BLAM BLAM
Yeah.
Weren’t any theodolites in Waco that I recall, we had enough to deal with from the Baptists.
I think we’re finally getting to the bottom of this thing. Who now doubts that Ms. Palin and the Tea Partiers are trying gain power so they can install a theodolocracy?
This video should clear things up.
And you can reload it with a big a clip as you can carry
Have you read the title of the thread you’re posting in?
To me this is one of the important distinctions in this conversation. But to fully illustrate it, we can’t just point to Sarah Palin, but must include all the other elected officials and candidates for elected office who have contributed to this atmosphere of violence and hate.
As far as I’m aware, Democrats had one guy who sunk lower than pond scum when it came to political campaign rhetoric, and that was Alan Grayson, when he called his opponent “Taliban Dan”. Not only did Grayson’s ads equate his opponent with the evils of the Taliban, but he knowingly and intentionally edited video footage to make it appear as if his opponent said the exact opposite of what he actually said. And when the national public became aware of that ad, he was called out on it all over the “liberal” media and raked over the coals for it. In addition, I went to his website and used his office address as my own to get past the feature that only allows people in his district to write to him, and wrote a scathing rebuke. And then I phoned his office and made my feelings known as well.
How many Republicans did the same when any of the following were spewed by those on their side of the political line?
[ul]
[li]An elected Representative called for Democrats in Congress to be investigated as un-American![/li][li] A former Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate put rifle crosshairs on a map, aimed at specific people in Congress.[/li][li] Elected Representatives accused our President of “palling around with terrorists”![/li][li] Elected Representatives accused Democrats of wanting to kill people’s grandmothers![/li][li] An opponent to a sitting Congresswoman held an event at a firing range and put his Democratic opponent’s initials on the silhouette he was firing at![/li][li] A candidate for office told an interviewer that people may have to exercise their Second Amendment rights if they don’t get their way at the polls.[/li][li] A former Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate “tweeted” “Don’t Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!”[/li][li] An elected Representative told her constituents she wanted them “armed and dangerous” over a political issue.[/li][li] An elected Representative quoted Thomas Jefferson, saying we need to have a freaking *revolution *every so many years.[/li][/ul] Sarah Palin’s map with crosshairs aimed at specific members of Congress cannot be viewed as a stand-alone gimmick, but needs to be seen as just one of many, many hate-inducing and violence-provoking imagery perpetuated by the Right for the past 2 years.
These acts and statements are intentionally inciteful. They are meant to stir up not just anger, but hatred. And they’re spoken by people of influence. People who are looked up to as representing The People. By that very nature, they should be held to a higher standard in their rhetoric than the average nutjob with some poster board and a pen or access to an internet blog. Taken as a whole, it’s difficult to deny that the Right has been creating an atmosphere where this kind of act should not have come as a surprise, even if there are no “direct” lines that can be drawn to any “specific” one person, image or statement.
I believe you and Bricker are being disingenuous, feigning ignorance of the difference between “targeting” something and placing the crosshairs of a gunsight on specific members of Congress. You know full well that “to target” is in use in the common vernacular without any hint of violence attached to it. Television programming “targets” certain audiences. Product manufacturers “target” certain markets. Sales departments “target” certain goals. For crying out loud, there’s even a major department store whose name and logo is Target.
On the other hand, until this election cycle, I don’t recall ever seeing the crosshairs of a gunsight being used to mean anything but what they actually represent – the crosshairs of a gun. And placing them on a map and naming the sitting Representatives in Congress that they are aimed at, denotes a very specific image that no one can pretend is commonly understood to be non-violent.
Sure they can pretend. They’re doing it right now.
“Oh, those were surveyor’s symbols”
“Gosh, we sure didn’t mean for anything to happen”
“There is no direct link”
“It’s merely symbolic. Or a metaphor. Or something. Please look the other way.”
I think The Mallign Sarah’s fifteen minutes are up. I expect her either to make a move to WWF or cut an album with Madonna.
You got two counter-current visceral reactions here. And there is nothing reasonable about any of this, so lets not concern ourselves with the opinions of people who are dependent upon facts, there are too few of us and nobody else cares what we think. Of course the shooters political opinions and/or motivations don’t matter, its pretty likely he’s crazy. What difference does it make if he shot the Congresswoman to advance the cause of anarcho-syndicalism or to impress Jodie Foster? He’s nuts!
But the visceral reaction to blame those who have made the atmosphere so venomous and nasty, that’s pretty human, entirely reactive, brainstem. The opposite visceral reaction is blame that nasty liberal media for telling those awful lies about the Grisly Mamma.
Usually, the Forces of Darkness play upon those visceral feelings like the Phantom of the Opera playing the Wurlitzer. Maybe this time it blew up in their faces, freebasing hate.
I like Gary Varvel’s take.
She’s playing the victim card because for some fucking reason that is beyond comprehension the left are acting in a manner as tasteless and barrel scraping as her mob.
A lunatic has shot some people. That’s a horrible thing, and there’s a lot of people who are now suffering because of it, and it should be treated with appropriate respect . Well, I find it hard to view the sniffy attempts at point scoring here as anything other than disrespectful to those hurt. Then again, that’s hardly a surprise. If there’s one thing my non-american arse has learnt from the years I’ve been kicking around this board it’s that both sides of American politics would really benefit from growing the fuck up and stopping in the constant attempts to use blame the other side for every fucking bad thing that occurs. It really is depressing.
Is Palin a tasteless, vile harpy? Fucking right she is. Does that have anything to do with a nutter taking a gun to a group of people, supposedly because he felt slighted by a response to Gifford to him in 2007? The fuck it does. Grow up.
She finally speaks. Of course, she’s the victim in all this and “both sides” use maps with targets.
…the other 51 cards went missing ages ago.
If you want to justifiably criticise Palin you’re spoilt for choice as to where to start. The woman is a walking joke. God fucking help you if she ever makes it into office, and god help the rest of the world too.
But blaming her for the Tucson shootings, because she uses aggressive words & imagery in her campaigning? Please.
Another performance of the one-note Palin aria: MeMeMEMEEEEEE…
Which is a good reason to deny her the opportunity to sound off whenever possible.
Considering that one of the people “hurt” fucking raised the same questions about Sarah Palin’s graphic, noting that there are consequences to such actions, it hardly seems disrespectful to re-ask her same questions now. Was she part of the “barrel scraping” mob, in your opinion, or does her actually being shot in the head change the nature of the discussion?
People with schizophrenia aren’t completely without influence from without. I have no idea whether this specific graphic or the general tone of the larger political discourse had anything to do with his actions. But his being a “nutter” does not render the question irrelevant.
Further, before making suggestions that people should not retreat, but should re-load, or that they should seek second amendment solutions, people making these kind of comments should know that there are about 30,000 people with schizophrenia out there. Beyond that, who knows how many true believers without schizophrenia there are who might react in the same way that this guy did even absent any schizophrenia?
So go pout and be depressed all you like. It’s a reasonable question to pose. Just ask Gabrielle Giffords.
I tried to listen to the video, but it was too much political blahblahblah.
You can find a transcript here.
Choice quotes:
This from the person who tried to imply that Obama and the libs would kill your granny or handicapped child by putting them in front of a death panel.
Her cuntishness makes my skin crawl.