Violence

8 Thoughts on the Current Campaigns #4

I wish I could say that I'm shocked that John McCain and Sarah Palin are not doing more to reign in the hostile feelings of their crowds, but in this election year, this is just par for the course. There is nothing wrong with anger in politics. It is anger after all than is fueling much of the desire for change in Obama supporters. When anger, however, spills over into outright hostility, there is a problem.

This is not to say that there haven't been incidents of Obama supporters going to far. As deplorable as these incidents have been, they have been isolated and they have been rare. For the conservatives, the hostility and threatened violence has been overt and widespread. It is the rotten core of modern conservatism and it is a threat to us all.

Consider these incidents at McCain/Palin rallies:

• A man yells "Off with his head" at a McCain rally.
• One man at a Palin rally says of Obama, "Kill him". Governor Palin says nothing.
• Another rally, this time in Scranton, Pennsylvania, another call to kill Obama.
  
• The many videos of supporters arriving and leaving the rallies yelling until they are red in the face about their hatred for Obama.
  

At this point, it is common knowledge that McCain/Palin rallies are little more than hatefests designed to inspire righteous rage in their supporters. It is no wonder that the rhetoric of their supporters has turned so violent. The mailings and robocall campaigns, all done on behalf of the McCain campaign or the Republican Party. have further stoked these violent feelings. Consider these items:

• A robo-call that aired in North Carolina, among other places, claims that Obama cares more about Hollywood than America.
• A Virginia robo-call that claims Obama isn't "who you think" he is and suggests that he has no interest in keeping the American people safe.
• Another robo-call claiming that Obama has worked closely with a domestic terrorist that bombed the Capitol and the Pentagon.
• A RNC mailer that claims Obama "thinks terrorists just need a good talking to."
  
• Yet another robo-call that claims Obama doesn't think babies deserve medical care. Seriously.

Of course, this is all just harmless rhetoric, right? Nobody would ever act on this, correct? Well ...

• Four men were arrested in Denver in the possession of firearms. These men intended to assassinate Obama during the Democratic National Convention.
• The ATF broke up a plot by two skinheads to shoot up a number of black students at a High School in Bells, TN and eventually make an attempt to assassinate Obama.

I fear a national tragedy may be in the making.