The New Extremism

The fear-mongering of media personalities like Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh is getting dangerous for America.

Today there have been "Tea Parties" in cities around America. And while I'm down for some grassroots rallying to express one's dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, this has gone far beyond any arguments fundamentally rooted in fact, and has turned into an anti-government, anti-tax extremist faction fueled by paranoia and rage.

Found this via TVNewser


Here's Fox's take from Philly...get ready for weak 'It's not the city of Brotherly Love for taxes' lead-in...


A friend attending a tea party in Austin reported that the crowd was pretty riled up and the Ron Paul supporters were the wittiest attendees. He also said that even though people seem so angry about this, taxes are currently lower than they were under Reagan in the 80s. Our conversation made me realize that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk are no different than the extremist clerics in the middle east who they once claimed moral opposition too. Now these right-wing shock-media stars rally people around fear and paranoia, and then set them loose with a false interpretation of reality. It's dangerous. Like the guy in Pittsburgh who went on the shooting spree because he was so made about Obama taking away his guns.

The DHS just published a report warning of increasing right-wing extremism.

I don't have a problem with vigorous debate of issues affecting the country, but it just seems like the extremists have no factual backing for their feelings, and are too mad to listen to reason. What they're actually mad about runs so much deeper than these political battlelines, but folks end up channeling their own deep-seated dissatisfaction into this political stuff because Beck and Limbaugh play to their anxieties. This is why Obama is the polarizing President of the modern era.