I agree that the hanging in effigy is not illegal, so maybe it’s a better example for the other thread about niceness rather than for this one which is about illegal acts.

Burning your own sign or effigy on your own property is at least legal.  It’s not something I really approve of, but there are lots of things I don’t approve of.

Using someone else’s credit card to make a campaign contribution without their knowledge is wrong and criminal.

To say that these things are somehow analagous strikes me as somewhat delusional.

George W Bush gets burned and hung in effigy pretty often.

Also, it’s not illegal (that pesky free speech thing again). At least, not yet…

Hey, me too!  I had lunch today with a close friend who is a Fundamentalist Christian with whom I have many political differences.  We usually manage to stay civil, and today was no exception, but we both felt pleased that even right before a hotly contested election and in the middle of a financial crisis neither of us was pushed out of that zone. 

My close friend the firebrand super-Lefty has been out of the country for a few weeks so we haven’t been able to argue.  I actually tend to get more vehement with him, because our opinions are somewhat closer although not identical and so his excesses bother me more, if that makes any sense. 

I agree and I hate seeing this kind of thing from either side.  However, compared to some of the things that are done these days, effigies are pretty low on my "shocked" scale.  That’s really a sad testament to the state of affairs.

I actually had a nice discussion the other day with a very good friend who is a Democrat.  He’s not necessarily an Obama "guy", but just doesn’t like McCain.  The good part is that we talked for about an hour without yelling or calling each other or the candidates names.  We discussed policies and issues and how we honestly felt.

It was a nice change and it shows people can talk civilly.

http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=17ab9e8d-63fd-48f8-bce7-c78bece13807

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27122474/

It’s just not exactly the civil, reasoned discourse that some have claimed Republicans engage in as opposed to awful Democrats.

As far as I’m concerned, and this is generally how I approach life, not just political campaigns, you can either keep the moral high ground, OR you can use tit-for-tat reasoning and do the same thing as the other guy, but not both.

I don’t condone the behavior on either side, but Liberals have made a career of doing things to people in effigy.  Besides, larceny is a crime and hanging someone in effigy is, apparently, free speech.