Increase the Rhetoric

"…because I think it’s the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the tv business and what we see on tv and how our youngsters are being raised…" Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, Saturday, January 8, 2011
　
This statement, on the heels of a massacre in Tucson, Arizona Saturday morning, sparked off a wildfire that has swept across the nation. Without having blamed any person or entity in particular, Sheriff Dupnik seems to have riled the neocon talking heads on radio and television as if they were a fire ant bed and he ran over it with his lawn mower.

It seems to me that, since the sheriff didn’t point a finger at anyone, the fact that the conservative media immediately recognized themselves in his statement says something.

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, conservative pundits nationwide took umbrage, claiming that he had made a verbal attack on them. Like a child caught in a wrong, they cried out "but they do it too", almost as one. "They" being the liberals.
　
It is moot whether the vitriol comes from both sides or not. It is also moot, actually, whether or not the political vitriol spewed on a daily basis had anything to do with Jared Loughner’s madness.

What is important is that there is a very large contingent of radio and television personalities who paint "the other side" as un-American and to be reviled. Whether or not this kind of speech had anything to do with this tragic even or not doesn’t really matter. What matters is, can we accept that it might, and do as the good sheriff suggested? In other words, can we tone it down? Should we tone it down?

Apparently the answer, at least from some on the conservative side, is a resounding no.
　
　
http://biggovernment.com/jperren/2011/01/10/how-to-eliminate-inflammatory-right-wing-rhetoric-2/
　
In other words, what this guy is saying is that, until we have a one-party system like Nazi Germany did, there will be no abatement of the hateful rhetoric. As long as Democrats and progressives insist on ensuring that everyone has a slice of the American pie regardless of their ideology, skin pigment, or religion, until Republicans get everything they want, exactly as they want it, nothing is going to change.

And make no mistake, this guy isn't the only one refusing to back down the rhetoric. The radio and television pundits have actually stepped up their vitriol, almost across the board, since Saturday.

Nice.