Dear Republicans; does it hurt? Does it sting your consciences to be associated with the Arizona killer, Jared Loughner? It seems like it must. It certainly should. You and your surrogates are trying everything you can to run away from this fellow; to make it look like years and years of increasingly violent rhetoric are not part of what motivated this disturbed young man to pick up a gun and target a sitting US Representative.
I’ve been told several times today and last night that "you can’t blame a whole party for the actions of a single mad man". You know what, that is actually true. If Loughner were just one isolated mad man with conservative, let’s say radically conservative point of view, I might be willing to let it go. The problem, you see, is that I have lived through the last four years and I have seen with my own eyes that there is a pattern which is incontrovertible.
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
You see the guys who decided they were going to try to take a shot at then nominee Obama, were right wing white supremacists.
Then there guy that killed three police officers, well he bought into the Republican lie that President Obama would ban guns and send armed troops to confiscate them.
And how about the Hutaree Militia in Michigan, sure they were bat shit crazy, but you know who they get their news from? You guessed it in one! Right wing news sources such as NewsMax and Fox.
How about the fellow that was stopped in a traffic stop on his way to kill people at the Tides Foundation, a favorite hobby horse of Glen Beck? Who also likes to compare the Democrats to Stalin and Hitler and the Nazis?
How about the fellow who torched his house then flew his private plane into IRS building? He was clearly deranged but Conservative Rep. Steve King said at the time he could empathize with the man. This is an elected member of Congress, from the Republican Party speaking at CPAC last February, and you what is odd? Not a single Republican came out and criticized him for empathizing with attacking a federal building and killing an IRS worker. Not one.
And that is really what makes all your protestations and those of your surrogates ring completely hollow. You see, you tell us we can’t judge a whole political party by the actions of a few, but it is more than a few. More importantly is the fact that you as party members and officials can’t call out the Talk Radio hate mongers without your own base turning on you and kicking you out of the party.
You are scared to death and with good reason, the base of the Republican Party, the place where the energy is have folks they do like such as Sharon Angle who proudly said that if you did not win, then members would consider "Second Amendment remedies". Lest that is too subtle for you, that means picking up a gun and killing people to get their way. Hmmm, who does that sound like that was in the news this weekend?
So, yes, we should not judge a party by the actions or words of a few, but when we have example after example after example it is more than fair to say that you bear more than a sliver of responsibility. With talk of "Don’t Retreat, Reload" and claims that the president is not really a citizen, and that we will be killing people with "death panels" if we reform health care you may have won a temporary political victory, but you have sown the dragons teeth and now we must all reap the whirlwind.
Did you think that there would be no consequences? You must have because now that the check is coming due, you are doing every thing you can to avoid it. A lone nut, one bad apple, a pot smoker, you’ll throw anything against the wall and hope that it sticks. The fact is your ability to avoid this particular bill is coming to an end, and while I don’t feel sorry for the price it will cost you, I can at least wince as I see the psychic wound you inflected on yourselves and the way it is hot and stinging.
Here is hoping you put some Bactine on it and abandon the politics of fear and hate, but frankly I don’t see how you will be able to. Your base has become addicted to fear and hate and they will go on with or without you. But let me ask one question before I sign off, how many of these violent right wing actions will it take before you see the pattern that the rest of us see? 10? 100? 1000?
How many dead and wounded will it take before you recognize that what has been politically expedient has a cost that is counted in bodies?
The floor is yours.