sometimes things that haven't needed to be said for years need to be said again.


as usual, the right-wingers have changed the topic and created impossible standards for any suggestion that they modify their own behavior.

we have asked them to tone down their violent rhetoric, we have asked them to be more civil and respectful of people and ideas with which they disagree.

they have responded with a demand that we PROVE that their rhetoric was DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for putting those bullets into all those victims. at issue is not merely that the standard by which they chose to judge themselves is nearly impossible to meet, and moreover is mitigated by shooter's personal responsibility and muddled by the his particular mental defects. at issue is the fact that they shifted the standard at all, away from the personal and collective responsibility THEY bear for creating an uncivil, disrespectful, undignified, and INDECENT environment for political discussion, where the people they simply disagree with are branded as anti-american traitors who hate their country, its heritage and its people.

once upon a time there was a concept of the loyal opposition. people of all political stripes allowed that no matter how much they disagreed with their political rivals, they never doubted, or at least they never expressed any doubt, that their opponent was a loyal american with the coutry's best interests at heart; they merely disagreed about how to achieve the best for the country.

such a notion seems naive and quaint these days. not because some of the more vocal extremists on the right have embraced the toxic talk of violence, and not because the rest of the right wing and republican establishment has repeatedly refused to repudiate such rhetoric.

no. it is because they have long lost any sense of decency. they could drop the violent rhetoric tonight and the problem would still poison our national discourse for the balance of a generation.

until they treat their opponents with as americans with america's best interests at heart, who merely don't agree with them on the route to making this nation the best america that it can be, we need to hold them to a standard they have long forgotten.

the standard of decency.

and so i say to the republican politicians, conservative commentators, right-wing pundits, and conflict-glorifying media moguls, what was once said to another republican who had simply gone too far:




you've done enough. have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? have you left no sense of decency?