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.
On Friday night approx. 25 businesses and dozens of homes had “Fuck McCain” spray painted on them in Gainesville, VA. Gainesville is about 40 miles due west of Wash DC and is a solidly red area. Several homes also received extra treatment with the entire garage door covered with similar obscenities.
Where does this rage come from? How can otherwise decent people look at this type of vandalism and their first words are “Well, my friend in ___________ had their Obama sign stolen.” Sorry, but spraypainting obscenities in 8 foot letters where they can be easily seen by folks and kids in cars does not even come close to stealing a sign. Not to mention the expense now incurred by homeowners, business owners, and probably a few insurance companies to pay out on the damage claims of the worst hit homes.
“change” will be change away from the limits on government defined in the Constitution. These limits are already being trampled, but would seem minor compared to what I fear Obama would do.
well intended but hopelessly naive....given the stark political diffeences today and a sharply nearly evenly divided electorate and a shifting demographic set to usurp the power from a traditional voting base of two hundred years I only see things getting worse.
The problem is that the fringe seems to be at the top, as much as at an occassional root. When a party's Presidential candidate hangs out with "God D@mn America" types and the former(?) head of the Weather underground, folks are bound to wonder about the nature of his potential administration.
bookmark
I find this guy hand-wringingly naive, I must say.
Today’s lefties, from Barney Frank, through Pelosi and Reid, and on down to their proteges, the out-of-state students who were just forced to withdraw their illegal ballots in Ohio, are descended in a straight line from both Mao’s Red Guard, and the kind of brutal operatives, (apparatchiks) that Stalin installed after WW2 all over the Eastern Europe he was handed. Look into the history of Romania’s Ceascescu, then imagine someone better dressed, less likely to have to perpetrate literal murder, and just as much aided and abetted by a slick media, and you have today’s Democrats. Look into the entire history of Fanny and Freddy and you have a perfect example of how, through the patented smooth talk of intimidation they are able to get too many people to go along with their socialist designs, and how deftly they managed to cram socialism down our throats, break the system, then demogogue the entire issue as if it the Bush Administration’s fault, and propose themselves, the Socialists, as if THEY are the solution to the collapse they themselves created.
Thaanks.
So true! I see revenge in the dems eyes. From the “we will investigate President Bush” to spreading the wealth around. Obama will not be my president.
I saw that too...the other kumbaya poster is a newbie too.
or maybe they are wideawake moderates who just had to come back
they are dumb as rocks if they think the ideological split today is just superficial
incredible
too many of the key issues have little or no middle ground and today’s electorate and media are noth much more leftist than in my lifetime (50)
where do you find middle ground on?
abortion.
ignoring the second amendment
wealth redistribution
radical islamist with nukes
voter fraud which is obviously almost exclusively a Democrat operation in minority areas
it goes on and on
this is the 1850s folks like it or not....where we end up is a mystery
Yeah, he’s a fool, and I didn’t even have to read that far.
He reminds me of an even softer Glen Beck, though Glen seems to have gotten a little more realistic lately. I HATE this kind of “conservative”, or Republican, or whatever he is. His entire persona is taken over by those kind of “aisle-reaching” qualities in McCain that drive us all nuts.
It’s foolishness and it’s sad that some have so little respect for others. They come to the wrong house and one or more of them could easily be blown away, I say too bad.
I am dead tired of this nonsense.
Why is that something to cheer?
Whatever happened to that "content of their character rather than colour of their skin" thin? Huh????
NOBODY, least of all supposed conservatives, should give a crap what colour 0bama's or McCain's skin happens to be. That is, by definition, racism.
If 0bama wins, it will mean that we have elected our first uabashed communist infanticidal megalomaniac as president.
There's absolutely NOTHING to cheer about that.
Absurd. Preposterous.
0bama's campaign is the source of "this nastiness".
Well .. if David is expecting things to calm down if Obama gets elected .. he’s got another “think” coming.
It not only WILL NOT CALM DOWN .. the Obama people are already using a policy of “their way or the highway”. It will be payback time .. and I believe every white person and a few non-liberal blacks will be direct targets of reprisals.
One of the first attacks will come against Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and every other “conservative-leaning” person or organization. The Fairness Doctrine is first on the list of legislative events for the new Obama admin. If talk radio goes .. so goes the nation.
This supposed intellectual (David Reinhard) cannot explain what this is all about .. but I can .. Bush didn’t roll over and give the election to Gore in 2000. Even one year later, when the NYT, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Boston Globe (all very liberal newspapers) pooled their money and paid to recount all the votes. An entirely legal thing to do. After all that money and work - what they found out was that Bush STILL WON THE ELECTION .. BUT BY EVEN MORE VOTES than the 537 .
However, the media burried that information - never informing their liberals that BUSH ACTUALLY WON THE ELECTION AND DID NOT STEAL IT .. but instead continued to foment the premise that “Bush stole the election”.
Since that day .. the liberals have had only one goal - GET BACK CONTROL OF THE GOVERNMENT - AT ANY COST.
If you want a bird’s eye view of how the dems try to steal elections, Bill Sammon wrote a great book, “At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election” (Bill traveled with the Gore campaign in 2000). It’s riviting reading - and gives insight into how the democrats view elections - THE DEMS WIN - THE REPUBS LOSE! For the liberals there is no other choice.
So he's and Arab-African-American. You only have to look at photos of BHO Sr, to see that there is not much Arab there. Probably some, the Arabs liked their slave girls as much as Chicken George's father did.
It's more like 1860, with The One being a bizzaro world Lincoln.
Well nice words, but “politics” is more than “just politics” it impacts lives, sometimes ruins them and in some cases resulted in the death of untold numbers, pretty serious in my book.
Tiny “fringe”? I think not. Look at the rage directed at Sarah’s innocent children, look at what they’ve lied about and said about her, Todd and her children, and yet their candidate’s families are untouchable (and should be, I’m not arguing that point, I’m arguing for equal treatment). Look at their rage wherever they appear.
Look at the unbridled rage when she appears, like all the demons of hell have been released and I’m convinced that’s part of the mix too. Look at the unhinged columns written about her, look at the insane, unbalanced “protestors” running around naked on bikes, dressed in weird costumes, the vile signs they hold aloft.
No, this is far bigger and more organized than we think, never underestimate the enemy, always a mistake. These are bedrock issues: murder of the unborn, the confiscation of more of our money, the destruction of our way of life, the inability to vet this candidate, the demonizing of those who pose legitimate questions and concerns about Obama, the list goes on and on and if we reflect we see parallels in history but then again, we need to have read some history.
Sorry - this IS Galt’s Gulch. There’s no place else to go. Atlas is not just going to have to shrug. Atlas is going to have to go to war.
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