Sarah Palin chose to use the cross hairs of a gun as a metaphor for what she "metaphorically" hoped would happen on election day 2010. She chose the irresponsible and potentially dangerous approach. It should surprise no one, for this is the same Sarah Palin that propagated hate and racism during the Presidential Election Campaign of 2008. She cheered and clapped as an angry crowd jeered and denounced the un-American black man that dared run for the highest office in the nation. She nodded "yes" when he was called a terrorist because of a work related association with a man who decades earlier had a past. She in fact used the word "terrorist" herself when speaking of this public servant, running for the highest office in the land.
She is the lowest common denominator when it comes to hate in politics in this era where demonization is the modus operandi of the right. Everything is personal. Everyone that has a "D" after their name is the enemy not only of her personally, but of the nation. She is not the first to stoop to this level, but she represents the worst of the worst most thoroughly and most frequently in this day and age. Sarah Palin is the ugly face of a dangerous rhetorical monster, metaphorically speaking, that has the potential to promote violence against the very public servants that represent the voting public.
Sarah Palin is likely not directly responsible for the events that unfolded today. Nor is Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and their ilk. They did not pull the trigger, and they did not give "specific" instructions to incite violence. But the lines have been laid. The cross hairs have been sighted. The bow has been drawn. The metaphors have been made. They've been made convincingly enough for an angry segment of society to speak freely of "watering the tree of liberty". They've been made convincingly enough to embolden a public official running for the Senate seat for the State of Nevada to speak of "Second Amendment Options" if issues could not be resolved at the ballot box. Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck made similar statements to that effect. Perhaps they are more culpable than previously noted.
The angry, hate filled, murderous rhetoric (lets call it what it is) did not kill anyone directly. But it is part of the recipe for violence. It is the spoon that stirs the toxic soup. It is the cook that pours the deadly brew. And it in fact is the primary ingredient that fuels the hate that resides on the political edge of the broader spectrum of which we all live and participate.
But you too live in that spectrum Sarah Palin. And you too Glen Beck, and Sean Hannity, and Fox News, and Michele Bachmann, and Rush Limbaugh. It is not only a political spectrum, it is the spectrum of humanity. You are calling to action the most deranged, the most paranoid, and the most volatile, when you preach hate, when you call your political adversaries your enemy, when you metaphorically speak of unseating an elected official in terms of shooting a target with the sight of a weapon used for killing. To pretend otherwise is untruthful. Metaphors are called metaphors for a reason. You are clearly drawing a murderous and violent picture. You are sending the very message we hope our own children never learn or embrace.
And you saw this day coming. Actual death threats via e-mail and phone to elected members of Congress. Democratic office windows broken. Explosive devices delivered to Democratic offices. Guns carried to presidential campaign gatherings, and congressional town hall meetings. Effigies of Democratic elected officials with nooses around the neck. Over the top rhetoric that elected Democrats are traitors to our nation that need to be investigated. Ridiculous lies about death panels coming to take the life of "granny". The attempted assassination today of an elected official, and the murder of six innocent people, is the culmination of decades of hate, ratcheted up one more notch, year after year after year.
So today Sarah Palin, you offer your condolences. And today you scrub your web page of the gun cross hairs over the Democratic Representative from Arizona, but you cannot scrub the stain from your hands. Nor can you Sharron Angle, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Sean Hannity, and many many others. Just as preachers tell us that sin begets sin, preaching hate and violence begets more hate and more violence. And just as words have meaning, and actions have consequences, you will have to live with the metaphors and more that you utter and preach to those who listen.