This is the text of a post that I made to a very dear friend of mine whose political beliefs are quite a bit further to the right than mine. The gist of the text I was responding to was his comment that it's easy for the "lefties" to blame everyone on the right when a violent event occurs, such as the Arizona shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the death of her staffer (and far too many others....). I thought it was worth posting on my blog: I think we're all in agreement, though we really don't have enough detail yet, that Jared Lee Loughner is mentally unstable. Mentally unstable people don't have that critical faculty in their minds that stops their wilder thoughts from becoming acted upon. That's true. In this case, very sad but true. That said, these people, and Loughner in particular, don't exist in a vacuum. There _is_ vitriol and bitter anger in our political discourse, and there has been more these last few years than I can remember in a long time (even going back to what was the birth of my political awareness: protest over the war in Vietnam. Yes, I'm that old....<g>). This vitriol, and the violent imagery and words that many use, is clear to anyone that will open their eyes and look. Sure, those in the tea party movements are not necessarily wackos, but you see so many of the fringe elements that _are_ attending these events (the galleries of truly frightening placards and violent graphics by those fringe elements at Tea Party protests are available all over the web. I'll point you to a few if you like....). What separates THOSE people from Loughner? They have the ability to understand the difference between their words and the actions that they choose NOT to take. That's because they're mentally stable enough not to act on the words they write on posters. Loughner was not. Does that give those on the far fringe a free pass to ignore how their words affect others? We live in a country founded, more or less <g>, on free speech, so they have the right to say what they want. However, in the course of reasonable and responsible political discourse, we have to take responsibility for our words, particularly those in the middle of the political conversation, such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck (remember the shooter they stopped recently _before_ he killed anyone? His mother said that he listened to Beck constantly and vocalized his desire to "kill the bastards" that Beck was focused on...). We are free to use our words, even when they're vitriolic, but we MUST take responsibility for them. Do you not think that any of the following had even the least little part in creating the environment where Loughner would kill? Windows were smashed at Representative Giffords' district office last March just a few hours after the House vote on health care reform. At one of the infamous town hall events in August 2009, a man attending the event accidentally dropped a handgun on the floor that he had been hiding under his arm. Sarah Palin's infamous "target list" displayed Democratic districts, including Rep. Giffords', in crosshairs, as if viewed through a gunsight. And Palin's tweet: "Don't retreat, RELOAD!". In addition, violent imagery was prominently featured during the last election. For instance, a rally for Rep. Giffords' Republican opponent, Jesse Kelly, at a gun range, was promoted with the following notice: "Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." And you probably saw my post on the words of Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik yesterday. The quote I saw originally didn't include the first two sentences. I think this is important to keep in mind: "especially susceptible to vitriol". "There's reason to believe that this individual may have a mental issue. And I think people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol... When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous." We'll all know more about this later, and hopefully we'll get more details about how this occurred (and if there is indeed a second person involved). Until then, there will be plenty of blame to hand around (I've already seen postings of how President Obama's rhetoric needs to be held accountable. A bit of a stretch, but there is something to be said for the need to change the ENTIRE nature of our political dialog).
People, let's keep this conversation reasonable and responsible. For the sake of other 9 year olds that are "interested in politics". Please.
A conversation about politics, government, and the media: from the center, with hopefully a little less of the irrational "heat" and a little more logical thinking applied. Yeah, call me crazy....
Where does one begin in responding to this post? (Paragraphs would really help as long blocks of text are hard to keep track of.) I'll do my best to respond to all the fallacious thinking here and I hope I get a response (unlike my questions about the Constitution in response to a previous post).
ReplyDelete1. Being mentally unstable is not the same thing as being psychotic. There is some evidence that Laughner is beyond merely unstable. He seems to be schizophrenic, which is a psychosis.
2. A psychosis needs nothing rational to trigger some bizarre or violent behavior. It doesn't need any kind of external trigger.
3. There is ZERO evidence that Laughner paid any attention whatsoever to anything anyone in politics had to say. People who know him say he was more interested in philosophy than politics.
4. No, the words of politicians and tv personalities did not create the environment where Laughner would kill. And that includes the incendiary comments by people on the left.
5. The Democratic party created a far more offensive "targeting" ad (http://www.verumserum.com/?p=13647) since it not only used targets, but referred to Republicans as "enemies."
6. Our founders definitely believed in free speech, so there's no need for the . The free speech they intended was political free speech, but since you're such a Constitutional scholar, you surely know that.
This kind of blog is totally irresponsible. Where is the call for caution that we heard after Major Hassan murdered 13 soldiers while yelling "Allah Akbar"? We don't need it now? Yelling "Allah Akbar" is a damned good indication that Hassan was motivated by Islamic fundamentalism. What evidence was there that Laughner was motivated by *anything* political? Nada. And there is even more nada today than there was before.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet the very first thing the left comes out with are condemnations of the rhetoric of the right -- as if there is no hate and vitriol spewed by the left. That alone, Dirty, puts you squarely in the left camp, not your imaginary "logical center." If you were truly in some kind of "logical" center, you would have logically concluded that it was far too soon to start politicizing this tragic event. But no need to let a crisis go to waste, eh?
A little research and reading something other than left-leaning news would have told you pretty quickly, Dirty, that Laughner had targeted Giffords because he thought she was "fake." Why did he think that? Because she wouldn't answer his question "How do you know words mean anything?" He had the idea that the government was controlling minds through grammar. Not rhetoric and propaganda. Grammar. And he didn't like that Giffords couldn't answer his question about words and meaning.
A reasonable and logical person would wait for more information and not jump to conclusions based on what the left-wing media spews about an event. I fail to see how you can claim to be logical person above the fray. You have outed yourself as a person square in the center -- of the left.
In one respect, you are certainly correct, Fred: being less emotional about the tragedy in Arizona and reserving judgement until more is known would certainly have been a wiser move on my part, and on the part of many others. It's hard NOT to be emotional, given the tone of what passes for "political conversation" these days, and how that may well have played into this tragedy.
ReplyDeleteNot being a psychiatrist or anyone capable of making any sort of mental assessment of Jared Lee Loughner's state, I can't say whether he is psychotic or not. "Trigger some bizarre or violent behavior"? I don't believe I said that anything "triggered" this violent outburst. Those of you on the right (and Fred, I and most other people in the political spectrum, would indeed be left of you politically, whether we're centrist or progressive or a card-carrying socialist. Trying to "prove" that I'm on the left is your way of discounting my opinions and I will not play into that irrational point of view.) have been trying to post everything you could find in the commentary on the liberal side to somehow say that it's tit-for-tat and that all things are equal, that the right and the left are just mirror images of each other when it comes to vlolent language and imagery.
Frankly, you'd have to be blind to the anger in the last two years to make such a comment: the screaming and shoving at Town Hall meetings by those that mostly identify with the tea party movements, making their anger at "Obamacare" perfectly clear; the not particularly subtle mention of "Second Amendment solutions" by tea party supported candidates, some of those candidates running for the U. S. Senate; the popular "We Came Unarmed (This Time)" tee shirt seen hundreds if not thousands of times at tea party rallies and town hall meetings; Glenn Beck questioning on the radio airwaves if he should kill Michael Moore himself or just hire someone to do it; and the Facebook posts of armed insurrection graphics and commentary by people like your FB friend Scott Wilder and others in his "group"; etc. Honestly, I was completely taken off-guard by the level of violent rhetoric of these various groups once I began to opt-in to their "conversations". I think you'd have to go back over 40 years to find _anything_ even close to that on the left, back to the Weather Underground or Black Panther days of the 60's. There were a LOT of folks on the left (and some in the center) that hated George W. Bush, but I NEVER heard the language I've heard in regards to "Barack Hussein Obama".
I'll stand by the gist of my point: we need to calm down the rhetoric. We need to start actually talking to each other instead of just trying to prove each other wrong.
It would be easy enough to pick apart each of your points below, but then I would be doing exactly what I'm asking others not to do.
Instead of the tit-for-tat, for at least a brief moment, put that energy into wishing the best for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, her family, and the families of those that lost their lives in this insanity.
Really. Please.
In one respect, you are certainly correct, Fred: being less emotional about the tragedy in Arizona and reserving judgement until more is known would certainly have been a wiser move on my part, and on the part of many others. It's hard NOT to be emotional, given the tone of what passes for "political conversation" these days, and how that may well have played into this tragedy.
ReplyDeleteNot being a psychiatrist or anyone capable of making any sort of mental assessment of Jared Lee Loughner's state, I can't say whether he is psychotic or not. "Trigger some bizarre or violent behavior"? I don't believe I said that anything "triggered" this violent outburst. Those of you on the right (and Fred, I and most other people in the political spectrum, would indeed be left of you politically, whether we're centrist or progressive or a card-carrying socialist. Trying to "prove" that I'm on the left is your way of discounting my opinions and I will not play into that irrational point of view.) have been trying to post everything you could find in the commentary on the liberal side to somehow say that it's tit-for-tat and that all things are equal, that the right and the left are just mirror images of each other when it comes to vlolent language and imagery.
Frankly, you'd have to be blind to the anger in the last two years to make such a comment: the screaming and shoving at Town Hall meetings by those that may or may not identify with the tea party movements, making their anger at "Obamacare" perfectly clear; the not particularly subtle mention of "Second Amendment solutions" by tea party supported candidates, some even running for U. S. Senate; the popular "We Came Unarmed (This Time)" tee shirt seen hundreds if not thousands of times at tea party rallies and town hall meetings; Glenn Beck questioning on the radio airwaves if he should kill Michael Moore himself or just hire someone to do it; and the Facebook posts of armed insurrection graphics and commentary by people like your FB friend Scott Wilder and others in his "group"; etc. Honestly, I was completely taken off-guard by the level of violent rhetoric of these various groups once I began to opt-in to their "conversations". I think you'd have to go back over 40 years to find _anything_ even close to that on the left, back to the Weather Underground or Black Panther days of the 60's. There were a LOT of folks on the left (and some in the center) that hated George W. Bush, but I NEVER heard the language I've heard in regards to "Barack Hussein Obama".
ReplyDeleteI'll stand by the gist of my point: we need to calm down the rhetoric. We need to start actually talking to each other instead of just trying to prove each other wrong.
It would be easy enough to pick apart each of your points below, but then I would be doing exactly what I'm asking others not to do.
Instead of the tit-for-tat, for at least a brief moment, put that energy into wishing the best for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, her family, and the families of those that lost their lives in this insanity.
Really. Please.
Dirty, I don't need to prove anything. What you say speaks for itself. And your comment that you have been trying to post everything you could find in the commentary on the liberal side to show that the right and the left are just mirror images of each other when it comes to violent language and imagery is absurd. You can only show that they are mirror images when you provide comments from BOTH sides and demonstrate how they are mirror images.
ReplyDeleteYou must have been living in a bubble (no doubt a left-leaning one) if you think that there was a lack of hate-filled speech in the 8 years of Bush's presidency. I heard much worse. And you do recall a movie being made about the "assassination" of Bush, right? And then you must have missed all the videos of left-wing loons throwing things at conservative speakers, attempting to shout them down and close down their events, throwing bricks through windows to keep them from speaking... shall I go on? And those violent acts don't include the vile and hateful language that was and still is used against people on the right.
I attempt to talk to people all the time, but I more often than not get smug arrogance and insults from people with whom I am trying to engage in an open and honest dialogue.
Please do pick apart each of my points. You say they're easy to pick apart, so have at it. How else can we have a dialogue? Of COURSE we're trying to prove one another wrong. What else would a dialogue consist of between two people who don't agree on issues? Unless you were planning on using violent language, I don't see the problem.
If you don't demonstrate why you think my comments are wrong, then I can't understand how you think or what you believe, can I? And just how does that, then, help us understand each other?
Btw, Dirty, I happen to have a degree in psychology and so I know something about delusional and psychotic behavior. There is plenty of evidence that Laughner is a paranoid schizophrenic. If that's not the precise diagnosis, then it's going to be something close. Haven't you been reading about this guy? He was not political and hasn't voted since 2006. He constructed all kinds of bizarre conspiracy theories involving grammar and government mind control. Look up paranoid schizophrenia, Dirty. It's not created by the environment and since the guy wasn't political, the political environment is doubly irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteBy claiming that Laughner's actions were caused by the "hateful" speech of the right and the angry Tea Partiers, the left is essentially claiming that it was this atmosphere that triggered them. It doesn't matter which word you use "cause," "lead to," "incite" -- they all add up to the same thing - the trigger for the event. And as I said, psychotics do not need a logical trigger for anything. Someone can pull a dollar out of their wallet and it can be a sign of something.
I have been thinking about Giffords since Saturday morning -- along with the 6 people who died. It's why I have been so disgusted by the jumping to conclusions and the politicizing of this event by the left. As I said before, the left had no problem keeping their emotions in check when *13* soldiers were murdered by a Muslim yelling "Allah Akbar."
If you can see the double standard, then you are the one who must be blind.
Say, Dirty, since you don't want to try to show me how I'm wrong here, perhaps now would be a good time to finally answer my questions about the Constitution that I asked over a week ago in response to your post on right-wing extremism. You would be enlightening me, so that should be okay, right?
ReplyDeleteReally, since you're so well read on the Constitution and the founder's views on it, it shouldn't take very long to answer those questions.
@ Fred - While I appreciate your thoughts, there's been more than once that you've misunderstood me almost to the exact opposite. Maybe I've stated something unclearly, though when I read my posts back, they make sense to me. I do not think that the language on the left and the language on the right are "mirror-images" of one another: I don't think there's any comparison at all. The difference is exponential.
ReplyDeleteAs to your points on anger and hatred toward President George W. Bush, yes there was a good deal of that, particularly after he won in 2000 by one vote in the Supreme Court. There was indeed fury.
Was there anywhere the same number of liberals meeting together in the Mall in DC with placards and tee shirts with blatant examples of gun violence on them? Were there radio personalities on the left talking about killing people? Was there joking about killing the President on national broadcast news? Was there a liberal candidate for the Senate that said that we should exercise a "Second Amendment solution" for Bush or his policies? Boy, if there was, I sure missed it. Here are a few examples just to jog your memory about the last 2 years:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200505180008
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/32dnvxn
http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201010110001
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KirvIAs_5Cw
http://tinyurl.com/4l682da
MEDIA MATTERS? And you still think you're in the center? Good lord. But maybe you just did a Google search and landed there. Still, would you trust anything I posted from the Stormfront site? No one should trust that site. Ditto for Media Matters.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, don't you think that "fury" over a Supreme Court decision should have lasted 8 years? That's an awful lot of fury, isn't it?
And really, you don't think a movie about assassinating a sitting president isn't worse than jokes on the radio? Really? But let's take a look at what has been said by the left on the radio, shall we?
Oh yes indeed, you missed a hell of a lot.
Here's some of what you missed, but there is so, so much more.
http://tinyurl.com/45vk5eh
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41108
http://tinyurl.com/47pn4lc
And here's one showing how fond the left is of free speech and how it eschews the use of violence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boxjh2BgTmw&feature=related
http://www.mrc.org/specialreports/2010/RealRadioHatemongers/DeathWish.aspx
http://www.mrc.org/specialreports/2010/RealRadioHatemongers/LeftyLunacy.aspx
http://www.mrc.org/specialreports/2010/RealRadioHatemongers/BabyEatingNazis.aspx
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621
Btw, I think it was your lack of a subject and faulty punctuation in your sentence that led me to misunderstand your statement about mirror images. Still, I would expect someone in the dead center of the political spectrum to be aware of the hate speech from both sides.
ReplyDeleteBut that's what's so nice about a dialogue, don't you think? I say something; you say something. I misunderstand you; you correct me. You ask questions; we answer them. We ask questions;...oh wait, you haven't answered yet. But that's the idea.
Are you going to refute the points that I made before? Did you answer my questions about the Constitution yet?