How responsible is Sarah Palin for the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords?

Not any more responsible than the daily Kos which used a similar bullseye logo to target Congresswoman Giffords in 2008.

The only person responsible is the lunatic that pulled the trigger. He should be publicly hung IMO.

If this wasn’t general I’d say she damn near pulled the trigger and leave it at that. But since it’s not I’ll say:

None-none at all. There’s no proof this kid even listened or believed in Palin’s ideology. Anyone who takes an election map that seriously is an idiot, and if you look at that and after reasoning it out you still think that: you are an idiot.

I think this question is a possible troll or trying to bring out the trolls.

BTW aforementioned idiots are the ones that politicize this.

@jlelandg I assure you, I am not a troll, nor is this question troll bait.

I don’t think she is at all. The alleged suspect appears to be the one “responsible,” and he seems to have severely diminished logical capacity. He hasn’t said one word to the investigators, though, so we’ll see what happens.

@filmfann, fine fine: but I’ve written questions that have brought them out too so I am guilty of it in a ways too. And this might bring out someone to “logically” argue the finer points of the arguments and be a big ‘ol devils advocate.

She is not responsible, but people like her need to be more responsible. She needs to be aware of her influence and use her power more wisely.

@jlelandg I will also you assure @filmfann is not a troll. You can see his many excellent questions and answers on his profile. Plus, most trolls are caught before they reach 20k. Just saying.

It should be noted that Palin now denies the map shows gun site cross-hairs. She now claims they are surveyor marks. That comment alone makes me think she understands her culpability. She has a history of denying such things, like when she screamed “Drill here, drill now!” and “Drill Baby Drill”, then backtracked following the BP Gulf spill.

@filmfann btw, I am not excusing Palin for being an idiot, which she is. I just don’t think they were anything to really get upset about. gotta go!

@filmfann I had not heard that denial, but I believe it. She is just hoping to change the conversation, but in my opinion, bullshit. She knew what it was, and she loves that type of verbiage. She thinks it speaks right to her followers. But, again, I don’t find her culpable,

Take a look at this and then let’s talk.

http://michellemalkin.com/

So why can’t we have normal discussions, and leave the hyperbole of decapitations and cross-hairs out? If a candidate screamed “Rape Palin!!!! Make her asshole bleed!!!”, and then she was raped, the right would definitly place blame on that candidate.

I tend to think that although these two situations are unrelated (the killer did not seem to follow Palin’s politics or politics at all), the type of rhetoric preached by Sarah Palin is something that is not appropriate for anybody to push, much less someone elected to office and with the power and followers that Palin has.
So no, I don’t think they’re related, I think Palin’s “targeting” of Giffords purely coincides with the actual events. The killer listed one of his favorite books as the Communist Manifesto. That’s not incredibly Palin like.

Although this is a very close call for the right media and Palin, hopefully it will be taken as a wake-up call that that type of imagery and idealism online is not appropriate for an elected official, much less anybody.

As much as I’d love to blame her, I cannot. Just like Marilyn Manson wasn’t responsible for what happened at Columbine.

She may not be directly responsible, but her words can and do influence people. If someone was already mentally ill (or just gullible) and on the edge, it might only take a few words like “Don’t retreat, reload.” to be the incentive for someone to follow her statement literally and shoot someone. But since we don’t know if he agreed with Palin or just came to this conclusion all by himself is anyone’s guess. I think that people in a free society should be allowed to speak their mind, and disagree, but in a responsible free society, people should attempt to say what they mean without giving veiled permission and instructions to stupid and crazy people to be violent.

What? I dislike Palin, but she had nothing to do with this.

There is only one person responsible for this , shooting and it’s the person that pulled the trigger…... And only him , you could say people influenced him but than again those are the same people that say video games and music are destroying our youth…. Yet another cop-out…. And not to blame the people responsible .

@Kardamom I could pick out just as much rhetoric from the Daily Kos and the left fringe of the media as you can from the right fringe. It has to stop on both sides.

Battling over which wing of lunatics has the moral high ground will turn an horrific event into a national tragedy.

According to the coverage on C-SPAN, he did list his Palin and the Tea Party as his politics on his MySpace page. However, I don’t think she’s directly responsible, except in deliberately playing to a gun-toting, trigger-happy segment of society for her own gain. Most people, however, have enough discernment to not act on politically charged messaging meant to play to a single issue posturing.

The young man is clearly severely unbalanced. The report today about e-mails from a summer algebra class clearly indicate the young man was unhinged and dangerous.

Perhaps the real culprit is the NRA gun lobby, for making gun-ownership such a divisive issue. Many people seem to want to check their brains at the door, rather than their guns, when it comes to this issue.

To be clear, I am not directly blaming her for this shooting. However, her inflamitory rhetoric does set the tone of what might be acceptable action.

Maybe since we associate the right with guns and hate, Palin is an easy target. No pun intended. I am not saying it is statisically true that Republicans own more guns are cause more violence, I have no idea at all, might be the opposite, but since this kid is seemingly a neo-Nazi type, and also some lunatic Baptist church is saying it is God’s will or some bullshit like that (not that I think Baptists in general agree with it, just that these crazy people claim to be Baptist) anyway, I doubt there are many Neo-Nazi Democrats. Since the country is so polarized now, and it seems politics have taken over every conversation, the media, and the public, tend to bring everything back to politics and who can be blamed.

@WestRiverrat I could pick out just as much rhetoric from the Daily Kos and the left fringe of the media as you can from the right fringe.

The difference being you don’t have to go to the right fringe.

The violent, threatening rhetoric comes from Republicans in Congress, Republican candidates, people with national TV and radio shows. Not the fringe, They are leaders of the conservative movement.

To find the same hatred on the left you go to obscure comedians and anonymous blog commenters.

I am a Baptist, and the Westboro Baptists are a shameful group to all God fearing souls.
This is the same group that protest at the funerals of gay soldiers.

Palin is not even remotely responsible the shooter was a Liberal.

The gun laws that allowed a nut job to purchase an extended capacity magazine is part of this problem.

Giffords knew full well people were out to get her, bomb threats and deaths threats were numerous. Not good decision making on her part to have a stage event with zero security!

The shooter should have been bagged tagged and put in a padded room a long time ago. Once again another lost soul falls through the cracks and finally gets the attention he so craved.

@Cruiser Why do you say the shooter is a liberal? He associated his politics with the Tea Party.

she’s not responsible at all. Some people seem to be giving her too much credit for doing anything. We’ll have to see if anybody uses that type of analogy (gun stuff) in the future. They will probably.

@filmfann Yes, I think most people understand they don’t represent Baptists at large. Not to worry.

Palin is no more responsible for the violence than Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh or any other radio and television purveyor of inflammatory speech. America has become increasingly divided and this division has risen exponentially since the start of the 21st century.

The right has become more interested in causing the president to fail, dismantling social safety nets and giving corporation free reign than about the wellbeing of their constituents. Why should anyone be surprised that marginal people decide that mass murder is a solution to their problems?

This is just another indication of the downward spiral of the American Empire. We were never designed to become a military power or wield such power over our citizens or the world. We were no designed to become a corporately owned society.

You will also notice that it is the right; Palin and Beck were first in line to say that none of this is their fault. One of the main characteristics of the hate speakers is their utter failure to take responsibility for results of their speech.

@filmfann where did you get that he was associated with the Tea Party? Also, @BarnacleBill I can’t find anything on C-SPAN, about his listing Palin and the Tea Party as his politics on his MySpace page. Could you point me in the right direction on that?

@bkcunningham Sorry, that Michelle Malkin is a fucking nightmare hateful woman. I don’t trust that she didn’t paste together those pictures herself. Not to say there are not lunatics on the left, of course there are, and maybe they did put out those pictures, but no way to be sure with that Malkin chick without doing further research.

@jaytkay For the liberal rhetoric, I just have to read the opinions of the current administration’s choices for staff and cabinet appointments.

@Ron_C Get over your hate for the Right. I and others have shown you that this comes form both sides yet you and a few others on here only see it as vitriol when it comes from someone you or they don’t like. (i.e. Beck, Palin, Limbaugh) If you watched real news you would know that this shooter had no ties to any of the three aforementioned (that anyone can find yet) but did have a history with Congresswoman Gifford.

I wouldn’t characterize Loughner (which I dearly wish was pronounced “Loner”) as a right-wing nutcase, liberal, or terrorist (a term he gave himself). I see him simply as an anarchist.
I see him as susceptible to extreamist ranting. That would include Palin.
His list of favorite books would bear that out. Not just The Communist Manifesto, as @dverhey pointed out, but also Mein Kamf, Animal Farm, and Farenheit 451.

@JLeslie look it up yourself. It is all true. I don’t rely on Malkin. I used it as a jumping point and verified the material with many sources. Go ahead. Verify it yourself. It’s hate speech when it comes from the right, but it’s either okay or lies when it when it comes from the left. Gimme a break. Did you see the targets on the states on another post? The targets on the Republicans from Democratic Leadership Committee from 2004? I bet that was made up too.

@filmfann Actually it was a Palin aide that made that remark. Let’s wait and see what Palin’s actual response is.

So far via twitter her response has been: “My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona. On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.”

As much as I can’t stand Palin and find her a national embarrassment and wish there was a fair way to associate this with her in such a way as to make her fade into obscurity….that just isn’t a reasonable thing to do. Sure, there were crosshairs, sure she said “reload”, but this guy was going to do something nuts no matter what. He may have never even seen the district map. And even if he did, maybe it contributed like 1% to his thinking. Either way, he is a nut and can only be accountable for his own actions.

Possibly this event may cause people to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric for a while at least. I also think millions is now going to be wasted on excessive security for congressman for the next several years too.

She’s no more responsible than the maker of the gun is. People are responsible for their own actions. Faulting Sarah Palin for the tragedy would be like faulting Jose Cuervo for making me throwup.

@WillWorkForChocolate

Exactly! Thank you so much for being rational!

@bkcunningham I can’t stand it on either side. I don’t trust either extreme. I don’t watch Maddow, Obermann, Limbaugh, none of them. I watch Meet the Press, Morning Joe, and This Week for politics.

Seems the CEO of Fox News is critical of this lunatic being able to legally buy a gun.

@JLeslie Well said, I completely agree. The left and the right equally associate things with which the other may not wish to be associated. And for every stupid thing the right does, they can find an idiot doing something equally dumb on the left.

Oh, how I wish discussions (everywhere) could transcend such blame games and get to the heart of the matter. Usually people find they agree on more than they originally assumed. Like, who doesn’t want to see the national debt and unemployment reduced?

@bkcunningham The point is she is bringing attention to the fringe on the left, and she is fringe herself on the right. I think it better to ignore the fringe, and keep the conversation, calm, intellectual, and civilized.

Its simple for me. Hate (and fear) mongering = bad. Whether it had anything to do with this incident or will have anything to do with incidents in the future, encouraging blind hatred of other people is far from a good thing and nothing that anyone influencing large groups of people should be doing. Its an abuse of power and influence.

@JLeslie You’re on fire!

@JLeslie I’m not picking on you, but seriously, you can’t stand it on “either side” but your source of news is Meet the Press, Morning Joe, and This Week for politics. That really made me laugh.

@bkcunningham Those are not super liberal news sources.

I wish we could blame her for it, but political rhetoric like this is common, and was used by both sides during the most recent presidential campaign, and throughout history.

I once said, in a private conversation, a politician should be shot, and the next day he was. It can happen to anybody.

@bkcunningham Have you watched those shows? Both Liberals and Conservatives get equal time. All of those shows have discussion, not spin bullshit. One of my favorite people on Morning Joe is Pat Buchanan for Christ’s sake. You’re not going to tell me he is liberal are you?

Don’t forget George Will.

@cockswain Not sure why.

@bkcunningham I saw most of Meet The Press last Sunday, and David Gregory, the host, unless I missed a different part of the conversation, purposely did not let the Palin map be accused of being responsible, didn’t let the conversation go there. Also, during the presidential run, I remember him doing an interview during the RNC and some politician he was interviewing tried to say Dems were talking about Bristol’s pregnancy, and David, had to correct him and say, “you are the first person to bring it up today.”

@missingbite I don’t understand why you are so dedicated to protecting those psycho-talkers. I watched the news (not Fox of course) and know that the shooter read a wide range from Marks to Rand. I would characterize him as an equal opportunity wacko.

I just said that the political rhetoric, especially from the right, created an atmosphere where people have a limited grasp of reality take the idea of fighting government with guns as a serious option.

I also disagree with liberalized gun law and want the assault weapon ban reinstated.

Why do you hate me?

Why are people trying to lend a rational American political ideology to this guy. Obviously he’s not a conservative or a liberal. He’s a loco-nilhist.

I can’t find anywhere where he agrees with the tea party.

@jlelandg Well said. He’s a nut and whatever political ideology he may think he has is moot.

Last I checked, Sarah Palin didn’t pull that trigger.

Whatever happened to responsibility for actions being assigned to those who are… well… responsible for the actions- The trigger pullers themselves?

I swear… Sarah Palin has become to this shooting what Marilyn Manson was to Columbine. A cheap and easy scapegoat.

@jlelandg I can see your point. It is because so much of the extreme right is anti-gay, anti-separation of church and state, pro-gun, that people latch on to the right being associated with this guy and influencing him. Or, rather that many on the right identify with some of what he idenifies with. And, the congresswoman represented the other side. But, it seems to me most people on this thread do not really blame the right for what this guy did. He is a whack job, murderous, hateful, horrible young man.

@Ron_C I do not hate you at all and I apologize if it seems that I do. Sincerely! I do “hate” the way you and a few of others look one way and neglect the other. Political rhetoric comes form all sides of the political spectrum. I don’t want any more of our liberties attacked because of it. There is already a movement to censor talk radio and the internet. I don’t care what comes out of it….censorship is worse.

When we try to put blame on someone like Palin or Beck because of something they said without regard to the facts I have a problem with it. I also have a problem when people do the same for the left. I actually like Rachel Maddow. I disagree with almost everything she says but…..

It probably seems like I hate you because I debate feverishly and you and a couple of others have tried to connect Sarah Palin to this lunatic when there is clearly no connection. Especially when others have used the same “targets” and gotten a free pass.

I apologize if it seems I hate you. I don’t.

@cockswain it’s not so much that they are or aren’t “super liberal” as you sayd. As opposed to what? But did you happen to catch the ABC This Week interview with the friend of the gunman accused of shooting Rep. Giffords and others? This friend had posted claims on Twitter Saturday about Jared Loughner being a liberal. You’d assume this is where they got her for the interview. This was totally ignored in the interview. Do you seriously think Christina Amanpour is fair and no spin? Do you have any idea her background and how her one side reporting of Bosnia and her admiration of Yassir Arafat. Have you heard of the controversy with Marc Thiessen?

Morning Joe Scarborough, nooo, he’s a saint. Just don’t ask Lori Klausutis’ family. How about his getting suspended at MSNBC for two days. Such intergrity.
I do have to say I’ve always like Meet the Press. I’m not crazy about David Gregory in the chair as host. But he is okay. It’s just the fact that it’s NBC. Now come on folks. You aren’t that innocent, are you, seriously?

@WestRiverrat – The image you referenced was actually modified by the idiots at freerepublic. It was never as you claimed on DailyKos.

@bkcunningham Wasn’t Joe suspended for the same reason Obermann was? I don’t know the wHole story on that, but I know Obermann commented that he did not consider himself a journalist. Admitting he is biased. Everyone knows it. It is not surprising he would want to give money to a Dem, or that Joe would contribute to the Republicans. I guess they think of journalism as balanced journalism, a tighter defintion. That is how I interpreted that situation, but I admit I did not look into it much.

I actually don’t like Christiane Amenpour as host, I miss George Stephanopolous. But, it does not change that the round table is balanced.

@bkcunningham Your condescension is annoying.

@bkcunningham Sources my ass. None of us really have any hardfast sources to back up any of our ramblings, and you don’t either. Because none of us really, really know. The only person who knows why he did it is Mr. Loughner, and he’s far too much of a nutcase to be taken seriously.

The types of people who try and tell you exactly what is going in America are the types that should probably be ignored completely. Who gives a shit what a single person thinks?
It’s what you think is important, and if you agree with Malkin, go right ahead, but don’t try and put any one persons opinion out as a fact and come up with “sources”. We already have 4 or 5 cable news channels to do that for us.

I think it’s likely that both Sarah Palin and Loughler are on the receiving end of mind control-type programming, so I would say both parties are as responsible as any brainwashed puppet might be. You sort of have to read up on mind control/MK Ultra (and kitten programming in Palin’s case) to really understand where this idea comes from. The documentary “RFK Must Die” is another decent source.

@kevbo Since I’m watching something else right now, would you care to elaborate on how these two have been mind-controlled?

@dverhey I personally have never seen your ass. Although I’m sure they are out there; I do not have a source to cite for any discription of your ass. But I do know how to verify sources.

@bkcunningham My ass is fair and balanced, I’ve been told.

@dverhey that there was funny Thanks for the info.

Having read the insane ramblings of this deranged young man, I don’t think Palin bears any direct responsibility for the event. However, posting the gun-sight cross-hairs on her map, one including Congresswoman Giffords, and her rhetoric about time to reload, and taking people out is part of the climate. Such violent rhetoric gives an official OK to those most prone to act out violently. It says their intended target is worthy of assassination. I think it is particularly cowardly of Palin to first take down the graphic withing 24 hours of the shooting and then to claim that the images were not gun-sights at all, but were surveyor’s markings. If I ever had any respect for her as a politician, it is totally gone.

She claimed those were surveyor’s markings? Are you kidding? God I hate that woman. Such a moron.

@cockswain Lets build a house on top of these motherfuckers! That’ll teach them! Reload the wood trucks!

@dverhey lol

@cockswain your arrogance and hate is amazing. I’m not annoyed. Fascinated. But not annoyed.

If it’s any consolation, Kate Gosselin made Sarah Palin seem normal.

[Mod Says:] Everyone tone down the snarky personal comments, please.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard sorry, just defending myself.

@cockswain Now that is funny. I actually DVR Palin’s Alaska show.

@bkcunningham, I was watching C-SPAN when the comment was made. A viewer comment on this CNN blog half way down the page substantiates what I saw on the news.

The only thing she’s responsible for is making me facepalm because I never saw that image you linked and wanted to kill myself a little that she’d do something like that. I also feel bad for any fucker who’d take any action based on words/suggestions of that woman.

Haven’t read through all these responses yet, though I’m sure someone has already answered this question correctly: Palin is responsible for nothing. The only guilty party is the person who shot Giffords and the others.

Having said that, it is slightly annoying to read articles like this and this, in which Palin (via her aide) attempts to defend the ‘crosshairs’ she used, which in my mind are pretty clearly crosshairs regardless of her original intent.

@absalom Not only are those crosshairs, Pallin touted them as such in numerous talks suggesting whom to “target” in the 2010 elections. Claiming now that thise were intended to be surveyor marks is a bald-faced lie and nothing more. So much for the idea of taking individual responsibility—I guess that only applies to assigning blame to others who are responsible for things she doesn’t like.

@BarnacleBill thanks. I looked all over and couldn’t find anything. @cockswain I’m sorry I was hateful to you. I really sincerely apologize. No excuse for talking to someone I don’t know like that. I’m sorry.

@bkcunningham Palin sanitized her Web sites the next morning. You’ll have to look for old copies now or Google’s cached copy to see the offensive map.

I agree that she’s not responsible for the shooting, but I’ll agree she is an idiot who should at most be working at McD’s or WalMart.

Loughner, however, is an interesting character. He is known to have publicly supported Democrats and appear Liberal to his acquaintances. Then, as seen on his videos, he appears to be an anti-capitalistic, anit-governmental, anti-immigration, pro-Aryan individual or at least influenced by the American Renaissance (of which is a part of) which entails these beliefs. Possibly suffering from a dissociative disorder?

No i don’t think so, the guy that pulled the trigger is intellectually out of Sarah Palin’s league, he has formulated his own reasons based upon one of Gifford’s policy positions, what is yet to be established is whether he was coaxed or groomed by some kind of Svengali character with a clear and rational political agenda. That would be a worrying development. Of course we see that all the time within Islamic terrorist circles. BTW this isn’t a trolling question, it’s pretty legitimate, except to some of us on here that assume Sarah Palin is a legitimate political prospect, to those of you who think that, think again, she is intolerable and not remotely credible as a politician. Every international political leader of all political persuasions think she is a joke except for someone of Silvio Berlusconi’s ilk. The Republican party is in a dilemma, eventually it will split, or tear itself apart, it cannot seriously condone Tea Party rhetoric, there must be members within the G O Party that have grave doubts, who may even be contemplating defecting to the other side. Such is the indecency and degeneracy of Tea Party vitriol.

@YARNLADY you should have said `i want Ronald Reagan shot dead.’ lol. somehow, i don’t think you were referring to him though

on a darkly humourous note, when i heard a rumour the gunman came out of a safeways store, the old subliminal advertising reflex kicked in Safeways…everything you want from a store and a little bit more.

Facebook
http://i.imgur.com/0A6cT.png
Twitter
http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/29677744457

@ETpro : you have said exactly everything I want to say, only better! Good answers!

Palin’s campaign has taken a serious hit. That target picture is a very tangible image to be used against her, and I assure you we have not seen the last of it. Certainly she is not directly responsible for what happened, but the events highlight her campaign of fear and hatred, and her chances of getting the Republican presidential nomination have been seriously diminished.

I noticed that the Republican house leadership has taken advantage of this tragedy to take a week off and postpone their inevitable melt down.

It seems to be an acknowledgement of their guilt in this matter and also exactly the wrong thing to do as a result of a terrorist act. Terrorists (and crazy people) win again.

@LostInParadise I actually feel a little bad for Palin, if you can believe it. I don’t think she is a hateful person, and in her world guns are a way of life, and not weapons for killing people you disagree with. She is using metaphors, and I think in her mind, that’s all it is. Her back peddling is annoying and dishonest though, that bothers me. I can’t believe she would ever really run for president, but I at the same time would not be surprised if she did.

Here’s the thing, her followers, will still be following. The hunter who uses that same language will feel the left wing came after her unfairly. In their heads they would never kill someone no matter how many guns and bullets they own, so they do not identify with this shooter in any way, which makes sense. It is akin to Muslims not identifying with the 911 terrorists. However, the same way many of us wanted Muslims to condemn the acts, we want Palin and others who are associated with guns and hate to come out, condemn the acts, and speak to their people, and others, tell them that is not who they are.

Our leaders should not be using language along the lines of killing people. She made a big mistake. She is not the only one who uses targets, crosshairs, and that language. It is a lesson for many people.

Watch Gifford comment directly on this crosshair poster at roughly the 2:15 minute mark here

I did not mean to imply conservatives are not commenting on the bad judgement of using those metaphors. And, indeed there were Muslims who condemned 911.

Watch this Youtube video called Jared’s final thoughts
and you decide who was responsible for this shooting…

This guy was simply Nucking Futz, he fell through the cracks and no one is to blame other than everybody who ignored the fact that Jared was crazy as they come and did nothing to help or stop his insanity from growing. It’s not Sarah’s fault, not the gun shop guys fault, IMO anybody that knew this man should be hanging their heads in shame.

This touches on how I am thinking. Too much of the language sounds the same in Jared’s words and the conversation we hear every day. Jared seems to had obviously lost touch with reality. I am not saying the far right or the extreme anti-government talk is responsible. But, if you put yourself in the shoes of the left who is triggered by some of this conversation you understand a little more why the left is being critical. But, I think the democrats were wrong to attack Palin, or any other politician, because it shuts down the conversation of being and doing better. People just get offended and defensive.

Why will no one here acknowledge that the Democrats have done the exact same target rhetoric? If Sarah Palin is the devil for doing this as some have suggested, so is the DNC for using this in 2004! IT IS NOT JUST SARAH PALIN!!! Hell I don’t even really like SP as a politician but most of these posts are so one sided it is sickening. Either hate the DNC for using the ad as much as you hate Palin or drop it.

@JLeslie Great clip of JS. While I don’t agree with much of his politics, that piece was dead on and didn’t seem to align the rhetoric with one side over the other. Both sides are guilty.

@missingbite because there is a difference between a target and a cross hair, the consensus here is against your skewed perspective, and because the Tea Party is reminiscent of Klan mentality, if the Right can no longer stand for old fashion family values, hard work, manners and decency which after all isn’t so bad, if sincere, plus smaller government, (OK if that entails a smaller military) if those values have been dwarfed by poisonous rhetoric, and an hysterical hatred of anything leftward, Islamic, eco friendly or minority orientated…Well then the Right can go to hell. Hate the banks and the corporations that are really pulling the strings and causing the pain. Now it is pretty clear to me, as i mentioned earlier, The Republicans have got to ditch the Tea Party chimps once and for all, it’s a stupid fucking name anyway, they are an albatross around their necks.

My second point, a more general point….American governments both Democrat and Republican, neither is blameless and neither better than the other, have historically employed violence en mass and selectively, in order to resolve political differences so often and so frequently it has become a reflexive response to international disputes. So if the American government response to a challenging situation is to lock and load, why an earth should her citizens behave any differently?

@mammal Just do as the President suggested he would do during his Presidential campaign…

“if there’s a political knife fight, he’d bring a gun”
~Barack H. Obama June 14, 2008

@mammal Well you lost all credibility with me when you try to make a difference between a target and a cross-hair. Not to mention the profanity and hate that you seem to have.

Thanks for playing…have a great day.

I’m going to partially retract my earlier assumption about Loughner. After some reading, it appears to me that he was disgruntled by Giffords as early as 2007 and through a handful of interactions at political events. It also seems likely that he developed psychosis through drug abuse. What is less understandable is how he transitioned from a ranter to a physically violent person other than perhaps his need to maintain consistency with his own rhetoric. One friend described him as a person who liked to provide shock value, so perhaps it came from that as well.

None of the above precludes him from becoming a mind control victim (in fact, it would make the process easier), but it certainly seems like less of a catalyzing factor.

Another interesting tangent in this story is whether Loughner, like Giffords, is Jewish (see Mother Jones and Politico) and whether the Loughners and Giffords attend(ed) the same synagogue (purely speculative at this point). The relevance is whether mainstream debate tries to couch this as a right/white militancy problem or something more nuanced, since his exhortation of Mein Kampf is likely to be more about perpetrating irony and shock than belief.

@kevbo I had not heard that Loughner might be Jewish. That is surprising to me. I always say I don’t want to understand the criminal mind. I know people study these things, but I find it too odd to get, too twisted.

I don’t blame you… “gazing into the abyss &c.”

@missingbite

Either hate the DNC for using the ad as much as you hate Palin or drop it.

But what you’re saying is just as problematic; it’s advocatory of hate, provided the hate is spread around evenly. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous?

Of course everyone’s to blame for the violent political climate; the politicians and the media for producing it and the people (i.e., us) for finding entertainment in it, for basically consuming it, for participating by ‘joining sides’. But I should hope that most people here are ‘targetting’ the ‘target rhetoric’ and not the Republican party, not the vaguely defined (or undefined) Right or Left, not Sarah Palin…

If they are, I think they’re mistaken.

I’d suggest it’s also a mistake to say, ‘There go the liberals again, blaming everything on the Right. Look how bad they are, using this event as a platform!’ Obviously both ‘sides’ are guilty of using it as a platform. It’s despicable when – for example – a liberal appropriates the tragedy to propound some exaggerated politicization or polemical. But it’s just as despicable when a conservative responds with his own irresponsible (and probably irrelevant) indictments against the Left. If the Left is blaming the Right, then the Right is blaming the Left for blaming the Right,, and each side is only trying to make the other look bad. What good does this do? It distracts people from the real issue, which is that a crazy person got ahold of a semi-automatic pistol and took a taxi into Tucson and killed a bunch of people.

And here we are, on the Internet, shouting that ‘so-and-so did it, too’ and digging up images more than 6 years old just to make a petty point.

It’s no less disappointing to me to see the 2004 bullseye map that @missingbite linked to. It’s no less disappointing to hear Obama talking about guns and knife fights. All of it is irresponsible and unnecessary. But no ‘side’ is any more or less guilty than another, and it’s simply not possible to make sense of this event politically.

Or so I think.

@absalom You are correct that both sides do this. My point is that, as the question itself shows, people seem to only have a problem with it when people they disagree with do it.

@JLeslie I gave you a “great answer” for your suggestion that Palin and her followers don’t really understand that their language usage affects people in different ways.

The problem lies with trying to please all of the people all of the time and we, myself included, seem to be trying to find an ultimate polically correct language that leaves out references to race, color, creed, and now war. We have to face it, that’s not going to happen. The real problem is that violent, mentally challenged people are roaming the country without proper medical care.

Before Reagan there were virtually no “street people”. When funding was reduced for housing people with psychological problems and laws were changed to make keeping these people off the street and affront to their personal liberty, we got street people. Granted that the shooter had a home, he falls into the same catagory.

What we should really be addressing is ways to insure that people like Loughler are controlled and helped to maintain control over their illness. There will always be idiot politicans and talk show jerks, the best we can do is show them for what they are and insure that people with mental illness get the help they need.

Hopefully Loughler will be hospitalized, and never permitted to roam free again and that our society becomes less warlike and stops supporting the “talkers” and political hacks.

In this statement, Sarah Palin says that pointing any amount of responsiblity for this toward the current level of political discourse is “irresponsible”.
Does is sound like she is retreating, or reloading?

She said the level of political discourse was irresponsible and reprehensible and we need to be “better than the mindless finger-pointing we endured in the wake of the tragedy.”

I couldn’t agree more.

@Ron_C Thank you. I gave you a GA also, because I agree that we need to do better for treating and helping the mentally ill. I don’t want them just locked up though, unless of course they are a danger to others. We need to accept them as part of our society, and give them treatment, be willing to spend the money quite honestly. And, we need to address communities that produce a lot of mental illness.

Of course there are people who grow up in nice communities with good families who also become mentally ill. But, possibly some psychosis is brought about by extreme environmental conditions, and I would guess a genetic component also. My grandfather, and two siblings were schizophrenic, and another borther committed suicide. Their childhood was horrific. None of their children or grand children have signs of psychosis.

When I worked at the psych hospital the majority of the people who had extreme psychosis were poor. In Memphis poor generally means you grow up in a war zone in my opinion. Gunfire, drugs, it is fairly extreme. Add in teens having children, it is a bad recipe.

My point there is, in my fantasy we help society avoid the need for mental health problems where possible, and help communities offer a better environment, so their citizens have the best opportunity to be well.

Having said all of that, I have no idea what circumstance this shooter grew up in. Certainly sometimes we see siblings where one is a criminal, and has psychological problems, and the other sibling is just fine. Both growing up in the same family. So there is no perfect solution.

So who has seen this?

I watched it and thought it was spot on. (no pun intended)

She used the term blood libel, something that anti-semites have often used for the excuse to commit acts of violence against European Jews. And to make it worse, Rep. Giffords is jewish.

Is that okay?

In my opinion, she really just shouldn’t have said anything. Bringing the term “blood libel” into the picture is something that will continuously tie her to this event, even though she and the republican party probably had nothing to do with it. But their dogged determination (like the use of the phrase blood libel) to deny any wrongdoing is one of those things that people will still take away from the event years later, or maybe when Sarah Palin makes a run for president, when if they had said nothing (or not tried to be so forceful or inflammatory with their words) it could have been passed off as a misunderstanding.

I think it’s been made very clear that Sarah Palin’s target diagram didn’t have anything to do with Jared Loughner’s actions, but this “blood libel” could be something that could come back to bite her later, not the target diagram. A large portion of the American Public has moved on from the target fiasco, but this has just further stirred the hot water she’s sitting in.

@JLeslie “My point there is, in my fantasy we help society avoid the need for mental health problems where possible, and help communities offer a better environment, so their citizens have the best opportunity to be well.” I like your fantasy and that is exactly my point! By the way, I didn’t mean to lock up all of the mentally ill but there should be some control for people that fall apart when they’re off their medication.

@dverhey Palin did the same thing she always does, she kept talking. If she stopped after condemning the heinous act she would have make her first ever coherent public speech. Instead she when on to explain why she should be condemned for inciting this act. I truly feel sorry for her. She could have been a force for good and to bring real people into politics, instead she is trying to consolidate her political hold and be absolved from any blame. Poor woman.

Interesting.

Re the 7th and 8th paragraphs of McCain’s piece:

BZZZT! Oh! No, sorry, John, thanks for playing. The correct answer is not make any part of your public remarks on this horrible incident be about you and your hurt feelings! Better luck next time.

You’re not leaving empty-handed, John! All contestants receive a case of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat™! Now back to our game!

What makes Obama’s speech so great is that while it sounds non-partisan, it contains a nicely veiled condemnation of all the over the edge rhetoric of extremist nut cases (currently mostly on the right).

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