Shooting could tame tough political rhetoric

[XanaDUer]

(Reuters) - Protesters parade an altered photo of President Barack Obama sporting an Adolf Hitler-like mustache. A candidate for the Senate muses about gun "remedies" if election results don't go the right way. Members of Congress are spat on and taunted with racial epithets before casting votes for a healthcare reform bill.

...The Tea Party movement -- a loose union of conservatives who have mostly supported Republican candidates or have run as Republicans -- has capitalized on the uncertain times, winning dozens of seats in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Some Tea Party "town hall meetings" have included angry confrontations with incumbent members of Congress.

Republicans, however, point out that the suspected shooter might not have been acting out of political motivations.


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7083G120110110

[Odin2005]

1. It's inflaming it. The teabaggers are in complete denial.

they are convinced it's a conspiracy to silence them, this will simply end up causing them to get even more crazy.

[walldude]

6. Exactly. Each time something bad happens and we look the other way

it gets worse. THis is not going to tone down the rhetoric. The right and the media will use it as an excuse to play the victim.

Did you see the interview with Chuck Todd, some woman, and Giffords? When Giffords brought up Palins "target list" the woman whoever she was had the goddamn nerve to ask her "Well don't the Democrats hold some responsibility for this? They are the ones making this into a problem.

See it's not the fact that they do it, it's the fact that I complain about it.

[Odin2005]

7. "See it's not the fact that they do it, it's the fact that I complain about it. " BINGO!!!

[AsahinaKimi]

2. I won't buy it...

The tea party has already indicated the rhetoric will not change, and certainly by the reactions to right wingers around the country, from their response to postings, shows this may indeed escalate.

[haele]

9. The most dangerous fanatic is a cornered fanatic -

Denial isn't a river they're willing to cross. The truth is less important than their own sense of ego. Most of the more rabid tea-partiers act like co-dependant spouses in an abusive relationship, and they are more than willing to stand by and watch their own children be destroyed than leave their abuser. See, they're special to the movement. And if they ever admit that they've been played by a bunch of corporate sociopaths and their Mammon-worshiping mouthpieces who wouldn't stop and piss on them if they were on fire, they couldn't survive. They've allowed themselves to be led to the edge of the cliff overlooking what was left of the American Experiment, and FreedomWorks, Faux, et all are telling them "arm yourself, trust us and jump".

Honestly, following the rhetoric, it almost seems as if the Plutonomy that currently owns banking, the media, and are currently making encroachments into government have to deal with chronic unemployment somehow; what better than to wind up a bunch of scared and desperate people and point them at target - preferably those that have the potential to interfere with "business as usual".

Haele

[geckosfeet]

3. Fat chance. They will keep shooting until they are stopped.

[RainDog]

4. it's not just about THIS ONE incident. there are so many others

those, thankfully, did not end in death.

but if the only way you can have your way, politically, is to threaten and encourage acts of violence, then your politics is not worthy of consideration in this nation.

iow, violence to achieve your political ends means you are so far outside of the political conservation no one wants you to be a part of it.

[Beartracks]

5. But, but... bullets = free speech!

Brought to you by the same mindset that thinks dollars = free speech.

---------------------------------

[rbrnmw]

8. It won't change most but

maybe the more reasonable Republicans will call others in their party on it