Thursday, January 13, 2011

It's Loughner's Fault, Not Yours: Why the left is offering excuses for the guilty

I have written several posts over the last several days making the point that most of the commenters on my blog seem to have missed. My chief question was who was responsible for the shootings, and, secondarily, whether there is hypocrisy in the charges by the left about violent rhetoric from the right.

I also tried to put my answers to these questions in some kind of ideological context. The left consistently downplays individual responsibility in favor of group responsibility, concrete personal culpability in favor of abstract group culpability, and psychological explanations in favor of moral ones. These views have been on full display in the national discussion that is now going on over the shootings.

The discussion, as usual, ranged beyond the actual point I was making. There are a lot of questions you could ask about what happened: Is there more extreme rhetoric than there should be? Is one side or another more responsible for it? Is this overheated rhetoric unprecendented? Does it contribute to the common good?

My own opinion on some of these issues is the same as that of some members in good standing of the Peanut Gallery here at Vital Remants. Is there too much violent rhetoric? Probably. Is one side more responsible for it? I think Thomas and some others are probably right that there is more conservative rhetoric of this nature than liberal, partly (but not wholly) because there are more conservative commentators and partly (but not wholly) because one of them is Glenn Beck. As I have said before, that a network would give the guy any airtime at all, let alone his own show, is a continual wonder to me.

Is the rhetoric unprecedented? I don't think anyone who has any familiarity with American history could say that it is. Heck, Kentucky alone has enough political violence to fill a whole book. Does it contribute to the common good? I would say undoubtedly not.

But my point is that the left seems to have little to say about Loughner's individual concrete moral responsibility in the matter. Instead, we get lectures on the culpability of some abstract political "atmosphere" (which is blamed on the right), the role played by overenthusiastic political rhetoric of certain political interests (usually the right, but, in some cases, extrapolated out to the whole of society), and painfully amateurish pop psychological analyses of Loughner (by people who think that you can psychoanalyze someone from across the country who you've never met and really don't know much about).

Almost everything the left has to say about the shootings militates against Loughner's guilt. Almost every analysis from liberal commentators would constitute an excuse if Loughner himself said it.

The liberal rhetoric does everything except talk about the fact that it was Loughner's fault.

31 comments:

Singring said...

For a change we get a rather well-balanced, considerate and well-argued post. Nice reading.

I'm glad to find the concession that by and large the right is more involved in violent rhetoric than the left is. I also agree that hostorically, there have been times of much greater verbal crossfire, but I think that is true of most Western countries.

Now on to your main point as to the culpability: Is Loughner guilty? Absolutely. Should he be charged and brought to justice, preferrably never to see the light of day again? Absolutely. Is that where the discussion should end? NO.

'Almost everything the left has to say about the shootings militates against Loughner's guilt.'

A profound mischaracterization of what 'the left' has to say, Martin. By American standards, I'd probably be classified a Communist, so let me explain:

The left don't deny a moral culpability. We are not 'militating' against Loughner guil. We just would like to discuss how we, as a society, can make sure that there is less crime, less violence and what we can learn from tragedies as the one in Tucson. From reading your posts I get the awful impression that it was Loughner's 'individual sin', that's that now let's lock him away and forget about the whole afair. I sincerely hope I am mistaken, but this seems to be the sum of your ideas in this regard. (The ultimate irony, of course, is that on the one hand, you insist that 'everything has a cause' is the most fundamental principle of the universe, but then when a liberal says 'hmmm...I wonder what caused Laughner to be able to do this.' you throw up your ands and say 'Beats me! But let's not think about that!'.)

Singring said...

As a liberal, I would like to think a bit more to the factors that may have contribruted to what Loughner did and how he did it, so we can make sure these things don't contribute to these things in the future. Now immediately a few things leap to mind that we should be discussing:

1.) Is it a good idea to allow people to buy automatic and semi-automatic guns if they simply pass a background check? Is it a good idea to allow people to walk into Wal-Mart and buy bullets at 22 cents a piece to fill 33 ammo clips with them? Is it a good idea to let people walk around with concealed weapons (as the case in Arizona)?

2.) Should parents and teachers and other social partners be made more involved in detecting mental issues in youths and what can the government do to help them?

3.) Is it a good idea to have major, legitimized political candidates go out and use the language they have been using in recent years? Is it a good idea that you have a 'News' channel on which on an almost daily basis commentators are telling the vierwers that their country is being destroyed by a quasi-communist, quasi-fascist (Beck and co. don't seem to be able to decide) cabal of scheming elitists simply because some people are in favour of universal healthcare and letting gays serve openly in the military which is already the case in most other Western countries, most of them far outranking the US in most indices of health, safety, education and economic parity.

If these are not important issues that should be discussed all the time (no matter what your position), but especially when a tragedy like this occurs, then we simply have fundamental difference in what kind of society we would like to live in, I guess.

KyCobb said...

Whether it was Lougher's "fault" or not will be determined in a court of law. If he is mentally ill, he didn't ask to be born that way. He will almost certainly be found guilty regardless, since the standards for an insanity defense have become so stringent as to make it almost impossible to meet.

What I find surprising is Martin's apparent dismissal of the power of ideas. The political rhetoric we have been hearing from the right for the last couple of years has been perhaps the most hate-filled, volatile discourse the nation has been exposed to in 150 years. Would you say that each soldier in the Civil War was primarily culpable for each person he killed in combat, or is it possible that the fire-breathers of the South and radical abolitionists of the North really ought to be accorded a significantly higher share of the responsibility for the blood shed in that conflict? While the personnel of death camps are certainly culpable for their crimes, without "Mein Kampf" there would have been no death camps, and without the Communist Manifesto there would have been no gulags in the Soviet Union.

We have been hearing for the last two years from the Right that the President is an America hating, foreign-born muslim Marxist/Fascist who is deliberately trying to destroy the US in order to impose a one-world government dictatorship based on sharia law, that the purpose of the 2d Amendment is to foment armed revolution against the government, and that the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots. Loughner reportedly compared abortion to terrorism, had a paranoid hatred of government, was anti-immigrant and supported the gold standard, which are all Tea Party talking points.

Whether Loughner was inspired by the violent rhetoric of the Right or not, others definitely have been inspired to acts or direct threats of violence, and it would be a welcome development if the Right dialed it down a bit, maybe acknowledged that the President and the Democratic Party aren't Marxists plotting the downfall of America. Of course I'm not expecting that to happen, since there are some seriously deranged people out there, and politicians willing to flirt with dangerous ideas in order to exploit them.

KyCobb said...

Loughner's guilt will be determined in a court of law, and he will almost certainly be found guilty-saying "Sarah Palin made me do it" won't get him anywhere, and his reported written statements virtually rule out an insanity defense.

But Martin, you should know that ideas are powerful things. The nation heard hateful, volatile rhetoric in 1860, and I would dare to suggest that the fire-breathers of the South and radical abolitionists of the North bear more responsibility for the casualties inflicted in the Civil War than the individual soldiers who fired the weapons.

For the last couple of years, we have been hearing from the Right that the President is an America hating, foreign bred, muslim Marxist/Fascist bent on destroying America in order to impose a one world government dictatorship based on sharia law, that the purpose of the 2d Amendment is to make violent revolution against the government possible, and that the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Whether Loughner, who held typical Tea Party views about abortion, government, immigration and the gold standard, was inspired by that rhetoric or not, others have been so inspired to threaten or perpetrate violence. So it would be nice if the rhetoric got dialed down a bit, not that I'm expecting that to happen.

KyCobb said...

Sorry for the double post, I thought the 1st one didn't go through.

One Brow said...

Martin,

Hopefully, this post will show up in your 2012 round-up.

When I write about topics, I don't expect people to radically change their opinions. I do hope that it will at least make them consider things.

When people talk about using armed resistance, do they really tell themselves that they are doing this, but don't want anyone to consider armed resistance? Is it only calls to violence that have no effect?

Lee said...

> Is one side more responsible for it? I think Thomas and some others are probably right that there is more conservative rhetoric of this nature than liberal...

I haven't seen any evidence that it's more of a phenomenon of the Right than the Left. Here's one statement I would agree with: such rhetoric gets noticed more and is more rigorously condemned by the liberal media when it comes from the Right.

Take the case of Susan Roesgen, formerly of CNN. When confronted with one man with a demonic effigy of Obama, she confronted him, and said she it was so offensive, she had never seen a president so caricatured. It took about five minutes for a conservative to post on YouTube the same Ms. Roesgen at an anti-Bush rally a couple of years earlier, where there was, what do you know, an image of Bush with demonic horns. If she was offended, it didn't show.

There are two possibilities, and I prefer the charitable one, that she simply didn't notice how offensive it was (at the Bush rally) since liberals were the ones doing it. That's a problem of perception, not good will. But there seems to be a lot of that going on.

Lee said...

As for other examples of the Left using the same kind of inflammatory rhetoric that angers them so much when the Right does it, here we go...

in another thread, I already mentioned Paul Krugman's calling for hanging Joe Lieberman in effigy.

Obama to Latinos: "Punish" your "enemies" in the voting booth.

Chris Matthews: "Someone's Going To Jam a CO2 Pellet Into Rush's Head And He's Going To Explode"

Mike Malloy: calls for the deaths of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly. This one's priceless...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmXQpdB4xpk

Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy: "I know because I want to spit on [Tea Partiers], take one of their 'Obama Plan White Slavery' signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads."

NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi: Charles Schumer would "put a bullet between the president's [Bush] eyes if he could get away with it."

Mike Malloy again: "Aw, Drudge, somebody ought to wrap a strong Republican entrail around his neck and hoist him up about six feet in the air and watch him bounce."

Avatar director James Cameron wants to 'shoot it out' with 'asshole' Glenn Beck and climate-denier 'boneheads

Ed Schultz: "You're damn right Dick Cheney's heart's a political football. We ought to rip it out and kick it around and stuff it back in him."

CNN political analyst Roland S. Martin's advice to Obama: "Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let 'em know that if they aren't with you, they are against you, and will pay the price."

Rep. Delahunt (D-MA) expressed gladness that David Addington is now a publicly televised target of Al-Aqaeda.

John Kerry on President Bush: I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone.

Nobel Peace laureate Betty Williams: "Right now, I would love to kill George Bush."

CBS and the producers of "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn" apologized Wednesday for putting the words "Snipers Wanted" under footage of George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention during a mock newscast portion of the program.

Lee said...

Wow. Got awful quiet in here all of a suddent.

Singring said...

'Wow. Got awful quiet in here all of a suddent.'

a) this post is about the culpability of Loughner and the position of the 'left' on the matter. If you want to post lists of perfectly reasonable things Obama said (he said voting, not shooting, fella) or what John Kerry may have said in private at some stage or another, go to the post Martin wrote about that. This is a different argument.

b) You must know that for every quote you put up there I could put up ten of Beck's alone.

c) I have no interest in someone who uses direct Fox News talking points ('liberal media'). From a European perspective, it is beyond silly to call newspapers that advocated for the Iraq war 'liberal'. It is just another symptom of the bad shape US politics are in that most Americans apparently think that advocating for a single-payer healthcare system is 'Marxist'. Just for comparison: Just these past days in Germany the party leader of the party 'THE LEFT' which is sitting in parliament and is part of several federal governments stated that she wants Germany to find 'ways back into communism'. She has been criticized but has not resigned. That is what the far left is like, Lee. The moderate right in Germany, which is in government, would never dream of abolishing the German public health care system. The 'moderate right' in the US thinks public healthcare is a thing of 'death panels', evil government intrusion and 'socialism', whereas the nominal 'left' in the US doesn't even dare suggest a public healthcare system even when they have 60 % of the senate.

Meanwhile, the most socialist countries in Europe (which is apparently nothing short of communist by American standards) are trouncing the US in every standard of living statistic you could to mention. Weird, that is.

This is how far to the right your country has drifted: you actually believe Chris Matthews is on the 'left'. Hilarious.

The only two senators I can think of that would adequately represent 'the moderate left' by European standards are Bernie Saunders (I) and Al Franken (D). There is no 'left' left in America, Lee. That's why the country is circling the drain, unfortunately.

One Brow said...

Lee,

I've never heard of Mike Malloy, but I agree his comments seem over the line. Is he even national?

Your post says CBS has apologized. Any right-wing apologies.

None of the rest come close to the calls to action that Tea partiers have engaged in.

If you were looking to show the the rhetoric calling for violence is somehow balanced, you did not succeed.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

Sorry, the magic balance fairy's wand is broken; for example calling on people to punish enemies at the ballot box, is a clear call to vote. That's very different from calling on citizen's to exercise their "2d Amendment remedies" or calls to refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.

Lee said...

> Your post says CBS has apologized. Any right-wing apologies.

The article said CBS apologized. Good for them. It didn't say whether Craig Kilborn did.

> None of the rest come close to the calls to action that Tea partiers have engaged in.

Now you've got me curious. What is so far beyond, say, suggesting that someone's heart gets ripped out of their chest and kicked around that it even doesn't come close?

> If you were looking to show the the rhetoric calling for violence is somehow balanced, you did not succeed.

So. Suggesting that someone you don't like be hung by the neck, using the entrails from someone else you don't like, doesn't quite make the One Brow Top 40?

Expressing the desire to knock all of someone's teeth out of his head just doesn't come close?

Then I guess the more mundane, boring wishing-to-kill-someone messages certainly don't qualify.

What we need here, obviously, is a spec. As I told Thomas in another post, we don't have any sort of an agreement as the difference between acceptable and unacceptable rhetoric.

The spec that you might suggest, based on your response here, is it's very, very difficult for a liberal to say anything that is half as bad as, say, a conservative rolling his eyes.

My own humble suggestion would be, same rules apply to both sides. And the media would not tendentiously report only on the sins of the Right. But that's asking for way too much.

Lee said...

> Sorry, the magic balance fairy's wand is broken; for example calling on people to punish enemies at the ballot box, is a clear call to vote.

What a lack of imagination. All you need to do here is put the shoe on the other foot: what if Rush Limbaugh had told his troops, go out, vote, to be sure to
"punish your enemies"? What do you think the New York Times would have written about that?

Lee said...

> If you want to post lists of perfectly reasonable things Obama said (he said voting, not shooting, fella) or what John Kerry may have said in private at some stage or another, go to the post Martin wrote about that. This is a different argument.

Singring, at what point did you become the Vital Remant's Relevance Police? It seems weird that you, of all people, would have trouble appreciating a nice rabbit trail.

But back to reality: I responded directly to something Martin said in this here post (to use a Southernism), namely,

> "I think Thomas and some others are probably right that there is more conservative rhetoric of this nature than liberal..."

To me, that was an invitation to present countervailing evidence. Martin can certainly tell me if I'm wrong about that.

As did this statement by you:

> I'm glad to find the concession that by and large the right is more involved in violent rhetoric than the left is.

If Martin's post is really about something *other* than Right's relatively (to the Left's) violent rhetoric, then why did you bring it up yourself? In this thread?

And why is it okay for you to agree with what Martin said, but not okay for me to disagree?

Your style of argument, here, reminds me (again) of the famous Ring Lardner rebuttal:

> "Shut up," he explained.

Lee said...

> You must know that for every quote you put up there I could put up ten of Beck's alone.

Again, there is that absence of specification. Does one bad comment count as an incident? If the same person makes ten bad comments, is that one incident or ten? If someone you've never heard of makes a bad comment, does that count at all?

And how violent does the rhetoric need to be to deserve condemnation? Coming up with a spec could be difficult. We seem to have different criteria for what's beyond the pale. One Brow suggested that comments about ripping someone's heart out or hanging someone by someone else's guts "don't come close" to warranting the same censure as what conservatives have earned, and KyCobb is particularly incensed that a conservative would refer to "2nd amendment remedies."

So, as a conservative, should I advise other conservatives that, when feel the urge to brandish the 2nd amendment, that they compose themselves, take a deep breath, and substitute something less inflammatory, e.g., maybe say instead that they would like to rip out Joe Biden's heart and kick it around?

It's all very confusing.

Lee said...

> By American standards, I'd probably be classified a Communist...

> This is how far to the right your country has drifted: you actually believe Chris Matthews is on the 'left'. Hilarious.

I think the first remark probably explains why the second remark carries so little truth. Matthews' liberal credentials and pedigree are not in question by those who are not classified as communists. He's bizarre at times, no doubt.

One Brow said...

The article said CBS apologized. Good for them. It didn't say whether Craig Kilborn did.

So, no apologies from the right wing.

Now you've got me curious. What is so far beyond, say, suggesting that someone's heart gets ripped out of their chest and kicked around that it even doesn't come close?

I already agreed Mike Malloy (who I never heard of before this thread) crossed the line, hence "None of the rest" as opposed to "None".

Expressing the desire to knock all of someone's teeth out of his head just doesn't come close?

It doens't come close to actually asking people to be ready to knock the teeth out of his head if the election is lost. If the difference between expressing a feeling and calling on people to perform an action is lost on you, more the worse for you.

As I told Thomas in another post, we don't have any sort of an agreement as the difference between acceptable and unacceptable rhetoric.

Before this comment, I've already mentioned the difference between an opinion and a call to action.

Lee said...

One Brow, your statements typify what conservatives are up against: arbitrary criteria, which have a strong tendency to resolve to the benefit of the left.

In a thread discussing violent rhetoric, you draw a convenient distinction between someone just running his mouth, and a call for action.

Why not just be forthright about and say, if the left does it it's okay, and if the right does it, it's bad?

Lee said...
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Lee said...

Some more gems. If the New York Times ever condemned them and I somehow missed it, be sure to post the link.

New Jersey Education Association memo, April 2010: "Dear Lord, this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays... I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor."

Sign at the March 2004 "Global Day of Action" anti-war rally: "I (heart) NY -- even more without the World Trade Center"

Huffington Post writer Tony Hendra: "O Lord, give Dick Cheney’s Heart, Our Sacred Secret Weapon, the strength to try one more time! For greater love hath no heart than that it lay down its life to rid the planet of its Number One Human Tumor." Nice.

FaceBook Group: "I Hate It When I Wake Up and Sarah Palin is Still Alive!". Nice cartoon of Palin holding a pistol to her temple.

Former Congressman Paul Kanjorski, Pennsylvania Democrat -- "That [Rick] Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida, instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him [sic] and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him."

USA Today Columnist Julia Malveaux on Clarence Thomas: "I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease....He is an absolutely reprehensible person.”

President Barack Obama: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."

Singring said...

'FaceBook Group: "I Hate It When I Wake Up and Sarah Palin is Still Alive!". Nice cartoon of Palin holding a pistol to her temple.'

Lee, this is getting ridiculous beyond all comparison.

We are not talking about what some individuals may think. OF COURSE there are loons on the right and the left.

We are talking about pundits, but more importantly politicians. Politicians running for public office that asked their constituents to take to the gun and overthrow the government if they lost the election.

You can go on and dig up yahoo groups and personal eMails of Joe Blow as long as you like, it just makes look more and more like someone who is cravenly trying to cover up the fact that he simply does not want to admit that the right has been fomenting hatred and fear far more than anyone on the left.

When is the last time a Chris Matthews follower shot someone? When is the last time an opponent of Prop 8 shot someone?

Now let's think back on the murder of Dr. Tiller, the arrest of militia men who wanted to assassinate Obama, the firebombing of Nancy Pelosi's office, the shooting in Tucson, the shootings by Minutemen, the foot stomping aid of Rand Paul - the list is endless!

And its all acts of violence from the right! Switch on Fox News any day of the week and you'll get an idea why. Or take a look at the latest cover of Townhall magazine, official magazine of the Tea Prty movement: http://magazine.townhall.com/Featured

Lee said...

> We are talking about pundits, but more importantly politicians.

So you must have missed all the other examples, just to see the FaceBook one?

Tea Party folks get talked about a lot. They are not pundits and they are not politicians. Somebody tell the New York Times about this newly discovered criteria for objectionable behavior.

> the firebombing of Nancy Pelosi's office...

Can you post a link? Google returned Carnahan's office being firebombed, but that was by a disgruntled staffer, not a right-winger.

> the shooting in Tucson

The evidence does not suggest Loughner was a right-winger. Even the New York Times gave up on that meme.

Lee said...

Cheers to Charles Blow for the following column, "The Tucson Witch Hunt".

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/opinion/15blow.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Mr. Blow is a liberal, and writing this had to hurt. But now I know there is at least one honest liberal at NYT who performs well when their preferred narrative has been backed into a corner.

Money grafs:

"Great. So the left overreacts and overreaches and it only accomplishes two things: fostering sympathy for its opponents and nurturing a false equivalence within the body politic. Well done, Democrats.

"Now we’ve settled into the by-any-means-necessary argument: anything that gets us to focus on the rhetoric and tamp it down is a good thing. But a wrong in the service of righteousness is no less wrong, no less corrosive, no less a menace to the very righteousness it’s meant to support.

"You can’t claim the higher ground in a pit of quicksand.

"Concocting connections to advance an argument actually weakens it. The argument for tonal moderation has been done a tremendous disservice by those who sought to score political points in the absence of proof."

Mr. Blow gets it. Concocting a false narrative may not be violent rhetoric, but it's every bit as offensive and poisonous to the goal of moderation in political rhetoric.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

" what if Rush Limbaugh had told his troops, go out, vote, to be sure to
"punish your enemies"? What do you think the New York Times would have written about that?"

I don't think the New York Times spends a lot of column inches analyzing Rush's three hours of daily comments, so I doubt they would write anything about that.

One Brow said...

Lee said...
In a thread discussing violent rhetoric, you draw a convenient distinction between someone just running his mouth, and a call for action.

While I don't think there is a legal issue here, my understanding is that in other circumstances, there is a legal difference between saying "I think he should be shot" and "I want you to shoot him". I'm saddened that you don't see it.

Why not just be forthright about and say, if the left does it it's okay, and if the right does it, it's bad?

So, even though I agree with your criticism of the quotes of Malloy, and even though I said Palin's stuff was not over the line, you think the only explanation is a left/right thing?

I think that ends the conversation.

Lee said...

> I don't think the New York Times spends a lot of column inches analyzing Rush's three hours of daily comments, so I doubt they would write anything about that.

Well, somebody please inform the NYT. When Rush said, "I hope Obama fails," they had plenty to say...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/books/excerpt-rush-limbaugh.html

Lee said...

> While I don't think there is a legal issue here, my understanding is that in other circumstances, there is a legal difference between saying "I think he should be shot" and "I want you to shoot him". I'm saddened that you don't see it.

In the original thread, we were discussing violent rhetoric. This distinction didn't appear until after I had made my case that the left indulges in *plenty* of that. In other words, I made my case, and you searched for, and found some sort of a distinction between the *type* of violent rhetoric, as if the Left's use of it was no big deal, nothing to worry about, let's break it up folks, nothing to see here.

I think *all* violent rhetoric is some sort of a call to arms. In fact, I think that's the very point liberals were trying to make from the start, that violent rhetoric (from the right) has serious consequences. So, yes, I think you're splitting hairs. Why? So you can go easier on the Left?

If you're hanging GW Bush in effigy, if you're expressing your wish to kill him, if you're fantasizing about ripping Dick Cheney's heart out, if you're explaining that you'd like to knock all the teeth out of someone's head whom you don't even know, just because he hangs out with a group that wants to balance the budget -- I have a hard time granting that sort of talk much benefit of the doubt, regardless of which side it comes from. "Oh that's fine, just as long as you don't call someone else to do it!" I think the call is already implicit.

One Brow said...

I think *all* violent rhetoric is some sort of a call to arms.

Seriously?

So you can go easier on the Left?

Is there a reason that supposedly splitting the hair between violent imagery and actual calls to commit violence would favor the Left?

Lee said...
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Lee said...

I'll answer your question with another question. Actually two.

Do you think expressing the sentiment that you'd like to rip someone's heart out for disagreeing with your politics is good or bad?

If bad, why?