“Here we go,” says William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, after a Democrat decides that applying the phrase “job killing” to ObamaCare is an incitement to violence:
A good place to start a more civil dialog would be for my Republican colleagues in the House to change the name of the bill they have introduced to repeal health care reform. The bill, titled the “Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act,” was set to come up for a vote this week, but in the wake of Gabby’s shooting, it has been postponed at least until next week.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not suggesting that the name of that one piece of legislation somehow led to the horror of this weekend — but is it really necessary to put the word “killing” in the title of a major piece of legislation? I don’t think that word is in there by accident — my Republican friends know as well as anyone the power of words to send a message. But in this environment and at this moment in our nation’s history, it’s not the message we should be sending.
This is yet another example of how liberals routinely claim Republicans are engaging in “dog whistle” rhetoric — supposedly sending coded messages — when only liberals seem able to hear the whistle. How many times have we been told by liberals that various criticisms of the Obama administration’s agenda are inherently racist?
Assuming the pose of high-minded arbiters of civility, liberals arrogate to themselves the ability to decide what are and are not legitimate arguments and — surprise, surprise! — any argument made by conservatives is immediately ruled out of order. The more effective a conservative argument, the more success any particular strategy, tactic or rhetorical method has in defeating liberalism, the more likely it is to be attacked as an expression of “hate.”
Day in and day out for nearly two years, liberals have repeatedly claimed that the Tea Party movement is a hate-filled aggregation of violent bigots. (April will mark the two-year anniversary of the infamous DHS “Rightwing Extremism” report, issued just days before the 2009 Tax Day Tea Party rallies.) Why do they keep saying this, without any credible evidence? Because, as Da Tech Guy says, they only have to be right once:
Simple mathematics suggest that if you bet on a a particular number on a roulette wheel continually sooner or later it will come up, however if it comes up after you have lost over and over again, it is not proof of your gambling prowess.
Having spent some time in Vegas, I can attest to the truth of that. But words are cheaper than casino chips, and liberals had been betting the mortgage on the “Tea Party extremist” meme for so long that, when gunfire erupted in Tucson, they instantly leaped to the conclusion that their lucky number had finally hit.
Alas, they bet wrong again. Continue reading They Only Have to Be Right Once →
