Hate mongering right and left

I was reading an article about the connection between right-wing hate mongering and the recent Knoxville church shooting. Actually, the article pretty much was an attempt by Warner Todd Huston to defend the indefensible.

One paragraph I found especially obnoxious:

First of all, calling O'Reilly, Limbaugh and Hannity "right-wing Shock jocks" is absurd. The woman's obscene rhetoric is itself beginning to make the lie to her claim of being an objective commentator on the subject. Worse, it seems to me this sort of loose theorizing is as much an example of hate as what she claims comes from her targets on talk radio.

Yeah, sure.

But one thing Huston brought up did trouble me greatly:

Recently, for instance, Cafe Press had to cancel a T-Shirt offering that featured the map of Red/Blue America on it with the words "Kill Republicans" emblazoned over it. (Cafe Press is an on-line company where users can sign up to sell their own T-Shirt designs) Early in August of 2005, Michelle Malkin reported on graffiti in New York City that proclaimed "I kill Republicans."

Anyone partaking of that type of rhetoric is a betrayer of the liberal position. Perhaps this represents a tit-for-tat type of mentality held by newbies to the debate. Perhaps some people are so repulsed by the right-wing extremism that is so rampant in our country today that they feel they have to take a stand and lash back.

Wrong stand.

One thing I strongly feel about the conservative versus liberal debate is that we on the left, those of us who truly believe in liberal principles, must never allow ourselves to be dragged down into the gutter by the right-wing extremists. A slogan such as "Save America, Kill Republicans" is extreme right-wing philosophy lifted and modified to represent anti-conservative - not liberal - sentiments.

I spend a lot of time examining right-wing dumbth, but there is too much dumbth emanating from the political left nowadays. We lose ground when we follow the lead of the conservatives and partake of their philosophy of hate and intolerance. Some of the comments I see from lefties on liberal blogs cause me to fear that emotions are starting to get the better of reason among too many of us. That is straight out of the right-wing playbook. These things hurt our cause and destroys the foundation on which our philosophy stands.