The last vestiges of civil discourse have recently been thrown out the window by
washed up rock and roll star and Tea Party favorite Ted Nugent. At a
recent NRA convention the singer, in a disgusting and vile rant,
compared the President of the United States to a coyote urinating on
your sofa which should be shot. The rock star then proudly declared
that in a years time that, if the President were to be reelected, he
(Nugent) would either be dead or in jail.
These comments were so clearly a threat
against the life of the President of the United States that the
Secret Service is actually going to question Nugent and ask him to
clarify what it was that he "really" meant. Of course as we all
know, Nugent is a celebrity (or former celebrity) and will almost
certainly be let off the hook without even a slap on the wrist. Yet
if you or I made such public threats against the President we'd probably
be labeled a public menace and arrested on the spot -- and rightly
so. In case you didn't know, threatening to assassinate the President is a serious matter.
Now, I'm sure Nugent's supporters will
argue that their favorite washed up rock star was "only joking"
about killing the President. As if making treasonous threats against
our nation was "all in good fun." But the reality is that
such threats are not all in good fun. Don't believe me? Just
imagine a leader of a foreign nation (say Egypt) making those same
comments. Wouldn't all of us be taking those threats very seriously?
Most rational people realize that Ted
Nugent is -- well, not rational -- nor a real threat. He's simply a celebrity and an entertainer with a bully pulpit. The real
problem as I see it is not so much his outrageous threats on the
President's life, but the fact that so many Americans seem just fine
with them. Even Democrats and the so called "liberal media"
haven't really made that big of an issue of them. In fact, the April
18th edition of NBC's Today show didn't even mention the most
important part of Nugent's tirade: the I'll be dead or in jail
comment. They treated this story in a "aw isn't that cute"
sort of way -- well, it isn't cute.
More than anything this sorry episode illustrates that the art
of public discourse is truly a lost art. Americans no longer disagree
with each other, we demonize each other. If you don't agree with me,
you're not only wrong (which is a perfectly fine to say) but you are in
fact "evil" to the core: an enemy of God, country, and are
doomed to burn in an everlasting torment. And worse than that, you are nothing
more than an animal that must be eliminated from the face of the earth.
All of this is big talk for someone who has
never actually served in the military. Oh yes, he does use automatic and semiautomatic weapons to hunt and kill defenseless
furry critters. But apparently even he doesn't feel as though that's "macho" enough and so he resorts to "bad ass language" to get in good with his NRA buddies. Of course "bad ass language" is usually a sign that one is not a "bad ass" at all, but someone whose experience of death is limited to comic books where no one is truly dead as long as the artists live.
