[quote=briansd1][quote=Rustico] You are kind of scary.[/quote]
I scare myself sometimes.
But you have no choice but to live dangerously when you’re dealing with dangerous people.
“Don’t retreat, reload.”
What are we supposed to do while the other side reloads?
Noting that heated rhetoric was nothing new in an America where politicians used to resort to dueling with pistols, she went on to defend vigorous disagreement. “If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas.”
It would have been good if she had stopped there. But then, with characteristic passion, she turned to what she knew would be her most memorable line: a charge that her critics are the ones guilty of fomenting violence.
“Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn,” she said. “That is reprehensible.”
By “blood libel,” Palin was referring, of course, to the charge that her own rhetoric had somehow increased the likelihood that a mentally disturbed young man would shoot people. And on the substance, she was right: There’s no evidence that her words — or anyone else’s —contributed to Saturday’s tragedy.
But her statement also confirmed something that should disqualify the former Alaska governor from ever seeking higher office: She has no sense of proportion.
A “blood libel” isn’t just a groundless charge that something sparked bloodshed. It is used primarily to refer to the monstrous anti-Semitic charge that Jews kidnapped and killed Christian infants for ritual use, a falsehood that provided a twisted justification for pogroms.
Palin was justified in accusing her critics of unfairness in using the tragedy as a talking point and in pointing a finger at her. But she went much further than that: She asserted that their argument “serves only to incite … violence.”
Is our society at a point now where every word is look at under a microscope regardless of its obvious intent? It doesn’t surprise me coming from the LA Times. The author even admits they know what she is saying but if you dissect it really means x. Are politicians suppose to be walking thesauruses now? If this is all the LA Times can come up with they are pretty hurting. No wonder no one subscribes.
