We NeedTo Take This Seriously

I read this piece this morning and my heart just sank. I have been reading for weeks (ever since it became evident that Obama would be President) that the wing nuts were coming loose, and that ragged edges of the right side of the populace was becoming a mass of tattered flaps, blowing wildly in the breeze. The first lunacy I remember was learning that itinerant white, fundamentalist preachers in the rural south (TN, KY, WVA, AL,MS) were actually telling people that the first thing Obama would do, after taking office, would be "enslave" white men and rape all of their women. At first I laughed, and then I read it multiple times,along with murmurings about loss of firearms, absurd gun control hysteria from the NRA about the right to bear arms...and worse. I had no idea that being aMuslim was the moral equivalent to having an STD, but I soon learned that, as well.

This story on TP makes me newly aware that this wild-eyed weirdness is all too real and "in our face" and screams for some form of corrective action.

I am the first one to defend free speech, the free press and open public discourse, but the rantings (and the irrational behavior they generate) and dizzyingly idiotic proclaimations of Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Coulter ( and that crazed Bachman creature from MN) cause me to stand up and loudly demand, as the say in txtng and twitter, "STFU!!!!!

The incitement to maniacal riot, civil unrest of such a destructionist nature, and the wanton taking and loss of human life, by people who have had their brains unfairly tampered with, needs to be brought under control. I cannot say that I have any immediate resolution or remedy or rectification, but perhaps calling the hate-mongers into account for the ramifications of their dangerous and pathologically corrosive speech, might well be in order.

This is the 21rst century. We have the scientific and medical resources to effect curative applications and treatments that will help prevent people from being driven to these acts of totally depraved and incoherent acts of murder and genocide. We have the ways and means to treat and care for people and not let them become so overwhelmed by their "percieved" yet non-existent villians and monsters that they are driven to run completely amok. But we need to pay attention to some of the causality, as well. Outright public lying is not a positive influence on society. (Of course, you can be the Governor of SC and refuse funds for effective public education,but that is another column).

The cadre of obscenely irritating hate-mongers of the airwaves and pulpits of America need to be put in check. It is time, perhaps, to identify a legal muzzle for this clearly detestible and insidious manipulation of people who are so easily molded and motivated to do the unthinkable. It might be arguable that there should be some form of punishment for creating such an unhealthy environment of agitation that it premeditates and promulgates horror. If hate speech prompts lunatic hate crimes and needless death, some corrective retribution may well be in order.

We let W, Cheney, Gonzalez, Ashcroft, et.al., get away with this sort of despicable rationalization for hate crimes around the world for years. They told us it was "for our own good" and that terror would overtake us if we did not act so viciously. Now the terror is all coming home "home to roost" in our own backyards, when the guy next door grabs a shotgun or an uzi and blows away portions of the nieghborhood, because some malicious blowhard on the radio tells him or her that it is "for his own good". We are supposed to be more civilized than this.

Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:16 AM
Subject: Think Progress: "Right-wing's false claims that Obama will take away guns 'has helped fuel the panic buying of firearms.'"
> Check out this post on Think Progress: > > http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/04/right-wing-guns-claim/> > "Right-wing's false claims that Obama will take away guns 'has helped fuel the panic buying of firearms.'"> >