posted
Geoffrey: it doesn't make you responsible for the actions of others. It makes you responsible for your own actions. Talking about killing your political opponents, no matter how slyly one winks about it, is reprehensible.
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I do not think the Tea Party as a group, or any individual speakers/politicians/commentators are responsible for the actions of this man. I believe they are, mostly, horrified.
(I'm saying "mostly" because "she was asking for it, being all liberal and stuff" comments popped up quickly on news articles by idiots hiding behind anonymous handles)
I do abhor the violent rhetoric used by many such speakers/politicians/commentators. And not because of this attack; I felt the same way yesterday, and I am disgusted with it whenever I hear it. I hate it when I hear right wing speakers talk about taking out opponents. I hated it when I heard left-wing speakers talk about the improvement to America if Bush was gone. But I submit that, far and away, the right-wing media whackos average more violent than the left-wing media whackos. I haven't heard anyone on the left advocate a "second amendment solution" if things don't go their way in the legislature, for example.
Again, I do not blame anyone for this attack other than the attacker himself. But the attack has reminded me, as if I needed to be reminded, how much political rabble-rousing disgusts me.
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Unrelated aside: Remember when McCain was heckled by his own crowd during a campaign speech because he was asking people to be reasonable in their opposition to Obama? Oppose, but respect?
I miss those days.
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And I'm serious about the 'he's not OUR fault' spree — that's what's next. It's ruefully anticipatable. I guarantee you that by the time I wake up tomorrow there will have been a concerted attempt to say that he is obviously a liberal agent cause he has The Communist Manifesto in his youtube reading list, or that he is obviously a conservative agent because he shot a democrat, and/or whatever it takes to pass the crazy killer around like a game of ideological hot potato.
This in spite of the fact that you might as well assert the personal ideology of Timecube guy right now.
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quote:Originally posted by Geoffrey Card: I'm not sure I like the idea of living in a place where colorful, clearly-metaphorical rhetoric makes you responsible for the actions of others ... particularly people who weren't even listening to you.
How clear is the metaphor?
Do I think that Republicans are literally telling people to start an armed rebellion? No, at least, not 99% of the time. It's difficult to tell when some of them really get riled up and their metaphors start to sound like literal exhortations.
But the problem lies in a culture of disdain for complexity that Republicans have created for themselves. That, and a culture that disdains compromise. You tell people that the opposition wants to destroy America, that they are unAmerican, and in Obama's case literally not an American. You tell them they want to subvert the Constitution, and that we live in a black and white world where you're with us or against us. You create a situation where nothing gets done in Congress to fix any of our problems because compromise means giving in to the enemy, and how do you agree to work with people who hate America?
Then you use rhetoric infused with violent imagery, much of which references the nation's revolutionary founding. Is it really that much of a stretch to believe that some people are going to miss the metaphor and take the message literally? When you spend all day telling your side that the other side is undoing Democracy to install a liberal dictatorship, then militant language would seem to make a lot more sense to be taken literally rather than metaphorically.
Complexity is not a watchword among Conservatives these days, and it hasn't been for at least a decade.
I don't think we should lose sight of personal responsibility. But I also think we have to realize that public figures and especially political figures, our nation's leaders, have a higher responsibility. I might say that they could be absolved of any responsibility if some whacko takes what they say out of context, but given what has been said in the last decade, the context is not on their side.
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quote:Originally posted by Geoffrey Card: I'm not sure I like the idea of living in a place where colorful, clearly-metaphorical rhetoric makes you responsible for the actions of others ... particularly people who weren't even listening to you.
I don't think people who use such rhetoric are responsible, I think they have some small, undefined portion of responsibility. Very small to be clear.
Toxic environment, toxic events. I believe there IS a link, else why do we spend so much time and resources on advertising? In my opinion, that particular argument is open and shut, just by a look at that business. What we hear has an impact. It follows, then, that what we SAY has an impact, though of course not nearly as much as free will, insanity, etc.
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I slept most of yesterday away as it was the beggining my weekend, I found out by channel surfing past CNN and started going through the internet for more information than Giffords being shot and Obama press response.
It took a while of sifting through google to find that a little girl was murdered in broad daylight. I really want to go back to bed.
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Though, I'm guessing that the police initially wanted to keep the identities of the other victims quiet so that they could notify family.
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quote: I'm not sure I like the idea of living in a place where colorful, clearly-metaphorical rhetoric makes you responsible for the actions of others ... particularly people who weren't even listening to you.
Responsibility isn't that black and white. Societies are made up of and affected by the ideas and words of every individual. And while you can never know how people might twist your innocent comments before passing them on, and how those comments might accidentally affect other people, you are responsible for rhetoric that could quite easily be taken by a disturbed mind as a violent suggestion. Particularly Palin's "crosshairs" analogy, which is just about as stupid and irresponsible as rhetoric gets. (ie, Let's equate politically attacking an opponent with hunting them down and shooting them!) It's not the kind of responsibility that should put Palin in a legally vulnerable state, as far as being charged with the deaths of the victims, but it is the kind that should make every American citizen shun her way of doing politics and refuse to vote for her or listen to her ever again.
Silence her voice, and without shooting her to do it.
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What PSI said. The rhetoric and campaign of violent imagery has always been reprehensible, even if it wasn't a direct influence in this particular case, because it clearly leads to violent incidents like it. It should have been decried by all reasonable people from the start. It reflects very poorly on many people that they did not and that many even cheered or even subsidized it.
If this incident was inspired by this rhetoric, is that what it is going to take for you to care about the rhetoric of violence and see it as a negative thing that righteous people, no matter what their political leanings, should condemn?
And if it is not, is what you are saying that you're going to wait until there is an incident that is inspired by it before caring?
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quote:Originally posted by Geoffrey Card: I'm not sure I like the idea of living in a place where colorful, clearly-metaphorical rhetoric makes you responsible for the actions of others ... particularly people who weren't even listening to you.
You are responsible for your rhetoric, not necessarily the actions of others. I would like to live in a place where people knew the difference between those two things.
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Wasn't there an attack like this a year or two ago? And that perp also held a mix of extremist beliefs, both right-wing and left-wing, and yet both sides tried to pin the blame on their opponents' rhetoric or ideas?
Oh how tiresome politics can be.
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There is a difference between colorful metaphor and metaphor suggesting killing people. When kids make lists of which of their teachers and classmates they'd like to kill, we expel them from school. Most of them are probably about as serious as Palin was with her targeted list. Why do we tolerate in politicians what we won't in 13 year olds?
And we don't tolerate it not just because one or two of the kids might actually follow through and try or succeed in killing people. We don't tolerate it because it is not appropriate in civilized society to talk about killing your peers, even in jest, even in metaphor. It's not appropriate in the post office, the school house, or in politics. Should it be illegal? Of course not. Should we react with revulsion when someone does it? Hell yes. Humans have such a huge range of communication available to them. It should not be a hardship to expect people to be able to get their point across with colorful metaphors that do not involve rifle sights.
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Hah, I'd never once thought of it that way, ElJay. That's an excellent point about children and political rhetoric.
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Agreed. And while I don't think it's fair to place all the blame for that kind of rhetoric with conservatives, I think few would argue that it is more in the conservative milieu of this moment. It's up to us as participants in society to make it clear that that kind of talk isn't acceptable- that there is a clear difference between conflict and fighting, and that where there is conflict, its resolution need not be characterized as "victory."
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posted
That's good, don't own it. Lie about it. Sarah Palin strikes me as a disgusting excuse for a human being.
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In that third year of the Kennedy Presidency a kind of fever lay over Dallas County. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed “Impeach Earl Warren.” Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas. Fanatical young matrons swayed in public to the chant, “Stevenson’s going to die–his heart will stop, stop, stop and he will burn, burn burn!” Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; junior executives were required to attend radical seminars. Dallas had become the mecca for medicine-show evangelists of the National Indignation Convention, the Christian Crusaders, the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry societies . . .
In Dallas a retired major general flew the American flag upside down in front of his house, and when, on Labor Day of 1963, the Stars and Stripes were hoisted right side up outside his own home by County Treasurer Warren G. Harding–named by Democratic parents for a Republican President in an era when all Texas children were taught to respect the Presidency, regardless of party–Harding was accosted by a physician’s son, who remarked bitterly, “That’s the Democrat flag. Why not just run up the hammer and sickle while you’re at it?"
-William Manchester, Death of a President
Posts: 262 | Registered: May 2004
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posted
three conversations i have had the sparkling pleasure to partake in today.
exceptional individual A: he had the communist manifesto in his reading list, he is obviously a liberal me: shut up
exceptional individual B: he had mein kampf in his reading list, he is obviously a conservative me: shut up
exceptional individual C: he had an ayn rand book in his reading list, he is obviously a libertarian me: shut upPosts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: three conversations i have had the sparkling pleasure to partake in today.
exceptional individual A: he had the communist manifesto in his reading list, he is obviously a liberal me: shut up
exceptional individual B: he had mein kampf in his reading list, he is obviously a conservative me: shut up
exceptional individual C: he had an ayn rand book in his reading list, he is obviously a libertarian me: shut up
But isn't that exactly what you are arguing against? You want civility in politics and debate so why not argue against what they say or dismiss it out of hand instead of telling them to shut up?
Earlier in the thread Misha posted the excerpt about JFK and Dallas in the 1960's, and for me, I think it speaks to who we are and what we can or what we should do. Progress means finding our flaws and doing the best we can to fix those problems. It is the mantra of most of the parents I know or have known that they work as hard as they do so that they may give their children better than they had, but that isn't just a mantra about economics, it's a mantra about society in general. There is no question that we don't do that by placing targets over home districts or calling for "second amendment remedies" or by quoting Jefferson about revolution in a veiled threat if your party doesn't win in November, but we don't get anywhere either if they other side just tells people to shut up.
They aren't the same, but they are...you know?
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posted
Putting crosshairs on a candidate is normal politicking, until some assassination attempt occurs. Of course no one thinks the crosshairs were meant literally. But Kelly, et. al. showed considerate, decent sensitivity by taking down those images from their websites. I'm sure there are lots of leftist websites with Sarah Palin in the crosshairs. There is no question that lots of leftists (so-called "Progressives") have been "targeting" her. That's why as soon as McCain picked her, hundreds of left-leaning journalists poured into Alaska hoping to dig up dirt on her. And look at all the nuisance complaints and "Freedom of Information" requests with which malicious people sought to harm her administration, leading her to resign to take the heat off her staff and associates. That is real "targeting." Some bozo writer even rented the house next door to the Palins hoping to find something to include in an exposé book. (The Palins responded by building a high, opaque fence between their houses.)
The ironic thing about the attack on Rep. Giffords is that no one seems to think badly of her, in any political party. She is a "Blue-dog" Democrat, meaning she is moderate to conservative (among the few such left in the Democratic Party). In fact, she used to be a Republican.
We will just have to wait and see how many of her faculties she regains. As someone noted, the course the bullet traveled may have affected her sight. Could have severed one or both optic nerves, or damaged the vision centers in the brain. But I hope that's not the case. The brain does have some redundancy built in, and is able to adapt, with different parts taking over for damaged parts. It may be a long time before she can return to Congress, if she ever does.
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quote:I'm sure there are lots of leftist websites with Sarah Palin in the crosshairs.
If you are certain of such, you should be able to find them and provide links. Until you provide some evidence to back this up, you should apologize for making unfounded, outrageous insults as a means to defend the indefensible behavior going on on your side of the defense.
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posted
There is also a cultural issue here that may be causing confusion.
So far, all the Palin quotes that I've seen people throw around as evidence that her rhetoric inspires violence aren't actually, themselves, violent. She frequently uses gun-related metaphors, but not in a context that suggests she's talking about assassination. She doesn't present herself as a murderer, but as a frontiersy hunter.
Among Palin's supporters, guns aren't seen as a symbol of murder and assassination, but rather as a symbol of liberty, frontier spirit, and self-sufficiency. They represent a belief in individual freedom and laissez-faire government. The right to own a gun is linked, in their philosophy, to the right to be a self-determining individual.
Palin flogs the gun symbolism to appeal to people who feel this way, not to try and stir people up to violent action. Interpreting any mention of a gun as a reference to murder and savagery is something that happens on the left, but not on the right.
I can see how someone who already has a visceral negative reaction to the idea of guns might view Palin's use of gun symbolism as repulsive and violent. But from what I've seen, the audience that listens to her and agrees with her has a completely different interpretation.
I don't actually like her very much as a leader, or agree with her about a whole lot, but I hope that agreement isn't necessary to see where someone is coming from ...
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posted
Have demands for apologies become more frequent on Hatrack since I left? I seem to be tripping over them lately, and from what I can tell, they're obstacles to a productive discussion, as they shift the subject of the conversation from the original disagreement onto a new disagreement about who ought to be offended, and how much.
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posted
Paul, I am serious, and you surprise me. I use a crosshair in the game I'm developing as a cursor for children to aim and interact with a cartoon character from an endangered species.
Am I advocating poaching? Or is a crosshair a versatile symbol that normal humans can interpret in non-violent ways?
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quote:The ironic thing about the attack on Rep. Giffords is that no one seems to think badly of her, in any political party.
She was one of the people SarahPac targeted for defeat. Her offices were attacked by vandals when she voted for health care reform. She had received death threats. She was shot through the head.
With all that, its pretty hard to seriously argue that nobody seemed to think badly of her.
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posted
A crosshair is a versatile symbol that, used the way Palin and Kelly used it, is a symbol that the user HAS to recognize is going to be taken by a large percentage of the population (including a large segment of the Palin/Kelly supporting population) as a symbol of violence.
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posted
For the record, here's my completely anecdotal experience:
I'm pro-gun, enough that I think most Americans should own one and take courses on personal responsibility, safety, and shooting accuracy. I despise the swell of government in my life. I'd probably be on board with the tea party if they weren't so vacuous, as vacuous and nebulous as the "pro-change" movement from Obama's campaign.
And I still think Palin's "colorful rhetoric" was begging for a violent response. And the fact that most of these politicians have backgrounds in law leads me to believe that they were perfectly aware of the horrific way that their words could have been taken. They're not stupid. They're masters of semantics, and they know what words can do.
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quote:Originally posted by Geoffrey Card: Paul, I am serious, and you surprise me. I use a crosshair in the game I'm developing as a cursor for children to aim and interact with a cartoon character from an endangered species.
Am I advocating poaching? Or is a crosshair a versatile symbol that normal humans can interpret in non-violent ways?
While I'm confident you aren't advocating poaching, I'd seriously reconsider using a crosshair as a cursor in this context. I think most hunters (at least most that I've known) would interpret pointing a crosshair at the picture of any living thing as shooting at it.
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quote:Originally posted by Geoffrey Card: Have demands for apologies become more frequent on Hatrack since I left? I seem to be tripping over them lately, and from what I can tell, they're obstacles to a productive discussion, as they shift the subject of the conversation from the original disagreement onto a new disagreement about who ought to be offended, and how much.
posted
it seems anyone attempting to pin this on a specific political party is simply manipulating the gravity and implications of the event for personal reasons. such manipulation reeks of political posturing. thats some twisted logic to believe that the mention of 'crosshairs' within political rhetoric could incite violence of this sort.
this thread sounds like a conspiracy theorist forum. some here would have us believe, though not by saying it outright, that there was some sort of dialogue or implied call to action using token words or subtle double-meanings. a mentally and emotionally deranged person's delusions and imaginations drove them to commit a reprehensible act. clearly the shooter was influenced as well by writings and ideas much older than the current political environment. are we to track down everything that influenced this man, analyze their meanings, both direct and implied, and hold all parties, some of which are dead, accountable for their alleged contrubution in forcing this man to open fire on a crowd of people? no. that man acted of his own accord. he had developed an ideology of his own and cant be lumped with any current mainstream party even if some of the ideologies overlap.
in reality, the shooter can hold any belief he wants but the only thing truly worthy of condemnation is his belief system is that shooting a politician and a bunch of random, innocent people is an acceptable way to advance his cause. there are certain circumstances where such actions might be deemed acceptable but if were are to live in a civil society, the citizenry must acknowledge that such instances are rare, and this wasnt one of them. but if we are to live in a civilized society we must also call this for what it truly is and leave out any conjecture.
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quote:Originally posted by Geoffrey Card: Have demands for apologies become more frequent on Hatrack since I left? I seem to be tripping over them lately, and from what I can tell, they're obstacles to a productive discussion, as they shift the subject of the conversation from the original disagreement onto a new disagreement about who ought to be offended, and how much.
personal attacks have become much more frequent in the last few years that ive been lurking/participating on this forum. perhaps thats why the call for apologies seems frequent.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Putting crosshairs on a candidate is normal politicking, until some assassination attempt occurs.
...
quote:The ironic thing about the attack on Rep. Giffords is that no one seems to think badly of her, in any political party.
How, how can you skip by all of the things that have happened to her recently and all the vitriol she suffered in her bitterly close race, and blindly conclude this?
"No one seems to think badly of her!" you conclude of a woman who had multiple threats, got her political office vandalized, was put in the crosshairs by a vitriolic Palin campaign, and also seems to have been shot in the head recenty.
And then, like the ever-wounded palin acolyte, you dismiss that and say 'now what happened to Palin, that was REAL targeting' .. and not this. Oh, lord. Seriously.
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quote:Originally posted by Humean316: But isn't that exactly what you are arguing against? You want civility in politics and debate so why not argue against what they say or dismiss it out of hand instead of telling them to shut up?
Sort of. I want a higher degree of civility in politics. I also want nonsense to be confronted directly, and I have no qualms with telling people that they need to shut up, when they really need to shut up.
For the record though, what I did more literally was say that what they were saying was ridiculous because of <insert any one of a number of already present well-worded ways to say that we shouldn't jump to concluding that he can be used to represent X group>.
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posted
Geof, How much do you know about what Sarah Palin had said about Rep Griffords? I can't imagine someone knowing about Palin talking Griffords betraying the people and needing be dealt with outside of elections while having her on a "target list" delineated by gun cross hairs or "bullseyes" without seeing it as a potential incitement to violence. Especially given the violence already committed against her.
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posted
I think that there are a lot of similarities between high school bullying and political rhetoric. There was that girl )prince I think) who was bullied and killed herself. I think she still holds ultimate responsibility for killing herself and there were obviously other issues. I disagreed with charging the bullies with her death, but I don't see how anyone can deny the bullies were behaving in a reprehensible manner and that at some level, their behavior increased the odds of Prince would kill herself. The bullies were not fully to blame and I don't think criminally responsible, but they certainly created an atmosphere were this was more likely to occur. That is how I view the political rhetoric going on now.
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quote:Putting crosshairs on a candidate is normal politicking, until some assassination attempt occurs.
No. Normal politicking for which politicians? Your statement doesn't stand, I'm afraid.
quote:But Kelly, et. al. showed considerate, decent sensitivity by taking down those images from their websites.
And...no. Absolutely, 100% not. Some of them, certainly, were being decent by doing so. But others, such as the aide who simply lied when she said Gov. Palin meant them to be 'surveyor's symbol's' and not gun sights, weren't showing 'decent sensitivity', and I'm afraid you know it. I don't believe for one minute that you think that sort of thing is just 'being considerate'. That's not the good kind of politics.
quote:That's why as soon as McCain picked her, hundreds of left-leaning journalists poured into Alaska hoping to dig up dirt on her.
They weren't just left-leaning. For example, I voted for Dubya twice yet I ran like a startled cat from the prospect of an administration in which Gov. Palin would be VP, once I'd gotten to know her.
quote: The ironic thing about the attack on Rep. Giffords is that no one seems to think badly of her, in any political party. She is a "Blue-dog" Democrat, meaning she is moderate to conservative (among the few such left in the Democratic Party). In fact, she used to be a Republican.
This is another lie, Ron, and I'm going to ask you to think very, very carefully about it before I go back to the campaign to oust her run by a 'considerate' Tea Party candidate. I don't say it's an intentional lie that you've willfully spoken, but it's simply an incorrect statement, and that's all there is to it. Now she's well thought of by everyone. That's what happens when a lunatic shoots you in the head in public. But she was not always well thought of, particularly by some among the 'fearsome' Tea Party. She made note of it herself, no less.
The political far left has its faults. There can be no doubt of that, Ron. But one of them isn't, right now, the widespread use of violence-laden political rhetoric as it is with the political far right.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
"The alleged shooter in Arizona was attempting to reload his weapon when a woman grabbed the gun's magazine and ripped it away from him, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told reporters Sunday. Mr. Dupnik said the woman was injured as she attempted to stop the suspect, who then tried to put another magazine in the gun, but the spring in the magazine failed. "
posted
It appears that the guy who actually pulled the trigger wasn't doing it because of health care reform, Sarah Palin, or any other coherent reason.
It seems he was disturbed, possibly not altogether sane, and wanted attention. Griffords was close by and a public figure. Hence, the horrific outcome.
I think a better use of our time would be to discuss the real motive behind this shooting and what could have prevented it. I'm 98% positive his motive was to get his name in print.
Softer political rhetoric would not have changed the outcome.
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Blayne, That is an inappropriate social response. I know you are only doing it for attention, but you shouldn't be doing that either.
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Rakeesh, I think you're absolutely right so long as you are specifically referring to the rhetoric of the politicians themselves.
When it comes to pundits, individuals, certain groups etc. it gets a little murkier (for example, Kos recently took down a post that was entitled "Rep. Giffords is DEAD to me!" ... and I have seen plenty of violent rhetoric against Palin... to say nothing of the violent rhetoric against Bush that was prevalent just 3 years ago... but that's generally coming from an individual level, not from, say, Joe Biden.)
Regardless, I agree that this sort of rhetoric is really unhelpful and stupid. As is trying to pin a psychopath on a legitimate ideology one happens to disagree with.
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quote:Originally posted by FoolishTook: It appears that the guy who actually pulled the trigger wasn't doing it because of health care reform, Sarah Palin, or any other coherent reason.
It seems he was disturbed, possibly not altogether sane, and wanted attention. Griffords was close by and a public figure. Hence, the horrific outcome.
I think a better use of our time would be to discuss the real motive behind this shooting and what could have prevented it. I'm 98% positive his motive was to get his name in print.
Softer political rhetoric would not have changed the outcome.
You seem very certain of yourself here. Where are you getting this certainty from? It sounds like you have a lot of information that is not available to the public.
---
edit: It's important to remember that, while it doesn't look like there is any connection, there has been a fair bit of violence directed at Rep. Griffords besides this shooting.
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quote:Originally posted by FoolishTook: I think a better use of our time would be to discuss...this shooting and what could have prevented it.
Better gun control laws would, for one. Americans don't need handguns and automatic assault weapons, particularly mentally unbalanced ones. Cho Seung Hui used handguns, this guy used an assault weapon. I guarantee you fewer people would die each year in this country if we strictly outlawed both of those categories.
Of course, there are too many Americans who foolishly think we'd go straight to a totalitarian regime in a matter of months if we did this.
Plenty of European countries have MUCH stricter laws against these weapons. They aren't police states. Chicago had a handgun ban for years, until the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. Chicago avoided becoming a totalitarian regime too. Whatever.
Yes, I know that people will always find ways to kill each other no matter what, but I think it would reduce the deaths of innocents to ban those weapons.
Also, mentally disturbed people need better care and supervision. Cho Seung Hui should never have been allowed near a handgun.
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posted
Squick, all I know of Palin's rhetoric is what I've been linked to by friends who detest her and want her brought up on charges. So far, I haven't seen anything criminal, and I assumed that I'd seen the worst because I was being linked by her most rabid opponents. But I don't actually follow what she says most of the time, so I'm sure I'm missing some stuff.
I'd like to see the "dealt with outside of elections" stuff you referred to. I haven't yet, and if it's as bad as it sounds when you paraphrase it, then that WOULD be a problem for me. A much bigger problem than the gun references.
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quote:You seem very certain of yourself here. Where are you getting this certainty from? It sounds like you have a lot of information that is not available to the public.
It is all speculation at this point. I'm not alone in this, because this entire discussion is merely speculation. But taking into account the shooter's age (not many 22-year-olds are passionate right-wingers) and what his friends have said about him, I'm pretty sure this has more to do with attention-seeking combined with mental instability than anything Sarah Palin has ever said or done.
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posted
Geoffrey- I believe the second amendment solution comment was actually Angle. And it was her opponent who did the gun shooting as part of their campaign.
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