Outrage is one thing, but threats of violence are intolerable

I was catching up on my @mashable reading and ran across this little tidbit:

"Tweets calling for Obama's assassination prompt Secret Service investigation."

This, of course, is beyond the pale and should not be tolerated.  Righteous outrage and anger over the bill that passed on Sunday is one thing, but violence should never be advocated.

From the article:

"Two Twitter users are learning the hard way that threats against the President of the United States are taken very seriously, even when they’re just a tweet.

With intense debate swirling around last night’s health care reform vote, @THHEE_JAY and @Solly_Forrel expressed their frustration with the president by publishing tweets reading “ASSASSINATION! America, we survived the Assassinations and Lincoln & Kennedy. We’ll surely get over a bullet to Barrack Obama’s head” and “You Should be Assassinated!! @Barack Obama.”"

This is just insane, no matter what you think about what's going on in Washington.  Vote them out in November, advocate various kinds of civil disobedience.  That's all well and good.  But violence?

There are kooks on both sides of the political spectrum, and they need to be taken care of by authorities and ignored by the non-kooks (or just ignored by everybody if their kookiness does not go into dangerous territory).  Hopefully, the media won't blow the kooks out of proportion and portray the entire opposition as violent and racist.

Sadly, I'm getting used to disappointment.

It would also have been nice if the media jumped on those left-wing kooks who advocated assassinating Bush, but I don't remember too much hoopla about that.

Funny, eh?

I have to wonder at the media sometimes.  Even when they might be making a proper point, they don't seem to give good examples to make it.  I was listening to the radio yesterday or the day before, and there was a story about how some Congressmen are getting threats to them and their families.  That's a serious story!  It should definitely be reported.  But the recording they used for the story?  It was a phone message calling Stupak and his family "scum" or "scumbags" (I can't remember which).  Harsh and unwarranted?  Yes.  But that's not a threat!  I'm not denying that threats have been made, but why don't they release an actual threat if they're going to report on it?

It just boggles the mind.

Please, those of you who are against this bill and the way Obama's running the country.  Violence, or the threat of it, is not the answer.  The Media already wants to portray you that way; don't give them ammunition to work with.