things are private, there is proper regulation to ensure that they don't misbehave unlike the USA where disaster "capitalism" prevails.
P.S.: There may be atheism in Sweden and Norway but even among the atheist majority, spiritual thinking exists in place of believing in God from what I had noticed. That would explain why those nations are likely to do a better job of retaining and possibly bringing back their caring state as warfare and materialism pale in comparison to the USA.
I am not a right wing extremist. I still find your premise way off base. If a member of the Tea Party or some other right wing extremist group had pulled the trigger your point would have been well taken, but that is simply not the case.
There is no indication that the assassin was influenced by the hate rhetoric of the extremists. In fact, he seems to have been more influenced by the works of Wells, Huxley and Kesey. Perhaps those books should be banned. I think not.
The shooter is mentally disturbed probably schizophrenic. I don't think we should automatically lock up all mentally disturbed people either. But we should think long and hard about how we can deal with mental disease and defect without violating their rights. We need to think about whether our criminal justice system is dealing with the mentally ill appropriately.
Save your political diatribe for another day.
The author should be aware that Knoxville is in Tennessee, not Kentucky.
The author was referencing an incident where a right wing unemployed dirtbag entered a liberal Unitarian church and shot it up. Two were murdered, 4 more injured, then said dirtbag got his ass kicked by the liberals in attendance and is now rotting in prison, where he belongs.
How do i know he was a right wing dirtbag? He left a note to that effect.
Not only do right wingers kill, many of 'em are cowardly punks, shooting at unarmed civilians.
Right militant rhetoric may breed violence, but it sure breeds cowards as well.
The shortest and quickest path to reducing violence in the culture is to disarm the ruling class.
We need to have the courage to trust this. We live in a militarized police state. It exists and operates solely to protect the stolen wealth of the ruling class. Of course that will create a society permeated with violence.
During the brief existence of the Paris Commune, the police were disbanded and disarmed. Crime and violence disappeared - not after decades of education, but rather instantly.
The police and the military and the authorities exist to protect property and only to protect property. Human life is secondary and expendable.
We need to have the courage to face the truth about this. The wealth trickles up, the violence trickles down.
Once again the left exploits a tragedy for political gain and citizen control,never mind the facts.
Sarah Palin's self-defense sounds like "I didn't know the gun was loaded." Isn't this campaign a lot like the abortion related murders? First the rhetoric, then the target list, then the killing. Even then, only the actual killers paid the consequences. It isn't that simple. Words and intentions really do make a difference.
It is a sorry world when peaceful protestors are jailed and high profile leaders can advocate or perpetrate violence of all types and it's not considered a crime.
How about switching away from Fox News ?