Inciting Violence or Getting Too Close To The Truth?

Yesterday, I wrote about President Obama's speech at the University of Michigan over the weekend pointing out his claim that when we rail against big government were complaining about ourselves since "we are the government". Today, I want to hit another statement he made. Specifically:

"Throwing around phrases like 'socialists' and 'Soviet-style takeover,' 'fascists' and 'right-wing nut' — that may grab headlines, but it also closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation. At its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response."

My first question for the President is how does it undermine democratic deliberation? Really? A few vocabulary words can bring the entire process of discussion to a halt? More likely, words like "socialist" are hitting too close to the truth.

The biggest fear of the liberals, progressives, socialists--whatever the label you put on them--is that the American people will realize their true core beliefs. They live in apprehension that we'll realize their real principles are that government should have complete control over the citizenry for "its own good".

This is an attempt at making those who use words the left defines as pejorative seem like dangerous cooks. The attempt will fail. When you live up to what people are saying about you, others eventually believe what is being said.

It's also an attempt to scare you into believing that if we don't shut up and play nice some nut job is going to blow up the Walmart down the street. And yes, those nut jobs do live among us but they're really not motivate or demotivated by rational debate regardless of the words used and Obama and the other liberals know it.

They weren't out there saying we need to tone down the rhetoric when there were protesters with signs suggestion President Bush should be hanged or beheaded. Yes, that actually happened. A quick Google search turned up examples of protests with signs that said things like, "Save Mother Earth...Kill Bush" and "Bush Is The Only Dope Worth Shooting".

Where were Obama and his teleprompters then? Was Keith Olbermann calling the people holding these signs "the worst person in the world!"? (Trust me, it's much better if you can hear my impersonation rather than just read the words.)

Bottom line: When it comes down to having the criticism aimed at them, liberals start fretting about the danger of words. The reality is they just can't answer the charges so they'd rather shut you up. Don't let them.