Those five words are showing up with increasing frequency in blogs and e-letters to editors from Chula Vista to Bangor.
Comments worthy of censorship? Unless you caught them before the offending entry was expunged you'll never know. Still, scores of problematic remarks survive the cyber-censors, and some of them are enough to sour the stomachs of those who long for civility in our discourse.
Think back over just the past few months. We've witnessed fever-pitched nastiness in our national chat on the Sotomayor supreme court nomination, a legal abortionist's murder, our (black) president's health care plan, Barney Frank's public smackdown of that Nazi-baiting town-hall interlocutor, the professor-police hullabaloo, even Senator Kennedy's death.
Instead of tough, respectful exchanges of viewpoints we get sewage-slinging epithets on topics of critical importance to the health and welfare of our people, and of our democratic institutions.
Over the years I've trafficked in controversial issues: the drug war (end it), capital punishment (abolish it), gun control (embrace it), white (and male) privilege (eradicate it), racism, sexism, homophobia (ditto, ditto, ditto). Each is a stance guaranteed to inflame the passions of people on the other side, and to trigger truckloads of hate mail -- much of it from former colleagues in law enforcement.
Poor me. Are my sensibilities so delicate I can't handle these attacks? I can handle them; in fact, I'm often, perversely, I guess, entertained by them. No, the real issue here, the one we too often ignore in our proper defense of the First Amendment, is that inflammatory words tend to, well, inflame. They can and do activate violent tendencies among some. Is there any doubt that an innocent man, "Tiller the Baby Killer," may have been killed, at least in part, because of that cruel label attached to him by certain pundits and bloggers?
How long will it be before one of those pistol-packing town-hallers, driven to the brink by publicly aired hate-talk, pulls his gun, and then its trigger?
I wonder, is it even possible to restore some sense of decency to our public speech? I'm not advocating a diet of conversational pablum, the withholding of criticism of people and policies, much less anything resembling prior restraint. That would be un-American.
But what harm would come if we were to adopt a philosophy attributed variously to Socrates, the 19th century guru Sai Baba, and others: "Before you speak, ask yourself, is it true; is it kind; is it necessary?" In other words, "Does it improve upon the silence?"
Follow Norm Stamper on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CopsSayLegalize
That says a lot, and it's 'alarming'. Actually, it's downright frightening.
We remember that you only believe in "rights" that are granted by the state. You do not believe in the natural right to self defense, and that people do not have a right to defend themselves and their families with a firearm, even in their own homes.
Fortunately, the Founders were not as fond of being royal subjects as you seem to be.
And please enlighten us as to how WE are twisting a constitution that you would just as soon use to wrap fish, let alone 'twist'.
People have been carrying gun to town hall meetings forever. They just haven't done it openly before.
Norm seems to be ignoring the fact that nobody had a gun in a town hall.
Hey Lt., I remembered that you're a liberal-leaning, pro-2nd Amendment Dem, like myself.
Isn't it funny that we still haven't heard an end to the whining of the Uber Libs about people lawfully carrying guns in the general vicinity of town halls where Obama was speaking, while they simultaneously have zero to say about Hinkley being allowed on unsupervised weekend furloughs home, after shooting a President, a Press Secretary, and a Secret Service Agent or two?
I wonder, if Obama was a conservative Republican, whether we'd be hearing anything from them at all.
I smell a double standard.
someone like OdinsEye would change their mind?
I don't either but it seems ridicule is now off limits.
We need to play the game by the same rules the cry babies use.
Half my comments get scrubbed now anyway.........
someone like OdinsEye would change their mind? "
Argumentum ad hominem.
BTW: If a person can defend their position, offer evidence which refutes mine, and can keep a civil tone, I am willing to listen and learn. At the very least we may have to agree to disagree. However, if all they can do is tell me I am wrong, call me a hater and other names, and refuse to look at my arguments/evidence with an open mind, then their chances of changing my mind are quite slim.
"Bigger the gun,
the smaller the man.
(Substitute any word you would like in the place of "man".)"
You people need to get this nonsense out of your heads. Don't you know what complete idiots youy sound like when you spout this middle school crap?
Considering this has never came even close to happening, the answer to that seems to be never.
If someone was really planning to open fire at a town hall meeting, do you really think they would be carrying their guns openly and waiving signs around?
LOL! Funny!
I have to say I lived in Seattle under your term, during the WTO fiasco, and I don't find your expertise authoritative.
Our city has a history of social activist chiefs whose sights are usually set more broadly than service to the city. But I digress...
You are right about the tone of the discussion. I think you misunderstand and vilify the gun rights folks on this one, though.
The fundamental problem is more corrosive and has to do with lack of respect for civilized values. Why do you want to disarm me? Are you so convinced of my inability to function as an adult that you must control me? Consider that many of us have life-or-death jobs, in addition to carrying the power of death in our hands every time we go driving down the street. It is probably better in this world that we learn to function as adults, rather than control each other based on fear.
The fact (sad fact, if you view it that way) is that the world cannot be made a perfectly safe place.
Norm,
Back in the early-mid 90's, people like Paul Helmke and Josh Sugarmann claimed that there would be "Blood in the Streets!(tm) and Wild West Shootouts!(tm) as a result of the aggressive passage of CCW reform. Guess what? 48 states and 15 years later... never happened.
So, to answer your question...........probably never.
Question for ya.....how successful was DC's gun BAN at keeping Hinckley from trying to assassinate Reagan?
Poor Norm. Another poor chap startled by the NRA boogeyman.
And now they're letting the little head-case out for unsupervised, weekend visits home. He's even getting, or has gotten, his driver's license back.
It should make all of the anti-2nd Amendment-ultra-libs (I'm just a generic lib) happy that poor Mr. Hinkley isn't suffering any 'draconian' punishments like life in prison, or having his driving privelages permanently revoked, for committing a violent crime.
Shooting a president is still a violent crime, isn't it?
I wonder how JIm and Sarah Brady feel about the coddling of David Hinkley.
Feel Better?
loveisallyouneed, loveisallyouneed.........................
Now I feel better. ; )