Shooting raises question: It is safe to be a liberal

National, and even international, coverage of the shootings at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church turned late this week into a discussion into whether it's safe in America to be a liberal.

"One of the biggest contemporary ironies is that being liberal in the United States of America, home of history's greatest democracy, has become dangerous. That danger is particularly acute for religious liberals, as the recent tragedy in Knoxville demonstrated," Bill Maxwell wrote in the St. Petersburg Times.

Ian Williams, writing in The Guardian in London, said "Jim Adkisson, a Tennessee aficionado of conservative talkshows, took their hosts' invective all too literally and shot up a 'liberal' Unitarian Universalist congregation, killing two and wounding six congregants watching a children's musical. Caught up in a world of conservative talk radio, he reportedly expected to be able to carry on shooting unimpeded by the spineless, gay-loving pacifists, and was surprised when they tackled him and brought him down."

The Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts: "No, conservatives did not cause this bloodbath. Jim Adkisson allegedly did. But in telling him 'liberals' were the source of his every disaffection and woe, conservatives certainly validated the hatred and madness that drove him.

"It would be a fitting tribute to those who were lost in Knoxville if this tragedy gave the authors of the ongoing morality play cause for pause -- and reflection. Or is accountability yet another lost conservative value?"

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/aug/02/shooting-raises-question-it-safe-be-liberal/

But life itself is not safe.

is it past time to shut down hate radio?!!! Weak-minded people are susceptible to being programmed and with the hate spewed forth daily by the rightwing whackos, it's not a surprise this is happening. It's time that 'conservatives' cracked down on their own. This is America. I will be a liberal American no matter what the hell Bill O' Weirdo or Rush think. It's time to hold the responsible parties accountable for the bad things they are teaching the public.

based as they are upon hate radio, should, at the very least, give local radio stations in the Knoxville area pause. Sadly, it may take several cases of this sort before anything is actually done by the talkers,if they even deign to do it then. However, we as the general public can, and should, contact the advertisers on our local radio stations and complain about their support of such shows. This is the most effective way of shutting hate radio down, I think.

so many wingnuts in one place. Remind me never to visit Tennessee.