Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The Power of Hate Speech

by Pa Rock

Yesterday I commented on the shooting at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville. Police officers who searched the home of shooter David Adkisson after the crime found that he had engaged in some interesting reading. Books in Adkisson's home included The O'Reilly Factor by Bill O'Reilly, Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity, and Liberalism is a Mental Disorder by right-wing,radio nut-job Michael Savage.

Does garbage in automatically equate to violence out? No, of course not, if the person doing the reading is of sound mind. Unfortunately, however, a substantial portion of the people who listen to these hate mongers are low functioning individuals who are predisposed to believe that the government is their enemy and that gays are just lying in wait to jump on their slovenly carcasses.

As much as these people profess to abhor what they see America as becoming, they still savor their freedom of the press even if it incites illegal or deadly behavior, and they vehemently defend their right to own as many guns as they damned well please!

Pogo was right: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

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