"Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime."
This is not a "manifesto." Why is the "liberal media" calling it this?
This "manifesto" by Jim David Adkisson, the right wing lunatic who opened fire on a Unitarian church in Tennessee last July 27th, is not so much of a manifesto (the word irresponsibly elevates it to the level of an accepted and legitimate agenda or movement) as much as it's the diary of a diseased and disintegrating human mind.
The day after Adkisson murdered two people, authorities discovered hate literature written by Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity at the shooter's house. We've known this for months.
And Adkisson's conviction last week and the dissemination of his four page document had resurrected not this seven month-old story but the role the media should play and to what degree can someone yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, whether or not the fire exists, before free speech has to be curtailed.
The right wing shudders at the thought of liberals such as us putting a muzzle that closes their slavering, snapping jaws. Their concerns aren't completely without merit: In a nation that is largely governed by the first amendment, which, among other things, guarantees or promises free speech, the proposition of censorship is every bit as explosive an issue as the theory of evolution, gay marriage and abortion. Yet we need to keep one very big reality in mind:
Adkisson freely admitted that his murders last July were a hate crime. Hate crimes, by their very legal and colloquial definition, isolate and victimize by persecution specific segments of society, whether they be gays and lesbians, feminists or, the broadest and most abstract segment, liberals and "leftists."
Hate crimes and the most extreme right wing ideologies are so synonymous they're virtually interchangable. It is not liberals who bomb abortion clinics. It is not liberals who open fire on schools. It is not liberals who blow up buildings so their ex wives can't own it in a divorce settlement. It isn't liberals who murder the families of "activist" judges. It wasn't liberals who murdered Matthew Shepard and left him to die on a barbed wire fence in Wyoming. It was not a liberal who bombed Oklahoma City. And it certainly wasn't a liberal who opened fire on the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.
Hate crimes are a product of bigotry and intolerance, both of which are hallmarks, even defining characteristics of ultra conservative beliefs. Liberalism, by the very definition of that word, is all about free speech, tolerance and giving everyone a slice of the pie.
Right wing ideology, instead, preaches intolerance of a whole host of movements and philosophies, even to the point of further suppressing the free speech of liberals and then try to masquerade their intolerance as the exercising of responsible free speech.
Yet something, obviously, has to change even if it involves modifying the first amendment itself. Because as long as we continue wringing our hands and whining about how free speech supercedes all else, innocent people will continue dying by the hundreds if not the thousands at the hands of right wing ideologues who get their marching orders from cowardly hate mongers like Savage, O'Reilly and Hannity, cowards who then try to distance themselves from their self-appointed foot soldiers and even try to brand them as liberals.
So when the likes of Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly advocate using baseball bats when dealing with liberals, when people like Hal Turner openly call for the assassination of elected officials, when Melanie Morgan calls for the murder of anti-war activists, these people need to be held responsible for their words and the hate crimes for which they're obviously the catalyst.
The problem is deciding what is inflammatory. There's truly no accounting for how seriously a lone individual like Adkisson will respond to Bernie Goldberg's book. Thank heavens Adkisson is a nearly complete idiot and got himself caught as quickly as he did. In his "manifesto", he'd written that he wanted to kill all 100 people in Goldberg's book, a list that includes former presidents and vice presidents and Nobel Peace Prize winners.
Obviously, we need to be very careful when deciding what's inflammatory and violently provocative. But just as obviously, this trend needs to end. The first step is to stop calling screeds of blind, ignorant, murderous hatred "manifestos."
Update: Seems I've made a couple of new fans. Don Spitz we can safely ignore but this bloated asshat deserves some attention, starting with me. Check out the opening words of his latest blog post.
14 Comments:
"So when the likes of Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly advocate using baseball bats when dealing with liberals"
Ann Coulter had best NOT try to come at ME with a baseball bat.
It will end up shoved so far up her bony ass that she'll feel it in her tonsils.
And "Reverend" Spitz, you and your kind are in desperate need of psychiatric help.
Terry C - Glad Bush Is Gone!
Spitz and Turner are losers.
They hate life and they want everyone else to be as miserable as they are.
Losers!
Terry C - Glad Bush Is Gone!
Hey, JP, I think there's a law against making terroristic threats. And one of these commenters just made one against you. Perhaps the authorities should be notified.
So how come you never sent me a postcard, MB?
Seriously, thanks for dropping by. Stay tuned for my upcoming post, "How Fat Halbert Didn't Get His Groove Back."
WOW! Donald does spit....
I believe when a person is this fucked up within their twisted religious views,they're actually hiding from a dark past....A terrible secret from their past they're desperately trying to hide....They must justify their past actions by believing OR HIDING BEHIND RELIGION to such a fanatical extent to ostensibly wash themselves of their sins. I wonder what Hal & Rev. Fondled have/had done in their past to cause them to become so absolutely batshit crazy? Perhaps they were jilted by a selfish Republican Senator back in the day when they were male prostitutes? I guess that would sting a bit. Or,perhaps they suffer from an untreated infection of syphilis? I dunno,one can only wonder what could possibly breed such animus.
Whatever it is,I'm positive it has something to do with sex.
My. Harsh words from Mister Turner. He must be a real man.
Hope he's ready when they "bring it on."
Rev Donald Spitz,
To be perfectly candid, I find your attitude offensive. You blame "most, if not all problems on the planet earth (sic)" on people who do not believe that Jesus Christ was (he's long dead now) the son of any deity. How sad and myopic to be you.
In case you haven't noticed (none so blind as those who will not see), there have been a number of well-publicized murders by people espousing opinions just like yours. People who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ have murdered people. I'm no Biblical scholar, but I'm pretty sure it's a safe bet that Jesus did not advocate the kind of killing that religious zealots have committed in his name.
JP, in a way, I must slightly disagree. I don't believe we need censor the knuckle draggers of the right, that has already been done by the SCOTUS.
As Justice Holmes said, "...the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."
This doctrine has evolved to the Brandenburg v. Ohio standard of "imminent lawless action". "Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if it is likely to cause violation of the law more quickly than an officer of the law reasonably can be summoned."
This sorry excuse for a human being (Adkisson) only acted out what other poisonous reichwing nutjobs (Savage, O'Reilly, Hannity) have been advocating for years. In the guise of Turner we have a real viper who outright admits that he is inciting the masses to violent action. There is no cover for this. This is not free speech, this is even worse than incitement to riot; he is outright calling for direct violent action by his "bevy" of listeners against myriad thousands of his countrymen. Yes JP, he definitely means you, and me and most of the rest of the sane people who visit Pottersville.
This person needs to be reported immediately to Google (who runs Blogspot) as well as to the authorities since he has as much as admitted to issuing "terroristic threats" against the public and members of Congress.
Hal Turner,
There are a great many polysyllabic words I could use to describe you, but being the acerebralist that you are, they would go right over your head.
So I will simply say this about you:
You are the kind of person that government is meant to protect society against. You need help. Seriously. You have anger management issues that, left unresolved, will very likely result in the death of some innocent person, either by you, personally, or someone who believes in what you write.
Please, for the love of humanity, get yourself some help.
Funny stuff from the reich wingnuts, JP! This is your best comments sections since the Lake Placid child abuse post. These people are unintentional self-parodies. They're what I try to have in mind when I make wack comments at Jesus' General.
WOW JP, you got a comment from Hal Turner, and not once did he even use his phrase "savage negro beasts."
It is not normal for men to have sex with men... Hal 900
Funny dat, considering that Hal practically admitted to Sean Hannity that he'd had gay sex and snorted coke.
Maybe the failed relationship between the two is what gave us Hannidates.
"the most ruinous movement since St. Peter founded the Roman Catholic Church"
BWA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
It's funny because it's true!!!
---
"I'm a former SEAL who's killed more people than you've ever loved"
[shiver]
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Hal Turner is exactly what's wrong with America today. Someone that hates freedom so much he wants to kill his fellow Americans, especially the women and children. Hal claims to be a patriot, but how is killing children patriotic?
We have our own version of Hal in my tiny Vermont town of 800 residents. He's used the pledge of allegiance as a weapon to divide the town and stir up exactly the same kind of 'kill the liberals' hatred that Hal does. Well, Town Meeting is three weeks away and this cabal will be there in force to try to shut down our public school as punishment for not following their demands. Ironically their leader suffered a 5 artery heart attack a week ago! Poor guy.
Spitz-
Just got off the phone with Jesus Crist. He says you are clueless about his teachings. Suggests you stop screwing up his message or you'll have your franchise revoked.
Turner-
You are the sickest poster I've ever read on the innertubes. Your really not much of an American, but you'd have made a great SS Waffen sadist for Hitler's Army.
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