{pic by luna715}

Judging from the signs and slogans which are so often on display during “tea parties,” “9-12” protests, and other tawdry public gatherings of the Radical Right, there seems to be a lot of confusion within the United States about the meaning of the word “socialism.” As described by the political shock jocks of Talk Radio and Fox News, “socialism” is a dictatorial, freedom-hating ideology characteristic of the Obama administration, North Korea, Nazi Germany, and France. If this seems to cast a nonsensically wide net, it is because Right Wing demagogues and their thoughtless minions tend to use the term “socialism” as an expression of emotion rather than an intellectual concept… somewhat akin to yelling “fuck you!” If, for whatever reason, you don’t like someone—because he or she is too “liberal” or spendthrift or dark-skinned or well-spoken for your taste—then you simply yell “socialist!” as a means of conveying both your anger and your ignorance.

Of course, anyone who has bothered to do any reading about socialism knows that it is an inherently democratic ideology which bears little resemblance to the ego-maniacal authoritarianism of Stalin or Pol Pot. For instance, The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels describes the revolutionary struggle of the working class as “the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.” Even the politically bland Columbia Encylopedia makes clear that socialism is about “cooperation and social service”—in contrast to capitalism’s emphasis upon “competition and profit.”

From a capitalist perspective, the problem with socialist ideology is not that it is insufficiently democratic, but that it is a little too democratic. Socialism calls for real democracy in which people can exert control over the political and economic forces that impact their lives. But modern capitalist mythology depends on the fiction that it is possible to have political democracy and obscene levels of economic inequality at the same time. Even though most people would admit that billionaires like Rupert Murdoch have far more political power than dishwashers and janitors, we are all supposed to pretend that, because Rupert casts only a single vote on election day—just like us—his vast investment portfolio and media empire are politically irrelevant. However, a malcontent socialist might ask how it’s possible to have true democracy when one person’s private property (Rupert’s News Corp.) is another person’s means of survival (working as a janitor for News Corp.)—or how that janitor’s single vote on election day stacks up against Rupert’s unparalleled access to elected officials thanks to his billions, or his ability to single-handedly underwrite political campaigns with his billions, or his power to shape all manner of political and policy debates through his personal control of national media outlets.

Needless to say, these are rather heady concepts which fall far beyond the intellectual grasp of the average Glenn Beck fan or Rush Limbaugh listener. More often than not these days, the Right-Wing charge of “socialism” is directed at particular legislative initiatives which emanate from the Obama administration—like health care reform that could conceivably expand the availability of health care. Right Wingers are particularly worried that the United States might one day end up with a form of national health insurance that resembles that of {gasp!} France, where people live longer and suffer fewer preventable deaths despite lower per-capita health care expenditures. Of course, the United States already has a form of national health insurance for old people (Medicare), not to mention national retirement benefits for old people (Social Security), so one might ask why the Right Wingers aren’t calling for an end to those seemingly “socialist” programs as well. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that many of the opponents of health care reform are themselves old people who are dependent upon Medicare and Social Security.

At any rate, the convoluted mis-understanding of the term “socialism” which is so often on display in Right Wing circles was captured perfectly in one of the year’s most amusing Right Wing protest signs: “Don’t steal from Medicare to support socialized medicine.” {Sigh.…}

{pic by Big Dubya}

Now, I don’t know much about what you might call “knowledge.” In fact, it’s probably safe to say that I know less than nothing when it comes to history, politics, economics, science, and all those other fancy subjects that liberal university-type people think are so important. But one thing I do know is that this Obama administration and this Democrat Congress are socialist. It’s not that I really know what the word “socialism” means, mind you. I mean, I know it’s like what they have in China and Russia and Cuba and places like that. It’s kind of like when a Big Government takes your money and spreads it around to everyone—sort of like the Feds do with Medicare and Social Security, except that I like my Medicare and Social Security, so don’t mess with them. But I don’t want anything else like Medicare and Social Security because that would just be too socialistical. I’d be against Medicare and Social Security, too, if we didn’t already have them and I didn’t already like having them…

But that’s not the point. The point is that people on the T.V. and the radio like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter tell me that Obama and the Democrats are socialist, and I believe them. It’s kind of like accepting that my 1978 edition of the New International Version of the English translation of the Bible is the Word of God. It’s something you just have to take on faith, and asking for proof kind of ruins the whole thing. I mean, demanding “proof” that the Bible is the Word of God is pretty much proof that you’re an atheist, right? So demanding proof that Rush and Glenn and Ann are telling the truth about Obama being a socialist is pretty much proof that you’re a socialist.

I just know what I know, you know?

I am brimming over with ill-defined pride and faux patriotism—and nothing you say could ever change my mind.

I am an All-American Fool.

With flu season nearly upon us, the attention of public-health experts and hypochondriacs is turning to the potential perils of the H1N1 pandemic. But there is another, far more insidious disease in our midst: Demagogic Fever. We have grown accustomed to witnessing the maniacal rants and incoherent ramblings of high-profile individuals who suffer from this affliction and are therefore employed by light-weight infotainment outlets such as Premiere Radio Networks (Rush Limbaugh), Fox News (Glenn Beck), and CNN (Lou Dobbs). But it would behoove us to keep in mind that there are quite a few infected men and women who hold positions of power in the U.S. Congress. Given that Demagogic Fever is characterized by a dangerous degree of delusion, this is a matter of grave concern not only to public health, but to national security as well. Witness for yourself the degree to which the intellectual faculties of some of our nation’s lawmakers have been impaired by this debilitating ailment:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who currently occupies a seat in the House Financial Services Committee, believes that “global warming” cannot be real because it involves a warm-and-fuzzy atmospheric gas known as “carbon dioxide,” which not only “is a natural byproduct of nature,” but “occurs in earth” and is essential even for the life of “the fowl that flies in the air”:

In a related vein, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, believes that “global warming” is a hoax perpetrated by a Leftist cabal that includes Hollywood Elitists, the United Nations, and The Weather Channel:

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, believes that precisely 17 of his fellow congressional representatives are openly socialist, although it remains unclear who they are or if Bachus actually knows what the term “socialism” means:

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who fills a chair in the House Rules Committee, believes—somewhat defensively, perhaps, given her advanced age—that the health-care reform legislation slowly making its way through Congress would allow the federal government to put senior citizens to death (although there does not appear to be a Euthanasia provision in any of the bills currently circulating):

It should give one pause to realize that these individuals, who are clearly not in their right mind, possess some degree of power in shaping the fate of the United States. More alarming still is the fact that a majority of the electorate in the locales from whence they come are equally ill. It may be time to start spiking the nation’s drinking water with Zyprexa.

{pic by Burns!}

It is by no means clear when a word becomes violent. Murkier still is the question of when a word becomes so violent that the person who stands behind it deserves imprisonment or some lesser form of legal censure. And trying to decide what degree of responsibility is borne by a speaker of violent words for the violence committed by others who were inspired by those words tends to be a circular exercise in ethical futility.

The many gradations of meaning and intent that transform Free Speech into Hate Speech into Verbal Violence have been on prominent display over the past month or so as the Radical Right—already apoplectic over the ascendancy of dark-hued liberalism in the nation’s Capitol—has cloaked itself in health-care drag and infested the Town Hall Meetings that congressional representatives feel inexplicably obliged to conduct during their August recess. Much of the Right Wing’s theatrics in this regard have been farcically delusional in nature. Drones who receive their marching orders from intellectual luminaries such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck parrot patently absurd talking points about Fascism, Socialism, and “death panels” while parading around with pictures of Barack Obama sporting a Hitler-esque mustache. During a recent Town Hall Meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, Representative Barney Frank (D-4th/Mass.), Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, illustrated quite brilliantly just how seriously these kinds of histrionics should not be taken based on their merits (or lack thereof).

Unfortunately, Hate Speech is not all fun and games in which the intellectual deficiencies or mental instabilities of Right Wingers can be mocked for sport. Hate Speech can be deadly in its consequences, unintended or otherwise. For instance, Washington Monthly notes that Pittsburgh cop-killer Richard Poplawski suckled at the ideological teats of Fox News and the National Rifle Association in feeding his fantasies that the Obama administration was about to seize his beloved weapons. And the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights points out that the anti-immigrant rhetoric spouted by “high profile national media personalities” such as Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage “correlates closely with the increase in hate crimes against Hispanics.” Of course, correlation does not prove causality—and blaming the demagoguery of Dobbs and Savage for anti-Latino hate crimes is akin to blaming Marilyn Manson for the Columbine massacre because shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris liked his songs.

Regardless of the precise relationship between Hate Speech by one person and violent acts committed by another, the question remains of what one can actually do about it. In Europe and Canada, for instance, certain forms of public hate speech are simply illegal—although these laws have not exactly succeeded in eradicating either hate crimes or Right Wing hate groups. In the United States, on the other hand, freedom of speech as encoded in the First Amendment to the Constitution is generally held in high regard; and for good reason. As the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) succinctly notes: “History teaches that the first target of government repression is never the last.” In other words, let the government ban the speech of your enemy and it may ban your speech next. It is for that reason that the ACLU sometimes finds itself in the uncomfortable position of defending the free-speech rights of utterly vile hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan—and opposing progressive students who seek to ban Right Wing hate speech on campus. As the ACLU argues rather persuasively: “Where racist, sexist and homophobic speech is concerned, the ACLU believes that more speech—not less—is the best revenge.…when hate is out in the open, people can see the problem.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean one must sit back and do nothing when mainstream media “commentators” who are bankrolled by major corporations spew forth hate rhetoric day after day. For instance, the Color of Change campaign seems to be having some success in persuading advertisers to pull their ads from Glenn Beck’s show. Ultimately, however, peddlers of hate like Beck will fade away only when they no longer have a mass audience dumb enough to believe their lies. Darkness flourishes where the bulbs are dimmest. Conservative ideology tends to be a refuge for the ignorant… it is people who don’t know what “socialism” actually is who are the most likely to believe that the centrist Obama administration is “socialist.” For better or worse, an educated populace is the only viable, long-term solution to the social problems and quandaries posed by Hate Speech and Verbal Violence.

{pic by TCM Hitchhiker}

As difficult as it might be to believe, there is a healthcare crisis in the United States that has gone largely unnoticed. Although the negotiations now taking place in the U.S. Congress over healthcare reform have focused a great deal of public attention on the many failings of the U.S. healthcare system, this particular health crisis remains largely invisible to policymakers and media commentators. It is a crisis of mental health, and it seems to be growing ever more severe within Right Wing political circles. From the plebeian mosh pit of Talk Radio to the rarefied Halls of Congress, conservatives unable to come to terms psychologically with the election of President Barack Obama are becoming unhinged; their minds consumed by paranoid delusions which can only be described, clinically speaking, as psychotic.

Lest the reader think I merely jest, the National Institute of Mental Health defines “delusions” as manifested in “schizophrenia” as “false personal beliefs that are not part of the person’s culture and do not change, even when other people present proof that the beliefs are not true or logical.” Furthermore, individuals suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia can believe that others are deliberately cheating, harassing, poisoning, spying upon, or plotting against them or the people they care about. These beliefs are called delusions of persecution.”

Now, consider the persistent claims of so-called “Birthers” such as G. Gordon Liddy and Rep. John Campbell (R-CA), who harbor the belief that Obama is not actually a native-born U.S. citizen and is therefore ineligible to serve as President. With Lou Dobbs generously providing a high-profile venue for the airing of these dark fantasies, the Birthers insist that Obama was born not in Hawaii, but in Kenya, and that there is a vast conspiracy afoot to hide this from a gullible American public. And no amount of evidence to the contrary will change their minds.

Or consider the claims of Healthcare Denialists such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) that there is not actually a healthcare crisis in the United States. There is, of course, an abundance of evidence that tens of millions of Americans do not have access to employer-sponsored health insurance, cannot afford to buy health insurance or pay for healthcare out-of-pocket, and forgo medical treatment as a result. Yet the Healthcare Denialists persist in their belief that the notion of a “healthcare crisis” is simply an alarmist ploy by Leftists intent on a socialistic federal takeover of the private U.S. healthcare system.

Finally, consider Climate Denialists such as George Will, Pat Buchanan, and Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), who claim that global warming is not occurring. Despite the weight of the scientific evidence in this regard, the Climate Denialists insist that the very idea of “global warming” was concocted as part of a shadow-strewn conspiracy to siphon away the political and economic sovereignty of the United States and transfer it to a nebulous World Government.

Although it is easy to become angry at the inflammatory ramblings of deluded souls such as these, they warrant our compassion—not our hate. In the spirit of Hippocrates, we should want, and work towards, their recovery from the psychosis that afflicts them. As the National Institute of Mental Health has also pointed out, the atypical antipsychotics such as Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Geodon that were developed in the 1990s have proven highly effective in treating the psychotic symptoms from which far too many members of the Republican Caucus and the Fox News staff suffer. With the right medications, and intensive therapy, even Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh could “improve enough to lead independent, satisfying lives.”

{pic by PsychoBauble}

According to Russell Kirk, who qualifies as a deep thinker in conservative circles thanks in large part to his authorship in 1953 of a book called The Conservative Mind, a key attribute of conservatives is that they “are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know.” In other words, fear the unknown, and cling to what little you do know regardless of how wrong it might be. While there is certainly some value in the desire for social stability that this mentality reflects, the “conservative” mindset is not particularly helpful when it comes to the acquisition of knowledge. In fact, history reveals that the “conservative” mind tends to glorify whatever forms of ignorance are most prevalent in any particular era. For instance…

… Back in the early 1600s, Galileo Galilei dared rely upon astronomical observations and mathematical calculations found nowhere in The Bible to conclude that the earth is not the immovable center of the universe, but actually orbits the sun. The “Theological Qualifiers” of the Inquisitorial tribunal which tried him reached a more conservative, faith-based conclusion; namely, that Galileo’s belief was “absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures.” In fairness, the Catholic Church did get around to admitting the error of this decision in 1992. Now that a few centuries have passed, most modern conservatives in the United States admit that the earth probably revolves around the sun despite The Bible’s failure to explicitly mention this fact.

… In 1925, a jury in Dayton, Tennessee, heard the case of John Scopes, a high-school biology teacher charged with violating state law by teaching the theory of evolution. William Jennings Bryan, speaking conservatively on behalf of a prosecution team led by the appropriately named Herbert and Sue Hicks, claimed that “if evolution wins, Christianity goes,” since the creation fable of The Bible states quite clearly that everything in the world was magically zapped into existence in six days. However, under questioning by Clarence Darrow for the defense, even Bryan admitted that not everything in The Bible can be taken literally, and that a “day” in the Book of Genesis may not have been 24-hours long. It is a tribute to the staying power of blind faith in devout ignorance that many modern conservatives act as if there is still some sort of “debate” over the scientific underpinnings of the theory of evolution. According to their worldview, there is far too little tangible evidence to support the idea of evolution, but plenty to support reading The Bible as a textbook in both history and science.

… In 2007, reflecting the consensus of scientists worldwide, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that the available evidence on global warming is now “unequivocal,” and that it is “very likely” carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by human industrial activities are responsible for the phenomenon. Yet many conservatives continue to take it on faith that this is simply impossible. Columnist George Will claims that global warming isn’t even occurring, while scientific luminaries like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck argue that carbon dioxide couldn’t possibly be harmful since we breathe it. Presumably, the only acceptable “proof” of global warming will come if and when New York and Los Angeles are completely under water—at which point conservatives will finally be willing to tackle the problem.

The creationists and the global-warming-denialists of the conservative camp would do well to remember the case of Galileo in particular. Clinging blindly to conventional thought for its own sake may seem noble and high-minded at the time, but—more often than not—it makes one look monumentally stupid in retrospect. And in the case of global warming, it’s suicidal.

{pic by rafaelm}

More than 130 years ago, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts dared to suggest that the United States put an end to the legal segregation of whites and blacks in public places. In Sumner’s opinion, this was a rather barbaric custom that made little sense in the post-abolition era. But Congressman William B. Read of Kentucky knew better. Ending public segregation of blacks would be but the first step; “the next step will be that they will demand a law allowing them, without restraint, to visit the parlors and drawing rooms of the whites, and have free and unrestrained social intercourse with your unmarried sons and daughters.” Civil rights were a slippery slope… give the darkies a few rights and they’ll want more, and then they’ll come for your children.

Not quite a century later, in 1958, a black woman in Virginia, Mildred Jeter, was engaging in all sorts of “unrestrained social intercourse” with her white husband, Richard Loving. So, naturally, Caroline County Sheriff R. Garnett Brooks and two of his deputy thugs entered the couple’s house in the wee hours of the morning and arrested them in bed for violating the state’s prohibition against interracial marriage (the couple had been married in D.C.). As their case made its way through the state’s medieval judicial system, a trial judge named Leon M. Bazile offered this erudite reading of the law’s finer points: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And, but for the interference with his arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriage. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

And, now, half a century later, homophobes are employing the same anti-logic as their segregationist predecessors in arguing that gay marriage will offend God’s delicate sensibilities and bring about the collapse of civilization as we know it. Glenn Beck warns that a tsunami of “polyamorous,” multiple-partner marriages will be unleashed upon U.S. society if a man is allowed to legally marry a man or a woman is allowed to legally marry a woman. Pat Robertson has divined that gay marriage will lead us down the slippery slope to legalized pedophilia, child molestation, and bestiality. Bill O’Reilly seems particularly fascinated by the prospect of legal bestiality; offering up comical images of humans married to turtles, ducks, goats, and dolphins …give the fags a few rights and they’ll want more, and then they’ll come for your children—and your pets.

Of course, you expect this sort of attitude from the Bible-thumping Chicken Littles of The Far Right, for whom self-righteously intolerant absolutism is a central creed. Much more revealing, and profoundly hypocritical, is the bigotry emanating from some African American leaders whom one might hope would be a little more self-aware in this regard. For instance, when the D.C. Council voted on May 5 to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, the lone dissenter was none other than Marion Barry, an African American veteran of civil-rights struggles in decades past, who had to be taken to task for the obvious bigotry of his position by a gay, white member of the council, David Catania. Barry’s justification for his somewhat ironic stance was that he was siding with African American ministers “who stand on the moral compass of God.” Said moral ministers erupted with histrionic indignation when the vote was cast, invoking God and imperiled children with all the passion of the segregationists who came before them.

The moral of the story? Beware of anyone who claims to be in possession of God’s moral compass. He may do unto you as was done unto his forefathers.

{pic by tread}

In an indication of just how gun-crazed U.S. society truly is, a recent story on CNN states that “gun shops across the country are reporting a run on ammunition, a phenomenon apparently driven by fear that the Obama administration will increase taxes on bullets or enact new gun-control measures.” This comes not in response to any specific gun-control legislation under consideration on Capitol Hill (there is none), but reflects a general sense of paranoia fed by Right Wing pundits such as Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck, who have repeatedly warned their well-armed fans that the Obama administration is on the verge of seizing their beloved weapons. Some of their more delusional fans, like Pittsburgh cop-killer Richard Poplawski, have taken these gun-seizing conspiracy theories just a little too seriously.

The most revealing quote from the CNN story comes from a gun dealer in Colorado, who said that “the minority of our customers are stockpiling ammunition; the majority are standard shooters buying what they can.” This raises the intriguing sociological question of what it means to live in a society where so many people possess firearms that there is even such a thing as a “standard shooter.” The Brady Campaign, analyzing CDC statistics, provides a concise numerical answer:

• 30,694 people died from gun violence in 2005, including 12,352 people murdered; 17,002 people who killed themselves; 789 people killed accidentally; 330 killed by police intervention; and 221 who died, but their intent was not known.
• 69,863 people survived gun injuries in 2007, including 48,676 people injured in an attack; 4,291 people injured in a suicide attempt; 15,698 people shot accidentally; and 1,198 people shot in a police intervention

Or, as the Violence Policy Center succinctly puts it:

“Firearms are the second leading cause of traumatic death related to a consumer product in the United States and are the second most frequent cause of death overall for Americans ages 15 to 24. Since 1960, more than a million Americans have died in firearm suicides, homicides, and unintentional injuries. Public health research has shown that firearms violence is directly related to firearms availability and density. What separates America from other Western, industrialized nations is not our overall rate of violence, but our rates of lethal violence—which can be directly traced to gun availability.… Most Americans are surprised to learn that most gun deaths are not homicides, but preventable suicides. Even in homicide, the vast majority stem not from criminal activity, but are the result of arguments between people who know one another. Less than eight percent of all gun deaths are felony related. The most common scenario for homicide in America is an argument between two people who know one another.”

In the final analysis, this is what the self-proclaimed defenders of the Second Amendment are actually defending: a never-ending epidemic of preventable homicides and preventable suicides. It is a far cry from the right “to keep and bear arms” as part of a “well regulated militia.” It’s societal self-destruction.

{pic by matthewfilipowicz}

In what is proving to be a very surreal case of showing one’s true colors, right-wing pundits are rushing to the defense of right-wing terrorist groups. The cause of this conservative outrage is a recent report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which notes that white-supremacist militias and assorted other “rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues”—namely, the presence of a black man in the White House, the current economic recession, and the political possibility of gun-control and immigration-reform legislation at some point in the relatively near future. Right-wing Jaw Flappers are irate over this simple statement of fact because their ratings and livelihoods depend on stoking public fears over the very same issues that right-wing extremist groups use to recruit new members. Thus, perennial blow-hards like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michelle Malkin are claiming that the DHS report is really an attack on run-of-the mill conservatives who simply hate foreigners, horde weapons, and anxiously await the End Times.

The reaction of these Paleolithic pundits illustrates the obvious fact that their ideologies, like those of the terrorist groups they are defending, are based on little more than hate. The pundits have been issuing shrill warnings for months that the Obama administration is on the verge of rounding up all the guns, forcing U.S. citizens into FEMA prison camps, and turning the United States into some sort of Communist-Socialist-Fascist state. It is this sort of delusional rhetoric that is fueling the proliferation of hate groups in the United States—not to mention the psychotic fantasies of “lone gunmen” like Pittsburgh cop-shooter Richard Poplawski (who, apparently, took the warnings of Glenn Beck a little too seriously). This doesn’t mean that the pundits are directly responsible for the violence of their faithful followers, of course…just that they are all in bed together.

{pic by escapedtowisconsin}

The Washington Post has pointed to the sorry state of the U.S. economy as a major psychological factor underlying the homicidal shooting sprees unleashed by various unhinged gun nuts around the country over the past month. Binghamton shooter Jiverly Wong, for instance, apparently was upset about losing his job when he burst into the American Civic Association and murdered 13 people on April 3. And Pittsburgh shooter Richard Poplawski had voiced concerns about the impact of the economy’s collapse on the ability of the police to protect society, and then proceeded to murder three police officers summoned to his mother’s home on April 4 by a 911 call related to a dispute the two were having over a dog urinating in the house.

However, as Eric Boehlert notes for Media Matters, some of our more prominent mass murderers of late have also been psychotically nourished by the kinds of right-wing conspiracy theories that circulate constantly in venues like Fox News. Poplawski, for example, was stockpiling weapons on the assumption that the Obama administration was well on its way to implementing a gun ban—a fabrication that is a favorite of far-right demagogue Glenn Beck. Similarly, Jim Adkisson—who shot up the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville on July 28, 2008—was a big fan of pathological liars like Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly; all of whom spin endless yarns about the impending collapse of Western Civilization at the hands of godless, gun-shy Liberals.

Of course, Glenn Beck is no more to blame for the Pittsburgh shootings than Marilyn Manson is to blame for the Columbine massacre because shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris liked his songs. But it is worth noting that Right-Wing Tongue Waggers—who are fond of blaming rock music, television, and video games for so many of society’s ills—accept not even a modicum of responsibility when one of their well-armed and ill-informed admirers actually takes their rhetoric seriously and goes on a murderous rampage.