Greetings, one and everyone!
I'm sure by now you've seen coverage of all these health care reform protests. People with signs denouncing "socialism" and all that. While I find them to be... somewhat misinformed and uneducated regarding what Socialism actually is, protest is a valuable part of our democracy.
You know what isn't valuable? Turning someone into a caricature of evil, a threatening being out to kill your loved ones and everything you hold dear. "Hold on!" You say, "That's just part of the debate!" No, it's not part of any useful debate, and, frankly, it's starting to scare me.
What happens when we start demonizing people way beyond the scope of their influence? What happens when we label doctors "murderers" or call reporters "Nazis" and the like? What happens, time and time again, is that we make it easy for the whack-a-do fringe in this country to justify "putting down" these "evil-doers."
Sure, no one who goes on cable news networks say they want to be interpreted in this way, but in reality, all that this kind of hyped up rhetoric is doing is scaring the crap out of everyone and encouraging people to bring assault rifles to town hall meetings, for God's sake. Why do people kill other people? Because they think they have a valid reason. Regardless of whether or not that reason is seen as "a-OK" by everyone else in the world, these people have their reasons. War, self-defense, protecting others, God [or Whoever]'s Will, to rid us of people "screwing up America," or whatever else, these people think they have valid reasons.
Depicting the President of the United States of America as Hitler? As the Joker? Saying the President has a hatred for a ethnic group? Joking about poisoning the Speaker of the House? These are problems, and they don't do anything to help further the debate. What this sort of dialogue does is it dehumanizes it's subjects to such an extent that they are no longer real people in the eyes of a number of people.
It's not productive, it's hateful, it's misinformed, and it's dangerous.
Anyway, I'd like it to stop now. Kthnxbai.
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