Moral Complicity
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82 CommentsSteve D of the Booman Tribune has written a spectactular piece that nicely sums up my thoughts over the last few days after the cold blooded murder of Arkansas Democratic Leader Bill Gwatney.
Yet, after losing his job (or leaving it), the first action [Timothy Dale Johnson] decided to take was to murder a prominent liberal and Democrat, much like Jim David Adkisson decided to take his rage and anger at his personal situation out on the “liberal” church in Knoxville. Both chose to use firearms to murder innocent people they did not know personally. It is logical to assume that they both chose their targets to make a statement. Indeed, we know for a fact that Adkisson, the church shooter, wrote a specific hate filled manifesto detailing his reasons for targeting the most prominent “liberal” church in Knoxville for his massacre.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that within a few weeks, another disturbed individual who had lost his job … chose to shoot someone associated with “liberals” and “Democrats.” The right wing bloggers and talk show hosts can deny their complicity in these “random” actions, and, indeed, legally they are not responsible for the criminal actions of a few “rogue” individuals. However, their writings and commentary, widely disseminated on TV, radio and the internet, has spread a culture where violence against liberals, Democrats, feminists, gays, blacks, immigrants, Muslims and any other out group is frequently expressed as “comedy” or in fantasies of wish fulfillment. They can claim all they like that they cannot be held accountable for the aura of hatred they have engendered in American society, but their protestations ring hollow to me.
