I can’t wait to see what Dave Neiwert has to say about this:
BECK: But as I’m listening to him. I’m thinking about the American people that feel disenfranchised right now. That feel like nobody’s hearing their voice. The government isn’t hearing their voice. Even if you call, they don’t listen to you on both sides. If you’re a conservative, you’re called a racist. You want to starve children.
O’REILLY: Sure.
BECK: Yada yada yada. And every time they do speak out, they’re shut down by political correctness. How do you not have those people turn into that guy?
O’REILLY: Well, look, nobody, even if they’re frustrated, is going to hurt another human being unless they’re mentally ill. I think.
BECK: I think pushed to the wall, you don’t think people get pushed to the wall?
So, to summarize: Glenn Beck believes that being told you’re wrong means it’s okay for you to start shooting people.
Funny, I don’t remember any liberals going nuts and shooting people in 2004, when we were in a war that we hated, run by a president we disdained, who was supported by a Congress we despised. Liberals were called traitors, and told to “get over” being in the minority. We weren’t listened to. We were pushed to the wall. And we didn’t go on a shooting rampage. Why? Because going on a shooting rampage is not an acceptable way to express one’s political opinion. Going on a shooting rampage because of your political beliefs is, in fact terrorism.
It doesn’t surprise me that there eliminationist streak that runs through the conservative movement is rearing its ugly head again; last time the conservatives were out of power, the patriot movement was at its zenith. If you listened to Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s, you heard advertisements asking whether David Koresh was targeted by the government because he was a “gun-collecting tax protester,” rather than a child rapist and murderer.
Now, a decade-and-a-half later, with an African-American president, a liberal Congress, and a nation turned off by eight years of conservative misrule, we come to a point where the crazies, the Glenn Becks of the world, are up against the wall. One would hope that they would respond by arguing forcefully for their opinions. But one fears that Beck’s opinion is shared by all too many of his fellow travelers on the right — and that all too many of our conservative friends view terrorism as acceptable, even desirable, if that democracy thing leads to the “wrong” outcome.
Funny, I don’t remember any liberals going nuts and shooting people in 2004, when we were in a war that we hated, run by a president we disdained, who was supported by a Congress we despised. Liberals were called traitors, and told to “get over” being in the minority. We weren’t listened to. We were pushed to the wall. And we didn’t go on a shooting rampage.
This reminds me of the folks who argue that we all need to keep and bear arms to be prepared for a tyrannical, unjust government that will try to take away our rights. I’ve never heard one of those folks explain what kind of circumstance would justify firing on your own government. It’s not as though American history doesn’t have some pretty good examples of the government’s taking away people’s rights. When the government came to force Japanese-Americans to sell their property for almost nothing and relocate into an internment camp for an indefinite period of time, surely that would be the time to take up arms against tyranny if there ever has been such a time since the Revolutionary War. None of the 2d Amendment proponents seem to agree, though.
In other words, it’s a good idea for me to shoot people when I’m down. It’s never a good idea for YOU to shoot people when you’re down.
I keep waiting for an Onion headline (and story):
‘Politically Incorrect’ Sophomore Actually a Racist, Sexist Asshole
Ayers.
Zoe, despite what you may have heard, and what he obviously NOW wants everyone to believe, Bill Ayers was a Maoist theory-nerd who almost got himself blown up. Bernadine was the dangerous one, but of course, she didn’t hang with Obama, so no story there.
(Next!)
Daisy, that’s a good point. But even if he himself was just a ineffectual besotted nerd, Ayers was still part of dangerous movement.
However, that’s the point. Decades ago, the weatherman movement was full of dangerous rhetoric, similar to Glenn Beck’s. In hindsight, rhetoric like that was a bad idea; it lead to actions that didn’t stop the war, but did cause some people to be hurt and even killed.
Ayers, of course — who would be completely obscure outside of Chicago if he hadn’t been Sarah Palin’s talking p0int — no longer talks like that. But Glenn Beck does. And Beck isn’t a nobody in Chicago; he’s a FOX talking head, and he talks to millions. And he’s not alone.
The Weathermen for the most part didn’t try to kill people; they targeted government buildings at hours when there wouldn’t be people there, and to a lesser extent some targeted government workers such as judges. They didn’t go up in clock towers and shoot at random passers-by out of sheer frustration; they did a lot of planning. They were domestic terrorists and thus more like Timothy McVeigh (who also targeted a government building but deliberately timed his bombing to kill lots of people) or abortion clinic bombers.
I don’t mean that it’s OK to destroy government property, much less kill government employees, obviously, but that there’s a difference between an effort to bring down the government (or to shut down access to abortion) versus just getting extra pissed off one day and gunning a bunch of people down because you have a firearm and they’re around. The former has some animating ideology and a goal behind it; the latter is an exercise of power toward no end except one’s own sense of being God granting life or death for a few hours.
I guess Glenn Beck was right — if people are worried that there might be new gun control regulations, what can they do to express their concern other than killing three cops?