Bigoted and ignorant McCain/Palin supporters in Ohio
UPDATE: Here are more bigoted McCain and Palin supporters in Johnstown, Pennsylvania:
UPDATE (October 20, 2008): Sarah Palin says if she heard such bigoted comments she'd shut them down:
"What we have heard through some mainstream media is that folks have hollered out some atrocious and unacceptable things like kill him,' " Palin said, referring to a Washington Post story two weeks ago about angry supporters at a Palin rally in Florida. "If I ever were to hear that standing up there at the podium with the mike, I would call them out on that, and I would tell these people, no, that's unacceptable."She goes on to break with McCain by supporting a U.S. Constitutional amendment to oppose gay marriage and claim that "Faith in God in general has been mocked through this campaign, and that breaks my heart and that is unfair for others who share a faith in God and choose to worship our Lord in whatever private manner that they deem fit."
UPDATE (October 21, 2008): And here's another video, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (same link provided by Hume's Ghost in the first comment), of McCain and Palin supporters entering Lehigh University (the school where intelligent design advocate Michael Behe is a professor):
UPDATE (October 22, 2008): And be sure to check out this woman's reasons for voting for McCain, at the Secular Web.
UPDATE: And more videos of McCain supporters heckling early voters (most of whom were from an Obama rally) in West Virginia.
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36 comments:
And then there's this one
Seeing all these angry old mean-as-hell white people is giving me flashbacks to working grounds on an exclusive golf course, where the club members would refer to my 30-40 year old Mexican co-workers as "boy."
ignorance doesn't actually look that bliss after all....
Holy hell!
I am legitimately concerned, very concerned, about Obama's safety. I hope the Secret Service is up to the difficult task ahead of them.
McCain has stoked a fire and now it's out of control. Wow, just wow.
Wow.
There are people of low IQs and bigotted opinions in each political party. The video you chose to purport McCain/Palin supporter are bigotted idiots is a work of your artistic dishonesty. TRUTH IS WHAT MATTERS. I don't appreciate either party stopping to this level of dishonety to make their point. Ideas are more powerfully expressed with the Truth. But that may be too much to expect from those that are narrowminded enought to look for truth only in one box. Expand your universe a bit to included something that might just pop up to suprise you someday. Like ... an Intelligent Designer. (But not like the one who made this video.) Or did this video just evolve from goo in siber space?
???????
The stupid... IT BURNS!
Those must be the "pro-Americans" we've been hearing about.
These people are just parrots. Look at the one cow who said, "Ayers, Obama... connection! What more needs to be said" as her answer to who was a terrorist.
What kind of answer is that? Seriously. In what conversation would that answer be acceptable?
These window-lickers have been pumped with eight years of non-stop fear and hate, and now they can't even think or speak straight. Anger, ignorance and paranoia mix into some seriously terrifying shit, and it's not going to be easy for these people to shake that.
"Expand your universe a bit to included something that might just pop up to suprise you someday. Like ... an Intelligent Designer. (But not like the one who made this video.) Or did this video just evolve from goo in siber space?"
Wait a minute...what does the Cybernetic Slime Architect have to do with footage of rabid McCain fans foaming at the mouth? Sure, I'll grant that both sides have their deranged and ignorant folks out for partisan blood, but...very few up until now gave the impression that they are out for literal blood. I assume that it is merely the specter of racism, giving us the willies. Ideally, it is just that, rather than a full blown resurrection (as per a certain lovable space being, known simply to humans as E.T.).
The video kind of speaks for itself. I don't see how it was dishonest to expose these nuts by simply recording them.
I attended an Obama rally and people quietly and respectfully walked past the Pro-Life protester without making any comments.
To just dismiss these McCainiacs by trying to equalize the issue is logically unfair. There behavior is unacceptable, and the Republican candidates (especially Palin) encouraged it.
truthmattes: "I don't appreciate either party stopping to this level of dishonety to make their point."
What dishonesty are you speaking of? My introduction to the videos says "this is no doubt not a representative cross-section of McCain and Palin supporters, but it's a disturbingly ugly set of them."
truthmattes: When you answer my question about what dishonesty you're referring to, I'm also interested in pointers to the "'intelligent' responses refuting an article that Jim Lippard
wrote" that you mentioned in a comment at the Secular Web.
I'm not sure how much McCain has really done to contradict these statements. I saw the video where he's booed for simply saying that Obama shouldn't be feared, but when that one redneck woman said that she doesn't trust him because he's a Muslim, McCain didn't say anything about that. He sort of cuddled with her for a moment and shook his head, but he didn't actually say anything about it.
I'm not sure he wants to give up the Muslim scare card.
Nomad: There was an instance where a woman said that Obama is an Arab, and McCain responded in a way that put his foot in his mouth, saying "He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with." The problem is the implication that Arabs can't be decent family men... The Daily Show ran with this one, and Juan Cole discusses it here.
Here's the video.
Saturday Night Live did a "crazy McCain rally lady" bit a couple weeks ago based on this woman.
These poor people are in need of an education. I hope this is one of the priorities of the Presidency and the Congress in the next term.
I hesitate attributing this stupidity to McCain. To be sure, his campaign may have started some of the rumors, but it's clear that these people WANT to believe such things.
We are all responsible for the information we accept or portray as Factual. A healthy dose of skepticism will quickly reveal when someone is telling you what you want to hear. These idiots would do themselves and their kids some good by not being so eager to lap up extreme right-wing propaganda
I love seeing these idiots say things like, "This is a Christian nation!" Wow.. so we've forgotten that our ancestors came to this land fleeing religious persecution and that one of the first things guaranteed to every American is the 'freedom of religion.' That includes the right to not have a faith. Many of the founding fathers were also Universalists. But this is a Christian nation? These morons tell people to go back to their country of origin and don't even know what rights this country was founded on? To me, THEY should leave. Not people that are actually paying attention.
"siber space" rhymes with "gibber face"
Whateverman: "I hesitate attributing this stupidity to McCain."
Has someone attributed this stupidity to McCain, as opposed to a subset of his supporters?
(Sorry - URL was too long!)
I'm guessing Oberdork just did...
(See the vid at Pharyngula... )
...but I since I'm not watching anything MSNBC-related, I don't actually know what he says. You'll have to take PZ's word for it.
I don't blame McCain for the stupidity, but I hold him accountable for irresponsible rhetoric which works to incite this sort of stupidity.
ACORN is now getting death threats from racists. Is it McCain's fault that there are racist idiots who want to kill Obama and black? No. Is McCain responsible for generating the backlash against ACORN and minorities by making absurd and bogus allegations that the organization is a threat to democracy while people like Michelle Malkin are blogging about how ACORN is going to steal the election with fraudulent minority votes? Yes.
You know there are bigots on both sides as there are racist in virtually all races. I question these videos from both sides as to what is really being shown.
What these videos indicate that everyone that is for McCain/Palim MUST be a idiot, racist who are out to completely destroy this country.
And yes, the other side selects their videos as well to present their side in the best light as possible.
Ronald: "What these videos indicate that everyone that is for McCain/Palim MUST be a idiot, racist who are out to completely destroy this country."
Clearly not. What they do indicate is that many of the people shown in them have shown themselves to be idiots, bigots, and genuinely scary people.
I found it interesting the difference between the McCain & Obama rallies. The people at the Obama rallies were all smiling and seemed excited. The rest seemed so angry. It is truly sad.
I found it quite disgusting when the one man said the Rape survivor should pay for her own kit & then pay double. While he is saying that, everyone around him has huge smiles. Totally disgusting. Yet, Democrats are the disgusting ones for supporting choice. I love that. If they think overturning Roe vs Wade will stop abortions they are so wrong. It will only cause more women to suffer. By seeing how they felt about a rape survivor though, I'm sure that isn't it a big deal to most pro-life.
On the argument that these videos only show a certain side, yes that is true. Regardless though, the videos are the truth. Those people knew what they were yelling and what they were saying. Anyone with common sense would know that the videos do not show every single McCain supporter.
"Seeing all these angry old mean-as-hell white people is giving me flashbacks”
The comments on this subject are amazing. Flashbacks, indeed. Who told you that would sound smart, Hume's Ghost?
Now you've done it, truthmattes. Hume's Ghost is confused. He wasn't taught that in pre-school.
the chemist says he's "legitimately concerned about Obama's safety". This pure nonsense. The only person who claims to have heard anyone yell out "kill him" was a reporter. The USSS could find no witnesses to this remark and no one but the reporter heard it. I'm thinking it might have been his own voice he heard.
So, McCain supporters are "window lickers". I am amused to see how the true mushbrains in our country can project their own shortcomings to people they never met and have no clue about their lives. Just knowing that they are not voting for Obamesiah is proof positive that they are lacking something. Is that right folks?
And "the chemist" is concerned about Obama's safety. Why? Well everyone with a brain knows Republicans are just plain mean and stupid, right? Let's ignore all the cars with McCain bumper stickers that have been keyed, had the windows broken and set on fire by Obama supporters.
If you support Obama and cannot come up with one concrete thing that he has done in the past as some kind of evidence that he will do as he says as president, then you've become just another follower in a country that needs independent thinkers.
Progressives, you drink from the party trough and believe you're smarter than your political opponents. Have you watched C-SPAN and noticed how your elected officials address each other? No one who remains in office ever refers to his/her opponents as "Bigoted and ignorant", "angry old mean-as-hell white people", "cow ", "These poor people are in need of an education", "these idiots", "These morons", etc.
And I thought Progressives were the people of inclusion, hope and civility. It's very hard to find any of that here.
Mover: Your comment strikes me as rather hypocritical, in that you're engaging in the same sort of namecalling that you decry.
I note that you do not dispute that the "bigoted and ignorant" statement is accurate, only that it's not a statement that an elected politician would make. Perhaps so, but I'm grateful that I am not an elected politician, and have the freedom to express accurate judgments about members of the U.S. voting public.
You claim that there are multiple cars with McCain bumper stickers that have been keyed and set on fire by Obama supporters. There seems to have been a single instance of a Lexus vandalized in a parking garage in Clearwater, FL, which the owner suspects was due to his McCain sticker. That's a deplorable action, but it doesn't appear to be the epidemic your comment implies.
I can condemn bad acts and statements no matter who performs them. Can't you?
Mr. Lippard,
I believe that you do not understand the term "hypocritical". I used the term mushbrains to typify the rude comments I see here. If anyone believes, excuse me, "feels" that about half of the voting population can be described in the terms used here, then they need to broaden their sources of information.
And BTW: I did not "dispute that the "bigoted and ignorant" statement is accurate," as it may be accurate for the folks in your videos. But doesn't generally apply to every other voter, no matter their political affiliation. There are a few bigots and ignorant people on both sides of the isle. However, the vast majority of voters on either side are not.
The thing is that I listen to talk radio, watch local, national news and the Foxnews and I almost never hear Republicans using the terminology that I see here to describe Democrats. Hilary elicited a few names, but I think she's proud of them.
Mover: I understand the meaning of the word "hypocrisy," and engaging in the behavior that you criticize others for is a paradigm case.
I haven't seen anyone make the claim that half the voting population is properly described as bigoted and ignorant--if anyone thinks that, they are mistaken.
Comparing Internet postings (where there is nearly complete freedom of expression) to broadcast television or radio (which have relatively strict standards imposed by the FCC) isn't a fair comparison. If you compare the comments here to, say, those at FreeRepublic.com, I think you'll find the ones here relatively mild by comparison. I try to encourage civility at my blog, but at the same time I'm quite liberal about what comments I allow to remain, even if I disagree with them.
I still haven't seen you offer agreement with the characterization of the individuals in the videos as "bigoted and ignorant." Is there a reason why you refuse to condemn the actions and speech of those particular McCain and Palin supporters? It seems to me perfectly clear that we should both (a) not smear a whole set of supporters by the actions of a few and (b) should be willing to criticize bigotry wherever it appears, but you seem to only be concerned about (a). I agree with you on (a). Don't you agree with me on (b)?
Actually, Mover, I think I gave too much credit to your claim about what you hear on the radio and see on TV. If you listen to people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and the guests they have on their programs, you know exactly where the people in these videos get their ideas, however further distorted they may have made them.
"The thing is that I listen to talk radio ... and I almost never hear Republicans using the terminology that I see here to describe Democrats"
He's right. AM radio is far worse.
And that's not some anonymous commenter - that's a central figure in Republican politics, someone regularly visisted by the likes of the Vice President and what not.
And my favorite, Melanie Morgan doing her best impression of Radio Rwanda.
My favorite - by the way - because the post got cited in the Chicago Sun-Times (I think - it was definitely in the on-line edition.)
Thanks for those links, Hume's Ghost. I don't think it gets uglier than suggesting that those you disagree with should be killed.
About 30 minutes ago I flipped on the Neal Boortz radio show. He was taking callers. The caller I heard was saying comparing Obama to Hitler; saying Hitler promised change, was not a real German, etc.
When the caller got done, Boortz said that he was not sure he wanted to compare Obama to Hitler, but that he would say that if Obama could he'd send capitalism to the ovens.
And Boortz has previously described Democrats (including H. Clinton and Obama) as fascists, citing Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism as a source.
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