Lets just clear this up right now-- freedom of speech is not to blame for this and if we police what people say and ban certain rhetoric while allowing others. it will not make this stop.
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There's a good case for linking political assassinations and political violence to the level of heat in recent political campaigns.
By the way, isn't it usually the nutty people who perform the assassinations? So it doesn't tell us anything to observe that this would be assassin was nutty; the same was true of the folk who assassinated Lincoln, Kennedy, M L King Jnr, and Robert Kennedy. They were all weird people, some were certifiably insane.
But the measure of political heat is obvious and the would be assassin is more a symptom than a thermometer for the level of the heat.
The rhetoric - especially for one looking in from the outside - is horrendous. The level of hyperbole, misrepresentation, violent allusions and violent imagery is frightening. Having an attempted assassination is no surprise in the climate created by the over the top rhetoric that's been bandied about recently. The tea party's rhetoric is damaging USA democracy.
The over the top rhetoric is not recent or one sided.
So, even if this rhetoric had nothing at all to do with this attempted assassination, is it something that should be defended? Should we support people who use phrases such as hunting progressives, trading ballots for bullets, reloading instead of retreating? Is it wrong to disavow that sort of talk and try to return to civil discourse?
So, even if this rhetoric had nothing at all to do with this attempted assassination, is it something that should be defended? Should we support people who use phrases such as hunting progressives, trading ballots for bullets, reloading instead of retreating? Is it wrong to disavow that sort of talk and try to return to civil discourse?
The news reporting in Australia (and we're hardly a left wing nation) has consistently shown the most egregious examples as coming from tea party leaders and candidates....
The over the top rhetoric is not recent or one sided. To call it the tea party's rhetoric is to show that there is an agenda. It is extremist rhetoric on both sides.
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Or at least have some sort of honest introspection?
AND, even more pointedly, gun licensing.And that is what we need to do, on the rhetoric on both sides as well as how we take care of the mentally ill.
The news reporting in Australia (and we're hardly a left wing nation) has consistently shown the most egregious examples as coming from tea party leaders and candidates.
And that is what we need to do, on the rhetoric on both sides as well as how we take care of the mentally ill.
AND, even more pointedly, gun licensing.
AND, even more pointedly, gun licensing.
Yet the examples you keep referring to are from the right are they not?Well there have been others since 2000. Ratcheting up and spiraling down all the time. From the people who believe the Spare Change thing to people who think the president is not a citizen. The extreme rhetoric from conspiracy and violent talk is on all sides.