I know I haven't written much about Florida this week and have devoted a lot of space to the Giffords shooting, but I just wanted to make an observation here. Ever since the news first broke of the events in Arizona, the right-wing blogosphere and media have been focused far less with the tragedies of the day than they have been with the supposed attacks coming from the right. As the generator of some of those attacks, I just want to say hogwash.
Bill O'Reilly has gone ballistic over the coverage in the supposedly left-wing coverage from MSNBC and the New York Times.
Redstate was worrying about the blame game less than an hour after news broke of the shooting, and decided to come after Sheriff Clarence Dupnik politically for daring to suggest incivility was getting out of hand in this nation.
Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck had a digital pow-wow to fret for each other's safety and so Palin could complain about how the "politicos just capitalize on this."
So let us make sure everybody remembers the real victim in this terrible tragedy. It wasn't a Democratic Congresswoman who was meeting with her constituents. It wasn't a nine-year-old girl whose life was cut short for wanting to learn more about government. It wasn't a federal judge elevated to chief of his circuit by his peers. It wasn't a husband who gave his life so his wife wouldn't be killed by the gunman.
The real victim is the right's feelings.
They shouldn't have to suffer through all this talk of incivility. They shouldn't have to hear cries for gun control because that makes them angry. They shouldn't here complaints about being mean, because they have every right to be mean, even if they are more thin-skinned than most schoolchildren. They complain about political correctness when someone catches flack for shouting the N-word repeatedly on the radio, but nobody better suggest vitriol has consequences.
There has been so much more defensiveness on the right about this than there have been actual attacks on the right regarding this shooting. And when the defensiveness comes before the supposed onslaught of criticism even begins, I don't know if it can be called defensive at all.
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I'm not surprised that the right-wing press preemptively becomes defensive whenever some nutjob does something like this, since Pravda a/k/a The New York Times has always quick to label any such action the work of right wing extremists BUT Lee Harvey Oswald was not a right-winger, Sirhan Sirhan was not a right-winger, nor was this nutjob (nor for that matter were the Chicago Seven or the Black Panthers, both of whom incited violence).
ReplyDeleteActions have consequences - speech is just speech and is protected under the US Constituion except under very limited circumstances. The press should investigate first and then draw conclusions, not vice-versa as often currently is the case
Any examples from the past decade? Because all this conversation is about an event that happened less than a week ago.
ReplyDeleteOswald was a communist sympathizer. Sirhan was a Palestinian foreign national. It was no surprise then that such causes could be the source of violence. And any violence spawned from the Chicago Seven and Black Panthers was used to tar those groups for their use of violent rhetoric and open support of violent tactics. Was is censorship then to criticize those groups?
Today, the sources of violent rhetoric come from the right, and they have been given the megaphones of talk radio and Fox News to spread the rhetoric. The reason scrutiny about that rhetoric is occurring is because of a self-evident relationship, and the defensiveness of the right, visible in Palin's new video message, shows they can see it as well as anyone.
No, it was not censorship to criticize those groups; however, they continued to get their message, such as it was out.
ReplyDeleteThe Glen Becks, Rush Limbaughs, Keith Olbermans wingnuts at Daily Kos and other assorted loonies should be able to be heard because only by exposing these viewpoints, rather than having them be part of a furtive underground, can the public make up its mind. I think it was Supreme Court Justice Brandeis who said "Sunshine is the best disinfectant".
An excerpt from an interesting conversation in today's USA Today:
ReplyDelete"... Cal (Thomas) : Agreed. Besides, one person who knew Loughner called him "left-wing" and a "pothead." Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot President Kennedy, was a Soviet sympathizer. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was an associate of Charles Manson when she pointed a gun at President Ford in 1975. The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, was a fan of Al Gore's environmental book Earth in the Balance. That didn't mean Gore was responsible for Kaczynski's actions. The list is long.
Bob (Beckel): That sounds suspiciously like a suggestion that liberals were behind the events you mention. You don't want to pull a conservative Krugman here, do you? None of the examples you raise nor the uninformed attacks by people like Krugman contribute to a civil dialogue.
Cal: Of course, but you get my point that if you accept a cause-effect relationship between conservative speech and action, you have to accept the same on the liberal side. Neither is right.
Bob: Look, I can cite a litany of wacko comments on the right that have bordered on calling for violence. Take Sharron Angle, the fortunately defeated Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, who said, "If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those 2nd Amendment remedies." That doesn't mean this kind of rhetoric was behind the Tucson shooting, of course, but it's still destructive.
Cal: I think that shots of exploding flesh on some of the TV crime shows and in films — some of it in slow motion — might be a greater influence on already twisted minds than strong political rhetoric. Why aren't people who see a connection between political speech and violent acts trying to censor depictions of violence on TV?
Bob: This isn't about mere images or hot-headed political quotes or conservative talk radio or anything else in the heated but otherwise sane world of American politics. This is about a deranged mind. Trying to assign rational motives is a fool's errand.
Cal: I have to say I'm not surprised that the anti-gun crowd has done what it reflexively does with any gun-related tragedy: called for more gun laws... "
Interesting stuff, especially from Thomas. Thank you for posting this pwd.
ReplyDeleteI wince a little at the suggestion we should censor TV violence, but then that reaction speaks to exactly the instincts we have seen on display in the last week. We all feel when the opposition uses a tragedy to further a political cause, it's exploitation, but when our side does the same, it is answering a call to arms.
Defensiveness has been on too high a display amidst this whole series of events. I hope somehow a more civil dialogue results. Not one where disagreements aren't fought for aggressively, mind you, but one where the absolute demonization of the other side isn't the main thrust of every conversation.
We limit freedom of speech. We limit freedom of religion. We ask for moderation in all freedoms, but let people own automatic and concealable weapons?
ReplyDeleteI have no objection to hunters, shotguns and rifles... and especially the hunting licenses that pay for so much of conservation. In fact, I've owned a rifle since I was 10 years old, and currently have a few shotguns. However, no one needs a Glock w/ a 30 round clip for anything except killing people.
Oh! I must be wrong! Glocks and super clips have sold out all over the country in the last week!
Let's stop the importation of weapons, the sale of the typical Saturday Night Special ammunition (.25, 32, etc.), and clips that are only useful if you want to go on a killing spree.