A renewed, and legitimate, call for civility in public discourse was issued after the tragic 2011 shootings of then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, members of her staff and innocent bystanders by a young man, later determined to be mentally ill.
Early reports after the Saturday, Jan. 8 crimes seemed to point fingers at the inflammatory environment of political extremes. While that was proven false in the Giffords tragedy, the truth of a toxic environment exists and seems to be stoked by many hiding behind the cries for “civility.”
In a recent news article, it was revealed that every member of Wisconsin’s state legislature received an email involving specific members of the Republican-led body that ended collective bargaining in the state. The email simply stated, “We’re going to put a bullet in your head. We know where you and your family lives.”
The disgusting Photoshopped image of President George Bush’s face on the body of a child running on a track framed by the text, “Voting for Bush is like running in the Special Olympics: Even if you win, you’re still retarded” was a desperate vision from the 2004 election cycle.
Now a new practice has begun. “SWATing” is the practice of placing false calls reporting an emergency, usually involving extreme reports of violence, seeking a vigorous response by law enforcement. The calls that have been made recently that are capturing the attention of those in politics involve targets who are conservative bloggers.