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Clinton Chides 'Right-Wing Media,' Warns Government 'Demonization' Fuels Threats

FOXNews.com

Former President Clinton on Sunday broadened his warning that Tea Party protesters could feed violence reminiscent of the Oklahoma City bombing, suggesting "right-wing media" and the blogosphere could be culpable for any future politically fueled extremism as well.


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Former President Clinton on Sunday broadened his warning that Tea Party protesters could feed violence reminiscent of the Oklahoma City bombing, suggesting "right-wing media" and the blogosphere could be culpable for any future politically fueled extremism as well.

The former president, speaking on ABC's "This Week," elaborated on his controversial comments from Friday, when he drew parallels between the modern Tea Party movement and the anti-government rage of the mid-'90s that preceded the 1995 Oklahoma City attack that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

Clinton said Sunday that political dissent is necessary, but "demonization" of government is dangerous -- citing the uptick in threats made against members of Congress and other officials.

"We shouldn't demonize the government or its public employees or its elected officials," Clinton said. "We can disagree with them, we can harshly criticize them. But when we turn them into an object of demonization, we increase the number of threats."

The debate over and passage of the health care overhaul this year has coincided with an increase in threats against lawmakers. According to a recent report, lawmakers reported 42 security incidents from January through March -- lawmakers reported only 15 cases in the first three months of 2009. A middle-aged software engineer fueled by his hatred of the Internal Revenue Service also crashed his small plane into an Austin, Texas, building that housed IRS offices in February.

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Tea Party protests focus heavily on anti-tax and anti-health care reform rhetoric -- but organizers routinely reject charges that they're in any way fomenting violence or intolerance.

Clinton's comments from Friday, made at a symposium commemorating 15 years since the Oklahoma City bombing, drew a rebuke from conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who accused Clinton of having "just set the stage for violence in this country" and said "future acts of violence" would be on the former president's shoulders.

Clinton, in the interview Sunday, said the remark "doesn't make any sense." He instead suggested the behavior of "right-wing media" is reminiscent of the hostile mood of the country before the Oklahoma City bombing.

"I realized that there were lot of parallels between the early '90s and now, both in the feeling of economic dislocation, the level of uncertainty people felt, the rise of kind of identity politics, the rise of the militia movements and right-wing talk radio, with a lot of what's going on in the blogosphere now, and in the right-wing media," Clinton said.

"A lot of the things that have been said, they create a climate in which people who are vulnerable to violence because they're disoriented, like Timothy McVeigh was, are more likely to act," he added.

McVeigh was convicted on federal murder and conspiracy charges and executed in 2001 for his role in the attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Co-conspirator Terry Nichols is serving life in prison on federal and state bombing convictions.

'The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.'

'When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.'

'And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.'

'An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.' - Thomas Jefferson

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quote:
Originally posted by dogsoldier0513:
An 'incident' prompted/supported by the TEA Party? No...but perhaps such by a group masquerading as TEA Party members. Ever heard of 'agent provocateurs'?


actually yes, there is such a group as you probably know that has that exact agenda, to infiltrate the TEA party movement and destroy it from within.
There is a group of people who consider themselves part of the tea party movement in Oklahoma who want to create a militia. I linked this in the last thread about this his words. Yes they state that McVeigh was crazy, but it's the same thing he wanted and it's probably is unlikely that he originally had the intentions of doing a terrorist act. http://www.latimes.com/news/na...10apr18,0,1284.story

Things like this happen when things are disorganized and new. Ask some people and they think Palin started it. In reality it started with Ron Paul supporters, or Libertarians. Others want to merge it with the Republican party, while others want to keep it separate. It's the nature of an event like this.

I understand people want something like this to be simple but it just simply isn't. You just can't boil something down to us vs. them. Fox and other conservative blogs love to try to make it look that way but there are people who identify with the tea party who may not have good intentions except in their own minds. Instead of ignoring them you better call them out before they do something terrible in your name.
The "open carry" folks might be making a big mistake. There are a lot of people who see their actions as a misguided, swaggering, macho
charade Strutting around with arms strapped on serves no purpose other than to demonstrate that there is still plenty of opportunity for private citizens to keep and bear arms.

The gun toters and their lobby need to be patient and let the recent Supreme Court decision concerning the District of Columbia's gun laws evolve, as it most likely will, into a substantial relaxation of gun laws in the various states. The workings out of these kinds of things are not, and never will be, instantaneous. And the paranoid goofballs who spread the silly notion that "Obama is after your gun" are contributing nothing useful to the national discussion. The real beneficiaries of that nuttiness are the gun and ammo dealers, feeding on the delusions created by the nutty side!
quote:
Originally posted by beternU:
The "open carry" folks might be making a big mistake. There are a lot of people who see their actions as a misguided, swaggering, macho
charade Strutting around with arms strapped on serves no purpose other than to demonstrate that there is still plenty of opportunity for private citizens to keep and bear arms.

The gun toters and their lobby need to be patient and let the recent Supreme Court decision concerning the District of Columbia's gun laws evolve, as it most likely will, into a substantial relaxation of gun laws in the various states. The workings out of these kinds of things are not, and never will be, instantaneous. And the paranoid goofballs who spread the silly notion that "Obama is after your gun" are contributing nothing useful to the national discussion. The real beneficiaries of that nuttiness are the gun and ammo dealers, feeding on the delusions created by the nutty side!


I love how everyone continues to worry about how their gun is going to be taken away, when the new supreme court decision should EXTEND gun rights, not take them away. How about that "more educated" voter base that says "We came unarmed this time"

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