Re: Jim Geraghty on "Blood Libel"

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011, Bruce Geerdes wrote:

>> What it demonstrates is that people use the term when (a) they are 
>> blowing things wildly out of proportion
>
> I dunno, in its generic sense, it does apply to blaming the right for 
> the shootings.

If you consider the far right an "oppressed minority", I guess.

> I don't think anything will approach historical levels of anti-semetism, 
> so if you're going to stick your "only the 1st definition in the 
> dictionary applies" . . .

Well, I never said that, so there'd be nothing to stick to, there.

What I *did* say is that primary definitions tend to overshadow secondary 
definitions, or give meaning and nuance to those definitions.  So, when 
the topic du jour is a nearly-assassinated Jewish congresswoman, and when 
your rhetoric is accused of encouraging or facilitating such violence, 
etc., it might not be the best time to invoke a term that was originally 
connected to the violent persecution of the Jews in medieval Europe.

As people (including me) keep saying, context is everything.  And needless 
to say, when the term was invoked in those earlier, and often more 
frivolous, cases (Al Gore preventing votes from being counted??), the 
context was sufficiently removed from the origins of the word that there 
wasn't a whole let there for the origins to resonate with.

Hence what I said before:  Invoking "blood libel" is a much much riskier 
thing to do when there is actual blood in the streets.  When you invoke it 
during a recount, it's just overheated rhetoric.  When you invoke it 
following an actual act of violence -- and one that, rightly or wrongly, 
has been blamed on overheated rhetoric -- you're asking for trouble.

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