Congress on Your Corner

[david petley]

judge and nine year old girl murdered, congresswoman Danielle Giffords critically wounded

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41062&s=rcmp


...murdering little suckhole.

[Loyal Rogue]

It was bound to happen sooner or later...

(to be honest, after listening to the bile and venom spread by FOX and talk radio, and seeing it's effect on the ignorant masses of teabaggers, I expected sooner.)

[gerbick]

I wonder how that kind of rhetoric will play out in the near future. They have only themselves to blame.

[david petley]

I am not fully aware of the background of this murderer, but when any sad sack can go and buy a gun, stuff like this is bound to happen once in a while, and I am not sure how much politics comes into it as a motivator.

Shooting a nine year old does not seem like a political statement any sane person would want to make.

[gerbick]

ahem



Reload.

[el-Ignoramus]

............
Shooting a nine year old does not seem like a political statement any sane person would want to make.

I don't believe you've flown any commercial airlines lately, some of those kids need to be strapped to the landing gear

[Frets]

The guy is a nutcase, the party brought fuel to his fire. He would have gone on a shooting spree for anything anywhere eventually.

What people don't understand about Giffords is that she while not being a centrist had views on both sides. She was pro gun and she was anti immigration while being a democrat. The federal judge that was shot also didn't believe in background checks for gun purchases.

[Loyal Rogue]

The guy is a nutcase, the party brought fuel to his fire.

That is the whole point.

It's not the normal, rational types I'm worried about listening to the political hate speech.
FL could watch nothing but FOX and listen to Beck, Hannity, and Rush demonize and accuse dems and liberals of treason 24/7 everday, and I don't worry that he'll flip-out and go on a shooting rampage.
As for the people holding the signs and wearing guns in public as an obvious threat at the teaparty rallies in the pictures above... well, that's another story entirely...

Palin, Rush, Hannity, Beck, and the rest of them all know what they are doing when they spew hate speech in public, and they are well aware of what the consequences of those actions may be... "aware"... hell, I'd say more like "hoping".

[FlashLackey]

You really think that this guy shot people because Sarah Palin's web designer used target marks on a map or that some guy made a gun themed protest sign?

[jAQUAN]

No I don't think that. Crazy is crazy. But it's irresponsible. Much like trying to make someone known for their support of firearms approving a map with crosshairs sound like a random naturally occurring coincidence. That's like saying a few substitute pilots dismantled an office building.

[Loyal Rogue]

You really think that this guy shot people because Sarah Palin's web designer used target marks on a map or that some guy made a gun themed protest sign?

Absolutely not.
It would be ridiculous to claim that any one incident, speech, or thing was responsible for his actions, but I do believe that all of those things together contribute to creating an atmosphere where people's perceptions get twisted about what is acceptable and what crosses the line.
There have been many psychological experiments that prove that even normal, rational, and moral people can be lead into behavior that is criminal, violent, and perverted when they believe that behavior is considered acceptable, condoned, or expected by the larger group or those in authority.

While nobody can ever say exactly what caused this one individual to finally snap and go on a murderous rampage, it does shed a light on the type of violent and hateful atmosphere being generated by the tone and speech used by our political leaders and media (those in authority), and to think that atmosphere has no effect on people's behavior is just wrong and ignores history.

Do you believe that every German that participated in the Holocaust was insane and predisposed to committing genocide?

[cancerinform]

You really think that this guy shot people because Sarah Palin's web designer used target marks on a map or that some guy made a gun themed protest sign?

It's not only Palin's map - Democrats are also guilty - or an isolated instance as Loyal Rogue indicated already. However, after last years election campaign I am not surprised about anything. Sure it is now confirmed that this guy was mentally unstable but in an environment where guns belong to the political discussion those who propagated that should be very very quiet. If Palin found it ok why did she delete the map?

[gerbick]

Perhaps the overlooked factor in all of this is the ongoing fear mongering. I blame all of them.

[Jeff2A]

This thread makes me think less of all of you as individuals.

The shooter is a nutcase leftist extremist, the chances of him listening to Palin or Limbaugh is virtually zero (and if he did, he'd probably be as mad at them as he was at the congresswoman).

Your collective propaganda is as dumb (or dumber) than that you openly and wrongly blame.

[Loyal Rogue]

This thread makes me think less of all of you as individuals.

Sweet way to start a post that sounds amazingly like the derogatory and defensive spin coming out of Limbaugh's mouth everyday.

The shooter is a nutcase leftist extremist, the chances of him listening to Palin or Limbaugh is virtually zero (and if he did, he'd probably be as mad at them as he was at the congresswoman).

Actually the guy is a registered Independent and if you read his ramblings you would know that he's neither commie-left nor nazi-right in his philosophy.

If anything, his issues about the gold standard and our currency, anger and fear of the government, love of the military and guns, sounds a lot closer to the kind of paranoid end-of-world, government's taking over so hoard all the gold, freeze-dried food, and ammo that you can ramblings from Glenn Beck than anyone else.
I'm pretty sure if either of them belongs to a political party it's the batcrap-crazy lunatic party.

Your collective propaganda is as dumb (or dumber) than that you openly and wrongly blame.

Congratulations on missing the point entirely.

*Golfclap*

[gerbick]

Enjoy that altitude on that soap box.

Crazy folks don't need their fires fanned. I don't care who it was. And the amount of people around this dude that didn't say or do anything bothers me more than Palin and that crew.

I am, however, trying to figure out how similar rhetoric got the ****ing Black Panthers firebombed in Philadelphia yet this kind of rhetoric is applauded by the Tea Party.

[david petley]

this is an interesting read -
http://pubrecord.org/nation/8718/jar...ssible-mental/

I would caution against implying any politics to someone who appears so disturbed, as his interpretation of political symbols and phrases are interpreted in a highly idiosyncratic and irrational way. However, if he were susceptible to violence, then the targets available by the given society, i.e., the rhetoric out there in the society, would have pointed him towards liberals, leftists, Muslims, or other minorities, and that kind of rhetoric has mainly been from the right-wing