Climate of Hate

From the New York Times, Paul Krugman weighs in on the horrific shootings in Arizona:

It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.

Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness — but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence.

And there’s not much question what has changed. As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, it’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.

And

Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

More here.

Right. How many "isolated incidents" of violence directed toward liberals and other Democrats does it take before the right wing acknowledges that they're creating the problem? Answer: there is no upward limit here. Conservatives will never take the blame. For anything. These will always be "isolated incidents," always just some nut with an irrational axe to grind.

But why are these nuts always shooting at liberals and Democrats? Why aren't there unhinged people on the left doing the same thing to the right? There aren't any nuts on the left doing this. It is always the right shooting at the left.

Make no mistake at all. There is a problem. A big huge enormous problem. Right wing bile and venom, often expressed in violent terms that would make Herr Goebbels blush, have created a cultural context that has sane conservatives loading their guns, and crazy conservatives shooting their guns. It seems like only a matter of time before the sane conservatives join their crazy brothers shooting up the left.

Actually, some of those sane conservatives have indeed started shooting, as the recent murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller well illustrates.

It's time to face the facts. It's no longer about politics, where reasonable citizens debate reasonable issues. To the conservatives, this is a civil war. And in war, you dehumanize and then kill the enemy. The rhetoric has the dehumanization angle covered. And now conservative citizens, "real" Americans, are standing up to cover the killing angle.

This is disgusting.

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