Apt quote:

[rbnyc]

I was just looking over a website I used to maintain before my son was born, Partisan Witch Hunt. My intro had a series of quotes. This is one:

Liberalism is trust of the people, tempered by prudence; conservatism, distrust of people, tempered by fear. -William Gladstone

That just seemed especially resonant right now so I thought I'd share it.

I truly think it's not relevant to the debate on 'vitriol' to define the degree to which the shooter may or may not have been directly influenced by any specific language. This violent action, among others, happened in a context of "trickle down hate" perpetuated purposely as a political strategy, emanating nearly entirely (if not entirely) from the right. It's not new, but it is worse. We should talk about it and we should change it.

Incidentally, I also found on my old website, my letter to the The American Conservative Union Foundation regarding Coulter's remarks regarding the physical intimidation of liberals:

Dear Members of the American Conservative Union Foundation:

I am highly concerned about an escalation among people to advance their political causes through violence. What has been remote for most of my lifetime--groups with particular interests expressing their positions with car-bombs and automatic weapons--is no longer just something I see on the news. I've seen terrorism out my window. It is out of this concern that I appeal to you to issue a public statement denouncing the call to violence implicit in the comments of Ann Coulter at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 2, 2002.

Ann Coulter said, "When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors."

It promotes neither unity nor security to stand behind a statement that people who share a particular ideology within our society ought to be murdered. It does not serve national unity to assert that John Walker is a liberal when he is not. It does it serve national security to assert that liberals have any particular likelihood to evolve into traitors.

The purpose of the CPAC, to "advance important everyday issues such as taxes, crime, culture and foreign policy and to provide basic conservative viewpoints and solutions" is ill-served when the overwhelming message the CPAC brings to the greater community is a call to exterminate fellow citizens. I think that the community at large wants to know that conservatives don't truly intend to work toward a future where opposing viewpoints are punishable by death.

I am concerned about the impact of Ann Coulter's statement on the people of our nation, wherever they stand on the political spectrum, as they read about the recent conference in the press. As the developer of the nations premiere conservative conference, the CPAC, it is up to you to whether you want to send a message to America that a new mission of conservatism is to promote the murder of "college liberals" by letting Ms. Coulter's statement represent the tone of the CPAC, or to send a message to America that the American Conservative Union does not advocate the physical intimidation of law-abiding citizens because of their political beliefs. As much of the public is concerned, I appeal to you to make a public statement denouncing Ms. Coulter's inflammatory remarks.

Thank You,

Rene Bouchard

Just wanted to share.

[DCKit]

1. Interesting that, even in Gladstone's day, the word "conservative" had already been corrupted. nt

[rbnyc]

2. I thought so too. (nt)

[KamaAina]

3. They never responded, did they?

:eyes:

[rbnyc]

4. Uh, no.

Even if a million people wrote, I don't know what I was expecting.