By John Thompson
Contributing Writer
Somebody needs to be offended? I don’t think it’s Huckabee or Israel.
Now that media companies offer DVRs and online content, it’s harder for advertisers to get consumers to watch commercials. People now get much of their news from social media with banner ads. However, if journalists want their messages to be shared to a broad audience on Facebook or Twitter, they must load every headline to be ripe for comments.
Sharing a news article on Facebook is like giving somebody a birthday card. You can’t just leave a card with the printed poem. It already says, “happy birthday” so when people send one they need to endorse it with their own message. The personal commentary one adds on a Facebook news link is typically just as charged as the original headline.
Our information climate has led to a rise of people being offended for other people and groups in order to broaden the justification for personal commentary. In order to have a bunch of people call you sexist, all you need to do is mention “sex.” How do you convince a bunch of online hecklers you are racist? You acknowledge that there are in fact different races. People are so ready to jump on demographical distinctions that mere acknowledgement is all that it takes for droves of folks to be “offended.”
Governor Mike Huckabee took advantage of this information climate a few days ago. In an interview published last Saturday, Huckabee spoke of the recent nuclear deal with Iran stating that Obama is “naive” in trusting Iran to uphold its part of the deal.
“By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven,” he said.
Hillary Clinton responded to the former Arkansas governor stating that she was “personally offended.” I can’t get my head around why a white Methodist who is no longer part of the administration would take this personally.
Israel has decried the deal as a sure path to providing Iran with nuclear weapons; the country will continue to be a dire threat to the Jewish state. The deal is surely the biggest threat to Israel since World War II.
But if you don’t think about it too much, Huckabee mentioned something that alluded to genocide. Genocide has to do with an ethnicity … and discussing anything to do with an ethnicity must be racist … right? Hopefully you won’t think about it too much. At least former Secretary of State Clinton hopes you won’t.
On the other hand, the Obama and Clinton national security strategy of “hope” has failed pretty miserably at keeping our nation and allies safe for the last six years. So maybe thinking about things is important. Maybe looking for ways to be offended is not. Perhaps people are so sick of being shunned into silence that they acknowledge it is a form of thought control.
Have you heard of this guy named Trump? In a race of 16 Republican candidates, Governor Huckabee distinguished himself for a bit. He determined that the actual national security of Israel was more important than offending Hillary … even if it required him to mention that most people in Israel are Jewish. What should we be offended about tomorrow?
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John Thompson, of Jefferson is a graduate of West Point and Harvard University. He serves on the State Central Committee for the Republican Party of Iowa. The author does not support or endorse any Republican presidential candidate or committee. Views are the author’s own and not the RPI.
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