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2 February 2010

Civility

(art by Mike Sekowsky)

This is part two of my article dealing with the politics and rhetoric surrounding the recent Tuscon shootings. Part one can be found here:

Those Very Polite, Civil Liberals
The talk lately (from the Left) has centered around a return to civilty (that and that Obama is Ronald Regan reincarnated). If we were only more civil to each other, we could settle our differences, work together, and cause violent psychos to mellow out and take up Macrame instead of machettes.

I'm all for civility. And, as is so often a case, I was for it long before I heard any liberals asking for it. I was for civility during every Republican administration all the way back to Lincoln.

I just don't remember this civility business ever being brought up by the left concerning the left.

As most Americans found out (no thanks to Time Magazine), the Arizona freak show who mowed down unarmed people at a Safeway didn't listen to conservative talk radio, read the Bible, or love America. He was a liberal atheist who hated the US. In other words, he was exactly the opposite of how the Left portrayed him.

The Left -- which has been unable to kill free speech from the Right since Rush Limbaugh became a phenomenon -- has turned speech they don't agree with into speech that kills. This is the same Left that was silent when George W. Bush was lied about and vilified before, during, and after his presidency. Bush was called everything from Hitler to monkey ears, and no one on the Left said this was out of line. Come to think of it, our current president is no slouch in the ears department, but does the Left mention this? It does not. To relive just a spec of those bash-Bush years, click here.

If the Left wants everyone to be civil, it must police itself first. And now, some of the Left's greatest "hits" from the past year.

"Just once, probably never get reelected if you ever said it, I would like to hear somebody say, 'The voters have spoken, the bastards.' Or, 'The voters have spoken. What a bunch of idiots. The voters have spoken. God, they're dumb. Dumb as hell.' I just wish I'd hear somebody say that, because I think that happens to be the case this particular midterm elections." (Bill Press, November 2010)

"What was the more likely cause of the Oklahoma City bombing: talk radio or Bill Clinton and Janet Reno's hands-on management of Waco, the Branch Davidian compound? Obviously, the answer is talk radio. Specifically Rush Limbaugh's hate radio. Frankly, Rush, you have that blood on your hands now and you have had it for 15 years." (Keith Olbermann, calling Rush Limbaugh the "Worst Person in the World," Countdown, MSNBC, 19 April 2010)

"The governor (Palin) says she's an extraordinary asset to her party. I say she's an extraordinary ass." (Jami Floyd, Jansing & Co., MSNBC, 19 November 19, 2010)

"Don't you just love the new Republican Party? We have the Tea Party people with the placards and the Nazi stuff." (Chris Matthews, Hardball, MSBNC, 23 January 2011)

"In Scott Brown, we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees. In any other time in our history, this man would have been laughed off the stage as unqualified and a disaster in the making by the most conservative of conservatives." (Keith Olbermann, Countdown, MSNBC, 18 January, 2010)

Headline: Ann Coulter Ottawa speech shut down... 2000 protesters surrounding building with rocks and sticks -- pulled fire alarm in building. Cops shut it down! Blogs calling for Coulter to be hurt." (Drudge Report, 24 March 2010)

"It took these filthy Republicans about 48 hours -- 72 hours to come up with the 'oh, yeah, well, you know, we're getting bad phone calls too, yes we are. And then this John Boner, this *John Boner [sic] these guys created this. They created this atmosphere, they did it because Limbaugh and Beck told them to! Well, keep it up boys, just keep it up, um except for one thing: you rat bastards are going to cause another Murrah federal building explosion, you are. And then - what is Beck - maybe at that point Beck will do the honorable thing and blow his brains out. Maybe at that point, Limbaugh will do the honorable thing and just gobble up enough - enough Viagra that he becomes absolutely rigid and keels over dead. Maybe then O'Reilly will just drink a vat of the poison he spews out on America every night and choke to death! Because that's what's gonna to happen, that's what they are pushing these right-wing, nut case, fringe, militia jerk-wads to doing! (Brian Maloney, Radio Equalizer, 25 March 2010) *NOTE: John Andrew Boehner is the 61st and current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

"I think it's probably a lesson for the American people of the power Palin has to incite hatred and her willingness and readiness to do it. She has pushed a button and unleashed the Hounds of Hell, and now that they're out there slavering and barking and growling. And that's the same kind of tactic, and I'm not calling her a Nazi, but that's the same kind of tactic that the Nazi troopers used in Germany in the ’30s. And I don't think there is any place for it in America." (Joe McGinniss, who rented a house next door to Palin while he wrote a book on her, Today, NBC, 1 June 2010)

"In Chile, they have various very serious regulations when it comes to building codes. So a thousand people died, sadly, but a thousand people died with a 500 times greater earthquake. And in Haiti, where there are no building codes, no regulations, a Republican's paradise, a quarter of a million people died." (Michael Moore, Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO, 5 March 2010)

"We don't have to demonize each other to disagree. Mr., uh, Limbaugh again is fomenting these politics of opposition and I think the conservatives of good conscience should speak out against him to resort to this kind of shenanigan(s) where Mr. Limbaugh is trying to foment racist animus against Mr. Obama is just remarkably. Rush Limbaugh is trying to foment a universe of bigotocracy (sic), that has no place in American civil discourse and it only foments the kind of dissent that leads to the most attacks on Mr. Obama, the most threats against him of any president (sic)." (Michael Eric Dyson, MSNBC Live, 22 March 2010)

"You guys see Live and Let Die, the great Bond film with Yaphet Kotto as the bad guy, Mr. Big? In the end they jam a big CO2 pellet in his face and he blew up. I have to tell you, Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody's going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he's going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet. But well be there to watch. I think he's Mr. Big, I think Yaphet Kotto. Are you watching, Rush?" (Chris Matthews, MSNBC, 13 October 2010)

"This is an ideological war. I say it on camera tonight here on MSNBC: I will fight these bastards every night at 6 o'clock" (Ed Schulz, MSNBC, 5 January 2011)

Headline: Bristol Palin getting death threats, Dancing With The Stars ramps up security, (TMZ, 22 November 2010)

Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, talking with host Tavis Smiley about radical Muslims: Somehow, the idea got into their minds that to kill other people is a great thing to do and that they would be rewarded in the hereafter."

Tavis Smiley: But Christians do that every single day in this country.

Ali: Do they blow people up every day?

Smiley: Yes. Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that's what Columbine is -- I could do this all day long -- There are folk in the Tea Party, for example, every day who are being recently arrested for making threats against elected officials, for calling people nigger' as they walk into Capitol Hill, for spitting on people. That's within the political — that's within the body politic of this country (Tavis Smiley, PBS, 25 May 2010) NOTE: It's assumed that what Smiley could do "all day long" is lie about Christians and Tea Partiers.

Every actor likes to play bad guys. To play Dick Cheney, all I had to do was find my Dick Cheney. And you can find all the villainy in the world in your own heart, and that's what an actor's job is. I always say to kids, inside you is Hitler and Jesus. And you got to find the appropriate person and bring them out." (Richard Dreyfus, Joy Behar Show, HLN, 18 October 2010)

"There is a great deal of hate in my heart today. Not the healthiest condition to find myself in, but these things sometimes cannot be helped. The hate is a free-flowing thing, expanding in all directions because, simply put, there is something to revile and despise in virtually every direction I turn. Sarah Palin's ridiculous reality show was a ratings blockbuster. Hateful. George H. W. Bush is getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, because Mr. Obama just can't help sucking up to the very Republicans who are about to make a project out of throttling his administration. Hateful. There will be no punishment for those who destroyed CIA evidence of rampant torture during the Bush administration. Wildly hateful...The Democrats...ah, yes, the Democrats. Seldom in history has there been a larger collection of utterly useless people than the motley mob of elected officials who rally under the banner of the Democratic Party. They had the House, the Senate, the White House and put two new Justices on the Supreme Court, and yet with all that power and influence, found themselves blown out yet again in a midterm election. It's not that they were ineffective during those years - quite the contrary, in fact. But if a tree falls in the forest and the media doesn't report on it, did it happen? The virtual blackout of reporting on what the Democrats got done can certainly be blamed to a degree on the "mainstream" news media, but it goes far beyond that, and must in the end be laid at the feet of a hapless party and a president who appears to have attended the Blind, Deaf 'n Dumb School of Political Messaging." (William Rivers Pitt, Democratic Underground, 19 November 2010)

"You know what I'd like to see her do? I'd like to see her [Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle] do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch! Come to New York and do it...I am not praying for her. I'm telling you right now. She's going to Hell. She's going to Hell, this bitch. (Joy Behar, The View, 26 October 2010)

"Tonight, we start with the party of hate. The Republican Party in this country has been running on hate and division for the last 50 years....What black person, gay guy or girl, immigrant or Muslim American in their right mind would vote for the Republican Party? They might as well hang a sign around their neck saying, ‘I hate myself.'" (Cenk Uygur, The Ed Show, MSNBC, 26 August 2010)