(See my new Twitter hashtag, #BothSidesDONT.)
The left side of the spectrum, of which I am a part, gets hot under the collar and says fuckwad and fascist and many many other nasty words to describe their opponents.
We do not have a gun fetish at the core of our party's base.
The real, hard, cold, problem at the heart of this Saturday's tragedy is a fully-loaded, concealed, semi-automatic handgun in the hands of a seriously crazy young man.
And there is ONE party, one political base, that encourages gun ownership and tantrums over any attempts to temporize their gun fetish under the law.
There is ONE party, one political base, that looks to gun ownership as a sign of leadership. From the RNC Chairman debate of two years ago:
There is ONE party, one political base, that endorses carrying guns as a way to signal political disagreement.
There is ONE party, one political base, that has leaders who tout "second amendment remedies" as a solution to "tyranny" when elections don't go their way.
And yet, there are reports that the shooter on Saturday was motivated by "fighting tyranny" and some vendetta against NASA.
How many "second amendment remedy" Nevadans are today saying "but HE'S crazy!"
No one is crazy to use a second amendment remedy UNTIL SOMEONE DOES. And if there's a 9 year old in the concealed, semi-automatic crossfire, well...
scrub your website. And shriek real loud that the assailant was crazy, and a leftist because he owned copies of both Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto!!! No mention that he was a recent COLLEGE STUDENT, probably taking an intro poli sci course to get ready to "fight tyranny with his second amendment rights."
There is ONE party, one political base, that has a serious problem every time there is a politically charged shooting in America. And then we talk about RIGHTS, rather than MURDER.
The absolute bullshit line that "Both sides need to calm their rhetoric" is totally strangling me. The truth is that we need to respond more quickly and forcefully to the lies, the hate-mongering and the calls to violence from the Second-Tier-Right.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't progressives who have uber-armed militias training in every dim-lit, dim-wit backwater, and it isn't "The Left" which is responsible for the growing tide of violence against all but the most extreme right factions of our society. (I mean, as if Blue-Dog Representative Giffords is some kind of Leftist!)
Progressives needs to kick it into high gear, not retreat like well-behaved children. This collision of world views must yield a victory to rational ideas over irrational fears.
Whether or not we move forward publicly, the forces of greed and consolidation of resources will move forward in the shadows.
It falls to us to shine the light of reason on their dark lies.
As Chekhov noted,
ReplyDelete"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired."
Well, the guns and violence the Tea Partiers have hung upon themselves just went off.
Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are responsible for the Tea Party Massacre in Tucson.