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Pushing Boundaries

It's been a year of Republican politicians pushing boundaries. There was a coup attempt on January 6; it is very hard to find a Republican politician who thinks that assembling a mob, telling them to overturn a presidential election, and directing them at Congress was wrong mainly because it didn't work; it only led to deaths and injuries and suicides among the Capitol Police who defended scoundrels who later refused to acknowledge the coup. Wisely the congressional leaders continued the vote to certify the election in the wee hours of the morning; if you accept violent delays then more violence will recur.

Recently Representative Paul Gosar tweeted an altered anime with faces pasted over an existing work. His face was pasted over one character who killed another character, whose face had been replaced by that of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He has been censured along a party-line vote and removed from committee assignments, wisely because if this were to stand unpunished the next thing he and his colleagues did would be worse. Again, it is hard to find a Republican politician who thinks that there is anything wrong with using depictions of violence against a coworker as a truly pathetic form of bullying.

There are no redeeming features to these stories. They are horrifying in a democracy, and are intended to horrify us citizens into a silence which will invite more and more boundaries to be crossed.

There are no grays here. Without proof of fraud election results must stand. Gosar who has yet to express any remorse should have been expelled from a Congress he has no respect for. McCarthy et al should be regularly asked why anyone should heed them if they can not stand for honor and integrity.

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