Crazy doesn’t have a political ideology. I suspect our shooter would have followed whatever political bent most aligned with his current flavor of bat-shitness.
Doesn’t mean that calls for armed resistance by certain political commentators shouldn’t be held up to public scrutiny. If this incident results in a more critical look at the rhetoric of Beck, Palin, et al., then maybe some good will come out of this.
Not a bit of it! Major advances in brain trauma treatment have emerged from the Iraq War, if GeeDub had not lied us into that futile clusterfuck, Rep. Gifford might not have survived!
No. Fuck that shit. I don’t want to give et al a chance to play the victim. You want to make them stfu, you do it on the up-and-up. Using this as a political tool (if the shooter is not acting politically) will cause blowback.
Makes me wonder if his new masters told him he had to do it to prove his loyalty to Murdoch. The man’s a whore like most “news” people these days.
I sat next to him on an airplane once and he scared me.
Agreed. Nobody should use this as political tool. What I am suggesting is that the “et al” won’t be able to help themselves and will play the victim card and that will backfire on them and their message will be marginalized organically. Let them hang themselves with their own words and let the people see them for what they are; Profiteers of Death and Disorder.
At least, this is what I hope. I do fear that I am just hopelessly naive, however.
I am not sure what you think I am doing or why you think it is important whether or not a psychopaths rants make sense to any of the rest of us. The question I was addressing was whether this specific psychopath saw his action as a political one or, as George Kaplin put it, could have just as easily aimed for Giffords “because the ghost of Mickey Mantle told him she was going to destroy the colour blue”. In that context his beliefs (whether they “make sense” or not) about the Constitution and how far we are from its original intent, and that “If I define terrorist then a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon. I define terrorist.” are pertinent.
Again, I am not, NOT, trying to blame this on Constitutionalist beliefs, and having a crazy with Belief X informs naught about whether Belief X is crazy or dangerous. But if the major media spokespeople for Belief X use rhetorical devices that can be easily seen as likely to provoke the crazies to act, as Giffords had, in March, expressed concern that putting her name in a gunsight graphic would do, and those media spokespeople continue to behave in that manner even after that concern is expressed, then those media spokespeople should be held morally accountable for the consequences and their saying “What gunsight? Those are … uh … surveyor markings! Yeah that’s it. Not gunsights at all.” should be responded to with the utmost contempt.
Pointing and laughing squad to the Pit! Stat!
“The real tragedy here is that conservatives and the Tea Party will be blamed…”
Because he looked like a terrorist?
Well, he is a Negro. There’s that.
Not at all; I grew up listening to the likes of The Weather Underground, Louis Farrakhan, and Patty Hearst. Lennon, Lenin, and Dylan.
Indeed, Imagine fairly seethes with bloodlust.
Dylan?!? Bob Dylan?
Imagine there’s no Obama
It’s easy to hug your mama.
Imagine there’s no Health Care
You wouldn’t even dare.
Imagine all the people
Exercising their 2nd amendment Rights… I-I-I-Ites.
I think you think rhetoric was a factor in goading the man. I think there’s no evidence. Does he watch the news? I dunno. Does he even know who Palin is? Who the fuck knows? I’ll give you that he took politics into consideration- I’d have to, considering the flag burning, constitutional blahblah and currency shit. I won’t give that rhetoricians like Palin, Beck et al. had anything to do with it. He does not have crazy belief ‘X’ to the extreme degree. He has crazy belief ‘fdsafdasfda’. It could have been culled from his high school civics textbook. The catalyst could have been the flag on his postman’s uniform. Who the fuck knows?
I’d love rhetoricians to stfu. If it’s plausible to link this guy to them, I’ll be immensely content with every ounce of guilt laid upon the et als. But the last thing I want is to encourage some character’s already over-inflated victim complex.
Lennon and Dylan? Can you give examples, if you mean John and Bob. Is Lenin now considered a democrat? Oh, right, democrats=communists! It all comes together.
Do you have anything that occured in the last 4 or 5 decades, btw? Or is time not a factor in the “both parties are equally guilty of everything” bullshit? Forsooth sire, but that gentlemen with the powdered wig has suggested that all people who oppose federalism should be tarred and feathered! I say, all sides must be equally guilty!
Incidentally, do you feel that The Weather Underground, Farrakhan, or Hearst were mainstream voices like elected representatives or hosts of popular news programs? Do you feel that Lenin was a representative of the American left? And the Lennon and Dylan thing you’ll have to explain further.
Mind control via grammar control == not really a liberal or a conservative stance, just a crazy one.
Currency not backed by gold or silver == I guess that’s ‘conservative,’ although not really an issue I see at the tops of current conservative concerns.
Won’t “Trust in God” == I guess that’s NOT a conservative issue, and to the extent that Michael Newdow’s work is anything, it’s more liberal than conservative… but again not really an issue I see at the tops of current liberal concerns.
Bingo
It’s certainly at the top of Ron Paul’s agenda, and probably therefore at the top of his son’s agenda also.