Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in critical condition, 6 others killed in Arizona

[Grumps]

^Hey Opebo, you do realize that the thread you posted in about the new laws is over one year old right? This is not exactly a "new" policy.

No, but infracting the sh**t out of him in this thread because of whiners is.

[Senator Sbane]

Again, the very point of all of this is very easy to understand. Rather or not anyone's rhetoric sparked the shooting, there are people who still need to stop using rhetoric that can incite trouble. We don't need anymore incidents like this, our political environment is out of control and it needs to be pulled back into stability.

Exactly. While extreme and violent rhetoric will continue to come from the fringes, it should be stopped or marginalized when it comes from mainstream sources.

[Storebought]

I have to agree with Phil on this one.

I think I will put px on ignore. He can't make a single post without an ad hominem.

[Platypus]

Here's a great idea: Move this discussion to International general. I'll even set up a thread for you! This one is about the 6 people who were murdered in the USA and the others critically injured.

[anvi]

Franzl,

I lived in Germany for some time, and one of the first things I discovered there was that the newspaper journalists don't primarily operate according to the American "norm" of "objectivity."  Each major paper has a pronounced political orientation, often featuring opinion pieces on the front page.  Most newspaper journalists split their time between reporting and writing opinion pieces from week to week.  They don't see their job as involving bias, but as representing the perspective of the paper they work for.  So, if one wanted more leftist perspective, one would read Berliner Zeitung, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and Der Tagesspiegel, whereas, for a righty perspective, one would look at Allgemeine Frankfurter Zeitung and Die Welt.

Just to comment on the topic being bandied about on this thread, I've tried to post things here that have focused on those who have been injured and killed, as well as heroism seen on that afternoon.  But, in my own view, no matter who is espousing inflamed political rhetoric, sure they have the right to say whatever they want, but they should also be aware that generally crazy talk accepted in the cultural atmosphere helps give genuinely crazy people ideas.  

[I left.]

Franzl,

I lived in Germany for some time, and one of the first things I discovered there was that the newspaper journalists don't primarily operate according to the American "norm" of "objectivity."  Each major paper has a pronounced political orientation, often featuring opinion pieces on the front page.  Most newspaper journalists split their time between reporting and writing opinion pieces from week to week.  They don't see their job as involving bias, but as representing the perspective of the paper they work for.  So, if one wanted more leftist perspective, one would read Berliner Zeitung, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and Der Tagesspiegel, whereas, for a righty perspective, one would look at Allgemeine Frankfurter Zeitung and Die Welt.  

Well, that's certainly correct....but it's not really all that different than the way a lot of papers in the U.S. have become (e.g. NY Post, Washington Times).

But even television reporting that's really supposed to be neutral, such as the public TV station ARD....is what I was getting at.

(Your knowledge of German newspapers is really good, BTW )

[memphis]

Just when this story couldn't get any more awful:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/westboro-baptist-church-arizona_n_806319.html

[Mr. Taft Republican]

Just when this story couldn't get any more awful:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/westboro-baptist-church-arizona_n_806319.html

Damn trolls just want attention to their cause, insensitive jackasses.

[Gravis Marketing]

Who are these people who need to practice self-moderation

They are people who advocate the assassination of elected officials as a solution for policy disputes. I don't care what their policy views are. This is a ground game rule of democracy. It is the action of saying "shoot people who don't pass laws we like", not the content of the laws or the identity of the speaker.

Do you believe that expressing this view is an integral part of a certain set of policy views? I sure as hell don't. I think it's a tactic used by a few careless people and it does no political perspective any harm to self-moderate and choose not to use it. The same way it is good to self-moderate and not to give out the home addresses of Goldman Sachs executives and tell people it would be nice if they went out there "armed and dangerous" and sought "second amendment remedies" to the harm those rich bastards have done to the ordinary American. See, it works both ways.

Cinyc, phil, jbrase, how would you feel if Obama, Dick Blumenthal, etc. were going on national tv and saying "This is Lloyd Blankfein's house. 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Greenwich, Connecticut. Mr. Blankfein is blocking reforms we need to prevent Wall Street from stealing your money. Now, I would never hurt him myself, but maybe it would be good for the country if people went out there and showed him exactly why he should work with us instead of against us..."

[cinyc]

Who are these people who need to practice self-moderation

They are people who advocate the assassination of elected officials as a solution for policy disputes. I don't care what their policy views are. This is a ground game rule of democracy. It is the action of saying "shoot people who don't pass laws we like", not the content of the laws or the identity of the speaker.

Do you believe that expressing this view is an integral part of a certain set of policy views? I sure as hell don't. I think it's a tactic used by a few careless people and it does no political perspective any harm to self-moderate and choose not to use it. The same way it is good to self-moderate and not to give out the home addresses of Goldman Sachs executives and tell people it would be nice if they went out there "armed and dangerous" and sought "second amendment remedies" to the harm those rich bastards have done to the ordinary American. See, it works both ways. Cinyc, how would you feel if Obama, Dick Blumenthal, etc. were going on national tv and saying "This is Lloyd Blankfein's house. 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Greenwich, Connecticut. Mr. Blankfein is blocking reforms we need to prevent Wall Street from stealing your money. Now, I would never hurt him myself, but maybe it would be good for the country if people went out there and showed him exactly why he should work with us instead of against us..."

No public official ever said this is where Gabrielle Giffords lives or is going to hold a meet and greet with the public.  Now, I'd never hurt her myself, but maybe it would be good if someone hurt her.  Not one.  

And people did publish the names and addresses of bankers during the height of the banking crisis.  Leftist groups protested in front of some of their homes.  It is what it is, and by itself, perfectly legal.  I'd hate to live in a country where it isn't.

True specific death threats directly made to that person may be illegal.  Rhetoric about using Second Amendment remedies has been around about as long as the Second Amendment itself.  It is just that - rhetoric.  Words don't kill people.  Remember Jefferson's famous tree of liberty quote:

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

[Invisible Obama]

Who are these people who need to practice self-moderation, and why are they undoubtedly on the other side of the political aisle from you?  And what do you propose to do to those who do not self-moderate to your standards?  After all, you say they NEED to practice it - even though there is absolutely zero evidence that supposedly heightened political rhetoric had anything to do with the Arizona shooting.

Can make a post with a ton of questions? With a member of Congress being shot, I would think everyone would be more careful in what they said about other members, so as not to potentially incite anything. Again, you are using hyperbole, I'm talking about self-moderation, not any legal action or punishment for radicals shooting their mouths off. No one is talking about taking away rights.

[Beet]

I strongly disagree with the notion that just because Jefferson said we should start shooting each other every 150 years, we should. It's also strange that someone who has spent the entire thread vehemently denying any association with incitement to violence would post that quote.

[Invisible Obama]

I strongly disagree with the notion that just because Jefferson said we should start shooting each other every 150 years, we should. It's also strange that someone who has spent the entire thread vehemently denying any association with incitement to violence would post that quote.

Very strange indeed.

[Gravis Marketing]

Cinyc,

I've made my point several times now. You can keep redefining the issue to say, well, they said we should shoot representatives, but they didn't actually say "go here at this time," and a Democrat said blah blah here, so it's not the same. I don't care, I think telling people to go shoot representatives if they don't like how they vote is unacceptable, and wherever you move the goalposts to after that is irrelevant. Whatever changes you want to make to that has nothing to do with me. The cinycs and keystone phils of the world don't necessarily have to agree with this view. Note that I am not in a position to pass laws to mandate what I think should happen, I am just one voice in a large number saying this right now in the wake of the attempted assassination. I am saying what I think. You haven't yet presented an argument as to why it's a good thing for elected officials and candidates for high office to choose to "go there" and call for assassinations. That's my challenge to you because all I am asking is that they make the prudent choice not to go there.

Jefferson advocated a revolution every generation. He was also a slaveholder. He was wrong about some things and right about others, like all the other Founders. I'm guessing you don't care for his line about the wall of separation of church and state as a mandate for our current government, do you? I don't believe that Jefferson's words were divinely inspired and God gave us (if you believe in God) the reason to discuss issues as they play out today while drawing on the wisdom of the past. I think the public reaction to Giffords' assassination by all but a few political activists and internet jerkoffs (I put myself in that category sometimes, too) shows where the country stands on "watering the tree of liberty with blood."

[The Mikado]

Cinyc,

I've made my point several times now. You can keep redefining the issue to say, well, they said we should shoot representatives, but they didn't actually say "go here at this time," and a Democrat said blah blah here, so it's not the same. I don't care, I think telling people to go shoot representatives if they don't like how they vote is unacceptable, and wherever you move the goalposts to after that is irrelevant. Whatever changes you want to make to that has nothing to do with me. The cinycs and keystone phils of the world don't necessarily have to agree with this view. Note that I am not in a position to pass laws to mandate what I think should happen, I am just one voice in a large number saying this right now in the wake of the attempted assassination. I am saying what I think. You haven't yet presented an argument as to why it's a good thing for elected officials and candidates for high office to choose to "go there" and call for assassinations. That's my challenge to you because all I am asking is that they make the prudent choice not to go there.

Jefferson advocated a revolution every generation. He was also a slaveholder. He was wrong about some things and right about others, like all the other Founders. I'm guessing you don't care for his line about the wall of separation of church and state as a mandate for our current government, do you? I don't believe that Jefferson's words were divinely inspired and God gave us (if you believe in God) the reason to discuss issues as they play out today while drawing on the wisdom of the past. I think the public reaction to Giffords' assassination by all but a few political activists and internet jerkoffs (I put myself in that category sometimes, too) shows where the country stands on "watering the tree of liberty with blood."

^^^

Are you literate, listener?

[cinyc]

I strongly disagree with the notion that just because Jefferson said we should start shooting each other every 150 years, we should. It's also strange that someone who has spent the entire thread vehemently denying any association with incitement to violence would post that quote.

I did not quote Jefferson for the truth or falsity of his statement.  I quoted it to show, once again, that this supposed hateful rhetoric regarding the Second Amendment has been around for centuries.
 

Cinyc,

I've made my point several times now. You can keep redefining the issue to say, well, they said we should shoot representatives, but they didn't actually say "go here at this time," and a Democrat said blah blah here, so it's not the same. I don't care, I think telling people to go shoot representatives if they don't like how they vote is unacceptable, and wherever you move the goalposts to after that is irrelevant.

And nobody actually said that, either.

Whatever changes you want to make to that has nothing to do with me. The cinycs and keystone phils of the world don't necessarily have to agree with this view. Note that I am not in a position to pass laws to mandate what I think should happen, I am just one voice in a large number saying this right now in the wake of the attempted assassination. I am saying what I think. You haven't yet presented an argument as to why it's a good thing for elected officials and candidates for high office to choose to "go there" and call for assassinations. That's my challenge to you because all I am asking is that they make the prudent choice not to go there.

Why is it a good thing for candidates to call for assassinations?  Again, no major party candidate that I know have called for assassinations of specific individuals.  And whether someone who calls for assassinations generally is fit for public office is up to the voters to decide.  Not something that "must" be banned or self-censored by politically correct fiat because some people don't think it's nice.

My main problem with Krugman and the red avatars complaining about the supposed heated "hateful" political rhetoric is simple.   If heated rhetoric is a sin, you can't ignore the rhetoric on your side.  You can't ignore that as a candidate, your own President told his supporters to get in the faces of those with whom he disagreed.  You can't ignore that while in office, your own President has likened the opposition to terrorists.  You can't mention Sarah Palin's graphic, but ignore that your own prominent bloggers have also "targeted" and put a "bulls eye" on Giffords' seat due to her perceived political misdeeds.  And can't you ignore that one of your own candidates put crosshairs in an ad against an Arizona Republican congressman.  

With a few exceptions, though, it's always that one-sided.  Republicans evil and need to shut up because we don't like what some of them say.  Democrats good and can say whatever they want because they are good and right.   But political rhetoric is political rhetoric.  It is constitutionally protected speech.

[Gravis Marketing]

Why is it a good thing for candidates to call for assassinations?  Again, no major party candidate that I know have called for assassinations of specific individuals.

It doesn't have to be specific individuals to be dangerous. Naming the Democratic members of Congress as people to be shot reduces it to a few hundred, of which only a few will be convenient to a given shooter. Not that it matters, the only reason you're saying "specific individuals" is so you can define some realm of bad behavior outside of what Republicans have done, not based on whether it's more or less dangerous. And if we find a Republican who said "we should kill Jane Goldberg because she voted [y]," and plenty of activists have done in the last two years as they've been riled up by their leaders, you'll just move the goal posts again.

I'm not here to convince you or keystone phil because neither of you is arguing in good faith or seeking an exchange of views. You're seeking maximum defense of your team, whether plausible or not, and will fight to the end for that. I'm here to think through my beliefs and express them in arguments, have them tested, explore what I think, and put forward the best conclusion I can. I know you well enough to know that at the end of the day, you're never going to acknowledge anything that causes potential disadvantage to your party and beliefs. That's fine! What you think and believe, doesn't matter to me. Truth and intellectual honesty do. To the extent that you engage with those topics or give me a chance to, I argue with you. But I don't really care if you choose to stay within your little fortress at the end of the day, any more than I care if CARLHAYDEN ever changes his views in response to posts responding to him.

And whether someone who calls for assassinations generally is fit for public office is up to the voters to decide.

We are individuals who are capable of expressing our own opinions. How would you feel if I said, in response to some thread about who would win NY-4, I said "it's up to the voters to decide"? That's not why we're here. Even outside the internet, in the real world, political discourse happens continuously with views expressed and mores shaped more than just once every two years when people vote. But...

Not something that "must" be banned or self-censored by politically correct fiat because some people don't think it's nice.

This line of argument, half debunked straw-man ("banned"?), has already been countered several times in this thread. We have a dying or crippled congresswoman lying in a coma, a 9-year-old girl is dead. You translate this to "I don't think it's nice." Well, cinyc, whatever you want to believe, you're welcome to. I'm just very, very grateful that the majority in this country doesn't share your views about subordinating human lives and morality to a belief that you must defend whatever members of your party say and do, must be defended on the Internet with maximum sarcasm and refusal to acknowledge opposing views.

As far as the "Democrats do it," as I said well up in the thread, if I felt Democrats were causing any kind of violence or harm to people and advocating it, I'd condemn that in a second. Your need for false equivalence doesn't mean it happens, your weak examples don't hold up to anyone whose purpose isn't to drag out a tu quoque that no objective viewer would accept. Maybe you believe that Democrats are out there trying to kill Republicans. But the vast, vast imbalance in political violence over my lifetime is a mountain of proof all of your google searching can't defeat.

[afleitch]

I did not quote Jefferson for the truth or falsity of his statement.  I quoted it to show, once again, that this supposed hateful rhetoric regarding the Second Amendment has been around for centuries.

Which Jefferson gave in 1787. The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791

[Gravis Marketing]

I did not quote Jefferson for the truth or falsity of his statement.  I quoted it to show, once again, that this supposed hateful rhetoric regarding the Second Amendment has been around for centuries.

Which Jefferson gave in 1787. The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791

Also, in theory, we've learned from the experience of "Bleeding Kansas," the Civil War, KKK resistance to Reconstruction, etc. and have tried to move beyond that instead of holding them up as great American traditions.

[opebo]

^Hey Opebo, you do realize that the thread you posted in about the new laws is over one year old right? This is not exactly a "new" policy.

Yeah but I just noticed that expressing my political opinions in this thread is not allowed - I received several infractions for commenting about the alleged events and am within a hair's breadth of being banned, so I thought we should all take care to not say anything.

[Iosif]

Hillary Clinton:

"We have extremists in my country. A wonderful, incredibly brave young woman Congress member, Congresswoman Giffords, was just shot by an extremist in our country," she said. "We have the same kinds of problems. So rather than standing off from each other, we should work to try to prevent the extremists anywhere from being able to commit violence. The extremists and their voices, the crazy voices that sometimes get on the TV, that's not who we are, that's not who you are, and what we have to do is get through that and make it clear that that doesn't represent either American or Arab ideas or opinions."

[crypto-fascist superhero]

Hillary Clinton:  Isn't she the one who wants to ban video games?

[anvi]

I just have to smile every time I see Jefferson's letter to William Stevens Smith about Shay's Rebellion cited in defense of Angle's famous "second amendment remedies."  (And I take cinyc's word for it that he did not quote the passage in order to rely on its purported truth.)  First of all, the people who were killed in Shay's rebellion were some of the militia rebels.  Secondly, I'll refer to the same quote to demonstrate that Jefferson's point was that he believed the rebellious crowd in question was ignorant and that the right way to deal with them was to educate them.

"The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

The points of the damned passage are that, 1. while aggrieved people should express their grievances openly, those very people should be given the facts that would pacify them, since lack of a command of the facts is what incited them to rebel in the first place, and 2. the lost lives of the armed Shay's rebels didn't mean particularly much to Jefferson.  But, toward the end of the same letter, Jefferson indicated that he was basically being flippant through the whole thing:

"The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform."

The letter, while it does defend the speech rights of citizens for sure, is not a justification of armed rebellion, it's a rejoinder to armed rebellion.  If people who talked about "second amendment remedies" were a little more about history than histrionics, they wouldn't rely on this letter, which, in any event, was one of the most self-admittedly flip things Jefferson ever wrote.

Anyway, speaking for myself regarding political rhetoric in the U.S., all I will say is that I wish we all, left, right, center, up, down, wherever we're all coming from, expected a little more from ourselves.  Laws and rights are fundamental to a democracy, but so are civic virtues.

[Beet]

I strongly disagree with the notion that just because Jefferson said we should start shooting each other every 150 years, we should. It's also strange that someone who has spent the entire thread vehemently denying any association with incitement to violence would post that quote.

I did not quote Jefferson for the truth or falsity of his statement.  I quoted it to show, once again, that this supposed hateful rhetoric regarding the Second Amendment has been around for centuries.

Just because something has been around for a long time doesn't make it right. Jefferson lived in a very different time and he had no way of seeing what the future would be like. The quote is clearly an incitement to violence. We can't assume that the type of rhetoric that was valid in his day -- if indeed it ever was -- is valid today.

[Grumps]

It appears the shooter is invoking his 5th Amendment right......why is anyone surprised?

Sheriff says Ariz. rampage suspect not cooperating

Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said Loughner was not cooperating and told ABC's "Good Morning America" the suspect had said "not a word" to investigators. Dupnik said authorities were all but certain Loughner acted alone, saying "he's a typical troubled individual who's a loner."

More here