Freedom of Speech = Freedom from Responsibility?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

So, I know, I know. It's Glenn Beck. We expect the whacko from him. And, of course, he's got every right to speak his mind; I certainly don't think he should be censored.

But at what point does he become responsible for the actions of people who follow his advice?



Buy farmland. Move to places where everyone is like you. Buy guns. Buy ammunition. And then... what? It's not like enclaving really works long term. Eventually, one of two things will happen.

1) After Obama's term ends without the world doing the same, maybe some of these people will pull their heads out and say "why did we listen to that guy?"
2) Someone provokes an incident.

The message sent by the American people this election was quite clear. The President won a resounding electoral victory and beat his opponent by more votes than Bush beat Kerry. Every competitive senate race save for one was taken by the democrats, and these aren't blue-dogs we're talking about; these are real progressive liberals like Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin. And while the GOP retained the House, they did lose seats, and more people voted for Democratic Congresspeople than Republicans.

It was a fundamental rejection of GOP ideology. It was a rejection of the rape brigade, a rejection of the Ryan budget plan, a rejection of the concepts of the Makers and Takers, a rejection of the concept of the 47%, a rejection of conservative definitions of marriage, women, LGBTQ, race, immigration and drug law.

But the GOP doesn't seem to want to believe it. The constant refrain of "Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed" continues to sing in their ears, drowning out anything resembling the truth, which is that they lost and they lost big, and then they turn to people like Glenn Beck, and he tells them to buy farms, move to where everyone is like you, and get more guns.

Or this guy, who advocates cutting EVERY democrat in your life out of that life, to the point where he doesn't know if he'd rescue a democrat who was drowning, and thinks that he can get better brain surgery in Mexico than from a US brain surgeon who happened to vote differently than he did.

Or these people who think that losing an election is a national emergency so they, who so often rail about how burning the flag is treasonous, fly their flags upside down to indicate distress.



At their McDonalds.

And why do they do this?

Because they've been lied to, by the guy at the top of this post. By Rush. By Karl Rove. By http://www.unskewedpolls.com By every pundit who insisted that Nate Silver was cheating. Hell, GOP donors are angry because they were assured, ASSURED, I TELL YOU, that Romney was going to win based on bad data using bad algorithms, and a campaign that wasn't going to be dictated to by facts.

So what responsibility to these people have to tell the truth, I wonder? Of course, I think they should tell the truth. There are reasonable arguments to be made on policy. There are reasonable disagreements to have. I just wish we could see more of that, and less insistence that Obama is a kenyan radical christian muslim nazi communist.

Comments

[oslo.livejournal.com]

This is the kind of denial of reality that I'm referring to, when I say that you will likely always find the world surprising and confusing.

Not a thing in the quotation you've cited is "false." It's true that: Voters rejected the "rape brigade," by which is meant the number of outspoken Republican politicians who said baldly bone-headed things about the intersection of women, rape, and abortion. It's true that: Voters rejected Romney/Ryan's Maker/Taker metaphysics - which isn't to say that they have embraced Obama's "we're in this together" theory, but you can't claim that voters think of themselves as "makers" while voting in favor of those who prefer "takers." Similarly when it comes to the "47%." In an historic first, voters in three states approved same-sex marriage and pushed back on an anti-same-sex marriage amendment, thereby rejecting "conservative definitions of marriage." The recreational use of marijuana was legalized in two states - thereby rejecting conservative ideology on the "drug war" (which, admittedly, Obama has done almost nothing to roll back). A lesbian senator was elected by the same state where, you were claiming not so long ago, Walker's GOTV infrastructure from his anti-recall campaign bode well for Romney's chances in the state.

Is there any evidence, in this most recent election, that Americans generally prefer the conservative policies on any of the issues the OP cited?

No - all you seem to have is this graphic showing that Obama won with less of a lead in 2012 than he had in 2008 and some bizarre, unsubstantiated theory that Romney lost because his positions were not only insufficiently conservative but left of center. All of your evidence is chosen and spun to serve this narrative.

The problem is that, not more than a couple of weeks ago, you would have been telling us that the enthusiasm gap between Obama's supporters and Romney's supporters - which could explain why Obama had fewer voters in 2012 than in 2008 - was a significant element of his "uphill battle." Such an enthusiasm gap could perfectly explain the only evidence you've bothered to present, but you don't even entertain that possibility - no, the electorate's really shifting to the Right. The Republicans didn't lose the House! So it must be true.

And did you bother to look at any of the demographic breakdowns of the graphic you've cited? This "rightward shift" you want to read into reality is largely a "rightward shift" among white men. Women? Support hasn't lagged. Hispanics? More strongly in favor of Obama, including among Cubans. The youth vote? Down, but not precipitously. So even if we accept that some kind of "rightward shift" can be discerned in this election, we can also see that it's a tenuous one, the last gasp of a demographic with shrinking political power.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

What's important is that he managed to spin thing into a right-wing victory regardless of the outcome.