Propaganda: When is Too Much Mud Enough?

Every time the Republicans are criticised for "hoping Obama fails", they rightly point out that liberals were also hoping Bush failed. And when they call Obama a Nazi and a tyrant, they can refer to many instances where liberals compared Bush to Hitler. So is it really just a case of turnabout being fair play?

This is something I noticed about typical reactions. When Democrats lose, they threaten to move to Canada. When Republicans lose, they were far more likely to (a) call for armed insurrection (b) secede their state from the union.

Statistically, Obama has been receiving 4 times as many death threats as Bush, according to the Secret Service. I would think it would be fair if he got about the same number.

Democrats said some nasty things in their election rallies. But in Republican election rallies, people were calling Obama a terrorist and calling out "kill him". True it was only a few people, but nobody in the audience nearby did anything about it.

Was it fair of the liberals to call Bush a moron? It was definitely not nice, and a gross exaggeration of Bush's halting speeches and narrow world view. Is it fair of conservatives to call Obama a tyrant or a socialist? That may be an exaggeration of Obama's huge spending bills and health care reform, and putting mustard on his hamburger. But other than the mustard, Obama is just doing what he was democratically voted in for. On the other hand, everybody also knew Bush was not too bright before the election. In both cases, it is just democracy at work, so the losers have to get over it.

In two ways, the liberals got shortchanged by the elections. Although they had the majority of the popular vote in both 2000 and 2008, the victory in 2000 went to the conservatives on a technicality, and kept them in power for 8 years. And whether the left wins or loses, the President always seems to lean more to the right when in office. The left loses ground whether they win or lose the elections.

In my opinion there was a lot of nasty rhetoric about Bush coming from the left. But the nasty rhetoric from the right against Obama is even more extreme, and has crossed at least one line, and probably a lot more. I never saw protesters with signs AND loaded guns waiting for Bush when he was president. Nobody in congress yelled out calling Bush a liar during one of his speeches.

One thing for sure, the amount of political negativity in the USA has reached damagingly high levels, even for a country that has fought a civil war and seen the Civil Rights riots of the sixties. It is still hard to believe that the differences are so fundamental that they cannot be reconciled. But there are some very well paid commentators who are spreading propaganda of hate and fear, making things as bad as they possibly can be.

Is there an antidote to the juvenile tantrums, something that will help America be great again? I see the need to make more effort to eliminate deliberate lying on television, and in the rest of the media. Yes, I know, it's all about freedom of speech. But could we at least make lying publicly something to be ashamed of instead of a means to gain more support?

Jesus had a great idea too "Do unto other as you would have them do unto you". Even Godless atheists can buy into that saying. And you Christians don't be too smug, because I happen to know some of you do not live by that even though you call yourselves followers of Jesus.