Thoughts on Today's Political Landscape

[smc]

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

Apparently the word "mob" is charged in your mind based on some past experiences of yours, which I obviously can't guess. I've said why I used it and used some examples of mob-like behavior, at least in my interpretation. If you're thinking of charged uses of the word "mob" and I haven't listed those uses then obviously I am not using the word as you fear.

This has NOTHING to do with my "past experiences," but that's an interesting approach to take in justifying the use of such charged language.

The word "mob" is a shortening of Latin words that came to mean a "disorderly part of the population" or, more commonly, "rabble," back in the late 17th century. Its use over the centuries has been generally limited to describing a group or crowd when one wants to paint it with a political brush. And when it became synonymous in the United States with the Mafia, its use to describe others took on a new dimension -- i.e., implied criminality. Hence, you witnessed Eric Cantor call the Occupy folks, sitting in peacefully in New York City (before the protests at people's houses), a "mob," but never did he call the Tea Party disrupters at Town Halls a "mob." He called peaceful Occupy protesters who marched with a permit in New York City a "mob," but he didn't call Tea Party protesters who sought to keep elected representatives from speaking a "mob." I think anyone else reading this thread will understand the distinction, no matter how much you pretend not to or refuse to answer my specific question about the Tea Party behavior (see above).