BECK: Blaming TV or radio hosts for the nutjob who killed three Pittsburgh police officers over the weekend is like blaming a flight attendant after a terrorist takes down a plane. In other words: Giving passengers a safety talk to prepare them for a worst-case scenario doesn't mean you are responsible should a terrorist make that worst-case scenario happen. One person is providing important information. The other is a nutjob who would've acted no matter what.
For one, the "nutjob" acted how he did because he became convinced his guns were gonna be taken from him. He made that pretty clear; he didn't write in his diary a decade ago "one day I will snap and shoot some mofos up because I am a nutjob and that's what we do." And to make the connection from frothing fear-mongerers like Beck et al, who after all have the platform of national tv to get their message out, to this guy deciding to do what he did is not a COMPLETELY absurd one to make.
As for the flight attendant thing, I guess he is like a flight attendant...if that FA was running throughout the plane screaming that the captain is gonna take your peanuts away, doesn't that make you angry?!?!?!? until someone finally snaps yeah, that DOES piss me off, I fucking love peanuts, I'm taking this fucker down!!!!!
A larger point to me is to wonder why a show like this even exists. For years a show like that was fairly harmless; basically taking an hour to spew out things anybody watching would already agree with (Clinton sucks, taxes are too high.) Fine. But now that it's found a new purpose of which the end result might be people killing other people, I would think it's outlived it's usefulness. Certainly as things like shootings start to pile up it will not be particularly HELPFUL to the party Beck et al think they're helping. In other words, instead of ME bitching about guys like him, I would think at some point any Republican friends I have would be embarrassed and pissed off that they were being represented by people like this. This is another case of "the 8 Republicans in charge make the other 50 million look bad," but when shit like this starts going down, maybe it's time to get rid of those 8 people?
2 comments:
...at some point their fear-mongering...will cross the line from "free, albeit irresponsible speech" to "yelling FIRE! in a crowded theater."
It already has, my friend. Perhaps not legally, but indeed morally.
CNN's Rick Sanchez decried Fox Noise's instigation, while Keith Olbermann nailed Beck big-time on this one. (I posted video on "13")
What do Beck and his ilk think nutjobs get from his rise up, take your country back bullshit?! These wingnut blowhards are either disingenuous hate-mongers or just plain idiots; either way we all lose.
Wow, if Glenn Beck thinks that's an analogy, he must've bombed his SATs.
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