I worry about demonizing

[cali]

Demonizing Muslims and Christians and Jews and liberals and yes, even conservatives and republicans and religious fundamentalists. I'm not saying that some of these people aren't dangerous, but the majority of them are not about to follow in Breivik's heinous footsteps.

The bottom line is that the vast majority of adherents to any religion or political philosophy are not people who are going to go out and murder other people. Most republicans don't harbor murderous intent toward liberals. Most Muslims don't harbor murderous intent toward Christians or Jews. Most Christians don't harbor murderous intent, etc.

I can't stand tea party "philosophy" or republican policy goals, but I don't want to see any of them mowed down. I don't want blood spilled for my beliefs. And I think most people are like me in that. Yes, there are the big talkers and lord knows it's easy enough to find examples of those, and some of them probably would, given the opportunity gleefully shed the blood of their "enemies". But most wouldn't unless the entire social fabric was shredded a la Bosnia or Rwanda.

[OneGrassRoot]

1. K&R n/t

[liberal N proud]

2. I think it is when you get to the fundamentalists that problems start to occur

Fundamentalists seem to loose all sense of reality, regardless of their base demographic. These are the people who have gone extreme and taken it all too seriously and have come to believe that anyone who does not believe what they do, is wrong and should be eliminated.

The rest of those demographics are normally OK.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

5. Yes. I agree. ALL fundamentalists. Not just this one and that one. ALL. nt

[Countdown_3_2_1]

3. Agree 100%

People are free to disagree.
Calls for violence do not belong on DU...yet I've seen them.

Kudos to the mods for removing such posts.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bragi]

6. K&R

[Doctor_J]

7. Then you probably need to get prepared to lose, big time

The cons and Repukes are playing for keeps. If you want to sign Kumbaya and try to achieve peace through sewing circles, then you'll probably sleep better, but you'll sleep in a fascist country. Rwanda descended into genocide because the radicals and hate mongers took over the radio (does this sound familiar?). The reason that Breivik finally blew his lid was that he felt that Norway was too liberal. According to the splc, there have been 40 acts of right-wing terrorism in the US since mid-2008, when is became clear that Obama was going to be president of the US. You can put that off as a small % of actual wing nuts, but be aware that they want to destroy us. Read some of Allen West's or Michelle Bachmann's ravings - and these are sitting Congress. And just because the majority of cons aren't psychopathic killers doesn't make them as a group any less dangerous.

Follow you heart, but try to keep one foot in reality

[JoeyT]

8. While I agree with you up to a point

there's quite a bit to be said about the people that enable people like Breivik.

The reason most don't go the way of Breivik isn't because they don't want to see death and destruction. It's because they're cowards and don't want the consequences of causing that death and destruction to fall on them. So instead they stick to safe places and natter on about how somebody ought to do something until someone does. Then they shrug and say "Meh. Lone nut. What can you do?" and go right back to encouraging it for the next time.

How dangerous the groups you listed depends largely on which group, who you are, and where you are. Anyone looking insufficiently masculine in the wrong area will find out exactly how dangerous conservatives and fundamentalists are. Sure for every one that attacks that person there are a thousand or even tens of thousands that don't physically attack him, but a very large chunk of those non-attackers will mutter about how "It's about time someone did something." or blame the victim entirely for egging the attack on by existing. (The conservative echo chamber is currently engaging in both of those over Breivik.)

The big talkers are just as guilty of murder as the big killers. It isn't demonizing to point out the obvious: Pretty much all the violent talk is coming from one side, nearly all the violent actions are coming from one side. I wouldn't encourage anyone to kill anyone, certainly not a political or religious orientation. I'd just kind of like to make them stop encouraging people to kill us, ya know?

[H2O Man]

9. At this time

in human history, we need to put the teachings of Gandhi and King into action.

[mmonk]

10. Actually, the only demonizing I see in the general public

is the demonization of liberals, GLBT, minorities, religions other than Christianity and even some denominations inside Christianity as not being the right kind of Christianity, Democrats, imaginary socialists. Europeans and Canadians and things like that. I really don't see the opposite unless you are talking about a few left/comedy shows on a few TV channels or a progressive website confronting the strident craziness of the right these days. The eliminationist speech in the US today is decidedly rightwing (and proving dangerous).

[pampango]

11. Demonizing is a tried-and-true right wing tactic that is often quite successful at election time.

Progressive antipathy towards individuals or groups is based on their words and actions, not based on how (race, gender, sexual orientation) or where they were born.

It is frustrating when demonizing/fear-mongering of certain racial, ethnic and religious groups actually works in terms of winning elections (at least on the margins to a statistically significant degree).

That raises the old question: Do we combat this by adopting similar tactics and policies (the "republican-light approach) or by presenting a stark contrast to repub' tactics and policies?

[Lyric]

12. Honestly, the ones like Breivik aren't the most dangerous ones.

What Breivik did was heinous, but rare. The occasional violent psycho isn't the biggest problem. It's the ones who sit around at home supporting violence in "God's name", cheering on religious oppression, donating money to clubs and orgs that promote that kind of political violence. Like the ones who volunteer to go preach hate against gay people in African nations, and then sit back and shake their heads in fake innocence when the people of those nations start torturing, raping, and executing gays. Or the ones who dress up in sheets and burn crosses on peoples' lawns, and then go back to working at the Citgo the next morning, where they commit passive-aggressive acts of cruelty on the black people who enter the store--like deliberately overcharging them, falsely accusing them of theft, etc.

THOSE are the ones who are the most dangerous, and those are the ones who constantly protest, saying "We're not violent! We can't help it if some crazy person heard us talking about how all leftist scumbags must die and took us seriously!". The beast itself is not the biggest problem--the person who nourishes, shelters, encourages, and enables that beast to go forth and kill in the name of politics and religion is the true monster. The monster who then slips back into obscurity and writes letters to the editor that say, "Well *I* would never have done that, but I can totally understand why he did. Those slimy liberal kids will grow up to be leftist dictators. I can see how it might be better to kill them early."

Breivik was a beast. Right-wing churches who preach hate, the KKK, anti-gay ministries, anti-choice terror groups, fascist political activist cells--those are the people who help the Breiviks and Scott Roeders and Eric Rudolphs to carry out their heinous deeds, and they are at least as much responsible. Until they step forward and own up to that, so that they can become a part of the solution and not a part of the problem, I have no qualms about "demonizing" them. They spend all day every day demonizing people like me, and helping to spawn killers like Breivik to go forth and slaughter people like me. I guess my "Give a Fuck" meter in regard to right-wing fundie Christian psychos is permanently busted.

[malaise]

13. Well they don't worry about demonizing liberals

socialists, social democrats or Marxists. That is their raison d'être.

[Ichingcarpenter]

16. This is the reason that I can't agree with the OP

It may sound good in Vermont but it doesn't play in the real world

[Douglas Carpenter]

14. I suppose I have to agree

When one knows people in real life - one cannot help but discover that as Anne Frank put it so eloquently and so simply - the vast majority of people of whatever background are basically good at heart.

Right now I'm starting a new job in an entirely different part of the world. I discovered last night that one of my coworkers who is so kindly and so humble and so compassionate is in fact a very religious Mormon. We didn't discuss politics. But I suspect he is a political conservative. Am I to refuse to believe my own experience because he may very well hold some views that I may personally find retrograde? In spite of all evidence that I can witness of his character, must I still insist that he must be a hatemonger and a bigot?

Or I think of a little 89-year-old lady I know back in Pennsylvania who voted for George W. Bush for no other reason than because she was convinced that he is a good Christian. I have known this person all my life and I know that they would do anything for anyone in need from taking in and feeding a stray animal to sacrificing for a poor neighbor. She happens to belong to a fiercely fundamentalist sect that broke away from Methodism because they thought mainstream Methodist were too liberal. Must I completely over look her obviously compassionate character and insist that she is some sort of moral monster?

In the same way that some of those of the right might find it hard to believe that a Gay person, a Communist or a Muslim might in fact be a kindly, moral and decent person because they have never known any or at least have never dealt with any with an open mind - perhaps it is just as easy for those from a more urbane and libertine background to imagine only evil intent among those who they have had little actual acquittance or at least acquaintance with an open mind.

Yes, I believe liberal social democracy is more moral than conservative ideology. But when it comes to personal character - I find it just as misguided to believe that liberal social democratic secular humanists hold a monopoly on virtue as for the Fundamentalist to believe that only the truly redeemed have righteous values.

[TheKentuckian]

15. Anne Frank lived in hiding and died because of those good at heart human beings

I don't view them as so decent and if it is me or them then I'd just assume see them dead.

[Douglas Carpenter]

17. but if the history of the last century has proven anything, it has proven that there can be a

fascism on the left - just as easy as there can be a fascism on the right. And I for one - want no part of either.