In Time Forum on Civility, Markos Moulitsas Repeats Line That Palin, Angle Will Eventually Get People Killed
Time magazine asked a panel of 16 experts to answer the question “Are We Becoming An Uncivil Society?” While Time's selected Republicans and conservatives (including Glenn Beck) stayed civil and didn't point explicit fingers at liberals for trying to smear the Tucson shooting on conservatives, leftist Daily Kos blogger Markos Moulitsas rudely predicted (again) that one side of the aisle, inspired by people like Beck, Sarah Palin, and Sharron Angle were going to get Americans killed: We have always been an uncivil society. Just ask John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. But being harsh and passionate in one's political discourse isn't the same as walking around with guns intimidating the opposition, or using apocalyptic and Armageddon-style rhetoric to paint your opponents as terrorists and enemies of democracy and freedom. Problem is, we now have a side that is gun-obsessed, whipping people up into a frenzy with lies about Obama taking their guns away and interning conservatives in FEMA concentration camps (to name just two conspiracy theories). When Sarah Palin tells her followers not to retreat, but to “reload,” when Sharron Angle says people should resort to “Second Amendment remedies” if they don't get their way at the ballot box, and when Glenn Beck spreads the latest insane conspiracy theory, well then, it's only a matter of time before people start getting killed. This is not an April Fools' Day joke. Time invited Markos Moulitsas to speak of civility in a civil tone. Were they shocked he just kept frantically slinging mud? Is the Kos Kommandant incapable of decorum even as his bete noire Beck accomplishes it? It seems bizarre to many that a forum on civility truly needs someone whose ethical views include “killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person.”
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on January 17, 2011. Filed under