Civil Discourse, Moral Equivalency

Honestly. I don’t know what’s worse: 1) that conservatives cannot engage in civil conversation about whether incendiary talk helps create the type of toxic culture we are living in today. The type of toxic culture capable of perpetuating incidents of violence like the one we saw on Saturday; or, 2) the moral equivalency arguments some are engaging in.

On Civil Discourse: From the New York Times:

In the incredulous language of talk radio, Mr. Justice defended his show and dismissed the notion that Arizona’s political culture had served as the backdrop to the shooting or an inspiration for the suspect, Jared L. Loughner.

“This is a crazy person!” he said. “Politics is out the window — you’re a nutbag! No amount of controlling talk radio is going to change that!”

"People need to go and point fingers,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but some people do. They have to find somebody to demonize.”

Mr. Justice, who has made issues like his opposition to Tucson’s ethnic studies programs for Latinos, his concerns about illegal immigration from Mexico and his disapproval of the Obama administration’s health care law a staple of his program, did not discuss those issues Monday.

Barry Young, the host of a morning show on KFYI (550-AM) in Phoenix, said: “They are telling us that we have to make sure our words and phrases don’t incite crazy people. I have one problem with that: They’re crazy.”

Some callers, however, made it clear that they believed that the state’s conservative-leaning radio hosts bore some responsibility.

On Moral Equivalency: From Human Events, partly in response to one of Paul Krugman’s blog posts.

“Something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence,” pontificates Krugman. Oh, and the Left bears no responsibility for that? They’re the ones who drop titanic mandates and mountains of regulation on American citizens. Their President has given us 20 months of crushing unemployment. They stole over $800 billion from us for “stimulus” pork and slush funds, and Krugman has gone on record saying he thinks they need two or three trillion dollars more.

The Democrats cranked up class-warfare rhetoric to a fever pitch during the lame-duck session of Congress, denouncing anyone who resists higher tax rates as greedy and unpatriotic. They bent over backwards to get miserable crooks like Charlie Rangel out of trouble with the lightest slap upon the wrist, flaunting their corruption in the face of a population boiling with impotent rage. When the president of Mexico denounced America on the floor of Congress last year, the Democrats rose to give him a thunderous standing ovation. But all this “climate of hatred” is coming from the guys on conservative talk radio?

And the spin has only just begun.