*By the way, why did he have to diss the Island of the Misfit Toys?  They’re the good guys!

I think I actually muttered these exact words aloud on the subway last night as I was listening to the podcast.

Well, it’s working: I’m afraid.  I am very afraid.

Two mosque “controversies” in KY. One in NKY (Florence?) and one in Maysville, I believe. I hate this.

Every day the wingnuts are coming out as crazier than the previous one. We’re not yet even halfway through Obama’s first mandate. It’s starting to feel like Peek Wingnut is an optimistic fantasy. It doesn’t look like they’re about to peak anytime soon. And I’m starting to run out of ideas on how they can get crazier while keeping non-violent.

I wonder how many peoples in the history of the world have felt this dread, how many believed the tide would recede before it got to mass murderous proportions, and how many were actually right in holding that hope.

I’m pretty sure laws barring communists from certain activities are unconstitutional. Unless someone knows something I don’t?

I had been thinking that the “christian anti mosque” crowd was just trying to force their will on everybody regardless of the first amendment. Now I’m thinking they are really too fucking stupid to understand the first amendment at all and they genuinely believe they have the right to close down other places of worship.

“But one thing that really was new information for me in this video was Suhail Khan’s* description of what Pam Gellar and Frank Gaffney have been up to in general, which is finding Muslims who work as bureaucrats and “outing” them, i.e. targeting them for attack from the flying monkeys.  I found the entire narrative behind this kind of action alarming, because the insinuation is that these people weren’t “out” as Muslim before.”

Maybe we can just require all Muslims to sew a crescent on their clothes so we can easily <strike>locate the traitors among us</strike> tell who they are.  We could make it illegal for them to own property, or to marry outside their <strike>race</strike> religion.  And do background checks to ensure that no Muslims are part of your family heritage going back a few generations (10 or so?).

That way we would honor the sacred principles this country, A Shining Beacon of Freedom and Liberty, and The Last Great Hope for Mankind!

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door,
to illuminate the sign that reads:
No Muslims Allowed!”
...

Suhail Khan’s* description of what Pam Gellar and Frank Gaffney have been up to in general, which is finding Muslims who work as bureaucrats and “outing” them, i.e. targeting them for attack from the flying monkeys.  I found the entire narrative behind this kind of action alarming, because the insinuation is that these people weren’t “out” as Muslim before.  Which is a way for Gellar to reinforce the narrative that Islam is a subversive force that hides itself, basically the same narrative that flying monkey wingnuts used about communism in the red-baiting days.

That’s a good point, it does reinforce that narrative. What’s worse in my eyes, that tactic tends to remove the targeted party (in this case Muslims) from the power structure. Conservatives have been using this tactic as long as Obama’s been in office if you think about it (Van Jones, Shirley Sherrod, etc.).

@Comment #7: MikeEss on 08/25 at 09:59 AM

You can’t refrain from comparing the conservative movement to fascists because that exactly how they are acting now and they will get much worse before they’re through.

Jerry, I agree, but alas, many of them managed to pass muster and are still on the books.

Definitely, atheist.  It’s about getting already existing bureaucrats out, but sending a signal to other folks that they don’t want a part of this kind of job.  Like Ta-Nehisi said in one of his blog posts about this, the biggest fear bigots have is that the hated group will integrate, demonstrating to the ignorant that there’s nothing to fear.  So they raise the price of integration as high as possible to stop it.

<blockquote>How many of the opponents of the mosque would support a program where Muslims have to be “outed” and made to wear badges so that their access to certain areas can be monitored carefully?  <blockquote>

They already have gone there.  They think Muslims should be strip searched at airports while good White Americans should just saunter through.  White people are only stopped for PC reasons: everyone knows that terrorists are Muslims, and that all Muslims are brown and wear skullcaps or burkas.

We should just stop the PC crap and stick yellow crescents on those people so we can keep them away from Real Americans.

The fact that Bosnians are Muslim and white?  Completely unknown and probably a liberal lie set up to try to victimize poor Christian martyrs.

The fact that the Park 51 imam is Sufi, and therefore considered just as much an infidel as westerners by the Wahabbis?  Totally beyond them. 

The fact that the Kingdom Foundation that’s donated to Park 51 is run by a Musselman who is the second largest stockholder of Fox News?  Total blarglefarg.

Brown people are subhuman!  If we just locked them all up, Real Americans could have their Leave It to Beaver lives back.  Take back our country!

Ah, Caren, you joke, but you’ve also given Sarah Palin a script for all of her tweets for the next week or so…

“Brown people are subhuman!  If we just locked them all up, Real Americans could have their Leave It to Beaver lives back.  Take back our country!”

I can hear the teabagging wingnuts now, marching in the streets shouting “More beaver, more beaver!”...

#15

I can hear the teabagging wingnuts now, marching in the streets shouting “More beaver, more beaver!”…

The scary part is I can totally see it.

Well, I can’t tell the difference between Fred Phelps and his Merry Band of Christian Weirdos and all the rest of them, either.  They all look look alike, and they all claim to love Jesus.  I think they should move their churches away from everywhere.  And, you know, that Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist and a Christian….we probably ought to start checking to see if they’re all building pipe bombs in the basement.  Get the FBI on the phone, round up the usual suspects.  Grandmas first.

I want my country back!  Where religion is a Private Matter!  Where my kid learns about all the religions, not just Santa Jesus!  Where Americans Mind Their Own Business!

I was reminded on another blog that it’s the anniversary of the passing of Senator Kennedy.  We could really use his fearless, angry liberalism right now.  I’m gonna go be sad now.

“I want my country back!  Where religion is a Private Matter!  Where my kid learns about all the religions, not just Santa Jesus!  Where Americans Mind Their Own Business!”

Yes!  But good luck with that.  We’ve been poisoned by too much religious nuttery to find a path back to sanity, let alone actually follow it…

The funny part is, apparently Christ didn’t like public displays of religious fervor either.

Y’know, now that it’s gone national, anyone in the mosque-building business can make a federal case out of this.

Which, with the first amendment in place, makes the likelihood of Muslims winning such a case almost inevitable.

My prediction is that all this wingnuttery will result in a mosque being installed right inside the ground floor of the new World Trade Center itself.

1/10

“The funny part is, apparently Christ didn’t like public displays of religious fervor either.”

There’s only one Jesus that interests the hardcore fundnuts:  Whoop Ass Jesus who cleaned the money-changers, etc., out of the temple.

The other Jesus, the one who talked about love and forgiveness, who told people to pray in a closet, who said the rich wouldn’t make it into heaven, who said “turn the other cheek”, give it all to the poor and follow him, follow the Ten Commandments don’t just chisel them in stone and put them in a courthouse lobby — that Jesus is just a whiney little bitch and it’s beneath Good Americans to concentrate on what he said too much.  Makes us weak and liable to be forced to live under Sharia law…

I realize this is slightly off-topic, but maybe other people will be interested, and I guess it’s somewhat germane. You can find a short history of the Communist Control Act at the UNHCR website here:

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic,4565c225b,45a5fa0d2,3ae6ab4c53,0.html

The claim made by UNHCR (who, I would think, should know), is that the Smith Act (which was amended by the CCA) is that it hasn’t been enforced for over 30 years, though it remains on the books. A 1991 article on this issue by Marc Rohr is cited regarding its constitutionality, but I haven’t tracked the article down just yet.

JohnMckay,

Hypocrites.

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

“1/10”

...his heart’s not really in it this morning.  Maybe if he has some coffee, or Jesse or Amanda starts a thread about abortion parties or “Andrew Breitbart: Evil, Stupid, or Both?”, JohnMcAss might perk up a little and bring his B-game, instead of his D-game…

#22, incoherent screed duly noted.

It really pains me that Pam Gellar is the protofascist pushing this nonsense. Zionists sending out brown-shirts. The negation of the negation, as it were. Nauseating.

...his heart’s not really in it this morning.  Maybe if he has some coffee

Judging by what he wrote, he was drinking something this morning.

“It really pains me that Pam Gellar is the protofascist pushing this nonsense. Zionists sending out brown-shirts. The negation of the negation, as it were. Nauseating.”

Paraphrasing Nietzsche: “She who fights with monsters should look to it that she herself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”

Either that or she’s just an idiot with a big mouth and no sense of shame…

Mike Ess:

Our fundies aren’t terribly interested in the money-changer-scourging jesus either. That’s way too close to the whole “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle” thing. Unless what He was really doing was striking the first blow against the internation jewish banking conspiracy.

They really seem way more attuned to the nastier parts of the old testament to any of that “love thy neighbor” or “whatever you have done to the least among you” stuff.

Caren @13:
Didn’t the Kingdom Foundation have an office with 30 or so Saudis and 200-something other employees in the WTC complex?

Gone2Ground @ 17: Word on Para 2.

Jerry V @26:  Maybe we can sic the ROULSs on him?

Paul, what they are really interested in are teachings of Paul of Tarsus.  The self hating, woman hating, anti gay, sex negative stuff permeates the Pauline Epistles.

Paul,

I don’t think they’re “attuned” to any of it, except where it serves their purposes. It’s a story, a tradition and a community; you can quote mine the rest as needed.

Cab driver stabbed on NY, for being Muslim, right now in TPM news. Flying monkeys just got a lot deadlier

“Cab driver stabbed on NY, for being Muslim, right now in TPM news.”

I’m sure it’s the fault of some Professional Left outside agitator trying to discredit the fine Americans protesting the against the Evil IslamoFascists and their plan to infiltrate America and undermine all we stand for, praise Jesus…

Cab driver stabbed on NY, for being Muslim, right now in TPM news. Flying monkeys just got a lot deadlier

From the Fox News report:

Enright [the suspect] is believed to have been heavily intoxicated at the time, they said.

I wonder if JohnMckay’s current IP address is registered to Riker’s Island.

Why did I choose a Faux News article? Mainly because of this turd they tacked on to the end:

Police sources told FoxNews.com that there’s no indication the incident is connected to the ongoing debate over the Islamic center that is proposed to be built near Ground Zero.

Nope, totally separate incident. Completely unrelated. Pay no attention to the man behind the anchor desk…

Shorter John Mckay:

“We may be stupid, but there are more of us!”

Sadly, this is probably true.

Capt. Bathrobe: 

Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

MikeEss @30: 
Cool quote.  I’ve never read the whole thing before.  I’m reminded of that scene from the end of “Doubt” where Meryl Streep’s character says,

“In the pursuit of wrongdoing, one steps away from God.”

MikeEss at 24: Interestingly enough, Orthodox Jews argue that the entire money-lending incident is evidence that Jesus was a hick that didn’t know anything. Every Jew was required to pay the tithe in a specific currency, the shekel. Since Jews making pilgrimage had all sorts of coinage with them, money-changers were necessary. Also, the Temple was a multi-purpose building, having religious, social, economic, and governmental purposes. The money-changers were located on the Court of the Gentiles, where the social and economic functions of the Temple took place. It was also where people purchased animals for sacrifices.

I need a T-shirt that says on the front,  “Mark 12:17, Your argument is invalid.” (And on the back) “Matthew 25:40”

Actually, the guy who slashed the cab driver doesn’t fit the tea party profile.

Robert Burns has summed it up, a few years ago:

Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks?
To murder men and give God thanks!
Desist, for shame!-proceed no further;
God won’t accept your thanks for Murther!

Not to say that the slashing of the cabbie was not related to the tea party—people who have psychotic breaks often project back their environment in some way when they snap. So this guy has been hearing nothing but the MSM whipping up this controvery about Islam, mosques, hallowed ground, etc, and when he had his break with reality, he acted on the messaging that was surrounding him. Sad.

That’s a good point, it does reinforce that narrative. What’s worse in my eyes, that tactic tends to remove the targeted party (in this case Muslims) from the power structure. Conservatives have been using this tactic as long as Obama’s been in office if you think about it (Van Jones, Shirley Sherrod, etc.).

Removing the targeted party from power is never an end in itself however.  It is done to prevent friction on discrimination and to pave the way for further discrimination later on.

Actually, the guy who slashed the cab driver doesn’t fit the tea party profile.

Sounds like it might be some variation on PTSD—maybe one of his buddies died or was injured while he was in Afghanistan, maybe in front of him. That’s a pretty common occurence with embeddeds.

Guy comes home, gets a few drinks in him, and takes out his personal anger on the first person who answers his question with “yes, I am a Muslim.”

And yes, environment and context is a contributing factor in PTSD violence. If everyone in town (and in the bar) is talking about how Muslims are disrespecting the American dead, you can bet that’s gonna feed into it.

Ya know, maybe the cabbie lied.  That too is possible.

[...]

PS Hope the cabbie ok.

Sure ya do.

Keep your fingers crossed - it could turn out he’s a Repub or a secret T-Partyer or ...  maybe even hit the jackpot ... a fuckwad of a libertarian.

Awwww, looks like your arse is still stinging from the spanking you got the other day in the Libertarian threads.

WHat do you mean he doesn’t fit the tea party profile Mighty?

I don’t know what that means.

Hate speech effects everybody.  Does the person have to be caught with Glenn Beck’s dick up his ass in order for there to be an obvious connection?

I guess if you live on Planet Josh Marshall, but not to reasonable people.

This is why hate speech is dangerous.

My favorite song lyric fits the teabaggers:

  Hate your next-door neighbor
  But don’t forget to say grace.

Barry McGuire, Eve of Destruction

WHat do you mean he doesn’t fit the tea party profile Mighty?

According to the article, he was working for an org that was in favour of Cordoba House. Unlike the Tea Party Cheetos brigade, he actually got off his butt and went to Afghanistan to see things for himself and record them as a journalist.

But you’re absolutely correct about the pernicious effects of wide-spread and pervasive hate speech—if it contains the possibility of that extreme effect on a person with Enright’s (intitially) open-minded background, it can only be worse with your typical Teabagger.

More info on the assault:

The man who assaulted him started out friendly, then screamed, “Assalamu Alaikum. Consider this a checkpoint,” and slashed the cabbie across the neck.

If this is true, the assailant does sound like someone who had the garden spot of Central Asia on his mind.

Libertarian you ignorant tool, you can kiss my ass. You have this neat little just-so notion that people who suffer breaks from reality just transport into some other realm and that the patterns of their psychosis doesn’t in fact reflect the environment they’re in, and you’re wrong. Anyone who has read the case studies of Schizophrenics realizes that their breaks are often a reinterpretation of their environment, sometimes in the form of interpreting the “messaging” of what’s going on around them.

@39:  No one said it wasn’t a winning electoral strategy.  Not many elections have been lost by betting on the pig-ignorant fear and bigotry of the American people.

Actually, reading the comments on my own link might prove me wrong that he wasn’t in fact a teabagger. Especially the comments of Alex39 and Musgrove.

Tinfoil Hat time for me!

“Not many elections have been lost by betting on the pig-ignorant fear and bigotry of the American people.”

Whenever I think of pig-ignorant fear and bigotry, I think of this. 

Too bad Rod Serling isn’t still around…on the other hand, maybe he’s better off not knowing just how bad it’s become…

Wait, McKay thinks the video of the anti-“mosque” crowd harassing the black passerby was faked?

Wait, McKay thinks the video of the anti-“mosque” crowd harassing the black passerby was faked?

He’s referring to this. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the moron believes that the incident you discussed was faked as well.

Actually, reading the comments on my own link might prove me wrong that he wasn’t in fact a teabagger. Especially the comments of Alex39 and Musgrove.

Alex39’s comment doesn’t contribute much: “great deal of identification with the military” does not necessarily mean Teabagger or even conservative. It could certainly feed into the alcohol-fueled PTSD scenario I mentioned above.

That Enright is a Facebook fan of Greg Ball, the Tea Party NY State Senate candidate, doesn’t necessarily mean Enright’s a Teabagger or Republican, either. Ball is from upstate as well, is a military veteran (USAF staff)—perhaps he facilited Enright’s Afghanistan trip. Don’t put on that tinfoil had just yet.

But it’s slimming.

I understand that he may be mentally ill, he may have PTSD, all of that seems very possible.  I understand he isn’t an official member of the tea party (though I wonder how that becomes official?).  But I am so digusted with these pieces of dogshit, Beck being the most glaring example, but Palin and all the rest of the hatemongers too, acting all “who us? we’re not responsible if some nutjob goes nuts.  he’s probably a lefty, you know how they are.”

And honestly I’m willing to believe he’s not actually one of them because one of theirs goes they’ll be a lot of bodies.  Take a look at what they used to do to black churches in the South and you’ll get some idea.

But it doesn’t mean that they do not bear responsibility for their hate, for the atmosphere it has created, and for who it seeps into.  Maybe ESPECIALLY if he’s got PTSD.  After all, if he does, he’s hardly alone.

Sigh, I thought we stick-ruled Chris….

CHRIS2, you’re gonna have to do better than that.

Atheist would only give you a 1/10 or maybe a zero.

When you take on the responsibility of trolling a site like Pandagon, understand that we expect your best effort.  If you can’t give it your best, maybe you should step aside and give another Reichwing troll a chance.  There are plenty of other blogs with low standards for their trolls, perhaps you should go to them instead, either to brush up, or to hide your marginal skills away from the mockery they have earned…

How many people are watching maddow 20,000?  Sheesh.

Last night, 970,000 people watched the 9PM ET airing of The Rachel Maddow Show.  266,000 of those viewers were between the ages of 25-54.  Yes, FNC has higher ratings, but I think the difference in viewership is nowhere near as large as what you seem to think it is.  Hannity had 428,000 viewers in the 25-54 key demo, which means that Maddow’s viewership is about 62% of Hannity’s viewership among the key demo audience right now.

But keep telling us that Maddow only has 20,000 viewers if it makes you feel better.  I won’t look down on you too much for your wildly inaccurate beliefs, because I know that most wingnuts have a severe allergic reaction to facts.  Wouldn’t want you to get an itchy case of truth hives, ya know?

@64 Murrow Fan

Honestly, I think we ought to leave JohnMckay to his own insane logic.  We can all sit back and laugh when he shows up in mid-September with the claim that Maddow has over 13 million viewers.

From this

How many people are watching Maddow 25? 30?
Comment #77: JohnMckay on 08/13 at 04:45 AM

to

How many people are watching maddow 20,000?
Comment #22: JohnMckay on 08/25 at 12:10 PM

in under two weeks.  Either we’re making an impact on him (slowly but surely) or he is gradually going so insane he can’t remember his own talking points.  We should probably sit back and enjoy.

The NY Times has a picture of the guy who did this up.  It was taken while he was being arraigned.  He looks like a terrified 12 yo.

But he came close to killing this man.

It’s crazy.

As Rachel herself discussed not long ago, reporting the news is not a fucking popularity contest, it’s not voting for Homecoming King and Queen. How many people are watching is not what you should be focused on, but rather the actual shit you’re reporting. She calls out O’Reilly on some lying ass bull and his response was to say “Oh yeah, well only this many people watch you” as though that had anything to do with anything. Fox News is like a bunch of fucking adolescents who can’t conceive of anything outside their own little bubbles. And their 18 kajillion viewers are largely the same.

You can stop being a trolling douchebag, for starters.

Seriously, just give it a shot. You might like it.

Alison @ #67:

It’s the same mindset that gets applied when they try to justify their opposition to Park 51.  I don’t know the precise number, but one of the big polling companies (Not Rasmussen) released findings indicating something like 62% of Americans believe that Park 51 should not be built at the site it is planned for.  Using the baseless assumption that majorities always represent the morally correct position, opponents of Park 51 argue that allowing the project to move forward as planned would be against the will of the American people.  Though this point may in fact be true does not make it the moral position.

And here’s where wingnuts get tripped up the most - they believe that no matter how wrong they might have been proven to be in the past, they are incapable of being wrong in the present.  Point out the fact that the majority of Americans opposed racially integrating schools in the 1940s and 1950s, and the defense is that “we’re not like that anymore”.  As if they’ve somehow been humbled by social progress in such a way that they no longer carry any of the same backwards thinking of their predecessors.

Trent Lott unintentionally gave us a peek inside the mind of the wingnuts when he declared on the floor of the U.S. Senate that America “wouldn’t have had all these problems” if the nation had elected Strom Thurmond to the presidency in 1948.  Thurmond ran as a 3rd Party Dixiecrat that year, and the core of his platform was support for continuing segregation.  The truth is, most wingnuts have not only not been humbled by seeing their social policy vision being smacked down as time marches on, in many cases, they feel even more self-righteous in their hateful bigotry today than they did before social progress moved forward.

But back to the point about majorities… wingnuts will never get it through their thick skulls that majorities - particularly majorities in which straight, white, Christianist conservative men wield a disproportionate amount of power - do not always reflect the most morally correct position.  In fact, America’s history is filled with instances in which the will of the majority was unequivocally wrong.  That whole legally sanctioned ownership of other human beings because they had a different skin color business comes to mind.

“See Alison, people don’t like smug and obnoxious attitudes…”

...so why are you so smug and obnoxious?...

Feeling is mutual, Antigone

Chris, seriously - you call me smug and obnoxious for suggesting that you should do something else with your time besides reading blogs you obviously hate and disagree with just to leave pointless comments about how much you don’t like us or our beliefs or our values. I mean…is that really the best use of your time? Do you ever wonder why you bother? I for one do not spend my evenings reading conservative blogs just to tell them what assholes they are, because it’s clearly a waste of time. And to be honest, it makes you seem kind of pathetic, that you get entertainment out of it. If you wanted actual intelligent debate, that would be fine. You clearly don’t.

And also - YOU calling anyone here smug and obnoxious is pretty hilarious. You do nothing but tell us all how horrible and stupid we are because we’re not like you. That is fucking smug, dude. Seriously.

I like this as a reply to the oh-so-reasonable ‘teach the controversy’ types who say that Park51 should be moved somewhere else:  In Oklahoma City there is a YMCA only two blocks from the site of the Murrah building where so many innocent Americans were killed by Christian terrorists in 1995.  This is grossly insensitive to their memory so the YMCA must be moved somewhere else.  Every Christian is to blame for every act of violence committed by any Christian, of course.

Chris, seriously, you have to do better than my senile drunken uncle if you’re going to be a top level troll.  If you say something intelligent, you might even get the Dana award.

Oh, come now - that takes a level of supercilious smug weasality that few people are even capable of mustering, and even fewer smarmy enough to deploy.

“You and others here were about to have a hate-party of joy over a muslim cabbie being stabbed by some T-Pary/Repb/Conserv wack job.  Then a few facts came out to rain on your parade.”

The salient fact is the cabby was stabbed because he is Muslim.  It doesn’t matter if the stabber is Republican or Democrat, Marxist or Fascist, male or female, Tea Bagger or Earth Firster, Black or White. 

When a climate of anti-Muslim hate is being stirred up, and somebody directly suffers because of it, then hate lead to violence.  Which anyone with any sense knows is wrong.  Which indicts the promoters of the hate.

“Take a step back and think about how much happiness you all were about to have about a story that a T-Party bigot stabbed a muslim.  Really, it’s not a pretty thing.”

Go back and read through the comments.  Nobody here was or is happy that hate spilled over into violence.  And most of us are afraid this might be the tip of the iceberg.

Nobody here (except trolls) was happy when Dr. Tiller was gunned down in church.  Nobody here has been happy with any hate crimes have occurred.  Unlike some, we’re civilized, moral, and sympathetic people (again, except for trolls) who decry hate and violence.

If you haven’t figured out that by now, it seems obvious to me you need to read Pandagon more closely…or go somewhere else…

“Step back and think about your REAL reaction to the initial story.”

My real reaction?  “Oh god, here we go again.  The white robes (literal or metaphoric) come out of the closet and America sinks further into the swamp of mindless hate.”

I don’t want bad things to happen to people, “good” or “bad”.  I want their bad ideas to be exposed as bad ideas.  I want their good ideas to be implemented.  Politics is not a sport to me.  It is possible for everyone to “win” if we are smart, and logical, and unselfish.

But I’m talking to a “libertarian” whose basic philosophy of life is Gordon Gecko’s “Greed is good!”, so I doubt you can understand where I’m coming from…

Snark is lost on you, isn’t it?  I was pointing out that regardless of the facts of the situation, the hate-mongers will figure out why it’s not their fault.  They always have, they always will.

The hate being stirred up by the Tea Baggers, the Republican leadership, and all the others who’ve either decided to cynically throw Muslims under the bus for for short-term political gain, or who are real, live, genuine American racists, is the problem.

It’s always a problem when one group is scapegoated.  It’s immoral, counterproductive, and generally makes our social and political environment more hostile.

In the long run we all lose in that kind of climate of hate and fear.  I’m sorry you can’t see that…

@Libertarian

Look, you can think we are stupid all you want.  We can’t really stop you.  But, when you come to a feminist liberal blog, it is really stupid to assume that TPTB will consider variations on their own beliefs stupid when expressed by a commenter.

MikeEss was being snarky and showing disgust (and some resignation, I believe, although MikeEss, feel free to correct me if I am wrong).  That you think disgust and resignation are joyful “party” emotions pretty much proves those opinions you find stupid and thick.

My own thoughts, FWIW, were “Fuck, why can’t they (the Republican “leaders”) reign in this shit before someone gets hurt?  Normally, they are pretty good at reigning it in a bit afterward, which is a good thing and hopefully something they will do this time, but WHY THE FUCK HAVEN’T THEY FIGURED OUT THAT THE THING THAT RESULTED IN VIOLENCE LAST TIME WILL DO IT AGAIN THIS TIME?!?”

Those were my thoughts.  Quite the party, huh?

“MikeEss was being snarky and showing disgust (and some resignation, I believe, although MikeEss, feel free to correct me if I am wrong).”

Absolutely correct.

I’ve seen this movie before.  I don’t know how old Libertarian is, but I’m old enough to have been aware of the Civil Rights Marches when they were happening (mid-1960s+).  I was around when JFK, RFK, and MLK were assassinated.  Seen Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and the only one worth respecting turned out to be Jimmy Carter.

I’m proud that I was able to vote for a man like Barack Obama (although I wish he was anything like the Radical Socialist the wingnuts claim to believe he is).  The Cold War, Racial conflict, The Vietnam War, and The Culture War formed the backdrop of my childhood.

Frankly, I’m sick of it all.  So I damn those who make things worse instead of making them better.  They deserve every bit of scorn we can muster.  It’s not about ideology, it’s about doing the right thing and making this a place worth living in…

#84

WHY THE FUCK HAVEN’T THEY FIGURED OUT THAT THE THING THAT RESULTED IN VIOLENCE LAST TIME WILL DO IT AGAIN THIS TIME?!?”

Have you considered that violence may be exactly what Republican leaders are hoping for?

@86

Of course I have, but it is not the first thing I automatically go to and I can’t spend all my time weeping over the future of our country.  After all, there are blogs to comment on.