Stuck On Offensive
By Mitch Berg
To: Betty McCollum
From: Mitch Berg, your unwilling constituent
Re: You are a tool in the literal sense of the term.
Rep. McCollum:
When Members of Congress compare health care protesters and spending dissidents to ‘mass-murderers,’ ‘militias,’ or ‘extremists’ – in the hopes of scoring political points is like pouring gas on the fire of repression.
The Members of the House, Democrats and Republicans – have a duty and an obligation to end the dangerous name-calling that can only inspire the extremist media and your not-very-bright supporters who keep crashing planes into buildings, shooting professors, and beating people up in the streets.
Put another way, Rep. McCollum – I’m not saying you’re a totalitarian. I’m just saying that real totalitarians need lots of people like you running society to make their job easier.
That is all.
Well, no, it’s not. You also said:
“Only last month a Fox News commentator, with Members of Congress next to him, rallied a Tea Party crowd by disparaging Congress and calling the crowd ‘all these Tim McVeigh wannabes here’ to the crowds cheers and applause.
Rep. McCollum: certainly you – a member of a party who’s leading intellectual light is Jon Stewart – can’t tell me you don’t “get” satire and sarcasm?
“When Members of Congress compare health care legislation to ‘government tyranny,’ ‘socialism,’ or ‘totalitarianism’ – in the hopes of scoring political points is like pouring gas on the fire of extremism.
“The Members of this House Democrats and Republicans – have a duty and an obligation to end the dangerous name-calling that can only inspire the extremist militias and phony patriots.
“In the most free, prosperous and greatest democracy on earth it is time to return to a civil, decent debate of public policy.
“I don’t want another ‘Oklahoma City’ to ever take place again.
Dear Representative Idiot. You are comparing protesters to mass-murderers. When it comes to civil debate, you are the problem.
Civil debate will return to Washington when you are chased from office.
And lest you and your idiot enablers in the local leftymedia are still trolling looking for more “extremists”, I mean “chased from office this November”.
April 20th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Mitch:
“You are comparing protesters to mass-murderers”
It was Hannity who made the comparison and the crowd appears to approve the comparison.
April 20th, 2010 at 8:55 am
RickDFL, like Rep. McCollum, doesn’t “get” satire and sarcasm.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:17 am
Inanimate objects: pieces of driftwood, concrete fragments, DFL politicians, etc don’t ever get satire and sarcasm.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:25 am
Loren:
What is funny about Hannity’s comment? The fact that people think it is funny is more disturbing than the comment itself.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:34 am
It was Hannity who made the comparison
Either McCollum said “When Members of Congress compare health care legislation to ‘government tyranny,’ ‘socialism,’ or ‘totalitarianism’ – in the hopes of scoring political points is like pouring gas on the fire of extremism” (and the rest of that whole delusional screed), or Hannity has taken up cross-dressing.
Sorry, Rick. There’s obtuse, and then there’s just plain deranged.
I may change your screen name to “Baghdad Rick” at this rate.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:37 am
The fact that people think it is funny is more disturbing than the comment itself.
Um, no. Democrats are incredibly brittle about humor directed at them and theirs – but that’s just irritating.
Bettymac’s comment itself was incredibly disturbing.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:40 am
Seroiusly, RickDisingenuousFL – Democrats spent eight years whining that Republicans called them “unpatriotic” (even though it never actually happened, and every example that any Democrat has produced to show it has either been from a Y-list blogger or further proof that you people are brittle about criticism, humorous or not); now that you are (temporarily) in power, suddenly dissent is a sign that you’re about to blow up a building.
You people are insane. Delusional. By all means, keep it up.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Mitch:
Seriously, I can not seem to recall anytime during the glorious Bush Admin when Democrats were sarcastically comparing to themselves as Al-queada or other terrorist group. Maybe there was a Howard Dean rally where he said “I am so happy to be surrounded by all these Osama wannabees”, but I missed it. I am sure you and Hannity thought it was a laugh riot.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:19 am
simple answer Rick, we weren’t calling you terrorists, you happen to be calling us that and were twisting it back on you. Kind of like that “I’m proud to be a teabagger” video. You clearly have no sense of humor.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Seriously, I can not seem to recall anytime during the glorious Bush Admin when Democrats were sarcastically comparing to themselves as Al-queada or other terrorist group.
Right. Dems had no need to sarcastically disarm idiotic comparisons between them and terrorists, because THEY WERE NEVER MADE. Of course, that was back in the days when government wasn’t afraid of the peasants.
Maybe there was a Howard Dean rally where he said “I am so happy to be surrounded by all these Osama wannabees”, but I missed it.
Well, the motivations are different; Bush never put mainstream liberals on a watch list, and never came out and said that dissent led to violence against his government.
That’d be your people.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:46 am
You clearly have no sense of humor
Or a brain capable of independent thinking
April 20th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Speaking of perceived vs real threats:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-ginny-brown-waite-threat-20100419,0,895688.story
April 20th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Heard “Fat” Eddy Shultz tell a listener yesterday (after a minute long, spittle flecked, top of the lungs tirade) “…and if you don’t like it, you can get your guns!”
Waiting for the leftist outrage, fainting and demand for civility…waiting….waiting.
*Crickets”
Pffft. Go strap your moonbat BS on someone else, DFLtool.
April 20th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Or a brain capable of independent thinking
JPA, I think they’re capable of indepdent thought; they just process these things differently than we do.
Liberals have a hive-ish view of politics. Just as they need their government to operate from the top down, with “elites” running the show for all the peasants, they need the rest of their political expression designed for them from above, too. Their protests (organized and vetted by national groups), their information (from the mainstream media, or the “alternative” media which is just as centralized as the mainstreams are), and even their “humor” (any sarcasm that doesnt’ come from Stewart, Colbert or Maher confuses and frightens them).
Conservatives are genuinely decentralized; part of it is temperament; part of it is that trying to lead conservatives from the top is like trying to herd cats. It’s a handicap in a bureaucratic sense – it’s why Democrats dominate bureaucracies while conservatives make better entrepreneurs; it’s why libs play the academic paper chase while conservatives generally do their best work in the private sector.
Which, in turn, explains why a do-nothing empty suit like Obama gets mad props for going to an Ivy League school, while someone like a Sarah Palin, who actually accomplishes something based on her own gumption rather than party and alumni connections (but is conservative) is held in such disdain.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
It could be worse than Ricky. It could be Joe Klein calling dissent “sedition”.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/19/joe-klein-glenn-beck-and-sarah-palin-are-guilty-of-borderline-sedition/
April 20th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Mitch:
No one ever compared Democrats to terrorists?
So Rush never said ” I’ve made this point countless times on my program with great effectiveness, my friends, because that’s what I do. That’s why I’m effective. This new video by Zarqawi is an excellent opportunity to remind all of you that it sounds just like the DNC is writing his scripts now.”
April 20th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Rick,
Get a grip.
April 20th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Mitch:
“Bush never put mainstream liberals on a watch list” Has Obama put mainstream conservatives on a watch list?
April 20th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Well Janet Napolitano is keeping better track of conservatives than she is murderous drug lords on the Southern border. Priorities and all that.
April 20th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Well Janet Napolitano is keeping better track of conservatives than she is murderous drug lords on the Southern border. Priorities and all that.
April 20th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Has Obama put mainstream conservatives on a watch list?
Obtuse much? But yeah, the Administration did exactly that. .
April 20th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Mitch:
Read the DHS report. Aside from looking fairly accurate, it contains no list, watch or otherwise, and does not even name any specific person or group. In fact, the first sentence reads, “The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence” which would mean if there was a watch list it would be empty.
More importantly, the report is about “extremists”, which by deffintion are not “mainstream conservatives”.
April 20th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
By the way, don’t conservatives believe that one reason for the 2nd Amendment is so that citizens can violently respond to a goverment that becomes a dictatorship or a tyranny?
With so many conservatives also accusing Democrats of setting up a dictatorship or a tyranny, shouldn’t we expect some conservatives to act? Certainly some conservatives have started making such threats in public. Sure most won’t take the doomsday language too seriously or literally, but some might.
April 20th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
By the way, don’t conservatives believe that one reason for the 2nd Amendment is so that citizens can violently respond to a goverment that becomes a dictatorship or a tyranny?
No. Citizens who’ve studied the Constitution know that deterring tyranny is one of the reasons it was written.
With so many conservatives also accusing Democrats of setting up a dictatorship or a tyranny, shouldn’t we expect some conservatives to act?
Clearly, some of you do. It’s called “delusion” – or “changing the subject”
Certainly some conservatives have started making such threats in public. Sure most won’t take the doomsday language too seriously or literally, but some might.
“Some might?”
Wow. Great basis for action, there!
But as we’ve seen this past few months, when it comes to actual violence, “some” conservatives “might” act out violently – but some liberals actually do.
April 20th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
More importantly, the report is about “extremists”, which by deffintion are not “mainstream conservatives”.
Nope, Rick, wrong again.
Napolitano said that Second Amendment activists, pro-lifers, tenthers, limited governmetn activists and veterans among other conservative groups were “susceptible” to becoming extremists.
Your disingenuity and selective context know no bounds, do they?
April 20th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Mitch:
“It’s called “delusion”” Because it is not trure that you would violently resist ta ‘totalitarian’ govenment or because your the claim that Obama is ‘totalitarian’ is not true? Both can’t be true at the same time, without the conclusion that there is a threat of violence on the right.
“Great basis for action”. Did McCollum recomend any action? All she said is that GOP politicians should not use langauge that has a real chance of inspiring some of their listeners to violence or at least they should make clear that if they think the health care bill is ‘totalitarian’, it is not ‘totalitarian’ enough for violent resistance.
For the record “susceptible” does not appear in the report. It does say that “high unemployment, however, has the potential to lead to alienation, thus increasing an individual’s susceptibility to extremist ideas.” It certainly does not say that people on the right are more likely to be violent than anyone else.
April 20th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Because it is not trure that you would violently resist ta ‘totalitarian’ govenment or because your the claim that Obama is ‘totalitarian’ is not true?
Where have I claimed that Obama is totalitarian?
Sorry, Rick – it’s hard to play logical “gotcha” games when one is fundamentally illogical.
Did McCollum recomend any action?
It wasn’t her action that I was talking about.
And impugning all dissent as being a step away from blowing up buildings full of innocent people is action enough; you’d be whining like a stuck cat if any conservative had done it to the left.
All she said is that GOP politicians should not use langauge that has a real chance of inspiring some of their listeners to violence
Which is stupid, untrue and defamatory. There is NO ‘real chance’ of such a thing, beyond the level of the random “Jodie Foster digs me!” kind of thing you inevitably get in a huge country.
or at least they should make clear that if they think the health care bill is ‘totalitarian’, it is not ‘totalitarian’ enough for violent resistance.
Take it, and your hatred of the First Amendment, up with those who use the line.
April 20th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Rick, let me spell it out in very, very simple terms. Conservatives oppose Obama and Democrat policies. We are going to work our asses off to take away Obama’s power base in November, and then replace him in 2012. We will do so via the political process, because that’s the way we roll.
No amount of hypertensive projection on the part of people who think like you will change this. Is that clear?
April 20th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Mitch:
McCollum’s speech was not about you it was about Members of Congress calling the bill ‘totalitarian’, like say Orin Hatch
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35002.html
“There is NO ‘real chance’ of such a thing, beyond the level of the random “Jodie Foster digs me!” kind of thing you inevitably get in a huge country.”
Why not? Conservatives do strongly believe in the use of violence to resist government tyranny and Conservatives say the current government is or is about to become a tryanny. Maybe conservatives are not in earnest about both claims, but it is not surprising that some people take them at their word.
People like Richard Poplawski who though Obama was going to take away his gun rights and who killed some Pittsburgh cops.
People like Joshua Cartwright “who was “severely disturbed” that Barack Obama had been elected president, and believed the U.S. government was conspiring against him”
Nor is it just anecdotes:
http://www.start.umd.edu/start/announcements/announcement.asp?id=140
“Beyond these law enforcement murders, far-right violence presents a broader threat to national security and American citizens. Since 1990, far-rightists have been linked to more than 275 homicide incidents in 36 states. These crimes have resulted in the more than 530 fatalities, including the 168 victims murdered by Timothy McVeigh when he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The vast majority of these suspects are white and male, with almost 70% being 30 years old or younger.”
“Take it, and your hatred of the First Amendment,” No body said the law will prevent you or anyone else saying what you want. We all just have to live with the consequences.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
DFLtool, listen.
If anyone actually accused a Democrat of being a “terrorist”, they’ve never met one. Real Democrats are much too busy conducting colon examinations on each other to get much terrorizing done.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Rick has trouble separating nutjobs like McVeigh from serious voices. Maybe that’s because the nutjobs on the Left have done such a good job of dominating that particular political philosophy.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Conservatives do strongly believe in the use of violence to resist government tyranny and Conservatives say the current government is or is about to become a tryanny. Maybe conservatives are not in earnest about both claims, but it is not surprising that some people take them at their word.,
I think you were talking about liberals under Bush, RickDFL.
April 20th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
The hostory of the Left in America has been one long bloodbath.
President McKinley was assassinated by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Kennedy was assassinated by pro-Castro communist Lee Harvy Oswald.
The preffered weapon of President Obammy’s good buddy Bill Ayers was the nail bomb.
As usual, you can’t believe a word good ol’ RickDFL says.
April 20th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Actually, it was Tommy Rukavina that called the State Auditor “Osama Bin Awada”. Fact.
April 20th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
“I don’t apologize for that,” Rukavina said. “I wanted to slap her…”
April 20th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Liberal Fascism? No way. Now when the federal government starts taking over industry like the auto industry, firing CEOs, dictating private company business decisions, and mandating citizens buy a private product… then you can start talking about Liberal Fascism.
April 20th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
http://volokh.com/2010/04/19/waco/
The plan Reno approved and took to President Clinton for approval contemplated the children choking in the gas unprotected for forty-eight hours if necessary, to produce the requisite “maternal feelings”. By taking aim at the children with potentially lethal gas, their mothers would be compelled, according to the FBI plan repeatedly defended by the Clinton administration afterwards as “rational” planning, to flee with them into the arms of those trying to gas them. [Emphasis added.]
An independent report on Waco written by the Harvard Professor of Law and Psychiatry, Alan A. Stone, for the then Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann, says it “is difficult to believe that the US government would deliberately plan to expose twenty-five children, most of them infants and toddlers, to CS gas for forty-eight hours”. Unfortunately, however, that appears to have been exactly the plan.
Reno & Clinton were Democrats. Moderate Democrats compared to the grim zealots in the Obama administration.
April 20th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Terry:
“The hostory of the Left in America has been one long bloodbath.”
Sure, history is one long bloodbath, so scratch the history of any large group and you will draw blood.
Neither McCollum nor I argued either part is more prone to violence over the course of history.
April 20th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Sorry Rick. The left has murdered 100 million plus in the 20th century. Not in America. Yet.
April 20th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Reno was a very strange person. Middle-aged, childless and asexual, as USAG she arranged the Waco raid that killed twenty children and the armed raid that sent Elian Gonzales back to a communist dictatorship. When she was AG in Florida she made a name for herself by prosecuting child abusers.
What a twisted witch.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
RickDFL;
Kermit is conservative in his assertion.
The left you love and cherish has murdered significantly more than 100 million in the 20th century.
Peoples Republic of China has between 1949 and 1987 murdered in excess of 76 million of its own citizens
Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics between 1917 and 1987 murdered in excess of 61 million of its own citizens
The National Socialist German Workers Party between 1933 and 1945 murdered in excess of 20 million of its own citizens
Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 murdered in excess of 2 million of its own citizens
Viet Nam between 1945 and 1987 murdered in excess of 1.6 million of its own citizens
there’s more but this makes the point Rick – go ahead wrap your arms around the left, do you really think you wont be liquidated with the rest of the kulaks?
April 20th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
I doubt DFLstool can honestly respond without regurgitating moon-bat talking points.
Game.
Set.
Match.
April 20th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Kel, RickDFL imagines that he will be one of the commissars ‘dealing with’ the Kulaks. He’s already called conservatives economic parasites.
April 21st, 2010 at 9:39 am
Kel-Tec, you are talking numbers with RatioRinkyDink. He don’t speak numbers. It’s all +/- to him.
April 21st, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Kel:
We are talking about political parties in the U.S. None had any direct involvement with the events you cite. Unless, of course, you want to compare one of them to a ‘totalitarian’ government. But you couldn’t be doing that because Mitch assures me no one on your side would ever do that.
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:38 am
“We need to protect our country from the ideologues on the right who would turn us into a kind of theocracy, just a Christian version of what takes place in far too many muslim countries, that operate under tyrannical islamic law in the hands of fundamentalists and extremists.” – Dog Gone
*facepalm*