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

[fezzyfestoon]

I'll also repeat that I agree completely with Xahar and I also of course agree with Duke.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'll also repeat that I agree completely with Xahar and I also of course agree with Duke.

What Duke said seems to imply that even talking about undesirable political rhetoric and tamping violent symbolism and rhetoric down in this country is the same as saying "It's Sarah Palin's fault!" which is the only thing that seems to be bothering me about this thread. It's become a controversial point in this thread (look at anything Cinyc has said, for example) to even suggest that the political climate has become too heated or our culture has become too obsessed with violence.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I'll also repeat that I agree completely with Xahar and I also of course agree with Duke.

What Duke said seems to imply that even talking about undesirable political rhetoric and tamping violent symbolism and rhetoric down in this country is the same as saying "It's Sarah Palin's fault!" which is the only thing that seems to be bothering me about this thread. It's become a controversial point in this thread (look at anything Cinyc has said, for example) to even suggest that the political climate has become too heated or our culture has become too obsessed with violence.

There's nothing to suggest the political climate caused this to happen. We've seen tons of anarchist types go off on shootings before. This is just the first time one of these crazies shot a public official. While the possibility is still there that the heated environment factored into this, I doubt it did. Did this guy know who he was shooting? Or did he just go crazy and shoot up a bunch of people at a public place?

I'll admit I don't know many details of the thing, but I feel like people are trying to make this into "oh politics caused this" when in reality this was just a deranged individual doing the same thing as the VTech or Columbine killers.

[Torie]

Truncating free speech over this, either de jure (which of course will not happen), or de facto, is at once both futile and unwise. JMO. And I would hope whatever political party thinks they can gain some advantage over this - fails.

[Beet]

I think one lesson that we can definitely draw from this is what Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat (even though I dont usually agree with him) pointed out - at least we are not Pakistan. What we have in common is that we all stand against the assassin. The mere realization that despite all the differences between Progressives and the Tea Party, they all stand shoulder to shoulder against this act of violence is what ought to convince us to tone down our rhetoric. We have the basic things in common, even if we disagree on a lot.

[anvi]

I'm sure this will be ignored, like most of my posts in this forum are.  But I'm going to say it, and then let y'all get on with your fight.

First off, let me say I don't have any reason to believe that what caused this kid to go and blow people to pieces was some left or right ideology or persuasion.  I have no reason to believe any such thing unless and until the evidence says so, and so far, the evidence is not saying so.

But what this thread has become about to me is just everyone rushing to proclaim their own innocence and their opponent's guilt.  Lefties blame the right for political discourse, the right castigates the left for jumping to conclusions and stifling rights and free speech.  And a hollow agreement is supposed to be found in the comfort that this kid was just an isolated case, an inscrutable nutjob, and the grounds for his insanity don't have to be worried about beyond that affirmation.  He is condemned, everyone else is absolved...and nothing gets solved.

Like I said, we don't yet have nearly enough information to understand all this, and no grounds for coming to any conclusions about anything.  But what bugs me is that there seems to be so much concern to merely establish our own political innocence and the opponents' guilt.  As long as individuals can feel they have no stake in understanding what happened beyond showing off their own purity, all this just becomes an exercise in futility.  

Instead of all this, what I believe is that we should as citizens who share a society, who take one another's lives into our hands every time we go into the voting booth, be passionate not about just absolving ourselves, but about finding out what happened, finding out all the real causes, wherever they might lead us, so we can do our part in the future to prevent it from happening more often.  Look at all the very real people involved in this story, parents, teachers, army recruiters, police officers, lawmakers, bystanders; so many people were effected by this, and how much would it have helped if more of them tried harder in advance to understand, to intervene, to be sure that this kid got counseling and help before this all went down?  Don't get me wrong; I'm not in any way excusing what this kid did; he should now be punished to the full extent of the law.  But doing all we can to prevent horrific things like this is far, far better than reacting to them when they happen.  If we had half as much determination to really understand and intervene in similar cases in our own lives and experiences as we do to declare ourselves pure and uninvolved, we wouldn't all have to get so completely bent out of shape in mutual recrimination on an internet forum.

JMO.  I'll do myself a favor and not look at this particular thread again, and do you all a favor and spare you my opinions about it.  Back to the wars we go, I guess.

[Torie]

Fathoming what causes man to commit horrific acts, and how in good conscience to figure out in advance with whom to intervene, and how Draconially, either via the criminal justice system, or civil court, without sliding towards 1984, is complicated, attended by a lot of we just don't know; and we probably should realize that we just don't know about much of this, and act with caution.

In any event, it requires a very careful balancing of the competing considerations, including trying to foresee what, that without really pondering it now, might later be characterized as negative unintended consequences, and on and on and on.  I am not sure what more generic social programs and so forth might reasonably be expected really to be of much relevance here, but I suppose I could be persuaded, particularly because I have not thought through that matter in any depth.

So walk humbly is my opinion, on this sort of thing. But one thing I do know. We do a horrific job with the mentally ill, and if we did a far better job, this is one area where I am pretty confident that in the long run we could save not only money, but lives, and avoid in all events a lot of heartache.

Thanks for another good one, Anvik.  

[Lunar]

Indeed, good post above.

It'll certainly be easier for this guy to make an insanity plea lookin' like this:
1

[Lunar]

I just realized I was born in her district and grew up (until I was 3 years old) about 8.5 miles away from the shooting, huh

[King]

I take the grandmotherly position and blindly blame this on video games and rap music.

Tom DeLay should've shaved his head, too.  He already did the goofy smile.

[tmthforu94]

Appears Giffords is making a lot more motion contact with the doctor's. God Bless Congresswoman Giffords. She is certainly in my prayers, and I'm praying hard for a recovery, and also for the family of all other victims in this tragedy.

[redcommander]

Indeed, good post above.

It'll certainly be easier for this guy to make an insanity plea lookin' like this:
1

That pic scared the crap out of me.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If she pulls this out, it'll be pretty impressive, although perhaps not as impressive as Jackie Spieier's incident.

Anyways, is there any chance that the judge was targeted too, or was he just the wrong place at the wrong time? That would be an interesting coincidence since he had a large number of death threats.

They're still looking for the accomplice, maybe there's some wider conspiracy or something. Really doubtful but who knows.

Supposedly he had spoken for a few minutes shortly before.

[opebo]

Truncating free speech over this, either de jure (which of course will not happen), or de facto, is at once both futile and unwise. JMO. And I would hope whatever political party thinks they can gain some advantage over this - fails.

Anyway I think it is impermissible to propose such truncation, is it not?  Or to suggest any connection between speech and this event?

By the way, regarding the picture above, and I mean this not as 'trolling' but as a 'joke', if a joke might be allowed - we could probably eliminate a great deal of trouble in this country just by rounding up all the shaven headed b******s out there.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This issue is not about left or right. It's about a mentally sick guy going off. Politics played little or no role in this and if it did, it did not involve Palin, the Tea Party or anything else. Anyone claiming otherwise is being very disingenuous and should reexamine their life immediately. 

LOL

[pazmo]

! I wish you well! Due to the 2010 election results, she was Arizona's only sane member of congress left!

For the love of Jesus, SURVIVE!!!!

[Gustaf]

Truncating free speech over this, either de jure (which of course will not happen), or de facto, is at once both futile and unwise. JMO. And I would hope whatever political party thinks they can gain some advantage over this - fails.

Anyway I think it is impermissible to propose such truncation, is it not?  Or to suggest any connection between speech and this event?

By the way, regarding the picture above, and I mean this not as 'trolling' but as a 'joke', if a joke might be allowed - we could probably eliminate a great deal of trouble in this country just by rounding up all the shaven headed b******s out there.

I don't get it - we're making this place more like Thailand, and you complain?

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Two more victims.....sadly many won't view them as that.

[Insula Dei]

Two more victims.....sadly many won't view them as that.

It's always miserable to see what these kinds of incidents do to the parents of the kid gone crazy. It gets even worse when the family is explicitly attacked after the incident like happened with the father of the shooter in that Bavaria school some years back.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Two more victims.....sadly many won't view them as that.

It's always miserable to see what these kinds of incidents do to the parents of the kid gone crazy. It gets even worse when the family is explicitly attacked after the incident like happened with the father of the shooter in that Bavaria school some years back.

Yeah one never knows.......it's safe to say the moving truck will be arriving shortly, not necessarily out of fear for their safety (which is a legit fear, not necessarily from the locals, but others...), but there is no way these people can live the rest of their lives there.

[Brittain33]

By the way, if it becomes socially unacceptable for public figures to call for shooting their opponents, it's not going to be because left-wingers "banned" it or somehow used their mind-control rays on society to change things. It's going to be because a lot of people in the middle are going to make the connection themselves and oppose assassination rhetoric, whether or not some Republicans agree or think that is fair, and Republicans are going to make the decision not to go there in order to improve their own image and prevent themselves from having more failed candidacies like Angle's. Republicans aren't oblivious to this; it's why Bachmann was kept out of House leadership. They've been walking a fine line between harnessing this energy and keeping their own hands clean, but that's going to be less easy now that people outside of involved partisans are paying attention.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/gun_rhetoric_2010.php?ref=fpb

It's noteworthy how many of the people cited above who relied heavily on assassination rhetoric and "look how tough I am, look at my huuuuuuuuge gun, bam bam" nonsense lost their elections in 2010. They include Manchin as a token Democrat who ended up winning his race, although he did shoot at a piece of legislation, not a person.

[opebo]

I don't get it - we're making this place more like Thailand, and you complain?

Even if speech were truncated here its more than made up for by other things.  This forum is decidedly lacking in those things.

[Gustaf]

I don't get it - we're making this place more like Thailand, and you complain?

Even if speech were truncated here its more than made up for by other things.  This forum is decidedly lacking in those things.

Right, so you don't actually care for freedom of speech. Glad we cleared that up.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

This issue is not about left or right. It's about a mentally sick guy going off. Politics played little or no role in this and if it did, it did not involve Palin, the Tea Party or anything else. Anyone claiming otherwise is being very disingenuous and should reexamine their life immediately. 

LOL

Dude, there is no evidence to suggest this guy even watched TV or knew anything about the politics of the day. If you can prove to me otherwise, fine, I welcome you, but don't laugh at me because you're convinced in your mind that this was some sort of right-winged backed plot.

This guy was clearly a sick individual who needed help, not some political operative. If you seriously believe otherwise, then I don't know what to say.

[opebo]

...its more than made up for by other things.  This forum is decidedly lacking in those things.

Yeah, after Stark's departure the forum is definitely lacking the presence of a pro-pedophilia constituency. 

Well the 'other things' I was referring to range in age from 19-38, so your personal attack is somewhat misplaced.

I don't get it - we're making this place more like Thailand, and you complain?

Even if speech were truncated here its more than made up for by other things.  This forum is decidedly lacking in those things.

Right, so you don't actually care for freedom of speech. Glad we cleared that up.

Saying a preference is one among many doesn't mean one values it not at all.  Of course freedom of speech is nice, but so are other things.