I would say, maybe it is a lack of civility out there.  But, to me, I am seeing things even stronger than this. What is going on now, goes beyond disagreeing with someone.  It is to an outright disrespectful hatred of individuals, and political offices.  One can say, "Well it started with GW Bush, and how the left really villified him".  Well, there can be merit to this.  But how about this rant at Mitt Romney?

Ok, rant you don't like Romney, but then you go and start going, "Go home Willard"?  Really?  And individuals will cheer this on?  Find, you think Romney is a flipflopper, and feel he has a problem with principles, but you resort to name calling and a reference to a fictional character with ties to rats?  And you think your rant is going to somehow get him to drop out of the race?  Oh, you scored points in the blogosphere, with people thinking you were awesome for putting Romney in his place.

Then, I could go into the "9/11 is an inside job" crowd and their ranting about things.  Really?  The level you end up trashing so many levels, to then, because you have doubts, go way off the deep end.

You see also the shooting of the congresswoman lead to outright paranoia and feeling Tea Party did it also.  You end up disrespecting a grieving process by using it to take shots at the Tea Party.  You don't even wait for the facts to come in, but turn it into obviously the Tea Party was responsible.  It turns out to be a madman, who was all over the map.

The latest of this disrespectful hateful bull, is the whole birther bull.  You end up not only disrespecting the office of the president, and people running, but also the state government of Hawaii, newspapers, and a dozen of other things.  And, after the long form is produced for the birth certificate, you still can't let the issue rest?  I am looking at you Donald Trump.  Apparently, you don't even have respect for truth.  For you, it is fine to have everything as a personal opinion.  Seriously?  Really seriously?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/29/firing-off-trump-stands-by-birther-comments/

What kind of society and country will there be when there is no longer any respect or reverence, or anything considered sacred it isn't mssed with, and all you have is anger at those you are opposed to?

Anyhow, I did try to end up giving balanced examples, and I am sure someone is going to want to come up with one of President Bush as Hitler (matching the Obama as Hitler one), as proof the left started it.  Or, even do visa-versa for the left showing the right is more mean.  In this inane arguing, is the point then supposed to be that it is ok, because the other side does it worse?  

Do people forget that, if you lose politically, you have to live under the governing of the opposition?  Is that not anything to even worth considering?

The seek for truth of what really happened on 9/11 is no disrespect to the families nor ones who died. Even if there's no chance of it being an inside job, the fact that people critically think and seek the truth instead are doing no wrong.

It'd be a different story if they were protesting that no one actually died in 9/11 and they all erased their identities to fake their death. THAT would be disrespectful to the ones who died.

If only they were thinking critically. Instead the truthers believe the most ludicrous of theories about 9/11 (thermite? missile shot from plane? Really?) while ignoring the actually mildly plausible ones (CIA knowing about attack before hand and not doing anything about it for example).

I agree about the state of American politics. Things should only focus on politics, not peoples families, not peoples nationalities and not personal attacks.

You can take what I said about the 9/11 Truthers, who end up saying that there wasn't anyone on the planes who died, and it was all some sort of giant missiles or whatever.  Before this was stuff like America never landed on the moon.  It is one thing to be suspect of things.  It is another when you flat out come out with large scale conspiracies and end up disrespecting large numbers of people as a result of it.  Then throw in getting really, really angry about it.

Anyhow, if anyone here doesn't like one example I gave, there are others you can plug in.  Personally, I put the truthers on part with the birthers.

"Go home Willard". For me that doesn't sound very offensive but as a foreigner I have a hard time judging the tone of it properly.

You can find everything on the internet, including mean hateful people. Nothing to worry about.

It is a reference to a psychopath from a movie who ended up having an affinity for rats.  There is also the telling him to go home.  It is disrespectful.  The tone of it is very much anger at Mitt Romney, and dislikely him a lot.  The speaker did speak on valid issues they had with Mitt.  What it was is them getting on a soapbox, looking down at Mitt, and then wagging a finger at him, telling him to "go home".  Mitt is very much disrespected in here. 

This level of disrespect has grown much larger in recent years, where people don't respect offices and will go to any lengths to justify their behaviors.  In the most recent round, with Obama, you have people pretty much calling the entire government of Hawaii forgers of documents.  They end up disrespecting entire state governments, and all the officials in it, in order to back up some sort of conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States.  Even when the long form of a document is released, which is requested, they still end up not believing it, and hold disrespect.  Donald Trump had decided to get into this, and says, "it is just an opinion."  This defense means he doesn't even respect truth at all, and has reduced everything to opinion.  There is no shame left here.  It is one thing to make an arse out of oneself, it is another to have shame level because you show no respect for others.

And my question is: What is good about this?

I don't think it's anything new.

I just think said people now have a platform for it. Back when Network TV ruled all you had to have a moderate respectful viewpoint. Now it's all about hitting your core demographic. Even less if your on the internet just looking for some support.  It's all demographics.  Just like how we have more cool niche television shows, we have more well... looney political people.

I'd argue actually if you were looking for a "starting point" that it started with Republicans on a larger scale... specifically Neo-cons and a "If you don't agree with us, your with the enemy" claim. That while popular after 9/11 actually started with the cold war. (Though honestly, you'd be surprised just how common this is before then. See Federalists vs anti-federalists)

It's something that just became popular with the Left after Bush as it became something that got adopted by the "douche bag" left. Your brogressives, people who don't know anyone actually poor and Utopian if we gave it a shot it'd work instantly" types for example.


That lady actually has what I call "Super Racist Eyes". In that when I see someone with eyes like that in a video, if there is nothing suggesting what she's saying, i'm just assuming it's something hugely racist and offensive.

Back in the day, when it was understandable maybe to have something called "The Fairness Doctrine", you did end up having limited distribution channels for information.  But now, with cable and all that, and the Internet, everyone goes into their own bubble, hangs around with people with the same views, and comes out more opinionated than ever before, and ever irate that there are those who disagree with them.  These bubbles are very likely what you see where angry mobs get formed.  One would think that, with the Internet, and cable news, people would be able to get views that were tempered with a wider range of opinions, and be deeper and wiser.  But it seems like it isn't so.  Just line up with an aggregator like Drudge Report, or Drudge (left's version of Drudge Report), subscribe to this blogger and that, and end up with your own bubble of reality, you think is the truth, because you chose it.  

Cable went its own way with, after seening Fox News breaking through in partisan favored news, MS's Need Barrack Channel tried to do similar from the left.  And then Air America ended up failing to try to be like Newscorp's offerings.  I believe it is probably a matter of where people go to get info.  Conservatives don't usually break through in documentaries category like the way Michael Moore does, and seem to fail miserably to do something like the Daily Show and Colbert (Seriously, I wish there was a conservative alternative to these shows, but when you have Dennis Miller turn angry old man it doesn't offer much hope).  And liberals can't seem to get the cable broadcasting or radio right.  Go figure.

The "Super Racist Eyes" you noticed are probably part of a more general category of disrespectful hate.  Super Racists likely have that, but it isn't just limited to them, but limited to those who are just outright angry at things, irregardless if racist or not. Similar in hate, probably wiring up the body's chemical output to be a mix of narrowminded focus and rage.  Probably a mob with that would go lynch someone, if given the right symbols to be irate at, and a certain ethic/racial/political group to target.

Funny thing about Dennis Miller was that he used to be a liberal.   He's a rare example of something that's pretty common.  People becoming more conservative as they get older and expiernece life more.   In an actual viewpoint way, not a "your older so more conservative by default" way.

I think it doesn't happen much to famous people because if they talk  about their politics it becomes part of there brand.  You need to keep it up as it is.

While the thing about the Colbert report and Daily show is that they actually tend to be pretty balanced.   Until it's time for an election... then they go hyper partisian.

Pen and Teller's Bullshit sorta did some of that for a Libretarian style viewpoint.  Downside being Pen is kind of a douchebag.