UPDATE: MY POST WAS DELETED FROM REDSTATE...
I am from Massachusetts. The news about Senator Kennedy has my wife and I deeply saddened. I decided to see how our friends at Red State were responding to the news of Senator Kennedy's brain tumor and became enraged at many of the comments.
I was going to post here on Dkos selected comments from the site to create a firestorm of outrage as deep as I felt as a cry out to the O'Reilly's of thw world how we get slandered for being cruel while conservative blogs seem to fly under the radar..Then I realized...I was "selecting" comments...
In fact, there are many reasonable people trying to reign in the hyperbolic hatred that some are spewing. And I know I am guilty of spewing it myself. And the fact taht I was going to cherry-pick comments to "prove my point" was no better than the Bush administration cherry-picking evidence to achieve their end. So I posted this instead:
As a liberal, I want to say thank you to those of you who have passed along warm wishes and condolences to the Kennedy family. I would also like to thank you for your attempts to keep the comments free of politically charged rancor.
To those who have posted comments that seem to lack the decency to be respectful of one of the longest serving senators in US history is simply enormously saddening. We have allowed our differences to pull us so far apart that sometimes it really does feel like there are two countries as opposed to two ideologies. At the end of the day, like cancer, terrorists don't care if we come from red or blue states. Somewhere along the line, the debate turned from finding a common path to the outright demonization of our own countrymen. It is in this way that we are in danger of falling as a nation.
From my perspective, Sen. Kennedy fought for raising the minimum wage, for veterans health, edcuation and for properly equipping our troops in the line of fire; And these are all recent battles in a long history of failures and accomplishments that are true to each life, not to a liberal or conservative life.
I know I have expressed my share of vitriol, but as a "Massachusetts liberal" I grew up to admire the Kennedy family (which seems odd now as that seems now as their deification has been all but shredded over the past 20 years and caricature has reduced them foin many circles--this one included-- to nothing but their deepest and most prurient proclivities).
However the fact remains, Joe Jr. was a navy pilot killed in action in WW2. JFK was gunned down in Dallas and RFK gunned down in California. Say what you will about their effed up personal lives, they gave their lives--literally-- to public service and to this country. I ask that you remember them as human beings, not as right or left.
Say what you will, but having lost both brothers to assassins bullets while in public life, for Senator Kennedy to REMAIN in public life for 40 more years of service, says something substantially more than "public service as personal agrandizement". It shows a courage I am not sure I (or many of the commentors who have posted less-than-flattering feelings on his condition) would be able to match.
For that alone he is an American hero --not a liberal hero or a democratic hero-- an AMERICAN hero and I ask that you respect that.
I have no idea how it will be responded to. I have no idea IF it will be responded to. But I am done with the us and them. It won't be easy for sure, but the only path back is to try to re-open dialogue with our friends on the right. Our country needs us.