"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents."
- Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968), U.S. Senator (D-NY)
John Hawkins on his Right Wing News weblog, has put together a list of The 10 Worst Quotes From The Democratic Underground for 2003. Here are some excerpts from a few of them:
"It's sad, really, that as despicable as they are, Saddam's family seems to be the lesser of two evils when you compare them to the wretched little b*stard occupying the White House and destroying America in the process..." (posted by thermodynamic)
"Wonderful news...I'm gratified to learn that he paid the ultimate price for his sins of warmongering. This guy was scum...no false sadness from me, only happiness that someone as mean and vicious as Mike Kelly got what was coming..." (jackswift on the death of Michael Kelly in Iraq)
"Rove/Bush/Cheney are going to instigate some MIHOP (made it happen on purpose) terror attack...maybe California, whereby Californians will be clamoring for a 'strong' governor to protect us!" (posted by CaptainMidnight)
"As for when the plane hit the Pentagon and the other plane went down in that field in Penn, I screamed at the TV, 'Get the WH, for God's sake you missed the WH.' " (posted by LiberalLibra)
"The only way to get rid of this slime bag WASP-Mafia, oil baron ridden cartel of a government, this assault on Americans and anything one could laughingly call 'a democracy,' relies heavily on what a sh*t hole Iraq turns into...(soldiers) need to die so that Americans can get rid of this deadly scum." (posted by Starpass)
Read the whole thing, and if the ten that Hawkins has chosen aren't enough for you, the Democratic Underground website has more of these classy comments.
7 comments:
Unfortunately, as much as we would like to see ourselves as a tolerant nation, the virtue still eludes us. Look at the vitriol that President Clinton stirred up--deserved or not, and don't forget the yellow dog press of years past that excoriated anyone in it's path.
Amazing, and quite disturbing. I don't think I'll ever understand the people who can write this stuff. Where do they get their ideas? Saddam less evil that Bush? You have to be very ill informed to say something like that.
How do we know any of these people are Democrats at all? Were any of them identified by anything other than their screen names (presumably from comments in discussions)? How many of them are 13-year-old kids, or Republicans posting obnoxious "Democratic" comments? Responding to an anonymous screen name in an online discussion is one thing. But how can anyone take a series of anonymous quotations are representative of Democratic opinion? I don't know any Democrats that talk like this. - Bruce
I don't believe Hawkins said they were Democrats or representative of Democratic opinion. What I believe he said was they were the worst of the comments on the Democratic Underground weblog. Draw your own conclusions about the political stripe of whoever wrote them.
My point is that it's good clean fun to pick up goofy-sounding comments from very partisan Web sites and cite them to laugh at the supposed extremes of the "other side." Liberal Weblogs do it, too, usually by going to a FreeRepublic.com discussion and finding some choice loopy comments. But lunatic-fringe comments from anonymous Freepers can't be taken to represent the Republican National Committee's positions, either. - Bruce
This is disturbing stuff, but I believe you could find as bad or worse from the other side.
Jerry Falwell's tripe after 9/11, Pat Robertson praying for the removal/demise of Supreme Court justices, Pat Robertson (again) calling for blowing up the State Department, almost any statement by Ann Coulter could make for a good list.
Face it, there are lunatics on both sides.
Yep, all of us have members of our family we'd just as soon see stay home or, at least, keep their mouths shut while visiting. It's a fact of life, as you point out, and sometimes embarrassing.
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