Stop The Gun Metaphors, Please

Folks in Benton County, Arkansas are unhappy that their State Legislators approve the expansion of Medicaid in their state as part of Obamacare.  Emotions are so high that columnist Chris Nogy wrote in a newsletter that his fellow Republicans might want to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights on some legislators.

"So what do we do? While I believe that we as a party are done in Arkansas after this, if there is ANY hope of our survival, it is going to take not being forgiving. Not only for past actions, but to show those who will come in the future that the cost of failure to do the thing they were elected to do will be significant. We need to be making a point of this failure from this moment on. We need to make a public statement from our groups that we no longer support those who turned on us, that we will NOT be working to their re-election, that we will be actively seeking replacements, and perhaps even working towards recall. We as the Party have to stand up and say ‘no more – you were given a job, you campaigned on the promise to do this job, you had the ability to do this job, you had the votes each time to do this job, and yet for no legitimate reason you betrayed the trust put in you by the electorate and you are now completely and permanently politically finished.’

We need to let those who will come in the future to represent us that we are serious. The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives. It seems that we are unable to muster that belief in any of our representatives on a state or federal level, but we have to have something, something costly, something that they will fear that we will use if they step out of line. If we can’t shoot them, we have to at least be firm in our threat to take immediate action against them politically, socially, and civically if they screw up on something this big. Personally, I think a gun is quicker and more merciful, but hey, we can’t."

This metaphor is used way too often by the GOP.  Sarah Palin enjoyed encouraging her supporters by saying, "don't retreat, reload."  Her website also had a map:

 

One of those targets over Arizona was Rep. Gabby Giffords' district.  Giffords is, if you don't remember, the Congresswoman who took a bullet to the head, in 2011, after a gunman opened fire at one of her outdoor rallies in her district.  In addition to wounding the Congresswoman, 17 people were shot and 6 died.  The youngest victim was a 9-year-old girl.  Is it coincidence that the gunman targeted her and didn't get the idea from Palin's website?  Perhaps.  But there is a big problem with even suggesting constituents kill their lawmakers.  That is not how our system works.  The 2nd Amendment was not written to stop more people from having health coverage.  

In 2010, Sharron Angle ran against Harry Reid for Senate in Nevada and seemed to suggest that violence might be the answer in case she didn't win the election.  I say "seemed to suggest" because she refused to answer questions about what she meant by "second amendment remedies."

These are only a few examples but they are not isolated incidents.  This rhetoric is used all the time in politics and predominantly on the Right.  It needs to stop because sometimes it can be taken seriously and people get hurt.  There are much more constructive ways to make a point.  If you cannot make your point without making a gun metaphor, perhaps you need to open a thesaurus.

Right Wing Comments: Palin Edition

Sarah Palin recently posted on Facebook, like all serious political people do, a response to the President visiting Israel last week.

Here is her post:

As always, one must listen carefully to what leadership says, or fails to say, in analyzing current affairs. During his trip to Israel, President Obama said, “It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own.” Of course, as people of good will we would like everyone to have the right of self-determination and God-given liberty, but we also have to ask ourselves what has been done to establish the circumstances necessary for that. It’s been observed that a Palestinian child cannot grow up “in a state of her own” because of Palestinian leaders’ decisions.

There seems to be nothing on the horizon to change the mindset of those who would raise Palestinian children to hate and be intolerant of Jews, Christians, and other “infidels.” Bottom line: until that changes and until the Palestinian people become genuine partners in peace with Israel, little movement towards peace can be made. This is tragic for all, including those Palestinian children being indoctrinated. I hope our President understands this and could acknowledge it so the public could better understand the conflict. We can’t be naive to the causes of this centuries-old plight, and we mustn’t fail to ignore the one-sided effort to finally bring peace to Israel.

In the meantime, pray for peace in the Holy Land.

- Sarah Palin

Any country that fires rockets on people within their own country which they are trying to make peace with, is not actually interested in peace.  Israel is not innocent in this fight.  She is right that it is a centuries-old plight, but it is more complicated than she could ever understand.  The President was correct when he said Palestinian children do not have a state of their own.  Palestine was erased off the map for Israel to exist.  It is a political and religious fight full of pride on both sides.  It is complicated and I am glad our President acknowledges that.

As always, the best part of something like this is the comments that follow.  Some are quite amazing in their ignorance and praise for someone who could not even say the name of a newspaper she read or a Supreme Court case she didn't agree with.

These are posted anonymously, and without names.  I won't even link to where I got them, but rest assured, they are all in response to this post by Palin, reposted on a right-wing blog.

• Thank you, Governor Palin. You always say just what I'm thinking about the president. He is so rude to go to Israel and not speak to the officials in the Knesset and instead speak to the youth of the country... very likely going against the wishes of their parents.  He went over to Israel to try his sleazy hand at "organizing in the Alinsky/Chicago way".  We wish that it were you over there representing us in the American way - 100% standing with Israel.  Governor, please pray and consult with your family and run in 2016. We need you so badly. You are the authentic one.

• Sarah needs to visit Israel and Gaza next week to meet with all the leaders of the region, staighten out the mess in a day or two, and take in some sight-seeing with her kids, too 

• They are not Palestinians. They are Lebanese, Jordanians, and Syrians. Ship them back to their real native lands and leave the native Jewish land of Israel alone.  If Israel claimed that an iceberg in Antarctica was a holy Jewish site, then the Muslims would also claim that Muhammad talked about that site as holy to Islam. Islam has no claim whatsoever to Jerusalem. Islam claims it because Israel claims it. Palestinians (a made up people) have no claim to any part of Israel.  True peace is when the fake refugees of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria go home and Israel reclaims Gaza, Judea and Samaria. 

• I applaud you for bringing any kind of Palin news forward here. If Palin isn't giving out a swift kick in the pants to the "elites", she's pouring out a soothing balm on the rest of us who recognize her as the leader of our patriotic and justice-loving heart. There is truly no one like her today. 

• Thanks (website), yep, right to the core of the matter. Palin as laways is first a brilliant analytical thinker and then the thoughtful policy maker. The narcissistic Liar in Chief is neither one and everywhere he goes he either creates problems or accentuates those which exist already.

Emphasis mine.

• Pity Obama doesn't have her backbone but then again Sarah doesn't hate Jews the way he does. 

• Gov Palin the country needs a real choice in 2016 please run and please keep writing on facebook and consider writing an Op- ed 

• If Obama read the Bible he'd know as Sarah said the conflict is centuries old but since he is delusional and thinks he's the Savior he will never understand the truth.

• Peace is a great idea and will work in most cases. However, there will never be peace here until one side totally destroys the other. SORRY !

I hope she does run in 2016.  She is comedic gold.

CPAC, Overwhelmed With Crazy

CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference was this weekend and the usual crazy was heard by all.

Donald Trump was invited to speak because the Republicans have not noticed how utterly insane the man is.  In his speech, he slammed immigration from Latin American countries and asked why we can't have more immigrants from Europe.  He said undocumented workers should not be given any path to citizenship because if they get to vote they will vote Democratic.

Sarah Palin sipped a Big Gulp during her speech to thumb her nose at New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  The fact that increased serving sizes, especially for soft drinks, has increased the rate of obesity is not an issue for Palin and folks like her.

There was so much crazy in such a small compact place.  One could go insane going through all of it.

I do want to narrow in on one nugget of crap out of CPAC.  The following video is of a panel with the Frederick Douglass Republicans where one participant, Scott Terry, demonstrated his ignorance of history.

When the speaker talks about a letter that Frederick Douglass wrote to his slave master thanking him, Terry interrupts.

Terry: “For what? For feeding him and housing him?”

After the outburst, he was overheard saying, “why can’t we just have segregation?”

Via ThinkProgress:

Terry maintained that white people have been “systematically disenfranchised” by federal legislation.

When asked by ThinkProgress if he’d accept a society where African-Americans were permanently subservient to whites, he said “I’d be fine with that.” He also claimed that African-Americans “should be allowed to vote in Africa,” and that “all the Tea Parties” were concerned with the same racial problems that he was.

At one point, a woman challenged him on the Republican Party’s roots, to which Terry responded, “I didn’t know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public.”

So he decided to touch on sexism as well.  Well it is nice to spread the hate around, I guess.

Sadly, people like this still exist.