Lousy ideas should be denounced as lousy ideas. But don’t confuse them with acts.

Saying that someone deserves death or even that you’d like to kill him is not the same as doing it. If it were, many common rhetorical expressions and all murder mysteries would be criminal–as the advocates of censorship have indeed argued in the past. Yet you’d do nothing to reduce the level of violence in society.

Dr. Tiller was a public figure. People knew what he did and where he did it. His church and home address were easy to figure out from public sources. Knowledge of who he was and where he was did not kill him, nor did opinions of what he did or what kind of person he was. Indeed, without such knowledge and without positive public opinion, he couldn’t have pursued his profession. So no one can condemn opposing points of view just because they are not positive.

Mr. Tiller was murdered. That his killer was associated with opinions that condemned abortion is neither here nor there.

So please, let O’Reilly make an ass of himself, but don’t accuse him of being complicit until you *know that he is.*

Well, I am a liberal and I do not condone the stifling of free speech. Hell, the right wing nutjobs have just as much a right to speak their minds as do the left wing nutjobs. But what O’Reilly and his hate-filled minions and wannabes do NOT have the right to do is paint a big fucking target on a specific individual and goad their listeners into hunting down that person and murdering him in cold blood while he stands in the foyer of his house of worship.

Agreed. There is a vast difference between parody of existing language standards and hate speech. Somewhere between take a hint but short of hit piece.

Thing is, as long as progressives still make cozy with the Julius Streichers on the Left, they won’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to taking down the O’Reillys on the right.

It’s not a partisan matter. To the targets, their families and communities (of which we are all a part, bottom line), it’s a matter of domestic terrorism.

Do we have the integrity to apply pressure to peers when they commence down that path? Do we have the integrity to step out of and speak out within networks who still rely on scape-goating and extra-judicial shortcuts for justice?

The media, including the internet, is still far better at taking out individuals than it is at addressing systemic and establishment issues. Perhaps the next evolution is web 3.0. Cause 2.0 is just 1.0 with greater expediency and all its attendant haste-making waste. De-contextualizing, cherry-picking data/talking points, galvanizing the frothing hordes. Till it’s done to death.

It’s time to examine what equal protection and due process mean across the boards whether we’re speaking in terms of journalism, adjudication or financial transactions. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We need to work it at every turn, including within our own communities.

The compelling law that comes with protecting one’s own necessary becomes a 360 exercise. At least to those who want to evolve beyond the status quo. While we’re at it, don’t kill the messenger.

BillO didn’t pull the trigger on Tillman. he was the cheer leader and propagator for it.