The King's Speech

Horrible, shocking and disgusting news out of Staten Island: 

NEW YORK - A 13-year-old girl has been arrested on hate crime charges and is accused of helping bully and attack a Muslim girl at their New York City school.

The girl is being charged as a juvenile, along with a 12-year-old boy who was arrested last week. She is charged with third-degree assault as a hate crime and attempted robbery. She is due in Family Court Tuesday.

Authorities say the two bullied and tormented a 13-year-old Muslim girl at the Staten Island school, calling her a "terrorist" and trying to steal from her.

(full story) 

You can call it coincidence if you so chose, but this comes less than a month after NY Congressman Peter King held his McCarthyesque hearings on "Islam and Terrorism" on Capitol Hill. And maybe it is a coincidence. Just like Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford's attempted assassination was in no way, shape, or form linked to the "Lock 'N Load" language and imagery of the Tea Party.

The Dixie Chicks speak for tens of millions of Americans and say they're embarrassed by George Bush, and what ensues is a big old fashioned German-style CD burning party. Because you know, saying that some bumbling idiot who's broken the world is an "embrassment" is somehow dangerous rhetoric. 

But when the extreme right pops off about Muslims or throws a marksman's target over a Congresswoman's home district on a map, and then violence ensues, we need to watch what we say about where we point our fingers. Don't blame a collective of nutjobs for the action of one lone nutjob. 

I'm not saying speech should be curtailed. I was appalled when that little ass-tick Ari Fleischer said some Americans need to watch what they say during wartime. Free speech knows no few boundaries as far as I'm concerned.

What I am saying though, is educate your friends, relatives and neighbors on who these people are. They ARE hateful. They ARE spiteful. They ARE batshit crazy. They ARE dangerous. Not in speech, but in practice.