In a dkos I-P diary, it was pointed out that it's much easier for Palestinians to accept that Israel can (and will continue) to exist as a nation than it is for them to admit that, all along, they had a legal right to exist which included and includes the right to evict them from their homelands. You can make someone tolerate you, for example by the use of force, but you can't necessarily make someone respect you.
Shock and awe is not respect. Note to Donald Rumsfeld: the "shock" at getting your eardrums blown out by a bomb landing in your neighbors front yard is not not a form of "respect", unless you equate fear with it, in which case you might as well just use the word "fear". This applies as much to the above as it does to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, seen through the eyes of the citizens of both countries.
In another recent diary on the reclist, we are told to respect the President. In that diary I wrote
I told my parents at the very start of the Iraq war that if Bush were to knock on my door, I'd tell him to get off my lawn. I don't have to respect a person just because he's the President.
Nevertheless, I see your point.
To further exemplify the point: if the President orders the assasination of someone or is the cause of needless war(s), as almost every war is, and you are fundamentally against that decision, in my mind you have every right to lose your respect for the President. For the idiots out there: no, by loss of respect I do not mean you have the right to cause physical harm in any way. Additional note: I would even classify spitting, etc. as a form of physical harm. Perhaps a President has done something so terrible in your mind that, after all the damage has been said and done and written into law, no simple apology will suffice to restore the respect you once had for him or her as a person.
If our current President backs down on important elements of health care reform in the last minute and your insert person you care about can't get the treatment he/she needs a few years down the line because of it, you also have that right. Perhaps "right" isn't the best word to use because it is just a property of human nature that will probably never go away.
And- if the above mentioned unfortunate event happens to take place during, say, the President's 2nd term in office, I truly have no problem with you going so far as to pull your own flesh and blood from school on a day the President chooses to address the nation's children at school with another polished speech that, in your eyes, is nothing more than a turd in disguise (if that is the best way you can think of to voice your displeasure).
So what do I mean when I wrote "Nevertheless, I see your point.", above. Well,
what I DO have a problem with is this:
With Bush Jr., I could have told you at any point what he have should have / could have done or should still / could still do such that I would or at least would have respected him as President. Note after the (start!) of the Iraq war, my loss of respect for him was basically irreversible. However, I can still point to this event and a few other events and say "Look, had he not done that, I would have been o.k. with the guy." That, my friends, is the big difference to today. If you admit from the outset that there's nothing Obama can do to change his health care policy or change the war in Iraq or change the war in Afghanistan or stop torture or help the environment or raise or lower taxes, etc. because you don't want to hand him a victory- which is only a victory for him because it's also a victory for the country, well, then you are either putting your party's welfare or the welfare of your radio or t.v. station far before that of your country's or are a shimmering racist, religious fanatic or all of the above. If Bush Jr. had said "Shit, let's get out of Iraq, I made a big mistake." I could care less whether it handed him a victory by making him more popular with Democrats- because it would have been the right decision for the country (ours and theirs).
One more thing on the people (I would never lose so much respect for someone that I would not call them at least that) making rabid accusations about Obama/Pelosi/etc. on the radio and television, some laced with thinly-veiled death threats and most or all necessarily classified as "comedy" in the form of smirks, smiles, winks and nudges so as to fall under the radar of the law: there are strong parallels between this behavior and the radio stations responsible for mass murder and genocide in Rwanda.
Media propaganda (Wikipedia)
According to recent commentators the news media played a crucial role in the genocide: local print and radio media fueled the killings, while the international media either ignored or seriously misconstrued events on the ground.[9] The print media in Rwanda is believed to have started hate speech against Tutsis which was later continued by radio stations. According to commentators anti-Tutsi hate speech "became so systemic as to seem the norm." The state-owned newspaper Kangura had a central role, starting an anti-Tutsi and anti-RPF campaign in October 1990. In the ongoing International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the individuals behind Kangura have been accused of producing leaflets in 1992 picturing a machete and asking "What shall we do to complete the social revolution of 1959?" - a reference to the Hutu revolt that overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and the subsequent politically orchestrated communal violence that resulted in thousands of mostly Tutsi casualties and forced roughly 300,000 Tutsis to flee to neighboring Burundi and Uganda. Kangura also published the infamous "10 Hutu Commandments," which called upon Hutus to massacre Tutsis, and more generally communicated the message that the RPF had a devious grand strategy (one feature article was titled "Tutsi colonization plan").[10]
Due to high rates of illiteracy at the time of the genocide, radio was an important way for the government to deliver messages to the public. Two radio stations key to inciting violence before and during the genocide were Radio Rwanda and Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). In March 1992, Radio Rwanda was first used in directly promoting the killing of Tutsi in Bugesera, south of the national capital Kigali. Radio Rwanda repeatedly broadcast a communiqué warning that Hutu in Bugesera would be attacked by Tutsi, a message used by local officials to convince Hutu that they needed to protect themselves by attacking first. Led by soldiers, Hutu civilians and members of the Interahamwe subsequently attacked and killed hundreds of Tutsi.
Finally, these people should be reminded that though they may be employed by Rupert Murdoch on paper, ironcically, they are actually employed by the very people they purport to hate... for without them they would be penniless. Call me crazy but, honestly, I doubt any of these guys has ever gone to bed biting his teeth mad about "liberals" of any kind. Instead, they have gone to bed practicing their lines and thinking up good one-liners and sound bites to pander to the utter ignorance and gullibilty of their audience.