"He Is Not Like Us" Crosses The Line
Friday October 10, 2008
Categories: Election '08, Terrorism
Where is the line in the sand that makes everyone stand up and agree that things have gone too far? That line that lets us know when a campaign has gone beyond nasty to dangerous, past negative to incendiary, past...
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About Progressive Revival
Diana Butler Bass and Paul Raushenbush both stand firmly within the Mainline Protestant tradition and, along with guest bloggers of all religious backgrounds are dedicated to the revival of religious progressivism and its influence in American politics.
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Diana Butler BassDiana Butler Bass is a commentator and scholar in American religion. She is the author of seven books including A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009).
» Posts by Diana Butler Bass
Paul RaushenbushModerator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University.
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Enough is enough right now!!! Remember the term "angry left?" Well, now we have an angry mob right. Country First Indeed - This is insane! What if, may God forbid, any violence was ever attempted against Senator Obama? What would become of this nation when many of us think that violence is being stoked right now by our political opponents? This is dangerous, wrong and has to stop for the sake of decency and the future of our country.
And Democratic leaders hinting at race riots or riots in general isn't dangerous? Denying human rights to newborn infants like Obama has done, isn't crossing a huge moral line either?
For someone to actually assert that Obama is pro-life in light of that is absurd and a complete denial of biblical truth, in that we are created in the image of God.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/10/08/james-carville-hints-riots-if-obama-loses
http://whyimnotademocrat.blogspot.com/2008/10/if-obama-is-pro-life-then-evil-has.html
Yes Blue Collar...let's kill everyone who supports abortion, shall we?
Thank you for showing us the true face of conservative Christianity.
What concerns me as I have watched and read the news this week is the fact that the behavior we're seeing looks and feels a lot like some of the irrational behavior seen during the Great Depression. People are angry and don't know who to blame right now. Or better yet, they do know who to blame: the candidate that they target.
This is what I know. A group which becomes angry can then become a mob. A mob is a faceless entity. No one man or woman sees himself or herself as the culprit of any crime committed by such a mob of which that person is a member. "I didn't do it--the mob did" you see. The faceless, heartless, mindless mob.
Surely, we have all read of this phenomenom in literature. To Kill a Mockingbird has a good mob scene which actually ends with a child--Scout--putting a face and a name on a man in the crowd, thereby disintegrating the collective identity of the mob, and the "dark deed" they had come to do is left undone.
What I have seen this week reminds me, too, of the crowds, the masses, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Surely, we have not come so far in our rationalization of what is acceptable behavior as a nation in the throes of a campaign season that the life of a human being might be put in grave danger for the sake of his opponent winning. If so, who is responsible? The man, the woman on the stump who first incited crowds by commission or omission?
STOP this craziness NOW! Let me put it another way: When the smoke clears, we might be able to see the fire, and the real fire is the economy.
Sarah Palin as vice president? I really have a hard time with that. There is her professed Christianity that doesn't seem to hinder in the least the kinds of remarks she makes in spite of the commandment about bearing false witness (not only about Ayers, but so many other remarks as well proven to be false by Factcheck--oh! but there's the nasty media again, isn't it?); or Jesus' own admonition about casting the first stone when she herself is currently under investigation for the Troopergate affair and McCain's own career came close to taking a nosedive after the Savings and Loan scandal and his association with Keating.
But in a way, I'm even more bothered by her appearance as the shallow snide, snarky, kid we all remember from school who made a school career out of putting down--or "othering" those with more depth, if not actual intelligence--the nerds, bookworms, geeks, or whatever. It may have been funny for some of us as sophomores, but sophomoric behavior from a vice president candidate makes it impossible for me to take her seriously.
Remember, Palin comes from a tv media background herself, and I hope that that broadcaster's poise allows her to cover up some deep-seated feelings of conflict over being called upon to be so nasty and sarcastic. I hope she doesn't enjoy it nearly as much as she appears to be doing. If I can hope this, then maybe I can avoid seeing her as the totally spoiled school girl with no social conscience.
ds0490,
Nice ad hominem response. Read what I say not what you want me to say.
Blue Collar
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