boy, this shot takes you back, doesn't it? eight years of "murderer!" and "nazi!" directed at the previous president, and nary a peep from the media or the leadership of the opposition as to how this sorta inflammatory, vitriolic hate-speech might, god forbid, incite violence against him. guess since he was a nazi murderer and all, it was justified, right?
[for a truly breathtaking display of the whole panoply of non-inflammatory, non-vitriolic and totally civil "kill bush" images and words, click here--i promise it'll be as eye-opening for you as it was for me, because the media and lefty blogs sure as hell didn't evince any alarm or outrage over this shit (much less give it any coverage) when it was happening]
more recently, there was the way the media covered the discovery channel guy
y'know, the guy who strapped bombs around his body and took hostages. an act of domestic terrorism? nah--inconveniently, the guy was a non-white tree-hugger, and god knows the media won't tar any minority or any movement even remotely associated with the left with the "t" word. were his wacko fantasies inflamed by all the hysterical "climate change" rhetoric we've all been marinating in for the last ten years? never even brought up--crazed gunman, isolated incident. case closed.
and before him, there was the inconveniently-muslim US army major nidal hasan
you remember him--mowed down 13 people at fort hood whilst screaming allahu akbar!, but we were hastily assured by the media and the obama justice department that, rather than an act of domestic terrorism, this was merely an isolated incident involving a disturbed individual who couldn't possibly have been moved to violence by the inflammatory, vitriolic, jihadist hate-speech spouted by the extremist factions of his religion. case closed.
so, knowing all this, anybody wanna hazard a guess as to why--within 30 minutes of determining nothing more than that the tucson shooter was a young, white male--the democrats, the mainstream media and every idiot liberal blogger on the interwebs were shrieking to the world that this was clearly an act of domestic terrorism inspired by the inflammatory, vitriolic hate-speech spewed by the tea party and the anti-illegal immigrationistas?
actually, never mind--i'll tell you why: they desperately need a new timothy mcveigh to kill the fledgling grassroots limited-government movement with guilt by association, and they won't rest until they have a square peg they can jam into their round hole.
thing that kills me is, even as the truth has emerged about jared lee loughner--that, like so many assassins, he was a twisted loner whose politics, if any, had little to do with his murderous fixation on a public figure--far as the media and the left are concerned, it's still all dumbass sarah palin's fault for putting crosshairs on a goddam map.
* * * * *
it wasn't 9/11 that hurt us as a nation [yeah, it was bad, but in the overall scheme of horrific things that happen to nations, it wasn't that bad]. no, it was our hysterical over-reaction to 9/11 that truly hurt us--cursed us with the PATRIOT act, homeland security, the ruinous wars in iraq and afghanistan.
i.e., because the right effectively exploited our fear, we willingly traded our freedoms and our treasure for the illusion of safety.
today? an isolated shooting in arizona is being exploited by the left in order to serve the same ends. at issue: the ability to regulate what you can see, say and hear, and whether or not you can own a gun--all, of course, in order to keep you "safe".
me? i'll keep what's left of my freedoms and take my chances with the jared lee loughners of the world--i can only hope the majority of americans still feel the same.
4 comments:
The difference between the twisted violent rhetoric of the Far Left and the twisted violent rhetoric of the Far Right is that the vast majority of liberal politicians and Democrats, including especially the leadership, do NOT embrace this rhetoric, while conservate politicians and Republicans embrace this rhetoric from their leaders down to their minions.
Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich are extremely powerful influences in the Republican Party and include the most popular conspiratorial media figure since Father Coughlin (more popular than the John Birch Society), and an ex-Vice Presidential Nominee and an ex-Speaker of the House.
Did Pelosi ever call Bush a Nazi? Name the most prominent Democratic politician who has. I doubt you'll find anyone over the rank of minor state legislator, if you find that. Just because some Leftist college students did this -- and, you know, I always condemned it when they did -- pales in comparison to the leadership of the Right-Wing, from Rush Limbaugh to FOX News calling Obama "socialist, tyrannical, not born in America," etc.
I agree that Nidal Hasan was a terrorist, inspired by hateful rhetoric from extremist Muslims. Just as Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph were terrorists inspired by extremist anti-government types and extremist Christians, respectively.
Let me know if you can find a single prominent Democratic politician who put his/her political opponents in gun sights that turned red when they were defeated, or even just a single politician that drew Bush in effigy with blood, or even a single politician who suggested we have "Second Amendment remedies" or we should "reload" or any way implied that we actually take a gun and murder a politician.
All the photos are of American protestors expressing their free speech in ways I've always deplored. I've seen ZERO evidence that the Democratic Party ever fomented or even supported such violent imagery, except in the most anodyne ways (i.e. the expressions "bringing a gun to a knife fight" or "shooting two birds with one stone" or "shooting your mouth off" are very different from targeting a politician with the gun sights of a sniper rifle.")
In sum, I don't dispute that violent imagery has been used by the Far Left and the Far Right. That is free speech that I condemn (and where it rises to the level of a threat, the authorities should take action.)
I assert, however, that the Republican Party, including elected politicians and extremely prominent "well-respected" leaders in the conservative movement EMBRACE this violent imagery, while the Democratic Party, elected officials, and prominent liberal leaders shun it. In fact, I can't think of a single liberal radio host or television host or elected leader or even a columnist who has embraced this rhetoric whereas I can show you scores of conservative radio and TV hosts and elected leaders and columnists who have done so.
I just think, in light of your last post, that perhaps we should put Chinese mothers in charge.
The only person who was shot in the Bush Administration was when Dick Cheney shot Harry Whittington in the face.
The proof is in the pudding: The fact of the matter is that whatever the rhetoric on the far left, there was no political violence during the Bush years.
You would have to go back to Clinton and Timothy McVeigh and the militia movement to come up with the last example of politically motivated violence.
Post a Comment