Also Culpable

We’re selling “Pro-Life Checks” again.

This guys are hardcore, but you can go after those that incited it.

See Rwanda.

Which is probably one reason why Bill backtracked (sort of.)

@blogenfreude: the “precious feet” series is creepy.

@ManchuCandidate: I think in the case of Rwanda there were fairly explicit calls to take a machete to your neighbor.

As much as I want to see these creeps disappear, I’m not ready to draw the line that boldly on speech. Or “hate” speech. I feel a similar ambivalence about “hate crimes” laws.

Now, if we find evidence of collusion / conspiracy and/or outright examples of speech explicitly encouraging violence against doctors, I’m all for sending them up the river.

Picking up on something Tommmcatt said in another thread, I regularly call Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice (among others) mass-murderers, with (I believe) both good reason and evidence. But I don’t want some vigilante to just put a bullet through them.

Not that I would shed tears, but…the point is, these criminals need to be brought to justice and tried publicly. Otherwise any punishment would be meaningless. (Also, I don’t believe in the death penalty because we’re not quite at the cannibal anarchist stage yet.)

@Pedonator: I’ll mention again a point from the weekend: We’re not Talibunny handing out molotovs to a crowd with Bics.

It’s not just what is said, but the broader context. I’m 50 now, which is probably the cutoff for having even fleeting memories of a violent Left in this country. There’s no rabble for us to rouse. But the violent Right is very much a part of our times, and the chickenhawk Right actively courts that crowd.

We said it last fall, repeatedly: the folks playing to the mob are playing with fire. Even McCain had a brief attack of conscience and tried to calm it down.

We’re grownups here — we know the difference. Let’s not fret over a mistaken notion of equivalence.

I remember that campaign appearance. The video quality of the clip I saw was very good, better than broadcast quality and you could see the abject terror on Psychogeezer’s face when the crowd started raving about death to Obama after the twisted old lady called Obama a ‘mooselimn’ . . . The only time I had any respect for his campaign was when he had the sense to call out their madness.

@nojo: We said it last fall, repeatedly: the folks playing to the mob are playing with fire. Even McCain had a brief attack of conscience and tried to calm it down.

@nojo: I agree, broadly. But I’m sure if something happened to, say, Cheney, then Hannity and Rush and such ilk could easily draw a context from just this one leftish-leaning blog; and quote tons of comments, out of context, to support their self-idealization of victimhood.

I don’t want to damp the bile at all — hell, the bile I spew is the primary if ineffectual and effervescent form of political power I ever get in my life.

I just want the bar set very high regarding when speech can be considered crime. It’s a short step from speechcrime to thoughtcrime.

@FlyingChainSaw: Let us not forget that there is a “mob” out there who voted for Obama largely because he promised “change” that isn’t really change. There’s a huge segment of “liberals” in US America who truly believe that we can still rape the earth and gather all its resources unto ourselves, in the pursuit of globally-endorsed perpetual economic growth, as long as we don’t literally drop bombs on people in foreign lands.

And many of these people feel entitled to the US American Dream, which has transmogrified into the necessity of a 3000+ sq. ft. “home”, an SUV with a “Go Green” bumper sticker on it, and an indiscriminate right to breed.

@Pedonator: Oh, yes, true. Crop failure will take care of all that when the temperature goes up and stays up in the next couple of decades. Billions of starving people hunting each other and eating each other amidst the ruins. Bush and Cheney and the Rev Moon laughing from their divan chairs on their fortified ranches in Paraguay.

@Pedonator: If someone plugged Cheney, they’d be too busy rooting around DailyKos to get around to us…

But Hannity/Rush/O’Reilly/Beck/etc have absolutely no relation to the truth — anything that happens, they’re going to blame the “Far Left” anyway. That’s just how they roll.

Back when Bubba first won, that crew went to dinner on charges he didn’t have a “mandate” because the victory was a plurality. But when Shrub lost the popular vote in 2000, you didn’t hear a peep.

For awhile they could get by claiming “principle,” but the hypocrisies have been so palpably outrageous the past few years (and continuing today with talk of filibustering a Supreme Court nomination), there’s no point addressing anything they say. They’ll just say something else tomorrow.

But yes, more broadly, the problem is US America. I turned 21 the same year as the Reagan-Carter debate, and it was watching Reagan that I realized America wants to be lied to. We really can’t handle the truth — not if it means facing the consequences of how we live as a society. Every problem facing us today has been wilfully ignored for a generation. The warnings were sounded. And then brushed aside.

In my darkest moments, I’m just glad I’ll kick before the shit really hits the fan. I won’t make it to 2050. But most folks now under 30 will. God help them.

@Pedonator:
I’m not saying shut down their radio stations (as tempting as it is) but I’m speaking from my naive and furrin Canada City attitude of words have consequences which is different than your tradition of US America free speech.

It’s an expectation that those on the air keep their personal demons to themselves.

This is why in large part Canada City radio is pretty benign and plaid as Rush et, al would have been kicked off the airwaves long ago.