I know that this has been diaried well, but let me rant a bit here. Terry Jones, the Moustache of the Lord, of Qoran burning fame, has just arranged to hang an effigy of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States. The effigy by the way holds in its hand a rainbow flag, symbol of the movement for equal rights for all.
I don't need to repeat what we all know from this country's history. This isn't the same as ordinary political symbolism.
It's not the same as a white man hung in effigy -- that is not a racial statement.
It's at least an attempted incitement -- and if it's protected by the First Amendment, well don't get all noble on me, as so is pornography, and I'm not talking about the Lady Chatterly's Lover variety.
This sort of overt racism is of course typical for the knuckle-dragging birther crowd. But I don't excuse the tidy, well-educated neo-conservatives from moral responsibility, for it is their constant barrage of the charge of "arrogance" that sets the backdrop for this, though of course they will ignore it or absolve themselves from responsibility.
But we all know exactly what the right wing means when they say the African-American president is "arrogant".
And don't ignore the gay-bashing aspect of this either. For 10 years the right wing fought the Matthew Shepard-James Byrd hate crimes law, and not for constitutional principle either.
It was because the gay-bashing droogies, like the lynch mobs of the not-so-distant past, had their role to play in the unending hate that is the real fuel of the conservative movement.