Republican legislators have been saying that they've received many threatening emails since last night. I don't condone such things in any way. However, I don't know how the Republicans didn't expect it. They are threatening hundreds of thousands of people's livelihoods. It's easy to use stronger language in an email than one may truly intend. I myself have to take a deep breathe and read many of my emails to politicians over and over, softening the tone every run. I suspect the Republicans have received very few emails, and they are only trying to amplify them.
Even though the emails are wrong, they do exist, and the Republicans should think about why they're receiving emails with such strong language. Wisconsinites aren't violent people, as the protests have demonstrated, but stripping away collective bargaining rights is not helping a guy when he's down. Many people are clearly very hurt and upset by what their government has done.
Let's keep a civil tone, death threats don't help anyone's cause. Also, email is not anonymous, if you do threaten someone's life, you will most likely spend time in jail.
Take your pain, your hurt, and your anger, and focus it on attending rallies, recalling the Republicans, and enlightening your fellow citizens who may get their news from Fox News. This is where the trouble lies, in lies.
Update: (3/11/2011 5:14am) I've read some of the emails that have been posted on the Internet, and I'm astonished and bothered to say the least. No one should expect to receive emails such as those, nor should anyone be the recipient of such emails. I seriously underestimated the potential tone, and I take back my comments about the Republicans not expecting threatening emails and for saying they're trying to amplify the emails. The gist of this post is, think before you hit Send or Save. I clearly didn't take the time to analyze my quick conclusion, and you and the Republicans deserve better.
Edit: (8pm) Clarified my thoughts by removing wording and adding a sentence to the end of the first paragraph.
Hard to believe I'm even reading this ~
ReplyDelete"I'm sure a few of those people are suffering from depression, are bi-polar, or have some other mental illness that doesn't prevent them from working but can cause them to act out when threatened."
It's not easy to ride two horses at once - attempting to appear to be taking the High Road and calling for "evolved thinking" while simultaneously being incredibly condescending and ignorant of both generic human nature and mental illnesses, actively perpetuating neanderthal-ish stereotypes of mental illnesses in general while singling out depressed and bi-polar citizens for special swaths of your ignorance.
So, you know... "let's try to keep a civil tone" ourselves shall we, you insulting so-and-so? Unless you can link to specific data proving that bi-polar and depressed persons have a higher incidence of violence than the public at large (which you can not, since they do not, the data proves in fact the opposite is true) then keep this kind of "inspirational guidance" post off the Internets please.
One typically has to look to a Republican for this kind of sweeping condemnation and stereotypical abuse of large demographic groups.
You are completely right, and I sincerely apologize for my post. I assure you, I didn't intend to say that anyone with a mental illness would cause violence when I said "act out." I was trying to show the inevitability of receiving such threatening emails based on what has been done to such a large amount of people, and that the Republicans were trying to amplify them. I didn't need to specify any mental illness to achieve that, and for doing so I'm sorry. I also regret the amount of time this has stood on the page. I'll change it post-haste.
ReplyDeleteThank you for pointing out the incorrect correlation, and I assure you it won't happen again.