I liked how he handled this...respectful and understanding.

http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/full-episodes/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart---january-10-2011/#clip399095

That was great.

Thanks, Jon.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by vaporlock.

While I appreciate the sentiment of most everything he said, I wonder what he would say of Thomas Paine's works. Arguably, the voice of the revolution in America; his rhetoric is very similar to ours today. I guess the only real measure of the worth of your rhetoric is your cause. If you cause beit to free a nation and you win, then history will think kindly of you. If your rhetorics objective is about keeping your/parties position of power, then most likely history will paint you with more than just golden colors.

Thomas Paine: "Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."

People you think sound like Thomas Paine:

I think he's wrong about drawing a line of causation.

-=Hypothetical analogy incoming=-

Assume we've got a set of teenage girls,
Girl A at school dislikes Girl B
Girl A starts spreading rumors about Girl B
Girl C is emotionally and mentally unstable
Girl A randomly comes into contact with Girl C and passes along said rumors
Girl C confronts Girl B about the rumors and a fight breaks out because, again, Girl C is unstable

There was no way for Girl A to know that Girl C would follow through in the way she did. Regardless, Girl A started a series of events that eventually led to Girl B getting beat up.

Ok, try the same thing with Fox pundits who are basically promoting slanted and ethically unsound journalism (aka LIES).

Fox = Girl A
Whoever is in their cross-hairs (pun intended) = Girl B
Random Crazies = Girl C

Now before anyone on the right gets on my case about this analogy, consider this: The CEO of Fox announced he wanted his pundits to quote "Tone down the rhetoric and hope the other side does too." How can an objective news organization have "a side?" It can't.

What we really REALLY need is good, honest, journalism. The problem is people dont know how to recognize what credible journalism is, and fear usually trumps intellect so the emotional hoopla that Fox jams down people's throats is gobbled up like the tripe it is.

I agree with what you are saying, particularly the part about Fox accidentally admitting they have chosen sides, but I think you are misunderstanding what Jon said. He didn't deny that the violent political rhetoric may have had some part in this. To me it seemed that he was saying it is tempting to draw a "straight line" between the two things, but we need to remember that no matter how much our gut tells us it is so, we don't have evidence to assign blame for the shootings to anyone but the crazy PoS shooter.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

I think he's wrong about drawing a line of causation.
-=Hypothetical analogy incoming=-
Assume we've got a set of teenage girls,
Girl A at school dislikes Girl B
Girl A starts spreading rumors about Girl B
Girl C is emotionally and mentally unstable
Girl A randomly comes into contact with Girl C and passes along said rumors
Girl C confronts Girl B about the rumors and a fight breaks out because, again, Girl C is unstable
There was no way for Girl A to know that Girl C would follow through in the way she did. Regardless, Girl A started a series of events that eventually led to Girl B getting beat up.
Ok, try the same thing with Fox pundits who are basically promoting slanted and ethically unsound journalism (aka LIES).
Fox = Girl A
Whoever is in their cross-hairs (pun intended) = Girl B
Random Crazies = Girl C
Now before anyone on the right gets on my case about this analogy, consider this: The CEO of Fox announced he wanted his pundits to quote "Tone down the rhetoric and hope the other side does too." How can an objective news organization have "a side?" It can't.
What we really REALLY need is good, honest, journalism. The problem is people dont know how to recognize what credible journalism is, and fear usually trumps intellect so the emotional hoopla that Fox jams down people's throats is gobbled up like the tripe it is.

>> ^NetRunner:

Thomas Paine: "Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."
People you think sound like Thomas Paine:
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@JiggaJohnson, now add another element -- Girl A (aka Fox), actually wants bad things to happen to Girl B (everyone who disagrees with conservative dogma), but doesn't want to be held accountable for it.

Now you're where a diary making the rounds at Daily Kos today is, which calls this process stochastic terrorism.

It's a bit grandiose in name, but frankly it puts a finger on exactly what I think is going on at this point. These outbursts of violence are a feature, not a bug.

Cool kids also call this Becking.

I know I'm stepping on the thrust of Jon's message (rhetoric is no more to blame than rock music, and we should all just calm down and stop being so partisan), but it hearkens back to a moment in Rachel Maddow's interview with him where he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "even if it's technically true that Bush is a war criminal, the left shouldn't say that he's a war criminal, because that's too partisan".

That's the problem we have right now -- when the left says the truth, it sounds partisan. While on the other hand you have the right constantly lying, and it comes out sounding like incitement to violence.

And the media is all too happy to look at the above and say "they're both doing it". Never mind that one side is vindicated by the facts, and the other is just trying to gin people up to try to get political power; you can't report that, because that would be "partisan"...

@WKB

True, but when the Columbine school shooting was perpetrated, conservatives were quick to point the finger at Marilyn Manson's lyrics. I'm not saying they were right, and I'm not saying that Fox deserves all of the blame here either.

I do think though, that the people pumping that kind of rhetoric onto the airwaves deserve SOME responsibility for atrocities like this. Allow me to compare the Woodstock of 1970 to the Woodstock of '99 for an example.

-------------------------------------------------------------

>>>>>>The 1970 Woodstock (billed as "3 days of Peace and Music") resulted in reports like this:

"The New York Times covered the prelude to the festival and the move from Wallkill to Bethel.[13] Barnard Collier, who reported from the event for the Times, asserts that he was pressured by on-duty editors at the paper to write a misleadingly negative article about the event. According to Collier, this led to acrimonious discussions and his threat to refuse to write the article until the paper's executive editor, James Reston, agreed to let him write the article as he saw fit. The eventual article dealt with issues of traffic jams and minor lawbreaking, but went on to emphasize cooperation, generosity, and the good nature of the festival goers.

When the festival was over, Collier wrote another article about the exodus of fans from the festival site and the lack of violence at the event. The chief medical officer for the event and several local residents were quoted as praising the festival goers."

--------------------------------------------------------------

>>>>>>The 1999 version of the event (featuring bands like Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock and the Red Hot Chili Peppers who are all, dare I say, a bit angrier [lyrically speaking] than the likes of Arlo Guthrie or Joan Baez) is painted in a much different color:

"Some crowd violence and looting was reported during the Saturday night performance by Limp Bizkit, including a rendition of the song "Break Stuff". Reviewers of the concert criticized Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst as "irresponsible" for encouraging the crowd to destructive behavior.

Violence escalated the next night during the final hours of the concert as Red Hot Chili Peppers performed. A group of peace promoters led by an independent group called Pax had distributed candles to those stopping at their booth during the day, intending them for a candlelight vigil to be held during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' performance of the song "Under the Bridge". During the band's set, the crowd began to light the candles, some also using them to start bonfires. The hundreds of empty plastic water bottles that littered the lawn/dance area were used as fuel for the fire.

After the Red Hot Chili Peppers were finished with their main set, the audience was informed about "a bit of a problem." An audio tower caught fire, and the fire department was called in to extinguish it.

Back onstage for an encore, the Chili Peppers' lead singer Anthony Kiedis remarked how amazing the fires looked from the stage, comparing them to a scene in the film Apocalypse Now.[12] The band proceeded to play "Sir Psycho Sexy", followed by their rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire". Kiedis later stated in his autobiography, Scar Tissue that Jimi Hendrix's sister had asked the Chili Peppers to play "Fire" in honor of Jimi and his performance at the original Woodstock festival, and that they were not playing it to encourage the crowd.

Many large bonfires were burning high before the band left the stage for the last time. Participants danced in circles around the fires. Looking for more fuel, some tore off panels of plywood from the supposedly inviolable security perimeter fence. ATMs were tipped over and broken into, trailers full of merchandise and equipment were forced open and burglarized, and abandoned vendor booths were turned over, and set afire.[13]

MTV, which had been providing live coverage, removed its entire crew. MTV host Kurt Loder described the scene in the July 27, 1999 issue of USA Today:

"It was dangerous to be around. The whole scene was scary. There were just waves of hatred bouncing around the place, (...) It was clear we had to get out of there.... It was like a concentration camp. To get in, you get frisked to make sure you're not bringing in any water or food that would prevent you from buying from their outrageously priced booths. You wallow around in garbage and human waste. There was a palpable mood of anger."

After some time, a large force of New York State Troopers, local police, and various other law enforcement arrived. Most had crowd control gear and proceeded to form a riot-line that flushed the crowd to the northwest, away from the stage located at the eastern end of the airfield. Few of the crowd offered strong resistance and they dispersed quickly back toward the campground and out the main entrance."

>>>>>>See also, this poignant response from a person in the crowd: http://newsroom.mtv.com/2009/08/17/woodstock-legacy/ (crowdmember comments @ 2:20)

----------------------------------------

Now now easy there big fella, before you start telling me about how correlation does not imply causation consider this: an article recently published by the American Journal of Psychiatry concluded that:

"Childhood exposure to parental verbal aggression was associated, by itself, with moderate to large effects on measures of dissociation, limbic irritability, depression, and anger-hostility." Furthermore, "Combined exposure to verbal abuse and witnessing of domestic violence was associated with extraordinarily large adverse effects, particularly on dissociation. This finding is consonant with studies that suggest that emotional abuse may be a more important precursor of dissociation than is sexual abuse."
See: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/163/6/993

Maybe not the best example I could have found but I've already spent WAY too much time on this post. The point is, WORDS carry a lot of power. Even if the pundits (right OR left) never came out and said it, the implication of violence was certainly there at times.

I KNOW Fox has lead the charge of fear mongering in the name of ratings but anyone else who subscribed to that level of attack should share some of the blame as well. Again, not saying that they should take all or even a lot of the blame, but they should be responsible for the violent laced rhetoric they spout.

I say STOP THE AD HOMINEM ATTACKS and we'll see less violence against PEOPLE and (hopefully) more enthralling arguments where the IDEAS are being attacked (which I'm all for) :-)

p.s. sry for the huge post but i was on a roll

While America's gun laws remain, so shall the massacres continue.

Note: I am not spell checking--I had surgery recently and am not in right mind. But here is input.

@ Netrunner and Jigga; this is not so much about one or two or five-hundred people. This is about societal rhetoric. Here is a post I placed elsewhere.

Sara Palin is just a woman on a path to wealth and power---not any different than most men and women out there. How she does it isn't even unique either. I am speaking of society here, of us all.

Many just lay blame at this guy's mental instability, but here is a truth, or barring that, here is a statement that is not incorrect. "You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. However, if the horse does drink, then you are the one that led him to the water."

My wife and I were talking the old schoolyard days. She mentioned a girl who always treated everyone nice. I listened and asked "Why is she nice?" My wife responded, "Because she never made fun of anyone or hurt anyone." I replied, "That is not nice, that is indifferent because she also never helped anyone but herself. And who did she hang out with?" And I answered for my wife. "She hung out with the bullies, the preps, and the kind of guys who would violate the weak with hockey sticks. Although I was never bullied, I know they were merciless. Now,dear, how can they be merciless? Because its popular. Because without this girl's attention, and every other "nice" girl's attention, their attitudes would change. But she encourages it, facilitates it, and does that make her a nice girl? It is just the same reason there are no "nice" guys left, because they finish last."

The "nice" girl in this story never realized she actively, unconsciously supported the Tards in school---but personal responsibility says she did. So I blame her for the punches and kicks others received? Not directly, but she had a part.

This nut job could have easily been offended by Gifford's "conservative" side, and took Alan Grayson's argument, and other left's too, and decided Gifford must die.

The problem was/is, the mentally ill are very easily manipulated, even when one does not know they are manipulating them. All he hears is "truthful" banter. He cannot see rhetoric. He believes. It is like giving a 20 dollar bill to a blind man. And so his actions are based on our lies. Of course "we" can tell which statements are lies---but as the years progress, less and less are able to because the truth is told less and less. Then, even the sane (Like nowadays) start believing the hype.

Can we keep our comments to bumpersticker-sized ideas? My small American brain is losing interest.

>> ^NetRunner:


Cool kids also call this Becking.



Cool kids don't use Urban Dictionary

Good to hear someone saying 'lets focus on the good these people did in their lives cut too short'.

As a people, mental illness will always be with us; maybe this is a chance to talk about how we are helping (and not helping) those with schizophrenia and related disorders in the US?

In a consumer society headed by a plutocratic government, the method of communication between the masses and the masters is propaganda designed to evoke an emotional response, not thought. We are trained to emote.
It's not just hate speech in politics, it's all forms of communication, especially the tv - the mouth of the corporate empire.
emote
not think
maybe this guy was crazy. Or maybe we need to examine the utter bullshit all around us.

(~6:48)"You hear about crazy, but it's rarer than you think."

I believe this to be true. See, I can believe stuff, too.

Props to JS for keeping it classy. Slops to the rest who just can't keep their partisan bias in their pants. People here should be following JS's example, rather than diving headfirst into the sewer of partisan hate speech.

Those complaining about poisonous rhetoric are exhibiting a very curious case of blindness. On the one hand they are able to make the most distant, tenuous, tangental links to supposed right wing hate and tie it boldly to this tragedy. On the other hand, they stubbornly refuse to acknoweldge the left wing hate that permeates the political world, news media, blogosphere, and themselves. To these kinds of specimens, when a right wing guy says something provocative then they are blasted as a hatemonger - but when a left wing guy says something provocative they are cheered.

I find such hypocrisy to be odious in the extreme, and those who are a prisoner to such a mental outlook can only be said to be complicit in perpetrating the very hate they supposedly condemn. Its practicioners are literal buzzards, feasting on tragedy to fatten themselves. There is no evidence of any kind that Loughner was motivated by anything except his own psychosis. For slimy opportunists to wrest this terrible event so they can cackle like demons while pointing fingers at only ONE side bespeaks the same kind of evil that motivates the worst examples of humanity.

I reject utterly the accusation that it is only the right wing that contains angry, violent rhetoric. The left also inundates the national discourse at equal levels of angry, violent rhetoric. You can condemn them both or you can exhonorate them both and be fair. But if you only condemn one while exhonorating the other then you disqualify yourself from any and all intellectual validity - to your shame.

I was wondering how long it would take before the false equivalence fallacy entered the discussion.

I was wondering how long it would take before the false equivalence fallacy entered the discussion.

The left has been taking flak for the rather obvious hypocrisy. It is no surprise that thinking orders have gone out to give the faithful masses a thought to grasp for when confronted by reason...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1/9/934662/-This-is-the-problem-with-the-promotion-of-false-equivalencies

"The problem with false equivalencies is that while there is overblown rhetoric on both sides, the amount and intensity is much worse on the right than the left. To indicate otherwise is not only disingenuous but it is dishonest and harmful."

I shall venture a guess that the above quote waxes eloquent in the ears of the average neolib. The statement is easy to make, but as with many baseless accusations it lacks substance and proof. I will then formally make the request for fair, scholarly evidence to support this argument. If the right is indeed far greater in "amount and intensity" compared to the left, then there must be some sort of dataset that proves the assertion in a neutral, non-partisan way.

But I'll save you the time, because no such research exists. Instead, what we have are laundry lists of isolated examples - extremes on both sides - which in no way represent the thought or speech of the majority. There is no proof that the right is greater in "amount and intensity" while the left meekly suffers in quietude. I've seen pages as long as my right arm of examples of 'right wing hate'. I've also seen pages as long as my left arm with examples of 'left wing hate'. Any perception of truth to the argument is based entirely on OPINIONS - not facts. The argument is patently false, and the fallacy exists because of personal bias alone.

What I think we are seeing is a case of mass hypersensitivity to opposing bias. People love to find isolated, eggregious cases and pretend that they are typical of entire groups. The left's hate of the Tea party is a good example. Bias magnifies the words you hate, and muffles the stuff you like.

So when people on the left hear Bush, Cheney, Bachman, Palin, Rush, Beck, Hannity, or Fox say something stupid it is instantly trumpeted as 'hate filled rhetoric' that is 'dominating the political discourse'. It isn't really, but they think it is because they disagree with it.

The very same people are able to blythely gloss over the exact same kind of rhetoric coming from ABC, CBS, NBC, AP, Rueters, NYT, CDS, USA Today, CNN, PBS, MSNBC, KOS, Beast, HuffPo, Maher, Olbermann, Kurtz, Maddow, Obama, Pelosi, Frank, Greyson, Sharpton, and MANY others. How are they able to achieve such staggeringly obvious cognitive dissonance? Easy. They AGREE with them. A nice thick layer of bias makes it all better.

The Videosift itself 10 to 1 favors left leaning links over right. All the above resources are filled to the literal brim with examples of 'left wing hate'. Just like the examples on the right of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, or Sean Hannity are filled with examples of 'right wing hate'. There is no difference in quantity or intensity. The only difference exists in the minds of people too blinkered by their own bias to see or hear accurately.

So I reject your inaccurate usage of the False equivalance fallacy. Such fallacies only exist when there is not actual equivalence. The angry rhetoric of the right that is being bemoaned is factually being duplicated on the left. Actual equivalence. And I - unlike others - am not attempting to use the existence of offensive rhetoric on one side as a club to censor the opinions of another.

"The left also inundates the national discourse at equal levels of angry, violent rhetoric." - Winstonfield_Pennypacker

Angry, sure. Violent? You can't honestly believe that.

Yea man this was great. Comedians like Stewart, Conan, Letterman had a big part in helping us put events like 9-11 in perspective with respect. It's tough to do that well.

For another example besides JS of how to discuss the tragedy with a little class was Barak Obama's speech tonight. If only the rabid wolves and wombats of the media would do as he suggests then maybe things would calm down a little. Sorta doubt that'll happen though. The media on both sides is addicted to angry rhetoric like a drug. Here's hoping...

Violent? You can't honestly believe that.

I do not 'believe' it. I KNOW it is fact because I've seen and heard it.

In the interest of not promulgating the venom I won't bother linking it. If you have any interest in seeing those examples, you can doubtless find them youself very very easily with a few simple web searches. I don't want to bother linking them, but rest assured the violence ridden hate speech of the left is myriad, pervasive, and all too common. Do not take my reticence as evidence that I'm somehow making it up. I am more than prepared to supply evidence A-Go-Go, but I'd rather not in the interest of avoiding the standard "Oh yeah well someone else says THIS" syndrome that inevitably follows. This is not the time for it, and it is an all too easy trap to fall into. I do not deny there is some violent rhetoric from a few jerkwads on the right. It is foolishness to deny that there isn't just as much violent rhetoric from the jerkwads on the left.

Excuse both sides if you wish. Or condemn both sides if you wish. But let no one pretend that such rhetoric exists in a bubble on only one side of the aisle. That is the talk of a partisan fool.

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker

"People here should be following JS's example, rather than diving headfirst into the sewer of partisan hate speech."

(Emphasis mine)

I've read all your comments, but I keep coming back to this. It's one thing to talk about large, amorphous clouds of people such as "the left" or "the right", but you're accusing one of the very small number people who posted comments before you of having used hate speech in their comments.

In the interest of furthering knowledge and growing as people, why not talk specifics? Quote the supposed hate speech, and make a case that it is in fact, hate speech.

The reason I say this is because I think if you're going to pass judgment on the entirety of both the left and the right's use of speech, and in passing the validity of all the arguments from the left about the qualitative difference in their rhetoric and the right's, you really need to start with a basic definition of where you draw the line on speech.

(i.e. what's caustic but defensible, what's worthy of condemnation, and what might be criminal?)

In the interest of furthering knowledge and growing as people, why not talk specifics? Quote the supposed hate speech, and make a case that it is in fact, hate speech.

What you or I would define as 'hate speech' is very much a function of our personal political viewpoint. For example - I quote from your post above...

Never mind that one side is vindicated by the facts, and the other is just trying to gin people up to try to get political power

You believe this; with no reservation you accept that liberals always have the facts, and that conservatives are lying to gin people up and sieze power. To you it is self-evident. Anyone sensible and fair must agree with you. If they disagree, they're a tool of the right because who could possibly reject such a harmless, innocent, obvious comment?

But how would you feel if it had been ME who made the statement? What if I said, "They always foment hatred for thier own political gain, and only one side has truth." How would you honestly react to that?

Clearly such a statement is untruthful and insulting on its face. It is obviously biased, and needlessly demeaning - and the biased, negative tone begs a strong response. Do I hit near the mark, if not in the gold?

So... To sum up... YOU can say things that are insulting, defamatory, and provocative against conservatives and it is just harmless truth. But conservatives CANNOT do the same thing because they'd be 'lying' and 'ginning people up'. Does that sound about right?

What is 'hate speech'? To a liberal any conservative comment that challenges liberal beliefs is viewed as deceptive and provocative (IE hateful). For a conservative, liberal comments that challenge right-leaning beliefs are viewed similarly.

Above I quite brilliantly said, "Bias magnifies things you hate, and muffles things you like". So in our respective biases, what is defined as 'hate speech' is very different. What you see as harmless, I see as inflammatory and vice-versa.

Without any doubt, I know for a fact that the left-wing biased commentators like Matthews, Olbermann, Kurtz, Maher, et al... really and truly BELIEVE they not saying anything insulting and hateful when they myopically blame "only the right" for the so-called 'toxic environment'. That's because from their biased perspective, only right-leaning people say things that are hateful. All the hateful stuff from the left? M'eh - that's just the 'truth', or a 'joke', or 'thought provoking'.

So - you tell me - what comments above under that rubric are 'hate speech' when you look at it from the point of view of a conservative?

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker so, "hate speech" is...what? Automatically anything that someone else says that you individually disagree with?

Isn't that just "things other people said that I disagree with"?

If I do something, like say, type "hate speech" into google, do you think I will find a more narrow definition? Is that google engaging in "hate speech"?

Further, is hate speech some use of speech that is morally reprehensible? Should it be condemned? Or is condemnation of hate speech...also hate speech?

Are people always engaging in a morally reprehensible act if they say something that challenges a listener's preconceptions? Even if it's "Look out, that truck is going to hit you!"

Automatically anything that someone else says that you individually disagree with?

For some people - yes. I like to believe that most people are more sensible than that. But when you say something in public, it reaches not just that majority of sensible people. It also reaches the INsensible minority. And sadly that noisy, nasty minority is the group that all too often has the megaphone. Case in point with this rather amusing op-ed by one Micheal Shear...

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/obama-and-palin-a-tale-of-two-speeches/?ref=politics

Palin is "bubbling anger and resentment", and Obama is "soft & restrained". No bias there, eh? I saw both speeches, and this guy is full of it. He interprets Palin so as to be what she "really is" in his mind. They hate Palin, so it is 'truth' to say she is hateful, spiteful, angry, or responsible for the violence (directly or indirectly).

Two polls recently performed show that the VAST majority of the American public completely disagree with the left-wing punditry's wishful interpretation. They don't blame Palin, conservatives, Limbaugh, or anyone else except for the one deranged young man behind the trigger. But the SENSIBLE people don't have the megaphone. Instead, a tiny minority of the biased and spiteful are screaming their opinions in the hope that people will agree with them. Thankfully, that is not happening.

If I do something, like say, type "hate speech" into google, do you think I will find a more narrow definition? Is that google engaging in "hate speech"?

Normal people probably are more inclined to define hate speech as language that directly calls for or encourages acts of physical violence towards individuals or groups. They may find other forms of speech to be distasteful, insulting, or vile - but would not necessarily classify it as 'hate speech'.

Further, is hate speech some use of speech that is morally reprehensible? Should it be condemned? Or is condemnation of hate speech...also hate speech?

Calls for violence are morally reprehensible. I take your intent here to mean stuff like, "I hate minority group X" or "Group Y people are all stupid" and "gender Z should do what I say..." and that sort of thing. I.E. Words that offend people.

I believe in freedom. That means I believe in freedom of speech, even when I don't like it. My opinion is that political correctness, and other speech 'codes' are a form of soft censorship. I disagree with it, and reject it.

I believe that the nation is strengthened - not weakened - when opposing ideas collide in the marketplace of the national discourse. That means there is even room for people who believe things I find morally repugnant. I think any effort to stifle free speech - particularly one that seeks to specifically stifle only 'one side' - is misguided and destructive.

Should 'offensive speech' be condemned? Sure - by anyone and everyone who wants to condemn it. But regulated? Heck no, because what is deemed offensive or reprehensible is often a matter of personal opinion.

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker not to be terribly self-centered here, but you accused me of engaging in hate speech, and even explained why you thought what I said was "hate speech".

Seeing how you're now presenting a new definition of hate speech, I'll ask you again: was what I said really hate speech?

If it wasn't, why did you accuse me of it?

Is knowingly making a false accusation like that morally reprehensible?

To be clear, by "morally reprehensible" I just mean something you'd tell your children not to do, not something you'd imprison someone for.

Liberally slanted media outlets are falsely accusing conservative philosophy and persons of being acesssory to murder - directly and indirectly. The same people are ignoring and excusing identical behavior from liberal counterparts. Persons in this thread (yourself included) are cheering this behavior, agreeing with it, and otherwise encouraging/defending/justifying these baseless charge. In my book, deliberately accusing or even slyly 'implying' others falsely of murder and violence is a form of hate speech. Such an accusation is not just innocent, idle words or musings. It has serious consequences legally, profesionally, politically, and personally. There are people talking about regulating speech and using this kind of mudslinging as the justification for censorship. Have not hateful people in all human history behaved with that intent?

If it makes you feel better to perform some sort of classification - then call it 'political hate speech' in the context of this issue. But the intent is clear - to accuse & imply that conservatives are guilty must shut up or be forced to shut down.

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker, I'm a bit more comfortable with that definition of hate speech.

Suppose I'd been a bit more clear that I was raising it as a topic to discuss, rather than stating it as fact (I thought I had, but re-reading it I realize it didn't come off that way).

It's only false if you think that there's zero possibility that anyone who's out there using violent and apocalyptic rhetoric wants people to act on it.

Is it hate speech simply because I doubt that's the case?

"If it makes you feel better to perform some sort of classification - then call it 'political hate speech' in the context of this issue. But the intent is clear - to accuse & imply that conservatives are guilty must shut up or be forced to shut down."

Isn't that the natural consequence for liberals in what you are saying? That in the face of our concerns that violence is being incited towards us, that anyone who says we're concerned should shut up or be forced to shut down, while the violent rhetoric itself gets a pass?

Whatever opinion you've formed of me, I think conservatives have a legitimate place in the debate. I think their ideas are wrong, and I intend to keep making that case, but I don't have any interest in stopping them from being able to respond, or make their own case, or vote in our elections.

I'd just be a bit happier if they'd return the favor, and admit that liberal philosophy has a legitimate place in American politics, rather than talking about it like it's a cancer that must be completely eliminated.

Suppose I'd been a bit more clear that I was raising it as a topic to discuss, rather than stating it as fact (I thought I had, but re-reading it I realize it didn't come off that way).

Acknowledged. What I intended to do in my rather strident initial comment was to smack some sense into folks who seemed to be taking pleasure in pointing fingers at conservative rhetoric as culpable for an obviously unrelated tragedy. To me, such behavior is a loathsome intellectual scavenging of misery. It could not go unchallenged.

It's only false if you think that there's zero possibility that anyone who's out there using violent and apocalyptic rhetoric wants people to act on it.

Are there people out there who are using violent and apocalyptic rhetoric? Not as many as are typically implied. I cannot name a SINGLE person who I would hold up as “the example” of a person that routinely uses ‘violent and apocalyptic rhetoric’. When such rhetoric exists it is typically very isolated.

Isn't that the natural consequence for liberals in what you are saying? That in the face of our concerns that violence is being incited towards us, that anyone who says we're concerned should shut up or be forced to shut down, while the violent rhetoric itself gets a pass?

Not to put too fine a point on it – but exactly what are you talking about? What conservative is regularly saying, “Go out and wax a liberal today”? What liberal is regularly saying, “Beat up conservatives for fun”? I think the accusation of inciting violence is being used WAY too glibly, when in reality such language is greatly exaggerated.

I'd just be a bit happier if they'd return the favor, and admit that liberal philosophy has a legitimate place in American politics, rather than talking about it like it's a cancer that must be completely eliminated.

Conservatives feel the exact same way. It’d be nice if liberals treated conservatives like human beings instead of vermin to be eradicated. Classic example: like how liberal pundits & politicians treat the Tea Party.

So let us not mince words and now take a serious look at the favorite targets when this issue comes up. Is there really any difference in what Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck say (and how they say it) compared to Olbermann, Maddow, & Kurtz?

Both sides have staked out ideological positions, and entertain their respective audiences by chewing out their opposition. Fundamentally I see no difference between ‘left wing’ and ‘right wing’ pundits and their rhetoric. Neither of them are calling for violence, but they do treat opposing ideas disrespectfully and sarcastically and in doing so occasionally say something distasteful which opponents gleefully swoop on.

When we respect something, and some guy comes along and disrespects it – it is natural to believe that guy is being ‘hateful’. We WANT to believe they are hateful. In our head we believe that EVERYTHING that person says is hateful, and that the guy is ‘poisoning discourse’ and ‘inspiring anger & violence’ because they’re ‘lying’.

But most of the time the reality is that the guy we want to believe is such a jerk is nowhere near as bad as we imagine in our head. Anger at the message has magnified the rhetoric in our heads. We don’t want to believe that most of the time they (gasp!) actually have valid points put in terms we just dislike.

So when some politician says, “Hey – Limbaugh (or whoever) is poisoning our national discourse with their violent rhetoric”, all too many people are ready to lap up the demagoguery. Politicians who do so are manipulating us for votes. Pundits who do so are manipulating you for ratings.

Don’t be a dupe. We live in a free country, where speech – even speech you don’t like – is protected. ANYONE who comes along and even tentatively HINTS that “we should shut that guy down because he’s bad…” should be run out of town on a rail.

I don’t condone hate speech, but I strongly disagree with regulating the speech of others in the name of “improving civility”. To me that is unconstitutional and un-American. Anyone who thinks it is a good idea is a fool and desperately needs a civics lesson.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

What I intended to do in my rather strident initial comment was to smack some sense into folks who seemed to be [engaged in] a loathsome intellectual scavenging of misery. It could not go unchallenged.

To be honest, I have the same motivation behind about 80% of my comments. It the "someone on the Internet is WRONG" syndrome.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Are there people out there who are using violent and apocalyptic rhetoric? Not as many as are typically implied. I cannot name a SINGLE person who I would hold up as “the example” of a person that routinely uses ‘violent and apocalyptic rhetoric’. When such rhetoric exists it is typically very isolated.

Let me give two examples of something I found both pervasive, and an incitement to violence.

The first one is Sarah Palin's invention of the "death panel":

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care.

• Racist
  
• Angry
  
• Incoherent/Stupid
  
• Believe a revisionist version of history
  
• Believe in a revisionist version of the Constitution
  
• Quick to resort to intimidation or violence
  
• Run by corporations
  

• Elitist
  
• Incoherent/Stupid
  
• Weak (on terror/drugs/Ruskies/welfare parasites, etc.)
  
• Lazy
  
• Naive
  
• Run by special interests (mostly Unions and enviro-terrorists)
  
• Propagandist (we supposedly control all media, remember?)
  
• Unpatriotic
  
• Un-American
  
• Baby-killing
  
• Grandma-killing
  
• Job-killing
  
• Troop-hating
  
• Gay-loving
  
• Flag-burning
  
• God-hating
  
• Socialist
  
• Communist
  
• Fascist
  

Palin - Bachman - et al.

I'm trying to avoid the typical back & forth on this thread. So I'll phrase it like this... How is what these guys said any different than what the 'other guy' says (and gets a pass)? Politicians since times ancient have grossly extrapolated the actions/policies of their opponents. Palin's death panel is an exaggeration of the rationed care that IS a part of Obamacare. Similarly, Democrats accuse the GOP of starving people when they want to cut a social program. Bachman wanted people 'armed and dangerous'. Barak Obama wanted people "angry, get in their face, hit back twice as hard, bring a gun". I see no difference. Do I like the overblown rhetoric? No, but it is part and parcel of any vigorous debate.

No normal person takes these statements literally though. And trying to pander to the NOT normal people seems to me an exercise in futility. Moreover, trying to be "PC" using the outliers of society as a standard is an impossible moving target, and rather subject to opinion.

The right-wing elected officials and candidates were talking about armed rebellion if they lose the election

There is no nice way to say this, but you are wrong. They were not, and you know it. There is no GOP candidate who would have survived 5 seconds if they'd been calling for armed rebellion if they lost. That is hyperbole.

I don't get the same sense of desire for outreach/reformation of liberals. I also don't get the sense of compatibility from them.

I put it to you kindly that this opinion is another symptom of perception bias. Would you not agree that from Glenn Beck's perspective his infamous 'chalkboard histories' are an attempt to educate and outreach? And quite frankly, I feel very little sense of 'outreach' or 'education' when liberals call conservatives hateful, angry, evil, nazis, corporate shills, mind numbed robots, neocons, teabaggers, racist, sexist, and bigoted.

I can condemn anything I want because I have free speech. I also think that there's a lot of validity to the idea that our national discourse has been poisoned with over the top rhetoric.

Sure - just be sure to allow that both ways. Criticize conservative pundits all you want. But don't get all testy if conservatives criticize liberal ones. And if you try to pin accessory to murder on conservatives, don't be surprised when they get their back up.

You...increase vitriol

That is because I'm bearding the lion in its metaphorical den, so to speak. The sift is liberally slanted. I'm not. So even when dare to challenge the consensus groupthink - even when done respectfully - I get blowback. I would say that I am incredibly patient, respectful, and moderate in my tone. I rarely (if ever) make things personal. Even when I'm on the receiving end of some rather nasty abuse I tend to keep it civil. I don't apologize for being a rare conservative voice in a chorus of liberals, but that doesn't mean that "I" am responsible for 'increased vitriol'. The vitriol comes when people other than myself. I simply present a different point of view.

I really think that's what is happening in the 'national discourse' too. Two sides collide. They don't like each other. If they dare (DAARE!) to present their perspective, they get jumped on like black on a bowling ball. The media in particular is hypersensitive to this, because it gives them ratings. Politicians love it too, because 'going negative' gets votes.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

How is what these guys said any different than what the 'other guy' says (and gets a pass)?

What I think is different about things like what Angle and Bachmann said is that are incitement of violence.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Politicians since times ancient have grossly extrapolated the actions/policies of their opponents.
[snip]
Bachman wanted people 'armed and dangerous'. Barak Obama wanted people "angry, get in their face, hit back twice as hard, bring a gun". I see no difference.

First, you need to source your Obama quote. I only found this as context:

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said at a Philadelphia fundraiser Friday night. “Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”

I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.

“What I think is different about things like what Angle and Bachmann said is that are incitement of violence”

This claim has been made several times and I have yet to see any substance to it beyond personal opinion and interpretation. Obama, Frank, Ried, Pelosi, Grayson, Franken, or other liberals make outrageous statements that imply violence on a routine basis. They are dismissed as a joke… A ‘metaphor’… But when a conservative says something, it is a call for violence. If that’s how someone chooses to roll then so be it, but let that person hold no illusion about their fairness or the justness of their cause.

Case in point…

“I see the word revolution being used literally. I see talk of losing the country, of losing freedom, in the context of saying "I want people armed and dangerous"… the Obama quote isn't well sourced, doesn't involve a lie, was pretty transparently a metaphor for traditional electioneering activities, and I suspect if Obama was asked about it today he'd say it was a poor word choice. Bachmann's quote we have audio recordings of, involves a big lie, was pretty clearly about armed insurrection …”

Every major point here is based on interpretation and opinion. “I see… Big lie… Armed insurrection”… There is even a statement of agreement that Bachman DIDN’T mean it ‘that way’. But the comment is held to a different standard than Obama’s. HIS rhetoric is ‘not a lie’, ‘traditional electioneering’, and a ‘transparent metaphor’. Bachman bad; Obama good; Motivation – bias.

“First, medical care is a scarce resource, and any system by which we choose to distribute it is by definition "rationing", whether it's a market, or something else, so saying "Obamacare" has "rationing" is a meaningless statement.”

I see… So – just to make this clear – calling Obamacare’s rationing a ‘death panel’ where Grandma takes a pain pill and gets end-of-life counseling instead of medicine (Obama said this) is over the top. But Grayson saying the Republican plan of privatization (a system that worked for decades) equates to “don’t get sick or die quickly” is fine? I’ll be honest. I see this as a classic example of distortion bias. “It’s fine when WE do it because we’re RIGHT, but not when THEY do it because they’re WRONG!”

Second, when have Democrats accused Republicans of starving people?

1990s Contract With America. Democrats accused Newt Gingrich and the GOP congress of starving children because they wanted to make cuts in education that would have had some impact on school lunch programs. Similarly in 2010, Alan Grayson accused the GOP of starving children and women, and selling people into slavery for black market organs because they wanted to stop the fourth extension of unemployment. Every time the GOP wants to cut any social program they get accused of starving people. This is not unusual.

But this is a great teaching moment. This is the origin of your bias. You – Netrunner – AGREE with Grayson. So when he says, “GOP is starving children”, you don’t have a problem with it. You agree with him - so when Grayson is incendiary and egregious in his rhetoric you give it a pass as ‘electioneering’ or ‘metaphor’ or a ‘joke’. You refuse to give conservatives the same kind of leeway. If a GOP guy says Barak Obama is jacking up the national debt to fund his vision of social justice, and calls it an ‘assault on freedom’? They are ‘inciting violence’ - even though they have just as much 'evidence' of their argument as Greyson.

I refuse to live in such a black and white world of selective bias. I can see both sides of the debate. I disagree with liberals, but I can mentally grasp their OPINION (even if I reject it) that the conservative method (smaller government, private solutions) ‘takes away’ from social programs. So when liberals get vociferous, I am willing to cut them a little slack. It’d be nice if that went both ways.

Here I personally went one click further and suggested that perhaps this is an intentional strategy to rile up the crazies, so they'll physically intimidate liberals.

So – is leftist rhetoric intentionally done to rile up the crazies so they’d physically intimidate conservatives? You know – stuff like the threats against Ann Coulter that caused a college speech to be cancelled. Or when a liberal man bit off a guy’s finger because he disagreed about healthcare. Or when liberal Amy Bishop killed her co-workers. Liberal Joseph Stack flew a plane into the IRS. Liberals destroyed radio towers in Seattle. Liberals torched Hummer dealerships. Liberals beat up a conservative black man at a Tea Party. A liberal brought bombs to an RNC meeting. Liberals attacked police in Berkley. Liberals threw rocks at animal researchers. Liberals stood outside polling stations with nightsticks. A liberal shot up the Discovery Channel. A liberal said, “You’re dead!” to a Tea party leader. Liberals made death-threats against Palin. Liberals made death threats & assassination movies about Bush. A liberal shot up the war memorial. And let us not overlook the fact that Loughner is a 9/11 truther and that the left is the source for that particular 'rhetoric'.

You then support your argument with a litany of asserted facts...that you don't source, and are in direct contravention of what was said elsewhere (regardless of whether it'd been sourced or not).

OK – I’ll take one glove off here. I have not accused you of making crap up, and you aren’t providing sourcing either. I have no interest in making you treat everything you say like you are writing a white paper. You also support your arguments with litanies of asserted facts which you don’t source which are in direct contravention of what is said elsewhere. Why the hypocrisy on this?

I’m an intelligent enough fellow and I can find links myself. I don't need you holding my hand in that regard. I assume you have fingers because you can type. Therefore you can find the sources for ALL the examples of liberal violence I listed above. I’ve got the links for EVERY one of them and dozens more, but I don’t go around assuming you're an intellectual cripple that can't find them. Nor do I want to play dueling link banjos here. I extend the courtesy in an online discussion of not forcing the other guy to cite every freaking thing they say because 99 times in 100 the source just gets attacked and ignored anyway.

I think you should examine the way you're presenting yourself rather than assuming it's all the result of some sort of universal liberal intolerance

I typically don’t jump in a thread until intolerant liberal rhetoric has already reared its ugly face. Liberal intolerance is there before I say a single word. So I don’t care a fig about the leftist vitriol I get, because it is generally only a continuance of the intolerance that was there before I showed up. They don't hate 'me'. They hate the fact that I have dared to hold a mirror up on own intolerance. What they really want to be doing is feeling self-righteous as they spew intolerance at things they hate. Ol' Winstonfield popping up and spoiling the fun wasn't in their plan, and they react badly. Boo hoo.

But you are specifically accusing ME of being vitriolic. I stridently reject that position. I do no more than calmly, fairly, and accurately present an opposing point of view. I may do it sarcastically. I may point out hypocrisy. But I attack philosophies and public figures – not Sifters. Therefore the personal vitriol against myself is unwarranted and unjustified. I bring no vitriol or intolerance to the table here. The only vitriol and intolerance that exists is directed towards me.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

“What I think is different about things like what Angle and Bachmann said is that are incitement of violence”
This claim has been made several times and I have yet to see any substance to it beyond personal opinion and interpretation. Obama, Frank, Ried, Pelosi, Grayson, Franken, or other liberals make outrageous statements that imply violence on a routine basis.

This claim has been made several times, and I have yet to see any substance to it beyond the mere assertion of your conclusion.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Every major point here is based on interpretation and opinion. “I see… Big lie… Armed insurrection”… There is even a statement of agreement that Bachman DIDN’T mean it ‘that way’. But the comment is held to a different standard than Obama’s. HIS rhetoric is ‘not a lie’, ‘traditional electioneering’, and a ‘transparent metaphor’. Bachman bad; Obama good; Motivation – bias.

Stating your subjective view of my motivation isn't proof that my claims of objective qualitative differences are false.

This is another of my frustrations with the way you conduct yourself here. I'm trying to depersonalize this, and not question your motives, while still making the case that my viewpoint (which obviously differs from yours) is based on things that are supported by objective facts.

The burden of proof here is not entirely on me -- you're the one who provided the Obama quote as equivalent to Bachmann's. I think the strongest objection to it is the first one I listed, namely that it's out of context. How do we know whether Obama's meaning was "overwhelm the Republicans with volunteers and ads" and not literally "I want you to bring guns to kill Republicans with" without the context surrounding it?

My point here is that not all gun metaphors are created equal. "We're going to stick to our guns on health care" is pretty different from "If ballots don't work, bullets will".

Obama's quote was a tick more inciteful than the first, Bachmann's was only a couple ticks less inciteful than the latter. I'm saying the bounds of civil conversation lies inbetween.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I see… So – just to make this clear – calling Obamacare’s rationing a ‘death panel’ where Grandma takes a pain pill and gets end-of-life counseling instead of medicine (Obama said this) is over the top.

Yep. Part of your issue here is that you're not talking about anything in legislation, but something Obama said.

The other issue is, you're quoting him waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of context:

But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that
exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is
loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence
shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let
doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't
going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but
taking the painkiller.

And those kinds of decisions between doctors and patients, and
making sure that our incentives are not preventing those good decision,
and that -- that doctors and hospitals all are aligned for patient care,
that's something we can achieve.

I'm trying to depersonalize this, and not question your motives, while still making the case that my viewpoint (which obviously differs from yours) is based on things that are supported by objective facts.

Both liberals and conservatives base their underpinning concepts on things that are 'facts'. The interpretation of those facts is where the distortion lies. For example - Bachman’s full quote clearly proves she is talking about the dissemination of information about Cap & Trade and not violent rebellion. Obama’s “I want people angry” quote is likewise clearly not a call for violence.

Both quotes are factual. It is the interpretation that is biased. I extend both sides the benefit of the doubt and do not just go around assuming the worst on ‘their side’ and the best on ‘my side’. So when I hear leftists calling only right-wing speech 'bad' and ignoring the same crap from the left-wing, I call BS.

My point here is that not all gun metaphors are created equal. "We're going to stick to our guns on health care" is pretty different from "If ballots don't work, bullets will".

Joyce Kaufman is as irrelevant to this topic as Micheal Fiengold is - the guy who said Republicans “should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.” Fringe crazies do not represent the majority. And I reject as poppycock any implication that the right has a greater number or percentage of these crazies compared to the left.

Part of your issue here is that you're not talking about anything in legislation, but something Obama said. The other issue is, you're quoting him way out of context

It IS in the legislation, and it is not out of context. Obamacare establishes the H&HS secretary as the party who makes decisions regarding what is and isn’t covered in plans. And his law requires all Americans to buy into these approved plans or pay fines and face possible jail time. It establishes government panels as entities that make health care rationing decisions based on economics and not doctors or patients. Calling them death panels is grandiose, but no different in concept than what liberals do when they say Bachman actually WANTS armed rebellion.

What Republican plan of privatization that worked for decades are you talking about?

I didn’t say “Republican Plan”. I said that a private system. The systems that work best do not come from Republicans or Democrats. They come from PEOPLE in a private system who creatively seek for profit by dealing in goods and services.


I mention Grayson as an outlier. He's unusually inflammatory for a Democrat, and even what he said wasn't particularly inciteful.

Because you agree with him. To a conservative, it is despicable. When a conservative exaggerates about a liberal, do you not find it despicable and ‘inciteful’? Is it not hypocritical to excuse it from one side, while condemning it on the other?

I say stretch, because Republicans never put together a fully formed plan of their own

Yes they did. Many times. Obama and the democrats rejected it and instead of negotiating they just crammed Obamacare through a midnight vote using unconstitutional processes to bypass the law and stifle debate.

I demand a source on this one. It's gotta be sifted here as a YouTube clip if that's accurate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/alan-grayson-to-republica_n_652244.html
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/best-quotes-alan-grayson
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/28/grayson-taking-opponents-quotes-context-taliban-ad/

Grayson is a source for a lot of fun stuff because he’s a certifiable lunatic.

"The Republican health care plan is: 'Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly." This one's debatable for the reasons I said above. But I think that the accuracy of the statement has a lot to do with whether that comment was okay or not. This one's at the edge, either way.

No –it isn’t debatable. It deliberately mischaracterizes the issue. Obama’s government solution of panel-based rationing is the exact same thing in a different form. Would you say it would be an unfair statement to say Obama’s plan is “Don’t get old, and if you get old die quickly”?

I don't think you understand the liberal side of arguments at all.

Au contraire. I understand them on more levels than liberals do themselves.

Litanies like this make it pretty clear that you're you're not interested in examining your own prejudices about liberals.

But litanies about conservatives are fine? That was a list of ACTUAL EVENTS. Real examples of real liberals doing real violence. Why is that a 'litany' that proves I’m not interested in examining things? Sounds to me like your response shows that you are not interested in examining liberal prejudices – whereas I have examined them far more thoroughly.

I see someone essentially saying "I'm right, you're evil, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise".

But your litanies do no such thing, I take it? You implied that the speech of the political right gins up right-wing crazies. I ask the perfectly fair question, “Did liberal speech gin up THESE left-wing crazies?” Goose for the gander. If you make the claim that right wing speech is done to gin up crazies, do you allow the same logic to apply to the left wing crazies – of which my evidence shows there is ample existence?

My sense is that you don't know (or don't care) about the way legitimate arguments get made.

Your sense is wrong. You can continue to believe it if that pleases you, but that does not make it correct.

The topic of what rhetoric is worthy of condemnation is going to be a little more slippery, but it's not impossible to have a civil discussion about what the important factors are in deciding whether a comment is appropriate or not.

Certainly. My assertion is that both sides get plenty of leeway to make strong political arguments. Free speech is hardly ever a bad thing. Let people say what they want and let the chips fall where they may. This attempt to stifle political speech has been done before, and by better people than our current crop of political doofuses. Their conclusion was the 1st Ammendment. It still works.