Sunday, January 9, 2011

Out of the mind, out of the mouth, out of control

A lot of words are going to be said and written about what happened in Arizona yesterday, a culmination of what has been happening in this country for the last years. But for myself, I'm going to hold on to what I'm posting here, for what is said and for what I am reminded of, again.

We all need to watch our words, and I certainly include myself, editing our ease of suggesting violence toward those we disagree with. It's like listening to jokes that skewer groups for stereotypical characterizations and saying nothing. In this age of spew our guts on the page or screen, it is time to think about the literal fall out. And that's all I know.

Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, speaking about Arizona:

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.
"It's not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. And that's the sad thing of what's going on in America. Pretty soon, we're not going to be able to find reasonable, decent people who are willing to subject themselves to serve in public office."

2 comments:

  1. Powerful commentary by Olbermann. I love the United States of America and believe in our founding fathers vision. The fear and hate mongers are destroying our country. If any good can come out of this tragedy, maybe it will be the catalyst to bring us back to the middle ground and put this extremist era behind us.

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  2. Shawke, I would love that some good would come out of this, and maybe some places quietly it is...but after a very wide general scan of comments in various places on the web, I don't think many of the extreme mind set drew a breath before spewing out more garbage. And that includes some of the left side as well. I just want about five million of us to stand on top of something tall and start chanting, BE QUIET, BE QUIET, BE QUIET. No one would know why we were saying it, they'd think we were saying it to 'the other' and start chanting too and pretty soon, we'd all be united in saying BE QUIET. And then, maybe we all would...just long enough to think about how good that is...just for awhile.

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