Restricting Violent Speech

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by tater

People are welcome to disagree and believe that politics has become more virulent of late, but to believe this is entirely irrational as it is contradicted by reality.

I'd not try and "rank" political discourse, but it is clear that it is in the same ballpark it has always been in at the very least, and to my ear, has the feel of being LESS virulent (unless you irrationally find suggestions that rape would be legal, or kids would be stuck on pikes as LESS virulent).

It might be fair to make the caveat that you talk only about "modern" history, but again, history gives the lie to this as well. I remember 8 years of wishing Bush dead by groups that are considered mainstream (all the dem candidates went to a Kos meeting, and that site has wished death on many republicans, many times). Before that, there were loons on the right who accused the Clintons of being involved in murders (that aid who offed himself). For Bush Sr. there were claims of black helicopters, and other insanity. Reagan? I was in college during Reagan, and the standard attitude towards him was VERY hateful, to say the least. Many times people bemoaned the lack of success when he was shot.

Anyone who claims politics has become more nasty needs to demonstrate which period was so much better. Remember by the time to get back to the 60s, you start hitting "political machines" (mostly democratic as far as I can tell, but some on both sides to be sure) that were in fact doing things that were clearly illegal as SOP. Truman was the product of such a machine, as was virtually everyone before him. So during those periods the threat of violence or reprisal was totally on the table all the time.

I refer to the time that I have a living memory of, and regarding America, that started with the Carter era. The Vietnam era and Watergate I necessarily only can form an opinion on on the basis of historic reports and books. I was too young. And I stick to it, not during Carter, not during Reagan and not during Bush senior and Clinton the rehtorics had been so hostile and hurting and martial and aggressive - especially from he right. During the seocnd Bush, it already increased pace, and with the Republicans having lost elections to Obama it climaxed, sometimes spiking as high as that in several european countries the person saying certain remarks would be sued at court for libel, slander and character-assassination. That is the differencxe between most European coutn ries, and America: in America, it seems everything gets excused as "freedom". But from our perspective, it is pure anarchy, and an abandoning of all rules, standards and manners. And this is one of the reasons, as well as a consequence, for the deep division that is widening in American society. And as I see it, it is also a symptom between the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the elected and tzhe electorate. OLr as I repeatedly have said in pastd ebates: the difference between what the USA was meant to be by its founding myths, and what in the rwlity and present it actually is. And the present America I do not see being adequately described by the declaration of independence and the constittuion and the amendements. These are the echoes of once promising, now utopic dreams about how it was meant to be. The real manifestation is something very different.

I very much like the utopian idea of what America was meant to be, and the founding myths and the documents I referred to above. How can I be "anti-American" then when I criticise what America actually is and how much very different from these historic itentions it is and behaves...? I also say that I love Germany for the historic merits it has added to world culture, to music, arts, philosphy, legal ideas, technology and ingeneering, science - before the Nazis came and teampled on it. How can I be anti-German then when I criticise Germany for what it is today, and how it allows to degenerate and detoriate and destroy itself for various reasons, and the EU?

In the end, these differences betwqeen how it once was or was meant to be, and how it actually is - are tragic, and a great loss. For America. For Germany. And for all the world. But so is history: rise, blossoming, climax, and fall. So is nature as well.