would you believe someone who made a shirt like that if they said they were "just joking"? or would you find that a pretty feeble defense?

Jimmie - liberals beating people up? these stories are probably common coin in right blogistan, but i'd love to see the examples. I'm asking honestly since i really don't know what you're talking about.

the t-shirt examples above are hostile, but relatively tame to their rightist counterparts. calling someone an idiot or saying, "screw them" or "F*** them" isn't on par with "joking" about a lynching or a beating. Antipathy is different from physical violence.

as for the ones on your "less family friendly" link, there isn't a one that calls for violence. calling Bush a Fascist isn't even close: there isn't a Democrat or liberal in the country that hasn't been called a Communist at some time or another in all kinds of media. So please save all the mock indignation about being called Fascists.

sure they're just t-shirts. and its definitely immature. and of course its free speech. no one's saying poeople should be prohibited from printing them. but if you're gonna make "jokes" about lynching, and beating and poisoning people don't be surprised if it puts people on their guard.

But I'll take what I can get. Here's a post and big comment discussion about how scary right-wing humor is......

And Geek, why are you looking at my dick? Oh, that bulge? That's not my dick, it's my pistol.

:p

Note for the humor impaired: while you may legitimately think I'm not very funny, the above is intended as humor, not as a call to bitch-slap (or worse) a liberal.

Despite their desperate need for a good bitch-slapping. In fact, I think I'll relieve my stress by starting with my good liberal friend, David Anderson, just so you'll know I'm serious.

Incoherence: live it, love it, be it.

"Dadee, what do ropes, trees, and journalmalists have to do with one another?"

I would also suggest that anyone who wears a t-shirt bragging about how he likes to slap liberals around has a tiny dick.

I don't see "Rope, Tree, Journalist. Some assembly required" as any more an advocacy of actual violence than "Kill all the lawyers."

I don't know Frank J personally but I've read his IMAO blog occasionally since starting my own blog three plus years ago. He isn't an advocate of violence, unless one counts killing terrorists. He's anti-gun control and anti-liberal, to be sure, and his schtick includes satirical humor along those lines. But it's just absurd to claim that he's trying to encourage the actual lynching of journalists.

As if THAT card has never been played before...

You neglected to post the front of the shirt at the top of your page: "Rope, Tree, Journalist. Some assembly required."

While the Lefty examples you post do express strong feelings, even hatred for the Right wing, none of the Lefty examples call for injuring or killing anyone, and definitely not lynching.

That's "violent, eliminationist discourse," my friend. T-shirts saying "f--- Bush" are strong language but they don't call for violence. And that's the difference. Trying to present both sides as equivalent because they are both "immature" and "hate-filled" is intellectually dishohest.

I'm all for passionate partisan debate, but when you call for people to be harmed you've crossed the line.