There’s some really good commentary out there. Among other things, it’s interesting to me how many of my fellow bloggers identify as Unitarian.

First, Sara Robinson, over at Orcinus, offers a moving tribute to Unitarian principles, and talks about how, in a time of crisis, those principles shone through.

One of the dead, Greg McKendry, apparently took a shotgun blast full in the chest while trying to shield other members from the line of fire. Three other members of the congregation almost immediately charged the gunman and took him down, breaking his arm in the process. Still other members acted sanely and calmly to quickly get the dozens of children out of the sanctuary, and summon the police.

Those are the Unitarians I know. Smart, tough, fearless, calm in a crisis, committed to right action. It could have been any UU church in America, and they’d have behaved pretty much the same way.

It could have been any UU church in America — and that’s the problem.

Pam discusses both the homophobic motives of the shooter and the presence in the shooter’s home of hate literature by Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly.

Before opening fire, one witness said Adkisson shouted something to the congregation that suggests he was there for a purpose — “It was hateful words. He was saying hateful things.”  The FBI is officially investigating whether this brutal attack in a house of worship was a hate crime.

David Niewert at Orcinus has some information on the links between this assault and the eliminationist rhetoric of the right.

Right-wingers love to “joke” about mowing down, rounding up, and otherwise “wiping out” all things liberal. It’s become a standard feature of conservative-movement rhetoric. And whenever anyone calls them on it, they have a standard response: “Aw, c’mon — it’s just a joke!”

In reality, of course, rhetoric like this has historically played a critical role in some of the ugliest episodes in American history, as well as thousands of little acts of xenophobic brutality: functionally speaking, it gives violent — and frequently unstable — actors permission to act on these impulses. People like this always believe they’re standing up for what “real Americans” think — and the jokes tell them that this is so.

Brad Hicks, who’s always interesting, has a post up about all sorts of things . . . Angry White Males, eliminationist rhetoric, free speech, and the decency of the Unitarians themselves. His final paragraph pretty much sums up my thoughts on it.¹

Dave Neiwert, and I, aren’t actually calling for the Rush Limbaughs and Bill O’Reillys and Sean Hannitys of America to go to jail for ordering the murder of two people, and the attempted murder of many more, at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, or the murder of so many other liberals by those commentators’ depressed or enraged fans. Nor are we calling for such rantings to be made illegal; we’re both First Amendment absolutists. No, what we’re calling for is for Americans to wake up, and change their attitudes. We want to live in an America where when a prominent spokesperson for a political party “jokes” about sending their audience out to mass-murder their political opponents, it should and must shock our consciences. That person must become the kind of instant social pariah that people quite justly become when they make openly racist remarks. What you talk about in private, with people who know you’re not serious, is one thing; what they broadcast or publish to an eager audience gets innocent people killed by the dozens, and if that doesn’t bother them enough to stop them from continuing to do it, then there is just plain something that malevolently wrong with them, something just that deeply disgusting about them. And no matter what your politics are, if you aren’t just plainly that disgusted about their ongoing eliminationist rhetoric, there’s something wrong with you, too.

1. As if it wouldn’t be obvious, I don’t agree with everything he has to say in this post (!), but I think, especially towards the end, there’s a lot he gets right. (back)

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