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Monday, January 10, 2011

Monday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said
Posted by Jill | 10:48 PM
Giving credit where credit is due, today's honoree is Melissa, for putting the ultimate nail in the coffin of the "Both Sides Are The Same" doctrine.

Money quote:
And as long as we continue to play this foolish game of "both sides are just as bad," and rely on trusty old ablism to dismiss Jared Lee Loughner as a crackpot—dutifully ignoring that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators; carefully pretending that the existence of people with mental illness who are potentially dangerous somehow absolves us of responsibility for violent rhetoric, as opposed to serving to underline precisely why it's irresponsible—it will be inevitable again.

Let's get this straight: This shit doesn't happen in a void. It happens in a culture rife with violent political rhetoric, and it's time for conservatives to pull up their goddamn bootstraps and get to work doing the hard business of self-reflection.

This is one problem the invisible hand of the market can't fix for them—unless, perhaps, it's holding a mirror.


Word.

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6 Comments:
Blogger Unknown said...
Sarah Palin definitely does generate violent rage in a lot of people. Problem is, they're all liberals.
1/11/11, 9:07 AM  
Blogger Bob said...
One of my FB friends tried that old "we're all to blame" thing. But I'm not shouldering collective guilt on this.
1/11/11, 11:32 AM  
Blogger Jill said...
Barry, name me one liberal who has threatened the life of Sarah Palin. One. I'm not talking about mean articles, that's part of being a politician, no matter how much Sarah Palin thinks that because she's the prettiest thing in shoe leather, she should be exempt from any and all opinions that aren't paeans to her wonderfulness. But show me one liberal who has threatened her.

Just one. Go ahead. Show me. Your false equivalencies don't play here.

And by the way, if you think some "lone nut" is going to be inspired by anti-Sarah Palin rhetoric, go take a look at this lowdown on just who's resorting to "second amendment remedies" ---> a phrase coined by a Tea Party candidate for Senate, in case you've forgotten.

Serr8d hasn't been around here since the shootings. I guess you're taking over for him.
1/12/11, 5:40 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...
>Barry, name me one liberal who has threatened the life of Sarah Palin.

That wasn't my point, as I neither share nor understand the compulsion to blame political violence on the free speech of one's opponents. I only meant that Sarah Palin is more a target of hate speech than a source. And while I could easily compile my own list of anti-Republican thuggery, I'm not going to beclown myself by making the quantum, causal link to the rhetorical excesses of some liberals.

I think the left blew it on this one. They've been so eager to link the Tea Party to a violent incident they could taste it. But it didn't work out for the IRS plane attack, nor Fort Hood, nor the Pentagon, nor the Discovery Channel, etc. When this happened, they just couldn't wait anymore, even though any link with Sarah Palin, so far as we know, exists only in the fevered brains of the likes of Michael Moore and Jane Fonda.

Meanwhile, the people aren't buying this failed narrative (including a plurality of Democrats), and the right is no doubt going to be re-energized and motivated by this inane blood libel.
1/12/11, 10:16 AM  
Blogger Jill said...
Oh fer cryin' out loud, Barry. I know you want to fuck Sarah Palin (surprising when you have a perfectly fine wife at home). But to paint Palin as the REAL victim of the Tucson shootings (forgetting conveniently about the nine-year-old child who was murdered for the crime of being interested in government) is disgusting.

As for "anti-Republican thuggery", give me something other than "mean words."

No one is directly linking what happened to the tea party, and those who were acted prematurely (something I didn't do). However, when you have people who MAY be paranoid schizophrenic who think that the government is controlling their minds, and you water that with rhetoric coming not from anonymous commenters on blogs, but from Congresspeople (Michele Bachmann), Senate candidates (Sharron Angle), former VP and future Presidential candidates (Sarah Palin), and so-called "legitimate" media personalities, it provides a climate where this sort of thing can flower.

As for your Jane Fonda reference, first of all, aren't you reaching kind of far back? Is that the best you can do? Even so, show me the name of ONE PERSON that Jane Fonda advocated violence against.

For eight years, progressives were called traitors and terrorist sympathizers. Now conservatives are being asked to consider the impact of their words and you are all being a bunch of whiny-ass titty babies. There's a Congresswoman with a hole in her brain, and Sarah Palin is the victim? Please.
1/12/11, 1:24 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...
>As for your Jane Fonda reference, first of all, aren't you reaching kind of far back?

Don't I wish! This is from her Twitter page 4 days ago.

>As for "anti-Republican thuggery", give me something other than "mean words."

Well, there's this, this, this, this, and this. How many do you want?
1/12/11, 1:44 PM  
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