Sometimes you just have to be an adult and admit when you're wrong.
This stuff, is Hella Wrong.
Tehcnically it's not illegal. It's actually is within the realm of legal free speech to "wish" something - under the Brandenburg standard "Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda" scenarios are not illegal.
But they're wrong, and many things we've seen over the last two years makes it clear why.
If it was wrong for Bill O'Reilly to suggest Dana Milbank should be Beaten and Decapited (particularly when Milbank was a friend of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl), wrong for Bernard Goldberg to threaten the New York Times with a Baseball Bat, wrong for Beck to fantasize about strangling Michael Moore or poisoning Nancy Pelosi, wrong of Michele Bachmann to suggest Republicans should be "Armed and Dangerous", wrong of Sharon Angle to call for "Second Amendment Remedies" if Harry Reid won, wrong for Col Alan West to support "Bullets over Ballots"...
Then it was Wrong for these Twitter users to suggest what they did about the Death of Sarah Palin.
Fortunately so far, no one has - thankfully - taken these angry twitter rambling seriously or acted out on them - but again, that doesn't make it right.
Yeah, yeah, I know - Sarah herself wouldn't seriously stop for a second to consider any of the damage and trauma she herself has cause the nation, and she doesn't deserve a minimum level of respect and civility. But that doesn't matter. What she does doesn't matter, because none of us can control that - however we can control ourselves.
We can stand up and say that this is wrong even when it's coming from someone on "our team" and is trashing "one of them". We can, if we try, live up the better Angels of our nature. And if we can't look at and address the wrongness of things like this, fairly and honestly, how can we ever expect anyone else to do the same?
I got that video while tossing the inverse construction of that argument at the Tea Party on twitter ...
Regardless of #Giffords:Do people who say "Stop the Blame" really think Level of Violence References in our Political Discourse is just fine?
What would make fantasizing about serving @SarahPalinUSA Poison - the way Beck did with Pelosi - Ok? #Teaparty #p2 #tcot #fb
What would make "joking" about cutting off Tucker Carlson's Head - the way O'Reilly did about Dana Milbank - Funny? #teaparty #p2#tcot
Would love to hear answer for why anyone would put up with Death Threats and Murder by Left that we've ignored from Right for years?#p2 #tcot
In response they sent me the video and a link to a list of Left Wing Hate from 2000-2010 via Michelle Malkin (click at your own risk if you want to see them, I may not really want to give Michelle the traffic - but I also don't want to post bile like that here - besides the fact it's TOS worthy - having it on this site would definately be used against us as if we endorsed it all!.) I can see a ton of really violent and rude signs, certainly ones that are silly - but also embarrassingly vicious over the top images against George W.Bush. John McCain and Sarah Palin. Like the twitter stuff, It's pretty bad. And juvenile.
I think nearly all of us would agree oh that.
But Malkin has more than pictures - she has videos - and when you start to look at these in detail you see their open to a bit more interpretation and begin to become just a petty litany of anyone whose ever said anything rude about a conservative.
People like Madonna doing a nursery rhymey "Sarah Palin - I'll kick you're ass if you don't get off of my street". Uh, yeah ok whatever.
Or Sandra Bernhardt.who said - on stage - that she'd have her black friends "Rape Palin".
I think it's Stupid, Gross and Unfunny - but now - we're supposed to take what a professional comedian says on stage seriously? Do you do take Dane Cook literally now? It like getting upset every time Kathy Griffin says "Suck It, Jesus" - she's just doing it to get a rise out of people and knows Jesus doesn't really go for "Oral" studies anyway.
It's surprising to me with these included that Malkin didn't include a video of the Dixie Chicks, saying they were "Sorry, George Bush is from Texas" - even though he's actually from Connecticut.
If we're gonna go there - what about Ted Nugent threatened to Murder both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama while onstage?
Nugent: I was in Chicago Last week, and I said "Hey Obama why don't you suck on these, YA PUNK!" (Holds up a Machine Gun) "Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the Sunset you worthless, Bitch!"
Charmer, ain't he? Yet again, Madonna and Sandra may have been rude - but they didn't wish anyone dead.
Once we're done with the entertainers it rapidly start to deteriorate as Malkin uses a series protest videos to argue that "Liberals are Violent and Hateful" when that isn't always clear.
Certainly not during this video of a set of Prop 8 Supporters walking right through the heart of the San Francisco Castro District. I mean really, these guys - who have a Police escort - are getting about the same reaction that a pack of neo-Nazi's would get in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood. And the "Liberals" are the Haters here? Hmm... I don't think so.
On here during a non-violent protest of the Military in Oympia. Kinda annoying, but not Code Pink annoying.
Or this during some Civil Disobedience of Evictions by ACORN - also Non-Violent.
Or this Anti-SB1070 rally where protestors objected to being filmed and slap the camera - not a person, the camera - but eventually let the guy stay.
I've had other twit arguments with Tea Party people and they've argued that "of course" Liberals are more violent than Conservatives because of the riots and arrests at the RNC conventions compared to DNC conventions - but as you cn see from this video of journalist Amy Goodman being arrested for no reason at the 2008 RNC, the actions of the police at these events are highly questionable and have led to numerous civil rights suits.
All charges were dropped.
Malkin has a set of mugshots of "Violent LIberals", but if you look closely they include...
A guy who attacked card board cut-out of George Bush.
A guy who cut down a Bush-Cheney Sign with a Power Tool, but Malkin fails to note that the full report also says that several Democratic Lawns signs were also vandalized at the same time. She includes mug shots for the anti-Republican vandals, but none of the anti-Democrats.
Wendy Fiedler, the county's Democratic chairwoman, said she now has decided to encourage local Democrats to file reports with police when their signs are vandalized. "This whole sign issue has really gone over the top this year," Fiedler said. "It's getting really ugly."
In one night last weekend, she said, several dozen Democratic signs along Centennial Lane, which borders Columbia and Ellicott City, were taken down by vandals.
Also, she said, one Democratic activist who lives in Ellicott City had reported a gunshot near his house and that a police report was made. Police were unable to confirm that late yesterday afternoon.
A guy who supposedly tried to Run Down Katherine Harris - except that he didn't hit her, and she apparently didn't move. So um, how'd he miss exactly?
A silver Cadillac "swerved off the road and drove up the sidewalk" heading "straight towards Ms. Harris," according to the police arrest report. "Harris stated that she was afraid for her life," according to the police report, "and could not move as the vehicle approached her."
"I was exercising my political expression," Seltzer told police, according to the report.
He was arrested on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Then it starts to get silly. (Yeah, I know "starts to?")
There this guy who threw an ice cream pie at Bill Kristol. And another who threw a cup of salad dressing at Pat Buchannan. A kid who smashed the glass panels a Medal of Honor Monument and another who used vulgar hand gestures and asked a rude question of Ann Coulter (Admittedly, I'm thinking this kid's my Hero- because that's the least she deserves!)
And then really silly.(Yes, more!!)
Here's a girl who filed a false claim that anti-Semitic, anti-black, anti-woman graffiti spray-painted on her 1992 Honda Civic - what this has to do with "Liberals" I don't know but it does remind me of someone else.
Strangely enough Malkin doesn't include one of Andrew Breitbart's favorite videos - the "attack" on Kenneth Gladney by the SEIU.
When I look at this video I see that a scuffle is already in process and one man (in an SEIU Blue T-Shirt) is already on the ground while two guys stand over him, then a fourth (also in SEIU Blue) grabs Kenneth and yanks him back away and toward the ground, tripping and falling himself in the process. It's really not clear what's going on here - but automatically all the Tea Partiers are automatically against SEIU (whom they outnumber) and pro-Gladney. It's never been explained to me why the First SEIU guy wound up on the ground and what - if anything - Kenneth had to do with that. There's no kicking and no punching in this video, only a bunch a shoving and stumbling. Highly questionable. No charges were ultimately filed.
Compare that to Moveon Member Lauren Valle being Curb-Stomped at a Rand Paul Event.
None of these people is currently holding or running for elected office. None of these people has a daily or nightly platform on radio or TV that reaches tens of thousands - if not Millions - and could seriously influence anyone else but their own twitter followers.
Through all of these claims and examples of "Liberal Hate" - there may have been some property damaged and some feelings hurt - BUT NO ONE was seriously injured in all of these incidents.
When things became physical there may have been some scraps, bruises or sprains (like with Lauren Valle or Kenneth Gladney) But No one DIED!
Contrast that with this BODY COUNT...
Where an Acolyte of Glenn Beck launched an attack on the ACLU & Tides which wounded 2 CHP officers, where a fan of Bernie Goldberg killed 2 people. wounding 5 at a Unitarian Church in Knoxville Tennessee and where Bill O'Reilly unending attacks on George Tiller ended when he was Murdered by Right-Wing Fundamentlaist/Soverentist Scott Reoder, where James Von Brunn killed a guard at the Holocause Museum as part of an intended spree that included murdering Obama advisor David Axelrod, and where Richard Poplowski who bought into right-wing rhetoric that "Obama is going to take all our guns" andkilled 3 Pittsburgh Police Officers before being taken down.
By my count that's 7 dead and at least 7 wounded as a direct result of Right Wing Violence in the last 2 years. So far.
And that's not counting failed plots like Justice Moose who wanted to firebomb up womens clinics, the Hutaree Militia who wanted to shoot cops and firebomb their funerals, James Cummings who plotted to build a radiological dirty bomb because of his hated of Barack Obama., or the people who threatened - not just wished - threatened to kill Senator Patty Murray over Health Care Reform, to kill Rep Raul Grijalva over his opposition to SB1070, attempted arson by cutting the propane line at Sen Tom Perrieollo's brothers home, threatened Rep. Louis Slaughter with a sniper, the Denver Plot to kill Barack Obama, and the Arkansas plot to kill Barack Obama in order to start a murder spree.
However you slice it, thats a whole lot of Hate!
For a moment lets be honest, no ones hands here are perfectly absolutely clean.
The right-wing in this country is incensed at being connected with the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords - even though she'd already been "Surveyed" by Sarah Palin and had her front door Shot Out - and it's understandable that if you walk around with all of Michalle Malkin handy pics, videos and misleading links in your brain, while no one can definitively prove that Laughner was "taking direction" from anyone on the right wing, it seems fair to be bit peeved. Y'know, about the same way that innocent Muslims feel when people assume that they must be "terrorist sympathizers" simply because of their chosen religion.
Of course you have to ignore all the dead and wounded from Knoxville to Washington D.C., to Pittsburg, Kentucky and Oakland to get there, but if you're fairly fact-blind you can get there. After the months long whining jag about some Tea Party Signs being called "Racist" would we expect any other reaction to even the suggestion that these people had incited actual violence and murder? The problem is that hardly anyone actually made the claim that "Loughner was Puppet of the Right." Most prominent democrats or the media haven't even suggested it, or considered it, the only two people who really brought it up have been Sherrif Dupnik and Paul Krugman. However, neither of them said that there was a direct link between anything that anyone has said and this violence, but what they did say was that the general tone may have - MAY HAVE - had an effect on a making an already deranged individual, even worse.
And even if it didn't happen in this cause, it could in others.
The question of whether a general atmosphere of hate and strife can act as a catalyst for one long nut to go over the edge, isn't necessarily as simple as it may seem. Ronald Reagan was shot because of the influence of Jodie Foster and Taxi Driver on a deranged individual, and John Lennon was assassinated because of how the demented mind of Mark David Chapman was influenced by Catcher in the Rye?
Via Greg Sargeant at the Plum Line
While some on the left have wrongly blamed specific voices on the right for the shooting, many liberals have simply argued that even if the shooter is a madman, the tragedy is a good jumping off point for a discussion of whether our toxic climate risks playing a role in tipping the unhinged towards political violence.
Dr. Swartz is the co-author of a 2006 study, reported on yesterday by Time magazine, finding that environmental factors can play a role in increasing violence in schizophrenics. I thought it would be worth asking him for his thoughts on the current debate over the shooting.
Dr. Swartz cautioned that there's still much we don't know about Loughner or more generally about the impact of the political climate on the mentally ill. But he asserted that asking how our politics might have impacted Loughner's behavior was an entirely natural line of questioning.
"We know the manifestation of mental illness is affected by cultural factors," Dr. Swartz said. "One's cultural context does effect people's thinking and particularly their delusions. It gives some content and shape to their delusions. While we don't know whether there was a specific relationship between the political climate that he was exposed to and his thinking, it's a reasonable line of inquiry to explore."
It can't seriously be argued that the worst examples of actual violence and deadly rhetoric aren't coming mostly from the right-wing, and although it can't be said the left itself is absolutely innocent - it's not fair or factual to claim "both sides" do it. Both sides have talked a ton of smack, but both sides have not openly and repeatedly at the highest levels advocated for murder, participated in murder or deadly murder plots.
The question is does all the anger hype have to the potential to drive a guy like the following over the edge?
Could it drive a person like this, whose seriously pretty damn close already, right out of his mind?
The fact is that our political process has become addicted to the vitriol, I don't think that it CAN function - certainly the current Republicans can't not function - without the trashing and demonization of their opponents. Republicans have no ideas or agenda of their own other than to block, obstruct, undo legislate and attack Democrats. That's all. They can't live without this stuff, and as a result - since Democrats can not really afford to do the inverse of what Obama once said "Walk into a Gun Fight with a Knife" - then this back and forth, escalating ever further and further from the rank and file to the heads of (at least one) political party is going to just continue, and continue.
A larger question though, particular with this ever increasing level of vitriol in the direct aftermath of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, is when exactly will the next borderline person on the edge of a psychotic break finally snap and go over the edge - and how much more or less likely will our actions from this point forward make the next horrible, terrible tragedy occur?
On the path we're going now - more people are going to be seriously wounded, and more people are going to die, not simply because of random "madmen" or the collateral damage of our toxic discourse, but as a direct cause of it.
It's already happened several times, it's going to happen again.
Maybe today at the funeral service for several victims of the Gifford's Shooting, President Obama will find a way to redirect our national trajectory away from all this strife and anger. At least temporarily, at least for a moment. Maybe he can strike just the right solemn chord and help us focus more on our common hopes, on how brave those who fought back stood up in the face of danger and protected each other, how they protected Gabby despite their own wounds. Perhaps he can make us - at least for a little while - forget all of this.
I still have some Hope in that. If we can gain that toe-hold, we might be able to finally begin to build on the rest. Maybe. We'll see.
Vyan