October 17, 2010

The rage of the right--and their boorish behavior

Op-Ed Columnist - The Rage Won’t End on Election Day - NYTimes.com

Yeah, I know he is a liberal elitist from New York, but the litany of right wing hatred and boorish behavior is disturbing. It strikes me close to home, as I have seen people in my own circle (those on the right) either defend or tolerate the absolute boorishness. As someone said last year when they mused about the response if the Tea Party was black, the anger here, and the approval of that anger is perhaps the most disturbing thing. Any sign of anger from Obama was seen as a sign of some kind of radicalism on his part, while the Tea Party and Town Hallers shouted and even screamed their supposed anger. That meant screaming epithets at congresspeople, or even at the sick daring to defend healthcare.

And that has given us Carl Paladino and Sharon Angle. And Palin and the rest of the Republican party has either endorse, or looked the other way as they saw a political advantage.

I can say this with confidence. If I acted as they have, my conservative friends would be horrified--as would my liberal friends. This licensing of bad behavior is still disconcerting coming from the party that most readily claims a higher moral calling. I am not sure I have ever made complete sense of that--that the party of moral values could tolerate and even encourage Karl Rove and Ann Coulter. Yeah, yeah, the left has some bad actors. But when Representative Grayson compared his opponent to the Taliban, he was strongly rebuked by Jon Stewart for doing so. But when the right wingers go off the edge, we are told that "we need to understand their anger."

We are seeing the return of the idea that it is fine to be extreme and even hateful, as long as it is a right wing version of defending liberty. They truly believe it is their country and not ours.

8 comments:

Bob said...

Some are starting to take bets on how fast a Republican Congress will attempt to impeach Obama.

Noah said...

That drives me nuts...to impeach a president because he has a different political ideology?? Is that what we're reduced to now? I disagree with that guy, so I am going to impeach him?

And these fucking assholes say we're the ones trampling on the constitution??

Once a day I get some sort of forwarded drivel via email from a neighbor. Once a day it takes all of 3 minutes on Google to find the REAL answers to their brainless memes. And yet they persist in sending me this garbage, or worse, not checking the facts themselves!!

Bob said...

"Once a day I get some sort of forwarded drivel via email from a neighbor. Once a day it takes all of 3 minutes on Google to find the REAL answers to their brainless memes. And yet they persist in sending me this garbage, or worse, not checking the facts themselves!!"

This is wher the "reply all" feature is handy. Just check the facts, hit reply all and correct every fool in the e-mail.

You will either change their minds, or no longer receive e-mails.

Noah said...

You will either change their minds, or no longer receive e-mails.

Normally the later, as they can't stand it when they're wrong. They'd rather be mad then wrong.

Monk-in-Training said...

As reported in the NYT, when the House turned Democratic. What was the first thing the Democrats did?

Pelosi: Bush Impeachment `Off the Table’

By Susan Ferrechio
Published: November 8, 2006

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi promised Wednesday that when her party takes over, the new majority will not attempt to remove President Bush from office, despite earlier pledges to the contrary from others in the caucus.


No wonder the Republicans have no fear of them.

Streak said...

It is fascinating in a bang-your-head-against-the-wall kind of way. They impeach Clinton because he lied about sex. The very fact that they did so, made it politically difficult to impeach Bush for lying us into a war and authorizing war crimes, because it allowed the Republicans to claim that it was just political payback. But Republicans can then talk about impeaching Obama and not get laughed off the public stage.

steves said...

Who has said anything about impeachment? I guess I prefer to stick to reality, as opposed to wild speculation? A brief search brings up mostly blogs and bumper sticker sales and Andrew Sullivan talking about Jonah Goldberg. I suppose this qualifies as "some", but it is a stretch.

Streak said...

Jonathan Chait at the New Republic had a bit on impeachment a few days ago. It is behind their firewall now, but as I recall, he noted that House Republicans at about 38% favor impeaching Obama now, with still a majority of them opposed. But Chait is convinced that the future committee chairs are already angling for something like this. Not next year, probably, but if Obama were to win reelection, he predicts rather firmly that Republicans will find a way to impeach him.

And as I have said before, the Clinton impeachment opened the door for Republicans to do so, and they seem to be either immune or simply ignore criticisms of it being based purely on politics. Democrats, however, just mention impeaching Bush and Republicans howl.