ArthurWilborn said:Do you think this kind of violent rhetoric is acceptable?
Yes; the First Amendment demands that we accept (in the sense of "allow") it. Free speech is hard to accept, I know, but it is better then the alternative.
In the moral sense of "accept"; it is not the method I would chose to employ, but I firmly believe in the free exchange of ideas. if that's how people want to express themselves, I support them doing so.
Do you think the violent rhetoric is positive or negative for the country?
Negative in that it is rhetoric. Unless you can demonstrate via evidence that talking about violence leads to violent action in a statistically significant way, that factor is not significant. Violent calls to action are demonstrably negative in an immediate sense; I would have to reserve judgment in a long-term sense, as the influence of any event (including violent ones) are decided by their effect.
If someone handed you a pistol full of blanks and asked you to shoot it up in the air to support a political rally, would you find it distasteful?
That would depend a large amount on context. If the crowd were not sufficiently warned (explicitly or implicitly), then it would be extremely objectionable in that it would cause undue alarm and possibly injury. Given adequate warning, firing off blanks in the air (with due safety precautions) is nothing more then an act of exhuberence.
Well written, and I agree.