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Whether you call them bulls-eyes, surveyors markers, targets, or buckets of fish is not the point. Sarah Palin was clearly not saying "These are people we need to kill." Only a crazy person would think that. They were clearly saying "These are the places we need to focus on."
I'm not often the first to defend Sarah Palin, but whatever they are supposed to be or look like is irrelevant.
We should tone down our rhetoric. Not about using gun metaphors in speech, we need to tone down the dehumanizing of our rivals. We need to stop seeing EVERYTHING as us versus them, anything we do is good, anything they do is bad.
The Daily Show said something interesting yesterday. The measure of our rhetoric shouldn't be how it effects crazy people, but how it effects the rational mind. We have to look at something and say "Would violence be a reasonable response to this?"
Some people would say violence is never reasonable. But I think violence is only justifiable in rare occasions. But we must tone down our rhetoric when we think "Would violence make sense in what I'm saying." When we talk about how someone (on either side) wants to destroy America, or how they're like Hitler, we have to realize that violence IS a reasonable response if someone truly believes that a person sincerely wants to destroy America/do Hitler stuff.
That's when the rhetoric needs to be toned down, and things like that are coming from both sides.
Any reasonable person, even if they believed everything I said, would understand that violent metaphors are just metaphors. But if a reasonable person truly believed that the 'other side', whoever they are, intend to destroy this country, then violence would be reasonable. That is the rhetoric we need to tone down. Not something like Sarah Palin's map.
Sleepwalker: Nobody on the left (at least no major figure) has advocated the murder of politicians. And even the farthest right major figures haven't done that either. Both sides have used military metaphors in their speech. But I don't think either side was advocating the murder of politicians.
And there are far-right people who have advocated the murder of politicians, and you can find them. You can find far-left people who have too. But I'm saying no major, national figure has done that.
I'm not often the first to defend Sarah Palin, but whatever they are supposed to be or look like is irrelevant.
We should tone down our rhetoric. Not about using gun metaphors in speech, we need to tone down the dehumanizing of our rivals. We need to stop seeing EVERYTHING as us versus them, anything we do is good, anything they do is bad.
The Daily Show said something interesting yesterday. The measure of our rhetoric shouldn't be how it effects crazy people, but how it effects the rational mind. We have to look at something and say "Would violence be a reasonable response to this?"
Some people would say violence is never reasonable. But I think violence is only justifiable in rare occasions. But we must tone down our rhetoric when we think "Would violence make sense in what I'm saying." When we talk about how someone (on either side) wants to destroy America, or how they're like Hitler, we have to realize that violence IS a reasonable response if someone truly believes that a person sincerely wants to destroy America/do Hitler stuff.
That's when the rhetoric needs to be toned down, and things like that are coming from both sides.
Any reasonable person, even if they believed everything I said, would understand that violent metaphors are just metaphors. But if a reasonable person truly believed that the 'other side', whoever they are, intend to destroy this country, then violence would be reasonable. That is the rhetoric we need to tone down. Not something like Sarah Palin's map.
Sleepwalker: Nobody on the left (at least no major figure) has advocated the murder of politicians. And even the farthest right major figures haven't done that either. Both sides have used military metaphors in their speech. But I don't think either side was advocating the murder of politicians.
And there are far-right people who have advocated the murder of politicians, and you can find them. You can find far-left people who have too. But I'm saying no major, national figure has done that.
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