By: Markus Nagler

Markus Nagler — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:04:53 +0000

To be honest, sounds like you found what you were looking for. Trawling the seedy underbelly of Republican opinion on the web strikes me as a poor way of getting a grasp of conservative reaction to Kennedy’s death. Considering how nutty these sites usually are, two out of three did very well.
Plus, if one genuinely believes, that Kennedy had a negative impact on the country, why not say so? It’s hardly a sign of moral superiority when you have to lie in order to conform to a particular notion of politeness that doesn’t make a lot of sense in the first place. (I’d make more sense to hold back while someone is dying and potentially still able to be hurt by one’s words.)
I mean, turn it around: what if it had been Rush Limbaugh, someone I clearly consider a negative influence and to whom I have no more of a personal connection than to some random person in India? I’d not be happy about the death of a fellow human being, but I certainly would think that the world just got a bit better. That’s inherent in the notion of him being a negative influence, whose passing must, logically, improve things overall.
(If that’s to abstract, consider Hitler. Surely his death was an improvement. If that’s true, it follows that the deaths of other, lesser, evil people also could be an improvement. So where do you draw the line: Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, …, a serial killer, a rapist, or George W. Bush??? Sure, at some point you’re just demonizing people you disagree with, branding them evil on spurious grounds to justify your own hate. But at some point before that you’re just being honest. And I’m not sure these Redstaters weren’t being just that.)

Comments on: The Forest, The Trees

By: Markus Nagler