Liberal Hate

[cynatnite]

I've been out of DU for a while, but the latest doings of the repukes has me very concerned. I just read about an assault on a Dem lawmaker on the town halls that have been hijacked by the haters of democracy.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/05/freshman-dem-assaulted/

Before all this happened, I wrote a short essay for my Eng Comp class about the unreasonable hatred of liberals. It's almost prophetic, but many of us knew how violent these people can get. Anyway, I got an A.

*****

I’m a pinko, communist, tree-hugging, global-warming-believing liberal. Why should I be ashamed of that? I hate corporations crapping all over the little guy. I love trees and I don’t want them chopped down. I love animals and I hate the idea of letting them go extinct if there’s a chance to save them. I think global warming is a real problem that we have to deal with if we want our children and grandchildren to have a planet to live on. I believe in social justice and I believe that peace should always come first rather than a bomb-them-before-they-get-us foreign policy. I support gay marriage and I don’t think the government has any right to inflict its will on my body. So, I am a liberal, but for some it’s more than a dirty word. It’s a hatred that goes beyond reason.

One outlet of this beyond-reason-hatefulness is in books. Ann Coulter does not claim to be journalistic or even unbiased. She has done her best to stir up the pot as much as possible with books such as “Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism”, “Godless: Church of Liberalism”, and “Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America”. Michael Savage has made a lot of money pedaling his antipathy towards liberals with such books as “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” and let us not forget Sean Hannity and his book which put liberalism, despotism and terrorism on equal ground. Oh, and there’s the forgettable book by John Gibson called, “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.”

A large producer of liberal hate is none other than Rush Limbaugh. The man who wants President Obama to fail has a wide repertoire of vile that could fill several books. A favorite term of his is for women who strive for equal rights. If that’s you, then in his eyes, you are a feminazi. Once, Rush questioned why there was no “slut surcharge” in the health care bill. One of Rush’s favorite past times is to equate liberals with Nazis which he’s done on a regular basis since he figured out that hate radio is the way to big bucks. He calls liberals the brothers of Nazis. Rush even claimed that liberals have contempt for average people.

Television hasn’t slowed the hatred of liberals one bit. Ann Coulter took her act to the living rooms of America and declared that the 9/11 widows were relishing their husbands’ deaths. She’s even declared that single motherhood is a recipe to create criminals, rapists, strippers and murderers and Sean Hannity agreed. Speaking of Sean Hannity, he claimed that Halloween was really a liberal holiday that teaches our kids to go door to door asking for a handout.

Now, a lot of this is easy to laugh off and is ridiculous on the surface, but the fact is that liberals continue to be the political punching bags. There is a segment of the population that takes this kind of accepted talk very seriously. They truly believe that liberals are traitors and undermine the very fabric of America. One of the scariest examples of this wasn’t very far from here. Jim David Adkisson fired at liberals and Democrats worshipping at a universalist church in Knoxville. He killed two people and wounded seven others. Adkisson stated that he had targeted the church for its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed. He believes that people like me are ruining the country and should die. To know the books in his home, one only has to look a few paragraphs upward. In Adkisson’s manifesto, he stated it very clearly. “Go kill liberals.”

[Walk away]

1. It gets scarier every day.

Let's face it, the other side has guns and they are not too bright. I'm not happy about it but the rest of the world has been dealing with this reality for many years.

[cynatnite]

2. I live less than a hundred miles from that shooting. It is scary. n/t

[Walk away]

3. It is always frightening when unexplainable violence happens,

especially when it is close by. Try not to worry too much. I have lived in Northern Ireland during violent times and in Colombia SA in a very violent area. It helps to think of yourself as a brave person, put yourself out there and be as prepared as you can be in case of a problem.

What happened today is a result of random craziness and a culture that has become defensive and overloaded with easily available guns. Let's work hard to make gun laws better and hug our kids every day.

[hootinholler]

5. That was totally explainable

It was in fact explained in the shooter's manifesto.

Why weren't Rush and Bill and others charged?

Oh, we have enough gun laws, how about we start enforcing the ones we have?

-Hoot

[timeforpeace]

4. Hate as a philosophy? Might not be a winner.

[FatDave]

6. They made liberals their primary enemy decades ago.

While we campaigned against this candidate, or for this issue, they were organized in demonizing us. We've never had a concerted effort to demonize conservatives. We probably should.