The Beginning Of Political Violence Over Reform

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

The Dog is never one to encourage anger or rage in political discourse. There are a couple reasons for this. First anger while an effective short term movitator is not the kind of argument which wins elections. When you have a candidate who is angry and is not putting forth a positive vision, that candidate loses. It is true as well when we are working on policy. Too much anger in our tone allows those we are trying to influence to discount what we are saying as unserious. Can there be any doubt why the Right in the form of Boss Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are trying to hang the “angry black man” label around the president?  

The second reason is anger, rage are not controllable. Once you start to stoke them in a political group, for some they get out of control, they grow and grow until they become the reason in and of themselves. At this point they become dangerous to the very fabric of political discourse. This is what we are seeing in the debate about Health Care Reform.

The Right has lied to their constituents. They have told them that reform will mean the government will euthanize their grandparents. They have told them they would be forced off of their current insurance. They have told them they would be inspected in their homes in terms of healthy life style and punished if they did not change. All of these are bald-faced lies, but they have pervaded them anyway. They have also encouraged their followers to act outside the boundaries of the common behavior, to act up against the Democrats who they have been told will do such horrible things to them.

It is this combination of hysterical lies and encouragement to act outside the social rules that makes this moment in our history so dangerous. By telling their adhereants this issue is so important they can break common social rules in regards to it, a very important wall is falling. This wall is the one of common decency which prevents political violence in this country.

If you think the Dog is being hyperbolic, lets look at what makes today different from yesterday. Today the first (and sure not to be the last) Democratic Representative was given a death threat over Health Care Reform. Talking Points Memo is reporting that Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) received a serious death threat by phone at his Washington office today.

“The call to the D.C. office was, ‘Miller could lose his life over this,'” said Canipe. “Our staffer took it so seriously, he confirmed what the guy was saying. He said, ‘Sir is that a threat?’ and at that time our staffer was getting the phone number off caller ID and turning it over to the Capitol Police.”

This is not going to prevent the Representative from talking to his constituents about reform, but he will not be having any public events during the recess. He will now be inviting his constituents to one-on-one conversations about reform.

This is very troubling. Sure there are those who would make threats from time to time to Representatives or Senators, but on this issue when we see on side stoking those fires of rage it becomes a danger to our very democracy. Political violence is one of the things that kill democracies. As it becomes acceptable for those who disagree to kill the ones they disagree with the very fabric of a democracy can unravel. This has been threat to our nation before, and it one the Right seems to be setting us for again. This is why it is never good to allow too much anger into our discourse. There is a point where it spills over and when it does it hard to repair the damage.

If you sow the Dragons teeth, you will reap the Whirlwind. This is a not something we should have any tolerance for. It is has never been acceptable for eliminationist on the Right to spout this kind of hate, we must be strong and resolute to call them out for it. There is no place for this kind of thing in any democracy, especially the Untied States of America.

The floor is yours