badgenome said:
Not at all. The point I am trying to make here is that is patently ridiculous for the people who are quaking in their boots right now to fret so about incivility or paranoia or whatever when these things have been with us... forever. As I've shown you, things are absolutely not worse now on that front than they were a few years ago despite the fact that the media tirelessly tries to drive home the message that they are. Nor do I think this sort of thing was worse during the Bush years than it was during the Clinton years, when the insane Clinton Chronicles were being circulated among people on the right. That sort of paranoia will always be there. The side currently out of power just tends to engage in it more, while the side in power freaks out over it until it's out of power and starts nursing its own paranoid side. |
I deleted the part on political assassinations. The U.S government has done enough of them during the cold war, and other nutballs do get motivated for a lot political reasons. The Unabomber, for example, specifically targeted individuals who who saw were a threat. He has a politcal motivation to fight technology.
Anuyhow, I want to comment here that I had been thinking that maybe people were trying to score political points. However, I do think there is a range of fear here. Excess fear built up against the Tea Party. Some in the Tea Party with too much fear of what is going on. You get people scared. The shooting response was about fear of the other side ruining the country. In the case of the congresswoman did receive death threats and her office was attacked, but the state of fear does go back, to even 2008. For example:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-27-2008/obama-and-palin-rallies-of-fear
And yes, it is true, when a party is out of power, they do engage more of being on the attack. I will say it does appear though that the political cycle is nonstop now, where even a national tragedy can't get people to stop a minute and think.
