Scott SoCal said:
But it's perfectly ok to throw around the terms bigot, racist, homophobe, wacko, extremist, etc.
And of course this kind of stuff:
Yep, the only crazy partisans are on the right.
Of course the major point your rather puerile and purely instrumental comparison neglects to make, is that none of these folks would probably have acted upon, or in any case
have not acted upon, such sentiments. This can not be said of the right-wing nutter/s in question. A key point which you have conveniently overlooked. Plus even for hypothetical argumentation sake, what case could our right-wing fascist have made against his Arizona political target from the left before perpetrating his cold and merciless act, versus that which could have been argued by such colorful anarchists above against the former US president, without, however, having ever really acted upon anything? This is what is called a no-brainer, Scott SoCal.
It seems to me, therefore, in the case of the latter that theirs was a legitimate protest against a real criminal, in so far as Bush really has numerous war crimes hanging over his conscience while having tried to hide them behind some spurious legal pretense and, worse, "divine calling"; and thus who debased his religion with a bigoted and immoral casuistry. At the same time he had made a grotesque parody of his national leadership, with international lies while being goaded on by the neocon plaudits. Moreover Bush's illegal war in the Middle East, apart from remaining an eternal black spot on his regime, has been an unpunished offense, for which at least such protesters have rather ironically substituted the quite wanting legal condemnation. Consequently their violent metaphors were simply in proportion to the actual violence and illegality committed. Though they remain just that, metaphors (this aspect of metaphor can not be claimed for the Bush camp however). By contrast, what crime did the Arizona democrat commit? And what was the actual sentence carried out in the absence of all legality against her?
Scott SoCal I have always known you to exhibit a rather marked propensity for being dimwitted, however your total lack of ironic sense in this case, and
perspicacity, betrays an alarming and unedited dullard state at which you have arrived since we last conversed, probably as a result of not having continued in our discussions. All of which is naturally quite sad and
disturbing.
PS. I too find the extreme imagery (somewhat) distasteful, but also humorous in the ironic sense at the same time. I mean, how could you not? But I can also contextualize it within the intolerable condition of violence and criminal acts caused by, or committed in the name of, the person to whom the imagery was directed - and the exasperation it had caused as a corollary on the part of the more animated sentiments within the opposition. In other words, sometimes extreme injustice demands a rather frank response, though this was in no way the case with Gabrielle Giffords, let alone gunning her down. I do not subscribe to playing nice in all cases, because while at the level of civility it is rather noble, certain situations call for something, such as what was inflicted on us during the Bush years, a bit more jarring. Even if, personally, I'm not one of violence. One could hardly accuse the anti-fascist partisans of over-stepping the lines of decency, for example, in their strikes against Nazi occupiers in Italy, France and Poland during WWII. Any more, to not be partisan in this analysis, than the intellectuals who defied Stalin could be accused of crimes for their actions and for which appallingly ended up on a permanent "vacation" in some Siberian pogrom. Having not arrived at that level, I think we can at least concede these protesters their visual brutality against a man who was surly the worst and most criminal of US presidents. Especially as it was all rather rhetorical and just for show and given that the judicial system failed miserably in bringing the man and his party leadership to task while it still had the chance to make a serious case for indictment against them. Besides how many caricatures and blanket categorizations had Bush and his cronies uttered to brandish the enemy as simply an "Axis of Evil," "Hitlerian," "assassins," etc. Where in some case such descriptive were applicable, in many others it was simply a vile rhetoric used for propagandistic sake and, in any case coming as it was form those hypocritical mouths, lost all moral force and was like the flip side of the same coin of barbarism in retrospect. In such cases the strong language and brutal imagery used by them, has begotten just as strong a language and brutal imagery employed form the opposition protesters you cite above.
Moral: you reap what you sow Scott SoCal, which is why it's always important to think before we speak, especially when coming from the mouths of politicians who hold power over the state during times of crisis. In this the Bush administration committed another one of its great and many crimes. It has always baffled my mind how you conservatives seem so hardly miffed and blase before the revolting and highly illegal praxis of torture by the US military establishment in Iraq and elsewhere throughout the globe, by whichever euphemism the chain of command wishes to call it, but have your ire so worked-up by a few dudes with bad hair-does holding highly satirical posters against a certain leader, to say nothing of the inane stupidity of those superstitious, ignorant and impressionable amoebas on your side who hold up signs accusing Obama of Nazism and tyranny for which god's wrath will see to justice being done. Evidently what one side finds terrifying and abhorrent is highly subjective and will take recourse to every form of sophisticated, however feeble, casuistry and solipsism to make its case. However, in terms of subjectivity, to me it seems that the right is unsurpassed in this mean art. Whereas the sincere left at least makes an honest attempt toward effecting some objectivity when asserting its position.
And just for the record, I'm not even sure the middle example is anti-Bush at all. For it could easily be read as pro-Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, though this is entirely irrelevant.
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