Inciting Violence

I've been reading a lot of political articles this week and getting very angry. The crazy shit being preached from the conserative movement really gets me going. I shouldn't be surprised by it, but I am continually shocked at the things they get away with saying and doing. I'm all for freedom of speech; however, isn't there any way to regulate what they seem do be doing on a daily basis - which is inciting violence (and not just in my head).

I'm going to focus on Glenn Beck because he seems to be the loudest crazy of the week (this week). This is his latest tv entertainment rant. Just playing to the crowd. How long do you think it will be until some "disenfranchised" conservative American sets something or someone on fire? This rant from last month, we now find out, may have had an impact on the horrifying police shootings in Pittsburgh. Yes, Richard Poplawski is a right-wing extremist (aka "wingnut") -- and I'm not putting all the blame on Beck and his fearmongering ilk, BUT I do think at the very least the network (shock and awe, it's FOX) has to have some responsibility of what they put on the air, especially considering their audience. Apparently Poplawski posted a Glenn Beck video about FEMA camps on Stormfront, a way rightie site for conspiracy theorists and there gun-toting buds. (Yes, I know the left has the same lunatic fringe and I may adhere to a couple of conspiracy theories myself, but I don't think the way left has the same violence and rage being cultivated in them - could be wrong...)

Obama has never -- that I know of -- taken the stance of taking away everyone's guns. He is in favor of limiting access to AK-47s (Poplawski's fav weapon of choice and the kind he used to kill 3 policement). Who the fuck needs an AK-47 to go hunting?

Whether it be Michelle Bachman wanting her constitutents "armed and dangerous" and likening Americorps programs to concentration camps to reprogram our youth, Cheney claiming Obama is making us "less safe", the GOPers declaring that Obama is cutting our military budget (when in fact it is a 4% increase) or Limbaugh blathering on about...anything, the rhetoric has taken a very scary turn. My only hope is that that corner of the party is slowly, but decisively destroying itself. No good can come of this hate.

Osage, a blogger on Huffpo has a pretty good take on how and why this came about:
In order to gain the political control they've enjoyed over the last ten years, Republican moderates and fiscal conservatives made a pact with the devil (faux Christians, bigots and misanthropes) to achieve the numbers they needed to defeat Democrats. They made a strategic decision to manipulate and exploit the ignorance, fears and hatreds of dysfunctional and vulnerable voters in order to win elections rather than lose them by being intellectually and morally honest.

Today, those who conspired with the devil are caught between wanting to disassociate themselves with and or casting out the devil they empowered and the karmic reality that they don't have the numbers to hold on to or regain power without continuing to accept and "advocate" the immoral values, hypocrisies and corruptions that are dividing and destroying their party.

The survival of today's shrinking Republican Party has become so dependent on extremism that they have no significant power left WITH or WITHOUT the support of America's increasingly pernicious lunatic fringe.