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Originally Posted by dogzilla
Fine. Then tell me what faction of left of center they fall in. They weren't any type of right of center group, and they certainly have done their share to crank up the political rhetoric and incite people.
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I think they're left of liberal, and at least one or two of them had an anarchist bent.
But I don't want to go down this path because it won't be very fruitful. It's as though shouting "Al Gore!" "Black Panthers!" or "Jeremiah Wright!" will lead us to believe it was okay for Palin to have had cross-hairs on a map and a list of people to remove from office. Whether it was a metaphor or not doesn't matter. It wasn't cool that she used such a militant theme for her political purposes.
She and her people removed the map promptly after the shooting, and for good reason. It's not like Gore promptly pulled
An Inconvenient Truth from the shelves because of an out of hand call to arms embedded in the film. It was clearly the case that the shooter took it out of context for his own purpose. That along with the work of novelist Daniel Quinn. The Discovery Channel shooter was an anarcho-environmentalist who railed against the Discovery Channel because of overpopulation. There is only a tenuous connection of this to Gore's work.
Palin's map is more direct. Giffords' name was on a list. There was a cross-hair over her position on a map.
These two aren't the same thing.
Regardless, there is nothing you can say about liberal or leftist figures inciting, influencing, or inspiring crackpot shooters—whether directly or not—that will convince me it is okay for Palin et al to have contextualized their political goals as they did.
Violence should not be a part of politics, whether as a theme or an actual call to arms. When it comes to violence, it is an indication that you either a) do not take the peaceful process of politics seriously or b) the peaceful process of politics has failed.
If the political environment comes to either "a" or "b," then it's time to re-evaluate things.
Palin, and the members and organizations of the Tea Party movement that make use of militaristic imagery or suggestion, need to re-evaluate things.