Posted on 10/26/2008 9:05:33 AM PDT by jazusamo
There's battle lines being drawn Nobody's right if everybody's wrong -- Buffalo Springfield
What is happening to us? What explains the boorishness, hate and even violence that increasingly mark our politics?
No, this isn't another prissy commentary on "negative" ads -- another high-sounding homily on how we ought to focus on "the issues," by which the writer means "the issues that I think voters should focus on." Nor is this a screed against demonstrations, however boisterous, or some young fools' lawn-sign stealing. There's no interest here in trampling on free-speech rights or spitting into the wind of what must be a rite of passage.
What troubles me -- what should trouble us all -- is the outbreak of largely liberal intolerance we've seen over the last few elections, and especially this one.
Something's happening here, and it's getting scary.
We've had two 23-year-old males here tossing Molotov cocktails to burn down Gene Scrutton's John McCain sign in the Sellwood neighborhood.
In Minnesota, graffiti messages ("u r a criminal resign or else") were spray-painted on the garage of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's St. Paul home.
A 23-year-old Michigan man, a Democrat, has admitted to plotting to detonate a homemade bomb in the tunnels near the Republican convention.
In the Washington, D.C., suburbs, a motel with a McCain sign on its lawn received threatening calls and a McCain-signed pumpkin patch was vandalized.
In central Florida, the Republican headquarters manager told police he believed that his home with two McCain signs was shot up because of his support for McCain.
It doesn't involve physical violence, threatened or real, but "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart's "[expletive] you" to Sarah Palin in a recent comedy (?) act suggests how far we've gone in the age of the unhinged.
Yes, I know this stuff runs both ways. Here in Oregon, we had the hanging of an Obama cut-out at Newberg's George Fox University. The Washington Post reports that Obama signs in Alexandria, Va., were painted with racist epithets. We learned Friday that a McCain campaign worker's claim that she was beaten up and had the letter "B" cut into her face because her car had a McCain sticker was a hoax. Such deranged doings are just as appalling when it comes from the right, though my sense is that this hate-filled intolerance more often comes out of left field.
I also know we're a big country, and a few goof-balls do not a national trend make. But I don't think I'm committing sociology based on a few incidents. We're talking about more than a few beer-addled goofballs here.
A young friend of mine was working for the Bush campaign in 2004. One weekend he left his car outside a friend's Eugene house for safekeeping while he was out of town. Upon returning, he noticed the "W" sticker had been removed from his car. Hey, buddy, you were supposed to take care of my car, he said to his friend. Oh, yeah, his friend said, my father did that when he was here this weekend. He couldn't stand a student having a Bush sticker on his car.
Now, mind you, this wasn't a practical joke. The father was dead serious, and he wasn't some ne'er-do-well with a six-pack of beer aboard. He was an immaculately credentialed Portland professional who also headed a major community organization.
I love politics and public policy, but the ugliness, the anger, the coarseness and even the threats of violence I've experienced as a conservative opinion-writer in achingly "tolerant" Portland have contributed to my decision to leave the business after this election. My heart was starting to harden -- do we conservatives not have hearts, do we not bleed? -- and I didn't want that to happen.
I joked at first about some of it. When a reader sent me my column covered with dried feces, I looked on the bright side. He could have said he wouldn't .... on my column. I took comfort in the fact law officers visited the Iraq War foe (a peace advocate!) and the liberal critic (a Portland public school teacher!) who threatened my family. But the constant expletive-laced rants, the nifty Nazi-Hitler-German references, the holier-than-thou hate for any opposing view from the half-informed -- well, it's not what our public discourse should be about. It wasn't in a better age. If I sometimes responded in kind (and I did), forgive me.
What accounts for this rage? Maybe it's that so many feel the White House was stolen from them eight years ago. Maybe they just feel entitled to rule. (Dude, where's my country?) Maybe it's the Iraq War. Or George Bush, though many lefties have worked themselves into the same derangement syndrome over Palin. Maybe the cause is deeper. I don't know. I only know it's not a good thing for civil society.
Obama's not my candidate -- McCain is -- but, if he's elected on Nov. 4, Obama will be my president and I'll be happy to cheer two things. One, the fact that the United States has, at long last, elected an African-American president. Two, the possibility that Obama's election might deliver us from this nastiness. I think it's called the audacity of hope.
If he’s really a conservative then he knows darned well what’s going on. The left (Democrats) have morphed into a committed communist movement bent on destroying the republic and all it stands for. Strange as it may be that is somewhat controversial to some of us.
As long as you agree with them on the important things in life who gives a fat rat's patoot about this silly ole republic. Right?
I thinks it's called that river in Africa - "DeNile".
How can conservatives unite with leftists when leftists want to destroy every conservative principle and force conservative to follow their way?
Leftists don’t want any viewpoints that differ from theirs. They embody intolerance, domination and they lust for power and total control over others.
Your viewpoints don’t make any sense. If you want to continue discussion, please elaborate and explain how conservatives should unite or ‘get along’ with liberals. The only way I’ve seen over the last many years is to convert to liberalism.
Everything you said is exactly right on target and completely undeniable.
The vast majority, if not 100%, of the hate and violence in this election is coming from the left, but the left continues to whine about the nasty right-wing attacks. The left has become completely Stalinist, and we are in big trouble if we don’t fight back. There’s no such thing as a level playing field.
I see nothing to cheer about if Obama is elected President. He’s unqualified. You don’t vote for someone because of the color of his/her skin. It’s what’s between the ears. It’s integrity, honesty, record, accomplishment, and who’s pulling his strings. In Obama’s case, America’s enemies are doing just that. Fraud, lies, foreign money pumped into his campaign at horrendous amounts. Not to mention the disreputable MSM toadies without the sense to pour sand in a hole. Unbelievable.
Actually, and ultimately, that may INDEED be correct in an eternal sense. However, we have often in this Nation been able to disagree politically without destroying one another. So it is, indeed, possible.
I can’t think of a single leftist position that isn’t extreme even in its mildest form. I don’t disagree with destroying this republic. I reject it out of hand and make no apologies for it. There is nothing to discuss with today’s left.
maybe...don’t have time to really research it now so I’ll take yer word for it
i always remember that brawny exaggerated look from those WPA arts from school book binders and library murals from when I was a boy in the late 50s and 60s...i always think Steinbeck
from works done in that era which lauded the laboring man
there was even a bar-food joint in South Beach in the late 80s when I lived there decorated as such and called WPA
White guilt feeds a world of dweebs.
You're right and though we shouldn't stoop to their level we have to fight back, they'll only get worse if we don't.
There’s not only nothing to cheer about if he’s elected there’s nothing to cheer about him even being in a position to get the Dem nomination, he’s a loser and an anti-American and shouldn’t be where he is now.
You’re right it was adopted by the WPA, too, but I think it started with the Soviets and even the Nazis. The proud, but potentially downtrodden, “Worker” motif was popular on many fronts during the era.
Yes, Portland is and has been a hotbed of radical leftism for years.
Exactly! It has hardly been a fringe element fomenting the divisions and unrest in this country. Nearly all the major media has ignored the truth and poured fuel on the fire by doing so. They carried the water for the "Bush lied" meme. They published national security secrets. They refuse to vet 0bama just as they refused to expose the Clinton's lies and crimes. Even Bill and Hill aren't immune to it and got trampled by the media's willful complicity with 0bama's lies and lack of resume.
It is hardly a small fringe element when Sen. Kennedy is one who denigrates our troops with lies.
It is hardly a small fringe element when Sen. Kerry denigrates our troops with lies.
It is hardly a small fringe element when Sen. Durbin smears our troops with lies.
It is hardly a small fringe element when Cong. Murtha denigrates our troops with lies and false accusations.
It is hardly a small fringe element when Cong. Murray denigrates our troops with lies and praises the good works of Islamic jihadis.
It is hardly a small fringe element when Sen. Reid declares the war lost just as we make good progress. Or tries to use the power of the Senate to silence Rush Limbaugh with a lie.
It is hardly a small fringe element when Speaker Pelosi falsely calls the President a liar.
It is hardly a small fringe element when the NYTs (the most recognized newspaper in America) allows an ad to run that calls an American hero and patriot, risking his own life and limb to accomplish a herculean feat, "General Betrayus."
It is hardly a small fringe element that bankrolls a half dozen or more radically anti-American groups like Moveon.org.
It is hardly a small fringe element when no serious condemnation of these things is heard. Or when it is condemned it is buried or the one who condemns it is mocked and savaged by the press.
It is hardly a small fringe element when a working guy asks "The One" a simple question then finds over 100 reporters on his lawn and his entire life exposed in the national media.
It is hardly a small fringe element when a radical and criminal group like ACORN is funded with hundreds of thousands of tax dollars by our Congress and hundreds of thousands more from the campaign of one of the Pres. candidates.
It is hardly a small fringe element when a major network and their longtime leading talking head fabricate a story from whole cloth to derail the Republican candidate.
The unrest and division is no anomaly confined to a fringe of hotheads and kooks when all of this and more is promoted and encouraged from a wide swath of our national leadership. This division is not arising in a vacuum. It is being encouraged and spread from Congress, from the biggest media outlets and from universities across the nation.
Nope, not a lot of Arab in BHO Sr. And not a lick of American in him.
“what accounts for this rage?”
psychiatry can gain an insight into it. but, the bottom line is that leftists are nothing but ill-mannered scu&bags who have no regard for anyone else’s psyche. they’ve honed their skills in hiding behind their libidinal impulses and turned them into a self-proclaimed-noble political movement
that is nothing but a front for an adolescent, psychiatric mental illness that is an excuse for not growing up.
look at the actions of the khmer rouge, the black shirts, brown shirts, viet cong, viet minh and the soviets after the revolution and you’ll get an insight into who they are. It ain’t good.
IN MY HUMBLE OPINION
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