# Sarah Palin takes no responsibility for the Tucson shootings? Really? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 10, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104 "2011-01-10T16:09:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/321 "2011-01-11T20:18:53Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Let me repost what I posted back on page four, as I don’t want to repeat myself too much: > > > [@](#): > > > > I think everyone’s anger at Palin is misguided. Jared Loughner didn’t act out because of any rhetoric Sarah Palin spewed. Rather he was a creation of everything she and every other right-wing conservative stands for these days: destroy public services (including the publically-funded mental health programs that could’ve helped this guy receive treatment) and guarantee a gun in the hands of everyone who wants it. > > > > Forget all the right-wing rhetoric. Sarah Palin’s crosshairs and Glenn Beck’s chalkboard nonsense didn’t set this guy off. Over-the-top rhetoric didn’t cause this guy to target public officials. It’s the right-wing public policies that did. The shameful way we’ve eliminated mental health programs from state budgets that did. And the “don’t-you-ever-dare-limit-gun-ownership” bullshit that did. > > > > That’s not to say all of this right-wing rhetoric won’t set someone off in an act of violence at some point-- it may or may not-- but Saturday’s act of violence was carried out by a mentally ill man who had absolutely no business owning a gun or being able to walk into a fucking Walmart and buy boxes of ammo. > > > > The victims of Saturday’s bloodbath fell prey to conservative policies and legislation run amok in the Wild West. > > > > The lesson we need to learn from this: Our country needs to pay more attention to treating the mentall ill-- government-run social services aren’t a bad thing, they keep society at large safe and productive; and we need to stop being so fucking obsessed with being fucking allowed to own a fucking gun. What the fuck is that?? A set of reasonable, defensible arguments? Get the fuck outta here with that! I disagree with both premises, but (unlike the Palin idiocy) you raise two very debatable and cogent points in an insightful and logical manner. You don’t belong on this board. Go away. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/322 "2011-01-11T20:21:50Z")
Far away. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/323 "2011-01-11T20:24:27Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > I notice you still haven’t dredged up the decency, despite your several subsequent posts, to admit you were completely and utterly wrong. I mean really, do you have such low self-esteem? I think your not admitting such and trying instead to turn this around on me speaks _volumes._ Okay, the guy could have gotten off 11 rounds, not 10. Happy now? Do you really think that was the point of the discussion? :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > You’re exhibiting enough delusional behavior that I’m starting to see why you’re so anti-gun in the first place: you might be on one of the prohibited persons list under the Federal regulations. 😃 That grip isn’t going to find itself, ya know. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/324 "2011-01-11T20:25:19Z")
Here. Regular sentiments from regular liberals: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxgJKNpjSNI) I only wish we conservatives could aspire to this calm discussion of the Palin issue. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/325 "2011-01-11T20:27:20Z")
How do you know they’re liberals? You’re not particularly fond of Palin yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/326 "2011-01-11T20:36:05Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Okay, the guy could have gotten off 11 rounds, not 10. Um, no, Chuckles, I already explained in detail why you were wrong, and that wasn’t it. Really now, I’ve seen you work, and this is another in your bag of tricks: “deliberately avoid admitting something by admitting something else and pretending like it was the first”, or “Elvis Dishonest Debate Tactic #8.” [QUOTE=You, earlier] Even something as simple and obvious and meager as an assault weapon ban, like the Clinton one that would have prevented Loughner from firing more than 10 bullets from a legal gun, [/QUOTE] BZZZT! Wrong. You lied about the scope of the AWB, I posted a citation proving you were wrong, and given how smart you think you are and given your long history in gun control debates, you can’t plead ignorance. You lose. > [@](#): > > That grip isn’t going to find itself, ya know. You’re really obsessed with gripping things. Entertain the possibility that you may have an anger management problem. Am I going to be stalked next? I guess we’ll have to wait and see…better bookmark this thread. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/327 "2011-01-11T20:42:09Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, but let’s face it – this is not a condemnation brimming withoutrage. You acknowledge that it’s over the line, you have no choice but to condemn it… but I don’t get the sense that your rage burns with the fury of a thousand suns or anything. That’s true. A statement -made by an entertainer who I know almost nothing about and don’t care about -and I don’t know what the context was (bot what show it was on, and what the tone and surrounding comments were) -and it was 10 years ago has not caused my rage to burn with the fury of a thousand suns. You got me. Particularly given that I’m entirely happy to admit that, being a flawed human being I’m not 100% objective about things, nor did I ever claim to be. > [@](#): > > Nationally prominent? Yes. Respected? No. She has a limited populist appeal, but in terms of serious commentators, pundits, and power brokers I absolutely disagree that she is respected. She’s inarguably prominent and influential. “Respected” is a bit dicier, I agree… but the rank and file tea partiers, to the extent that there are rank and file tea partiers, certainly seem to hold her in high esteem. It is to your credit that you have so frequently pointed out your dislike and lack of respect for Sarah Palin. But it’s only because she IS such a national figure in Republican politics, that you, being a thinking and reasonable Republican, have felt a need to do so. I have rarely, if ever, pointed out my lack of respect for Ward Churchill because it would take a crazy person to think that some random college professor somewhere speaks for me, but it’s far less preposterous that Sarah Palin might speak for you. > [@](#): > > Yes, but that awareness should be balanced by reasonableness. If, for example, I think carbon output from factories will doom the planet in fifty years unless its stopped, I have a right to say so, _even if it causes an unbalanced person to bomb a factory_ and even if I am aware of that general risk. Agreed. Sarah Palin clearly has political goals which she thinks are valuable and will benefit the US. And she has a bully pulpit to achieve them. And she has various options of what tone and what types of language and metaphor she is going to adopt from that bully pulpit. And her choices will influence both how effective her message is, and what potential side effects it will have. I certainly don’t think it’s prima facie ridiculous that when a person of her stature, in this climate, adopts such militaristic and violent imagery and rhetoric; the results will include a non-trivial (albeit still very very small in an absolute sense) risk of inciting actual violence. Is that risk so great that it overwhelms any perceived benefit? Well, that’s between her and her God, at some level, but I don’t think it’s something that we should refuse to discuss. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/328 "2011-01-11T20:46:15Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Here. Regular sentiments from regular liberals: > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxgJKNpjSNI&feature=player\_embedded](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxgJKNpjSNI&feature=player_embedded) > > I only wish we conservatives could aspire to this calm discussion of the Palin issue. Dude, seriously, what’s your point? Random jackasses on the internet are random jackasses on the internet. Want me to start making youtube videos of posts at [FreeRepublic.com](http://FreeRepublic.com) and claiming they’re “regular sentiments from regular conservatives”? As has been said over and over and over and over, the issue is not “some random conservative person said something bad and we liberals all have our panties in a knot”, it’s “specific extremely prominent and influential conservatives said something bad, and the vast majority of other conservatives didn’t seem particularly alarmed by this, and we liberals all have our panties in a knot”. There’s a huge huge huge difference there, and yet you respond by posting this silliness? You’re better than that. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/329 "2011-01-12T00:28:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The obvious lie by Palin’s camp about surveyors marks is pretty stupid, I grant, but when inferences of such foolishness as the OP are in play, panic results in stupidity. That would have been done, inferences or no inferences. The guilty flee when no man pursueth. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/330 "2011-01-12T00:44:10Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > But I strongly maintain that the vast, vast majority of inflammatory-to-violence rhetoric in the political sphere has come from the right, and **that is particularly true if one restricts the analysis to people who have official standing (ie, nominees, elected officials, members of staffs)**, and even more true if one extends that to best-selling authors and pundits. No more calls; we have a winner! Joe Nobodies obviously don’t count; there is an inevitable noise level of idiots in all factions. However, if **the people who are in a position where they are expected to know better and behave better** fail to do so, and are not held to account for it by their colleagues and followers, there is something fundamentally wrong with their institutional culture. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/331 "2011-01-12T00:47:19Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > > [@Bricker](#): > > > > The host of the Daily Show did it. > > **Bricker** , you’re doing it again. Craig Kilborn, who left the Daily Show at the end of 1998, did this bit in 2000 as host of The Late Late Show, which he left in 2004. I’m guessing that Kilborn, who more recently hosted a show on Fox, not that it matters, is a liberal, but he is not the liberal icon that Jon Stewart is. This kind of shit has earned you a reputation for dishonesty that frequently outweighs the good arguments you make. Indeed. The cherry on the bullshit sundae is that Bricker thought he would get away with this sleazy innuendo precisely **because** Kilborn was relegated to obscurity after the outrage that (quite properly) resulted from this bit of tasteless idiocy. Which is what needs to happen to Palin. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/332 "2011-01-12T00:50:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Or are we going to continue to move goal post The goal posts are fixed; political factions are responsible for the people they elect and nominate to office and for allies who work hand-in-glove with the party machinery. Perhaps we could draw a map with two surveyor’s marks for the fixed position of the goal posts and the current position of your argument (fumbled on your own one-yard line). ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/333 "2011-01-12T01:05:01Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > The whole transit thing is an after the fact attempt at denial and damage control. The interesting thing is that it shows that they themselves don’t believe that this sort of rhetoric is really divorced from this sort of outcome – if they did, they would stipulate that the gunsight crosshairs are exactly what they look like and argue that this fact is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/334 "2011-01-12T01:16:11Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > Fuck me, I hate to have to defend the loathsome harpy but damn it she’s got a point. No she doesn’t. > [@](#): > > Poor taste or not, the use of a crosshair logo to mark that a state is your target is not a call to murder. Irrelevant. She isn’t playing the victim card to avoid being blamed for the murders (a charge nobody outside the irrelevant peanut gallery is making). She is playing the victim card to avoid taking any responsibility for tastelessly debasing the tone of public debate, a charge of which she is guilty, guilty, guilty. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/335 "2011-01-12T01:23:20Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > …for tastelessly debasing the tone of public debate, a charge of which she is guilty, guilty, guilty. To be ruthlessly fair, I think she is bringing the debate down to her own level. Bless her heart, she doesn’t know any better. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/336 "2011-01-12T02:10:55Z")
I just want to step in and thank Jesus that I live in Texas, where they will never come to pry my open-carry theodolite from my cold dead hands. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/337 "2011-01-12T02:44:19Z")
> [@MoGlow](#): > > Anything can set off a nut. This Gifford shooter was a fan of mein kampf and other socialist/communist doctrines, he smoked pot, did drugs, was into the occult (does that sound Leftist?) and has listed himself as an independent voter. Although he did not vote in the last election. > > He has been stalking Gifford since 2007. Do you have cites for all of those assertions? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/338 "2011-01-12T03:02:47Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > What the fuck is that?? > > A set of reasonable, defensible arguments? Get the fuck outta here with that! > > I disagree with both premises, but (unlike the Palin idiocy) you raise two very debatable and cogent points in an insightful and logical manner. > > You don’t belong on this board. Go away. Hey I dropped a few F bombs in there, and the premise of the OP is that Palin \*should \*take responsibility for this tragedy, which I agreed with. Just not for the bullshit reasons everyone is obsessed with and splitting hairs over. So fuck Palin for helping to promote a Wild West-style society that glorifies guns and demonizes social programs, which directly facilitated the Tucson shootings! Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck her! ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/339 "2011-01-12T03:18:53Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Do you have cites for all of those assertions? Some of them are true. He did list Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto as two of his favorite books. Then again he also listed two books by George Orwell. I have not heard that he stalked Giffords. I think some people who knew him said he obsessed about their one public meeting in 2007. I haven’t heard anything about the occult or his voting preferences. He was arrested for having drug paraphernalia once, and his friends did say he began using drugs more as his mental state deteriorated (who knows which caused which, if either) and we know the military rejected him because he failed a drug test. [In this article, he’s described as a nihilist](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/us/12loughner.html?hp) (although who knows if the acquaintance is using the term accurately or literally - we all know nihilists are cowards ;)). > [@](#): > > Mr. Gutierrez said his friend had become obsessed with the meaning of dreams and their importance. He talked about reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s book “The Will To Power” and embraced ideas about the corrosive, destructive effects of nihilism — a belief in nothing. And every day, his friend said, Mr. Loughner would get up and write in his dream journal, recording the world he experienced in sleep and its possible meanings. > > “Jared felt nothing existed but his subconscious,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “The dream world was what was real to Jared, not the day-to-day of our lives.” > > And that dream world, his friend said, could be downright strange. > > “He would ask me constantly, ‘Do you see that blue tree over there?’ He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “Normal people don’t talk about that stuff.” I don’t see anything occult or liberal about that. On the other hand I guess we have the answer to the question “What color is the sky in this guy’s world?” And by the way, it’s 2011. Liberals aren’t the only ones who smoke pot. Pat Robertson came out in favor of legalizing marijuana last month. I doubt he’s a pothead, although heavy drug use would explain more than a few things, but there is no shortage of libertarian conservative types who share that view. The odds that none of them smoke pot is rather slim. It wasn’t that long ago people were using the phrase “South Park conservative” with a straight face. I think there might have been just a few pot smokers in a demographic that referred to youngish people who watch a late-night cartoon on Comedy Central. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/340 "2011-01-12T03:26:12Z")
> [@Darth\_Nader](#): > > I just want to step in and thank Jesus that I live in Texas, where they will never come to pry my open-carry theodolite from my cold dead hands. Hey son, you got a permit for that there surveyin’ gadget? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104.md?page=18)