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Dick Morris Reports… There are
no Politics in Murder, By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Jan. 10, 2011 - The conventional wisdom of the media establishment that
strident and outspoken political debate catalyzes violence is an
absurdity! Telling people to “kill pigs” as the sixties radicals
did, in fact, encouraged violence. But vigorous political debate
and strongly or even passionately held views have nothing whatever to
do with the decision of some nut to kill a Congressman or a president.
Fantasies about Jodie Foster, instructions from Son of Sam, or
delusions of omnipotence all can cause violence, but heated political
debate doesn’t. To stigmatize strongly articulated opinions on
the left or the right and blame them for the insane attack on
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is outrageous.
Oklahoma City was an act of political terror, incited by resentment
against federal tactics at Waco. It was not some speech that
ignited Timothy McVeigh but a massive act of violence.
Ft. Hood was an act of political terror. No speech incited the
attacks, but a culture of violence spawned throughout the Islamic
world. The same is true of the shoe bomber, the Detroit airplane
bomber, the Times Square bomber and, indeed, the terrorists of 9-11.
Neither the left nor the right should confuse political terrorism with
the random insanity of a crazed gunman. The attack on Giffords
had as little to do with ideology as the attack on the students of
Virginia Tech or Columbine High School.
Daniel Greenfield makes a key point:
There has not been a single act of Muslim violence in the last two
years that the media was willing to identify as motivated by Islam.
Each and every time they had to be dragged kicking and screaming, past
their cover stories, through groundless claims that the attackers were
motivated by psychological problems, bullying, imaginary medical
conditions or financial problems-- to some adjunct of the truth. And at
the same time over the last two years, each prominent act of violence
by non-Muslims was followed by an attempt to identify the attacker or
attackers with mainstream Republicans in a cynical attempt to demonize
and criminalize the political opposition.
But what if the killer had been a political conservative? What if
he had attended Tea Party rallies or - for that matter - been active in
Moveon.org or a left-leaning union? Would the killings have made
the movement fair game? Would it be right to cast aspersions on
tens of millions of nonviolent citizens exercising their democratic
rights in the name of discouraging violence?
Since the shootings, I have gotten e mails from the BBC and Sky TV in
the UK and Der Spiegel in Germany requesting interviews. How much
they would like to link conservative opinions with the attempted
assassination of a Congresswoman! Suddenly, they are all ears.
But their attempts at linking this insane killer to any political
movement are ridiculous and preparatory to an abridgement of free
speech.
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