Inspiration
Yesterday in Nashville a man was driving with his 10-year old daughter in the car and a crazy man rammed their car. When the father stopped the car the crazy man kept ramming him, pushing his car against the curb. What had the father done to inspire such a violent response? He had a Obama/Biden sticker on his bumper. The crazy man was so enraged over the recent health care legislation that seeing the sticker pushed him over the edge and he decided he must endanger the lives of a man and his 10-year old daughter.
Look, I'm not crazy about the health care legislation. I think something needed to be done. Health care quality has been going down and the costs have been rising, while an insurance company CEO just retired after making a billion dollars over 10 years (yes that's ONE MAN and thats BILLION with a "B".) That's a situation that needs to be dealt with. Is this the solution? Probably not. But it's something.
The worst possible downside people are predicting to this legislation is that it will cost more money and health care quality could suffer. That's already happening. It could be worse. Okay.
But the violent responses to this are insanely out of hand. People tried to blow up a congressman's house. People are throwing bricks through windows and shouting "baby killer" and racial epithets. This is in response to a bill that, at it's base, intends to get medical help to people who might need it. People are having a violent reaction to THAT.
Why is the response so disproportionate to the consequences of the legislation? It's the fault of the opponents of the legislation. Their incredible overreaction is spilling over to their constituents. When leadership screams "baby killer" it doesn't matter how much they backtrack later, they're inspiring hatred. When your media advocates say "We have to get these bastards!" on the air, you're inciting violence. When your candidates put out litearature with crosshairs over people's locations, you're asking people to react violently.
No, those people are not legally culpable for the results of their inspirations. There is no law preventing them from doing it, and there shouldn't be. They know the line of criminality and they're dancing on it.
But make no mistake, they are responsible for it. Not 100% responsible, but they have some liability.
What's the solution? Amazingly, this is a problem that will go away if people ignore it. If people simply stop paying attention to these blowhards and imbeciles, it will be gone. If they're a politician don't vote for them. If they're in the media don't watch them. Have a personal zero-tolerance policy against people who advocate violence or seem to. If they seem like could be inspiring violence among their fringe followers, cut them out completely.
Bumper Sticker Violence.
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