Comments

1
Wow....That was depressing. Unfortunately not surprising though.
2
The hypocrisy continues to stun me.
3
Gee Dan, you must not have watched the clip-
the verse about "let another take his office" kind of resonates.

The widow/orphan part is all Rachael's addition.

Watch Out, Dan-
RACHEAL MADDOW IS PRAYING!!!!
(and 'reading' the Bible!? wtf!!)
(that is scary enough- but it gets worse...)
RACHEAL MADDOW IS PRAYING For OBAMA'S CHILDREN TO BE FATHERLESS AND HIS WIFE A WIDOW!!!!

We know how this kind of stuff upsets yoy Dan, you should have Terri block MSNBC from your TV...
4
Is Rachael going to start quoting Leviticus next?
You may be next on her list, Dan...
5
Pruden was actually too generous with Mr Obama's predecesors- most Democrats don't have a feel for America, certainly not for what makes the economy work.
6
The very next line is what she quotes, jackass. The line about days in office isn't about being voted out.
7
Dan, are you outraged that Maddow quotes Psalms 109:9 regarding Obama?
Are you outraged that Maddow is advocating on her show that Obama's "children be fatherless and his wife a widow"?

That is a scary thing for her to be saying.
8
I refer to @3, btw.
9
@3, 4, & 5: Three comments, one person. So it takes you five minutes to log off, clear your browser, log back on, visit Slog, and leave comments. Such an assiduous coward.
10
6 Yes, it is HER that cites and quotes it, JackAss. It is a neat trick to tack your own addition on to the end and attribute it to someone else.
11
Hee hee, @3/4/5 can't spell.
12
Okay, @7, you too. The point is that this isn't some cute isolated quote about voting people out of office...it's part of a longer call for the deaths of tyrants. Do you really not get that or are just being intentionally dense? I'm sure we're going to hear all kinds of people like Glenn Beck pretending to be outraged at us completing the quote. This is dangerous and immoral and un-American. I didn't know we had so many American Taliban posting in Slog.
13
Don't expect reason from the unreasonable. Don't expect the ignorant to care about facts. But expose them both when you see them. Reasonable and intelligent people know them when they see them. Thanks Dan.
14
@10: I think you meant to write "Yes, it is SHE who cites..."
15
9
Who is logged on?
You don't understand the whole unregistered thing, do you?
16
@3:It's the very next sentence, and it refers to the same person. It's called "context".
17
Rachael is good at the whole Liberal Strawman "if you can't win the argumant make up what the other side is saying and argue with that" thing.
But not as good as Dan.
18
Feeding the trolls, never a good plan
19
@15: My bad, but you're still a coward...and afraid...and a fraud...and illiterate. Been fun playing with you, but I'm done. Allah bless you.
20
6
12
16

Me thinks you girls doth protest too much...
21
@10, so you're cool with bumper stickers featuring one line from a Bible selection calling for the death of leaders to be promoted in reference to our first black president, who has a way higher level of threats against him as it is? You're okay with the "Hitler" stuff? You like where this is going? So, do you think it's just an innocent coincidence that this quote is on bumperstickers, and that to quote the very next line in the selection is "bearing false witness"? If so, you are either deluded or disingenuous.
22
19
Nice picture.
Very brave of you to post it.
And I enjoyed your courageous well spelled Bio on "MyStrangerFace".
23
1) Finishinf a quote is in not "making up what the other side is saying."

2) I "protest too much"? Ooooo, good one. You got me!
24
3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 15, is the most annoyingly self-satisfied troll ever. Please do not feed him; it only encourages him to hang around. Consider it a form of enabling if you respond.

Apparently he is not gainfully employed, since he hangs out here all day---a shame for someone of his self-perceived wit. Does anyone need any help in setting up the "unregistered comments off" feature?
25
"finishing", obviously...
26
21 I'm BOTH!!
27
24
not all of us can find a gig slaughtering the innocent
28
Time to turn the unregistered comments off. It's too early in the morning to have to deal with this dildo.
29
24
They probably do need help.
People afraid of new ideas are usually too stupid to find and click buttons.
30
28
Need some help with that?
31
when he asks, where are those denouncing terrorism? i can't help but wonder, are words the same as terrorism? sometimes yes, sometimes no. but i think these psalm 109:8 are meant as a joke. days are numbered is slang and can easily refer to his days in office, and that sort of obvious-single-verse-out-of-context humor is popular within conservative christian circles.

i agree with, chris hansen, a staff attorney with the ACLU, when he says, "The use of Psalm 109:8 is ambiguous as to whether its users are calling for the President to serve “only one term, or less than one term." deborah lauter, director of civil rights at the Anti-Defamation League agrees that the bumper sticker falls within acceptable political discourse." For it to be considered hate speech, it “would advocate actual violence or cite scripture that was more clear in its message.” (http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2…)

it's like the right criticizing che t-shirts, and saying the left will justify killing as a means to an end. you really have to believe there are mass amounts of seriously crazy, gun-toting, christians out there to believe this will be harmful. instead, i think it was just a joke that, because of the actual context, may be considered inappropriate by some.

but what's with that audio clip at the end?
32
Just like comparing Obama to Hitler makes you a hyperbolic jackass, so does comparing conservatives who disagree with you on a message board to the Taliban. There's too much douchebaggery on both sides, and you're all as fucking guilty of it as the far right.

Oh but they are threatening the president and they are ignorant and pro-life and creationists and socialism isn't a bad word!

It's the same brand of self-righteous, self aggrandizing bullshit circular reasoning. Do everyone a favor and shut the fuck up. We don't need anymore judgmental dicks convincing themselves that they have the world figured out and everyone who disagrees is an idiot.
33
My God, what is WRONG with this country? (Sadly, I suppose the answer to that question lies in its first two words...)
34
I used "Taliban" because the verse is calling for death, not to refer to anyone who disagrees with me.. Yes, the one line from the stickers doesn't mention death. But the very next line does. Besides, the stickers have the line reference, not the line itself - anyone looking it up as the stickers invite would see the call for harm. Why is that defensible?

I guess I'll go shut the fuck up now, since the anonymous unregistered poster told me to.
35
Passionate rhetoric is not life threatening to presidents. Just think what was hurled at 'W.
36
31
32
gawd if I could talk as smart as you guys I wouldn't have to be a miserable cowardly troll...
37
@35 --- I don't think the passionate rhetoric is what is irksome. It's connecting it to religion. I can't recall religious fundamentalists doing the same thing to GW Bush.
38
He's right in saying that people of faith who have supported him have not been as loud as those who have sided with the repubs out of sheer despise for the President. But as he also said, it is imperative for those secularist/atheist supporters of the President (of which there are many here) to quit picking and bitching at him for every little thing he does or doesn't do just because they're not getting what they want out of his administration. Otherwise by doin so they're indirectly contributing to the hostility and viciousness that's out there, as has been done by them so far. Best example of that here are the "fierce advocacy" threads, the content of such theads and the comments that always come up in them are the type of prime fuel that mr Schaeffer is warning us about.
39
@ 35, no insult hurled at W could be interpreted as a death threat. I challenge you to find one that's as representative of the left as these calls for Obama's death are representative of the right.
40
*sigh*
41
38, wrong. Criticisms from the left do nothing to incite further hatred on the right's part. They are batshit crazy, and no one on the left is responsible for their condition. IF some fuckwit goes ahead and tries to kill the president, it won't be because he was just a normal conservative whose "kill" switch was flipped by a Dan Savage rant; it will be because he is a murderous psycho who hates the fact that his side is on the outs.
42
@39: http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621

i really don't think the people behind this intend it as a death threat. and as a joke, it can really only loosely incite someone. specifically, by that i mean the person would have to be so crazy already that this could not have any noticeable affect.
43
Am I missing something? Can someone please explain to me why the secret service quit working since Obama became president? Seriously, I thought shit way less inflammatory than this was illegal, or at least enough to get you a visit for the secret service.
44
@ 42, I've seen that stuff. I don't think it's in the same league as T-shirts for sale, churches calling for prayers, and cable news commentators making veiled threats. The high level of visibility of this stuff indicates that far more people feel this way about Obama than those who felt that way about W.
45
Why are people out there allowed to get away with threatening to kill the President like this? Some of these people are serious, and they should be taken seriously, and get them help!!! They need to be investigated and arrested for making terroristic threats against the President. Isn't that part of what the Patriot Act was passed to prevent? Or am I attributing something useful to that pathetic piece of legislation?
46
"Don't cum in my ear! Just Don't!"

I will be laughing all day about that one...
47
@44 hmmm.... let me take a stab at dissecting this a little. i agree with most of what you say in your post, but disagree with it almost as much.

first you say that you don't think "that stuff" is in the same league as t-shirts for sale, etc... i agree, they are not in the same league in two ways:

1) the t-shirts are being widely disseminated in a way that differs significantly from a few signs.
2) the t-shirts are not meant a veiled threats AT ALL.

note: i only posted that link because you commented in 39, "no insult hurled at W could be interpreted as a death threat."

later, you write, "They are batshit crazy." i disagree. while i do not agree with their side of the story, they are not batshit crazy. most of them do not want to assassinate the president (batshit crazy) or want him to be assassinated (shit crazy) or would be happy if he was assassinated (crazy) or would even think it was a good thing were he to be.

i know people who think this sort of thing is funny. they are not crazy. they are conservative republicans who are making a joke. these are not veiled threats.

your last sentence has me agreeing and disagreeing as well when you say "about Obama than those who felt that way about W." yeah, more people probably really want to assassinate obama than people who wanted to assassinate W. but were are still talking small numbers across the nation. these bumper stickers are not the sign of those who want to assassinate. those crazies are either insane, in a radical supremacist group, or are subversive enough to hide their agenda.

i agree that this anti-obama stuff does get some serious attention, but certainly not more than the pro-obama merchandising we've seen.
48
@ 47, when I say "crazy" or even "psychos," I don't mean that to apply to vast numbers of the right. I know that the truly bloodthirsty among them is a small number. But it's remarkable how this sort of talk, overall, seems to be much more visible and how few of the saner sort of conservatives you mention decry such talk. I didn't go to any antiwar marches (since they seemed to give equal time to any number of irrelevant left wing causes) so I don't know how other marchers greeted "kill W" signwavers; but I do know that any time such things were discussed on blogs, avowed lefties were quick to condemn such sentiments. But as noted, these things were largely invisible and I take it as a measure of how unpopular such sentiments were among the left.

As far as "no insult hurled at W being interpreted as a death threat..." What I saw in your link were a few actual "death to Bush" or "kill W" signs. I think that's an important distinction - it's not some call to divine revolution like the prayers and biblical quotes are.

I suppose I'm dancing around it a bit. Part of it is that hard right guys have a much longer record of resorting to violence than hard left guys do. When a lefty says "kill Bush" it seems like venting and nothing more; when a righty invokes the Bible and prays for the death of Obama, it's much more sinister to me.
49
Well, my first thought is that if anyone would understand and be able to properly analyze the craziness of fundamentalist Christians, it would be Frank Schaeffer. But my second thought is that these days, Frank stands to gain from inflating the threat of fundamentalist Christianity because that's what sells his books. For the sake of our country and the safety of our president, I hope that the latter, and not the former, is true.
50
Note to self: get on Cafe Press and make up some Psalm 109:2 shirts with pictures of Obama.
In the continuing t-shirt fantasy some nearly illiterate hater would be photographed wearing one to go teabagging...
51
@31- There are far more gun toting Christian crazies in this country than there are leftist gun toting crazies. The american armed forces, for example, are full of evangelicals with guns.
52
51
and don't you forget it
53
@51:
Huh... Well, I'm a veteran and I didn't meet a whole lot of evangelicals when I served. No more than one would meet in mainstream, everyday society.

I do find it amusing how people that have never served, have all these kinds of misconceptions about the armed services.
54
@42- Zombie takes time off from the gay leather scene? I thought that was his full time interest. You've got maybe a dozen signs there, several different examples being held by the same guy. One sign says "Investigate, impeach, imprison" which is a call for a completely legal and nonviolent cause.

The right's ability to make mountains out of molehills always astounds. Y'all are kinda funny. What's scary is the way y'all coddle your violent fringe.
55
When a lefty says "kill Bush" it seems like venting and nothing more; when a righty invokes the Bible and prays for the death of Obama, it's much more sinister to me.

see, i would agree mostly, but at the same time hardly. when i hear it from either side i usually think it is venting and nothing more. usually you know the people who say it who are on your side, which makes a world of difference. because of my CC past, i still know a ton of CCs, and am still in contact with many of them. as a whole all of them that i know (who are almost all against gay-right, obama, etc...) make absolutely no death threats against obama, and when they make jokes about him they mean them as nothing more. strangely similar to those on the left i know who were very dissatisfied with W.

i just showed the bumper sticker to a CC friend of mine who gave his initial impressions. he thought it was a stupid joke typical of christians and their inability to be timely and funny. he didn't see the death threat angle at all, and was a little disappointed that some christians were once again putting forward a negative image instead of promoting a positive one.

56
yeah.. it's all fun and games until somebody loses a life...
57
@39, maybe not on Slog, but I read plenty of liberals loudly wishing for Bush's death over the years, though most of them wouldn't quote scripture to encourage it. That's a righty thing.
58
@38 is spot-on correct that the cumulative effect of the chorus of complainers is contributing to Obama's approval rates dropping and threats increasing. I'm all for the gay community to hit him where it counts--stop writing checks!--but the drone of non-stop negativity is a drag. In Dan's post, he writes "he's not delivering the change he promised" when he means "he hasn't done enough for gays". There's a distinction to be made there. I'm a liberal and I'm trying to be a bit more realistic about the many things we expect from Obama. I want, and have signed numerous petitions for, full marriage equality. But if my president stops what he's doing in the worst economic collapse in a century or so, during two wars and the highest unemployment on record for decades, to do nothing but tirelessly fight for gay rights, I'm not going to be thrilled and he'll get voted out after one term. Does the gay community think they'll do any better with the republican president we'll end up with?
59
Why would you assume they'd read their verses in context? That seems wildly unrealistic.
60
Years ago a kid at my former high school posted a dumb joke on the internet about killing the president, and the secret service showed up in no time and and took the kid away for questioning. The contrast is striking.

I'm considering a nerve-wracking possibility, though: if the secret service enforced the law against any of these haters, the irrational right would be howling from the treetops about how this proves everything that they have been saying, that Obama is worse than Hitler, that now his secret police are starting to drag people away for exercising their "free speech" or saying anything against him. It'd only escalate the rhetoric among the crazies, which could also then lead to real violence breaking out (and that might actually be the plan here), so I think it is possible that the Obama's administration has made a decision to ignore what could be a deliberate ploy to bait them into doing something which could then be used to further mobilize the frenzied haters against the "repressive" government.
61
At least we can take comfort in the fact that prayer doesn't work.

They may be psychos, but they only THINK they have a magical wizard assassin on their team. I don't normally go in for that deeply stale, condescending "sky wizard" business but it really seems appropriate here. "Dear God, please magically murder the scary black man."
62
@61: The problem comes when someone believes that God wishes to use him as an instrument to do His will.
63
If conservative Christians are really thinking of assassinating Obama, they would have to be crazy.

Because I can't think of almost anything that could be more harmful to Republicans.
64
HEY HEY HEY
is there a "noble and just and holy leader" bible passage???
plaster it on Kingly Obama printouts and slather it all over autos
canvas neighborhoods at 4am?
canvas known racist churches on sundays
65
@53- http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0…

Maybe you just move in a different "everyday life" than I do.
66
@65... uh, that article seems to agree with @53 in part: As a whole, the military is actually slightly less religious than the general population

it's a very interesting article, however, and one can clearly see there are problems with the evangelical nature of aspects/parts/groups of the military.
67
@66-But it has a whole bunch of armed religious fanatics, which was my point.
68
Dan's mistake her is indulging his Maddow fetish.
She is a stupid smug piece of shit hack and her "journalism" is even shittier and every time Dan links to one of her stupid shit hack stories his gets his balls chewed up in the buzzsaw.
69
I have lived in the rural heartland of America for 60 years. Many of my relatives and other people I grew up with are conservatives, albeit not Evangelicals, by and large.

Not since Martin Luther King began to be in the news back in the 60s have I heard the kind of things from the mouths of all ages of my extended family (and people at those Town Hall meetings and Tea Bagger rallies) as I hear them spew about Obama and his policies. Rabid fear and irrationality.

I am appalled at how many believe every bit of hysteria and lie and consider contrary evidence to be the real lies. Most have lost all common sense and seem to distrust everything except those who yell the loudest insanities. It is no coincidence that gun sales and bullet sales are at historic levels and that militia groups are getting many new members out here.

@31 - It only takes one "seriously crazy, gun-toting" religious fanatic to be harmful.

When the ignorant or the unbalanced are egged on by cynical hysteria mongers who irresponsibly or deliberately pander to the paranoia. When they are encouraged to feel that those who aren't of their religion or politics are intrinsically evil and out to get them or destroy their culture - do you seriously think this doesn't increase the odds towards violence?

It is no coincidence that this description fits Nidal Hasan as much as it could fit any other religious nut job these days. But at least Hasan was getting his encouragement from overseas zealots and not from other American citizens sitting in front of American microphones and pulpits, pretending their delusional, ratings harlotry is all about truth and "protecting America".
70
Roughly 1/4 of this country is collectively going PSYCHO. (the demographic of Palin-loving teabagging birthers who would consider sporting this bumper sticker/shirt/etc). Anything we can do about it? Anything that will calm these folks down? They literally want the president killed, they literally want civil war on liberal America, they literally believe they are more American than the rest of us, they literally all need shrinks but are the last folks in this country who will go that route. These folks believe psychology is a bunch of hokum, "psychobabble," they are not even willing to open their minds to study themselves.
I've thought of how these people can possibly be reached out to, calmed down, political solutions that can make everyone happy, something but I can't think of anything except for a right-left political alliance in support of constitution-backed civil rights (they're scared of big brother, the left is too). But then there's insane shit like this bumper sticker, coming from people who think Obama is a devil or something, and I don't even want to reach out to them. This shit is going in a really bad direction, they won't be happy until Obama is as hard-right as they are. And if that's the case, they won't be happy until this country is monopolized, permanently dominated by the christian right that wants America to become a fucking rogue state banana republic/theocracy/plutocracy

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