Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Michelle Malkin | The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010

Michelle Malkin | The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010:

This was trendy?! (Because I never saw one, or anything like it. Ever.)

The progressive climate of hate: A comprehensive illustrated primer in 8 parts ...
I haven't fact-checked this, an essential step before forming an opinion about anything any pundit has to say, but to the extent these are actual things that happened and not conservative victimization fantasies or ginned-up liberal framing, it's a reminder to remember that when you point your about violent rhetoric to make sure there aren't three more fingers pointing back at you. As Tea Partiers disgrace conservatism with "We're Unarmed ... This Time!" signs, so lefty extremists disgrace progressives when they cross those same lines.

It's one thing to express passionate disagreement with someone's positions, it's another thing entirely to make statement that implies it's OK to physically harm someone.

It's also important to remember that there is a time and a place for even depictions of violence without the creator of the depiction having to fear being responsible for what some lunatic does after being exposed to that form of expression. We have violent movies, video games, and I think we pretty much all agree it's better to talk about it than to try and ban it. Sometimes being shocking is to generate discussion, and that can be valuable discussion. Again, I want to make it clear this type of speech shouldn't be banned, and I don't think Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck should be treated as criminals for their speech, any more than the creators of the images Malkin collected should be for theirs, even if some nutter went after a conservative figure inspired by anything they saw.

One last thing: it matters who is doing the speaking when forming an opinion about the relevance of the speech. There's a difference between a nutter, or a parade of nutters, carrying inflammatory signs in parade ... you see it in how they are (at least if they're liberals) mocked and derided by media  ...  and public figures who are either already leaders or aspire to be leaders; when you know you're being taken seriously, it kind of makes sense you should feel a sense of responsibility to be serious and warrant the attention. Compare candidate Biden to candidate Palin and tell me if you think their level of political discourse was comparable. I'd be very surprised if you could any mainstream figures on the left flirt with irresponsibly violent rhetoric the way comparable figures do on the right.
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