Weapons and Hate Speech at Town Halls

Talking Points Memo has several reports of weapons at town hall meetings on health care. Time's Joe Klein spoke on CNN today on a "right to sanity" as well as a right to bear arms.

At the same time, the hysterical hate speech spewing from a number of right-wing media outlets gives even some on the right cause for alarm. Take a look at a recent post from David Frum on the conservative blog New Majority.

"Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate,” said Rush Limbaugh on his Aug. 6 radio program. That same day Limbaugh itemized “similarities between the Democrat party of today and the Nazi party in Germany.” Among them: The Nazis mistrusted big business, worried about pollution, initiated make-work projects and condemned smoking. Limbaugh concluded: “It is liberalism that is the closest you can get to Nazism.” Fox News’s newest star, Glenn Beck, has insisted repeatedly that Obama wishes to lead the United States to a “fascist state.” The House of Representatives’ version of healthcare reform offered coverage for “end of life counseling.” This legislation inspired Sarah Palin to accuse Obama of planning “death panels” to extinguish the old and the disabled -an accusation seized and repeated by Sean Hannity on Fox News.

Can we get a grip here? It is possible to express opposition to a president’s policies without preposterous name-calling — without diminishing and disparaging the unique experiences of those who did actually suffer from actual persecution by actual Nazis. After all, you know who else trafficked in hysterical exaggeration? That’s right: Hitler!

This country has a long, nasty history of political violence. The nut-case fringe who perpetrate it are always with us and need no encouragement from greedy media figures exploiting popular ignorance and paranoia for personal gain. This dynamic combined with the easy availability of weapons in this country give me a very bad feeling.

--Ballard Burgher