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Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck
^^That photo is not a tea party rally, in fact that is not a political event at all, but one of those hardcore christian groups that protest funerals and what not....
I am not trying to defend the right wing rhetoric here, but free speech should be defended across the political spectrum as a whole, and the left is not superior or innocent.
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I agree, the left is not superior or innocent when it comes to heated rhetoric. It has to cool on both sides. But pointing to a Malkin web site for examples of rhetorical behavior is not only ironic, but also going to one of the extremes in defense of the extreme. That's just strange.
You have to remember that we are talking the extremes and how that extreme can find sympathetic representation. This is not an indictment of an entire half of the political sphere but an examination of how it can be corrupted by an issue. The fringe is pretty ugly on both sides, but you have to consider the ramifications of the activity of that fringe element.
Where the inflammatory rhetoric argument tends to breakdown is the actions as a result of the rhetoric. Where is the violence that percolates to the top when the left is inflamed? During the Bush years the big news was the protests by the likes of Code Pink, who were ridiculous, and Cindy Sheehan. Do you recall much violence, even from the most fringe of the left in the past 20 or 30 years? You have to go back to the 60's to find the Weather Underground? The left has become pretty lame when it tries to work itself up into a lather.
Conversely, the fringe right, when they go off the deep end, tends to end in extreme violence. This is because the right embraces certain issues and takes ownership of them. The gun culture is firmly ingrained on the right. The extreme right is steep heavily in ideology, religious or otherwise. Like it or not the extreme right is where you find the White Supremest movements, the militia movements and the fundamental religious groups. You may want to marginalize Westboro, but they are reflective, to extreme, of that right wing extremest fringe. It is this fringe that has become activated and is resulting in these violent incidents.
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Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I really don't think you can include the Westboro Baptist Church as an example of Right Wing lunacy, they have hatred for all ends of the political spectrum.
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Disagree Captain. Like it or not, Westboro sits on the right side of the fulcrum. You know, Westboro has extreme views, but at least they only hold up distasteful signs and should obscenities. I would much rather have that than some of the supposedly less extreme groups on the right that have killed police or abortion doctors or have damaged or destroyed government buildings. Westboro is nutty, but they aren't violent.