Saturday, 01 November 2008

• Palling Around With Terrorists: A Quiz

  So here are four quotes. 
  
  Two were plucked yesterday from the comments and discussion on a conservative blog to which I subscribe.  The other two are quotations from the writings of Timothy McVeigh.  In the event that you are too young to remember Mr. McVeigh, he was the individual who...up until he was dethroned by Bin Laden...was responsible for the single most destructive act of terrorism on United States soil.  His truck bomb destroyed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 American men, women, and children, and wounding over 800.
  
  Take a look, and answer which of these are contemporary, and which are from the writings of America's #2 terrorist:
  
  

  1) "You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful, and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control."
  
  2) "I'm fairly well resigned to the fact that America has seen her best days unless things turn around quick, fast and in a hurry. Ben Franklyn's predictions about the course of national events are quickly coming to fruition; we are sliding into the bondage phase, from which can only come eternal servitude or revolution, the likes of which hasn't been seen since we threw off the shackles of English rule."
  
  3) "Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate 'promises,' they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight...Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might."
  
  4) "Someday, there will be enough of us, to rise up - peacefully I hope, but through some means - and restore this nation to what it once was.  I just don't know when, or how..."
  

  
  If you're discerning of tone, style, and phraseology, you should be able to pick out McVeigh's words without too much difficulty.  The undercurrent of violence is far stronger in his writing. 
  
  But you should also be able to objectively see some difficult conceptual similarities.  In 1992, after the election of Bill Clinton and democratic dominance of Congress, there was palpable, visceral rage and frustration among many conservatives.  It was the era of the "angry white man,"  a phrase that was as prevalent in the press during that time as "hockey mom" is today.  That era saw the dawn of shout radio, and the increasing radicalization of the right.  That continued until 1995, when images of dead Oklahoman children shamed and muted the discourse...for a while.
  
  With the election so close, and so tense, it's easy for partisans on both sides to get hyperbolic in their language.   I hear it on the left, as people talk about racism, stolen elections, "power", and the possibility of riots should Obama lose.  I hear it on the right, as the deep fears stirred by rhetoric on communism, socialism, and jihadism bubbles and roils. 
  
  Having read the conservative blog in question for a while, I know the author is a decent enough soul.  I don't suspect them of anything other than a tendency to use some pretty aggressive and provocative language...which is something I myself have been known to do from time to time.  I've also felt...from the other side...that deep and sometimes angry frustration with those who seem unable to grasp the positive nature of my political persuasion.  The two contemporary comments reflect the depth of that frustration.
  
  But as we get closer to election day, I think both left and right need to be attentive to confronting and tamping down the very real demons that can inadvertently be given aid and comfort by our rhetoric.
   
  
  

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