Blog For Arizona

Spinsanity - The Republican assault on "political hate speech"

Spinsanity - The Republican assault on "political hate speech"

A useful chronicle of the GOP "political hate speech" tactic. It continues to amaze me how completely some liberal and centrist commentators have swallowed the hook, warning that the negative tone of Democrats could turn off voters. The GOP's spin is hitting the soft spot of the left; their desire to be fair and civil.

It is absurdly easy to disarm the GOP of their new weapon; strip out the hate. Should a GOPer claim that your criticism of the President, or any other corrupt, fascist idiot is political hate speech, you just turn about and say, "No, that is known as political speech, and it is protected by the Constitution which you and your President are wiping your arses on."

Hate speech does not target a person for their political views, no matter how noxious, it targets a person for their more-or-less immutable characteristics, such as sex, sexual orientation, race, national origin, religion, or lack thereof. Hate speech is something in which conservatives and the GOP have a long and glorious history.

And they don't confine themselves to nasty words. When was the last time a conservative political figure was assassinated? JFK, RFK, MLK, PDW? Hate is not the purview of the Democratic party; anger is.

Anger is a much finer thing than hate. Anger has reasons, gives purpose, and is born of a sense of justice and compassion. Hate is reasonless, motivates only destruction, and is born of a sense of entitlement and lack of self-respect. Perhaps it is inevitable that the Democrats become the party of anger, now the GOP has become the party of hate.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 11/17/2003 06:50:00 PM