TSA pays off for exposing a woman’s breasts during security clearance.
We need more such lawsuits against the TSA.
This has got to stop: The death threats against Sarah Palin are at an “unprecedented level,” according to her aides.
Vicious liberal hate: Fifteen quotes. (Several of these have been noted in previous posts, but most have not.)
Look, I agree that we’ve got to tone down the rhetoric. And I also agree that conservatives bear as much responsibility to do this as anyone. Free debate in a civilized society requires reasoned discussion of the issues, and a willingness to tolerate disagreement. It should not include ad hominen attacks, or the wishful desire to murder your opponents.
However, it is not the tone of rightwing discourse that worries me much these days. You would be hard pressed to find any examples of any Republicans or Tea Party activists suggesting it would a good thing to kill Democrats. Such suggestions are not only considered unacceptable, everyone on the right knows that to say such a thing would probably destroy your career in the public arena. Thus, it just doesn’t happen.
Instead, it is the left, the press, and the Democratic Party’s efforts to whip up anger at the right that scares me. Nor did this ugly behavior begin on Saturday after the Tucson murders. In the past decade there have been the numerous examples (which I have been documenting these past few days) of leftwing activists, Hollywood movies, talk radio hosts, and Democratic officials advocating violence against the right. (For a talk radio host example, see this new list of liberals calling for the murder of conservatives.) Worse, such behavior has almost become routine in recent years. It seems that every random violent act has become a vehicle for the left and the press to attack and slander conservatives, despite the fact that there is no evidence that any of these accusations are true.
This behavior must stop. Violent and angry rhetoric can and will cause violence. And it probably has, considering the fact that a large number of the random violent acts in recent years have actually been committed by deranged individuals with liberal, not conservative, leanings. This is not to say that I blame the left for this violence, but that the left has as much of a responsibility as the right to think carefully about what it says, before it says it. Otherwise, they might find that they have made their less rational followers more angry than they ever imagined, or can control.
Or as Michael York says to his NAZI friend at the end of this scene from the 1972 movie, Cabaret. “You still think you can control them?”
Is this an example of toning down the rhetoric? The Facebook Group “I Hate It When I Wake Up & Sarah Palin Is Still Alive” has more than 2,000 members.
So you have no doubt about the ugly tone of this Facebook group, here is a screen capture from the page. Note the desire to kill Palin (and Bush) in several images.
Washington’s five most ridiculous reactions to the Arizona shooting.
Which Democrats objected to the use of mass murder as a vehicle for disseminating propaganda?
Sadly, not very many.
Once again, who should tone the rhetoric down? A former Democrat Congressman who called for a GOP Governor to be put against a wall and shot now pleads for civility.
And they say the right should tone it down? A list of Hollywood’s many hateful attacks on the right.
Is this toning down the rhetoric? Media pivots to blame gun laws, sloppy reporting ensues.
So we need to tone down the rhetoric, eh? How about this collection of death threats issued by Twitter users against Sarah Palin?
It appears that youtube removed the video. However, you can see all the screenshots of all the threats here, and the video has been reposted here.
This is how the left blogosphere has decided to tone down the rhetoric: The Left puts a bullseye on the right.
Want to tone down the rhetoric? Maybe the left should look at itself: The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010.
More please, especially in places like Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan! Thousands of Egyptian Muslims show up in Coptic Christian churches to act as “human shields.”
Freedom of speech alert! Fire’s speech codes for the year of 2010 and for January 2011. For the yearly “award,” get these rules::
UMass Amherst’s policy on “Rallies” has special regulations applicable to what it calls “controversial rallies”—and it leaves “controversial” wholly undefined, giving the administration unfettered discretion to invoke the policy when it sees fit. If a rally is deemed controversial, it may only take place between noon and 1 p.m. on the Student Union steps, and must be registered at least five days in advance. That’s just one hour a day on one tiny area of a campus of more than 27,000 students! Worse yet, the policy also requires that when holding a controversial rally, “The sponsoring RSO [Registered Student Organization] must designate at least 6 members to act as a security team.” In other words, student groups wishing to publicly express a controversial opinion on campus must give at least five days notice, may only do it on one small area of campus for one hour a day, and must be willing to put themselves in harm’s way by acting as their own security in order to do so.
More on the tolerance of Islam and that assassination of a Pakistani governor because he opposed Islamic blasphemy laws. Key quote:
Specifically, [Governor] Taseer was supportive of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who has been sentenced to death for “insulting Muhammad.” Bibi had offered some fellow farm laborers some water. They refused to drink it because Christian hands purportedly make water unclean. An argument followed. She defended her faith, which they took as synonymous with attacking theirs. Later, she says, a mob of her accusers raped her.
Naturally, a Pakistani judge sentenced her to hang for blasphemy.
And Governor Taseer, who bravely visited her and sympathized with her plight, had 40 bullets pumped into him by one of his own bodyguards.
As one commenter to my previous post on this story noted, “If they praise murder, what’s next? What kind of religion is this?”
Has the TSA gone from touching your junk to stealing it?
TSA: Living on borrowed time? Key quote:
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year. At TSA headquarters alone, there are 3,526 staff whose average salary tops $106,000. And while the TSA has gotten very good at groping airline passengers and undressing them with full body scans, the organization has yet to prevent a single terrorist attack. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation released last spring revealed that at least 17 known terrorists have been able to pass through TSA security totally unhindered. [emphasis mine]
A nation choking on endless laws. I like the subtitle for this article as well: “The rising dictatorship of the bureaucrats.”
Here’s some good news: Egyptian Muslims have volunteered to act as “human shields” at the upcoming Coptic Christmas Eve mass.
A woman in a wheelchair — whom the TSA had previously interrogated for an hour then denied her entry when she arrived at the airport in a bikini — was later refused entrance when she arrived fully clothed because of an “unusual contour” around her buttocks. Key quote:
Banovac offered to strip for the agents to prove that she’s not hiding anything. However, since TSA agents aren’t allowed to fully undress a passenger, they had no choice but to deny her access to her flight.
Does one get the feeling that the TSA agents are out to get this woman because she makes them look like fools?
Our government at work: City contractor mistakenly demolishes Pittsburgh man’s home.
Repeal the damn bill! Obamacare ends the construction of 45 doctor-owned hospitals.
A clear danger to free speech.
Note that though I agree entirely with this New York Times op-ed, it is almost humorous how this partisan liberal newspaper only notices these threats to freedom when Republicans are in power.
Progress! The Republican bill to repeal ObamaCare is now online [pdf]. It’s only two pages long, and is bluntly titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.”
I doubt Mark Twain would approve: The publisher of a new edition of Twain’s classics is going to rewrite the book to remove the racial slurs.
Sickening. Rather than face facts, our modern intellectual culture seems to want to run from them.
