Comments on: Demon Possessed Politics

By: paul mckay

paul mckay — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:02:57 +0000

Very true about the demonizing of the last President. There was a United Methodist preacher, an acquaintance and colleague of mine in the North Texas Conference, quoted in the Morning News comparing Bush to Hitler and the GOP to the Nazi Party a few years ago. As much as I loathed the politics of the last administration I found that really disgusting, but there’s a lot of casual Hitler and Nazi labeling all around now, which demonstrates a real ignorance of history and diminishes just how atrocious Hitler and Nazism were. But it seems to me that people on all sides are edgy and reactionary post-911. Anyway, your stuff always makes me pause and think, and me thinking is always really dangerous.

By: fwschmidt

fwschmidt — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:35:58 +0000

Just did! Thanks.

By: fwschmidt

fwschmidt — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:35:36 +0000

Paul, thanks for the thoughtful response. I am not minimizing the dangers and / or the vitriole of comments like the ones that you cite. I am really arguing that the tendency to identify the actions of someone like this disturbed young man with political views of countless others is, in point of fact, of a piece with incivil language.

People of good will should always challenge demonizing language. But the operative word is “always.” The kind of language used to attack President Obama was used just a few short years ago to attack President Bush and some of the same people who have rightly questioned the language used by conservative commentators was being used to describe the last President.

Both sides of a difference must take responsibility for the nature of the debate itself.

By: paul mckay

paul mckay — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:07:03 +0000

Father Fred, a few thoughts about this. . .
there’s no question that this was the act of a twisted and sick young criminal, but history is full of stories of twisted and sick people being whipped into fevered frenzies so intense as to be pushed over the homicidal edge, isn’t it? I certainly understand what you’re saying about pundits claiming to know the mind of one who committed a totally mindless act, but I do think there is–and was– legitimate concern about the evermore inflammatory rhetoric pervading our political culture. In a culture in which a frightening number of people went on a Facebook page to join in the sick fun of a movement to pray for Obama’s death based on a scripture–which countless other and supposedly otherwise decent people including churchgoers found amusing–I think maybe you’ve overstated what you call greater dangers. I think it was inevitable that blame be pointed regarding the climate because this rampage, or one like it, has been waiting to happen for a long time. A lot of the people who have been warning about this kind of act for a long time are now seen as misplacing blame for the act of one sick criminal. Ultimately the criminal is to blame here, but words do have consequences and what once was seen as militant political rhetoric is now seen as pretty much mainstream. Every time I post an opinion on my stand on, say, gy rights, I get comments (which I don’t approve for posting, of course) from people like the one who called me a “g.d. faggot lover.” And that wasn’t even the crudest or most vulgar. So it’s small wonder that young gays or even those perceived as gay live in fear in this climate. Like I say, just a few thoughts from one who’s been sickened by the evermore violent rehetoric he hears and the violent culture he’s been living in and is really, really sick over this latest episode.

By: vheard

vheard — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:45:47 +0000

Can you expand on this?