Jan. 14th, 2011

online.wsj.com/.../SB10001424052748703583404576079823067585318.html -
Judaism rejects the idea of collective responsibility for murder.
Despite the strong association of the term with collective Jewish guilt and concomitant slaughter, Sarah Palin has every right to use it. The expression may be used whenever an amorphous mass is collectively accused of being murderers or accessories to murder.
The abominable element of the blood libel is not that it was used to accuse Jews, but that it was used to accuse innocent Jews—their innocence, rather than their Jewishness, being the operative point. Had the Jews been guilty of any of these heinous acts, the charge would not have been a libel.
DOJ Files DOMA Defense in First Circuit Cases

Today, the Department of Justice filed its defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in a single filing for both Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. United States. This past July, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that Section Three of DOMA — which sets a federal definition for “marriage” and spouse” — is unconstitutional.

The government announced in October 2010 that it planned to appeal the rulings.

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Apparently DOMA would be gone -- if this defense were not filed.
Ericgregory made a good comment on a post where I made fun of a Democratic committee person's defense of their bullseyes (used on a map and list otherwise similar to Palin's).

The Democrat Rudomner's defense was "that the Democratic map was not threatening since it used an image that is also associated with Target, the national retail chain."

Ericgregory said, rightly imo:
"[...] the brightly colored bullseye connotes a sporting, unreal sort of targeting and is used in plenty of non-gunny contexts like darts and beanbag games, while the crosshairs are the same ones you would use in a first-person-shooter videogame [....]"

Eric's defense of the bullseye is very good -- much better than Rudomner's. Which suggests that Rudominer never thought about harmless sports targets, or he would have used it himself.

Which suggests that the DNC artist was really thinking the same thing as Palin's artist -- guns.

To me (a liberal tree-hugger) something that looks like a gunsight is much more scary than the bullseye. But something that scares a city liberal does not necessarily inflame or incite a gun-using farmer. Gun imagery or metaphors may anger us, but not them; they're having fun pushing our buttons.

Imo what does anger Palin's rural supporters, and might get us shot ... is real life, non metaphorical insults to them and unfair treatment of Palin.
Nobody has posted any evidence that Palin did one of a gunsight by a face or by a name.

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2011/01/09/sarah-palin-democrats-forget-they-put-jd-hayworth-in-crosshairs/
The Democrats are politically exploiting the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by attacking Sarah Palin for setting up a list of "targeted" Democrat members of Congress last year. They conveniently forget that defeated Democrat Congressman Harry Mitchell did the same thing to JD Hayworth a few years ago right here in Arizona, running a campaign ad featuring JD Hayworth in the crosshairs of a rifle.



To play the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epdJWNA65oY&feature=youtu.be

Hm, this is a more realistic image of a gunsight, too.
ETA: More examples, from Daily Howler. Also trying to collect all my previous examples below the cut here.

"Some surprising sources,however, have protested this blood libel."
-- refugee50s

Please note these links are to excellent comments made by "refugee50s" at James Nicoll's blog, in opposition to Nicoll's anti-Palin remark.

Posted at 2011-01-11 08:35 am UTC at
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/2828404.html?thread=54086004#t54086004

His post contains much good information and links, as do his neighboring posts at

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/2828404.html?thread=53993076#t53993076

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/2828404.html?thread=54009716#t54009716

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/2828404.html?thread=54107252#t54107252


ETA: Removed wrong attribution -- my error, and thanks to InteractiveLeaf for the heads up.

Other political instances of the term 'blood libel.'  )
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