Teaching hostility instead of discourse

The violent and sad event that took place in Tucson, Arizona yesterday is simply an end result of hostility being preached by people who control the pulpits (TV and Radio) of one sided political debate, and by parents who don't know how to teach the art of intelligent discourse.

What is being taught is the art of hostility, anger and extreme ugliness.

The inflammatory expressions of those who disagree with their political adversaries can result in less intelligent people behaving in less intelligent ways.

Acting in a violent manner is a less intelligent method of human behavior.

Part of this is so obvious when you listen to people that don't like the current President of the United States. There's an undercurrent of ugliness that goes well beyond policy and ideals.

The right wing of American politics has literally stepped over the edge of rational behavior. And even that statement will get some nut job off his or her couch and headed to a rally.

The problem is that it used to be the extreme right wing that acted insane. Now it's just the right wing. Regular people who listen to Rush and Sean and somehow think they now know something about the political system and how it should and should not work.

I simply think back to how we, the left wing, behaved when Bush was President. We made fun and we made jokes and we bitched and moaned on a regular basis because GW just made it too easy.

The hostility towards Barack Obama, and Democrats in general, goes much deeper and gets much uglier because as a person he doesn't offer any material like GW did.

What the right wing has decided to do is attack the entire platform of the Democratic Party and with simplistic analytical rhetoric, blame everything that is not working on the Democrats...and thus on the leader of the Party.

I have heard the two words Socialism and Communism more in the last two years then I had heard them in 25 years....total.

Why I think this is another KARL ROVE tactic is simply my paranoia. He couldn't be behind this crap....could he?

ATTACK....ATTACK....ATTACK.....and don't worry about substantial facts and information because most people don't care about facts. The SWIFT BOAT Organization is a prime example of that premise.

JUST MAKE UP TONS OF STUFF AND THEN WATCH IT WORK ON THE PSYCHE OF AMERICAN VOTERS.

The discussions of how economic and political things work is no longer a discussion. It's a one sided preaching done on national Radio and TV broadcasts....and it's done to rally people to rise up and take action. When someone like Sarah Palin uses a TARGET to overlap the picture of a democrat during an election, it is no longer subtle suggestibility.

To an unstable right wing extremist...it's a blatant call to physical action.

The kind of action that took place yesterday.

I've always thought that when someone, under the age of 25, commits a violent crime that their parents should also be arrested and held for questioning.

I'm thinking that maybe Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and the entire Tea Party should be held for questioning regarding the horrible incident in Tucson.

I hope there is some deep discussions with the idiot's parents by Homeland Security.

This was a domestic terrorist attack and every facet of how and why this happened needs to be investigated....which means starting at the home.

Teaching discourse and how to discuss political differences is the intelligent way for parents to behave.

Teaching how to hate and how to be hostile is way to easy....and way too common.

Michael Timothy McAlevey