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.
No Mr. Reinhard, it's called morbid stupidity, and the rotting of your moral core. Obama isn't just the other candidate; He's the embodiment of the destruction of freedon and Godliness on a world scale. He would be the final nail in the coffin.
I agree with you. They have already shut down websites with threats, called Secret Service and lied about threats to Obama, announced they have a list of addresses of republican pollworkers in Florida, It's just the start.
And we thought Hillary was bad - having all those FBI files!
Great list - thanks!!
Good point.
You are most welcome. I was a little surprised that I rattled all of that off the top of my head. But I know I’m not so smart it’s just a very deep well.
Not bit, but by "he" I meant The One, the Messiah.
“.....a few powerless token representatives....”
I think they’ll use their power to punish us. They are totally depraved, anti God, lunatics. Their flesh won’t be satisfied with just getting their way, just like a spoiled child is never satisfied. They wont be satisfied until we’re all hanging from crosses.
One of 5 things is going to happen on November 4th:
1. Obama will win and there will be mild rioting in some of the more liberal third world American cities, Similar to championship sports riots.
2. Obama will lose and there will be rioting in those same cities, similar to the Cincinnati, LA riots.
3. Obama will lose and there will be massive rioting in every city where black people make up 10%+ of the population.
4. Obama will win and the radicals will be vindicated and will start their cultural and ethnic cleansing.
I think there’s a pretty good chance of each of these scenarios and all of them are scary.
Salvation, we haven’t seen anything yet!
We Christians will be treated by Obama the same way Hitler treated the Jews!!
I wonder how we will respond??
Molon Labe!!
**I wonder how we will respond??**
I can’t answer for others, but I will stick with Jesus Christ and the Holy Eucharist.
Yes, Jesus Christ is our only Salvation!!
I will not give up without a fight!!
Molon Labe!!
Not bit, but by "he" I meant The One, the Messiah.
Oh. Well, citizen or not, there's not much American in him either IMO.
Kenyan father? Raised in Indonesia? Indonesian step father?
Even less "African American." White mother? White grand parents? Schooled in Hawaii and Indonesia? Where is the connection with the average black American there?
That didn't come until his late high school and college years. A result of trying to "find himself", or so he says.
But yes, the connection is very tenuous.
Sure it runs both ways. The conservatives use words, while the liberals use violence. Read the entire article carefully. Conservatives vent their anger with words. Liberals express their hate in violence. There is a very big difference.
What he does understand is the class warfare strategy of Marxism.
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