It has lately become usual for right-wing columnists, bloggers, and jingo
lawmakers to call for the assassination of people abroad whom we don't like, or
people who carry out functions that we don't want to see performed. There was
nothing like this in our popular commentary before 2003; but the callousness
has grown more marked in the
past year, and especially in the
past six
months. Why? A major factor was President Obama's order of the assassination of an
American citizen living in Yemen, the terrorist suspect Anwar al-Awlaki. This
gave legal permission to a gangster shortcut Americans historically had been
taught to shun. The cult of Predator-drone warfare generally has also played a
part. But how did such remote-control killings pick up glamor and legitimacy?
Here again, the president did some of the work. On May 1, at the White House
Correspondents dinner, he made an
unexpected joke: "Jonas Brothers are here tonight. Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But boys, don't
get any ideas. Two words: predator drones. You will never see it coming." The
line caught a laugh but it should have caused an intake of breath. A joke (it
has been said) is an epigram on the death of a feeling. By turning the killings
he orders into an occasion for stand-up comedy, the new president marked the
death of a feeling that had seemed to differentiate him from George W. Bush. A
change in the mood of a people may occur like a slip of the tongue. A word
becomes a phrase, the phrase a sentence, and when enough speakers fall into the
barbarous dialect, we forget that we ever talked differently.
I mean...if this is actually about evil in this world.
America what a country!
As for the Joans brothers joke....go buy sense of humor. Its a dad joke about protecting daughters from boys.....he could have said it a few other ways, it would still be just that, a joke.
Every good dad has told a variation of the "shotgun on the porch" joke in regards to his daughter. He's just got a better punch line.
But before this becomes about Obama, I think we have to agree that too many, too often are taking their rhetoric up to a noxious level. Congressman calling the President a liar (spun for days and raised funds for the Congressman).
Permissive outrages on national radio and television (Fox and others).
Too many Americans are becoming bad versions of John Wayne, with comments that incite, like don't retreat, reload.
When we grant license for this type of behavior, to whom does it grant the license and then where does it stop?
In reading this blog, one would think that the right-wing, spurred on by our left-wing President, has lost all sense of decorum.
The reality is that one doesn't have to go far from the Huffington Post to experience "careless words and callous deeds." Just today I've been told that I "should not have all your rights as an American citizen." and that "we [the Royal we?] should be at liberty to choose the rights that you should live without."
This attack is merely the latest; there are plenty of others, and they are predominately from supporters of the progressive viewpoint. Too many of these people throw the word "bigot" out like a dagger toward those with whom they disagree. Frequently, they simply attack without bothering to present a logical counterargument. They evidently fail to understand that a bigot includes those intolerant of any opinions differing from their own or intolerant of people of politial views.
What does the term Royal we mean?
I have never heard it before now.
I know of the editorial WE and the TAPEWORM WE but not ROYAL WE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_plural
Pathetic.
We are very probably doomed, but I cannot quite wrap my head around all of it, nor can I figure out anything to do about it.