I'm sorry, but I think the left is going overboard with the blame

[DaveofCali]

I think it is fair to say that this is a wakeup call about the potential (and already realized) consequences of the Right Wing Vitriol and other hate speech on Right Wing Media. Yes, this needs to be known.

However, I think the left wing is going too far in trying to directly blame the right wingers for this particular incident, especially given that there's no real evidence to say (yet) that this guy was pushed overboard by right wing media.

Take into consideration:

- Jared Loughner had a personal beef with Gabrielle Giffords, his grudge against her was about 4 years in the making starting when she didn't answer a question that he asked her well.
- Jared Loughner was antigovernment, period. The political books he cites really have only "anti-government" being the theme, you can't really pinpoint any significant political tilt, plus he didn't really read any modern right wing media inspired books.
- Gabrielle Giffords was the closest he could get to contact with the Federal Government (being his closest channel to the government.)
- There's no clear evidence that he became a hate filled potential killer because of Right Wing Media. He seemed to have been following extreme fringe ideas (like "conscience dreaming" and "mind control using grammar" and that "the world is an illusion"), stuff that really has nothing to do with the left and the right.
- While his writings did lineup with some far right wing conspiracies, there's still no clear evidence yet that he was a listener to right wing radio or that he was incited by anybody on the Right Wing to use violence.

Going and accusing the right wing of being responsible for this without any clear evidence IMO is jumping the gun, makes Right Wingers look like victims, and is detrimental IMO rather than limiting the message to being a "wakeup call". Hearing Karel and Mike Malloy, they really went overboard tonight IMO.

[rucky]

1. I agree, but I don't give a shit.

It's good to see us fight back & not take this shit anymore. We've been playing fair against dangerous for way too long.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

25. Right FUCKING on.

This is one of those times where I wish your post were in a separate thread so I could recommend it.

I see the events of this past weekend as that ONE drop of water that goes in the glass and causes it to overflow and spill all over the table.

I'm not commenting on the magnitude of what happened...it was horrible, certainly more than a "drop"...

...I'm saying that there are 7 days in a week 52 weeks in a year, and we've sat back and listened to drip, drip, drip...

And I, like a lot of other people this past Saturday, said "Enough is fucking ENOUGH."

Palin and her fucking screech owl "DO YA LOVE YA FREEDOMS?"

Her "mama grizzly, hopey-change how's THAT workin' out for ya" BULLSHIT.

She's George W. Bush with a VAGINA, for Christ's sake.

Let's not criticize Malloy or Karel.

Let's send them both fucking MEDALS and tell them we want more of the same.

[Raksha]

39. I don't give a shit either. I'm fed up with being "fair."

You put it very well: "We've been playing fair against dangerous for way too long."

I'm going to have to remember that.

[Initech]

109. I agree 100%. It's way past time to fight back against the rethugs.

[The Magistrate]

117. Hear Hear, Sir! Palin Bought Him The Gun, Bachman Drove Him To The Scene --- That Is The Cold Truth

[Rex]

2. I can't believe all the hand-wringing on the Right! Amazing never seen

anything like it. It is as if they feel guilty about something. It is kinda funny how the Right started playing victim before the Left made one single remark. Funny, but not amusing.

[Catherina]

3. Rec'd. Right now we just look like angry buzzards. Our point needs to be made more calmly

and only with the full force of facts in hand. Otherwise, I think, it's as irrational as calling John Hinckley a liberal.

[aquart]

24. Heaven forfend we appear to be angry at being murdered.

Buzzards, btw, never bother with anger. Corpses are a nutritional opportunity for buzzards. They like them.

[Catherina]

49. Angry is fine. Irrational, not so much. We're gambling on guessing correctly.

In a court of law, that doesn't work. Nor does it work in the court of public opinion. That can backfire. Badly.

[Skittles]

120. THE RIGHT WING THRIVES ON HATE

THAT IS A FACT, REGARDLESS OF THE FACTS IN THIS CASE

[Upton]

4. I agree..

there's presently no evidence, no evidence at all..but we can't let that get in the way of a good GD feeding frenzy.

[nebenaube]

36. oh please...

you have to be kidding.

[emilyg]

71. Absolutely correct. Think how

busy all the keyboards are. Waiting for facts doesn't matter.

[Kaleva]

5. Rec'd. I agree.

I'd also like to say that the emphasis so far distracts from the real problem of the mentally ill being able to easily purchase guns. What I see so far is an effort to make political points.

[Catherina]

15. Or the very important issue of why the mentally unstable aren't getting treatment

We have billions and billions to lavish on weapons of destruction to kill innocent people and mentally unhinge them

but

we have no money to treat our own citizens who need mental care?

I keep hearing people blaming Reagan but Reagan was decades ago. Why are fellow citizens not getting care NOW?

[Kaleva]

26. That is very important too.

Better gun laws and better mental care.

[dkf]

50. It may not have been a matter of money. AZ is pretty good on mental health assistance.

The meeting with the college discussing Loughners mental health included his parents yet they dont seem to have done anything. AZ even allows a person to be committed even though they aren't a risk to themselves or the public.

The help would have been there if requested.

[Catherina]

56. If requested. How many mentally unsound people think they need help?

Or even recognize that they're unsound?

The system failed this kid

Tucson Festival of Books

Mamta Popat/Arizona Daily Star Jackie Storrer, right, tries her best to figure out the clues on a giant crossword as Jared Loughner, a volunteer, stands in the background during the Tucson Festival of Books

http://azstarnet.com/events/collection_aebeb63c-2f9e-11df-9021-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=image&photo=8

[dkf]

68. Because they didn't have him committed?

That was their only option. Many could have made the call, any of his classmates, teachers, friends, parents. There is a hotline just for this purpose. Systems don't work if no one triggers anything.

[dkf]

6. I think more and more DUers are coming to this conclusion.

Some are consumed by the need to fight though. I think this kind of defines who is where.

[Kaleva]

45. Some, apparently, see this as a chance to score political points.

[jillan]

7. The thing is, Gabby's father said her only enemies were the teaparty members.

Gabby herself was on Msnbc talking about Palin's chart. Dupnik made references to it.

And the right wingers are on defense.

[Rex]

16. Yeah, well facts can't trump some peoples personal interests

and political agendas. Not saying anything about the OP, but you can see the weak-ass attempts around DU by parties interested in keeping this to a 'both sides do it' kinda thingy.

[Mimosa]

62. I agree. And I knew something like this would happen.

Although I prayed it would not. :(

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

8. Serious question here: WHAT would it take for you to BELIEVE

.. he had direct influence from the writings/postings/sayings of Palin/Beck/Limbaugh/Savage?

Can you name 3?

[dkf]

52. I'm curious why there is no mention of Obama so far.

Where are the birther screeds or death panel bunk?

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

60. ... and why these folks don't know about the KY shooter

.. who HAD the books of these folks and was given a free pass as NOT a RW 'thinker'.

Do we REALLY think ANYone will ever HEAR any direct linkes to this guy to ANY RW common-tater-head?

Unless Wikileaks gets involved that is.

[sadbear]

10. If we don't frame this our way

You can be sure as hell they will frame it their way.

[Catherina]

20. Nothing wrong with framing it our way but nobody's framing anything very intelligently

So far it seems like just throw any old thing out there and hope it sticks.

That's just making us look too angry to think rationally. One minute he was the biggest antisemite on the planet with people personally chiming in, the next he was a hard-core rightwinger, and now a teabagger. The minute mental illness is pointed out, certain people refuse to hear it right now, as if that will weaken a political case.

I realize that's not a popular position right now but when everyone is running around shrieking, my first reaction is to advocate for calm, reason and cold-blooded calculation. Right now, to me at least, it just looks like a confused feeding frenzy.

[sadbear]

23. We cannot afford for fox news to convince America this is our fault

or that they are totally without guilt. We may not know the truth about this situation, but we do know the truth about what the right has been doing for the past 20 years. This is the tipping point and we will not allow them to distort that truth anymore.

[Catherina]

40. I think it would be more intelligent to make the point with facts

not gut feeling.

Imagine for a minute, that after they delve into his writings, the guy turns out to be some warped kind of a Liberal. After all he hated Bush and hated these wars.

What then?

The point is we don't really know what pushed this particular person and making a weak, or wrong case, discredits us.

Right now we have a strong case about a need for mental care and speculation that hateful rhetoric can push people over the edge. Why not make a strong starting case out of that and strengthen it as facts develop?

[sadbear]

When has that ever worked for us?

[Catherina]

51. When has the reverse worked?

We can make a very strong case. Why blow it with insinuations and conclusions that can't be QED'd?

[sadbear]

67. I don't know; we've never done it this way before

The right has, they always do, and it always works for them. Look, that this guy is mentally ill is the very reason why we need to hammer them now. The mentally ill are the ones most likely to act out on their message of hate and violence. Maybe this guy was influenced by their message, maybe he wasn't. But by the time we find out, the American people will no longer care. The right will have had enough time to spin this to their favor, and nothing will change. That is our history, and I'll be damned if it happens again.

[Catherina]

69. H2O Man has a really good thread up right now called "Higher Ground"

How do we confront this?

Some very reasonable people suggest that both “sides” – or major political parties – need to “cool it.” That is neither entirely right or wrong. Both sides need to carefully examine both their goals and tactics. Yet it is essential for all people of good will to step up and deal with this situation. Now.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x163997

I support a cold, logical, rational approach. Passionate is ok. Angry is ok. But grasping at straws, I can't support. I hate to sound so cold will the victims' bodies aren't even buried yet, but I feel strongly about shutting the right wing's hate speech down and I would HATE to see us blow this because we discredited ourselves.

[sadbear]

78. You give the American people too much credit.

They can't follow a cold, logical, rational approach. It's boring. We need to shut down the right's hate machine, and the only way to do that is convince the rest of America that it truly is dangerous. Cold, logical, and rational doesn't play well on corporate media. But sensation does. We've got to strike while the iron is hot, and if we fail to do so, the right will. They've done this every time we thought we had them by the balls, and I'll be damned if they do it again.

[Catherina]

85. You'll do it without people like me then. I think a major reason Liberals

feel so ineffective is a result of too much reliance on sensation and emotion. :shrug: It doesn't work except on our own and that's NOT the target audience.

There's only so much time to strike before the iron cools down.

Aim accurately.

[sadbear]

91. So you're saying the American people do respond to logic and reason?

Is that why we won in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2010, and why the won in 2006 and 2008?

[Catherina]

99. I clearly said ineffective. Won what? Wars still raging on?

Poverty? Unemployment? Bank Bailouts? A devastated healthcare system?

We define being effective very differently. I don't consider being used to support a bipartisan corporate agenda winning. I'm glad you're pleased at how effective we've been, I'm not.

[sadbear]

107. Exactly.

I was referring to the elections, by the way. I forgot the :sarcasm: It's late.

[Catherina]

112. Thank you. I should have realized you were being sarcastic.

It's late here too and I'm going to bed.

Thanks Sadbear.

[sadbear]

114. Goodnight Catherina

Don't worry. We will win this one.

[scarletwoman]

87. I'm so grateful you linked H2O Man's thread - I missed it earlier.

I really needed to read that -- like a drink of clear water for a burning soul. :)

sw

[Catherina]

113. Reading it made me feel better. Clear water indeed. Welcome n/t

[Vattel]

121. Thanks for the intelligent posts.

[emilyg]

73. What if it's wrong? Does it matter to you?

[sadbear]

84. At this point, it's not wrong

Do you disagree that the right, and the right alone, has created this current political environment? And do you disagree that this political environment created by the right is conducive to political violence? That this environment exists at all is what I'm fighting. Not whether or not the shooter was influenced by it. It's irrelevant because if he wasn't, chances are the next shooter will be.

[Upton]

86. I see ..

so now the argument has evolved into..well, maybe Laughner wasn't influence but the next shooter will be. Perhaps you had better let some of the more hysterical DU members participating in this blamefest know that the goalposts have now been moved..

[sadbear]

88. Is there any doubt

Directly or indirectly, the shooter was influenced by the current political atmosphere. That much is true. Do you want to argue that?

[Upton]

95. We don't know what set this guy off..

both sides are now currently blaming it on the other with very little evidence to back those claims up.. It's gotten really bizarre. Try entertaining the possibility that this tragedy just might be a product solely of Laughner's mental issues, and that the current political climate had very little to do with it..

[sadbear]

105. Should we wait until we know for sure?

Let's say I have a leak in my basement and there's always an inch of water on the ground. That's a dangerous environment. Currently, it's not causing any dramatic harm. It's just that my shoes get soaked when I go down there. But it's very slowly eating away at my foundation and walls, and if I drop something electric, I'll probably electrocute myself and die. One day, I go down there and my dog's dead, laying in the water. I have no proof that the water influenced his death, and for argument sake, I will never know for sure. And I have another dog who likes to go down there, too. What should I do?

[emilyg]

98. I have doubt in this case.

[sadbear]

108. I don't

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. I don't

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:

[Upton]

30. Do you have some evidence

that those two items incited Loughner? This is a mental health issue, not a political one..

[Mimosa]

35. If it's not political then why target a Congress representative?

You know you can't answer that.

[Catherina]

41. It can be political without being partisan

:hi:

[Upton]

47. I'll ask you then..

do you currently have some evidence that Loughner was incited by RW political rhetoric?

[Mimosa]

59. I don't know.

But the violent and hateful 'talk' comes from the right. Not to say I've never heard it from the left. BUT the right has specialised in 'lock and load'type talk.

[Turborama]

31. Exhibit C:

[pacalo]

12. We've been predicting this gun massacre for years. Pay attention.

[Kaleva]

28. What about all the other massacres that happen every year?

What's the priority here? To score political points or to save lives and help those with mental issues who need it?

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[nebenaube]

38. Ya

but if you think we are going to get on our knees for it you have another thing coming.

[pacalo]

58. We've been ASKING for a massacre?

[Rex]

72. Say hi to agent Mike!

:hi:

[emilyg]

77. I forgot about that. Thanks.

[napi21]

13. I disagree with you. It's true that the RW vitriol may not be

totally responsible for this particular incident, but their talk has been way over the top for several years, and I believe it's astonishing that something like this hasn't happened many times already. Unfortunately, there are too many people in this world that have way too much hate inside them already, and the constant agitation only makes it worse. Something must make it stop! I'm terribly sad that people died but I HOPE such a disgusting event will shock people into reality and convince them that open the open & constant display of hatred is wrong and must stop NOW.

[sadbear]

14. agree

[Turborama]

17. When I got to "the left" in the title I knew what was coming...

You do know O'Lielly used all those points you ask us to "take into consideration" in his Monday night show?

Don't you?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

18. I'm just warming up, myself. n/t

[Zoeisright]

19. We're not going far ENOUGH with blame.

These assholes on the right have been advocating violence for decades. And they haven't been stopped. We need to become LOUDER and more aggressive to stop them. That's the only thing they understand.

Unrecced for stupidity and short-sightedness.

[kestrel91316]

21. Thank you for your "concern".

[patrice]

22. Re: "... especially given yada, yada..." Please read up on the nature of proof. nt

[Vickers]

27. You concern is noted. n/t

[brewens]

29. If it weren't for what the wing-nuts put out there, we wouldn't

assume it was one of their crazies'. The crosshairs, the "We Came Unarmed, This Time" and "second amendment remedies" made it seem like a good possibility.
The first I heard of 9/11 was that it was a small plane. This from school cooks where I was delivering milk. My first thought was another McVeigh. Not unreasonable because at the time, McVeigh was responsible for the worst terrorist attack on our country.

[scarletwoman]

32. Rec - I agree. It's been a bit much watching so many histrionic DUers getting their hate on.

I'm all for calling out the RW media and the Teabaggers and the GOP politicians on their eliminationist rhetoric. And I completely support fighting back against the whole false equivalency thing about right and left indulging in violent rhetoric in equal measure.

But claiming, with essentially no evidence, that the shooter is one of their own is stepping over a dangerous line and the blowback isn't going to help us one bit.

We're the ones who are supposed to be for facts and reason, aren't we?

sw

[Catherina]

43. +1 for being a voice of reason. n/t

[Kaleva]

48. +2

[Upton]

53. +3

[woo me with science]

70. Well said. nt

[grahamhgreen]

80. Either we stop it now, or it will devolve to further violence.

[scarletwoman]

94. Absolutely we need to keep the Right squirming, and call them out on their shit.

But that's a separate thing from claiming that the shooter is personally a rightwinger. He's a very sick man, but not necessarily a conscious political actor in the way that a Tea Party activist, for example, is.

I believe that's the distinction that the OP is attempting to make, and I agree with it.

sw

[grahamhgreen]

123. To me, it's not

whether he is a right winger or not, it's simply that the right wing media and political leaders know that when they make the marketing pushes they have made, violence will be the result.

[Turborama]

83. Bill Maher nailed it

At the end of this video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10SBXi6eGdc

[scarletwoman]

89. I wish I could watch it,

but between my creaky old computer and my dial-up, it's just not possible for me to do videos.

Thank you anyway. I do wish I could see it.

[Turborama]

106. I understand. I'll add the transcript when they put it online. n/t

[scarletwoman]

116. Thank you, much appreciated. (nt)

[ClassWarrior]

90. Show me links. Enough to justify saying "so many" DUers. I don't believe it.

The majority of DUers I've seen are "all for calling out the RW media and the Teabaggers and the GOP politicians on their eliminationist rhetoric," and "completely support fighting back against the whole false equivalency thing about right and left indulging in violent rhetoric in equal measure."

I just don't see histrionics from anyone but a small pack of trolls.

NGU.

[scarletwoman]

101. That would be calling people out, which I'm sure you know is against DU rules.

Just look at this thread -- how many respondents are reacting angrily against what the OP is trying to say?

There was a giant thread started yesterday about arresting Sarah Palin, and the few who tried to point out that there was no legal basis for such a thing were generally taken to task.

If we just indulge in hatred we'll get nowhere.

[ClassWarrior]

103. Can't find very many, huh?

:eyes:

NGU.

[scarletwoman]

115. Sorry, I've been home sick for two days and I've read 100s of threads.

I've been reading DU almost non-stop hour after hour (in between bouts of vomiting, etc) from morning to night. I've seen a lot of sheer unreasoning emotion, it's been all over the place.

There are several locked threads where false and fabricated information was pounced on by dozens of DUers within minutes of being posted because it suited their pre-judgments about the shooter being a rightwinger.

I've seen threads that were nothing but vitirol and obscenities -- not arguments for making the case against the poisonous rhetoric employed by the right wing, but just people getting their hate on.

I understand the anger, I understand people needing to unload and scream and swear and whatever. At some point, however, reason and strategy need to take over. We can't get so caught up in our own hate that we aren't actually forming a coherent battle plan for keeping up the pressure on the haters on the right.

It is one thing to make the case that the right wing hate machine has created the poisonous atmosphere in which one mentally ill man felt the permission to act on his own murderous impulse. It is another thing to claim that he himself directly subscribed to a particular political ideology by which he rationalized his actions.

We are correct and well-placed to make the argument for the first. For the second we have no irrefutable evidence and therefore ought to tread carefully.

sw

[Common Sense Party]

102. Facts and reason? This is GD of DU.

Facts and reason are in short supply. Emotion and anger we got by the boatload.

[scarletwoman]

104. Okay, call me an optimist.

:)

[mrcheerful]

34. The left isn't blaming anyone what they are saying

is after 2 years of tea bagging R's calls for second amendment remedies this is an out come of such talk. There is speculation on if the shooter is a right or left leaning person, but that has only been just speculation on the left. Unlike those on the right that use a person who knew the shooter 3 years ago and claims he was a liberal or the right claiming he was a liberal because of a few books on his reading list to finger point at the left for this persons actions.

[MrMickeysMom]

37. I don't, and here's why...

OP - Jared Loughner had a personal beef with Gabrielle Giffords, his grudge against her was about 4 years in the making starting when she didn't answer a question that he asked her well.

Answer: His view was that she was "stupid" without reference. He's unable to make sense and is angry. Sounds like he is not a liberal to me.

OP - Jared Loughner was antigovernment, period. The political books he cites really have only "anti-government" being the theme, you can't really pinpoint any significant political tilt, plus he didn't really read any modern right wing media inspired books.

Answer: This line of reasoning sounds more libertarian. How do you know what he read? The arguments are more suggestive that if he read anything, he didn't put any conclusion to it. He did read Ayn Rand.

OP - Gabrielle Giffords was the closest he could get to contact with the Federal Government (being his closest channel to the government.)

Answer: Sounds like someone who was easy to reach out to and based on his inappropriate musings in post secondary school, he had the ability of a social network without the ability to understand it. Is this anything other than dysfunctional?

OP - There's no clear evidence that he became a hate filled potential killer because of Right Wing Media. He seemed to have been following extreme fringe ideas (like "conscience dreaming" and "mind control using grammar" and that "the world is an illusion"), stuff that really has nothing to do with the left and the right.

Answer: Sure
- While his writings did lineup with some far right wing conspiracies, there's still no clear evidence yet that he was a listener to right wing radio or that he was incited by anybody on the Right Wing to use violence.

Actually, what you've described is a typical person showing up at a tea bag rally, starting in the last election cycle. Who's a likely tea bagger? Okay, now who's the darling of the tea baggers? Bingo - Just because he didn't have posters to honor Palin doesn't mean he didn't rally to her gun roll call. Know anything on the left like that? Me neither!

[StinkRat]

42. Stop and give a moment's pause

The guy was crazy. That is all.

He focused upon a public figure and acted out.

Neither the right, nor the left, has any blame for the actions of this disturbed individual. He was/is off his rocker. Blaming a political party for the actions of an individual, who many who knew him were convinced of his lack of sanity, is nearly as crazy.

We are all on edge over this massacre. Let blame fall where it rightfully belongs and not where we want.

[MrMickeysMom]

66. I think that's what I was doing... he's a tea bagger...

... and they have no party, really, no matter what the Koch brothers would have orchestrated for you and me.

Not all tea baggers are crazy, mind you... but he was.

[TheKentuckian]

44. Not even close to far enough. Too damn many false equivalency nannies and covert wingers.

[pettypace]

46. The shooter was a nut job

But since his victim had a 'D' by her name, you know folks on here were going to blame the right.

What did you expect?

[Puregonzo1188]

54. Yeah, I kind of agree.

And for those who say we need to fightback, the only thing I've come out of this is more this "the left and the right both need to be more civil" nonsense that's gotten us nowhere.

We'd be better off focusing on our broken mental health system in this country than more of that stuff.

[Tsiyu]

55. Oh yeah, Tina King really looks like a victim to me

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x155821


"It's ok. Christina Taylor Green was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly." Tina King



THIS mentality is what this is about.

It's gone so far that this woman feels comfortable expressing her death fetish towards a child on facebook, and WE are over the top?

Not gonna wash here, sorry.

I've seen and heard enough violent talk. It's time to fight it ....and too bad for anyone who wants to "keep their powder dry."

We have been warning of something like this for years. Gabrielle Giffords even warned us about it when the map with her name and crosshairs appeared! She predicted this and now she is laying in a hospital bed with a gunshot wound - proving to anyone with any sense left that she was not "over the top" in her fears.

Six people have been murdered in a district where teabaggers REPEATEDLY used gun metaphors and veiled threats in a political context.


It's time for it to stop, and we will never stop this violent rhetoric by being "nice."

[Quantess]

57. I disagree.

the left has been complacent for too long.

[ProSense]

61. Here's a good article

In Giffords’s District, a Long History of Tension

<...>

And in an interview with MSNBC the day after the attack, Ms. Giffords said: “We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of protesters over the last several months. Our office corner has become a place where the Tea Party movement congregates and the rhetoric is incredibly heated, not just the calls but the e-mails, the slurs.”

Last summer, Ms. Giffords found herself challenged by Jesse Kelly, a Republican candidate with Tea Party backing, who assailed Ms. Giffords on health care and immigration. He held a “targeting victory” fund-raiser in which he invited contributors to shoot an M-16 with him. This was playing out against a backdrop of a souring national economy and rising unhappiness with Democrats everywhere.

Mr. Kelly, who won the nomination after defeating a moderate Republican, offered tough-worded attacks on the establishment and Ms. Giffords. “These people who think they are better than us, they look down on us every single day and tell us what kind of health care to buy,” he said at a rally in October. “And if you dare to stand up to the government they call us a mob. We’re about to show them what a mob looks like.”

Despite all the vitriol, advisers to Ms. Giffords concluded in a post-election review of the race that one of the main reasons she won was likely a steady series of positive biographical advertisements she ran over the summer; for the most part she avoided attacking her opponent. “People want their representatives to work together in a bipartisan way to get things done,” she said at one event.

<...>

photo

Tea Party activists rallied outside the Capitol in Phoenix, where lawmakers were beginning the legislative session.

George Packer

<...>

This relentlessly hostile rhetoric has become standard issue on the right. (On the left it appears in anonymous comment threads, not congressional speeches and national T.V. programs.) And it has gone almost entirely uncriticized by Republican leaders. Partisan media encourages it, while the mainstream media finds it titillating and airs it, often without comment, so that the gradual effect is to desensitize even people to whom the rhetoric is repellent. We’ve all grown so used to it over the past couple of years that it took the shock of an assassination attempt to show us the ugliness to which our politics has sunk.

<...>

The debate was never about elevating rhetoric by anonymous posters on the Internet. It was about high-profile media personalities and politicians. They have a responsibility to the public at large.

Conservatives are being defiant and determined to defend the need for violent rhetoric in political discourse.

It's as if conservatives believe that, despite the escalating violence, hateful rhetoric used by high-profile RW/Republican personalities and politicians is excusable unless and until there is a murder incontrovertibly linked to it.

[wiggs]

63. Wrong. They must be blamed and scorned for creating an environment where

it isn't clear if a particular shooter was influenced by their hate and violence or not.

This is ridiculous.

It's as though the RW let the plague loose on the population and when a citizen drops dead from plague-like symptoms the RW claims coincidence or heart attack automatically. The FIRST thing that should be suspected and decried is plague and the heinous act of infecting everyone with a disease.

Wrong.

[AdHocSolver]

64. Studies of authoritarian personalities show that they are STRONGLY influenced by authority figures.

Studies by Stanley Milgram and Robert Altemeyer show that people who are considered psychologically "normal" can be persuaded to commit violence on people who are no threat to them just by the urging of those that they consider to be authority figures.

Actually, the excuse that this shooter was "crazy" is less relevant to his actions than the atmosphere of hate and violent rhetoric spewed by "authority" figures. Even a crazy person will not necessarily act out their animosity if their social environment frowns upon such activity.

[woo me with science]

65. [phone] nt

[wiggs]

74. what do you need...a poster of Palin's map or Angle's face on his wall? This stuff

is just in the air. This poison doesn't necessarily leave a calling card. Not every racist has a hood in his closest, right? Not every loon has a Rush Limbaugh autograph on his desk, either.

And...even if this guy never listened to RW radio, never listened to RW leaders lie, never heard pundits or RW leaders demonize their opposition, never tuned in to MSM news, never listened to RW friends talk about how Obama and dems are the biggest threats this country faces then you can bet there are hundreds or thousands of other fringe thinkers or losers out there who ARE listening and who feel an obligation to 'save' the country from evil-doers. Some have already tried to do their worst. This guy isn't the first.

They are playing with matches, the RW and corporatist power mongers, out in the open and in arid, flammable, explosive surroundings. Risking everything for political advantage. When a fire happens, they should be investigated FIRST. And even if we eventually find they aren't guilty of arson this time , this event is a reminder that now IS THE TIME to focus on their dangerous hate-and-violence-filled rhetoric so that it doesn't happen again.

[Tsiyu]

93. Excellent!

+1000
you hit the nail on the head, wiggs

There are those (some in this thread) who are concerned with our "image."


WTF does our image matter if our party continues to be targeted by these freaks and their unstable followers?


The fact that the worst of the Blood-soaked Righties are decrying DU and KOS today PROVES we struck a nerve with these cretins.

They wouldn't be squealing like pigs if we were making nice and "keeping our powder dry." They would be ignoring us.

Their tactic is always: anyone who makes sense or tells the truth, we attack.

they aren't attacking us because we are too passionate. They are attacking us because our anger frightens them; it's a righteous, justified anger. They know they've pushed the hate for too long to not have blood all over them. They are scared to death because it's all they ever had - that hate.

Those who don't feel it, dial back on the Happy pills, maybe? Or wake up? I don't know.


Thanks for this post, wiggs

[HCE SuiGeneris]

75. I can understand your position. However,

the rhetoric of the the reich wing IS a huge factor in this episode, and in countless other 'isolated' incidences.

[Bluebear]

76. 300 posts in 6 years and THIS is what inspired you to post?

[grahamhgreen]

79. You could not be more wrong.

Either we stop it now, or it will devolve to further violence.

[PSPS]

81. Your post itself proves the silliness of your title

We're getting a lot of this from lower post counts lately.

I'll just bring out the most glaring non sequitur in your diatribe.

Jared Loughner was antigovernment, period.

That describes the GOP/teabagger mantra in its most succinct form. This guy was an adherent to this philosophy and was being bombarded day in and day out (like we all are) with the RW wurlitzer giving a platform to the likes of palin and her ilk, describing political adversaries as "enemies of the country," "anti american," "bent on the country's destruction," "paling around with terrorists," "secret muslim," "kill him," etc.

So now you come here with your mindless gibberish about "going overboard." Well, fuck you. Body count not high enough for you? Would more dead people satisfy your requirements for being properly outraged? Fuck you.

And one more thing: Fuck You.

[ClassWarrior]

82. Why do you refer to "the left" in the third person?

Pretending is hard, isn't it?

:eyes:

NGU.

[Gemini Cat]

96. +1!

I had the same thought.

[devilgrrl]

92. You have a right to your own opinion

eom

[rapturedbyrobots]

97. Neither should we claim

that smoking causes cancer.

[JCMach1]

100. We still point the finger at bin Laden

for things like the Fort Hood killings...

Sorry, but they created the conditions.

[rpannier]

110. Would like to join you on this but I can't

In this day of hyper partisanship, if we don't get out front of this we will be steamrolled by it.
In 3 days people will be saying he was a cultist follower of George Soros and George Clooney.
It didn't take long for the "Obama is a Kenyan born, radical Christian, Muslim, Socialist" to take root and become the talking point.

Sorry, but not getting out in front of this is a foolish thing to do.

[underseasurveyor]

111. Well I'm not sorry. I for one am sick and tired of being told

that WE are the ones that are going overboard or that we aren't stating our position clearly or coherently enough. And I'm damn sure tired of being told to shut up, just wait a little longer and continue to take it.

Fuck that co-dependant like behavior of walking on eggshells because heaven forbid we might look bad or piss somebody off.

WE have a voice and its long overdue that we start exercising our vocal chords again!

As long ad we're willing to take it they'll give it to us.

[REP]

118. I don't understand what you're sorry about; you thought enough of your opinion to post a lengthy OP

"I'm sorry but" is a tired and empty rhetorical device that alerts the reader that there's nothing of importance ahead. Thank you for this demonstration.

[Raine]

119. I don't agree one bit, we have not gone far enough

and I will not stop pointing the finger where it belongs ... at the RW and the repuke party who not only allowed it but encouraged it. :grr:

[AnOhioan]

122. Thanks for the sober evaluation.