Hatred bounces

The ongoing efforts to conflate the Tiller and Holocaust Museum murderers with the Right, conservatives or Republicans - or to imply that criticism of government is responsible for these murders - is absurd and offensive.

Just yesterday Randall Terry was asked whether there is a connection between the Tiller assassination and the shooting at the Holocaust Memorial, and he said this:

When you make peaceful protest impossible, you make violent protest inevitable. So...is there a connection? I don't know, I don't know. But I can promise you this--there is visceral contempt for this administration.

And lets have a look at the Ann Coulter column, 6/3/09

Tiller was protected not only by a praetorian guard of elected Democrats, but also by the protective coloration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America -- coincidentally, the same church belonged to by Tiller's fellow Wichita executioner, the BTK killer.The official Web page of the ELCA instructs: "A developing life in the womb does not have an absolute right to be born." As long as we're deciding who does and doesn't have an "absolute right to be born," who's to say late-term abortionists have an "absolute right" to live?I wouldn't kill an abortionist myself, but I wouldn't want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for shooting abortionists. But how will criminalizing men making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the shootings of abortionists?Following the moral precepts of liberals, I believe the correct position is: If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, then don't shoot one.

And yet you say it is "absurd" to associate these acts with a rottenness at the core of America's right.

if anyone from my organization was caught doing some dastardly thing like this. I would not change my Views -- but I would start a new organization!!! One simultaneously interested in confronting the violence, and advancing my viewpoint.

That's the honorable thing to do. To make a new voice, that shouts and screams and NORMALIZES a better political discourse.

By the way, you can feel free to connect Obama to European Socialism. It's entirely appropriate. It's just rhetorically a bad idea -- makes you sound old.

Ayers? no, just, no. this is like finding the one guy in the crowd who had a free mumia sign at the teabagging, and saying "oh, so you're in favor of freeing him? all of you?"

I think you're mischaracterizing the Sullivan fracas. Sullivan wasn't referring to a fringe on the left; he said the left is a fringe that collaborates with America's enemies. I don't see a parallel to this in how lefties are now characterizing the right.

Each ideology has their extreme counter culture in which the parties have to compromise or reject. The problem with conservatives is the impression they have a closer association with the anti-government or anti-choice zealots. The right-wing echo chamber makes it almost impossible to disassociate from the zealots since both the goals of kooks and conservatives are basically the same, anti-choice or no government, etc. I would not be surprised if conservative politician realizes it is not in their interest to appear on Fox or Rush or RedState and take their message exclusively to the dreaded mainstream media.

I would also not be surprised when the abortion question is polled again that there is a bump in pro-choice support.

"Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me," Wright told Virginia newspaper The Daily Press when asked if he still spoke with Obama. "I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office."

"They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is," he added. "I said from the beginning: He's a politician; I'm a pastor. He's got to do what politicians do."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/10/wright-them-jews-wont-let-obama-talk-to-me/

Jeremia Wright is a racist. The worst kind of racist, one that preaches from the pulpit.  So if the left can conflate the Holocaust Museum shooting with the right, they also have to include the Jerermia Wrights of the world (and Jesse Jackson, who as also made anti semetic remarks).

Thanks for posting this topic!

1. There's no shortage of behavioral biases caused by ideological biases i.e. noone's perfect and people pick favorites.

2. There's out-group homogenization on both sides. I know few people who would tattoo 'Liberal' or 'Conservative' on their arm. Yes, you find those people on the internet, but in real life people are a mix.

3. There are nuts every where and if there isn't a reason for them to be nuts, they'll make one up.

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That being said,

1. Right-wing violent extremism has a long and glorius history in the US. Hate groups have been around for a long time. Those groups could not exist without complicity from moderates. Left-wing violent extremism has had a few moments but generally is relatively un heard of. The sixties probably was the best time for those guys.

2. The MSM was always liberal biased, but right-wing media has become an anti-liberal screed. Paul Krugman should stay to economics . . . but he's not THAT wrong. Hannity, Limbough, Coulture, Beck, Krauthammer, Ingram, O'Reilly, Kristol,and on and on are patently anti-democrat, anti-liberal, anti-journalist (although I don't think that of Krauthammer) and are consciously inflammatory.

3. People are going to tie the violent nutters to the right because what else do you do? They don't go hand in hand, but there's such a big corrolation that it's hard not to.

I live in the city. I like white people moving into my neighborhood. But that's not because I dislike black people or hispanics. It's just I have yet to meet a white person trying to break into my garage, spraying graffitti on my wall, peeing on my house or stealing things from my yard. Most of my neighbors are black and their damn fine people; however, it's just the human in us that has a hard time avoided a strong corrolation.

You can accuse the MSM of bad journalism . . . hurrah! But when gun sales go up after a republican presedent is elected .  . . that's when I say lumping violent extremism with the right is total B.S.