Salon contributor and syndicated columnist David Sirota really seems to despise many of his fellow countrymen.
In a piece he published Sunday, Sirota actually asked regarding the Boston Marathon bombing, “Could it be that some Americans actually want to see the kind of bigoted, violent, civil-liberties-trampling reaction we tend to see when terrorism suspects end up being Muslim?”
For those with short memories, Sirota is the columnist that wrote an article Tuesday with the headline “Let’s Hope the Boston Marathon Bomber Is a White American.”
As NewsBusters reported throughout the week, Sirota continued doubling down on his insanity.
Now that it turns out the bombers did have ties to Islam, Sirota doubled down again:
My twitter feed and email box is a display of sheer unadulterated glee from conservatives celebrating the fact that the two suspects are allegedly immigrants of Muslim descent. These conservatives are overjoyed that my hopes of the opposite did not come true. By obvious logic, then, they were hoping that the assailants ended up being anything but white non-Islamic Americans. Simple question: Why?
Well, first of all, there's a difference between hoping the assailants weren't a particular demographic versus Sirota's hoping they were.
Sirota didn't hope the bombers weren't Muslims. He wished - several times in print, no less! - that they were white Americans.
That's disgraceful.
As for his contention that conservatives might have been hoping the attackers weren't white non-Islamic Americans, there may be some truth to that.
After all, since the creation of the Tea Party, any time a white American male commits a heinous crime, the media are quick to make that connection and blame the incident on all conservatives especially talk radio hosts and Fox News.
By contrast, when someone connected to Islam commits a heinous act, the press will either bury this fact or downplay its importance.
As such, white conservatives that are sick and tired of being blamed for everything wrong in the society rightly might have wished the bombers would have no connection to them just as Muslims here and abroad were likely praying the attackers were not Islamists.
One imagines Sirota doesn't find it at all distasteful that Muslims could feel that way.
He continued:
Of course, now that the suspects are alleged to be Muslim, we will see if America follows the same historical path that we have before – one involving mass surveillance of whole religious communities, hate crimes, new Patriot Acts and calls for other punitive measures. Rush Limbaugh insists that we won’t see such a response – and I sincerely hope he is right.
But events suggest history may already be repeat [sic] itself. Indeed, in the last few days, we’ve seen reports of hate crimes against Muslims (before the suspects were identified, by the way) ; Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Peter King (R-NY) call for mass surveillance of all Muslims; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) demand that the suspect – an American citizen – be deemed an enemy combatant and denied due process; the Obama administration deny Miranda rights to the suspect; and New York State Sen. Greg Ball (R) call for the use of torture. Notably, these kinds of affronts to civil liberties and the constitution are almost never seen when terrorism suspects are white non-Islamic Americans.
All of this underscores my argument about why I had hoped the suspects ended up being white non-Islamic Americans. It also begs the aforementioned question: knowing the differences in how we react to Muslim terrorism and non-Islamic white American terrorism, why are so many conservatives gleefully cheering the possibility that the suspects are the former? Could it be that some Americans actually want to see the kind of bigoted, violent, civil-liberties-trampling reaction we tend to see when terrorism suspects end up being Muslim?
How silly. But he wasn't done:
In the last few years, bashing public employees has become a cause célèbre on the American right, with Republican politicians regularly berating them as “a new privileged class” and conservative media and activists labeling them “greedy” “overpaid” leeches who are trying to “bankrupt America.”
But the heroic response from first responders in Boston, and the miraculous way they limited casualties, is a not-so-subtle reminder that our public employees – whether first responders, police officers or soldiers – are most often heroes.
You really have to wonder what the color of the sky is in Sirota's world.
Conservatives have nothing but high regard for firefighters, police officers, and all forms of law enforcement personnel.
It is the other civil servants making a better living off of the government teat than taxpayers do that are held in lower esteem.
However, even when it comes to firefighters and police officers, the budgetary constraints on our towns, cities, counties, and states is such that their contracts - particularly as it pertains to benefits such as health insurance and retirement plans - no longer make sense especially given soaring life expectancies.
To have a firefighter or police officer be able to work 20 years and then retire at 90 percent of his or her final salary with full health insurance coverage at the age of 45 is no longer financially feasible.
Alas, like so many liberals, I doubt Sirota possesses the arithmetic skills to figure this out.
(HT @djwolf76)
