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Eliminationist Rhetoric
I complain about the way the Right speaks of the left.
Then I see things like this:
That, my friends is one of a line of products (coffee mugs to baseball caps, hoodies and softball shirts) all sporting the same thing. I look at that, and wonder where the idea that such a thing is acceptable to wear in public might come from. It's right up there with Liberal Hunting Permits
For more on that, see this piece of Orcinus.
People will defend this, say it's meant as a joke (never mind that when the tables are turned and someone on the Left tries to make a point in the same vein, and obviously; to me at least, in a satiric vein, the people who were saying Liberals ought to be strung up like, "strange fruit," are all of a sudden calling out the FBI (Dean Esmay which was a response to this. The contextual post of Sadly No can be seen here)
But it isn't, it's part and parcel of an environment of active hatred. One person, maybe a whack-job. A lot of people, might be a group of whack jobs, but when the people they are attacking make up a large group, and the people who have bully pulpits are some of those who do the inciting, and those who claim this is the fruit of a few bad apples don't take those bad apples to task, in fact continue to pay them large sums of money and give them access to the airwaves... then I must assume that, at the very least they don't care if one group is actively inciting another to go out and abuse the other. I might even be justified in thinking they wanted such a thing to happen.
Perhaps they think it will intimidate the oppostition. Perhaps they actually want (as Coulter said) some liberal to be killed, so the rest of us will know it can happen and shut up.
For a list of those who've said such things, and the things they've said (and this politicians in office, former politicians, religious leaders, pundits and and the like. These are names. People who can't really be brushed under the rug with, "nobody listens to them," because people do; and in the millions. Some of the people who listen to them think them worth electing as Representatives and Senators (one of my favorites, if that's the right word) is Phil Grahm saying, "We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs." and not in some back room, but in an interview with Mother Jones.
Or this gem from John Derbyshire, "Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past - I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble - recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an 'enemy of the people.' The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, 'clan liability.' In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished 'to the ninth degree': that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed."
- National Review, 02-15-01
For more, go to Paperweight's Fair Shot
Then I see things like this:
That, my friends is one of a line of products (coffee mugs to baseball caps, hoodies and softball shirts) all sporting the same thing. I look at that, and wonder where the idea that such a thing is acceptable to wear in public might come from. It's right up there with Liberal Hunting Permits
For more on that, see this piece of Orcinus.
People will defend this, say it's meant as a joke (never mind that when the tables are turned and someone on the Left tries to make a point in the same vein, and obviously; to me at least, in a satiric vein, the people who were saying Liberals ought to be strung up like, "strange fruit," are all of a sudden calling out the FBI (Dean Esmay which was a response to this. The contextual post of Sadly No can be seen here)
But it isn't, it's part and parcel of an environment of active hatred. One person, maybe a whack-job. A lot of people, might be a group of whack jobs, but when the people they are attacking make up a large group, and the people who have bully pulpits are some of those who do the inciting, and those who claim this is the fruit of a few bad apples don't take those bad apples to task, in fact continue to pay them large sums of money and give them access to the airwaves... then I must assume that, at the very least they don't care if one group is actively inciting another to go out and abuse the other. I might even be justified in thinking they wanted such a thing to happen.
Perhaps they think it will intimidate the oppostition. Perhaps they actually want (as Coulter said) some liberal to be killed, so the rest of us will know it can happen and shut up.
For a list of those who've said such things, and the things they've said (and this politicians in office, former politicians, religious leaders, pundits and and the like. These are names. People who can't really be brushed under the rug with, "nobody listens to them," because people do; and in the millions. Some of the people who listen to them think them worth electing as Representatives and Senators (one of my favorites, if that's the right word) is Phil Grahm saying, "We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs." and not in some back room, but in an interview with Mother Jones.
Or this gem from John Derbyshire, "Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past - I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble - recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an 'enemy of the people.' The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, 'clan liability.' In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished 'to the ninth degree': that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed."
- National Review, 02-15-01
For more, go to Paperweight's Fair Shot
no subject
I wish that were the case. It isn't. There are lots of social issues the two parties (if not the two sides; but that's a horse of a different color) aren't that far apart on.
There are a lot more where they are worlds apart. The power of the executive, the war in Iraq, the existence of a social safety net (and who should pay for same) the presence of state religion in everyday life (and conformity with same) privacy, equality (of sex, race and expression; be it sexual, political or artistic).
The Right is selling fear. The brown/gay/pagan/athiest/feminist/poor/other are going to steal your women/sons/virtue/jobs/religion/power/etc. and you have to stop them.
Add the traitor/baby-killer/evil meme to it and the folks who are afraid begin to lash out. They have threatened to kill judges, they have killed doctors, and gov't emloyees, and infants and women, and men, and homosexuals, and jews, and blacks, and....
They are afraid, and the people who shape their opinions, people who want power; all to themselves, are fueling those fears, for venal reasons (some after all, only do it because it makes them a lot of money, which is it's own power... the power to be eccentric, and to claim that silly little things like a drug bust only happened because the accused was rich/famous/conservative).
TK
no subject
I think that the main problem is stated in your last paragraph, above. On the one hand, as
On the other hand, I can't help suspecting that this isn't the first time in the Republic's history that we've been in such a situation. All the other times it proved to be a bad idea by the people pushing it, too.