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Anonymous
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I stole this article of Matts off the Left in the West site- seems to fit some of the right wingnuts on this site...
The Audacity of Hate
by: Matt Singer
Fri Oct 31, 2008 at 13:14:53 PM MDT
There's a simply unbelievable story in USA Today about Dan Cooper, a Bitterroot gunsmith, whose livelihood came under fire from nutjobs across the country because he had the audacity to contribute to Barack Obama's campaign for President.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-30-gun-ceo-ousted_N.htm
Cooper had a chance to talk one-on-one with Obama regarding gun ownership and is confident that his gun rights are safe under an Obama Presidency. But it seems pretty clear that as long as the lunatic fringe is as powerful on gun issues as it is that this talented gunsmith will have to look for other work.
The irony here is that this is happening at the same time that Obama's campaign is being attacked for not supporting freedom of speech.
In Missoula, I considered for some time not spending my money at businesses that I knew were owned by local Republicans. A political boycott had a certain schoolyard appeal. I ended up rejecting the idea, concluding that for all my disagreements with those folks, that they weren't a fundamental threat to my way of life and I'd be silly to treat them as though they were.
As time has gone on, I've become increasingly convinced that the ratcheted up nonsense coming from the far right over the insane dangers of electing Barack Obama will boil over soon as some surrogate goes on TV and ends up spewing, "But...but...but he's black!" Alternate possibility -- on election night, about 7 million far-right conservatives will have the first collective aneurysm in the known history of humanity when the networks call it for Obama.
There's a really bizarre paranoid fear out there regarding Obama that I just can't figure out. It's pretty hard to believe that it isn't racial. It's kind of like if the entire grassroots left was convinced not only that we didn't especially like John McCain and Sarah Palin but that John McCain is a Manchurian candidate and that Sarah Palin is a robot sent from the future with an accent programmed after watching Fargo. Or something. Crazy. Ya know?
I just don't get it.
I don't know what can be done for Dan Cooper. Maybe he'll find some way to keep making rifles and maybe some of those numerous sane hunters and shooters on the left, right, and center can buy his rifles to show respect for his right to his completely mainstream political beliefs.
Or maybe we should all just f**king hate each other.
Yeah, let's do that.