In all calm honesty, how many of us predicted this? How often was it discussed that someone could/probably would die from all the rabble rousing that Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, etc have been indulging in lately?
We predicted this. It was often discussed that someone could/probably would die from all the rabble rousing that Palin…
You can pretend that those two paragraphs are different, but they say exactly the same thing.
But whatever.
Why don’t you tell us what you think? Should/will charges be leveled against Sarah Palin for this incident if the shooter claims he was motivated by SP?
I already told you what I think. No. It’s beyond comprehension that anyone could think otherwise. And that would go for you, if you had posted the same thing SP did.
It’s not remotely a Sylvia Browne level of absurdity, because there’s a cause and effect proposed. It’s closer to the level of absurdity of saying, “My favorite basketball player is no longer on team X, so they’re going to lose the next game,” and claiming vindication when team X loses the game. It’s not scientifically valid, but it’s not claims of supernatural powers, either. You’re excluding the middle here.
If you want to make a similar claim to the OP, then point to specific inflammatory statements by Democrats that use violent metaphors to discuss defeating opponents, and predict that someone will commit violence against one of those opponents for apparently political (however crazy, still political) reasons.
To me, this does seem like a cheap jab at Palin. These metaphors are used all of the time. I heard a commentator on ESPN this morning say that the Jets/Patriots playoff game next week will be a “war.” If a diehard Jets fan shoots Tom Brady in the head, can people come back on that sportscaster and say “Gee, in this climate of referring to the game as a ‘war’, you’ve got to understand that crazy people might take your words the wrong way”?
He also said that the Seattle/New Orleans game was a “shootout.” Good thing he didn’t say that before the game, or Drew Brees could have taken a .45 to the brain and the sportscaster might have been charged with murder, according to some posters here.
Where does the insanity stop?
I see these as extremely different, because the playoffs are a game. If the Jets were referring to it as a war, AND were talking about the evil unAmerican behavior of the Patriots, and called them socialists, and talked about how they had to take back the country from them, and referenced revolutionary war leaders in discussing what would happen if they didn’t win the game–THEN I’d want them to dial back the rhetoric.
I’m certainly not suggesting anyone except the shooter and accomplices is legally culpable for the shooting. But I am suggesting that Palin et al engage in a level of viciousness in their political rhetoric that nurtures and encourages violent thoughts among the wingnuts, and that the country could only benefit from an across-the-board adoption of more respectful and more measured rhetoric.
I disagree that it has to be that way. I believe in a Second Amendment remedy–but I think it can only be applied when your life is endangered. Even given being mistreated to the level of causing a revolution, I would do as the U.S. did: declare myself free, and only fight if they attacked me for it.
As for the rest of this thread: Someone would have to be even stupider that Sarah Palin to take her comments literally. The problem is, there are people dumber than her. I don’t think she is legally responsible, but she morally ought to rein in the rhetoric.
I believe her reported faith (which is very close to mine) would say that the blood is on her hands.
I’m just curious, how many political shootings did Crossfire cause? After all, it referenced gunfire right in it’s name.
What’s the body could whenever any democrat has said they’re targeting some office or another?
Did Olbermann, Code Pink, Daily Kos, etc cause violence when they used flammatory comments against Bush?
Whenever a Democrat talks about ‘fighting’ for something, or against something, does that mean they want people to go beat up Republicans? That is, after all, what a fight is.
When Jim McDermott, a prominent democrat, said “This is the president’s Gettysburg” about negotiation over Bush tax cut extensions, was he saying Democrats are in open warfare against Republicans and want to inflict 50,000 casualties like the Battle of Gettysburg did?
Palin, Beck, etc. do go to extremes with the rhetoric. However, they didn’t invent that and they certainly aren’t the only ones. Blaming them for a fucked up wack job shooting up a mall makes about as much sense as blaming Democrats for John Hinckley. Just by bring up their names in relationship to that fucked up wack job is blaming them, regardless of if you meant to or not.
So I’ll agree with those who say it’s time to dial back the rhetoric. Perhaps we can start by not blaming Republicans for a shooting within hours of it happening and with no proof it has anything to do with Republicans…
Will they? No. Absolutely not. I am 100% sure of that. I already told you that.
Should they? That’s a little more complicated. Free speech currently co-exists with multi-million dollar fines for saying naughty words or showing female breasts on television or the radio (if I understand correctly, the legal justification for this is that the fines are retroactive - they don’t actually stop you from saying anything). Cable tv and the internet are just as public now as tv and radio were when those laws were authored, and I think inciting hatred and violence is a hell of a lot worse than using foul language or showing a boob. Several of my European and Canadian friends have been saying for the last couple years that Palin, Beck, Coulter, etc, would not get away with the shit they say in their country, and no one is accusing those countries of oppressing human rights (no more than the next country, at least. And I’ll grant you that none of these people are lawyers, but it seems to be a widespread sentiment). I don’t think I’d be comfortable with criminal charges for what she’s done, because it hasn’t quite reached the level of shouting fire, but I’m pretty sure I’d be ok with some sort of official censure or fine. And again, this is in the hypothetical situation that Loughner fingers Palin as his motivation, which is beyond what we know of the current realistic situation.
Here’s a right-wing blogger collecting bull’s-eye maps used by the DNC and the DCCC.
Here’s Kos talking about putting a bull’s-eye on Giffords’ district (among others) because she was among Democrats who “sold out the Constitution.”
Here’s Obama saying, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
And Howard Kurtz suggests that this sort of metaphor is commonplace:
It seems to me that the focus on Palin may be confirmation bias.
It is probably more likely that he was motivated by obama, rather than Sarah Palin.
If the guys favorite books were Mien Kemp and The Communist Manifesto, then he is obviously no friend of Sarah.
This is exactly what I was thinking about as I was walking down to the coffee shop this AM to get a cup of Joe. War and sports language have been pervasive in politics for as long as any of us can remember. Confirmation bias is exactly what is going on here.
I’m waiting for someone like **squink **to come along and post this snippet from the NYT today:
I won’t hold my breath, though, since it doesn’t fit the preconceived ideas many posters are bringing to this discussion.
Maybe a clearer picture will emerge eventually, but from what is available now, the guys seems to be all over the map, politically. If you filter the news through your own political biases, you can come up with any number of explanations for this guy’s actions.
For the time being, I’m sticking with delusional nut case rather than political operative.
To me, his own right-wing stances hold more weight than what a high school classmate says he believed several years ago (he dropped out in '06). Not to mention I don’t think most high school students can distinguish between right-wing, left-wing, and their own asses.
Again, the kid has problems and doesn’t fit nicely anywhere on the spectrum, but calling everything unconstitutional, wanting the department of education abolished, ranting about fiat currency, and shooting a Democrat in the head are all right-leaning positions.
I was actually thinking about this earlier today. I’m a strong supporter of private gun ownership. However I also wouldn’t have any problems at all if any gun purchase required a license, and that mental competency was a criteria for getting said license.
The reason I don’t actually support a legislative agenda that would lead to a strict licensing regime is unfortunately I don’t trust the people who would agree with me. I think they’d mostly be people that, unlike me, were opposed to the private ownership of guns. They’d see a license regime as a “step towards their ultimate goal” of complete annihilation of private gun ownership. If taken out of the reality of American politics though, I’d be very much in favor of a licensing regime for all firearms purchases. However, since in practice such a regime would just make it easier for opponents of gun ownership to erode my rights, I unfortunately cannot support such a licensing regime.
I also have secondary fears that the licensing regime itself, which I think should be more like a driver’s licensing system (meaning the default is you do get the license, unless they find specific, statutorily defined reasons to deny it to you) could morph into a super-rigid system in which only retired law enforcement would be eligible to receive licenses.
When I retired from the military I worked briefly in state government and was part of the department that dealt with the mentally ill. The truth of the matter is a lot has changed since just the 30s and 40s (and really since the 60s and 70s.) I won’t blame any particular political ideology but you had a lot of people advocating for the rights of the mentally ill. Namely that they have a right to freedom of movement and freedom of choice about what treatment they were to receive. This lead to widespread closings of state mental hospitals, and now most people who are mentally ill are handled through community level treatment (residential group homes, private residences with minimal supervision, and many of the mentally ill receive no services from government at all.)
Most states are now in a situation in which they have very few beds in psychiatric hospitals and civil commitment is generally a much more difficult process than it once was. By and large just because a kid is really, really disturbed, doesn’t mean he gets locked up these days.
Most people involved in mental health at the government level view civil commitment as a failure and strongly support community based mental health. Where you have someone who hasn’t done something so egregious that he’s been committed due to criminal behavior, or who hasn’t prompted friends and family to seek his commitment, the current system just simply is not set up to find out about those people. Realistically even under the old regime until someone was actually brought to the attention of the authorities they would not have been committed. Loners like this shooter who apparently lived with his parents and probably had very few friends would probably escape attention as long as his parents did not feel his behavior required further scrutiny.
Originally Posted by Susanann
It is probably more likely that he was motivated by obama, rather than Sarah Palin.
If the guys favorite books were Mien Kemp and The Communist Manifesto, then he is obviously no friend of Sarah.
While it may be true… he is all over the map… it doesnt matter at all, because there is absoluely no way at all he could have been influenced by Sarah Palin.
Regardless of anything else about him, his joking about aborting babies, and his love of Mien Kemp and The Communist Manifesto automatically rules out Sarah Palin.
Baby killers and communists are obviously totally and completely precluded, and totally excluded, from the Sarah Palin influence.
Abortion and communism are “show stoppers” in the Palin camp.
People who are mentally ill do not get turned away due to inability to pay. When someone needs mental health treatment, the default is they receive the treatment and the state-level bureaucrats (I was one of them) work on finding out how to pay for it. Where I worked state funds were called “funds of last resort”, which as it sounds just meant we didn’t pay from the state’s budget til other funding sources had been exhausted. A lot of people in our system were on Medicare and Medicaid, a good number also received VA benefits, then you had the rare persons who had family financial support and/or private insurance (since the people most in need of mental health treatment typically won’t maintain long term employment private insurance wasn’t a common thing.) The Federal government gave us an enormous amount of money in the form of block grants.
But yeah, I don’t know a lot about the mental health care field but I do know that at least in Virginia the commonwealth didn’t turn people away from treatment because of an inability to pay. The process worked exactly what I said: people got the treatment they needed and then it was left to us to figure out how to pay for it.
This is for people who need hospitalization and housing in a residential group home. I will say that for other forms of treatment (substance abuse for example) it was more difficult to get treatment if you lacked any form of personal funding or insurance.
It’s always nice to see some well informed posts.
It is as vomiting to see people soaking their shirt in the victims’blood to already lash at Conservatives that to see Conservatives already playing the chicken game.
BTW, Mien Kemp? Way to boost your credibility.
Here’s the thing though, America does generally have the strongest right to free speech that exists. You can write a book about how to blow people up and kill them and sell it with impunity.
I would never want to model our speech laws after those of many other countries where there are government commissions that have the ability to interrogate you about speech that might be considered “offensive” to certain groups.
I honestly would not advocate any sort of punishment for people who even were saying things far more egregious than Palin or Beck. Malcolm X said far worse, for example. I wouldn’t feel that Beck should be punished even if he was saying “I wish someone would murder the President.” Should he lose his job? Sure. But I don’t think that should be a criminal act (and it isn’t–while threatening the President is I don’t believe the theoretical statement above would survive a criminal trial with those charges.)
Oh for gods sake. Just because Cisco decided, with no facts, that this must be a rightwing hit job doesn’t mean the proper counter is deciding, without facts, that this is a leftwing hit job. The shooter is a god damned wacko. He’s motivated by whatever motivates god damned wackos. Whatever political position he holds, it is not representative of either parties politicians or supporters.