quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: The whole discussion of politics is irrelevant, and frankly, reprehensible--because of being clearly exploitative of a tragic event. Rep. Giffords is a nice lady and NO ONE WHO COUNTS disliked her.
Her campaign was very bitter and there was plenty of vitriol hurled at her by tea party candidates backing up the republican candidates. You aren't trying to say that tea party members don't count.
quote:You have to wonder what may have led to Jared's schizoid break, or at least set him up for it.
... schizoid?
Please stop using psychological terms you don't understand.
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He was certainly dillusional, if his youtube videos are to be believed. Specifically his accusation that the government is trying to control our minds through grammar.
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"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
I'm just wondering if this is the type of thing you are referring to. A yes/no would suffice.
Yes. Its the kind of thing I'd like to see eliminated from the political arena. But I'm really unclear about your point here. I've already said I didn't think the Democrats were innocent.
But if you think Conservatives are justified for spewing hatred, because Democrats sometimes do it too, you're just plain wrong. If you think Democrats do it as much as Republicans, you have your head in the sand.
I never said Conservatives are justified. I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy among Democrats who play a game of finger pointing and "gotcha" politics. Something like this happens to a Democrat Rep, and all of the sudden it is the vast right wing conspiracy that caused it. It's just like Bill Clinton blaming Rush Limbaugh and talk radio for Timothy McVeigh. It is utterly ridiculous.
And suprise suprise, looks like this kid is being described by people that were his friends as a "left wing pothead."
Looks like he listened to the Doors and Jimmy Hendrix. Maybe we should come out with regulation against those two groups.
Of course, maybe this kid was onto something! Maybe Conservatives ARE controlling young liberal pothead minds through grammar, and they compelled him to shoot Rep. Giffords.
You do realize this kid was off his rocker and had already made threats against Rep. Giffords a year before Palin even hit the national scene, right?
edit: The person controlling my mind made me fix a few grammar mistakes.
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quote:Of course, maybe this kid was onto something! Maybe Conservatives ARE controlling young liberal pothead minds through grammar, and they compelled him to shoot Rep. Giffords.
What, or who, are you railing against here? Is this relevant to the positions that any of us here have taken? How prevalent is the whole 'this is a right wing conspiracy' thing? How many democrats are actually blaming palin? What is this all about? Is it a reactionary defense?
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What astonishes me about this is that all those people who were earlier claiming that the Tea Party crossed traditional party lines and helped forge a different ideological union are now completely overlooking those earlier claims in their haste to insist that Loughner, despite his obvious sympathy for anti-government movements, had absolutely nothing in common with Tea Party "conservatives."
Are Tea Partiers "conservatives" now? Officially?
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Samprimary, for your much-needed information, Fox News interviewed a qualified, experienced psychologist who is also a lawyer, and HE said that Jared Loughner exhibited all the classic signs of a schizophrenic who has made a complete break with reality. He even went down the list of symptoms he exhibited.
You can be sure, Sam, that I always know what I am talking about.
As for whether Loughner was influenced by political rhetoric, it has been noted in the national news that Loughner was a registered Independent, and did not even vote in the last election.
Tom, Tea Partiers are most likely to be conservative rather than liberal. They are most likely to be consistently conservative. The simple truth is that Tea-Partiers are conservative Republicans. They are not a separate party--at least, not yet. Virtually all their condidates in the last election ran (and most won) as Republican candidates.
Rabbit, Democrat liberals are much more likely to do harm to people routinely and systematically and deliberately and repeatedly than anyone else, because they think they are "righteous" and that any means justifies their "progressive" ends. For example, after Newt Gingrich orchestrated the Republican takeover during the Reagan years, Democrats followed the Saul Alinsky game book and began filing false charge after false charge against Gingrich, all of which were laughably spurious, but eventually they built up a critical mass until another bogus charge of some income tax irregularity forced him to bow out of the fight, and not run for re-election. A year or so later, the IRS completely cleared him. But the campaign of deliberately false assaults against his reputation had succeeded, to the point that even now many people regard him as "damaged goods."
Democrats again used the same deliberate, knowingly false attacks against Sarah Palin. Not one single accusation against her has ever been upheld. But so many were made, that some people think she must have done something wrong. The liberal Alinsky thugs also took advantage of Alaska's requirement that any request for information had to be processed, taking staff time and expense. This amounted to millions of dollars that Sarah and her friends and staff members could not afford. That is why she resigned as governor. This was a vile crime of subverting democracy committed by liberal thugs, who still probably think they are "righteous," and have the nerve to criticize her for "quitting" in the middle of her term.
Talking tough, using the forceful terminology of people who believe it is good to be strong, is not nearly as evil as people who systematically, regularly, knowingly use falsehoods to try to harm someone's reputation, and gain by rumor and inuendo and filing false charge after false charge what they failed to do in the ballot box.
People who follow Saul Alinsky's directions for subverting the democratic process are traitors and true criminals. They are NOT righteous. Liberals are NOT righteous.
By the way, as for Sarah Palin's map that displayed crosshair symbols where there were Democrat candidates who were being especially targeted in the election--the Democrats published exactly the same kind of map in 2004--only they used bullseyes instead of crosshairs. Fox News showed it this afternoon.
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Was trippy to see that, as the VoterView product is one I've worked on a little bit at my current job. Mostly just minor enhancements, but still is a reminder that people actually use the software I help develop.
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Fox News reported that local officials in Tucson have stated that Jared Loughner was a registered INDEPENDENT, and DID NOT VOTE IN THE LAST ELECTION.
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I imagine Geraine is responding more to statements made outside of this forum.
Some leftist talk, like those starting a petition to indict Palin (Huffington Post comments section) or accusing Palin of having the blood of a nine-year-old girl on her hands, are also part of the problem.
They will only deepen feelings of anger and alienation between the two sides.
Those who sincerely want the political rhetoric to cool down should lead by example.
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quote:You can be sure, Sam, that I always know what I am talking about.
I'm sorry. This isn't a Ron thing. I have the same response to *anyone* that makes such a claim, though most people who would do so would be doing it ironically.
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quote:By the way, as for Sarah Palin's map that displayed crosshair symbols where there were Democrat candidates who were being especially targeted in the election--the Democrats published exactly the same kind of map in 2004--only they used bullseyes instead of crosshairs. Fox News showed it this afternoon.
The bullseyes were on states. The Palin targets graphic referenced individual legislators
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quote:The simple truth is that Tea-Partiers are conservative Republicans.
So when certain individuals were insisting, a year or so ago, that the Tea Party crossed all partisan lines and was a genuinely new ideological movement, those individuals were wrong?
Would it be wrong to say that they didn't know what they were talking about?
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: You can be sure, Sam, that I always know what I am talking about.
No. Not only do you have a history of saying things you don't understand, you don't know what schizoid means, so you used it incorrectly assuming it was a definition of the kid's mental state. Probably under the assumption that a 'schizoid break' is something that means something similar to a schizophrenic or psychotic break.
That's why I told you to stop using psychological terms you don't understand. It's one aspect of your amateur pseudopsychology you could learn to live without.
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It doesn't appear that this shooting was triggered by conservative rhetoric.
However, it definitely does give us a dose of reality that illustrates just how ridiculous some of that rhetoric is. I suspect that after an event like this it becomes far more obvious that one's value as a human being doesn't depend on one holding the correct political views.
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there has been little said here about the communist rhetoric the shooter consumed and clearly believed. he listed the communist manifesto as one of his favorite books.
i think marx and engels should tone down their proletariat revolution rhetoric. its inciting mentally unbalanced people to violence.
next point. glen beck, et al, have listener/viewership that reaches into the tens of millions. if their alleged hate-filled speech is so negative and is such a force in shaping the actions of the viewer/listener, why are there not more instances of violence such as this? its about as common as a muslim shooting/bomb plot, if that. its not a trend; its an isolated incident. there isnt widespread violence and there has been no call to violence.
a lot of liberals vastly over-estimate the influences of people such as beck and palin. there are many sources of powerful and influential conservative ideals and ideas and many of them predate palin's rise to influence by decades.
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quote:The whole discussion of politics is irrelevant, and frankly, reprehensible--because of being clearly exploitative of a tragic event. Rep. Giffords is a nice lady and NO ONE WHO COUNTS disliked her. Both Republicans and Democrats liked her. The Tea Party may have "targeted" her seat (and they came within 4,000 votes of unseating her), but I am sure they are still glad to have her in that office rather than some extreme liberal deaf-to-the-public superpartisan like Nancy Pilosi. Giffords used to be a Republican, and still holds some conservative positions.
Your talk of discussing politics being reprehensible would be a lot more persuasive if you didn't, well, use the discussion of the event as an excuse to discuss politics (your remarks about Pelosi). Very meta and quite hypocritical of you.
Your remarks about no one who counts disliking her made no sense at all within your own post. As you said, they came within 4K votes of unseating her. Obviously quite a few people disliked her, and they counted. Literally. The facts, as you're using them in your own arguments Ron, don't support your arguments. That you don't like the conclusion they point to doesn't mean you get to handwave them away.
quote:Naturally they will gravitate to images involving personal strength, such as gun ownership...
Because it requires personal strength to own a firearm? I don't 'oppose' the Second Amendment, as I imagine you to mean that statement, Ron, but this is simply a ridiculous statement, equating strength with gun ownership. It takes zero strength at all to own a gun. All it takes is a few bucks and a very little government-deemed competence and a waiting period.
quote:They would be glad to let someone else take care of them, let government take sole responsibility for the use of force, while the populace is all disarmed and padded with styrofoam and bubblewrap--provided at government expense (meaning at the expense of the productive).
This is a very dishonest portrayal of the beliefs of people you disagree with. You've conversed with more than enough liberals over the years to know it by now, too. There's just no excuse for it, Ron. It's a transparent straw man that neither convinces nor deceives anyone.
quote:You can be sure, Sam, that I always know what I am talking about.
You provably don't know what you're talking about when it comes to what liberals think about their own beliefs, what virtues are necessary for gun ownership, and whether anyone disliked Gifford prior to the shooting.
It's acceptable to be in error from time to time, Ron. I'm not speaking of you specifically, though truthfully on the points mentioned above you are quite badly in error, but of the political party and the political positions it holds above. What's not acceptable, though what goes on as a matter of course, is this notion that the appropriate response when the mistake is caught is what you're doing now: point the finger.
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Going back to something I read on the last page about the human brain. Everything I've read about how the brain processes information suggests that information received via television or radio is filtered through the areas of the brain that deal with emotion. Information that is read is generally filtered through the areas of the brain that deal with reason.
The result? We're more likely to react emotionally and viscerally to information when we see it on television, and the reason centers of the brain less active.
Lately I've come to the decision that whether or not he was some right-wing loony-bin escapee is really irrelevant. Does anyone seriously believe that the current political landscape is healthy and productive? This event has, reasonably or not, put political rhetoric in the spotlight. Why not use this opportunity to do some serious introspection instead of reverting to form by pointing fingers and professing innocence?
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quote:Originally posted by capaxinfiniti: there has been little said here about the communist rhetoric the shooter consumed and clearly believed. he listed the communist manifesto as one of his favorite books.
i think marx and engels should tone down their proletariat revolution rhetoric. its inciting mentally unbalanced people to violence.
What do you mean, 'clearly believed?' Is there some information somewhere showing demonstratively and clearly that he aligned himself with communists, or are you inferring it baldly based on the yt book list?
Here's a big clue-in for the cheap seats, by the way: The odds that the shooter has actually read through the books on his favorite books list is exceedingly low. That, and as has already been put through the wringer a couple of times in this thread alone, he could have read all of them multiple times, and still using X book to 'clearly' conclude Y ideology is wrong, and a great big waste of time. Yes, I'll even defend the commies from made-up associations with Loughner.
Miller:
quote:The sole ideological thread running through Loughner's list is an inchoate anti-authoritarianism. It's likely that what attracted him to "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto" was less the political thinking in either book than their aura of the forbidden, the sensation that he was defying the adults around him by daring to read either one. The rest of his favorites -- "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Brave New World," "Animal Farm" and "Fahrenheit 451" -- depict deceitful and oppressive regimes committed to squelching individual initiative and thought.
It's not hard to understand why Loughner might be drawn to such narratives. A young man whose slide into paranoid schizophrenia has been noticed and addressed (Loughner was suspended from Pima Community College and administrators insisted that he get a mental health evaluation before he would be allowed to return) probably would favor literature in which maverick truth-tellers are labeled as insane or criminal by self-serving authority figures.
quote:i think marx and engels should tone down their proletariat revolution rhetoric.
Yes, if this were the era of communism, it would be absolutely correct to call for toning down the rhetoric. One could argue that communist rhetoric has been possibly the most damaging in history globally.
However, this is no longer the era of communism, and we are talking about the U.S. specifically. There have been times in our nation's history when liberals have been overwhelmingly unreasonable and ridiculous in their rhetoric. However, in our present time and place, I think it'd be fairly clear to any impartial observer that conservatives have taken the lead in outlandish, hurtful rhetoric, and thus it needs to be first and foremost conservatives who stop supporting the vocal advocates of hurtful rhetoric among them.
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quote:Yes, if this were the era of communism, it would be absolutely correct to call for toning down the rhetoric. One could argue that communist rhetoric has been possibly the most damaging in history globally.
One could certainly put forth that arguement, but it would be pretty difficult to convince me that Marx's rhetoric was more damaging than Hitlers.
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quote:Yes, if this were the era of communism, it would be absolutely correct to call for toning down the rhetoric. One could argue that communist rhetoric has been possibly the most damaging in history globally.
One could certainly put forth that arguement, but it would be pretty difficult to convince me that Marx's rhetoric was more damaging than Hitlers.
It's a pretty macabre topic. I'd say they are pretty close, and if the US had ever gone to war with China (including the dropping of atomic bombs) during the Korean conflict, I think Marxism would win hands down. The one thing Marxism does have going for it is that it still strongly affects the world today, whereas Hitler's influence is largely a thing of the past.
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If the US dropped atomic bombs on China, I don't think you could lay that at the feet of Marxism. "You made me do it" isn't a defence that works in schoolyards, let alone affairs between adults.
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quote:The one thing Marxism does have going for it is that it still strongly affects the world today, whereas Hitler's influence is largely a thing of the past.
Comparing Marxism to Hitler is like comparing apples and grocery stores chains. You can compare Marx and Hitler (in which case Hitler wins for total evil hands down), or you can compare Marxism with Fascism, which is going to be a lot more ambiguous. Both Marxism and fascism strongly affect the world today.
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This tragedy was expoited within minutes by people thrilled with the chance to grind their political axes. The accusations are unfounded (no evidence), lazy (no attempt to find evidence), dishonest (making them anyway), and trashy (exploiting a tragedy).
On top of everything else foul about it, it is irresponsible, because it is focusing attention on the wrong thing. This guy was sick; other people noticed; he got a gun anyway; how could we prevent this from happening again.
I agree 100% with this editorial in the Washington Post.
Where am I? I believe in free speech, and anyone's calls for their political opponents to stop talking should make any American sick.
A tragedy happens and some of you have rushed to use it for your own political ends, joining many others who did the same. You all should be ashamed.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: If the US dropped atomic bombs on China, I don't think you could lay that at the feet of Marxism. "You made me do it" isn't a defence that works in schoolyards, let alone affairs between adults.
QFT. Since its an event that didn't happen, its impossible to say what type of rhetoric might have inspired Americans to commit such atrocities, but I think we can be pretty confident that it would not have been Marxist ideology.
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quote:Where am I? I believe in free speech, and anyone's calls for their political opponents to stop talking should make any American sick.
Where are you indeed, katharina? Who has asked anyone to stop talking, as opposed to stop talking in certain ways? The latter being entirely within both the law of freedom of speech and its spirit, the satisfaction you felt giving vent to your sense of outrage notwithstanding.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: If the US dropped atomic bombs on China, I don't think you could lay that at the feet of Marxism. "You made me do it" isn't a defence that works in schoolyards, let alone affairs between adults.
That's not what I'm saying. I don't place America's war with Vietnam on Communism's door.
The Korean conflict most certainly started with Communists invading South Korea, and the US getting in the way. The US pushed a little bit too far too quickly, and China decided to go assist a Communist neighbor, for fear the US would try to divide China. Fortunately MacArthur who wanted to bomb China into submission was overruled, but had it come to a protracted war including the use of atomic bombs, I am confident the Chinese and American dead would then outpace the total casualties from WWII.
I'm not saying that it's all Communism's fault. The fact the US was in South Korea in the first place is due to anti-communist rhetoric.
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quote:Originally posted by Derrell: Fred Phelps and company are planning to attend the little girl's fumeral
So its finnally possible for my to protest Phelps with signs saying "God Hates Bigots" ofcourse I wont for the oppisite reason of his appearance. I dont want to slander this little girls life and death.
Edit. I just read Happyman's link, that is beuatiful of them to do, and much more mature than any response I would make to those hate-mongers.
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I think Phelps and his group are horrible human beings. I guess they have a right to do what they want, but I just can't believe there are people sick enough to protest at a nine year old girls funeral.
I guess there is a Tea Party group that wants to form a wall of bodies to keep the protesters away from the funeral. While I appreciate the intent, I think it is a bad idea. It has the potential to cause even more issues.
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Also, this and this from David Weigel, as well as the numerous mentions to the (alleged) perpetrator's youtube postings could have led to an interesting dialogue about responsibility and accountability in digital communities. The stories out of Pima Comm. College should have created lots of discussion of whether the way educational institutes approach students who exhibit aberrant behavior is appropriate.
Instead, we have unending discussions of Sarah Palin's map, despite the lack of evidence Laughner was aware of it, or any other of the vitriolic dialogue we've all be discussing. Linking the issue of political vitriol to this specific event (as Krugman blithely does in his column) is entirely untenable. Wresting this event to have a teachable moment about politeness and civility in political rhetoric strikes me dishonest.
By all means, let's talk about the issue of vitriolic political speech (it's both timely and important); but don't let's pretend that it has anything to do with what just happened in AZ (just as angry rhetoric was not responsible for the actions of John Hinckley or Sirhan Sirhan or Arthur Bremer or Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme or ... the large majority of politically motivated assassination attempts in US history).
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Is it not clear that Sarah Palin's map is an example of the kind of rhetoric we are talking about rather than a specific cause? If not, let me make it clear.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Is it not clear that Sarah Palin's map is an example of the kind of rhetoric we are talking about rather than a specific cause? If not, let me make it clear.
What is clear is there's no evidence any of the rhetoric you're talking about was heard, believed, or otherwise affected Laughner. He wasn't a right-wing zealot, he was a random, disturbed kid who thought the government was trying to control his mind. His anger at Giffords appears, from all evidence, to be deeply personal. It does not appear it was stoked, increased, or otherwise effected by the rhetorical climate of hate and intolerance. Drawing a causal link from one thing to the other is irresponsible.
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Let's say it is irresponsible to call for a decrease in violent images and speech. What is the downside to toning it down? Not banning it, mind you, just people making the decision to use or listen to them less.
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quote:I believe in free speech, and anyone's calls for their political opponents to stop talking should make any American sick.
Referring to criticism of the tone and content of someone else's speech as a free speech issue is sort of missing the point of free speech.
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The testimony of everyone who has worked with Gabrielle Giffords in Congress, on either side of the aisle, is that they like her as a person. Some people may disagree with her politics, and campaign as resolutely as they can against her in elections. But that does not mean that hating some aspects of her politics is equivalent to hating her as a person.
Equating political opposition to criminal agitation is another example of liberal distortion of reality in a desperate attempt to overcome the clear advantage conservatives have in the polls. This is why everyone here needs to shut up about political causes for the attempted assassination in Tucson. The shooter has been judged by many qualified people to exhibit classic signs of a schizophrenic break with reality. He was not politically active. He did not even vote in the last election. Those who would claim Sarah Palin or right wing talk radio, or such have any blame in the attack on Rep. Giffords, are forgetting the 13 other people who were shot, six of them killed. What conservative leader influenced the shooter to kill that nine-year-old girl? Her only political involvement was that she recently won election to the student council in her elementary school. What connection can liberals draw there?
It is liberals who are stirring up and seeking to incite people with their vitriolic speech right now. For trying to exploit this tragedy for their political ends, they deserve universal condemnation. Which they will certainly get in the next election, if they remain too stubborn to recognize that the last election was a stunning and direct rebuke to them, and that it is precisely because of the tactics they are using now that they are alienating the vast majority of Americans.
[ January 11, 2011, 01:24 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Let's say it is irresponsible to call for a decrease in violent images and speech. What is the downside to toning it down? Not banning it, mind you, just people making the decision to use or listen to them less.
That's again not what I've said. I said it's irresponsible to draw a causal connection between violent rhetoric and Laughner's actions.
I've additionally said having a discussion about the current state of political rhetoric could be fruitful. My complaint is the thoughtless way in which people are linking such a discussion to the situation in AZ. <edit>And I think the discussion is more likely to be fruitful if the two topics are divorced; otherwise, many of the participants will begin from a posture of defensiveness which generally leads to bickering rather than understanding.</edit>
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quote: I guess there is a Tea Party group that wants to form a wall of bodies to keep the protesters away from the funeral. While I appreciate the intent, I think it is a bad idea. It has the potential to cause even more issues.
I understand the concern but Im not worried, we have a long history of controlling situations like this. Every year there are more protesters at the nazi rally in Phoenix than nazis and nothing ever happens.
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How old are you, Samprimary? 13? Have you ever had a college level course in psychology, as I have? What is your problem, child! Is this the best you can do in debate?
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