The media, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and Democrat politicians are predictably using the tragic shooting of Gabrielle Giffords by what appears to be a mentally deranged young man to make political points and clamp down on opposing speech. Already, the signs are out there saying, "hate speech equals murder ."
I wonder, though, if the protestors would consider the email I received from "Conrad" that is also addressed to terrorist@rightwing.org as "hate" speech? His subject line reads "More blood on your hands! Congratulations on inciting violence, you fascist scumbag." In the body of the email he includes a CBS News article about the shooting.
This is the type of email that I and other conservative writers and bloggers receive all the time. Perhaps it is some deranged young man like the alleged Tucson shooter, Jared Loughner. Loughner, from his crazy Internet ramblings, appears to have it in for God and the military people who gave him Bibles. Listed among his reading favorites were Mein Kampf and "The Communist Manifesto."
But this kind of vitriolic rhetoric has also come from a former colleague, a philosophy professor. Somehow a Facebook friend request was sent to him from my account. I don't know how it happened, but before I could get a chance to explain the error, he went on an insulting rant about not wanting to hear my political views. Facebook has an option for simply ignoring friend requests.
I know that at this university where I taught with him I was no longer "needed" when my published views became known to those in charge. Recently I ran into another colleague from that school who told me (now that he was retired) that they treated me "unfairly." Yet, as a tenured professor, he said nothing.
The same thing happened last year at one of the places where I was teaching. The president of that college got wind of what I wrote and suddenly there were no more classes available for me! The previous semester I had been virtually begged to teach more classes. Enrollment was up. I had been on friendly terms with everyone. I've heard the same thing from so many other conservative professors who suddenly get the cold shoulder when their political views become apparent. Liberals, of course, freely advertise their left-wing views on campus.
The tragedy is being exploited to further push conservatives out of the intellectual and political sphere. Disagreement is now labeled "hate," and "haters" are simply eliminated.