Lone nut or something worse?
January 8, 2011 10:32 AM Subscribe

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Shot In Arizona.

At least five other people, including members of her staff, were hurt. Giffords was transported to University Medical Center in Tucson. Her condition was not immediately known.

Giffords was talking to a couple when the man ran up firing indiscriminately, and then ran off, Michaels said. According to other witnesses, the was tackled by a bystander and taken into custody.

Only one United States representative has been killed in the line of duty, Leo Ryan at the hands of the Jonestown cult.

posted by furiousxgeorge (2568 comments total) 59 users marked this as a favorite

Tuscon Citizen (site currently down) reports that she was shot point blank in the head. I hope for the best.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:33 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

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posted by AwkwardPause at 10:34 AM on January 8, 2011

Is it cynical of me to have immediately checked what her political party affiliation is?....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:35 AM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

Is it cynical of me to have immediately checked what her political party affiliation is?....

I did the same thing and felt bad immediately afterward.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:35 AM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

Crikey, she's not dead as far as we know. Hold off on the .'s
posted by nj_subgenius at 10:36 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Could somebody please cobble together some links here giving some background about Giffords and the political climate in Arizona? It'd be great to have the socio-political context here, to inform our discussion, as the events unfold.

This is just awful news and i am hoping that she and all of the other victims will pull through.
posted by iamkimiam at 10:37 AM on January 8, 2011

I checked and have no guilt. An assassination attempt on a political official typically has a political motive. Learning about her politics may allow one to understand the motivation for the shooting.
posted by banal evil at 10:38 AM on January 8, 2011 [54 favorites]

She is a pro-gun blue dog who just beat a teabagger who considered Palin too moderate. No, don't jump to conclusions. Could be jilted lover or a nut who had no idea who he was shooting or a million other things.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:39 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I am somewhat heartened to hear that the gunman was apprehended and taken into custody where he or she will be held accountable for his or her actions. We have no idea if this act was motivated by politics, business, a personal relationship, or delusions, but because the gunman did not take his or her own life, we hopefully will be able to understand the reasons behind why someone would commit such a heinous and pointless act.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:39 AM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

This is horrible, and I'm glad the gunman was caught.
posted by spinifex23 at 10:39 AM on January 8, 2011

I schedked, and I don't. That doesn't not mean I would feel differently about whether an R or a D gets shot. It's all part of the unfortunate story, which elicits, 'Why?'
posted by nj_subgenius at 10:39 AM on January 8, 2011

Is it cynical of me to have immediately checked what her political party affiliation is?

she's a Democrat if anyone else wanted to know... i did.
posted by ennui.bz at 10:39 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

schedked=checked. Oof
posted by nj_subgenius at 10:40 AM on January 8, 2011

Could somebody please cobble together some links here

Nobody seems to have any real info at this time. There are a lot of headlines, but nothing concrete.
posted by lampshade at 10:42 AM on January 8, 2011

I don't want to make any intemperate comments before all the facts are in, so I'll just say that I hope for the best.
posted by empath at 10:43 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Too early for this thread. But while we're going to engage in uninformed speculation...Giffords was on the infamous SarahPAC Target map.

Let's all hope that's not what happened.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:45 AM on January 8, 2011 [19 favorites]

Palin was interested in her...
posted by HuronBob at 10:45 AM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I checked party affiliation and feel no guilt about it. I don't want to see anyone shot but I have no problem rushing to the conclusion that it's most likely someone driven to violence by a right-wing talk piece like Beck or Malkin.
posted by inthe80s at 10:46 AM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Holy shit.
posted by craichead at 10:46 AM on January 8, 2011

If every (R) from John Boehner down to Beck and Limbaugh doesn't unequivocally condemn violence after this, I'm going to lose my fucking mind. I don't want to hear "But this is what happens when."

I just want to hear in plain English and without caveats that no one endorses violence as a solution to political disagreements. Period.
posted by notion at 10:46 AM on January 8, 2011 [160 favorites]

I'm glad that this FPP didn't include her party affiliation. Thank you, fxg, for your moderation.
posted by Etrigan at 10:47 AM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

I have no problem rushing to the conclusion that it's most likely someone driven to violence by a right-wing talk piece like Beck or Malkin.

You may not have a problem with it but it's still wrong and imprudent. Reports are saying that the gunman shot up to 12 people and was firing indiscriminately. That does not necessarily sound like a political assassination. In time the story and the motivation for the act will come out. For now, let's please not turn this into a "Republicans are horrible people" thread.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:48 AM on January 8, 2011 [23 favorites]

This is unbelievable, somehow. I'm also concerned for the 9 (?!) other people who were 'injured'... if this guy came up firing indiscriminately, well. I guess all I can really do at the moment is be hoping fervently for the best.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 10:49 AM on January 8, 2011

How long till illegal immigrants are blamed?
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 10:49 AM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

My husband and I live in Tucson. We both voted for her in this election. I just now got the call that she died. I hope the source is wrong.

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posted by lizjohn at 10:49 AM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Big ups to the bystander who tackled the gunman. I don't care who's doing the shooting and who got shot, if you do that you are brave.

My first thoughts upon hearing about this related to eliminationism and RWA... also, she was on that Palin "Target" map a little bit back
posted by jtron at 10:50 AM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Reports are saying that the gunman shot up to 12 people and was firing indiscriminately. That does not necessarily sound like a political assassination.

Reports say that he shot Gifford point blank in the head and then started shooting indiscriminately. It doesn't sound like a well-planned hit, but that doesn't sound random to me, either.
posted by craichead at 10:50 AM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

How long till illegal immigrants are blamed?

I've already seen a few comments doing just that in the NPR Facebook thread of this story.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:50 AM on January 8, 2011

Jesus fuck.
posted by rtha at 10:51 AM on January 8, 2011

Can we turn it into "Tea Baggers are horrible people"?

'cause it sure would be nice if the crazyness were to finally start receding. If there can be a positive outcome from this, the end of right-wing extremism is one I'd support.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:52 AM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

I would be careful about assuming that it's a right-winger or a Beck fan at this time. She seems to be popular at Free Republic(I read it so you don't have to) and she was just on Fox News yesterday.
posted by empath at 10:52 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

If the Congresswoman dies from this, and Gov. Brewer appoints a Republican to the seat, well, I SURE BET there won't be any copycat shootings
posted by jtron at 10:52 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Some people are saying it might have to do with the Mexican drug cartels. That seems like a big stretch to me, but what the fuck do I know?
posted by josher71 at 10:53 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reports say that he shot Gifford point blank in the head and then started shooting indiscriminately. It doesn't sound like a well-planned hit, but that doesn't sound random to me, either.

Yes, perhaps. But all we're going on right now is conjecture.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:54 AM on January 8, 2011

Also I just saw "David Bowie" underneath Rep. Gifford's name on Twitter's trending topics list and got REALLY worried.

it's his birthday!
posted by jtron at 10:54 AM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

holy shit. that link from huronbob...the sarahpac/gun sights thing. i know that isn't supposed to be a hint to anyone to shoot elected officials. but talk about bad fucking form. come on.

also, fuck guns.
posted by rainperimeter at 10:54 AM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

and Gov. Brewer appoints a Republican to the seat

I'm going to guess that her spouse(assuming she is married) or someone like a chief of staff would get appointed.
posted by empath at 10:55 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

They are already vandalizing her Wikipedia page.
posted by fixedgear at 10:55 AM on January 8, 2011

God help her.
A suspect has be tackled and is in custody.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:56 AM on January 8, 2011

Maybe this is silly, but when I clicked on the link I immediately thought "She has a beautiful and warm smile."

.
posted by melissam at 10:56 AM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Can we turn it into...

Any sentiment following that beginning is just crass and creepy Machiavellian.
posted by Babblesort at 10:57 AM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

Illegal immigrants? My assumption when I hear about domestic terrorism is that it's one or more disgruntled white guys. Not to be all 'racial/demographic profiling' about it or anything.

Good luck to the injured.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:57 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Some people are saying it might have to do with the Mexican drug cartels. That seems like a big stretch to me, but what the fuck do I know?

Some people say that about every bad thing in the Southwest.

the sarahpac/gun sights thing. i know that isn't supposed to be a hint to anyone to shoot elected officials.

Ahhhh, naivete.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:57 AM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Here's the Arizona Daily Star's endorsement of Giffords from the last election cycle: Giffords a fierce advocate for Southern Arizona.
posted by carsonb at 10:58 AM on January 8, 2011

Giffords was on the infamous SarahPAC Target map.

As of writing this that map is still on her Facebook page. I'm betting it doesn't stay there much longer.

This is a reprehensible crime, it goes without saying, and speculation is idle.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:59 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm going to guess that her spouse(assuming she is married) or someone like a chief of staff would get appointed.

Apropos of nothing, her husband is an astronaut.
posted by condour75 at 11:00 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

August 2009: Gun left behind at Town Hall meeting with Giffords.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:01 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

NPR says "shot and killed."
posted by AwkwardPause at 11:01 AM on January 8, 2011

The idea that this has something to do with Mexican drug cartels is ridiculous.

For whoever asked earlier, the political climate in Arizona is putrid. The state economy has been in terrible shape for the past 8-10 years, and then Arizona was hard hit by the housing crisis. Tucson is a some-what liberal, and racially intergrated city, constantly at odds with its larger, whiter, more conservative neighbor to the north, the greater Phoenix metro area. The (I don't even know what to call them) anti-immigrants, Tea Party crowd is seems huge and vocal. The Arizona legislature has banned ethnic studies in school, which are already some of the lowest ranked in the US. I don't have a link, but I once read that much of the Arizona legislature doesn't have 4-year university degree, and they see little to no value in funding higher education. Some of the racist, anti-public spending misanthropic conservatism was held in check while we had a Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano. However, now we have Republican governor Jan Brewer, and laws that allow people to concealed carry weapons into bars, and that require police to racially profile.

The state is a crap hole full of abandoned or under-water tacky homes, and angry white people who need to blame the brown people. I would encourage all of you to never move here, let alone visit.
posted by Squeak Attack at 11:02 AM on January 8, 2011 [49 favorites]

FWIW, the Washington Post says this:

Last March, Giffords was one of ten House Democrats who were the subject of harassment over their support for the national health care overhaul. At the time, the front door of Giffords' Tucson office had been shattered in an early morning incident.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:02 AM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Good lord, the SarahPAC thing is terrible but this graphic is even worse: the take back the 20 campaign not only has the gun sights but also the words "We've diagnosed the problems... Help us prescribe the solution."

Regardless of the cause of all of this, that is incredible.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 11:02 AM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

NPR says "shot and killed."

I'm still just seeing "shot" there. Although I'm sure there are a number of places where they've written it.
posted by Alt F4 at 11:04 AM on January 8, 2011

.
posted by jsavimbi at 11:04 AM on January 8, 2011

Oh. I was refreshing the original article. It does, in fact, say "shot and killed."

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/08/132764367/congresswoman-shot-in-arizona
posted by Alt F4 at 11:05 AM on January 8, 2011

The (I don't even know what to call them) anti-immigrants

Nativists.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:05 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

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posted by porn in the woods at 11:05 AM on January 8, 2011

"Rep. Gabrielle Giffords died after being shot in the head at a public event on Saturday, Pima County, Ariz., sheriff's office confirms."

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posted by Flunkie at 11:05 AM on January 8, 2011

The shooter was described as being in his teens or early 20s. So it was a male. No racial description was provided.

As has been mentioned earlier, this is nearly unprecedented in American history. It is a monumental day for the country and will shape the direction of national politics for at least this next cycle and perhaps for many more. This will not soon be forgotten. It is absolutely incredible that a Congresswoman was just murdered in the street. I pray for cool heads from all sides of the political aisle and swift justice for the gunman.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:06 AM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

This is terrifying. I don't want to believe that she was really assassinated. I don't want to believe that my country has come to this.

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posted by sugarfish at 11:07 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

This is terrible.

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posted by Harry at 11:07 AM on January 8, 2011

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posted by jayder at 11:09 AM on January 8, 2011

can someone please explain blue dog democrat? What an awful, awful thing, my thoughts are with all the families involved. Thank you Metafites for the background info in your posts here, it's really useful for those of us from the other side of the Pond.
posted by Wilder at 11:09 AM on January 8, 2011

Is it cynical of me to have immediately checked what her political party affiliation is?....

I hear you. Is it cynical of me to want to read the post immediately following this one (Black Swan) before reading about a national political figure being shot?

Seriously, I had to decide whether this was important enough to me to read first. Hard to explain the jaded, cynical feeling I felt about the welfare of another human being before reading about a movie...
posted by sundrop at 11:09 AM on January 8, 2011

Shit. Now it says "And Six Others".

Jesus.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 11:09 AM on January 8, 2011

A blue dog Democrat is essentially a conservative Democrat. They hold moderate political views.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:09 AM on January 8, 2011

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posted by condour75 at 11:10 AM on January 8, 2011

If you want an example of what a shithole Arizona is, our single daily newspaper left in Tucson is just regurgitating NPR news right now. Their only headline for almost 2 hours after the incident was that the intersection of streets affected was closed. God forbid one of them should go down to the hospital and do some actual reporting when they can just crib off the internet.
posted by Squeak Attack at 11:10 AM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

Local news station KOLD in Tuscon reports four dead and at least seven injured. This is terrible.

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posted by six-or-six-thirty at 11:10 AM on January 8, 2011

Blue Dog democrats are southern, conservative democrats. It's a reference to the idea that loyal democrats would vote for a yellow dog with a D next to its name.
posted by empath at 11:10 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

God damn it. I really, really hope that this was just a mentally imbalanced kid, but given all the violence from the RW over the past few years against anything seen to be a liberal threat, I would really be surprised if this guy doesn't listen to Glenn Beck every day. NPR now says that 6 other people were killed in the shooting, as well.

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posted by KGMoney at 11:10 AM on January 8, 2011

Disgraceful. No other words for it.
posted by tapeguy at 11:10 AM on January 8, 2011

this person just shot the USA in the metaphorical head.
posted by Wilder at 11:11 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

can someone please explain blue dog democrat?

The Blue Dog Democrats are a group of Democrats who are generally considered more moderate or conservative than the typical Democrat, though not nearly as conservative as the typical Republican.
posted by Flunkie at 11:11 AM on January 8, 2011

Tragic day for her family, her staffers, the other victims and for America.
posted by fixedgear at 11:11 AM on January 8, 2011

News reports: CNN, , NPR, Local station (KVOA)
Congresswoman Giffords' official House page
Wikipedia article on Congresswoman Giffords
Twitter search for Gabrielle Giffords (it's a trending topic)
Congresswoman Giffords' Twitter feed
posted by booksherpa at 11:11 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Oh my God. I can't believe someone killed a congresswoman.

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posted by limeonaire at 11:12 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

This is messed up. My thoughts are with the families involved.

An assassination attempt on a political official typically has a political motive. Learning about her politics may allow one to understand the motivation for the shooting.

Recently, in America, all our assassination attempts have been batshit-insane motivated rather than politically motivated. My gut tells me this is the same thing.

I just hope this gets everyone to calm the fuck down.
posted by chemoboy at 11:12 AM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

God damn it. I really, really hope that this was just a mentally imbalanced kid, but given all the violence from the RW over the past few years against anything seen to be a liberal threat, I would really be surprised if this guy doesn't listen to Glenn Beck every day.

These two possibilities are not mutually exclusive.
posted by Flunkie at 11:12 AM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

Just checked the cable news channels. MSNBC is talking to their Washington bureau chief about Congressional security measures. CNN is interviewing by phone an eyewitness to the shooting. Fox News is talking to a "Republican former Congress member" and referring to Rep. Giffords as "Gabby".
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's a reference to the idea that loyal democrats would vote for a yellow dog with a D next to its name.

A Yellow Dog and Blue Dog Democrat are not the same things.
posted by Salieri at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Meant to link to Fox News as well up there.
posted by booksherpa at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2011

has the revolution begun?
posted by robbyrobs at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2011

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posted by The Great Big Mulp at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2011

can someone please explain blue dog democrat?

It means conservative Democrat. Pro-life, pro-gun, strong on border security, stuff like that.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2011

This is just horrible.

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posted by rogueepicurean at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2011

This makes me ill. I have little doubt the Becks and Palins of the world provoked this, and I also have no doubt they'll come out quickly with a defensive "How dare the liberals use this terrible tragedy for political purposes!" Putting a gun sight over someone who subsequently gets shot? Absolutely disgusting.
posted by MegoSteve at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2011 [22 favorites]

Wilder: while the US has two major political parties, and they have overall ideological characters, regionally ideology and identity can shift like crazy as both parties are really "big tent" coalitions of various elements in society. For instance, pretty much until LBJ's civil rights leadership, if someone was a racist Caucasian from a former Confederate state it was pretty safe to assume he was a Democrat. That shift is another story, though...

to get back to your question, a "Blue Dog" Democrat is a more conservative Dem. Conversely there used to be "Rockefeller Republicans" (in the Northeast especially) who were social liberals who were also big business types; these days we call people like that "Democrats" as they mostly got chased out of the party as the Republicans went more nativist/religious/nationalist.
posted by jtron at 11:14 AM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

The state is a crap hole full of abandoned or under-water tacky homes, and angry white people who need to blame the brown people. I would encourage all of you to never move here, let alone visit...If you want an example of what a shithole Arizona is....
posted by Squeak Attack

Maybe you should move away?
posted by palacewalls at 11:14 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sarah Palin's poster originally had the tag line "don't retreat, reload!"
posted by five fresh fish at 11:14 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can't help but wonder if the gunman listed to Sharron Angle in the neighboring state of Nevada, when she said

“Our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason, and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government,”

And

“I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies,” Angle said. “I hope that the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.

posted by orthogonality at 11:15 AM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

Some basic background:

She was born in 1970, "in medias res".

She's married to a Space Shuttle pilot and she has spent time at Harvard.

She's Jewish, and native of AZ.

She has a "D+ rating from the NRA" (on gun control).

She won in 2010 against a Tea Party candidate in a race so close it took three days to untangle. The Tea Party guy is an Iraq War vet described as "so conservative that he's slammed Palin for endorsing candidates who are too moderate."
posted by stbalbach at 11:16 AM on January 8, 2011 [15 favorites]

can someone please explain blue dog democrat?

The Blue Dogs are a group of moderate and conservative Democratic congresspeople, and are a minority but an important and powerful one. The Blue Dogs are much more conservative than the remaining moderate Republicans are liberal. Common points of difference with the more liberal wings of the party include strong gun rights support, greater concern over illegal immigration, pro-life abortion views, and opposition to gay marriage. For example, Rep. Giffords was strongly pro-choice (in line with the Democratic Party's platform) but praised the now-infamous Arizona law that more or less allows police to arrest people on suspicion of being illegal immigrants.
posted by Tomorrowful at 11:16 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

.

For a moment let's not speculate on why this happened and simply mourn the loss. Details will emerge and fill in the blanks that we can't know the answers to now.
posted by jz at 11:16 AM on January 8, 2011

has the revolution begun?

I hope that the tea party nut jobs don't take this as a signal.
posted by empath at 11:16 AM on January 8, 2011

A caution about "thinking you know why" - Remember the hung Census worker with "FED" on the body here on the Blue? The "why" seemed to escape the 'hive mind of the blue' and odds are most will be wrong this time 'round.

Plenty of things can be talked about with politics and death - the 'anarchist killing of a duke' at the start of the 20th century, things like the article "Assassination Politics" , the idea of killing Upton Sinclair had he won the California Governorship, or even Sam Byeck and his thoughts on Nixon. But they all seem like fodder not for "NewsBlue - Congresswoman is shot" edition but post trial analysis.
posted by rough ashlar at 11:17 AM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

Most of the Blue Dogs in Congress right now came in on the anti-Bush backlash of 2006, as a result of Howard Dean's 50-state strategy. They get the number of people with D next to their name up, but they're very unreliable when it comes time to vote in Congress.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:17 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

How come NPR is so quick with the info? They were first (it seems) with the first report without an "unconfirmed" or "report says" qualification, and now with the report of her death.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:17 AM on January 8, 2011

has the revolution begun?

Don't even.
posted by cmoj at 11:17 AM on January 8, 2011 [31 favorites]

It means conservative Democrat. Pro-life, pro-gun, strong on border security, stuff like that.

given the woman had a 100% approval rating from NARAL, was very pro-solar, supported comprehensive immigration reform, and called herself a "bluedog" I don't think your definition makes sense.

Reading her bio and her words I thought to myself "I wish she were my congressperson"
posted by JPD at 11:17 AM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Is it weird that I just considered loading up cnn.com or hooking up my digital tv receiver but figured just refreshing this thread would probably give me the best info? I guess that's why they call it a Metafilter

I was just gonna say—FUCK—of course there's still nothing but sports and old movies and infomercials on local TV. I hope the TV media fucking takes something like this seriously where you are, jtron; they sure don't in St. Louis.
posted by limeonaire at 11:18 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

http://gawker.com/5728501/

Eyewitness report.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:18 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

You guys have really got to get over that whole "second amendment" thing and remember what the second word there suggests about the Holy Inviolable Constitution.

Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. Separate most of the people from the guns for an improvement. Not a cure-all. An improvement. What the hell is so fucking important about the right to own deadly weapons anyway? Get over it. Grow out of it. Do you really want to cling on to the frontier days forever? The frontier days are over. Move on.

Also, this is bloody awful.

.
posted by Decani at 11:19 AM on January 8, 2011 [19 favorites]

CNN is saying 12 shot, 6 dead.
posted by foggy out there now at 11:19 AM on January 8, 2011

FFF's link:We spoke to an eyewitness, Steven Rayle, who was on the scene at the time of the shooting and helped to hold the suspect down while waiting for police. Here's what he said:

The event was very informal: Gifford had set up a table outside the Safeway and about 20-30 people were gathered to talk to her. The gunman, who may have come from inside the Safeway, walked up and shot Gifford in the head first. According to Rayle, who is a former ER doctor, Gifford was able to move her hands after being shot.

After shooting Gifford, the gunman opened fire indiscriminately for a few seconds, firing 20-30 rounds and hitting a number of people, including a kid no older than 10 years old. Rayle hid behind a concrete pole and pretended to be dead. When the gunman apparently ran out of ammunition he attempted to flee, but a member of Gifford's staff tackled him. Rayle helped hold the gunman down while waiting for the sheriff to arrive, about 15-to-20 minutes later. The EMS came about 30 minutes later. Rayle said he was "stunned" by how long it took medical help to arrive.

The gunman was young, mid-to-late 20s, white, clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing and said nothing during the shooting or while being held down, although he struggled at first. He didn't look like a businessman, but more of a "fringe character," Rayle said. The sheriff's department arrived, arrested the gunman and cordoned off the parking lot.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:19 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

this is tragic
posted by clavdivs at 11:20 AM on January 8, 2011

The gunman was young, mid-to-late 20s, white, clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing and said nothing during the shooting or while being held down, although he struggled at first. He didn't look like a businessman, but more of a "fringe character,"
posted by empath at 11:20 AM on January 8, 2011

Gawker has a report from a former ER doctor here. She was deliberately targeted. She may never have been able to survive that point-blank shot, but if the report is accurate, it took 30-50 minutes for EMS to arrive. Some of the other people who died may have been saved if they had arrived earlier. (Again, this is a single report, and the witness' time estimates haven't been confirmed by anyone else).
posted by maudlin at 11:21 AM on January 8, 2011

MSNBC is saying 7 dead total. I'm turning off the TV and going for a walk.
posted by foggy out there now at 11:22 AM on January 8, 2011

According to the eyewitness report that five fresh fish linked to, "indiscriminate" refers to the shootings after Gifford:

After shooting Gifford, the gunman opened fire indiscriminately for a few seconds, firing 20-30 rounds and hitting a number of people, including a kid no older than 10 years old.

posted by Flunkie at 11:22 AM on January 8, 2011

RT @mattyglesias: Fun campaign event: "Help remove Gabrille Giffords
from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly" http://yfrog.com/h5p7wp

Apropos of nothing, the SarahPAC website is offline.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:22 AM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

According to the Gawker report, it took half an hour for EMS to arrive. I'm really hoping that's just the unreliable memory of someone in a terrifying situation and not reality.
posted by sugarfish at 11:22 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

thank you all for your responses to my blue dog query. And links. Myself & hubby kairab are glued to the news, utterly & totally horrified at this. He turned to me and said....."maybe this is what it takes...." what an awful thought to have.
posted by Wilder at 11:23 AM on January 8, 2011

sources with the u.s. capitol police say there were no known threats against rep. giffords other than the one by sarah palin which was widely distrituted on fox news
posted by kitchenrat at 11:23 AM on January 8, 2011 [15 favorites]

You guys have really got to get over that whole "second amendment" thing and remember what the second word there suggests about the Holy Inviolable Constitution.

Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. Separate most of the people from the guns for an improvement. Not a cure-all. An improvement. What the hell is so fucking important about the right to own deadly weapons anyway? Get over it. Grow out of it. Do you really want to cling on to the frontier days forever? The frontier days are over. Move on.

Do I have to go drag out the NRA's stats about the number of crimes committed with legal, registered firearms as compared to the number of crimes committed with illegal, unregistered firearms?

On preview: 30-50 minutes for EMS response? THIRTY TO FIFTY GODDAMN MINUTES? Seriously?
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:24 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Could it really have taken so long for LEOs and EMTs to arrive? How is that possible?
posted by rtha at 11:24 AM on January 8, 2011

It's certainly a horrible thing anytime someone loses their hold on reality and humanity enough to believe that the only solution is to kill another person. My thoughts are with the families of those who have been impacted, including those of the suspected shooter - no one should have to deal with this.

That being said: combined with the exploding packages on the east coast, and stories from the last year of candidates for United States Senate threatening to "pursue Second Amendment Remedies" if they're not elected and random acts that would be called terrorism if they didn't involve Americans committing the acts on their own soil ( flying a small plane into an IRS building, for example , or shooting up the Holocaust Museum ), I'm wondering when the media narrative will tick over from "crazed lone actor" or "embittered local man" to pointing out how they got that way.

Sadly, I don't think it'll get much traction beyond the initial shock wave: our collective memory lasts for about three news cycles, it seems.
posted by HannoverFist at 11:25 AM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

limeonaire: I live in Chicago so the local network affiliates are a bit beefier than most. But yeah, still haven't hooked the tuner up. we also have better baseball teams than st louis ;)
posted by jtron at 11:25 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

her husband is an astronaut
Jesus, such an accomplished family.

As has been mentioned earlier, this is nearly unprecedented in American history.

By unprecedented I guess you mean because she was a US Rep.? Because I'm old enough to recall the 60s and the deaths of a Dem president and a few years later, within the space of two months, a world-renowned civil rights activist and a Dem Senator/ presidential candidate.

I've been fearing we were going to have that kind of violence return given the insane hysterics of a certain portion of America. I see people on the Net already talking about how certain media and political figures better tone down their rhetoric and stricter gun control blah-blah-blah. And all I can think is - there'll be lip service to all of the above and then that same portion of people will go back to batshit as usual.
posted by NorthernLite at 11:25 AM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

The SarahPAC is up and down. How odd. Would it be a place to look when a politician and their supporters suffer violence? See for yourself.
posted by jsavimbi at 11:25 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

The EMS came about 30 minutes later. Rayle said he was "stunned" by how long it took medical help to arrive.

Well, Arizonans have to give something up for their low taxes.
posted by jayder at 11:25 AM on January 8, 2011 [36 favorites]

A comment (since removed?) on the NPR article:

Robert Morgan (1776Patroit) wrote: If she voted for ObamaCare, then she has just paid the price for treason. Regardless, I hope she recovers because I sure her family loves her.

Gee, I wonder what might have motivated the gunman? Surely not Teabaggery!
posted by orthogonality at 11:26 AM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

MSNBC is now reporting that Gifforrds and 6 others have actually been killed. This is just from the tv.
posted by lampshade at 11:26 AM on January 8, 2011

Here's a copy of Sarah Palin's assassination map. In case, you know, it's needed as evidence for conspiracy.

Here's Rep. Giffords' last tweet

My 1st Congress on Your Corner starts now. Please stop by to let me know what is on your mind or tweet me later.

posted by Nelson at 11:26 AM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

Assuming that this was a right wing assassination, then I think congressional hearings are warranted about violent rhetoric from right wing politicians and news media, at a minimum...
posted by empath at 11:26 AM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

I'm doubting the 50 part of the 30-50 minutes right now: the sentence from the Gawker report was ambiguous. I cannot imagine 50 minutes to respond in any American city.

It might have felt as high as 30 minutes to the witness, who also said the sheriffs took 15-20 minutes to arrive. That is also hard to believe: a mass shooting at a grocery store inside the city, and it took that long? I'm waiting to hear from other sources.

This is just horrible. Just fucking horrible.
posted by maudlin at 11:27 AM on January 8, 2011

that Gawker story also said Rayle helped hold down the gunman, is a former ER doctor and reported it took EMS 30 minutes to arrive.
WTF? wouldn't you go to the injured first?????
posted by Wilder at 11:27 AM on January 8, 2011

"The gunman was young, mid-to-late 20s, white, clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing"

Pretty much what I expected.
posted by aerotive at 11:28 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

You guys have really got to get over that whole "second amendment" thing...

Not gonna happen. That's such a third-rail of US politics that there's no way that anyone could build enough support for repealing it.
posted by octothorpe at 11:28 AM on January 8, 2011

How fucked up is it that the Golden Voice guy's picture/story is about 3x the size of this news story on the front page of CNN.com? *throws up hands*
posted by mynameisluka at 11:28 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly

Jesse Kelly is the radical Tea Party candidate she ran against in 2010.
posted by stbalbach at 11:29 AM on January 8, 2011

Aaaaand here's the now-offline SarahPAC webpage screencapped just a couple minutes before it went offline
posted by jtron at 11:29 AM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

As has been mentioned earlier, this is nearly unprecedented in American history.

By unprecedented I guess you mean because she was a US Rep.?

Yes, that was what I meant. Not that other political figures have been assassinated, but that a representative was killed. In fact, it's even more shocking, as she was killed in her home district giving a speech to constituents and not in the remote jungle of Guyana. My intent in saying that this event is monumental was not to compare today to times past - rather I just strongly think that today will be seen as a significant day in the history of our country.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:29 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

AZ journalist David Fitzsimmons on the phone with CNN just called this "inevitable" in Arizona because of how far gone "the Right" has become.
posted by aaronetc at 11:30 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Now they are reporting that she is alive in critical condition. I am just gong to wait till the print comes out cause nobody really knows.
posted by lampshade at 11:30 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

wouldn't you go to the injured first?

An ounce of prevention, etc..
posted by empath at 11:30 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

.

Now they're reporting that she passed away.
posted by spinifex23 at 11:31 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Cue FOX News "lone gunman" theroy in 3... 2...

At least this time the guy survived to tell his motives. If he was inspired by Beck, Rush, FOX et al, it will be nice to hear him alive to say so. Much more difficult for his accomplices in the media to spin out of it that way.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:31 AM on January 8, 2011

MSNBC now reporting that Giffords is alive and in very critical condition.

This is insane.
posted by HostBryan at 11:31 AM on January 8, 2011

You guys have really got to get over that whole "second amendment" thing...

Too right. And put an end to language like "Don't retreat, reload"
posted by marvin at 11:32 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Could it really have taken so long for LEOs and EMTs to arrive? How is that possible?

It's Arizona. Presumably the police were doing more important things, like demanding of brown people "your papers, bitte".

As far as the EMS, this a a state that's just allowed two people to die (and more to come) because it stopped funding Medicaid organ transplants.

Actions have consequences. Elections have consequences. Voters get what they pay for. Promote a philosophy of "me first" and "government is bad", and prioritizing low taxes and making life miserable for immigrants, and unsurprisingly, the quality of government services like police and EMS response declines.
posted by orthogonality at 11:33 AM on January 8, 2011 [108 favorites]

empath, I agree. First rule of ATLS is to ensure your safety as a responder but I'm sure there were plenty of people willing to sit on the shooter and free up a former ER doctor to give assistance.

sorry just the stupid questions that occur to you while contemplating a disaster...
posted by Wilder at 11:35 AM on January 8, 2011

NPR has just changed to "There are conflicting reports about whether she was killed."
posted by Flunkie at 11:35 AM on January 8, 2011

T.D Strange> where is that screen cap from?
posted by mr.marx at 11:36 AM on January 8, 2011

CNN also backtracking.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:36 AM on January 8, 2011

wait so in recent memory we have mail bombs, museum shootings, and out right assassinations.
posted by The Whelk at 11:37 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

...says "In surgery" now.
posted by The Whelk at 11:37 AM on January 8, 2011

Actions have consequences. Elections have consequences. Voters get what they pay for. Promote a philosophy of "me first" and "government is bad", and prioritizing low taxes and making life miserable for immigrants, and unsurprisingly, the quality of government services like police and EMS response declines.

This, if I could favorite it 100 times I would.
posted by blucevalo at 11:38 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reuters says still alive.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:38 AM on January 8, 2011

I hope she survives. I hope she survives and is okay. This is horrifying.
posted by Medieval Maven at 11:38 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

She is apparently not dead. She is in surgery.

This is terrifying and horrible.
posted by bibliogrrl at 11:39 AM on January 8, 2011

And put an end to language like "Don't retreat, reload"

Amen to that. This is what a "second amendment solution" looks like, goddammit.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:39 AM on January 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

FLASH: Congresswoman Giffords still alive, in surgery, nine other patients brought in from shooting: hospital spokeswoman
http://twitter.com/Reuters/status/23824996635770880
posted by jng at 11:39 AM on January 8, 2011

"Palin Puts Gun Sights On “Target” Map; Urges We “Reload”.

Gifford was one of the targeted Representatives.
posted by orthogonality at 11:40 AM on January 8, 2011 [14 favorites]

I am glad that I am not at work today. Every time that there is a well publicized shooting, at least one of my many conservative co-workers comments that now "they'll come for our guns."

If I heard this, I would throw up on someone's shoes right now,
posted by Danf at 11:40 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

.
and a (dot) for what this says about humanity
posted by angrycat at 11:40 AM on January 8, 2011

Could it really have taken so long for LEOs and EMTs to arrive? How is that possible?

I would wager that EMTs were not allowed on the scene until the police were sure that they had secured it and that no other attacks were forthcoming. That can take a frustratingly long time.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 11:40 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's sad to think that our Congressional representatives may start needing bodyguards to deal with their constituents. Wasn't this the kind of thing people were afraid of with some of the local meetings with constituents over health care reform last year?

If I believed in a higher power, I'd pray for Giffords, and for my country.

On preview: yes to the "slow EMS response is a consequence of tax cuts". But we have the best health care in the world, donchaknow?
posted by immlass at 11:40 AM on January 8, 2011

T.D Strange> where is that screen cap from?

The website of her tea party challenger Jesse Kelly.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:41 AM on January 8, 2011

Both CNN and MSNBC saying "conflicting reports." Hospital spokeswoman says she is in surgery.
posted by fixedgear at 11:41 AM on January 8, 2011

I would wager that EMTs were not allowed on the scene until the police were sure that they had secured it and that no other attacks were forthcoming. That can take a frustratingly long time.

Yeah, I wouldn't be too fast to condemn EMTs or anyone until more information comes out.
posted by Bookhouse at 11:42 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sorry if this is off-topic, but don't news media do retractions anymore? CNN went from "CNN has confirmed" to "conflicting reports" as if they had never reported Giffords' supposed death. Everyone makes mistakes, but what's "confirmation" worth if you can just take it back?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:42 AM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

Fox News just spent five solid minutes of airtime explaining how conservative Giffords is.
posted by downing street memo at 11:43 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Rumor has it her husband is currently in space?
posted by josher71 at 11:43 AM on January 8, 2011

Jesus, this is terrifying and infuriating. I can't think straight.

Yeah, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
posted by brundlefly at 11:43 AM on January 8, 2011

The EMS came about 30 minutes later. Rayle said he was "stunned" by how long it took medical help to arrive.

Well, Arizonans have to give something up for their low taxes.

Arizona is home to Rural/Metro, a for-profit fire and EMS provider. Their history page claims they were started to provide fire protection in an Arizona community that lacked municipal emergency services. I couldn't find a photo that showed the ambulances at this tragedy but this wouldn't be the first time that Rural/Metro has stirred up controversy over response times.
posted by tommasz at 11:44 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Here's a link to Representative Giffords on Open Congress, which lists her voting record and short bio. It lists her as voting with Democrats 100% of the time and abstaining 0 times. I like congresscritters that don't abstain.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:44 AM on January 8, 2011 [19 favorites]

Skip to around 2:10 in this MSNBC interview for your chilling quote of the day.
posted by Benjy at 11:44 AM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

It's Arizona. Presumably the police were doing more important things, like demanding of brown people "your papers, bitte".

Can this sort of rhetoric be toned down a bit?

I'm not gonna apologize for anyone here, but the Safeway Giffords was set up at isn't exactly in the middle of a city—it's way out in the suburbs, at least a couple miles outside of city limits. Things in Tucson are very spread out, especially in that part of town, and yeah in my experience it often takes a while to get emergency services.

Anyway, I've voted for Giffords in the past (am in CA now though) and am sad to see politics come to this at all, let alone so close to home. Hoping for the best for Giffords and all who were injured.

For those who've already died:
.
posted by carsonb at 11:44 AM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Apparently her husband's twin brother is in space right now. The husband is scheduled to GO to space but is not currently IN space.
posted by Medieval Maven at 11:44 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can we call this an assassination? That's the term we use when it happens in other countries.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:45 AM on January 8, 2011 [27 favorites]

Assuming that this was a right wing assassination, then I think congressional hearings are warranted about violent rhetoric from right wing politicians and news media, at a minimum...

Whoa. Slow down there. The violent language from Republican politicians and pundits both is vile, and every one of them needs to come out and publicly repudiate it. But congressional hearings aimed at suppressing political speech are the last thing America needs right now.
posted by EarBucket at 11:45 AM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

Or, come to think of it, ever.
posted by EarBucket at 11:46 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. Separate most of the people from the guns for an improvement. Not a cure-all. An improvement.

Like I've said before, feel free to explain how this can be done in America without triggering something that'd make the War On Drugs look like triple-A ball. Practically speaking, doing something about the core causes of violence and ignorance is both easier and more effective than banning objects we have a Constitutional right to possess, the vast majority of which don't hurt anybody. I think it's pretty damned obvious where this sort of violence and unrest is coming from, and it's not any gun club I've ever been to...

As for the story: I'm shocked this happened, but not exactly surprised to hear that it happened in Arizona. They seem to have channeled all the crazy of the Southwest into one big angry mess over the last few years.
posted by vorfeed at 11:46 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Conflicting reports. This is March 30, 1981 all over again.

I hope she makes it. I hope she makes it, retains function and goes back to Congress. Then leads a commission on the impact of campaign rhetoric and the responsibility of candidates to encourage civility.
posted by grabbingsand at 11:46 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ugh. This is what it comes down to. I have no words for how sad and angry this makes me.

I'm guessing that because it was a Democrat, which is to say someone who is not considered human by the owners of our national media, this will be gone from the news within days.

Congress will not give a shit. There will be no hearings, no condemnations of the hate speech which leads to stuff like this, (thankfully) no random bombing of some country with brown people in it in response to this. Hell, I bet the word "terrorism" never even comes up (which is fine, but you know if it was a Republican that's all that would be on every screen, front page and radio bulletin).

We totally give a free pass to the scariest threats to our freedom in this country, which is ultra-conservative white dudes. You could have ten bombs go off simultaneously in this country and when it was discovered it was a Christian "militia" that did it, that would be the end of the story. I don't know what, if anything, can be done.
posted by maxwelton at 11:46 AM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

Rumor has it her husband is currently in space?

Her BIL is also an astronaut, he is in space.
posted by fixedgear at 11:47 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Can we call this an assassination? That's the term we use when it happens in other countries.

Sure, if she dies. Regardless of motive this is an assassination.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:47 AM on January 8, 2011

MSNBC now reporting that Giffords is alive and in very critical condition.

This is insane.

Insane, but perhaps typical of how media works in general, and right now. There's a local TV station there, KOLD-TV, that's got a live stream with continuous coverage.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:48 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Calling for assassination isn't political speech, and a lot of these people have done it time and again.
posted by empath at 11:48 AM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

It might help to remind the folks in charge that 'terrorist' is a description of behavior, not a racial/religious category. Utterly disgusting.
posted by cmyk at 11:48 AM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

But congressional hearings aimed at suppressing political speech are the last thing America needs right now.

And congressional hearings needn't be about suppressing anything, just naming and shaming people.
posted by empath at 11:49 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

If she dies, she becomes a martyr, and we might see a backlash against right wing extremism. If she survives, I guarantee that NOTHING WILL HAPPEN to stop this bullshit.

That said, she does not deserve to die. I hope she pulls through.
posted by SansPoint at 11:50 AM on January 8, 2011

She is apparently not dead. She is in surgery.
This is terrifying and horrible.

Thinking of a crude cart and an English Accent of "I'm not dead" is horrible.

The news media not getting things right is hardly terrifying.
posted by rough ashlar at 11:50 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, according to my mother's report of local news, Giffords was air-lifted from the Safeway to the only Trauma-1 hospital in Tucson, UMC. That could be another explanation for the time it took to arrive.
posted by carsonb at 11:51 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Apparently her husband's twin brother is in space right now. The husband is scheduled to GO to space but is not currently IN space.

I don't mean this facetiously as this is not a time for humour, but I must say that that is a sentence I never expected to read.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:51 AM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

Rumor has it her husband is currently in space?

Her BIL is also an astronaut, he is in space.

Her husband is Mark Kelly, a NASA astronaut and pilot who is scheduled to command the last Shuttle flight later this spring. Her BIL, and Mark's twin brother, is Scott Kelly, currently commander of the ISS.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:51 AM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

This is a terrible tragedy, for the United States and for the whole world. I'm sure the thoughts of people all over the world, in my own country and many others, are with Ms. Giffords and her family.
posted by malusmoriendumest at 11:52 AM on January 8, 2011

If she dies, she becomes a martyr, and we might see a backlash against right wing extremism. If she survives, I guarantee that NOTHING WILL HAPPEN to stop this bullshit.

Only if we are silent.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:53 AM on January 8, 2011 [23 favorites]

Skip to around 2:10 in this MSNBC interview for your chilling quote of the day.

And, of course, when Giffords says what she says in that clip about the consequences of violent rhetoric, Charlie Cook jumps in and says, "Well, in fairness, campaign rhetoric and war rhetoric have been interchangeable for years. So, is there a line here?"
posted by blucevalo at 11:53 AM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

Skip to around 2:10 in this MSNBC interview for your chilling quote of the day.

Wow, we're going to see that replayed often in the coming days.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:54 AM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah, the Charlie Cook reply made my stomach turn. I hope it does the same to him, now.
posted by AwkwardPause at 11:55 AM on January 8, 2011

.
posted by DreamerFi at 11:56 AM on January 8, 2011

Hospital spokeswoman confirming on CNN that Giffords is "in surgery."
posted by blucevalo at 11:56 AM on January 8, 2011

We don't even know if the woman is alive or dead, and some of you have already tried and convicted the gunman and the entire American Right wing for assassinating her.

Good point. This may have simply been a case of self-defense.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:56 AM on January 8, 2011 [122 favorites]

I'm at work right now about 2 miles from that Safeway. It's apx. 8 miles from there to UMC. Work is very quiet and customers, for the most part, seem subdued. I volunteer at UMC, it's a good hospital. It's the only level 1 trama center until phx, I believe.

Just a few months ago a man was shot point-blank in the head at a chick-fil-a across the street. This is not a bad part of town. The Safeway is in an even nicer part of town. It wasn't like she was "across the tracks".
posted by lizjohn at 11:57 AM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

This is very, very upsetting. My thoughts and prayers go to these people and their families.
posted by TooFewShoes at 11:57 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Watching CNN right now. I guess Boenner has made the correct sort of political statement. She is alive and in surgery according to CNN. One child is among the wounded, all injured are in critical or serious condition.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:57 AM on January 8, 2011

There sure are a lot of amateur police officers, lawyers, juries, and judges in here.
posted by proj at 11:57 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

we might see a backlash against right wing extremism.

Don't forget that in the US of A you have the Right wing and a lesser Right wing when you compare to other nations.

I'd much rather see the extremists out in the open talking as much as possible about their plans so that its FAR easier for them to be spotted by the security parts of the security State.
posted by rough ashlar at 11:57 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

CNN just said she's alive and in surgery. And apparently one of the wounded is a child.
posted by homunculus at 11:57 AM on January 8, 2011

.
posted by spitefulcrow at 11:57 AM on January 8, 2011

And no, not the entire right wing:

Rush Limbaugh
Glenn Beck
Sharron Angle
Sarah Palin
Michelle Bachmann
posted by empath at 11:58 AM on January 8, 2011

Charlie Cook apparently espouses that nouveau investigative journo stereotype of playing devil's advocate regardless of the facts. What an asshat, but it's been happening for years now, so I guess it's ok for Charlie to do it as well.
posted by jsavimbi at 11:58 AM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Expect much crying and complaints along the line of "We were only calling for metaphorical gun violence while encouraging psople to stalk our opponents with the real thing! Wah wah wah!"
posted by Artw at 11:58 AM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

KOLD is reporting that the parking lot is cordoned off and you should find another place to shop if you usually go to that store.
posted by boo_radley at 11:59 AM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Right below the big headline on the NYT site there is a pull quote from a typical carrying-water-for-the-right both-sides-do-it "think" piece:

House Democrats Unleash Rapid Attacks
By CARL HULSE 1:07 PM ET

Being in the minority allows Democrats to assault Republicans with the same kind of attacks that Republicans so effectively used against them.

Not, as it turns out, the very same kind, after all.
posted by enn at 11:59 AM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

My wife asks a question: When can a spokesperson for a hospital give statements about the status of a patient? Do they have to get a release? Is there a public-interest exception to medical privacy?
posted by Bookhouse at 11:59 AM on January 8, 2011

you should find another place to shop if you usually go to that store.

That is top quality journalism, there.
posted by empath at 12:00 PM on January 8, 2011 [17 favorites]

Thank you to Squeak Attack, stbalbach and others for providing some background info about Giffords and Arizona state and politics.
posted by iamkimiam at 12:00 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Times like these (and the public response to them) never fail to bring the end Robert Altman's Nashville, after (SPOILER) singer Barbara Jean is killed at a political rally.

Songs for our times.

Also, someone really needs to do something about the ad at the bottom of this thread.
posted by hermitosis at 12:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

>>> There sure are a lot of amateur police officers, lawyers, juries, and judges in here.

Are you new here? No, you've been around since '06. Speculation might be ultimately counterproductive, but sitting and stewing and ignoring the 800-pound rhetorical gorilla is just as fruitless.
posted by grabbingsand at 12:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

While we don't know about the shooter...we know about the manufactured political climate in Arizona. If I were to pour gasoline all over your house and not light a match am I responsible after someone does light one?

The American media is in over their heads. To be fair, they are just corporate mouthpieces.
posted by zerobyproxy at 12:02 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

(Sorry, I meant to say "bring to mind," not just "bring.")
posted by hermitosis at 12:02 PM on January 8, 2011

I hope that this will lead to soul-searching and real change from the Republicans who have been inciting this kind of violence for the last 2–3 years. But I fear that we will instead only see empty "condemnations" with no acknowledgment of responsibility by those who are so responsible for this.
posted by grouse at 12:02 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, the Charlie Cook reply made my stomach turn. I hope it does the same to him, now.

Was that Charlie Cook? I thought it was Chuck Todd, which made my stomach roil even harder... I used to have a little crush on him, but that whole "in fairness" bit was the last nail in that coffin.
posted by palomar at 12:03 PM on January 8, 2011

Conflicting reports. This is March 30, 1981 all over again.

That's exactly what I thought of as well. I was 12, and I recall watching dinner in front of the television (which NEVER happened) and hearing reports of deaths that were later retracted.

I hope she makes it. I hope she makes it, retains function and goes back to Congress. Then leads a commission on the impact of campaign rhetoric and the responsibility of candidates to encourage civility.

QFT. I would like to think that this wasn't politically related, but I don't have a lot of faith in that possibility.
posted by booksherpa at 12:04 PM on January 8, 2011

The monster at the end of this thread.
posted by hermitosis at 12:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

Meanwhile, on right wing websites: Breaking: Did a Radical Daily Kos Reader try to Assassinate Rep. Giffords?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Here's a link to Representative Giffords on Open Congress, which lists her voting record and short bio. It lists her as voting with Democrats 100% of the time and abstaining 0 times. I like congresscritters that don't abstain.

That's from the 112th congress. There have been like eight votes.
posted by xorry at 12:06 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Always a class act, Glenn Reynolds is saying that the Gifford shooting is exactly what Democrats wanted, an Oklahoma City moment to help Obama to get his poll numbers up.

And Reynolds accusing others of using the Gifford shooting to score political points.
posted by jayder at 12:07 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

You are right -- Chuck Todd. My apologies.
posted by AwkwardPause at 12:08 PM on January 8, 2011

Meanwhile, on right wing websites: Breaking: Did a Radical Daily Kos Reader try to Assassinate Rep. Giffords?

Oh, man...

Update: BoyBlue has made several comments on DailyKos today, including that he was "gonna go" to the rally today. This means that it is unlikely that he shot Giffords. This does not mean that he was not involved, however.

I'd laugh if I weren't so pissed off.
posted by brundlefly at 12:09 PM on January 8, 2011

Local Arizona live newsfeed.
posted by crunchland at 12:09 PM on January 8, 2011

Sarah Palin:

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.

posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:09 PM on January 8, 2011

Reynolds appears to be editing his post.

It started as

And judging from the comments to this post, people are already trying to score political points. Well, they kind of telegraphed this strategy, didn’t they?

Now it says:

And judging from the comments to this post, people are already trying to score political points. Well, they kind of telegraphed this strategy, didn’t they? Remember Bloomberg making a fool of himself by blaming the Times Square bombing on the Tea Party? How about waiting until we actually know something, this time.
posted by jayder at 12:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

And I'm certainly not a proponent of the man, buuuut~ I recall that Boehner's been consistent in saying that violent rhetoric is a bad and divisive thing.
posted by boo_radley at 12:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

John Boehner can bite me with his feigned "horror."
posted by blucevalo at 12:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

The 24 hour news cycle is killing our country. It gives airtime and credence to too many nutjobs of every persuasion.
posted by DaddyNewt at 12:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

We don't even know if the woman is alive or dead, and some of you have already tried and convicted the gunman and the entire American Right wing for assassinating her.

That's right! Also: We can't say anything about Iraq until we find out about those WMDs!

And besides, the Oscar Grant ~~murder~~ manslaughter case has shown us that shooting unarmed people in front of dozens of witnesses might always be a case of terrible misunderstanding.

I'm sure dude was reaching to offer her a stick of gum and mixed it up with his guns (which he had to keep on himself at all times, unless Obama would be sending his Secret Muslims to steal from his house).
posted by yeloson at 12:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

That target image is still on Palin's servers, though it's been removed from the site's front page.

Guess they'll put it back in a couple of days when this blows over.

(yes, grar, because when your political organization uses the metaphor of SHOOTING PEOPLE WITH GUNS to explain to your followers who your political opponents are, that's just fucking asking for one of your more unhinged followers to take it literally)
posted by cmyk at 12:12 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona.

Not good enough.
posted by empath at 12:12 PM on January 8, 2011 [20 favorites]

Dr. Rayle said he performed CPR on some of the victims.
posted by warbaby at 12:12 PM on January 8, 2011

Something worse. With headlines like these, how can anyone be surprised? This is the most horrible thing I can think of, really, since 9/11. And in some ways, it's even more insidious because most likely, the person who committed this act was an American citizen. I was hoping 2011 was going to maybe give a break - people might ease up a little. No such luck.
posted by PuppyCat at 12:13 PM on January 8, 2011

As far as I can tell, the target map is still online at "Take Back the 20", although the site is under heavy load.

And so it should be IMO: either you think this kind of rhetoric and imagery is okay, or you don't. Removing it after the fact just incriminates yourself.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:14 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

My sincere ~~condolences~~ apologies are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona.

FTFY.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sarah Palin: "On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice."

Bullshit.
posted by blucevalo at 12:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [27 favorites]

hermitosis and anyone else who's seeing an inappropriate ad on the page:
grab the URL that the ad points to, and use the contact form (bottom right of the page) to send it to the mods, and they can block that ad.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:16 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, do you typically give your condolences to someone's family when they are still alive?
posted by empath at 12:17 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

This make me ill. I was born in AZ. I returned to AZ for school. From Ev Mecham to Sheriff Joe and Pam Brewer to SB1070 it has been an embarrassment having to list AZ as my state of birth. And now this.

As I switched through channels looking for more information I stopped on FoxNews and I'm happy to see they've pre-empt a Glenn Beck for live coverage that for now, are covering the facts and not making this political yet and being very measured. Shep Smith asking the spokesperson at the hospital if there's something people can do like give blood for those that were injured.

I didn't know the Rep. Giffords but this is hitting me harder that I've thought. We're not supposed to shoot our representatives. Palin's gunshot map doesn't help matters. This whole environment in this country scares the fuck out of me.
posted by birdherder at 12:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Also, do you typically give your condolences to someone's family when they are still alive?

According to precedent and classical etiquette, it is often considered appropriate to express empathy and sorrow when a tragic event occurs, whether or not the outcome of that event is ultimately fatal.
posted by malusmoriendumest at 12:19 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Condolences are an expression of sympathy to someone who has experienced grief arising from death, deep mental anguish, or misfortune."
posted by crunchland at 12:19 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, do you typically give your condolences to someone's family when they are still alive?

In fairness, numerous news media were reporting that she was "confirmed dead", so this seems like a reasonable thing to do.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:19 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

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.

...but we're not gonna do anything like go out onna limb an' actually condemn violence in the political arena also, you betcha.
posted by scody at 12:19 PM on January 8, 2011 [40 favorites]

furiousxgeorge writes "Rayle helped hold the gunman down while waiting for the sheriff to arrive, about 15-to-20 minutes later. The EMS came about 30 minutes later. Rayle said he was 'stunned' by how long it took medical help to arrive."

Someone else mentioned that Tuscon is spread out. Do they not have fire and ambulance station spread out as well? Around here medical first response is in less than 7 minutes (well the goal is less than 7 minutes, I'm not sure the actual response rate) because fire crews have medical training and fire stations are spread around to minimize travel time. If 50 minutes turns out to be accurate (or even 40 minutes) that's just unbelievable.
posted by Mitheral at 12:20 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

This is the most horrible thing I can think of, really, since 9/11.

I don't know about that. We went into one war that had no legitimate cause, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. We've got the Patriot Act, the end of warrants and privacy laws, no habeas corpus, unlimited detention, extraordinary rendition and violations of the Geneva conventions, firebombings at mosques, etc.

And if we're talking about JUST crazed shooters, there was the Holocaust museum shooter and the guy who was cruising over the Bay Bridge to go shoot up non-profit organizations, to name two political shooters right off the bat.

Both in terms of threats to democracy and general terrorism, this is horrible, but it's not been all underwear bombers and Aqua Teen Hunger Force night light scares since 9/11.
posted by yeloson at 12:22 PM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

The KOLD website has a headline on their front page as well --apparently the Tucson city council is being forced to rescind a city gun ban in parks in response to a law passed by Republicans in the Arizona legislature.
posted by gimonca at 12:23 PM on January 8, 2011

Andrew Sullivan is saying that she was pronounced dead at 3:23 eastern
posted by empath at 12:24 PM on January 8, 2011

blucevalo writes "Sarah Palin: 'On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.'

"Bullshit."

They probably do. The powers of cognitive dissonance are probably strong with Sarah Palin.
posted by Mitheral at 12:25 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

Are you sure this happened in Arizona? Because it says the shooter was tackled, not gunned down by heroic citizens carrying their legally concealed firearms.
posted by swift at 12:25 PM on January 8, 2011 [59 favorites]

Such a wise quote from Marty Kaplan's blog post about this:

I'm not saying that putting a bullseye on Arizona Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' congressional race - as Sarah Palin did - was an explicit or intentional invitation to violence. Nor am I saying that the "Get on Target for Victory" events held by the guy Giffords beat - "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly" - was the reason her assassin went after her. This tragedy is still unfolding, and the questions of motive and incitement will be argued about for a long time to come.

But I am saying that the "lock and load"/"take up your arms" rhetoric of American politics isn't just an overheated metaphor.

If you're worried that violent video games may make kids prone to bad behavior; if you think that mysogenic and homophobic rap lyrics are dangerous to society; if you believe that a nipple in a Superbowl halftime show is a threat to our moral fabric - then surely you should also fear that the way public and media figures have framed political participation as a shooting gallery imagery is just as potentially lethal.
posted by jeanmari at 12:26 PM on January 8, 2011 [83 favorites]

NYPost talks to Giffords' Dad. "'Entire Tea Party' her enemy."
posted by hermitosis at 12:26 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Okay... last one out of the crumbling republic.... please turn out the lights.

.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 12:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

The NRA response is going to be that if everyone in her entourage and every shopper in the store was carrying concealed weapons they could have killed the shooter after the fact instead of going through the messy and expensive process of arresting him and bringing him to trial.
posted by thecjm at 12:28 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

I am a Tucson native and am home for the holidays. I was watching Idiocracy on Comedy Central when my dad told me to change the channel. How appropriate.

I've met Gabby twice. The first time was during the Democratic primary (2006?) at a friend of a friend's house who was hosting a meet the candidates type thing. She was a very intelligent, sweet person. I didn't vote for her in the primary because she was too far to the right for me, but when she got won the primary I sent her $20 to help defeat the troglodyte the Republicans selected. I have supported her every election since. This is just unbelievable.

I would also like to point out that this was not a political rally. She and her staff set up a table in front of the grocery store to help address constituent issues. Social security, VA benefits, etc. She was doing the most important job a congressperson has and some asshole shot her for it.

I live in another country now. My parents were worried about political violence where I live. Today their Safeway was more dangerous.
posted by nestor_makhno at 12:28 PM on January 8, 2011 [87 favorites]

I believe Aaron Sorkin just said about everything that needs to be said about Palin and her subhuman kind, among whom I am fairly certain we'll learn this shitstain assassin counted himself, with specific (dis)respect to her Potemkin Village version of "hunting" on her reality TV show:

Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals. I don't enjoy the fact that they're dead and I certainly don't want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn't do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.

I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don't watch snuff films and you make them. You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I've tried and tried and for the life of me, I can't make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I'm able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.

These are people who like to have blood on their hands. Politics is just their excuse.
posted by spitbull at 12:28 PM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

the Safeway Giffords was set up at isn't exactly in the middle of a city—it's way out in the suburbs

I'm going to disagree that Ina and Oracle are out in the suburbs. Ina/Oracle is one of the main intersections of the very populous northwest side. Both Ina and Oracle are huge arterials. The intersection is not too far from Northwest Hospital.

Giffords was air-lifted from the Safeway to the only Trauma-1 hospital in Tucson, UMC
Yes, another huge problem for Tucson is that it only has one Trauma-1 hospital. It's hard to imagine a whole half a state of car accidents and other emergencies being covered by one hospital but there you go.
posted by Squeak Attack at 12:29 PM on January 8, 2011

It astounds me that the same people who were inciting violence now claim that the only one to blame is the gunman himself, who acted alone.

As if these events happen in a social/cultural vacuum.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Federal judge among those shot
posted by lukemeister at 12:29 PM on January 8, 2011

Unsafeway.
posted by stbalbach at 12:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Palin was interested in her...

Yep. Congressman Gifford's name was highlighted on the now infamous Sarah PAC poster map -- 'Take Back The 20' -- which included sniper scope graphics focused on the congressional districts and representatives they sought to take aim at.
posted by ericb at 12:30 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

You are right -- Chuck Todd. My apologies.

Mine as well.
posted by blucevalo at 12:31 PM on January 8, 2011

Marty Kaplan is an idiot. None of those examples are from people in with real government power. You know the people who write laws, put people in jail, execute people, start wars, and sometimes start revolutions. Speech in games and rap videos is 100% different than speech from a politician or a political organization hiting that violent response is justified and gun violence is very much part of the real America.

Kanye telling me to take up arms against P-Ditty is different than a popular conservative movement telling me that Democrats are stealing elections, putting in spies, and its justified to fight back.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:32 PM on January 8, 2011

I used to work for a member of congress and would run just these kinds of events. I was surprised at first at the lack of security, not so much as an off duty policeman. The only time the capitol hill police came in to the district was to scare off a local loon who left a number of vaguely threatening phone calls. The members are basically sitting ducks as their schedules are largely public. An organized terrorist group (foreign or domestic) could coordinate to target scores of representatives and senators in their home states. My boss said he thought about it once in awhile, but that being able to talk to constituents without sending them through metal detectors was worth the risk. The House is supposed to be for regular people, he said. I wonder how the current members are feeling right now...
posted by the christopher hundreds at 12:33 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

According to a perfunctory Google Maps search, there is a Sheriff's office 10 minutes from the shooting site. UMC appears to be a 20-minute drive away. Not being familiar with Tuscon, I don't know how accurate these things are - and EMS/Ambulance stations would probably be more informantive, but anyhoo.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:35 PM on January 8, 2011

Grouse,
This violence is what they want. That's the point of the rhetoric.
posted by wuwei at 12:36 PM on January 8, 2011

I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.

Look, this is not a good direction to go. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say it's bad when people get killed in hunting accidents, and it's bad when people get killed in general. The rhetoric of "I'm happy when people who are on the other side [of whatever issue] get killed" is bad, and this is a bad day to endorse it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [45 favorites]

With what we know now, it would be hasty to conclude that this is the result of the American Right Wing's rhetoric and calls for assassination. That said, that's exactly what this will turn out to be.
posted by kafziel at 12:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Lobstermitten -- I assumed he was referring to Dick Cheney shooting his friend in the face, which did not involve any fatalities as the victim was able to apologize for Dick for putting his face in the wrong place or something like that.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:38 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

This is appalling.

I do so wonder what's going to happen. You would think with this, the firebombings, the museum murder, the census worker, that the media will finally have to start admitting to the idea of "right wing terrorism" whether or not they use exactly those words.

I'd like to believe that our speaking out about this would have some effect, as Ironmouth claims - but it's been 30 years and more since anyone not on the right has had the slightest effect in America by "speaking out".

Unfortunately, my theory, preposterous as it is, is that nothing at all will change, except that we'll get even more security. The murderer will be executed or jailed forever, he'll be marked as a lone nutcase. It will be impossible not to discuss the connection between the violent rhetoric on the right and the actual violence for a while, but the obedient media will "present both sides" on the issue, talk about free speech, and then it'll just vanish.

It's really hard not to get all conspiracy theory these days. Remember when people were showing up to Obama's political rallies with unloaded guns and not being detained - because they had a "right" to carry that gun? Perhaps so, but as we know, the current theory is that the police state can immediately detain you without any form of due process or evidence if you are a possible "terrorist".

I deplore that claim - but do I think it would be unreasonable for the authorities to detain someone for a couple of days for questioning if they showed up with a gun to the President's rally - particular one who is constantly receiving death threats, even publicly? Heck, no!

The strange laissez-faire attitude with respect to threats to our elected representatives contrasts very strangely to the paranoia at our borders. It's hard to know what to think.

Anyway, this is dreadful, and let's hope that it marks the beginning of the end of something - rather than the end of the beginning.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:38 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

That said, that's exactly what this will turn out to be.

Worry not, I'll be connecting the dots to Breitbart once we learn the shooter's name.
posted by jsavimbi at 12:39 PM on January 8, 2011

Damn dirty ape, I don't think Kaplan was writing that to you or I (I don't agree with censoring video games or music). He was writing to the people that my parents hang out with who will "tut, tut" with "But HOW can violent rhetoric from Our Boy Beck or Princess Palin create real violence? That's absurd!" But these are the same people who fuss and fret over the examples Kaplan listed. He seems to be pointing out their hypocrisy, not calling for the heads of video game makers.
posted by jeanmari at 12:39 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

I'm going to disagree that Ina and Oracle are out in the suburbs.

This is totally pedantic, but I stand by what I said. Ina/Oracle is no Dove Mountain, but it's not Sam Hughes either. It, like many populous areas of metro Tucson, is pretty far away from the center of town. And like much of Tucson, for as populous as that part of town is, it is very spread out.

Ack, what a dumb derail.
posted by carsonb at 12:39 PM on January 8, 2011

Eh, I'm not going to contribute to a derail with a long defense of hunting, but that Sorkin post is just bullshit.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:40 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

the census worker

Killed himself.
posted by hermitosis at 12:40 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

Mitheral: They probably do. The powers of cognitive dissonance are probably strong with Sarah Palin.

I don't doubt that they have prayed because they're very public -- like the Pharisees -- about making sure everyone in the world knows that they pray. Doesn't make it any less sanctimonious or any less of a bullshit move for her to say that she hopes for peace and justice when she has done more in the last two years than any public figure to foment the opposite.
posted by blucevalo at 12:40 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

It doesn't seem hasty to conclude this to me. Utterly predictable and deplorable. It's long past time for those on the right and in the media to strongly condemn the kind of rhetoric that is pervasive on the right from Sarah Palin's target list, Giffords' oppenent's fundraiser, Sharon Angle's call for "2nd amendment remedies".
posted by leslies at 12:41 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

CNN reports she is out of surgery and is going to survive. I hope that's true
posted by empath at 12:42 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

NBC is reporting that one of the shooting victims is US District Court Judge John Roll.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:42 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Lobstermitten -- I assumed he was referring to Dick Cheney shooting his friend in the face, which did not involve any fatalities

Sure, I know. And I'm pretty sure that Sorkin doesn't actually think it's good when people get killed in hunting accidents either (again, way out on my limb here). I just mean, I think Palin is crummy and her hunting show is gross, but taking the rhetoric up to those overheated levels ("ha ha you got shot") is a bad way to go and not a sentiment I'm excited to hear directed against anybody even in jest today.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

damn dirty ape: so, the violent rhetoric in politics is even worse than those other things, assuming you believe those other things to be a problem? I can't figure out what you're arguing.
posted by ctmf at 12:43 PM on January 8, 2011

Robert Reich is/was reportedly a close friend and attended her wedding. Although he is out of the country, his last Twitter post is worth reading:

The greatest corrosive of civil virtue is cynicism that we can accomplish anything of great value together. Do not succumb to it.
posted by dhartung at 12:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

Second suspect arrested in connection with shooting; third suspect being sought.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

At least Boehner's statement made it clear that it is never OK to use violence. Palin's statement is similar to what a public person might have said if it was a car wreck. Fuck her. But if she were assassinated I'd be just as outraged by the violence.
posted by birdherder at 12:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

With what we know now, it would be hasty to conclude that this is the result of the American Right Wing's rhetoric and calls for assassination. That said, that's exactly what this will turn out to be.

But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, kafziel - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
posted by three blind mice at 12:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

CNN reports she is out of surgery and is going to survive. I hope that's true

Really? Is it the website, or something other than the main station?
posted by cashman at 12:46 PM on January 8, 2011

Shooter was born in 1988, 22 years old. He is talking. Appears to be a single shooter.
posted by stbalbach at 12:46 PM on January 8, 2011

> most horrible since 9/11.

I think the anthrax was much worse, partly because of the long and awful deaths involved, partly because of the huge disruptions and expensive cleanup (they had to decontam huge areas of the USPS and the magazines), but mainly because of the damage that you could do to society at all levels if this became at all uncommon.

By the way, it seems almost certain to me at least that the anthrax was another right-wing terrorist activity, given the nature of the targets as Democrats (the one apparent exception was the poor photo editor who died - but it turns out he had printed pictures of the Bush twins disgracing themselves not one week before...) and the fact that the anthrax turned out to be US-made.

Right-wing terrorists. Repeat that phrase until it sinks in to everyone you know.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:46 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

Im arguing that those other things are powerless expression while assassination requests from those in power are legitimate dangerous and irresponsible speech. Equating violence in a science fiction novel with shooting people in the face because right-wing politicians and commentators are constantly drawing up conspiracy theories and demanding "2nd Amendment solutions" is being idiotic and only empowers extremists because the Palins, Limbaughs, and Becks of the world will claim "Hey, we're just entertainers! Like Kanye!" No you are fucking not.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:47 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

(Thanks for the info on the census worker - very sad...)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:48 PM on January 8, 2011

Obama statement.
posted by hermitosis at 12:49 PM on January 8, 2011

Deputy City Manager according to MSNBC: She is expected to pull through.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:49 PM on January 8, 2011

CRS Report for Congress: (PDF)

Members of the U.S. Congress Who Have Died of
Other Than Natural Causes While in Office.

Insanity. Palin is political history.
posted by clavdivs at 12:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

AP names gunman as Jared Laughner
posted by Wilder at 12:50 PM on January 8, 2011

You have to wonder how the other 19 individuals on Sarah's hit list are responding to this.

You realize, of course, if a student in a high school produced the list that Sarah did, he/she would be expelled, and probably charged. But we allow these adults the privilege of making threats and encouraging violence, and we don't stand up against them... The disheartening part isn't that Palin, Rush, and their ilk say what they say, the disheartening part is that we don't do shit about it.

My thoughts are with Giffords' family.
posted by HuronBob at 12:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [42 favorites]

The federal judge who was shot had previously received death threats, one guess who from (screenshot in case servers go down)
posted by jtron at 12:53 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Really? Is it the website, or something other than the main station?

It was the live feed on the website.
posted by empath at 12:53 PM on January 8, 2011

AP is spelling it wrong. It's "Jared Loughner".
posted by jeanmari at 12:54 PM on January 8, 2011

Insanity. Palin is political history.

Not at all.

AP names gunman as Jared Laughner

And the internet will immediately scour. Reddit will probably find something notable by the next hour.
posted by cashman at 12:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Update: I see that Sarah Palin has called the shooting “tragic”. OK, a bit of history: right-wingers went wild over anyone who called 9/11 a tragedy, insisting that it wasn’t a tragedy, it was an atrocity.

It's high time our nation rid itself of this woman and her family. We didn't ask for her and we don't need her.
posted by jsavimbi at 12:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Spelling is wrong. It's Jared Loughner (I think)

Youtube videos.
posted by Lord_Pall at 12:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Everyone saying how this is obviously the fault of the Right Wing just needs to chill the fuck out. We don't know anything about this guy. For all we know he's a communist pissed that Gifford wasn't liberal enough.

Seriously. can we maybe, just once, try to deal with a tragedy without automatically reading our own political narrative into it?
posted by valkyryn at 12:55 PM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

please let him not be "Mefi's Own" Jared Loughner
posted by jtron at 12:55 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

.
posted by ananda gale at 12:56 PM on January 8, 2011

This video begins with the title "My Final Thoughts". It's full of TimeCube style ramblings, including some stuff about government control of citizens.
posted by EarBucket at 12:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Uploaded December 15th. He was planning this.
posted by EarBucket at 12:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Funny name for a Mexican.
posted by Artw at 12:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [14 favorites]

Press conference streaming now on KOLD.
posted by jokeefe at 12:58 PM on January 8, 2011

His YouTube page (at least, the YouTube page of a person with that name involved with Pima CC with "tucson" in his tags). His one video marked as "favorite."
posted by jtron at 12:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Wow, his youtube channel is woo-woo crazy. I don't think you can pin ideology on that kind of insanity.
posted by empath at 12:58 PM on January 8, 2011

Chief Judge John Roll, threatened with death in '09, killed in shooting.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:58 PM on January 8, 2011

My wife asks a question: When can a spokesperson for a hospital give statements about the status of a patient? Do they have to get a release? Is there a public-interest exception to medical privacy?

Good question, and now I would like to know the answer. I imagine that public figures should have no expectation of privacy in times of crisis. I wonder if it is part of written policy.

The link to tucsoncitizen.com you posted, octobersurprise, is already broken. But it seems to conflict with the unreferenced "lone gunman" claim by stbalbach.

For those who haven't read the whole thread, ZeusHumms posted a link to the KOLM streaming broadcast. The KOLD news anchors were just chiding the national news organizations for prematurely reporting the congresswoman's death. They make clear distinctions on what they do and do not know. I think I already trust these people I have never seen more than Wolf Blitzer.
posted by chemoboy at 12:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Youtube videos.

Even for a guy who just shot a member of congress, that guy is fucking shithouse-rat-crazy.
posted by enn at 12:59 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

his myspace page has already gone down, spelling loughner, thanks jeanmari
posted by Wilder at 12:59 PM on January 8, 2011

I am sitting at a bar fighting back tears. So sad for her and a tragedy for representative democracy in this country.
posted by stargell at 1:00 PM on January 8, 2011

KOLD just reported the updated number of injured at 18.
posted by faineant at 1:00 PM on January 8, 2011

Sorry, that was previously filmed, I think; conference scheduled for 6:00 p.m. local time. Stream is now talking about whether or not "the game" at the college is going to take place tonight.
posted by jokeefe at 1:00 PM on January 8, 2011

His MySpace page has been taken down.
posted by swift at 1:01 PM on January 8, 2011

Wait....US Military recruit?

Oh ...boy
posted by The Whelk at 1:01 PM on January 8, 2011

Wow, his youtube channel is woo-woo crazy. I don't think you can pin ideology on that kind of insanity.

Agreed, but that's precisely why conservative leaders need to tone down their rhetoric and stop talking about shooting Democrats. Nobody seriously believes Sarah Palin wants liberal politicians to be murdered, but she has a lot of people who follow her, and it only takes one nutjob who doesn't understand that she's speaking metaphorically. The shooter is ultimately responsible for his actions, but Palin, Beck, and the rest need to understand that they're not blameless here.
posted by EarBucket at 1:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [38 favorites]

Insanity. Palin is political history.

Not at all.

empath, mark my words.
she is political history and will not run for public office, at least the presidency.
amirite
posted by clavdivs at 1:01 PM on January 8, 2011

If Loughner is the shooter, the videos make it clear he is just a nut, and right wing politics don't really factor in to it. This is why you wait.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

She's alive! Ship it one time god!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:02 PM on January 8, 2011

Dude was psycho.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:03 PM on January 8, 2011

Press conference: the dead person is a child. The Congresswoman is still alive but in critical condition. 5 still in surgery.
posted by jokeefe at 1:03 PM on January 8, 2011

the nuerosurgeons are optimistic!!!!!!! wow she's following commands through & through head shot. that fucking incredible. she's responding to commands

but a child died.

.
posted by Wilder at 1:03 PM on January 8, 2011

Surgeon: Giffords was shot once through the head. She's out of surgery, and he's "very optimistic." "As optimistic as I could be in this situation."
posted by craichead at 1:03 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am quite a bit less sane after watching two of those YouTube videos. Seriously, seriously creepy. While we're conjecturing, you have to wonder if this was planned and the videos were planted to help establish an insanity alibi.
posted by ladybird at 1:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

If Loughner is the shooter, the videos make it clear he is just a nut, and right wing politics don't really factor in to it.

I don't think that follows. The videos are full of stuff about higher education being unconstitutional, the government using mind control on citizens, US currency being invalid--all beliefs that square with a particularly nutty brand of right-wing politics. Just because he's crazy doesn't mean this wasn't politically motivated.
posted by EarBucket at 1:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [27 favorites]

From the press conference: "The one fatality here at the hospital is a child."

I just. Cannot.
posted by mephron at 1:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

insanity *defense* not alibi
posted by ladybird at 1:04 PM on January 8, 2011

Nobody seriously believes Sarah Palin wants liberal politicians to be murdered,

No, but I bet people like that, deep down, don't mind. How many of them thought "another seat open"?
posted by gjc at 1:05 PM on January 8, 2011

Tucson festival of books
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

If Loughner is the shooter, the videos make it clear he is just a nut, and right wing politics don't really factor in to it.

No -- the videos make it clear that he was obsessed with the "illiteracy" of people in the 8th District and convinced that the government was watching him.

Politics sure as hell does factor into it.
posted by blucevalo at 1:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

If Loughner is the shooter, the videos make it clear he is just a nut, and right wing politics don't really factor in to it.

They have already arrested one other person aside from Loughner and they have stated they are looking for a third. He's a nut, but he's not a lone nut.
posted by enn at 1:06 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this him?

http://azstarnet.com/events/collection_aebeb63c-2f9e-11df-9021-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=image&photo=8

http://knol.google.com/k/jared-loughner/jared-loughner/s94rk2g8o4ye/0#
posted by NorthernLite at 1:06 PM on January 8, 2011

I don't think that follows. The videos are full of stuff about higher education being unconstitutional, the government using mind control on citizens, US currency being invalid--all beliefs that square with a particularly nutty brand of right-wing politics. Just because he's crazy doesn't mean this wasn't politically motivated.

Sarah Palin wasn't putting targets on people who participated in mind control. She doesn't preach about how paying for community college classes is unconstitutional. His views are not the views of Beck or Palin.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:06 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

The part where the shooter - if those YouTube videos are his - may be woo-woo jinglefuck crazy does not excuse Palin etc from putting crosshairs on political opponents. It's still a hideous visual.
posted by cmyk at 1:07 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

If it is Loughner, and this is his video, I quote:

"In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can't trust the current government because of the ratifications: The government is imply mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.

No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver!

No! I won't trust in God!

What's government if words don't have meaning?"

It reads like his mind is the place where Glenn Beck and Derrida meet on the other side.
posted by banal evil at 1:07 PM on January 8, 2011 [34 favorites]

How does it follow that because his views are not those of Beck or Palin that politics doesn't enter into it?
posted by blucevalo at 1:07 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

If Loughner is the shooter, the videos make it clear he is just a nut, and right wing politics don't really factor in to it. This is why you wait.

Bullshit. People who shoot other people are nuts. Always. I could have told you he was a nut as soon as I heard he shot someone, because people who shoot other people are nuts. You don't get to absolve everyone with incendiary rhetoric just because the shooter is nuts -- all shooters are nuts. They don't live in a vacuum, after all; they're influenced by the rhetoric of the people around them and yes, if you say violent things which would only incite a crazy person, and a crazy person goes and does something terrible, you still incited them.
posted by 0xFCAF at 1:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [83 favorites]

Judging by his youtube video, he seems to be an atheist ("No! I won't trust in God!", "I didn't write a belief on my Army application, and the recruiter wrote on the application: None.") I am absolutely dreading when the media picks up on that, as if atheists weren't already demonized on this country enough as it is.

Also interesting, that he was evidently in the Army (in training? Not exactly sure what MEPS is).
posted by Hargrimm at 1:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

the videos make it clear he is just a nut, and right wing politics don't really factor in to it. This is why you wait.

No, this is why you don't metaphorically suggest assassination as a remedy for political disagreement. Because it contributes to political hysteria that incites the nuts.
posted by scody at 1:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [71 favorites]

The fact that you people are talking about Sarah Palin in this thread makes you look like a bunch of slack-jawed moon-eyed lunatics. It's embarrassing.
posted by xmutex at 1:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

"Nobody seriously believes Sarah Palin wants liberal politicians to be murdered"...

I certainly believe that she's encouraging just that to happen and is fucking smart enough to realize it. Smart enough to realize that with enough sex appeal she'll find some crazy fool to pick up a gun and show up at a shopping mall...
posted by HuronBob at 1:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

His views are not the views of Beck or Palin.

His views on currency sure seem like he's been listening to Beck and Ron Paul. He's farther out on the crazy fringe than they are, sure. That doesn't mean he's not influenced by what they say.
posted by EarBucket at 1:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Does anyone have a good one-stop shop listing all the recent thinly-veiled gun/violence rhetoric from Republicans?

A friend of mine doesnt agree that this climate exists, let alone that it had anything to do with today's events (which I know remains to be seen) but I'd like to show him some sort of collection of Angles', Palin's, others statements like this.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 1:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

If Loughner is the shooter, the videos make it clear he is just a nut, and right wing politics don't really factor in to it. This is why you wait.

His particular nuttiness ("new currency"/"gold and silver", brainwashing/mind control, "if I had my civil rights this video wouldn't be here", etc) dovetails quite nicely with right-wing stuff like the Freeman on the Land weirdness.
posted by vorfeed at 1:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

How does it follow that because his views are not those of Beck or Palin that politics doesn't enter into it?

I shall clarify. His views are not the views of Beck and Palin, his crime was not inspired by anything they said to him as has been suggested and implied here and elsewhere. As bad as the maps are, they have nothing to do with this crime if the person who made that video is the shooter.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hargrimm -- MEPS == Military Entrance Processing Station. Basically, pre-basic training place where they check that they can actually send you off to basic.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:11 PM on January 8, 2011

He's farther out on the crazy fringe than they are, sure.

Well, yeah, to the point of unintelligibility. There's a difference between the insanity of Tim McVeigh and well, straight-up insanity. These YouTube videos lean towards the latter, IMO.
posted by Bookhouse at 1:12 PM on January 8, 2011

YouTube: "The majority of people, who reside in District-8, are illiterate -- hilarious."

How long until these videos are reported on the mainstream news?

While I'm as wary and tired of the Tea Party, et al, as the next guy, I think it's worth keeping in mind that there have always been, and always will be, assassination attempts. I don't think this tragedy warrants descending too far into "this is the collapse of our society" rhetoric.
posted by dixiecupdrinking at 1:12 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sounds very Glenn Beck-like to me.

Also here.

It's not hard to find similar crazy via Glenn Beck.
posted by jeanmari at 1:13 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

His YouTube videos definitely make him sound like a nutbar, but they also make some hostile references to things like "federalist laws" and a refusal to pay for debt with a currency not backed by precious metals. (There's also a bit about terrorism in there -- claiming those who call him a terrorist are using ad hominem arguments. I'd link, but I'm on a cell right now.)
posted by Rhaomi at 1:13 PM on January 8, 2011

just a nut, and right wing politics don't really factor in to it

With all due respect, those two attributes aren't mutually exclusive.
posted by gimonca at 1:13 PM on January 8, 2011

The fact that you people are talking about Sarah Palin in this thread makes you look like a bunch of slack-jawed moon-eyed lunatics. It's embarrassing.

How is it not connected? Did you watch the video linked upthread? People warned that a bad thing might happen as a result of Palin's reckless actions -- then that thing happened. Whether or not A caused B, who can say for sure, but the link is there to be explored.

Stow your embarrassment.
posted by hermitosis at 1:14 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

A nine year old girl.

.
posted by fixedgear at 1:14 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Jared Loughner's Youtube page:

Books:I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver's Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.

posted by tapeguy at 1:14 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

apparently the child is a baby. I'm reading 9 month old in a few places.

There are no words.
posted by Medieval Maven at 1:14 PM on January 8, 2011

His views on currency sure seem like he's been listening to Beck and Ron Paul

But not his views on God. People, you can't map this type of crazy on to a political system. The same thing happened with the guy who crashed his plane into the IRS building. If you want a scapegoat, let's talk about how we handle mental health treatment in this country.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:14 PM on January 8, 2011 [23 favorites]

The government is imply mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.

David Wynn Miller, is that you?

"According to Miller's teaching, the addition of hyphens and colons to one's name turns one from an ordinary, taxable human into a non-taxable “prepositional phrase.”

posted by octobersurprise at 1:14 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Since I posted the Sorkin excerpt, in a state of rage at Palin and the far right, to be sure, let me say that a) I agree that the bit about enjoying hunting accidents is over the top; and b)I didn't read it as opposed to hunting at all, in fact quite the contrary. Revulsion at Sarah Palin's perversion of hunting is widespread among hunters. Sorkin was referring specifically to the abundant evidence on her TV show that she had no knowledge of or experience with ethical hunting practices, let alone basic hunting safety.

The point is that there is an essential cruelty to the right wing character type, a reveling in violence. It's a species of the extremist character type in general. In this respect, it's all just terrorism -- being savage to other people under the guise of an ideological cause.

Terrorism is terrorism. The point is precisely to distinguish "hunting" as a venerable, basic human activity with an inherent ethics and nobility of purpose, from "animal cruelty," which is what Sarah Palin's Alaska put on display.

And we all know what people who are cruel to animals grow up to be.
posted by spitbull at 1:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

His views are not the views of Beck or Palin.

I can think of no similarities between those who advocate the hoarding precious metals, food, weaponry along with the killing of political foes with those who actually do it. No similarities, none whatsoever.

Beck, Palin et al are charismatic to their kind of people and are smart enough to recognize the psychological triggers that will evoke emotions in their favor and they exploit this mental loophole to their gain. The problem is that they do it on a universal scale, so it's likely that it will trigger a response and subsequent action in people who are not 100% aligned with their published ideology, but rest assure that when you advocate mass violence and it happens the way you asked for it, in my view, you're a co-conspirator.
posted by jsavimbi at 1:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Yes, Sarah Palin has NO RESPONSIBILITY AT ALL in this, which is exactly why she's furiously scrubbing her website, Twitter feed, Facebook feed, and PAC sites to make sure that all the violent rhetoric she put out in the past is deleted before anyone else links to it. NO RESPONSIBILITY AT ALL delete delete delete delete delete.
posted by 0xFCAF at 1:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [120 favorites]

Not exactly sure what MEPS is

military entrance processing station. Recruits make at least two visits there, first for processing, then later it's the last stop before you head to basic training.

I'm watching fox news with my dad and Shep Smith says they think the shooter is a war vet. And that there are multiple reports (unconfirmed) a second shooter was arrested.
posted by lullaby at 1:15 PM on January 8, 2011

thank fuck he didn't get trained by the military is all I can say. If this is what he could do as an amateur...... shiver....
posted by Wilder at 1:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's a difference between the insanity of Tim McVeigh and well, straight-up insanity. These YouTube videos lean towards the latter, IMO.

Right. I don't actually think McVeigh was insane. Evil perhaps, but not insane. He knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it, and he expressed both of them in understandable terms. Disagree with him if you will--I do--but you can't just pass him off as unhinged.

This guy, on the other hand, is serving up heaping portions of word salad. There's as much of Chris Carter here than there is of anyone else.
posted by valkyryn at 1:16 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

WBUR (NPR):
The only confirmed death in the Giffords' shooting was a nine-year-old girl.
posted by kpht at 1:16 PM on January 8, 2011

My feed is getting disrupted. KOLD is probably getting hammered. But someone just asked if a Rabbi gave last rites to the Congresswoman. My Judaism is rusty, do we do that now?

It is pretty remarkable that she survived a through-and-through head shot and didn't bleed out after 30 minutes with minimal medical attention.

Even for a guy who just shot a member of congress, that guy is fucking shithouse-rat-crazy.

Called it. Still, I hope this helps bring some of these issues out of the blue to make changes for the better.
posted by chemoboy at 1:16 PM on January 8, 2011

This is the only video he links to. Guy burns a flag.
posted by CunningLinguist at 1:16 PM on January 8, 2011

Guys, you are losing your minds if you can't take the political blinders off here. Take some time out and think before you keep going down this road.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:16 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

The fact that you people are talking about Sarah Palin in this thread makes you look like a bunch of slack-jawed moon-eyed lunatics. It's embarrassing.

She putting a fucking target on this woman. Jesus Christ.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:17 PM on January 8, 2011 [54 favorites]

This is horrid; just heard the news. Fingers crossed for all the survivors.
posted by never used baby shoes at 1:17 PM on January 8, 2011

People, you can't map this type of crazy on to a political system. The same thing happened with the guy who crashed his plane into the IRS building.

Uh, aren't they both libertarians?
posted by entropicamericana at 1:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sarah Palin wasn't putting targets on people who participated in mind control. She doesn't preach about how paying for community college classes is unconstitutional. His views are not the views of Beck or Palin.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that Beck and Palin's incendiary political rhetoric would prompt a reasonable/sane person to kill a politician.
posted by jayder at 1:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

There is a relationship between the fear-mongering and demonizing on the far right and a particular kind of gun-fixated, me-against-the-world crazy. The insane things people like Beck say really resonate with a certain kind of extroverted lunatic. These shootyt types tend to be lonely and in a good deal of emotional pain. Then along comes Rush to tell them their way of life is under attack from Big Govt., that that is why they are in pain, under seige, being followed, etc.
posted by vrakatar at 1:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

The fact that you people are talking about Sarah Palin in this thread makes you look like a bunch of slack-jawed moon-eyed lunatics. It's embarrassing.

I think the idea that the target-a-Congressperson maps have nothing to do with the crime is very mistaken. I'm not saying that Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck somehow got into this guy's head and told him to go out and shoot people in a Tucson supermarket, either.

I'm not accusing Sarah Palin of being involved in any way, directly or indirectly, with this crime. What I am saying is that her rhetoric and her incendiary politics helps make shootings like this possible. If you don't see that, it's you who looks lunatic, not me.
posted by blucevalo at 1:19 PM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

Does anyone have a good one-stop shop listing all the recent thinly-veiled gun/violence rhetoric from Republicans?

Probably Dave Niewert or someone closely associated. For googling, use the term eliminationist rhetoric.
posted by dhartung at 1:19 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

The one video he favorited is seven minutes long and features a masked man clad in a sweatshirt and garbage bag pants, slowly setting an American flag on fire. The soundtrack consists of "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" by Drowning Pool and then there's just silence for the rest of it. The flag burning is around the 5:00 mark.

It's super creepy, actually. I suspect he made it under a different username, as the comments underneath the video feature that same "If/Then/Therefore" logic he used in his other videos.
posted by castlebravo at 1:20 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

She putting a fucking target on this woman. Jesus Christ.

Yeah. Comments like this. They aren't helping. Stop it.
posted by xmutex at 1:21 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

EarBucket: Nobody seriously believes Sarah Palin wants liberal politicians to be murdered....

I do. I have absolutely no trouble believing that.
posted by tzikeh at 1:21 PM on January 8, 2011 [26 favorites]

People, you can't map this type of crazy on to a political system. The same thing happened with the guy who crashed his plane into the IRS building.

Uh, aren't they both libertarians?

They both held some libertarian views, some nutty views, and some views that are more closely identified with liberals.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.
Joe Stack (1956-2010)
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:21 PM on January 8, 2011

I have to agree—the videos strike me as more "laying the groundwork for an insanity defense" than genuine, organic batshit craziness.
posted by Lazlo at 1:22 PM on January 8, 2011

Amen, OXFCAF: people who shoot other people are fucking nuts. Even if they are politically motivated, or religiously motivated, or jealousy motivated.

Fucking nuts.

I just took a walk around my block to clear my head over this. I like Dan Gillmor's suggestion that we all need to take a "slow news" approach to this, but still it is really not to see this as a sign of terrible days ahead. Mostly I'm reminded of the novel by Womack "Random Acts of Senseless Violence". Each little thing that falls apart seems almost innocuous in itself and suddenly you're at the end of civilization.
posted by crush-onastick at 1:22 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Here's a copy of the Palin map

The article for me now says:

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head by a gunman at a public event in Tucson on Saturday. There are conflicting reports about whether she was killed.

She is a pro-gun blue dog who just beat a teabagger who considered Palin too moderate. No, don't jump to conclusions. Could be jilted lover or a nut who had no idea who he was shooting or a million other things.

...

I am somewhat heartened to hear that the gunman was apprehended and taken into custody where he or she will be held accountable for his or her actions.

Come on With the hysterical apocalyptic bullshit flying around from the right it's not surprising that something like this would happen. The gunman probably thought he was fighting the conquest of AZ by Mexican demographic reconquest or something like that. Likely the guy was operating alone, but of course he was inspired by the insanity on the right. It wouldn't even be the first time, remember that guy in SF who was going after the Tides foundation (which no one had ever heard of since Beck started freaking out about them?) Or the anti-tax nut flew his plane into the IRS building? There was the guy who shot up the Unitarian church, and the guy who shot George Tiller. All of them were "lone nuts" but they were all motivated by right-wing craziness.

that Gawker story also said Rayle helped hold down the gunman, is a former ER doctor and reported it took EMS 30 minutes to arrive.
WTF? wouldn't you go to the injured first?????

So he doesn't reload?

Congress will not give a shit. There will be no hearings, no condemnations of the hate speech which leads to stuff like this, (thankfully) no random bombing of some country with brown people in it in response to this. Hell, I bet the word "terrorism" never even comes up (which is fine, but you know if it was a Republican that's all that would be on every screen, front page and radio bulletin).

I don't know, people tend to get a lot more upset about people they know and work with and identify with getting shot in the head then random people.
posted by delmoi at 1:23 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

His views are not the views of Beck or Palin.

You mean he doesn't believe that Democrats are so bad that a "second amendment solution" is warranted, and that when democracy doesn't do what you want you should "reload"?

Judging by results, his beliefs and those of the more vile right wing politicos are exactly in alignment.

Loughner instantiated the views of the most public Republicans. Do not dare to hold them unaccountable for their powerful, public calls to action!
posted by five fresh fish at 1:23 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think this is him as well.
posted by stagewhisper at 1:23 PM on January 8, 2011

aren't they both libertarians

This guy wasn't a libertarian. Libertarianism is an internally consistent political system based on a fairly well-developed political philosophy. It may be a bad, but it's not insane.

This guy didn't have a political system. His mind was completely disordered. Hell, watch his videos: he's either barely literate or mentally disturbed.

Y'all are assigning Palin and Beck almost magical powers to do bad stuff. It's like they and Bush are official scapegoats or something.

This reminds me of something.
posted by valkyryn at 1:24 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

The fact that you people are talking about Sarah Palin in this thread makes you look like a bunch of slack-jawed moon-eyed lunatics. It's embarrassing.

Oh really? So how come he didn't kill a Republican congressperson?
posted by spitbull at 1:25 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

So I went through this man's YouTube site, and I have to say that he sounds like the perfect target demographic for Beck and Palin.

He isn't hearing voices, or believing he's Jesus - he believes in the gold standard, that the government is nefariously plotting against us, he distrusts academia and institutions and doesn't want his taxes going for education.

I can't see why you think his beliefs are particularly different from the average tea-partier's.

And for those of you rudely telling us not to jump to conclusions, I assume there will be apologies forthcoming if it is, in fact, a bunch of right-wing extremists as every indication has showed from the very beginning?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:25 PM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

What the fuck is conscience dreaming, you miserable piece of waste? /angry
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:25 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

This might be a picture of Loughner. Right age, right place, right name, right interest (books).
posted by stbalbach at 1:27 PM on January 8, 2011

the census worker
Killed himself.

And what was the 'hive mind' conclusion as to the "why" on the day of the news?
posted by rough ashlar at 1:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

This thread is the classic definition of the word "knee-jerk." We don't even know if the woman is alive or dead, and some of you have already tried and convicted the gunman and the entire American Right wing for assassinating her.

Prescient comment I just read on Twitter:

Remember: angry Muslim shooter is a terrorist but an angry white Christian shooter is...hey, it's complicated, okay? Don't rush to judgment!
posted by Jimbob at 1:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [48 favorites]

And there has *already* been plenty of violence -- by now a long list of shootings and attempted shootings, head stompings, vandalism, and intimidation -- linked directly to the violent rhetoric of the far right in America in the last few years alone.

When you hear hoofbeats . . .
posted by spitbull at 1:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Okay... last one out of the crumbling republic.... please turn out the lights.

Never.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:28 PM on January 8, 2011 [15 favorites]

Laughner Facebook
posted by aaronetc at 1:28 PM on January 8, 2011

And for those of you rudely telling us not to jump to conclusions, I assume there will be apologies forthcoming if it is, in fact, a bunch of right-wing extremists as every indication has showed from the very beginning?

"Don't jump to conclusions" is not the same thing as "You are wrong."
posted by dfan at 1:28 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

Yeah, if you want a clear-cut instance of fringe-right terrorism, look to the case of that guy who shot up that Unitarian church -- his home was stocked with incendiary books by Beck and Hannity, and he explicitly said he targeted the church because the congregation was full of liberals who were destroying America.

It's possible this gunman was inspired to violence by some of the same dire, eliminationist rhetoric, but there's clearly a pre-existing case of Total Crazy there, too.

I'm interested in learning more about the alleged co-conspirators. Were they similarly kooky, or were they people with a coherent agenda who manipulate the man now in custody?
posted by Rhaomi at 1:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

you don't tend to bleed out from head-shots, hypoxia is the real danger as well obviously as gross injury. Following commands is very, very good but still doesn't say she''ll make a full recovery. It would be incredibly lucky is she survives with very minor impairment.

Unfortunately it is far more likely that she will have significant brain damage. Whatever you think about the politicisation of this act, the democrats have some new martyrs as a result of this shooter, I'm not even going into the image of a brain damaged Giffords considering the interviews I've just spent the last few hours reviewing to learn more about her. It is cruel & cynical in the extreme for Glenn Reynolds to make those comments, but it is a fact that this will help the Democrats. Of course there will be a sympathy pay-off. There are enough empathetic people out there to ensure that. That's not exactly a bad thing.

I have no stake in this I live in the UK but as far as I can see she was a bright intelligent & hard-working woman.
posted by Wilder at 1:30 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

furiousxgeorge: you're the one who titled your post "Lone nut or something worse?" You can't seriously think you have a righteous leg to stand on ("this is why you wait" "you're looking like lunatics") when you opened the discussion as to what the greater implications could possibly be.
posted by scody at 1:30 PM on January 8, 2011 [21 favorites]

Jared Loughner's Youtube page:

Books:I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver's Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.

posted by tapeguy at 1:14 PM on January 8

I don't really think the appearance of Brave New World, the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf say a whole lot--I imagine a lot of us would have made a similar list somewhere between the ages of 12 and, say, 25 at the high end, thinking we were clever. Including Mein Kampf could be indicative of incipient nazism (though that wouldn't go well with the Communist Manifesto) or just immature shit.
posted by hoyland at 1:30 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

the facebook page looks like a hoax to me.
posted by empath at 1:30 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Libertarianism is an internally consistent political system based on a fairly well-developed political philosophy.

With all the rumours flying around it doesn't help that you're making things up.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:30 PM on January 8, 2011 [29 favorites]

Here's a quick transcript of one of his videos.

My Final Thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner

Most people, who read this text, forget in the next 2 second!

The population of dreamers in the United States of America is less than 5%!

If 987,123,478962,876,341,234,671,234,098,601,978,618 is the year in B.C.E. then the previous year of 987,123,478962,876,341,234,671,234,098,601,978,618 B.C.E. is 987,123,478962,876,341,234,671,234,098,601,978,619 B.C.E.

987,123,478962,876,341,234,671,234,098,601,978,618 is the year in B.C.E.

Therefore, the previous year of 987,123,478962,876,341,234,671,234,098,601,978,618 B.C.E. is 987,123,478962,876,341,234,671,234,098,601,978,619 B.C.E.

If B.C.E. years are unable to start then A.D.E. years are unable to begin.

B.C.E. years are unable to start.

Thus, A.D.E. years are unable to begin.

If A.D.E. is endless in year then the years in A.D.E. don't cease.

A.D.E. is endless in year.

Therefore, the years in A.D.E. don't cease.

If I teach a mentally capable 8 year old for 20 consecutive minutes to replace an alphabet letter with a new letter and pronunciation then the mentally capable 8 year old writes and pronounces the new letter and pronunciation that's replacing an alphabet letter in 20 consecutive minutes.

I teach a mentally capable 8 year old for 20 consecutive minutes to replace an alphabet letter with a new letter and pronunciation.

Thus, the mentally capable 8 year old writes and pronounces the new letter and pronunciation that replaces an alphabet letter in 20 consecutive minutes.

Every human who's mentally capable is always able to be treasurer of their new currency.

If you create one new currency then you're able to create a second new currency.

If you're able to create second new currency then you're able to create third new currency.

You create one new currency.

Thus, you're able to create a third currency.

You're a treasurer for a new currency, listener?

You create and distribute your new currency, listener?

You don't allow the government to control your grammar structure, listener?

If you create one new language then you're able to create a second new language.

If you're able to create a second new language then you're able to create a third new language.

You create one new language.

Thus, you're able to create a third new language.

All humans are in need of sleep.

Jared Loughner is a human.

Hence, Jared Loughner is in need of sleep.

Sleepwalking.

If I define sleepwalking then sleepwalking is thte act or state of walking, eating, or performing other motor acts while asleep, of which one is unaware upon awakening.

I define sleepwalking.

Thus, sleepwalking is the act or state of walking, eating, or performing other motor acts while asleep, of which one is unaware upon awakening.

All conscience dreaming at this moment is asleep.

Jared Loughner is conscience dreaming at this moment.

Thus, Jared Loughner is asleep.

Terrorist

If I define terrorist then a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon.

I define terrorist.

Thus, a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon.

If you call me a terrorist then the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem.
You call me a terrorist.
Thus the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem.

Every United States Military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix is receiving one mini bible before the tests.

Jared Loughner is a United States Military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix.

Therefore, Jared Loughner is receiving one mini bible before the tests.

I didn't write a belief on my Army application, and the recruiter wrote on the application: None.

The majority of the citizens of the United States of America have never read the United States of America's Constitution.

You don't have to accept the federalist laws.

Nonetheless, read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws.

You're literate, listener?

If the property owners and government officials are no longer in ownership of their land laws from a revolution then the revolutionary's from the revolution are in control of the land and laws.

The property owners and government officials are no longer in ownership of their land laws from a revolution.

Thus, the revolutionary's from the revolution are in control of the land and laws.

In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can't trust the current government because of the ratifications: The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.

No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver!

No! I won't trust in God!

What's government if words don't have meaning?

posted by swift at 1:31 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

one mefite said: She putting a fucking target on this woman. Jesus Christ.

xmutex said: Yeah. Comments like this. They aren't helping. Stop it.

Aren't helping what, exactly? This is a discussion, what are the comments supposed to "help"?
posted by jayder at 1:31 PM on January 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

From the facebook link:

Jared Laughner likes:

Other
Tea Party Patriots
Sara Palin

posted by absalom at 1:31 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think that FB thread is a hoax, because when I searched earlier it didn't exist. People are starting with the fun and games already.
posted by hermitosis at 1:31 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sorry, FB profile.
posted by hermitosis at 1:32 PM on January 8, 2011

> The fact that you people are talking about Sarah Palin in this thread makes you look like a bunch of slack-jawed moon-eyed lunatics. It's embarrassing.

Such rudeness would be uncalled-for, even if you were right.

Had you bothered to read the thread, you would have found out that Palin put out a widely-publicized map with crosshairs on the very Congresswoman who was shot (as well as other lesser but still significant incitements to violence).

Read that again - Palin put up an image that unmistakably suggests shooting specific political opponents of her, and then one of those very opponents is shot.

This is, therefore, completely relevant. You owe us an apology; and I'll thank you to keep a civilized tongue in your head in future discourse.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:32 PM on January 8, 2011 [47 favorites]

From the Introduction: Jared Loughner YouTube video:

"No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by
gold and silver.

posted by octobersurprise at 1:33 PM on January 8, 2011

Laughner Facebook

Calling bullshit on this. Friend count still rising, no activity aside from adding palin as an interest, etc.
posted by iamabot at 1:33 PM on January 8, 2011

Including Mein Kampf could be indicative of incipient nazism (though that wouldn't go well with the Communist Manifesto)

LIBERAL FASCISM

Expect that on Beck or the Corner.
posted by empath at 1:33 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Don Wright - June 5, 1968. More true than ever.
posted by squalor at 1:33 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I imagine any FB profile you will find at this hour is more likely fake than not.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:33 PM on January 8, 2011

I believe Aaron Sorkin just said about everything that needs to be said about Palin and her subhuman kind...

Hateful, violence-provoking rhetoric is a civic evil, no matter which side is spewing it. Please, in your anger, don't stoop to the level of the Becks and Limbaughs of this world.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

That Facebook page misspells his name, which is a pretty big hint that it isn't real.
posted by Bookhouse at 1:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Words have consequences.

Not everyone in the Republican/Tea Party is a racist, or a bigot, or a terrorist.
Not everyone in the Republican/Tea Party is someone who believes in "Second Amendment Remedies."
Not everyone in the Republican/Tea Party believes that their way is the right way, consequences be damned.

It only takes one. I am in shock that the Congresswoman is not dead, and I am glad that is true. But a child did die and a dozen other were shot. Words have consequences. Sarah Palin suggested that conservatives "RELOAD!" It isn't clear if the shooter needed to reload, or if one clip was enough. It is clear that words matter, and those with supreme political power should be very careful when they use those words publicly.
posted by andreaazure at 1:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

nbc says that when the House read the constitution the other day, Giffords read the part about a right to peaceful assembly.
posted by CunningLinguist at 1:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

furiousxgeorge: you're the one who titled your post "Lone nut or something worse?" You can't seriously think you have a righteous leg to stand on ("this is why you wait" "you're looking like lunatics") when you opened the discussion as to what the greater implications could possibly be.

I asked a question, that is far different from stating a conclusion which is what I am suggesting people avoid.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Did Sarah Palin and the Tea Party force this guy to shoot Gifford and others?

No.

Did the Rhetoric espoused by Palin, Beck and the Tea Party have a direct influence on his decision to open fire?

Probably. It's hard for me to separate the 2. Yes, he's crazy, but I believe that the aggressive discourse and promotion of political violence pushed him over the edge, or at least gave him a specific target.
posted by Lord_Pall at 1:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think that FB thread is a hoax, because when I searched earlier it didn't exist.

Also it's titled "Jared Laughner," while the shooter consistently spells his name "Loughner" and always seems to use his middle name, "Lee."

Of course he uses his middle name.
posted by EarBucket at 1:35 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Before y'all go off on an insanity crusade based on some youtubely-produced youtube videos, please do a search for "performance art". These videos from the purported shooter are tame in comparison and make little or no reference to his current state of mind. At least none that would conclude any jury to believe that he's insane.
posted by jsavimbi at 1:35 PM on January 8, 2011

Yeah, that FB profile is BS -- it wasn't there an hour ago.
posted by cowboy_sally at 1:35 PM on January 8, 2011

> This guy

Upthread it was reported that one more person was arrested and another sought...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:35 PM on January 8, 2011

Obama to speak on video any minute now. Watch here.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:35 PM on January 8, 2011

the facebook page looks like a hoax to me.

First thing I thought too.
posted by cashman at 1:35 PM on January 8, 2011

Yeah, what Lord_Pall said. Batshit crazy beliefs don't form in a vaccuum; like all people, his beliefs are shaped by the ideas he's exposed to.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:35 PM on January 8, 2011

the facebook page looks like a hoax to me.

If it is they turned it around in record time. Friend requests have to be confirmed and the linked accounts all have plenty of friends as well. Unless a bunch of people who already knew each other decided to all make and connect to a fake page within five minutes of Laughner's name getting out...
posted by Lazlo at 1:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Y'all are assigning Palin and Beck almost magical powers to do bad stuff. It's like they and Bush are official scapegoats or something.

No. I'm not. Sarah Palin's political action committee put out a diagram with a legend that read "We've diagnosed the problem ..... help us prescribe the solution." The diagram contained 19 districts with gun sights on them. One of the districts was Gifford's. Sarah Palin's catchphrase is "Don't retreat, reload!"

That's not magic. That's agitprop.
posted by blucevalo at 1:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [31 favorites]

President Obama to speak to the press about the tragedy, watch live.
posted by donnagirl at 1:36 PM on January 8, 2011

Laughner Facebook
posted by aaronetc at 4:28 PM on January 8 [+] [!] Other (2/2):

I think that's either fake or coincidental. It doesn't seem to be the correct spelling of the last name, and the friends don't appear to have an Arizona connection. I did searches on Facebook and Zabasearch for the name and got nothing.

On preview, what they said.
posted by booksherpa at 1:37 PM on January 8, 2011

Of course he uses his middle name.

?
posted by Hargrimm at 1:37 PM on January 8, 2011

I wondered about that - I looked for the facebook page, myself. There *is* a myspace page linked from YouTube, but it's zotted.
posted by absalom at 1:37 PM on January 8, 2011

The Facebook page is totally fake. It's misspelled, and lists his interests only as Palin, the Tea Party and men.
posted by CunningLinguist at 1:37 PM on January 8, 2011

Yeah, that FB profile is BS -- it wasn't there an hour ago.

Just curious - how do you know this?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:38 PM on January 8, 2011

The name on the Facebook page is Laughner. He's Loughner, right?
posted by AwkwardPause at 1:38 PM on January 8, 2011

Yeah. Comments like this. They aren't helping. Stop it.
posted by xmutex at 1:21 PM on January 8 [+] [!]

Truth's a bitch, eh?
posted by obiwanwasabi at 1:38 PM on January 8, 2011

tapeguy: Jared Loughner's Youtube page: Books:I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver's Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.

Most of those are really good books. I've read most of the same ones, and I haven't shot anybody. I can see why The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf might stick out to you, but why did you bold Brave New World? What does that have to do with anything?
posted by limeonaire at 1:38 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

There are a bunch of FB profiles out there right now. For instance.
posted by brundlefly at 1:39 PM on January 8, 2011

...which I now have to agree seems plausible. Ugh.
posted by Lazlo at 1:39 PM on January 8, 2011

Just curious - how do you know this?

How do you think? The moment the name was released, we INSTANTLY checked FB.

To be fair, I do this not long after I hear anything scandalous about anyone.
posted by hermitosis at 1:40 PM on January 8, 2011

Just curious - how do you know this?
I looked for it an hour ago. If you look at his Wall, it shows he only just joined Facebook.
posted by cowboy_sally at 1:40 PM on January 8, 2011

Brave New World might resonate with him if he feels that the vast majority of the populace is asleep, mind controlled by the government. I'm a bit surprised not to see 1984 on his list, honestly.
posted by EarBucket at 1:41 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm interested in learning more about the alleged co-conspirators. Were they similarly kooky, or were they people with a coherent agenda who manipulate the man now in custody?

That is what I'm wondering. Of course, it could be neither of those things; they may just be going after someone who sold him the gun illegally or something similar.
posted by enn at 1:41 PM on January 8, 2011

Palin put up an image that unmistakably suggests shooting specific political opponents of her, and then one of those very opponents is shot.

A favorite and oft repeated phrase on Metafilter is "correlation does not equal causation." Right now we know NOTHING about this person. There's a chance that he had never seen that map before as I hadn't. We don't know if his Facebook or Youtube pages are real. Hell, even the spelling of his name is up for debate. Overheated rhetoric with no information to back it up makes you look like a ghoul trying to score political points on the back of someone else's very real tragedy.

and I'll thank you to keep a civilized tongue in your head in future discourse.

Yeah, that's fucking bullshit. Cut that out. Now.
posted by orville sash at 1:41 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

I think that FB thread is a hoax
Sorry, FB profile.

Spend too much time on MetaFilter and everything is a thread.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 1:41 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

what is it with Arizona? the basically pass some of the most outrageously racist legislation since desegregation, they cheer assholes like Arpaio, they give us empire-loving "liberated women" like Brewer and Napolitano and let's not even talk about John McCain.

seriously, what is the matter with Arizona?
posted by liza at 1:41 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I assume there will be apologies forthcoming if it is, in fact, a bunch of right-wing extremists as every indication has showed from the very beginning?

Just as many as were given over mistaken assumptions with the death of the census worker I'd bet.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:42 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, I was under the impression that 1) it hadn't been an hour that the name had been out and 2) you can't tell from a FB profile when they joined.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:42 PM on January 8, 2011

seriously, what is the matter with Arizona?

I'm asking, what's the matter with all of us?
posted by malusmoriendumest at 1:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

?
posted by Hargrimm

The middle name is customarily included when referring to a well-publicized killer. Often it is Wayne.
posted by swift at 1:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

Looking at my gmail correspondence, I got an email 50 minutes ago w/ his name -- so a minor overstatement on my part.
posted by cowboy_sally at 1:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Guys, you are losing your minds if you can't take the political blinders off here.

Sarah Palin's PAC has a graphic on their site with a gun sight over this woman's district!

Right now, Palin's staff are furiously scrubbing the web of any dog-whistle "metaphors" that could be construed as violent; in other words, they're trying to destroy evidence. From now on, I'm referring to Sarah Palin as "Unindicted Co-conspirator Sarah Palin," and I'm only half joking.

Of course, the guy's a nut... but his nuttiness was directly fueled by Palin, Beck, et al, who have been feeding people like him frightening end-of-the-world scenarios and wild conspiracies about liberal government takeover since Obama was elected.

I just don't understand how someone can look at that graphic and not see a direct line from the violent rhetoric of the last two years to what happened today.
posted by MegoSteve at 1:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [28 favorites]

Prediction: the attempted assassination is incidental to this guy's primary goal, in the way Kaczynski's victims were incidental to his primary goal (getting his manifesto published).

Speculation: his real goal is to go on trial with the eyes of the nation upon him, thereby presenting him the opportunity to get his message out to the populace. Based on what's been found already we have some guesses as to what that message may be, although due to his clearly being a little off mentally I'd advise against inferring too much from what we know.

Based on the contents of his thoughts as delineated here I suspect that the reception he receives will not be the sort of reception he is hoping for (though, perhaps, it will be the kind of reception he has been expecting).

The real lesson here is a concrete example of the dangers inherent in the teleological suspension of the ethical.
posted by hoople at 1:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

What I am saying is that her rhetoric and her incendiary politics helps make shootings like this possible. If you don't see that, it's you who looks lunatic, not me.

QFT
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

(Sorry, that was in reply to goodnewsfortheinsane.)
posted by cowboy_sally at 1:45 PM on January 8, 2011

My wife asks a question: When can a spokesperson for a hospital give statements about the status of a patient? Do they have to get a release? Is there a public-interest exception to medical privacy?

Not the hospital's spokesperson, the Congresswoman's spokesperson.
posted by orthogonality at 1:45 PM on January 8, 2011

In the middle of all this seriousness, I have to say this sentence just spoken on MSNBC made me smile: "Her astronaut husband just landed in Tuscon in a NASA jet."

I mean, that's badass.
posted by Bookhouse at 1:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [30 favorites]

or Lee
posted by Wilder at 1:46 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Same here bookhouse
posted by CunningLinguist at 1:46 PM on January 8, 2011

Is it cynical of me to have immediately checked what her political party affiliation is?

Probably not necessary. In contemporary America, conservatives tend to be a lot more shooty than liberals.
posted by Afroblanco at 1:46 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Books tended be largely dystopias, political philosophy or fantasy. The odd books out seem to be To Kill a Mocking Bird, Hemingway and Bukowski

Animal Farm - Dystopia
Brave New World - Dystopia,
The Wizard Of OZ - Fantasy,
Aesop Fables - Fantasy,
The Odyssey -- Fantasy
Alice Adventures Into Wonderland -- Fantasy,
Fahrenheit 451, -- Dystopia
Peter Pan, -- Fantasy
To Kill A Mockingbird - ??,
We The Living - Ayn Rand - Political Philosophy
Phantom Toll Booth - Fantasy
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - novel about insanity
Pulp --??
Through The Looking Glass - fantasy
The Communist Manifesto - political philosophy,
Siddhartha - philosophy,
The Old Man And The Sea, --?
Gulliver's Travels - fantasy,
Mein Kampf - political philosophy,
The Republic-- political philosophy, and
Meno -- philosophy
posted by empath at 1:47 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

[...] so a minor overstatement on my part.

That's cool, thank you. I just thought maybe you had a magical Facebook profile age analyzer plugin or something. Carry on.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:47 PM on January 8, 2011

"Nobody seriously believes Sarah Palin wants liberal politicians to be murdered"...

Right, the map just had crosshairs because that's what you get when you type a 'j' in Wingdings? Actually, it requires an ALT code.
posted by rhizome at 1:47 PM on January 8, 2011

A woman on twitter is claiming to have known him: @catieparker. Unconfirmed as far as I know.
posted by Skorgu at 1:47 PM on January 8, 2011

I asked a question, that is far different from stating a conclusion which is what I am suggesting people avoid.

I'm not suggesting that you stated a conclusion. I'm saying that it's disingenuous to tut-tut people for exploring the question that you explicitly raised. (However, I apologize for attributing the "lunatic" comment to you -- I realized belatedly it came from xmutex.)
posted by scody at 1:48 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

they may just be going after someone who sold him the gun illegally or something similar.

Could be drink'n buddies, could be people who talk smack with him in some 1st person shooter video game, could be people who are local who said nice things about his youtube/myspace/whatever, could be the last people he sent SMS messages to, could even be people who drove him to the store to do some shopping.

Too bad the odds are there will not be a trial so we'll know why.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:48 PM on January 8, 2011

Of course, the guy's a nut... but his nuttiness was directly fueled by Palin, Beck, et al, who have been feeding people like him frightening end-of-the-world scenarios and wild conspiracies about liberal government takeover since Obama was elected.

Are you sure? People like HIM? An apparently extremely literate, crazy, athiest? That doesn't strike me as their demographic. Of course, the gold standard and such I know but that stuff comes from a million different sources.

Really, take a step back. It's a tragedy, we don't know exactly what happened yet.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:48 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm not suggesting that you stated a conclusion. I'm saying that it's disingenuous to tut-tut people for exploring the question that you explicitly raised.

EXPLORE AWAY. Just don't plant your flag.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:49 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also there are two photos allegedly from his myspace page (which I've heard is only suspended not deleted). No good sources for either, they're just floating around.
posted by Skorgu at 1:49 PM on January 8, 2011

Obama confirmed the death of the Federal Judge John Roll.
posted by arveale at 1:50 PM on January 8, 2011

His MySpace page is reproduced here.
posted by EarBucket at 1:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oof. Giffords' Twitter update from 5 hours ago makes me so sad: "My 1st Congress on Your Corner starts now. Please stop by to let me know what is on your mind or tweet me later."
posted by hermitosis at 1:51 PM on January 8, 2011

From Jared Laughner's facebook profile:

Jared Laughner likes:
Other
Tea Party Patriots
Sara Palin

posted by cstross at 1:53 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

cstross: fyi, fake profile
posted by Mach5 at 1:53 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Nobody seriously believes Sarah Palin wants liberal politicians to be murdered"...

No reasonable person believes that. But there's a bunch of people out there that aren't so reasonable. What makes the hyperbolic crap that Palin, Beck, Limbaugh spew scary for me is reasonable people like us see through it. But other people might hear what the people are saying as marching orders.

Jared Lee Loughner believes Section 10 of the Constitution means you don't have to pay for school:

All purchases for an educational course in The United States as of now are unconstitutional in the United States of America because of Section 10 in the United States of America's Constitution. A student paying for a Pima Community College course is a purchase for an educational course in the United States as of now. Therefore, a student paying for a Pima Community College course is unconstitutional in the United States of America because of Section 10 in the United States of America's Constitution.

Here is Art 1; Section 10 of the constitution...

Section 10.

No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.

No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.?

Not sure I see how he makes that leap. So I guess I'm not due a check from the State of Arizona for the tuition I paid at ASU and Scottsdale CC. So, yeah, everyone hears the same thing.
posted by birdherder at 1:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Probably not necessary. In contemporary America, conservatives tend to be a lot more shooty than liberals.

Huh, this makes me think of an analysis I'd like to see: the correlation between apolitical killings and subsequent suicide. That is, if fewer assassins shoot themselves after committing a political (in the mind of the killer, not the media) killing. In this case, if she had been shot by a Lefter (not assuming any party for the actual shooter), I wonder if they would have been more likely to shoot themselves.

At any rate, I'm kind of curious whether TLP will write about this event.
posted by rhizome at 1:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

If the guy was worried about the government was controlling its citizens through brainwashing and grammar, and then he shot a representative of that government, I don't think it's reasonable to say that Sarah Palin and Glen Beck share the blame. Palin should not have put out that crosshair map, and the loony right wing needs to seriously stop with all of their violent rhetoric because it can and will incite some McVeigh-type, but Loughner, if he even pays attention to Palin and Beck, didn't need any encouragement. His crime may be political, but I don't think you can claim it was partisan.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:56 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

This is apparently a yearbook photo of Loughner.
posted by davey_darling at 1:56 PM on January 8, 2011

A favorite and oft repeated phrase on Metafilter is "correlation does not equal causation."

Who's invoking causation? I'm talking about conditions that make other conditions possible -- not "causation." To paraphrase Whitman, we are land of the maker of the axe -- and the loaded gun, and the command to reload, and the political fundraising flyer with gunsights drawn over elected representatives' districts, and supermarket parking lot shootings. What we reap, we sow.
posted by blucevalo at 1:56 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

cstross: fyi, fake profile

We don't know that, yet.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:56 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes we do.
posted by hermitosis at 1:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

cstross: fyi, fake profile
Isn't the number in the URL http://www.facebook.com/people/Jared-Laughner/100001935064664 a sequence number and not random thus one can determine when something happened?
posted by rough ashlar at 1:57 PM on January 8, 2011

Considering that the profile was made after the shooting, we can be pretty sure.
posted by empath at 1:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

AZ Supreme Court finds a few hits for his last name: S-1100-CV-99047033, M-1041-TR-7119663, and M-1044-CR-20080778 . The site is freaking out so I can't get any more details.
posted by Skorgu at 1:57 PM on January 8, 2011

The target map is 'fair game' (sorry) since Rep. Giffords is on record saying that Palin would be responsible if something like this were to happen:

'I think it’s important for all leaders … to say look, we can’t stand for this … They really need to realize that the rhetoric, and firing people up … for example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s ‘Targeted’ list, but the thing is that the way she has it depicted, we’re in the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize that there are consequences to that action.' (via)
posted by xowie at 1:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [69 favorites]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Anna Lindh, the Swedish Foreign Minister who was similarly murdered in public. And not the first Swedish politician to meet such a surprisingly bloody fate. These days, Swedish politicians are always attended by a security detail.

I thought of this immediately. This is certainly going to change what it means to be a politician in this country.
posted by melissam at 1:58 PM on January 8, 2011

We don't know that, yet.
It's not even his name, as has been mentioned several times in this thread.

posted by Flunkie at 1:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Books tended be largely dystopias, political philosophy or fantasy. The odd books out seem to be To Kill a Mocking Bird, Hemingway and Bukowski

The mood of the last three falls in line with the others just fine: fairly dark, exploring mature themes involving enmity and the depths of the human spirit. They're not what most would call "happy" books. But again, as hoyland also pointed out, this is a fairly common book list among disaffected youth of all stripes. I'm sure Loughner felt like his book list said a lot about him or that these books "speak for him" in some way, hence their inclusion on his YouTube page. But a lot of people have read all of these books and haven't—and never will—do what he's done.
posted by limeonaire at 1:59 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

We don't know that, yet.

Real profiles don't go up a couple hours after you're taken into custody, and not until after your name is released.
posted by kafziel at 2:00 PM on January 8, 2011

I'm not sure if call letters are chosen at random or what, but I'm kind of grossed out by Arizona affiliate KGUN right now.
posted by theredpen at 2:00 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Do we know when the President is supposed to speak?
posted by ocherdraco at 2:00 PM on January 8, 2011

You have to wonder how the other 19 individuals on Sarah's hit list are responding to this.

Worth noting that some of them have been targeted in the past: Previously.
Also, I checked the rest of the folks on the list and unless I missed something, it looks like Giffords and Nick Rahall were the only 2 of the 20 to be reelected in 2010 - the rest of them are no longer in office.
posted by naoko at 2:01 PM on January 8, 2011

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - novel about insanity

You might want to re-read that one, empath.
posted by fixedgear at 2:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [14 favorites]

I'm not looking forward to the blaming and finger-pointing we'll encounter over the next couple of days from the cable news channels. The right will point out everything that makes the shooter's (or shooters') ideologies line up with the left. At the same time, though, the talking heads on the left will be playing the exact same spin game.

I think the blame has less to do with the ideologies that the shooter may have been influenced by and more to do with the policies that could have allowed this to happen in the first place.
posted by dcheeno at 2:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

So could someone who thinks we're "slack-jawed, moon-eyed" crazy liberals explain to me why the Palin machine is scrubbing the hit list images and text now? It was okay before but now it must be taken down?

I had to erase five or six versions of what I'm thinking right now -- I just can't put it into words that I will be fine having up here forever. I'm so sad and angry. I just feel like we are damned. I feel helpless.
posted by theredpen at 2:03 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

In my conscience dreams, that's where I'm Jared Lee Loughner!
posted by scalefree at 2:03 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

The "second arrest" doesn't appear in the latest versions of the Tucson Citizen/AZ Republic article. I wish they'd explicitly call out substantive changes in fast-breaking stories like this.
posted by Lazlo at 2:03 PM on January 8, 2011

I'm not sure if call letters are chosen at random or what, but I'm kind of grossed out by Arizona affiliate KGUN right now.

Yeah, er, not really relevant at all right now. Check yourself.

Do we know when the President is supposed to speak?

He spoke for about ten minutes, starting about 20 minutes ago.
posted by carsonb at 2:03 PM on January 8, 2011

Ocherdraco, the president spoke about 15 minutes ago.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:03 PM on January 8, 2011

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Anna Lindh, the Swedish Foreign Minister who was similarly murdered in public. ... I thought of this immediately.

You must be Swedish. We are not yet used to this in America. I really hope this does not result in people with guns accompanying politicians who are speaking to their constituents. That thought is very unsettling.
posted by chemoboy at 2:03 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Prez already spoke
posted by CunningLinguist at 2:03 PM on January 8, 2011

But a lot of people have read all of these books and haven't—and never will—do what he's done.

The safest bet is not to read books at all! (Just magazines... "all of 'em, Katie.")
posted by scody at 2:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Just got off the phone with my brother in Tucson. His wife was going to go to the Gifford event, but couldn't make it into the store parking lot, which was jammed. She realized something was wrong when she saw the police tape and emergency vehicles. One of their friends was there during the shooting and had her arm grazed by a bullet.
posted by gamera at 2:04 PM on January 8, 2011

Thanks, will find video.
posted by ocherdraco at 2:04 PM on January 8, 2011

Do we know when the President is supposed to speak?

He did about half an hour ago.
posted by reductiondesign at 2:05 PM on January 8, 2011

His MySpace page is reproduced here.

Why did he have to go do it? Someone loved him!
posted by sourwookie at 2:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

You might want to re-read that one, empath.

Ha.. I actually haven't read it, watched the movie once, while high as a kite. Impression I got was that it was about who gets to define insanity, not about the experience of actually being insane. (Or of being sane in an insane world).
posted by empath at 2:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Wizard Of OZ - Fantasy,

Encourages murdering female political opponents by dousing them in fatal chemicals.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

Anne Coulter just tweeted:

... AZ shooter a Tea Partier ... OOPS! Among shooter's fav books: Communist Manifesto

OOPS this, you bitch.
posted by theredpen at 2:06 PM on January 8, 2011 [35 favorites]

Nobody seriously believes Sarah Palin wants liberal politicians to be murdered

The crosshairs are just a typo. That's the reason why her website is being cleaned up.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:06 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

A woman on twitter is claiming to have known him: @catieparker. Unconfirmed as far as I know.

She says he was "left wing", "quite liberal", at least in '07. Course, that was before Mr. Obama got elected.
posted by cashman at 2:07 PM on January 8, 2011

The crosshairs are just a typo. That's the reason why her website is being cleaned up.

She would never refudiate anything from her past.
posted by empath at 2:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Can Google Cache be relied on to call forth the pre-scrubbing websites, or do they overwrite the old cache with new images as they scrape the web?

Alternatively, would archive.org have indexed this stuff?

I still find it hard to believe that people think they can actually delete stuff from the internet in this day and age, but am curious about how well these two services would work in cases like this.
posted by hippybear at 2:09 PM on January 8, 2011

dcheeno: I think it'll be more: lone nut(s) vs. conspiracy. We saw it before with the Fort Dix "terrorists," who were identified as "Islamic radicals," just like the real bad guys.
posted by rhizome at 2:09 PM on January 8, 2011

You must be Swedish. We are not yet used to this in America.

We are not used to what, public shootings? Violent assassinations of political officials? What?
posted by blucevalo at 2:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

that's where I'm Jared Lee Loughner!

Why do these rednecks always have three names?
posted by octobersurprise at 2:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

This was on the kid's myspace page: The extended magazine.
posted by chainlinkspiral at 2:10 PM on January 8, 2011

It's obvious from the videos that the shooter intended to cause this sort of oswallian argument regarding his political motivation - time will tell.
posted by onesidys at 2:10 PM on January 8, 2011

Arizona does not equal redneck.

Redneck does not equal murderer.
posted by hermitosis at 2:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [17 favorites]

Someone on Something Awful knows the shooter.
posted by empath at 2:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thank you Wilder, I was hoping someone with more knowledge than I would weigh in. From what I understood, surviving a bullet to the head isn't always a good thing.
posted by chemoboy at 9:49 PM on January 8 [+] [!]
IANANeurosurgeon, or clin active, although I put together the training programmes for juniors (mix of all 9 specialities, soon to be 10 as vascular has gone independant now in the UK) and inspect them. (I'm also sitting next to an intensivist and we've been discussing this for a few hours now).
I can say that every single Neurosurgeon I know is an optimist. That team will have been high-fiving at the response to command. While those weird and wonderful images of that man with the spike through his skull get passed around it is because of the rarity. The reality is truly pitiable. NS do not expect 100% recovery, but they STRIVE for Quality of Life. .
I sincerely hope she recovers well.
posted by Wilder at 2:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

Was just looking at EarBucket's link to Loughner's MySpace page (copy of it). Something that hasn't come up yet: Giffords is part of the LGBT Caucus, i.e., she's pro-LGBT.

From Loughner's MySpace:

Yo! I saw what a transexual looks like today; my esteem is better, I don't act like a woman.

Granted, lots (and lots, sigh) of kids make that kind of insensitive, ignorant remark. But knowing that Giffords is pro-LGBT, there's ths possibility that Loughner's intolerance could have been yet another part of his motivations.
posted by fraula at 2:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

At least 5 dead in Arizona shooting.
posted by ericb at 2:12 PM on January 8, 2011

dcheeno: I'm not looking forward to the blaming and finger-pointing we'll encounter over the next couple of days from the cable news channels.

There's enough of that in this thread to satisfy about anyone...
posted by Artful Codger at 2:12 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have three names but I do not go by all three. I believe it is often the media that uses the three names when reporting on these type things. I assume they would refer to me by all three of my names if I were to assassinate someone.
posted by arveale at 2:13 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I suspect a fair number of people in this thread want this guy to be a right-wing loonbag in the same way they didn't want the Times Square bomber to be a Muslim when that story first broke.

And I get it. I had a flash of both feelings now and then. And I'm still fighting them a bit about the whole Sarah Palin map thing.

But I'm not going to take a "Gotcha!" moment at the price of a piece of what seems like a decent woman's skull.
posted by Cyrano at 2:13 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

We are not used to what, public shootings? Violent assassinations of political officials? What?

Violent assassinations of political officials. I thought my selective pruning of the quote made that clear. I apologize, I wasn't completely clear. It is hard to keep up with this thread. Also, by "we" I meant recent generations. Yes, yes, the Kennedys, I know.
posted by chemoboy at 2:14 PM on January 8, 2011

Why do these rednecks always have three names?

That's actually a booking thing.
posted by rhizome at 2:15 PM on January 8, 2011

Do we have any proof that he actually read any of those books?
posted by jsavimbi at 2:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Redneck does not equal murderer.

I know, but Sondheim just wouldn't listen to me.
posted by octobersurprise at 2:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Gov. Jan Brewer cut $36 million from AZ Dept. of Health in 2010, including treatments/services for the mentally ill. via Twitter.
posted by The Whelk at 2:16 PM on January 8, 2011 [23 favorites]

by "we" I meant recent generations - At least three "recent generations" were alive when the Kennedys were assassinated.
posted by Ardiril at 2:16 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

You must be Swedish. We are not yet used to this in America. I really hope this does not result in people with guns accompanying politicians who are speaking to their constituents. That thought is very unsettling.

Unfortunately I am not Swedish, though I was fortunate enough to be allowed to live there for a time while I studied.

This probably will result in people with guns accompanying politicians or politicians carrying them themselves. Sweden hasn't fallen apart because of this...
posted by melissam at 2:16 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

>> Palin put up an image that unmistakably suggests shooting specific political opponents of her, and then one of those very opponents is shot.

> A favorite and oft repeated phrase on Metafilter is "correlation does not equal causation."

I did not say it did, I said that it quite reasonably made Palin relevant to this thread, and calling people names for bringing it up wasn't right.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 2:16 PM on January 8, 2011

Predictions:
shooter's politics are too confused and misspelled to understand, but thankfully he's alive so he can say all kinds of crazy shit that doesn't really fit any sane person's definition of an opinion so that both sides can claim the other one made him do it.

in the end, the democrats win for 2 reasons:
1. they look like the sane ones cuz of the palin target etc.
2. other terrorist gunmen will be less likely to shoot them given possible bulletproof heads.
3. she's alive and is awesome. Yay! Stay alive please!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:17 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

The shooting comes amid a highly charged political environment that has seen several dangerous threats against lawmakers but nothing that reached the point of actual violence.

... In July, a California man known for his anger over left-leaning politics engaged in a shootout with highway patrol officers after planning an attack on the ACLU and another nonprofit group. The man said he wanted to "start a revolution" by killing people at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation.

Giffords herself has drawn the ire of the right, especially for her support of the health care bill from politicians like Sarah Palin.

Her Tucson office was vandalized a few hours after the House vote to approve the health care law in March, with someone either kicking or shooting out a glass door and window. In an interview after the vandalism, Giffords referred to the animosity against her by conservatives. Palin listed Giffords' seat as one of the top "targets" in the midterm elections because of the lawmakers' support for the health care law.

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC.

In the hours after the shooting, Palin issued a statement in which she expressed her "sincere condolences" to the family of Giffords and the other victims.*

posted by ericb at 2:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why do these rednecks always have three names?

When you're poor, when the educational system has failed you (in both senses of the phrase), when you're just a pawn in the games of demagogues who tell you that your unhappy life isn't the planned result of a capitalist system but instead a perpetrated by liberal Mexican-lovin' Eastern-elitist race-mixers, sometimes the only things you have left are a reckless pride, a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories, and your two first names.

These people have mined our coal, fought our wars, and have been kept ignorant, reactionary, and thus pliable for centuries.
posted by orthogonality at 2:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [20 favorites]

Hey sorry, I met him in one of my classes sophmore year (one year apart) I didn't hang out with him much but we talked a lot in class, we only hung out once outside of school. I don't know what his political beliefs were but he was a huge stoner.

http://www.gonrad.com/201101/img_0977.jpg
far right, no pun intended

Can't wait for the drug warriors to comment!
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:19 PM on January 8, 2011

^ That is from the SomethingAwful link above.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:19 PM on January 8, 2011

also, not to be too facetious but a recovery like this can takes months, even years of quite intensive and high-quality care. While a congresswoman has a good health plan,I assume, doesn't the Health Care Bill she espoused ensure that poorer Americans can get the kind of opportunity to recover as much function as possible in a case like this? All the Democrats have to do is find a Thru & thru from before it was passed and now.
posted by Wilder at 2:20 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Some people like to read allegories about the gold standard into the Wizard of Oz.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:20 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

His high school yearbook photo.
posted by scalefree at 2:21 PM on January 8, 2011

Right now, Palin's staff are furiously scrubbing the web of any dog-whistle "metaphors" that could be construed as violent; in other words, they're trying to destroy evidence.

Sorry, this thread is moving crazy fast, so I might have missed the link: is there a good rundown of this somewhere (ideally with before and after screenshots)?
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 2:21 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

in the end, the democrats win for 2 reasons

I don't think anyone wins.
posted by dcheeno at 2:21 PM on January 8, 2011 [26 favorites]

NS do not expect 100% recovery, but they STRIVE for Quality of Life.

This is probably the most hopeful news I have heard. The doctor who said he was optimistic later backpedaled to "optimistic given the situation." I am assuming that means that given the event, the damage was minimized and maybe she caught a lucky break. And they were able to get any swelling under control.

I guess we will have to wait until they bring her around before we know the damage.
posted by chemoboy at 2:22 PM on January 8, 2011

Some people like to read allegories about the gold standard into the Wizard of Oz.

Welp, between that and the obvious demonization of political opponents as witches, I think Sarah and Beck are off the hook.

/no, but really, he's fucking crazy guys, it could have been anything. Wait and see.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:22 PM on January 8, 2011

I just don't understand how someone can look at that graphic and not see a direct line from the violent rhetoric of the last two years to what happened today.

Because we simply don't have any proof that this person was motivated in any way by the violent rhetoric of the last two years. It may be likely, it may be highly probable, but applying direct causation at this point is a stretch.

Sarah Palin's putting crosshairs on political opponents made her an evil asshole, not because it causes something like this to happen. It makes her an evil asshole because things like this have already happened, and at the time that she put that map out could have been reasonably expected to happen again. The fact that the victim was someone on her map could very well be the mother of all coincidences. Even so, no amount of wordplay or spin puts her on the right side of this issue.

The worst thing you can do in this situation is blame Palin or Beck for this, because it's impossible to prove, nad too easy to circumstantially weasel out of. "hey that guy read a Communist Book, and we hate Communists. Not one of us! End of story."

Hold them accountable for what they actually do. Make Sarah Palin explain why in a world where this sort of thing happens, she chose not to err on the side of caution and decency. I hate that this story is even remotely related to Palin, but it does provide me with one bit of certainty among all the rumor and conjecture around this story. I never believed that Sarah Palin had any political future in this country. But I would bet actual money that unless she flat out admits to being wrong for putting that map out and apologizes for it, she's done for in the realm of public opinion. Judging by past behavior, I don't think she has it in her.
posted by billyfleetwood at 2:23 PM on January 8, 2011 [51 favorites]

The shooting comes amid a highly charged political environment that has seen several dangerous threats against lawmakers but nothing that reached the point of actual violence.

Ugh, awful editorializing, or bad writing, or simply not saying what I want it to say, this seems like it could also be rewritten, "After months of heated rhetoric, something something shot..." or "Escalating political threats resulted in actual violence today..."
posted by rhizome at 2:23 PM on January 8, 2011

Hopefully the lesson of this will be: When you lie to a national audience, your concern should be not so much what the average person will do with your lie, but what the crazy person will do. And that's your responsibility.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:26 PM on January 8, 2011 [25 favorites]

Man it would be nice to live in a country where attempted assassinations weren't seen as ways to score political points.

The killer was a crazy righty! He was a leftwing nut!

*sigh*
posted by graventy at 2:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

billyfleetwood: "seeing a direct line" absolutely doesn't "[imply] direct causation"...!
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 2:27 PM on January 8, 2011

East Man': It may be that not realizing how stupid people can be is what makes the violent rhetoriticians stupid.
posted by rhizome at 2:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Guys, you are losing your minds if you can't take the political blinders off here. Take some time out and think before you keep going down this road.

I think it's more the other way around. People who are demanding a-political discussion of this are, in a sense, asking that blinders be put on, that we limit the way we think about this and refuse to connect the dots because the image that emerges is so ugly. I think that's kind of naïve.

Clearly, this guy is nuts. But. The fact that he's nuts doesn't mean he exists in a vacuum. Listen to the rhetoric on fox news and in the right-wing-crazysphere. if you got most of your information from that crazysphere then a rational conclusion would be that our country is under politic siege and that it would actually be heroic and good for you to take out some democrats who are trying to destroy "our country" and take it away from "real Americans".

Remember, the "Second amendment remedies" lady was Sharon Angle, who was running against Reid in Navada, right next door.

A favorite and oft repeated phrase on Metafilter is "correlation does not equal causation."

Yeah, and I hate that phrase and complain about it all the time! First of all, your formulation (with 'equal' instead of 'imply') is actually totally wrong. Even the implies form is often misued. What it actually means that if A and B are correlated it does not imply that A causes B. But We do know that there is a causal relationship in some direction, possibly both are caused by some hidden variable.

That said, the person on twitter said he was a Liberal in '07. It's possible he still was.

I have three names but I do not go by all three. I believe it is often the media that uses the three names when reporting on these type things. I assume they would refer to me by all three of my names if I were to assassinate someone.

Maybe to make it easier for people with the same name.
posted by delmoi at 2:30 PM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

I really hope that she survives and one day confronts Palin in public about the map with crosshairs.
posted by overglow at 2:32 PM on January 8, 2011 [28 favorites]

Why do these rednecks always have three names?

I was taught at some point that the reason for using the middle name by law enforcement and the press is to not have any confusion with other people having that same name. There might be a lot of guys named "Jimmy Ray" in Tennessee , but "James Earl Ray" is one specific person.
posted by billyfleetwood at 2:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

There's something I think merits consideration when speculating about the motivations of Loughner and those who commit similar crimes. It's often remarked that republicans have an advantage over democrats due to their inner consistency, soundbite-friendly rhetoric, and ability to work in lockstep. Contrast this with democrats, who are criticized for having an unclear, inconsistent message and disagreement within their ranks. Right wing language is less nuanced, it's easier to spot elements of it in the statements of mentally unstable individuals. This lack of nuance also makes it easier for the unstable to interpret it as something that fulfills their own misguided agenda.

I lean pretty far left, but I wonder if the perceived connection between these kind of crimes and the right wing has less do do with political beliefs, and more to do with their consistency making them easier to identify/re-appropriate. That said, I disagree with using anger as a motivator and violent imagery such as crosshairs to express political beliefs, but I'm wary of putting politicians I consider misguided in the same roster as murderers.
posted by yorick at 2:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

"James Earl Ray" is one specific person. - That's a big assumption.
posted by Ardiril at 2:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Violence is what happen when you create a climate of hate. It doesn't matter if the shooter and his accomplices never listened to Palin or Beck in their life (though if my time in Tucson is any indication, this is highly unlikely), their anti-government and anti-American rhetoric inflames shitheels like this, directly or indirectly.

Keeping them accountable for their words is the absolute least we should do in this situation.

There's a reason why my Tucson-originating boyfriend called me in tears about this earlier this afternoon. And it's not because his family shops at Tucson Safeways or he is a fan of Gabrielle Giffords (though both are true) -- it's because he "doesn't want to be afraid to be a liberal...doesn't want his family to have those fears." And anyone who doesn't think that the actions of not a fringe group but one of the two major political parties in this country doesn't cause such fears from relatively sane people and cause relatively insane people to take horrific actions is really, really unaware of what's happening on the ground in a large part of this country.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:37 PM on January 8, 2011 [58 favorites]

This probably will result in people with guns accompanying politicians or politicians carrying them themselves. Sweden hasn't fallen apart because of this...

Again, I really hope it doesn't. I mean, apart from the obvious exceptions of top ranking political officials. Maybe it's the socialist in me, but I don't think most people should be protected just by doing their job. If their lives are in jeopardy, there is an underlying problem with society that should be addressed instead.

Gov. Jan Brewer cut $36 million from AZ Dept. of Health in 2010, including treatments/services for the mentally ill. via Twitter.

When I was watching the alleged assassin's YouTube videos, I was making check marks on DSM-IV symptoms. Given his behavior and his ... ahem ... videos, I'm pretty sure he was well into shizophrenia. It probably won't happen, but it would be nice if the good that became of this was better understanding, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses. My fantasy is that Giffords becomes the Bill Bradley of mental health.

Oh, and now his YouTube and MySpace assets are now all over mainstream media.
posted by chemoboy at 2:37 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Hold them accountable for what they actually do. Make Sarah Palin explain why in a world where this sort of thing happens, she chose not to err on the side of caution and decency.

Hell, if one sticks to just facts (vs caution/decency) - explain the scrubbing of their web sites of what was said in the past. Palin won't be the 1st or the last who's got some 'splain to do.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:37 PM on January 8, 2011

But I would bet actual money that unless she flat out admits to being wrong for putting that map out and apologizes for it, she's done for in the realm of public opinion.

How much you got?
posted by cashman at 2:37 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

Today someone took their nine-year-old to this store, perhaps to give her the experience of talking to her representative.

And that parent is going home alone.
posted by NorthernLite at 2:37 PM on January 8, 2011 [61 favorites]

Clearly, this guy is nuts. But. The fact that he's nuts doesn't mean he exists in a vacuum. Listen to the rhetoric on fox news and in the right-wing-crazysphere. if you got most of your information from that crazysphere then a rational conclusion would be that our country is under politic siege and that it would actually be heroic and good for you to take out some democrats who are trying to destroy "our country" and take it away from "real Americans".

Remember, the "Second amendment remedies" lady was Sharon Angle, who was running against Reid in Navada, right next door.

So your idea of a Sharon Angle voter is an early twenties, literate, stoner, atheist who thinks everyone should be able to print their own currency? This is what I mean by blinders, take a look at the whole person not just the views that line up the way you want them to and it gets a bit more difficult to assign any blame at this point.

It just as well could have been Oz that did it, he is crazy.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:39 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Howard Fineman: The End Of Access

The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is a watershed event in many ways, some of which we cannot yet know, but one of the clearest and simplest is this: Congress and its members are about to be permanently quarantined, physically isolated, from the people it and they represent.

... even more restrictive rules are now inevitable. It's even possible that the general public will be banned from the hallways of the Capitol Complex, at least at certain times and under certain circumstances.

As for personal protection, that is likely to be increased substantially. For the last year or two, some House members and senators have had unpublicized but substantial security details dispatched to their side when deemed warranted.

The Huffington Post has learned that one Democratic senator had a special security detail detailed to him for two weeks after concerns were raised about personal threats.

But rather than have extensive details for each member, the members are likely to change their behavior -- which means they will stay behind closed doors here in DC and in their home districts and states.

posted by ericb at 2:39 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

Arizona Daily Star, June 9:

Jesse Kelly, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be bothered in the least by the Sarah Palin controversy earlier this year, when she released a list of targeted races in crosshairs, urging followers to “reload” and “aim” for Democrats. Critics said she was inciting violence.

He seems to be embracing his fellow tea partier’s idea. Kelly’s campaign event website has a stern-looking photo of the former Marine in military garb holding his weapon. It includes the headline: “Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”

The event costs $50.

No, politics doesn't enter into this at all. At all!
posted by blucevalo at 2:40 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

I really hope that she survives and one day confronts Palin in public about the map with crosshairs.

I hope that confrontation takes place in court.
posted by Brian B. at 2:42 PM on January 8, 2011 [34 favorites]

But a lot of people have read all of these books and haven't—and never will—do what he's done.

Absolutely. I have read most of them, own several of the non-political ones, am most certainly not right-leaning, and can't fathom how any of them could trigger something like this (but Ayn Rand usually gives me pause).

The safest bet is not to read books at all! (Just magazines... "all of 'em, Katie.")

I imagine some teapartiers and Palin followers will look at that list of books and call for them all to be banned in schools (at least the ones that aren't already).

The Wizard Of OZ - Fantasy,
Encourages murdering female political opponents by dousing them in fatal chemicals.

Almost ashamed that I laughed.

Hopefully the lesson of this will be: When you lie to a national audience, your concern should be not so much what the average person will do with your lie, but what the crazy person will do. And that's your responsibility.

But isn't that precisely what Glen Beck is allowed and paid to do, deliberately poke the crazies with a stick, in hopes that one of them will do what he can't and then take the fall for everybody in his "gang"?

It's often remarked that republicans have an...ability to work in lockstep

Yep, which often leads to the evil of groupthink.
posted by fuse theorem at 2:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'll never understand Palin supporters. Ever. I can't possibly begin to comprehend the level of irrational logic they operate under.
posted by Evernix at 2:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Giffords' opponent in the recent election, Jesse Kelly, held a campaign event in June where participants were invited to shoot an automatic weapon with the candidate, which was advertised as a chance to "get on target for victory in November help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office"*

posted by ericb at 2:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

billyfleetwood: "seeing a direct line" absolutely doesn't "[imply] direct causation"...!

fine. I will edit my comment.

Seeing a direct line is also a stretch.

Right now we have very little information, a lot of guessing, and tons of theorizing. Anybody who can show me any sort of provable "direct line" leading to this act should march themselves down to the CNN studio and demand to be put on the air. Or be made acting director of Homeland Security or something.

In the days and months to come, I'm sure we'll know more. Chances are it won't be as clean cut as anybody wants it to be.
posted by billyfleetwood at 2:45 PM on January 8, 2011

Congress and its members are about to be permanently quarantined, physically isolated, from the people it and they represent.

Not at all.

The lobbyists of Corporations will have the same access as before.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:46 PM on January 8, 2011 [15 favorites]

TakeBackThe20.com has been scrubbed. Here's a site rip.
posted by kafziel at 2:48 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

in the end, the democrats win

but a pity for those that died.

For fuck sake
posted by the noob at 2:48 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

How much you got?

My momma taught me to never gamble with nobody named "cashman"
posted by billyfleetwood at 2:48 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

TakeBackThe20.com has been scrubbed. Here's a site rip.

It may just be hammered. But thank you for the site rip.
posted by chemoboy at 2:50 PM on January 8, 2011

Fineman: But rather than have extensive details for each member, the members are likely to change their behavior -- which means they will stay behind closed doors here in DC and in their home districts and states.

No, I can't see that happening. They will make themselves vulnerable to challlengers and possibly lose their next election if they quarantine themselves very much.
posted by jayder at 2:52 PM on January 8, 2011

So your idea of a Sharon Angle voter is an early twenties, literate, stoner, atheist who thinks everyone should be able to print their own currency?

I don't know any Nevadans, but I do know Ron Johnson voters in Wisconsin who fit this description.
posted by aaronetc at 2:55 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Robert Kennedy's words seem appropriate here:

Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
posted by naoko at 2:55 PM on January 8, 2011 [19 favorites]

Okay, so I'm trying not to jump to conclusions, but good luck to me with that.

I did not feel guilty about checking her party affiliation as soon as I heard the news. For this reason: I was confused. This was a prominent public official who had been shot in public, but she represented Arizona, which made it highly likely that she was Republican. I had to confirm that she was a democrat just to make the story make sense.

My apologies. I'm pretty angry right now.

Angry at a rising death toll of citizens who came out to meet with their elected official about the operation of their government, at least one of whom was a child.

Angry at the state of things in Arizona that it took so log for help to arrive.

(Thankful the the Congresswoman has survived so far.)

Angry at Palin for making blatant calls for violence against congresspeople, couched in the thinnest veneer of "I mean shoot them dead with your votes and money of course." Listen everybody. Those in power on the Right don't want this sort of thing to happen. They don't want to inspire actual violence. They want to inspire just short of this. Palin and Beck don't want their audience to shoot people, they want their audience to want to shoot people, but feel like they can't, and that the next best thing is to give money to Palin and Beck.

Also angry at Palin for her bullshit press release, and angrier at the feeling that she probably believes in it.

Angry at Beck for his relentless campaign to convince people that the country is falling apart and that the only thing you can trust in is that gold has some magical power of intrinsic value by virtue of being shiny.

Angry at knowing that while two miles from the Safeway where this occurred, people are mourning, two miles from where I am people are working furiously to put the "right spin" on the incident.

Angry that those offices are where I'm trying desperately to find work.

Angry at reality that this isn't simple. That the shooter didn't conform to the necessary stereotype to make this make sense.

Angry at furiousxgeorge for his repeated assertions that because the shooter is crazy that politics had nothing to do with it, as if mental imbalance prohibits people from being swayed by political rhetoric, and as if the rhetoric of a madman has to sync up precisely with that of public persons in order for the influence to be seen. For Christ's Sake, he's spouting revolutionary shit about gold standards and the unconstitutionality of paying taxes for education and his stuff about literacy is clearly tied to ENGLISH in a state with a very large populace of Spanish speakers whom the right has been demonizing like, well, crazy.

Angry that I really don't know anything here.

But I'm reminded of "The Dark Night," when Harvey Dent is beating and questioning the one guy in the alley, and Batman shows up to say. "He's a paranoid schizophrenic. Just the sort of mind the Joker attracts. What to you expect to learn from him?"

And so I'm angry that I know we're not going to learn anything useful from this guy. But it appears there were others working with him. Do you think those others, the ones who evaded capture for a little bit longer, were really bogged down with obsessions with "conscience dreaming" or misunderstandings/misinterpretations of the BCE/CE convention? No. This is, again, exactly the kind of mind the Joker attracts. Or in this case, the kind of mind attracted to the Palin/Beck rhetoric. But I don't know anything yet.

In offices two miles from where I sit, people are working furiously on spin. And most of them will say exactly the same thing furiousxgeorge is saying. The message will be "shh, shh. Shut up. He was a crazy person. Nothing to see here. This was a tragedy for all of us." And then some will continue that the liberals are trying to spin the tragedy for their own gain.

Fuck that shit, and I'm calling bullshit now. I don't know anything, but this was about politics. One way or another, it was. And saying that this particular guy was crazy so we can't draw any conclusions is actively burying one's head in the sand. This guy was a tool. bin Laden didn't fly the planes into the towers himself, after all.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:55 PM on January 8, 2011 [107 favorites]

girl on twitter claims to have known gunman.
posted by crunchland at 2:56 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

So your idea of a Sharon Angle voter is an early twenties, literate, stoner, atheist who thinks everyone should be able to print their own currency?

Of course not, despite the proximity, it's still a different state. But the print their own currency stuff is straight up crazy libertarianism that's popular in the teaparty.

(And why call him "literate", He derided other people for being illiterate, but his own writing was pretty damn wonky. The fact that he considered himself literate and everyone else illiterate doesn't actually make it so)

This is what I mean by blinders, take a look at the whole person not just the views that line up the way you want them to and it gets a bit more difficult to assign any blame at this point.

Disagreeing with someone doesn't mean the other person had "blinders" on, it just means they've reached different conclusions with the given facts. What facts, specifically do you think people are ignoring?

When you get into the deep weeds of crazy republicanism you see a lot more diversity of thought. There were, for example, 9/11 truthers at Glenn Beck's 9/12 rally. There's a lot of conspiracy theory crazyness.

No one is saying he was following the Beck/Palin ideology to the letter, but rather that he was influenced by people like that into thinking democratic politicians were the harbingers of an oppressive totalitarian state that would crush everything and/or not expel all the Mexicans. There is a also a lot more support for Marijuana reform.

Simply looking at the demographic profile and saying "not a typical republican" doesn't mean that no republicans fit the profile. Objectivists tend to be atheists and conservative. And, obviously, he was a gun owner.
posted by delmoi at 2:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Man it would be nice to live in a country where attempted assassinations weren't seen as ways to score political points.

Please let us know where this utopia is; I can't think of anywhere that hasn't had episodes of this kind of violence.

This is really sad, and it's always amazing to me how much influence one nut with a willingness to kill can end up having.
posted by Forktine at 2:58 PM on January 8, 2011

Anybody who can show me any sort of provable "direct line" leading to this act should march themselves down to the CNN studio and demand to be put on the air.

Oh course, when it comes to Islamic terrorism, we don't have to look for a direct line. In fact we're not even allowed to look for a direct line. They're just crazy evil moozlims who want to kill freedom. No further analysis is allowed to be entered into. But when it's a white American? Oooh we need a direct line before drawing any conclusions.
posted by Jimbob at 2:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [36 favorites]

Re: Palin scrubbing stuff, this tweet was recently deleted.
posted by troika at 2:59 PM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

And, obviously, he was a gun owner.

Guns are painfully easy to procure illegally. I hate to be that guy, but we still don't know anything about the shooter.
posted by orville sash at 2:59 PM on January 8, 2011

God, is there anything lamer than a self promoting former criminal profiler seizing on a shooter's love for Mein Kampf on the teevee?
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:00 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

USA, Inc. will no longer allow visitors at the corporate office?

Unfortunately, I think Howard Fineman is right and the upcoming Giffords Law forbidding unwanted contact with an elected representative is something that many a pol would enjoy, if not outright beg for. Sadly though, I think that it's a direct reflection on our society as a whole, as we transitioned from the front porch to the family room in the back or basement in order to escape and entertain ourselves. For one, I'm honestly surprised that Rep. Giffords would hold such a public event, given what I know about my local reps, two of whom will be granting audiences during visiting hours in a federal jail soon enough.

But that all pales in comparison to my thoughts regarding all of the other families that are suffering the consequences of today's actions. Nobody should lose their child like that.
posted by jsavimbi at 3:00 PM on January 8, 2011

Angry at furiousxgeorge for his repeated assertions that because the shooter is crazy that politics had nothing to do with it

angry at people not reading what I write.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:00 PM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

Have any influential figures (politicians, celebrities, anybody??) made a public statement yet that includes a sentiment or directly addresses the culture of violence and political rhetoric that may have influenced this tragedy? I'm just wondering if anybody with a wider audience is admonishing with similar sentiment as I'm seeing here on MeFi, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
posted by iamkimiam at 3:00 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Re: Palin scrubbing stuff, this tweet was recently deleted.

I'm of the mind that Tweets should be undeletable.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 3:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

angry at people not reading what I write.

Fair enough. As I hoped to make clear, I'm not in my best mind right now.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:05 PM on January 8, 2011

angry at people not reading what I write.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:00 PM

George is getting upset!
posted by chemoboy at 3:07 PM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

Does anyone know what condition Giffords is in???? Or the extent of her injuries
posted by goalyeehah at 3:07 PM on January 8, 2011

For Christ's Sake, he's spouting revolutionary shit about gold standards and the unconstitutionality of paying taxes for education and his stuff about literacy is clearly tied to ENGLISH in a state with a very large populace of Spanish speakers whom the right has been demonizing like, well, crazy.

Again, take off the blinders. He is complaining about paying tuition for college, not taxes. I can ASSURE you Sarah Palin does not think tuition is unconstitutional. His stuff about literacy reads more like the proper word would be enlightened. He thinks practically no one is literate, not that those damn Mexicans don't learn English. I refer to him as literate for his diverse reading list, his writing is clearly insane and unintelligible which is why you can not diagnose his politics through them.

Can someone provide evidence that he was registered as Republican, or Libertarian, or at all? Has he ever endorsed a candidate in any of his writings?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:07 PM on January 8, 2011

George is getting upset!

Furious even

/Snagglepuss
posted by Senor Cardgage at 3:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Anybody who shoots a public figure, then into a crowd, is by any reasonable definition crazy. But crazy comes in degrees.

And it's clear that from Loughner's YouTube videos, assuming that they are sincere (and not some sort of pre-planned insanity plea evidence, or what have you), that he is a long way into woo-hoo cuckoo land. But woo-hoo cuckoo land is a big, big place, with lots of ways to get there.

It's equally clear from the videos that the bus that took Loughner deep into woo-hoo cuckoo land passed through an obsession with a literal, limited reading of the Constitution, and right past the Return to the Gold Standard. These are pretty strongly characteristic of the current right wing fringe.

He didn't arrive in the depths of woo-hoo cuckoo land as others have; through an obsession with the industrial-technological system, or through a fucked-up cult, or to impress Jodie Foster. And I don't think it's appropriate to dismiss him entirely as a random nut with no political significance.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 3:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

I'm a bit shocked that Metafilter is trying to tie the rantings and actions of someone who is clearly mentally deficient to the political right. The shooter apparently is a right-wing extremist but also very, very ill. Let's be careful about branding a whole political movement based on this, please?

This isn't the first time that someone who disagreed with a politician went out and killed him, nor, sadly, will it be the last.
posted by tgrundke at 3:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm going to bet this had little or nothing to do with Giffords.
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:10 PM on January 8, 2011

Interview with David Neiwert author of "The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right".

This clearly spells out what's wrong with the eliminationist rhetoric and why the right wing is morally culpable in the violence.

Actually, Palin's site-scrubbing (and accompanying silence) is the guilty fleeing when no man pursueth.

Saying the shooter is crazy doesn't cut it. That red herring was thrashed out 25 years ago in the Goldmark murders.
posted by warbaby at 3:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

Fox News: "According to the law enforcement official, the suspect began shouting something before shooting wildly with an automatic weapon. Shots then rang out from the crowd -- a security agent or someone else fired at the suspect who survived."
posted by Jahaza at 3:11 PM on January 8, 2011

tgrundke: No it is not to first time, nor is the left the only group that is ever targeted (see: Hinckley, or the guy who held the Discovery Channel hostage last year, though his views were really all over the map as well.)

The point here is that the Right is actually regularly calling their listeners to violence. When said violence occurs, I think it makes sense for people to demand accountability for it.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:12 PM on January 8, 2011 [18 favorites]

Forget the politicizing and the overanalysis for a while. There will be plenty of time for that. I was shaking for a while after I heard, and I'm not the only one. The community is in shock, like much of the nation. I was out with my wife when I got a call about this. We had things to do. She said, "Why don't we just go home now?" Say a prayer or send some thoughts towards the victims and their families. There will be plenty of time to dissect this.
posted by azpenguin at 3:12 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

The Guardian reports that Loughner is an Afghanistan War veteran, which I haven't seen reported elsewhere.
posted by Rumple at 3:12 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Angry that those offices are where I'm trying desperately to find work.

And this has exactly what to do with the dead and injured victims of the Tucson shooting???
posted by jgirl at 3:13 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am stunned that her prognosis is so positive. Go, Gabby!
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:13 PM on January 8, 2011

Man it would be nice to live in a country where attempted assassinations weren't seen as ways to score political points.

Bingo. Wouldn't it be nice if everybody just shut the fuck up about this guy's political motivations until they had some actual evidence? Ann Coulter is an evil, evil person -- and the rest of us should forbear emulating her tactics.
posted by steambadger at 3:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

The shooter apparently is a right-wing extremist

Even that seems very unclear.
posted by deern the headlice at 3:16 PM on January 8, 2011

But the problem of nutty people who want to shoot people is not going away. So maybe we tone down the right-wing rhetoric that really speaks to them?

Also, take away the guns. Every gun owner is a nice, law-abiding citizen, untill they are not. Then people die.

Not that we know how this one loon got his gun. Perhaps that is what the other arrests were about, but that might not be confirmed.

Fascinating, joyless, teeming, and disturbing. I need to step back, stop refreshing, play Blood Bowl, drink, think.

Hug your loved ones. Hug a stranger.
posted by vrakatar at 3:17 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm going to bet this had little or nothing to do with Giffords.

Agreed. I think there has been a bit too much hate and fear mongering in my country's politics. But while politics might have had something to do with it, it would be so insignificant of a cause that you should probably be burning the butterflies instead of the effigies.

@Homeboy Trouble - Thanks for the links. They lend some credibility to this thread full of speculation and ire. I had no idea (or I forgot) that Fromme was released. Very interesting.
posted by chemoboy at 3:18 PM on January 8, 2011

Again, take off the blinders. He is complaining about paying tuition for college, not taxes. I can ASSURE you Sarah Palin does not think tuition is unconstitutional.

Wow, you don't know any teabaggers, do you? They do not make any connection between the public policies they affect and their own actions and entitlements. Every one of them that I know grabs for all the government goodies they can get. The same ones who demand that government "leave their medicare alone" joyfully vote for candidates who want to eliminate it. This is equally true of officeholders Republicans don't hesitate to demand the stimulus money they denounced and voted against.

Besides, you started out by saying the guy is random batshit crazy, and end by saying he can't hold contradictory views because it's irrational. Hoo-kay. Even when that precise form of irrationality is a Tea Party hallmark.
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:20 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

The Guardian reports that Loughner is an Afghanistan War veteran, which I haven't seen reported elsewhere.

Some TV reported that early on, then dropped it. I don't think it's true.
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:20 PM on January 8, 2011

The Guardian reports that Loughner is an Afghanistan War veteran, which I haven't seen reported elsewhere.

FYI, both Army Knowledge Online and Marine On-Line have zero record of a Jared Loughner having served. Could still be a Navy or Air Force vet, I guess.
posted by lullaby at 3:21 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Who could have seen this coming? No wait—

Whether this is a direct result of Palin being a dumbaclot or not is really besides the point. It's bad PR for her regardless. I mean, you should expect some blowback when you put out campaign literature with violent overtones and targets and all that jazz.

America needs better public schools. WORD.
posted by chunking express at 3:21 PM on January 8, 2011

furiousxgeorge: "extremely literate" people know the difference between the words "then" and "than".
posted by onesidys at 3:23 PM on January 8, 2011

I am very thankful that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords will survive. Hopefully she will make a full recovery, as we can only hope.

May the wounded have all the support to help them deal with this tragedy.

May the dead by grieved for, and their loved ones find some sort of solace.

May we find the courage to build a stronger and more representative republic... may we remain civil.

It's really hard to believe it will be possible... but I will resign to embracing hope.

My earlier comment was made from a darker place.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 3:24 PM on January 8, 2011

I hope someone is cataloging Palin and co's site scrubbing and deletions. Seriously, we need someone to archive this shit for research purposes.
posted by Think_Long at 3:25 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

The shooter apparently is a right-wing extremist

The shooter sounds more like my former, mentally imbalanced roomie who had not taken his medications. Really...he does.

His political affiliations are secondary to his mental health.
posted by lampshade at 3:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

furiousxgeorge: "extremely literate" people know the difference between the words "then" and "than".

Sometimes.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

The AZ Daily Star's article has expanded to include statements from Giffords' seatmate Raul Grijalva, as well as several eyewitness accounts.

Dr. Steven Aryle, a hospice doctor who used to work in the emergency department at St. Mary's Hospital, went to the event to meet the congresswoman, whom he'd never met before.

Aryle said he was walking toward her, about 8 to 10 feet away, when he saw a man about 2 feet away from her side shoot her in the head.

There was no warning of the shot, he said. The man didn't say a word.

The congresswoman fell to the ground and a staff member ran to her side. She was conscious and he saw her sitting up against a wall - signs he considered encouraging.

He said he heard another 15 to 20 rounds. He helped hold the suspect down after other witnesses tackled and disarmed him.

'It was surreal. Gunshots sound less real in person," he said. "I thought someone was staging a protest. It just didn't feel real."

Alex Villec, a 19-year-old volunteer, organized the line of constituents when the shooter approached the line outside Safeway.

The shooter said "Can I talk to the congresswoman?", or something to that effect, Villec said. He told him to stand at the back of a line to wait for about 20 minutes.

A few minutes later, the shooter left the back of the line and walked toward Giffords amid a group of 20 to 25 constituents, employees and volunteers.

"He was intent," Villec said. "He was intent when he came back - a pretty stone-cold glance and glare. ... I didn't see his gun, but it was clear who he was going for. He was going for the congresswoman.

"A few staff members were caught in the crossfire ... . His goal was the congresswoman."

The shooter walked past Villec and to his left, past tables and toward Gifford. Villec saw him raise his hand and heard gunshots before ducking behind a pillar and later running across the Safeway parking lot to a bank for safety. "It was bedlam," he said. "People were getting down on the ground. They were screaming. I just did what I could to keep myself protected."

Grijalva:

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, Giffords' seatmate from Southern Arizona, said, "It's horrific. It's heartbreaking. It's very frightening. I hope she comes out of it. This is not what public service is all about."

The heated rhetoric and civil discord creates an environment for something like this to happen, he said.

He lamented a series of incidents demonstrating the buildup that leads to something like this, including an envelope of white powder sent to his Tucson office as well as a shot fired at his Yuma office.

posted by carsonb at 3:28 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Just maybe we should blame the sorry state of mental health care and treatment in this country.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [23 favorites]

chunking express: "Who could have seen this coming? No wait—

Whether this is a direct result of Palin being a dumbaclot or not..."

"Bumbaclot." It's "bumbaclot".
posted by symbioid at 3:29 PM on January 8, 2011

"He was a political radical & met Giffords once before in '07, asked her a question & he told me she was "stupid & unintelligent""
posted by atomicmedia at 3:29 PM on January 8, 2011

"Bumbaclot." It's "bumbaclot".

Yes, but in this case it seems to work.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 3:30 PM on January 8, 2011

Just maybe throwing around blame isn't the correct response to this sort of thing, Alia.
posted by carsonb at 3:30 PM on January 8, 2011

Echoing chemoboy, let's hope she sticks around and does as much as good as Jim Brady has.

How's this for a weird parallel: Brady was 14,823 days old when he was shot in the head. Congresswoman Giffords turned 14,823 days old just yesterday. (Brady, like Giffords, was also falsely reported by the TV networks to have died.)
posted by Knappster at 3:30 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I am very thankful that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords will survive. Hopefully she will make a full recovery, as we can only hope.

I am thankful as well. She was shot in the head and the hospital staff member at the press conference said she had been shot and it "passed through and through", going through her brain. So I suspect she will not be able to make a full recovery. But I hope she fully achieves the best recovery possible.

I'd like to see more information from people who knew him (actively) and interacted with him. The one person who seems to have known him said he was a liberal, a leftie, when she last saw him in 2007. Certainly there have to be people who have interacted with him and talked with him. Like the Tuscon Festival of Books staff, from the picture posted earlier.
posted by cashman at 3:32 PM on January 8, 2011

Wow, you don't know any teabaggers, do you?

@George_Spiggott: I know a LOT of them. College tutition being unconstitutional is NOT ONE OF THEIR POLICIES.

I have no idea what the hell you are trying to say with the rest of your comment, please restate and explain precisely what you are trying to respond to.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:33 PM on January 8, 2011

Just maybe we should blame the sorry state of mental health care and treatment in this country.

Don't we have Reagan to thank for a lot of that?
posted by hippybear at 3:35 PM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

Tucson, people, not Tuscon
posted by atomicmedia at 3:35 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

@George_Spiggott: I know a LOT of them. College tutition being unconstitutional is NOT ONE OF THEIR POLICIES.

Except that Loughner's claim isn't that tuition is unconstitutional. It's that payment in currency not backed by gold or silver is unconstitutional. Which is exactly Tea Party rhetoric.
posted by kafziel at 3:37 PM on January 8, 2011

Howard Fineman @ Huffpo is predicting that this will be the "end of access" to your representatives.

I just sent a note to my congresscritter asking her not to be intimidated by this. (Seeing as how my congresscritter is Louise Slaughter, the odds are good she won't be.)
posted by lodurr at 3:38 PM on January 8, 2011

The Times ran a really nice Vows column when she married the astronaut.
They courted over prison tours and shuttle launches.

"About 300 guests wore yarmulkes, military medals, silver concho studs or designer creations."
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:39 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

This is all just horrible in every way. I hope she pulls through, and it's sickening to hear that a nine-year old and a federal judge are among the ones confirmed dead.
posted by flatluigi at 3:40 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Really, we should be feeling sorry for Sarah Palin right now. Of the people on her "Crosshairs" map, only 2 are still in office. Since this nutjob was obviously acting completely randomly, and there are 535 people in Congress, it was a 0.3% chance for this particular Congresswoman to have been on her map which told people to set their sights on Democrats. Talk about bad luck!
posted by 0xFCAF at 3:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [25 favorites]

Except that Loughner's claim isn't that tuition is unconstitutional. It's that payment in currency not backed by gold or silver is unconstitutional. Which is exactly Tea Party rhetoric.

His argument is that he does not have to pay tuition because currency is unconstitutional. This is not the tea party argument. It is closer to a Freeman on the Land argument in which one attempts to use legal magic words to escape criminal charges or taxes. Sarah Palin paid her tutition. Ron Paul did too.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just maybe we should blame the sorry state of
mental health care and treatment in this country.

It is not just the system entirely. As citizens, many MI people often stray from their medications after they have been diagnosed and treated. Of course, yes our health system is a mess and it does turn away a huge number of persons who qualify for treatment. However, it does rely on the individual to reach out to it to some degree - whether it be voluntary or by a third party.

It is a slippery slope. Making a couple of non-sensical rantings on YouTube is not enough to get a person into treatment. Often it takes a "large" event like this to get a person the help they needed after the event that is the result of not having a diagnosis. It happens every day.
---
Regarding constitutional/education/currency line that Lougher is lamenting, anyone can connect a square and a circle and call it a triangle with enough effort.
posted by lampshade at 3:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Again, take off the blinders. He is complaining about paying tuition for college, not taxes. I can ASSURE you Sarah Palin does not think tuition is unconstitutional.

Okay, it seems obvious that you are using the word "blinders" to mean, "disagree with me" about his motivations. It's kind of obnoxious.

Still, it's possible he was a liberal if he was in the past. We'll have to see. But again this issue isn't being a doctrinaire conservative, but rather whether or not he was influenced by the crazy right-wing nonsense out there.

And on top of that, the violent rhetoric in Arizona seems a lot more violent then in other places.
posted by delmoi at 3:46 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

I wonder if it's possible the Judge was the real target, and the Rep was just collateral.
posted by crunchland at 3:48 PM on January 8, 2011

There might be a lot of guys named "Jimmy Ray" in Tennessee

Who wants to know?
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 3:48 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

And this has exactly what to do with the dead and injured victims of the Tucson shooting???

Nothing directly. I'm just stating that my anger is directed somewhat at myself as well, knowing that given slightly different circumstances I be doing the exact same spin-job. I didn't mean for that to come off as self-pitying, but I see now how it would.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:49 PM on January 8, 2011

Wahtever his motivations, he killed a child, and a judge and threatened to kill a congressman. He's 23 and he just threw his life away along with those of innocent people. Good work, asshole.
posted by jonmc at 3:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

"Bumbaclot." It's "bumbaclot".

I know how to type and I know what a bumbaclot is. Plain is a dumbaclot.
posted by chunking express at 3:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

http://twitter.com/caitieparker
posted by atomicmedia at 3:52 PM on January 8, 2011

And as if to answer my question, Mark Knoller says: "...eyewitness to shooting says gunman targeted Rep Giffords & then randomly shot others at her event."
posted by crunchland at 3:52 PM on January 8, 2011

I have begun to be genuinely frightened for the future of this nation.

We have never, ever been united in ideology or outlook. Our entire system was designed for one purpose and for one purpose only: to safeguard the people from the tyranny of other people.

The system only works if we use it. The peaceful transition of power is the most beautiful thing that happens regularly in America.

And for the first time in 150 years, individual ideologies are threatening to overwhelm the delicate balance of the system.

If we loose our willingness to compromise, we turn into Liberia or some other chaotic place.

The peace we have here is so much more fragile than anyone believes.

I am afraid.
posted by jefficator at 3:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Again, take off the blinders. He is complaining about paying tuition for college, not taxes. I can ASSURE you Sarah Palin does not think tuition is unconstitutional.

Okay, it seems obvious that you are using the word "blinders" to mean, "disagree with me" about his motivations. It's kind of obnoxious.

No, I am using blinders to refer to disregarding facts that don't fit your agenda, which to me is the most obnoxious thing in the world. His views on currency are unintelligible but clearly distinct from mainstream tea party thought. I guarantee you they don't think it is workable for everyone to be the treasurer of their own money systems.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:55 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Whether this is a direct result of Palin being a dumbaclot or not..."

"Bumbaclot." It's "bumbaclot".
posted by symbioid

Woosh!
posted by chillmost at 3:56 PM on January 8, 2011

I wonder if it's possible the Judge was the real target, and the Rep was just collateral.

Not from what I'm reading. Apparently, he requested to speak with the congresswoman and was waiting in line when he decided to walk up in silence and shoot the congresswoman from close range.

This story will differ from propaganda outlets, but the fact remains that he showed up to the congresswoman's event, armed, with the intent to either speak with or shoot her, not the judge, the kid or anyone else there.
posted by jsavimbi at 3:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is an incredibly terrible crime and I hope that all of the victims who are injured recover as fully as possible.

Incidentally, my little sister met Rep. Giffords once a couple of years ago when she was speaking at her alma mater in California. She was a rising young woman in politics; now the martyr of rising young women in politics.

The Tea Party idiocy has certainly hardened some hearts...

Some posters here seem to be on the verge of assuming that the killer was not sane. I wouldn't assume that at all.
posted by knoyers at 4:00 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've followed the Tea Party for a a year and a half as a political reporter, and I assure that there is no overarching mainstream ideology behind the movement. There is, however, a sizable mix of anti-government, anti-tax, taxes are illegal, anything done with our tax money is unconstitutional types in the movement. Your claims that his viewpoint is somehow outside regular Tea Party rhetoric does not jibe with my experiences at all.

Gold standard, low taxes, cut spending. That kind of thing is mainstream tea party thought.

--
Every human who's mentally capable is always able to be treasurer of their new currency.

If you create one new currency then you're able to create a second new currency.

If you're able to create second new currency then you're able to create third new currency.

You create one new currency.

Thus, you're able to create a third currency.

You're a treasurer for a new currency, listener?

You create and distribute your new currency, listener?

You don't allow the government to control your grammar structure, listener?
--

This is not. There is no ambiguity about this fact.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Again, I say to you: There are plenty of lunatics in the Tea Party, and their rhetoric is all over the map. I am not sure where you get this sense that there is some sort of reasonable mainstream. Try talking to them some time. You only need to talk to three or four before somebody hands you tracts explaining these lunatic anti-tax schemes.
posted by Astro Zombie at 4:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

The man
shoots a democratic politician at a public event,

in the southern us -

he's obviously a raving socialist upset at the lack of progress on farm collectivisation, yes ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

I don't think it's necessarily material what the shooter's motivations were when some segment of society creates an atmosphere of social acceptability for violet acts. Violence is going to follow the path of least resistance, and the guy could have been a hobbit with a grudge against Cap'n Crunch and shot Snooki if a large segment of society was using the same metaphors against MTV as they were against Democratic politicians. In short, I think what a lot of people are bouncing off of is the question of what else could possibly motivate someone, even a stupid and/or crazy person, to target this gathering? He could have just done a Huberty and shot up a Denny's.
posted by rhizome at 4:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

No, I am using blinders to refer to disregarding facts that don't fit your agenda, which to me is the most obnoxious thing in the world. His views on currency are unintelligible but clearly distinct from mainstream tea party thought. I guarantee you they don't think it is workable for everyone to be the treasurer of their own money systems.

No, you're using "blinders" to refer to people disagreeing about the implication of various facts. No one is literally denying that he wrote those things in that video. But we disagree that they are that different from what crazy teabaggers have been saying. In fact:

I guarantee you they don't think it is workable for everyone to be the treasurer of their own money systems.

Guarentee? Really?

_{"Federal Reserve Note" (FRN). This means they were authorized for issue by the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), a national bank created by Congress. The legal tender law gives the Fed a monopoly over what you use for money.

When a currency is legal tender you are legally compelled to accept it in payment for debts, even if you've made a contract to be paid in some other currency or commodity, such as gold. The Free Competition in Currency Act would free you to use other currencies, gold, silver, or all of them at the same time, including FRNs

and would make gold contracts legally enforceable in court.

If this seems like a strange new world to you, please realize that you already live in this world to a certain extent.

...

Congressman Paul has hit upon the easiest way to end monetary inflation, and the booms and busts that follow in its wake. Simply repeal the legal tender monopoly enjoyed by FRNs, and the coinage monopoly held by the United States government. Stop taxing exchanges in commodity metals. Allow monetary competition. This would help end inflation. But that's not all . . .}

AZ, I'm not sure what your point is. I'm aware there are crazy people in every political movement. I am primarily arguing against premature certainty that people like Palin contributed to this violent act with their rhetoric. If the tea party is just a hodge podge of lunatic mavericks that doesn't really answer the question of Palin's responsibility with this particular crime, right?

It would seem to suggest he was above her influence.

As for anti-tax lunatics, I referenced them above. And I referenced Joe Stack as well. There is an area of crazy which can not be defined as left or right even though it is clearly political.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am stunned that her prognosis is so positive. Go, Gabby!

I'm crossing my fingers. The more I read about her, the more I wished she had been my congressperson.

America needs better public schools. WORD.

Word.

Just maybe we should blame the sorry state of mental health care and treatment in this country.

Word.

As citizens, many MI people often stray from their medications after they have been diagnosed and treated.

This probably is because many of these medications have serious side effects. Perhaps if more money was spent on research, better medications could be discovered.

I have to agree with lampshade, though. While giving those afflicted the medication they need might help, it is impossible to mandate their dosing. Not while allowing people their basic human rights. The psychiatric community has a giant, collective ulcer over this dilemma. In many cases they know what is best for people, but they cannot on good conscious force the medicine on the sick. In the case of schizophrenia, it does not help that paranoia of authority or doctors might make you even less likely to take your meds.
posted by chemoboy at 4:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I guarantee you they don't think it is workable for everyone to be the treasurer of their own money systems.

You'd be wrong.
posted by empath at 4:12 PM on January 8, 2011

One insane person among 300 million does not a movement make. This whole thing is terribly sad and the repercussions will be long-lasting and too widespread. That said, I hope the families of the dead and wounded are able to find justice.
posted by tmt at 4:12 PM on January 8, 2011

His youtube videos, if they are his, are highly suggestive of deep mental disorder. Jared Loughner.
posted by cogneuro at 4:13 PM on January 8, 2011

One insane person among 300 million does not a movement make.

Three. Three people.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:17 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

He's clearly nuts, but the hamming distance isn't all that far away from the conservative craziness that's been stewing. And clearly you are wrong about the "everyone should be able to print their own currency" thing.

Again, no. You have to stop looking for what you want to see. The Ron Paul position you listed is not:

Every human who's mentally capable is always able to be treasurer of their new currency.

If you create one new currency then you're able to create a second new currency.

If you're able to create second new currency then you're able to create third new currency.

You create one new currency.

Thus, you're able to create a third currency.

You're a treasurer for a new currency, listener?

You create and distribute your new currency, listener?

You don't allow the government to control your grammar structure, listener?
--

He literally thinks everyone can create their own legal currency. (AND GRAMMAR) Ron Paul is referring to banks offering currency backed in gold.

These are not the same positions.

If you create one new language then you're able to create a second new language.

If you're able to create a second new language then you're able to create a third new language.

You create one new language.

Thus, you're able to create a third new language.

This is a totally incoherent position, it is not someone complaining about Mexicans not speaking English as was mentioned above. It's gibberish. If you are seeing Ron Paul in this ink blot you are not looking at the whole picture.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm having a difficult time parsing the meaning of the words in Laughner's YouTube videos, much less deciphering their influence from external sources, if at all. Anyone have a notion about their content, aside from whatever the words insinuate about his mental state?
posted by Hesychia at 4:19 PM on January 8, 2011

I am primarily arguing against premature certainty that people like Palin contributed to this violent act with their rhetoric.

Hmmmm, Crosshairs/White power symbols on a map, naming specific names ? Does that make things any clearer for you ?

Hope the pays good btw.
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:19 PM on January 8, 2011

Candlelight Vigil Sunday evening (tomorrow night) 7:00-9:00PM on the north lawn of the Federal Building - Westwood/Los Angeles

Excuse me if there is a bit of anger in the message.

I am going to be there tomorrow night at 7:00PM. This is my response to what happened today. I know of no one else doing this so right now I am the only one. I am going to bring some candles and some books of poetry to read. This is a vigil for those who were injured and killed in Tucson, for the shooter and each and everyone of us. I don't want to be the only one there and will gladly be the only one if it comes to that. Please come, bring musical instruments, bring others and send this along to friends.

Pass it along.
posted by goalyeehah at 4:19 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

He's not so crazy. CNN TV just reported that he's taken the Fifth and is not cooperating with investigators.
posted by MegoSteve at 4:22 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

I don't know if we can draw a line connecting Palin to the shooter. That will come out in the next few days. But I do know that if I had a Web page putting crosshairs over a congressional distinct, I'd be in custody right now.
posted by Astro Zombie at 4:22 PM on January 8, 2011 [86 favorites]

Recently, in America, all our assassination attempts have been batshit-insane motivated rather than politically motivated. My gut tells me this is the same thing.

I'd say that, increasingly, "batshit-insane" and "politically motivated" are in no way mutually exclusive.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:23 PM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

I don't know if we can draw a line connecting Palin to the shooter. That will come out in the next few days. But I do know that if I had a Web page putting crosshairs over a congressional distinct, I'd be in custody right now.

Agreed.

/seriously done.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:25 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

furiousxgeorge: His argument is that he does not have to pay tuition because currency is unconstitutional. This is not the tea party argument. It is closer to a Freeman on the Land argument in which one attempts to use legal magic words to escape criminal charges or taxes. Sarah Palin paid her tutition. Ron Paul did too.

You seem to be saying that because this specific obsession doesn't fit in with core Tea Party doctrine, he's not influenced by Tea Party rhetoric. Or are you saying that the Freeman on the Land bullshit is not akin to Tea Party bullshit? Because it clearly is -- it's all pseudo-libertarian bullshit.

And I'll second the observation that many Tea Partiers (and many other pseudo-libertarians) will decry 'government handouts' as they grab and scuffle for all the government benefits that they can get. We're talking about an intensely narcissistic political philosophy -- the great paradox of political narcissism is that it's usually quite utterly lacking in self-awareness.

Jared is probably a pretty disturbed guy, yes, and I've met enough people who used the language the way he does or were obsessed with nuanced logical reasoning about utterly strange stuff like currency to be pretty convinced for myself that he could have been inspired by conservative, liberal, libertarian, even communist ideas all at once. Most of them haven't been dangerous. But none of them that I've known had semi-automatic weapons.
posted by lodurr at 4:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm of the mind that Tweets should be undeletable.
Tweets are only deletable if your Twitter client honours your deletion of them. While most seem to, it is pretty trivial to use the API to write a Twitter client that stores them all locally and ignores their subsequent 'deletion'. Such a client could also easily mark deleted tweets as such.

posted by motty at 4:28 PM on January 8, 2011

You have to stop looking for what you want to see.

I would say the same to you. I have no idea what kind of connection it would take for you to agree that the SarahPAC flyer that's referenced throughout this thread (not to mention the material for the Jesse Kelly event) contains rhetoric and imagery that represent a general incitement to violence other than that a copy of it was found in the guy's backpack next to the ammo.
posted by blucevalo at 4:29 PM on January 8, 2011

But I do know that if I had a Web page putting crosshairs over a congressional distinct, I'd be in custody right now.

I spent the afternoon cleaning out one of our closets and found something in a box of papers: a few years ago, our then-seven-year-old daughter drew a picture at school of herself stabbing one of her classmates. She didn't mean anything violent by it, of course; she was just expressing frustration with a playmate. But she was suspended and sent home and we had to have a Very Serious Sit-Down Talk with her teacher and principal.

It's unclear to me why a former governor and nominee for Vice President is held to a lower standard than our grade school student.
posted by EarBucket at 4:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [108 favorites]

Regardless the politics of the asshole, can we agree that there are enough unstable people in our society that we need to be concerned about calls for violence?

"Lock and load on Healthscare Reform!" is the same as shrieking "Fire! Fire! Run for you lives!" in a crowded theatre.

Persuasive pulic speech is used in ways that blow the brains out of smart young politically-active men and women.

The unstable are a tool to be used to coerce a fearful public into compliance.

Sarah Palin didn't come up with the Target Politicians poster, just like she didn't come up with the idea of being VP.

She's an over-willing, well-paid tool paid by wealthy, sociopathic fucks and thugs; and she is being used to incite events of political violence. Just like Beck and the rest of the batshit media monsters.

You gotta admire the brilliance of the crazed mind that would not only think to use lunatics as political tools, but then also does it!
posted by five fresh fish at 4:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Sarah will have a harder time deleting her tweet from the Library of Congress.
posted by tss at 4:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

They say "Google Ron Paul!"

Not particularly useful. But OK.

Let me be a little more specific. Why the use of syllogisms? What's with the "conscience dreaming" & the concern over the asleep/awake dichotomy? What's with the B.C.E. business?

Are these indicative of arguments seen/heard elsewhere, and does the structure of the thought process indicate specific outside influence? Or do they seem to be idiosyncratic, specific to whatever is going on in his head, of which we have yet to hear more of?

I ask because there's this long thread of "should we or should we not associate his actions with the talking points of conservative right wing or tea party movements?" & I assume that those who fall on the side of "yes" must have access to something other than maps with targets or provocative Palinesque catch-phrases.
posted by Hesychia at 4:39 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is one of those rare times I wish I owned a car, so I could get to the vigil in DC. The fucker killed one of my judges and tried to kill a legally elected congresswoman. I hope the courts deal with him as he deserves.

Too late now, but Amtrak will get you from Baltimore to DC in about 45 minutes for about $15, and drop you right in front of the capitol.
posted by schmod at 4:40 PM on January 8, 2011

"The gunman was young, mid-to-late 20s, white, clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing"

Pretty much what I expected.

See? Liberals can be bigoted too.
posted by Scoo at 4:41 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society." -- House Speaker John Boehner (italics mine)

Am I the only person who reads that as an obvious attempt to distance himself from Sarah Palin? Much of the Republican Party wants to get away from her but are afraid to take her on because of her popularity. Did Boehner just take this opportunity to do so? Why else would he focus on threats? This guy didn't threaten people -- he shot them. I think Boehner included that word for the sole purpose of pushing out Sarah Palin.
posted by flarbuse at 4:42 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why the use of syllogisms? What's with the "conscience dreaming" & the concern over the asleep/awake dichotomy? What's with the B.C.E. business?

By "conscience," I'm pretty sure he means "conscious." His main thesis seems to be that the government is controlling people's minds and he's one of a very few people who's able to see through the illusion to the truth.
posted by EarBucket at 4:44 PM on January 8, 2011

How does knol.google work?

In the link I posted earlier the list of categories next to his name is:
Drug addiction
health
health conditions
mental health
psychology
society

Are these topics that his posts touched on?

When I look at the list of his public feed I see all similar titles, like:
Created public version #40 of the knol: "How to Lucid Dream!"but the link doesn't go to anything.

http://knol.google.com/k/jared-loughner/jared-loughner/s94rk2g8o4ye/0#collections
posted by NorthernLite at 4:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

So I scanned through his ravings, and now I'm trying to figure out: how does a guy this unbalanced get hold of an automatic weapon and ammo? By rights he shouldn't be unable to cross the street without assistance.
posted by Ritchie at 4:46 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sorry, I've missed the last 80 or so posts, but troika said:

Re: Palin scrubbing stuff, this tweet was recently deleted.

But isn't this the tweet referenced, clearly undeleted as of now? http://twitter.com/#!/sarahpalinusa/status/10935548053

I wouldn't put it passed Palin to delete stuff like this (though it would surely work against her in the end), but is there yet any evidence of any scrubbing actually happening?
posted by ericost at 4:47 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

By rights he shouldn't be unable to cross the street without assistance.

Yeah, now I'm the one making up my own grammar. His craziness is contagious.
posted by Ritchie at 4:47 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

""The gunman was young, mid-to-late 20s, white, clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing"

Pretty much what I expected.

See? Liberals can be bigoted too."

I'm centrist. Change the era, target, and location and I would've expected a different sort of fanatic.
posted by aerotive at 4:48 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

His argument is that he does not have to pay tuition because currency is unconstitutional. This is not the tea party argument. It is closer to a Freeman on the Land argument in which one attempts to use legal magic words to escape criminal charges or taxes. Sarah Palin paid her tutition. Ron Paul did too.

that's not an argument, it's babbling. The man is a certifiable loon. However, the existence of loons is a fact and incendiary rhetoric and conspiracy theories leads loons like this astray. The use of a cat's paw or a scapegoat is a venerable political tactic. For example.
posted by anigbrowl at 4:49 PM on January 8, 2011

Um...this was supposed to be the link.
posted by anigbrowl at 4:49 PM on January 8, 2011

Let me be a little more specific. Why the use of syllogisms? What's with the "conscience dreaming" & the concern over the asleep/awake dichotomy? What's with the B.C.E. business?

This is some heavy New Age 2012 kinda stuff, as well. That we are all dreaming and will awaken as the fictive nature of our calendar becomes apparent, or something. He's got several different conspiracy frameworks in play, and you can also see that he is aware that his faculties are slipping, hence his extreme overreliance on if-then statements. These statements are especially appealing to the almost-aware-they-are-insane as they seem unassailable. He's trying to take things one simple step at a time to keep the magical thinking at bay, systematically attempting to reconstruct a picture of reality, and failing. It's quite heartbreaking, really.
posted by mek at 4:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [20 favorites]

What's with the B.C.E. business?

From what I remember from my hebrew school, BCE stands for Before the Common Era, instead of the BC for Before Christ. It's a way to share the same calendar as the christians without repeatedly admitting that Jesus was the messiah. Likewise, CE for Common Era is used in place of AD for Anno Domini (?).

As far as I can tell, using BCE shows you are either a fastidious religious skeptic (who is also a jerk) or a hebrew school teacher. I have never heard anyone else use those terms.
posted by chemoboy at 4:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Andrew Sprung has a pretty plausible snap analysis of the internal logic of Loughner's videos.
posted by EarBucket at 4:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"
posted by jaduncan at 4:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

I have never heard anyone else use those terms.

Academics use those terms now. In my history department at college it was nearly universal. I went to a Catholic college to boot.
posted by arveale at 4:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [23 favorites]

Laughner's videos and the text of the postings on his MySpace page look to me like the work of someone who passed through the looking glass a long time ago. He's speaking in shorthand -- think of it as dog whistles to dogs that don't exist. He knows what it means because he understands the context. That 5% of "literate" people he alludes to -- that's probably how many people he's decided are on the same intellectual level as him.

Over the years I've talked with a fair number of people I'm reminded of by Laughner's writings, five spring to mind I could go into detail on. Most, as I've said, weren't (IMO as a fellow human) violent or dangerous (though one outlined a very chewed-over plan to drive a semi-truck into a natural gas storage yard as his final act). Laughner reminds me most of someone I know who went through the looking glass into Qabala. He would talk in chains of reasoning that required premises that seemed like non-sequiturs, but if you drew him out you could figure out that he actually had reasons for these ideations -- they weren't properly schizoid in the usual sense. But he was so detached from the world that we lived in that it was maddening to try to have a conversation with him.

Anyway, how I read the comments is that this is someone who has had a rather severe existential crisis at some point. Could be drugs (or lack thereof), could be war, could just be onset of mental illness. In any case, he's had a lot of influences, some superficially contradictory, but he's managed to integrate those enough that he still regards them as 'favorite books.' He's got a fantastic ability to integrate-away cognitive dissonance, judging by that book list. What he's doing makes sense to him, I'm guessing, but we can't expect it to make sense to us because we don't know his premises. (Even if we did, it's likely that it wouldn't make sense to us -- how can shooting a bunch of people over ideas make sense? Which is a way of saying that if we knew his premises, we wouldn't accept them.)

I can easily imagine a path of reasoning that leads to those syllogisms. They're supposed to be provocative: He's trying to teach us something. He wants us to come up to his level. "If there is no flag in the constitution, then there is no flag in this video." It also seems clear to me that he's somehow internalized the idea of the Constitution as a literally sacred document: Violations of the Constitution are literally illogical to him (hence the reductio ad absurdum syllogisms). It's not at all clear to me that he's an atheist, at least not in the usual sense, though it does seem clear to me that he has a very troubled relationship with christianity.
posted by lodurr at 4:55 PM on January 8, 2011 [34 favorites]

pleasedon'tbeahebrewschoolteacherdon'tbeahebrewschoolteacher
posted by Astro Zombie at 4:55 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

By "conscience," I'm pretty sure he means "conscious." His main thesis seems to be that the government is controlling people's minds and he's one of a very few people who's able to see through the illusion to the truth.

Hrm. I wondered the "conscience" vs. "conscious" thing. I guess when I was reading the YouTube videos, what immediately came to mind was an old friend of mine who was into neuro-linguistic programming and lucid dreaming. For a few years, he was ultra-obsessed with inducing a dreaming state while awake, and very prone to paranoia. So I initially took the "conscience dreaming" a little more literally.

But as I said, I mostly just can't parse what he's getting at. And I just wondered if others recognized if the words were being parroted or regurgitated from other sources. If there was an underlying rhetoric that I did not recognize, aside from the "Tea Party!" stuff, which seems a little reductive.
posted by Hesychia at 4:58 PM on January 8, 2011

the concern over the asleep/awake dichotomy?

That's typical for paranoids, and 'WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!" is so common among Ron Paul followers that it's become a running joke. It's typical gnostic thinking, that we're trapped in a prison by a malevolent force -- either a demonic force like the demiurge of the gnostics, or some kind of all-powerful conspiracy -- the Illuminati, the New World Order, or PKD's black iron prison, or some combination of the above.

At it's core, it's a confusion of symbols for things and the reality that the refer to, and a belief that words have the power to shape reality rather than simply to describe it. It's why certain Christians are so adamant about having "In God We Trust" on the money, for example, and belief prayer has magical power. It's unsophisticated, primitive thinking, and probably something that's deeply embedded in the structure of the brain. It's like a vestigial model of the way the world works that we've since replaced with more modern thinking, but that sometimes erupts again, like an infected appendix.
posted by empath at 4:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [19 favorites]

Am I the only person who reads that as an obvious attempt to distance himself from Sarah Palin?

Put that together with the "adult moment" comment and I think it's clear that Boehner is very much afraid of getting Gingriched.
posted by lodurr at 4:59 PM on January 8, 2011

I kind of missed a logical step there -- that the prison is something that is an illusion, something imposed on our minds, and that we merely need to wake up to see the reality behind the reality. Much like Plato's cave.
posted by empath at 5:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

think of it as dog whistles to dogs that don't exist.

That's possibly the best description of the way someone with this mindset communicates that I've ever seen.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [27 favorites]

mek: These statements are especially appealing to the almost-aware-they-are-insane as they seem unassailable

Hadn't thought of it that way, but it sounds like you've seen it before. It would make sense.
posted by lodurr at 5:01 PM on January 8, 2011

mek, EarBucket, chemoboy, loudurr, empath & anyone else who comments on this aspect of the topic - thanks for the link & thoughts on the issue. Reading & digesting.
posted by Hesychia at 5:03 PM on January 8, 2011

She is reported to be a "member of the House LGBT Equality Caucus and is a strong supporter of gay rights including gay marriage."

She is Jewish.

I'd so like to believe that neither of these two facts are irrelevant but have no significant level of confidence of either one, or both, being unrelated. This is a terrible day, regardless.
posted by Morrigan at 5:05 PM on January 8, 2011

See also: Glen Beck's persistant paranoid urging to "action" - seems to be a sort of right wing mantra coming from Fox, from the view of someone outside the US, to suggest that "something STRONG needs to be done" and implying violence by use of words and graphics without ever actually saying it. Very creepy, insidious.

Furthering my theory that everything already happened on The West Wing, if you recall, Bartlet was shot by a young kid, a far right wing nutjob, who had been spurred on by an extreme right wing group repeatedly calling for a "Lone wolf", meaning, we want someone to go out there and start shooting on their own.

While I doubt this dumbass has a journal somewhere saying he was going to do this for Sarah Palin, I DO hope her hateful rhetoric is throughly archived as it may or may not relate to this, and that her political career is so thoroughly damaged by this that America won't have to suffer her or her followers any more.

Can I be the first to start the internet rumor that there were people cheering in front of the church in Wasila after this?
posted by timsteil at 5:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I've heard some right wing extremism and even some left wing extremism. This guys extremism sounds like it comes from just under the tail feathers
posted by Redhush at 5:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Suspicious package found at Giffords' office, bomb squad sent to investigate.
posted by get off of my cloud at 5:08 PM on January 8, 2011

Can I be the first to start the internet rumor that there were people cheering in front of the church in Wasila after this?

How about this from Twitter? RT @Lizardoid: A right wing blog reacts to the shooting: "1 down, 434 to go"
posted by emjaybee at 5:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Aside from the question of whether a rhetoric of violence might have encouraged this, I'd like to restate what others have mentioned in this thread: Every time somebody with a potentially murderous mental illness does this, it's discovered they accessed weapons through enormous loopholes or outright failings in existing gun control laws. I want to know where he got his Glock. And, if there was anything sketchy about it, I want those people prosecuted as well. And then I want those gaps closed. With great frequency, mental illness turns deadly in this country because it is laughably easy to take possession of guns, even after you have been diagnosed with a mental illness that should preclude this happened. And this incidents will continue to happen until we address that.

We also need to take diagnosing and treating mental illness a hell of a lot more seriously. If this man is as mad as he seems, and if he hasn't been able to get the help he needs, he's a victim too.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [28 favorites]

How about this from Twitter? RT @Lizardoid: A right wing blog reacts to the shooting: "1 down, 434 to go"
posted by emjaybee

Why am I not surprised?
posted by timsteil at 5:14 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Academics use those terms now. In my history department at college it was nearly universal. I went to a Catholic college to boot.

Sorry, I withdraw the "jerks" clause.

Arizona is the mecca for predjudice and bigotry sez Sheriff: press conference on KOLM
posted by chemoboy at 5:16 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Keep hearing there was a tweet deleted, yet this is still here -

http://twitter.com/#!/sarahpalinusa/status/10935548053

Any idea if anything was actually deleted?
posted by deern the headlice at 5:17 PM on January 8, 2011

I'm not a big fan of drawing a big black line and putting 'insane' on one side and 'sane' on the other. It's a continuum, and the only thing separating this guy from the thousands and thousands of young, disaffected guys who post unhinged rants about the gold standard and paranoid rants about the tyrannical Fed or US government, all over the internet is one of degree, not of kind. I don't think it's easy to put those guys anywhere on the left-right continuum, either, and some of them are often espouse radically left-ist views in the same sentence as radically right-ist views.

I've tried arguing with them in the past when they popped up on another (non-political) messageboard that I used to frequent and all of them, without exception, seemed to me to have a profoundly confused view of how the world works, and trying to tease a coherent and logical political philosophy out of them is a sucker's game. The one thing that always seems to unite them is a profound loathing of Barack Obama, though.
posted by empath at 5:17 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

As far as I can tell, using BCE shows you are either a fastidious religious skeptic (who is also a jerk) or a hebrew school teacher. I have never heard anyone else use those terms.

Or pretty much any academic historian, archeologist, or scientists. My Experience is that "BC" Is only used casually, while BCE is the technically correct term. Wikipedia seems to use BC though. Hmm.

Also, I doubt this kid was much of a Sarah Palin fan, if he was obsessed with seeming intelligent, he wouldn’t have really liked her. And to be honest, I don't think Palin really understands the consequences of her words and info-graphics. She knows the base likes violent rhetoric, but it doesn't occur to her that people could take what she says literally.

He literally thinks everyone can create their own legal currency. (AND GRAMMAR) Ron Paul is referring to banks offering currency backed in gold.

These are not the same positions.

First of all the doesn't say in that section that the currencies should or should not be backed by gold, but later in the video he does talk about precious metal backing for currency. Second of all, Paul doesn't talk about banks specifically. And in a libertarian fantasy land everyone would be able to start their own bank and thus their own currency.

Finally, I didn't say the positions were identical I said they were similar.

They are certainly similar enough that it's ridiculous to claim that he was "clearly not a conservative" because of the view.

And anyway, the fact that people come to different conclusions is not indicative of them having "blinders" on. Like I said it's obnoxious to accuse people you disagree with of being deficient for not agreeing with you.
posted by delmoi at 5:19 PM on January 8, 2011

Astro Zombie, WaPo is reporting the gun was bought legally. Unfortunately, I got this in an e-mail, and the link given is to the general Giffords article.
posted by QIbHom at 5:19 PM on January 8, 2011

BCE is the standard in academia. Seriously, this is a canard.
posted by proj at 5:20 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh course, when it comes to Islamic terrorism, we don't have to look for a direct line. In fact we're not even allowed to look for a direct line. They're just crazy evil moozlims who want to kill freedom. No further analysis is allowed to be entered into. But when it's a white American? Oooh we need a direct line before drawing any conclusions.

I am not a white american, and was raised in an Islamic extended family, although I have never practiced the religion. At any given point in time I am about two stiff margaritas away from a Henry Louis Gates style "Get your cracker ass off my porch and your Mama too!" type rant. Which my friends find hilarious. Because listening to Black liberation philosophy from a drunk dude in a Metallica t-shirt is usually pretty funny. Point being, you're barking up the wrong tree here.

All I'm saying is you can't fight wrong with more wrong.

Jumping to conclusions without adequate evidence is wrong when it's Muslims, it's wrong when it's White People. It's just wrong. Theories, conjecture, rumors, wild guesses, cathartic rants, stunned silence, and emotional outbursts are all acceptable and natural responses to an act such as this. However when it comes todrawing conclusions, I tend to rely on information and evidence. Both of which are mighty scarce this early in the game.
posted by billyfleetwood at 5:20 PM on January 8, 2011 [22 favorites]

As far as I can tell, using BCE shows you are either a fastidious religious skeptic (who is also a jerk) or a hebrew school teacher.

It's the standard academic abbreviation, as far as I know.
posted by empath at 5:21 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

deern the headlice, it's notoriously difficult to delete tweets. I've deleted a bunch that still keep showing up everywhere except my own twitter page.
posted by lodurr at 5:21 PM on January 8, 2011

Here is the quote from the WaPo article on the gun;

According to law enforcement sources, the gun used in the shooting was purchased on Nov. 30 at Sportman's Warehouse, 3945 W. Cosco Dr. in Tucson. The gun was bought legally, with at least one other handgun.
posted by QIbHom at 5:22 PM on January 8, 2011

Re. BCE, second empath: it's what I learned as the standard form in freshman history, c. 1981. (In archaeology, they sometimes use "BP", where "Present" is something weird like 1955.)
posted by lodurr at 5:22 PM on January 8, 2011

About the gun: Remember that this is Arizona. All he needed to do was pass a very cursory criminal background check.
posted by lodurr at 5:24 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Astro Zombie, WaPo is reporting the gun was bought legally.

Dude reportedly had a 30-round clip in there, which is legal in AZ. Startled me, since the limit here in CA is 10 rounds per clip. 30-round clips are similarly not legal in certain municipalities in Colorado and Illinois, the state of Hawaii, and Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.

Mr. F points out that not legal does not equal "incredibly difficult to obtain," of course.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 5:24 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I DO hope her hateful rhetoric is throughly archived as it may or may not relate to this, and that her political career is so thoroughly damaged by this that America won't have to suffer her or her followers any more.

I don't. Let her ideas burn themselves out because the ideas suck, not because of anything brought on by this horrible event. Her being politically damaged by this event, rightly or not, would make her most fervent followers even more fervent, not less.
posted by blucevalo at 5:25 PM on January 8, 2011

he's a victim too.
horseshit.
posted by clavdivs at 5:25 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Regarding deleting stuff from twitter: When you tweet something, it gets sent immediately through it's streaming API. If you delete it, it sends out a "delete tweet 1010231232" message. You're supposed to apply it and delete your copy of the tweet, but lazy programmers may not follow the guidelines.
posted by delmoi at 5:26 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

We also need to take diagnosing and treating mental illness a hell of a lot more seriously. If this man is as mad as he seems, and if he hasn't been able to get the help he needs, he's a victim too.

The cost of properly treating mental illness is always a tiny fraction of the cost of letting it go untreated, and it's tragic that we have to learn this lesson over and over in such painful ways. If it's true that he is an Afghanistan war veteran, then this is a total failure of the government's obligation to maintaining the social order. I also fear it's only a hint of what's to come if we do not strengthen our social safety nets. What kind of follow-up and assistance are our veterans getting, if anything? How can someone slip through the cracks so completely?
posted by mek at 5:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

The tweet may have been deleted by Ms. Palin and undeleted by Twitter. According to their TOS, they own your tweet, not you.

To the more important point: the shooter's politics matter, but it isn't actually the most important thing. He was a match, but the gasoline had long-since been poured by several on the far right again and again... since about the day after Hillary Clinton wasn't likely to become the Democratic Party's nominee back in the summer of 08.

Even if the shooter ends up being an ultra-progressive vote-Democratic-every-time guy, all of this extreme rhetoric is still a problem and still should stop.
posted by andreaazure at 5:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

horseshit

Untended severe mental illness often turns fatal, sometimes with suicide, sometimes with murder. If he was in possession of his senses, he's guilty; if not, he's not culpable for his actions, his illness is, maddening though that might be. And if we simply ascribe guilt to him and wash our hands of it, we're not likely to address the root problem, which is that the mentally ill need help.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [28 favorites]

'And, as long as you aid and abet this international game of Bunk and practice its swindling methods; as long as you uphold this infernal system that robs babies of their milk and widows and orphans and feeble old folks of their homes and furniture, then there is absolutely no hope for your future existence either in this world or in the next one.
If you will not help to stamp out this evil then God considers that you are a part of it.
If you stand for this financial game of bunk with its Interest Collection Swindle then you are a GOLD WORSHIPPER and you can’t make God believe otherwise, no matter what you pretend to be or what you say about it.'

lots a loony ideas in history.
posted by clavdivs at 5:32 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Good Lord. The political atmosphere of this country is about to get a whole lot different.

Imagine the cessation of most or all tours of the Capitol Building. Imagine members significantly rolling back public campaign events or putting them behind huge security barriers. Imagine members traveling most places, if not everywhere, with security details.

As far as I know, outside of Rep. Leo Ryan, who was assassinated while investigating the Jonestown cult, the last member of Congress to be shot while in office was Robert Kennedy while he was running for president.

Let's hope this leads to a sober campaign with much less namecalling and far fewer yelling matches at town halls. More realistically, it just leaves both sides more dug in and further isolated from their constituents.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 5:35 PM on January 8, 2011

Clarence Dupnik, Pima County Sheriff: "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 this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."
posted by blucevalo at 5:35 PM on January 8, 2011 [48 favorites]

no, the horseshit is your generalized knowledge with little expansion, in other words
really, no shit.
posted by clavdivs at 5:35 PM on January 8, 2011

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/01/08/breaking-congresswoman-five-others-shot-in-tucson-az/#comments

The conservative commenters over at Hot Air are mostly talking about what how terrible the judge was that died.
posted by empath at 5:35 PM on January 8, 2011

The Army has said that the suspect applied for the military and was denied admission. The veteran rumors may be put to rest.
posted by arveale at 5:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

link

sorry
posted by arveale at 5:37 PM on January 8, 2011

Imagine the cessation of most or all tours of the Capitol Building. Imagine members significantly rolling back public campaign events or putting them behind huge security barriers. Imagine members traveling most places, if not everywhere, with security details.

I'm not sure, there was a shooting in the capitol building during the Clinton administration, and they decided not to close the capitol at that point. This right-wing crazy was in full bloom during the clinton years too. It's just that with the internet it's easier for everyone to see.
posted by delmoi at 5:37 PM on January 8, 2011

C'mon folks, trying to distill a coherent political ideology out of this guy, particularly from about seven or eight lines of muddled modus ponens, has got to be a real stretch. Frankly, I don't think we have reliable evidence for conservatism, liberalism, or royalism at this point. We do, however, have weak evidence of syllogism.

I think it's fair to say that and still deplore crosshairs on congressional districs, which I do. I also believe that inflammatory political rhetoric probably helped the shooter do what he did today. I just don't think it's meaningful to call him a tea party member.

Up next: an eight page essay on the hermeneutics of Time Cube.
posted by tss at 5:37 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

It's the standard academic abbreviation, as far as I know.

Please forgive and disregard my flippant comment for those who can more accurately explain BCE. Although it might not be fruitful, I do wonder why he used those terms. It is related to his beleif that he is more "literate" than everyone else?

Ugh. A former Surgeon General is on this press conference. He says he is optimistic about the congresswoman, but his body language says otherwise. He is on the verge of tears.
posted by chemoboy at 5:38 PM on January 8, 2011

no, the horseshit is your generalized knowledge with little expansion, in other words

You know, I know you delight in saying strange little things that are near-impossible to parse, but if this was directed at me, I'd ask that you try to communicate in clear English.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:38 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

As far as I know, outside of Rep. Leo Ryan, who was assassinated while investigating the Jonestown cult, the last member of Congress to be shot while in office was Robert Kennedy while he was running for president

your wrong.

here is one
HINDS, James R AR 06/22/1868-10/22/1868 House/Assassinated near Indian Bays, AR on
10/22/1868.
there are a few more here
posted by clavdivs at 5:38 PM on January 8, 2011

she'll likely be in a medically induced coma to ensure no damage from oedem/swelling, although believe it or not, two holes in the skull will help matters as if the brain has to herniate it's better it does so easily rather than through the nose and ears.
(N00B who once tried to pass a nasogastric tube up a nose with pretty grey/pink stuff leaking from it)
It will not be soon before we know exactly what level of morbidity is in question and in a 24 hr news culture I worry that people will see that "she opened her eyes and said Hi Honey! to her husband" will be Oh wow! She's fine! Good news.

There's really no good news to be had here. A few people exercised their democratic right to talk to their democratically elected congresswoman and both they, & she, were gunned down. We (OK me) expect so much more from the country that espouses the freedoms & liberties that are supposed to shine like a beacon for the rest of the world. FUCK!
posted by Wilder at 5:39 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

"clear english"
un huh
posted by clavdivs at 5:40 PM on January 8, 2011

the term you seek is 'proper' english.
posted by clavdivs at 5:41 PM on January 8, 2011

I don't think AZ gives a rat's ass if it's proper so long as it's clear what's meant.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

If this fellow is as mentally ill as his youtube videos seem to suggest then he could have been watching episodes of the Golden Girls and hearing Bea Arthur saying things that incited him to do something just as easily as anything else. (Nothing against Bea Arthur or GG, mind you.)

This doesn't mean that this isn't a good time for politicians and mediafolk to start looking carefully at the language and symbols they're using - just saying that we can't actually look at the shooter for any coherent motive that you'd be able to tie to any political party or speech.

Also I've been digging all over the web and trying to find the citation for a mass comm research study that was done either after the Oklahoma City bombing or 9-11 about the reporting of breaking news from such events - the finding showed that in the stories reported as the events happened had a larger amount of factual error, that was only slowly corrected as time went by. Can't find that link anywhere sorry - but after reading that I tend to wait at least 5 days after anything happens to start trying to suss out what went down. Though I'd hope that the fact correcting lag time is getting shorter - well, I'm not hopeful.

And I've totally given up on tv news when anything like this happens.
posted by batgrlHG at 5:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

"All I can tell you is that this individual may have a mental issue, and that people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol," said Dupnik.

Dupnik described the tragic event as a day of "personal sadness for all of us in the room." He went on to say he "hoped all Americans are as saddened and as shocked as we are. I hope that most of them are as angry as I am. I think it's time as a country that we do a little soul searching. Because the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear from people in the radio business and from some of those in the TV business...this is not the nice United States that we grew up with."

The county sheriff lays the blame on Fox News and talk radio.
posted by empath at 5:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [17 favorites]

What the bullet didn't do, the brain swelling could do. This poor lady is not out of the woods yet. (Says the mefite whose boss just had a quarter of her brain removed because of a tumor...)
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:44 PM on January 8, 2011

I don't give a shit either way. I am not the subject of this thread. If clavdivs has issue with what I said, he can make a case against it. If he has an issue with me personally, he can suck and egg.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am so weary of the "us vs. them" mentality. It's just us. We all live here together. The amped up rhetoric is what is insane. We live in this country together. We should be helping and trying to understand each other instead of banging heads constantly. I'm so tired of it all. My best thoughts go to those injured and those families who lost people they loved. That is the worst. It's not worth it. We need to pull together. I know it's not bloody likely, but that is my fervent wish.
posted by wv kay in ga at 5:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [32 favorites]

I love how quiet and passive aggressive all the attendees of the press conference got when the sheriff said that. They were like, "BUT NUH-UH."
posted by SkylitDrawl at 5:46 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

(not to get all MeTa in the thread, but I'm pretty sure English is clavdivs' second language and while he might intentionally be being fighty, but I think the obscurity is accidental)
posted by empath at 5:46 PM on January 8, 2011

But on the bright side, all those T Partiers who went out & got signs & shirts made saying "We came unarmed...this time" will have to hide them in the back of their closets for a while. So there's that.

Unfortunately, I think you're wrong. They'll probably wear them to the store tomorrow, and delight in the stares and glares they get.

she'll likely be in a medically induced coma to ensure no damage from oedem/swelling

The medical staff at the hospital she was at, when asked if she was in a medically induced coma, said just that she'd been anesthetized, but did not say she was in a medically induced coma.

I still want to see more from people who knew the guy in real life.
posted by cashman at 5:47 PM on January 8, 2011

your wrong.

Read it again, clavdivs. l33tpolicywonk says (in the part you quoted) "the last member of Congress" so your 1868 example doesn't make anyone wrong.
posted by donnagirl at 5:49 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

They'll probably wear them to the store tomorrow, and delight in the stares and glares they get.

The "1 down... " t-shirts are probably already being printed up.
posted by empath at 5:49 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

He was a match, but the gasoline had long-since been poured by several on the far right again and again... since about the day after Hillary Clinton wasn't likely to become the Democratic Party's nominee back in the summer of 08.

I am not so sure about that; I think it was around for far longer than that. It's just that the target switched at that time.

Before that, the right wing had been demonizing Hillary Clinton for almost two decades, some literally calling her a murderer, even, in preparation for a potential presidential run. But then she lost the primary, and the target switched.

I don't doubt that the invective is exacerbated, in a significant number of people at least, due to Obama being black, having an out-of-the-ordinary name that includes "Hussein", et cetera, but I'm pretty convinced that the invective would have been here, and still to wacky dangerous levels, were Clinton elected president. Or, frankly, anyone but a Republican.

They've spent decades getting themselves scared and angry. It didn't start in the summer of 2008.
posted by Flunkie at 5:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Regarding deleting stuff from Twitter: programmers who choose not to honour deletion requests in Twitter clients aren't necessarily being lazy.
posted by motty at 5:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

In fact, many of them will take the obvious insanity of the shooter as a sign of god's will being enacted so that their movement can reap the benefits of the violence without being sullied by the consequences.
posted by empath at 5:51 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Frankly, I don't think we have reliable evidence for conservatism, liberalism, or royalism at this point.

You're correct, we don't. But what we do have is clear evidence that the wisdom of the crowds pointed directly to one http://www.takebackthe20.com/ at the very same that the news of the shooting went public, to the point that it brought the server to its knees*. Whether or not it was simultaneously being scrubbed of all violent rhetoric is purely speculative. Call me crazy, but it seems that many, many people instantly made the connection from political violence to the patron saint of idiocy.
posted by jsavimbi at 5:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Nicely said, sheriff.
posted by theredpen at 5:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Jared is probably a pretty disturbed guy, yes, and I've met enough people who used the language the way he does or were obsessed with nuanced logical reasoning about utterly strange stuff like currency to be pretty convinced for myself that he could have been inspired by conservative, liberal, libertarian, even communist ideas all at once. Most of them haven't been dangerous. But none of them that I've known had semi-automatic weapons.

I'm glad, in a way, that I'm not the only one who has encountered people who write like this. The first boy I ever kissed did. I was impressed by the way he fancied himself an intellectual--at sixteen, I didn't see the cracks in his logic, and was swayed by his confident, if slight, command of basic rhetorical devices. He was a voracious reader--I remember him giving me a copy of the Satanic Bible with the strangest passages high-lighted. I could see him bragging about reading the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf and Brave New World in one breath.

(I lent him my copy of Fight Club and he later told me that he started his own fight club; he was that kind of person, the kind who would often massively miss the point.)

He was mentally ill, too--schizoaffective. He told me once, toward the end of our "romance," that he had hallucinations where he was a general in some army after the end of the world. And the screeds he'd post on his online profiles weren't much better than this guy's. Luckily, he was in treatment for it. Doctors and medication. Last I heard, he's doing well enough: in treatment, in the army, and married.

But I have to admit that there were times when I'd think of him and wonder, in hindsight, what I had been doing with this kid, with his Logic 101 speech and pasted together philosophies. I don't know. It makes me draw in a breath, to see the similarities. Yes, this videos are batshit insane, but I can see what this guy is trying to do: he's trying to seem smart. So, so sad.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [18 favorites]

Also I've been digging all over the web and trying to find the citation for a mass comm research study that was done either after the Oklahoma City bombing or 9-11 about the reporting of breaking news from such events - the finding showed that in the stories reported as the events happened had a larger amount of factual error, that was only slowly corrected as time went by. Can't find that link anywhere sorry - but after reading that I tend to wait at least 5 days after anything happens to start trying to suss out what went down. Though I'd hope that the fact correcting lag time is getting shorter - well, I'm not hopeful.

This reminds me of the book about Columbine. There was a narrative created immediately after the shooting, that the shooters were bullied, etc etc. In fact, the shooters were the bullies. I think there's something fascinating in our human need for narrative. We MUST understand why this kind of thing happens -- even if the reason is something as prosaic as mental illness or if the meaning is something random and will never be understood. Columbine made it incredibly clear that the first person to create a reasonably coherent narrative, true or not, wins the day. The twenty-four hour news cycle just makes this phenomenon worse.
posted by sugarfish at 5:53 PM on January 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

The county sheriff lays the blame on Fox News and talk radio.

Maybe it's too soon, but that might be the awesomest moment of 2011 television. He was completely unabashed in his comments. And when you are 75 years old and the Sheriff, I suppose you've earned it.
posted by chemoboy at 5:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [42 favorites]

Alia, the swelling is of less importance than throwing a clot or some infective process, this lady literally could die in the ITU from pneumonia in 5 weeks time. If it were in some hospitals here I wouldn't rate her chances of not picking up MRSA as right now UK hospital are stuffed to the gills and the more bed-occupancy the higher the incidence of tramsmissible diseases.
She is premmie-baby vulnerable right now.
I listened to the group of surgeons I work with from all over the UK yesterday exchanging their stories, "OH I haven't worked a full list for two weeks" (Colorectal cancer woman) cos the SAU (Surgical Admissions unit) has been turned into a ward and they've had to cancel very immuno-compromised people coming in.
She will get much better health-care than your average Joe, that's just the way it is in a situation like this. She was working on a Saturday to represent her constituents. There's nothing wrong with going an extra mile medically. The team would do it even if they didn't know every other NS in the world will be watching what they do. You can be guaranteed that the scuttlebut at Brazil or Korea this year will be about her treatment.
posted by Wilder at 5:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

That sheriff rules.
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Regarding the sheriff's statement: I saw a news article quoting him, but I didn't see video; I get the impression that people here have. Was there a link in this thread that I missed? Or does anyone have a link otherwise? Thanks.
posted by Flunkie at 5:59 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Please forgive and disregard my flippant comment for those who can more accurately explain BCE. Although it might not be fruitful, I do wonder why he used those terms. It is related to his beleif that he is more "literate" than everyone else?

It might just be in the realm of possibility that BCE is the term he defaults to. It started showing up in textbooks when I was in junior high (I remember learning BCE existed in the 6th grade and I want to say it was definitely in the textbook by eighth), so for someone a bit younger than me who didn't learn much/any history outside of school might use BCE by default, though I sort of doubt it. I would assume it's just an effort to demonstrate cleverness or learnedness.
posted by hoyland at 5:59 PM on January 8, 2011

Sherif Dupnick for the win. AZ is a Mecca for rhetoric and bigotry. Outstanding.
posted by fixedgear at 6:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

"All I can tell you is that this individual may have a mental issue, and that people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol," said Dupnik.

See, this is backwards and he's putting the blame in the wrong place. It's that people susceptible to vitriol are unbalanced.
posted by rhizome at 6:02 PM on January 8, 2011

Some posters here seem to be on the verge of assuming that the killer was not sane. I wouldn't assume that at all.
posted by knoyers at 4:00 PM on January 8 [1 favorite +] [!]

Checked him out in YouTube. The guy definitely seems to be delusional and quite possibly schizophrenic.

I wonder where he obtained his gun. I wonder how long the YouTube account will remain.

Now the news outlets say that authorities seek a second suspect.

^Loughner probably uses "BCE" to be atheistic. He complains about "In God We Trust" on the currency.
posted by knoyers at 6:02 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here's video of the sherriff's comments.
posted by mek at 6:03 PM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

The Times blogs some of the sheriff's comments.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:03 PM on January 8, 2011

Here's video of the sherriff's comments.

Thank you.
posted by Flunkie at 6:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I would assume it's just an effort to demonstrate cleverness or learnedness.

Or he has a problem with religion.
posted by girih knot at 6:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Loughner probably uses "BCE" to be atheistic. He complains about "In God We Trust" on the currency.

God I hate to get more into the mind of a crazy person than I already have in this thread, but I read that as saying that just because 'in god we trust' was on the currency, that doesn't mean he thinks it's real money.
posted by empath at 6:05 PM on January 8, 2011

ZeusHumms posted a link to KOLD's live streaming coverage. You could watch it live but they have already started showing clips from the Sheriff.

I'm sure it will be on YouTube in a fraction of a second.
posted by chemoboy at 6:05 PM on January 8, 2011

Frankly, I don't think we have reliable evidence for conservatism, liberalism, or royalism at this point.

This is the point: I don't accept violence except as a last resort. I don't care if you're a militant Black Panther or a militant Tea Partier. Put away your weapon.

There are people who disagree with me. Largely, these people have an R next to their name and are regularly given airtime on Fox News. I'm not looking for political ideology, or some sort of document that pins him to one movement or another. I want the people advocating gun ownership and alluding to violence to grow up. I want them to accept responsibility for pushing for laws that arm anyone with access to $500, and then I want them to accept responsibility for goading these people into action with vague rhetoric that's purposefully designed to be plausibly denied. And then I want them to stop endangering people's lives for their own political ends.

It's a pipe dream, I know. But there has to be some shred of human decency in these people, right?
posted by notion at 6:06 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

It was an almost-40 minute long press conference and Dupnik talked about the media's influence A LOT throughout. I wish I had a copy of the whole thing. I can't seem to find a link to a video of the whole press conference, though.
posted by SkylitDrawl at 6:06 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

From Andrew Sullivan:

"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.

posted by empath at 6:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [25 favorites]

It was just reported that the little girl had recently been elected to the student council, and a neighbor took her to the event, thinking she might like to see the congresswoman.

.

posted by jgirl at 6:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

Sherif Dupnick for the win. AZ is a Mecca for rhetoric and bigotry. Outstanding.

That press conference would have been so much different if the shooting had taken place in Maricopa County.
posted by fuse theorem at 6:12 PM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

It was just reported that the little girl had recently been elected to the student council, and a neighbor took her to the event, thinking she might like to see the congresswoman.

Oh hell that is all kinds of wrong right there...........
posted by Wilder at 6:13 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

To indulge my own paranoia for a bit, since they are looking for a second suspect. Is it possible that someone armed him and drove him there and told him who to shoot?
posted by empath at 6:14 PM on January 8, 2011

God I hate to get more into the mind of a crazy person than I already have in this thread, but I read that as saying that just because 'in god we trust' was on the currency, that doesn't mean he thinks it's real money.
posted by empath at 6:05 PM on January 8 [+] [!]

Also complains that bibles are offered to military recruits

It was just reported that the little girl had recently been elected to the student council, and a neighbor took her to the event, thinking she might like to see the congresswoman.

Wow.
posted by knoyers at 6:14 PM on January 8, 2011

we spend a lot of money, time & effort trying to give very young women a view that YES you can be a surgeon by getting them mentors, bringing them into live operating lists etc., etc.,, We have a whole section devoted to increasing the numbers of women surgeons which right now is still a pitiable 9% in the uK.

that's what this person was doing.............. and the child died.
posted by Wilder at 6:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

What the hell
posted by nola at 6:15 PM on January 8, 2011

It seems clear from what they said at the presser that a second person dropped him off at the event. They say they have a photo of this guy, but no name. Why don't they release the photo?
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:16 PM on January 8, 2011

jgirl, can I get a link for that?
posted by andreaazure at 6:17 PM on January 8, 2011

Eight hours after a congresswoman was gunned down in a grocery store parking lot, six hours after the name of the suspect was discovered by journalists, and law enforcement officials still have not obtained a search warrant to search his house?

Oh dear, now they say the girl was born on 9/11.
posted by chemoboy at 6:17 PM on January 8, 2011

Dr Rayle on CNN TV right now.
posted by fixedgear at 6:17 PM on January 8, 2011

Why don't they release the photo?

My guess is this.
posted by empath at 6:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

It was just reported that the little girl had recently been elected to the student council, and a neighbor took her to the event, thinking she might like to see the congresswoman.

And on a surreal sidenote - on that KOLD livestream the reporters said the little girl was once featured in a publication about children who were born on 9/11/01.
posted by NorthernLite at 6:19 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

0xFCAF said: Yes, Sarah Palin has NO RESPONSIBILITY AT ALL in this, which is exactly why she's furiously scrubbing her website, Twitter feed, Facebook feed, and PAC sites to make sure that all the violent rhetoric she put out in the past is deleted before anyone else links to it. NO RESPONSIBILITY AT ALL delete delete delete delete delete.

That got like 80 favorites. And after it lots of other people mentioned the "scrubbing" going on. And damn, check twitter for all the talk of scrubbing. Someone in this thread mentioned a specific tweet that had been deleted, but it has not actually been deleted. No one that I am aware of has provided any evidence at all that anything has actually been "scrubbed".

lodurr said: it's notoriously difficult to delete tweets. I've deleted a bunch that still keep showing up everywhere except my own twitter page.

delmoi said: Regarding deleting stuff from twitter: When you tweet something, it gets sent immediately through it's streaming API. If you delete it, it sends out a "delete tweet 1010231232" message. You're supposed to apply it and delete your copy of the tweet, but lazy programmers may not follow the guidelines.

WTF are you both talking about? The tweet still exists, on twitter.com.

andreaazure: The tweet may have been deleted by Ms. Palin and undeleted by Twitter. According to their TOS, they own your tweet, not you.

Uh huh. I don't think anything has actually been deleted. Would love to be proven wrong.
posted by ericost at 6:19 PM on January 8, 2011

notion: I don't think we disagree; my post is more in response to stuff like this.

Totally orthogonally to making value judgments about the Tea Party or any other political movement, orthogonally to making value judgments on making value judgments on the Tea Party or any other political movement, etc., I'm saying that we just don't know where this guy stands politically. Eventually we may know, but right now I just don't think we can, and sifting through the weird YouTube text to that end just seems silly to me. That's all I'm trying to say.
posted by tss at 6:19 PM on January 8, 2011

The man shoots a democratic politician at a public event, in the southern us - he's obviously a raving socialist upset at the lack of progress on farm collectivisation, yes ?

I can see the dots you're trying to connect here, but despite its latitude Arizona is not part of "the southern US" in any kind of historical or cultural sense. FYI.
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 6:21 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

What can her brother in law, who is commanding the international space station, be thinking as he looks down on us tonight?
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:21 PM on January 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Kinda feels like being held hostage to the crazies.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:23 PM on January 8, 2011

Repeated for truth:
MCMikeNamara: Violence is what happen when you create a climate of hate.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:25 PM on January 8, 2011

RFK was a sitting Senator, and the Senate is part of Congress.
posted by empath at 6:25 PM on January 8, 2011

jgirl: "It was just reported that the little girl had recently been elected to the student council, and a neighbor took her to the event, thinking she might like to see the congresswoman."

Fucking hell.
posted by Rhaomi at 6:25 PM on January 8, 2011

jgirl, can I get a link for that?

Shep Smith reported it on Fox. They had to cut away a bit early because he choked up. As did I.
posted by jgirl at 6:26 PM on January 8, 2011

I just want to be clear about something. A nine year old girl was killed, right? And people here are arguing politics? Fucking MetaFilter, how does it work?

.
posted by Splunge at 6:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

in the 80's, it was that darn rock and rock music and rap lyrics that pushed kids to go shooting people. in the 90's, it was hollywood and it's violent movies. in the 00's, it was video games that pushed us all to pick up a gun and go shoot anyone who looked funny.

today, it's our elected (and unelected, ney, self-appointed by the media companies) leaders that are the cause of our violent society.

maybe next decade we can blame it on something else. sadly, we'll never look in the mirror and see that we're the ones holding the gun to our own head.
posted by daq at 6:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I just want to be clear about something. A nine year old girl was killed, right? And people here are arguing politics?

If she was killed by malfunctioning brake pads, would it be untoward to talk about car safety?
posted by empath at 6:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [33 favorites]

What can her brother in law, who is commanding the international space station, be thinking as he looks down on us tonight?
his duty and he has lots of support

AZ, others, I apologize, quite upset now.
don't let this kids destruction fester as it has in me.
posted by clavdivs at 6:32 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

I'm not looking for political ideology, or some sort of document that pins him to one movement or another. I want the people advocating gun ownership and alluding to violence to grow up.

That runs counter to the financial interests and power interests of the owners of corporate media.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:32 PM on January 8, 2011

daq: I'm sorry, but I don't the latter is at all similar to the former there.
posted by Stunt at 6:32 PM on January 8, 2011

Uh huh. I don't think anything has actually been deleted. Would love to be proven wrong.

I haven't seen anything either, but it's a rumor that seems to be all over the web. Anyone seen specific tweets disappear from Palin's timeline?
posted by deern the headlice at 6:32 PM on January 8, 2011

From what I've seen on his Youtube page, the shooter reminds me of Delillo's depiction of Lee Harvey Oswald in Libra. Impressed by his own intellect to the point where the only reason he didn't already have what he wanted is that long-standing nefarious powers were scheming to take it away from him, and perhaps easily used by others as a tool in a political violence that really has no point.

It's probably too early for an analysis such as this, and perhaps that book acts in privileged sectors of my mind, but that's what his vibe shouted to me.

I'm quite sorry to even be commenting on a story so sad; I can't really understand the horror the victims and their families are going through. If there is hope, this event will lead to a less vitriolic American media landscape and public.
posted by localhuman at 6:33 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's unclear to me why a former governor and nominee for Vice President is held to a lower standard than our grade school student.

It's such an incredible farce how Sarah Palin thinks she represents the common or ordinary person. Or how anyone believes the horseshit that she's a "regular 'Merican," just like them.
posted by raztaj at 6:34 PM on January 8, 2011

I just want to hear in plain English and without caveats that no one endorses violence as a solution to political disagreements. Period.
posted by notion at 10:46 AM
sometimes a great notion
posted by hortense at 6:37 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Re: the role of media in creating an atmosphere that encourages violence against political opponents. It has almost disappeared down the historical memory hole, but radio broadcasts were an important part of the leadup to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. A radio broadcaster was later convicted for inciting the hatred that set one group against another.

From the link: "In March 1992, Radio Rwanda was first used in directly promoting the killing of Tutsi in a place called Bugesera, south of the national capital. On 3 March, the radio repeatedly broadcast a communiqué supposedly sent by a human rights group based in Nairobi warning that Hutu in Bugesera would be attacked by Tutsi. Local officials built on the radio announcement to convince Hutu that they needed to protect themselves by attacking first."

So, yes, Fox and Palin should be held accountable for stirring up fear and violence just as the Rwandan broadcasters were.
posted by binturong at 6:39 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

NY Times - Arizona Suspect’s Online Trail Offers Hints of Alienation
posted by readery at 6:39 PM on January 8, 2011

That passage is pure bugfick crazy. WTH? As far as I can tell, a significant number of people have an understanding of history and human rights that is utterly alien to the one I've learned.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:40 PM on January 8, 2011

Apparently completely unrelated to the news of the day, Sarah Palin's "reality" television program won't be coming back next season.
posted by crunchland at 6:40 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ah, crap. this
posted by five fresh fish at 6:41 PM on January 8, 2011

AZ, others, I apologize, quite upset now.

An attack at the government is, in essence an attack at the people. I understand. I've been on this thread too long. I'm feeling snippy myself.

I'm going to go hug all the loved ones that are within reach. Be good to each other.
posted by chemoboy at 6:42 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's too much. I've been checking in today, working at home and quietly simmering (whether it's related or not, and to whatever degree if it is) about how evil all the gun/violence imagery has gotten and how one politician so mainstream, so close to having been VP, so smug and smirky and winky has adopted it wholesale. Now the little child and the student council... too much. I'm done with this for a while. The talk here hasn't been particularly evil or anything. This is just a mess. I'm so goddamned sorry, kid.

.
posted by mintcake! at 6:42 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I just want to be clear about something. A nine year old girl was killed, right? And people here are arguing politics? Fucking MetaFilter, how does it work?

Boy, it's easy to take a moral high ground without having to contribute anything substantive to a conversation!
posted by Think_Long at 6:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Apparently completely unrelated to the news of the day, Sarah Palin's "reality" television program won't be coming back next season."

If TLC airs the final show tomorrow as planned, I swear I will never tune the channel in again....
posted by HuronBob at 6:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Regardless of whether Sarah Palin intended to directly incite violence with her rhetoric, she should have recognized that the rhetoric being thrown around in the health care debate was incendiary (remember Death Panels? She was literally accusing democrats of wanting to kill old people). After the signs and the guns started showing up at town halls, common basic human decency should have forced her to dial things down a bit. Instead she ramped it up with images of cross hairs, telling her followers to 'reload' and endorsing people like Sharron Angle who openly endorsed 'second amendment remedies' (ie, political violence.)

At this point, Sarah Palin's judgement and temperament shows her to be unqualified for dog catcher, and if she were, by some impossible to foresee set of circumstances, to become the Republican nominee for president, it would be the worst political crisis in this country since the civil war.

I hope to God that cooler heads in the GOP see how close this country is to the precipice and start to walk things back, or I really fear what will happen to this country.
posted by empath at 6:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [21 favorites]

Apparently completely unrelated to the news of the day, Sarah Palin's "reality" television program won't be coming back next season.

Best news I've heard all day.
posted by wv kay in ga at 6:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

"It was just reported that the little girl had recently been elected to the student council, and a neighbor took her to the event, thinking she might like to see the congresswoman."

Did everyone learn their political lesson today?
posted by five fresh fish at 6:45 PM on January 8, 2011

Regarding deleted tweets, I think it deletes it from your stream, but sometimes the links still exist. I was looking at a breaking news tweet last week in someone's stream (it was an event that had happened in the hour prior), and I could pull up a direct link to the tweet, but the tweet did not appear in the person's stream.

So really to see if Palin deleted it, start going through her stream back to March 23rd, and see if it shows up there.
posted by cashman at 6:46 PM on January 8, 2011

Some people.
posted by sunshinesky at 6:46 PM on January 8, 2011

.

I talked with Gabe Zimmerman a few times to help out with some friends that are a part of the the resolve. He was a kind, thoughtful man and will be missed.
posted by beardlace at 6:49 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

If TLC airs the final show tomorrow as planned, I swear I will never tune the channel in again....

But d00d, you'll toats miss out on such "learning" programs about douchey tattoo artists, down on their luck Oregon beardos panning for gold with a million dollars worth of equipment, wedding dresses and cake decorators. Think of your childrens' education!
posted by NoMich at 6:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

It's fascinating to see the #tcot scramble to refute all these accusations.
posted by crunchland at 6:51 PM on January 8, 2011

Palin's tweet is still there, in the stream. It was not deleted.
posted by cashman at 6:51 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh this is priceless. "...and I say to you, Sarah Palin -". You can just hear the engineer spraining his thumb on the button as the producer screams in his ear, "Commercial! Commercial!"
posted by scalefree at 6:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [22 favorites]

Palin's Target Politicians map was imagined, approved, and implemented with deliberation.

There was a purpose to it. They plotted the map and planned the campaign. It worked. The loonies harassed the Target Politicians repeatedly, and one nut went shooting.

What's the message you take away from this event? Mine: don't enter politics or someone might kill you.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:53 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Regarding deleted tweets, I think it deletes it from your stream, but sometimes the links still exist.

This is what I've observed.
posted by lodurr at 6:56 PM on January 8, 2011

cashman: So really to see if Palin deleted it, start going through her stream back to March 23rd, and see if it shows up there.

Good thought. I did that and I found the tweet: screenshot.
posted by ericost at 6:56 PM on January 8, 2011

Yep. See above.
posted by cashman at 6:58 PM on January 8, 2011

Hmm, a second suspect is being sought now. That changes the complexion of this a bit.
posted by jeremias at 6:59 PM on January 8, 2011

Right now - I hope the pundits turn down the drama level. There will be time enough for analysis later on.

America is the greatest country in the world because everyday people stand up for office, and are voted into office through a peaceful and orderly process. The way power is transfered in the most world's most powerful country is staggering and humbling.

My hats off to all those who serve their country in public office and my prayers to Rep Gifford and her family.
posted by helmutdog at 7:00 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Mine: don't enter politics or someone might kill you.

I can think of examples of that principle going back to at least 44 BCE.
posted by absalom at 7:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

I want to take a moment to thank the moderators for what looks like very light moderation in this thread.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

I want to take this moment and buy our moderators a drink.
posted by The Whelk at 7:06 PM on January 8, 2011 [52 favorites]

Hey, remember when guys showed up to town hall meetings with guns, to exercise their "open carry" rights?

Yeah, that was funny. Remember how we laughed?

Nine years old. Invited to the event because she had just been elected to a student body post, and was interested in government. Nine.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

I just want to take this moment and resell it on the black market.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wonder, what happens with suspects of high-profile violent crimes when they are apprehended and there are doubts about their mental capacities or health at the time of the crime?

In the Netherlands, they are typically subjected to a mental health evaluation by the Pieter Baan Centre before they are brought to trial. Does it work anything like this in the U.S.?

(John Hinckley, Jr. comes to mind.)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:09 PM on January 8, 2011

I can't get this out of my head....

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [15 favorites]

I hope to God that cooler heads in the GOP see how close this country is to the precipice and start to walk things back, or I really fear what will happen to this country.

Well, the establishment GOP has recently found that they can actually distance themselves from Sarah Palin without actually disappearing in a puff of smoke (and, in the first and last time I will ever say the following words, I almost wanted to kiss Barbara Bush for her in part in that), so I think they have an inkling that their attempts to corral the power of useful idiots for their own purposes might be getting slightly out of hand.

Mind you, I don't think they're doing this because they particularly fear for the country; after all, they are (and will ever be) insulated from what it actually means for most of us when civil society starts to break down. They simply fear losing their grip on power. I think they are betting that we've reached the point of Peak Palin, as it were: that she's so polarizing that there's largely no one left in this country to go over to her side who isn't already there. The fact that the number of people who do support her (and the Tea Party in general) don't seem to add up to actual victory in 2012 is what gives them pause, rather than the fact that the Tea Party ideology (such as it is) is essentially a dangerous rabbit hole of Crazy.

Of course, the usual disclaimers apply regarding genies, bottles, etc.
posted by scody at 7:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Does it work anything like this in the U.S.?

Yes, it's quite common.

In the United States, a trial in which the insanity defense is invoked typically involves the testimony of psychiatrists or psychologists who will present opinions on the defendant's state of mind at the time of the offense.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:13 PM on January 8, 2011

The internets have been part of mainstream culture for the better part of the past two decades, but it still surprises me how some people, even some who eat thanks to the medium, are able to ignore the obvious and settle for formulating hypotheses based on very low-hanging fruit like a couple of self-produced youtube videos and a myspace profile. Who here doesn't have that and more?

The information we want will be stored on his hard drive(s), ISP records, phone records, medical records, school records and in his relationships with family, friends and co-workers, which shouldn't be a large dataset given his young age.

Until we have that in the public domain, there isn't much anyone can say about motive or state of mind.
posted by jsavimbi at 7:14 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

At this point, Sarah Palin's judgement and temperament shows her to be unqualified for dog catcher, and if she were, by some impossible to foresee set of circumstances, to become the Republican nominee for president, it would be the worst political crisis in this country since the civil war.

You realize that most of the newspapers in 1860 and even some of Lincolns own cabinet members viewed him in a similar light? Are you comparing Palin to Lincoln? What precipice do we stand at to take such heady words under advisement if not for the mere derision of the absurdities you posit.
posted by clavdivs at 7:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's typical gnostic thinking, that we're trapped in a prison by a malevolent force -- either a demonic force like the demiurge of the gnostics, or some kind of all-powerful conspiracy -- the Illuminati, the New World Order, or PKD's black iron prison, or some combination of the above.

Philip K. Dick was one of the warmest, most human and sensitive Americans of the 20th Century, and a man whose innate sympathy a lot of us would do well to emulate, so for just a moment I'm diverting and speaking up on his behalf. The works he left us tell me that "gnostic thinking" can be inspiration to greatness.

That's all for now, carry on.
posted by gimonca at 7:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

What kind of job are the mainstream media doing on this? Are they mentioning Palin's Tweets?
I can't be bothered to get a digital converter for my antenna. I get most of my news linked from here.
posted by ambulocetus at 7:22 PM on January 8, 2011

America is the greatest country in the world because everyday people stand up for office, and are voted into office through a peaceful and orderly process.

I think that if you have citizens shooting elected officials in the head, there's a serious argument against America being the greatest country in the world.
posted by anothermug at 7:23 PM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

Lincoln's own cabinet thought he was the worst crisis since the civil war? But... that... doesn't.... what?

;-)
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 7:23 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm still very curious about this second person. I guess it was whoever drove him there?
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 7:25 PM on January 8, 2011

It was just reported that the little girl had recently been elected to the student council, and a neighbor took her to the event, thinking she might like to see the congresswoman.

KOLD was just running a phone interview with a pastor (missed his name, sorry) who knows well two of the other victims - Dorwin (sp?) Stoddard, age 71 who died on the scene, and Dorwin's wife Maeve, who was shot 3 times (legs and side, no vital organ involvement - non-life-threatening injuries).

The two were in line to see the congresswoman, "about 8 couples back" when they heard shots - Maeve thought it was firecrackers. Dorwin apparently pulled her to the ground, and fell on top of her. Maeve didn't at first realize she'd been shot, thinking Dorwin hurt her legs when he fell on her. She realized he'd been shot when he took several strong breaths and then stopped breathing.

The pastor said Maeve said she didn't know if Dorwin was shot after he fell on her or while he was falling.

Jesus wept.
posted by faineant at 7:26 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

The NYT now says that the second suspect is a white male, perhaps in his 50s.
posted by dammitjim at 7:26 PM on January 8, 2011

It's Arizona. Presumably the police were doing more important things, like demanding of brown people "your papers, bitte".

Equating the German language with authoritarianism is inaccurate, ethnically prejudiced, and only helps expand the appeal of organizations like the NPD/PNOS.

Before it was hijacked by National Socialism, it was a language of poets and philosophers. It could be seen as such once again, but comments like this do not help.
posted by edguardo at 7:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [21 favorites]

The information we want will be stored on his hard drive(s), ISP records, phone records, medical records, school records and in his relationships with family, friends and co-workers, which shouldn't be a large dataset given his young age

What's relevant is what's most recent, and what's most recent indicates a downward spiral and a lot of incoherent ideations.

We will not have a richly Maileresque villain-portrait of him until all that stuff you talk about is available, no, but for now it does seem safe to say that Jared Loughner was a dangrously disturbed young man.
posted by lodurr at 7:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can't get this out of my head....

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre

I'm on the one mission
To get a politician
To honor or he's a gonner
By the time I get to Arizona...
posted by swift at 7:30 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

A second suspect, white male, in his 50s?

Looks like someone recognized Jared Lee Loughner as a potential weapon.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:32 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

... as for the guy who dropped him off, the possibilities are endless. But my bet, if I had to make one, would be that it was someone who thought they were doing him a favor -- dropping him off to buy groceries or maybe even to see his congressperson. If Jared made a decision about what he was determined to do, he might have even seemed "better" than normal.

If that's what went down, that guy is probably in pretty sorry shape right about now.
posted by lodurr at 7:32 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Having now read this complete thread and several news sources, I think it's safe to say that shooter is fucking crazy, politicians should knock off the violent rhetoric and that it's amazing that Giffords is alive and that she may live through this.

Frankly, the NRA's well known statement "Guns don't kill, people do" is just so much bullshit and it's surprising they've been able to trot that out for so long, because that's the problem. People use guns to kill because guns are designed to do that. One can use a knife for a variety of things, one of which is killing a person. But a gun? You can't whittle a piece of wood with it, or cut a piece a rope. It's made for killing and making it readily available to people is recipe for death. We can be terribly flawed and ugly at times, we don't need guns so readily available to multiply that ugliness.

Also, twin brother astronauts (Giffords husband and his brother)? Oddest and coolest fact learned today.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:32 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

A second suspect, white male, in his 50s?

Looks like someone recognized Jared Lee Loughner as a potential weapon.

My first thought was, huh, so they're looking for his father? Maybe it's a family thing. Just speculation, who knows.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:33 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was looking through Sarah Palin's infamous gun sight list. Of the 20 on the list, 3 retired, 15 lost their reelections and 2 were reelected. Of those two, one was shot. (Nick Rahall being the other). Perhaps this figured into the perpetrator's equation. He decided the ballot box was not the end of the targeting.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:34 PM on January 8, 2011

Via Nate Silver's twitter feed, James Fellows at the Atlantic has a very thoughtful and reasoned piece on the idea being discussed in this thread; namely the relationship between assassins' political views and that of their targets.
posted by auto-correct at 7:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

*sigh*

I am not proud of my country most days, and today even less.

.
posted by schyler523 at 7:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think the way to think of it is like this. The US has a minority of heavily armed, alienated, disaffected nutcases without any particular affiliation to any political party, but who can be activated by playing to their paranoia and xenophobia. The target of the paranoia doesn't need to be anything in particular. It can be Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Mexicans, Masons, Space Aliens, the UN, Liberals, Catholics, Hippies, Anarchists, anything that could conceivably be thought of as Other.

They are always there. They have always been there. They will always be there. It's not the GOPs fault or the Democrats fault that they exist. The Democrats have been guilty of activating them in the past for political ends -- all the way up till the civil rights era.

The Republicans have been going to that well since the 60s, though, and they have been becoming less and less subtle about it, and with the nomination of Sarah Palin and with putting Glenn Beck on Fox News, they let the crazies into the tent and they are starting to lose control.

I honestly don't believe for a second that GOP officials want their political opponents killed, but at this point, I'm not sure they even know how to put the genie back into the bottle.

A good start would be to take Glenn Beck off the air, though.
posted by empath at 7:39 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 10:09 PM on January 8 [3 favorites +] [!]

The Second Coming, WB Yeats.
posted by thinkpiece at 7:40 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I went shopping just now at another Safeway here in Tucson. Checking out, I asked the cashier if she'd heard if everyone from the store up north was all right. She said she hadn't heard anything bad, and she hoped it was a good sign.

She confessed that when she heard, she was momentarily, irrationally terrified. Imagine being in a Safeway in Tucson when the news hit. She seemed really touched that I would ask.

I know people who work in the hospital; I know the wife of the sheriff's spokesman who was interviewed; I've shopped in that Safeway any number of times. There's a pretty good La Salsa in that strip mall. They just opened a new branch of Beyond Bread there, too. I was at the book fair where the shooter's picture was taken. I voted for Gabrielle Giffords.

I've talked to a number of people today, while I was out running errands around town, beneath the news helicopters buzzing stationary above the hospital. I can't say the whole town is in shocked disbelief, but the people I talked to were. First, from the event itself, and now the blinding glare of the media spotlight.

I hope Mrs. Giffords' recovery is swift and full. I hope the young man's trial is just. I hope the other victims recover well, and I mourn the ones who've fallen. I wish this all had never happened.
posted by MrVisible at 7:40 PM on January 8, 2011 [30 favorites]

America is the greatest country in the world because everyday people stand up for office
Huh. And there I was thinking it was mainly just the extremely rich and well-connected (mostly white men) who could afford the millions of dollars it takes to enter politics in the USA today.
posted by binturong at 7:40 PM on January 8, 2011 [14 favorites]

PKD might have been a nice guy and a wonderful writer, but he was also mentally ill, and his delusions ran along the same dimensions that typical paranoid and conspiratorial political thinking goes, which, as I said, don't fit neatly on a left-wing/right-wing axis.

If you find yourself unable to see the difference between the moral world of PKD versus, say, the Turner Diaries, I would encourage you to return and look deeper.
posted by gimonca at 7:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, and anyone else in Tucson, if you have type O blood, either positive or negative, the Red Cross has asked for help in replenishing their supply. You can donate at the Foothills Mall tomorrow.
posted by MrVisible at 7:43 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also, while it currently appears that the shooter was just plain nuts and not directly affiliated with any political stream of thought, that's not the problem. The problem is that is was so easy to assume that he was connected with certain comments and actions by conservatives. That's a problem of the Republican party, which currently controls a house of Congress, a problem people should consider going forward.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

it does seem safe to say that Jared Loughner was a dangrously disturbed young man

I'm sorry to disagree, but those videos tell us very little. As I've stated further up, it's my opinion that they're amateur-quality performance art and/or an unexperienced person's attempt at conveying some ideas, easily bested by veteran artists who post some really bizarre shit and are lauded for it by the art-scene elite and pornography fans. Personally, I think he was just trying to make himself look interesting, but I'd really like to see the video that got him kicked out of community college.

Can I, or anyone, determine that he was unstable by viewing those videos? Doubtful. All we're doing is projecting our thoughts regarding tea-baggers and their ilk onto this guy and sticking with it because all the signs that we recognize point to that. It's the rationale of convenience and limited due diligence.
posted by jsavimbi at 7:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you find yourself unable to see the difference between the moral world of PKD versus, say, the Turner Diaries, I would encourage you to return and look deeper.

This is a ridiculous derail, but it's not as cut and dry as you make it. The man suffered from severe paranoid delusions, and was not a saint. I'm done going back and forth on this, though.
posted by empath at 7:49 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can I, or anyone, determine that he was unstable by viewing those videos? Doubtful.

See, I didn't find it hard at all. Pretty self evident, if you ask me.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

reminds also of this O Reilly debacle. I have no doubt that the paranoid vitriol coming from the right contributed. But short of cutting back on freedom of speech there's nothing that can be done. With right wing domination of the media there's no way to hold them to account publicly either.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 7:51 PM on January 8, 2011

Can I, or anyone, determine that he was unstable by viewing those videos? Doubtful.

By themselves? No.

But, and I can't believe I have to point this out: He just murdered a half-dozen people.

I'd say the preponderance of the evidence points to 'unstable'.
posted by empath at 7:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

I'll say about the suspect what I said about Dahmer: "He may be legally sane but that boy ain't right in the fucking head. Sane people don't do shit like that."
posted by MikeMc at 7:53 PM on January 8, 2011

The names of the other two victims killed were just released: Dorothy Murray and Phyllis Scheck. Both women were in their 70s.
posted by faineant at 7:58 PM on January 8, 2011

Think_Long: "I just want to be clear about something. A nine year old girl was killed, right? And people here are arguing politics? Fucking MetaFilter, how does it work?

Boy, it's easy to take a moral high ground without having to contribute anything substantive to a conversation"

Okay I'll add something to the fucking conversation. A nine year old girl was killed because some crazy bastard who may or may not have been a crazy fuck who followed other crazy fucks, decided that a gun solved something or other. So he was fucked in the head.

On the other hand people here are supposed to be less crazy. I suppose. But instead of mourning the death of a young girl and several other people and maybe having the understanding that death isn't about politics in this case, let's make the discussion about the left and the right and the people that are other.

And that whole you/me us/other thing is the fucking point.

Sure there is a political aspect to this, but really, does this have to become a pep rally for us verses them?

I am the least respectful person on the fucking planet sometime. But some of the shit here pisses me off. You want a contribution? Fuck politics. People are dead. Fuck your politics. Fuck... your... politics. All of you self-centered bastards that think a shooting is a platform for your twisted ideals.

How's that for a contribution?
posted by Splunge at 8:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

jasvimbi: I'm sorry to disagree, but those videos tell us very little.

a: Why are you limiting yourself to the videos? You could look at the MySpace page, too.

b: In any case, the fact that he took a gun to a strip mall to kill a congresswoman and then opened fire on the crowd when he was done should be sufficient to demonstrate that he was 'dangerously unstable.' We really don't need any more than that.
posted by lodurr at 8:06 PM on January 8, 2011

I'm done going back and forth on this, though.

Suits me.
posted by gimonca at 8:06 PM on January 8, 2011

the millions of dollars it takes to enter politics in the USA today.

While this event affected a member of Congress, please remember that Congress and officials at that level make up a TINY FRACTION of the elected officials in the United States. The great, enormous majority of them are not federal; they are state and local, and many of them did not spend millions of dollars to enter politics. I've known politicians who were also teachers and farmers and nurses and people who sold insurance. Most public offices are held by people you will never hear of, who do not do it full-time, who will never become either wealthy or well-known for it.

There is a lot to public service, and the holding of public office, besides what is glorified and vilified on television, and because I'm thinking about all my friends in public service today, I just wanted to say that.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 8:07 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Lincoln's own cabinet thought he was the worst crisis since the civil war? But... that... doesn't.... what?

no, they viewed that he would divide a country before and after he was elected and What empath did not clarify is the time frame. The country was already in deep crises during Lincolns' election.
;)

Nixon will do just as well. So is this event or the election of Palin, which i already told empath to mark my words because she is political history, the worst crises the government has faced since 1972?
posted by clavdivs at 8:07 PM on January 8, 2011

I am the least respectful person on the fucking planet sometime. But some of the shit here pisses me off. You want a contribution? Fuck politics. People are dead. Fuck your politics. Fuck... your... politics.

What exactly do you think politics is about? I mean, if in your mind it's connected to nothing more than an us vs. them football game rather than life or death, I suppose that's a serious indictment... of you. The shooting of a Congressperson is a highly political event, and to try to bury your head in the sand (while simultaneously wrapping yourself in the flag, nice work) is disingenuous at best.
posted by mek at 8:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [27 favorites]

All of you self-centered bastards that think a shooting is a platform for your twisted ideals.

I'm sorry you see it that way. For my part, I see these threads (and I've seen a few of them) as people working out their own anxiety and pain over the issue. People do that in different ways. Your way is not my way. If you don't like the way people are doing it here, with all due respect, you're free to find somewhere that they do it the way you like it.
posted by lodurr at 8:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

James Fallows:

We don't know why the Tucson killer did what he did. If he is like Sirhan [Sirhan], we'll never "understand." But we know that it has been a time of extreme, implicitly violent political rhetoric and imagery, including SarahPac's famous bulls-eye map of 20 Congressional targets to be removed -- including Rep. Giffords. It is legitimate to discuss whether there is a connection between that tone and actual outbursts of violence, whatever the motivations of this killer turn out to be. At a minimum, it will be harder for anyone to talk -- on rallies, on cable TV, in ads -- about "eliminating" opponents, or to bring rifles to political meetings, or to say "don't retreat, reload."

posted by devinemissk at 8:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

Looks like someone recognized Jared Lee Loughner as a potential weapon.

The shooting reminds me a bit of the murderous attack that opens the film 'The Parallax View'.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 8:10 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

The great, enormous majority of them are not federal; they are state and local...

... and statistically, they're probably at greater risk of death or injury by malice, just at a guess. All politics is local, and local politicians actually have to live there.
posted by lodurr at 8:11 PM on January 8, 2011

Nine years old. That girl was in 4th grade. That's pretty much the last year that girls and boys can hang out on the playground before things get crushy and complicated. Guess she won't have to worry about any of that.
posted by SheaCoin at 8:12 PM on January 8, 2011

You want a contribution? Fuck politics.

You may be done with politics, but politics is not done with you.
posted by rhizome at 8:13 PM on January 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

But instead of mourning the death of a young girl and several other people and maybe having the understanding that death isn't about politics in this case, let's make the discussion about the left and the right and the people that are other.

What has a better chance, even marginally, of keeping this from happening again? Filling a thread with dots, or discussing the possible causes and what might lead someone to this, encourage someone to do this, or indicate that someone might be starting down this path?
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:13 PM on January 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

It's probably a little too early to bring this up, but, as I understand it, insanity-as-a-legal-defense has less to do with the gold standard and more to do with being able to determine the difference between right and wrong.
posted by box at 8:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Giffords on MSNBC, discussing being targetted as a result of her heath care vote.

I forgot that it was her office that was vandalized during the town hall madness, prefiguring the amusing Eric Cantor "stray bullet" incident.
posted by mek at 8:21 PM on January 8, 2011

We really don't need any more than that.

No, we don't.

Personally, when I look at most myspace profiles, I have the tendency to think the authors have balance issues.

What I'm getting at is that we already have a horrific fait accompli, perpetrated by a gunman who a reasonable person could readily assume to be insane, but that the alleged digital trail does little to expose motive or association.

Also, please add Ronald Lee Ermey to the list of despicable people who hate our freedoms.
posted by jsavimbi at 8:21 PM on January 8, 2011

Had you bothered to read the thread, you would have found out that Palin put out a widely-publicized map with crosshairs on the very Congresswoman who was shot (as well as other lesser but still significant incitements to violence).

Not so. Palin put out a map with crosshairs on a map. The "very Congresswoman who was shot" appeared nowhere on that map.

Read that again - Palin put up an image that unmistakably suggests shooting specific political opponents of her, and then one of those very opponents is shot.

i don't think "unmistakably suggests" means what you think it means. i, and most rational human beings, would never in a million years suppose that image was suggesting that people be shot. it quite clearly (again, to any rational person) suggests targeting the races in those disticts for a political win.

get a grip.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 8:22 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Keith Olbermann has a special comment.
posted by empath at 8:22 PM on January 8, 2011 [18 favorites]

The shooting reminds me a bit of the murderous attack that opens yt the film 'The Parallax View'.

Never saw that film. But the Youtube rantings of the shooter remind me of some of the rantings from Doctor Strangelove.
posted by lampshade at 8:22 PM on January 8, 2011

mek: "I am the least respectful person on the fucking planet sometime. But some of the shit here pisses me off. You want a contribution? Fuck politics. People are dead. Fuck your politics. Fuck... your... politics.

What exactly do you think politics is about? I mean, if in your mind it's connected to nothing more than an us vs. them football game rather than life or death, I suppose that's a serious indictment... of you. The shooting of a Congressperson is a highly political event, and to try to bury your head in the sand (while simultaneously wrapping yourself in the flag, nice work) is disingenuous at best"

Yes. Yes it is. Politics is exactly an us vs. them football game. What else is it then? And as far as wrapping myself in a flag, what the fuck are you talking about? Which flag did I use?

I wasn't talking about the shooting of the congressperson. I was talking about the collateral damage of the political discourse that came out of a gun.

It's sometime a small step from a diatribe on the internet to a violent outburst. And this proves it. If you think that politics is anything less than playing with people's lives via constructed ideals and pretend posturing that leads ultimately to people dying then you are deluded or naive.
posted by Splunge at 8:23 PM on January 8, 2011

Saying Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are hate-mongers is hateful!

Shooting congresswomen, children, and Federal judges? Not hateful at all! Lone nut! Lone nut!

Fuck the GOP and the mainstream media who will -- mark my words -- come up with an array of false equivalencies, once of which will be a mention of Michael Moore being either "shrill" or "fat."
posted by bardic at 8:24 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

John Kenneth Fisher: "But instead of mourning the death of a young girl and several other people and maybe having the understanding that death isn't about politics in this case, let's make the discussion about the left and the right and the people that are other.

What has a better chance, even marginally, of keeping this from happening again? Filling a thread with dots, or discussing the possible causes and what might lead someone to this, encourage someone to do this, or indicate that someone might be starting down this path"

This thread has as much chance of stopping something like this from happening again as any other thread on the internet. And that is zero.
posted by Splunge at 8:25 PM on January 8, 2011

i, and most rational human beings, would never in a million years suppose that image was suggesting that people be shot.

You're right, it doesn't. When I pull out a condom, I'm not suggesting that anyone have sex with me, all I'm conveying are my principles on safe sex. Get a grip.

Trolling much?
posted by jsavimbi at 8:26 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

"quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon"

Oh god, not you again.
posted by bardic at 8:26 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

You want a contribution? Fuck politics. People are dead. Fuck your politics. Fuck... your... politics. All of you self-centered bastards that think a shooting is a platform for your twisted ideals.

Look, the attempted assassination of a political figure does not happen in a vacuum; it happens in context -- a social, historical, and political context. Attempting to shut down the discussion of that context does not give you the moral high ground or make you more compassionate than the rest of us; it simply marks you as someone who is evidently made uncomfortable by the discussion. Which? Fine. But don't condemn others as somehow NOT CONCERNED for the dead because they happen to think the contextual whys and wherefores in which this mass murder actually took place are actually relevant.

This reminds me of the immediate post-9/11 period, when any discussion of where Islamic radicalism and terrorism comes from was shouted down as "excusing" the terrorists. No one was fucking excusing anything that day, but rather trying to understand how it could happen with some measure of analytical sophistication beyond "Islam is evil."
posted by scody at 8:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [72 favorites]

MrVisible: "Oh, and anyone else in Tucson, if you have type O blood, either positive or negative, the Red Cross has asked for help in replenishing their supply."

I don't know why, but this is the most troubling detail of the day for me - the idea that one man with one gun can shed so much blood as to literally task the reserves of an entire town...
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 8:27 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, please add Ronald Lee Ermey to the list of despicable people who hate our freedoms.

Guessing you're referring to the incident that lead to this? (Which was kind of odd, but warrants respect.)
posted by lodurr at 8:29 PM on January 8, 2011

Giffords staffer Gabe Zimmerman remembered

He was 30 and engaged. Jesus.

Like the christopher hundreds, I'm a former congressional staffer. Since I worked in our DC office, I only ran events like this a few times, but it was enough to confirm my suspicions that local district staffers are saints and had a much harder job than mine in a DC cubicle. They are the ones who hear the saddest stories, who swim through impossibly complex bureaucracies to save everything from honeymoons (by rushing passports) to lives (by straightening out problems with health benefits), who sometimes have to tell constituents face-to-face that there's nothing the member can do for them, who deal with some of worst vitriol from the most difficult people, who smooth feathers when local self-appointed bigwigs get ruffled by imagined slights, who somehow manage to charm whatever local interest group ought to hate the member most into giving him a chance, and who keep coming to work smiling every day. It's a job I don't envy, but it sounds like Gabe did it quite well.

.
posted by naoko at 8:31 PM on January 8, 2011 [30 favorites]

This thread has as much chance of stopping something like this from happening again as any other thread on the internet. And that is zero.

A healthy discussion of just how far into violent rhetoric and dog whistle calls for same amongst the populace and media might. This discussion is now going on in the media, at people's dinner tables, and on the internet. Of which this site is a part.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:31 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

A political assasination of a congresswomen and a Federal judge isn't political.

Only in America. Only on the internent.
posted by bardic at 8:31 PM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

(I'm missing a verb there)
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:31 PM on January 8, 2011

Sure there is a political aspect to this, but really, does this have to become a pep rally for us verses them?

they have been using violent bullying rhetoric against us - and they have just SHOT one of us - hell, a rather moderate and weakly agreeable one of us

wake the fuck up - when there are bodies on the floor, it sure as HELL is us versus them

if they don't stand down - if they don't renounce the rhetoric and the hate - then we are in for very dark times, indeed - especially if some of us decide to respond in kind

i don't condone or suggest that - but what goes around comes around

it's time the right wing stops playing with fire before they find out that they can get burned, too
posted by pyramid termite at 8:33 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

quonsar II:Not so. Palin put out a map with crosshairs on a map. The "very Congresswoman who was shot" appeared nowhere on that map.

Wait...are you kidding? This diagram, which clearly has crosshairs on Arizona and has Gabrielle Giffords' name in the list on the bottom, doesn't mention her?
posted by kro at 8:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [17 favorites]

especially if some of us decide to respond in kind

Not cool.
posted by empath at 8:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Not cool.

it's a possibility, one that has happened throughout history

sorry, but sometimes things have to be said
posted by pyramid termite at 8:39 PM on January 8, 2011

i, and most rational human beings, would never in a million years suppose that image was suggesting that people be shot

Weelllll..... it's imagery of a gun sight, in the context of a race between 2 people, with one side favored. There are a million other ways of saying "vote for the Republican candidate in Arizona" that don't involve gun sights or the implication of aiming a firearm. I agree that you'd have to be crazy to think it was saying "shoot the Democrat", but I also don't feel confident in assuming a lot what I've seen from the Tea Party isn't crazy.
posted by Hoopo at 8:39 PM on January 8, 2011

Of which this site is a part.
I knew metafilter was part of my kitchen table.
posted by clavdivs at 8:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm so sad and angry. I just feel like we are damned. I feel helpless.

it is awful. and it is perhaps a bellwether of how inured to violence we have become that to my knowledge, the networks (except cable "news") pretty much gave this a pass. i remember JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and MLK - the nation essentially froze in its tracks, the networks all went to special coverage.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 8:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not so. Palin put out a map with crosshairs on a map. The "very Congresswoman who was shot" appeared nowhere on that map.

wrong I pulled that off Palin's facebook page earlier today, btw. It's Unaltered.

WTF are you both talking about? The tweet still exists, on twitter.com.

Uh... I was simply explaining how deletion works on twitter.
posted by delmoi at 8:51 PM on January 8, 2011

How many members of Congress do this at all; set up a table in a public space for no other reason than to sit and meet with constituents to find out what's important to them? And particularly, how many members of Congress do it after an election?

And now, how many will do it after today?
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

Not cool.

There's a big difference between predicting violence & advocating it. pyramid termite's words could be taken both ways but to me the clearer, more natural meaning was predictive not prescriptive. Violence begets violence, we all know this. I don't like it either but I can see it as a possibility that some on my side would want to balance out what they see as an imbalance in the cosmic scales. I'm going to try my best not to ally with them but I'm not abandoning acting on my beliefs because of what they do.
posted by scalefree at 8:52 PM on January 8, 2011

Fourth grade was when I was first elected to student government. Horrific.
posted by absalom at 8:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

From Catie Parker's twitter!

"Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is awake in her hospital room and has recognized her husband, astronaut and Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, a source close to the family told POLITICO Saturday night."

Yes!
posted by cashman at 8:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [21 favorites]

It's often remarked that republicans have an...ability to work in lockstep

Yep, which often leads to the evil of groupthink.

given the context, that is achingly hilarious.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 8:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

(retweeted from Parker)

I know we don't know about her mental abilities, and what state she'll be in, but to be shot in the head like that and be awake and recognizing people half a day later - that is awesome. That is just awesome. The fight on her part, what seems to have been a fantastic job on the part of the surgeons. Just great news for the moment.
posted by cashman at 8:57 PM on January 8, 2011

i remember JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and MLK - the nation essentially froze in its tracks, the networks all went to special coverage.

It's an interesting shift in terms of media and shared cultural experiences that I've wondered about, too. I suppose it has something to do with the practical facts of there being so many more media outlets now than there were then. But I also think you're on to something that beyond the expansion of media outlets and the 24-hour news cycle, there's a broader cultural atomization in which these watershed events don't seem to trigger the sort of quasi-monolithic Everyone Is Watching The Same Thing at the Same Time shared experience.
posted by scody at 8:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Good job debunking that post team. Boom, roasted.
posted by arveale at 8:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

(I was saying that @breakingnews tweet had been retweeted - pardon me, I'm a tad excited and hopeful for giffords.)
posted by cashman at 8:58 PM on January 8, 2011

Wait...are you kidding? This diagram, which clearly has crosshairs on Arizona and has Gabrielle Giffords' name in the list on the bottom, doesn't mention her?

not going to play this game with you kro. the crosshairs are on Arizona, not on Gifford, which is what the person i was responding to said.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 8:59 PM on January 8, 2011

You're being painfully literal there, quonsar.
posted by chiababe at 9:00 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

the crosshairs are on Arizona, not on Gifford,

She's there, just very tiny at that scale.
posted by empath at 9:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [27 favorites]

The little girl was 9 yr old Christina-Taylor Green. She was born Sept. 11, 2001 & featured in the book: "Faces of Hope."
posted by emjaybee at 9:03 PM on January 8, 2011 [15 favorites]

Things seemed heated in here (well, the entire internet really) a few hours ago, so I checked out in the hope things would calm down once the facts of the incident became clearer.

...
posted by dry white toast at 9:04 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

"the crosshairs are on Arizona, not on Gifford"

No, they're on the congressional district in which she was running against a lunatic teabagger who had fund-raisers where you could fire off an M-16.

Do you have any sense of same whatsoever?
posted by bardic at 9:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reddit may have found some additional posts by the shooter on a conspiracy website. (nothing confirmed, but stylistically and thematically the same as the YouTube videos)
posted by condour75 at 9:05 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

jfk, your a genius..frikkin kudos and i hope no one else gets it.
got me backpeddling and chewing sand
posted by clavdivs at 9:10 PM on January 8, 2011

invert the f and k
posted by clavdivs at 9:11 PM on January 8, 2011

. to those killed, with great sadness

Glad Ms. Giffords survived, and I hope she and all the others wounded will recover quickly.

I wish I had something substantive to add, but there's a lot of good stuff in this thread (and some bad stuff too, of course).
posted by zoogleplex at 9:13 PM on January 8, 2011

Oh, and anyone else in Tucson, if you have type O blood, either positive or negative, the Red Cross has asked for help in replenishing their supply.

I'm again frustrated that I'm permanently barred from giving blood, but I'm going to suggest my dad and my husband consider it.

> I can't say the whole town is in shocked disbelief, but the people I talked to were.

My small section of Tucson is definitely shocked and saddened. I saw some friends tonight and we talked about, along with our sadness about the event and some of our personal connections to Rep. Giffords, the strangeness of these events taking place in locations that are so familiar to us. There was a large crowd riveted to the TV in the bar as Dupnik made his statements.
posted by Squeak Attack at 9:13 PM on January 8, 2011

Reddit may have found some additional posts by the shooter on a conspiracy website.

He keeps referring to a 'listener'. That is obviously from listening to a lot of talk radio.
posted by empath at 9:14 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I have to agree with Splunge, right now seems like an awfully early moment to turn this outrage into a political football. I say that against my emotional impulses, my first reaction being not unlike many here but I think at this moment turning this tragedy into a political one is misplaced. With respect to the many fine people in this thread.

.

For the dead.
posted by nola at 9:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I drove by the hospital on the way home from work. There's a candlelight vigil being held in front. The Potate and I might walk down later. It's been quite a rollercoaster of a day.
posted by lizjohn at 9:21 PM on January 8, 2011

.
posted by clavdivs at 9:23 PM on January 8, 2011

So according to the posts reddit found on abovetopsecret it seems he (if it is him) thought all space travel as well as the mars rover is a hoax. There is a chance that he targeted this congresswoman due to her ties to Nasa. I guess this is political, but not any type of politics that would make sense to a sane person.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:25 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

but it's becoming more and more apparent that Loughner is probably a schizophrenic.

"please, people, resist your urge to be helpful ... if the only thing you have to contribute is a diagnosis or medication recommendation you are not qualified to make. "

-The Straightener

Apologies if you do assessments and this is actually your profession.
posted by cashman at 9:28 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's not as if a doctrinaire Teabagger is required to kill a Democratic congressperson in order to qualify as political violence.

For the past two years (roundabouts the time that black guy with a funny name beat the grumpy white guy) the Palins and the Becks and even members of the more "serious" media have stoked the fires of white, middle-class resentment against the poor, the black, the brown, and the gays. They're coming to take your stuff, be it in the form of your job, your house, your (often government provided) health-care, or your retirement.

So I don't care whether or not this lunatic watched Glenn Beck or listened to Rush Limbaugh on a daily basis (although we know for a fact that in Pittsburgh and San Francisco this was the case, albeit the San Francisco shooter was thwarted). The fact is Palin and the GOP were gleefully stoking the flames of racial and economic resentment but with just enough dog-whistling to exculpate them from direct blame.

This shooting was as political as it gets and if you think otherwise you need to wake the fuck up to the direction the US is headed in.
posted by bardic at 9:31 PM on January 8, 2011 [24 favorites]

Jesus ~~wept~~ quoted Yeats without an iota of self-awareness and then kept on voting Republican anyways because that is the opposite of what Oprah wants. Delete this, ban me, what-the-fuck ever. You are part of the problem. Enjoy your (w)hol(l)y unearned fitful sleep tonight.

A nine year old (and a federal judge, and God knows who else) is dead. An American congresswoman was shot in the head at a public meeting with her constituents. This is the logical extension of your illogical ideological bullshit. Own it already. YOU ARE THE HATE YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.

Sorry, mods. Good night, all.
posted by joe lisboa at 9:32 PM on January 8, 2011 [30 favorites]

This thread is too long to go back and find the person who made the request, but way upthread, someone asked if anyone was tracking some of the violent screeds that have been occurring. Digby just posted this extensive list of violent rhetoric and political violence over the past two years.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:33 PM on January 8, 2011 [56 favorites]

I've had a personal experience of seeing a very close friend struck down by schizophrenia, so I'm quite familiar with it.

Could I actually diagnose this person? No, and I'm not going to attempt to write him a prescription either.
posted by smoothvirus at 9:35 PM on January 8, 2011

Pima Sheriff Clarence Dupnik Calls Out Vitriolic, Hateful Rhetoric (Ironically enough, this was covered by Tucson's own channel 9, KGUN.)

I'm also proud of you, Metafilter for the comments. It's rare to see this many comments on a thread. You've hardly descended into egos and bickering.)

Oh, and listen, when you hear Alex Jones saying that this is a classic CIA brainwashing scenario (based on the shooter's incoherent ranting) do us all a favor. Give yourself a punch in the nuts for listening to Alex Jones. Hard, so you don't reproduce.
posted by Catblack at 9:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

not going to play this game with you kro

But you are, Blanche; you are!
posted by octobersurprise at 9:38 PM on January 8, 2011

I guess this is political, but not any type of politics that would make sense to a sane person.

This is key to understanding the new "base" of the right. They think the Freemasons are putting fluoride in the vaccines to make the autistics homosexual. Jews did Apollo 11 and 9/11. Hollywood promotes environmentalism so George Soros can exterminate 90% of the human race. I wish I were exaggerating.
posted by fleetmouse at 9:44 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

If you think there is a line to be drawn between right wing and crazy, you've never met John Trochmann. Homicidally insane and right wing ideology are not mutually exclusive.

The use of mentally ill assassins was so common in the 80s and 90s that we had a phrase for it: "wind-up killers." I mentioned David Rice earlier. He's a good example, but not the only one.

The problem with the eliminationist rhetoric that has been a staple of the right wing since the 1960's is that it creates an atmosphere of permission for violence and people act on that permission.

Dave Neiwert has been saying this for years now and he recapped it again today in this specific context. Dave says it much better than I do.

The use of crosshairs as a code signal for identifying targets of violence has been around in right wing circles for fifty years. They know exactly what it means. It's a threat of violence, it's not some cute metaphor.

This will get worse, not better. The excuses, blameshifting, lying denials, etc. will convince the next batch of terrorists that they can get away with it because the right wing media and political hacks will go to bat for them with a whitewash and a smokescreen.

This was exactly what happened after the Oklahoma City bombing and Clinton denounced right wing hate talk as inflammatory. Limbaugh and the wingers counter-attacked, Clinton folded and we had another year of arson, bombings and shootings. It was only after the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics that the FBI ever labeled any of the right wing violence as terrorism.

So hold onto your hats, it's going to be an interesting spring.

$5 says Alan Gottlieb will blame the 'gun grabbers' for the shooting.
posted by warbaby at 9:50 PM on January 8, 2011 [25 favorites]

If I'm impaled by a giant pin, it was Google.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:51 PM on January 8, 2011 [14 favorites]

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up, still frustrated that I'm not living in the country I was told about as a kid, still tired from having to point it out, and still here because I can't find anywhere better.
posted by I love you more when I eat paint chips at 9:54 PM on January 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

So I was back-country skiing today, and I don't listen to the radio in the Jeep. Imagine my horror then when I got back and fired up the old MetaFilter looking for some laughs and stumbled on this.

It took me 2 hours to get through this whole thread, and all I can say is that I weep for America at this point. As a Canadian, it really pains me to watch a country whose citizens I admire being destroyed before my very eyes. The animosity in this very thread amongst some commenters is a painful reminder of how seriously you guys are divided, and it shocks me to think that this community is largely representative of all the ideals that I most aspire to.

Matt has said many times that breaking news is one of the things that MetaFilter is not really for, and often does poorly. Voices of reason like billyfleetwood's get steamrolled by the agenda-mongers because the pain of this is so excruciating, it really is worrisome to see this kind of over-heated rhetoric in a community that is peerless, as far as I've ever seen, for thoughtful analysis online.

I think it would be best to let the facts come in before leaping to conclusions here.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 9:55 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

People, this is costing me a lot to say. I never ever in a million years have considered myself a left-winger on anything except for gay marriage and legalization of marijuana. (Which last is not exclusively left-wing anyway). Then I came across this and have started to think I'll be changing parties soon here.

posted by deep thought sunstar at 10:02 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

SHIT I meant this
posted by deep thought sunstar at 10:04 PM on January 8, 2011

Could've been space, but it doesn't come up in his videos, which seem fixated on years, currency, and the number line, and the constitution. To the extent that I see a common theme, it's a problem with things which arise by fiat, unmoved movers, starting points. Zero, paper money, the Constitution. The first statement in his syllogisms, which he then rejects.

I say this with absolutely no professional pot to piss in, but my hunch is that for a mind like that, drifting through American political discourse is like running a lint roller over a dog bed.
posted by condour75 at 10:06 PM on January 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

I'm glad they caught this little fuck alive.
posted by delmoi at 10:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Warbaby, I think you're right. I find myself thinking of Inofe being "outraged by the outrage" at the Abu Ghraib abuses; in other words, going on the offensive against those who decried the abuse, claiming they were just exploiting the abuse for political gain or using it to manipulate public opinion against the war.

I find myself thinking of Paul Wellstone and the way the Republicans went on the offensive before the smoke of the plane crash cleared, preemptively declaring themselves the victims of anyone who might suggest foul play.

There'll be a lot more of that here -- by the end of it, in the minds of Fox viewers the real criminal won't be the shooter, it'll be those who decry the violent rhetoric to which this incident so closely conforms. And the mainstream media and politicians will be suitably cowed, as they always are.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

When something like this happens, people ask "why?" It's naïve to assume we're all just going to leave our MeFi dots in the thread and leave it at that, nor would that be any more constructive or moral a thread than the one we're having now.

So let's talk about why. One plausible scenario, this was a politically motivated killing directly influenced by the rhetoric of the Becks and the Palins and the Limbaughs of the world. This is a real possibility and we don't do the discourse any favors pretending otherwise.

A perhaps more likely scenario is that this was a generically mentally ill individual who happened to glom onto a variety of conspiracy theories, but with no particular party affiliation. There's a good chance that such a person would be receiving the treatment he needed, if conservatives in this country weren't doing everything they can to gut social services and mental health care. Or maybe he'd still be sick, but wouldn't have access to a firearm if conservatives weren't also gutting gun regulation.

So my belief is this: calling republicans bad people is placing the blame where it belongs to one degree or another. It answers "why", if only indirectly. It's also cathartic. Basically, there's nothing bad about it except that it bruises our sense of impartiality, and I don't fucking care because we're the only side who cares about impartiality and fairness nowadays. The people putting crosshairs on maps don't give two shits about it. Or us.
posted by Riki tiki at 10:09 PM on January 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

everyone knows it's floride in the water to control our minds and mercury in the vaccines to wreck the parts of our brains they can't control with floride. And the freemason's are only doing what the aliens tell them to do so they can steal our gold and wimmin
posted by Redhush at 10:11 PM on January 8, 2011

drifting through American political discourse is like running a lint roller over a dog bed.

If American political discourse were totally civil, then yeah, this guy very well might have shot up a school or a gym or a church or any other place full of innocent people because of his mental illness. That doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with political figures spewing violent vitriol.
posted by oinopaponton at 10:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Looks like a young man who is mentally ill committed this murderous act

How tragic for everyone. It's tempting to politicize the violent act of a mentally ill person, but we must be measured in that. His delusions could have gone either way; this is an act of violence that was most likely brought on by severe delusional, clinical depression or some other mental illness.

If my surmise is correct, we have nothing but victims here. The real "bad guy" is our society's failure to take mental illness seriously and have easily accessible places to be treated, and better control processes for getting people like this young man help, before they create mayhem.

My heart goes out to everyone involved, and to all who are suffering - related or not to both victims and perpetrator.
posted by Vibrissae at 10:11 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Interesting bit of background info about Sheriff Dupnik: Born on January 11, 1936, in Helena, Texas, he was raised in Bisbee, Arizona, and later attended the University of Arizona in Tucson. He graduated from Keeler Institute in Chicago, the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville, and the Urban Affairs Executive Institute at M.I.T.
posted by ambient2 at 10:13 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I never ever in a million years have considered myself a left-winger on anything except for gay marriage and legalization of marijuana.

That's like saying I saying that I never considered myself a pirate, except for all that firing of cannons and gripping of teeth-clenched cutlasses in boarding parties.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [26 favorites]

More, from boingboing
posted by Vibrissae at 10:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

quonsar ii: i, and most rational human beings, would never in a million years suppose that image was suggesting that people be shot. it quite clearly (again, to any rational person) suggests targeting the races in those disticts for a political win.

That's not what Gabrielle Giffords thought was going on.
posted by blucevalo at 10:18 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

That's like saying I saying that I never considered myself a pirate, except for all that firing of cannons and gripping of teeth-clenched cutlasses in boarding parties.

There are a lot of conservatives who support marijuana reform. Most notably Ron Paul and other libertarians.
posted by delmoi at 10:19 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I got them lone American gunman blues ... again.

add another snapshot to the file
posted by philip-random at 10:20 PM on January 8, 2011

"I've given many speeches to my group and at different events in my area, and in doing so I'm very conscious of who's listening. When I look out at the crowd, 99 percent of the people I see are just like me -- average every day Americans who want constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, things of that nature. Every once in a while, though, I see someone -- how should I put it? -- who is getting too excited, who seems a little farther on the fringe ... I realized I had to tone down my comments a little bit, less yelling and screaming and more educational." -- Patrick Beck, Mohave County Tea Party
posted by blucevalo at 10:20 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

As predicted:

Palinistas are furious over the accusations. Read here and here (just for starters). They blame the left using a tragedy to score political points. A Palin staffer, Rebecca Mansour told a radio talk show host Saturday that doing so is "obscene" and "appalling." In fact, she said that the "target list" was not intended to allude to guns.

"We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sites," she said.

"It's surveyor's symbols," the interviewer Tammy Bruce suggested. Bruce, a Palin supporter, describes herself as "a gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty, Tea Party Independent Conservative. " Her show is promoted as a "chick with a gun and a microphone."

link. See guys, it was surveyor's symbols.
posted by ctmf at 10:22 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Has there been any info about where in the head Rep. Giffords was shot? Is is possible that she was incredibly lucky and the bullet did not enter her brain? (and of course, i don't really think being shot, say, in the jaw is all that lucky....)
posted by jindc at 10:24 PM on January 8, 2011

Surveyor's symbols! Oh my God, what will they come up with next?
posted by blucevalo at 10:26 PM on January 8, 2011 [11 favorites]

Palinistas are furious over the accusations.

There's a shock.
posted by Flunkie at 10:27 PM on January 8, 2011

Of course! RELOAD YOUR SURVEYOR'S SYMBOLS. Poor Sarah Palin. It's monstrous how she's so misunderstood.
posted by scody at 10:28 PM on January 8, 2011 [44 favorites]

Surveyor's symbols! Oh my God, what will they come up with next?

I wasn't aware surveyor's needed to reload anything! Who knew?
posted by Green With You at 10:28 PM on January 8, 2011

This is key to understanding the new "base" of the right. They think the Freemasons are putting fluoride in the vaccines to make the autistics homosexual. Jews did Apollo 11 and 9/11. Hollywood promotes environmentalism so George Soros can exterminate 90% of the human race. I wish I were exaggerating.

I think you are exxagerating. The new "base" seem to be nihilists and survivalists, with a bit of religion sprinkled on top. A lot of kooky stuff has come out of the woodwork, but I think that nihilism is the key overarching theme in the new conservative movement.

_{(And, can we please stop using the Left v. Right sliding scale? It's meaningless to compare left v. right from year to year, especially considering that the right have begun to regard aspects of the welfare state that benefit white landowners to be sacred. Until we hear the denouncement of Social Security and Medicare, the Tea Party will not be "hard right" on all issues)}
posted by schmod at 10:28 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Crosshairs.

Surveyors symbols.

Not passing a sniff test here.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Vibrissae: "The real "bad guy" is our society's failure to take mental illness seriously and have easily accessible places to be treated, and better control processes for getting people like this young man help, before they create mayhem."

Which, sorry to say, is also a political condition based on political decisions dating back at least 30 years, to Reagan's rescinding of the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 signed by Jimmy Carter.
posted by blucevalo at 10:33 PM on January 8, 2011 [17 favorites]

That's like saying I saying that I never considered myself a pirate, except for all that firing of cannons and gripping of teeth-clenched cutlasses in boarding parties.

OK, point taken...I have to run out to the bar for a minute but I hope you're still here when I come back.
posted by deep thought sunstar at 10:34 PM on January 8, 2011

A perhaps more likely scenario is that this was a generically mentally ill individual who happened to glom onto a variety of conspiracy theories, but with no particular party affiliation. There's a good chance that such a person would be receiving the treatment he needed, if conservatives in this country weren't doing everything they can to gut social services and mental health care. Or maybe he'd still be sick, but wouldn't have access to a firearm if conservatives weren't also gutting gun regulation.

I follow you to a point, but ultimately he chose to attempt to assassinate a Democratic Congressperson, and that wasn't a totally random act. It's not like he decided to shoot up a Chik-Fil-A for being anti-gay, he attached himself to a specific continuum of extremely prevalent anti-socialist rhetoric which specifically incites violent acts against Democrats. There is a pile of evidence here, we can't just handwave it away.
posted by mek at 10:35 PM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

Of course! RELOAD YOUR SURVEYOR'S SYMBOLS. Poor Sarah Palin. It's monstrous how she's so misunderstood.

I think they are missing the point (duh, I know). If there is some possibility of confusion over whether you are actually advocating the assassination of your political enemies or not, you are doing it wrong.
posted by empath at 10:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [19 favorites]

Sat, 6/12/10, 10:00 AM
Get on Target for Victory in
November Help remove
Gabrielle Giffords from
office Shoot a fully
automatic surveyor's level with Jesse
Kelly
posted by Flunkie at 10:36 PM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

We're in the middle of a national tragedy but football and other diversions must be broadcast, gotta keep everyone entertained.
posted by mareli at 10:37 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think saying "reload" in concert with the crosshairs is the problem.
posted by lampshade at 10:37 PM on January 8, 2011

Seriously. Surveyor Symbol and Cross hairs are identical in appearance and basic function: to have something in your sites. Where they differ in how they are used and how often they are used in popular culture. I'll give Sarah Palin a hint about which is which: no one ever uses surveyor symbols except surveyors and liars.

If that website had that filename for that symbol as including "surveyor" since day 1 then they were only doing it as a way to cover their ass when one of the people listed on that web page got shot. I mean seriously is there anyone on the fucking planet that isn't a surveyor that would see that symbol and not have the first thing they think be "gun"? And on the off-chance one person didn't get it they mean to suggest that after the similarity was pointed out they didn't switch it to something less gunlike, like maybe an x mark that looks like it was written with a red felt pen? Or maybe this?
posted by Green With You at 10:41 PM on January 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

That NYT article Vibrissae posted has lots of good information about Jared, and how he was suspended from school, interviews with people around him, etc.
posted by cashman at 10:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I thought they were registration marks.
posted by mazola at 10:46 PM on January 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

On 4 November, they were apparently surveyor's symbols. They totally are now, though.
posted by ctmf at 10:51 PM on January 8, 2011 [13 favorites]

duh. NOT surveyor's symbols.
posted by ctmf at 10:52 PM on January 8, 2011

Crosshairs.
Surveyors symbols.

Not passing a sniff test here.

Play with fire? Get burned.
posted by philip-random at 10:52 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sarah Palin's latest tweet: "I'll give you my theodolite when you take it from MY COLD DEAD HANDS"
posted by scody at 10:53 PM on January 8, 2011 [18 favorites]

There's no doubt that the cant of weaponry was targeted at Palin's teeming brigades. 2nd Amendment Solution pushes the boundaries of free speech into the realm of hate crime or sedition. The issue with assigning blame to her in this case is the lack of any information which shows this. Accusations of incitement to murder aren't minor things. If you wish to maintain the value of such a serious charge, its likely best to not randomly apply it.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:56 PM on January 8, 2011

Reddit may have found some additional posts by the shooter on a conspiracy website.

These are fascinating. It allows us to see Loughner interacting with sane people who are patiently trying their best to understand what the fuck he's talking about.

And I find Loughner's compulsive use of syllogisms positively bone-chilling. It's like something out of a horror movie, only creepier, and real.
posted by jeremy b at 10:57 PM on January 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

... and a little hunch here.

It's not Palin's candidacy we need fear here; it's whoever THEY come up with to replace her. The lady is damaged goods now, I suspect.
posted by philip-random at 10:57 PM on January 8, 2011

To be fair, here: I just texted my ex-boyfriend , who was a surveyor for 4-ish years, and asked him about the crosshairs. He says, yes, that's what you look through on the instrument to zero in and whatnot, just like you would a distance rifle. However, I then asked him what one might "reload" in a surveying situation. Literal response: "what? what would you reload?"
posted by deep thought sunstar at 11:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Violence and Mental Illness - How Strong is the Link? by Dr. Richard Friedman takes a pretty hard look at the assumption that mental illness creates violent behavior. It is, as you might expect, a topic with a great deal of nuance, and the author treats it with the seriousness it deserves.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 11:01 PM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

Accusations of incitement to murder aren't minor things. If you wish to maintain the value of such a serious charge, its likely best to not randomly apply it.

You're making a pretty damn serious accusation yourself.
posted by blucevalo at 11:02 PM on January 8, 2011

Reddit may have found some additional posts by the shooter on a conspiracy website.

Reminds me of an old room-mate. He had this friend that dropped by every now and then. James was his name, I think. A moody guy that almost never looked you in the eye, and when he did, you wished he hadn't.

Anyway, James claimed to have this system figured out for traveling backward in time (something to do with a deck of cards and a few weird hand gestures) which he needed my room-mate's help to actualize. James' plan was to use his system to win the lottery, then use the funds to get into politics. He never did win but a few years later he got arrested for a car-jacking. He needed to get to the airport, immediately, so he could fly to Ottawa and talk to the Prime Minister.

A big difference between Canada and the USA -- James never got his hands on a gun.
posted by philip-random at 11:08 PM on January 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

.

And I hope she makes it okay.
posted by rai at 11:08 PM on January 8, 2011

As far as "surveyor's symbols", they're probably talking about a "benchmark" symbol, which does indeed look a bit like a crosshairs, just with two quadrants colored in. Still impossible to reload.
posted by LionIndex at 11:14 PM on January 8, 2011

"A woman’s life is never as relevant as her husband’s profession. Thanks for the reminder, Fox News." (They've since changed the headline to "Bio".)
posted by cashman at 11:15 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Violence and Mental Illness - How Strong is the Link? by Dr. Richard Friedman takes a pretty hard look at the assumption that mental illness creates violent behavior.

Oh yes; it wasn't my intention suggest there is anything common about this at all. The percentage of mentally ill people who express it violently is rather small, and, then, they tend to be violent toward themselves (as with bipolar people committing suicide) than against others. But there are a few people with severe mental illnesses who kill people every so often.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:21 PM on January 8, 2011

I don't care if this is relevant to this thread or not. It's what I read when shit like this happens....

A Ritual To Read To Each Other - William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
posted by goalyeehah at 11:29 PM on January 8, 2011 [31 favorites]

Clarence Dupnik is a good man.

I am also glad Metafilter is around during times like this.
posted by goalyeehah at 11:32 PM on January 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I hope Rep. Gabby Giffords will come out of this still able to do her job and lead a somewhat normal life. This is a horrific event. And yes, this is the natural outcome of months and years of hateful dog whistle rhetoric coming to fruition.

Everyone, knows fairly well adjusted people can hear that kind of spew and obviously aren't going to do something like this. It's alway, always the individuals with unstable emotions and unstable mental health that are the ones to act out on the threats and the big phony patriotism talk and hubris manufactured from a venerated source: the Bible, the Koran, the Constitution that is twisted and perverted for very selfish ends and purposes, whether that be money or political power or both. Or to inspire the weak minded to go forth and do violence and murder. And it will be interesting to see if there might've been a mentor (other than the Palin's and Beck's) who pushed Loughner to this.
posted by Skygazer at 11:33 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

So... if it is surveyor marks, why the hell did it/they get scrubbed so damn fast?
posted by edgeways at 11:34 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm still trying to make sense of everything, as we all are, but here are my thoughts right now:

1. While I (and we) still don't know much of anything about the alleged shooter(s?) aside from the youtube account, the Sheriff involved with the case has put out an astoundingly brave statement to the effect that this was brought upon by rhetoric from talk radio, and that Arizona has become the "mecca of bigotry." One would imagine he's working from better information than we've got right now.

2. I'm ecstatic that Congresswoman Giffords is recovering as miraculously as she seems to be. I am afraid that by morning that will be the story, and the fact that 18 deaths (it's been a long day and my numbers might be wrong) including that of a 9-year-old girl will go forgotten by the media in the wake of that.

This was a massacre at the site of an event where the Congresswoman was meeting with her constituants as their representative to the federal government. To brush off the deaths of those constituants as less important than the survival of their representative not only disparages their memory, but that of the point of the event where the massacre occurred.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:41 PM on January 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Surveyor symbols.

Dear Sarah Palin supporters:

Sarah Palin thinks you are the stupidest person in the world. She thinks you are too stupid to tie your own shoes, too stupid to wear pants front-side forward, too stupid to chew gum. Frankly, she thinks you're too stupid to live.

Sarah Palin mocks you with her every syllable. And if you support her in this hour of gun sights as surveyor symbols, she is entirely correct to do so.

Sincerely,
posted by dirigibleman at 11:45 PM on January 8, 2011 [45 favorites]

Sense of sane, sense of shame, either interpretation of the typo seems to work well in that response.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:47 PM on January 8, 2011

I'm simply fascinated by Palin's statement. It is a marvel. A sheer marvel of terse tense horse-shitacular psychological intrigue:

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.

It's literally screaming with import and hidden meaning. I kid you not. Of all the things she could've added, all the things she's stoked the worst from the nation since August 2008. Never at a loss for the most hateful and petty interpretations, and all the big phony patriotic talk, this is all she's capable of? Shouldn't a potential leader seek to call out our greater angels as a people at a time like this and offer solace and wisdom. No course not Sarah Palin. She sends the victims of this tragedy what amounts to a blow off. Once again a transparently self-serving twit. At the very least she could've condemned these actions in the strongest terms possible, but no, not Sarah Palin.

What she does here is leave the door open for more of this type of behavior. She equivocates. And it is repugnant and despicable. It is a sly nod, to those on the right and the Tea Party movement and at Fox who will try and defend this, and/or find some comfort from it and that fringe element that gives the extreme Right it's true, but hidden identity.
posted by Skygazer at 11:58 PM on January 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

Apropos the mania for the syllogism: I smell David Wynn Miller.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:00 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is it cynical of me to have immediately checked what her political party affiliation is?....

Is it cynical of me to have immediately checked CTRL+F "tea" for teabagger on this thread once I knew she was a Democrat?

Yeehaa! I hit the jackpot. Metafilter didn't let me down.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 12:02 AM on January 9, 2011

I'm glad you enjoy rubbernecking at our politics.
posted by empath at 12:03 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

As for my own armchair psychology, based upon nothing but the youtube videos and what little else we know:

He tried to join the military, but was rejected. He read the constitution, but found it frustrating and adulterated. It appears that he tried to find God but found the pursuit empty.

In this context, the syllogisms make a lot of sense. This was a drowning man looking for anything he could cling to. If X than Y. X. Therefor Y. Am I right? I'm right, aren't I? Tell me I'm right!

I stick to my theory that this is the sort of mind attracted to the Palin/Beck rhetoric of absolutes and narcotic equivocations. There are people out there, and Jared is one of them, who not only crave, but NEED absolutes, and Beck and Palin are happy to provide them.

In a handy infographic with crosshairs, if necessary.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:18 AM on January 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

Well he's someone in a state of extreme inner turmoil who feels backed against a wall, who feel like things have reached a juncture that is no longer acceptable and requires some drastic action, not to mention he feels the country needs to go back to the gold standard. Mix in guns, untreated mental and emotional illness, perhaps an older adult who pours gasoline over all this (the Tuscon police are searching for an accomplice in his 50s) and the opportunity of an accessible public figure and he's just a walking tragedy ready to unleash.
posted by Skygazer at 12:27 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

As much as we should be mad at Palin for carelessly using her fame, don't forget that her unlikely circumstance was manufactured by people with a motive.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:28 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

As far as I know, outside of Rep. Leo Ryan, who was assassinated while investigating the Jonestown cult, the last member of Congress to be shot while in office was Robert Kennedy while he was running for president.

As far as I know, outside of Senator Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968, the last member of Congress to be shot while in office was Rep. Leo Ryan, who was assassinated while investigating the Jonestown cult.

This is how that comment should have been written but im not so good with 'clear english'

Robert Kennedy was not a member of the House in 1968. Though I yield that he was a former member. If a former member of congress is considered a member of congress. I stand corrected and apologize.

clavdivs, Robert Kennedy was a sitting Senator when he was assassinated (so, while not a member of the House, he was in Congress).

Also, your version of the sentence doesn't make sense. "Outside of" means "except for", and since Leo Ryan died in 1978 and Kennedy in 1968, Ryan is the exception between Kennedy and the present day, not the other way around.
posted by dhens at 12:47 AM on January 9, 2011

Josh Marshal on Olberman discussing this.
posted by delmoi at 12:56 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Daniel Hernandez, the intern who may have saved Gifford's life.
posted by dirigibleman at 1:01 AM on January 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

Is it cynical of me to have immediately checked CTRL+F "tea" for teabagger on this thread once I knew she was a Democrat?

Cynical, yes, but not for CTRL-F tea.
posted by JHarris at 1:14 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

.

(hopefully not for her as well)
posted by twirlypen at 1:18 AM on January 9, 2011

He tried to join the military, but was rejected. He read the constitution, but found it frustrating and adulterated. It appears that he tried to find God but found the pursuit empty.

Which Republican politician are we talking about here?
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 1:24 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

At the very least she could've condemned these actions in the strongest terms possible, but no, not Sarah Palin.
Skygazer

I'm also wondering if the shooting would have happened if the assasin had access to affordable healthcare.
posted by quarsan at 1:34 AM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Man it would be nice to live in a country where attempted assassinations weren't seen as ways to score political points.

Do you mean with comments like this:

"Robert Morgan (1776Patroit) wrote: If she voted for ObamaCare, then she has just paid the price for treason."

Surely it would be nicer still to live in a country where the political rhetoric wasn't so overheated as to be a regular contributor to attempted assassinations of mainstream political figures?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:38 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Surveyor's symbols do not make for very apt metaphors in the contexts in which they are being used. Especially since everybody else would think gun sights instead.
posted by iamkimiam at 1:54 AM on January 9, 2011

How's her condition? I heard that she's expected to live, but I haven't heard of how functional she's expected to be.
posted by flatluigi at 2:00 AM on January 9, 2011

Seriously. How much do they pay their PR people? "Surveyor's symbols" was their plausible deniability strategy? It would have been less insulting to say nothing.

I imagine a shouting match during the emergency strategy session with half the group saying it was too ridiculous, and the other half saying "but the people we're aiming for ARE that stupid. It will work if we play the using-a-tragedy-for-political-gain thing at the same time."

The compromise was, well, at least don't have any of OUR people say it as the official word. Have the interviewer suggest it, and then just don't contradict it. Also, don't let her say she's speaking for the PAC, it has to be personal opinion so we can get distance if it goes bad. More plausible deniability.
posted by ctmf at 2:07 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

quarsan I'm also wondering if the shooting would have happened if the assasin had access to affordable healthcare.

Maybe. The USA has a truly awful health care system, and mental health is one of the worst areas of that system, and those facts are unambiguously the direct fault of Republicans, but a thing like this could still happen even if the shooter had free and easy access to mental health care.

To take advantage of mental health care, a sufferer needs insight. They have to be aware that there is something wrong with them. One of the more unfortunate inflictions that many mentally ill people labor under, commonly associated with paranoid schizophrenia (I do not presume to diagnose the assassin here, but I will point out that his reported writings are consistent with that condition), is lack of insight. However bizarre their delusions, they do not fully credit, often do not even admit of the possibility, that their delusions are delusions. The "mechanism" in the mind that questions itself, is itself deluded.

(Arguably this fault is even more common than overt mental illness; it's just that the mentally ill have delusions that are much less compatible with normal life. Arguably mere lack of insight isn't even a mental illness as such, but rather is the normal human condition, and having insight is an advantageous quality.)

Anyway, a person lacking insight does not believe themselves mentally ill, and accordingly does not seek treatment for their mental illness. They will reframe attempts to treat them as controlling behavior, their medications as poisons, and the consistently skeptical, baffled, hostile response of most people to their perfectly reasonable assertions to be evidence of a conspiracy.

Now, a decent mental health care system would certainly help, but the major problem here, so far as a mental health care system is concerned, is in the lack of an opportunity to diagnose, confine and compulsorily treat this guy. (And at a minimum, keep him away from weapons.) It seems that in the USA the primary source of such diagnosis opportunities is the criminal justice system, itself worse than the American health care system, and also primarily the fault of Republicans that this is so. Had he done something wacky enough to attract the attention of police, but short of actually harming somebody, there's a chance that he could have been diagnosed, and perhaps this tragedy may have been averted.

My point is that short of somehow compulsorily testing people and confining those who fail the test, there is very little that authorities, however benign, can pre-emptively do to prevent a mentally ill person who lacks insight from acting on the promptings of their illness.

I would ascribe some blame here to the (lack of a) mental health care system. My assumption that the shooter has a mental illness and lacks insight is just an assumption. If he had at least some insight, and had known for some years that there was a system available that could be trusted to at least give him confirmation or denial that he had a mental health problem, it's possible he could have taken advantage of that.

But the greater share of the blame is on the social environment, and it is basically the same people pushing these two memetic agendas: that individualized gun violence is an acceptable method of resolving problems; and that the tendency of approximately half the voters to prefer Democrats is one such problem.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 2:12 AM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

dirigibleman: "Daniel Hernandez, the intern who may have saved Gifford's life"

Eight hours after the shooting, Hernandez stood with Giffords' friends and staff and told them what had happened. The tall, strong 20-year-old said, “Of course you're afraid, you just kind of have to do what you can.”

They hugged and thanked him. Later, he sat with his mom and sisters and told them about his friends and the staffers who had died that day.

“You just have to be calm and collected," he said. "You do no good to anyone if you have a breakdown… It was probably not the best idea to run toward the gunshots, but people needed help.”

Goddamn!
posted by yaymukund at 2:12 AM on January 9, 2011 [15 favorites]

The Secret Service conducted something called the Exceptional Case Study in 1999 and published the results, available in this PDF.

It's a wide-ranging breakdown of the motivations, organizational affiliations, mental health histories, and other pertinent characteristics of 83 assassins or would-be asssassins. Fourteen pages of fascinating and depressing reading.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 2:34 AM on January 9, 2011 [19 favorites]

Jeez, every time I look at the "surveyor's symbols" article, I see something else they should really have thought about some more.

Mansour agreed. She said that the graphic was contracted out to a professional. They approved it quickly without thinking about it.

Because that's the kind of people I want in charge of this country. People who approve stuff quickly without thinking about it. (Not that I believe that for one second)
posted by ctmf at 2:35 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

Maybe I'm being pessimistic/paranoid, and I hope so, but Giffords' surviving this head wound (either in the short or long term) may only stoke the fires of mania among certain segments of the population:

And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. Rev. 13:3
posted by Filta Metter at 2:37 AM on January 9, 2011

aeschenkarnos: To take advantage of mental health care, a sufferer needs insight.

Regretfully, insight, in these here United States, is presented by the various right wing media outlets, blogs and brain dead politicians, as a socialist conspiracy.
posted by Skygazer at 2:58 AM on January 9, 2011

Interesting piece from Vaughan Bell on Slate

Seena Fazel is an Oxford University psychiatrist who has led the most extensive scientific studies to date of the links between violence and two of the most serious psychiatric diagnoses—schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, either of which can lead to delusions, hallucinations, or some other loss of contact with reality. Rather than looking at individual cases, or even single studies, Fazel's team analyzed all the scientific findings they could find. As a result, they can say with confidence that psychiatric diagnoses tell us next to nothing about someone's propensity or motive for violence.

A 2009 analysis of nearly 20,000 individuals concluded that increased risk of violence was associated with drug and alcohol problems, regardless of whether the person had schizophrenia. Two similar analyses on bipolar patients showed, along similar lines, that the risk of violent crime is fractionally increased by the illness, while it goes up substantially among those who are dependent on intoxicating substances. In other words, it's likely that some of the people in your local bar are at greater risk of committing murder than your average person with mental illness.
posted by titus-g at 3:28 AM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

CNN has a pretty good overview of the entire situation right now, including this list of the people who were killed:

-- John Roll, 63 (See Arizona-Judge-Obit)
A native of Pennsylvania, Roll was a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona who had served the legal system for nearly 40 years. He began his career as a bailiff in Pima County Superior Court and rose to be chief judge for the District of Arizona, a position he held since 2006. He received death threats two years ago after he ruled that a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit filed by illegal immigrants against a rancher in the state could proceed. He had been assigned to hear the ethnic studies ban case out of Tucson that involves a new law banning certain ethnic studies programs in public schools, according to the lead attorney on the case, Richard Martinez. Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts called Roll's death a tragic loss.

-- Christina Taylor Greene, 9.
She was born on September 11, 2001, according to CNN affiliate KVOA. Family members described her as "excited" about the political process, and that the desire to learn more about it had motivated her to go to the Gifford event, the affiliate said. Christina had just been elected to the student council at her school, the Arizona Republic reported. She died at a hospital, and not at the scene like the other five.

-- Gabe Zimmerman, 30. (See POL-Giffords-Staff-Member-Killed)
A Tucson native who was engaged to be married, Zimmerman was the director of community outreach for the congresswoman.

-- Dorwin Stoddard, 76.
Dory, as his family prefers to call him, was a retired construction worker, said Pastor Mike Nowak at Mount Avenue Church of Christ in Tucson. Witnesses told CNN that Stoddard tried to shield his wife, Mavy (pronounced: Maaah-vee), was shot in the head and fell on her. The wife was shot three times in her legs, the bullets were removed and she is expected to make a full recovery.

-- Dorothy Morris, 76

-- Phyllis Scheck, 79

My heart goes out to all of their families in this time of their loss and sorrow.
posted by hippybear at 3:31 AM on January 9, 2011 [11 favorites]

So, it turns out it was just some mentally ill guy and not a right-wing domestic terrorist incited by Tea Party rhetoric and Glenn Beck rants. But it's the kind of thing the right-wing might have done, right? Let's not let them off the hook just yet!
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 3:36 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

So, it turns out it was just some mentally ill guy and not a right-wing domestic terrorist incited by Tea Party rhetoric and Glenn Beck rants.

Nah, he seems to be a gold-standard right-wing nutter, inspired by calls to violence by the Tea Party.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:48 AM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

FFS. Sane people don't commit mass political murders.*

The fear is that inflammatory rhetoric makes nearly flipped out people flip the rest of the way.

*Or at least if they do, they go through channels.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:17 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

At some point the distinction between believing something that one would have to be mentally ill to believe, and actually being mentally ill, is too fine to pick.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:19 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

dirigibleman: "Daniel Hernandez, the intern who may have saved Gifford's life"

I'm not one for tears, but this passage from that link certainly moved me:

When the shots began that morning, he saw many people lying on the ground, including a young girl. Some were bleeding. Hernandez said he moved from person to person checking pulses.

"First the neck, then the wrist," he said. One man was already dead. Then he saw Giffords. She had fallen and was lying contorted on the sidewalk. She was bleeding.

Using his hand, Hernandez applied pressure to the entry wound on her forehead. He pulled her into his lap, holding her upright against him so she wouldn't choke on her own blood. Giffords was conscious, but quiet.

Ron Barber, Giffords' district director, was next to her. Hernandez told a bystander how to apply pressure to one of Barber's wounds.

Barber told Hernandez, "Make sure you stay with Gabby. Make sure you help Gabby."

Hernandez used his hand to apply pressure until someone from inside Safeway brought him clean smocks from the meat department. He used them to apply pressure on the entrance wound, unaware there was an exit wound. He never let go of her.

He stayed with Giffords until paramedics arrived. They strapped her to a board and loaded her into an ambulance. Hernandez climbed in with her. On the ride to the hospital, he held her hand. She squeezed his back.

There is something quietly powerful and human and tender in that description, with him being there and helping and her, however weakly, letting him know she was still alive, fighting and hanging on.

The shooting is a horrible portrait of what humanity is capable of. Hernandez's are an excellent final stroke to that portrait, a reminder that for all the bad that people can do, there is much that is good in us..

His actions also point out how utterly important it is to have a basic knowledge of first aid and what to do in situations where people are injured. The American Red Cross offers classes, take one when you can. For those outside the US, the Red Cross and Red Crescent has locations around the globe where you can volunteer and probably take a class. If anyone knows of a better global link, please feel free to post it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:29 AM on January 9, 2011 [36 favorites]

To be fair, Palin isn't the only one scrubbing her history -

boyblue at Kos: "My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now dead to me!"

Not quite as bad as inciting people to assassination, of course...
posted by XMLicious at 4:37 AM on January 9, 2011

My biggest worry when stuff like this happens is that some sufficiently cynical political operator will take advantage of the fact that everyone's attention is focussed on this to push through some wretched little plan in a wholly unrelated area.

Someone tell me I'm being paranoid.
posted by Ritchie at 4:47 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Right wing domestic.

And, yeah, terrorist.

And, assassin.

Yeah.

It ain't rocket science.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:53 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I think we all need to look at defining exactly what we mean by 'scrubbing' at this stage.
posted by Jofus at 4:54 AM on January 9, 2011

And, someone behind him, whispering in his ear?

Oh yeah. Plenty of people. Lone gunman?

My ass.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:55 AM on January 9, 2011

My biggest worry when stuff like this happens is that some sufficiently cynical political operator will take advantage of the fact that everyone's attention is focussed on this to push through some wretched little plan in a wholly unrelated area.

The House of Representatives, which is currently controlled by the Republicans, has put all legislation on hold for the moment.

For all the American public's disdain for Congress, our rhetoric is usually "Throw the bums out" not "Shoot them in the head". I imagine this has shaken many members to the core, because they know and have already experienced crazy citizens in some form or fashion, but they've been basically harmless. Those crazy citizens weren't walking up to a Congress person while they were doing one of the most important parts of their jobs, meeting their constituents, and aiming a gun at the Congress person's head at close range, pulling the trigger and then going on a shooting rampage.

This is a whole 'nother level of crazy and Congress seriously needs to do thinking and planning about this new level. You know how Congress takes breaks so they can head back home and talk to their constituents? There's a whole new dimension to town hall meetings now, let alone any other meet and greet.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:03 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Fucking teabaggers....
posted by Flex1970 at 5:06 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

The House of Representatives, which is currently controlled by the Republicans, has put all legislation on hold for the moment.

It wasn't really Congress I was worried about, but it's something I suppose.
posted by Ritchie at 5:25 AM on January 9, 2011

What I want to see:

Both President Obama and Speaker Boehner speak before the nation TOGETHER and say, "Enough is enough. We're better than this."
posted by zooropa at 5:32 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

"Both President Obama and Speaker Boehner speak before the nation TOGETHER and say, "Enough is enough. We're better than this."

It saddens me to say that the tragedy of this event is probably not sufficient to produce this result.
-----------------
My morning... 6 am- dog stirs and makes a little "woo" to wake me up, right on schedule. I reach down and find a pile of husky and get my hand licked.. always makes me smile.

Crawl out of bed, throw on some clothes, smell fresh coffee...another smile..

Walk out into the kitchen, see the laptop sitting on the counter, and this whole fucking mess crashes back into my life.

I have been unable to click on any of the fpps above this one, I look at them and think "who cares.", and go back to refreshing this thread. I'm not sure what I'm looking for, maybe its the appearance of someone with enough wisdom and energy to galvanize this small population of people, and then a wider and wider group, into some sort of action that will make a difference. I want someone to say "here's a website/community/event/whatever that will begin to move this country in a direction that makes sense, that will provide the insight and momentum to end the crazyness and hate. If I had a clue/the skills/the wisdom to do it, I would, but I'm not that person, I know that, and the status quo system hasn't been able to accomplish it either.

I'm not ready to give up looking for that , but it gets harder with every event like this.
posted by HuronBob at 5:45 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

zooropa, ain't gonna happen. The best we can hope for is a photo-op or, if we're really lucky, a joint written statement. Until then, we've got what we've got: Boehner using as unequivocal language as we'll ever get from him to say 'violence is bad, threats are bad.' ("An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serves" is a fairly strong statement of solidarity, AFAICS.)

As a friend put it, "I bet he didn't cry."* But the words will do for now.

--
*I bet he didn't, either. But because he was terrified that the monster had slipped its chain, not because he didn't feel anything.
posted by lodurr at 5:53 AM on January 9, 2011

I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned this snippet from the NYT article linked above:

After another student read a poem about getting an abortion, Mr. Loughner compared the young woman to a “terrorist for killing the baby.”

Not exactly the left/liberal guy Caitie Parker reported knowing in 2007.
posted by anagrama at 5:55 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

the Democratic Leadership Council have also used target maps. Therefore, they, and by extension the entire Democratic party, must be responsible for this murder.

Right, guys? Right?
posted by orville sash at 6:02 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

this murder = these murders
posted by orville sash at 6:06 AM on January 9, 2011

You know, John Hinckley, Jr. managed to shoot Ronald Reagan (and James Brady) without having ever seen a Sarah Palin website with reticles all over it.
posted by Shohn at 6:06 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

This game will continue until each and everyone claims their own personal responsibility for the gunman's actions.
posted by crunchland at 6:06 AM on January 9, 2011

"You know, John Hinckley, Jr. managed to shoot Ronald Reagan (and James Brady) without having ever seen a Sarah Palin website with reticles all over it."

You see, the scary thing about the right, is that, to them, this makes perfect sense.
posted by HuronBob at 6:13 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

It wasn't really Congress I was worried about, but it's something I suppose

Who are you worried about? Dr Evil? The US has only one federal law-making body.
posted by CRM114 at 6:13 AM on January 9, 2011

You know, John Hinckley, Jr. managed to shoot Ronald Reagan (and James Brady) without having ever seen a Sarah Palin website with reticles all over it.

I'm confused as to what the point of this statement is. That people can do bad things without Sarah Palin and her ilk consistently making inflammatory statements tinged with hints of violence?

Of course people can do bad things without Sarah Palin and her ilk consistently making inflammatory statements tinged with hints of violence.
posted by Flunkie at 6:16 AM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

Is it cynical of me to have immediately checked CTRL+F "tea" for teabagger on this thread once I knew she was a Democrat?

Sure it is. And even more so for you to revel in it.
posted by blucevalo at 6:22 AM on January 9, 2011

Sarah Palin: the courage to delete her convictions.
posted by crunchland at 6:22 AM on January 9, 2011 [21 favorites]

Not to get pedantic, but it does matter here:

weaponry crosshair target ≠ bullseye target

Two very different games. Not to mention cognitive frames. Or look at it this way: which one of these icons is solid, and why?

(or if we want to go all survey about it, we could say that the democratic poster isn't suggesting we attack our "enemies" with poisoned darts, but rather offer them baby stacking rings. You know, for their cognitive development.)
posted by iamkimiam at 6:23 AM on January 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

Nobody did anything wrong. This is like the tobacco case. All they did for years but say "well, we don't have any conclusive proof that tobacco use causes cancer." We have no definitive proof that there is a direct causation between Palin using crosshairs on a political message, or saying that Gabrielle Giffords needs to be targeted in the same message. We cannot show that her opponent's political messaging around targeting her and then having a fundraiser where you could shoot guns with him caused this. We cannot show that the "take our country back" message of the teaparty caused this. We cannot show that the media, through their unwritten doctrine of "fair time" for "both sides" of an issue allowed this type of vitriolic rhetoric to be mainstreamed and in doing caused this.

No, no one of these things caused the shooting to happen. All of them did, to their own degree, when their messages started to root in the mind of Jared Loughner.
posted by zerobyproxy at 6:28 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

Scratching my head a little at why people are still thinking this was some kind of right-wing terrorism. When I first heard of the incident I was very concerned that this was indeed the case - but it's becoming more and more apparent that Loughner is probably a schizophrenic. He's right at the age that schizophrenia typically first manifests itself.

I sincerely doubt what happened today has anything to do with Sarah Palin or the Tea Party at all.

In fact judging from condour75's post, it appears that Loughner may have targeted Rep. Giffords because her husband is an astronaut. There's also an image of one of the Mars Pathfinder rovers right on the front of her webpage.

The violent act wasn't the terrorism the right has been engaging in. All indications are that this is one lone nut.

The terrorism is the violent imagery, and the condoning of violent imagery within the community of the right. (Just read the comments on websites.)

It isn't first-order terrorism. It is second or third order. The violent imagery works its way through the community, becoming more and more acceptable. Nobody, or nearly nobody, writing or speaking the words actually condones violence. But it permeates. It becomes less horrifying. It gets into the minds of a few nutjobs, and shifts their muddled thought processes from aliens, government mind control, Jews and 9/11 as "the enemy" and shifts it toward politicians.

People like this are ticking time bombs. Nobody is responsible for their actions, because their actions are the result of their unhinged mental processes. But they ARE responsible for, perhaps unintentionally, choosing the target. The violent imagery becomes a lens that focuses the actions of the insane.

Maybe that kid was going to shoot someone that day, maybe it was inevitable; the end result of a broken mind finally regaining a perverse focus. Palin and those like her have the right to say what they do. But they bear the responsibility for choosing the victims.
posted by gjc at 6:29 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Here is a more complete video of the sherrif's press conference than the one I saw upthread. From it:

Reporter: Had she been receiving threats recently?

Sherriff: Well, I'm not aware of any public officials that have not been receiving threats.

posted by Flunkie at 6:31 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

the Democratic Leadership Council have also used target maps.

I'm not saying the shooting has anything to do with Palin, but usage of the concentric circles target symbol is pretty widespread. No one thinks that Target the store is about firing guns or arrows. Palin's usage of gun sights and "reload" is also metaphorical, although much more prevalent and less abstracted than a target symbol. Fundraisers that involve shooting guns and people bringing rifles to Obama protests are also symbolic actions, although especially the latter is also essentially an intimidation tactic that comes dangerously close to actual violence. The idea that both sides engage equally in violent metaphor is ridiculous.
posted by snofoam at 6:31 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

orville sash -- I suppose the difference between a bullseye and a gunsight is subtle, but if that's not enough for you, the language and the audience should help: The SarahPAC language is much more aggressive; and while the DLC pages are strategic, and not really targeted at the public, the SarahPAC images are clearly intended to move the base.

I decided to take a shot [sic] at backing up my gut feeling that bullseyes are less aggressive than gunsights, so I looked at Google image search results.

Bullseye and Target: images of targets, Target branding images, a few of human-shapted target sillhouettes, lots of images of the Bullseye Marvel Comics character. Very few images of people being targeted or of targeting -- the bullseye represents a target, not prey.

Gunsight and Crosshairs: More images of people or things being targeted -- i.e., making it clear that a gunsight is about prey. Also lots of images of gunsights, military hardware, etc.

So, no, I don't think the DLC shares in the blame for this.
posted by lodurr at 6:34 AM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

Daniel Hernandez, the intern who may have saved Gifford's life

Barack Obama needs to call that young man to the Oval Office and hang the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck.
posted by EarBucket at 6:34 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Who are you worried about? Dr Evil? The US has only one federal law-making body.

Think of all the various parts of the government, and powerful non-government actors, that have the ability to fuck something up with no input from the legislature, e.g DHS, treasury, defense. Now think of all the issues with which Americans have an ambivalent relationship, e.g. environment, wikileaks, bank reform. Now take a powerful spotlight and shine it in a completely different direction for a long period of time.
posted by Ritchie at 6:36 AM on January 9, 2011

"...people bringing rifles to Obama protests are also symbolic actions"...

I'm not following this way of thinking about it... I view every damn gun I see as a threat, not as a symbol.
posted by HuronBob at 6:36 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

the Democratic Leadership Council have also used target maps. Therefore, they, and by extension the entire Democratic party, must be responsible for this murder.

When a crazy gold-standard-and-guns-obsessed nutjob shoots one of those Republican congressmen, we can talk.
posted by EarBucket at 6:37 AM on January 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

The fact is that America's decided the occasional massacre like this is a price worth paying for casual gun ownership. Until that decision changes, we'll continue to see three or four similar incidents a year at schoolyards, political meetings and workplaces throughout the country.

The problem with that is that gun ownership is not casual in this country. Crazy people aren't supposed to have guns. This guy slipped through the cracks of the admittedly weak system. There is no reason to believe that creating more restrictions to legal gun ownership would prevent illegal gun ownership and use.

(I call this case illegal gun ownership, because no matter how this guy got the weapon, he legally should not have been able to get it. Whether the law was broken by incompetence or by fraud, it was broken.)

We absolutely need to fill those cracks in enforcement. But that doesn't need to be at the expense of legal gun ownership.
posted by gjc at 6:38 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

crunchland: This game will continue until each and everyone claims their own personal responsibility for the gunman's actions.

You mean it will go on indefinitely?
posted by lodurr at 6:38 AM on January 9, 2011

Alex Massie, Spectator (UK):

In any case, Palin's poster was only a souped-up version of a campaign trope that both parties have been happy to employ in the past.

No. No, it's not. Look at the maps with your eyeballs and tell me that there is no difference between a map with a bulls-eye and a map with a bulls-eye and gun sights -- oh, no, I'm sorry! Fucking surveyors symbols! Coupled with a command not to retreat but RELOAD! And coupled again with campaign events from the wounded Congressmember's opponent in the last election advertising a chance to shoot off your aggression toward her with an M16!

I'm not even sure what "souped-up" means in this context -- the posters that you describe are not goddamn sports cars mounted on blocks waiting for their engines to be retooled. You heartless, soulless, gutless bastards are really grasping at straws at this point. There's no other way to put it.

The fact of the matter is that a country of 300 million people cannot help but be generously larded with oddballs, freaks, paranoids and assorted other nutters. Couple that with the American genius for self-realization and you soon begin to wonder why there isn't more politically-themed violence than is actually the case.

Oh, so the surprising part about all of this hell is that there aren't more of these shooters around indiscriminately killing people? You can bite me.
posted by blucevalo at 6:38 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Daniel Hernandez, the intern who may have saved Gifford's life
Barack Obama needs to call that young man to the Oval Office and hang the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck.

In that event, I would not be surprised if someone like Limbaugh or Colter were to attack it as "playing politics with tragedy".

To be clear, I'm not saying that should stop it from being done. I'm saying Limbaugh and Colter are vile individuals.
posted by Flunkie at 6:39 AM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

gjc: This guy slipped through the cracks of the admittedly weak system.

Look, I really don't think I'm picking nits here and I don't mean to pick on you in particular, but stuff like this keeps getting said a lot in this thread.

Here's the problem: He did not slip through the cracks. He walked right in through the front door, exactly as Arizona law allowed.

There were not gaps in the system. There was no failure of the system. It functioned exactly as designed.

If the state of AZ wants it to work differently, they need to change their law.
posted by lodurr at 6:42 AM on January 9, 2011 [26 favorites]

I'm not following this way of thinking about it... I view every damn gun I see as a threat, not as a symbol.

I'm just saying that bringing an unloaded rifle to an event with no intention of using it is, technically, a symbolic act. I agree that it is also a threat and the person carrying it is probably a total nut-job.
posted by snofoam at 6:43 AM on January 9, 2011

the Democratic Leadership Council have also used target maps. Therefore, they, and by extension the entire Democratic party, must be responsible for this murder.

Right, guys? Right?

*tumbleweed*
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 6:46 AM on January 9, 2011

Not to get pedantic, but it does matter here:

weaponry crosshair target ≠ bullseye target

When someone gets hit in the face with a dart or an arrow, we'll know who to blame, though.
posted by empath at 6:50 AM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

*tumbleweed*

That's some loud tumbleweed.
posted by lodurr at 6:51 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm just saying that bringing an unloaded rifle to an event with no intention of using it is, technically, a symbolic act.

Mainly it's an irresponsible act. First thing you're taught in gun safety is that you treat every gun as a loaded gun. Unless they brought one of those wooden rifles that drill teams use, anybody who did this is a profoundly bad gun owner.

And a vile little shit too, but that's by the by.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:51 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

*tumbleweed*

Several people responded.
posted by Flunkie at 6:51 AM on January 9, 2011

Daughter of Dodgers scout killed in Tucson shooting
posted by xowie at 6:53 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

... anybody who did this is a profoundly bad gun owner.

I don't disagree with you -- the classic gun-self-defense advice "don't pull it unless you're ready to shoot, don't shoot unless you mean to kill" always made sense to me, and "don't carry unless you have reason to think you might need to shoot" is a pretty commonsense extension of that -- but these are people who seem to all appearances to have genuinely convinced themselves that they might need to shoot. At the President, maybe even. If he provokes them. Cuz he's a kenyan commie muslim fascist, or something.
posted by lodurr at 6:56 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Are we really having this argument?

A Democratic politican ran for office against a very severely conservative opponent who used aggressive discourse to describe his opponent. A woman who put up a map with targets on it and the slogan "Don't Retreat, Reload". Note that the map had a target on Gifford and she was explicitly listed.

A television show where a conservative person tells everyone who watches that there is an apocalypse coming, that the president himself is evil and bad, and by extension, those who work with him.

A television network that does the same. The Democrats are not just bad, the president is not just bad, but they are evil and treasonous.

And now the targeted politican has been shot by a mentally disturbed person.

A mentally disturbed person who espouses tenets of the Redemption Movement, arguably an extension of the extreme beckian/fox rhetoric.

Yes, he's imbalanced. But words have power, moreso with the imbalanced. We can argue until the cows come home about whether the Dailykos reader is the same thing. But he isn't. A single nut in a community is far different than a coherent political movement, supported by a television network.

We've allowed this environment to be created, and we're now paying the consequences.
posted by Lord_Pall at 7:04 AM on January 9, 2011 [30 favorites]

Looks like the reports that she was conscious and responsive were incorrect.
posted by EarBucket at 7:06 AM on January 9, 2011

New York Times: Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics -- "The shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and others at a neighborhood meeting in Arizona on Saturday set off what is likely to be a wrenching debate over anger and violence in American politics."
posted by ericb at 7:08 AM on January 9, 2011

But they bear the responsibility for choosing the victims.

Absolutely, goddamn right.

I'll say it again: these people are cowards and we need to hold them accountable.
posted by jsavimbi at 7:12 AM on January 9, 2011

edgeways: So... if it is surveyor marks, why the hell did it/they get scrubbed so damn fast?

Where were they scubbed from? Do you have any details on what has been deleted?
posted by ericost at 7:14 AM on January 9, 2011

A photo of the "person of interest" that the police are looking for has been released.
posted by Flunkie at 7:14 AM on January 9, 2011

Few Assassins Fit The 'Profile.' Most Had No Mental Health Treatment, Made No Threats.
posted by ericb at 7:14 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

gjc (I call this case illegal gun ownership, because no matter how this guy got the weapon, he legally should not have been able to get it. Whether the law was broken by incompetence or by fraud, it was broken.)

That seems like an odd description of "illegal". Certainly, somebody who shoots a gun at innocent people shouldn't have a gun, but I don't know if there's any legal reason why this person in particular would not be allowed to buy or own a gun. Arizona is an open carry state which no longer considers it a misdemeanour to carry a concealed handgun, and an Arizona resident over 21 can buy a handgun with photo ID and an instant background check. Without a prior criminal record or an official state or federal hold notice, I can't see why the sale and ownership would have been illegal under Arizona law. Undesirable, certainly, but I don't think that makes your point.

In any case, this is shocking, and I only hope that Giffords and the other wounded are recovering.
posted by DNye at 7:17 AM on January 9, 2011

I'm also wondering if the shooting would have happened if the assasin had access to affordable healthcare.

Not affordable healthcare, but decent health care. (If he was living with his parents and trying to go to school, he probably had heath care.) As mentioned earlier, the deinstitutionalization laws (thanks, Reagan) have made it so that people like this cannot be committed for treatment involuntarily.

I feel sad that folks will now focus on increased security for our leaders, and we'll lose access to them, but they probably won't focus on improving treatment for schizophrenics.
posted by Melismata at 7:17 AM on January 9, 2011

Oh, come on guys! Palin's gun-sight symbols have already been convicted in this thread as being directly responsible for this event despite there being zero evidence of the shooter being a Palin follower or ever even having seen that graphic.

Bullseye symbols are not invitations to come over for a nice dinner. They may not be as direct or personal as a gun-sight, but they're absolutely used to indicate where a weapon is being aimed. Claiming that the bullseye is innocent because the weapon involved is only a dartgun or bow and arrow is just as reprehensible as it would be to claim that the gun-sights are innocent because they could just be for a BB Gun. The caption on one of those graphics says "BEHIND ENEMY LINES." How could that possibly be anything but a war metaphor? How is that not violent rhetoric?

My personal view: The gun-sight graphic is a commonly used symbol that wasn't meant to incite actual violence. There's no evidence whatsoever that it was involved in this case. Same goes for the bullseye. Both of them are part of the boneheaded knee-jerk us against them stance that is way too common in this country and I'd like to never see either one used again. But there is no way of knowing whether the current political atmosphere was in any way related to this guy's actions. He's obviously motivated by things that don't make a lot of sense from the outside.
posted by Dojie at 7:21 AM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

Howard Fineman: 9/11, Oklahoma City, And Now: Lessons For Obama

"We don't yet know the extent to which the Tucson murders were about politics per se, though the alleged killer apparently did deliberately target a member of Congress. But violent national tragedies such as this one can profoundly affect the temper of the times--and the fate of the presidents who are in office when they happen."</blockquote"

posted by ericb at 7:21 AM on January 9, 2011

Let's calm down with the finger pointing. The shooter is in custody, the full force of the law will be used to investigate and recreate a narrative that explains this guy's actions. I certainly understand the urge to place blame but it's not helpful right now.

Almost everything we know about the shooter comes from pages he edited prior to the incident, among words written with clear intent to be Loughner's last. He seems to have had an accomplice and attempted to flee the scene, suggesting he never intended to kill himself. Drawing conclusions from the meager data we have will inevitably lead down the wrong path.

I don't believe instant communications and the persistent news cycle are inherently bad, but the speculation and rumor-mongering work counter to the goals of an investigation. Placing blame prior to the investigation is shameful.
posted by polyhedron at 7:23 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Daughter of Dodgers scout killed in Tucson shooting

Christina Taylor Green was the granddaughter of Dallas Green, who managed the Phillies 1980 championship team.
posted by fixedgear at 7:23 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

The gun-sight graphic is a commonly used symbol that wasn't meant to incite actual violence.

This kind of statement should be easily provable, if it's true. I haven't seen any evidence of that.
posted by empath at 7:26 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

"A few days, or at the very least, a few hours – in an earlier era, people would have taken a breath before plunging into a remorseless debate about the political implications of an obscene act of violence."

Violence and politics merge in Arizona
posted by orville sash at 7:27 AM on January 9, 2011

This kind of statement should be easily provable, if it's true. I haven't seen any evidence of that.

What would you take as evidence?
posted by josher71 at 7:30 AM on January 9, 2011

In an earlier era, people would have taken a breath before publishing maps with their explicitly labelled opponents in gun sights, along with phraseology like "Reload" and "Help us prescribe the solution" and a call to help defeat the opponents by shooting a fully automatic M16.
posted by Flunkie at 7:31 AM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

Sorry, I mean "surveyor's sights".
posted by Flunkie at 7:33 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

What would you take as evidence?

Lots of examples of politicians putting their opponents uder gun-sights and telling their supporters to get guns, or talk of 'second amendment remedies'

If it's common, I'm sure you should be able to find plenty of examples.
posted by empath at 7:35 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Lord Pall, that Redemptionism is wild stuff -- it makes sense of a bunch of things I've been hearing about. E.g., it's probably the source of the "secret bank account" conspiracy theory (which is nowhere near as detailed or central in the forms I've heard). Also may be related to variations on the "number of the beast" that have the SSN as a satanic plot.
posted by lodurr at 7:37 AM on January 9, 2011

Violence and politics merge in Arizona

Interesting article, but it's opening thesis -- that we are somehow rushing into speculation and conclusion that an earlier generation would have shied away from -- is demonstrably untrue. Check out newspapers from September 1901, just after William McKinley was shot. I have. I looked at the Minnesota Daily, the college newspaper of the University of Minnesota, from the day after the shooting, and they had no problem contacting every local bigwig they could think of to give a statement, which were all denunciations of anarchism and calls for all anarchists to be arrested.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:39 AM on January 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

"...Let's calm down..."

Wow, there's a whole lot of this kind of sentiment being voiced, here and elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing against the use of common sense and reason, but I REALLY don't want to be "calm", I REALLY don't want to "wait", I REALLY don't want to "step back and see what happens".

We all need to NOT remain calm, we all need to NOT wait, any momentum felt as an aftermath of this has to be utilized, not allowed to wind down, diminish, and go away.
posted by HuronBob at 7:39 AM on January 9, 2011 [12 favorites]

Still waiting for some more information about the second person of interest being sought. Photo. The little information available says only that the two were seen together before the shooting. Nothing more than that. It may be a sketchy lead that doesn't pan out, a witness who spoke to the shooter or there may have been a culpable accomplice.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said in a news conference yesterday that "we're not convinced that [Loughner] acted alone. There is some reason to believe that he came to this location with some other individual."

Josh Marshall on Keith Olberman earlier. Video.

Olberman expresses surprise that Sheriff Dupnik spoke out so strongly on the issue of incitement to violence. That's an absurd demonstration of amnesia. We have this silly debate after every incident of right wing incited violence. And every time somebody pretends it never happened before. Dave Neiwert and others been making this point over and over again for over fifteen years.

Here's an example of the double-think the right is already using to duck the moral responsibility for their use of political violence. Let me be very clear about this. Violent rhetoric or imagery to target or intimidate opponents is the use of violence. Threats are violence. Standing up to the use of political violence and denouncing it is not infringing on free speech. It is the use of good speech to counter bad speech.

This violence will continue escalating until public opinion erects a moral barrier to political violence. Making excuses and trying to hand-wave it away is nearly the same thing as doing it in the first place. It's clearly offering support for the use of violence.

If you want to see how absurd the mendacity can get, ask any of these proponents of violence to clearly describe where the bright and clear line exists between "it's OK, I'm only being vivid" and unacceptable behavior. It rapidly becomes clear that they intend to use violence to silence or intimidate their targets and also that they see disagreement as an existential threat.

It's important to voice open opposition. The most dangerous elements of the right (and this includes the right wing infiltrators who have captured the libertarians) see all social relationships in terms of dominance. It's infantile, but it's very common. If they don't get their way, they are being tyrannized and oppressed.

Call them out on it and face them down. They see silence as evidence of their dominance. This is why they see disagreement as suppression of their right of free speech and an attempt to dominate them. When they say "freedom" they mean their freedom to dominate others. If they aren't dominating, they don't see themselves as free. Point it out. It's one of those self-evident truths where your opponent wins your argument for you.

So the solution is to stand up, call them out, be active as opinion leaders and clearly and calmly describe why violent political rhetoric is wrong, why it is unacceptable and why weaseling about it is no different than advocating it. Write a letter to the paper. Get out there in the world wide world, the big blue room with the really good resolution. Speak out at city and county council meetings. Get out in public.
posted by warbaby at 7:41 AM on January 9, 2011 [52 favorites]

I am the least respectful person on the fucking planet sometime. But some of the shit here pisses me off. You want a contribution? Fuck politics. People are dead. Fuck your politics. Fuck... your... politics. All of you self-centered bastards that think a shooting is a platform for your twisted ideals.
How's that for a contribution?
posted by Splunge at 11:04 PM on January 8

Pretty damn ugly. Maybe you could tone it down with the "fucks" and try to speak in the reasonable tone of voice you claim the rest of us are failing to sustain.

Self-centered bastards indeed. You're a fine one to talk.

No one seems to have gone for some very obvious points here: the shooter went after a *democratic* congressperson in a state where democrats have been thoroughly demonized and scapegoated by the media. He didn't walk up to a (far more abundant) republican gathering and start shooting. You can't make that basic fact go away, Splunge.

And the more obvious point still: the shooter went after a *female* congressperson, and most of the victims were women and a child, once again, as all too damn usual with these things.

There's a deeper politics of hate than left/right at work. Dollars to donuts this guy also turns out to be a raving misogynist, another "political" dimension of the violent rhetoric in this country, for which having a female figurehead in Sarah Palin is a pretty small fig leaf. Their core beliefs center primarily on a fear of either brown people or women having any power in this world as a class.

What many of us are saying, I think, is that *it doesn't matter* what the specific thinking of this specific shooter might have been. The climate in which this particular action occurred to him as a good idea has been the subject of concern and warning for several years. If there is absolutely no reason to connect the killings to politics, then it's just too bad for the far right, isn't it, that they got so unlucky that a madman just *accidentally happened* to shoot up a gathering held by a decent, honorable representative who just *accidentally happened* to be a female democrat in a state gone mad with right-wing hate rhetoric directed against people like her (and her supporters and friends). In other words, even if this is collateral damage, we know who started the war.

So, Splunge, fuck *your* politics too.
posted by spitbull at 7:42 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

In an earlier era people took justice into their own hands long before a map could be published. Let's not lose sight of the progress our society has made. I believe we live in an era of historic levels of violent crime -- historic lows.

Just chill with the hyperbole and pointing of fingers. Obviously whether or not violent imagery should be used in political messages is a debate that we must have but that can be accomplished without making a direct connection to this event.

Channeling our emotion into positive, constructive efforts is a great idea that would be awesome to witness. Using it to create a frenzied and hysterical anti-palin mob is frankly a little demeaning.
posted by polyhedron at 7:42 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Its the person of interest we need to be focusing on--obviously older.

I swear I saw his face in one of those videos, salt and pepper long hair, older. Did anyone watch all the videos? i
posted by Ironmouth at 7:42 AM on January 9, 2011

Conflation of gunsights will bullseye-style targets, especially given the two examples given -- even ignoring most of the context -- strikes me as massive rationalization. Just look at the imagery associated with bullseyes/targets versus crosshairs/gunsights.

Really I think you'll have better luck with the "surveyor's mark" and "blame the graphic artist" theories.
posted by lodurr at 7:43 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I hope everyone's read BitterOldPunk's comment in Metatalk about his conservative friend reacting to the shootings.

"It's just awful. And it's going to become a political football. And I think the Left has a point. We have gone off the deep end. Today brought it home, whether or not the shooter is a Tea Partier or not, conservatives created this atmosphere. It's poisonous. It's un-Christian. I'm thinking really hard about how to reconcile my faith with some of the positions my political party is taking. And I don't know that it's possible. I feel like I've been suckered in by con artists," he said.

My hat's off to BitterOldPunk in the way he reacted to this; these statements need to be taken in quietly and with gratitude, not shouted down with "fuckin' told you so!" I'm as angry as the next person about the violence, but the way to reach people who are NOT the choir is to spread this kind of word amongst themselves. I'm not saying that's the reaction that's happening here, I'm just mentioning it in case people come into contact with those who are like his friend, who can turn around in their way of thinking and be part of the solution.
posted by Wuggie Norple at 7:45 AM on January 9, 2011 [22 favorites]

Also,

Equating the German language with authoritarianism is inaccurate, ethnically prejudiced, and only helps expand the appeal of organizations like the NPD/PNOS. Before it was hijacked by National Socialism, it was a language of poets and philosophers. It could be seen as such once again, but comments like this do not help.
posted by edguardo

It's a bit of special pleading to claim National Socialism "hijacked" either the German language, or German culture, which had a long history of a taste for the authoritarian even back when those poets and philosophers you praise were writing. The romantic nationalism of those poets and philosophers was the red meat of Nazi ideology.

And it's a standard cinematic reference to use "bitte" as shorthand for an officious Nazi asking for papers. I got it, and didn't think it was meant to indict all modern Germans or the German language.
posted by spitbull at 7:45 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

empath: "...They are always there. They have always been there. They will always be there. It's not the GOPs fault or the Democrats fault that they exist. The Democrats have been guilty of activating them in the past for political ends -- all the way up till the civil rights era.

The Republicans have been going to that well since the 60s, though, and they have been becoming less and less subtle about it, and with the nomination of Sarah Palin and with putting Glenn Beck on Fox News, they let the crazies into the tent and they are starting to lose control..."

Pro-tip, right around the time the "civil rights" era started is... the 60s. And right around that time, the southern strategy started and all those Ds turned to Rs.

The name of the party is irrelevant... It's only relevant in the sense that it's the same people who changed a letter after their name.

One could say they (D)ivorced and (R)emarried.
posted by symbioid at 7:48 AM on January 9, 2011

Re: Freedom of Speech. Hey Teabaggers - No-one is "infringing your right to speech" (despite what Sara Palin thinks infringement is).

But just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD.
posted by symbioid at 7:52 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Fox News is reporting that he had links to a white supremacist group.
posted by empath at 7:53 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fox News is reporting that he had links to a white supremacist group.

That's rich. For about the last 45 years, the Republican Party has BEEN a white supremacist group, and Fox is its mouthpiece.
posted by spitbull at 8:01 AM on January 9, 2011 [14 favorites]

And I so didn't want to go there, but the Fox News links suggests the awful possibility that Rep. Giffords was targeted because she was Jewish.
posted by spitbull at 8:03 AM on January 9, 2011

Fox News is reporting that he had links to a white supremacist group.

No one could have anticipated!
posted by EarBucket at 8:05 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

"And I so didn't want to go there, but the Fox News links suggests the awful possibility that Rep. Giffords was targeted because she was Jewish."

<republican talking point>It could so easily have been Eric Cantor. The GOP are truly the other victim here.</republican talking point>
posted by PenDevil at 8:08 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just chill with the hyperbole and pointing of fingers.

Channeling our emotion into positive, constructive efforts is a great idea that would be awesome to witness. Using it to create a frenzied and hysterical anti-palin mob is frankly a little demeaning.

What is that last statement, if not hyperbole?
posted by oneirodynia at 8:15 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Saw this comment elsewhere, but it was too rich not to share:

"Arizona is America's Pakistan."

Also seeing various versions of "How's that reality showy-thingy working out for you, Governor Palin?"

But I am also disgusted watching the false equivalence defense unfold on the major news media outlets already, versions of "both sides need to tone down the rhetoric" and "there are extremists on the left and right."

Yeah, there are a few mountain lions left in North America too, but that doesn't mean we need to adjust our efforts to control rabid dogs.
posted by spitbull at 8:16 AM on January 9, 2011

Regardless of whether or not Loughner was motivated by right-wing politics, he will surely be held up as a hero and martyr by some, which concerns me in and of itself.
posted by desjardins at 8:20 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sorry oneirodynia, I was thinking of reddit, which I make the unfortunate habit of reading periodically. They're the mob I was referring to, honestly. Metafilter is a lot less frothy, and yes Palin has needed to tone down her rhetoric for a long time, but connecting her to this without some definite confirmation so immediately seems disrespectful and reactionary. Maybe a little hysterical.
posted by polyhedron at 8:22 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Video: Suspect -- 'You could call me a terrorist'.
posted by ericb at 8:27 AM on January 9, 2011

We all need to NOT remain calm, we all need to NOT wait, any momentum felt as an aftermath of this has to be utilized, not allowed to wind down, diminish, and go away.

It's "momentum" like this that got us two unwinnable wars and the PATRIOT act.
posted by mikesch at 8:27 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

"Obviously whether or not violent imagery should be used in political messages is a debate that we must have but that can be accomplished without making a direct connection to this event."

This is problematic on a couple of levels. Do we really need "debate" about using that type of imagery. In the world I imagine, there's no need for "debate", it's wrong, plain and simple. And, again, wanting to remove this discussion (if it were necessary) away from this "event" (I could go on for a long time about using the word "event" instead of murder or assassination or mass murder, or a lot of other descriptors) is a derail of the problem.
posted by HuronBob at 8:29 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

the Democratic Leadership Council have also used target maps. Therefore, they, and by extension the entire Democratic party, must be responsible for this murder

Except that the DLC is not in any way a part of the Democratic Party. Now, you could have pointed to the DCCC map and made the same point with a teeny bit more accuracy, but I think it's worth noting that you don't know what you're talking about.
posted by naoko at 8:30 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's "momentum" like this that got us two unwinnable wars and the PATRIOT act.

You're right. Using heat-of-the-moment public opinion to achieve policy goals is way too effective, and the Democrats should leave that kind of thing to the Republicans.
posted by EarBucket at 8:32 AM on January 9, 2011 [14 favorites]

Photo Of Possible Second Suspect Released

"The Pima County Sheriff's Department has released a photograph of a man they believe may be associated with Jared Lee Loughner: 'He is described as a Caucasian male, approximately 40-50 years old, dark hair and was last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark blue jacket.'"

posted by ericb at 8:35 AM on January 9, 2011

"It's "momentum" like this that got us two unwinnable wars and the PATRIOT act."

And ended the war in Viet Nam, probably had something to do with all that uproar back in 1773, yeah, you're right, we should all just calm down, eh?
posted by HuronBob at 8:35 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

Except that the DLC is not in any way a part of the Democratic Party. Now, you could have pointed to the DCCC map and made the same point with a teeny bit more accuracy, but I think it's worth noting that you don't know what you're talking about.

Explain to me, exactly, how Sarah Palin's political action committee is part of the Republican party.

I feel like I've kind of gotten away from the point I was trying to make and am instead just making pot shots, so I'm going to take a walk. I'd just like to say that

1. There is a reprehensible tactic on the right of using coded violent rhetoric. It's disgusting and inexcusable and it cheapens public discourse.

2. A seriously mentally ill person killed several people and caused immeasurable pain for the families of the victims.

How these two, distinct truths are in any way related remains to be seen.

I really like you, my fellow mefites. Have a good day.
posted by orville sash at 8:41 AM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

The gun-sight graphic is a commonly used symbol that wasn't meant to incite actual violence.

Not to a paranoid delusional who resists the urges to kill the highest-standing politician in their sights. To such a person, seeing or hearing about a poster with crosshairs and political targets is like getting real support to the imaginary prompts in their head. They would then consider it their duty and have far less resistance to those urgings. Since the paranoid pro-gun base is primed to respond to gun rhetoric and a call to arms, it should be rightly be considered a standing political threat to use such imagery.

Rep. Giffords seemed to think so.
posted by Brian B. at 8:41 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

The mother of the nine year old was just on the phone with msnbc. I don't know how she was able form a coherent thought much less talk about her daughter at a time like this.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 8:43 AM on January 9, 2011

(That's not meant to sound like a criticism; I just don't think I would be functioning at all.)
posted by The Hamms Bear at 8:46 AM on January 9, 2011

I'm just saying that bringing an unloaded rifle to an event with no intention of using it is, technically, a symbolic act. I agree that it is also a threat and the person carrying it is probably a total nut-job.

I'm not sure it is technically a symbolic act though. Or at least, symbolic in the "no harm intended or implied" way of thinking. The observer really can't discern whether the gun is unloaded or not. Certainly not a casual observer who doesn't know how to see if a clip is loaded or not, or if the safety is off.

Carrying a poster of a picture of a gun might be symbolic. Carrying an actual gun, especially a weapon meant for offense, is beyond symbolism and gets into action. The picture says "watch out, someone might shoot you". The gun, in person, says "I can shoot you right now".

The archetypical western cowboy type, driving up in a giant Lincoln with steer horns on the front, giant hat and white suit with piping on the edges, carrying a silver-plated, pearl handled 6-shooter at his hip, may well be seen as symbolic. This is a person who believes in individual liberty, and you oughtn't mess with his personal safety because he will fight back. A handgun at least has a benefit of the doubt that it is defensive.

Take away that cute 6-shooter and make it rifle, and it starts to get tricky. Were he stepping out of the car into an area where wildcats threatened the chickens, again, an observer would see someone minding his own business, not as a threat to the observer.

Now the same guy with the same rifle at a political event. Hairs begin to raise on the back of some necks. The message can only be "I came here prepared to shoot quite accurately at something." Make the guy's appearance any more threatening, or the gun any more offensive, and it just gets worse.

It goes beyond symbolic if the act is actually possible. A gallows with an effigy is symbolic. A gallows with an empty noose is a threat.
posted by gjc at 8:47 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

It'd be nice to focus on the problem, I agree. I think the discussion on violent rhetoric is inevitable but when we can't tell whether this guy is nutso or a scheming radical it's a distraction to speculate about whether or not Palin's imagery led to the shooting. On preview, orville has made my point much more clearly.

There's a lot to develop in this story. Over the last 24 hours I've heard many different things about Gifford's state of existence and witnessed a lot of speculation. We all want an easy solution to this problem, a clear party to blame. I don't think there is one yet, other than Loughner himself. All I'm advocating is a reliance on confirmed facts and less speculation. I don't think it helps to hunt for scapegoats when we have the primary suspect in custody.
posted by polyhedron at 8:49 AM on January 9, 2011

You're right. Using heat-of-the-moment public opinion to achieve policy goals is way too effective, and the Democrats should leave that kind of thing to the Republicans.

What are the policy goals that should be implemented using this public opinion?
posted by josher71 at 8:50 AM on January 9, 2011

To pretend that violent (and specifically gun-centered) rhetoric was not the *heart and soul* of the emergence of the tea party wackos as a force in American politics is to hide your head so deeply in the sand that your gonads are covered up as well.

People brought guns to several town hall meetings, displayed them publicly (in Arizona!) outside of candidate Obama's rallies, held up signs saying "this time we came unarmed," and snapped up ammo so much that there was a national shortage in response to fears of an Obama administration crackdown on guns promulgated by the NRA and a hundred more radical gun groups. And on and on.

I can think of no equivalent use of guns and gun imagery to intimidate the political opposition coming from the left since the days of the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers. (And the 3 guys in the New Black Panthers don't count, they are part of the "false equivalency" rhetoric.)

The roots of this are not just in the Tea Party madness, however. They go back to the Clinton years, and before that to the violent backlash against the Civil Rights Movement. The gun has been promoted as a "2d amendment remedy" to the ballot box repeatedly in right wing discourse in the last 50 years, and that emotional investment ginned up around "gun rights" has been the cement in the right wing fortress for nearly as long, the one political promise they have truly delivered on for their constituents (while losing ground on things like abortion, for the most part). It's gotten to the point that the democrats had to give up on fighting the gun lobby for even the most sensible restrictions in order to have a chance of governing the rest of our economy, military, foreign policy, environmental policy, etc. etc. We have all been literally held hostage by the NRA not because so many Americans feel strongly that their guns are important symbols of their freedom, but because violence is like sex: it sells by pushing primal buttons in the deep places where people fear, hate, lust, and covet.
posted by spitbull at 8:50 AM on January 9, 2011 [33 favorites]

It's often remarked that republicans have an...ability to work in lockstep

Yep, which often leads to the evil of groupthink.

given the context, that is achingly hilarious.

Laugh on but I think there is a difference between groupthink and crowd wisdom. Although MetaFilter probably tends to be more left-leaning than not, and AskMefi threads often seem to default to the DTMFA position rather quickly, there's not really a lockstep mindset present here.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:51 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

chiababe: "Ignorant and unclassy as fuck, as usual, from our friend Sarah Palin:

"So sad shooting in AZ, but I still stand by 1st amendment right of to own a gun! #P2 #TPOT #TCOT #TLOT #dems #liberals #GOP #bleedinghearts""

I don't twitter, so I can't check...is that a typo on your part, or did she really say "1st amendment"?
posted by notsnot at 8:52 AM on January 9, 2011

notsnot thats a fake account
posted by wheelieman at 8:53 AM on January 9, 2011

That's a fake account. "SarahPainUSA" not "SarahPalinUSA."
posted by ocherdraco at 8:54 AM on January 9, 2011

Maybe instead of trying to use this tragedy to score political points one should instead analyze it from the perspective of war's effects on a culture. For almost 10 years now we have been waging war in the middle east and central asia killing innocents without remorse. This is bound to have some effect on the culture here at home. The fact that our own government justifies the killing of innocents as collateral damage is a good example of a culture of death. We as a whole nation(right and left) have created this culture of death. Either way this tragedy here at home is minuscule compared to the tragedies currently unfolding in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere for which we are directly responsible.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:57 AM on January 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

Palin has needed to tone down her rhetoric for a long time, but connecting her to this without some definite confirmation so immediately seems disrespectful and reactionary. Maybe a little hysterical.

The connection needs no confirmation. Her connection to this event is the fact that her political rhetoric contains violent imagery.

She, along with many, many others, contributed to a political atmosphere where the concept of violence was used for political gain.

To borrow an analogy from above- she wasn't the match that started the fire, and maybe she wasn't even one of the people who poured gasoline on the house and walked away. But she sure as hell brought some gasoline to the party, where there was no other reason for it to be there.

It is a moral or ethical equivalent of felony murder- being a part of something that leads to something bad makes you just as culpable.
posted by gjc at 9:02 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I thought of one possible example of political violence "from the left" (which is as silly as calling the New World Order stuff "from the right," in a certain sense, since they both come from a deeply paranoid place in the American psyche), which is animal liberation extremism.

Presumably, Republicans who decry the linkage of crazy killers to their political rhetoric will now stop equating all animal rights activism with the actions of a few extremists who do things like burn down labs. Rush Limbaugh will immediately cease referring to PETA as a terrorist organization if we stop suggesting that putting gun sight imagery over your opponents on a map (a common tactic in the posters put up by underground doctor-killing groups on the anti-abortion fringe, by the way, along with "Wanted" poster designs) might invite a crazy person to consider shooting said opponent.

I am really looking forward to hearing how crazy Rush Limbaugh can make this debate. You know he's working on it all day today, and will come up with some way this can be blamed on Michelle Obama's undergraduate thesis.
posted by spitbull at 9:02 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

AElfwine, I might be crazy, but it sure does look like you're more than happy to use this tragedy to score a couple of political points of your own there, hoss.
posted by shiu mai baby at 9:04 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I assembled a quick list of some things that have occured in the past 2.5 years related to guns and politics. I call it The Peaceful Conservative Movement:

www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/11/chris-matthews-to-town-ha_n_256952.html

On Tuesday's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Matthews' guest was William Kostric, the man who brought a gun earlier in the day to protest President Obama's health care town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Kostric was wearing a (legal) handgun strapped to his leg and holding a sign referencing this Jefferson quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090811-NEWS-908119961

Police said a man arrested at the scene of President Barack Obama's visit to the city Tuesday was found to be in possession of an unlicensed loaded gun.
Richard Terry Young, 62, of 821 Ocean Blvd. in Hampton, was arrested around 9:40 a.m., hours before Obama's arrival, and charged with the misdemeanor crimes of criminal trespass and carrying a loaded pistol without a license.
Young was found inside Portsmouth High School, where Obama later in the day held his town hall-style forum. Young was detained by the Secret Service and subsequently arrested by Portsmouth Lt. Corey MacDonald. Young was carrying a pocket knife, police said. A subsequent search of his vehicle, parked on school property, revealed a loaded hand gun, police said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/18/right-wing-radio-host-sta_n_262559.html

The man with the semi-automatic (referred to in interviews as "Chris," no last name) was spotted at the protest by CNN news cameras, in the middle of a Q&A. Today, his interviewer -- Ernest Hancock of conservative talk radio show Declare Your Independence With Ernest Hancock -- went on CNN and explained to host Rick Sanchez that he and Chris were actually in the middle of a radio broadcast. Hancock, also packing heat at the rally, had invited Chris to come down the protest with his rifle to be interviewed. The two men had known each other for two years, through their work for presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_assassination_scare_in_Denver

The alleged motive for the attempted assassination was a white supremacist belief that an African American should not be elected President of the United States. Gartrell was arrested August 24, 2008, and found to be in possession of rifles and other weaponry; Adolf and Johnson were arrested shortly thereafter. In a televised interview after his arrest, Johnson identified Adolf as the man who allegedly hatched the assassination plot and planned to be the shooter.
Although suspected white supremacist associations led federal authorities to investigate possible ties to a larger group, authorities later downplayed the trio as drug addicts who had little chance of actually carrying out the plot. The three men were charged with drug and weapons charges, but did not face federal charges of threatening a presidential candidate.

And let's not forget the signs:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/09/signs-of-the-times-slogans-and-images-from-the-tea-party-rally/62885/

In my own hometown this past summer people demanding the right to carry guns at a local family-oriented festival showed up armed at a city council meeting. What they saw as protesting I saw as chilling intimidation.
posted by NorthernLite at 9:04 AM on January 9, 2011 [14 favorites]

You know he's working on it all day today, and will come up with some way this can be blamed on Michelle Obama's undergraduate thesis.

"it's her fault for taking away dessert - it's a well known fact that people who have low blood sugar can snap just like that"
posted by pyramid termite at 9:06 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

AElfwine, I might be crazy, but it sure does look like you're more than happy to use this tragedy to score a couple of political points of your own there, hoss.

Considering I am not affiliated with any political party I doubt it. Unless of course there is an antiwar party in this country of which I am unaware.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:07 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

You know he's working on it all day today, and will come up with some way this can be blamed on Michelle Obama's undergraduate thesis.

You can just read the unhinged blatherings on Michelle Malkin's website for a preview.
posted by empath at 9:09 AM on January 9, 2011

Why even give that woman the traffic, empath? I mean, come on. You just play into her hand.
posted by crunchland at 9:16 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ironmouth: if you mean the YouTube vids, I watched 4 videos. two were all text, one was text plus a diagram, the 4th had a single masked and costumed figure doing dangerous shit with fire (burning nylon very close to extremely dry brush while wearing a garbage bag).

As for the "person of interest", we need to find out who he is. I'm still betting it's more likely he thought he was a friend of Jared Loughner's and was just giving him a ride.

There was one video with a picture of a face--that guy's face. I think there were five vids. I would not be surprised if the police asked for the other one to be pulled while they checked out the people on the videos.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:17 AM on January 9, 2011

No way am I letting Michelle Malkin's commenters into my consciousness. I don't have time for a long enough shower.
posted by spitbull at 9:18 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

David Neiwert: Yes, Jared Loughner was 'crazy'. That doesn't exculpate the milieu that unhinged him
posted by homunculus at 9:22 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

See guys, it was surveyor's symbols.

Oh, okay. Now I understand why hardline conservatives are always showing up to Democrats' speeches in hardhats with a reflective orange safety vest and a clipboard.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:22 AM on January 9, 2011 [57 favorites]

NorthernLite : I call it The Peaceful Conservative Movement

Riiight... Hmm, let me think, what other organization have people sarcastically referred to as a "religion of peace" on the blue, recently? Hmm, strange, I can't find it, it seems most of those comments have mysteriously vanished. Funny, that.

Also... Only half your links actually involve crimes (and one of those a mere technical violation at best). If you can't freely exercise a right, you don't have that right.
posted by pla at 9:24 AM on January 9, 2011

I'm still looking for what Palin might have scrubbed. For those following along, the NY times reports that the image with the crosshairs" is no longer on the Web site [of Palin's PAC, http://www.sarahpac.com/]" and also notes: "Late Saturday, the map was still on Ms. Palin’s Facebook page."

Does anybody have any idea when the image was removed from sarahpac.com? Was it after the shooting or before? Google's cache has her statement on the "Tragedy in Arizona" which means it was cached since the incident, so it doesn't help establish timeline.
posted by ericost at 9:27 AM on January 9, 2011

Considering I am not affiliated with any political party I doubt it.

You don't actually need to be part of a party to score political points.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:27 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

Look: saying this tragedy has its roots in the many [POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED] wars we have been and are currently involved in is no different, rhetorically speaking, from tracing it back to the violently-themed talk of Palin/Beck/et al. The fact that you don't personally have a formal political affiliation is immaterial. You're still using the shooting to advance your own political opinion. Which is fine, it's what pretty much everyone is doing right now; but I'm recommending that you don't criticize people for doing *exactly* what you yourself are doing, just because your opinions of why this happened don't align.
posted by shiu mai baby at 9:29 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is getting out of hand.

I just came back from getting a morning coffee for Mrs. Zooropa. The place was packed like on a typical Sunday morning, including what looked like a family, all nicely dressed from having stopped in after church. As I was leaving, I overheard a man say to his wife: "Well, if that Congresslady dies, it's God's will."

I normally don't get involved with other people's conversations. Really I don't. Especially when they are of a religious nature. Everyone is entitled to their own religious beliefs, after all. But I couldn't help myself. "Excuse me, I asked?"

The man repeated himself. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and said so. Then he said something even more incredulous: "That Congresslady got what she deserved. That's what in store for all liberals."

THAT did it.

After reading all the reactionary rhetoric on various blogs and forums this morning, I let him have it. I told him I was a liberal and asked if that meant I was "in store" to get shot, too. I told him that a 9-year old girl and a Republican judge got killed, too. Was that God's will for them, too? Were they liberals who deserved to get killed?

Thankfully, I wasn't the only person letting this jackass make comments like that. A few other people overheard what was going on, and immediately tried to show how inflammatory his comments were. Another woman joined me, and appealed to the guy's wife by saying: "A 9-year old girl was shot, too. Imagine if it was your daughter!" The wife didn't say anything and then quietly said, "Well, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We'll pray for her."

After a few minutes (it felt like an hour), I left. Has it really come to this? "God's will?" "That's what in store for liberals."???
posted by zooropa at 9:30 AM on January 9, 2011 [131 favorites]

Surveyor symbol : used to indicate locations on maps .
posted by mazola at 9:32 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

empath's link to the Fox Snews report of possible link to a white supremacist group is questionable:

1) They cite a DHS memo without backup. The memo is not shown. No confirmation by anybody that the memo is real or even exists.

2) DHS is notoriously inept at intelligence.

3) The "anti-ZOG" characterization of Jared Taylor's American Renaissance is bogus. ADL is pretty clear AR is not anti-Semitic.

4) It is Fox, for chrissake. They are notorious fabricators, fantasists and dupes.

Nice catch by empath, btw. Reading Fox is really taking one for the team. But this report is all sorts of wrong.
posted by warbaby at 9:33 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

After a few minutes (it felt like an hour), I left. Has it really come to this? "God's will?" "That's what in store for liberals."???

I have to be honest. I'm going to go back and visit my family in the next couple of days because of a funeral, and I am just going to flat out refuse to talk politics with anyone for fear that I'm not going to be able to control myself from saying something hurtful.
posted by empath at 9:35 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

zooropa, that's terrifying.
posted by tjenks at 9:35 AM on January 9, 2011

I think it's worth acknowledging that Gabrielle Giffords is the only member of Congress with an active-duty spouse in the military. This is a family for whom service to others and duty to flag and country are living, breathing values.
posted by thinkpiece at 9:39 AM on January 9, 2011 [23 favorites]

Well, if that Congresslady dies, it's God's will."

See above.
posted by empath at 9:40 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

now I'm trying to figure out: how does a guy this unbalanced get hold of an automatic weapon and ammo?

You exchange your worthless Federal Reserve Notes for the precious metals of the gun, lead and brass?

(Bonus points if you can name the Presidential candidate who speaks just like that)
posted by rough ashlar at 9:40 AM on January 9, 2011

(Bonus points if you can name the Presidential candidate who speaks just like that)

Teve Torbes?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:41 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Only half your links actually involve crimes (and one of those a mere technical violation at best). If you can't freely exercise a right, you don't have that right.

Where did I refer to them as crimes? Yes, in most(?) parts of this country people have the right by law to not only purchase as many weapons as they want but to bring them to all sorts of public places, including summer festivals in quiet suburban towns, college campuses, malls and politicial activities.

Some of us have always been astonished we live in a country with that mentality, that it is good to have that many guns as freely available, and that even carrying a gun in those situations is merely "asserting your right."

The inability for me to understand the other POV or for those with the other POV to understand/ acknowledge my concerns is only one example of the great divide in this country.
posted by NorthernLite at 9:45 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is a tragedy.

From over the pond here, knowing that there are about 30,000 gun deaths in the USA each year, I'm pretty surprised that Leo Ryan remains the only congress-person to have been killed in the line of duty. Hopefully he will remain the only one for some time.

Its significant that this thread hit 1,000 comments so quickly. As Mark Mardell, the BBCs North American editor puts it: "It is an indication of the febrile, volatile nature of politics in America that, immediately the news broke, the internet was alive with anger, a dispute between the left and the right.". But then, dialogue is important, even if it seems pointless at the time. I believe people do shift their opinions as a result of dialogue, but they tend to do it some time after the dialogue has finished.
posted by memebake at 9:45 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

"After a few minutes (it felt like an hour), I left. Has it really come to this? "God's will?" "That's what in store for liberals."???" There are still millions of reasonable people left, as demonstrated by those around you in the coffee shop. But propaganda works. It works well. Especially the type that lets the viewer or reader draw their own conclusions from the apparently neutral information that preceded it. That's what it has come to.
posted by rocco at 9:46 AM on January 9, 2011

Also... Only half your links actually involve crimes (and one of those a mere technical violation at best). If you can't freely exercise a right, you don't have that right.
posted by pla

I find this a disingenuous response to the list NorthernLite posted, which really was just the tip of the iceberg.

With freedom comes responsibility. And we do, and should, distinguish between free expression and the use of expression to incite violence or intimidate classes of people with implied threats of violence, dammit. Just because things aren't prosecuted as crimes doesn't mean they aren't crimes. But whether they are or not, the use of guns, gun imagery, and gun rhetoric to stir up political rage is patently irresponsible in a democracy like we're supposed to be, and if doing so results in prejudicial political violence actually happening, as has happened over and over again in a long series of actual political assassinations and attempted assassinations in recent years, of which this is just the most prominent, then it becomes a crime. It is incitement.

You have a right to carry a gun to a political rally. You have an obligation not to intimidate people with it.
posted by spitbull at 9:46 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Even if you have a right to carry a gun to a political rally, I mean . . .

That's not a right I'm willing to concede is essential to anyone's freedom.
posted by spitbull at 9:50 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

(Bonus points if you can name the Presidential candidate who speaks just like that)

Uh, that guy's a Republican, so we're not going to mention it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:00 AM on January 9, 2011

Not to get pedantic, but it does matter here:
weaponry crosshair target ≠ bullseye target
Two very different games. Not to mention cognitive frames.

So are Wal-Mart and KMart employees supposed to actually go over to Target when managers talk about 'shooting down high prices'?
posted by rough ashlar at 10:01 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh, for heaven's sake. They're obviously printer alignment marks for a four-color print process. The practice of putting them outside the bleed area is just a convention, and clearly the layout person just didn't want to take any chances that the key areas of the map would be misaligned. You people are so paranoid.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:01 AM on January 9, 2011 [11 favorites]

Good on you for calling that shit out zooropa.
posted by marxchivist at 10:02 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Does this mean that people will not tolerate their upstanding fellow Americans bringing machine guns to political rallies, or will that still be a cute thing to do? Follow up question. Has the NRA released a comment? They have:

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this senseless tragedy, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, and their families during this difficult time. We join the rest of the country in praying for the quick recovery of those injured."
posted by Philemon at 10:07 AM on January 9, 2011

ericost: I'm still looking for what Palin might have scrubbed.

takebackthe20.com pointed at that SarahPAC crosshair image and associated stuff. It was first redirected to SarahPAC's website and then taken down entirely at about 4pm yesterday.
posted by Skorgu at 10:07 AM on January 9, 2011

zooropa's got it. don't be silent. if you hear this shit call it out and point it out to others. Its not censorship to say--don't vote for any person who uses this kind of talk.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:08 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

Rebecca Mansour, Palin's right-hand aide, said in an interview with Tammy Bruce (herself a "chick with a gun and a microphone"), "I don't understand how anyone can be held responsible for someone who is completely mentally unstable like this. Where I come from the person who is actually shooting is culpable. We had nothing whatsoever to do with this. People who knew him said that he is left wing and very liberal. But that is not to say that I am blaming the left for him either."

Oh, of course not! But you'll go ahead and do it anyway!
posted by blucevalo at 10:13 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

The man repeated himself. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and said so. Then he said something even more incredulous: "That Congresslady got what she deserved. That's what in store for all liberals."

That's what is most troubling about this outrage. It could be that the young man in custody murdered these people for reasons unrelated to Teaparty politics, but the fact that there are "normal" "average" Americans that are nodding in agreement with his actions, that is frightening. I'd like to say I don't believe it but the sad fact is I know people that would say things like this.

Truth is that no one would be brave enough to talk about their dark hearted hateful ideas in the light of day if not for the Palins, Limbaughs, and Becks of the world. No one can challenge that fact, no one can say this kind of man on the street perspective would have been possible 10 years ago.
posted by nola at 10:17 AM on January 9, 2011 [14 favorites]

What are the policy goals that should be implemented using this public opinion?

A good start would be to shame Republicans into no longer saying, implicitly or explicitly, that Democrats should be murdered.

So are Wal-Mart and KMart employees supposed to actually go over to Target when managers talk about 'shooting down high prices'?

If a Wal-Mart manager gave a speech about shooting down prices, and accompanied it with a map that had crosshairs over the locations of all the Target stores in town, and brandished an M16 while he did it, and one of his employees subsequently shot eighteen people at a local Target, killing several of them, then I think it'd be worth asking whether there was a correlation, yes.
posted by EarBucket at 10:20 AM on January 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

Oh my God. Zooropa's story.

That's what it's come to. People thinking that other people deserve to die because of their beliefs.

Land of the free. Fuck. I was about to send in my citizenship application this month (I've been eligible to apply for citizenship for years, but have stuck with my green card.)

I think I am going to hold off on that. Fuck. Land of the free. Our wonderful free country. "this is the greatest country in the world because of our freedoms." Freedom. Right.

I am seriously in shock.
posted by gaspode at 10:21 AM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

I was about to send in my citizenship application this month

Oh, god, please don't let this stop you. We need sane citizens and voters more than ever now.
posted by EarBucket at 10:23 AM on January 9, 2011 [19 favorites]

A good start would be to shame Republicans

HAHAHAHAHAH! After "they're surveyor's marks", 8 years of Bush and thousands of hours of Fox news, you think this is possible? Good luck!

a map that had crosshairs over the locations of all the Target stores in town

Bit redundant, that.
posted by fleetmouse at 10:24 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

It's a bit of special pleading to claim National Socialism "hijacked" either the German language, or German culture, which had a long history of a taste for the authoritarian even back when those poets and philosophers you praise were writing. The romantic nationalism of those poets and philosophers was the red meat of Nazi ideology.

And it's a standard cinematic reference to use "bitte" as shorthand for an officious Nazi asking for papers. I got it, and didn't think it was meant to indict all modern Germans or the German language.

Words matter.

If you think German culture has a 'long history of a taste for the authoritarian,' then your knowledge of German history must be fairly limited .

This is not a thread about Germany. It is, however, a thread about ignorant prejudice and about the incitement of political hatred.

So, please be careful what you say.
posted by edguardo at 10:27 AM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

The woman who helped subdue Jared Loughner is in her early sixties. She kneeled on his ankles and grabbed his second clip when he fumbled it while trying to reload. Her son has put an interesting self-post up on Reddit and is taking questions.
posted by Huplescat at 10:27 AM on January 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

Fascinating internal DHS memo from Fox News, of all places:

"The investigation has been taken over by the FBI, and is being run through the Tucson Command Post. Here's what can be confirmed at this time (1800 hrs)...
* Gabrielle Giffords Is in ICU.
* Federal judge John Roll is deceased. He did rule on a 32 million dollar civil rights lawsuit in February, 2010. That ruling brought death threats to Roll and his family, and for a time he was given a protection detail.
* 6 deaths attributed to the shooting. 19 total people hit by gunfire.
* suspect’s mother works for the Pima County Board of Supervisors
* the suspect has multiple arrests ... But no criminal record? Intervention by someone?
* no direct connection - but strong suspicion is being directed at AmRen / American Renaissance. Suspect is possibly linked to this group. (through videos posted on his myspace and YouTube account.). The group’s ideology is anti government, anti immigration, anti ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government), anti Semitic. Gabrielle Gifford is the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government. She was also opposite this group’s ideology when it came to immigration debate.
* DHS have a list of names and dates of birth of all victims.
* the ACTIC is still playing a major role in the investigation... Computer forensics is cleaning up the surveillance videos, and images from around the scene, and involved in the investigation - working together, was MCSO, DPS, Phoenix PD, ICE, and of course the FBI. It did just come in from the command post, that the federal judge was Not originally scheduled to attend the meeting, according to wife. She stated that he received a phone call about an hour before and was invited to attend. Wrong place - wrong time. For the planning side, there are impromptu memorials popping up all over the state, but the largest one is downtown phoenix, at the capital."

posted by crayz at 10:27 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

I'd talked to my brother about this yesterday, and was definitely like, this is a lone nut, Timothy McVeigh situation. At least it's not like Pakistan, where people are celebrating the murder of the secular govenor because he was anti-obscenity laws.

So then I read Zooropa's comment

/Red Letter Media guy voice

Oh.
posted by angrycat at 10:30 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

People on both sides need to moderate their rhetoric. Those on the Right have to stop threatening & occasionally carrying out political violence. And those on the Left need to stop pointing out that the Right keeps calling for political violence. And also they need to stop supporting liberal policies because that just gets the Right angry & makes them get out the guns & start waving them around threatening people. Oh & they also need to let the Right give them a wedgie, outside the girl's locker room after gym. And remember, guns don't kill people. Liberal fascists kill people.
posted by scalefree at 10:32 AM on January 9, 2011 [54 favorites]

Let this be a wake up call to parents who chose to pretend nothing is wrong with their schizophrenic children. If you live with a schizophrenic, you know it.
posted by Scram at 10:33 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

If you belive Mrs. Palin/Mr. Beck had something to do with this - they open their mouths and say what they say because of the cash they get.

Start looking at how the cash flows and work in your life to cut off those cash flows.

Bonus points if you can make a distributed P2P tracking tool for who's money is being spent when and where so consumers can make decisions as to whom to do business with.

Such worked with Sinclair Broadcasting/the Swift Boat Vets TV spot. Use the only vote you have - when you spend your money - and hit them where it hurts....the pocketbook.
posted by rough ashlar at 10:37 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

I'll freely admit to being both politically and socially immature and when combined with not even being American, well, it makes anything I have to say about this horiffic event pretty worthless. But this being the Internet and all, I'm going to say something anyway. I grow increasingly desperate and angry about the things I read about American politics on a daily basis. I simply cannot understand how the world's most powerful nation chooses to allow its internal politics to be so thoroughly infested with religious ideology and the specific interests of large corporations (as opposed to what's right for the economy) that the only agents of change are money, power, hate and violence.
posted by NeonSurge at 10:41 AM on January 9, 2011 [13 favorites]

I heard an interview with Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury, yesterday, and one thing he said that stuck with me is that, in this time, there is no shame. If I understood correctly, he went on to say that whether someone is disciplined or called out for something offensive or intemperate is entirely dependent on how quickly and effectively the "offense" can be spun or rationalized away.

To me, this offers an explanation for the continued reign of media demagogues and politicians who seem to use increasingly polarizing rhetoric and distortions ... shamelessly. This extends to zooropa's "Christian" family who can openly condone an attempted assassination as divine retribution.

So yeah, gotta call that shit more.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:45 AM on January 9, 2011 [13 favorites]

A good start would be to shame Republicans
HAHAHAHAHAH! After "they're surveyor's marks", 8 years of Bush and thousands of hours of Fox news, you think this is possible? Good luck!

"They're surveyor's marks" came because they're ashamed. And because they're too cowardly to own up and too dumb not to shut up.
posted by Flunkie at 10:50 AM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

Put that together with the "adult moment" comment and I think it's clear that Boehner is very much afraid of getting Gingriched.

Speaker John Boehner on former Rep. Steve Driehaus:

After Boehner suggested that by voting for Obamacare, [Steve] Driehaus “may be a dead man” and “can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati” because “the Catholics will run him out of town,” Driehaus began receiving death threats, and a right-wing website published directions to his house.
posted by EarBucket at 10:52 AM on January 9, 2011 [12 favorites]

And coupled again with campaign events from the wounded Congressmember's opponent in the last election advertising a chance to shoot off your aggression toward her with an M16!

See: psychology. Punching a pillow, shooting a gun when you're angry—all it does is make you more angry and more prone to act aggressively. Anyone out there who claims those "shoot off your aggression" campaign events were intended to reduce people's anger is at best terribly misguided.

This is the full conclusion of the linked study (emphasis mine):

"Catharsis theory predicts that venting anger should get rid of it and should therefore reduce subsequent aggression. The present findings, as well as previous findings, directly contradict catharsis theory (e.g., Bushman et al., 1999; Geen & Quanty, 1977). For reducing anger and aggression, the worst possible advice to give people is to tell them to imagine their provocateur’s face on a pillow or punching bag as they wallop it, yet this is precisely what many pop psychologists advise people to do. If followed, such advice will only make people angrier and more aggressive."

Just a note, in case anyone's thinking about staging similar events in the future.
posted by limeonaire at 11:01 AM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

An eyewitness account by the guy on Reddit (linked above), whose mother was there:

I will be brief, because I'm not sure how much information she will want me to share. This is a second-hand account of the event and the massive amount of details I have learned from my mother in the few minutes it took for this entire event to happen. News reports will eventually emerge with more detail than I am sharing with you now, but to the best of my memory and ability, this is how she described it. This is not necessarily exactly what happened, but how I observed how my mother observed it.

The event was a single file line (with except of those who were together, in the case of the poor grandmother and 9-year old daughter at the front of the line) where people were set to meet Gabrielle personally.

My mom was the first civilian person to arrive at the event, but asked a staffer (I believe) if she could write her name down, go inside and do some grocery shopping, and come back out to resume her place in line. When she came back outside, she found that the line twisted around the edge of the Safeway building and closer to the Walgreens. She lined up at the end of the line after briefly asking the staffer (again, I can't recall if this is who she talked to) if she could still have her spot in line. My mother was supposed to be the very first person to meet Gabrielle but fate/luck/whatever-you-want-to-call-it placed her at the back of the line.

Gabrielle came out and the Jared Lee Loughner emerged and shot her, paused, and went down the line of people waiting to meet her like it was a shooting gallery. My mom hit the deck when she heard the shots and was not able to visually see anyone being shot, but she definitely could hear it. By the time the shooter got to my mother, he had shot the woman in front of her (who was lying down over her own daughter to protect her) in line three times, once in each arm and once in her back. To my knowledge, she miraculously survived and my father was one of the people who helped compress her gunshot wound to the back.

After shooting the woman above, in front of my mom, the shooter was tackled by at least one of the brave souls who restrained him. He fell down, I imagine face-forward (I'm not sure why I didn't confirm this with my mother) and was struggling on the ground.

My mother began to plant her knees into the shooter's ankles and performed a kind of joint lock that was pretty painful to him, to the point where she recalls him saying "ow" over and over.

at this pont, Loughner was still in possession of his weapon and people were shouting for someone to take his gun away. My mother was unable to grab the weapon, but she did notice he was pulling another clip out of his hoodie pockets. He dropped it and she immediately grabbed it, holding onto it for dear life. She eventually had someone else sit on his legs while she tended to wounded victims.

My father was somehow in the area and my mother was able to call him. He arrived before any police or medical personnel and helped tend to people.

I hope that I have been able to transcribe these events as best as possible, from my recollection of what my mother's recollection was. I do not mean to exaggerate or materialize any information here, but simply post how I experienced it through my mother experiencing it. I understand that as details unfold that my recollection may or may not be entirely accurate and I hope no one sees this as a demonization of character of the Jared Lee Loughner, even though what acts he performed are those of a very sick and sad individual.

It is very possible that my mother was supposed to be one of the first people to be shot after Gabrielle Giffords. It is also very possible that she was the next person he would have shot. Personally, this has been a very, very strange day for me. I am so, so grateful that my mother is okay, but that isn't the word for how I'm feeling. It is a real tragedy what happened, and it feels wrong to feel so fortunate in such a time of senseless violence.

I hope this helps some of you appreciate the time with your loved ones and that you may never endure anything like this yourselves. And if you do, you take the steps and risks these braves people did to do the right thing and stop any further violence.
posted by triggerfinger at 11:03 AM on January 9, 2011 [18 favorites]

The Maddow Blog has screenshots of the takebackthe20.com with the cross hairs graphic before it went down, which apparently was after the shooting.

empath, a commenter there also links to this 2004 Democratic Leadership Council graphic which features bulls eyes: http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253055&kaid=127&subid=171. I tend to think there are more examples of such iconography from both sides of the aisle (not that it excuses it).
posted by ericost at 11:22 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

So then I read Zooropa's comment

zooropa encountering a loudmouthed asshole in the grocery store is indicative of exactly nothing beyond the fact that it is possibly to encounter loudmouthed assholes in grocery stores. taking the encounter and presenting it as a measure of the pulse of the american public at large is something a cable "news" commentator would do.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 11:25 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

how very ironic, an agressive neurosurgical strategy learned on the battlefield, like many advances in all trauma surgery, agreesive immediate intervention, taking the part of the skull off and refrigerating it until the swelling danger is past and they can take out the minor bone pieces still in the brain will probably be indicated in whatever fuction she recovers. A quite amazing Chief of Trauma, great help from the first responder, a slightly built but healthy woman with probably a thinner crianial bone so the bullet didn't explode, quite a high forehead so no major blood vessels irretreviably damaged, a fighter, and as the Chief of Trauma said last..... luck. Simple luck.

May her luck continue.
posted by Wilder at 11:25 AM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

in fact, as zooropa noted, many other of the store patrons took the asshole to task.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 11:26 AM on January 9, 2011

An anonymous "senior Republican senator" tells Politico: "There is a need for some reflection here - what is too far now? What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There’s been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody’s trying to outdo each other."

A Republican senator was too afraid to say "Maybe we shouldn't be talking about murdering our political opponents" and attach his name to the sentiment.
posted by EarBucket at 11:28 AM on January 9, 2011 [20 favorites]

"They're surveyor's marks" came because they're ashamed.

It's the most cynical, shameless response imaginable. Actually it's unimaginable - by me, at least. They still have such arrogant confidence in their reality-warping field that shame is not an option on their mental menu bar. Shame? It's further evidence of their unreachability.
posted by fleetmouse at 11:33 AM on January 9, 2011

“You just have to be calm and collected," he said. "You do no good to anyone if you have a breakdown… It was probably not the best idea to run toward the gunshots, but people needed help.”

That dude is the shit.
I would still be in the parking lot of the Safeway, hiding behind the Redbox kiosk, urinating everywhere.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:33 AM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

zooropa encountering a loudmouthed asshole in the grocery store is indicative of exactly nothing beyond the fact that it is possibly to encounter loudmouthed assholes in grocery stores.

You're right. We have nothing to worry about unless they start shooting people.

oh wait
posted by fleetmouse at 11:34 AM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

Also, your version of the sentence doesn't make sense. "Outside of" means "except for", and since Leo Ryan died in 1978 and Kennedy in 1968, Ryan is the exception between Kennedy and the present day, not the other way around.
posted by dhens

Yes. The phrasing is wrong which I admit. In the first place, the information without expansion is really not relevant to this event in direct correlation with American politics today. I was going to link some books about Ryan. As far as AZ, I did not know he was a reporter which explains his tight sentences and the clarity of his point. I asked him a question a while back which was cogent. I thought he ditched the question but maybe he simply did not see it and I assumed he just ignored it. My bad. This is my sidetrack. Here is my link that might help understand some of the insanity of American political killings.
posted by clavdivs at 11:36 AM on January 9, 2011

Weird social media artifact? http://www.youtube.com/user/giffords2 Subscriptions (2)
Classitup10
Classit... http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10
RepIkeSkelton
RepIkeS...

Huh? Isn't classitup10 the shooter? And why '2' subscriptions.

I don't get it.....
posted by rough ashlar at 11:40 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I know my German history quite well, thank you, and in fact you probably don't want to get into an argument with me about Herder or the Brothers Grimm or Bismarck and 19th century German romantic nationalism, let alone about Kant or Marx or Goethe or Wagner, where I'm on pretty sure ground (and read German fluently, actually). German culture -- there was no "nation" before the late 19th century -- gave us Bach and Heine. It gave us Schiller and Beethoven. And it gave us Mengele and Goebbels.

Excusing everything before about 1930 as the culture of a peace-loving people that was suddenly hijacked and perverted by the Nazis out of the cold clear blue and against the grain of Germanic-speaking cultural history is sort of like saying there's no connection between the violent rhetoric suffusing *our* politics and these increasingly horrific outbursts of political violence. Or between the genocidal histories of slavery and the erasure of indigenous peoples and the current state of American politics. Good and bad things both happen for a reason. History is what history does.

Maybe it comes to down to seeing all individuals, even the insane ones, as products of their places, times, and cultures vs. seeing some individuals as existing outside of collective responsibility for the historical character of a culture or a society.
posted by spitbull at 11:40 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I wondered the "conscience" vs. "conscious" thing. I guess when I was reading the YouTube videos, what immediately came to mind was an old friend of mine who was into neuro-linguistic programming and lucid dreaming. For a few years, he was ultra-obsessed with inducing a dreaming state while awake, and very prone to paranoia. So I initially took the "conscience dreaming" a little more literally.

Conscious Dreaming: "Shamanic dreamwork at its best."
posted by GrammarMoses at 11:43 AM on January 9, 2011

I hate to point it out, but this thread is now Godwin'd. It actually took a surprisingly long time to happen.
posted by iotic at 11:45 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

But hey, as long as you were talking about assasinating Bush - it was fine.

Air America Host 'Jokingly' Calls for Bush Hit

One of the leading hosts on the unofficial radio network of the Democratic Party recommended in an apparent "joke" earlier this week that President Bush should be assassinated, reports the New York Daily News.

Comparing Bush and his family to the Corleones of "Godfather" fame, Air America host Randi Rhodes reportedly unleashed this zinger during her Monday night broadcast: "Like Fredo, somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw. "

Rhodes then imitated the sound of a gunshot.

Why is it always necessary to look for someone to blame OTHER than the perpetrator of the act?

HE pulled the trigger. HE decided that - fuck right or wrong - HE needed to go kill someone. Is it so necessary for you to HATE the 'other side', no matter your ideology, that you're going to blame EVERYONE BUT the trigger puller?

And if media has such an influential aspect - why the fuck aren't you blaming every rapper for black on black violence? You don't get a fucking pass because YOU might happen to like the message or messenger when they're advocating violence - if political ads supposedly cause violence, and 'right-wing' folks objecting to the president's policies causes violence, then LEFT-wing folks advocating the President be assassinated causes violence also, and entertainment media causes violence also.

It's all part of the same game - you'd better take a look and make sure your own hands are spotlessly clean before you start accusing everyone you don't like of having blood on theirs.
posted by JB71 at 11:46 AM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

Huh? Isn't classitup10 the shooter? And why '2' subscriptions.

My guess would be that someone in her office looked up Loughner's YouTube channel after the shooting, once it was publicized as his.
posted by EarBucket at 11:48 AM on January 9, 2011

fleetmouse, I agree that the response was cynical, absurd, tasteless, and so forth. But why did they issue a response?

Because they are being shamed. Perhaps "they are ashamed" is not true; but "they are being shamed" is. And rightfully so.
posted by Flunkie at 11:48 AM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't understand subscribing to a YouTube channel that's almost definitely going to be defunct. Especially when it's the channel of the person who shot you. That's just odd.
posted by desjardins at 11:49 AM on January 9, 2011

I don't understand subscribing to a YouTube channel that's almost definitely going to be defunct. Especially when it's the channel of the person who shot you.

I'm fairly confident that Congresswoman Giffords isn't the one who subscribed.
posted by Flunkie at 11:51 AM on January 9, 2011

Maybe someone wanted to be able to find it later? That's the only plausible explanation I can think of.
posted by EarBucket at 11:52 AM on January 9, 2011

That's not right, JB71. It's a question of scale, and these things just don't.
posted by nola at 11:53 AM on January 9, 2011

But hey, as long as you were talking about assasinating Bush - it was fine.

I'm sure Randi Rhodes felt horrible when that liberal gun nut shot President Bush in the head, too.
posted by EarBucket at 11:55 AM on January 9, 2011 [16 favorites]

(Not to excuse Rhodes's comment, as I think it was as vile as anything that's come out of Palin's mouth. But trying to deflect criticism of conservative rhetoric by saying "some liberals do it, too!" ignores that fact that there are actual dead people today, killed in a political assassination attempt. We're not arguing this in a vacuum.)
posted by EarBucket at 11:57 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

zooropa encountering a loudmouthed asshole in the grocery store is indicative of exactly nothing beyond the fact that it is possibly to encounter loudmouthed assholes in grocery stores. taking the encounter and presenting it as a measure of the pulse of the american public at large is something a cable "news" commentator would do.

Yeah -- because cable "news" commentary reaches and is watched by nobody, has zero ratings, does absolutely none of that loudmouthed asshole routine, and is not representative of the so-called "pulse."

Cuz, y'know, that asshole in the grocery store encountered by zooropa probably doesn't even watch cable news or O'Reilly or Beck or listen to Limbaugh or any of those other loudmouthed assholes who govern American political discourse and help give Boehner the audacity to say that a political opponent should not go home because "he may be a dead man."
posted by blucevalo at 11:58 AM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

And if media has such an influential aspect - why the fuck aren't you blaming every rapper for black on black violence?

I assure you that US politics is a much, much bigger game than rap music, but people in fact do say this. They say it about video games and heavy metal music, pretty much anything that isn't banking, guns, or professional sports.

I'm not sure a climate of violence metaphors creates social acceptability for violent acts, but I can certainly see a stupid and/or crazy person thinking it does. There's a chicken-and-egg problem here that I am reticent to explore, and it troubles me that my thoughts lead to the same area that contains speech codes. Incitement is a real thing, though.
posted by rhizome at 11:58 AM on January 9, 2011

why the fuck aren't you blaming every rapper for black on black violence?

Let's just nip this one in the bud. Because not every rapper raps about violence. Also because not every rapper is black.

Also, is that Randi Rhodes thing what they call a talking point?
posted by box at 11:58 AM on January 9, 2011 [12 favorites]

I don't remember that liberal voters had made Air America a bit hit, by and large. Just had to point that out. Not defending the dude, but "unofficial network of the Demcoratic party?" How many people registered and voting regularly as Dems. listened to it? A minuscule percentage.
posted by raysmj at 12:01 PM on January 9, 2011

But hey, as long as you were talking about assasinating Bush - it was fine.

And Randi Rhodes apologized. Sure, it was a crappy apology (I don't really like her anyway), but it was an acknowledgement of affects. As bad as Rhodes' apology was, at least she didn't say the "gunshot sound" was really the revving of an engine and that she was just saying Bush should be driven around in a nice car.
posted by rhizome at 12:01 PM on January 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

Why is it always necessary to look for someone to blame OTHER than the perpetrator of the act?

I may or may not blame the perp; it depends on how insane he is. If he is utterly disassociated from reality, then this is one of those things.

But I have a loved one who is paranoid schizophrenic; I remember when he started going on about black helicopters. I don't know the whole story about black helicopters, but what I DO know is that my mentally ill brother didn't invent it. He heard it, and because he is mentally ill, he believed it completely.

What is the problem with pointing out that Palin's crosshairs thing is vile? Nobody is trying her for manslaughter; what I'm reading is that her crosshairs page was/is vile because it could increase the chances of something like this happening.
posted by angrycat at 12:05 PM on January 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

The latest...the "accomplice" they were looking for was just a taxi driver, and has been cleared of any possible connection to the shooting.
posted by Melismata at 12:05 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Here's one source for the taxi driver info.
posted by devinemissk at 12:08 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Corporations spend billions of dollars on tv and radio advertising, using much more subtle and sophisticated techniques than plain and her ilk in order to influence the behavior of the masses. I assume it works, or the companies wasting all of that money would soon go out of business.

I hope fox, etc, isn't now going to claim that tv and radio don't influence behavior, when their business depends on selling that influence.
posted by empath at 12:09 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

So let me get this straight. One person on Air American makes a statement about killing Bush and this is supposed to be equivalent to years of frequent rhetoric from actual politicians and people with nationwide news and radio shows? Nobodies hands have to be perfectly clean. It's a matter of scale.
posted by Procloeon at 12:10 PM on January 9, 2011 [14 favorites]

does anyone know if she is right-handed or left-handed?
posted by Wilder at 12:12 PM on January 9, 2011

Vis a vis Godwining the thread, arguably that happened when someone said "Your papers, bitte" as a reference to Arizona's skewed law enforcement priorities.

Sometimes an analogy is legitimate. The Nazis inflamed disaffected, insecure, economically distressed ordinary Germans with racist and xenophobic discourse until they got the violence in the streets it took to overturn a weak Weimar state's fragile democracy, while also working within the framework of that democracy to secure power and blending the violent and electoral dimensions of their project systematically.

Sorry to say, that's what I think has been going on in America. Is America 2011 just like Nazi Germany? Of course not. But we see the tactics of fascism all around us and it would be a mistake not to reason by historical analogy that encouraging your supporters to seek violent remedies to their economic problems and cultural anxieties is a dangerous path for any democratic state to take.
posted by spitbull at 12:15 PM on January 9, 2011 [20 favorites]

And if media has such an influential aspect - why the fuck aren't you blaming every rapper for black on black violence?

I think the answer to this might be "because a US congresswoman has been shot". Deciding what to blame rappers for might have to take a back seat, at least in this thread.
posted by DNye at 12:18 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's all part of the same game - you'd better take a look and make sure your own hands are spotlessly clean before you start accusing everyone you don't like of having blood on theirs.

No one has spotless hands, so best no one say anything.

The brilliance of that solution is a blinding hamburger that sears my retinas. Well done!
posted by five fresh fish at 12:18 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

Yeah, Randi Rhodes, she's on what, like 4 low-power AM progressive stations nationally and an internet stream. Between her and Mike Malloy, who also goes way over the top sometimes, they probably can round up about 10,000 listeners on any given day, if that.

Rush and Beck and Palin reach tens of millions every single day. And the fringe media comparable with Malloy or Rhodes but on the right is vast. Have you ever driven across the US listening to AM radio? You'd think we were under occupation by the Jewish liberal United Nations Zionist Occupation Paper Money One World Black Helicopter Government by the time you get halfway across.
posted by spitbull at 12:19 PM on January 9, 2011 [13 favorites]

Goddammit, I thought you were all talking about Randy Rhodes and I thought "How the fuck did I miss a zombie metal guitarist hosting a liberal talk-radio show?" but then I read more closely.
posted by ob at 12:21 PM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

I think she actually took her stage name from Ozzy's guitarist, in fact.
posted by spitbull at 12:23 PM on January 9, 2011

METAFILTER: but then I read more closely.
posted by philip-random at 12:24 PM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

I suppose the practical thinking here is that, hey, that schizophrenic loon will inevitably kill someone, let's put him to political use by encouraging him to target Giffords.

There is a brilliant, sociopathic mind behind the use of popularist violence rhetoric.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:25 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Anyway, it's clear to me that the political rhetoric in this country has gone way too far. I thought what the sheriff said last night was right on the money. Who knows what this guy's motivations were at this stage, but the fact remains that everyone needs to take a couple of deep breaths and think about the consequences of our words.
posted by ob at 12:25 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think she actually took her stage name from Ozzy's guitarist, in fact.

I just looked that up and you're right. How odd.
posted by ob at 12:28 PM on January 9, 2011

Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Funerals Of Arizona Shooting Victims

Well thank God, finally, someone rational is weighing in with their opinions.
posted by fleetmouse at 12:28 PM on January 9, 2011 [14 favorites]

And the fringe media comparable with Malloy or Rhodes but on the right is vast. Have you ever driven across the US listening to AM radio? You'd think we were under occupation by the Jewish liberal United Nations Zionist Occupation Paper Money One World Black Helicopter Government by the time you get halfway across.

This is why I call people who think liek this the right's new base. It's not fringe at all, in the sense of being rare. Measured by numbers, it's mainstream.
posted by fleetmouse at 12:35 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

snofoam: I'm just saying that bringing an unloaded rifle to an event with no intention of using it is, technically, a symbolic act. I agree that it is also a threat and the person carrying it is probably a total nut-job.

I disagree. I don't think the people who brought their guns to the town-hall meetings were nut-jobs. I think they were genuinely frightened and angry that a black man was going to take their hard-earned wages in order to kill their grandparents, because that is the rhetoric they had been soaking in.

And, symbolic or not, they brought their guns, loaded or unloaded, to meetings about health-care reform. Not gun rights--health-care reform. Those aren't crazy people; those are people driven by a rhetoric intended to ignite the culture of violence that was just waiting for a common target.
posted by tzikeh at 12:36 PM on January 9, 2011 [19 favorites]

I don't understand subscribing to a YouTube channel that's almost definitely going to be defunct. Especially when it's the channel of the person who shot you. That's just odd.

Because if a new video *was* posted, you'd want to know.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:39 PM on January 9, 2011

I hope fox, etc, isn't now going to claim that tv and radio don't influence behavior, when their business depends on selling that influence

The masters of cognitive dissonance have no problem with the time tested technique of "It works both ways depending on what is more convenient at the moment!".

Ultimately, though, the problem when it comes to media influence discussions is that it easily falls into the false binary that either media controls everyone's mind (it doesn't) or that it doesn't have an influence at all (billions of dollars in advertising say otherwise).

The real point of discussion, is as always, what is the overall atmosphere being created? Where's the Overton window of acceptability lay?

No one is afraid the Timecube site will force people to give up school for 4 sided stupidity wisdom, at the same point, we have something like 30% of Americans still believing Obama is Muslim? That kind of shit didn't build itself, it was worked over repeatedly with Glenn Beck "How often do you beat your wife?" games and dogwhistles to racism and violence.

But they'll do the usual thing they always do- cry about liberal bias and how everyone is trying to silence them and it's all part of the giant socialist/fascist/muslim plot to destroy America, and, presumably, cough up a distraction issue to change the topic("Hey, are we talking about Immigration or Abortion this season? We can't use Gay Marriage anymore, it's turned sour on us!").
posted by yeloson at 12:43 PM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

It's all part of the same game - you'd better take a look and make sure your own hands are spotlessly clean before you start accusing everyone you don't like of having blood on theirs.

Nuh-uh. We aren't talking about Beck, et al. We are talking about actual candidates for public office not radio talkers. Sarah Palin is a former governor who ran for the Vice-Presidency of the United States. The Virginia candidate for congress who said his followers needed to win at the ballot box so they wouldn't need to use the "bullet box." Or the Republican candidate for US House who discussed "second-amendment solutions."

These words incite violence and disrespect for the constitutional govenment of the US. And they show a fundamental disrespect for democracy--the idea that youy must respect the results of elections, rather than initiate armed struggle when one loses a popular election. These words are sedition and treason, nothing more, nothing less.

And those who say those words must be turned out of office via the democratic process. Voters must be encouraged to vote against people who specifically place targets on congressional districts or advocate the violent overthrow of the government.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:44 PM on January 9, 2011 [33 favorites]

The SPLC is saying Loughner could be a follower of this guy (previously)
posted by desjardins at 12:44 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

NPR have offered a formal retraction and apology for the enormous number of factual errors made while reporting the story as it broke yesterday.

As far as I know, no other news outlet has offered a similar apology.
posted by schmod at 12:53 PM on January 9, 2011 [11 favorites]

The SPLC is saying Loughner could be a follower of this guy (previously)

From the story:

“I have nothing to do with anything like that,” Miller said, suggesting that Loughner might have been under the influence of government mind control.
posted by EarBucket at 12:56 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I guess Loughner isn't one of his billion students, then.
posted by desjardins at 12:58 PM on January 9, 2011

Good for NPR. I was a little surprised at CNN (one of two main broadcast sources we were watching) announcing the death of Congresswoman Giffords while the story was still unfolding. I'm sure they were having editorial meetings as it went along, but MSNBC was on the phone with a spokesperson for the medical center saying, yes, she's alive. I can't imagine why they would rely on the spokesperson for the Pima County Sheriff's office in that instance.
posted by fixedgear at 1:01 PM on January 9, 2011

"Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was in critical condition Sunday as investigators filed five charges against the man suspected in the shooting rampage that killed six and injured 14.
Jared Loughner is charged with one count of attempted assassination of member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to killing a federal employee."*

posted by ericb at 1:04 PM on January 9, 2011

Arizona Conservatives Criticize Sheriff For Post-Shooting Comments.
posted by ericb at 1:06 PM on January 9, 2011

Hm. "Advocating the violent overthrow of the government" sounds like a key phrase somewhere...

Oh yeah. It's grounds for losing your security clearance. Now I'm curious (purely hypothetically, and no hamburger), maybe Ironmouth could comment:

I understand elected officials like the President and senators automatically get their clearance by virtue of being elected by the American people, no SSBI (I could be wrong about that, though.)

Could an elected official lose that clearance or have it suspended? What would happen then?
posted by ctmf at 1:06 PM on January 9, 2011

Randi Rhodes was a rock DJ in Florida before become a political talker. She's also an Air Force vet, which is a lot more than most right-wing shock jocks can claim. And she's generally a fairly sharp analyst of the political scene, with a coarse wit that can be funny when it isn't over the top and a Queens accent to beat the Yankees.

She became prominent in the 90s because she routinely beat Limbaugh in the local ratings chase in his home town radio market of West Palm Beach. She did it by inverting his own schtick, too -- over the top, humor-for-deniability, bending calls to her own purposes, and yes, often demonizing the opposition, although not in the same egregious ways Limbaugh does (overt racist caricatures and mocking disabilities being two of his primary tropes she's avoided). But she can make the Nazi analogies with the best of them, and deploys a persistent metaphor (as does Mike Malloy) of the right wing (or the Republican party) being an overt criminal conspiracy. She went on to do the same bit on Air America, which was a disaster for all involved except, ironically, Rachel Maddow. She's now back to the small-time trenches of internet broadcasting, satellite syndication, and a national network of about a dozen small AM stations nationally that carry progressive programming in between PSAs where the commercials are supposed to be.

As someone on her side of things, I get the visceral appeal of her rough stuff, which makes me understand how Rush Limbaugh works his trade. It makes me punch the steering wheel and say "right on" too. But for every me doing that once every few months or so, there are hundreds or thousands of people out there doing the same thing once an hour on cue when fed the same violent red meat imagery by Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin or much worse by Michael Savage or J.D. Hayworth or Gordon Liddy or Alex Jones. And the imagery is much worse: the left is not just a criminal conspiracy in this discourse. It's an evil, malevolent, alien force, like the yuppie alien monsters in John Carpenter's *They Live.* It's a freedom-hating, God-despising, Muslim-loving, Jewish/Black/Latino/Freemason/UN conspiracy to rule the world and enslave white people by taking away their guns and letting their children marry whomever they want to marry. It's a Jackbooted Thug from the Federal Government wearing a Blue Helmet and landing in a Black Helicopter under UN command. It requires storing gold and rations, stockpiling ammunition, speaking in dogwhistle code so they can't understand you, and attending rallies with a glock strapped to the outside of your pants or an AR15 in your arms. Its heroes are fantasy figures like Jack Bauer, its villains cartoonized characters like Osama Bin Laden and Nancy Pelosi and George Soros and the Dixie Chicks.
posted by spitbull at 1:08 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

"Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was in critical condition Sunday as investigators filed five charges against the man suspected in the shooting rampage that killed six and injured 14.
Jared Loughner is charged with one count of attempted assassination of member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to killing a federal employee."

Is he not being charged for the other people who were murdered and injured? Or would those charges come out later as state crimes rather than federal crimes?
posted by Flunkie at 1:11 PM on January 9, 2011

Jared Loughner is charged with one count of attempted assassination of member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to killing a federal employee

How about uh, one count of killing a nine year old girl? Seems about the worst of it, to me.
posted by iotic at 1:14 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

From the article ericb just linked to:

Investigators said they carried out a search warrant at the suspect's home and seized an envelope from a safe with messages such as "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and the name "Giffords" next to what appears to be the man's signature.

posted by Flunkie at 1:15 PM on January 9, 2011

All of these "liberals did it too" posts are missing the point. There is a reason that we all went to Ms. Palin first -- she was the biggest and the loudest and the one with the most political power to say such a thing. Then, after her, there is a scrum with Sharon Angle and many conservative talkers.

Yes, with 24 hours of searching, there were obscure liberal counterparts. Good job. Those aren't ok either.

But if we really are going to compare apples to apples, if we really are going to keep score, then lets count the political power of the people who said and did such things. Republican/Tea Party a ton, Democrats not so much.
posted by andreaazure at 1:16 PM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

Sen. Lamar Alexander Refuses To Condemn Palin’s Cross-Hairs Map, Urges Media Not To Talk About It.
posted by ericb at 1:16 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I believe that because the 9-year-old is not a federal employee, her death is a state crime and not a federal one.

(I am not a lawyer.)
posted by andreaazure at 1:17 PM on January 9, 2011

Could an elected official lose that clearance or have it suspended? What would happen then?

An elected official who's screwed up badly enough to lose his or her security clearance isn't going to have to worry about being in office much longer. If they haven't been forced to resign yet, impeachment proceedings will almost certainly have begun, not to mention criminal charges. It's not going to happen over disgusting campaign rhetoric, though.
posted by EarBucket at 1:32 PM on January 9, 2011

Right-Wingers Rush to Label Arizona Shooting Suspect a Liberal — While Simultaneously Accusing Left of “Politicizing” Assassination Attempt.
posted by ericb at 1:34 PM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

If Loughner actually is a follower of David Wynn Miller, warbaby's comment in that previous metafilter thread is chillingly prescient.
posted by stagewhisper at 1:36 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

Sen. Lamar Alexander Refuses To Condemn Palin’s Cross-Hairs Map, Urges Media Not To Talk About It.

Ridiculous and expected. Maybe I just have little faith in some people, but I expected them to do things like this. I expected ridiculous comments like the ones at the coffee house like "she deserved it, all liberals have it coming".

These things are horrible. It sucks to realize the depth of people's hatred at the same time you're seeing the wonderful actions of those who save lives and care about others.

I think when people forget events like this, when they believe Fox news at its word, when they are a sucker for obvious lies and misdirection that most of us here are lucky enough and privileged enough to see, it is because many cannot fathom (as I once couldn't) the evil possible in their friends, their neighbors, their coworkers.

So I hope more people share stories, good and bad. Most people seem to realize the heights to which people can scale in doing wonderful and good things. But I think it will help if people hear about the horrible things people say. Because so many people's baseline estimation of their fellow human is "well they're basically good". So when they see the Fox news stories, they figure there has to be some kind of reason behind it - it can't be that they are hateful and greedy jerks.
posted by cashman at 1:41 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fascinating internal DHS memo from Fox News, of all places:

I hope you'll understand that I'll take that with a grain of salt, even if it said "Liberls R Grat! Gooo Obamama!" Fox News' problems go beyond partisanship.
posted by JHarris at 1:41 PM on January 9, 2011

Right-Wingers Rush to Label Arizona Shooting Suspect a Liberal — While Simultaneously Accusing Left of “Politicizing” Assassination Attempt.

Oh great, I have to go in to work in twenty minutes, but cartoon steam is shooting out of my ears!
posted by JHarris at 1:42 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I have spoken out when rappers have been openly homophobic, especially those who have advocated violence against gays and lesbians.

I don't know that rap is a great parallel, but it certainly gets criticized for its sometimes inflammatory message. Just look at reactions to "Cop Killer."

Is inflammatory rhetoric to blame for something like this? I don't know. But, as with the infrequent rap song that sends a message that seems to advocate hatred or violence, it sure doesn't help, and we should feel comfortable saying so.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:43 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said his state has "become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." As a consequence of speaking out, Dupnik is now coming under attack, with a talk radio host even calling for his resignation.

So free speech isn't a right wing value now? I'm confused.
posted by binturong at 1:43 PM on January 9, 2011 [12 favorites]

That warbaby comment is amazing.
posted by painquale at 1:45 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

the chilling bit from warbaby's comment

The crazies like Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph don't have any investment in electoral politics, but they are activated by political agitation and take the hot air coming from the far right as encouragement and approval for their own extremism.

It could - theoretically - be possible to short circuit the next spasm of right-wing violence, but it would require a vocal and public campaign to clearly and forthrightly withdraw any impression of public support for extremist violence. Given the bloviators on Fox and the various local radio hate-talkers, this is a pretty faint hope. Instead, as nucleophilicAttack recently noted over on MeCha, the exact opposite seems to be taking place, as symbolic violence and its apologists seem to be on the upswing.
posted by The Whelk at 1:45 PM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Lamar Alexander is a disgrace to Tennessee.
posted by vibrotronica at 1:46 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

So free speech isn't a right wing value now?

No, its still valuable.

That's why "Free Speechers" get their own Free Speech Zones from within the Free Speech Cages at Republican events.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:47 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Jesus the prescience in that warbaby comment is frightening.
posted by PenDevil at 1:51 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Back to my earlier comment about Reagan. Turns out he was on the frontier of mental health service cost-slashing back in 1967, when he first took office as governor of California. Here's a letter he wrote shortly after his inauguration to a couple of supporters:

I'm here in the house for a hot twenty minutes and then on my way to a meeting and back to Sacramento by way of San Francisco. But there was time to read your letter and get this quick note off. ....

You mentioned the mental health ruckus. It's just part of the general rebellion stirred up by some of the die-hards who resist and reduction in the size of government. Some years ago California started on a new concept of mental health care that has put us pretty much up front in that field. The old-fashioned concept was literally warehousing mental patients -- putting them in mental institutions and leaving them there for life. Out here we are curing the curables and thanks to the new tranquilizer drugs doing a good job of getting our patients back into a normal life.

We have a number of local care centers and the released patients continue getting care and treatment while they go about their daily lives. These local centers are run by the counties with the state putting up most of the money. Incidentally we've added $6 million to the budget for these local centers this year. Naturally this has had an effect on the hospitals. In 1960 we had a patient population of 36,000. This year, thanks to our new concept it is down to 23,000. In the meantime though because government just does grow we increased hospital employees by 1,000. All we are doing is reducing employees this year to maintain the present ratio of 2 2/3 patients to 1 employee. Some of the head-shrinkers are upset because they'd like private rooms for each patient with the round-the-clock private nurses. That's about all there is to it which proves how easy it is to get a scream of pain when someone's pet program is stepped on.

Must run now ....

Best Regards,
Ron

posted by blucevalo at 1:52 PM on January 9, 2011

"resist and reduction" = "resist any reduction"
posted by blucevalo at 1:53 PM on January 9, 2011

warbaby's comment in that previous metafilter thread is chillingly prescient.
posted by stagewhisper

Damn, that is an amazing comment by warbaby, chilling. Worth reading for a detailed history of white supremacist conspiracy theorizing and associated violence over the past few decades, whether or not this shooting has any connections thereto.
posted by spitbull at 1:53 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Two things:

1) Yes, I do think that Sarah Palin doesn't have a problem with people she doesn't like being murdered. A very strong element of authoritarianism surfaced among the Tea Party's preferred candidates during the 2010 election season (Joe Miller's rent-a-thugs and praise of East Germany's border control policies, some congressional candidate saying that if the election didn't go the Tea Party's way, it would be time for violent revolution, the calls to murder Julian Assange, etc.).

Palin's a bad liar. She's very much the high school mean girl who, after being called out for tormenting some poor fellow student, makes up a lie that isn't even meant to be convincing. There is NO FUCKING WAY those bullseyes on her map were "surveyor's marks" - especially since, according to Politico, Palin actually CALLED them bullseyes (gotta love the Internet sometimes). It's an absolutely pathetic lie that is itself a dog whistle to teabaggers across America saying "sorry about that, wink wink" - it's a "Who, me?" worthy of Alfred E. Newman. She knew exactly what her people were posting and what she said around the country. She knew. She knows.

2) Chris Hedges' recent book "The Death of the Liberal Class" starts out with a compelling mini-biography of a young Iraq war vet teabagger on a lonely campaign to unseat a New York congressperson he considered unfaithful to the Constitution. The young teabagger's ideology wasn't straight-down-the-line Limbaugh/Beck/Hannity - it included a lot of left-wing Chomsky-sounding observations on structural unemployment, the American Empire and the decay of New York state outside of Manhattan. Most of all, he described a crushing feeling of betrayal - that the American Dream no longer exists. But he definitely sited himself in the teabagger area of American politics.

The point is, just because the guy posted on his MySpace page that he read the Communist Manifesto, it doesn't somehow mean that he couldn't have been influenced by the teabagger's calls for violence. Left and right aren't as easily separable as some would like - and there's a whole lot of society's losers who are eventually going to stop blaming themselves for not going all Horatio Alger and pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Palin and the rest of the Tea Party's media champions have absolutely no idea what kinds of forces they're playing with.
posted by jhandey at 2:13 PM on January 9, 2011 [12 favorites]

This quote from Matt Bai's NYT article on the shooting really upset me:

Popular spokespeople like Ms. Palin routinely drop words like 'tyranny' and 'socialism' when describing the president and his allies, as if blind to the idea that Americans legitimately faced with either enemy would almost certainly take up arms.

So "socialism" is an "enemy" that would legitimize taking up arms? How much socialism, Matt? Is Social Security enough, or do you have to have Medicare, too? How about a national health service? Would that be? UK would like to know.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:15 PM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

Back to my earlier comment about Reagan. Turns out he was on the frontier of mental health service cost-slashing back in 1967, when he first took off

In all fairness, back in those days mentally ill people WERE warehoused, many times totally involutarily. Totally crapitude, in a different way. And if you think people are unenlightened NOW about the mentally ill and how to treat them.....

I will say I always am disgusted about how, in the name of improving care, budgets are and continue to be gutted when it comes to the treatment of people suffering mentally. If we were talking about cancer or heart disease, people would be rioting in the streets about it.

Meanwhile if anything good can come out of yesterday's tragedy it would indeed be for people to watch their mouths and their rhetoric. To quote, (ironically considering the source)..."Words mean things."
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 2:15 PM on January 9, 2011

I've been searching my mind trying to remember some snippet from an expert on extremist Right wing violence and his or her forecast for when it would begin to manifest itself and something is ringing a bell about it's expected rise would be either right after the midterms or at the beginning of the new year or somesuch, does anyone know what that might've been??

The closest thing I could find was this amazing timeline on the rise of right wing violence vis a vis the violent right-wing rhetoric.

And yet the Right is doubling down, and refusing to defuse the situation with unequivocal condemnation of yesterday's tragedy.

Suddenly Dupnik is enemy #1 with Sen Kyl and Tea Party leader Judson coming down on him. Hard.

It is stunning the inability to give one inch by sounding lilke human beings. Is this a war? Do they think that if they acknowledge any others in the political spectrum as human they're retreating and their whole shithouse will fall down in flames?
posted by Skygazer at 2:21 PM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

David Frum wonders if it's all pot's fault.
posted by crunchland at 2:21 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I know Lamar Alexander is not everyone's representative here.

However, we all DO have representatives. And I urge each and every one of you to call each and every one of THEM, to urge them to publically speak out against what Lamar Alexander just said.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:22 PM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Do they think that if they acknowledge any others in the political spectrum as human they're retreating

I don't know. But it would explain why they're reloading.
posted by Flunkie at 2:23 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

The "person of interest" has been identified as Loughner's cab driver.
posted by Skygazer at 2:23 PM on January 9, 2011

Oh, and the person of interest has been cleared... he was apparently just a taxi driver who went into the store with the gunman because he needed change for his fare.
posted by crunchland at 2:24 PM on January 9, 2011

Perhaps the Secret Service would like to brief Senator Kyl on their work with assassins. That's a service they offer. It'd be for his own good, even-- he could increase his protective detail's readiness and stop sounding like an uneducated boor before the press corps.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 2:27 PM on January 9, 2011

Wow. I didn't want to add my reply until I read every comment in the thread, since there's a lot of retractions and duplications going on here (and understandably so). I gotta say, though that zooropa's comment should be called out.

That's the first step to ending this madness. We need to call out fellow citizens when they engage in this hateful rhetoric. It needs to start at the ground level. Yeah, I want Palin to tone down the bullshit, yeah, I don't think Randy Rhodes should engage in that either when she has the ears of thousands of listeners. But they're not going to change a damn thing until we stop tolerating this.

So cheers to you, zooropa, for taking a step in the right direction. If you're ever in central Texas, I want to buy you a round.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 2:32 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Palin and the rest of the Tea Party's media champions have absolutely no idea what kinds of forces they're playing with.

I believe they understand exactly what kind of forces they are playing with.

Toothless.

And for their actions to be profitable only a small %age of the population needs to send 'em cash. So long as its toothless VS the %age who sends you money....guess to whom the pandering will be to?

Show you are not toothless. Start going after the bank accounts of the people who fund 'em. Stop buying the products they sell. If you want to be aggressive, start thinking of lawsuits of the public and private firms involved with the cashflow.

(For fun - rumors have it that a %age of the gold being sold is fake gold. Thus - buy gold from goldine, find the fake stuff and sue Mr. Beck's sponsor as an example.)
posted by rough ashlar at 2:34 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

The man who shot Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords apparently did try to "RELOAD". A woman, not yet publically named, interrupted the reload attempt just enough to almost-certainly save lives.
posted by andreaazure at 2:35 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

David Frum wonders if it's all pot's fault.

Hmmm...I, too, am going to take a page straight out of my ass, and write a long involved article I will submit to a website (perhaps TPM or Crooks and Liars) speculating on whether yesterday's tragedy is doe to... oh...I don't know: My left testicle perhaps or maybe sub-atomic microwaves from outer space, or the burrito I ate for dinner last night, or or or... my annoying alarm clock... my cable company... Inability to stop going over to right-wing blogs to argue with total fucking idiots...
posted by Skygazer at 2:36 PM on January 9, 2011

does anyone know if she is right-handed or left-handed?
posted by Wilder
I think right-handed judging by the Glock (ejection port on the right of the weapon). It is assumption that this was the weapon depicted in the school book picture. Anyone notice which president the muzzle pointed too? Also, his stance suggests a right-handed person though he may have ambidextrous traits.
posted by clavdivs at 2:38 PM on January 9, 2011

Sen. Lamar Alexander Refuses To Condemn Palin’s Cross-Hairs Map, Urges Media Not To Talk About It.

Listen, don't mention the map! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 2:39 PM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

clavdivs, I think Wilder was asking if Giffords was right- or left-handed since she was shot in the left side of the brain. The shooter, of course, is male.
posted by desjardins at 2:45 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

The text of USA v. Loughner on Scribd
posted by desjardins at 2:48 PM on January 9, 2011

According to the affidavit, apparently there is surveillance video of the shooting. I'm surprised that hasn't been leaked yet.
posted by desjardins at 2:50 PM on January 9, 2011

Also of interest in the affidavit - Loughner scrawled "I planned ahead" and "assassination" on a letter from Giffords dated August 2007 - well before the Palin "surveyor's marks" map came out.
posted by desjardins at 2:53 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

In line with what zooropa is talking about, from now on, everytime a relative forwards me a bullshit right-wing emai, I'm going to reply all and call out the bullshit (with love) to everyone on the list. No more ignoring it or asking them (privately) not to send me stuff like that.
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:53 PM on January 9, 2011 [17 favorites]

I understand elected officials like the President and senators automatically get their clearance by virtue of being elected by the American people, no SSBI (I could be wrong about that, though.)

NATIONAL SECURITY DIRECTIVE 63
posted by clavdivs at 2:55 PM on January 9, 2011

From Warbaby's incredible mefi comment from Aug. 1, 2010 (and the answer to my question above):

The current cycle will likely peak next spring. The usual pattern is for the Patriots to ride on the energy of electoral cycles and then the more violent ones will have a temper tantrum (usually in the form of mass killings) in the spring after the federal elections. You may recall the last cycle turned violent in 1995, six months after the right-wing frenzy gained the Republicans control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Depression. The crazies like Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph don't have any investment in electoral politics, but they are activated by political agitation and take the hot air coming from the far right as encouragement and approval for their own extremism.

posted by Skygazer at 2:57 PM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

Some members of my extended family are now living in and near Tucson. During the elections, they actually got into "If we elect Obama all us women will have to wear burquas because he's really a Muslim" kind of talk.

...I have yet to send them their Christmas presents. I still need to pack them up. It's going to be so strange wondering what to write in the cards.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:58 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

bonobothegreat - I've done that, and frequently get private emails from people on the CC list that thank me for speaking out. They didn't want to receive that crap either, but didn't want to say anything.
posted by desjardins at 2:58 PM on January 9, 2011

ah, she is right-handed.
posted by clavdivs at 3:02 PM on January 9, 2011

honest error. My conclusion is based on this picture
posted by clavdivs at 3:07 PM on January 9, 2011

In line with what zooropa is talking about, from now on, everytime a relative forwards me a bullshit right-wing emai, I'm going to reply all and call out the bullshit (with love) to everyone on the list. No more ignoring it or asking them (privately) not to send me stuff like that.

I like this idea, but is this the best way to handle it? Remember this article about how disputing things often leads to people digging in even deeper?

"Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger."

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”

If people get bombarded by things that prey on their insecurities, or call out to people's acceptance of the overall bs narrative that has long existed in this country (It's amazing to see people with "native [state]" bumper stickers), one lousy person rejecting it isn't going to do anything long-lasting. No, these people in power, these broadcast networks, these constant shit stirrers have to be focused upon, I think.
posted by cashman at 3:07 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

...I have yet to send them their Christmas presents. I still need to pack them up.

And you're sending them burquas, right?
posted by cashman at 3:11 PM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

Actually, the best strategy is not to respond with a bunch of "facts" that set out to "disprove" the other person, but rather to present your own wholly consistent but divergent perspective on the issue. If someone writes a mass email about illegal immigrants, for example, don't set out to prove that the other person is wrong. Write about how great illegal immigrants are, what they contribute, what laws you support and why, and then mention the $50 you gave to some local organization to help local immigrant families in need. This has the added benefit of not only driving some people absolutely batshit mad, it actually, on occasion, presents an alternate reality to people who end up being willing to hear it and change their mind.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 3:12 PM on January 9, 2011 [27 favorites]

I'm still in disbelief. I'm absolutely stunned that political operatives are standing by the memorials/where people are leaving flowers and notes and what not, and removing anything that that references the right wing in a less than salutary manner.

Nice. Very nice. Glad to see the right still believes in the freedom of speech...unless someone wants to say something about them. Removing stuff from a memorial...just when I thought political operatives could not get any lower. Jesus.

My sympathies to the families of the murdered. I sincerely hope that Congresswoman Giffords pulls through and can return to her seat. I weep for our nation, where pedagogues are going to keep ratcheting up the rhetoric until we have a revolution.
posted by dejah420 at 3:14 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

(Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates, my mother has taken that tack with her parents, and it's made a difference. They're all "Mexicans are blah blah blah" and my mother takes an incredulous tone and says "Really? I work with a woman from Mexico and she is really nice/classy/educated/hardworking/fluent in English/etc" There's not much of a comeback to that.
posted by desjardins at 3:16 PM on January 9, 2011

George Packer in the New Yorker:

"[F]or the past two years, many conservative leaders, activists, and media figures have made a habit of trying to delegitimize their political opponents. Not just arguing against their opponents, but doing everything possible to turn them into enemies of the country and cast them out beyond the pale. Instead of “soft on defense,” one routinely hears the words “treason” and “traitor.” The President isn't a big-government liberal—he's a socialist who wants to impose tyranny.

Full text
posted by AwkwardPause at 3:17 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I should say that her parents have actually stopped talking about Mexicans to my mother, now that they know they're directly insulting a personal friend of hers.
posted by desjardins at 3:18 PM on January 9, 2011

Protection of Classified Information by Congress: Practices and Proposals.

"This would mark a significant departure from the past. Members of Congress (as with the
President and Vice President, Justices of the Supreme Court, or other federal court judges) have
never been required to hold security clearances."
posted by clavdivs at 3:25 PM on January 9, 2011

The guy who rushed to Giffords' help as soon as she'd been shot (and probably saved her life) was a 20-year old intern who had only been on the job for 5 days.

_{He's also gay, which the media seem to be making a huge fuss over. Try to ignore that part. It's irrelevant.}
posted by schmod at 3:28 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

So "socialism" is an "enemy" that would legitimize taking up arms?

Er, yes? The "American" concept of "socialism" is fascism. And that is well worth taking up arms. The American concept of "left" is unusually far right.

For a lot of the first world, the US panic over what they call "socialism" is what the rest of us call "civilized society".

We're all in this together.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:30 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

that person deserves a medal.
posted by clavdivs at 3:31 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I weep for our nation, where pedagogues are going to keep ratcheting up the rhetoric

Heh, I think you mean "demagogues" (people who use overheated rhetoric for political gain) - not "pedagogues" (teachers). /pedantry
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:33 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

And now the obligatory:

Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Funerals Of Arizona Shooting Victims

These people are broken, but I find that I can't even get angry at them anymore. I just feel pity for them. Because they've driven themselves to this break, and revel in it. I feel sorry for them

I think I need to keep this trend up. Not hate these people and the people like them, not get angry at them, but pity them. Because they don't deserve hate, and they don't deserve despite, they deserve pity for their lack of empathy and their refusal to feel love, and that's so much worse than anything I can feel about them.
posted by mephron at 3:33 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

If you read the full article linked in the Frum post, it does not say what he seems to think it does. I know because I wrote it.
posted by Maias at 3:35 PM on January 9, 2011 [39 favorites]

The saving grace of the Westboro Baptist protest is that nine times out of ten they never actually show up at the things they say they're going to these days anyway. They just issue a press release where they claim they're going to, the public goes nuts, and they get all the publicity without having to leave the house.

But if they do show up, and there isn't a counter-protest waiting, I'm finally going to start hating humanity.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:37 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

How about uh, one count of killing a nine year old girl? Seems about the worst of it, to me.

Interesting to note the Timothy McVeigh was only convicted for killing Federal officers after the Oklahoma city bombings, not the other people in the building (notably kids in a daycare, if I remember correctly).

Sounds like prosecutors are going to take the same tact here. Not a lawyer, but I think they do it because the federal laws are easier to prosecute, plus the feds don't want to leave the case in the hands of a state AG.
posted by auto-correct at 3:40 PM on January 9, 2011

1) RIP Christina Green. Dead young girls are a sign that this country may not be The Greatest Country in The History of the World your children were led to believe.

2) I remember a lot of weird counterculture stuff on my BBSes and Usenet and wherever in the early 90's, including mind control stuff. I never understood the obsession or the placement.
posted by lslelel at 3:41 PM on January 9, 2011

The People of the Other Village

hate the people of this village
and would nail our hats
to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them
or staple our hands to our foreheads
for refusing to salute them
if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,
mix their flour at night with broken glass.
We do this, they do that.
They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.
We devein one of their sisters.
The quicksand pits they built were good.
Our amputation teams were better.
We trained some birds to steal their wheat.
They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.
They do this, we do that.
We canceled our sheep imports.
They no longer bought our blankets.
We mocked their greatest poet
and when that had no effect
we parodied the way they dance
which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God
was leprous, hairless.
We do this, they do that.
Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.
posted by ronv at 3:44 PM on January 9, 2011 [16 favorites]

ronv: That's a great poem. Reminds me a lot of this George Saunders short story.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 3:47 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I took a CPR class once, and it only taught me CPR... how does one put pressure on a gunshot wound to help someone like the way the intern did, for future reference?
posted by every_one_needs_a_hug_sometimes at 3:48 PM on January 9, 2011

And, for a bit of context from Thomas Lux on "The People of the Other Village," a performance/reading from 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIr1e5UMc9g.
posted by ronv at 3:50 PM on January 9, 2011

David Frum wonders if it's all pot's fault.

I've smoked pot. I've smoked a fair bit of pot. For a while, I smoked pot every night. Somehow, it failed every single time to make me shoot a member of Congress in the head.
posted by EarBucket at 3:58 PM on January 9, 2011 [16 favorites]

Rep. Robert Brady of Pennsylvania plans to introduce a bill to ban threatening or inciting political symbols such as the cross-hair map.
posted by xowie at 4:00 PM on January 9, 2011

I've stayed out of this discussion and kept my irrational ranting to twitter (it makes me keep it brief), but I fear that yesterday was a turning point for America, in a really bad way. So I am going to make this one, long, multi-point comment and TRY to shut up afterwards (except to curse the inevitable trolls who misrepresent me).

I've been (mostly privately) predicting that the violent rhetoric of the Right Wing (which has been more frequent, from more 'respectable sources' and more effectively amplified and legitimized than Left Wing violent rhetoric EVER was, and I grew up in a Republican household in California in the 60s) will trigger a wave of political violence. I suspect that yesterday was the first event of an All-Out War to Destroy Modern America, and, even if not as apocalyptic as I fear, it will be far from an 'isolated incident'. Continuing the American Revolution analogy started by "The Tea Party", this was the new "shot heard round the world".

Many more crazies will come out of the shadows, encouraged by the politicians and the press handle them (like they are handling Loughner now). And other motivating factors like the inevitable betrayal of Tea Party 'principles' by the GOP who used them to win elections, and an inevitable crash in the price of gold (making some people's gun stash more valuable than their gold stash), will trigger violence from those who are more "mad as in angry" than "mad as in crazy".

It must be noted that after the November elections @SarahPalinUSA tweeted "Remember months ago "bullseye" icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin' incumbent seats? We won 18 out of 20 (90% success rate;T'aint bad)" (NONE of her gun-related tweets have been deleted). Loughner's actions have made it 19 out of 20, 95% (for many reasons, her district is absolutely lost to the Democrats without her). If I were whoever #20 is, I'd be in hiding right now. What matters most right now is not who 'inspired' this terrible tragedy, but who benefits from it, and it is an undeniable windfall for the Right Wing. Of course, if this costs Sarah Palin her political future, no one will be happier than the Corporatists/Plutocrats who have used her and her ilk to gain (more) power.

Christina Green may be the most important victim in all of this, being one young person on a 'life arc' that could have led her to become an influential Annti-Palin, a success through excellence. And thousands of others like her now will be afraid to step forward and thousands more of parents of young people like her will be afraid to let them.

One person who has obviously committed career suicide is Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, by simply telling the truth. It shouldn't be true, but when you're in a toxic environment, it's dangerous to publicly call it toxic. On the other hand, I feel strongly that if the 1st Amendment doesn't give you the right to yell FIRE in a crowded theater neither does it gives you the right to yell FIRE to a man with a gun. If the 2nd Amerndment doesn't give you the right to shoot people, neither does the 1st Amendment give you the right to tell somebody to shoot people, even 'rhetorically'. It's an evil way to communicate, and I've probably been guilty of it more times than Randi Rhodes, but less times than Sarah Palin before I saw the error of my ways.

The movement to elevate Hate Speech to Protected Speech has been far too effective. A previous commenter who I otherwise disagree with asked "And if media has such an influential aspect - why aren't you blaming every rapper for black on black violence?" Well, I for one DO give it a lot of blame (but not all), and anyone who doesn't include it in the Hate Speech category is just being condescendingly racist. But I digress.

As far as "taking up arms" is concerned, I have come to the conclusion that "Watering the Tree of Liberty with Blood" will kill the tree and make strangling vines grow in its place. I've said here before that I will NEVER acquire a gun unless I specifically intend to murder someone with it; it's not an adequately effective tool for ANY OTHER PURPOSE. But if I ever do, I'm getting the gun Loughner used. But strategically for a good cause? As long as there is hope, there will be better ways. "When they came for those other people, I responded with a gun, so they came after me much sooner."

I also unequivocally oppose the death penalty for Loughner (as I opposed it for McVeigh). A far worse punishment for their ilk would be to live a long life in a society that represents everything they hate, with no power to ever do anything ever again. (Which I also consider a pretty good punishment for Hate Speechers)

One more immoderate tweet-sized statement I want to make: it may be that the only reason Rep. Giffords has survived (so far) while many other victims haven't is because she has Federal Health Care coverage.

Meanwhile, it appears ALL 637,000 @wikileaks followers on Twitter are covered under the US government Twitter subpoena (section 2B) I feel honored to be in such company, and if the Feds get all my old Tweets that I can't access anymore, I hope I can get a copy. And if their investigation reaches to my MetaFilter history (which would probably require hiring more people than the Census did last year), HI GUYS! Hope your brains don't explode when you see I support Wikileaks but oppose terrorism and "1st Amendment Absolutism".
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:01 PM on January 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

Do they think that if they acknowledge any others in the political spectrum as human they're retreating?
There's a reason why non-governing representatives in British-style parliamentary systems are called "the loyal opposition." Right wingers need to distinguish between the meaning of "opponents" and "enemies."
posted by binturong at 4:01 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

jhandey: Palin and the rest of the Tea Party's media champions have absolutely no idea what kinds of forces they're playing with.

This is exactly right. They lack the insight, historical knowledge, intellectual curiosity and sensitivity or compassion to even realize what they're doing. All they see is American exceptionalism. Some vague notion of deluded corrupted Americanism that is myth and fiction and pure Hollywood cowboys and Indians movie stuff. All they see is the thrill of the political power, the encouragement and adoration of fools and the money, the fame that come to them through the twisting of fear, desperation and ignorance for their own self-serving ends.

Furthermore, and even more misguidedly, those characteristics above are suspect. Attributed to weakness, the calling cards of "Liberal" or "Progressive" ideals, which, of course (how can it not be true when Fox screams it day and night) is actually "Socialism," seeking to tax and literally cripple the nation in the eyes of the world and give it to immigrants, at the cost of betraying (and taxing) "true Americans." And forever destroying the American Dream.

It is a sad. self-feeding downward spiral of toxicity that causes the weakest minded and most emotionally fragile to to feel trapped and doomed, and helpless. And it leads straight to death and massacre. In places like Tuscon, ground zero for the extreme right and where most effectively, (outside of Kentucky), rich fertile ground has been struck by the TP movement (a movement, as Warbaby, outlined in his comment from Aug. 1st, the regular members of barely have a proper conscious realization of it's origins. Although paradoxically, and chillinglyly I would bet the fringe elements of the TP movement, do have a clearer understanding...).

Ultimately, Loughner's political ideology doesn't matter, it is his actions that identify him.No one doubts he is a mish mash of confusion and aggression stoked by a toxic political environment. Too young, too mentally unhealthy and too helpless to process or parse or neutralize it. He's the final and tangible externalized link, for an evil much greater than him, because that externalized violence is communicable and the infection has been growing and growing in the country for a while now unchecked by those who can make a difference. Tucson Sheriff Dupnik tried, basically saying "enough is enough. We need to scale down the bigotry and the talk of violence and the idea that the 2nd Amendment is all we need to fix our problems," and I hope he continues to speak out against it, but look at how he is discredited attacked and demonized by the Right because of it (I hope he has security).

McCain, came out against what happened in the strongest terms I've heard from anyone on the Right calling the action (paraphrasing here) "Unamerican, and deplorable and unacceptable etc...," but I think it has to be a Tea Party person or the whole leadership, Palin and Rand Paul included who make a unified condemnation of this and a concerted effort to end the talk of guns and "watering the tree of liberty with blood," BS.

I hope Warbaby is wrong and Spring doesn't bring with it a horrific season of political death and massacre's. But it's very clear he knows what he's talking about, and the fruition of all the insanity the Right wing has unleashed on the nation to regain political power, but yet, most on the Right (Palin, Beck, et al) still refuse to defuse or condemn, and in fact, they blame the victims for what happened, either explicitly or implicitly. ANd they blame the potential victms, which is probably mostly those on the left, but I don't think people like Loughner stop to check people's political affiliations while they're emptying their Glocks with extended magazines (It holds 33 bullets I think) on a crowd of people outside a supermarket.

The Right will come to regret what they've been toying with here for the last couple of years, but does that realization really have to come too little and too late to keep innocent people and children from getting killed?

The Tea Party movement needs to be looked at with clear eyes and with unsentimental unvarnished unmythologized brutal honesty, because I would bet a lot of people would realize their sympathy towards that group would dispel.
posted by Skygazer at 4:03 PM on January 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

The federal charges are restricted to federal employees because the other murders are state charges. There is no general federal murder statute. The feds get the first trial and the state gets the rest. It's not double jeopardy because different murders are covered by different jurisdictions.

I'm not prescient about this stuff, I've been observing it closely for about 50 years. The behavior of the far right is unimaginative and they tend to repeat themselves a lot. James Aho's books, The Politics of Righteousness and This Thing of Darkness have a lot to recommend them.

What is unusual about this case is that two federal officials were killed. The insurrectionist theory of the second amendment is a very old chestnut. This is the idea that the second amendment authorizes sedition and rebellion. It's false, but very widely held.

The previous decade (2001 - 2010) was unusual for the low level of right-wing violence. What's going on now is about where we expected the next decade would be in the late 1990's: about 500 excess deaths due to right wing violence. What intervened was a combination of the Y2K panic and the increased security awareness following 9/11. That tamped things down for a while. Then Obama's election took the lid off.

Here's a chronology of the last few years. Here's a map of the six months of the health care kerfuffle. There's a lot of violence going on, it's just normalized away until something like this shooting draws attention to it.
posted by warbaby at 4:09 PM on January 9, 2011 [34 favorites]

Surveyors marks, you say?

More importantly...

.
posted by Duke999R at 4:17 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Inexplicable Edits on Sarah Palin's Facebook Page
posted by Artw at 4:17 PM on January 9, 2011 [11 favorites]

Jinx, oneswellfoop.
posted by Duke999R at 4:18 PM on January 9, 2011

Oh, my head.
posted by kittyprecious at 4:19 PM on January 9, 2011

So, Splunge, fuck *your* politics too.

I have no politics. My beliefs aren't labels. Yours might be, hooray for you. What I was saying in my moment of anger and frustration was basically fuck all politics.

As for my multiple uses of the word fuck, sorry. But I originally made a non-fighty comment about the death of a child. Then I was called out for not adding to the discussion. I guess it hit me at a bad time. But I responded the way I sometime do, from the heart. Sorry if my bad language offended you. But that doesn't mean that I won't do it again.

And I'll say it again, us/them politics sucks. There is no other. The other is a fallacy. There is only us. And we are killing ourselves.
posted by Splunge at 4:20 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

It seems I'm not the only one who thought Christina Green's death may be the most significant.

In Artw's link (a long blog post), while Sarah Palin's people were aggressively deleting all comments on her Facebook page criticizing her, the following was NOT:

"It's ok. Christina Taylor Green was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly."

If you want proof of how evil the Palinists are, that is (excuse the expression), the Smoking Gun.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:28 PM on January 9, 2011 [25 favorites]

Wow, that "Inexplicable Edits on Sarah Palin's Facebook Page" that Artw linked to is, if true, utterly repugnant.

I kept thinking "It's explicable why that was deleted... that's explicable... that's explicable too..." and then it struck.
posted by Flunkie at 4:30 PM on January 9, 2011

I originally made a non-fighty comment about the death of a child.

The following is non-fighty?

I just want to be clear about something. A nine year old girl was killed, right? And people here are arguing politics? Fucking MetaFilter, how does it work?

posted by Flunkie at 4:32 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, you're right. I give up. That was a bad joke. But it was a joke.
posted by Splunge at 4:37 PM on January 9, 2011

David Frum wonders if it's all pot's fault.

Why do people keep paying idiots like this?

That he's down to selling schwag with a huge sidebar is some small comfort.
posted by clarknova at 4:37 PM on January 9, 2011

Splunge, there are battles where there is a Good Side and a Bad Side. And people who always giving "both sides" the FuckYou are only helping the Bad Side. Here's somebody who agrees with you. (Note he includes all elected Republicans as well as Democrats). We NEED more politics and LESS GODDAMNED COLDBLOODED MURDERING.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:37 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

David Frum wonders if it's all pot's fault.

Has anyone contacted Frum's doctor? He obviously needs to have his meds adjusted.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:39 PM on January 9, 2011

Wow, that "Inexplicable Edits on Sarah Palin's Facebook Page" that Artw linked to is, if true, utterly repugnant.

I wish I could be surprised, but... I mean, we gotta remember these are the same folks who generally talk about God's Wrath when thousands of people die in natural disasters.

The mentality is simply "Good things happen to me because I earned it, bad things happen to me because people who aren't like me are around, good things happen to you because you're lying/cheating/stealing, bad things happen to you because you deserve it".

Anything like innocence, age, or actual capacity to be a threat are meaningless here. It's the same logic as an abuser who screams, "You forced me to do it!" as they beat a small child. The rationalizations for upholding the world view trump any humanity.
posted by yeloson at 4:44 PM on January 9, 2011 [20 favorites]

This is probably my last post on this.

First, as the seemingly the most anti-pot person on this site, let me say that the notion that smoking pot makes you want to shoot people is just freaking insane OMFG you political hack. Pot users may be a bit more statistically likely to be schizophrenic, but one doesn't follow the other.

Second, this whole thing just makes me very, very sad... but it inspires me. Work to be done.
posted by andreaazure at 4:46 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Injured, please stay strong, heal swiftly, we are with you, and will be with you as our nation mourns, and heals. Together. Hold onto life. Come back to us stronger, to those of us standing by, watching this tragedy, I hope we can show our solidarity, and unambiguously show we are behind a "restoration of sanity", non-violence, acceptance, and honest discussion in our political discourse. To the victims of this madness, live for the sake of the living, learn from the lost, and show love to those who are so weak they resort to violence.

(first aid; 1st Stay Safe [if you become a victim also you cannot help anyone], Call for help [911 response time is the most important factor in surviving a gunshot], you don't know what is going on inside a gunshot victims body, nor where bullets have grazed, touched, or ended up, do not move a victim unless it is absolutely imperative to survival [nerves, arteries and veins are so easily severed, treat like a spinal injury victim], monitor ABC, Airway, Breathing and Circulation [unconscious & breathing, keep airway open, Non-breathing; begin CPR, check for breathing often, remember, time without pulse or breathing are directly correlated to survival statistics], Check for obvious signs of bleeding [don't be shy, missing an exit wound can mean the difference of survival], apply direct pressure, never remove a cloth, always add more. Chest gun shots are much more complex, and someone else could likely explain that situation better than I. And I cannot even force myself to think how to explain first aid for gunshots to heads. Sorry, I came to explain this 'dispassionately', but in thinking of 'treatment', triage, and first aid... this became really hard to think about. Bullets do so much damage, require so little thought to fire them, and we humans have such fragile forms. This is not a weakness, but our strength, we must value each life. It is so easy to destroy us. So easy to forget our fragility, yet we can do so much, so much that I must say we are not fragile -- not when we come together -- and work peacefully towards a goal.

Direct, strong pressure, on the point(s) of blood loss, using a bandage, shirt, cloth, whatever at hand, keep a close eye on vital signs, call for help, take a first aid course [not snark, and not for the question asker who has taken one, but seriously, it is immeasurably valuable for so many reasons, in so many situations].

Guns; thinking about training in first aid makes this come home to me, and makes me realize the human realities of this, I hadn't really been able to imagine this an hour ago (or had attempted not to think about it fully), but trying to think of training for reaction to a situation, considering tips for reaction and first aid like this makes me feel wordless. I mean, even with training, and the best medical treatment guns are insanely destructive, with so little investment to use them, I don't know about "banning them". But our societal respect for their extreme destructive power seems to be so incomplete. :( Stay strong. Don't give up, continue to struggle, keep strong, peaceful, respectful, in the name of innocent victims, voiceless, and never consulted.

.
posted by infinite intimation at 4:58 PM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

My favorite part of David Frum's idiotic argument:

But is correlation causation?

Increasingly experts seem to be saying: “Yes.”

Shit, guys, this changes everything.
posted by albrecht at 4:58 PM on January 9, 2011 [22 favorites]

"It's ok. Christina Taylor Green was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly."

If you want proof of how evil the Palinists are, that is (excuse the expression), the Smoking Gun.

I'll take pretty much any odds you want to offer that a sarcastic lefty posted that.
posted by EarBucket at 5:05 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Seconding yeloson on Worldviews. And a lot of people who say "well, I'm not like that" ARE.

In 55 years, I've gradually developed a worldview from experience and observation (unlike those who start with the worldview of an infant: "I'm better than everybody and deserve everything right now!" and never outgrow it). And that worldview includes "Almost nobody deserves all the good OR bad things that happen to them, but it's damned hard to be successful without lying/cheating/stealing so that's how most-but-not-all successful people got that way." I'd say that almost 2/3 of the good things that happened to ME personally were results of me doing something bad, and almost 2/3 of the bad things resulted from me doing something good. Your results may vary, but if you ever choose to be brutally honest with yourself, your ratios will get a lot closer to mine. "No good deed goes unpunished"... "Behind every great fortune is a crime"... both overgeneralizing (another thing I've learned to avoid in 55 years), but true more often than not. That's why American Exceptionalism left unchecked would make the USofA as much an Evil Empire as the USSR. And much of what has prevented (or at least lessened) that are our lack of homogeneity or long history. Easier to be a nationalist of a country that's been around for 1000 years, so the longer the USofA exists, the greater danger of going Evil. But I digress.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:05 PM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'll take pretty much any odds you want to offer that a sarcastic lefty posted that.

But NOBODY in Sarah Palin's army of moderators saw fit to delete it. Explain that.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:07 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

If you are in Tucson, be aware that the Westboro Baptist Church is planning on protesting the funerals next week.

If you are on Facebook, I've found an event invite and a FB group of people planning on doing their best to drown them out.
posted by Catblack at 5:09 PM on January 9, 2011

I'll take pretty much any odds you want to offer that a sarcastic lefty posted that.

Yes, of course. That's not the point. The point is that it was not deleted, while anything perceived as an attack on Palin was.
posted by Flunkie at 5:11 PM on January 9, 2011

But NOBODY in Sarah Palin's army of moderators saw fit to delete it.

I can't find it anywhere in the thread on Palin's Facebook page. It looks like it's been deleted.
posted by EarBucket at 5:12 PM on January 9, 2011

(Also, trawling through the comments on her page makes me feel like a shower. There's a lot of nasty, hateful, ignorant people in there.)
posted by EarBucket at 5:13 PM on January 9, 2011

I have no politics. My beliefs aren't labels. Yours might be, hooray for you. What I was saying in my moment of anger and frustration was basically fuck all politics.

Claiming to have no politics is a politics, and a luxurious politics at that.
posted by spitbull at 5:15 PM on January 9, 2011 [30 favorites]

desjardins: Also of interest in the affidavit - Loughner scrawled "I planned ahead" and "assassination" on a letter from Giffords dated August 2007 - well before the Palin "surveyor's marks" map came out.

even if that was correct, which it isn't, it would say nothing about when he made those annotations on the letter other than that it was after Aug 2007... but actually those notes were just recovered from the same safe as the letter...

from the complaint (page 5),

Some of the evidence seized from that location included a letter in a safe ... from Congresswoman Giffords ... dated August 30, 2007 ... Also recovered in the safe was an envelope with handwriting on the envelope stating "I planned ahead," and "My assassination" and the name "Giffords" ...

so there's not really any evidence to be drawn regarding timing here...
posted by russm at 5:21 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Senator Rand Paul on the shooting:

"But the weapons don't kill people, it's he individual that kills -- that killed these people."

Absolutely. If it hadn't been a 30-clip Glock, it would've been one of those rapid-fire crossbows you see in action movies where everybody has a special weapon, a bandoleer of throwing knives or shuriken that ninjas always have or maybe a pair of swords or sai like Daredevil's opponents are typically equipped with. They're all exactly the same thing, equally deadly. Blaming the gun is just bad aim.
posted by scalefree at 5:25 PM on January 9, 2011 [14 favorites]

But the weapons don't kill people

They sure make it a hell of a lot easier, though.
posted by EarBucket at 5:27 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also of interest in the affidavit - Loughner scrawled "I planned ahead" and "assassination" on a letter from Giffords dated August 2007 - well before the Palin "surveyor's marks" map came out.

Nobody's saying there is or has to be a direct causal connection between Palin & Loughner for it to have been wrong. It was an irresponsible act that stands by itself, that does not belong in the marketplace of ideas because of how it affects all of us, not just unstable people on the fringe. It dirties the discourse & makes the entire global conversation less valuable because of its presence.
posted by scalefree at 5:34 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

The real pro-gun argument isn't that weapons don't kill people, it's that laws won't stop killers from acquiring weapons. Banning items will just give them that much more allure.

It's kind of hard to make a pro-gun argument right now but there it is.
posted by polyhedron at 5:38 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear surveying equipment shall not be infringed.
posted by EarBucket at 5:40 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

fuck all politics.

Nihilism is a luxury. Enjoy your cake whilst telling the rest of us to eat it.
posted by joe lisboa at 5:41 PM on January 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

russm, while it's true that we don't know when he wrote on the envelope, the fact of having kept a letter dated 2007 from someone he attempted to assassinate indicates a pretty long timeframe of obsession.
posted by desjardins at 5:46 PM on January 9, 2011

And yes, Palin was wrong whether or not the shooting had anything to do with her. I am not excusing her in the least; just saying it's premature to assume a link.
posted by desjardins at 5:46 PM on January 9, 2011

I mean it's a pretty simple thing to understand. If you don't want to answer questions about your violent and threatening rhetoric directed at your political enemies if one of them happens to get murdered, then maybe you shouldn't direct violent and threatening rhetoric at your enemies.

I'm sure you can win elections without making death threats, right?
posted by empath at 5:48 PM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

"But the weapons don't kill people, it's he individual that kills -- that killed these people."

Yeah, that's kinda the problem, the individual had a cheap and easy way to kill a lot of people very quickly.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:53 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Part of the problem is many people I know pop off and make these stupid casual comments and really really REALLY do not grok how wrong it is to make them. They don't (or at least I don't THINK) they literally mean "someone should die for being liberal" but they forget that words mean things, ideas mean things, and that it's a slippery slope. They think they are speaking hyperbole.

Well, sometimes hyperbole is WRONG.

And what is worse is that I am afraid to call these people out. And I am ashamed that I am afraid. But part of it is I just don't see how speaking up is going to help because their mindset is so set on stuff being "us versus them" and literally dehumanizing the other political side.

THAT is why I fear for America.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:54 PM on January 9, 2011 [19 favorites]

Increasingly experts seem to be saying: “Yes.”

Awesome sentence. It's like a turducken only with weasel words inside weasel words inside weasel words.
posted by Trochanter at 5:56 PM on January 9, 2011 [29 favorites]

I'm sure you can win elections without making death threats, right?

It is to the credit of what is left of this Republic that the answer to this question in 2008 was: NO, are you fucking kidding me?
posted by joe lisboa at 5:59 PM on January 9, 2011

Metafilter: (I hope you know what I meant by that.)
posted by joe lisboa at 6:00 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sorry you feel too afraid to tell your fellow Americans to stop talking casually about assassinating their perceived political opponents, St. Alia. When the President (your President) calls for a moment of silence tomorrow and the flags are lowered to half-mast, we will all keep you in our prayers.

Alternately: you could try that so-called Christian empathy on for size and imagine for half of a second what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that rhetoric. Or of a bullet.
posted by joe lisboa at 6:04 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

If Barack Obama goes on TV and asks people not to talk about using violence against their political enemies, it's not going to affect your friends. They don't care what he has to say. They do care what you say.

With some of them, I don't think it would matter one whit. I would be thrown into the "stupid" file in their brains and they would go on full steam ahead. But you are right, it would be wrong not to at least try...
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:05 PM on January 9, 2011 [17 favorites]

Joe, this is not the time for snark. I'm on your side here.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:06 PM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Rep. Robert Brady of Pennsylvania plans to introduce a bill to ban threatening or inciting political symbols such as the cross-hair map.

I'm not going to lie... I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this.

I do, unequivocally, think using threatening symbols like what Palin was doing is wrong. But I don't know if I feel comfortable saying it should be banned by law (or at least under any new law--I'm actually a little surprised no existing laws apply here, but I can't think clearly enough re: hate speech and threats and etc.).

What I want is for our society to shame it automatically, for people to recognize, and without the need for terrible events like this to happen, to renounce it as a very bad and potentially dangerous thing to do. I want people to have a visceral response against this kind of thing, because they should; I want people not to think that suggesting the murdering of people with different political opinions--implied or explicit--is okay.

But if wishes were horses, and etc.

I am tired and feverish and full of ridiculous headache, but I was hoping to see some discussion on this from more clear-minded individuals and so thought I would bring it up/emphasize it. Sorry if this is ill-advised, feel free to tell me to go take a nap.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 6:07 PM on January 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

It is illegal to put crosshairs on a map of politicians. If you're a Detrioit Muslim.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:15 PM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Yo, let's not jump down St. Alia's throat here. What I hear her saying is not "I can't be bothered to speak up" but "I'm afraid that my speaking up will make no difference."

In my experience as someone's who's related to a couple of right-wing koolaid drinkers -- this is an absolutely legitimate (and terrifying) statement. I wish I could snap my fingers and pull those relatives and friends whom I love out of this nihilistic abyss that the Republican Party has been plunged into. But they're utterly afraid -- afraid, because they are uninsurable because of preexisting conditions; afraid, because they have listened to people who told them that their black and Hispanic and Arab neighbours were going to break into their houses and take their jobs and bomb their cities; afraid, because their American dream has become a nightmare.

I'm not removing the blame from them. They have listened to evil voices, where others I love who would've called themselves conservatives 10 years ago have turned away from that empty, angry bullshit.

But my task, as a Christian and as a liberal, is to believe that there is always room for redemption, and always room for repentance, and always room for love. My task, and the task of StAotB, and the task of many MeFites in the coming weeks and months, will be to continue to speak out against hatred with deep compassion for the fear and pain that our conservative fellow-citizens feel. We cannot lash out in anger; to do so would only increase the alienation. We cannot retreat into isolation; to do so would only cede the public square to fools like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. We must continue to believe that wounds can heal and that a just society is possible.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:23 PM on January 9, 2011 [19 favorites]

I would be thrown into the "stupid" file in their brains and they would go on full steam ahead.

people are going to put you in one negative file or another no matter what you do or say

are you acting on what you believe or how you want to please others?

without wanting to get too personal over the past, it's my thought that spending a long time considering this question would be very helpful for you
posted by pyramid termite at 6:25 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

This was a crackpot. It seems all bad laws - and bad rhetoric - derive from 'Somebody Do Something' (just read this thread for proof). Somebody did, heroically, stop this maniac. Do we really have to legistlate this? Nice notion, bad form. And before you back-comment, fuck your argument and fuck your ineffectual passion, because they haven't worked so far and they likely never will. Live what you type.
posted by nj_subgenius at 6:26 PM on January 9, 2011

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher

Peter Gabriel, Biko.
posted by scalefree at 6:33 PM on January 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

With some of them, I don't think it would matter one whit. I would be thrown into the "stupid" file in their brains and they would go on full steam ahead. But you are right, it would be wrong not to at least try...

There's probably some good suggestions on AskMe on how best to go about this. Or you could post a question.
posted by Ritchie at 6:33 PM on January 9, 2011

And what is worse is that I am afraid to call these people out. And I am ashamed that I am afraid.

St. Alia, I am happy to hear that you are uncomfortable about the rhetoric and thinking about how to deal with it. I can understand that it is difficult, many important things are. You don't have to get all political or fighty about it, just a quiet and dignified statement. You may well not change anyone. But by not playing, you will be doing what's right and setting a good example that may influence others who are also uncomfortable with things but also afraid to speak out.

Maybe simply say something like "These shootings have bothered me terribly. It's fine to disagree passionately, but why not respectfully? I'm increasingly comfortable with violent language that might be misunderstood." If people mock you, say, "That is my belief, that it is the right thing to do to be more tolerant and respectful."

I used to work in a factory when I was young and I heard a lot of racist, sexist things. After saying nothing for a long time - because I was uncomfortable with the confrontation or afraid, or whatever, I couldn't take it any more. I started quietly and respectfully saying things like "I'm sorry, but I cant find hurtful things funny." Or "I'm sure you didn't mean it but that hurt my feelings." Or "Oh come on Joe, I know you are a sweetheart, but saying something like that makes you seem kinda mean spirited." It got easier the more I did it. You may be able to find a way to frame things in your religious beliefs.

Alia, I disagree with you on many things, but I think you are a good soul at heart. I am happy you are thinking about this - to me, that is a ray of light in a dark time.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:39 PM on January 9, 2011 [20 favorites]

Obviously, I meant:
"...I'm increasingly UNcomfortable with violent language that might be misunderstood."
posted by madamjujujive at 6:41 PM on January 9, 2011

joe lisboa: "fuck all politics.

Nihilism is a luxury. Enjoy your cake whilst telling the rest of us to eat it"

It's not nihilism. Enjoy your ignorance. I'll save cake for you.
posted by Splunge at 6:47 PM on January 9, 2011

And what is worse is that I am afraid to call these people out. And I am ashamed that I am afraid. But part of it is I just don't see how speaking up is going to help because their mindset is so set on stuff being "us versus them" and literally dehumanizing the other political side.

Maybe you won't change their minds. But you will at least stand up for yourself, which is important in itself. People who forward these kinds of chain emails around think they live in a vacuum...you know, the alleged "silent majority". They think they are an oppressed people, fighting the good fight by sending insane, conspiratorial emails around to everyone they know - because they couldn't possibly know anyone who thinks differently than they do. You're different, St.Alia. You're a Christian. I'm not, but I respect you because you seem to have conviction. I've always been extremely happy that you hang around Metafilter with all us hell-bound heathen liberal atheist pinkos, even if I get frustrated with your opinions, sometimes.

I responded to one of my dad's forwarded emails, last week. It was some "Oh my! Librulz are killing Christmas and the bible is about to be banned!" things. The contents of the email were relevant to America. I'm not even in America and neither is my father. I mean, come on, our head of state is also the head of the church. I went through the email point-by-point, and while I didn't argue with it, instead I catalogued my own experiences and how they differ.

I've also done this in phone conversations with him. He makes a complaint, for example, about all the Sudanese refugee taxi drivers who don't know where they're going and are probably scamming welfare anyway. I ask him how much pension he gets these days, all the senior discounts he receives, and tell him about the Sudanese lady at the supermarket who let me in the line infront of her because she had a cart full of groceries while I only had a loaf of bread and some apples.

Hell, maybe he won't change his beliefs. But, at the very least, he might realise that I don't think the way he does, and maybe he should stop being a racist, bigoted arsehole when he talks to his son.
posted by Jimbob at 6:48 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

Tuscon Sheriff: Person Number Two was just a cabbie.
posted by scalefree at 6:49 PM on January 9, 2011

Just as the slow, long drumbeat of violent imagery changes people's minds, so does disagreement. Repudiating awful things that people say may not change their minds instantly, but it will at least be IN their minds. And maybe when they sit down to contemplate how they have been living their lives, perhaps in prayer, your words might just make a difference. Maybe they won't be so quick to "make a joke", and in time, maybe we will stop the dehumanization of political opponents.
posted by gjc at 7:00 PM on January 9, 2011

St. Alia: I am ashamed that I am afraid. But part of it is I just don't see how speaking up is going to help because their mindset is so set on stuff being "us versus them" and literally dehumanizing the other political side.

I'm on the opposite side from you on many issues, but I have to say that I respect your courage to admit this, here. Thank you.

Please think about checking out what Chip and Dan Heath have to say about peer ~~pressure~~ "peer perception" in Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard. Excerpt from pp. 227-234 (sorry for the clumsy editing):

We all talk about the power of peer pressure, but "pressure" may be overstating the case. Peer perception is plenty. In this entire book, you may not find a single statement that is so rigorously supported by empirical research as this one: You are doing things because you see your peers do them. . . . Behavior is contagious. . . . [examples and case studies, including how the concept of "designated driver" went from nonexistent in US culture to normal] . . . [in some cases,] to unleash change, . . . [it's necessary to tell] supporters, 'It's safe to get vocal now.' . . . [in order to] unleash the believers [you] already [have].

You have standing and the respect of your conservative community, which must include others who, like you, have the integrity to recognize and condemn thought-free, knee-jerk, inflammatory, polarizing rhetoric. Probably all they need to stand up and speak out against it is for someone like you to go first. They respect you. Won't they follow your lead in speaking up for civility and against dehumanization?
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 7:00 PM on January 9, 2011 [11 favorites]

Parts of an exchange between myself and some Tea Party type on my local paper's site:

MikeMc2 - Jan 09, 2011 7:49 PM

Well tomcrete, if you're serious let's take a look at what you have to say shall we?

"Obama is smiling this is exactly what he , Pelosi and Moore wants. Now
they will use this to bring charges against anyone who voices concerns
against his socialist, communist agenda. I wouldn't be surprised if the
democrats where behind this tragic event." ~ tomcrete - Jan 09, 2011 7:28 PM

And America wonders where nutjobs like Jared Lee Loughner get their ideas from. If you actually believe what you wrote I would suggest you get some counseling. Paranoia can destroy your mind.

Response?

tomcrete - Jan 09, 2011 8:06 PM

@mike,,,Now you're cracking me up! are you serious? You believe that
freedom of speech is something that just gets in your way.. How disgusting
and then you resort to name calling, which is nothing more than typical
rhetoric from scum such as yourself. But wait, would you like to go
further? I would be more than willing to meet anytime to discuss our
political views. Name the time and the place and I'll be there.

Lone wacko my ass, these guys are everywhere.
posted by MikeMc at 7:06 PM on January 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

MikeMc - the commenters on that site make me ashamed to live here sometimes (cf the recent Mayfair incident).
posted by desjardins at 7:15 PM on January 9, 2011

…it just
goes to show you: moderation imposed is better

than no moderation at all: we tie into the
lives of those we love and our lives, then, go

as theirs go; their pain we can’t shake off;
Their choices, often harming to themselves,

pour through our agitated sleep, swirl up as
no-nos in our dream; we rise several times

in the night to walk about; we rise in the morning
to a crusty world headed nowhere, doorless:

our chests burn with anxiety and a river of
anguish defines rapids and straits in the pit of

Our stomachs: how can we intercede and not
Interfere: how can our love move more surroundingly

Convincingly than our premonitory advice.

A.R Ammons, Garbage.
posted by clavdivs at 7:27 PM on January 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

Dupnik is going nowhere. I'll bet he gets a bigger majority next vote. Baja Arizona is alive and well and very liberal. Where she and the others were shot, was really outside the real Tucson area, huge suburb filled with Cali refugees.
posted by atomicmedia at 7:27 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

@MikeMc. Please don't repost local newspaper comments here. No need to spread the crazy any further than already has been. In fact, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it's a tacitly bad idea to argue with the people on those sites. The more you argue with them, the more convinced they become that they're right.
posted by schmod at 7:29 PM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

This assassination could be the pebble that causes a landslide of lost-hope hatred turned violent. A lot of ammo was purchased. A lot of people have been hurt economically. A lot of them have strange ideas about the limits of personal choice in matters sexual, taxable, and social. Pent-up craziness waiting to crack.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:29 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

cybercoitus interruptus, I like your quote and commentary a lot. I've certainly experienced that myself -- hearing someone say something I think is way out of line, being surprised when nobody says anything, and coming to think,"maybe this is not so out of line here, maybe I need to adjust my expectations." It's good to remind us all that speaking up is worthwhile even if it gets you weird looks. (And of course, speaking up can mean saying "look, that's not really fair" rather than "what kind of asshole are you?" -- civility is the way to go even in drawing the line.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:32 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Please don't repost local newspaper comments here. No need to spread the crazy any further than already has been.

I think we've been ignoring the crazy for far too long, to be honest.
posted by empath at 7:32 PM on January 9, 2011 [12 favorites]

Sorry, I should probably keep the grim inside. Reality will be depressing enough without speculation.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:35 PM on January 9, 2011

Straw man much? Moron.

For someone who claims to think that "there is only us" and "the other is a fallacy," you sure seem to hurl a lot of personalized other-directed epithets.
posted by blucevalo at 7:43 PM on January 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

An ABC article about Patricia Maisch (the mother of the guy on Reddit):

Maisch, 61, effectively disarmed the shooter as several men pounced on him and threw him to ground. As they struggled to hold him down, Maisch joined the scrum on the ground, clinging to the gunman's ankles.

Maisch and her fellow heroes -- identified as Bill Badger, Roger Sulzgeber and Joseph Zimudie -- stopped the carnage after 20 people were shot, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Here's a CNN video with snippets of an interview with Maisch.

I'm so thankful that these people were there and had the courage and presence of mind to stop this guy before things got even more horrific.
posted by creepygirl at 7:45 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

This assassination could be the pebble that causes a landslide of lost-hope hatred turned violent.

It could. But it's not inevitable. I think enough negative pressure against violent rhetoric by more mainstream political types could have the potential to change the direction and calm things down a bit. At least right now public figures are backing away from their previous casual incitements for the most part.
posted by krinklyfig at 7:50 PM on January 9, 2011

This assassination could be the pebble that causes a landslide of lost-hope hatred turned violent.

Nah. It's all good.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:54 PM on January 9, 2011

Anyway, with some time to cool off here is where I stand.

The right has fetishized guns too much. It made sense when there was a real gun control movement among the Democrats to use some of the gun related imagery in a political context talking about gun rights.

There is no more push from Democrats on gun control. A combination of public opinion and court decisions have rendered the efforts in that direction pointless.

The responsible thing for the right to do would have been to acknowledge that and prove they could be the responsible gun owners they always talked about.

Instead they continued to use gun imagery in the absence of any valid political reason to do so. They pretended to whip up some fear about Obama taking guns, but it was all imaginary.

As was mentioned above, once guns show up at a health care rally we are clearly in the area of attempted intimidation. The message of the 2nd amendment imagery outside of a gun control context is the threat of political violence.

So, Palin and friends whip up fear of gun control. Use it as an excuse to use rhetoric full of gun imagery. Someone they aim that rhetoric at gets shot.

Not their fault, I still don't think so at all. But they have proven themselves irresponsible on gun issues. Surveyors tools? Ok, sure, I'll pretend you thought that. So why did they stay up for MONTHS after people pointed out they looked like crosshairs and it made them uncomfortable?

There is no defense for that. People were scared of you, and you said, "Fuck you, I'll keep doing it for months anyway!"

Wow. She better be done in politics. She better. I want her in front of a camera to explain herself, right now. Fox News, where is your pundit to explain herself?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:06 PM on January 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

few comments removed - folks if you need to go to metatalk, feel free.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:07 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

-John Adams
posted by clavdivs at 8:09 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Very seriously: if people want to call out specific members of the site, it needs to happen in MetaTalk and not here.
posted by jessamyn at 8:12 PM on January 9, 2011

"In fact, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it's a tacitly bad idea to argue with the people on those sites. The more you argue with them, the more convinced they become that they're right."

I refuse to cede public forums to them. To do so would only lend credence to their claims that they are articulating the the opinions of "average Americans".
posted by MikeMc at 8:18 PM on January 9, 2011 [11 favorites]

The Independent (UK):

One could be shocked, but hardly surprised, by the news that on Saturday morning the Arizona congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, had been shot while meeting with her constituents outside a Safeway supermarket in suburban Tucson, and that the gunman had killed six of the people who were with her, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. It was an event that seemed to grow out of America's present disturbed and angry climate, like a killer-tornado or hurricane: awful, yes, but part of the weather, and, in some sense, only to be expected.

posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:31 PM on January 9, 2011

Y'know the fact of the increased use of ham-handed tactics by police/feds in warrant serving, drug busts, etc. has probably played fed into this attitude of paranoia on a comparable level. You might point to the MOVE bombing, or the Ruby Ridge raid, or drug raids on a suburban Mayor, but it all adds to the general paranoia at least as much the politically charged rhetoric.

Of course, there's a synergistic effect between all three.

What to do about it, I don't know.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:32 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

In fact, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it's a tacitly bad idea to argue with the people on those sites. The more you argue with them, the more convinced they become that they're right.

The reason to argue with them is not to convince them; you do it to convince others. You'll never get one of these nuts to change their opinion: look how hard that is to do with even a relatively sane person arguing in more or less good faith. Nobody likes to back down and only a fairly honest and decent person will ever do so. So give up on that idea. Remember that you're really speaking to the other readers on the site, most of whom aren't posting.
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:34 PM on January 9, 2011 [26 favorites]

The more you argue with them, the more convinced they become that they're right.

There is a mass of people that will generally follow the loudest chorus only because they are afraid of being caught on the losing side. If you have an opinion, you have to start piping up.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:57 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

boyblue at Kos: "My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now dead to me!"

...

the Democratic Leadership Council have also used target maps. Therefore, they, and by extension the entire Democratic party, must be responsible for this murder.

As long as I live, one of the things that I will never understand is the length some people will go to pretend to be stupid just to "win" an argument on the internet.
favorited 1,000,000 times yaaay!

There are plenty of comments here blaming "by extension" things like Fox. I don't see much gnashing of teeth about that.

DailyKos' "Gabrielle Giffords is Dead to Me" Post Down the Memory Hole
Now you see it...
...and now you don't.

Did Kos really pull that? What is he scared of? And what breed of clown deletes a much read post? I first heard about it via a right-leaning fella on the TV a few hours ago, so I wanna check here.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:02 PM on January 9, 2011

Did Kos really pull that? What is he scared of?

It was written by a diarist on the site, not one of the official writers and pulled it himself after she was shot.

Want to pull up some more random right-wing bullshit from yesterday to shoot down?
posted by empath at 9:06 PM on January 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

Any update on Congresswoman Giffords' condition?
posted by cashman at 9:06 PM on January 9, 2011

Firstly, uncanny hengeman, the text on that "Ace of Spades" site you link is so paranoid, unhinged, and schitzy that it reads like something the gunman might have written....I don't mean what "Ace" has linked to. I mean what "Ace" has written. Seriously, those are the people who are worrying.

Secondly, in a climate like this, you're complaining about Kos pulling posts from violent crazies? What's your point, exactly? That everyone should be more extreme and fucked up?
posted by Jimbob at 9:09 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

@uncanny hengeman: That kos diarist has commented more on this than Sarah.

Ask him yourself.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:11 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Did Kos really pull that? What is he scared of? And what breed of clown deletes a much read post?

In spite of not meaning harm to the Congresswoman, after the incident occurred he recognized that his rhetoric was over the top & took it down. It's the kind of realization that comes from self-awareness & self-reflection, seeing yourself as others who don't share your perspective may view your actions & then responding accordingly. It's a grown-up, adult kind of thing to do. "Oh! I didn't mean it THAT way. I'd better take it down to make sure people understand I'm not crazy or violent, I just got carried away in the heat of the moment."

It's the people like Palin, whose ego or win-at-all-costs mentality force them to never acknowledge their own humanity & fallibility, that I worry about.
posted by scalefree at 9:17 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

What are you so worked up about, empath? I said I wanted to check here because I was dubious of the source.

Don't try and sell me something that's already sold.

You say it's already been "shot down." Great. As someone who hasn't looked at this thread for a day, pardon me for missing it somewhere in the 1,500-comments bitch fest [with lots of deleted comments and warning from Mods, I note]. My head was spinning.

Promise I'll only lurk from now on.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:18 PM on January 9, 2011

"Giffords remains sedated and in critical condition, doctors said. After surgery on the wound - in which a single bullet traversed the left side of her skull - they said Giffords was able to follow simple commands, like holding up two fingers when asked.

"This is about as good as good can get" with a bullet injury to the brain, trauma physician Peter Rhee said.
posted by clavdivs at 9:18 PM on January 9, 2011

Bull’s-Eyes and Crosshairs
posted by justgary at 9:27 PM on January 9, 2011

[with lots of deleted comments and warning from Mods, I note]

No, with a small handful of deleted comments, to my knowledge, and two warnings earlier this evening. Just for the record.
posted by scody at 9:29 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

That's old news, clavdivs. The article is newish, but that information is old.
posted by cashman at 9:31 PM on January 9, 2011

Great. As someone who hasn't looked at this thread for a day, pardon me for missing it somewhere in the 1,500-comments bitch fest [with lots of deleted comments and warning from Mods, I note]. My head was spinning.

Actually, I have kept up with this monster as it's grown, and what's amazing is how very little deletion or warning has happened. People have been pretty good about self-policing, there's been a minimum of name-calling, and it's really only started to get ugly in about the last 3-4 hours.
posted by gingerest at 9:37 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

"In fact, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it's a tacitly bad idea to argue with the people on those sites. The more you argue with them, the more convinced they become that they're right."

Well, it depends on the site. Some it's no use whatsoever, you will forever be thought of as a Liberal scum, but some others, if you're persistent and relentless with your facts and opinion, a begrudging slight respect can be achieved, but it is hard won and tiring work. But that's rare and you mostly just take abuse

But I'll tell you one thing: You want to get into their minds and really understand where they're coming from and sharpen your skills to the point where you can shoot down bogus talking points in 2 seconds flat, that is the way to do it.

The other thing is, you realize they're just folks, and if it wasn't for the politics you could even be friends or share a drink. The thing is I think for both sides of the aisle is to get accustomed to people with different opinions and normalize things a bit.
posted by Skygazer at 9:42 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

In related news Julian Assange is threatening to sue Jared Lee Loughner for stealing his rightful place in the headlines of newspapers worldwide. "I earned my spot at the top of the news, I have a financial stake in being the most talked-about person in the world. He's stolen that from me, I can never get it back", Assange said.
posted by scalefree at 9:44 PM on January 9, 2011

That's old news, clavdivs.

I think that's the most recent news on her condition, though. I would guess they will be pretty limited in terms of releasing info since there is so much uncertainty about her prognosis.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:46 PM on January 9, 2011

Well as my previous comments have been deleted, I will leave it at this: thanks everyone for a helluva time. Got better things to do (for once!) than lock horns with bigoted St. Aliaholes. Wish the rest of you best of luck in keeping up the fight. Some of my fellow Americans are dead as a result (however indirectly) of (t)he(i)r political rhetoric , and for some, this is just another routine ho-hum bulletin board moderation bullshit exercise. Wish it were. Gotta teach 200 young Americans tomorrow how to read and speak and think for themselves. Sorry, St. Alianolia.

Enjoy and be awesome to one another, Mefites. See you in another life.
posted by joe lisboa at 9:46 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Wow. She better be done in politics. She better. I want her in front of a camera to explain herself, right now. Fox News, where is your pundit to explain herself?

Eh, that's not what we'd get were she put in front of the cameras. We'd only get the same nonsensical equivocating and buck passing we always do when anyone confronts Palin about anything. I'd prefer it if she just went away silently--that would be admission and apology enough for me. But that's not going to happen either.
posted by Maaik at 9:49 PM on January 9, 2011

And Joe Lisboa is gone. That's a damn shame. Come back soon, Joe.
posted by Rumple at 10:04 PM on January 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

The video of what I guess is the latest news conference (noon E.T. Sunday) updating Gifford's condition (from the live updates).

I like how the doctor says they are only simple commands (as clavdiv's article stated), but they represent a high level of functioning. Yet then Rhee steps in and reiterates that this is a devastating injury with the bullet having traveled the length of the right side of her brain. Her eyes are closed (I missed if that was done by hospital staff) and she cannot speak because of the ventilator. They also note that it was 38 minutes from shooting to surgery. (which doesn't mention work done on the scene). The whole thing is so horrible. I remain amazed, though, at her abilities.
posted by cashman at 10:07 PM on January 9, 2011

unless someone has a contact in Tuscon, I suggest this site for updates on the Congresspersons' condition.
posted by clavdivs at 10:09 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

And Joe Lisboa is gone

He'll be back. They always are. He's just hoping for some gnashing and wailing and rending of garments. Which you just gave him a test of, so that'll probably speed up his return.
posted by dersins at 10:15 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I suggest we respect joes decision and let him sleep. teach those kids tomorrow (today) My bet, he will and I think he may reach some of them. I hope so.
posted by clavdivs at 10:23 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

You could leave, dersins, and I promise I wouldn't say a damn thing or rend a single garment.
posted by Rumple at 10:23 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Enjoy and be awesome to one another,

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by iamabot at 10:24 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Rumple, somebody pulls that shit every other week. Don't sweat it.
posted by empath at 10:27 PM on January 9, 2011

You could leave, dersins, and I promise I wouldn't say a damn thing or rend a single garment.

I did leave, for like six months. And there was nary a gnash or a rend. On the other hand, I didn't make a dramatic announcement and storm off in a huff, I just took a break.
posted by dersins at 10:31 PM on January 9, 2011

And Joe Lisboa is gone. That's a damn shame. Come back soon, Joe.

The only way to win the game is to not play it. I noticed a mod bit the lure, tho' managed to not show it in-thread. I took the bait, too, after many months of ignoring it. It's just so bright and shiny.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:31 PM on January 9, 2011

Statement from Mark Kelly, Gabrielle Giffords' husband:

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_9e769782-1c78-11e0-9576-001cc4c03286.html
posted by mephron at 10:37 PM on January 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

The khmer roughe had a saying. "to keep you is no gain, to lose you is no loss"
do not bother with wiki the citation is imprecise.
I feel that sentiment in this last few post here and it bothers me. I not not like being bothered. But I will bother as this akin to the dehumanizing conditions joe has alluded too.
posted by clavdivs at 11:15 PM on January 9, 2011

The dehumanizing conditions are sadly universal. Human nature seems to be self-dehumanizing. It's something that needs to be constantly struggled against and MetaFilter is the one of the few places on the Internet that, to me, tries to engage in that struggle at all but is far from perfect at it. To say more, I'd have to go to MetaTalk, and I think I'll go to sleep instead.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:34 PM on January 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'd like to suggest that we change the title of this post to "Lone nut AND something worse."
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:46 PM on January 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'd like to suggest that we change the title of this post to "Lone nut AND something worse."

That's exactly what I thought when I first saw the post title yesterday, and is kind of another way of saying this, which I'll repost from my comment waay upthread:

Increasingly, "batshit-insane" and "politically motivated" are in no way mutually exclusive.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:55 PM on January 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Paul Krugman's OpEd for tomorrow: Climate of Hate
posted by delmoi at 12:04 AM on January 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

Krugman nailed it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:29 AM on January 10, 2011

Krugman nailed it.

Wow. Is it just that I've been immersed in this ginormous 1000+ comment thread for the greater part of the weekend or does not Krugman echo many of the same exact thoughts expressed here?
posted by Skygazer at 12:50 AM on January 10, 2011

Scratch that. It's approaching closer to 1500 actually (ie: 1473).
posted by Skygazer at 12:52 AM on January 10, 2011

"Are you sure this happened in Arizona? Because it says the shooter was tackled, not gunned down by heroic citizens carrying their legally concealed firearms."

...

"The NRA response is going to be that if everyone in her entourage and every shopper in the store was carrying concealed weapons they could have killed the shooter after the fact instead of going through the messy and expensive process of arresting him and bringing him to trial."

Hello.

Actual concealed carry permit holder reporting to thread. Just give me a moment to disrobe from this strawman costume... there.

My fellow "gun-nut" friends and I discussed this today, and we came to the consensus that this particular situation most likely could NOT have been averted or mitigated by more people being armed. So no, our answer to everything is not always "MOAR GUNZ!"

It sounds like the assassin surprised everyone present by shooting the Congresswoman point-blank in the head, then started firing indiscriminately. Even if one of the bystanders had been carrying a concealed handgun, unless he/she were a Secret Service agent or had received similar elite crowd-reading and firearms training, he/she would simply not have time to 1) register what was happening, 2) draw his/her weapon, 3) move as necessary to get a clear line of sight to the target while also considering what was behind and beyond the target, 4) aim with a steady hand, and 5) fire in time to take the assassin down before he'd finished unloading his clip into the crowd.

For someone without a military or police background, I've had more defensive handgun training (~40 hours) than most civilians and I'll be the first to admit that I would have been useless if I had been there. I think the first opportunity I would have had to do something would have been when the guy started reloading -- which is when the bystanders actually did grab/tackle him, and that worked just fine without introducing any new stray bullets into the situation.

Not every shooting is clear evidence for or against gun control. For both sides of the debate, it's better to analyze the specifics of a situation before jumping in with a knee-jerk reaction of "this wouldn't have happened if we banned/restricted guns!" or "this wouldn't have happened if more people were allowed to carry guns!" Guns are so prevalent in the U.S. that it is politically and logistically infeasible to prevent people from having/getting them. Meanwhile, Arizona already has some of the most relaxed gun laws in the country, so the bystanders were already able to arm themselves if they wanted to.

Crazy people who are determined to assassinate a politician and/or kill a lot of people will generally find a way to do so. Likewise, concealed carry by ordinary citizens probably reduces mass killings in aggregate, but it's not the magic bullet (heh) for preventing or mitigating all of them. (Concealed carry is WAY more useful for deterring regular criminals who don't want to die than it is for stopping crazy people who expect to be killed anyway.)

More generally, there is no magic policy solution that will ensure no bad things ever happen again.

Also, please keep in mind that it's not difficult to assassinate most U.S. politicians. I speak from personal experience as both a former (very minor) politician who was once the target of politically motivated death threats (very unnerving when you realize just how vulnerable you are if someone gets fixated on you) and as someone who has been to numerous events where the politicians had minimal or no security and it would have been really easy to assassinate someone despite the presence of many armed bystanders, as long as you don't mind getting shot yourself afterward.

The reason we don't have more assassinations in the U.S. isn't because of gun control laws or the deterrent of armed citizens, it's because most disgruntled people just aren't sufficiently motivated to assassinate politicians.
posted by Jacqueline at 1:08 AM on January 10, 2011 [35 favorites]

Tonight I live in a nation where I am 100% sure about 45% of the people paying attention are glad a 9 year old girl died, because she would have surely grown up to be a "Liberal." Christian values, indeed.

I am very depressed.
posted by cj_ at 1:13 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

You may be 100% sure, but you're wrong.
Nobody paying attention to this thinks this is anything but a tragedy.
posted by seanyboy at 1:20 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

You're both wrong, the number of murderous haters in the USofA today is somewhere between "nobody" and 45%, probably a lot closer to "nobody", but still far too many.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:40 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

which is when the bystanders actually did grab/tackle him, and that worked just fine without introducing any new stray bullets into the situation.

This (as a non-American who has had firearms training but has no desire to own one) is always what occurs to me when I see people suggesting that more people being armed is a good idea.

Had, say, a dozen people in the crowd been carrying concealed handguns I can easily imagine this being much worse as some of them made impulsive decisions and opened fire. Bullets tend to travel a pretty long way until they hit something (or someone) - snap fired in a high pressure situation I can very easily imagine far more rounds missing their intended target than hitting it.

As a minor continuation of that theme I also find the idea of being armed to logically increase personal danger (not even considering accidental discharge etc) - in a scenario where a person is confronted by an armed assailant it seems that without possesing a firearm they pose very little risk to the armed person, the chances of a non-violent ending seems high. However if the victim of an attack draws a weapon then it seems the likelihood of the situation ending with someone being shot is much much higher. Pretty hard to back down from that.

---

In regards to this insane tragedy - I've been largely glued to this thread and other articles since I heard of it. Beyond the violent rhetoric which I'd noticed before, I'm really shocked by the insane political furvor that some people seem to buy into. The concept that universal healthcare could be an attack, tyranny or treason is absolutely shocking to me.

There are lots of very political people in my country, but I'd have to try very hard to find any who feel so personally in-danger or under attack by the actions of those with opposite political views. Where does that come from?

It's mostly from the US Right, but you do see similar "under attack" expressions from the US Left as well - I say US Right and US Left, because in most other countries they are both pretty much on the right.
posted by sycophant at 1:52 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here's a piece of chilling perspective. Based on the "kill-her" rhetoric Rep. Giffords faced during her last re-election campaign, much of it far less subtle than Palin's 'crosshairs', this assassination attempt should have been no surprise (and apparently was NOT for her). No amount of psychoanalyzing the shooter can obscure the fact that a whole segment of the Arizona electorate wanted somebody to kill her and were cheered on by one of the 'most important voices' in American politics today.

Now we can only ask "Who's next?" Will it be the last survivor of the PalinPAC campaign, West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall? Or Senator Harry Reid, whose opponent Sharon Angle explicitly said "I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems." Because by Angle's standards, assassination is now the only way to "cure" the "problem" of a legally-elected representative. I wish it were not inevitable, but I fear it is.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:55 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

The US Right's version of "under attack" involves bureaucrats and tax collectors making their lives unpleasant which they raise to an irrational (or cynical) declaration of fear for their lives to which their response more and more is "KILL THEM". It's a very effective political tool, and if some nut decides to act on it on their behalf, hey, it's one less vote against them in the legislature!
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:06 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

If it indeed is the case that Sarah Palin and her kind have responsibility for these sorts of attacks and they refuse to acknowledge that responsibility while maintaining the level violent rhetoric, then at some point their responsibility needs to stop being taken as a subject of argument and start being taken as a given. That implies a shift in messaging.

'Sarah, Glenn and Rush: we are not afraid of your thugs'

Then again I don't live in America and don't have much of a direct stake in all this, so make of that what you will.
posted by Anything at 2:09 AM on January 10, 2011

Wow. Is it just that I've been immersed in this ginormous 1000+ comment thread for the greater part of the weekend or does not Krugman echo many of the same exact thoughts expressed here?

I think Krugman indeed echoes many of the same thoughts expressed here. I think many people around the country are saying these same things, and I'm very relieved, at least, to be able to say that.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:18 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just realised that my "Kill Bill" themed t-shirt "Kill Bush" now seems to be in remarkably poor taste. I'm going to burn it in case anyone from the Right tries to use it as some kind of evidence that death-threat propaganda isn't solely owned by gun toting religious tea party nutjobs.

Very few people would say that such propaganda is solely owned by gun toting religious tea party nutjobs. But it is overwhelmingly coming from that direction, for years now. I mean, no contest, really.

But yeah, your Kill Bush t-shirt was in poor taste ever since you started wearing it, so you probably should get rid of it. I don't think burning it would be the most ecologically conscious thing to do, though.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:24 AM on January 10, 2011

Now we can only ask "Who's next?" Will it be the last survivor of the PalinPAC campaign, West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall? Or Senator Harry Reid...

I know you don't mean anything threatening by it, but this type of comment gives me the creeps. These are real people.
posted by naoko at 2:27 AM on January 10, 2011

Yeah, because the right-wing organizations threatening bloodshed for the past year didn't really mean it. Give me a break.

If you don't think they are ecstatic about this turn of events, you are hopelessly naive. Yeah, Fox News conservatives are issuing "our prayers our with you" statements. Meanwhile, the actual base they appeal to are celebrating, just like they did with the death of Tiller. You really don't have to search very hard on the Internet to discover this. I suspect you haven't looked at all.
posted by cj_ at 2:32 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Jacqueline, I hear what you're saying, but - the suspect was able to shoot 18 people, some of them more than once, because he had a 30-round magazine on a semi-automatic pistol (I think a Glock 17). He was taken down when an unarmed 61-year-old grandmother grabbed the next magazine when he went to reload. He wasn't superman. He couldn't h.ave killed and hurt all those people if he hadn't been carrying a perfectly legal but absolutely unreasonable weapon, and he was disarmed by a little old lady while he was essentially gunless. If there was ever an argument against the idea that "guns don't kill people", this was it.

And it's a mad country that insists it's every citizen's right to carry a semiauto with an extended magazine. No civiliam needs that for home defense, or to hunt, or for protection in a dark alleyway.
posted by gingerest at 2:52 AM on January 10, 2011 [21 favorites]

cj_: From what I've seen the group that's celebrating is much much smaller than the group who'll happily cheer when some Tea Party speaker suggests that perhaps another revolution is in order. They both seem pretty insane to me. I hope that there's a large segment of US Republicans who also think both those groups are unhinged, and hopefully can regain control of the message.
posted by sycophant at 2:52 AM on January 10, 2011

delmoi: Paul Krugman's OpEd for tomorrow: Climate of Hate
flapjax at midnite: Krugman nailed it.

Yes, he makes a good distinction here:

The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.

posted by memebake at 3:50 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

One rep from North Carolina says he is going to start carrying his gun more often.
posted by marxchivist at 4:05 AM on January 10, 2011

"Even if one of the bystanders had been carrying a concealed handgun, ..."
posted by Jacqueline at 4:08 AM on January 10

Joe Zamudio was an armed concealed carry permit holder, who elected not to pull his weapon, but ran towards the shots he heard from inside the nearby Walgreens where he was buying cigarettes, and eventually helped to hold down Loughner, until police arrived.

Joe exercised appropriate judgement, in not pulling his weapon, and trying to identify the source of fire, while moving towards what he thought was the shooter. Many self-defense shooting courses at least argue for keeping your weapon holstered, until you have a clear plan/need to return fire, as responding law enforcement can otherwise easily mistake you for an additional or primary involved shooter/criminal.

Good demonstration of cool thinking and arguably brave response, in a situation where a concealed carry permit holder legally had a "hammer," but was still looking for the "nail."
posted by paulsc at 4:07 AM on January 10, 2011 [30 favorites]

Joe exercised appropriate judgement, in not pulling his weapon

Yeah imagine if the bystandards had seen another gunman running at them.

But "More guns solve the problem" stuff is just going to lead to more problems. This guy clearly didn't expect to survive so a gun wouldn't have deterred him.

And actually, Arizona doesn't even require a permit to carry a concealed weapon. So a crazy person could buy a gun and carry it around secretly until they snapped.
posted by delmoi at 4:12 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I mean I don't know what's involved in getting a concealed carry license, Is a psychological evaluation part of it? (Seems like it should be). But either way Arizona under Jan Brewer dropped the whole "license" thing and made it legal for everyone to carry around a gun.
posted by delmoi at 4:23 AM on January 10, 2011

And Joe Lisboa is gone. That's a damn shame.

After a grand flounce in which he did something the mods told him to knock off doing, and contiuing to perpetuate the very kind of divisiveness he was complaining about against someone who was repenting from it?

No, it's not.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:27 AM on January 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

I think the more you actually know about guns, the *less* comfortable you should be with unrestricted concealed carry laws propagating around the country these days, including a new one in Arizona that hasn't gone into effect. Most people who buy guns don't know the first thing about using them in conflict, or under stress, or often using them at all.

This douchebag legally bought a 9mm semiauto and several extended clips. He was packing more than the average state trooper is carrying on his/her belt, perfectly legally (not sure about carrying it concealed, but in a couple of months he wouldn't have needed a permit for that either).

I think this won't stop until some similar douchebag shoots up an NRA convention with mass casualties.
posted by spitbull at 5:13 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Great stuff from Krugman -- I too am pissed off when this is turned into a debate about "civility."

It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement.

The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.

And it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.

Unlike Krugman, I think there's a point beyond "incivility" where a generic and extreme level of abusiveness and rudeness tacitly licenses violence, however. As if shouting "YOU LIE" at the president during an address to congress was a mere faux pas rather than expression of dehumanizing disrespect for the office he holds and the principles it represents. At some point, incivility becomes something more like incitement. But they're not going to fix this shit with a kumbaya congressional bipartisan prayer breakfast, no way.

John McCain had a chance to stop this from getting out of hand during the election, and was too cynical to bother trying long before Palin was even his VP nominee. His "patriotism" turned out to be an inch deep.
posted by spitbull at 5:24 AM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Moment of silence at 11am to remember the victims.
posted by fixedgear at 5:34 AM on January 10, 2011

This has to be the biggest MeFi thread I personally have seen. No one here mentioned the Safeway workers who brought clean aprons from the meat department to help the wounded. The gentleman who came from the Walgreens mentioned it. I personally was saddened that one of the dead was a Republican who came by to shake the congresswoman's hand.
Besides all who died and all who were wounded, something else was wounded, maybe killed, a politician's sense of saftey meeting the public, and the public's sense of safety meeting their elected representatives also took a major blow.
Lest we forget, people at the lower levels of the political process do a lot to help people directly.
Now people are going to be that much more afraid of going and getting help from their congressperson. Most of the wounded and most of the dead were there to get help.
This is a nasty blow at basic democratic functioning. Congress people at their best are wonderful people. I personally know a congressman. He is very approchable on issues and on a personal level when people need him. This whole sorry incident is going to make things worse.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 5:36 AM on January 10, 2011 [11 favorites]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that it's possible that Loughner had carried a grudge against Giffords ever since he asked her a nonsensical question at an event in 2007 and she ignored him.

Mr. Loughner said he asked the lawmaker, "How do you know words mean anything?" recalled Mr. Montanaro. He said Mr. Loughner was "aggravated" when Ms. Giffords, after pausing for a couple of seconds, "responded to him in Spanish and moved on with the meeting."
posted by rdr at 5:38 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Of the 20 on the [Paliin target] list, 3 retired, 15 lost their reelections and 2 were reelected. Of those two, one was shot. (Nick Rahall being the other).

During the 2008 election, Nick Rahall's brother's house had its gas line cut in an act of vandalism that could have been deadly. The right wing vandals thought it was Rahall's house and definitely intended to kill.

So they've already tried.
posted by spitbull at 5:41 AM on January 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

John McCain had a chance to stop this from getting out of hand during the election, and was too cynical to bother trying long before Palin was even his VP nominee. His "patriotism" turned out to be an inch deep.

To give give him credit he did try when he was confronted by that loon at a campaign rally and he was forced to tell her that Obama was a kind man with noble intentions. But it must have been clear to him then that a large section of his followers had beliefs that were borrowed from some conspiratorial fever dream and he better go with the flow.
posted by PenDevil at 5:42 AM on January 10, 2011

Just realised that my "Kill Bill" themed t-shirt "Kill Bush" now seems to be in remarkably poor taste.

More to the point, such war criminals ought to be tried and imprisoned if convicted, not summarily executed.
posted by aught at 5:46 AM on January 10, 2011

Math instructor Ben McGahee said Mr. Loughner's frequent off-topic outbursts during an algebra course last summer frightened other students. On his first test, Mr. Loughner wrote "Mayhem Fest!!!" in large letters, Mr. McGahee said.

That's from the WSJ link. I've seen it reported elsewhere, too. I think it's a reference to this festival.
posted by HerArchitectLover at 5:49 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here's what I hope the end result of this will be.

I hope every commentator and every politician will take a second to think -- if one of my political enemies were killed, and the assassin said that he did it because of something I said -- would I have anything to feel guilty about?

I bet a lot of the people that have been using this kind of inflammatory rhetoric have been thinking about this and will moderate their tone going forward, even if they won't apologize or admit to it in public. And I think there are some of them who are genuinely twisted enough (Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh) to double down.

I think within a few months, we'll know which are which.
posted by empath at 5:52 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

I think this won't stop until some similar douchebag shoots up an NRA convention with mass casualties.

there you go, inciting the left wing with your gun imagery and violent rhetoric. when something similar happens, YOU are going have blood on your hands.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 5:54 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

John McCain had a chance to stop this from getting out of hand during the election,

I think he did. I think he was genuinely taken by surprise by it.
posted by empath at 5:54 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is a nasty blow at basic democratic functioning.

This is what has worried me from the start. The fact of the matter is that whatever language people are using in political discourse makes some people very uncomfortable. Despite the motivations of the shooter, this event turns that uneasy feeling into a very real fear that people will take these words as a call to action. And that can be incredibly destructive to the democratic process.
posted by chemoboy at 5:56 AM on January 10, 2011

Nobody paying attention to this thinks this is anything but a tragedy.

Is that why there's at least one recorded case of someone having had the temerity to say that the 9-year-old girl deserved to die then?
posted by blucevalo at 6:02 AM on January 10, 2011

So Loughner was kicked out of Community College, there was direct communication from the school to the parents regarding his mental state, and he was living at home while making his YouTube videos and during the time he purchased his weapon. Presumably there were other, more vocal, more violent, more disturbing delusions which his parents were confronted with on a daily or a weekly basis. Disregarding for a moment the culture or atmosphere of violent rhetoric, we can see that there is a very direct responsibility at play here, and it was the responsibility of a mother or of a father to seek and get the help their child requires. Perhaps they did attempt to get him help - in time the story of his mental illness will emerge. But more likely this was the case of a couple of scared adults, people who were simply ashamed of the behavior of their son and found endless reasons to hope and wish and pray his strange actions and thoughts would simply go away.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:02 AM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that it's possible that Loughner had carried a grudge against Giffords ever since he asked her a nonsensical question at an event in 2007 and she ignored him.

Mr. Loughner said he asked the lawmaker, "How do you know words mean anything?" recalled Mr. Montanaro. He said Mr. Loughner was "aggravated" when Ms. Giffords, after pausing for a couple of seconds, "responded to him in Spanish and moved on with the meeting."

Huh. That's not "ignoring" him. That's the exact opposite of ignoring him.

That's actually an excellent answer to the question.
posted by Flunkie at 6:03 AM on January 10, 2011 [16 favorites]

To give give him credit he did try when he was confronted by that loon at a campaign rally and he was forced to tell her that Obama was a kind man with noble intentions. But it must have been clear to him then that a large section of his followers had beliefs that were borrowed from some conspiratorial fever dream and he better go with the flow.

That happened very late in the crazy season, as I recall, and it was a pretty pathetic attempt to deflect what was happening at every rally where Ms. Palin was the star attraction.

And empath, no I don't think he was taken by surprise. I think he was perfectly willing to play along for most of the election, and at some point he just sold whatever was left of his soul in hopes of winning at any cost.

I used to admire John McCain. Now I think of him as one of the weakest men ever to run for president of the United States.
posted by spitbull at 6:09 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Any update on Congresswoman Giffords' condition?

The Times says half of her skull was removed. What happens to a person after half of her skull is removed?
posted by ekroh at 6:16 AM on January 10, 2011

Mr. Loughner said he asked the lawmaker, "How do you know words mean anything?" recalled Mr. Montanaro. He said Mr. Loughner was "aggravated" when Ms. Giffords, after pausing for a couple of seconds, "responded to him in Spanish and moved on with the meeting."

If that's accurate, that's just chilling. One unstable person asks a nutty question* and Giffords responds the best way she can think of in the moment, and then keeps things moving. And he goes home and starts his plans to assassinate her.

*Yes, I realize there are contexts where this wouldn't be a nutty question. But this was a congressional meet-and-greet, not a graduate linguistics or philosophy seminar.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:17 AM on January 10, 2011

I'm surprised by the optimism shown in this thread that this tragedy will have an effect on the political climate in this country. Have I been turned into such a cynic by what I've witnessed over the past few years that I expect to see this being swept under the rug?

Blasted out by rhetoric on the right, lily-livered response on the left, and the media not wanting the spotlight on them at all, I can see this becoming yet another "surely this..." moment.
I would love to be wrong about this.
posted by newpotato at 6:21 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

I used to admire John McCain. Now I think of him as one of the weakest men ever to run for president of the United States.

I'm not so sure about that. I definitely remember McCain's concession speech as being a return of the "old" John McCain, so much so that people at the time were realizing "if he just was acting like this on the campaign trail, this would have been a much closer election."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:27 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

And since that concession speech he has turned hard right and changed many of his long-held (!) positions on things like immigration and DADT repeal, all in a desperate attempt to stay in office in a Tea Party-mad state.

Nope, just checked my conscience, no respect left for the man.
posted by spitbull at 6:31 AM on January 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

I actually do think McCain was surprised at the forces he unleashed.
But speaking as a one-time McCain fan, any possible belief that he retained even a shred of integrity died the day he ludicrously denied he'd ever considered himself a maverick. I used to think he sold his soul. Now I think he never really had one.

We need a new thread.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:41 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

The response to wing-nuts when they try to deflect blame about their culpability in perpetuating the culture of violence isn't to argue about it, but to simply say "it is wrong when anyone does it."

There is no more wrong or less wrong. Using violent imagery needs to stop, and those who choose to use it or continue to defend it need to be reminded that it is on their conscience. Don't keep score, don't argue balls and strikes. Just repudiate it from anyone.
posted by gjc at 6:43 AM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

No one here mentioned the Safeway workers who brought clean aprons from the meat department to help the wounded.

Brandon Blatcher did mention this upthread.
posted by fairmettle at 7:15 AM on January 10, 2011

Gabrielle Giffords and her slain aide Gabe Zimmerman were both alumni of the Tucson high school my sister and both graduated from.

Here is a page with pictures and brief descriptions of the six dead, if anyone would like a visual aid to help them remember this is about more than their political posturing.

Local Tucson blogger is among the injured. Reports seem to now be that 14 were injured, but names seem not to have been officially released.

Giffords is now reported to have been in surgery at UMC within 38 minutes of the shooting, so this early Gawker report that emergency response was slow seems debunked. Also, the name Rayle does not appear in current reports of people who stopped or detained the gunman so thanks Gawker for making shit up? Tucson Weekly shows time line, with first deputy on the scene in 4 minutes.
posted by Squeak Attack at 7:17 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Tucson Medical Center and YMCA to offer stress debriefings to community.

I know Mark Kelly's statement was already posted here, but I think his call for donations to the Community Food Bank is very sweet. The Community Food Bank is an awesome organization that struggles to feed the hungry of Tucson.

I'm also keeping my eye out for opportunities to donate to funeral costs / medical costs for the victims, but haven't seen anything yet.
posted by Squeak Attack at 7:27 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just want to jump in here to defend St. Alia for a sec. Those of you that live in liberal enclaves...damn, the rest of us envy you. But some of us live in areas where we are the only leftist for miles. In small towns; surrounded by trucks and rodeos and cows and goats. These folks, most of em will be polite if you disagree with their rhetoric....but there's a small and half-cocked contingent that are dangerous, especially if they've been drinking.

I'll give you an example; I'm of Lebanese and Dutch decent. I have olive skin...a thing in Texas that can mark you as an "other". After 9/11, neighbors started putting american flags on my yard. Nobody else's yard...but I'd get up in the morning, go out front, and there'd be half a dozen little flags in the yard. I'd just leave them there until my yard guys mowed, and they'd pick em up. After a while, it mostly eased up...but every 9/11 for 10 freaking years, I get flagged. No big deal. (I've talked about this on Mefi before.)

Then, last election cycle, I put up Obama signs...and holy mother of god, you'd think I'd desecrated Apple Pie. My POW flag was taken down, torn up, and left in my mailbox with a note that said "Your kind don't deserve to fly that flag." My dogs were poisoned, my house was shot at, the HOA management turned very hostile...and that was in a pricey golf-course community.

I don't know which neighbor it was, but I finally decided that I had to sell my house and move, because I just couldn't put my son at the sort of risk. We were run out of our home by right-wing extremists. (For the record, the cops took reports, but did nothing else.)

These people can be dangerous. St. Alia is correct in realizing that there are times when speaking up puts you, your loved ones, and your property at risk...and sometimes that risk may not be worth it.
posted by dejah420 at 7:34 AM on January 10, 2011 [115 favorites]

Also, the name Rayle does not appear in current reports of people who stopped or detained the gunman so thanks Gawker for making shit up?

I saw him on CNN, and unless he's some sort of nut who likes to make shit up, no. Google Dr. Rayle.
posted by fixedgear at 7:49 AM on January 10, 2011

Chilling emails from Lynda Sorenson, who was in one of Loughner's math classes at Pima Community College.

June 14: "We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me. He is one of those whose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon. Everyone interviewed would say, Yeah, he was in my math class and he was really weird. I sit by the door with my purse handy. If you see it on the news one night, know that I got out fast..."
posted by blucevalo at 7:51 AM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

Yet then Rhee steps in and reiterates that this is a devastating injury with the bullet having traveled the length of the right side of her brain. Her eyes are closed (I missed if that was done by hospital staff) and she cannot speak because of the ventilator.

She is kept in a coma via medication with the hope it affects brain swelling. As I have heard, once an hour they dial the meds back, she is awakened and they ask her simple questions, to perform simple commands. Then they put her back under.

It’s my understanding that the bullet went through the left hemisphere at an angle, from above the ear.(?) I think someone way upthread asked if she was left-handed or right, because that would indicate which hemispheres control certain processes.

I watched NBC’s Dateline coverage Sunday night. (Didn’t want to but it was my only access to TV coverage.) Dr. Nancy Snyderman said that if it had gone across the brain or straight through, that would’ve probably been fatal.

According to Snyderman the areas that were hit could affect her ability to be able to say the correct word for something, to organize thoughts, etc.

Are you sure this happened in Arizona? Because it says the shooter was tackled, not gunned down by heroic citizens carrying their legally concealed firearms.

On Dateline that Joe Zamudio came across as a bit of a tool to me, kind of smug about his own gun-carrying. (I actually found myself wondering if he was exaggerating what he'd done to help.) And then I heard on the Stephanie Miller show that he supposedly admitted on another program that when he ran out of the store he could’ve shot the guy who’d taken Loughner’s gun away, thinking that man was the gunman.
posted by NorthernLite at 8:10 AM on January 10, 2011

I really just can't get my head around this concept of treason and hate because people like Palin, Beck, etc are spouting treason. They are spouting out hate. WHY? We had a president just sit there during a terrorist attack. We have seen lies after lies from the other side, even admitted lies, and there was never such hate as there is now. I just don't understand it. And this "person" killing a 9 year old child. Why? This has got to end. People need to wake up and see the lies from both parties and think for themselves. This whole situation has been a short time coming. It's getting out of control and for what? It did nothing but leave a 9 year old (and others) dead. Why? Because Palin, Beck, tea partiers said so? I'm angry at the lies the government spouts out but I'm not on a rampage killing people. What did this guy honestly think shooting the gov. and others would do except lock him in jail. For what? The big wheel keeps on turning and in a month, nothing has changed.
posted by stormpooper at 8:13 AM on January 10, 2011

Besides all who died and all who were wounded, something else was wounded, maybe killed, a politician's sense of saftey meeting the public, and the public's sense of safety meeting their elected representatives also took a major blow.

The best thing that the representatives could do right now would be to continue to meet with their constituents. Hell -- they should start doing it more. Backing down due to fear and intimidation is the worst thing that could possibly be done at this point.
posted by schmod at 8:15 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

dejah420 wrote: I don't know which neighbor it was, but I finally decided that I had to sell my house and move, because I just couldn't put my son at the sort of risk. We were run out of our home by right-wing extremists. (For the record, the cops took reports, but did nothing else.)

I hate hate hate this. I hate that, as a 25-year old (east) Indian guy, there are entire regions of my country which are off-limits to me -- areas where I would constantly be afraid that someone might figure me to be some sort of terrorist or criminal, and might take action based on that assumption.

This is not paranoia, sadly. I'm pretty much the least paranoid person ever. And I don't think that all (or even the majority of) Southerners or Westerners or rural people are like that. It's just a reality that there's a significant minority of Americans who have wrapped themselves tightly in the blanket of bigotry and fear. And I am for them merely one of many Others, one of the objects onto which they have projected that fear.

The people in this thread who have derided the real anguish of MeFites who find themselves in these situations need to take a hard look at themselves. I'm privileged enough to live in a safe, diverse neighbourhood in Chicago. I don't have to worry too much about being targeted by some angry, fearful bigot. But there are millions of people in this nation who are sleeping less easily since Saturday's attempted assassination. Don't belittle that.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:21 AM on January 10, 2011 [24 favorites]

"WASHINGTON -- Mary Rose Wilcox, a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in Arizona, was sitting in her car on Saturday when her husband called her back into their restaurant. Inside, he pointed to the television, where news stations were reporting that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 20 others had been shot in what police are now calling an assassination attempt.

Wilcox said she was devastated. She also said she was frightened: Wilcox herself was shot in 1997, while walking out of a board meeting, by a man who later said he was angry at her support for a baseball stadium tax. The first Hispanic woman elected to the board, Wilcox, a Democrat, had been the target of talk-radio tirades telling Maricopa County residents to "take her out."

"I knew at the time that the hate had been caused by a lot of the rhetoric that had gone on," Wilcox told HuffPost. "At the trial, the man actually said, 'I shot her because the radio said I should take her out.'" (link)

Here's some additional info (there are lots of reports) from the Associated Press in August 1997:

Mental illness cited in 1989 murder case of man shot county official

PHOENIX (AP) - The man who shot and wounded a county official had been acquitted of murder in a 1982 slaying - a case that saw a psychiatrist assess the man's confession as the product of a "disordered and deluded mind." Larry Marvin Naman, 49, remained jailed Thursday in lieu of $1 million bond, charged with attempted murder in the wounding Wednesday of Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox as she left a supervisors meeting. Wilcox, who was hit in the pelvis, was in good condition Thursday at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center.

Naman on Wednesday admitted shooting Wilcox, telling reporters he was angered by her support of a tax that supervisors approved in 1994 to help pay for a new baseball stadium to be used by the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks. Records from Naman's 1989 trial in the April 10, 1982 slaying of James Roth in Tempe indicated that a jury acquitted him in less than two hours after a two-day trial. Neither the prosecution nor defense attorneys who handled the case returned telephone calls immediately Thursday, but court records indicated that the main evidence against Naman was his Nov. 11, 1988 confession to a Scottsdale police officer. Naman admitted to four slayings, including the one in Tempe, when the officer approached Naman and questioned him as he sat on a curb, according to Jan. 26, 1989 legal pleading by the prosecutor on the case. An April 10, 1989, letter to Naman's defense lawyer by a psychiatrist who examined Naman said he had a "major mental illness that included delusions." Naman was hospitalized in Oregon in 1973 "for what appeared to be a depressive disorder" and his family apparently had "a grossly positive history for mental illness," Dr. Jack Potts wrote. While he could not conclude whether Naman could have or did kill anybody, Potts said the confession "very well could have been a product of his disordered and deluded mind." A release questionnaire filled out by police after Naman's 1988 arrest said he was a transient. On a separate form, Naman said he had a general delivery address in Tempe "on and off for years" and lived previously at "various locations." He listed no income, savings or family.

Wilcox's husband, former state Rep. Earl Wilcox, said he and his wife forgave Naman. "If we can't practice that, we're not up to our (Christian) beliefs," he said. Wilcox, a Phoenix Democrat and former City Council member, was the only supervisor to attend the 1995 groundbreaking for the stadium. Her husband said she continued to support it as an economic development tool and a long-term benefit for the community. Citizen activists have criticized the supervisors for not putting the tax to a public vote, and two of the three supervisors who voted with Wilcox for the tax subsequently lost elections - one for re-election and the second for Congress. Also Thursday, county officials announced plans to tighten security at the county administration building and the supervisors lobby, including installation of metal detectors and adding more guards and surveillance cameras.

Meanwhile, Earl Wilcox said his wife stood by comments she made in a newspaper interview while under sedation Wednesday evening, blaming the attack on "hate radio." "I think they've wound people up in a frenzy. I hope the hate that's spewed out of these stations will stop,"' she told The Arizona Republic without pointing to any station. Earl Wilcox declined to specify any station but said she "had been subjected to a lot of abuse" since she voted for the stadium tax.

KFYI-AM radio talk host Bob Mohan, who has been outspoken in criticizing Wilcox, said on the air after the shooting that he expected to blamed but said it would be unfair. On the air Thursday, he denounced the shooting and callers who welcomed it. "If you don't like (the stadium tax) ... vote them out. Put the guns away," he said. The Wilcoxes credited a county security officer with deflecting the gun, possibly saving her life. Darrell Marr told reporters Thursday he was just doing his job when he rushed Naman after spotting him approaching Wilcox while carrying a paper bag.

posted by cashman at 8:25 AM on January 10, 2011 [12 favorites]

Jack Shafer, Slate:

Any call to cool "inflammatory" speech is a call to police all speech, and I can't think of anybody in government, politics, business, or the press that I would trust with that power. ... Our spirited political discourse, complete with name-calling, vilification—and, yes, violent imagery—is a good thing. Better that angry people unload their fury in public than let it fester and turn septic in private. The wicked direction the American debate often takes is not a sign of danger but of freedom. And I'll punch out the lights of anybody who tries to take it away from me.
posted by blucevalo at 8:34 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

i was listening to a talk radio station on my drive around today - i think it may have been laura ingraham - and she had one thing to say to the people on the left who are accusing the right of hate

"give me a list" - a list of what people are not allowed to say - she wants a specific and complete list

that's not a good faith attempt to clean up the dialogue in this country, it's passive-aggressive nonsense - if you have to have a list to clean up your act, lady, it's clear to me that you have no sincere desire to do so - all it takes is a little compassion and empathy to come up with ways of making your points that aren't hateful - all it takes is the application of the good old golden rule - if you wouldn't like it said about you, don't say it about others

i turned her off in disgust - i don't know why i listened in the first place, except maybe to see if the chatterers on talk radio had second thoughts about the things their political allies have been saying

i guess not
posted by pyramid termite at 8:39 AM on January 10, 2011 [13 favorites]

What happens to a person after half of her skull is removed?

Apparently they did this to mitigate possible damage from brain swelling, and are keeping the removed portion of the skull as alive as possible so they can replace it once that danger has passed. It's a common-ish procedure in these kinds of injuries.
posted by hippybear at 8:39 AM on January 10, 2011

dejalah, on the one hand my initial, knee-jerk reaction to your story is that, "well, that kind of thing would make me more likely to speak up, not less!"

However -- my very next thought was that that reaction is entirely due to my own stubborn streak, which also stems from my never having to face blowback of that magnitude.

So this is a reminder to all, I suppose, that even though some of us may have a similar stubborn streak, not everyone does, and so whether or not one is able to speak Truth to Power like this is a very, very individual thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:39 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can't say that I agree with Mr. Shafer here. However, I think that regulating campaign imagery is also a bad idea. The only positive outcome, I think, would be the cessation of this level of vitriolic incitement despite the fact that campaigns and candidates would still be within their rights to do so...
posted by rollbiz at 8:40 AM on January 10, 2011

Flunkie: what you said about Gifford's reply to Loughner is spot-on and brilliant. I had not thought of that.
posted by goalyeehah at 8:43 AM on January 10, 2011

WTF NAOKO, I DID NOT MEAN ANYTHING THREATENING, I'M TRYING TO POINT OUT WHO IS BEING THREATENED!!!! I'm reporting on the politicians that are being TARGETED by the Right Wing Haters! It is becoming very clear there will be more attacks, and I want these REAL PEOPLE to remain safe and alive!

Ookay, first of all, the first thing I said was that I know you weren't trying to be threatening, and second of all, the shoutiness isn't necessary. I was probably being a little oversensitive, but if I may try to explain what I'm getting at: imagine if someone had said, "You know what would really suck though? If the next person to die were your friend [Mike/Joe/Steve/whoever]. They were threatened before, but they'll probs actually die this time." Read that with the name of someone you care about in it and see if it give you chills, just a little bit. Speculating about who's next to die just feels a bit too macabre to me - but maybe I'm the only one, and if I'm grossly overreacting I apologize. I don't know Nick Rahall or Harry Reid, but I know and care about people who have been in similar or the same positions and dealt with very real threats to their lives, and I've been evacuated from my building because there was a live bomb in the office directly below mine. This just doesn't feel abstract to me. I'm sorry for not expressing that more clearly and less aggressively the first time around.

During the 2008 election, Nick Rahall's brother's house had its gas line cut in an act of vandalism that could have been deadly. The right wing vandals thought it was Rahall's house and definitely intended to kill.
This one was actually Tom Perriello, not Nick Rahall. Nick Rahall may very likely have been threatened too. There was a pretty comprehensive list upthread somewhere, but I would bet that there were lots of threatening letters and phone calls that didn't make it to the news.
posted by naoko at 8:44 AM on January 10, 2011

EmpressCallipygos: "dejalah, on the one hand my initial, knee-jerk reaction to your story is that, "well, that kind of thing would make me more likely to speak up, not less!"

However -- my very next thought was that that reaction is entirely due to my own stubborn streak, which also stems from my never having to face blowback of that magnitude.

So this is a reminder to all, I suppose, that even though some of us may have a similar stubborn streak, not everyone does, and so whether or not one is able to speak Truth to Power like this is a very, very individual thing"

For the record...standing up to the crazy is what made the crazy worse. You can ask any of the mefites who know me...and subtle or pushover are two terms that have probably never been used about me. ;)
posted by dejah420 at 8:45 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

I get that conservatives don’t want to talk about context right now. After all, it’s rather uncomfortable when this sort of thing is so obvious on its face – just as it was obvious that when Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood that, although he was a nutbag and that was most of the reason he went on a rampage, being exposed to the worst kind of violent Islamic rhetoric didn’t help.
posted by The Whelk at 8:46 AM on January 10, 2011 [9 favorites]

I saw him on CNN, and unless he's some sort of nut who likes to make shit up, no. Google Dr. Rayle.

fixedgear, let me be more explicit for you. In the Gawker article, Rayle claimed to have held down the shooter. Perhaps he did, perhaps many did, but he's not currently listed as one of the people who did in official media releases.

More importantly to me, the Gawker article stated, "Rayle helped hold the gunman down while waiting for the sheriff to arrive, about 15-to-20 minutes later. The EMS came about 30 minutes later."

I thought that was ridiculous when I read it, and now it seems fairly clear it was complete bullshit. The sherriff responded within 5 minutes, and Giffords was across town, in surgery, within 40 minutes. So yes, some making up of shit does seem to have happened.
posted by Squeak Attack at 8:56 AM on January 10, 2011

More importantly to me, the Gawker article stated, "Rayle helped hold the gunman down while waiting for the sheriff to arrive, about 15-to-20 minutes later. The EMS came about 30 minutes later."

I was skeptical when I heard that as well. I'm pretty sure that it sure felt like that long, though. Adrenaline alters your perception of time pretty dramatically, and high levels of stress can cause you to make mistakes even in simple arithmetic.

I am not certain that this was all made up, although there are inconsistencies.
posted by chemoboy at 9:02 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

For the record...standing up to the crazy is what made the crazy worse.

Nah, I know. I think i was just saying that the fact that me thinking "damn, I'd still stand up" says more about my own stubbornness than it does about whether such an act is, in fact, a wise one. (I was saying "I think I'm thinking that because I'm an idiot", in other words.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:07 AM on January 10, 2011

Florida radio (WFTL) host Joyce Kaufman, speaking at a Tea Party Rally in 2010 before the midterm election : "I am convinced that the most important thing the founding fathers did to insure me my first amendment rights was they gave me a second amendment. (cheers) And if ballots don't work, bullets will."
posted by crunchland at 9:10 AM on January 10, 2011

oops. Youtube.
posted by crunchland at 9:11 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

UMC is holding a press conference updating Congresswoman Giffords' condition - basically it's no change, which they consider a good sign. No additional swelling of the brain, and Giffords is still responding to basic commands (wiggle your toes, show me your thumb) when they assess her. Dr.'s Rhee & Lemore (sp?) are great. Steady, measured, but friendly and caring.
posted by cashman at 9:15 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Gabe Zimmerman was at Adlai Stevenson College at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with me, one year ahead. He's a familiar face, and knowing he was a Banana Slug and a Stevensonian means I know with some confidence some things about him that make this seem all the sadder. He would be a peaceful, ethically conscious, empathetic man. The theme of Stevenson College was "Self and Society," and in the year-long core course common to all of us, we read books on the themes of tolerance, individuality, ethics, and political theory, from the Tao and the Koran to Malcolm X, Franz Fanon and Into The Wild.

His father calls it a "strange irony" that he was killed by a disturbed child, since Gabe worked with troubled children. Santa Cruz Sentinel article.

I'd have to add that if he chose this college program, he was also acutely conscious of the perpetual conflict between the mandate of the individual and the compact of the state. Another dreadful irony of his murder.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:18 AM on January 10, 2011 [11 favorites]

I was skeptical when I heard that as well. I'm pretty sure that it sure felt like that long, though. Adrenaline alters your perception of time pretty dramatically, and high levels of stress can cause you to make mistakes even in simple arithmetic.

This is absolutely true, and combined with the fact that EMS couldn't enter the scene until it was secure, it probably seemed like FOREVER until responders began to treat the victims. Given the nature of many of these wounds, though, if it had actually taken 40 minutes for them to arrive there'd be twice as many dead.
posted by rollbiz at 9:28 AM on January 10, 2011

Blucevalo quoted Slate's Jack Shafer: "Any call to cool "inflammatory" speech is a call to police all speech, and I can't think of anybody in government, politics, business, or the press that I would trust with that power. ... Our spirited political discourse, complete with name-calling, vilification—and, yes, violent imagery—is a good thing."

I don't think this is true, and I think it's to be regretted that Mr. Shafer made the lazy connection between calling for the cooling of public discourse and the curtailing of political speech by legal means.

It's not healthy, of course, to bury or deny one's feelings -- even if those feelings are angry or hateful. Certainly everyone is healthier when their honest emotions are able to be expressed in productive ways. But there is a right way and a wrong way to go about that. Naming and recognizing our emotions ("I'm so angry that...") -- well, there may be a time to acknowledge that (although that appropriate time will probably not be in front of the camera). Allowing that anger to get the best of you and spouting inflammatory rhetoric that legitimates violence ("It's time to rise up..." "Second Amendment remedies are needed...") has no place in the discourse of a nation that is ostensibly committed to solving problems by the power of the ballot box and through public dialogue via our duly elected representatives. It's not about government censorship of political speech -- it's about holding political actors to the basic standards of human decency and self-control that are taught in every kindergarten class in this nation.

Our civilization has struggled for centuries to enshrine this principle: that the gun is not a legitimate way to bring about political change. I hope we don't forget that lesson.
posted by tivalasvegas at 9:29 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

six-or-six-thirty: "Rep. Robert Brady of Pennsylvania plans to introduce a bill to ban threatening or inciting political symbols such as the cross-hair map.
..."

No. No. No. No.

I *hate* this bullshit rhetoric. I hate that it leads to this. But there is a REASON we have a right to free speech. All banning anything like this will do is create MORE hate.

A corollary to "just cuz you can don't mean you should" is...

"Just because you shouldn't doesn't mean you should ban it."
posted by symbioid at 9:32 AM on January 10, 2011 [19 favorites]

For many, the investigation will stop there. No need to explore personal motives, out-of-control grievances or distorted political anger. The mere mention of mental illness is explanation enough. This presumed link between psychiatric disorders and violence has become so entrenched in the public consciousness that the entire weight of the medical evidence is unable to shift it. Severe mental illness, on its own, is not an explanation for violence, but don't expect to hear that from the media in the coming weeks.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:44 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Those of you that live in liberal enclaves...damn, the rest of us envy you.

I've always thought it was funny that the rest of the country embraced Manhattan for a short time after Manhattan was attacked even thought they hate us. Anyone who doesn't like it out there in the red states can move here, we will squeeze you in somewhere. There are a couple nuts like Pam Geller but I think she is from Long Island.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:45 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

But there is a REASON we have a right to free speech. All banning anything like this will do is create MORE hate.

Laws against broadcast hate speech seem to work in Canada.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:57 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Watering the Tree of Liberty: A look back at some of the worst revolutionary rhetoric that's contributed to a culture of political violence

"The crazies are listening to the same media as the rest of us."
posted by jeanmari at 9:59 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Our civilization has struggled for centuries to enshrine this principle: that the gun is not a legitimate way to bring about political change. I hope we don't forget that lesson.

"she dissed me. in spanish. in front of everyone. she's everything i'm not. beautiful, successful, powerful, and when out of my deep concern over mind control and literacy, i asked her "how do we know words mean anything?" she answered in spanish, and i didn't understand. i was crushed, humiliated. people laughed. and then she ignored me. the bitch will pay, oh yes she will pay. but wait - maybe i can bring about some political change while i'm at it! yeah, that's the ticket! political change!"
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 10:05 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

New rules.
posted by mazola at 10:06 AM on January 10, 2011

I've always thought it was funny that the rest of the country embraced Manhattan for a short time after Manhattan was attacked even thought they hate us.

Here's the thing -- there are people who embraced Manhattan, but that's different from embracing Manhattan's residents.

I got into a lot of discussions during the Park51 (aka "Ground Zero Mosque") incident and the 9/11 First Responders' bill where someone spoke of honoring 9/11 the event, but then in the very next breath they decried New York as "a slime pit." (That is an exact quote, and it was on Facebook so I can try to pull it up if anyone wants.)

It lead me to conclude that in the eyes of some, the 9/11 attacks may have actually been something they liked, because they were able to have a point to rally around but they were also able to see the country rid of some of us liberal heathens. Or, for others, they may have regretted there be an attack at all, but -- at least it was only in New York rather than in somewhere that really mattered.

They like Manhattan, but only as a conveniently distant memorial site. As for Manhattan residents, we just get in the way and complicate things.

(N.B. - I am not saying all conservative, right-wing, or Republican folk think this way. But I am absolutely convinced that there are a few who do.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:07 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

FFF: That's great and all, and maybe you take an ends justifies the means approach, and in this sense, as much as I hate Americanism and all the jingoistic nationalist pride, I do agree with the first amendment.

The minute you give someone the right to tell you what you can say about or against anything is the moment you give someone control over how to think. I would LOVE to see Palin and her ilk shut down. I hate them. I hate the rhetoric. I fear for the future of our country. But I still think that the reign of free speech is vital.

When the state begins to control what you can or cannot say in the interest of security, it will begin to usurp that (especially when it comes to democracy). If you haven't noticed, the reigns of power in the US is so very precariously balanced upon a center-right (veering right) ideology. (reigns being balanced? what kind of fucking metaphor did I just make there?) In fact *regardless* of whether "my" side is in power or not, it's not a power I want to give anyone, myself OR my enemies. Even though i have a very low estimation of the crowd mind at the moment...

I don't trust the State enough to give it the power to enforce such decisions. Especially in a democracy where the wind blows quite frequently.

But then, I'm torn. I understand why Germany has its rules against Nazi symbolism and holocaust denial. I can see how, if we don't nip this in the bud soon, we will be (are, in fact) heading down a dark path... So in that sense, a fear of the unknown future, I can see why banning speech is appealing.

But who defines it? Does it become only when it's violent? Who's allowed to say stuff? What about on the internet? You say laws against Broadcast hate speech. In the US we do have different rules for Broadcast vs other types of speech. Perhaps that might be an answer? It makes me *very* uneasy. and trying to get something like that across in the US will be a HUGE against the bigoted hate mongers and their libertarian allies, and the liberal libertarian side (like myself). So you thought health care was a hard push... Imagine how hard something like this would be...
posted by symbioid at 10:08 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just a quick note in the middle of all this bruhaha -- I wanted to express my sincerest thanks to the kind words a lot of you said yesterday about my encounter with the man who mistakenly thought that the "Congresslady got what she deserved."

To be honest, I was scared shitless. I live in a state with concealed carry laws on the books, and in this charged climate, I had no idea if he was carrying a weapon. I'm just glad that others spoke up, too, and didn't make me feel like the lone crazy liberal.

Anyway ... thank you. The Blue means a lot to me, and I'm grateful for your kind words. Now let's pray that the "Congresslady" makes a full recovery.
posted by zooropa at 10:09 AM on January 10, 2011 [9 favorites]

lupus_yonderboy: And for those of you rudely telling us not to jump to conclusions, I assume there will be apologies forthcoming if it is, in fact, a bunch of right-wing extremists as every indication has showed from the very beginning?

And for those of you who ARE jumping and HAVE jumped to the conclusion that this sicko, deranged nutjob was somehow tied to the Tea Party and/or Sarah Palin and/or right-wing extremists - I assume there will be apologies forthcoming now that it is, in fact, shown that he is a sicko, deranged nutjob who was motivated by his irrational beliefs, mental illness, and an apparent years-long interest in Giffords?
posted by davidmsc at 10:11 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

there are people who embraced Manhattan, but that's different from embracing Manhattan's residents

Oh yeah, thats why I said they hate us. I am reminded of that whenever O'Reilly uses the phrase "upper west side elites".
posted by Ad hominem at 10:14 AM on January 10, 2011

As much as I deplore violent political rhetoric, I'm physically ill at the thought of this tragic event spurring a push to outlaw speech.
posted by desjardins at 10:24 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

And for those of you who ARE jumping and HAVE jumped to the conclusion that this sicko, deranged nutjob was somehow tied to the Tea Party and/or Sarah Palin and/or right-wing extremists - I assume there will be apologies forthcoming now that it is, in fact, shown that he is a sicko, deranged nutjob who was motivated by his irrational beliefs, mental illness, and an apparent years-long interest in Giffords?

the idea of violent retribution by the self-defined righteous is so central to american culture these days that one would have to be a hermit not to have known it - it's in our movies, it's in our tv shows, it's in our music, it's in our literature, and yes, it's been in our political discourse too, thanks to those who talk about "2nd amendment remedies", "reload", etc, etc, etc

this deranged nutjob was acting out a script that has long been running in our national consciousness - and one that the tea party and the more extreme republicans have been more than willing to embrace and use for the purpose of firing up their political base

they have willingly aided and abetted this cancer in our national consciousness for political advantage

there will be no apologies - EVER - they have brought this climate into our politics and they will have to live down the consequences

where are the voices on the right renouncing this kind of rhetoric? - where are the republicans saying, "we're going to tone this down and not talk about our opponents in ways that suggest that using violence would be acceptable"? - is it really THAT difficult to say that one will speak to the issues without embracing revolutionary rhetoric?

it's not just what they've said that is damning - it's what they've NOT said since this shooting has happened
posted by pyramid termite at 10:26 AM on January 10, 2011 [19 favorites]

Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal:

Every two years we hold elections so that sane Americans can make a judgment on the policies of President Obama, John Boehner, tea party candidates and so on. But even though the people have recently had their say, in a typically raucous but entirely nonviolent fashion, we are supposed to put that aside and assess what a murderer with a mental illness has to tell us about the state of American politics, government and our national dialogue.

This line of argument is itself an attack on democratic discourse, and it is amazing that it even needs to be rebutted. Taking such an argument seriously will only encourage more crazy people to believe they can trigger a national soul-searching if they shoot at a political target. We should denounce the murders and the murderer, rather than doing him the honor of suggesting that his violence flows in any explainable fashion from democratic debate.

(my emphasis). Most of this had me thinking, well, thats a reasonable counterpoint. But then the bit in bold struck me as sophistry, as if its the winning entry in a competition to turn someones argument back on them in the least number of words possible.

I am left with the unpleasant feeling that 'thinking' in the US is stuck in a never-ending partisan hall of mirrors, boxing in thought on both sides of the spectrum, and I can't see any obvious way to stop it, as it seems a vicious circle in which any attempt to stop the cycle means your side loses. Hopefully dialogue can outweigh confirmation bias in the longer term.
posted by memebake at 10:29 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

there will be no apologies - EVER

Hang on, wasn't it Brandon Blatcher who said something about a Republican he knew admitting he was having a soul-searching moment about "I need to think about what my party's doing and how I may have unwittingly contributed to this"? Brandon ended up buying him breakfast?

And didn't we see St. Alia admitting to a little bit of the same soul-searching "I need to think about how to change my own actions" in this thread as well?

....Isn't that at least a first step towards an apology?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:30 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

I believe he's talking about the non-forthcoming apologies of those in power and those who want to be in power.
posted by blucevalo at 10:31 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

....Isn't that at least a first step towards an apology?

i was saying that i am not going to apologize for accusing the right for creating this climate and neither should anyone else

if people want to apologize for going along with this violent rhetoric, i certainly hope they would
posted by pyramid termite at 10:34 AM on January 10, 2011

blucevalo: "Clarence Dupnik, Pima County Sheriff: "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 this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.""

Fox News' Megyn Kelly asks Sheriff Dupnik: "Why are you politicizing this tragedy?"

(The same Megyn Kelly who less than one month ago tied a Cape Cod arsonist to "the class warfare narrative we have been hearing from Capitol Hill in recent weeks.")

Also, check out the TOTALLY SPOOKY OCCULT SHRINE the NY Daily News discovered in Loughner's back yard.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:34 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hang on, wasn't it Brandon Blatcher who said something about a Republican he knew admitting he was having a soul-searching moment about "I need to think about what my party's doing and how I may have unwittingly contributed to this"? Brandon ended up buying him breakfast?

Hahahaha, no, that was Bitter Old Punk's comment. We get that a lot.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:36 AM on January 10, 2011

I have FIed and should probably MO, but seeing quonsar II, here, apparently pretending to be Jared Lee Loughner and speaking in his voice in order to mock somebody else on MetaFilter's opinion, has sort of thrown me. Have I misread what happened there?
posted by DNye at 10:37 AM on January 10, 2011

Fox News is reporting that he had links to a white supremacist group.

Palin's symbols do look more like Odin's crosses than gun sights. Most of the optics I've looked through don't have the crosshairs extending beyond the f.o.v. Circle X has a cross within a smaller interior circle.
I presume she's only looked through low power scopes given she likes "hunting" from a moving vehicle.

These people can be dangerous. St. Alia is correct in realizing that there are times when speaking up puts you, your loved ones, and your property at risk...and sometimes that risk may not be worth it.

What's infuriating about the rhetoric on this from the people in the light is how egocentric it is. And how antithetical it is to having a decent society.

Far be it for me to oppose anyone from carrying a firearm - but it's entirely the wrong mindset (not that, gee, pro-gun folks never do that, but more and more people championing what I see as a core principle are people who accept all the wrong reasons for doing it. They don't even know there doing the same thing as everyone else just using a different name entertaining themselves missing it. Lying. None of them care about pole vaulting or dreams. (Of course I was a fourth level once myself))

I hear/read the "I'm going to carry a weapon/ defend myself/ let no one mess with me" bullshit from people who have never been on the receiving end of incoming fire.
... allow me to state this as clearly as I can and grant me some understanding here: weapons or the threat of their use is not a true defense.
Just having a gun, or even firing back, will not save you. Indeed, the opposition arguments are just as insipid as the Palin wannabe tough guy "don't retreat, reload" crap.

OF COURSE you retreat if someone shoots at you. OF COURSE you take cover. That's how not to get fucking shot. (Fun fact: FBI agents trained long and hard to be good shots. And they were great shots for a long time. They were such great shots that in small arms firefights they would get shot in disproportionate numbers trying to return fire rather than take cover. Then they started training to retreat and fire from cover and, voila, got shot less.)

What saves you is not that you are firing back (although that is discouraging). It's that someone else is firing back on your behalf. It's called suppressive fire and why teamwork is the best defense.

So too - there are times when speaking out puts someone or their families at risk.
This does not mean they should have more courage. It is not incumbent upon them to take the risk to speak if they are threatened.

It is incumbent upon those of us who continue to live in a free society to extend our protection to them so they can speak.

For some damn reason we've been reticent to do that. Probably because we fear getting tarred with the same brush. Which is understandable.
But in some cases because we seem to want the same largesse from society to act with abandon regarding our own values. That is despicable.
This fact hasn't prevented it as being touted as a virtue by exploitative political talking heads and, apparently, people who want to sell gold and other things on t.v. and radio.
But conflict of any kind is good for some business. It was Baron Rothschild who said it was time buy when there is blood in the streets, even when it's your own. This too is being sold as a virtue.

S'why people think bullets 'work.'
They don't. They destroy. For that purpose they're quite good. Why this is considered virtuous is beyond me.
The people doing useful work are the doctors keeping this woman alive. The only virtue that's ever come from violence is putting oneself in harms way on behalf of another. Extending oneself on behalf of someone else. Putting your shield up to defend your comrade.

Picking up a weapon to defend oneself? That's not a virtue. Hell, even lower animals bare their teeth when cornered.

When someone else is at risk, you act protect them. Regardless of rhetorical differences. That's what makes a civil society function. We don't pay taxes with the caveat that the firefighters won't save Muslims or the Irish or Republicans or whomever it is you might have a beef with because we recognize that it could be our house that goes up next.

It is a valid point that someone who refuses to recognize this mutual dependence in a society, someone who goes around burning houses, is sick. That it is so widespread a madness or considered acceptable under certain circumstances doesn't mean it is any less crazy.

In some regards it can be useful to consider some people as such (StalinistSoviet style psychiatric 'hospitals' obviously show the danger of treating dissent as mental imbalance). But treat someone with tolerance, and patience and the understanding one extends to someone who has a mental illness (which itself takes some work and education) instead of returning the madness and intractability makes more sense.
Fighting fire with fire is a good way to set the entire neighborhood ablaze.
Sometimes violence is the only option, but (as long as one isn't being actively fired upon at the time) with a little preparation and forethought, that can usually be avoided.
Paul Rusesabagina had a firearm?
And it helps if others are working as a matter of principle on behalf of a society that supports that.

None of us should feel alone in the face of oppression. And it should not matter what the cause. We should protect those who are being threatened as a matter of the same course as calling the fire department if we see their house burning.

It's not standing up for one's principles (although that is important if not always possible), it's standing up to make sure others can stand as well. That makes a society more stable.

It's not a stretch to notice those who foment instability do so to their own ends. Or what they believe/have been beguiled into thinking are their own ends.
Ideas are unkillable indeed. Damn shame that's a double edged sword in some cases. But it does demand engagement (and given that, consideration what forms of engagement are more useful, thus the above mass of verbiage).
posted by Smedleyman at 10:43 AM on January 10, 2011 [28 favorites]

Rhaomi: "Also, check out the TOTALLY SPOOKY OCCULT SHRINE the NY Daily News discovered in Loughner's back yard."

"I am not a witch... I'm you..."
posted by symbioid at 10:48 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have FIed and should probably MO, but seeing quonsar II, here, apparently pretending to be Jared Lee Loughner and speaking in his voice in order to mock somebody else on MetaFilter's opinion, has sort of thrown me. Have I misread what happened there?

no, just characterized it in the worst possible manner. i'm simply pointing up that no matter the evidence that comes out, some folks here will cling to their "it's palin/beck/limbaugh/right-wing/political" narrative.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 10:50 AM on January 10, 2011

Smedleyman: "None of us should feel alone in the face of oppression. And it should not matter what the cause. We should protect those who are being threatened as a matter of the same course as calling the fire department if we see their house burning.

It's not standing up for one's principles (although that is important if not always possible), it's standing up to make sure others can stand as well. That makes a society more stable. "

Beautiful.

I noticed this in contrast to the recent happening in Egypt where a Christian Church was bombed, but fellow Egyptians... Muslims... formed a human shield to protect their fellow humans (regardless of Religion -- though they still looked at it through lenses of nationality). The image you painted was similar. Suppressive fire on the front of free speech is also a beautiful metaphor. Letting people know they are not alone. That, I think, is the key here.
posted by symbioid at 10:55 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Bob Brady should probably STFU and go back to doing a half-assed job of representing the residents of the Commonwealth of PA insetad of introucing poorly concieved legislation that is dommed to fail.
posted by fixedgear at 10:59 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

The piece of skull that was removed is living bone, it will be kept at the ideal temperature in a fluid and once the swelling goes down it will generally be wired right back in. Depending on the size of the holes left they can be left to fill in of their own accord or a variety of techniques and/or material are used. It's not as horrific as it sounds and it is actually an agressive way to ensure the swelling causes as little damage as possible.
I would very much doubt they dial the anasthesia back on an hourly basis, the protocol here would be 6-8hrs, it's possible because she was so responsive pre-op and because the signs of swelling are not as severe as expected that this is done more frequently. That would be quite a good sign.
posted by Wilder at 12:50 PM on January 10 [+] [!]

It's interesting. Adding anecdotally - my SO had a serious injury to the head a few years ago. They removed part of his skull to perform surgery and to reduce pressure. This p[art of his skull was replaced by titanium "mesh" material that new bone will eventually grow over. He was brought out of induced coma every few days.
posted by marimeko at 10:59 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Smedleyman: you do make a good point.

However, to continue your analogy: is it possible that all St. Alia and dejah420 meant by saying that not everyone could speak out was, "I can't fire without becoming a target myself?"

That's not a wimp-out. That's a request for backup, and that request for backup could be coming because either the caller is in a bad position or because they know they haven't yet been sufficiently trained in these particular battle tactics.

I don't think it's egotistical as such, at least not in all cases. In some cases it could be, "yo, we didn't cover these kinds of manouvers in basic training yet, I'm out of my depth."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:02 AM on January 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

"That's not a wimp-out. That's a request for backup, and that request for backup could be coming because either the caller is in a bad position or because they know they haven't yet been sufficiently trained in these particular battle tactics."

I like this way of thinking about it. Good idea, there.
posted by zoogleplex at 11:07 AM on January 10, 2011

i'm simply pointing up that no matter the evidence that comes out, some folks here will cling to their "it's palin/beck/limbaugh/right-wing/political" narrative.

Quonsar II: Ah, so you were indeed pretending to be Jared Lee Loughner, a day after he killed six people, including a child, and injured many others, including a US congresswoman, in order to mock somebody who holds an opinion other than your own.

If that's the rhetorical length you go to when you think you are simply pointing up a position you hold, I can't imagine what it looks like when you really wind up for the big pitch.

However, this is not particularly ontopic. I was just really thrown, and wondering if I could possibly have read you right. Turns out I did.
posted by DNye at 11:07 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

We get that a lot.

Brandon's the smart one, I'm the handsome one.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:08 AM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Arg. My apologies to Bitter and Brandon.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:13 AM on January 10, 2011

quonsar : Even if there's no provable cause and effect between what Laughner did on Saturday and the violent hate speech displayed in places like Joyce Kaufner's tea-party rally, it's clear that a) this guy didn't get the mental health attention that he deserved; b) guns are too easy for people like him to get; c) there are a lot of angry people who seem to think that if they can't get their way through the ballot box, it's justified to use hyperbolic and violent hate speech to get their way, by any means necessary.
posted by crunchland at 11:19 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

...I'm the handsome one

Dames don't like short guys.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:23 AM on January 10, 2011

...it's clear that a) this guy didn't get the mental health attention that he deserved; b) guns are too easy for people like him to get; c) there are a lot of angry people who seem to think that if they can't get their way through the ballot box, it's justified to use hyperbolic and violent hate speech to get their way, by any means necessary.

A) Yes, but that runs counter to the deinstitutionalization that's been dominant for the past fifty years. There's an obvious personal liberty issue there that could only be mitigated by better healthcare. So pretty much a non-starter in the States right now.

B) Obviously true, but it will take constitutional shenanigans to get around, ultimately. And that worries me for reasons that are more likely to impact me on a daily basis. The first amendment is at least as much under attack currently as the second.

C) Also true, but deciding what's "hate speech" is inherently problematic. Obvious threats are already covered, but should we expand that to snarky parody T-shirts? Music? Video games? Should Godwin's Law become codified law?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:36 AM on January 10, 2011

Fox News' Megyn Kelly asks Sheriff Dupnik: "Why are you politicizing this tragedy?"

That didn't take long. When there is an (attempted) assassination on a political official, how can the ensuing discussion involving it not be political? In defense of Dupnik, I don't believe he ever mentioned any political party or even placed any blame on the government, just those who spoke out against it.
posted by chemoboy at 11:42 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

!

(! = I share the common outrage.)

I've lurked and thought for a couple of days on this thread, because to write earlier would have just added a knee-jerk emotionalism, which really doesn't do anyone any good.

I suggest one potentially useful response from reasonable people to this shooting would be to vocally turn down the temperature of political rhetoric when people around us use violent imagery. I'm thinking of the proverbial guy in the coffee shop or the paranoid uncle, maybe even comment threads and letters to the editor. I wonder about a response to them like, "Hey, you're not going to war, Uncle Crazypants. You're talking about fellow Americans," or, "We're not playing army-men here, we're talking politics," or "I don't know where you got that, but we don't talk about fellow Americans like that." Period, the end. Emphasize the silliness of macho talk (in a gentle way), and the commonality we have as people of a single county. Leave the corporations-are-controlling-the-world or the Republicans-are-a-bunch-of-dupes counterarguments for another, appropriate time.

In the longer term, I think thoughtful people need to drop the war metaphor for politics. Others have suggested better ones based on gardening/farming, for example. Words count; ideas matter. We need to have our politicians growing their crop of voters, not rallying troops for battle; we elect them to do the hard chores for us, not fight for us; cultivating, planting, harvesting, not marching, strategizing, reloading.

There's no winning in politics, there's just another turn of the seasons.
posted by slab_lizard at 11:43 AM on January 10, 2011 [21 favorites]

some folks here will cling to their "it's palin/beck/limbaugh/right-wing/political" narrative

No one being reasonable would claim Palin pulled the trigger — but, at the end of the day, she's responsible for her words and campaign materials. The same goes for Jan Brewer and her "Second Amendment solutions" speech.

People, including you, are responsible for how honestly they acknowledge the acts of Palin and Brewer in promoting violence against this specific Democratic politician.

If you're just here to troll, to get your usual laughs, that's one thing. However, to claim that Palin and Brewer have no part in why Saturday's tragedy happened requires denying reality. That's on you.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:43 AM on January 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

Giffords Contacted [Harvard's] New [Institute of Politics] Director About Divisive Rhetoric
posted by AwkwardPause at 11:47 AM on January 10, 2011

I've been reading this thread pretty thoroughly, but apologies in advance if this Mother Jones article was posted before: Loughner Friend Explains Alleged Gunman's Grudge Against Giffords

It has more about Loughner's interest in Giffords, and about 'conscience dreaming'.
posted by felix grundy at 11:53 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

...concealed carry by ordinary citizens probably reduces mass killings in aggregate...

Well, I was just about to inquire about how this works. I was going to preface my comment by mentioning I'm from a country that's more interested in seeing your gun than your penis when you cross the border, but you know, to hell with that. I couldn't disagree more with the idea that concealed carry dissuades violence, but I thank you for conceding the point that a concealed weapon wouldn't have helped here, and for voicing your opinion so directly to a hostile crowd.

All we need is more folks like you, you insane, gun-loving chowderhead.
posted by ~ at 11:58 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

some folks here will cling to their "it's palin/beck/limbaugh/right-wing/political" narrative

So is Clarence Dupnik clinging to a narrative as well? Or is he just an “an incompetent unhinged sonofabitch” who's trying to score political points, like the freepers are saying?
posted by blucevalo at 12:07 PM on January 10, 2011

"Jacqueline, I hear what you're saying, but - the suspect was able to shoot 18 people, some of them more than once, because he had a 30-round magazine on a semi-automatic pistol (I think a Glock 17)."

Even as someone who is very pro-gun-rights, very anti-gun-control, very knee-jerk against government regulation of firearms as a matter of principle... I have to admit that this and other incidents over the past few years have me reconsidering the wisdom of high-capacity magazines being available to just anyone.

Looking at pictures of the type of magazine the assassin is reported to have used and seeing how far it sticks out of the bottom of the gun shows doesn't suggest to me that it would be very useful for typical self defense since how the heck are you supposed to practically wear, much less conceal, something that bulky?

However, I think it's a terrible idea for uninformed politicians to step in and create new laws to ban, restrict, or micromanage access to guns or gun parts when the legislators writing and voting on the regulations don't even understand what it is they propose to ban (e.g. "it's the shoulder thing that goes up").

Instead, it would be nice if gun and accessory manufacturers and retailers could come up with a reasonable, self-imposed system for their industry to regulate access to the tools for mass-killing, without making it any more difficult for ordinary citizens to buy ordinary handguns and magazines suitable for concealed carry and the vast majority of self-defense situations.

I don't know what would be the best way to motivate the industry to do this -- public pressure, liability for enabling mass killings, or...?
posted by Jacqueline at 12:08 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

dNye: Ah, so you were indeed pretending to be Jared Lee Loughner, a day after he killed six people, including a child, and injured many others, including a US congresswoman, in order to mock somebody who holds an opinion other than your own.

having been subject to the JFK, RFK & MLK assassinations, the texas clock tower siege of charly whitman, the george wallace shooting, the san ysidro mcdonald's massacre etc, etc, i'm no longer surprised when these things happen. no less shocked and dismayed, but no longer surprised.

"mocking" is a bit harsh in my opinion. if you read this thread you'll find the same sort of writing and point-making several times over. sarcastic? yes. but not aimed at any one in particular, at least, not my intent. sorry if i shocked you. perhaps metafilter has grown gentler during my absence. that hasn't been evident in this thread however.

crunch: i don't disagree with any of those points. especially c). i was a bit thrown early in the thread by the vehement declarations of direct guilt on the part of palin et al. while i'm no fan of her, or the cable network shit-stirrers (i hold the olbermann's in equal disdain with the becks, though i must admit the liberal contingent is funnier!) i thought that was just 'free republic-ish'.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 12:11 PM on January 10, 2011

It has more about Loughner's interest in Giffords, and about 'conscience dreaming'.

Are we sure we aren't taling about "lucid dreaming" or "conscious dreaming" the way it is described in the Mother Jones article makes it sound like lucid dreaming. I can't find anything on "conscience dreaming" only "conscious dreaming" which seems to be interchangable with "lucid dreaming". Is this what we are talking about because every teenage pothead is interested in lucid dreaming, so it's not exactly fringe.
posted by Ad hominem at 12:17 PM on January 10, 2011

i assume loughner meant 'conscious dreaming', and found that ironic given his rants about literacy.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 12:18 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, if we put a picture of Palin up with a targetting reticle over her face, what would the right-wing say?
posted by symbioid at 12:20 PM on January 10, 2011

Yes, but that runs counter to the deinstitutionalization that's been dominant for the past fifty years.

30 years. It started under Reagan.
posted by scalefree at 12:21 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

So, if we put a picture of Palin up with a targetting reticle over her face, what would the right-wing say?

Why in the world would you want to survey her face? That doesn't make any sense.
posted by EarBucket at 12:22 PM on January 10, 2011 [18 favorites]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that when Loughner writes 'conscience dreaming' he's talking about lucid dreaming. Which becomes fringe when you begin to make the dream world your reality, I should think.
posted by felix grundy at 12:23 PM on January 10, 2011

30 years. It started under Reagan.

That seems to be a talking point. Not so. From my recollection, it was a fairly liberal position at the time you're talking about. But then, so was Reagan.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:25 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've tested them and they all functioned flawlessly in my guns! I trust you will use them for sporting and self-defense purposes only.
posted by fixedgear at 12:31 PM on January 10, 2011

We're in complete agreement on this, q. But it'd be good if this tragedy helps people ratchet it back a bit from doing bullshit like this and this. It's apparently got Roger Ailes to think about it.
posted by crunchland at 12:32 PM on January 10, 2011

This incident is also making me reconsider my aversion to political participation. I've been politically homeless for a while because the Libertarian Party is a hopeless cause, I don't have enough common goals with the Democratic Party, and I'm so turned off by the anti-science and hateful rhetoric of the Republican Party.

But perhaps it's time I get re-involved, so that I can call them on their shit from the inside. One of the important lessons taken from the psychological/sociological research documented in Moralities of Everyday Life (Sabini & Silver, 1982) is that most people in a group won't speak up when someone goes off the rails even if the majority strongly disagree with that person's words/actions. Eventually the worst-behaved people end up setting the standard that the rest of the group sinks to. However, if even just ONE other person in the group takes the initiative to speak out against the bad behavior, often this is enough for the silent majority to find their voice and stand up against it as well. So, one of the best ways to prevent moral drift within your community is to be the person who isn't afraid to speak up. Confrontational bitch that I am, this could be a good opportunity to use my powers for good! :D

I sincerely believe that pro-liberty arguments are strong enough to stand on their own without sinking to hateful or eliminationist rhetoric. Our principles are sound, our ideas are better, and we have history and economics on our side. It seems that someone needs to remind the rest of the pro-liberty movement about this.
posted by Jacqueline at 12:33 PM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

It's apparently got Roger Ailes to think about it.

Ailes uses the whole of the interview to blame anyone who says anything negative about Palin's rhetoric. It's his standard FOX News tactic.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:39 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

That seems to be a talking point. Not so. From my recollection, it was a fairly liberal position at the time you're talking about. But then, so was Reagan.

It could be seen as one, I even considered putting in some disclaimer about that. But honestly I was just correcting the record. For better or worse he's the guy who put it in motion, first in CA then across the nation.
posted by scalefree at 12:40 PM on January 10, 2011

Deinstitutionalization really picked up steam because of Willowbrook and had pretty widespread support. I don't think anyone here is calling for the mass institutionalization of the mentally ill, just better outpatient treatment options.
posted by Ad hominem at 12:40 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Let me know what you come up with."

I'm going to infiltrate the Tea Party. :D
posted by Jacqueline at 12:49 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Apropos the "weed is the last thing that will make you want to kill people," this, from the Mother Jones article linked up-thread:

Tierney was surprised when Loughner said he had quit partying "completely." Loughner, according to Tierney, said, "I'm going to lead a more healthy lifestyle, not smoke cigarettes or pot anymore, and I'm going to start working out." Tierney was happy for his friend: "I said, 'Dude, that's awesome.' And the next time I saw him he was 10 pounds lighter." Tierney never saw Loughner smoke marijuana again, and he was surprised at media reports that Loughner had been rejected from the military in 2009 for failing a drug test: "He was clean, clean. I saw him after that continuously. He would not do it."

After Loughner apparently gave up drugs and booze, "his theories got worse," Tierney says. "After he quit, he was just off the wall." And Loughner started to drift away from his group of friends about a year ago. By early 2010, dreaming had become Loughner's "waking life, his reality," Tierney says. "He sort of drifted off, didn't really care about hanging out with friends. He'd be sleeping a lot." Loughner's alternate reality was attractive, Tierney says. "He figured out he could fly." Loughner, according to Tierney, told his friends, "I'm so into it because I can create things and fly. I'm everything I'm not in this world."

When I heard he was a "stoner", my first thought was "weed and schizophrenia do not mix." (Of course, same goes for booze. But you've got to drink a lot more booze to get paranoid.) But from what I've seen, what can mix even worse is garden variety alienation and cold-turkey from weed. That can be really ugly. Whether it's that the weed was conditioning your thoughts in certain ways, or that your thoughts were being suppressed by the weed, or something else, I've seen people get really aggressive and nasty and scary when they're going off weed. Sometimes paranoid and aggressive.
posted by lodurr at 12:49 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

What are the odds that this wack job attended Glenn Beck's Rally or John Stewart/Colbert? What happened afterwards isn't on me or anyone that attended either event. I find it strange to see demands for words to come from some that even if the changes take place, the likelihood of accepting them at face value or sincerity seem to be dimished. These statements come through a host of writers and where some people are able to make reasoned and informed decisions others not so much. Based on the facts, the conspiracy talk of some lists, targets, and rhetoric is just fanning the flames and knee jerk reactions. I think MEFI has it's own RIOT. IN. THE. STREETS. crowd on a number of controversial topics. So it will be interesting to see how the elites tell it how things should be run. Others will just carry on with the their day in the hopes it will be a little brighter tomorrow.
posted by brent at 12:50 PM on January 10, 2011

It's his standard FOX News tactic. -- I think the fact that the guy who runs Fox admits that he instructed his people to tone the bombastic rhetoric down is a positive thing.
posted by crunchland at 12:52 PM on January 10, 2011

BTW, "conscience dreaming" vs. "conscious/lucid dreaming" strikes me as a conscious [sic] substitution. He's seeing himself as a moral actor, and his dreams as more authentic than the external reality -- so, "conscience dreaming." The dreams tell him not just what's "real", but also what's right.
posted by lodurr at 12:56 PM on January 10, 2011

I'm going to infiltrate the Tea Party. :D

Not a bad idea, actually.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:15 PM on January 10, 2011

crunchland: "It's his standard FOX News tactic. -- I think the fact that the guy who runs Fox admits that he instructed his people to tone the bombastic rhetoric down is a positive thing."

CYA claims a positive thing. Positive PR. Firing Glenn Beck would be a positive thing. Positive for Society.
posted by symbioid at 1:21 PM on January 10, 2011

Jacqueline (re: 30-round clips):
I don't know what would be the best way to motivate the industry to do this -- public pressure, liability for enabling mass killings, or...?

Reinstate the assault-weapons ban?
posted by psyche7 at 1:22 PM on January 10, 2011

"Tone it down, Glenn. Instead of calling Obama a globalist nazi communist, just call him a globalist nazi or a globalist communist. And only do it 20 times an hour instead of 30."
posted by symbioid at 1:25 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also, check out the TOTALLY SPOOKY OCCULT SHRINE the NY Daily News discovered in Loughner's back yard.

Their photo captions twice reference Gabrielle Giffords as having "voted for Obamacare." Emphasis mine. No quotation marks around it indicating that they are using Palin's words, no reference of the actual name of the bill or one of the many other generic and less divisive terms for it. I was under the impression this was not the term to use if you wanted to portray any sort of neutrality or professionalism at all. Am I wrong on this?
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 1:26 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Fox censors vigil in Tucson.
posted by Skygazer at 1:27 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

And for those of you who ARE jumping and HAVE jumped to the conclusion that this sicko, deranged nutjob was somehow tied to the Tea Party and/or Sarah Palin and/or right-wing extremists

Well, regardless of whether or not he was influenced by Palin and her ilk -- which can be proved, but not disproved (after all, whether he saw her map or not, he lived in a city in which violent revolutionary rhetoric was commonplace, and often directed at the congresswoman, and it's unlikely he missed all of it), the discussion of whether these calls to violent revolution is appropriate in day-to-day politicking is a good one, and one this country has very badly needed to have.

As to his spooky occult shrine -- that's barely spooky at all. I have one with voodoo dolls and rum soaked with hot peppers.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:35 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

> they open their mouths and say what they say because of the cash they get. Start looking at how the cash flows and work in your life to cut off those cash flows.

Simpler & faster than not spending money over time is to let the sponsors know now you won't be patronizing them. Spocko got KSFO's parent to take notice when he denounced (and spurred others to denounce) the hate speech they help spread.

As many as 302 companies (some of which otherwise advertise on Fox) won't advertise on G.B.'s program.
posted by morganw at 1:36 PM on January 10, 2011

Further towards morganw's point above, here's a handy list of everyone who had ads on Glenn Beck's program as of this January 7th:

Goldline
MySolarBackUp.com
Lifestyle Lift
FOX News Corp.
EIF Revlon Run/Walk For Women
Maune Raichle Hartley French & Mudd (FreeMesoBook.com)
LegalZoom.com
The Weinstein Company (The King's Speech)
Publisher's Clearing House
Living Assistance Services (Visiting Angels)
Zero Technologies (Zero Water)
Matrix Direct
MyLife.com
Partnership for a Drug-Free America
Rosland Capital
Spark Networks USA, LLC (ChristianMingle.com)
The Scooter Store
Ski Utah
Repeal HealthCare Act (RepealItNow.org)
Sokolove Law, LLC
Lifestyle Lift
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:45 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reinstate the assault-weapons ban?

The problem with the assault-weapons ban was that it didn't work. It prohibited certain kinds of guns based on the way they look, and it didn't even do that well; I bought my AR-15 right in the middle of the ban. It complied to the rules (no flash suppressor, no bayonet lug) but in every other respect it was completely functional as a semi-automatic rifle.

You could also buy things like the Ruger Mini-14 which is in every respect as dangerous as any "assault rifle" but was completely allowed because it didn't have a scary tactical look.

The other aspect was the 10 round limit to all magazines to be sold to civilians manufactured in the period, the problem was that there is absolutely no way to enforce it; magazines don't have a serial number on them, so other than the factory mags that came with guns I bought in that time period, every other magazine I ordered online or from stores were full sized. They simply claimed that they were made before the ban, and there wasn't any way to disprove it.

I'm generally pretty pro-gun, as I've demonstrated in my comments here in the past, but I'm also not against taking a hard look at the way we deal with firearm possession in the country. There are some common sense changes that wouldn't violate the 2nd Amendment, and might actually make people safer.

But the AWB isn't one of them.
posted by quin at 1:46 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

As to his spooky occult shrine -- that's barely spooky at all. I have one with voodoo dolls and rum soaked with hot peppers.
posted by Astro Zombie

True, but I don't think Loughner is trying desperately to prolong his blasphemous, unholy existence.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:48 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hey, it's worked pretty well so far.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:53 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

the 'shrine' was much more weird than spooky. like maybe left over from a dia de los muertes party or something. (Is 2 months long enough for oranges to turn black in the fall and winter in Tucson?)
posted by lodurr at 1:54 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I thought of most of the following comment last Saturday, as the first reports of the Tucson shootings came across the wires, but as I wrote it, this thread developed as it did, and given the emotion being displayed in the thread, I saved it instead as a text file, for further consideration at a later date. Now, it looks like Representative Giffords will survive, and that the justice system will handle the investigation and prosecution of the shooter responsibly. So I hope that by waiting for even 48 hours, I've earned the opportunity to try to say difficult things, and perhaps very unpopular things, as well as I can, without being accused of opportunism, or of trolling.

As unpopular as it might be to say so in the near aftermath of a mass shooting, I hold its apparently principal intended victim, Representative Giffords, and her staff, at least partly culpable. I say this because, from the first physical descriptions of the scene of the event, it was clear that Giffords and her staff were conducting a public appearance with little or no attention to basic principles of security. I find this more than disappointing, in an American Congressperson past her rookie year, who has by this point in her service as a Congresswoman, gone through security at the U.S. Capitol, hundreds of times, and who has had vandalism, at least, occur at her in-district office. In the end, what brought this incident to an end was no application of security lessons hard learned since 9/11, or even the 1960s, but the last ditch "spirit of Flight 93 - 'Let's roll!'" as unassuming private citizens, fearing for their own lives, got control of the shooter, perhaps saving many others.

Everything about this event was planned poorly (if it was planned at all), from a security standpoint, beginning from the simple understanding that public event organizers have an innate responsibility to incorporate security, for the protection of the public, as well as those appearing as principals, since at least 9/11. Setting up a simple table, near a supermarket entrance, like some Girl Scout troop selling cookies, is no way a member of the U.S. Congress should be conducting public appearances in today's world. No apparent thought was given to access control, participant flow, secure retreat lines, or safety transportation, until after shots were fired.

Professional political figures, and public figures of all kinds have been on notice of such precautions, since the 1960's, with subsequent reinforcing episodes in every decade, such as the assassination attempts on President Ford in the '70s, on President Reagan in the '80s, on Presidents H.W. Bush and Clinton in the 90's, on G. Bush in this century, and on dozens of local and state politicians across the country, in all that time. Providing an appropriate base of security, while interacting with the public they serve should be a basic skill requirement, and an office responsibility, for all politicians in America today.

And it wouldn't have taken much, in the way of money, planning time, or setup, to have materially improved this situation, and perhaps prevented this tragedy entirely. Simply by renting a large RV or VIP coach, parking it on the periphery of the shopping center parking lot, perhaps near an entrance, and garnering on site attention through signage, would have drawn people who wished to interact with the Congresswoman away from casual shoppers, and improved any emergency situation tremendously. Coordination with local police to provide security and perhaps even metal detector weapons screening should have taken place. Meeting her constituents, one by one, in linear fashion, on an RV or VIP coach vehicle would have allowed a small number of her staff people to effectively limit and control physical access to the Congresswoman, thus further limiting fallout to bystanders. Had something untoward happened aboard such a vehicle, it might have been easier to isolate and disarm the gunman, than it was on the open sidewalk where he was actually finally apprehended. Had a shooting still occurred on an RV or tour bus, the principals would have already been aboard safety transportation, and very near alternate safety vehicles, hopefully with area briefed drivers equipped with cell phones, and wouldn't have had to wait 38 minutes for EMS to respond, before getting underway to a hospital. And had the assailant's choice of weapon been an IED instead of a handgun, having the event site be the periphery of a busy shopping center, instead of at the entrance to a market building, could have vastly reduced a toll that fortunately, we didn't have to experience to imagine.

I hope that out of this, finally, lessons are learned. I hope that every incoming Congressperson has to sit through and sign for some training on security planning by the Secret Service, as part of their pre-swearing in indoctrination, and has to designate, at least as a part time staff role, a "security assistant" who is charged with public event planning, in the future. I hope that with reasonable mobile security provisions, Congresspeople will continue to go out in their districts and conduct the public business, with due regard for public safety, as well as their own, while doing so.

And I hope that Congresswoman Giffords, and all the others wounded in this incident, make a full and speedy recovery, and continue in their chosen activities.
posted by paulsc at 1:54 PM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Glenn Beck Dropped From New York Radio Station WOR

Just for those who didn't hear that already.
posted by hippybear at 1:54 PM on January 10, 2011 [9 favorites]

Cripes. I've actually met some of the people who were there. My gf knows them significantly better.

And two of them have spouses now in treatment for bullet wounds at UMC. One with a bullet lodged in his spine.

And you can add me to the chorus of people asking how the hell it was possible that a lunatic could get his hands on a gun like that legally.
posted by kyrademon at 1:54 PM on January 10, 2011

he lived in a city in which violent revolutionary rhetoric was commonplace, and often directed at the congresswoman

And he was certainly interested in the congresswoman. From the Mother Jones article:

Tierney, who's also 22, recalls Loughner complaining about a Giffords event he attended during that period. He's unsure whether it was the same one mentioned in the charges—Loughner "might have gone to some other rallies," he says—but Tierney notes it was a significant moment for Loughner: "He told me that she opened up the floor for questions and he asked a question. The question was, 'What is government if words have no meaning?'"
"He said, 'Can you believe it, they wouldn't answer my question.' Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her."

Giffords' answer, whatever it was, didn't satisfy Loughner. "He said, 'Can you believe it, they wouldn't answer my question,' and I told him, 'Dude, no one's going to answer that,'" Tierney recalls. "Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her."

and

Loughner would occasionally mention Giffords, according to Tierney: "It wasn't a day-in, day-out thing, but maybe once in a while, if Giffords did something that was ridiculous or passed some stupid law or did something stupid, he related that to people.

So he followed political discourse about Giffords. He was sure to have found other people who oppose her and who do so with a lot of violent imagery.
posted by hydrophonic at 1:54 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

True, but I don't think Loughner is trying desperately to prolong his blasphemous, unholy existence.

He's probably a wee bit surprised and annoyed at still existing right now, I would have thought.
posted by Artw at 1:56 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

paulsc: I say this because, from the first physical descriptions of the scene of the event, it was clear that Giffords and her staff were conducting a public appearance with little or no attention to basic principles of security.

So, let's get this straight: We're going to blame Giffords & her staff for all those people getting shot because they didn't assume that someone would come and try to kill them?

That's insane.

I'm going to say this loudly because it deserves to be said loudly: In a civilized country, should not have to act as though there is a high probability that someone will try to kill us at any moment. If we begin to act that way, we will bring into being the kind of civilization where we need to do that.

I would take precisely the opposite view: All representatives with any stones should get out there and make public appearances without security just to make it clear that we won't fucking stand for this kind of bullshit in America.
posted by lodurr at 1:59 PM on January 10, 2011 [126 favorites]

i'm gobsmacked there's people who actually think like paulsc. i cannot favorite lodurr's comment hard enough.
posted by entropicamericana at 2:04 PM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

I say this because, from the first physical descriptions of the scene of the event, it was clear that Giffords and her staff were conducting a public appearance with little or no attention to basic principles of security.

She was asking for it - look how she was dressed. AMIRITE?
posted by desjardins at 2:09 PM on January 10, 2011 [14 favorites]

Shakespeare, Richard II Act 5, Scene 4:

EXTON

Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake,
'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'
Was it not so?

Servant

These were his very words.

EXTON

'Have I no friend?' quoth he: he spake it twice,
And urged it twice together, did he not?

Servant

He did.

EXTON

And speaking it, he wistly look'd on me,
And who should say, 'I would thou wert the man'
That would divorce this terror from my heart;'
Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go:
I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.

---

(Act 5, Scene 6 - after the Murder of Richard)

Enter EXTON, with persons bearing a coffin

EXTON

Great king, within this coffin I present
Thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought
A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
Upon my head and all this famous land.

EXTON

From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander through shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:
Come, mourn with me for that I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent:
I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand:
March sadly after; grace my mournings here;
In weeping after this untimely bier.

---

Bold mine. Idle words spoken by the powerful have consequences. We've known this from at least Shakespeare's time. The powerful wish their enemies dead, are glad when they are dead, but often hate the ones who actually carried out the deed.

Heck, we've known this since Henry II muttered, of Thomas Beckett, ""Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

Regardless of whether Loughner acted as a result of the current political climate or as a result of an unhinged mind - indeed, regardless of yesterday's atrocity - decent people should shun and shame people in power (be they political or media figures) who would suggest that threatening, silencing and murdering their rivals is a legitimate form of achieving political goals.

Because killing is wrong and the inability to listen to an opposing point of view without losing your shit is a sign of intellectual weakness.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:15 PM on January 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

They've released the suspect's mugshot.
posted by crunchland at 2:22 PM on January 10, 2011

"I think the sanctity of the democratic process is the key. It would be wrong to do anything that prevents the ability of citizens to interact directly with elected officials."

I'm glad that some people who have been in public office have more guts than what you're recommending, paulsc. And your victim-blaming is appalling.
posted by naoko at 2:23 PM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

They've released the suspect's mugshot.

Almost cartoonishly evil.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:25 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Blaming the victims for getting shot is the most disgusting thing I have ever read online. Invoking 9/11 as some thresh-hold for a need to completely dismantle American society and invoke a state of constant and never-ending fear is equally reprehensible. 9/11 had nothing to do with this, and everything to do instead with the conscienceless demagogues who profit from invoking the most base of human impulses. You should be ashamed of yourself, paulsc.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 2:26 PM on January 10, 2011 [16 favorites]

I think congresspeople need armed security details and probably some sort of situational intelligence provided by a network of semi-autonomous drones. Considering the large amount of expertise required we should probably hire these services on contract.

Congress: brought to you by Xe(tm).

Blaming Giffords is ridiculous. Consider that mental health treatment would have cost as much as his Glock, probably on his first visit. Pointing fingers is kind of pointless.
posted by polyhedron at 2:27 PM on January 10, 2011

As unpopular as it might be to say so in the near aftermath of a mass shooting, I hold its apparently principal intended victim, Representative Giffords, and her staff, at least partly culpable.

Christ, what horseshit.
posted by rtha at 2:29 PM on January 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

crunchland: "They've released the suspect's mugshot"

Reminds me of this.
posted by brundlefly at 2:32 PM on January 10, 2011

hippybear: "Glenn Beck Dropped From New York Radio Station WOR

Just for those who didn't hear that already."

Sarah Palin is upset at us violating his first amendment rights by doing that! LOL. *sigh*
posted by symbioid at 2:35 PM on January 10, 2011

"and one can respond to the actual situation without ceasing to think that, in a better world, elected officials wouldn't need to worry about being assassinated."

We can't build a better world by applying strict military-style security measures to civilian gatherings, not to mention isolating government personnel from the governed.
posted by zoogleplex at 2:37 PM on January 10, 2011

But it'd be good if this tragedy helps people ratchet it back a bit from doing bullshit like this and this.

One of these things is not like the other. Was that an attempt at equivalency? Because, if so, it is a false one.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:38 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

They've released the suspect's mugshot.

Oh my God! It's Doctor Colossus!
posted by sour cream at 2:40 PM on January 10, 2011

As unpopular as it might be to say so in the near aftermath of a mass shooting, I hold its apparently principal intended victim, Representative Giffords, and her staff, at least partly culpable.

It takes two to assassinate someone -- one to pull the trigger and ...
posted by mazola at 2:43 PM on January 10, 2011

Suggesting that some thought might have been given to security is hardly "applying strict military-style security measures," and having some measure of security is not isolation of the government from the governed.
posted by felix grundy at 2:43 PM on January 10, 2011

It's Doctor Colossus! --- I was reminded of this guy.
posted by crunchland at 2:44 PM on January 10, 2011

"In a civilized country, should not have to act as though there is a high probability that someone will try to kill us at any moment. If we begin to act that way, we will bring into being the kind of civilization where we need to do that."

So we should get rid of Secret Service protection for the President?
posted by Jacqueline at 2:45 PM on January 10, 2011

I thought paulsc's comment brought up a reasonable point and stated it in a sane and practical manner. There's a difference between what we'd like to have be the case and what is the case, and one can respond to the actual situation without ceasing to think that, in a better world, elected officials wouldn't need to worry about being assassinated.

Ok, let's assume that the recommendations were reasonable, and members of congress are provided with the additional infrastructure and office funding necessary to make these sorts of changes possible and local governments accept that they're going to have to provide police officers and open facilities with metal detectors (a high school, for example) whenever a member is going to hold one of these events (which for some of them can be every week or so). Assume that going forward, these concessions are made. That doesn't change the fact that these things are not currently standard operating procedure, that congressional offices aren't currently provided with the resources for them, and that Zimmerman and the rest of Giffords's staff didn't do anything wrong or stupid by running their event the way they did. Pardon me while I go pat myself on the back for sitting in a diner with constituents for a few hours without pissing my pants in fear.
posted by naoko at 2:46 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

From The NY Times article:

The new House speaker, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, denounced the attack in an early Sunday appearance in West Chester, his hometown, and said it was a reminder that public service “comes with a risk.”

Sometimes I read something that makes me so outraged on so many levels that I feel like my brain is chasing its own tail.

Apart from that, my thoughts on the discussion of who is to blame. I have been very careful not to point at anyone for this specific attack until we knew more, both IRL and in this thread (my only comments here are that I believe Sarah Palin is just fine with the idea of people murdering politicians who stand in the way of what she believes to be right, and that the political climate that brought people to health-care Town Hall meetings with their guns is a sick one. Both of these things are true and I have believed them well before this happened.).

It is now pretty clear that this young man was not in the Tea Party, or following Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck, but rather lost in a mental illness. Many people have made many good points about health care (ironic, isn't it) for the mentally ill in this country, and the attitudes toward mental illness, etc.

But here's what informs the larger discourse: the moment this tragedy hit the news, Palin, and her people, and the Tea Party in general, went into a frenzy of backtracking, and pulling graphics down from facebook and other websites, and "clarifying" that those weren't rifle sights, but rather surveyor's symbols. In other words, it wasn't just their political opponents, but they themselves who thought they were responsible. They immediately moved to erase anything (good luck) that they could possibly have incited this attempted political assassination. They knew exactly what they'd said and done, and they knew "we never meant for people to shoot anyone" wasn't going to fly.

If a politician gets shot, and a political movement (for lack of a better word) starts running around in circles shouting "WE DIDN'T DO IT!", it's pretty straightforward evidence that that political movement is a dangerous segment of our society, and they know that we're not fooled. The fact that this happened is the damning evidence that this is exactly the kind of thing that they have been encouraging through images and dog-whistles and outright lies and fear-mongering.

As someone said above -- we do not have universally free speech. There are certain things we cannot say, because they have no other purpose but to bring about violence or danger. I don't want rifle sights banned from maps (please, Representative Brady, find something more concretely useful to do about this), but if you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, you shouldn't be able to whisper "Fire!" to an angry people with loaded guns.
posted by tzikeh at 2:48 PM on January 10, 2011 [42 favorites]

Found this via Reddit...

insurrectionary timeline

Note: I'm not advocating what this site is about (it's an anti-gun site...) but it's got a good timeline since early 2008 of the right-wing violence.
posted by symbioid at 2:49 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Agreed that "culpable" is probably too strong, as your comment implies, naoko. I was merely trying to point out, against the reception that it's mostly getting, that paulsc's comment didn't strike me as trolling. It's being received as far more incendiary, and victim-blaming and police-state-suggesting, than I can find anywhere in its actual content.
posted by felix grundy at 2:53 PM on January 10, 2011

And it wouldn't have taken much, in the way of money, planning time, or setup, to have materially improved this situation, and perhaps prevented this tragedy entirely. Simply by renting a large RV or VIP coach, parking it on the periphery of the shopping center parking lot, perhaps near an entrance, and garnering on site attention through signage, would have drawn people who wished to interact with the Congresswoman away from casual shoppers, and improved any emergency situation tremendously. Coordination with local police to provide security and perhaps even metal detector weapons screening should have taken place.

I have never ever seen any of that at any political thingamabob I have attended, and we have had congresscritters and senators and even Bob Dole down here. (Exception made for Palin and for McCain and for Obama and Clinton when they came down, understandably.)

But for our local and state politicians, they just have their staff.

Let's not blame victims here, shall we? Besides, even if what you suggest was put into place a determined killer be he nutjob or not could manage to do what was done.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 2:54 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I say this because, from the first physical descriptions of the scene of the event, it was clear that Giffords and her staff were conducting a public appearance with little or no attention to basic principles of security.

Uneffingbelievable.

Ezra Klein says it best:

Attacks on members of Congress remain very rare in this country. The last congressman killed while in office was Rep. Leo Ryan, who was murdered in the events directly preceding the Jonestown Massacre. That was in 1978. What we think we know about the events in Arizona suggest it was even more senseless, and thus even less likely to be part of an organized or even disorganized spree that we need to radically overhaul policy in order to defend against. Above all, nothing we do should make it more difficult for citizens and legislators do follow the example of Rep. Giffords and her constituents and meet for an hour on the street corner to participate in the basic give-and-take of representative democracy. It is, if anything, a moment to double down on the democratic traditions that Giffords and her voters inadvertently took such risks to participate in. Anything that would even indirectly limit such easy contact between legislators and constituents should be viewed very skeptically.
posted by blucevalo at 2:55 PM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

dejah420: "Those of you that live in liberal enclaves...damn, the rest of us envy you. But some of us live in areas where we are the only leftist for miles."

This is what I see. Every time some MeFite wishes for Palin to run in 2012 or talks about how the Tea Party is destroying the Republicans and a new era of enlightenment is around the corner, I have to shake my head in wonder. I always end up thinking, must be nice on the coast.

I guess I can at least be thankful I'm white enough to "pass".

EmpressCallipygos: "who embraced Manhattan, but that's different from embracing Manhattan's residents."

Yeah, they came to see Cats and the Statue of Liberty. Then they went to Nawlins for Mardi Gras, barfed all over the streets, and then went back home and clucked their tongues about how Katrina was God's punishment.
posted by Rat Spatula at 2:57 PM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

More about the creeping fear created and self-perpetuated by the security garrison mentality around public servants:

Security concerns have transformed Washington, taking a city envisioned as the physical embodiment of the openness of American democracy and turning it into a garrison town that is increasingly inaccessible to the general public. To take one example, tourists visiting Capitol Hill start their trips by passing through a gauntlet of metal detectors and other screening measures in a $621 million visitors center constructed specifically to better protect what is already one of the most heavily guarded areas of the city.

That's just the beginning. Soon enough you won't be able to walk around DC anymore without constant surveillance.
posted by blucevalo at 3:05 PM on January 10, 2011

By the way...even if it is proved conclusively that this shooter is an unhinged nutball who channels Satan on weekends and has nothing to do with rightwing politics it is still important to have the discussion re how we treat political opponents in this country.

We need to grow up and quit acting as if politics were some clone of professional wrestling. We need to grow up and understand that trashtalking political opponents and treating them as "other" rather than fellow Americans that we disagree with is tearing down our country just as much if not more than any supposed bad policy the "other" is promoting.

For decades we folks in the USA have felt like things that happen in other countries could never happen here. That political violence is something that happens somewhere else but not in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. I may be conservative but I am getting angrier and angrier and angrier at some of the crap I am hearing come out of the "conservative" side of things. And I apologize to the lot of YOU for trying to defend the Tea Party. It was NOT what I thought it was, and the more I have seen of it the less I want to have to do with even the parts I thought I agreed with.

See, part of the problem in my view really is that many folks on the right do see this as a game, a contest, something akin to a football playoff where you root for your team and boo the other side. The only problem with that is we aren't two different teams. We are one nation. And if we don't get our acts together we are gonna break this nation and we are gonna break it in such a fashion we won't be able to fix it. And we will have no one to blame but our collective selves.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:06 PM on January 10, 2011 [130 favorites]

Laws against broadcast hate speech seem to work in Canada.

They don't stop hate. They just keep it hidden.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 3:08 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

"And I apologize to the lot of YOU for trying to defend the Tea Party. It was NOT what I thought it was, and the more I have seen of it the less I want to have to do with even the parts I thought I agreed with."

@St. Alia: Or, perhaps those of us with conservative/libertarian ideology and activist creds need to get involved to the point where we can influence the discourse.

Like it or not, the Tea Party is now a major force in U.S. politics, at least for the near future. So, do we want the movement to include members encouraging temperance, maturity, and intellectual honesty, or do we want to leave it to the extremists?
posted by Jacqueline at 3:14 PM on January 10, 2011

Like it or not, the Tea Party is now a major force in U.S. politics, at least for the near future. So, do we want the movement to include members encouraging temperance, maturity, and intellectual honesty, or do we want to leave it to the extremists?

You could start by analyzing exactly what the "movement" is, exactly...you might discover the internal inconsistencies in philosophy, and the inherent hypocrisy of the movement, and decide to make a stand for your own ideals instead of jumping on the first pseudo-libertarian bandwagon that drives past, just because it's there.
posted by Jimbob at 3:21 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

See, part of the problem in my view really is that many folks on the right do see this as a game, a contest, something akin to a football playoff where you root for your team and boo the other side.

Karl Rove is pretty much on record saying exactly this, I believe.

And Alia, thanks. That was well said.
posted by hippybear at 3:22 PM on January 10, 2011

"However, to continue your analogy: is it possible that all St. Alia and dejah420 meant by saying that not everyone could speak out was, "I can't fire without becoming a target myself?""

That's not a wimp-out. That's a request for backup, and that request for backup could be coming because either the caller is in a bad position or because they know they haven't yet been sufficiently trained in these particular battle tactics.

Wow. For awhile I've wanted to post more than I have on MeFi the past couple of days. The recent slams of posters in the past couple of hours have made me decide otherwise. I am sure for even saying this I'll get bashed for being a wimp.
posted by goalyeehah at 3:22 PM on January 10, 2011

I'm generally pretty pro-gun,...

Except when it's in the other guy's hand?
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:23 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

" I hold its apparently principal intended victim, Representative Giffords, and her staff, at least partly culpable."

Wow... just wow...

And the 9 year old girl, she should have come to that event with an armed guard and a kavlar vest...WTF was she thinking?!
posted by HuronBob at 3:28 PM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

the Tea Party is now a major force in U.S. politics, at least for the near future. So, do we want the movement to include members encouraging temperance, maturity, and intellectual honesty, or do we want to leave it to the extremists?

That horse has already left the barn. What moderate, temperate, intellectually honest person would even dream of associating with such a bunch of hateful cretins?

No, the Tea Party needs to go back into its hateful little hole now.
posted by spitbull at 3:30 PM on January 10, 2011

St. Alia, that was one of the more honest and brave comments I've read on Metafilter. Thank you for that.
posted by EarBucket at 3:32 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

The local Tea Party Express in Tuscon is trying to raise money off the shootings.
posted by EarBucket at 3:35 PM on January 10, 2011

A friend of mine and her girlfriend were up around Calistoga or thereabouts this past summer, and stopped at a roadside burger shack - a local favorite - to get something to eat.

The place was busy but not crazy-busy. It's the kind of place where you place your order at a window, and then go sit at a picnic table until they call your name over the loudpeaker, and then you go pick up your food. So they're hanging out, waiting, and notice that there's a large family that's taken over a couple of tables, and at a table next to them, there are four guys in dark suits.

"That's kind of weird," my friend's girlfriend says, gesturing at the suits at the table. My friend says "Yeah, I guess."

And then the loudspeaker comes on.

"NANCY? NANCY, YOUR ORDER IS READY FOR PICKUP. NANCY, YOUR ORDER IS READY."

And around the corner of the building comes the (then) Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Her family - kids, grandkids - are the people at the two tables. And the suits are Secret Service. And everyone else pretends that this is not the person who's second in line for the presidency, but just a person, like them, enjoying a nice day with their family at a favorite local joint.

I don't know what the point of this is, except when I heard the story, I loved that the place didn't get shut down just so she could eat there, or anything like that. Maybe there were a dozen more Secret Service agents hiding in the trees, but all they saw were fours guys in suits at a picnic table.
posted by rtha at 3:35 PM on January 10, 2011 [15 favorites]

felix grundy: There's a difference between what we'd like to have be the case and what is the case, and one can respond to the actual situation without ceasing to think that, in a better world, elected officials wouldn't need to worry about being assassinated.

Absolutely. For example, one can respond by working to create that better world. For instance, by setting the example of not behaving as though you expect someone to kill you every time you appear in public.
posted by lodurr at 3:35 PM on January 10, 2011

They've released the suspect's mugshot.

Travis Bickle?
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:36 PM on January 10, 2011

And "major force?" I believe there are fewer than 20 tea-party affiliated members of the new congress, or less than 5 percent. Their voters, at their most concentrated, do not make up anything like a majority of Americans, and certainly not nationally where there is no way tea party sympathizers amount to more than 35% of the vote.

Some of us have been saying all along that the entire "Tea Party" bit -- all that talk about deficits and death panels and the like -- was just a cover for a violent, white-supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-urban resurgence of the usual John Birch far right bullshit. It was always about guns and brown people, not deficits or sound public policy.

The other good thing about the tea party mob is that it is substantially made up of old white people who are going to die soon -- of natural causes of course, except for the ones who accidentally shoot each other playing around with guns they only pretend to know how to handle, if the embarrassing evidence of their Dear Leader Frau Palin's "reality" show is anything to go by.

All those fat, well off, close-minded, bigoted old white people . . . what they really fear is the coming minority status of whites in the US. That's why the trigger that called them into being was not health care per se, but the election of the first non-white president of the US.
posted by spitbull at 3:37 PM on January 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

If a politician gets shot, and a political movement (for lack of a better word) starts running around in circles shouting "WE DIDN'T DO IT!", it's pretty straightforward evidence that that political movement is a dangerous segment of our society, and they know that we're not fooled.

Or it could just mean that they know they'll get blamed. There's no shortage of historical examples for that.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:38 PM on January 10, 2011

"For instance, by setting the example of not behaving as though you expect someone to kill you every time you appear in public."

Which is precisely what Ms. Giffords was doing, even though she had received death threats and had SaraPAC's crosshairs placed on her. I think she was and is very brave for doing this.
posted by zoogleplex at 3:40 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

"You could start by analyzing exactly what the "movement" is, exactly...you might discover the internal inconsistencies in philosophy, and the inherent hypocrisy of the movement, and decide to make a stand for your own ideals instead of jumping on the first pseudo-libertarian bandwagon that drives past, just because it's there."

Jumping on the bandwagon can be a viable strategy if you intend to take the reins.

Yes, that's a very cocky thing to say (hey, I'm an ENTJ), but the only way to find out if it's possible is to try!
posted by Jacqueline at 3:42 PM on January 10, 2011

The mug shot seems in line with the friend interviewed in Mother Jones, who speculated that the guy wanted to be like Heath Ledger's Joker character from Batman.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:43 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

St. Alia of the Bunnies: "And I apologize to the lot of YOU for trying to defend the Tea Party. It was NOT what I thought it was..."

"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."

I think a lot of the frustration that gets tossed your way on this site stems from an ill-conceived wish on the part of heretics like myself that you ought to do something to fix those people! They'll listen to you!

Well, maybe they would, for a bit, anyhow, but I'm willing to bet it wouldn't last all that long if you really started working against the grain.
posted by Rat Spatula at 3:44 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

> to claim that Palin and Brewer have no part in why Saturday's tragedy happened requires
> denying reality. That's on you.
> posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:43 PM on January 10 [5 favorites +] [!]

Show the connection, BP. Demonstrate it. Just saying "It's obvious" fails to persuade anyone who isn't already persuaded.

Recall that it's equally obvious to some that Grand Theft Auto causes violent behavior. Do you buy that one also? If one, then the other; but if not the other, then not the one.

Fail to show the connection and you're left with exactly this: BP's Underpants Gnome Theory of public-square violence.

step 1: SARAH PALIN WTF!!!
step 2: ?
step 3: SHOOTING
posted by jfuller at 3:56 PM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Hahahahahahaha, hahahahahahahaha!!@#$!!@%@#$!@#$ *snort*. Oh my.
posted by scalefree at 4:00 PM on January 10, 2011 [15 favorites]

Step 1: SARAH PALIN PUTS CROSSHAIRS ON CONGRESSWOMAN
Step 2: SOMEONE SHOOTS CONGRESSWOMAN
posted by vibrotronica at 4:08 PM on January 10, 2011 [10 favorites]

There was a lot of that going on earlier in the thread jfuller. People really wanted it to be true that there was a link so they blinded themselves to the stuff that didn't support that narrative. The right is doing the same thing, I popped on Hannity today out of curiosity and got a run down on the evidence that the shooter is a liberal.

I figure the people with some decency will correct the record once they calm down and people like Hannity and the more rabid liberal commentators will never be shaken from their position no matter how many times you ask for real evidence.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:08 PM on January 10, 2011

step 1: SARAH PALIN WTF!!!
step 2: ?
step 3: SHOOTING

Except, that's not really what people are suggesting, is it, jfuller? In fact, not even close.

As I read it, what most people here are suggesting is more like this:

step 1: lots of incredibly violent metaphor
step 2: people start to take the metaphor to more literal levels by doing things like carrying guns to presidential election rallies.
step 3: people start to ratchet up the violent, eliminationist language even more with terms like "holocaust", "death panels", "socialist"*, "tyranny", "fascist", "islamofascist", "hitler", "nazi"**, etc.
step 4: just when you thought it couldn't get any farther, the "second amendment solution" becomes a meme, with signs like "we came unarmed, this time", and candidates coyly threatening armed revolt if their minority policy agenda isn't adopted.
step 5: shooting.

If I'm not accurately representing BP's chain of reasoning, I'm sure he'll step in to clarify for himself. He's usually not shy about that. But I thought I should point out, jfuller, that you are shooting at a straw man for most people in this thread who see a causal relationship between violent speech and violence.

--
*curiously, though, almost never "communism". I've often wondered why.
**For special irony, often coming from actual Nazis!

posted by lodurr at 4:10 PM on January 10, 2011 [19 favorites]

St. Alia of the Bunnies: "We are one nation. And if we don't get our acts together we are gonna break this nation and we are gonna break it in such a fashion we won't be able to fix it. "

Hear, hear. That's something we can all get behind.

And I know that I need to keep this in mind as well. I was thinking about what a mess things are and how the nation has rallied in the past, and I'm pretty sure it was only by working together that we've pulled ourselves out of similar messes. We need to figure out some way to do this again.
posted by theredpen at 4:13 PM on January 10, 2011

when I saw his mug shot, I thought "small ears for a Feregie"
posted by Redhush at 4:20 PM on January 10, 2011

If I'm not accurately representing BP's chain of reasoning, I'm sure he'll step in to clarify for himself.

No, you're right.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:21 PM on January 10, 2011

Beck to Palin: "An attempt on you could bring the republic down."

A-buh-buh-buh-buh.... my brain cannot take this kind of talk any more.
posted by Chichibio at 4:22 PM on January 10, 2011

An attempt on you could bring the republic down.

Even their non-apologies drip with violent rhetoric.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:26 PM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

And because I didn't get around to it earlier because I was too busy, fascinated and disgusted and sad, watching this thread unspool:

.
.
.
.
.
.
posted by Chichibio at 4:27 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

^Professional political figures, and public figures of all kinds have been on notice of such precautions, since the 1960's, with subsequent reinforcing episodes in every decade, such as the assassination attempts on President Ford in the '70s, on President Reagan in the '80s, on Presidents H.W. Bush and Clinton in the 90's, on G. Bush in this century, and on dozens of local and state politicians across the country, in all that time. Providing an appropriate base of security, while interacting with the public they serve should be a basic skill requirement, and an office responsibility, for all politicians in America today.

Not all political offices are equal. The problem with this statement is that no other public figure has the obligation to be accessible to the public that a Congressperson does. Congressional representatives are ethically obliged to provide unfettered and equal access to their constituents. You're talking about the executive as though it were comparable - it's not. The reason the Secret Service gets to boss the Prez and Veep around is that, in theory, on the survival of the highest members of the executive rests the security of the nation. Under the same theory, the freedom of the nation depends on unrestricted access to its democratic representatives.

Maybe renting a tour bus and "meeting her constituents, one by one, in linear fashion...would have allowed a small number of her staff people to effectively limit and control physical access to the Congresswoman", but since this guy shot and killed a 9-year-old girl who was waiting in line, I don't believe it would have substantially "limited fallout to bystanders."
posted by gingerest at 4:27 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

From Chichbio's link:

Mr. Beck said that Ms. Palin reached out to him to ask how he was doing, and they began corresponding.

Am I reading this right, that Palin was all, Hey Glenn, my condolences re: the shooting of the congresswoman? Or was it just a, Hey Glenn, what's goin' on -- oh really, a Congresswoman was shot? Oh gee golly winkers.
posted by angrycat at 4:28 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Sorry if this has already been posted... I know some folks were asking yesterday why the federal charges didn't cover the shootings of all the victims (not just Giffords, Roll, and Zimmerman), and others explained that only the state of AZ has jurisdiction for the people who were not federal employees. Here's the announcement from state officials regarding their own prosecution on behalf of the remaining dead and wounded.
posted by scody at 4:30 PM on January 10, 2011

dejah420: St. Alia is correct in realizing that there are times when speaking up puts you, your loved ones, and your property at risk...and sometimes that risk may not be worth it.

I agree with this. At the same time, this has been bothering me all day. It seems to me that St Alia and other self-identified conservatives are in a much, MUCH better position than many of us (loudly pro-LGBT, pro-choice, some of us very visibly Other, or easily Otherized) to effectively speak out against the dehumanizing rhetoric that has taken over many conservative circles. From what I've read of her contributions (albeit recognizing that metafilter contributions are a 2D flat representation of anybody's life), her conservative credentials on most hot-button topics ought to be impeccable.

Much like bystanders trying to figure out if saying something will escalate or defuse an ambiguous, potentially violent situation on the street... she's the only one who can accurately assess what personal risk her speaking up would incur, and whether the potential positive ripple effects that could come out of it would be worth it. But unlike street bystanders who have no social ties to the violence they're witnessing, many conservatives do have social bonds to those casually dehumanizing their political opposites. (Social bonds meaning, conferring personhood and humanity -- a humanity and personhood not automatically granted to racial or religious or sexual-orientation etc outsiders, or anybody perceived as them, or anybody perceived as their defenders and therefore also The Enemy needing to be reloaded at.)

Why wouldn't a critical mass of speakings-out (letters to congresscritters, letters to the editor, private conversations, if not speaking up at rallies) by thoughtful conservatives and right-leaning types, who feel they can do so relatively safely, defuse the crazy? Set this country back on track to being that democracy where ordinary people could voice political opinions without sizeable chunks of their political opposites feeling, not just free, but sanctioned* to poison their dogs and shoot at their homes.

*Maybe there's zero connection between implicit violence in certain right-wing leaders' rhetoric and Loughner, or the people who poisoned dejah420's dogs and shot at her house. But the contempt in such rhetoric from political leaders and celebrities, and parroted by followers, doesn't exactly reinforce social norms of basic respect for the property and safety of people who disagree politically.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 4:32 PM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

Chichibio: "Beck to Palin: "An attempt on you could bring the republic down.""

That "private email exchange" is such transparently calculated political theater that it's absurd. And everything they do -- all of their rhetoric -- is at same that level of clumsiness. But it keeps working.
posted by brundlefly at 4:43 PM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

letters to congresscritters

Slight derail: what the hell is up with the use of "congresscritters"? Is it just some cutesy Mefi affectation, or is it in wider use than that? I find it slightly disconcerting that it makes me envision congress as the Country Bear Jamboree, and even more disconcerting that I think that might represent a slight improvement.
posted by scody at 4:44 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Why wouldn't a critical mass of speakings-out (letters to congresscritters, letters to the editor, private conversations, if not speaking up at rallies) by thoughtful conservatives and right-leaning types, who feel they can do so relatively safely, defuse the crazy?

Your sentiments are right-on, but then don't folks get called RHINOs and such? I mean, if we were talking about non-rabid people, that would be one thing.
posted by angrycat at 4:44 PM on January 10, 2011

Jacqueline: "However, I think it's a terrible idea for uninformed politicians to step in and create new laws to ban, restrict, or micromanage access to guns or gun parts when the legislators writing and voting on the regulations don't even understand what it is they propose to ban (e.g. "it's the shoulder thing that goes up").

Instead, it would be nice if gun and accessory manufacturers and retailers could come up with a reasonable, self-imposed system for their industry to regulate access to the tools for mass-killing, without making it any more difficult for ordinary citizens to buy ordinary handguns and magazines suitable for concealed carry and the vast majority of self-defense situations."

What you're suggesting is akin to the tobacco companies willingly stand down with their nonsense. IT doesn't happen. Who better to write laws than the legislators? If you're worried that they're less than fully informed, perhaps the solution is to inform them, not dismiss them out of hand.
posted by notsnot at 4:44 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Conservatives scoff at attempted linkage to shooting -- "Conservative commentators push back at the argument that the Tea Party movement and GOP politicians contributed to a climate that might have encouraged Saturday's shootings in Tucson."
posted by ericb at 4:46 PM on January 10, 2011

scody: "Slight derail: what the hell is up with the use of "congresscritters"? Is it just some cutesy Mefi affectation, or is it in wider use than that?"

Prior to here, I was only aware of Jim Hightower using it. It competes with his hat for being his most irritatingly "folksy" quality.
posted by brundlefly at 4:53 PM on January 10, 2011

Wow. For awhile I've wanted to post more than I have on MeFi the past couple of days. The recent slams of posters in the past couple of hours have made me decide otherwise. I am sure for even saying this I'll get bashed for being a wimp.

Somehow what I meant wasn't clear; I was addressing an earlier commenter who said that people who didn't speak up against violent rhetoric were being "selfish" and "egotistical", and he used a sort of "covering your allies during a firefight" metaphor to illustrate why.

I was just observing that maybe the people who were saying "I can't speak out" weren't being "egotistical". Maybe they were just saying they didn't feel they knew how to effectively speak out yet. For those who feel they know, then, this observation didn't apply.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:57 PM on January 10, 2011

I picked up 'congresscritter' in the mid-90s on BBSs, I think; in context, it was a way of being gender-neutral and politically snarky at the same time, and I just internalized it because it seemed to me to have a way of (paradoxically) humanizing congresspersons. Plus, I hate "congresspersons", and the pedant in me hates "congressmen" and the writer in me hates "congress men and women" and "congressmen & congresswomen." I usually don't notice I've said it until after the fact, and I can perfectly well understand that folks find it irritating.

So, I'm going to try not to say it anymore.

From now on I'm going to say "congressvolk, instead.
posted by lodurr at 4:59 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's not an easy thing to admit you were wrong about something. Harder still on the internet. So kudos for St. Alia for doing so here.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:59 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I agree cybercoitus interruptus. We should have speakings-out be to staunch ALL hate speech from ALL political parties.
posted by clavdivs at 5:00 PM on January 10, 2011

>You don't actually need to be part of a party to score political points.

Given that politics is generally defined as a process by which groups of people make collective decisions I have to disagree. As I don't identify with any political group it stands to reason that I can't "score points" as I am not even in the game. I was not attempting to "score" any points. I was merely positing a different perspective from which to analyze these horrific events. But as usual the narrative has run it's course and it's still us vs. them instead of introspection. But I guess that is to be expected in this day and age.

The Uses of Political Violence
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:00 PM on January 10, 2011

strike 'be'
posted by clavdivs at 5:01 PM on January 10, 2011

Congressthingy?
posted by brundlefly at 5:02 PM on January 10, 2011

Wonkette's Wonkbot despairs.
posted by dirigibleman at 5:03 PM on January 10, 2011

Congresscritter is a dismissive pejorative scody. It's widely used by the right to demean the role of elected representatives, because "government is bad" in it's nature. It mimics the idioms of the stereotypical ignorant redneck, who speaks that way. It's intended to appeal to the huntin', fishin', chawin' and fightin' demographic who despise liberals, and the "elite".
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 5:04 PM on January 10, 2011

A quick search of Google Books puts "congresscritter" back to at least 1977, in Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer. That's just the oldest hit on the first page of results, so it's very likely older than that.
posted by cortex at 5:12 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

My decidedly non-right-wing partner has used congresscritters as long as I've known him, which is since the early 1990s. I think he got it off of USEnet, back when it was actually used for discussions. I've always assumed it was a mildly snarky way to avoid having to use gender nouns when referring to Senators and Representatives. I don't have a problem using it. I don't think it was coined as a word of the right or the left, and instead was created by the early internet culture for the use I mention above.
posted by hippybear at 5:13 PM on January 10, 2011

Or, what cortex said.
posted by hippybear at 5:15 PM on January 10, 2011

emmm, some congress people on both sides have done some pretty low down dirty things. Congresscritters is mild but it is insensitive for this threads subject matter.
It is the same when you deride anyone. I do it, you do it. The point of contention is one feeling justified in doing so.
posted by clavdivs at 5:17 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Members of Congress".
posted by Flunkie at 5:19 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

now that i think of it, I probably picked it up from Pournelle, and probably from his Byte column at that. (Never cared for his fiction.) possibly from Usenet, but I didn't really do the political groups, so more likely Byte.
posted by lodurr at 5:19 PM on January 10, 2011

On further looking, credit may go to Jerry Pournelle indeed, and from right around that time; Google Books suggests a couple hits from 1976 for Galaxy Science Fiction/Galaxy Magazine, and while the excerpts for those are too miserly to determine authorship from context, Pournelle was apparently writing for the magazine between 1974 and 1978. That'd be nicely concurrent with Lucifer's Hammer, and Niven is off the hook.

Someone went googling last May and rounded some of the hits up but didn't verify the (often wrong or misleading) metadata on the novel, quoting it at 1985 instead of the 1977 publication date on the scanned copyright page.
posted by cortex at 5:20 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

From now on I'm going to say "congressvolk, instead.

At summer camp we were told to call our peers that served us food "waitrons." Perhaps to keep our hormones one step below raging. I like the term congresstrons. It sounds like something you need an ointment for.
posted by chemoboy at 5:20 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

now the non-rabid congresscritter- that seems an oxymoron in political semantics concerning comical applications to ones own constituency.
posted by clavdivs at 5:21 PM on January 10, 2011

Mindkiller: a novel of the near future
By Spider Robinson
New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
1982
Pg. 95:
“I haven’t exactly got detailed plans yet—”
“Phone your congresscritter? Write a letter to The Village Voice? Shoot every wire-surgeon in town?”

-from cortexs' Big Apple link

oh my
posted by clavdivs at 5:24 PM on January 10, 2011

when i was about 22 i used to do prep & banquet line work in a country club kitchen. we called the front-room staff "waitrons" & "bustrons". When it was time to get the dinners out (or serve crew meal), I would sometimes call out "WAITRON FORCE ASSEMBLE!"

Chef thought it was funny as hell. busboys & waiters, who were mostly in high school, thought it was just effing weird. What did they know. They used "gnarly" as a verb. "dude, you seriously gnarlied that."
posted by lodurr at 5:26 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

"I like the term congresstrons."

DISKS AND LIGHTCYCLES... FOR DEMOCRACY!
posted by zoogleplex at 5:26 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

And everything they do -- all of their rhetoric -- is at same that level of clumsiness. But it keeps working.

I kind of think that remains to be seen, to a certain degree. Between St. Alia in this thread and BitterOldPunk's discussion of his friend in the MeTa thread, we have two examples of people for whom this used to work, but it no longer does. They may not represent the way the majority of Tea Party supporters feel today, but I guarantee you that they are not the only two Tea Party supporters in the country who are feeling it.

And this is what the frantic NOT OUR FAULT/SURVEYORS SYMBOLS/THE LEFT DOES IT TOO/WE'RE THE REAL VICTIMS defensive pushback on the right is really all about today: shoring up their support, trying to minimize the loss of people exactly like St. Alia and BOP's pal who find themselves seeing that the Tea Party's eliminationist rhetoric is in fact disgusting (at best!) and outright dangerous at worst.

The are freaked out, plain and simple, because for the first time in recent memory, they didn't control the narrative straight out of the gate. And in the 24-hour news cycle, it's almost always the first narrative that becomes the dominant narrative -- the right knows this; they are the fucking CHAMPS at this. And they know that anytime the darling of your movement literally has to issue a statement denying that she had anything to do with a political opponent being shot in the head, it's some bad fucking news for your movement. Sure, the hardcore True Believers will just Believe Truer. But layers of people outside that core just may be given enough pause to start to think for themselves, and thus today's counter-narratives of "it exists on all sides" (a false equivalency, of course, but setting that aside) and "the shooter is clearly deranged and therefore it's not political" are just a day late and a dollar short.

And that's what today's HOW DARE YOU SIR pushback is about: not just about their inability to display an iota of self-reflection or to concede that they may have been wrong in any way, shape, or form (though of course that's at work in the likes of Beck, Limbaugh, Ingraham, et al), but also about their fear that in losing the dominant narrative and being put on the defensive, it makes them weak and it exposes them for who they are among those who've been buying into the illusion... until now.

It's like the opposite of the Wizard of Oz: "Pay no attention to the fat disembodied head spewing flames and threats before you! Look at the kindly, upstanding patriot behind the curtain!"

and thanks to everyone re: congresscritter! I'd just never noticed it before this thread and I was all, "huh, why do I suddenly have jug band music going through my head now?"
posted by scody at 5:26 PM on January 10, 2011 [25 favorites]

"Then suddenly Vince [Omniaveritas] slipped on the slick footing of a copy of OMNI and crashed into his massive bank of computers... Big zaps of electricity jumped out of all this Frankenstein equipment which literateurs were not meant to know, and given all the paper, the whole place went up as fast as Shepard's reputation... Sue Denim sneaked out by disguising herself as a progressive feminist writer, and the last thing we heard was Vince screaming, "I meant Spider Robinson, you
assholes."

posted by lodurr at 5:30 PM on January 10, 2011

It's a congresscritter jamberoo!
posted by box at 5:34 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm astonished I got to the end of this enormous thread. And a bit surprised that although I've been reading it closely, I didn't see anyone mention that Congresswoman Giffords is a former Republican. She switched sides in 1999 because she felt her position on social issues wasn't in sync with the R party. Speaking as a former R myself (I left in favor of being an Independent back in 1992), that's another option for you. St, Alia. It is certainly persuasive to have people leave the party. And not vote for its members.

I'll add that although I don't see any direct link between the hate filled speech that informs our politics these days, particularly from the right, and this atrocious crime, I do believe that it creates a volatile, dangerous, and craziness-promoting atmosphere, just as extremist terrorist religious speech like Al Quaeda's attracts murderous zealots.

And in terms of how our current political atmosphere apparently did influence this shooter, here's what his friend said about him: But Loughner did, according to Tierney, believe that government is "fucking us over."

This sort of rage at the government and the people who work in it is just the kind of tinder that inflammatory political rhetoric ignites, and which makes public service increasingly dangerous.

I don't support restricting speech, including outlawing the use of target sights, or censoring eliminationist rhetoric. But I do think it is wholly appropriate for us to say "Shame" to hate mongers, to respond seriously and negatively when we hear people call for violence against political opponents, and most of all to ask our media outlets why they give it such a voice. If we all start to object when we hear this stuff, to speak against it and against the people who treat it as entertainment, we may actually move toward a more reasoned discourse. And a safer political environment.
posted by bearwife at 5:39 PM on January 10, 2011 [10 favorites]

Congresscritter is a dismissive pejorative scody. It's widely used by the right to demean the role of elected representatives, because "government is bad" in it's nature.

Eh, I understood it as a mild takedown of people who often forget whom they work for. Are we going to start worrying about this kind of language now?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:40 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think Congress on Your Corner or whatever she called the event sounds charming. Small-town. Personal. Setting up a little table and just chatting with the folks who stop by.

Can't have that anymore, eh? Not in the New America.

To me there was a terrible symmetry in one of the victims having been born on Sept. 11, 2001. Because it feels like that's the day this country hopped on the Paronoid Express to Crazytown, and now this deranged tragedy is the latest bizarre manifestation of that.

After 9/11 a Republican government used it as an excuse to begin infringing our rights to privacy and security of person - whether it be on the phone or in lines to take a plane or cross a border. They ramped up fear of The Other. And the Democrat who took over has continued on that road in many ways. TSA getting worse and worse. Gitmo still open. Warrantless wiretaps still going on, no?

And numerous individuals in this country too have exploited and wallowed in the same fear and paranoia -- intimidating, threatening and physically striking out. I think I alluded way upthread to the surreal city council meeting in my quiet Northern state suburb when some armed people showed up protesting because they weren't going to be allowed to wear guns to a family festival. Jeebus X, when did the entire country time travel back the Wild West?

Washington, D.C.? NYC? The border crossing from Canada? My town? Hell, it's starting to look and feel like Armed Fortress America a lot of places. We're allowing these fears to change the very nature of this country.

And now you're saying one more thing that we used to take for granted - the chance for a simple, informal conversation with our elected officials - can no longer be either.
posted by NorthernLite at 5:42 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

tzikeh: "If a politician gets shot, and a political movement (for lack of a better word) starts running around in circles shouting "WE DIDN'T DO IT!", it's pretty straightforward evidence that that political movement is a dangerous segment of our society, and they know that we're not fooled. The fact that this happened is the damning evidence that this is exactly the kind of thing that they have been encouraging through images and dog-whistles and outright lies and fear-mongering."

Shorter version: "The Lady doth protest too much, methinks..."
posted by notsnot at 5:44 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

The mug shot is one of the scariest things I've ever seen.
posted by jeremy b at 5:48 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

LobsterMitten: "The mug shot seems in line with the friend interviewed in Mother Jones, who speculated that the guy wanted to be like Heath Ledger's Joker character from Batman"

Like this guy?
posted by symbioid at 5:49 PM on January 10, 2011

and thanks to everyone re: congresscritter! I'd just never noticed it before this thread and I was all, "huh, why do I suddenly have jug band music going through my head now?"
posted by scody

see, you do understand the term. Hence your imagery with sound.
posted by clavdivs at 5:50 PM on January 10, 2011

I saved it instead as a text file, for further consideration at a later date.

You considered this comment for two days and this is what you decided to post here?

OK, look: Let's start here. My congressman, Jim McGovern (MA-03), was involved in a very contentious and at times downright uncivilized challenge with a Tea Party candidate this year. As surprising as it might be for Massachusetts, it's unfortunately true. Thanks to having some of the strictest gun laws in the country, we didn't have people open-carrying everywhere, but I would not have been surprised to find out that several of the more unhinged characters in the regular sitcom that was this last election cycle were carrying at some point. Between our side and theirs, there were probably 400 people and two cops. My congressman decided to walk into the lion's den, even though he obviously was not welcome and really was hated there. Hell, he probably decided to do it precisely for that reason. It was so crowded that he actually had to walk through the lion's den, up the entire senior center driveway, surrounded by supporters and opponents, because there was nowhere to even park at the venue. He walked himself through a crowd of people that probably literally wished him dead, and into a closed room full of said people into a forum run by said people. That's what reps do when they're doing their jobs properly.

These our our representatives in Congress, for crissakes. These people are our most direct vessel to the representative democracy that defines this country. If we can only talk to our representatives through bullet-proof glass after a pat-down and a background check, we are literally living in a prison state.

Let me be clear: It's not that your comment is "difficult" or that it gets to truths I can't handle. It's that it's so poorly thought-out in the context of what we're supposed to represent as a system of government and governance. We cannot shit ourselves with fear over a crazy person. We cannot sequester our elected representatives into secure little boxes. We have too much to lose, and if we get to that point, we've already lost it all.
posted by rollbiz at 5:52 PM on January 10, 2011 [23 favorites]

The are freaked out, plain and simple, because for the first time in recent memory, they didn't control the narrative straight out of the gate.

How unfortunate this happened on a weekend when they were off-duty
posted by Redhush at 5:53 PM on January 10, 2011

Eh, I understood it as a mild takedown of people who often forget whom they work for. Are we going to start worrying about this kind of language now?

For pete's sake, nobody's "worried" about it. I asked because I'd never heard it before and it reminded me of an animatronic bear from Disneyland wielding a banjo.
posted by scody at 5:56 PM on January 10, 2011

I didn't see anyone mention that Congresswoman Giffords is a former Republican

She's a concern troll! Which is like a spy version of an astroturfer.

Seriously, but. How long before this becomes a tactic? Defections are normally greeted with awe by the MSM. Specifically, an awesome win for the new party – which greets them with open arms and much back slapping.

Organised crime does it. Terrorists do it. It seems like a no-brainer in terms of the political race to the bottom.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:03 PM on January 10, 2011

Shorter version: "The Lady doth protest too much, methinks..."

I was watching the KOLD coverage as it was unfolding. One of the newscasters read a statement from the president, and then immediately after another newscaster read a statement from Sarah Palin. Did they get both statements at about the same time?

Then I thought some more. Who the hell is Sarah Palin now? She is no longer an elected official. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even hold a position in any political party, just a political action committee.

Why is she releasing a statement on this tragedy hours after it happened? And why did the newscasters read it to me? This shouldn't have anything to do with her, so why should I or anyone else care?

I just found that moment very strange, but I was in a daze most of the day that I don't recall just how strange it was until now.
posted by chemoboy at 6:03 PM on January 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

That would be the tragic tragic day that the Imagineers got the programming for the Country Bear Jamboree in Adventureland mixed up with the Talking Lincoln on Main Street USA.

It was a horrible day, second only to this.
posted by hippybear at 6:04 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Eh, I understood it as a mild takedown of people who often forget whom they work for. Are we going to start worrying about this kind of language now?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker

Well it is widely used by the right for precisely that stated purpose. However, as a Canadian, I don't claim to have a peerless grasp of all the nuances of American English. However that is where I've most often encountered it; and looking it up to see if my instinct was accurate, the first 4 hits I found all described it as such. I too find it dismissive and overtly folksy, but as always, YMMV.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 6:04 PM on January 10, 2011

> It mimics the idioms of the stereotypical ignorant redneck, who speaks that way. It's intended to appeal to the huntin', fishin', chawin' and fightin' demographic who despise liberals, and the "elite".

I'm one the stereotypical ignorant huntin', fishin', chawin' and fightin' rednecks - meaning I'm from Virginia. I've always always heard this as mildly humorous rather really derogatory and never identified it either a liberal or conservative usage.

One of the usage examples Wiktionary gives is from Richard Stallman, who's hardly known as a right-wing ideologue. I'm sure, though, you can up with a reason why being a sort of lefty free software advocate is exactly the same thing as a being a "huntin', fishin', chawin' and fightin'" redneck.

Never pass up the opportunity the create more hate. Because, as all of have been saying all through this thread, more hate is always a good thing.
posted by nangar at 6:05 PM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

I asked because I'd never heard it before and it reminded me of an animatronic bear from Disneyland wielding a banjo.

I know. I was responding to PareidoliaticBoy.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:09 PM on January 10, 2011

I am glad that I went back through this evening's contributions to the thread to see what St. Alia posted, because what she posted took some serious intestinal fortitude. It takes a lot of courage to see what she has seen and then say what she said, especially in a venue where the vast majority of people (including, almost definitely, myself) thought and said she was stupid to to have been involved with the Tea Party to begin with. I don't think it's that she was wrong, exactly, but that the movement didn't bear out as she have hoped at this point. I've been in almost that exact situation, and I just bounced altogether and didn't say shit to anybody because I didn't have the balls to take the "I told you so's".

We probably still agree on next to nothing politically, St. Alia, but count me as someone who has your back.
posted by rollbiz at 6:21 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Glenn Beck responded today on both his radio and Fox News show with a "Challenge" to all Americans:

I challenge all Americans, left or right, regardless if you’re a politician, pundit, painter, priest, parishioner, poet or porn star to agree with all of the following.

* I denounce violence, regardless of ideological motivation.
* I denounce anyone, from the Left, the Right or middle, who believes physical violence is the answer to whatever they feel is wrong with our country.
* I denounce those who wish to tear down our system and rebuild it in their own image, whatever that image may be.
* I denounce those from the Left, the Right or middle, who call for riots and violence as an opportunity to bring down and reconstruct our system.
* I denounce violent threats and calls for the destruction of our system – regardless of their underlying ideology – whether they come from the Hutaree Militia or Frances Fox Piven.
* I hold those responsible for the violence, responsible for the violence. I denounce those who attempt to blame political opponents for the acts of madmen.
* I denounce those from the Left, the Right or middle that sees violence as a viable alternative to our long established system of change made within the constraints of our constitutional Republic.

He challenges us to this; he considers this a challenge.
posted by jeremy b at 6:21 PM on January 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

Saw this comment on TPM today and think it's just right:

It may actually be less productive to speculate on this guys possible right wing inspiration than to simply note how much right wing talk resembles the ravings of this paranoid schizophrenic.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:22 PM on January 10, 2011 [40 favorites]

ORLY Glenn?
posted by oinopaponton at 6:25 PM on January 10, 2011

jeramy b, Beck was just adding to the smoke by equating left and right wing violence and tactics as being equally bad. Demonstrably, they are not.
posted by QIbHom at 6:25 PM on January 10, 2011

this paranoid schizophrenic.

People need to cut that out. Just say mentally unstable, because that's about all we know at this point.
posted by cashman at 6:27 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I must have missed it in the press conference - they said Giffords gave a thumbs up! I thought they just asked her "show me your thumb" - not sure if someone took that and ran with it, or she decided to give a thumbs up. Anyway, tomorrow is a crucial day, hoping the brain swelling stays down. So amazed by all parties, and so hoping Giffords pulls through and makes an unbelievable recovery!
posted by cashman at 6:33 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Cripes, I picked up "congresscritter" here at Metafilter. I'd gotten the impression it was a light, unpartisan term, and I liked its gender neutrality. Pardon this Canadian for, as PareidoliaticBoy put it, not grasping nuances of American English.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 6:44 PM on January 10, 2011

I'd be interested to know if that mugshot was photo-shopped.
posted by localhuman at 6:53 PM on January 10, 2011

now we have a pidgin in the midst.
posted by clavdivs at 6:55 PM on January 10, 2011

This is the worst political fodder I've ever seen. A pot smoking, grungy, disassociated 20-something used as a poster for left/right/religious fingerpointing is ridiculous if not outright insultive to the victims.

And I am sadly certain the pro-gun and anti-gun groups are already foaming at the mouth for the rush of donations that have already started.
posted by buzzman at 6:58 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

PareidoliaticBoy : Congresscritter is a dismissive pejorative scody.

Aaand... Your point?

Plain ol' English simply lacks the expressiveness to properly convey the utter contempt some of us have for the morons leading us. If verbally reducing them to the level of mere beasts can make it a bit more clear just how little regard we have for them, then all the better.

And I say that as someone who considers both major political parties equally worthless, so don't go throwing around the "right wing nutjob" card too soon.

cybercoitus interruptus : I'd gotten the impression it was a light, unpartisan term, and I liked its gender neutrality. Pardon this Canadian for, as PareidoliaticBoy put it, not grasping nuances of American English.

My sincerity in saying the above aside, honestly you interpreted it correctly. You really shouldn't take your cues on the loadedness of American English words from MeFi, it will seriously warp your perceptions of reality. I could describe the technical details of Intel's latest CPU architecture and someone would rattle on about how my choice of phrasing betrays my position of white middle class male privilege. ;)
posted by pla at 6:59 PM on January 10, 2011

Glenn Beck: The Revolution is Now

This episode aired Dec 9, less than a month before the shooting. This is a prime example of the sort of rhetoric that can provoke a pyschopath.
posted by jeremy b at 7:00 PM on January 10, 2011

So we should just ignore all the calls from the left for revolution, because THAT won't ever provoke a bloodbath, right?
posted by JB71 at 7:15 PM on January 10, 2011

I'd be interested to know if that mugshot was photo-shopped.

This is via the Smoking Gun and before that the Pima County Sheriff Dupnik, neither of them likely to have modified it.
posted by dhartung at 7:17 PM on January 10, 2011

"Balanced" media in this age does not mean "informed counter-opinion." The news just wants a nay-sayer to provide an opposite statement, regardless its veracity.

And the you get the President's message "balanced" with a vacuous statement from the anti-President Anne current media obsession, Sarah Palin.

It's beyond pathetic, edging on downright embarrassing.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:20 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

QIbHom - jeramy b, Beck was just adding to the smoke by equating left and right wing violence and tactics as being equally bad. Demonstrably, they are not.

Of course not. You're obviously on the side of the angels when you're on the left. After all, it's the other side that hates, or so you tell yourself, which justifies you hating them. And once you start hating, you can justify pretty much anything.

The concept of freedom of speech, of all speech - breaks down when you don't like the speech you're hearing. At that point, you feel perfectly justified in silencing it. It's hateful. It's incisive. Choose your adjective - find a reason.

And if they object to you keeping them from speaking, it simply proves you justified in your hatred because if they didn't hate you - they'd comply willingly.

Of course, it's not hate when you do it, right? It's needful and necessary. It's only hate when the other side does something you don't like. If they dare object to YOUR speech, if they view YOUR speech as hateful and inciting - well, they're just obviously wrong, correct? Because by definition YOUR speech can never be those things.

There comes a point where you can nuance yourself right out of reality, where the stories you're telling yourself to justify your own opinions lead you to a perverse place where reality doesn't reach you. And that's a pretty dangerous place to be.

It might be wise to stop, take a breath, and realize that we've all got to live together... and cut each other some slack before we start cutting throats pre-emptively.
posted by JB71 at 7:23 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

So we should just ignore all the calls from the left for revolution, because THAT won't ever provoke a bloodbath, right?

Ah, you forgot the liiiiink! Link to Olbermann calling for violent revolution? Link to Maddow doing the same?
posted by cashman at 7:24 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hahahahahahaha, hahahahahahahaha!!@#$!!@%@#$!@#$ *snort*. Oh my.
posted by scalefree

Looks like Glen is preparing to do some surveying. Maybe he's putting up a new fence.
posted by mazola at 7:26 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Olbermann is much more likely to call for violent revolution than Maddow. Maddow would just like us all to have a good cocktail and converse for a while.
posted by hippybear at 7:26 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

> See, part of the problem in my view really is that many folks on the right do see this as a game, a contest, something akin to a football playoff where you root for your team and boo the other side. The only problem with that is we aren't two different teams. We are one nation. And if we don't get our acts together we are gonna break this nation and we are gonna break it in such a fashion we won't be able to fix it. And we will have no one to blame but our collective selves.

Well said, Alia.
posted by jokeefe at 7:29 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

WE DEMAND GOOD COCKTAILS AND CONVERSATION OR THERE WILL BE BLOOD IN THE STREETS
posted by Flunkie at 7:30 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

This tweet is from the head of the Danville, VA Tea Party. I give up.
posted by naoko at 7:31 PM on January 10, 2011

A pot smoking, grungy, disassociated 20-something used as a poster for left/right/religious fingerpointing is ridiculous if not outright insultive to the victims.

Perhaps you would like to tell Congresswoman Giffords' own father that he's insulting the victims?
posted by scody at 7:35 PM on January 10, 2011

Arizona Sheriff Not Backing Down.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 7:35 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

clavdivs: I agree cybercoitus interruptus. We should have speakings-out be to staunch ALL hate speech from ALL political parties.

Well, yes, except that that sentence makes it sound like implicitly violent rhetoric from all political parties has been equivalent lately. It hasn't. eg, accusations of "terrorist" (or "Muslim," which in too many people's minds is the same thing), of being threats to "our way of life," brandishing of firearm imagery and terminology and actual firearms (at health care reform hearings, no less)...
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 7:35 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

JB71: you feel perfectly justified in silencing it

Calling out is not equivalent to silencing.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 7:38 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh, calling out. Not silencing.... sure. But just to make sure, keep the bastards from doing anything you might consider hateful in the first place, 'k? And be willing to retroactively change what's currently considered non-hate speech into hate speech when the occasion calls for it.

And especially, be willing to justify what the people you approve of might say, and not hold them to the same standard.
posted by JB71 at 7:42 PM on January 10, 2011

Of course not. You're obviously on the side of the angels when you're on the left. After all, it's the other side that hates, or so you tell yourself, which justifies you hating them. And once you start hating, you can justify pretty much anything.

It might be wise to stop, take a breath, and realize that we've all got to live together... and cut each other some slack before we start cutting throats pre-emptively.

..so while the "conservatives" continue throwing meat to inflame their right-wing base, liberals are supposed to do what exactly? Just being understanding and compliant hasn't been working. The rabid right despises weakness.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:42 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

As the saying goes, cybercoitus interruptus, "Free speech for ME - but not for thee!"
posted by JB71 at 7:44 PM on January 10, 2011

And especially, be willing to justify what the people you approve of might say, and not hold them to the same standard.

The people I approve of don't say "I'm hoping that we're not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems."
posted by Flunkie at 7:45 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Free speech for ME - but not for thee!"

Free speech includes the right to tell someone else their speech is irresponsible, hateful, and wrong. It also means that person doesn't have to listen to you. That's how it works.
posted by EarBucket at 7:46 PM on January 10, 2011 [10 favorites]

This tweet is from the head of the Danville, VA Tea Party. I give up.

Here's the tweet:

Cutting that Gas line doesn't seem so bad now does it?...What?..... Too Soon?

Just to remind people, this guy posted the address of the brother of Rep. Tom Perriello telling T-Partiers they should "drop by" & thank him for his vote in favor of health care reform. Whereupon the Rep's brother discovered his home's gas line had been cut. Yeah, it's definitely too soon. Whatever your day job is, don't quit it cause Sam Kinison you ain't.
posted by scalefree at 8:01 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Thanks for explaining that, scalefree. I was about to ask.
posted by brundlefly at 8:05 PM on January 10, 2011

As the saying goes, cybercoitus interruptus, "Free speech for ME - but not for thee!"

By criticizing the speech of people who are criticizing the speech of others, you are suppressing their free speech rights.

And be willing to retroactively change what's currently considered non-hate speech into hate speech when the occasion calls for it.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck criticized the gun sight map when it came out.
posted by dirigibleman at 8:06 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

He challenges us to this; he considers this a challenge.

As long as folks keep setting the bar as low as "Not as quite as bad as a violent oppressive dictatorship with regular disappearances and prison camps!... most of the time!", I'm sure the "let's not call for the murder of our political opponents" is a high challenge.

(Also, have we cleared the 2 year mark for not eating our young nor throwing babies into flaming ziggurats for better weather yet? Maybe we should start a national holiday in celebration!)
posted by yeloson at 8:06 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

bonobothegreat -

Repeating myself...

There comes a point where you can nuance yourself right out of reality, where the stories you're telling yourself to justify your own opinions lead you to a perverse place where reality doesn't reach you.

Indifference isn't hate. Disagreement isn't hate. Looking at your opinions and going "Okay..." and then not paying them attention isn't hate.

Coexist. Admit that not everyone's going to see the world by your standards. When you see a conservative's car, scratch their paint and break their windows to show you don't hate them. Set fire to their houses to show just how much you accept their ...

Oh, wait - that won't work, will it? Maybe just try some tolerance. Don't automatically assume that every opinon or idea comes about because they fucking hate your guts and are looking to make your life (or the world) a living hell. Think that, just maybe, YOU might be in error and THEY might be right sometimes.
posted by JB71 at 8:10 PM on January 10, 2011

they just hate it when you face them down. they want you to shut up and knuckle under. that's their style of free speech. what you need to understand is that "free" means "free to dominate." that's the freedom in question here.

I just love it when people try to shout each other down with free speech arguments. it's kind of like watching a pit bull trying to fuck a bowling ball.
posted by warbaby at 8:10 PM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

Elizabeth Hasselbeck criticized the gun sight map when it came out.

As has been noted in this thread, so did Giffords. Many people did. In no way is this "retroactive".
posted by brundlefly at 8:10 PM on January 10, 2011

Oops, yeah, thanks scalefree. The incident was discussed in a few places upthread, but with this verging on 1800 comments some context was probably called for.
posted by naoko at 8:14 PM on January 10, 2011

I'd be interested to know if that mugshot was photo-shopped.

Apparently, according to Rachel Maddow tonight, it's not the official mugshot, just a photo that was taken during the arrest and released.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:15 PM on January 10, 2011

Flunkie - did you bother to look at what you just wrote?

The people I approve of don't say "I'm hoping that we're not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems."

So you WANT Second Amendment remedies, and support those who do? Who adovcate using firearms instead of voting?

For the record, I hope like hell we don't go the Second Amendment route - that's a last-ditch resort and we're far from that. Someone saying that they hope we're not getting to that... I'd think you'd support that idea.
posted by JB71 at 8:16 PM on January 10, 2011

So you WANT Second Amendment remedies, and support those who do? Who adovcate using firearms instead of voting?

I'm not sure if you're trolling or just missed the point entirely....
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:20 PM on January 10, 2011 [16 favorites]

So you WANT Second Amendment remedies, and support those who do? Who adovcate using firearms instead of voting?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Kudos on your deductive powers.
posted by Flunkie at 8:22 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Jon Stewart just did a nice little reaction piece at the start of tonight's Daily Show -- ducking the question of whether this can be connected to out political environment but noting the inspiring qualities of the people who were attacked and hoping that this will serve as a reality check, so that public figures will back off from cavalier references of real tragedy (words like "tyranny" and "atrocity" shouldn't be watered down) and so that our rhetoric will less resemble the manifestos of crazy people. It reminded me a lot of his post-9/11 speech. It should be on the show's site later tonight if you missed it.

(I wonder how Colbert is going to handle it...)
posted by Rhaomi at 8:24 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Maybe just try some tolerance. Don't automatically assume that every opinon or idea comes about because they fucking hate your guts and are looking to make your life (or the world) a living hell. Think that, just maybe, YOU might be in error and THEY might be right sometimes.

This is a workable strategy - unless your opponent is using the infamous "Lucy & the football" strategy against you. If they are your only countermove is loudly proclaiming either "Aauuugghh, not again!" or "Oh good grief!" as you fall on your butt.
posted by scalefree at 8:24 PM on January 10, 2011

dirigibleman -

By criticizing the speech of people who are criticizing the speech of others, you are suppressing their free speech rights.

LOL. No, you flaming fool, I'm CRITICIZING them. Censorship would require quite a bit more. Suppressing them - forcibly cutting off internet access for example - even more.
posted by JB71 at 8:25 PM on January 10, 2011

So you WANT Second Amendment remedies, and support those who do? Who adovcate using firearms instead of voting?

"That guy in the bad suit wasn't threatening me. He was just expressing his hope that nothing bad happens to my business!"
posted by dirigibleman at 8:29 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

So you WANT Second Amendment remedies, and support those who do? Who adovcate using firearms instead of voting?

The point is that "Second Amendment remedies" (i.e., shooting politicians you don't agree with in the head) should never be an acceptable solution to being unable to win an election. Politicians who shake their heads and cluck their tongues and hope out loud that it won't come to that are implying that guns come next if they don't win.
posted by EarBucket at 8:30 PM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

> Step 1: SARAH PALIN PUTS CROSSHAIRS ON CONGRESSWOMAN
> Step 2: SOMEONE SHOOTS CONGRESSWOMAN
> posted by vibrotronica at 7:08 PM on January 10 [7 favorites +] [!]

Ah. So if somebody trains gunsights on Palin's own head like this, you're predicting Palin cranial fragments will be soon be flying around for real?

> I thought I should point out, jfuller, that you are shooting at a straw man for most people
> in this thread who see a causal relationship between violent speech and violence.
> posted by lodurr at 7:10 PM on January 10 [9 favorites +] [!]

Ah. So if somebody puts a Palin effigy's head in a noose we can expect a necktie party starring Herself for real any day now? Can I quote you on that?

Pointing to the pink elephants, I remind all that just because people see something that alone doesn't prove there's anything there to be seen. You may have forgotten just how eager the usual mefi suspects were, when that census worker hanged himself in the woods, to 20-yard-conclusion-leap to blaming it on Michelle Bachman, the Tea Party, Deliverance-style rednecks, etc. etc. etc. Specimen:

It astounds me that there are crazy-ass bugnuts out there in the mainland of America who are so isolated from reality that they do this shit. Hell's bells, as isolated as Northern Canada is, where you might travel by sled for days to reach the next hut, they don't tend to lynch the census guy! WTF, civilization?

You might think that person's making himself look like such a hysterical dolt back then might have taught him a salutary lesson. But no, he's right here right now and is treating us to exactly the same cartoon paranoia in this thread.

The unstable are a tool to be used to coerce a fearful public into compliance.

You gotta admire the brilliance of the crazed mind that would not only think to use lunatics as political tools, but then also does it!

Plus ça change. It was demonstrable drama-queen cheese concerning the census guy and it's preening I-hate-right-wingnuts-more-than-thou cheese now about the present subject, nothing but smarmily using the occasion of murders by a man who is, for all the evidence anyone here possesses now, a crazy be classed with John Hinkley Jr. and Mark David Chapman; and using it as an opportunity for mere points-scoring against people he doesn't like.

And the same is true of three fourths of the rest of you.
posted by jfuller at 8:31 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

LOL. No, you flaming fool, I'm CRITICIZING them.

You think those are surveyors markers on Sarah Palin's map, don't you?
posted by dirigibleman at 8:31 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

scalefree -

And if they aren't - and you act like they are? Maybe you'll pre-emtively fall and blame them for a wrenched back. Where's the win?

There's no win. Lose-lose for all.

I like Charlie Brown. Always have - he's been fooled time after time, has a dour, fatalistic viewpoint - yet is always willing to scrape up enough optimism to try one more time. I think, in the end, he'll get that little redheaded girl.
posted by JB71 at 8:32 PM on January 10, 2011

So if somebody trains gunsights on Palin's own head like this, you're predicting Palin cranial fragments will be soon be flying around for real?

I think that kind of thing is stupid, offensive, and unnecessary. I also would hope that the person who did it would at least have the decency, should some lunatic actually shoot Sarah Palin, to say: "Wow. In hindsight, that was in really poor taste. I'd like to apologize to her family."

Sarah Palin hasn't been able to muster up that kind of class yet. Here's hoping she makes it there.
posted by EarBucket at 8:35 PM on January 10, 2011

so while the "conservatives" continue throwing meat to inflame their right-wing base, liberals are supposed to do what exactly? Just being understanding and compliant hasn't been working. The rabid right despises weakness.

Here's what liberals can do, IMO:

Don't live in a bubble. Do you have right-wing friends? No? Well, make some.

They despise weakness. True. Use that. Why are you afraid of Muslims, dude? Are you a pussy? You really think a few crazy guys (who arent, you know, anything like most Muslims in the world) in some caves on the other side of the planet are a threat to your way of life? Do you think America is that weak? Damn, that don't sound too patriotic. Greatest country in the world etc.

Hit them where they live. Who built that road? Who pays your grandma's rent since she busted her hip? You think the business you work for gives a great goddamn about Granny? Yeah?

Then find common ground. Man, we all want the same things. Freedom. Peace. Prosperity. All we're arguing about is MEANS, not ENDS.

Let them know: I'm not scared. I'm not intimidated. I'm not your enemy. And I can fucking take you in a fair fight. No, I don't own a gun. Why? Because I'm not a coward. I don't need a dick extension. I. Am. Not. Afraid.

And when you dig down, you find three types of people: the brainwashed, the frightened, and the True Believers. Give up on the True Believers, you can't reach them. Extend a hand in friendship to the brainwashed and the frightened. Don't preach. Don't hector.

Be proud of who you are and what you stand for.

It's all you can do.

(This comment written on my phone while under the influence of beer. I apologize for errors. But Auburn's about to win the national championship and I need to get back to the game.)
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:35 PM on January 10, 2011 [28 favorites]

John Kenneth Fisher -

I'm not sure if you're trolling or just missed the point entirely....

Judging by flunkie's post under yours, I should take his statement at face value. I didn't think he meant it that way, which is why I put up what I did... and though it seems pretty odd to me - (shrug) - he's got his own opinion.
posted by JB71 at 8:37 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

They despise weakness. True. Use that. Why are you afraid of Muslims, dude? Are you a pussy? [emphasis mine]

I would like to suggest, in a collegial spirit, that this rhetoric might also need a little rethinking.
posted by scody at 8:41 PM on January 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

So if somebody trains gunsights on Palin's own head like this, you're predicting Palin cranial fragments will be soon be flying around for real?

Wow, that's a really stupid thing to do. Which Senate candidate did that?

So if somebody puts a Palin effigy's head in a noose we can expect a necktie party starring Herself for real any day now?

That's just wrong. I hope the millions of people who watch that guy's TV show tune out, now.
posted by dirigibleman at 8:41 PM on January 10, 2011 [11 favorites]

JB71 - I don't freaking care about scratching conservative's cars. I'm saying that being circumspect and fearful has never advanced a liberal cause. I'm hoping more and more of us will publicly call bullshit when we see polititians using coded language of bigotry. I'm hoping we'll vote with our wallets and an more powerful, organized way.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:43 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Jon Stewart's commentary on the weekend's events:

So here we are again, stunned by a tragedy. We have been visited by this demon before. Our hearts go out to those who have been injured or killed and their loved ones.

How do you make sense of these kinds of senseless situations? Is really the question that seems to be on everyone's mind, and I don't know if there is a way to make sense of this sort of thing.

As I watch the political pundit world, many are reflecting and grieving and trying to figure things out. But it's definitely true that others are working feverishly to find the tidbit or two that will exonerate their side from blame or implicate the other. And watching that is as predictable, I think, as it is dispiriting.

Did the toxic political environment cause this?

A graphic image here, an ill-timed comment, violent rhetoric? Those types of things? I have no fucking idea.

You know, we live in a complex ecosystem of influences and motivations, and I wouldn't blame our political rhetoric any more than I would blame heavy metal music for Columbine.

And by the way, that is coming from someone who truly hates our political environment. It is toxic. It is unproductive. But to say that is what has caused this, or that the people in that are responsible for this, I just don't think you can do.

Boy, would that be nice! Boy, would it be nice to be able to draw a straight line of causation from this horror to something tangible. Because then we could convince ourselves that if we just stop this, the horrors will end. You know, to have the feeling, however fleeting, that this type of event can be prevented forever.

But it's hard not to feel like it can't. You know, you cannot outsmart crazy. You don't know what a troubled mind will get caught on. Crazy always seems to find a way. It always has.

Which is not to suggest that resistance is futile. It sounded pretty dark, what I just said there, now that I reconsider it in my own head. "Crazy people rule us all!"

I don't think that's true, but...

And I do think it's important for us to watch our rhetoric. I do think it's a worthwhile goal. Not to conflate our political opponents with enemies. If for no other reason, than to draw a better distinction between the manifestos of paranoid madmen, and what passes for acceptable political and pundit speak.

You know, it would be really nice if the ramblings of crazy people didn't in any way resemble how we actually talk to each other on TV. Let's at least make troubled individuals easier to spot.

And, you know, again. It is, to see good people like this hurt, it is so grievous and it causes me such sadness. But again, I refuse to give in to that feeling of despair. There is light in this situation.

I urge everyone -- read up about those who were hurt and/or killed in this shooting. You will be comforted by just how much anonymous goodness there really is in the world. You read about these people and you realize that people that you don't even know, that you have never met, are leading lives of real dignity and goodness.

And you hear about crazy, but it's rarer than you think. And I think you'll find yourself even more impressed with Congresswoman Giffords and amazed at how much living the deceased packed into lives that were cut way too short.

And if there is real solace in this, I think it's that for all the hyperbole and the vitriol that's become part of our political process, when the reality of that rhetoric... when actions match the disturbing nature of words... we haven't lost our capacity to be horrified.

And please, let us hope we never do. Let us hope we never become numb to what real horror, to what the real blood of patriots looks like when it is spilled. Maybe it helps us to remember to match our rhetoric with reality more often. Because the reality of dangerous rhetoric is, I think, even those that speak hyperbolically, I think all of them tonight would absolutely recoil and say "Wow!. You know. I think that's... You know... That is not the picture of what we were discussing and what we were talking about. And I have to remember that there is a reality to that situation that we can't approach verbally."

Because someone or something will shatter our world again.

And wouldn't it be a shame if we didn't take this opportunity, and the loss of these incredible people and the pain of what their loved ones are going through right now... Wouldn't it be a shame if we didn't that moment to make sure that the world that we are creating now that will ultimately be shattered again by a moment of lunacy... Wouldn't it be a shame if that world wasn't better than the one we'd previously lost?

So, how will we process this tonight? Absolutely no idea.

We'll come back. I'll show a field piece about something incredibly stupid and silly. Dennis Leary will come out here. He and I will, most likely, insult each other playfully. And then tomorrow, you know, we go back to trying to do what we normally do. Which is highlight absurdity in a comical way that is a catharsis for people, and not a sadness.

So, thank you for listening. I know this is probably more helpful for me than it is for you. But we'll be right back.

posted by hippybear at 8:48 PM on January 10, 2011 [24 favorites]

Earbucket -

"The point is that "Second Amendment remedies" (i.e., shooting politicians you don't agree with in the head) should never be an acceptable solution to being unable to win an election. Politicians who shake their heads and cluck their tongues and hope out loud that it won't come to that are implying that guns come next if they don't win."

First part - I agree with. An honest loss isn't a problem at all, and the fuckhead who shot Giffords wasn't upset because she won the election - he was just plain nuts and used her political stance as a reason. (Like the guy who shot Reagan was trying to impress Jodie Foster.)

Second part - I disagree with. As I said, an honest loss isn't a problem. There've been a fair number of elections worldwide where the people's vote wasn't counted honestly, and where even when it was the ousted leader didn't leave. When we can't count on the elections being honest and open, then there's the potential for significant trouble. And I'm not talking about "We wuz robbed cuz our guy didn't win!" sort of honesty - it's the "Well, let's recount and recount and I'm sure the votes to put our guy over the top will magicially appear, at which point we'll stop recounting and ignore all absentee ballots" sort of messing around that does no good and erodes faith in the system.

When the faith in the system is gone, we're really in for trouble.
posted by JB71 at 8:48 PM on January 10, 2011

Judging by flunkie's post under yours, I should take his statement at face value.

Seriously? You are either trolling or are incapable of interpreting language in anything but a strictly literal way. I'm leaning toward the former.
posted by brundlefly at 8:49 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

buys the bitter old punk a beer
posted by clavdivs at 8:50 PM on January 10, 2011

I keep turning this scene from Little Murders over and over in my head. It explains this situation about as well as any analysis I've seen.
posted by orville sash at 8:52 PM on January 10, 2011

Did the toxic political environment cause this?

A graphic image here, an ill-timed comment, violent rhetoric? Those types of things? I have no fucking idea.

You know, we live in a complex ecosystem of influences and motivations, and I wouldn't blame our political rhetoric any more than I would blame heavy metal music for Columbine.

And by the way, that is coming from someone who truly hates our political environment. It is toxic. It is unproductive. But to say that is what has caused this, or that the people in that are responsible for this, I just don't think you can do.

Many would disagree with Jon Stewart, including Sarah Palin, who tried to clean the Internet of any evidence of her calls to violence against Giffords.

That said, Krugman offers a clear, unequivocal response to Stewart's brand of false equivalence:

It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement.

posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:57 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

...all you have to do is attend almost any family gathering, where once-loving relationships have been completely lost because of the overheated right-left culture war. If real family relationships are being lost to this kind of political debate, if someone on TV can reach into your living room and break up your family without knowing anything about you or even knowing that you exist, that tells us that this mechanized mass-media rhetoric has been almost unimaginably successful at dehumanizing whole classes of people. Matt Taibbi gets introspective.
posted by gerryblog at 8:58 PM on January 10, 2011 [9 favorites]

bonobothegreat -

"JB71 - I don't freaking care about scratching conservative's cars. I'm saying that being circumspect and fearful has never advanced a liberal cause."

For the last 4 years, Congress was in 'liberal' hands. For the last two years, Obama's been President. Were they circumspect and fearful in advancing liberal causes? Do you think that it was the attraction of liberal causes that shoved the House over to the Republicans, and just barely left the Senate Democratic?

Or could it be that the people, when faced with programs that inflated the national debt like a wide-open helium tank, that had about $1.5 trillion debt in the first year of Obama's Presidency and $2 tril in the second - were going "Hey, enough of the feel-good stuff on our credit card!"?

You really might want to check and see if those causes you think so attractive are attractive to all - because there's the possiblity they aren't.
posted by JB71 at 9:00 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Judging by flunkie's post under yours, I should take his statement at face value.

Again, you have hit it on the nose. Square on the nose.
posted by Flunkie at 9:01 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Seriously? You are either trolling or are incapable of interpreting language in anything but a strictly literal way. I'm leaning toward the former."

I tend to depend on /sarc - nuance is SO hard to get across in text. I figure most people will put what they mean out as clearly as possible so as to avoid being misinterpreted.
posted by JB71 at 9:04 PM on January 10, 2011

Many would disagree with Jon Stewart, including Sarah Palin, who tried to clean the Internet of any evidence of her calls to violence against Giffords.

Shooting plus two minutes: "LOOK! Sarah Palin's website has GUNSIGHTS on Giffords' district! HOW DARE SHE!"

Shooting plus four minutes: "LOOK! Sarah Palin's website DOESN'T have GUNSIGHTS on Gifford's district! HOW DARE SHE!"

Is that Catch 23 or 24?
posted by Etrigan at 9:05 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

With respect, scody, you reach people where they're at, not where you want them to be. I apologize if you found that offensive.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:05 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Again, you have hit it on the nose. Square on the nose."

Better tell Brundlefly then, Flunkie. He seems to think you're being sarcastic or something.

Well, enough of this. Goodnight, all - or good morning, or whatever your time zone is.
posted by JB71 at 9:07 PM on January 10, 2011

You may have forgotten just how eager the usual mefi suspects were, when that census worker hanged himself in the woods, to 20-yard-conclusion-leap to blaming it on Michelle Bachman, the Tea Party, Deliverance-style rednecks, etc. etc. etc. Specimen:

It's funny looking back at some of the names in that thread. One of them was there and in this thread, leaping to conclusions both times. This user called me a moron who is too unintelligent to talk to because I tried to get people not to leap to the idea that this had to be something that would be traced to Beck and Palin.

The partisan blinders should be put away for tragedies, but both sides will always have people you can't trust to be fully willing to engage the facts when it doesn't suit them. I think most Americans are pretty good about this kind of thing though and are able to see the flaws from both ends.

As I watch the political pundit world, many are reflecting and grieving and trying to figure things out. But it's definitely true that others are working feverishly to find the tidbit or two that will exonerate their side from blame or implicate the other. And watching that is as predictable, I think, as it is dispiriting.

Did the toxic political environment cause this?

A graphic image here, an ill-timed comment, violent rhetoric? Those types of things? I have no fucking idea.

I like Jon Stewart.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:07 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

So if somebody trains gunsights on Palin's own head like this, you're predicting Palin cranial fragments will be soon be flying around for real?

Wow, that's a really stupid thing to do. Which Senate candidate did that?

Congressional race in Arizona.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:12 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wow, that's a really stupid thing to do. Which Senate candidate did that?

Congressional race in Arizona.

Then that was a stupid thing for him to do.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:17 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

so, glenn beck, are you going to denounce people who constantly insist that their political opponents are going to "shoot me in the head?"

because that's the passive-aggressive version of advocating violence - insisting that the government's going to put you and your listeners down with stormtroopers and letting your audience make the natural conclusion that hell, no, they're going to defend themselves from that

you disingenuous lying turd - at least some of your followers and allies have the balls to be honest about it
posted by pyramid termite at 9:17 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I finally listened to some glen beck today.
I am under the distinct impression that is running and throwing Christmas ornaments over his shoulder.
posted by clavdivs at 9:33 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Right on, BitterOldPunk. I uh...know this guy who was into conspiracy theory and the whole kill or die form of anarchy. Thought social justice was a joke with humanities faults. That is a tough outlook to crack. There's a lot of reinforcement for it in the news every day, and they found themselves surrounded by like minded folks and listening to media that reinforced the preplanted preconceptions. Many times he heard the words of the left, most often delivered as self-righteous, pompous, sermonizing from arrogant hyper/pseudo intellectuals. (oh, not like here at all...) There was, and I can't stress this enough, the appearance of absolutely NO common ground. Not so much because of words or ideas. Attitude, dude. My own observation is, everyone takes for granted where they are now, philosophicaly. Were you born with your beliefs preformed in their entireity? You have a mountain of experiece behind where you are now in your thinking and reasoning. So does someone with a different viewpoint. Maybe they didn't go to University. Maybe they didn't even graduate high school. Neither were they raised in a bubble. You don't have to understand someones different view, but even a tiny respect for the concept that, no matter how much contempt you have for their philosophy, it springs from the mountain of their own individual life experience. I, I mean he, turns slowly, glacially slowly at times, to a more progressive viewpoint, not because of some spontaneous enlightenment. Because people he's come to love and respect put forth an alternate worldview in a way that slammed no doors, set off alarms, or made the beliefs a lifetime of looping internal dialogue seem stupid. This thread has been enlightening to me. I have often thought that what you fight you may become, and I doubt 10% of you could follow BOP's most excellent advice. As a seriously reformed hater (with far to go, yet), love over logic, kindness over stats. Set an example instead of hammering people with the Stick Of Comtempt. Rushenbeck aren't making converts, just keeping the faithful stepping. If you think you can make a difference with the vitriol here, well, maybe you don't care to make a difference. Just want the kudos of your own faithful.
posted by Redhush at 9:34 PM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

'he is'
damn jokes
posted by clavdivs at 9:34 PM on January 10, 2011

There's a couple of contrarians / conservatives today, good to "see" you out. But calm down a bit, already. If you're not trolling, you're definitely defensive.

I know, I know -- your hackles are up because Mefites are criticizing your tribe. I get it; that's uncomfortable for you. You know what else is uncomfortable? Growing up Republican and watching as the wingnuts take over the party, to the point where the John Bircher-types, instead of being a few cranks with hair growing out their ears, now comprise the most vocal component of the party. It's very uncomfortable to have said -- actually said and believed -- that Republicans were, once, the party of the grown-ups, because they were more pragmatic and less ideological than Democrats. It's uncomfortable to have once proudly considered myself conservative because, while imperfect, politically active people of that stripe at least said they held to moderation, prudence and national unity.

There's a good deal of leftwing knee-jerking on Metafilter, but that's no good reason to defend the Becks and Palins, right or wrong. Maybe I've matured in the past 15 years, but it's been clear for a while that the GOP and its tea-baggers and the black-helicopter hucksters before them have nothing for grown-ups to support, after all. WF Buckley and Russell Kirk would have nothing to do with these cranks in the 1960s and '70s, and I won't now. I've not been Republican for a while, or called myself "conservative" since half-way through Bush's time in office (I'm a slow learner). It's more important to do right, than to be in the Right tribe.

Currently GOP friends -- we need to be able to see right and wrong, even when it's uncomfortable. Politicians and political celebrities whipping up blood-lust for the sake of dollars and votes is vile. It coarsens our public life, and causes decent people to lose sight of real problems; and it gives some kooks a dangerous sense of victimization. And, mostly, it's right-wingers doing this in recent years. Radical, race-baiting, gun-waving "conservatives" are more mainstream than Farrakhan or whomever ever was. No honest, thoughtful person can have anything to do with these. It doesn't matter if some liberal blogger somewhere used similar crude statements; or some jerk strung up a Palin effigy; nor does all the "Bushitler" adolescent bullshit change the fact.

Violent, conspiratorial politics is poison, even if you're convinced the "other side" is wrong.
posted by slab_lizard at 9:37 PM on January 10, 2011 [38 favorites]

PS: Sorry for the long-windedness. (I didn't even use my Thucydides quote...)
posted by slab_lizard at 9:38 PM on January 10, 2011

That "Congressional race in Arizona" link shows Hayworth in crosshairs as it is saying that the Washington Times reports that he is the focus of a Justice Department investigation.

It's therefore difficult for me to interpret the crosshairs as anything but a camera reticle, presumably intended to be of the Justice Department investigators supposedly watching Hayworth.
posted by Flunkie at 9:41 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

"No, I don't own a gun. Why? Because I'm not a coward. I don't need a dick extension. I. Am. Not. Afraid."

Uh, this might be a little much. Lots of people who own firearms are not owning them to extend their genitalia, nor are cowering in terror of The Other. (Yes, I'm including myself. I own a shotgun.)

I agree with you about calling them on their own weaknesses, though. I've been appalled by seeing so many Americans practically pissing themselves in fear that The Terrorists will be attacking them Any Minute Now. Aren't we tougher than that?
posted by zoogleplex at 9:51 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Came in to Post the Mugshot Holy fuck that kid looks creepy.

I'm so glad they caught this guy alive though. All these spree shooters plan on ending their own lives in a "blase of glory". But the fact that this guy is still alive means that he is going to actually live through the punishment.
posted by delmoi at 9:53 PM on January 10, 2011

He looks like Glenn Beck.

Hey, if ya got pinged for a crime like that, wouldn't ya turn the crazy up to 11 for your mug shot? Just for shits and giggles. It's no harder to do than the New Jersey pout.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:58 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you believe in demonic possession, that's what it looks like.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 10:04 PM on January 10, 2011

I own a rifle and a shotgun, locked up in my bedroom, with the ammo in a separate locked box. It has nothing to do with a dick extension. I just want to be ready for the zombie apocalypse.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:10 PM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

oneswellfoop: "by Angle's standards, assassination is now the only way to "cure" the "problem" of a legally-elected representative. I wish it were not inevitable, but I fear it is."

It goes worse than that -- a subtler but just-as-pernicious fringe-right tactic is the discrediting of elections: birtherism, amnesty for illegals, Black Panther intimidation, the ACORN fiasco. Paranoid theories like this are rampant on conservative websites, to the point where it's almost a given that Democrats win only by cheating.

It takes a real case of nuttery to want to kill a "legally-elected representative" because of their politics... but if that representative is a dastardly usurper who stole the election from an upstanding Tea Partier in order to help destroy America? Assassination starts to sound necessary, brave, even noble. That's why it's so troubling for me that Giffords was not just targeted by Palin's map, but that she was one of only two targets who won re-election.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:13 PM on January 10, 2011 [13 favorites]

There's a good deal of leftwing knee-jerking on Metafilter, but that's no good reason to defend the Becks and Palins, right or wrong.

No one here is defending Beck, Palin, ect. What some people are doing is pointing out that a more level headed approach would be to analyze the total ecology that the mentally disturbed shooter was immersed in instead of just arbitrarily focusing on one part of the equation.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:18 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

If you believe in ~~demonic possession~~ untreated mental illness, that's what it looks like.

Hello, 21st century calling! This ain't The Dark Ages.

On preview: oh great. Armed space zombies. Just what we need.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:18 PM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

If you believe in demonic posession then you're a fucking dope.
posted by orville sash at 10:20 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Why the hell did he shave his eyebrows off? Was he trying to look as crazy as possible?
posted by Ritchie at 10:21 PM on January 10, 2011

one more thing -

* I denounce violence, regardless of ideological motivation.

does that mean you think we should get out of iraq and afghanistan, glenn?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:22 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

"No, I don't own a gun. I don't need a dick extension.

Guy with a small penis checking in...

Here's my latest dick extension.

Protip: when having sexual intercourse it is a good idea to first remove your dick extension.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:26 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, FiveThirtyEight points out some troubling stats for anyone who doubts that violent rhetoric really affects people: after declining for most of the decade, credible threats of violence against senators alone rose from 9 in 2006 to 29 in 2009 to 49 in 2010, while threats against all members of Congress spiked more than 300% in the first few months of last year. One might blame most of the threats against the president (which went up 400% after Obama took office) on simple racism, but the similar increase against senators, representatives? The hysterical anti-government narrative is clearly to blame.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:35 PM on January 10, 2011 [42 favorites]

I just want to be ready for the zombie apocalypse.
posted by Astro Zombie

No, see, that's not how it works. See, it's in the rules, right here: Living humans get guns, zombies (astro or otherwise) get gruesome gory wounds and nigh-invulnerability.
posted by Ghidorah at 10:44 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

With respect, scody, you reach people where they're at, not where you want them to be. I apologize if you found that offensive.

No apology necessary, really; it's a term I've actually caught myself using at times. I'm not so much offended by it as I am trying to mindful of it. But no worries, we're cool.

And speaking of using genitalia to signify things (as well as your excellent point about how we need to reach people where they're at), I also think zoogleplex brings up a good point about being careful about equating gun ownership with cowards in need of dick extensions. I bet it would be more constructive to ask, sincerely and with open ears, why your friend is a gun owner. First off, there really are gun owners across the political spectrum, not just on the right, despite what NRA propaganda and GOP talking points suggest. I know moderates, liberals, and lefties who own guns; I'm one of them, myself (after many years of thinking they were just signifiers of Creepy Macho Bullshit before changing my mind). And I am confident you wouldn't dismiss me as a coward or in search of a dick; if we were sitting down over a beer and you discovered that I enjoy shooting, I bet you'd genuinely want to know why.

So maybe ask him, friend to friend, why he owns guns. If you feel like he's just giving you platitudes or the NRA party line, see if you can get him to drop that language and explain it in a more personal way. If you're open to his point of view and experiences on that score, it might be the key to getting him to be more open to yours.
posted by scody at 10:50 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why the hell did he shave his eyebrows off? Was he trying to look as crazy as possible?

Yes. Dollars to donuts, yes. And that's why he's making the Joker face in his picture. I mean, possible it is un-self-conscious crazy, but it looks a lot like self-conscious crazy.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:52 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

"If you believe in ~~demonic possession~~ ~~untreated mental illness~~ earnest sincerity, that's what it looks like.
posted by Rat Spatula at 10:59 PM on January 10, 2011

I remind all that just because people see something that alone doesn't prove there's anything there to be seen.

I'm calling bullshit, jfuller. Twenty-five some years ago, I was cornered in a hallway by classmates of a college course on American history in which I said some things about the Vietnam War that would be difficult to distinguish from the Colin Powell Doctrine. The redneck gentleman who confronted me, supported by his friends, told me I shouldn't say stuff like that because -- he claimed -- his brother died over there. They cornered me, and one of them smacked my shoulder, and I felt real intimidation directly in my face. I told him I was sorry about his brother, but that didn't change the fact that the war was a bad idea. (In retrospect there were several other ways to handle this, assuming I would ever be good at such things, which I'm not.) The brother began to weep and they left, one (the smacker?) saying "Watch your mouth, asshole." I was a scrawny 17-year-old who should have been in my senior year of high school, instead of community college, and they were adults.

That is an attempt to silence not even just the other side, but any open and sane discussion of matters which they hold dear, which, in fact, they wish to own.

I didn't silence anyone in that class who said things I disagreed with. I didn't track them down, afterward, outside of the peer democracy of the classroom, and intimidate them. I didn't feel the need to. But they do. They do. To them, just hearing a different opinion constitutes victimization.

I don't want them to shut up. I want them to stop threatening other people in order to get other people to shut up. Why is that so fucking difficult to understand?

Is that Catch 23 or 24?

You know, the guy who posted the Kos "she's dead to me" diary took it down. But he also apologized.
posted by dhartung at 11:16 PM on January 10, 2011 [28 favorites]

"I bet it would be more constructive to ask, sincerely and with open ears, why your friend is a gun owner."

Always nicer to ask.

One thing I'm picking up from this is that I feel like one of the reasons why some NRA folks are sometimes so adamant about being able to buy assault rifles and full-auto weapons is because they're worried about the firepower disparity between the weapons of the US military and those allowed to civilians. I think some feel that, should the power of the US military be turned against its own citizens, we won't be able to fight back very well with single-shot-per-squeeze and small clips.

This gave me some pause for thought. I personally don't think this is a credible worry, but I can see why some folks might worry about it.

I would urge anyone who feels like this to remember that the US military is not a monolithic entity that will always follow all orders given to it to the letter. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are people, not battle droids, and they have sworn to defend their fellow Americans. I seriously doubt that the US Army, if ordered to attack and subjugate parts of the United States, would just do it with zero compunctions.

There are also such things as illegal orders, and military personnel are trained to not follow them, especially the officers. An order to disarm the American people by force, to take all our guns away, would be unconstitutional and thus illegal. Not even the President could order this and get away with it.

Besides, in a practical sense, in order to match the military, civilians would need to be able to own tanks, missile launchers, attack helicopters, jet fighters, armed drones... it's just not even worth thinking about.
posted by zoogleplex at 11:21 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, scody (and others), you're right about my bonehead "dick extension" comment, too. I'm knee-jerk anti-gun, having lost three people very close to me not through gun violence, but through gun accidents. So that was me pushing my own buttons after quaffing a few delicious Newcastle ales during the ball game. I retract that, it was uncalled for. I hate guns irrationally, I know, and I never should have gone there.

Cheers! Yay, SEC football! Suck it, Ducks!
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:27 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

I think some feel that, should the power of the US military be turned against its own citizens, we won't be able to fight back very well with single-shot-per-squeeze and small clips.

When they need them for insurrection, even poor people in far away, poor-as-fuck places like Afghanistan and Pakistan can get rocket launchers, grenades, and explosives, as well as AK47s, when the need arises. I'm not sure why our "patriots" believe they need to have them in their closets at all times. Besides, the military has really big tanks, helicopter gun ships, radar, fighter jets, and bombs. Even with M60 machine guns, there's no contest in firepower. Only if some of the military defects is there any chance of an insurrection succeeding in overthrowing a usurping tyrant.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:28 PM on January 10, 2011

mmmm, delicious Newcastle Brown Ale! We are on the exact same page!

And I'm so sorry about the people close to you lost through gun accidents. That's never happened to me or to anyone I've known, and I can't imagine how awful it must feel.
posted by scody at 11:30 PM on January 10, 2011

"Only if some of the military defects is there any chance of an insurrection succeeding in overthrowing a usurping tyrant."

And conversely, the only way a tyrant can usurp is if a substantial part of the military obeys the tyrant.

This used to be very common, when all the officers were the aristocracy. As far as things have gone here in the US, they haven't gone that far. I don't think too many US generals and admirals are spoiling for their own royal titles and fiefdom land grants, do you?

Re gun accidents: when I was in high school one of my fellow students was killed in a hunting accident. Sadly, he was shot by his best friend. Even worse, both of them had taken the hunter safety course along with me and most of my friends, and the accident was a classic "don't shoot" scenario. I do sympathize, BitterOldPunk.

It's always loaded. Never point it at anything you don't want to kill, and don't shoot if you're not 100% positive of what you're shooting at.
posted by zoogleplex at 11:41 PM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

One thing I'm picking up from this is that I feel like one of the reasons why some NRA folks are sometimes so adamant about being able to buy assault rifles and full-auto weapons is because they're worried about the firepower disparity between the weapons of the US military and those allowed to civilians.

This isn't something unique to the US though. Everyone on the planet, with the possible exception of folks in Somalia, has a government that possesses much greater fire-power than individual citizens. But scared citizens hoarding weapons, building up arsenals in their cupboards, with the excuse that they may have to "defend themselves" generally isn't seen as a distinctive aspect of the culture in, say, Japan or Australia or Scotland or Italy. So which is it - is the US government especially scary and untrustworthy and threatening to its citizens, or are US citizens especially frightened and paranoid?
posted by Jimbob at 11:44 PM on January 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

One last thing.

Arizona Sheriff Not Backing Down.

From what I heard, this guy is 75 and has been in the same office since 1980. To address an earlier concern, this guy is not trying to win political "points". If anything, people should be listening to what he is saying after spending as long as he did as a political servant. People like this literally make me tear up out of pride or shame. If you do not think this guy is an American than we may live in different countries.

Well, it looks like this thread is going to fall off the front page. I gotta say, in the 10 years of mostly lurking and rarely posting I really think this was the most intellectually stimulating thread in all of mefidom. It's probably time I stopped refreshing this thread, and that might be good advice for many others too.
posted by chemoboy at 11:52 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Comments from the philosophy professor who taught Loughner's logic class -- where he picked up the syllogism format, but not the idea that deductive validity does not guarantee the truth of the conclusions (to guarantee the truth of your conclusion, you need deductive validity plus true premises).
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:00 AM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

The partisan blinders should be put away for tragedies, but both sides will always have people you can't trust to be fully willing to engage the facts when it doesn't suit them. I think most Americans are pretty good about this kind of thing though and are able to see the flaws from both ends.

This is, unfortunately, the same false equivalence that Jon Stewart trots out all too frequently. As Krugman notes, there's a world of difference between saying two sides are being uncivil, and one side (via Palin and Brewer) calling for the violent overthrow of elected government officials on the other.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:31 AM on January 11, 2011 [7 favorites]

"So, if we put a picture of Palin up with a targetting reticle over her face, what would the right-wing say?"

Nothing different than they've been saying for the past two years. Large swaths of the GOP have been claiming with a straight face since 2008 that our president is a) not a lawful citizen, b) a Socialist or a Communist or a Fascist or some never-beheld combination of all three, c) hell-bent on destroying America, and/or d) someone who wants to establish death panels that will murder your grandma. And these aren't fringe elements -- this is the mainstream GOP of 2011.

Sorry, but I'm not in the mood to play nice. Tone down violent rhetoric? Absolutely. And further -- actively shun, mock, ridicule, and ostracize these purveyors of hate and idiocy.

A black man was elected President of my great country, and this was just far too much for millions of my fellow citizens to handle.

The burden isn't on me to make them "accept" this reality. The burden is on them to act life decent fucking human beings for a change.

To put it another way, it's not my job to come down to the crazy-table in the basement and parley with you whackadoodles. The onus is on you to come up to basic, commonly held standards of respectable, empirical, and fact-based discourse.
posted by bardic at 12:39 AM on January 11, 2011 [38 favorites]

PZ Meyer's take:

"What we have here is an attempted assassination of a politician by an insane crank at a political event, in a state where the political discourse has been an unrelenting howl of eliminationist rhetoric and characterization of anyone to the left of Genghis Khan as a traitor and enemy of the state…and now, when six (including a nine year old girl) lie dead and another fourteen are wounded, now suddenly we're concerned that it is rude and politicizing a tragedy to point out that the right wing has produced a toxic atmosphere that pollutes our politics with hatred and the rhetoric of violence?

Screw that. Now is the time to politicize the hell out of this situation. The people who are complaining are a mix of lefty marshmallows whose first reaction to the fulfillment of right-wing fantasies by a lunatic is to drop to their knees and beg forgiveness for thinking ill of people who paint bullseyes on their political opponents, and right wing cowards who are racing to their usual tactic of attacking their critics to shame them into silence. This is NOT the time to back down and suddenly find it embarrassing to point out that right-wing pundits make a living as professional goads to insanity."

And later:

"Do not sit there cowering, trying to make excuses for teabaggers and violent morons. This is supposed to be the part where you stand up, look at the shouters on the other side, and tell them, 'This is wrong, and this is the harm you bring to our country.' Instead, I see a rush to postures of submission."
posted by bardic at 1:10 AM on January 11, 2011 [10 favorites]

Flunkie: That "Congressional race in Arizona" link shows Hayworth in crosshairs as it is saying that the Washington Times reports that he is the focus of a Justice Department investigation.

It's therefore difficult for me to interpret the crosshairs as anything but a camera reticle, presumably intended to be of the Justice Department investigators supposedly watching Hayworth.

Sorry Flunkie, but that just seems like you're trying to make an exception for someone you don't want to criticise. If it's absurd for Palin's camp to claim they were surveyors marks (which it is) then it's at least as absurd to claim that's supposed to be a camera.

I've used dozens of cameras from many eras, and I've NEVER seen a camera viewfinder that looks like that. Never. I've also used rifles with telescopic sights - they look like that.

It's clear from the context that the "focus of investigation" is what he was illustrating, but he chose to illustrate it with the gun sight for a reason.
posted by sycophant at 1:17 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

jfuller: Ah. So if somebody trains gunsights on Palin's own head like this, you're predicting Palin cranial fragments will be soon be flying around for real?

...

Ah. So if somebody puts a Palin effigy's head in a noose we can expect a necktie party starring Herself for real any day now? Can I quote you on that?

You're a bit one with the false equivalences & straw men, aren't you, jfuller?

Anyway: No, you can't. (Especially since it's not even close to what I said.) And it would be a much more interesting question if people on the left actually had a record in recent history* of anything like the kind of violence of speech or act coming out of the right in the past 15-20 years.

But let's rephrase your little proposition: "So if a large number of people who routinely carry guns at public political events, talk about 'watering the tree of liberty with blood' and 'second-amendment remedies', coyly but pretty clearly insinuate that it would be great if listeners/watchers engaged in violence against people they don't like, routinely engaged in absurd hyperbole like calling the US government and President 'tyrannical' or 'fascist', and behaved as though an actual revolution were right around the corner -- if people like that (which is to say, people like the provocateurs, leaders, followers and fellow-travellers of the Tea Party Patriots and the Tea Party) were to ~~train~~** draw gunsights on Palin's own head, cast her as a cartoon villain, publicly accuse her of treason, puts a Palin effigy's head in a noose, would you not expect a necktie party, shooting, gas-line cutting or at least a little vandalism directed at Herself*** for real any day now?"

Could I quote you on that, jfuller? No? But then you were just trolling, weren't you?

--
*if you've got to go back more than a generation and a half to find significant incidence of violent language or action, then you're kind of not actually talking about the present reality anymore.
**"train" would imply a, you know, actual gun. But you knew that when you decided to implicitly put words into people's mouths, didn't you?
***so she's the Queen, now? I never knew you felt that way about Her! I'm sure She'll be grateful to Her subject.
posted by lodurr at 1:51 AM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

I just want to be ready for the zombie apocalypse.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:10 AM

Dude: Next time, use your sock puppet. We're onto you, now.

Right, next you're gonna try to tell us you're some kind of pro-human zombie.
posted by lodurr at 2:00 AM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

blazecock pileon: This is, unfortunately, the same false equivalence that Jon Stewart trots out all too frequently. As Krugman notes, there's a world of difference between saying two sides are being uncivil, and one side (via Palin and Brewer) calling for the violent overthrow of elected government officials on the other.

Yes, but I like to think I know why Steward does it: Because it's easier to get people to do constructive things with a little substantially accurate albeit insufficient praise ("look we really do actually get along about a lot of things that we don't normally think of") than with admonishment about their insufficiencies ("we're a bunch of morons").
posted by lodurr at 2:09 AM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

Mark Ames writes in Vanity Fair that this is America's first hybrid political assassination/'gone-postal' rampage.
posted by clarknova at 2:11 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

nah, there have been earlier ones, they just haven't been against someone who held national office. warbaby linked e.g. (in another thread) to Carl Drega, who went after a local politician and a bunch of other people; he alludes to other cases.
posted by lodurr at 2:35 AM on January 11, 2011

Ah. So if somebody puts a Palin effigy's head in a noose we can expect a necktie party starring Herself for real any day now? Can I quote you on that?

People putting Palin in nooses aren't running for office. There are certainly left-wing cranks on the internet, but the question here is the tone of the elites. The fact that you can compare Glen Beck to some random anonymous blogger doesn't mean that "The Left" and "the Right" are comparable.

Shooting plus two minutes: "LOOK! Sarah Palin's website has GUNSIGHTS on Giffords' district! HOW DARE SHE!"

Shooting plus four minutes: "LOOK! Sarah Palin's website DOESN'T have GUNSIGHTS on Gifford's district! HOW DARE SHE!"

Is that Catch 23 or 24?

She could have avoided the situation by not having gun sights up in the first place.

This is, unfortunately, the same false equivalence that Jon Stewart trots out all too frequently. As Krugman notes, there's a world of difference between saying two sides are being uncivil, and one side (via Palin and Brewer) calling for the violent overthrow of elected government officials on the other.

Yeah. There is a big difference between something like Doom and Marilyn Manson using dark imagry in art and conspiracy theorists who and extreme right-wingers who use violet and eliminationist rhetoric. The difference is that the artistic stuff is fantasy. It's an escape. But the violent political rhetoric is presented as real. It's presented as something that's actually happening in the world and actually putting you and all of society at risk.

This isn't to say I support censorship. But the idea that there is no connection between violent political rhetoric and violence is wrong. It's something we see all the time in other parts of the world.

Mark Ames writes in Vanity Fair that this is America's first hybrid political assassination/'gone-postal' rampage.

Hmm... what about the guy who tried to kill George Wallice?
posted by delmoi at 2:44 AM on January 11, 2011 [5 favorites]

Oh, and I was going to add: Playing Doom would never make anyone rationally believe it was a good idea to shoot up a school, but listening to crazy political rhetoric might make someone rationally believe that an assassination was a good idea -- if they had no other inputs.
posted by delmoi at 2:45 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

BitterOldPunk : And when you dig down, you find three types of people: the brainwashed, the frightened, and the True Believers. Give up on the True Believers, you can't reach them. Extend a hand in friendship to the brainwashed and the frightened. Don't preach. Don't hector.

Holy flying feces, Batman! "So I have this gay friend, and like, he proves they don't all do that thing..."

I should probably just flag and ignore your comment, but let me point out the MASSIVE flaw in your stereotyping. Social conservatives will tend to fall into your last category, on whom you've preemptively given up (and, honestly, so have I).

That ignores a pretty frickin' big base of fiscal conservatives such as myself. Not brainwashed, not frightentened, I can simply do basic math and come to the obvious conclusion that we will spend ourselves into nonexistence at our current rate. And then I compare what we actually get for our money to just about any other modern Western nation, and can only step back and say "WTF?".

We've "paid" for the Porche on high-interest plastic, and somehow ended up with the Yugo.
posted by pla at 3:33 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can simply do basic math and come to the obvious conclusion that we will spend ourselves into nonexistence at our current rate

I can also do basic math and I've come to the obvious conclusion that the marginal tax rate on the highest earners is too low. Ta-da! Now we're both smug a-holes!!
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:16 AM on January 11, 2011 [17 favorites]

To wit: everybody in the country claims they are a "fiscal conservative." At this point it's a useless term. We've been cutting taxes for thirty years, and in that time the debt/deficit has ballooned. Politicians who claim that we can simply cut spending to balance the budget are charlatans. We need to restrict spending but we also need to generate more revenue.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:21 AM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

And then I compare what we actually get for our money to just about any other modern Western nation, and can only step back and say "WTF?".

Well given that other modern Western nations have free universal healthcare, free or heavily-subsidised higher education etc. I assume that you, as a fiscal conservative, would like this kind of thing to be implemented in the US? If so, you're my kind of fiscal conservative!

Anyway, I think Jon Stewart said the most sensible thing I've heard in days... everyone needs to chill the fuck out and tone down their rhetoric, if only to make it easier to spot the real crazies stand against the backdrop.
posted by Jimbob at 4:24 AM on January 11, 2011

Or could it be that the people, when faced with programs that inflated the national debt like a wide-open helium tank, that had about $1.5 trillion debt in the first year of Obama's Presidency and $2 tril in the second - were going "Hey, enough of the feel-good stuff on our credit card!"?

SOME of the people may think this.

Actually, it's more like, "SOME of the people have been LEAD to believe this by pundits who have a definite agenda -- an agenda which actually does not involve catering to those very people they are enlisting to support them. Meanwhile, OTHERS among the people actually comprehend that this initial flood of spending is like the initial investment you make when you're first building your house so everything works right, and that in the long run both Congress and the inidividuals will all actually end up spending LESS over time. Except the pundits who are trying to sway opinion have more money already and are shouting louder by implying WE'RE the stupid ones, so things are going to pot."

Yeah, we're in great shape...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:29 AM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

JB71: Coexist. Admit that not everyone's going to see the world by your standards.

On Metafilter, there's sort of a rule that you don't insult other posters personally to make your points. Maybe you should take your own advice?
posted by spitbull at 4:48 AM on January 11, 2011

I don't think too many US generals and admirals are spoiling for their own royal titles and fiefdom land grants, do you?

Why would they when they can get rich as defense industry lobbyists and television commentators for news channels owned by military contractors?
posted by spitbull at 4:57 AM on January 11, 2011

(Or insult their intelligence, for that matter.)
posted by lodurr at 4:58 AM on January 11, 2011

Shooting plus two minutes: "LOOK! Sarah Palin's website has GUNSIGHTS on Giffords' district! HOW DARE SHE!"

Shooting plus four minutes: "LOOK! Sarah Palin's website DOESN'T have GUNSIGHTS on Gifford's district! HOW DARE SHE!"

Is that Catch 23 or 24?
She could have avoided the situation by not having gun sights up in the first place.

Then criticize her for that. You don't get to criticize her for having them, then criticize her for taking them down.
posted by Etrigan at 4:59 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Etrigan: You don't get to criticize her for having them, then criticize her for taking them down.

Sure we do.

It was wrong to use them because it was inflammatory and offensive;
rushing to take them down (and compounding the sin by insisting that they weren't really gunsights, anyway) smacked of 'too much protestation' (to paraphrase the Bard) or 'fleeing where none doth pursue' (Proverbs).

In short, we "get to" criticize her whenever she does anything that is offensive or makes her look like she thinks she's guilty of something.
posted by lodurr at 5:03 AM on January 11, 2011 [6 favorites]

I'll put this another way, because this "don't get to" nonsense needs to be answered:

First: There is nothing about those two things that cancels each other out.

Second: If you do 2 bad things, it doesn't mean we have to choose only one of those to criticize you for.
posted by lodurr at 5:06 AM on January 11, 2011 [7 favorites]

Me, I'm criticizing her for obviously promoting violence, then obviously realizing her culpability - which is demonstrated by suddenly taking down this graphic - then LYING that she doesn't realize they were crosshairs, when her own previous tweets demonstrate that she is LYING.

Did you ever see Peter Sellers in Being There, where he tries to use the TV remote to change reality when he doesn't like it? This is what she's reduced herself to. The ol' reality distortion field has failed but she still hopes she can click click click and make it go away.
posted by fleetmouse at 5:12 AM on January 11, 2011 [6 favorites]

(Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates : I can also do basic math and I've come to the obvious conclusion that the marginal tax rate on the highest earners is too low. Ta-da! Now we're both smug a-holes!!

At our current rate of spending, I completely agree with you. I don't see how that makes either of us smug or assholes.

To wit: everybody in the country claims they are a "fiscal conservative." At this point it's a useless term. We've been cutting taxes for thirty years, and in that time the debt/deficit has ballooned.

A fiscal conservative doesn't cut income while spending the same. Only a madman (or politician) would do that and call it sustainable. We do need to cut - Our spending; but if we really can't do that (*cough*BS*cough*), then we need to raise taxes. Simple as that.

Politicians who claim that we can simply cut spending to balance the budget are charlatans. We need to restrict spending but we also need to generate more revenue.

And you call me an asshole why exactly? It sounds like we substantially agree on this issue (except for your definition of a fiscal conservative).

Jimbob : Well given that other modern Western nations have free universal healthcare, free or heavily-subsidised higher education etc. I assume that you, as a fiscal conservative, would like this kind of thing to be implemented in the US? If so, you're my kind of fiscal conservative!

I have no problem with universal healthcare, in that everyone has to pay for it anyway, one way or another. What we have now looks nothing like universal healthcare, however.
posted by pla at 5:15 AM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

You don't get to criticize her for having them, then criticize her for taking them down.

I think we get to criticize Sarah Palin for inciting violence against elected officials, then we get to criticize her for being a bald-faced liar when she tries to delete the evidence, fails, and tries to pass off target crosshairs as surveyor's marks.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:22 AM on January 11, 2011 [11 favorites]

pla: Apologies. I get so frustrated at people who call themselves "fiscal conservatives" and whose only economic recommendations are to reduce spending and cut taxes, and your comment just set off that trigger. It drives me up a wall because it is so irresponsible. I'm glad we agree.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:30 AM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

(Or insult their intelligence, for that matter.)

That's fine with me if you don't toss around words like "fool" directed at your interlocutor. If you want to say stupid, polemical things that stretch credulity or run roughshod over the facts or common sense, insult my intelligence all you want.

Much of what is passing for the "conservative" counter-argument in this thread is stupid. So is a good deal of the over-wrought stuff passing for "liberal," to be sure, some of my own early comments included. Emotions are running high.

But when it changes from "your ideas are foolish" to "you are a fool," we're headed down the same path as national politics.
posted by spitbull at 5:31 AM on January 11, 2011

...she tries to delete the evidence, fails, and tries to pass off target crosshairs as surveyor's marks.

Just for the record the "surveyor's marks" story is what they said from the very beginning back at the start of 2010. (So they were actually turning them blood red when the target was eliminated and Palin herself was slipping up and calling them "bullseye icons" after they'd already tried to get away with the "just surveyor's marks" thing.)
posted by XMLicious at 5:32 AM on January 11, 2011

A true fiscal conservative would raise taxes across the board in the United States until the deficit was covered and the debt on the way to being paid down. Because it is just factually true that no amount of trimming waste or cutting luxury programs will get us even close to the bone they're imagining coming into view. We'd need to cut defense spending sharply, raise the retirement age to 75, stop funding infrastructure projects and basic science, lop the head off the educational system, privatize major social institutions . . . oh, wait, that's their plan. Minus the defense part.

One of the really bright moments of the week before the shooting, lost in the storm now, was John Boehner, our new speaker of the house, insisting we needed to cut $100B from the domestic budget right now, and not being able to name one program he'd cut for fear of angering some constituency.
posted by spitbull at 5:35 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Basically, I think the defensiveness of conservatives, which has been growing exponentially since the shooting, speaks for itself.

The more they howl in protest that it is unfair to link their hate speech to this shooting, the more it is clear that their discourse has been violent, hateful, irresponsible, and ugly and that they *knew* they were playing with fire.

I said it way earlier, and it's been said a hundred times in various ways in this thread since. *It doesn't matter* if this shooter never heard of Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck. To pretend those guys have not been fomenting a violent response in their followers is disingenuous in the extreme. Even if this event was unrelated, it has called attention to the potential consequences of such a discourse.

Faint traces of what's left of a conscience trips up many criminals.
posted by spitbull at 5:42 AM on January 11, 2011 [6 favorites]

“Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence,” Ms. Palin wrote to Mr. Beck in an e-mail that he read Monday on his radio program.

That sounds just like a threat of more violence to me. She really is cluelessly tone deaf.
posted by spitbull at 5:50 AM on January 11, 2011

Sorry Flunkie, but that just seems like you're trying to make an exception for someone you don't want to criticise. If it's absurd for Palin's camp to claim they were surveyors marks (which it is) then it's at least as absurd to claim that's supposed to be a camera.

I've used dozens of cameras from many eras, and I've NEVER seen a camera viewfinder that looks like that. Never. I've also used rifles with telescopic sights - they look like that.

It's clear from the context that the "focus of investigation" is what he was illustrating, but he chose to illustrate it with the gun sight for a reason.

posted by Flunkie at 5:56 AM on January 11, 2011

Funeral pickets to be met by 'angels'

As someone who cannot get through the "angels" scene in The Laramie Project without weeping profusely, I am grateful that this is the response Tucson has chosen for the assholes from Westboro Baptist Church.
posted by hippybear at 5:56 AM on January 11, 2011 [6 favorites]

Rep. Giffords' brother-in-law, Scott, the commanding officer, spoke over the radio. Flight controllers in Houston fell silent.

"As I look out the window, I see a very beautiful planet that seems very inviting and peaceful," he said. "Unfortunately, it is not."

"These days, we are constantly reminded of the unspeakable acts of violence and damage we can inflict upon one another, not just with our actions, but also with our irresponsible words," he said.

"We're better than this," he said. "We must do better."

Um, when the hero astronaut brother of the beloved congresswoman's astronaut husband is using this occasion to call out irresponsible speech FROM SPACE, maybe even Rush Limbaugh has met his goddamn match.
posted by spitbull at 6:21 AM on January 11, 2011 [50 favorites]

I wouldn't bet on it, spitbull.
posted by lodurr at 6:26 AM on January 11, 2011

Yes, but I like to think I know why Steward does it: Because it's easier to get people to do constructive things with a little substantially accurate albeit insufficient praise ("look we really do actually get along about a lot of things that we don't normally think of") than with admonishment about their insufficiencies ("we're a bunch of morons").

This. As much as it would have been hugely more satisfying for me to see Stewart call out the right, this approach will probably have more success in bringing people together for open discussion.
Over the holidays I was in upstate NY visiting family. Talking with my brother (who is as far to the right as I am to the left) I was shocked to learn that he watches the Daily Show. In his words "the guy doesn't just go after us, he calls out the stupid in everybody".

Most people who watch that show are not watching to have our points of view changed. We watch because it's pleasant to have what we believe reinforced in a clever intelligent and humorous way. It makes us feel clever and intelligent. If Stewart is able to do that, and at the same time bring new viewers into the fold that might hold different points of view and get them thinking and willing to have a dialogue, then I think he's doing something right.

For the first time in maybe over a decade, my brother and I were able to have a discussion about politics without one of us leaving the room thinking the other is a raging moron. Maybe it's because we've matured and are finally trying to see the others point of view, but sadly and more likely, it's probably because neither of us is happy about the current state of the country, and we are both trying to figure out how it's going to get fixed.
posted by newpotato at 6:47 AM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's sort of interesting how the right is struggling so hard to find examples where lefties are caught using violent language in the political landscape, while they're completely ignoring the old schoolyard maxim of "two wrongs don't make it right."
posted by crunchland at 7:07 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's sort of interesting how the right is struggling so hard to find examples where lefties are caught using violent language in the political landscape, while they're completely ignoring the old schoolyard maxim of "two wrongs don't make it right."

An excellent blog post on this by Melissa McEwan.
posted by ceri richard at 7:54 AM on January 11, 2011 [24 favorites]

So Palin and crew are feeling unjustly blamed for the actions of an extremist. Maybe they can ask Muslims for advice on how to deal w/ that.
posted by EarBucket at 7:57 AM on January 11, 2011 [27 favorites]

So is it time to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine yet?
posted by hydrophonic at 8:06 AM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

ceri richard, that shakesville post is terrific, thank you.
posted by spitbull at 8:16 AM on January 11, 2011

Andrew Sullivan puts it very nicely while telling David "I make shit up" Brooks to fuck off:

So why, one has to ask, does this person with mental illness, carefully select for assassination an already targeted and demonized congresswoman, rather than, say, a supermarket, or a workplace, or a school? We don't know precisely yet - but it sure is relevant to ask that question. Why not shoot up the animal shelter he was fired from? Or the classroom he was banished from? In fact, it is a kind of bizarre suppression to avoid the obviously political fact of the target Loughner selected.
posted by spitbull at 8:19 AM on January 11, 2011 [12 favorites]

I lol'd. But really it's more sad than funny.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:26 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Someone up there indicates that I called him/her a moron. I probably did, and it was probably because the moron was trying to claim that the toxic political environment has no influence on the crazies who assassinate political figures.

If that is the case, I stand by my statement. To claim that violent rhetoric is consequence-free, that it did not play a role in the murder's choice of target, is moronic.

To not use this as an opportunity to reduce the amount of violent political discourse would be foolish, if not moronic.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:38 AM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

To claim that violent rhetoric is consequence-free, that it did not play a role in the murder's choice of target

I don't think these two are the same thing.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:43 AM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

Sullivan is proving to be a very interesting guy to watch. He seems to work really hard at actually learning shit, and seems to really believe that honor of intention and action (at least, with regard to his own) matter. I see it as a mark of my cynicism that my first reaction is to find that charming, but really, good for him. Even if I don't agree with him, good for him.

alas, Chrome is beginning to gag big time on this thread. this may be my last post on it.
posted by lodurr at 8:59 AM on January 11, 2011

Shakes: please, expand. AFAICT, violent rhetoric has lead to increased violence and ultimately attempts to kill the targeted.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:10 AM on January 11, 2011

In Arizona case, experts say planning undermines insanity plea
posted by hippybear at 9:14 AM on January 11, 2011

I think it's entirely possible that violent rhetoric is bad, and has terrible consequences, and simultaneously some 22-year-old asshole decided to shoot the first public official he could find for entirely unrelated reasons. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case, but it isn't as simple as equating the position 'This kid may have not been influenced by violent right-wing rhetoric at all' with 'There is no problem with violent right-wing rhetoric.'
posted by shakespeherian at 9:15 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

To claim that violent rhetoric is consequence-free, that it did not play a role in the murder's choice of target

I don't think these two are the same thing.

Yes, five fresh fish, to clarify. Violent rhetoric is toxic. I agree. Most of us do here, in this thread, on this site.

But to insist that the violent rhetoric we've been hearing of late is directly connected to the actions of the gunman in question is to put one's assumptions ahead of the evidence. To then call those who do not share your assumptions morons is ...

Well, let's just say it's not exactly helpful.
posted by philip-random at 9:15 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Fox News Abruptly Cuts Feed From Giffords Vigil When Mourner Mentions Sarah Palin
posted by clarknova at 9:18 AM on January 11, 2011

Fox News Abruptly Cuts Feed From Giffords Vigil When Mourner Mentions Sarah Palin

This thread is officially too long. You're about the 4th person to link to that. I was the first.
posted by scalefree at 9:25 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Todays medical update: Giffords is now breathing on her own.
posted by get off of my cloud at 9:30 AM on January 11, 2011 [5 favorites]

Advice for Sarah Palin
posted by triggerfinger at 9:34 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

scalefree: "This thread is officially too long. You're about the 4th person to link to that. I was the first."

Yeah, and I somehow missed it. Damn, this is a long thread. Anyway, either someone in the Fox control room has the reflexes of a cat on meth and managed to cut off the video before the guy finishes saying "Palin", or this is a coinkidink. I think we have enough things to be outraged about.
posted by brundlefly at 9:34 AM on January 11, 2011

crunchland: "It's sort of interesting how the right is struggling so hard to find examples where lefties are caught using violent language in the political landscape, while they're completely ignoring the old schoolyard maxim of "two wrongs don't make it right.""

That's their whole M.O. Shortly after Bush got elected, one of the biggest refrains was "But Clinton did it..." Seriously. They attack someone, then when they get caught doing what they were attacking someone for, they justify it and try to make it ok because apparently "we" (liberals) were ok with it when Clinton did it. Instead of actually being consistently principled. What a joke.

(and actual real lefty/liberal types *weren't* ok with Clinton - but it's a great Overton Window indicator, eh?)
posted by symbioid at 9:36 AM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

You're about the 4th person to link to that. I was the first.

Thanks, I need to be more careful.

Anyway, either someone in the Fox control room has the reflexes of a cat on meth and managed to cut off the video before the guy finishes saying "Palin", or this is a coinkidink.

Most live TV feeds have a delay buffer, like live radio, for pretty much the same reason. The operator doesn't need superhuman reflexes: just to be paying attention. Also, there was no outro, just an abrupt cut to break. It would have to be a double coinkidink of embarrassing live content abruptly cut off AND a miscue of the regular broadcast format.

This thread is officially too long.
Damn, this is a long thread.

Double deletion for current events is something we're all wary of after the last WikiLeaks shitestorm.
posted by clarknova at 9:54 AM on January 11, 2011

Interesting discussion of the structure of rhetoric over at Acephalous.
posted by felix grundy at 10:01 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

wouldn't it be amazing if the legacy of this horror was the creation of a "Giffords Republican"?

Thanks to those who explained to me as this thread started on Saturday in the UK the meaning of a Bluedog Democrat. It seems clear from the discussion here that there are people on the Republican side who need support in calling the violent rhetoric of the extreme wing of their party...

I know this sounds naive in the extreme....

I know I can't possibly understand the nuances of your system......

But as a Mefite of many years standing I ask.....

If you can have a Bluedog Democrat, why can't you develop a Giffords Republican?
posted by Wilder at 10:04 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Shakes: please, expand. AFAICT, violent rhetoric has lead to increased violence and ultimately attempts to kill the targeted.

There's no evidence whatsoever that the violent rhetoric - which is disgusting and reprehensible and should be condemned - has anything to do with this guy's motives for shooting her. As has been said about a trillion times in this thread. There remains a dearth of evidence that this violent rhetoric led to this shooting. No matter how many times you or anyone else in this thread says it, it doesn't make it true. Maybe you should wait for the shooter himself to explain his motives and lay off calling people morons.

If you can have a Bluedog Democrat, why can't you develop a Giffords Republican?

Isn't that what people derisively call a RINO (Republican in name only)? Someone who is affiliated with the Republican party, but whose political views are not nearly conservative enough for certain subset of the party.
posted by orville sash at 10:09 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

clarknova: "Most live TV feeds have a delay buffer, like live radio, for pretty much the same reason..."

Fair enough, I may be totally off base/naive here. But I've seen that sort of awkward hard-cut to commercial enough times (For some reason, I've been noticing a lot of technical mistakes on news networks lately) to not jump to any conclusions.
posted by brundlefly at 10:18 AM on January 11, 2011

Is this thread now the official Most Comments on MeFi thread, I wonder?
posted by zoogleplex at 10:24 AM on January 11, 2011

I was wondering the same thing.
posted by brundlefly at 10:27 AM on January 11, 2011

Wilder: "If you can have a Bluedog Democrat, why can't you develop a Giffords Republican?"

Well, there are a few moderate Republicans, however, unlike the Bluedogs who will rabidly hold steadfast to their center-right ideals to force compromises in things like abortion and Israel policy and censorship of video games, these moderate Republicans (the few there are) end up voting with their block and rarely break ranks (when they are in the minority, at least). Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter and Jim Jeffords were all moderate Republicans. Jeffords left during the Bush years when he saw the toxic environment of the Republican party, and Specter switched parties to Democrat for similar reasons (I think?). Snowe and Collins AFAIK are still considered Republicans, but they didn't act very moderate in the sense that, in the end, they continued to toe the Republican party line.

So, I don't hold much hope for a "moderate Republican" setup anytime soon. A lot of the moderation is being driven from the party in ideological purity. That said, I have heard it said that the Tea Party didn't get as many victories as they wanted, their candidates lost a lot of races. But they still have a huge voice (my guess is, they will be used by the corporate Republicans in the same way the fundie xians were used during the 80s-00s.)

I feel like I'm missing something, but I can't think of it right now. Maybe someone has a better insight into the dynamics.

I guess my main point is that Moderate Republicans either end up leaving the party when they realize how fucking insane it is, or they stick with it, not trying to influence it for the good, but go with the flow that the leadership wants in general.
posted by symbioid at 10:30 AM on January 11, 2011

It seems to me that this is already being portrayed in the MSM and dismissed by a huge portion of people as "Oh, a crazy guy, nothing to do with politics."

As if this young man lived in a vacuum. As if someone who was already obssessed with one politician did not hear many other people - including the Republican party Senate candidate one state over - flagrantly discussing guns as the answer to government you don't like.
posted by NorthernLite at 10:31 AM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Is this thread now the official Most Comments on MeFi thread, I wonder?

Not by a long-shot. The thread discussing Palin's appointment as McCain's VP running mate garnered 5,555 comments.
posted by AwkwardPause at 10:32 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

zoogleplex: "Is this thread now the official Most Comments on MeFi thread, I wonder?"

I know there's a raw data dump of stuff, but I would like to see the "most commented" threads. I felt that the wikileaks/assange stuff was pretty active. I'm sure some Obama ones were active as well. What about 9/11? Though I'm sure we've got a lot more users now than we had then. Katrina had a lot of action in thread comments. Can anyone give a list of the top, like... 10-20 threads? Cortex? How hard would that be?
posted by symbioid at 10:33 AM on January 11, 2011

Is this thread now the official Most Comments on MeFi thread, I wonder?

No, that record still belongs to the amazing 5555 comment thread after Sarah Palin was selected as McCain's running mate.
posted by hippybear at 10:34 AM on January 11, 2011

George Packer in the NYer:

"In fact, there is no balance—none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous."
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:38 AM on January 11, 2011 [26 favorites]

Wow, 5,555... that's crazy! Well all right then.

Interesting that the two threads are related!
posted by zoogleplex at 10:41 AM on January 11, 2011

Can anyone give a list of the top, like... 10-20 threads? Cortex? How hard would that be?

I'm too lazy to dig into specific sub-questions here, but fear not: it's Combustible Lighthouse Edison's Infodumpster to the rescue.
posted by cortex at 10:43 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

AwkwardPause: "Not by a long-shot. The thread discussing Palin's appointment as McCain's VP running mate garnered 5,555 comments."

Huh. Looks like ColdChef has some money coming his way.

Also, it's hard to believe that Palin has only been on the national scene since 2008. Seems like much, much longer.
posted by brundlefly at 10:44 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

No, that record still belongs to the amazing 5555 comment thread after Sarah Palin was selected as McCain's running mate.

Yes, and this thread is the unholy bastard offspring of that thread
posted by Skygazer at 10:44 AM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

An old story but an enlightening one, via Reddit:

Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists", citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers. The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further. The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.

posted by Rhaomi at 10:45 AM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

5,555?! And I thought the Violet Blue thread was the long one.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:47 AM on January 11, 2011

Huh, does the infodumpster count deleted comments? It shows the Palin thread as having 5604.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:50 AM on January 11, 2011

Yeah, that's the count including deleted comments.
posted by cortex at 10:51 AM on January 11, 2011

'This kid may have not been influenced by violent right-wing rhetoric at all'

Fish might not be particularly aware that they swim in water, but that doesn't mean currents don't carry them forward.

The evidence that media messages influence and effect behavior is overwhelming. Pigs might fly, and this murderer may have existed in a context-free environment; both are equally probable.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:52 AM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

symbioid, many thanks but I wasn't asking that question. I'm aware there are moderates in the republican ranks and what their challenges are: but as we have seen on this thread our own St Alia, known by me in other names, has had the courage to call some of the comments from poeple she respects, smedleyman points out if someone's house was on fire, wouldn't everyone call the fire service regardless and others more eloquent than me have pointed out that a group tends to go with the lowest common denominator, IN THE ABSENCE OF A CONFLICTING VOICE,

I suggest that these moderate Republicans you mention didn't really have a chance in a party that supports some of the extremes of the Tea Party. But surely any honourable Republican sees how damaging, even just on a practical basis, that direction of travel is.

When I suggested "Giffords Republican" as a title I was suggesting shoring up a political position based not on demagoguery but on representing their core values. Something new that some sections could use to shore up the fact that they aren't the batwingshitinsane section of the party.

as I said, I know I sound naive, but I'd rather sound hopeful
posted by Wilder at 10:55 AM on January 11, 2011

Pigs might fly, and this murderer may have existed in a context-free environment; both are equally probable.

This is a different position than the one you advanced before, I think, unless by 'choice of target' you simply meant 'a politician.'
posted by shakespeherian at 11:01 AM on January 11, 2011

Someone up there indicates that I called him/her a moron. I probably did, and it was probably because the moron was trying to claim that the toxic political environment has no influence on the crazies who assassinate political figures.

Refering to me? I was talking about someone else. I shall use the Palin Principle here though and determine you are guilty because you are acting defensive.

But to insist that the violent rhetoric we've been hearing of late is directly connected to the actions of the gunman in question is to put one's assumptions ahead of the evidence. To then call those who do not share your assumptions morons is ...

Well, let's just say it's not exactly helpful.

This.

The partisan blinders should be put away for tragedies, but both sides will always have people you can't trust to be fully willing to engage the facts when it doesn't suit them. I think most Americans are pretty good about this kind of thing though and are able to see the flaws from both ends.

This is, unfortunately, the same false equivalence that Jon Stewart trots out all too frequently. As Krugman notes, there's a world of difference between saying two sides are being uncivil, and one side (via Palin and Brewer) calling for the violent overthrow of elected government officials on the other.

No, neither Stewart or I would say both sides are the same. However, in this specific case in which Coulter latches on to to "The Communist Manifesto" to call him liberal and people on the left latch on to the gold standard to call him conservative...you are doing exactly the same thing.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:06 AM on January 11, 2011

unless by 'choice of target' you simply meant 'a politician.'

As opposed to? It's not like the violent-rhetoric politicians are telling the crazies to target clay pigeons.

Refering to me?

I don't know. The text I'm responding to indicates that I called someone a moron. I don't see where I did that. If I did, though, it likely would have been because I read someone as claiming that violent political rhetoric doesn't influence the behavior of crazies. HTH.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:14 AM on January 11, 2011

The evidence that media messages influence and effect behavior is overwhelming. Pigs might fly, and this murderer may have existed in a context-free environment; both are equally probable.

Okay, he is a right wing nut egged on by Palin, Beck, and Angle. How do you know? Did he listen to talk radio? Did he follow primary races outside his state? Did he watch Fox News? Did he read or write on right wing political blogs? You would think a young tea partier would be online, right?

Why can't I find him on Red State, or Free Republic, or any other political discussion forum anywhere? Why did he rant about the gold standard but never mention Obama? Why was he in contact with his target before the tea party and Obama insanity even began?

You find him on conspiracy sites, making conspiracy posts. As far as we know so far, that was his world, that was his context.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:19 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

As opposed to? It's not like the violent-rhetoric politicians are telling the crazies to target clay pigeons.

As opposed to Giffords in particular, which, given Palin's gunsight map, is what I thought you were suggesting.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:25 AM on January 11, 2011

why didn't he target any other obvious agency of the government?

Because it appears that he had fixated on Giffords personally. But who can say? As I've said before in this thread all we have to go on is incoherent youtube videos and the testimony of a few alienated friends. Asking "why didn't he go after the postal service?" is about as logically compelling as "why didn't he go after Count Chocula?"

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go after Count Chocula.
posted by orville sash at 11:43 AM on January 11, 2011

The path from "The evidence that media messages influence and effect behavior is overwhelming" to "Okay, he is a right wing nut egged on by Palin, Beck, and Angle" is unclear to me, furiousxgeorge. Whether or not FFF believes him to have been a 'right wing nut' is not really relevant -- all he's saying is the same thing that people like Andrew Sullivan are saying: You can't swim in the cultural water without being pushed around by it, at least a little.

It seems downright common-sensical to me.

restarting works wonders for chrome. but it still doesn't like this thread very much.
posted by lodurr at 11:47 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Dreams are where I'm Count Chocula.
posted by lodurr at 11:48 AM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, if he was strictly a "conspiracy nut", why didn't he target any other obvious agency of the government? Why not the local post office? The local sherriff's office? City Hall? The State Capital? Why did he specifically go to THAT spot and not any other spot that would have been equally as attractive to "a conspiracy nut"?

We don't know why he did it yet, that's my point. I'm not arguing anything but that. We do know he was upset that Giffords did not answer a question about grammar to his satisfaction at a previous event.

Yes, grammar. He wasn't there shouting conservative talking points.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:49 AM on January 11, 2011

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go after Count Chocula.

Racist.

What? I can't diagnose his motives?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:55 AM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Okay, he is a right wing nut egged on by Palin, Beck, and Angle. How do you know? Did he listen to talk radio? Did he follow primary races outside his state? Did he watch Fox News? Did he read or write on right wing political blogs? You would think a young tea partier would be online, right?

He was a person living in a world where the dominant narrative & tone are set by Right wing reactionaries like Palin, Beck & Angle. He doesn't need to identify & associate with them to be influenced by what they say. Unless he was a hermit (which he clearly wasn't, he was immersed in observing our culture, albeit from an odd perspective) he was exposed to what they said every time he turned around. It's ubiquitous in our society, how could he avoid hearing their messages? And in his weakened mental & emotional state he would have been highly suggestible. Whether he made a conscious rational decision to agree with their worldview is immaterial. It surrounded him like the air he breathed, it must have shaped his thoughts to some degree because it shapes all our thoughts to some degree.
posted by scalefree at 12:06 PM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

He was a person living in a world where the dominant narrative & tone are set by Right wing reactionaries like Palin, Beck & Angle.

Maybe. I live in the same world (more or less) and that's not my dominant narrative. It may be his. It may not. I suspect his dominant narrative is way more complex, and possibly internal, than that. But then, I don't really know.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:15 PM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

I think perhaps the thing is, whether he was directly influenced by their narrative or not, the rhetoric that had been coming from the right for over 2 years was such that it created a climate in which actions such as shooting your Representative seem less a fringe activity than before.
posted by hippybear at 12:20 PM on January 11, 2011 [6 favorites]

It's ubiquitous in our society, how could he avoid hearing their messages? And in his weakened mental & emotional state he would have been highly suggestible. Whether he made a conscious rational decision to agree with their worldview is immaterial. It surrounded him like the air he breathed, it must have shaped his thoughts to some degree because it shapes all our thoughts to some degree.

This line of thinking is, for me, uncomfortably close to blaming Marilyn Manson for Columbine. While I loathe current Republican rhetoric, we might be getting ready to learn that he watched The Dark Knight 5,000 times and picked her as the closest thing to a local celebrity that he could find. Who knows? Not me.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:26 PM on January 11, 2011

No, neither Stewart or I would say both sides are the same.

Actually, that is precisely what you and Stewart are and have been doing.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:27 PM on January 11, 2011

Wikileaks issues press release on Tucson tragedy, calling for the arrest of "senior politicians and attention seeking media commentators" for incitement to murder.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:28 PM on January 11, 2011

While I loathe current Republican rhetoric, we might be getting ready to learn that he watched The Dark Knight 5,000 times and picked her as the closest thing to a local celebrity that he could find. Who knows? Not me.

Yeah, this. I mean, for all the left-wing hatred of Reagan, his appearance on punk teeshirts and the like, Hinkley shot Reagan because he wanted Jodie Foster to fall in love with him.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:36 PM on January 11, 2011

JB71-
For the last 4 years, Congress was in 'liberal' hands. For the last two years, Obama's been President. Were they circumspect and fearful in advancing liberal causes?

Largely yes, with lots of hand wringing over "working with" a unified block of conservatives and blue dogs. For example, health care reform that lacks a public option feels like a giveaway to the insurance industry and undercuts liberal enthusiasm to get out and vote.

...Or could it be that the people, when faced with programs that inflated the national debt like a wide-open helium tank, that had about $1.5 trillion debt in the first year of Obama's Presidency and $2 tril in the second - were going "Hey, enough of the feel-good stuff on our credit card!"?

...so you're fine with increased expenditures as long as they go to war and not public works or expanded health care? The Bush admin racked up a sizable debt but hung in there for quite a while because they were soundly backed by a noise machine funded by the millionaires who benefit from reduced income and estate taxes. The American debt as part of GDP is still nowhere near what it was the last time your country was mopping up after fighting a war on 2 fronts.Your national debt started spiking when Reagan came in with his tax cuts.

I'm just expressing my side of the argument so that your views don't stand unchallenged. I know that it's HIGHLY UNLIKELY that I'll say anything that might change your mind and that's ok with me.
posted by bonobothegreat at 12:39 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

I withdraw my comments on "Gifford Republicans".

I actually have been watching Fox News for the day as the story has fallen off my local news channels a bit and this has really freaked me out. SHEP WTF??

They appear to look for (visually) cognate spokespeople for the right while asking spokespeople for the left questions that are traps. These spokespeople are either from minorities (vis names) or others (I'm sorry the only reason they just featured John Manualian re the Dallas Police ID form for ethnic minorities is that he has a squint that makes him look shifty).
FUCK you guys take this shit as NEWS???

Count me out of this thread, I am SOO beyond naive....

as for James Galway on what he feels about non-believers cos he was run over....
please... I had no idea you guys had that kind of saturation ideological conditioning.

I realise here in Ireland & the UK we are not free of this but believe me, our antibodies would have been raised a hell of a lot sooner perhaps because our societies are not as respectful of free speech in general.

So USA, hoist on your own petard I'd say... which fills me with sadness as it is one I support....
posted by Wilder at 12:39 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

No, neither Stewart or I would say both sides are the same.

Actually, that is precisely what you and Stewart are and have been doing.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:27 PM on January 11 [+] [!]

Am not!
Are too!
Am not!
Are too!

You don't really listen when people talk.
posted by orville sash at 12:42 PM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

or type, as it were.
posted by orville sash at 12:42 PM on January 11, 2011

I realise here in Ireland & the UK we are not free of this but believe me, our antibodies would have been raised a hell of a lot sooner perhaps because our societies are not as respectful of free speech in general.

Well, good thing that prevented any troubles.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:47 PM on January 11, 2011

This line of thinking is, for me, uncomfortably close to blaming Marilyn Manson for Columbine.

I'm okay with putting Palin in the same category as Marilyn Manson. But-and I think this is important- Manson wasn't nearly a heartbeat away from the presidency.
posted by empath at 12:49 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

The neighbor who took Christina to the event is having flashbacks from her hospital bed.

I just don't have words...
posted by jgirl at 12:51 PM on January 11, 2011

FUCK you guys take this shit as NEWS???

No, not all of us. Some of us -- you'll find plenty of examples in this very thread -- have been decrying Fox News as a horror show of far-right propaganda for years. Yes, Fox is exceedingly popular among a certain sizable segment of the U.S., but it's not actually monolithic (despite appearances, perhaps). Problem is, so-called "neutral" mainstream news outlets (e.g. CNN) may be less obviously titled toward the Screaming Batshit Insane, but politically are still fundamentally conservative/corporate in structure and worldview.
posted by scody at 12:52 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

There remains a dearth of evidence that this violent rhetoric led to this shooting.
There remains a dearth of evidence that this violent rhetoric led to this shooting.

FTFY. See, the point is that this event is exactly what the violent rhetoric is calling for, seriously or symbolically, and the point of calling that out is to say that the consequences of violent rhetoric are in fact this bad -- it isn't all a big joke, and it isn't all about poking liberals with a stick and going nyuk nyuk when they go into a tizzy.

Since I'm not the only one to observe that Republican ideology seems to barely exist anymore and political stances are often chosen primarily on the basis of what makes liberals mad rather than, say, a consistent fiscal or social conservatism, this is a real problem. Not just because it makes me mad, either. But because this is exactly what I have feared would be the outcome of that rhetoric, and seeing the bloody bodies on stretchers does not exactly allay my fears.

I'm not sure what we're supposed to wait for, here. There have already been plenty of violent incidents.

Do I expect all righties to suddenly clam up on the gun signs? Of course not. It's not realistic. Do I feel I have the right to demand civil behavior from candidates for major office acknowledged as major influences in their party? Why, as a citizen, shouldn't I?
posted by dhartung at 12:53 PM on January 11, 2011 [8 favorites]

He was a person living in a world where the dominant narrative & tone are set by ~~Right wing reactionaries like Palin, Beck & Angle~~ Hollywood/comic books/rap music/heavy metal/Islam/Christianity/Judaism/the Internet/4chan/Wikileaks/Metafilter/Obamamania/etc., ad nauseam. He doesn't need to identify & associate with them to be influenced by what they say. Unless he was a hermit (which he clearly wasn't, he was immersed in observing our culture, albeit from an odd perspective) he was exposed to what they said every time he turned around. It's ubiquitous in our society, how could he avoid hearing their messages? And in his weakened mental & emotional state he would have been highly suggestible. Whether he made a conscious rational decision to agree with their worldview is immaterial. It surrounded him like the air he breathed, it must have shaped his thoughts to some degree because it shapes all our thoughts to some degree.

See where this idiocy leads? Can't be too careful though, so let's take Julian Assange's advice and start locking up politicians and commentators for incitement. Don't forget President Obama and former Congressman Kanjorski when we arrest Palin and Beck...

Let's all take a deep breath, and remember that Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment to the US Constitution as one of her last official acts before the shooting. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:56 PM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

Do I feel I have the right to demand civil behavior from candidates for major office acknowledged as major influences in their party? Why, as a citizen, shouldn't I?

Absolutely, you do. I'll stand with you on this. Neither Palin, nor Beck, nor Angle, nor most of the Tea Party/Fox News crowd speak for me on most issues. And when they do speak out I mostly cringe and worry about the deterioration of our discourse.

But to make this demand for "civil behavior" in Congresswoman's Giffords name, without any evidence of a connection between the two, is at best a non-sequitor, and at worst an indecent exploitation of a mass murder for your own political ends.
posted by BobbyVan at 1:11 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

He was a person living in a world where the dominant narrative & tone are set by Right wing reactionaries like Palin, Beck & Angle and Hollywood/comic books/rap music/heavy metal/Islam/Christianity/Judaism/the Internet/4chan/Wikileaks/Metafilter/Obamamania/etc., ad nauseam.

FTFY.

You seem to be laboring under the assumption that us "idiots" wouldn't have thought of that. That wasn't a very smart assumption, and it doesn't betray very good reading skills. We've been belaboring nuances of that for about 3 days, now.

If you don't believe it's possible to draw connections between any media behavior and any actions people take -- well, I can't help you there. As I pointed out to someone just yesterday, humans got to where we are on this planet in large part based on our facility for identifying important correlations. This human, and a lot of others posting in this thread, have reached the conclusion that "obama joker" posters and "second amendement solution" intimidation tactics and the like constitute a pretty important correlation with the attempt to assassinate a US Representative who was targeted by those intimidation tactics.

YMMV. Obviously, YMDV. [/ shrug]
posted by lodurr at 1:18 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Let's all take a deep breath, and remember that Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment to the US Constitution as one of her last official acts before the shooting. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Yes -- that we all have the right to turn to our neighbors and say "okay, this aggressive rhetoric is getting MAD RIDICULOUS, yo" without fear of the government shutting us down.

Which is exactly what we're doing. With the exception of one congressman, no one is suggesting the government step in and squelch such expressions; instead, we are all suggesting that we all have the responsibility to police our own selves, and that failing to do so leads to grave consequences.

The First Amendment only covers what the government can and cannot do. It is up to the rest of us to do the rest of it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:24 PM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

I think one thing that may be overlooked in all of this is that the politicians make these references to guns and violence not just because it appeals to their own sensibilities, but that it appeals to the constituents they are courting. The constituents who are angry about the way the country is, and their powerlessness to affect change. The ones who are angry that the Democrats are in power, and even the ones who are angry about a black man being in the White House. We not only need to ratchet the violent rhetoric back, but we also need to stop stoking the flames that keep that anger burning so strong. And it might be good if we could find a way to defuse at least some of that rage.
posted by crunchland at 1:25 PM on January 11, 2011

And furthermore, if it's impossible to defuse the anger here in this stupid online message board, how the fuck are we supposed to do it in the real world?
posted by crunchland at 1:27 PM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

This human, and a lot of others posting in this thread, have reached the conclusion that "obama joker" posters and "second amendement solution" intimidation tactics and the like constitute a pretty important correlation with the attempt to assassinate a US Representative who was targeted by those intimidation tactics.

I'm sorry, I don't need to read this entire thread to know that this statement is utter bullshit. The evidence you cite is 100% coincidental, and has zero prescriptive authority. By this logic, we should keep Muslims from certain countries from ever entering the United States, as they may have been contaminated by extremist rhetoric in their home countries. Or at the very least, we should keep a close eye on them, right?

Our democracy has endured a lot over the years, and while I'm always in favor of more civil discourse, the people arguing for it in this thread have an ironic tendency to "wave the bloody shirt".

Let me also commend this article for those with short memories or unfamiliarity with political rhetoric in American history.
posted by BobbyVan at 1:31 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

You don't really listen when people talk.

Wow. You should read his comment again. He did the exact thing he said he wasn't doing.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:31 PM on January 11, 2011

Gee, Bobby Van, that WSJ journal article is soooo convincing, e.g.:

The Philadelphia Aurora, the leading Jeffersonian paper, referred to him sarcastically as "Saint Washington," accused him of overdrawing his salary, and compared him to Nero and "a common pickpocket." By the end of his second term, Washington, like Johnson 160 years later, was desperately tired of being "buffeted in the public prints by a set of infamous scribblers."

Gosh.

It defeats its own argument with completely unconvincing examples. I commend you to read it yourself, in fact, and not just its headline, for surely you would never have intentionally misrepresented it hoping no one would check it out.
posted by Rumple at 1:44 PM on January 11, 2011

Whether he made a conscious rational decision to agree with their worldview is immaterial. It surrounded him like the air he breathed, it must have shaped his thoughts to some degree because it shapes all our thoughts to some degree.

Not really. Right wing vitriol is pretty much focused in on Fox News, talk radio, and various online communities. You will not be exposed to a dangerous level of it unless you are interested in politics and search this stuff out.

I mean, I understand the concept you are talking about here. I hate American Idol but I hear about it all the time because it is a dominant cultural force. However, the likelihood I would hum a tune from it is pretty low unless I actually watch the show.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:48 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Now that we've established that violent eliminationist rhetoric is inconsequential and harmless, I'd like to advocate that all right wingers be decapitated, hung or burned alive and plowed into mass graves (figuratively speaking, of course - these are merely metaphors for the peaceful and law abiding political process).

Come on! Let's shoot them in the head with high caliber ammunition! (by which, of course, I mean speak to them gently and persuasively over coffee)
posted by fleetmouse at 1:49 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Now that we've established that violent eliminationist rhetoric is inconsequential and harmless

No one has said this, here, that I've seen. Please stop mischaracterizing the argument that, as far as I can tell, has only been: We don't yet know why this guy did the terrible thing he did, so saying that it must be caused or influenced by X is silly.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:57 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Please stop mischaracterizing the argument that, as far as I can tell, has only been: We don't yet know why this guy did the terrible thing he did, so saying that it must be caused or influenced by X is silly.

Can we complain about violent eliminationist rhetoric independently of this event?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:00 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes, of course, and I will join you.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:03 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Good.

Because this event has made me realize how dangerous someone else who has been unduly influenced by violent eliminationist rhetoric could potentially be.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:05 PM on January 11, 2011 [7 favorites]

"I'm going to infiltrate the Tea Party. :D"

OK, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. They send out a shit-ton of emails. I've received a half dozen just in the last day. :(
posted by Jacqueline at 2:05 PM on January 11, 2011 [5 favorites]

firiousxgeorge: Right wing vitriol is pretty much focused in on Fox News, talk radio, and various online communities. You will not be exposed to a dangerous level of it unless you are interested in politics and search this stuff out.

Er, um, 'no' and 'yes, but that's the point.'

No, it's not pretty much focused on etc., because I rarely go to those online forums where it's talked about, never listen to Fox news (rarely watch TV, in fact), hardly ever hear news radio except on public radio stations.

Yes, but that's the point: The people I'm concerned about aren't me, they're the people who are ingesting the hate-speech message.
posted by lodurr at 2:05 PM on January 11, 2011

The people I'm concerned about aren't me, they're the people who are ingesting the hate-speech message.

I am concerned about them too, I'm just not sure this guy was one of them.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:08 PM on January 11, 2011

He was a person living in a world where the dominant narrative & tone are set by Right wing reactionaries like ~~Palin, Beck & Angle~~ Hollywood/comic books/rap music/heavy metal/Islam/Christianity/Judaism/the Internet/4chan/Wikileaks/Metafilter/Obamamania/etc., ad nauseam.

What's revealing -- inadvertently on your part, I think, but revealing nonetheless -- about your "FTFY" here is that you are unable to substitute actual names for Palin, Beck, and Angle; you can only substitute concepts or loaded terms. This is part and parcel of the false equivalency argument that requires calling out.

What's the NAME of the Democratic VP candidate with a target map and whose most common rhetorical device is to use the imagery of guns, shooting, hunting, etc. as a call to political action among their supporters (e.g.,"Don't retreat -- reload")? Whats the NAME of the liberal or left-wing TV commentator who has actually "joked" about poisoning an elected official or has accused a Holocaust survivor of being a Nazi collaborator? What's the NAME of the Democratic Senate candidate who has used the term "second amendment solution" in regards to their opponent?
posted by scody at 2:12 PM on January 11, 2011 [30 favorites]

BobbyVan: ... the people arguing for it in this thread have an ironic tendency to "wave the bloody shirt"

So, if we complain about people waving the red shirt we're....waving the red shirt?

So we should just STFU?

Oh, that's worked real well so far.*

--
*Just pointing out that this sarcasm could refer to things other than recent spree-killings and attempted assassinations. In case you'd forgotten about them.
posted by lodurr at 2:13 PM on January 11, 2011

I'm just not sure this guy was one of them.

If he wasn't one of them, he was a fucking hermit. You can't walk out your door in AZ without ingesting hate speech.
posted by lodurr at 2:14 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I guarantee you there are millions of people in Arizona who, just like everywhere, know absolutely nothing about politics.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:18 PM on January 11, 2011

That's really not true about AZ. It's a startlingly diverse place. Phoenix is the only city I've ever lived in where just about every "neighborhood" had a titty bar, and I'm talking right in amongst the housing. It's also one of the most mixed-use city planning schemes I've ever seen, with high-end housing right next to trailer parks interspersed with ranch houses and stacked apartment complexes.

And anyway, this event took place in Tucson, which is a pretty liberal, hippie-ish place. More so than a lot of other cities I've been in.

There are plenty of right-wing people in AZ, but like most "red states" (or "blue states" for that matter), it's far from the homogenous enclave that people living in coastal states paint it to be.
posted by hippybear at 2:20 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I guarantee you there are millions of people in Arizona who, just like everywhere, know absolutely nothing about politics.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they also know "absolutely nothing" about hate speech.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:21 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

....In fact, I would argue that if they did know something about politics, and how it functions, it may actually render them immune to the effects of hate speech. Because then they'd know enough to question, "but, wait, is this maybe a more nuanced situation than the pundits claim?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:23 PM on January 11, 2011

None of it necessarily means anything.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:28 PM on January 11, 2011

CNN commentator wonders why we aren't talking about the most important thing here, a saving faith in Jesus Christ.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:31 PM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

I was certain that was going to be an Onion link. *blink*
posted by hippybear at 2:39 PM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

I was certain that was going to be an Onion link.

It's Erick Erickson of Redstate. Almost the same thing.
posted by dhartung at 2:54 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

> He was a person living in a world where the dominant narrative & tone are set by Right wing reactionaries
> like Palin, Beck & Angle.

This world is utterly unfamiliar to me. It must be some alien subculture inhabited by -- Ghod, I don't know, this is rank speculation -- right-wing nuts who somehow enjoy such a narrative, together with left-wing nuts laboring under a compulsion for self-punishment from which they cannot wean themselves.

> It's ubiquitous in our society, how could he avoid hearing their messages?

I assure you. No, that's not strong enough, I rip my heart open and swear to you: it's not only possible to live in a world where the influence of the persons you named on the dominant narrative is vanishingly small, it's easy.

If I unaccountably wanted to hear and participate in this "ubiquitous" dominant narrative you speak of I would have to actively seek it out. Yet I am not a social isolate, I have a job and co-workers, I have family, I have friends. I do not have a TV. I can list off most of the principle issues of the day. I can find Kazakhstan on the map. I am computer- and internet-literate to extremes, even to excess. I voted for the sitting president and usually pay attention when he has something to say (though I admit I am much more likely to read it later than to watch or listen live.)

I was made aware of Sarah Palin by her being nominated to run for a major office by a major party. Beyond that bare minimum, my knowledge of what she has said and done comes almost exclusively from comments on metafilter (with some few additions via Google, viz. my links in this thread--but that counts as "actively seeking it out.") My knowledge of Beck and Limbaugh does come exclusively from comments on metafilter, where I am much less selective about what I attend to than I am anywhere else (and sometimes regret it.)

I understand that you must simply take my word that I am describing the world I inhabit truthfully, or reject it as a tissue of lies. But I am describing it with complete sincerity and, once more, I am no sort of desert island hermit or blind cave fish. It is simply a fact of existence that the number of things one can attend to in a life is so small, and the number of things one might attend to is so vast, that no two of us ever end up inhabiting the same mental world. And if one happens to be highly inner-directed--or stark staring bonkers--it's certain (well, it approaches certainty as a limit) that the world one inhabits easily and fluently might be virtually unrecognizable to any other person and that one discovers points of commonality with others only with significant effort.

tl;dr summary: you have no idea what world anyone lives in but yourself. You have no idea what the dominant narrative might be in any world but your own. Don't be a MY world is THE world provincial.
posted by jfuller at 3:16 PM on January 11, 2011 [5 favorites]

furiousxgeorge: "CNN commentator wonders why we aren't talking about the most important thing here, a saving faith in Jesus Christ. "

I... I... I... wow.
posted by brundlefly at 3:27 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

BobbyVan: But to make this demand for "civil behavior" in Congresswoman's Giffords name, without any evidence of a connection between the two, is at best a non-sequitor, and at worst an indecent exploitation of a mass murder for your own political ends.

So it'll only be appropriate to urge "civil behaviour" (civilized, really, as in civilization) and respectful rhetoric from political leaders and celebrities after some future wingnut screams "Palin, Beck, and Hannity told me to do it" while he shoots a different Member of Congress?

If you don't think it's always appropriate to hold people to standards of ~~more~~ *basic* respect in behaviour and rhetoric, why not? Particularly people who have the kind of influence that political leaders and celebrities do.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 3:28 PM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

I do not have a TV.

This doesn't make you a hermit, but it does make your house different from 99% of American households. We do all have the ability to make a choice about this, of course, but if we're talking about the cultural norms that shape your average person, you are an outlier.
posted by naoko at 3:37 PM on January 11, 2011

Glock Pistol Sales Surge in Aftermath of Arizona Shootings
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 3:49 PM on January 11, 2011

That link is screwed up.
posted by brundlefly at 3:55 PM on January 11, 2011

Animated version of this thread.

Arizona legislature passes anti-Westboro bill.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:59 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sorry, this should work:

Glock Pistol Sales Surge in Aftermath of Arizona Shootings
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 4:03 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

tl;dr summary: you have no idea what world anyone lives in but yourself. You have no idea what the dominant narrative might be in any world but your own. Don't be a MY world is THE world provincial.

Well Arizona is certainly not MY world, but during a drive through the state over Thanksgiving we had more than a few "holy crap did you see that billboard" moments. Right wing radio ads with over the top messages, anti-immigrant ads, and at least one Tea Party/Don't tread on me ad. This stuff is out there in your face. And I'm not even talking about the bumper stickers.

I'm not saying these made him do this, but it would be pretty difficult to ignore the rhetoric if you lived there. Even without a tv.

Oh look I found an example: Rush Limbaugh is a straight shooter!
That one is in Tucson by the way.
posted by Big_B at 4:03 PM on January 11, 2011

AElfwine Evenstar: "Glock Pistol Sales Surge in Aftermath of Arizona Shootings"

That is an absolutely disgusting headline.
posted by theredpen at 4:09 PM on January 11, 2011

ceri richard, thanks for the excellent Shakesville link:

as long as we continue to play this foolish game of "both sides are just as bad," and rely on trusty old ablism to dismiss Jared Lee Loughner as a crackpot—dutifully ignoring that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators; carefully pretending that the existence of people with mental illness who are potentially dangerous somehow absolves us of responsibility for violent rhetoric, as opposed to serving to underline precisely why it's irresponsible—it will be inevitable again. [my emphasis]

I dug up the video of Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama, not to hear him talking about his endorsement, but to remind myself what an intellectually honest conservative "leader" looks like -- he calls out his own party for polarizing, Othering, demonizing rhetoric at 3:40, and 4:30 to 6:20. "Demagoguery," he says, right at the end. No calls for silencing. He only explains his thinking, names the problem, and throughout, calmly, repeatedly, unequivocally disassociates himself from it.

I had trouble getting to sleep last night. Thinking about dejah420's poisoned dogs and shot-at house, combined with St Alia of all people being hesitant to call out the people she knows who dehumanize political opponents...I couldn't get the last scene of a Spanish movie called Butterfly (aka "Butterfly Tongues") out of my head.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 4:17 PM on January 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

does anybody else keep getting ads for Sandlot Connect every time they follow a link from this thread?
posted by lodurr at 4:27 PM on January 11, 2011

Just got an email from our Senator, Barbara Boxer. She has postponed a public event that her staff was going to have here in Los Angeles, until her office "has had the opportunity to consult with the U.S. Capitol Police regarding security measures that should be taken to ensure the safety of my staff and constituents at events in California."

Mind you, this was just to be her staff. She wasn't going to be there in person.
posted by zoogleplex at 4:36 PM on January 11, 2011

Glock Pistol Sales Surge in Aftermath of Arizona Shootings

Maybe they can get Loughner to cut a commercial.
posted by EarBucket at 4:44 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Glock Pistol Sales Surge in Aftermath of Arizona Shootings

Maybe they can get Loughner to cut a commercial.
posted by EarBucket

He already did.
posted by merelyglib at 4:57 PM on January 11, 2011 [7 favorites]

A South Carolina gun and accessories company is selling semi-automatic rifle components inscribed with “You lie” – a tribute to the infamous words of 2nd District Republican Congressman Joe Wilson when he shouted at President Barack Obama during a congressional speech about national health care reform in the fall of 2009.
posted by neroli at 4:59 PM on January 11, 2011

To be fair, neroli, you really shouldn't expect much more than classlessness mixed with intermittent evil from a company that, y'know, makes guns.
posted by dersins at 5:05 PM on January 11, 2011

It looks like the product has already disappeared from Palmetto State Armory's website - I'm getting 404s from the links in the article. Meanwhile, the FITSNews link is pretty appalling.
posted by naoko at 5:09 PM on January 11, 2011

Campaign ad from a West Virginia Senator. Loads and fires a gun at liberal legislation, promises to defend the second amendment and take on Washington.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 5:10 PM on January 11, 2011

Campaign ad from a West Virginia Senator. Loads and fires a gun at liberal legislation, promises to defend the second amendment and take on Washington.

I encourage people with YouTube accounts to flag it as promoting terrorism.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:14 PM on January 11, 2011 [8 favorites]

The cover of this week's Stranger. Brilliant.
posted by EarBucket at 5:17 PM on January 11, 2011 [31 favorites]

So it'll only be appropriate to urge "civil behaviour" (civilized, really, as in civilization) and respectful rhetoric from political leaders and celebrities after some future wingnut screams "Palin, Beck, and Hannity told me to do it" while he shoots a different Member of Congress?

False dichotomy. It is always appropriate to urge civil behavior, but if you are doing it in the name of something that is not related to what you're talking about, it's kind of weird. I mean, should we urge civil behavior in the name of the upcoming Michael Bay movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon? And if the cause you're claiming as your own not only isn't related, but is an unrelated tragedy, it's a little exploitive, or something: This upcoming anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., I urge you all, in his honor, to always eat your vegetables.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:43 PM on January 11, 2011

In fact, there is no balance—none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.
posted by EarBucket at 5:51 PM on January 11, 2011 [13 favorites]

I mean, should we urge civil behavior in the name of the upcoming Michael Bay movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon?

No, but it might be nice to urge civil behavior in mindfulness of an actual person killing or wounding a bunch of actual people, two of whom had received actual death threats and one of whom had been the actual target of actual and persistent violent rhetoric. At least for the sake of the actual irony involved, if nothing else.
posted by lodurr at 5:51 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Since the shooting death of federal officials is, in fact, something often part of this violent rhetoric, even ever-so-slightly implied in the Manchin commercial above, I think there is a clear connection in which this provides the example of the bloody end which they deny is ever intended.
posted by dhartung at 6:15 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I encourage people with YouTube accounts to flag it as promoting terrorism.

I did. Chose "hateful or violent" as the reason. (Couldn't find "promoting terrorism" as a reason there).
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:40 PM on January 11, 2011

Chose "hateful or violent" as the reason. (Couldn't find "promoting terrorism" as a reason there).

When you choose "hateful or violent," a second pulldown menu should pop up to the right that lets you choose "promoting terrorism" as one of the choices.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:44 PM on January 11, 2011

Hmm, didn't see that.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:46 PM on January 11, 2011

The DIY approach to finding violent imagery to denounce: make it yourself!
posted by scalefree at 6:46 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually, it's "violent or repulsive content" that leads to the "promotes terrorism" pulldown menu in that youtube video.
posted by gaspode at 7:23 PM on January 11, 2011

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus--living fossils--so we we'll never forget what these people stood for."

--Rush Limbaugh

The fact that prominent public figures can make statements like the above and not be forced to accept grave personal and professional consequences for themselves when they inspire their mentally disturbed fellow travelers to act out on behalf of the ideals they espouse?

How is it even for one moment acceptable for anyone to publicly call for the execution of as many as of roughly half their fellow American citizens for no crime greater than following their honest political convictions to different political conclusions? Even if it were meant only as a joke (which no doubt would be how Limbaugh would play it off), what the hell kind of joke is that?

And how could anyone honestly be blamed for not taking it as a joke, considering the usual tone of the mono-maniacally obsessive anti-liberal diatribes to which Limbaugh devotes the entirety of his public career? God forbid he ever get his wish. Ironically, like a parasite himself, he'd seemingly have no identity at all if not for the existence of this dreaded "parasitic liberal" he devotes the entirety of his existence to denouncing and agitating for violence against.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:33 PM on January 11, 2011 [15 favorites]

“I know how the ‘Tea Party’ people feel; the anger, venom and bile that many of them showed during the recent House vote on health care reform. I know because I want to spit on them, take one of their ‘Obama Plan White Slavery’ signs and knock every racists and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads.” – Washington Post Columnist Courtland Milloy
posted by Splunge at 8:31 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Right wing vitriol is pretty much focused in on Fox News, talk radio, and various online communities.

and our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces, our bars, our newspapers and even our homes

you must either live in a dense liberal bubbleland or just haven't been paying attention to what's going on around you

the simple truth of the matter is it's been all around us for decades and it's getting much worse and much more widespread
posted by pyramid termite at 8:53 PM on January 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

How can it have been all around us for decades and get any more widespread than that? Choose one or the other, you're getting carried away. (Not for the first time.)
posted by jfuller at 9:14 PM on January 11, 2011

There is nothing of right wing rhetoric that you could ingest via osmosis at the bar that can plausibly be considered murder food. Now, the booze on the other hand...
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:35 PM on January 11, 2011

Maybe "entrenched" is a better word than "widespread".
posted by Rat Spatula at 9:37 PM on January 11, 2011

We're arguing semantics now?

widespread adj.

1.Spread or scattered over a considerable extent: widespread fallout from a nuclear explosion.

2. Occurring or accepted widely: a widespread misunderstanding.

Something can be all around us for two decades and continually multiply in extent during that same time frame, which is how I interpreted pyramid termite's comment . There's no "one or the other" to have to choose from.
posted by stagewhisper at 9:51 PM on January 11, 2011

iOS Safari is choking now.

In addition to the claim that the rhetoric is becoming worse, there has been a marked increase in violence against political and public figures.

Abortion doctors have been assassinated to near extinction across a large swath of America. The same rhetorical language is now being used against House and Senate Representatives.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:02 PM on January 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

With this ceremony tomorrow and the president attending, it's going to be some interesting viewing. UMC has their noon eastern news conference I believe. I'm guessing there won't be much news, but each day seems to bring an amazing step, so I'll just keep marveling. There are some pictures of Giffords now - her husband holding her hand. Her doctor saying she has a 101% chance of survival - it's just crazy good.
posted by cashman at 10:12 PM on January 11, 2011

shakespeherian: False dichotomy. It is always appropriate to urge civil behavior, but if you are doing it in the name of something that is not related to what you're talking about

We've been urging civilized behaviour and deploring contempt-filled demagoguery on an ongoing basis for, at the very least, the past two years, the period during which that demagoguery has intensified and exploded onto center stage in federal politics. ie, since Palin and assorted Tea Party leaders expanded Limbaugh-Beck-etc-style eliminationist invective from its comparatively niche hole in talk radio. That invective now bears the legitimizing imprimatur of federal politics-as-usual ("as usual" from right-wingers, anyway, since no one's been able to come up with left-wing equivalents that aren't one-offs and remarkably rare).

On a regular basis for the past two years, we've deplored that dehumanizing, contemptuous talk that certain political "leaders" use to demonize people of different political beliefs as traitors, terrorists, totalitarians, baby-killers, threats to democracy, threats to the American way of life, threats to grandmothers ("death panels"), and so on. And now we're supposed to stop deploring it, because the timing is suspiciously exploitative of a tragedy that in effect, if not documentable perp intent, fulfills many right-wingers' casually dehumanizing "someone should die for being liberal" judgments?
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 10:22 PM on January 11, 2011 [8 favorites]

There is nothing of right wing rhetoric that you could ingest via osmosis at the bar that can plausibly be considered murder food.

i take it you've never been in a bar which had "no colors" posted on the wall
posted by pyramid termite at 10:24 PM on January 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

If there is an uptick in bartenders getting murdered by black guys, we will know what to blame.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:40 PM on January 11, 2011

Sorry for the really long sentences. Going to bed now.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 10:41 PM on January 11, 2011

If there is an uptick in bartenders getting murdered by black guys, we will know what to blame.

that would be motorcycle gang colors, and that's just how it's phrased - "no colors allowed"

i've pretty much proven my point that i come from a different environment than you - maybe you just ought to take at face value what i say about it, seeing as you don't know
posted by pyramid termite at 10:50 PM on January 11, 2011

.

For Christina Taylor Bradford, and the other victims of her age in the americas (9 years old) who grew up with a nameless but effectual fear.

.

For all the other children who know the world as a very dangerous place. It seems we're catching up.

There used to be a difference.
posted by aclevername at 10:55 PM on January 11, 2011

So, the literal argument here is right wing rhetoric leads to dangerous motorcycle gangs?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:10 PM on January 11, 2011

or george washingstons still secret spy ring
posted by clavdivs at 11:56 PM on January 11, 2011

this close yesterday i almost became ashamed to be an american
here
posted by clavdivs at 11:58 PM on January 11, 2011

As long as you continue to be american in other venues, our genetic heritage is safe. Procreate, clavdivs or get out of the gene pool!
posted by Splunge at 12:06 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

its gens to you splunge pool. and a venue usually has snacks perhaps thats a conveyance.
here-quite disheartening this, a personal observation expanded.
I have reviewed glenn beck comments. i will not use them. Coke dealers have better "spun" when they keep you around for 3 hours.
If levity cannot exists then this is a vaccum.

eliminationist invective from its comparatively niche hole in talk radio. That invective now bears the legitimizing imprimatur of federal politics-as-usual ("as usual" from right-wingers, anyway, since no one's been able to come up with left-wing equivalents that aren't one-offs and remarkably rare

i picture myself in a mirror saying this to a angry crowd, like maybe a few i do not know, the point is who would listen when people with guns need things to work and by that it means change- citizen up, this is republic, not a pure democracy. oh yeah, but i leave that to the society as a genral rule.
posted by clavdivs at 1:14 AM on January 12, 2011

It's one of the signature paradoxes of American culture that every tragedy of this kind results in Americans donating a lot of blood and buying a lot of guns.
posted by Ritchie at 3:50 AM on January 12, 2011

saulgoodman: And how could anyone honestly be blamed for not taking it as a joke...

I'd like to think you don't mean that literally, because of course we "blame" them if the "don't take it as a joke" (or, maybe more accurately, take it to heart). But we can also blame Limbaugh for making it so convenient for them to do so.

The point needs to be made again and again, it seems (though not to you, I think), since some people around seem so intent on missing it: Most of us aren't talking about legal culpability for violence, but rather a share in the ethical culpability.

And that's for violence that is clearly connected, like actual assassinations of actual doctors, actual (and fortunately ineffectual) attempts on the lives of other politicians, actual increased numbers of threats on the lives of other politicians, actual beatings at rallys, etc.

So, apologists, please stop pretending this discussion is just about the Giffords shooting. We know as well as we need to that there's a relationship between political violence and the violence of political rhetoric. Pretending to require some kind of scientific evidence or formally correct causal chain is disingenuous.
posted by lodurr at 4:52 AM on January 12, 2011 [11 favorites]

five fresh fish: Abortion doctors have been assassinated to near extinction across a large swath of America.

Kudos to you for bringing this up. It's the paradigm case of putting targets on people and then finding them conveniently dead, and I'm amazed that no one's mentioned it before this.
posted by lodurr at 4:54 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I have wondered when the conversation was going to take note of the fact that his target was a woman, and he killed a several women and a little girl. I'll lay money that there's fire under that smoke.
posted by spitbull at 5:13 AM on January 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

And now we're supposed to stop deploring it, because the timing is suspiciously exploitative of a tragedy that in effect, if not documentable perp intent, fulfills many right-wingers' casually dehumanizing "someone should die for being liberal" judgments?

No, you aren't supposed to stop. No one has said that. Jesus Christ.

Is everyone just so upset in this thread that they're looking to pick a fight with people? What the fuck?
posted by shakespeherian at 5:30 AM on January 12, 2011

No, you aren't supposed to stop. No one has said that. Jesus Christ.

It might be helpful, then, if in the midst of the increasingly-frequent "but the rhetoric didn't DIRECTLY cause this," the apologists could take pains to say, "but I definitely still think it fucking sucks that this happened, AND I think it fucking sucks that rhetoric is as bad as it is."

Without those assurances, I suspect people might be getting the impression that you don't think that the rhetoric is bad after all. I'm fairly certain that's not the case, but this "but it didn't cause this" can sound rather like a defense.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:06 AM on January 12, 2011

Palin: Blood libel!

And Angle sure hopes that we don't have to resort to Second Amendment remedies to deal with the irresponsible speech directed at her.
posted by Flunkie at 6:40 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't even think anyone has said 'but it didn't cause this.' All anyone has said is 'We don't know what caused this, so when you immediately say "It must be the fault of those people I really dislike!" that sounds kind of like maybe we should wait to find out.'

Look, I hate the political rhetoric in this country. I do hate the tone that it takes on both sides of the aisle, but on the Republican side especially, because, as has been pointed out numerous times here, Palin and Beck and Bachmann and the birthers and Coulter and Limbaugh and Savage and many, many others say deplorable, terrible things that, were you to take them at their word, would suggest that they can only be delighted that a Democratic Congresswoman got shot in the head. If it sometimes sounds like I complain about liberals more than conservatives, it's only because I have greater expectations for liberals, and because I feel like I have a better chance of influencing people on my team.

And when something terrible like this shooting occurs and my political allies immediately blame my political foes, even though there isn't yet any evidence to know either way, it's my impression that it makes us look like bitter, partisan snipers who won't hesitate to exploit a tragedy to score a point for our team. And I don't want my team to look like that.

And if Loughner holds a press conference in five minutes where he says 'I wish it had been Imam Hussein Obama, that Kenyan socialist,' I will happily, and angrily, put a mountain of blame for this shooting on the violent and lie-filled rhetoric of the political right. But he hasn't done that yet, and nobody knows if he will. And that's my point.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:45 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

It might be helpful, then, if in the midst of the increasingly-frequent "but the rhetoric didn't DIRECTLY cause this," the apologists could take pains to say, "but I definitely still think it fucking sucks that this happened, AND I think it fucking sucks that rhetoric is as bad as it is."

Who's acting as an apologist? I have not seen a single person defend violent rhetoric in this thread. I have seen people say that violent rhetoric is a problem even if it's coming from the left, but no one has said it's okay coming from the right. I have seen people say that the rhetoric doesn't necessarily have anything to do with this shooting, but I haven't seen anyone say that the rhetoric is fine. Where has anyone said that they're okay with the current political climate? Do people also need to point out that they are opposed to people being shot so that they aren't acting as apologists for the shooter?

Violent political rhetoric is bad, mmkay? So is mental illness. So is child abuse. Any of them (along with a lot of other factors) might have played a part in this guy's actions. But we really don't know that and the people you are calling apologists are simply saying that we don't know why he did it.
posted by Dojie at 6:46 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

And if Loughner holds a press conference in five minutes where he says 'I wish it had been Imam Hussein Obama, that Kenyan socialist,' I will happily, and angrily, put a mountain of blame for this shooting on the violent and lie-filled rhetoric of the political right. But he hasn't done that yet, and nobody knows if he will. And that's my point.

If your belief system hinges on the rantings of a madman, I don't know what more I can tell you other than: it's wrong.
posted by mek at 6:49 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

EmpressCallipygos: "It might be helpful, then, if in the midst of the increasingly-frequent "but the rhetoric didn't DIRECTLY cause this," the apologists could take pains to say, "but I definitely still think it fucking sucks that this happened, AND I think it fucking sucks that rhetoric is as bad as it is.""

Palin should not have put out that crosshair map, and the loony right wing needs to seriously stop with all of their violent rhetoric because it can and will incite some McVeigh-type, but Loughner, if he even pays attention to Palin and Beck, didn't need any encouragement. His crime may be political, but I don't think you can claim it was partisan.

I think it's entirely possible that violent rhetoric is bad, and has terrible consequences, and simultaneously some 22-year-old asshole decided to shoot the first public official he could find for entirely unrelated reasons. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case, but it isn't as simple as equating the position 'This kid may have not been influenced by violent right-wing rhetoric at all' with 'There is no problem with violent right-wing rhetoric.'

Yes, of course, and I will join you.

It is always appropriate to urge civil behavior, but if you are doing it in the name of something that is not related to what you're talking about, it's kind of weird.

So, pretty much every contribution shakespeherian has made to this thread? I'm with him at this point - many people in this thread just want to hate.
posted by charred husk at 6:54 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

If your belief system hinges on the rantings of a madman, I don't know what more I can tell you other than: it's wrong.

Do you even pay attention to what people say, or do you just look for the bit you can quote in a snarky reply?
posted by shakespeherian at 6:59 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

So Shakespherian wasn't one of the people telling us we had to stop talking about this because we didn't know for sure there was a connection. That's one down.
posted by lodurr at 7:08 AM on January 12, 2011

Palin: Blood libel!

That's a bit rich from Little Miss Death Panels, isn't it?

Not to mention a somewhat odd choice of words.
posted by Artw at 7:17 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sarah Palin's presidential hopes surely can't survive this assassin's bullet
posted by Artw at 7:20 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Palin: Blood libel!

Oh no she didn't.

Goddamn it former half-term governor Palin, why is it always about you? And are you really equating the criticism of right wing extremism with anti-Semitism?

These people know no other frame of reference than their hatred of others.
posted by spitbull at 7:20 AM on January 12, 2011

Or rather, and I think it's a key distinction, they know no other frame of reference than the cynical manipulation of fear and hatred and resentment in their followers.

Cowards, all of them.
posted by spitbull at 7:22 AM on January 12, 2011

Do you even pay attention to what people say, or do you just look for the bit you can quote in a snarky reply?

Allow me to explain it to you. I'm saying that your argument is wrong. Violent rhetoric and a bloodthirsty political climate is just fine with you, as long as the murderers don't slip up at their press conferences. That's absurd.

You're the one who keeps injecting partisan references. Let's try to stay objective here. It's easy, just say it with me: all violent rhetoric is bad, and a some politicians like to use a lot more than others. Sometimes the facts have a distinct liberal bias.
posted by mek at 7:24 AM on January 12, 2011

There's a line in that Freedland Guardian piece that is just right. Note to Palin and her cronies: "Politics isn't fair."

The right has asked us to abandon all pretense to fairness in public discourse. Hoist by its own damn petard.
posted by spitbull at 7:24 AM on January 12, 2011

You're the one who keeps injecting partisan references. Let's try to stay objective here. It's easy, just say it with me: all violent rhetoric is bad, and a some politicians like to use a lot more than others.

1. Stop being an asshole.

2. Why don't you go back and read everything he's said and block quote the segments where he or anyone else said "Violent rhetoric and a bloodthirsty political climate is just fine."
posted by orville sash at 7:27 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Blood libel.

I actually thought she could no longer surprise me. And yet, here I am, speechless.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:30 AM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

So Shakespherian wasn't one of the people telling us we had to stop talking about this because we didn't know for sure there was a connection. That's one down.

Who IS saying that? Wouldn't that be easier than going through the user base one by one to see who isn't?

Allow me to explain it to you. I'm saying that your argument is wrong. Violent rhetoric and a bloodthirsty political climate is just fine with you, as long as the murderers don't slip up at their press conferences. That's absurd.

There is absolutely no way a reasonable person could read anything shakespeherian (or anyone else) wrote with anything resembling an open mind and think that this is what he said.
posted by Dojie at 7:30 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

What the hell does she mean blood libel? I mean, not much she says make sense, but what does blood have to do with libel? wtf?
posted by annsunny at 7:32 AM on January 12, 2011

"Blood libel (also blood accusation) refers to a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays."

So she considers violent political rhetoric a form of religious speech?

I have no words.
posted by orville sash at 7:34 AM on January 12, 2011

1. Stop being an asshole.
Why don't you go back and read everything he's said and block quote the segments where he or anyone else said "Violent rhetoric and a bloodthirsty political climate is just fine."

He said he wouldn't condemn it unless Loughner said specific things at a hypothetical press conference. I'm condeming both. Also, thanks for raising the level of debate, but I do, in fact, read.
posted by mek at 7:34 AM on January 12, 2011

The Giffords Tragedy: Is the Media Partly at Fault?

Taibbi's latest article - this is probably the most thoughtful thing anyone has written about the tragedy so far, and a shocking moment of introspection. Absolutely a must read.
posted by mek at 7:36 AM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

Thanks for the explanation, Orville sash. I have never heard of this before.
posted by annsunny at 7:36 AM on January 12, 2011

Not to mention a somewhat odd choice of words.

Not that odd. Palin is playing to her Christian fundamentalist base. Stereotypes of Jews running the media and so forth...
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:38 AM on January 12, 2011

Pretty sure politics have never been fair.

It's pretty hard to feel sorry for Palin here though - sure, this guy shows all the sign of a typical boring spree kill nutter who would have gone off at a supermarket or a bus stop anyway, and you could never prove that Palin and chums making just-short-of-literal suggetions of assasination had anything to do with his choice of target, but you can't exactly disprove it either, and what the hell where they doing suggesting that sort of thing anyway?
posted by Artw at 7:39 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

South Carolina sells limited edition semi-automatic rifle components engraved in commemoration of Joe Wilson's "You Lie!" outburst.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:39 AM on January 12, 2011

Not that odd. Palin is playing to her Christian fundamentalist base. Stereotypes of Jews running the media and so forth...

That jew lady probably ran her face into a bullet just to spite Palin.

I dunno, this is not exactly dogwhistle here, is it? More screaming bullhorn of desperate insanity.
posted by Artw at 7:40 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Well, she's accusing the media, specifically, of a blood libel.

But I'd give even odds that she is just so fucking dense that she doesn't understand the implications of her own words.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:42 AM on January 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

He said he wouldn't condemn it unless Loughner said specific things at a hypothetical press conference.

I said I wouldn't condemn what? Can you please point to where I said what you think I said?
posted by shakespeherian at 7:44 AM on January 12, 2011

but I do, in fact, read.

do you?

And if Loughner holds a press conference in five minutes where he says 'I wish it had been Imam Hussein Obama, that Kenyan socialist,' I will happily, and angrily, put a mountain of blame for this shooting on the violent and lie-filled rhetoric of the political right. But he hasn't done that yet, and nobody knows if he will. And that's my point.

Lemme say it for you again: shakespeherian and everyone else making a similar argument in this thread never once said that this conversation shouldn't be had, or that this kind of rhetoric is just fine. What he said is that, as yet, there is no direct connection between this shooting and these politicians and their anti-left rhetoric.

Does that mean that the conversation should not be had?

No.

Does that mean that shakespeherian or anyone else in this thread approves of this kind of talk?

No.

As for raising the level of the debate, I prefer to call a spade a spade.

"Allow me to explain it to you"

and

"It's easy, just say it with me"

and

"Sometimes the facts have a distinct liberal bias."

all add up to being an asshole. And stealing material from Colbert. And totally missing the point.
posted by orville sash at 7:44 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Blood libel

holy shit she's a bad person
posted by EarBucket at 7:45 AM on January 12, 2011 [10 favorites]

I really don't think she's going to be making things better with, well, anyone vaguely normal with this. But possibly I'm overestimating normal people and after the sure-to-be-coming SECOND statement where she condemns everyone who questioned her use of the term "blood libel" as part of the Liberal conspiracy she'll come out smelling of roses.
posted by Artw at 7:46 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I was just talking this over with a colleague who said, quite astutely "every time Palin does something you think would hurt her, just watch. It often, strangely, somehow helps her." I sure hope that he's wrong.
posted by orville sash at 7:48 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

For those who don't know, the term is extremely laden with ancient meaning, esp to Jews. The blood libel is the source of persecution and genocide. It's genuinely shocking to hear her use it to whine about how she's the victim. Especially when you add in that Giffords is Jewish.

I suspect she meant "blood laws" - where an innocent is held to account for what his kin did. But I can never tell where her ignorance stops and her recklessness begins.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:48 AM on January 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

shakespeherian and everyone else making a similar argument in this thread never once said that this conversation shouldn't be had, or that this kind of rhetoric is just fine.

And that's why I didn't actually say "you are saying it's just fine". All I said was, "it gives the impression that you think it is just fine."

What he said is that, as yet, there is no direct connection between this shooting and these politicians and their anti-left rhetoric.

And what I said is that it might be helpful to add, "but regardless, anti-left rhetoric still sucks, and I'd like to see it toned down even if it didn't cause this". And, I added that the reason that they may want to do this is that "otherwise, other people may be lead to believe that you have no problem with it," and I further added that "however, I suspect that you do have a problem with it, and so that's why I am suggesting this helpful idea."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:55 AM on January 12, 2011

These people know no other frame of reference than their hatred of others.

Sarah Palin didn't write the blood libel statement. She parroted it. Just as she didn't dream up the targeting map; it was supplied to her.

Palin is a commercial political product used by cynical, and I say sociopathic, political manipulators. It would not surprise me to find that Rove, Kochs, Ailes, or some other known rat-bastard is funding it.

Palin is a willing stooge, supported by a cast of marketing professionals who have exchanged ethics and good taste for cash dollars.

As proof that Palin is a puppet I give you the strongest possible evidence: Sarah Palin.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:57 AM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

Which I've attempted to do every time I comment. But people only see what they wanna see.
posted by orville sash at 7:57 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Damn preview. That was a response to the empress.
posted by orville sash at 7:57 AM on January 12, 2011

She actually meant to say "bold label".
posted by Artw at 7:57 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

If she picked that phrase casually, she's hit a new low in idiocy; if intentionally, a new low in ugliness. Either way, she's kissing a presidential run goodbye.

Rep. Giffords is Jewish.
posted by spitbull at 7:59 AM on January 12, 2011

She just . . . I can't. I don't know what to say about that. It's like she sat down her team of advisors and told them to brainstorm the most insane, offensive things she could possibly say about this situation, picked the top five, ran them past a focus group, and settled on "blood libel" because they couldn't figure out a plausible way to pin it on The Gays.
posted by EarBucket at 8:00 AM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Looked it up on Wikipedia. Holy Sh^tstorm! Palin is already mentioned...
posted by annsunny at 8:02 AM on January 12, 2011

I'm thinking that anyone who would vote for Sarah Palin is probably not going to give a shit that she said something that's really offensive to Jews.
posted by craichead at 8:02 AM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Which I've attempted to do every time I comment.

Then...you....weren't one of the people I was talking to in the first place.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:03 AM on January 12, 2011

The "blood libel"phrase was nicked from a WSJ editorial by Glenn Reynolds.
posted by neroli at 8:03 AM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

Watch her call this latest criticism of her her own little holocaust.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:05 AM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

all add up to being an asshole. And stealing material from Colbert. And totally missing the point.

What he said is that, as yet, there is no direct connection between this shooting and these politicians and their anti-left rhetoric.

Yeah I'm intellectually bankrupt here, you got me. Next time I'll add citations to my witty repartee, lest I get caught. Here is what I am trying to get at which has apparently gone completely over your head: it doesn't matter if there is a "direct connection". The whole problem, as has been discussed to death here, is that violent and eliminationist rhetoric creates a climate where unstable individuals perceive that certain other individuals are less human and worthy targets of violence. There is no need for a "smoking gun" where Loughner admits he is a fan of Palin on Facebook because that is entirely beside the point. Every single one of us is breathing the same poisoned air, it's absolutely inescapable. You don't need to even watch the news to know that Obama is planning to kill grandma. It's in every newspaper, on every channel, it even followed us home at Christmas and was coming out of the mouths of our relatives, and yes it's absolutely anti-left.

And if it doesn't stop, more people are going to suffer. Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Murdoch, etc, these people absolutely have blood on their hands, and you should condemn them. If it took you until the Gifford incident, you haven't been paying attention, because this is merely the latest and most horrifying in a long string of violent incidents that have been happening ever since Obama took office and the dogwhistles came out.
posted by mek at 8:05 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

orville sash: Which I've attempted to do every time I comment. But people only see what they wanna see.

I don't know what other people see in what you write. I've seen your qualifiers just fine. What I think you're not seeing is that you, shakespherian and a few others are the moderate cover that's being hidden behind.
posted by lodurr at 8:05 AM on January 12, 2011

Just metaphorically speaking, former half-term governor Palin, this is what happens when you don't practice good gun safety habits, or, as we all watched on TV, you pretend to know your way around a firearm when you obviously don't.

You think you're putting the scope on someone else -- why look, she's right in your pretty little crosshairs! -- and you end up shooting yourself right through that expensively shod foot.

Again, strictly a metaphor. No actual feet were shot making this snarky remark.
posted by spitbull at 8:06 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Chill out, people. She's just talking about the common surveying practice of using the blood of Christian children to mark off land boundaries.
posted by COBRA! at 8:06 AM on January 12, 2011 [29 favorites]

craichead: "I'm thinking that anyone who would vote for Sarah Palin is probably not going to give a shit that she said something that's really offensive to Jews"

My experience with people who would vote for Sarah Palin is that they don't actually listen to what she says. They vote for the idea of her, not the actual her.
posted by charred husk at 8:07 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

FF: Palin is a willing stooge, supported by a cast of marketing professionals who have exchanged ethics and good taste for cash dollars.

But so many of them are so bad at it! The whole image-scrubbing thing, the "surveyor's sights" thing, signing off on the 'guided tour' version of Sarah Palin's Alaska (which made her look so incredibly fake it was laughable). I guess we should count ourselves lucky, except that it doesn't seem to fucking matter.
posted by lodurr at 8:08 AM on January 12, 2011

I usually feel like I understand Palin's strategy and motives, even if I think they're scummy. I have no idea what the hell she's doing here.

She's gone rogue for reals.
posted by EarBucket at 8:08 AM on January 12, 2011

What I think you're not seeing is that you, shakespherian and a few others are the moderate cover that's being hidden behind.

So your argument is that every time something awful happens we need to blame it on conservatives because otherwise we're really helping them?
posted by shakespeherian at 8:12 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Fearing tea-party violence, four Arizona republicans resign.
posted by gaspode at 8:16 AM on January 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

So your argument is that every time something awful happens we need to blame it on conservatives because otherwise we're really helping them?

*sigh*

No.

What we're saying is, right now the conversation is going like this:

"This is an awful situation!"
"Yeah, hate speech like that has got to be contributing to this!"
"....No, it's not."
"What? But hate speech is awful!"
"But it didn't DIRECTLY CAUSE this."
"But don't you think it's awful?"
"It didn't IMMEDIATELY CAUSE this."
"But it's awful! How can you say that?"
"It didn't IMMEDIATELY CAUSE this, and I don't know why your'e saying that."
"Don't you think it's awful, though? How can you say that?"
"It IS NOT LINKED to this event."
"Why do you keep saying that? This is awful!"
"You cannot prove it is linked to this event."

Repeat grar.

People are only suggesting that the conversation go like this:

"This is an awful situation!"
"Yeah, hate speech like that has got to be contributing to this!"
"....No, it's not."
"What? But hate speech is awful!"
"Yes, I agree that it is awful. But it didn't DIRECTLY CAUSE this."
"But don't you think it's awful?"
"I do. I'm only disagreeing about whether it IMMEDIATELY CAUSED this. It still sucks in its own right, of course, it's just that that's a separate issue and I think we should keep them separate because [insert explanation]"
"oh, now I see. Gotcha."

Converstation continues without grar.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:21 AM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Wow, I just read the editorial linked by neroli. Then I read some of the comments. I don't recommend reading the comments. This thread now seems like a bastion of calm reflection.
posted by lillygog at 8:23 AM on January 12, 2011

Fearing tea-party violence, four Arizona republicans resign.

Jesus. Surely this...
posted by orville sash at 8:25 AM on January 12, 2011

So your argument is that every time something awful happens we need to blame it on conservatives because otherwise we're really helping them?

Actually, my argument was that there are moderates legitimately making a case for moderation, and there are immoderates using them as cover.

So, I'd amend the Empress's dialog to include at least one more voice: The immoderate instigator who chimes in with hyperbolic inferences. ("But if you impugn us, aren't you impugning the entire fraternity system? And if you impugn the fraternity system, aren't you attacking the entire University? And if you attack the University, aren't you attacking the whole country? Well, I for one will not stand here and listen to you bad-mouthing the United States of America!")
posted by lodurr at 8:26 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

The "blood libel"phrase was nicked from a WSJ editorial by Glenn Reynolds.

Aw, instapundit, wtf? Why was Reynolds using this completely inappropriate term? I did think him smarter than that.

But whatever. Does Palin not have a single adviser who could have vetted that speech and pointed out this wording was just going to fan the flames? Or does every speech need to have a little something embedded in it to keep the victim storyline going?

(I know the answer to that and don't mean to fan the flames here, either. I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that people could be either so ignorant or so cynical.)
posted by torticat at 8:26 AM on January 12, 2011

"I do. I'm only disagreeing about whether it IMMEDIATELY CAUSED this. It still sucks in its own right, of course, it's just that that's a separate issue and I think we should keep them separate because [insert explanation]"

This exact comment is what I have said like six times in this thread, and every time I do someone replies with 'I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU REFUSE TO CONDEMN HATE SPEECH'
posted by shakespeherian at 8:26 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I usually feel like I understand Palin's strategy and motives, even if I think they're scummy. I have no idea what the hell she's doing here.

She's not retreating, she's reloading.

That's all there is to it, in my opinion; I bet that she and/or handlers just heard the phrase somewhere, and thought it sounded good. I doubt that she knew its historical context (although I also doubt that she would care if she did know).
posted by Flunkie at 8:27 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

And you know, fuck, "blood libel" is a lot closer to the right's rhetorical stance than anything ever said on the left in the last 35 years. The drumbeat of "socialist," "fascist," "tyrant," etc. etc. language deployed, so to speak, against President Obama and the left more generally is dehumanizing, and suggestive of murderous regimes that did or do kill their dissenting citizens. And no small part of the resentment they drum up against the "coastal elites" and "the media" is rooted in that dumb nativist anti-Semitism one still finds in plenty of America where few actual Jews can be found, archaic anti-Semitism, I sometimes call it.

She didn't really want to open this box, not even to rally her base. Foolish move, Ms. Palin. Reckless indeed. Mavericky, even.

You know how we keep learning that whenever a right wing preacher or politician really invests himself in anti-gay rhetoric and policy, that man (so far, I think it's always been men) is almost certainly a closeted homosexual?

Well, the same framing applies to those screaming loudest about "socialism" and "fascism" in response to perfectly reasonable and democratic policy initiatives. The louder they scream, the more it is painfully evident they are projecting self-loathing over their own fantasy lives onto the rest of us. This is the authoritarian personality turned inward. The deepest irony of all is that the Tea Party mentality is a desire *for* socialism, fascism, theocracy, and authoritarian rule. Under the banners of individual liberty and the limitation of the power of government (which is how they misrecognize the economic power of corporations and the wealthy), they offer themselves for subjugation, declare a preference for spectacle over reason, and permit themselves to be manipulated like sheep with tugs on their most base instincts -- ones we all share -- to hurt and kill and exclude and dominate.

Sarah Palin is a fascist on the down-low. "Blood libel," my ass. Maybe she really can see Russia from her fucking house.
posted by spitbull at 8:29 AM on January 12, 2011 [16 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos,
We must really have different ways of reading things here because the only part of that last conversation I haven't seen is "oh, now I see. Gotcha."

Look at what mek has been writing. The possibility of even saying that "Yes, I agree that it is awful. But it didn't DIRECTLY CAUSE this." isn't being allowed. Either you agree with him or you're okay with hate speech.

Fuck that. I had enough of that shit from Bush.
posted by charred husk at 8:29 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

This exact comment is what I have said like six times in this thread, and every time I do someone replies with 'I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU REFUSE TO CONDEMN HATE SPEECH'

Maybe you should insert an explanation.
posted by mek at 8:30 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Fearing tea-party violence, four Arizona republicans resign.

how dare they exploit this tragedy for their own selfish reasons? - all people are doing is exercising their first amendment rights and they're willfully twisting it to make it sound like they're being victimized - they're politicizing this!!

(note to those on the right - when liberals talk about the left being a circular firing squad, it's not to be emulated literally)

snark aside, how many level headed people on both the right and the left are going to turn their backs on the idea of holding political office because of this?

to all those who have been denying the connection between violent rhetoric and saturday's violence, THIS is your connection right here - 4 people who have been bullied and frightened out of positions they were elected to

this is not democracy, it is fascism and it needs to stop
posted by pyramid termite at 8:31 AM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

I doubt that she knew its historical context

... because she's not particularly intelligent, she's far from thoughtful, and she obviously has little to no knowledge of history.
posted by Flunkie at 8:32 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sounds good. How's this:

Look, I hate the political rhetoric in this country. I do hate the tone that it takes on both sides of the aisle, but on the Republican side especially, because, as has been pointed out numerous times here, Palin and Beck and Bachmann and the birthers and Coulter and Limbaugh and Savage and many, many others say deplorable, terrible things that, were you to take them at their word, would suggest that they can only be delighted that a Democratic Congresswoman got shot in the head. If it sometimes sounds like I complain about liberals more than conservatives, it's only because I have greater expectations for liberals, and because I feel like I have a better chance of influencing people on my team.

And when something terrible like this shooting occurs and my political allies immediately blame my political foes, even though there isn't yet any evidence to know either way, it's my impression that it makes us look like bitter, partisan snipers who won't hesitate to exploit a tragedy to score a point for our team. And I don't want my team to look like that.

And if Loughner holds a press conference in five minutes where he says 'I wish it had been Imam Hussein Obama, that Kenyan socialist,' I will happily, and angrily, put a mountain of blame for this shooting on the violent and lie-filled rhetoric of the political right. But he hasn't done that yet, and nobody knows if he will. And that's my point.

posted by shakespeherian at 8:33 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

And MSNBC is now talking about "blood libel." Here we go.
posted by spitbull at 8:35 AM on January 12, 2011

Fearing tea-party violence, four Arizona republicans resign.

This is a huge story. No longer can anyone claim this is about liberals politicizing this shooting, if Republicans are so terrified of violence from the Tea Party that they have to resign.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:35 AM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

shakesepeherian, that's the comment I originally....replied....to? I think I'll just go slam my head into a wall for awhile, it might be more rewarding. While I'm doing that you can scroll up to read my responses again.
posted by mek at 8:41 AM on January 12, 2011

Can yall take that to metatalk or something?

Fearing tea-party violence, four Arizona republicans resign.

Somethin strategic is going on here. Palin's comments are ridiculous as I thought they might be. Why do people continue to think she is hurting herself? These people want war. They know what they are doing and they are fanning the flames unapologetically. Palin wouldn't care if 10 democrats got murdered by people wearing shirts with her maps on it.

Nothing she says is going to get her in trouble, because the people who are rooting for her are being rallied to war. Might as well quit with saying she's making foolish moves, that she's hurting her chances, and that she's not going to be able to run for president. View her as what she is positioning herself as, and view her as what her followers are treating her as - not a politician, but a war general.

She's fed into the fears of a huge part of the population, and swayed others on the edge, to believe that this is some kind of last stand, and that it is time for (in 2 years) war. We might end up looking back at the repulsive statement she made today and thinking it was candy coated topping compared to what's going to happen going forward.

Anyway - 20 minutes until the update on Congresswoman Giffords. I saw that she's moving her arms and scratching her nose, so I'm once again thankful and amazed at her progress.
posted by cashman at 8:42 AM on January 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

This is a huge story. No longer can anyone claim this is about liberals politicizing this shooting, if Republicans are so terrified of violence from the Tea Party that they have to resign.

You know, I hate to accuse the Republicans of engaging in some cynical ploy here, but it definitely smells bad. Disarm the Democrats and villify the Tea Party for the small price of some state-level cronies. Hopefully this leads to a rational discussion and not a "see, both sides!" end of debate where the Rs come out looking like the sane moderators.
posted by mek at 8:43 AM on January 12, 2011

Are you guys arguing about whether the toxic political climate is at the most indirectly responsible or at the least indirectly responsible? They are sort of the same thing you know.
posted by Artw at 8:44 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

pyramid termite: "to all those who have been denying the connection between violent rhetoric and saturday's violence, THIS is your connection right here - 4 people who have been bullied and frightened out of positions they were elected to"

Wrong. This is the connection between violent rhetoric and everyone's reaction to the shooting on Saturday. It still is damning to the Tea Party and the hate mongers on the right, but it still says nothing about Laughner's motives.

So, what should be done about the violent rhetoric on the right?
posted by charred husk at 8:45 AM on January 12, 2011

Are you guys arguing about whether the toxic political climate is at the most indirectly responsible or at the least indirectly responsible? They are sort of the same thing you know.

They're desperately trying to triangulate a middle ground where there is none. It's fun to watch, though.
posted by mek at 8:49 AM on January 12, 2011

We're not reading the same conversation. I'm seeing something more like:

"This is an awful situation!"
"Yeah, hate speech like that IS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR this!"
"We don't know what caused this. Maybe it's the hate speech, but not necessarily!"
"Why don't you want us to talk about the hate speech? You must think it's okay!"
I don't think it's okay. I hate it. I think it sucks, but we don't know if that's why he did it!"
"Why don't you want us to talk about the hate speech? You must think it's okay!"

And that is why I'm suggesting adding the following bolded qualifiers:

We're not reading the same conversation. I'm seeing something more like:

"This is an awful situation!"
"Yeah, hate speech like that IS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR this!"
"We don't know what caused this. Maybe it's the hate speech, but not necessarily!"
"Why don't you want us to talk about the hate speech? You must think it's okay!"
"I don't think it's okay. I hate it. I think it sucks, but we don't know if that's why he did it!"
"Why don't you want us to talk about the hate speech? You must think it's okay!"
"I don't think it's okay. I just think it should be a separate conversation because [x, y, z]. I believe that we should be talking about hate speech as a separate thing because [a, b, and c], and the problem with connecting the two is that [d, e, and f]. So how can we combat hate speech?"

And to clarify: if you are someone who's been adding these qualifiers, then you are not one of the people I was talking to in my original post anyway, so yay.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:50 AM on January 12, 2011

Fearing tea-party violence, four Arizona republicans resign.

It's just like Frankenstein, except the angry mob of superstitious villagers is on the monster's side.
posted by EarBucket at 8:51 AM on January 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

I don't know how it is in Arizona but the rift between the Tea Party and the "regular" Republicans here is pretty darn deep. The first group sees just about everyone in the second group as RINOs.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:52 AM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Is everyone just so upset in this thread that they're looking to pick a fight with people? What the fuck?

A lot of people assumed early in the thread, when there wasn't much information available other than that there had been an assassination on a democratic congresswoman, that the shooter must have been involved in the Tea Party - not an unreasonable assumption to make given the kind of rhetoric people in this faction have been using.

Later when more information became available, a lot of people started saying that it looked like the shooter was pretty nuts, and his theories about mind control and grammar didn't sound like standard Tea Party stuff. And they got attacked for questioning the direct link to Palin, because, of course, the only possible reason anyone would do that was to defend Palin and defend violent right-wing rhetoric. They couldn't possibly, you know, actually just think Loughner seemed pretty nuts.

It doesn't matter how many times you how many times you point out, as many people have done in this thread, that there have been other threats, physical attacks, and assassination attempts that have been directly linked to the Tea Party and right wing rhetoric, that you think that, even if this attack wasn't directly linked to the Tea Party or a right wing movement, it's still good that we're talking about it because this incident reminds us very forcefully of what's wrong with violent, dehumanizing rhetoric and happen's when that kind of rhetoric is translated into reality, as it inevitably will be.

You can say this however many times you want. You're still a &@#%*$ apologist if you're skeptical about a direct link between Palin and the shooter, because it's a black and white issue. Palin is directly, criminally responsible! None of this wishy-washy shit about poisonous political environment and raising awareness, direct criminal responsibility! If you deny this in any way you're the enemy!

There have been a couple people in thread who seem to be defending right-wing rhetoric, but I don't think most people who think Loughner seems a bit nuts, or that his theories seem idiosyncratic, are defending violent political rhetoric, or actions.

It's ironic it's come to this in a thread where we were talking about the consequences of dehumanizing, black and white, us-vs-them political rhetoric. But, you know, typical MeFi political thread.
posted by nangar at 9:00 AM on January 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

Artw: "Are you guys arguing about whether the toxic political climate is at the most indirectly responsible or at the least indirectly responsible? They are sort of the same thing you know"

I can't speak for any one else, but I'm arguing that it may not have had any responsibility at all, at least not in any way that is meaningful. A large part of the argument for is that he wouldn't have seen Gabrielle Giffords as a target worth shooting otherwise. I'd say that if she's his rep then that would also be a reason for him to target her. She's the highest profile target he can easily get his gun sights on.

*DISCLAMER*But, violent political speech is still bad in and of itself.*DISCLAIMER*
posted by charred husk at 9:01 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sarah Palin might be the dumbest person on earth.
posted by empath at 9:07 AM on January 12, 2011

Fearing tea party violence, four Arizona Republicans resign

I guess those theories that the Tea Party was going to tear the Republican party apart were closer to being on the mark than I ever would have imagined.

It's going to be much harder to provide a unified front when even their own members are leaving in fear of the rhetoric turning to action.
posted by quin at 9:09 AM on January 12, 2011

Palin is directly, criminally responsible! None of this wishy-washy shit about poisonous political environment and raising awareness, direct criminal responsibility! If you deny this in any way you're the enemy!

This is nutz.

Sarah Palin might be the dumbest person on earth.

This is true.
posted by orville sash at 9:09 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I don't hold Sarah Palin responsible for the shootings by any stretch of the imagination. But when you do the whole crosshairs thing with the gun rhetoric, you have to feel pretty stupid when one of the people in your crosshairs gets killed.

The crazy guy is to blame. She is not to blame. But it does clearly demonstrate that she lacks the maturity and judgment to be considered for elected office, much less the presidency. Mature people who exercise judgment do not use language or imagery that suggest elected officials should be killed.

I think that people need to not blame her. People need to become dismissive of her. Between this incident and quitting as governor, she clearly lacks the maturity and adult judgment that is required to be elected. And that is what people should be focusing on.
posted by flarbuse at 9:15 AM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Empress, it's been a really long thread, and the names and comments run together. It's almost impossible to remember who said what when. It's easy for someone who seems like your friend in one comment to become your enemy when they say something later that sounds like it might be used as part of an "apologist" argument.

if you are someone who's been adding these qualifiers, then you are not one of the people I was talking to in my original post anyway

I'm very glad to hear you say that. People have discussed what you're describing as "qualifications" at length in the thread, and I don't think most of the people you're assuming are apologizing for defending violent right-wing political rhetoric are in fact doing that.
posted by nangar at 9:21 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Palin, Breitbart, Others Invoke "Blood Libel" Claim
posted by homunculus at 9:23 AM on January 12, 2011

Josh Marshall: "Today has been set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre. And Sarah Palin has apparently decided she's one of them."
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:31 AM on January 12, 2011 [14 favorites]

Sarah Palin might be the dumbest person on earth.

Sure, Palin is dumb (as is much of the Tea Party) and history tells us, time and again, dumb can be very, very dangerous. So whether or not, she (or they) are directly responsible for what happened in Arizona, it's dumb to turn your back on a known danger.

So they do need to be watched, closely, maybe even confronted. But not dumbly. That's dangerous. Not only does it undermine the overall credibility of your position, it's just terrible tactics. Read a few pages from The Art Of War. You don't have to get very far before it's telling you to NOT go charging into battle foaming with ill-contained rage. You tend to make a stupid of mess of things and get your ass handed to you, in pieces.

There's way too much ready-FIRE-aim thinking going on in this thread. Understandable given the sheer evil of what went down, but it remains DUMB.
posted by philip-random at 9:32 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fearing Tea Party Violence, four Arizona republicans resign

The historian Robert Paxton, who studied Europe during World War II, defined fascism as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy, but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 9:34 AM on January 12, 2011 [36 favorites]

shakespeherian: No, you aren't supposed to stop. No one has said that. Jesus Christ.

FWIW, I've appreciated the distinction you've made repeatedly between condemning the rhetoric and objecting to "rhetoric caused the tragedy" sentiments.

And, it seemed and seems to me that the only practical extension of the premise And if the cause you're claiming as your own not only isn't related, but is an unrelated tragedy, it's a little exploitive is "Stop this verbalizing that you've been doing all along." I may be wrong, but at the moment I don't think that was an unreasonable conclusion to have drawn.

Martin Luther King Jr Day has got absolutely nothing to do with the advisability of eating vegetables, I agree. I don't agree that Loughner's choice of target has as little to do with right-wing rhetoric as Martin Luther King Jr Day has to do with eating vegetables. They resemble each other enough to have inspired some honest thoughtful conservatives to step back and reconsider.

Because it seems to have made concrete for them that constantly hyperbolic dehumanizing violent rhetoric may not be, after all, harmless fun like booing a rival sports team. Not in a country with a mental health infrastructure like this, not in the middle of an arc of credible threats of violence against elected representatives. I would guess (perhaps I'm wrong) that they're inspired to rethink because they're realizing that if someone did take that rhetoric literally (hardly a long shot given the aforesaid context), this tragedy is exactly what it would look like.

Fearing tea-party violence, four Arizona republicans resign.

Holy shit. I thought that was going to be an Onion article.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 9:42 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Who the hell puts their desk in front of their fireplace, & puts a flag next to it? That's just weird.
posted by scalefree at 9:44 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

People have discussed what you're describing as "qualifications" at length in the thread, and I don't think most of the people you're assuming are apologizing for defending violent right-wing political rhetoric are in fact doing that.

Except I actually wasn't making any accusations in the first place.

What I was seeing was that some people -- I have no idea who -- were complaining about not being allowed to say "these two incidents are not connected." I looked back through the thread and seemed to see a lot of comments - again, I have no idea who made them -- that seemed focused more so on the "the two are not connected" and did not go on to say "but that's different from whether I think it's wrong anyway".

It's possible I came in during a heated moment. It's possible that over the course of a more-than-a-thousand-comment-thread, I got confused and missed a couple things. But even though I quoted a specific person, I was not addressing that specific person, I was addressing anyone who was making such a statement and offering what I thought was the helpful suggestion that "maybe emphasizing the 'but I still think it's wrong' more will help decrease the ire."

I never was addressing a specific person or making accusations. I quoted a specific person, but that's only because they seemed to encapsulate the kind of "but why can I not object to the connecting the two incidents" problem everyone else was expressing.

As to the argument that "but I've been doing that", all I can say is, I didn't catch it. It may be because I didn't read carefully. But it may also be because this is a tremendously long fucking thread about an issue we're all upset about, and that boosting the signal-to-noise ratio just a bit further may be helpful. Again -- I am not accusing any specific person of "not saynig it" or "not doing" anything. I'm just reporting that whatever "but I still think the rhetoric is wrong" disclaimers are being issued, they're being overlooked, and that is why there is grar.

And once more for clarity -- I never was accusing anyone of failing in any particular way. I was simply reporting that "this is what it looks like from where I'm sitting, and this may be an explanation for why there is grar." If you are already doing what I suggested, hooray, but it seems others are missing that. If you are not doing what I suggested, then perhaps it may help. If you are already doing what I suggested and think I'm blind for not seeing it, then we're at an impasse, because all I an say is I'm not seeing much of it.

And for further clarity - I am not singling out whether person A or person B is or is not doing any given thing. I can barely remember my own name, to be honest, much less keep track of all y'all's. If you all want to claim you're one of the "but I have been saying rhetoric's bad," I wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:44 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Friend of Loughner (via ABC):

"He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.

He was shooting at the world."
posted by cashman at 9:46 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

For those that didn't read it, the final graf of the Matt Taibbi piece:

But identifying and proving the truth about those unspoken messages is difficult to impossible, and it's going to be denied in the usual quarters, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Moreover, even asserting that that hidden agenda exists will inevitably elicit a paranoid response that might exacerbate the situation. So I'm not sure what needs to be done. A good start, though, might be for all of us in the media business to admit that this might be on us, that the built-in professional incentives in our field are often wrong for society, and that we should at least start talking about what we need to do to change that.

posted by Mental Wimp at 9:47 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't agree that Loughner's choice of target has as little to do with right-wing rhetoric as Martin Luther King Jr Day has to do with eating vegetables. They resemble each other enough to have inspired some honest thoughtful conservatives to step back and reconsider.

I think my issue is more with people attempting to frame the situation as 'This awful rhetoric is to blame,' rather than 'This awful rhetoric is awful, regardless of whether it caused this particular thing or not,' because then it turns into a fight about whether and what Loughner heard or believed or whatever, when it could be a discussion about why awful rhetoric is awful. Like, saying 'Sarah Palin is responsible in ways X, Y, Z' is going to derail the conversation of 'Doesn't Sarah Palin look awful and feel awful because she said these things, and now this has happened, and shouldn't people be more mindful of the things they say?'

So I agree that it's a good thing that honest and thoughtful people (conservative or otherwise) have taken this as an opportunity to reconsider the way opponents and opinions are discussed. But I think that continuing to attempt to draw a direct connection between that rhetoric and Loughner's actions while as yet we have no knowledge of his motives is not going to encourage that reconsideration, but instead cast this as yet another Liberals Hate Sarah thing, which will put a great many Palin supporters on the defensive.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:54 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

EarBucket: "Fearing tea-party violence, four Arizona republicans resign.

It's just like Frankenstein, except the angry mob of superstitious villagers is on the monster's side."

Wait... Wasn't that kinda ... the point of the story?
posted by symbioid at 9:57 AM on January 12, 2011

Could Palin's staging be hokier? In front of a fireplace with a flag and a flag pin?

She is the stupidest person ever. I rue the day that Bill Kristol saw her on that conservative cruise and got all crushed out. The fact that this tragedy turns into a story about her is a travesty.

This tragedy belongs to Gifford's family along with the other real victims.
posted by readery at 10:04 AM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

The skeptics must be right. It must all just be coincidence: the escalating violent rhetoric, the association of right wing ideals with militancy and public intimidation through the display of firearms, etc., couldn't possibly have any meaningful connection to the lone nuts flying their planes into public buildings on anti-tax rampages, or the lone nuts murdering abortion doctors at their Church services, or the many politicians who've being threatened with physical harm. This is in fact logically provable: As Hume successfully proved, all phenomenal events are really just unrelated coincidences in which, by custom, we've learned to recognize certain coincidentally recurring patterns. There's no rigorous basis for inferring causal connections between any two events because causality--or the possibility of it--is axiomatic. Assuming the possibility of causality is a requirement of our logical systems; we can't prove it in the most general case, period, so definitively proving a causal relationship in any special case like this will always leave some opportunity for doubt.

The fact that there's always a skeptical argument to be made when it comes to claims of causality is simply a property of human language, which is necessarily formally incomplete and imprecise enough to create literally endless opportunities for skepticism. There's even a term for the phenomenon: epistemological uncertainty. Epistemological uncertainty--i.e., the potential for skepticism about how we think we know what we know--is inescapable.

But there's no need to posit a simple direct causal connection to see the potential for any number of less direct causal relationships here between violent right wing rhetoric and this tragedy. While laying the blame directly at the feet of the Tea Party and their compatriots might not be correct, it's at least 99% correct in my estimation to lay some of the blame at the feet of all the parties in our political system and society who participate in the dehumanization and vilification of liberals (well, anyone, really--but the fictional liberal of the talk radio set seems to be the favorite scape goat du jour).

But in any case, there's no excuse for how casual violent attitudes toward the ideals of political liberalism--the very ideals that arguably most inspired the founding of our nation--have become in this country. Our culture and society should not be willing to tolerate public figures who make casual remarks about killing others for their political beliefs period. The popular idea that intolerance of intolerance itself constitutes a kind of intolerance is again merely a trick of language: in reality, being intolerant of intolerance is exactly what tolerance calls for, because tolerance isn't merely the direct logical negation of intolerance: it's a completely different animal, a set of cultural and moral guiding principles that are specifically and aggressively opposed to intolerance.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:10 AM on January 12, 2011 [22 favorites]

So Palin's divisive and aggressive rhetoric is free speech and should be protected and respected, but people who question her choice of words are irresponsible and should shut up?

?!?
posted by mazola at 10:19 AM on January 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Thank you, phillip-random....

This is what I learned in a self-defense class (non-gun) that knocked me on my ass. When being attacked you're not the victim you may think you are. If the attacker is on their way in and has not gotten control of one's body the attacker is at a major disadvantage 1) Because he/she are jacked on adrenalin and 2) There focus is so acute that any movement outside of it throws them off their center. One neither folds like a cheap suit (normal response of many) or attacks in return. The attackers momentum is used to your advantage to get the hell out and go for help.

Another bit cribbed from a friend I know....

"Something about political mindset learned from working in Intel community…

1) How can this new thing hurt us?
2) Who is creating it, promoting it, or grabbing it?
3) What is their agenda?
4) How might that agenda shape people's attitudes in harmful way?

Such paranoia has a way of being self-fulfilling. It institutionalizes distrust, establishing an interpretive apparatus that sees only threat and only enemies, and thereby helps create both."
posted by goalyeehah at 10:20 AM on January 12, 2011

As much as I long for Sarah Palin to sit down and shut up and go take care of her kids, I do have to say it's evil coincidence that this particular lawmaker was shot-The Crazy Dude could just as well fixated on a Republican as a Democrat.

It looks foolish to blame this particular tragedy on the political atmosphere.

But if that's what it takes for everyone to take a deep breath and confront it, I can live with that.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 10:21 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sarah Palin might be the dumbest person on earth.

well, except for those that follow her.
posted by HyperBlue at 10:25 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

In front of a fireplace with a flag and a flag pin?

You would think they would have the sense (when they pieced together this background image) to use a flag that wasn't blowing in the wind.
posted by marimeko at 10:27 AM on January 12, 2011

In front of a fireplace with a flag and a flag pin?

You would think they would have the sense (when they pieced together this background image) to use a flag that wasn't blowing in the wind.

Yeah, it is so odd. How would that have been placed in there? It doesn't look natural.
posted by readery at 10:37 AM on January 12, 2011

I was just talking this over with a colleague who said, quite astutely "every time Palin does something you think would hurt her, just watch. It often, strangely, somehow helps her."

The religious right in the US loves to associate itself with Jews, and the religious right in the US are addicted to a self-image as a persecuted minority; the obsession with images of Christian persecution is hardly unique to them (plenty of liberal Mefites foam at the mouth and collapse into keyboard seizures if you associate the words "privelege" and "religion" in the US), but they're most deeply addicted to it. I imagine the invocation of blood libel will be catnip to a large chunk of the US right.
posted by rodgerd at 10:42 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it is so odd. How would that have been placed in there? It doesn't look natural.

It's not uncommon to use "backgrounds" but the idea is to make it look real - they clearly didn't care about that. This interests me as a former set designer. If Palin wanted to seem at all authentic (which was never going to happen with that statement - even if she had more time to rehearse) creating that video would have been better done in actual office. I find interesting what she was trying to evoke: that she holds any kind of official "office" at all.
posted by marimeko at 10:44 AM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Proviso to my previous post is the one who is being attacked needs to be aware, alert, knowing of this and how to respond to this momentum which is to parry it off to one side while you get out of the way.
posted by goalyeehah at 10:44 AM on January 12, 2011

Alan Dershowitz defends Sarah Palin's use of the term "blood libel".

The term “blood libel” has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse. Although its historical origins were in theologically based false accusations against the Jews and the Jewish People, its current usage is far broader. I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report. There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of using this widely used term."

Yeah, it's a link to a Breitbart site. Get over it.
posted by BobbyVan at 10:45 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it is so odd. How would that have been placed in there? It doesn't look natural.

It's supposed to look presidential. And if you're gonna have a flag it might as well be waving. They probably spent 20 minutes playing with the fan & arguing over how much breeze made it look best.
posted by scalefree at 10:46 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

first, .

And MSNBC is now talking about "blood libel." Here we go.

Second. Come on. Whether she ganked it from a (wow I should remind myself never, ever to click on a link to a) WSJ editorial or not, whether she has any idea what blood libel is, or for that matter just straight-up libel, recognize this for what is.

Sarah Palin is an SEO trick. She is a link farm. She is a bunch of random content scraped from reality and repackaged with a flash to attract the all-seeing eye. Twelve revisions ago of a stolen Wikipedia article about a pit-bull with lipstick. Nothing more. Don't get angry about it, don't respond to it. Just don't pay any attention. Answer the call, and you're her traffic. That's what she wants.

Third, it's probably not in the spirit of not paying attention to wish for the Golem of Prague to make her go away, is it? Even if she did invoke him? Damn.
posted by Vetinari at 10:46 AM on January 12, 2011 [29 favorites]

Alan Dershowitz would defend Palin turning up to the funeral wearing a swastika bikini if he thought it would further the neocon agenda.
posted by Artw at 10:48 AM on January 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

Alan Dershowitz would defend Palin turning up to the funeral wearing a swastika bikini if he thought it would further the neocon agenda.

And yet, if you tortured her for doing so he'd defend you.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:57 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

BobbyVan (quoting Dershowitz): "The term “blood libel” has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse."

Is this the case at all? I have never heard it used outside of the historical context.
posted by brundlefly at 11:05 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

it's probably not in the spirit of not paying attention to wish for the Golem of Prague to make her go away

Actually, the funny is thing is that Palin doesn't realize that she's the Golem in the blood libel metaphor: created out of nothing, brainless but powerful, very effective for a while but then becoming a danger to everyone.
posted by neroli at 11:05 AM on January 12, 2011 [16 favorites]

Alan Dershowitz can never be completely unhappy so long as someone is getting tortured.
posted by Artw at 11:05 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

vetinari: Sarah Palin is an SEO trick. She is a link farm. She is a bunch of random content scraped from reality and repackaged with a flash to attract the all-seeing eye.

Reading this was one of those "of course, how could I not have seen it that way" moments.

(And absolutely nothing that Dershowitz does surprises me any more. He's like the human realization of a logical contradiction: Once he betrayed all of his apparent principles to make sweet sweet love to the neocons, absolutely anything could follow.)
posted by lodurr at 11:08 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Alan Dershowitz would defend Palin turning up to the funeral wearing a swastika bikini if he thought it would further the neocon agenda.

You make it sound dirty when you say it that way.
posted by scalefree at 11:10 AM on January 12, 2011

Is this the case at all? I have never heard it used outside of the historical context.

Yeah, blood libel is used to refer to blaming a group for something with the implication that the group as a whole is not responsible for the action of one or a small number of them.

The term, as used, is appropriate.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:11 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Right, because Palin is suffering just like the Jews have. Come the fuck on. She's a clown.
posted by empath at 11:18 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Brundlefly, while not extremely common outside the historical context, there is precedent...

Here's a mention of "blood libel" on Glenn Greenwald's blog in 2007, referring to a Tony Blair speech on Iran and terrorism.

Here's a CBS legal blogger using "blood libel" to criticize McCain on judicial activism.

Here's former Miami Herald editor Tom Fiedler using "blood libel" (as quoted in the New York Times) in a dispute with Cuban exiles.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:20 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

The term, as used, is appropriate.

How so? Sarah Palin is not a group as a whole, and she's being taken to task for something she actually did, not a fabrication that superstitious Europeans peasants have been told she did because it is useful to have them hating a religious minority.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:21 AM on January 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

You can say this however many times you want. You're still a &@#%*$ apologist if you're skeptical about a direct link between Palin and the shooter, because it's a black and white issue. Palin is directly, criminally responsible! None of this wishy-washy shit about poisonous political environment and raising awareness, direct criminal responsibility! If you deny this in any way you're the enemy!

[later in the same comment]

It's ironic it's come to this in a thread where we were talking about the consequences of dehumanizing, black and white, us-vs-them political rhetoric. But, you know, typical MeFi political thread.

I LOLed.
posted by hippybear at 11:21 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Horrible killing in Tuscon.

Matt Taibbi: Looks long in mirror.

Sarah Palin: Claims victimhood.
posted by Trochanter at 11:22 AM on January 12, 2011 [13 favorites]

Here's former Miami Herald editor Tom Fiedler using "blood libel" (as quoted in the New York Times) in a dispute with Cuban exiles.

Wrong to use in every case.
posted by empath at 11:24 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

You would think they would have the sense (when they pieced together this background image) to use a flag that wasn't blowing in the wind.

At least it wasn't her usual Israeli flag.

This "blood libel" slip-up is maybe the weirdest thing I have ever heard Sarah Palin say. Weirder than the thing about reading all the newspapers, weirder than not being able to name a single Supreme Court case other than Roe vs. Wade, weirder than her explanation that she had to quit her job to do it more effectively, weirder than "refudiate." This is quite simply breaking my brain.

People accusing her of recklessly spewing violent political rhetoric that may have had an influence on this attempted killing of a Jewish politician is somehow equivalent to the antisemitic slur that Jews harvest the blood of Christian babies. And it also "serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn." So it causes people to kill babies? Is she the baby here... or the Jews... or... ??

You win, Sarah. Well played.
posted by albrecht at 11:25 AM on January 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

Albrecht, you follow her careful logic:

You can't incite violence with political speech.

My political opponents are inciting violence with their political speech.

Thus I do not drink the blood of christian babies.
posted by empath at 11:26 AM on January 12, 2011 [14 favorites]

the group as a whole is not responsible for the action of one or a small number of them

Wait--what? So the Blood Libel is about how wrong it was to accuse all Jew's of drinking the blood of Christian children when in fact it was only some Jews drinking the blood of Christian children?

This is absolutely wrong. The idea of the Blood Libel is that the dominant social class was making up lies (hence "libel") about the Jews that weren't based in any factual reality whatsoever to depict them as subhuman and monstrous.

There's no valid analogy to be drawn here whatsoever, because Palin isn't speaking on behalf of a minority group unfairly accused of some monstrous offense to human decency with no basis in reality, and Palin herself does make use of violent and sometimes stunningly dishonest political rhetoric.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:29 AM on January 12, 2011 [10 favorites]

How come no one is upset that a mentally deranged youth, kicked out of community college and apparently with several run ins with the law, was able to buy a hand gun and an extended 30 piece mag?

I know a lot of people who absolutely love guns and seem to have a grand old time purchasing them, firing them, showing them off, etc. I have no problems with private gun ownership. Politically, the idea of banning anything except the most egregious assault rifles is a dead in the water idea. That doesn't mean that we can't regulate who gets what, and I think some sort of mental competency test should be required for everything short of long rifles.

We have concealed carry classes and the people I know who go to those don't complain. Why not extend it to all handguns? Does anyone doubt that this kid, who frightened his entire class on the first day of school, would pass a handgun training class? No, he wouldn't and a common theme on a lot of these shootings seems to be, "If there was going to be one person who'd shoot up the place, it was this guy." Let's make it somewhat harder to purchase a handgun than a violent video game. Would it have prevented him from stealing something from his dad's gun cabinet?

Probably not, but again, you're making it that much harder for him to commit the crime. Suppose he has trouble breaking into the cabinet or one of the parents notices and manages to notify authority or the simple fact that most people to carry extended clips and a few lives would have been spared if his rampage was ended after 6-12 shots.

The fact that NRA and gun supporters aren't tripping over themselves to get something in place really shows the sad state the gun control lobby has found itself in. No, we don't want to ban guns and no, no one wants there to be a Kafka-esque application process between wanting to buy a gun and going through on the purchase. Sure criminals will always have easy access to firearms and I doubt this will do anything to stem that, but I really doubt loners like this would be able to finesse a black market gun purchase.

Even better, continue to have easy access to shooting ranges. Can't buy a gun? Make it dead easy to let these guys get their rocks off in a controlled setting. How many massacres happen in shooting ranges? None, and you don't inconvenience the people who just want to blow off some steam or just enjoy the hobby.

A bit disjointed, but I think I got my point across.
posted by geoff. at 11:29 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

As an actual Jew, I am feeling some burning rage over Palin's effrontery in using the term "blood libel." And I'm not the only Jewish person who is already angry about that. It certainly doesn't assuage me that she staged her response carefully, complete with phony POTUS set, but omitting that pesky media presence which might actually show some respect for the meaning of the first amendment.

But here's what makes me angriest of all -- while Palin wasn't the first to use the "blood libel" term, wholly inappropriately, to respond to criticism of her violent political imagery, look how far she took it. She said:

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don't like a person's vision for the country, you're free to debate that vision. If you don't like their ideas, you're free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

Get that? She's saying that she, Palin is now a target of "hatred and violence" because it is a blood libel to criticize her for putting a rifle scope over the very (Jewish) Congresswoman who was shot on Saturday.

Un-be-liev-able, and unbelievably offensive too. No, I don't think this move is going to make her smell like anything but the foul and self centered creature she is.
posted by bearwife at 11:33 AM on January 12, 2011 [21 favorites]

I encourage people with YouTube accounts to flag it as promoting terrorism. --- I was wondering if anyone else found other similar videos that deserve to be similarly tagged.
posted by crunchland at 11:40 AM on January 12, 2011

Blood Libel?

Fucking 'ell that's, well, I don't know what that is. A mixture of shock, disgust and fascination, she is Goatse in political form.
posted by fullerine at 11:41 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

By the way, Richard Goldstone's (of the Goldstone report) response to Alan Dershowitz's use of the term "blood libel":

Professor Dershowitz's accusation that the report's conclusion constitutes a ‘blood libel,' whatever he understands that expression to mean, demeans him and not the authors of the report. The facts in the report speak for themselves.
posted by albrecht at 11:41 AM on January 12, 2011

geoff.: "How come no one is upset that a mentally deranged youth, kicked out of community college and apparently with several run ins with the law, was able to buy a hand gun and an extended 30 piece mag?"

"He could have killed those people with something else. Lawn furniture, maybe."
posted by brundlefly at 11:45 AM on January 12, 2011

How so? Sarah Palin is not a group as a whole, and she's being taken to task for something she actually did...

Yes. She's not a group. That's rather the point. And she's is indeed being taken to task for something that may or may not have anything to do with the incident in question.

Jeebus, people. You're making me defend Palin. Y'all need to calm the frak down.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:47 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

First off, way upthread, I was wrong about Palin deleting her Facebook posts and tweets -- I was working off bad information from Twitter, ironically. Instead of deleting the crosshairs, she's just saying they're surveyors marks, which is an infinitely more dumb way to backtrack.

Second, let me try to articulate what people are saying about her rhetoric. The statement is: "The violent rhetoric and implicit calls for assassination from your group are irresponsible. While this particular guy was just a nutjob, it highlights the tremendous tragedy you're fomenting on a near-daily basis. Now that we've seen how bad it is when a politician actually gets shots, let's please stop asking for people to shoot politicians." When Palin endorses people like Sharron Angle, who called for "second amendment remedies", and puts crosshairs on politicians, she's steering the tone of the debate in the same way people who post names and addresses of abortion doctors on "Most Wanted" webpages.

Now the "blood libel" thing. Let's try to make sense of it:
* Blood Libel: People said the Jews killed children to get blood for their rituals, which they didn't do
* "Manufactured" Thing: People said we incited violence through our irresponsible eliminationist rhetoric

Outside of the wildly inappropriate use of the term for anything other than its actual historical meaning, this is like the difference between:

* Our patient died from cancer, but it sure looked like a witch put a curse on him. Burn the witch!
* Our patient died from cancer, but it sure looked like emphysema at first. Let's review the dangers of smoking while we're on the subject.
posted by 0xFCAF at 11:53 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Here's another analogy which I saw on a comment thread that I can't find now, but it went something like this:

Imagine you're a serious alcoholic and you go out drinking and then drive home every weekend.

One weekend, you get blackout drunk and wake up on your couch with the news on. The news is saying that a drunk driver hit and killed a pedestrian last night and drove off, and the description of the car matched yours.

You go outside, frantic that you may have killed someone.

Luckily when you go outside, your car is there, without so much as a scratch. It probably wasn't you that killed the pedestrian.

Do you

A) Take this opportunity to evaluate what you are doing with your life?

B) Go out and get drunk to celebrate your good luck?
posted by empath at 11:55 AM on January 12, 2011 [42 favorites]

"He could have killed those people with something else. Lawn furniture, maybe."

Bwahahaha. I love it.

Somehow it reminds me of one of my favorite sayings...

"Guns don't kill people. Physics kills people."
posted by hippybear at 11:55 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Search for "Helen, Helen, Helen" in Palin's twitter feed. Amusing, that.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:02 PM on January 12, 2011

Luckily when you go outside, your car is there, without so much as a scratch. It probably wasn't you that killed the pedestrian.

Do you

A) Take this opportunity to evaluate what you are doing with your life?

B) Go out and get drunk to celebrate your good luck?

Is this a trick question? Because I'm going with "C) Compare myself to a Holocaust victim".
posted by Flunkie at 12:04 PM on January 12, 2011 [11 favorites]

BobbyVan (quoting Dershowitz): "The term “blood libel” has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse."

Is this the case at all? I have never heard it used outside of the historical context.

I've never even heard of the term at all. And I thought I was fairly well read.

The chances of Palin knowing what it really meant and why it might be problematic is probably near zero.

I am very very VERY unhappy with John McCain right about now.....
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 12:05 PM on January 12, 2011

Sarah Palin Has Already Removed Her 'Blood Libel' Video
posted by neroli at 12:08 PM on January 12, 2011

Sarah Palin Has Already Removed Her 'Blood Libel' Video

Replaced with a video of surveyors.
posted by dirigibleman at 12:10 PM on January 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

Actually, that Business Insider link is wrong--the video is still there.
posted by neroli at 12:13 PM on January 12, 2011

Jeebus, people. You're making me defend Palin. Y'all need to calm the frak down.

No one should have to do that. But it's important to understand what the idea of "Blood Libel" actually denotes. It refers to deliberately propagating false claims that incite violence against or libel an entire group of people. No one has accused Palin or anyone on the right of engaging in acts so unnatural that the only sensible solution would seem to be to kill them or drive them out of society. In fact, that's putting the actual case almost completely on its head: Right wing pundits literally do describe liberals in monstrous and dehumanizing terms on a regular basis (remember Coulter's infamous remark about how the public would "boil liberals in oil" if they knew what was really in their hearts? Yeah, accusing your political opponents of harboring such unnatural views and attitudes that boiling them in oil could be taken to represent a legitimate response to their mere existence, that's kind of what an actual analogue to "Blood Libel" might look like. And Coulter's not exactly an outlier anymore in the world of right wing punditry).
posted by saulgoodman at 12:15 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Palin's use of "blood libel" was an idiot trying to look smart by using bookish terms. Always a dangerous thing to do.
posted by hippybear at 12:16 PM on January 12, 2011

I don't think it's okay. I just think it should be a separate conversation because [x, y, z]. I believe that we should be talking about hate speech as a separate thing because [a, b, and c], and the problem with connecting the two is that [d, e, and f]. So how can we combat hate speech?"

There is a major, important reason to separate the conversations. If we focus on talking about hate speech and it turns out it didn't cause this we aren't talking about what really caused it. The gun control and mental health law conversations would be more important.

I really think this conversation is just about miscommunication and an over-large thread. We all agree violent rhetoric is bad. We don't need to convince anyone here on that.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:16 PM on January 12, 2011

Sarah Palin's charge of 'blood libel' spurs outcry from Jewish leaders:

The term 'blood libel' is not a synonym for 'false accusation,' " said Simon Greer, president of Jewish Funds for Justice. "It refers to a specific falsehood perpetuated by Christians about Jews for centuries, a falsehood that motivated a good deal of anti-Jewish violence and discrimination. Unless someone has been accusing Ms. Palin of killing Christian babies and making matzoh from their blood, her use of the term is totally out of line."

posted by scody at 12:16 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

empath: "Here's another analogy which I saw on a comment thread that I can't find now, but it went something like this:"

That is perfect. Thank you for posting that.
posted by brundlefly at 12:17 PM on January 12, 2011

Who is her speech writer now?
posted by empath at 12:17 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

For someone who likes to talk about what an honest straight talker she is, Sarah Palin doesn't half seem to do a lot of equivocating.
posted by dng at 12:18 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

But it's important to understand what the idea of "Blood Libel" actually denotes. It refers to deliberately propagating false claims that incite violence against or libel an entire group of people. No one has accused Palin or anyone on the right of engaging in acts so unnatural that the only sensible solution would seem to be to kill them or drive them out of society.

Fair point. But any group under attack (and I'd put Palin in that category at this point) isn't going to see how it pans out in the long run.

The irony therein is that Gabby didn't do so, to her detriment.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:23 PM on January 12, 2011

Glenn Reynolds responds to criticisms of the use of "blood libel."

I still think Palin's speech was tone-deaf and disgustingly self-serving, but in fairness Reynolds has some points about this particular point. See the examples link (NRO). Use of the term seems more common but not exclusive to the Right.
posted by torticat at 12:24 PM on January 12, 2011

If it's so damn common, why did they have to print an explainer about how common it is? Not to be all post-modern about it, but doesn't the implicit message on the commonness of use of the "Blood Libel" phrase basically refute the overt one in this case?
posted by saulgoodman at 12:28 PM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Disruptive Arizona suspect axed from online group
posted by hippybear at 12:29 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

rather than 'This awful rhetoric is awful, regardless of whether it caused this particular thing or not,' because then it turns into a fight about whether and what Loughner heard or believed or whatever, when it could be a discussion about why awful rhetoric is awful.

Agreed. Getting that discussion off the ground would be helped if 1. more people pointed out that calling out that rhetoric has been ongoing for years and is therefore NOT opportunistically exploitative, and 2. more right-leaning people would consider thinking to themselves, "Hmmm, constant dehumanizing violent rhetoric against my political opposites is fun, but is it good for the country? I enjoy Palin, Limbaugh, and Beck's colorful cheerleading for Our Team, but...is it possible it might be harmful to talk this way to rageful fearful armed-and-more-than-ready-to-use-weapons colleagues about our political opponents?"

Instead of retaliatory tit-for-tat demonizing of unarmed (and not itching to use any either, not for two years straight) political opponents' one-off ancient metaphors like "you don't take a knife to a gun fight" as "incendiary."

I think that continuing to attempt to draw a direct connection between that rhetoric and Loughner's actions while as yet we have no knowledge of his motives is not going to encourage that reconsideration,

Agreed.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 12:33 PM on January 12, 2011

So Palin's divisive and aggressive rhetoric is free speech and should be protected and respected, but people who question her choice of words are irresponsible and should shut up?

You must be a member of the reality-based community.

I do have to say it's evil coincidence that this particular lawmaker was shot-The Crazy Dude could just as well fixated on a Republican as a Democrat.

I remain very skeptical of this claim I keep seeing people make.

Large elements of Loughner's delusional system were connected to general anti-government as well as tax and currency legitimacy crackpottery that we've seen before specifically in fringe right-wing extremists. (The quickest cite I could come up with for many of these are quotes here.) Sorry, I just can't see this kid shooting a Republican based on what I have actually read in numerous articles. Loughner is crazy, of course, but crazy in a particular way, not randomly.
posted by aught at 12:35 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

saulgoodman, I believe it's inflammatory language in all the contexts in which it's cited. So it's ridiculous that Palin would use it in a speech criticizing others for inflammatory accusations. (The illogic of her speech has been well-covered in this thread and elsewhere.)

It's not unprecedented, that's all.

Also, I guess, to be honest--even though watching Palin's speech made me literally queasy--I did want to think better of Glenn Reynolds. I don't agree with him, but I respect him usually. I don't respect Sarah Palin.
posted by torticat at 12:36 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Who is her speech writer now?

@empath: After the election Palin blamed pretty much everything that went bad with her on the McCain handlers she was given. She takes personal responsibility now and keeps her advisers very close. Her resignation speech was such a mess of Palinesque rambling it was pretty clear she wrote it herself.

I really like the drunk driver analogy you posted too, helped me get a better grip on what people are trying to say here.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:37 PM on January 12, 2011

But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn.

I'm trying to find another way to interpret this other then, "If you accuse me of this my crazy base will get violent." but I can't quite find it.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:40 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm trying to find another way to interpret this other then, "If you accuse me of this my crazy base will get violent." but I can't quite find it.

She's saying that hatred and violence is being incited against her. She's the victim.
posted by Flunkie at 12:44 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Re. "blood libel": I think it's not as uncommon as some here are supposing. I've personally heard it used many times. I wouldn't argue with someone who charged it was being used insensitively, and I can't say when I was hearing it used by Jews or gentiles.

that said, I do have the impression it's a bit of a dog whistle in Evangelical language. And I think using it in a strong sense would be thoroughly consistent with an evangelical eliminationist worldview (i.e., anything negative that a heathen accuses an evangelical of is tantamount to blood libel).
posted by lodurr at 12:52 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am deply impressed by the Palin level of crazy. She sounds like a mentally ill homeless woman with a shopping cart muttering to herself.
posted by angrycat at 12:54 PM on January 12, 2011

Rabbi: By 'blood libel' claim Palin admits 'words can be deadly'
posted by hippybear at 12:54 PM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

She's saying that hatred and violence is being incited against her. She's the victim.

Well, if it is, then she is.

Or do we only care about people we agree with? Because The GF and I are going to have a deathmatch tonight otherwise....
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:56 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Who is her speech writer now?

A) Putin
B) Our North Korean allies
C) the Department of Law
D) All of 'em
posted by scody at 12:57 PM on January 12, 2011

WTF Glenn Reynolds is an idiot - he links smugly (can you link smugly? I think so) to an even smugger National Review article here, titled "The Term ‘Blood Libel’: More Common Than You Might Think".

However if you actually read down this douche's list of examples, you find quotes like these:

This is the gay equivalent of the medieval (and Islamist) blood-libel against Jews.

“We’re not painting all Jews as thieves for Madoff’s economic crimes,” said Weinstein, comparing Palin’s comments to a “blood libel.”

In (I think) all of the quoted examples, the user of the phrase "blood libel" is aware that it is a highly charged phrase with a specific historical context, and the user carefully supplies that context to the reader.

Now they want to hold these examples up as proof that this is a commonly accepted phrase often used with no reference to its historical meaning. OK.

This would be like a politician creating a jobs program with the slogan "Work Will Make You Free", and then being all like "What? It's a common phrase, don't you liberals have anything better to bitch about?"
posted by chaff at 12:57 PM on January 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

Deep Thought Of The Day
posted by homunculus at 12:58 PM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Oh, you Americans, you're a crazy lot, you.
posted by Pendragon at 1:01 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

If it's so damn common, why did they have to print an explainer about how common it is?

I'm kind of surprised how many people don't seem to have heard of the term; I remember reading about pogroms and blood libel when I was twelve. I can believe that Sarah Palin's never heard of it, despite her allegedly voracious reading habits, but she's waited way too long to apologize. And if she does finally come out with an apology, does anyone think that it won't be a passive-aggressive non-apology that manages to blame everyone but herself?
posted by EarBucket at 1:02 PM on January 12, 2011

She's saying that hatred and violence is being incited against her. She's the victim.

Well, if it is, then she is.

IF it is. Have any political leaders or celebrities, heedless of their influence, habitually used language interpretable as implying she deserves to be eliminated violently?
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 1:03 PM on January 12, 2011

Well, if it is, then she is.

Let's talk about it when supporters of her political opponents start showing up at her public appearances with guns. Until then, she's being criticized. The fact that she's a narcissist whose infantile coping skills render her unable tell the difference doesn't mean that the rest of us can't tell those things apart.
posted by scody at 1:04 PM on January 12, 2011 [15 favorites]

Disruptive Arizona suspect axed from online group

""Politicians on tv passing laws ... I made fun of them Made them do dirty stuff," (Jared) wrote under the screen name Erad in often incoherent and misspelled posts."

So it looks like he was watching tv after all. The kid who said he was apolitical and "shooting at the world" hadn't talked to jared since 2008.
posted by cashman at 1:04 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, Pat Buchanan, well-known scholarly expert on Jewish history's got Palin's back now, so I guess she's in the clear. Phew!

Well, if it is, then she is.

No public officials--or for that matter, anyone in any position to influence the public that I know of--is calling for violence against Palin or accusing her of harboring secret desires so foul in her heart that she should be boiled alive in oil or anything even remotely like that. Most of us are just saying that maybe it's a really bad idea to tolerate and empower reckless, gadflies like her in their attempts to influence our political environment. The prescribed course of action, I believe, is for all of us--right or left--to start viewing her and her ilk as the disgraceful failures and political hacks they are. Still, not a single significant public figure on the left is calling for the assassination of Republican legislators or would-be presidential aspirants.

So, no, it's not. At all.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:09 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Listening to her say how emphatically sorry she was about the "innocents" who died, it's hard not to think that everything Palin says is a coded message to her base.
posted by bonobothegreat at 1:13 PM on January 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

homunculus: "Deep Thought Of The Day"

"If men were ~~angels~~ Sarah Palin, no government would be necessary. If ~~angels~~ Sarah Palin were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on ~~government~~ business would be necessary."
--James Madison, Federalist No. 51
posted by Rhaomi at 1:21 PM on January 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

... coded message to her base.

When your literacy doesn't include actual precision with language, everything is coded. ("McCain ... and Palin ... at the Convention...") Plus, she comes from an evangelical tradition, which plays heavily with certain specific metaphors and (perhaps more to the point) allegories.

So I think it's not so much that everything is a coded message to her base, as it is that she and her base speak in code. The problem is that the code is very imprecise and lends itself to potent miscommunications.
posted by lodurr at 1:27 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

but instead cast this as yet another Liberals Hate Sarah thing, which will put a great many Palin supporters on the defensive.

Defensiveness seems to be their default reaction to any disagreement no matter how respectfully phrased.

That video... Retaliatory tit-for-tat demonizing, check. Teflon imperviousness to any sense of ever having considered while she prayed for guidance, "Dear Jesus Christ, my Lord, my guiding light, my inspiration, is it at all possible that my rhetoric could, in any way, be suboptimal or have unintended tragic consequences?" check check check check checcckkkk.

Implicitly characterizes her own team's communications as "vigorous and spirited debate" and "peaceful dissent." Implies that all journalists and pundits expressing concern about violent rhetoric since the most recent* tragedy "incite the very hatred and violence against those they purport to condemn." that it "stifles debate," that they are all "irresponsible." Apparently those of us who've expressed civilized concern about her and others' consistently violent rhetoric for the past two years don't exist.

Claims that there has been no recent escalation of implicit political violence by citing the fact that "duelling pistols" were used 200 years ago.

"When we 'take up our arms,' we're talking about our vote" YOU may be. Sincere question: Why so confident in the idea that there's zero risk that any gun owner, angry and terrified about a tyrannical "Muslim" totalitarian who's bent on killing the grandmothers and the babies of ~~real~~ ordinary Americans, will be content with voting, instead of literally discharging and reloading his patriotic at-the-ready firearm?

"we settle our political differences respectfully" See previous question. Also, was it respectful to denounce a proposal to increase access to information about end of life issues as "death panels"?

"we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country, and our foundational freedoms, by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion, and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults." Spell it out. How does disagreement equal muzzling? Is every concern about eliminationist rhetoric a figment of fevered imaginations? How do expressions of disagreement and concern "mock" America's greatness and stop true blue Americans from celebrating America's greatness?
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 1:40 PM on January 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

Listening to her say how emphatically sorry she was about the "innocents" who died, it's hard not to think that everything Palin says is a coded message to her base.

Truly. The woman seems pathologically incapable of an unequivocal expression of compassion, or generosity. About the only good thing I can say about her is that she's "on message," and that what was once had been seen as a strength on her part has now rendered her a bull in a china shop of horrors who can't seem to dislodge herself from her own hateful coded rhetoric.

I welcome her downward spiral straight onto the trash heap of cynical dangerous people in American history who's meteoric, is only matched by her subsequent fall into irrelevancy and obscurity.

Let, the apologists spin themselves into a lather. The Arizonization of the country into a place of petty hateful violent, self-righteous overblown rhetoric of nativism and anti-immigrant sentiment,, intolerance and barely hidden threats of insurrection and elminationism, has taken a massive hit, and I for one, find hope in that. The Right and the TEa PArty needs to assure the nation Arizona will no longer be showcased as an example of where they mean to take the nation, and therefore make it a harbinger of horrific acts, but rather as a cautionary example of what this nation will never become, and never go.

The ball is in their court, and I know the language Obama uses tonight will be everything Palin is unable to fathom or understand as the qualities of a leader of a nation that unequivocally believes all the diversity makes it a stronger place. I also hope he takes the whole nation to task to stop with the extreme rhetoric.

One more thought, and again this is why Palin needs to be left behind and forgotten, and will be: This event has the possibility of taking one of the most powerful tools of the GOP and the TP. Because the demonization and dehumanization gets people to the voting booths, and buying books and watching TV programs and reading blogs and political punditry online.

And that is why Palin, Beck, Limbaugh et al., will tellingly circle the wagons and need to use such forward unreflective unthinking language, any retreat or remorse will be the chink in the armor that can undo their whole ugly empires of hate and ignorance.
posted by Skygazer at 1:44 PM on January 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Well, I think the 'establishment' (ie, Romney, Huckabee, Pawlenty, etc) will use this as an opportunity to push her out of the presidential race. It's too easy and obvious not to pass up. None of them will 'go there' first, but they'll all gleefully pile on.
posted by empath at 1:47 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just a side note - this subject has managed the rare hat trick of deleted posts. Two of them had to do with Palin. Its like 2008 all over again.
posted by charred husk at 1:48 PM on January 12, 2011

So I think it's not so much that everything is a coded message to her base, as it is that she and her base speak in code.

"Y'all hear that? We're usin' code names."
posted by scody at 1:56 PM on January 12, 2011

@gknauss: If crimes "begin and end with the criminals who commit them," I think Sarah Palin just endorsed a mosque near Ground Zero.
posted by Artw at 1:58 PM on January 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

Listening to her say how emphatically sorry she was about the "innocents" who died, it's hard not to think that everything Palin says is a coded message to her base.

Yeeeeah. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian family (I got out, eh), and that... has my childhood-installed dogwhistle radar pinging like crazy. Which is what happens pretty much any time I pay attention to anything that comes out of Palin's mouth. Which is why I ignore her as much as possible. Had no idea about the crosshair map until the Arizona tragedy. I wish she'd just shush up already and stop encouraging hatred. Her own Bible says it is not her place to judge who is innocent, saved, whatever she wants to call it, or not. Her "blood libel" thing pings my "we're waging a holy war" dogwhistle recognition too. That's what's behind a lot of the Tea Party rhetoric.

I'm atheist now, but still think this is the best thing in the Bible (I Corinthians):
"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. [...]
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. [...]
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Remind those who are angry, vengeful, who have lost hope, who do not trust, and who dishonor others with their rhetoric while claiming the Bible, of that. I Corinthians. It's the one thing I've found that works.
posted by fraula at 1:58 PM on January 12, 2011 [27 favorites]

Huh, a post got deleted today about the murderous/traitorous ranting of Travis Corcoran, owner of Heavy Ink, an online comics retailer, when I had first brought it to this thread's attention on Sunday, albeit more subtly. (The lessons for you MeFites is ALWAYS click MY links!)

I'm kinda surprised-but-not-surprised that Palin used the phrase "blood libel" today. It really appears intended to provoke more violence against those who she claims are threatening her. I've always thought she was smarter than she's made out to be (Street Smarts for a Street Brawler) but now I REALLY hope I am wrong, because if it wasn't a brainless move, it was truly a heartless one.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:58 PM on January 12, 2011

"When we 'take up our arms,' we're talking about our vote"

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So then "If the ballot box doesn't work, then the ballot box will".

And "I hoping that we're not getting to vote remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems."

That actually seems a lot more sane, now.
posted by Flunkie at 1:59 PM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

"we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country, and our foundational freedoms, by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion, and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults."

Oh, I see.

What she means by this is, "I can dish it out, but I can't take it."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:02 PM on January 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

In (I think) all of the quoted examples, the user of the phrase "blood libel" is aware that it is a highly charged phrase with a specific historical context, and the user carefully supplies that context to the reader.

No. I think maybe three of them did (and I agree that doing this mitigates the potential offensiveness), leaving 10ish (?) context-less references.

I mean come on, this is a silly thing to quibble about, but man it would be nice if people didn't just throw around untrue statements. (Isn't that what the whole Palin thing is about?)

I woke up this morning and was appalled at what Palin had said (before reading any commentary). Read commentary and got angrier. Read more, and thought, okay, there might less to this than I thought, and maybe I didn't know as much about the use of this phrase as I thought (is it so hard to say that?)

Palin, in her position and context, was dumb and insensitive to use the phrase. Given the above, though, it might be more useful to focus on how defensive and self-absorbed Palin's talk was, and not to go all witch-hunty on this particular thing.

(I think, for example, that it's grossly opportunistic that Palin finally decided to voice her opinion on the day that Obama is addressing families in Tucson. Nice managing of the news cycle, Sarah. I think it's disingenuous and manipulative that she says she's sure Obama "would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process"... if she wants to be conciliatory, why not find some opinion of Obama's that SHE could join? Given the banality of the statement, she could have said "I join him in affirming the health..." and shown SOME respect for other side. 80% of the speech is about her, under the guise that it's about the American people. Blech.)
posted by torticat at 2:11 PM on January 12, 2011

Wait, I'm sorry -- I can't let this go.

Dear Ms. Palin:

Recently you described your actions as "celebrating the greatness of our country" and scolded those who "mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion", and shamed those who "sought to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults."

However, for the past eight years, I and many others were trying to do the very same thing -- except members of your political party wrote me off for having a "differing opinion", and sought to "muzzle" my dissent by claiming that I was actually insulting the president.

Moreover, when many of us of "differing opinion" spoke out in favor of the Park51 Project, you personally encouraged others to "muzzle" me by "refudiating" the project.

Ms. Palin, you belong to an America that never was. You are trying to advocate a "differing opinion" that depends on perpetuating the very kind of muzzling-of-dissent you claim to oppose, and the "greatness" you perceive is nothing but a child's understanding of patriotism.

On behalf of myself and many of my friends, all of whom truly embrace the inherant potential found in this country, allow me to say: PUT ON YOUR BIG GIRL PANTIES, GROW UP AND DEAL WITH IT.

Sincerely,
Ms. Callipygos, Kings County, New York City
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:15 PM on January 12, 2011 [12 favorites]

Palin, in her position and context, was dumb and insensitive to use the phrase. Given the above, though, it might be more useful to focus on how defensive and self-absorbed Palin's talk was, and not to go all witch-hunty on this particular thing.

Whose witch-hunty? You agree that it was dumb and insensitive. All we are doing is pointing out that she is dumb and insensitive.
posted by empath at 2:16 PM on January 12, 2011

Eh, I take it back, go witch-hunty if you like. I have no interest in defending this.

I have an interest in honest discussion, but I was probably being pedantic there. And it doesn't matter all that much compared to the greater point of Palin's self-obsession and manipulativeness.
posted by torticat at 2:19 PM on January 12, 2011

Sarah Plain's "authority" is as much dependent on the left as it is on the right. The tea party requires the lefts' outrage to function in the fashion they are currently functioning. Indifference is the key. I'm going to adopt the habit of treating Palin like the canned, mass produced product she really is.

Say meh to Sarah Palin.
posted by marimeko at 2:26 PM on January 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Palin Fails the Test:

Palin, who is so expert in capturing the feelings, frustrations and hopes of a certain segment of the population, demonstrated no range. She offered nothing to meet this moment. Her remarks were defensive, illogical, and distracting.

Her use of the term blood libel to categorize the attacks against her and other conservatives was the chatter of the social networks in which she communicates. The term—a slur alluding to the idea that Jews feed on the blood of Christians—was, at the very least, a bad word choice. It did not convey her meaning clearly. She confused or alienated anyone she was trying to convince. And if it was meant to address only her base of core supporters, then it was an act of ill-timed agitation.

Palin effectively quoted Ronald Reagan arguing that the criminal alone is responsible for the crime. "Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them," she said. Good. Then she went on to say that "journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn." Bad. You can't argue that words don't create criminals and then argue in the next breath that, actually, yes, they might.

posted by scody at 2:32 PM on January 12, 2011 [24 favorites]

And Joan Walsh frequently drives me nuts, but this is marvelously phrased:

The narcissism required, on a day the nation is commemorating the Arizona shooting victims, to put her own sense of victimhood front and center, is stunning. The "blood libel" idiocy may be the worst of it, especially given that Giffords herself is Jewish. But that's not the only thing wrong with her performance. Hilariously, after all the times she's mocked President Obama for using a teleprompter, you can see a teleprompter screen reflected in her eyeglasses throughout much of her Facebook chat. Seeing the flickering teleprompter in her eyes is eerie; it's where some flicker of her soul should be, but you don't see any. Looking into Palin's eyes, you see a blazing, self-pitying anger that's shocking, even for the self-described "pit bull in lipstick."

posted by scody at 2:36 PM on January 12, 2011 [17 favorites]

I'm going to adopt the habit of treating Palin like the canned, mass produced product she really is.

Yes. But thankfully a bull in a china shop quickly becomes a pain in the ass, that will be removed and forgotten about and made irrelevant.

There's too much that needs to be dealt with and she's done too much damage, distracted the country and wasted everyone's time.
posted by Skygazer at 2:41 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

"You can't argue that words don't create criminals and then argue in the next breath that, actually, yes, they might."

They're assuming Sarah's base will actually bother to parse the literal meaning. I don't think they give a crap about the literal meaning. So the moral inconsistency don't mean shit to them.
posted by lodurr at 2:41 PM on January 12, 2011

"He could have killed those people with something else. Lawn furniture, maybe."

Heh. I've been trying to work out what this case reminded me of, and it's the attack on Stephen Timms, a Labour MP, last summer.

He was attacked at a low-key public meeting by Roshonara Choudhry, who you might say had been inflamed by political rhetoric ('punishment' for his vote in favour of the Iraq war) and who has turned out to have some pretty nutty ideas (she doesn't recognise the authority of UK courtsl).

Timms is okay now, because Choudry stabbed him with a kitchen knife, and was quickly disarmed. If she'd been able to buy a Glock down the local shops, I don't think it would've turned out that way.
posted by a little headband I put around my throat at 2:42 PM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

A point about blood libel, a lot of people in the media seem to be treating it like some ancient thing that Palin is simply using in a new, modern context.

Blood libel accusations are real, in the 21st century, in certain parts of the world.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:44 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fraula: "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. [...]
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. [...]
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

I'm a seriously lapsed Catholic/agnostic who just gets off on the aesthetics of the whole thing now (Yeah, I think Catholicism was an art movement), but that seriously makes me want to dig out my Good News frickin' bible.
posted by Skygazer at 2:49 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

But I'll probably get stuck in Revelations, and start having nightmares, much as I did as a kid...
posted by Skygazer at 2:52 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I like how during her statement, the teleprompter was visible reflected in her glasses. She, who slammed Pres. Obama for his use of teleprompters. But more so proof that all these terrible choices of words were very intentional and vetted by her advisers. Again, I've always thought of her as much more cynical than stupid, and this just raises her venality level to 11. I just fear that more of her less-balanced followers will get the message to "kill 'em before they kill you" and there will be more killings soon (and I was almost ready to back away from my pessimistic prediction from Saturday before this).
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:57 PM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Ezra Klein examines the practical implications of improving security at congressional events - unlike a lot of what I've seen on this topic so far, Ezra's take actually reads like he's been to these events and knows how they work.
posted by naoko at 3:17 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh man, I listened to that Sarah Palin speech - her delivery is terrible. Like she's reading a book to children. All the wrong cues and intonations.
posted by sycophant at 3:19 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Blood libel accusations are real, in the 21st century, in certain parts of the world.

Oh god, that Saudi newspaper article. My mom and I used to make fun of that on high holidays, because wtf, they really think the rebbes are going to stop arguing halakha long enough to bake and serve pastries? Please. There's no excuse for that kind of ignorance.
posted by elizardbits at 3:21 PM on January 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

I know I'll get slammed for this, but the talk of tests (and Palin failing them) brings back my initial reaction this morning to finding out that Palin, or more accurately, the people who write for her, were so completely clueless as to use 'blood libel' in this context (my reaction, for those of you at home, was an audible 'buh?!').

Can we have some sort of test? A real one? One that measures a candidates awareness of law, of government, of history? And, since it seems to be a cherished facet of rightwing worldviews, one that measures actual proficiency in the use and understanding of the English language? Like an SAT for people who want to hold office? I know it's most likely a horrible idea, but at the same time, who could really, honestly argue that we're better off being governed by people utterly ignorant of the world? Who can really believe that having the public face of our nation being unable to string a sentence together is not a problem? Or that following a person who uses phrases like blood libel, like don't retreat, reload, but doesn't understand, or claims not to understand their meaning, could possible be a wise choice? Why do we let ourselves be governed by idiots?
posted by Ghidorah at 3:27 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

TAFB! Scody for posting the Raising Arizona link.

I am hoping that the moment comes when someone channels the spirit of Joseph N. Welch and takes her down as eloquently as he did....

"Have you no decency, Madam."
posted by goalyeehah at 3:30 PM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

Can we have some sort of test? A real one? One that measures a candidates awareness of law, of government, of history? --- We might be better served to have one for voters.
posted by crunchland at 3:32 PM on January 12, 2011

In the interest of total clarity I'll say to torticat that I probably overstated my case - I went back through the list of instances of "blood libel" I linked to and not all of them mention the Jewish historical context. In my defense the vast majority of the examples do indicate that "blood libel" should at least be used to refer to a situation of racism and associated potential violence, and my point about Palin's utter misuse of it is, I think, valid.

And here I am talking about her ridiculous statement instead of any of the more pressing issues surrounding this horrible event . . . I can't help thinking that her writers and advisors are actually very very smart people - nobody is that aggressively tone-deaf by accident. I think it was calculated to be just offensive enough to lead toward just this kind of hair-splitting and away from conversations about the Palin camp's potential culpability in the attacks.
posted by chaff at 3:32 PM on January 12, 2011

I can't help thinking that her writers and advisors are actually very very smart people

I wouldn't be so sure about that. After the 2008 election, it came out pretty quickly that Palin infuriated many of the behind-the-scenes people in the McCain campaign for not trusting any of them, not doing what any of them said, and generally treating them like scum.

She may still have some intelligent attachés from the Republican Party or surrogate organizations, but I bet that the majority of her heeded advice comes from the people she trusts - the barber from Wasilla appointed to be Chief of Staff or whatever.
posted by Flunkie at 3:50 PM on January 12, 2011

Can we have some sort of test? A real one?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: One of the presidential debates should be replaced with a Civ IV tournament. Then, at the end, each candidate will be required to explain why he or she made their choices, and why their civilization turned out the way it did.
posted by vibrotronica at 4:00 PM on January 12, 2011 [16 favorites]

Anyhow, this talk of "blood libel" is so rich from a woman who practices blood sport so gleefully. both with defenseless wild animals and her political opponents.
posted by Skygazer at 4:00 PM on January 12, 2011

Well, Pat Buchanan, well-known scholarly expert on Jewish history's got Palin's back now, so I guess she's in the clear. Phew!

A report yesterday said that he "called on Sarah Palin and others to “tone down the rhetoric” and steer clear of violent metaphors." Presumably he meant firearm terminology, not the polarizing Us vs Those Threatening Our Way Of Life By Being Evil While Calling It Good rhetoric.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 4:15 PM on January 12, 2011

(Too steal a joke from Reddit)

I like how during her statement, the teleprompter was visible reflected in her glasses.

It must have been more than two hands long.
posted by dirigibleman at 4:20 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anyhow, this talk of "blood libel" is so rich from a woman who practices blood sport so gleefully. both with defenseless wild animals and her political opponents.

I thought the hunting episode of her reality show made it really clear that she's a novice hunter.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:33 PM on January 12, 2011

Founder of ‘Civility Project’ Calls It Quits
posted by neroli at 4:36 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Mark DeMoss, a Republican and a prominent evangelical Christian who runs a public relations firm in Atlanta, initiated CivilityProject.org in January 2009 because of alarm over what he saw as the increasingly vicious tone in American politics. He asked his friend, Lanny J. Davis, a Jewish Democrat and a lobbyist who worked for President Bill Clinton, to join the effort.

Ahh, Lanny Davis, champion of civility. It's kind of disturbing how much we focus on tone instead of content sometimes.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:45 PM on January 12, 2011

As long as "blood libel" speaks to the gut of Sarah's desired audience, it really doesnt matter whether it's commonly or correctly used.

As an aside, note that Glenn Beck does not bring in the advertising revenue needed to break even. His billionaire network owner is willing to sacrifice profits to subsidize Beck—and thus influence a few million stunningly ignorant and hateful Beckites.

Sarah is similarly a tool for disrupting the democratic process. As long as there are people who will do what she is told to tell them to do, she'll have plenty of corporate media coverage.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:58 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sarah Palin is an SEO trick. She is a link farm. She is a bunch of random content scraped from reality and repackaged with a flash to attract the all-seeing eye. Twelve revisions ago of a stolen Wikipedia article about a pit-bull with lipstick. Nothing more. Don't get angry about it, don't respond to it.

I know it's just a metaphor, but....

Mathowie, discussing why askme titles changed: it's in response to the things the Stack Overflow dudes had to do, which we also have problems with, which is spam blog dorks copying our feeds and showing up in Google results. We chase after every one of them and tell them to stop, but the Stack Overflow guys found success in always coming out ahead of other copycat spam sites by putting tags as keywords in the title tags. They put theirs first in a URL, we decided to put them farther down the URL.

Better to pin down the methods of transfer, the workings of emotion and the driving points behind why Palin's fans and supporters continue to be, than think you can turn your back. Learn, and then as Mathowie is doing, outdo those who would wreck what you've built and replace it with a shadowy copy.
posted by cashman at 5:15 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Are you guys watching the memorial service? What's with the cheering and hooting and raucousness? I find it unseemly.
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:39 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I don't know what's going on. It's like a pep rally.
posted by zerbinetta at 5:42 PM on January 12, 2011

...and the Angry Estate has to have a harrumph about the T-shirts distributed at the memorial as a show of solidarity with the people of Tucson. Christ.
posted by notsnot at 5:45 PM on January 12, 2011

WTflyingFuck. Why are our leaders invoking all this god talk? A christian god? I really really don't get it. I am spitting mad right now. Bible quotes? The memorial was going so well until....ah fuck it.
posted by futz at 5:48 PM on January 12, 2011

In the interest of total clarity I'll say to torticat that I probably overstated my case - I went back through the list of instances of "blood libel" I linked to and not all of them mention the Jewish historical context. In my defense the vast majority of the examples do indicate that "blood libel" should at least be used to refer to a situation of racism and associated potential violence, and my point about Palin's utter misuse of it is, I think, valid.

I agree (the latter part especially, I mean), and thanks, chaff.

I think it was calculated to be just offensive enough to lead toward just this kind of hair-splitting and away from conversations about the Palin camp's potential culpability in the attacks.

I hate to be cynical enough to believe this; I'd rather believe people can be THAT dumb. But yeah. It was overall a disgusting enough display that I find it hard to give the benefit of the doubt.
posted by torticat at 5:50 PM on January 12, 2011

We are not a christian nation. All the people that this alienates astounds me.
posted by futz at 5:50 PM on January 12, 2011

Guess who isn't using his teleprompter? Ironic, given Sarah's use of one today.

not a blood libel
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:50 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's like a pep rally.

I believe this is a local university venue, and as long as they keep it somewhat civil I for one have no problem with their moment of catharsis.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:51 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

President Obama's prepared remarks
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:52 PM on January 12, 2011

I can't help thinking that her writers and advisors are actually very very smart people - nobody is that aggressively tone-deaf by accident. I think it was calculated to be just offensive enough to lead toward just this kind of hair-splitting and away from conversations about the Palin camp's potential culpability in the attacks.

Hell, I just think she's emotionally disordered enough to be jealous of the global sympathy flowing toward Gabrielle Giffords (a Democrat, for gawd's sake!) and wanted to find some way to top her, particularly on the day that all eyes are on the Tucson memorial and with President Obama (a Kenyan socialist, for gawd's sake) addressing the crowd in a setting where decency demands that everyone behave positively toward him, regardless of your party affiliation.

Are you guys watching the memorial service? What's with the cheering and hooting and raucousness? I find it unseemly.

Yeah, it's weird. It's well-intentioned, I'm sure, but it does feel not quite right.
posted by scody at 5:52 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bible quotes?

For what it's worth, I'm as much a godless heathen as the next Mefite, but seeing as though they had a Native American earlier giving his traditional blessing, and that people for whatever reason often find true comfort in scripture in trying times, and keeping in mind that President Obama in his inaugural speech committed his presidency to "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers", emphasis mine, I say e pluribus unum, indeed, and may diversity reign.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:56 PM on January 12, 2011 [24 favorites]

From CNN's liveblog, one woman explains why she's there, and makes me feel better about the pep rally atmosphere:

"I walked into a Walgreens with my 9-year-old daughter and she saw the newspaper there and the shooter's photo was there and she said ‘Mom, that's really scary.’ And I said, ‘It is,’ and she said ‘Can we go to this event? Can we go see the president?’ and I said, ‘You know, I think that that's really something’ so I took all three of my daughters out of school because over the weekend they watched the events unfold and there were a lot of emotions in my house, and I guess realizing I could bring them to this and they could have a positive ending to a very upsetting weekend.”

– Robin Fox
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:03 PM on January 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

I think at a funeral, the most important thing is respecting the faith of the deceased, not the people watching at home.
posted by empath at 6:03 PM on January 12, 2011 [17 favorites]

I believe this is a local university venue, and as long as they keep it somewhat civil I for one have no problem with their moment of catharsis.

It doesn't sound like catharsis. It sounds like a lot of hooting and hollering at a memorial service. It's changed a bit during Obama's speech. But cheers from the very beginning were very weird.
posted by zerbinetta at 6:03 PM on January 12, 2011

You guys aren't invited to my wake.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 6:06 PM on January 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

"What we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. That we cannot do."
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:09 PM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Attorney General Eric Holder reads from Corinthians...

He had nothing else to say? Apparently not.
posted by futz at 6:10 PM on January 12, 2011

Mark DeMoss, a Republican and a prominent evangelical Christian who runs a public relations firm in Atlanta, initiated CivilityProject.org in January 2009 because of alarm over what he saw as the increasingly vicious tone in American politics.

I grew up with Mark's brother Bob. He was a really fun, cool guy back then. Unfortunately the DeMoss family "values" seem to have caught up with him.
posted by scalefree at 6:12 PM on January 12, 2011

I think I have something in my eye again.
posted by HyperBlue at 6:16 PM on January 12, 2011

"I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here - they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.

That's what I believe, in part because that's what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation's future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.

I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations."
posted by HyperBlue at 6:18 PM on January 12, 2011 [14 favorites]

Some of the cheering seems to be originating with friends and supporters of the victims, so it might simply be that they're dealing with grief in their own way, and trying to rally around their loved ones and their community. The sense I get is that the crowd is trying to show its determination not to let this tragedy beat them down. It struck me as odd at first, too, but thinking about it, it's understandable there are plenty of people in the crowd who want nothing more than to show their determination to keep up their resolve despite this horrific crime.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:20 PM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

I think people would cheer Obama reading his grocery list.

"If I'm going to make a cake, I can't do it with just eggs. No, I need to buy eggs AND flour -- milk AND baking soda. Out of many ingredients, I'll make one cake -- united."
posted by empath at 6:23 PM on January 12, 2011 [40 favorites]

Wow. I'm seeing high praise for the President on the TPM "republican insiders" twitter feed page ... even Michelle Malkin had something nice to say. Wow.
posted by crunchland at 6:23 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

It doesn't sound like catharsis. It sounds like a lot of hooting and hollering at a memorial service.

Agreed. WTF.
posted by homunculus at 6:24 PM on January 12, 2011

Politico e-mail alert:

"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, all close friends of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, were in the hospital room with the Arizona Democrat when she opened her eyes for the first time since she was shot in the head Saturday during a rampage that killed six in Tucson, Ariz. "

posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:35 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

A lot of the energy is probably due to participating in a political event—one that draws the President, even—to spite the implicit threat of political violence. To show that they won't be cowed by the lunatics. To show that civility is possible and powerful.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:36 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I missed Obama's speech live, but now I'm crying.

Michelle looks like she's really good at comforting. I wish she'd hug me.
posted by oinopaponton at 6:37 PM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

...and the Angry Estate has to have a harrumph about the T-shirts distributed at the memorial as a show of solidarity with the people of Tucson. Christ.

DeMint's staffer apparently has since deleted her tweet (quoted by TPM) about the t-shirts making her tear up, although she is still linking to pics of the shirt.
posted by naoko at 6:39 PM on January 12, 2011

"But make no mistake, we will have to break a few eggs..."
posted by crunchland at 6:39 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

When you have 14,000 people in an emotional state, you might here some noise.

I didn't find the response inappropriate.

Could someone list the scriptures referenced? The Old Testament is recognized by a number of religions.
posted by HuronBob at 6:40 PM on January 12, 2011

here=hear.. sorry
posted by HuronBob at 6:41 PM on January 12, 2011

Could someone list the scriptures referenced? The Old Testament is recognized by a number of religions.

Good point. The Old Testament is considered a holy text by Jews, Muslims and Christians.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:43 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

odinsdream: "our great cakes deserve... they demand better.""

You mean "butter", I'm sure...
posted by notsnot at 6:44 PM on January 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

Sadly, I doubt many American Christians even recognize their "brothers of the book" anymore.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:44 PM on January 12, 2011

He quoted Psalm 46 (yes, Old Testament)
posted by oinopaponton at 6:45 PM on January 12, 2011

Attorney General Eric Holder reads from Corinthians...He had nothing else to say? Apparently not.

Frankly, I'd be offended if he did try to say something more, if all he was asked to do was deliver a reading at a memorial service.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:46 PM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Not to mention, he's prosecuting Loughner.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:47 PM on January 12, 2011

Native American blessing - good thing!

As for the hooting and hollering......I'll bet that 99% of us do not live in Arizona. 99% of the people in that venue do. They can respond however they want.

Every person that opened their mouth and cheered made a point against the very people we are calling to task on this thread.

My senior year in high school I was school spirit commissioner. I was kicked ass. The one thing I saw happened was that all the cliques pulled together. Obama did what he was supposed to do in my eyes. Get those in the periphery out of shock, get as much support behind those have survived and are recovering and show those who lost family and friends that they are not alone.
posted by goalyeehah at 7:04 PM on January 12, 2011

I think people would cheer Obama reading his grocery list.

Not to be a dick or anything, and I know it's a sombre occasion, but these days everything Obama says sounds like he IS reading his grocery list. Tired of it. Tired of talk about compromise.

PS: Wake me up when one of these loonies who is totally uninfluenced by violent political chatter kills a righty.
posted by Trochanter at 7:10 PM on January 12, 2011

Like Reagan or Ford?
posted by shakespeherian at 7:11 PM on January 12, 2011

You mean "butter", I'm sure...

Nonsense. Have you listened to the speech? Clearly he meant to say "batter".
posted by scalefree at 7:16 PM on January 12, 2011

Like Reagan or Ford?

You're kidding right? How about Julius Caesar? Or Marie Antoinette?

Different era. No Beck. No Limbaugh. No Palin. I'm talking about the era we live in.
posted by Trochanter at 7:20 PM on January 12, 2011

Like Reagan or Ford? --- well, technically those were only attempts, as was the attempt on Teddy R.

Garfield, McKinley, and Lincoln were all Republicans, though.
posted by crunchland at 7:21 PM on January 12, 2011

Are assassins more likely to target liberals?
posted by shakespeherian at 7:22 PM on January 12, 2011

George Wallace, too.
posted by empath at 7:22 PM on January 12, 2011

TL;DR: Nutball says "Pull my finger" and anyone capable of forming a sentence spends the next 5+ days wondering who farted.
posted by I love you more when I eat paint chips at 7:29 PM on January 12, 2011

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.

Yeah. That.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:45 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Re: Palin's use of the phrase "blood libel":

A bright, theologically trained friend of mine (Yale M.Div., religion editor for an academic publisher) thinks that Palin was intending to tap into successionist theology--the idea that the church is the new Israel and has replaced the literal Israel as the heir to the promises of God and the chosen people. (This is based, largely, on a very bad reading of Romans 11.) In his opinion Palin is so strongly identifying herself and the other True Believers and Real Americans with this new spiritual Israel that to accuse her of even contributing to an atmosphere that could encourage violence is to join in a contemporary blood libel. She is more Jewish than the Jews.

Frankly, I don't think Palin is anywhere near clever enough to have intended that many layers of meaning, although she might have borrowed the language from someone else who did mean it that way. But if that is what she had in mind, that's one heck of a dog whistle.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:59 PM on January 12, 2011 [14 favorites]

There are at least three things going on here.

First is the fact that Sarah Palin is a fool. And moreover, that she is the sort of fool who uses words and phrases based on their 'feel' rather than their actual connotations and denotations. I've known some people like this, and communicating with them was exhausting because they simply did. not. care. that the words they were using had tangential, orthogonal or even opposite meaning to the intent of their communication.

Second is the fact that the bloc of conservatives in this country which have gained control of the Republican party believe that their vision of an America that never was is the only legitimate idea of America, and that everyone else is trying to oppress real Americans. Sarah Palin is the queen of this, and so she feels justified in saying that everyone else is out to get her, and by extension her America.

The third, and most complicated I think, is (as Pater Aletheias has just alluded to) the very strange relationship that the American evangelicals who are most involved in rightwing politics have with Jews, Jewishness, Zionism.... Their odd, novel (the earliest similar interpretation comes from about 150 years ago, the blink of an eye in theological time) and contradictory reading of the Bible indicates that the defence of the state of Israel at all costs is important in order to ensure certain end-of-days prophecies occur. This school of thought is called premillenialism and it is utter bunk. However it makes some evangelicals think that they are awesome buddies with Jewish people and so they are pretty much like Jews and so they can toss around anti-Semitic canards no problem because hey we support Israel against those nasty Arabs unlike the godless liberals.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:03 PM on January 12, 2011 [14 favorites]

'Blood Libel' and Sarah Palin: Christian Conservatives' Infatuation with Judaism
posted by scody at 8:23 PM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Did anyone catch what the crowd yelled out just after President Obama's speech, when he grabbed Michelle's hand?
posted by annsunny at 8:42 PM on January 12, 2011

Actually, I want to expand on that a little more.

To understand (in so far as that is possible) Sarah Palin, you have to understand a bit of the history of American Evangelicalism, the culture from which she comes.

I believe there were two major historical developments that really prompted the coalescing of Evangelicals in this country into a definable group. The first was the advent of 'higher criticism' -- basically, theological/literary analysis of the Bible, which was unacceptable to conservative theologians as they felt such secular-minded study would inevitably lead to rejection of supernaturalism. The second was the development of scientific theories that appeared to be in opposition to traditional doctrines, especially evolution. These two fears (of the secularisation of the seminaries, and of the rejection of Christian principles in society) have remained guiding fears for Evangelicals. They basically responded in the late 19th century by going underground -- creating their own denominations, seminaries, social groups and communities for 50 years.

By the 1960s, the wider society had become broad enough that many Evangelicals began to feel that creating separate, 'pure' institutions was not longer sufficient to keep in place the community standards that they believed were vital to maintaining a faithful community. They've since gone on to support (sometimes tepidly) the idea of civil rights and a multi-racial society, but continue to be strongly opposed to gay rights, sexual freedom, abortion rights, and in most cases feminist thinking.

I think that things are going to get worse before they get better. The US is not going to go backward to the imaginary utopia that Evangelicals have read into the pages of American history. We've got an intensely cosmopolitan, bi-racial President; an increasingly diverse nation on the cusp of becoming majority-minority; and a technological and globalised world that forces isolated groups to deal with other cultures as never before.

Sarah Paiin is a fluent Evangelical in the way that even George W. was not (to extend the linguistic/geographic metaphor, he was a native blueblood Republican who immigrated to Evangelicalism and learned the language somewhat later in life). She knows this language and this culture natively as few national politicians do, and right-wing Evangelicals recognise their own. She gives voice to their fears and stokes it for her own political benefit.

The whole weird "blood libel" thing is not so much an instance of her being tone-deaf as it is an example of the way that Sarah Palin has been so completely immersed in a very strange sub-culture that she is unable to hear the nuances that to us seem quite obvious, in a very similar way to how (for example) native Japanese speakers find it difficult to distinguish between the English phonemes 'l' and 'r'. For her, there is no possibility of being misunderstood as an anti-Semite, because evangelicals are not anti-Semitic. Of course she supports the Jews. They have to stay alive until the end times when they will suddenly mass-convert to Evangelical Christianity in accordance with God's will for His Chosen People, who inexplicably never got on board with the Jesus thing, but oh they will in the end....

So obviously liberals are lying and evil and really kind of anti-semitic themselves.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:48 PM on January 12, 2011 [23 favorites]

"If I'm going to make a cake, I can't do it with just eggs. No, I need to buy eggs AND flour -- milk AND baking soda. Out of many ingredients, I'll make one cake -- united."

"Let me be clear. There is a time for margarine. That time is not now. Not here. In this nation our great cakes deserve... they demand better."

sarah palin - "once again, a misguided, wrong thinking figure has told the people - 'let them eat cake'"
posted by pyramid termite at 8:50 PM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

"Let me be clear. There is a time for margarine. That time is not now. Not here. In this nation our great cakes deserve... they demand better."

"We must all work together to ensure that this cake is not a lie!"
posted by dirigibleman at 8:56 PM on January 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

I was raised in a fundamentalist Catholic family. Harry Truman was evil along with members of Planned Parenthood. Many a John Birch book and other hardcore right-wings tracts filled the house along with Conservative Digests and others. Protesting Roe vs. Wade very little was said because we knew we were going to heaven and the rest were going to hell. Us vs. Them was always there. Dad could be considered sadistic and Mom was the persecuted. All of the above was learned and done through her. When Dad got sick, she and the rest of the family really started going over the bend. That's when I began to make my break.

It seemed that she was always looking for something to sink her teeth into and keep her going. She would keep switching to the next thing with no real rhyme or reason. I realized a couple of years ago that she speaks as if she is still in the McCarthy era.

The persecution complex is BIG! BIG! BIG!. She went and saw Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Jesus Christ" 4-5 times. Not too hard to see why that was such a hit. I wondered if the reason why so many went and saw it was because so many believers were sexually getting off on it
posted by goalyeehah at 9:00 PM on January 12, 2011

I don't think Palin is anywhere near clever enough to have intended that many layers of meaning

But her speechwriter/backer may have. Who's working the puppet? Could easily be a batshit billionaire Dominionist or other nut.

Is Sarah Palin capable of writing her own speeches? This one?
posted by five fresh fish at 9:02 PM on January 12, 2011

Let's hear an "amen" for Tivalasvegas!
posted by goalyeehah at 9:04 PM on January 12, 2011

Sarahla Palinksy: an honorary Jew
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:06 PM on January 12, 2011

I think that things are going to get worse before they get better.

Maybe, but I think a hell of a lot of kids of the people you describe are disgusted by this kind of politics and religion. And by "kids" I mean people up to 40 (and over, too).

I sure hope it doesn't get worse.

Anyway, insightful comment, tivalasvegas.
posted by torticat at 9:39 PM on January 12, 2011

Has Sarah Palin made herself the most prominent victim of the Tucson shooting?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:43 PM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

> To show that civility is possible and powerful.

Conspicuously, the man found a way not to turn it into "Tea Baggers are horrible people" (as somebody said upthread.)
posted by jfuller at 9:45 PM on January 12, 2011

I have to admit, my every utterance on MeFi is more important than anything the President might say.

I apologize for calling the people with the poorly-spelled signs and intimidation tactics "horrible people." I'm sure some of the tea-party members are perfectly nice people caught up in the wrong crowd.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:18 PM on January 12, 2011

Conspicuously, the man found a way not to turn it into "Tea Baggers are horrible people"

after reading some of the comments on michelle malkin's blog, it doesn't look as if many of them appreciate the effort

i understand perfectly why obama spoke as he did and i don't think he would have been smart to do otherwise at a memorial service - but the extremists on the right are not going to stop - i wonder if some of them will even bother to tone it down
posted by pyramid termite at 10:33 PM on January 12, 2011

Has Sarah Palin made herself the most prominent victim of the Tucson shooting?

Remember the Alamo.
posted by philip-random at 11:12 PM on January 12, 2011

Remember the Alamo.

Sorry, that was supposed to include a link to The Battle of San Jacinto, which happened roughly three weeks after the Alamo. Remember that? One was, of course, an historic (yet inspiring) defeat. The other was a stunningly successful victory, strangely not remembered by most.

in a fight that lasted just eighteen minutes. About 700 of the Mexican soldiers were killed and 730 captured, while only nine Texans died.

Why is it that we remember things the way that we do?
posted by philip-random at 11:20 PM on January 12, 2011

The article linked to above titled Sarah Palin Has Already Removed Her 'Blood Libel' Video now says Sarah Palin's 'Blood Libel' Video Returned Online After Being Removed For Short While.
posted by XMLicious at 2:46 AM on January 13, 2011

To rate this address on any political meter would be to demean it. The president wrested free of politics tonight and spoke of greater things. I pledge myself to try and follow his advice and debate with vigor and spirit and candor and bluntness, but with more civility, more empathy, and, yes, more love.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:57 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sarah Paiin is a fluent Evangelical in the way that even George W. was not (to extend the linguistic/geographic metaphor, he was a native blueblood Republican who immigrated to Evangelicalism and learned the language somewhat later in life). She knows this language and this culture natively as few national politicians do, and right-wing Evangelicals recognise their own. She gives voice to their fears and stokes it for her own political benefit.

Nah.

I be one of those Evangelicals (Well, as much as a nondenominational charismatic can be, but I am still considered part of the group in question) and,

Nah.

What she IS is a fluent "conservative everyman."
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 4:07 AM on January 13, 2011

What she IS is a disgrace.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:30 AM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

"You mean "butter", I'm sure..."

I, also, could not believe it wasn't butter.
posted by jaduncan at 4:40 AM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh she's an evangelical alright, just as cynical in her "belief" as all the rest of them. She knows it's all poppycock fairytale bullshit, but she figure out early on that singing the evangelical song would pay for her supper. You can take the lying, ignorant mean girl out of the Wassilla Assemblies of God, but you can't take the WAG out of the lying, ignorant mean girl.

She's Tracy Flick with a swastika and a cross.
posted by spitbull at 5:42 AM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

The finest speech of his career. We saw him fully occupy the presidency in a way that he hasn't before, I think.
posted by EarBucket at 5:57 AM on January 13, 2011

I really dislike Sarah Palin.

But isn't calling her "Tracy Flick with a swastika and a cross" the sort of thing we've all been asked, and have asked others, not to say? Do you really believe that Sarah Palin is a Nazi? If so, I'd encourage you read up a bit about the Nazis. They weren't pitbulls with lipstick. They murdered millions of people, not with rhetoric but with factories and weapons - and they did it for years and years.

Palin makes it easy for us to disagree with the simple-minded statements she makes and to point out why she is wrong, I think that should be enough without having to dehumanize and villify her the way she does others.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:08 AM on January 13, 2011 [19 favorites]

Oh she's an evangelical alright, just as cynical in her "belief" as all the rest of them.

While I have met evangelicals I would characterize as "cynical", not one of the evangelicals I know personally would qualify for that label.

I'd also point out that it's quite possible to be a sincere believer even as you engage in practices that seem cynical and hypocritical to outsiders. E.g., you can treat people you think are going to hell as fellow travellers / useful idiots without a twinge of guilt, even as you pray for their souls (they've always got the option to believe, after all, and if they don't take it it's their own damned [sic] fault).

That's one of the key features of eliminationism (as in "it's a feature"): That it affords the eliminationist carte blanche for believing in their own sincerity and treating people outside the fold as sub-human.

It's really important to remember that not all evangelicals function this way all the time. But significant, important subsets do, and they're the problem. If it's just Westboro picketing funerals because death is God's punishment for condoning homosexuality*, that's bad but controllable through means that might actually have net benefit in social cohesiveness (e.g., people coming together to create a wall of "angel wings"). But it's also secretive and not so secretive organizations like American Renaissance, Operation Rescue, Posse Comitatus, the Tea Party Patriots, and the like, doing things like planning for Second Amendment Remedies, fomenting rebellion, spreading slander about public servants and ordinary citizens, and occasionally openly advocating the murder of people (and to be clear, I'm specifically talking about abortion doctors on that last one).

It's also a problem that a lot of evangelicals are eliminationist in practice, either without really understanding that they're doing it or without really understanding how corrosive it is to the fabric of a culturally diverse civil society.

So we've got different levels of problems with different evangelicals, ranging from 'none' to 'borderline treasonous.'

--
*I know, it's supposed to be only specific kinds of death, but I lose track: yesterday it was just death in battle in Iraq/Iran, now it seems to be death by the hand of mentally unstable spree killers.
posted by lodurr at 7:17 AM on January 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

St. Alia wrote, "I be one of those Evangelicals (Well, as much as a nondenominational charismatic can be, but I am still considered part of the group in question) and,

Nah.

What she IS is a fluent "conservative everyman."

I tried to avoid painting Evangelicals with a broad brush in my comment (mainly by use of qualifiers like "American evangelicals who are most involved in rightwing politics", "some evangelicals" (qualifiers bolded for emphasis), because I do not believe that all evangelicals agree with Sarah Palin and the unholy union of the Evangelical movement and the Republican/Tea Party that she is the leader and spokesperson for. If I gave that impression, I am deeply sorry and I apologize.

In fact, I'd wager that Evangelicals are disproportionately represented in anti-poverty, community organising and para-educational (afer-school tutoring and the like) work. This is true at least in my experience. Evangelicalism has always emphasised the duty of Christians to try to make the world around them a better place, which is part of the reason why cynical politicians find it so easy to use them as ~~shock troops~~ (um, certain recent events have moved me to try to minimise the use of martial metaphors in political discussions, but I can't think of a better phrase here).

What I am arguing is that conservative discourse in this country has almost completely shifted into an Evangelical idiom. The patrician, noblesse-oblige tradition of Gerald Ford, William Buckley and Bush 41 and the banal, shock-jock tradition (and I shudder to use the word 'tradition' to describe this) of Rush and O'Reily have been the two major influences on movement conservatism until recently -- and they are both fairly secular-minded traditions. Of course, they're aimed at different audiences (the upper-middle class conservative elite in one case, the working-class conservative in the other), but neither really drew on theological arguments or sectarian concerns to make their political points.

And honestly, I think that those Evangelicals who spent the 30 years since Nixon and Reagan voting Republican in the hopes of seeing the hated abortion and divorce laws repealed, in the hopes of staunching the secularisation and modernisation of this country, have been lied to one too many times by the conservative establishment. In the upcoming struggle for the Republican nomination, they are going to make damn sure that their votes go to someone who shares their worldview (there's a fun dog-whistle term for you), their faith, their calling.... I expect that the race for the GOP nod will descend into utterly opaque, insider-baseball talk. It's not just about ideological purity anymore; the Republicans have become a sectarian party.

It's an utter tragedy that many of the leaders of the Evangelical movement, the Christianity Today editors and the World Magazine editors and the 'family values' folks have sold their birthright, the dearly-bought Protestant understanding of the need for religious freedom under the law, for a mess of political porridge. There's such a thing as gaining the world and losing one's soul.

So it's not so much that you're wrong about Palin's being a 'conservative everyman'. The thing is that as recently as five years ago, one could be a conservative star and not be particularly religious, as long as one gave the correct nods to the "Judeo-Christian tradition" (In passing, that phrase always amuses me; I just feel like there's some other major Abrahamic religion that would fit in well with that phrase... it's on the tip of my tongue... oh well.) Now, no longer.

That's why Republicans are screwed long-term. Their best hope was to win over conservative immigrants (many of whom are religious, some of whom may be of the Religion That Worships Saints or The Religion That Shall Not Be Named). GWB for all his incredibly horrible governing skills was a pretty brilliant political strategist, and he knew this; his bid for comprehensive immigration reform garnered him something like 40% of the Latino vote in '04. Republicans aren't going to see those kinds of numbers for a long time, not until they can speak in a broad American idiom. The Party of Reagan was able to bring in a landslide no problem. The Party of Palin, not so much.

And that's why it's going to be ugly in the short term. Conservatives of this ilk can usually be counted on to do basic math when it comes to demographic change. They know their days are numbered.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:02 AM on January 13, 2011 [13 favorites]

Do you really believe that Sarah Palin is a Nazi? If so, I'd encourage you read up a bit about the Nazis.

i think you're probably right - but on the other hand, people thought hitler was an ineffective joke before he got elected
posted by pyramid termite at 8:17 AM on January 13, 2011

NY Sen Gillibrand was holding Giffords' hand when she opened her eye. Here is her remarkable description of that moment.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:22 AM on January 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

NY Sen Gillibrand was holding Giffords' hand when she opened her eye. Here is her remarkable description of that moment.

Thanks for the link. Glad also to read that Mark Kelly was in the room when it happened; it wasn't clear from the way the President phrased it in his remarks whether he was or not.
posted by aught at 8:29 AM on January 13, 2011

What I am arguing is that conservative discourse in this country has almost completely shifted into an Evangelical idiom. The patrician, noblesse-oblige tradition of Gerald Ford, William Buckley and Bush 41 and the banal, shock-jock tradition (and I shudder to use the word 'tradition' to describe this) of Rush and O'Reily have been the two major influences on movement conservatism until recently -- and they are both fairly secular-minded traditions.

It's clearly not true that "conservative discourse in this country has almost completely shifted into an Evangelical idiom", first because you've completely left neo-conservatives out of your schema. Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, and David Brooks are still all prominent conservative voices. They don't sound like Evangelicals.

Catholics are also represented (and not just Catholics who speak in the Evangelical idiom, though there are certainly many of those in politics). The new Speaker of the House in his inaugural speech used decidedly Catholic language: Quite a contrast to the Evangelical idiom of George W. Bush's 2003 state of the Union: "...there's power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people."
posted by Jahaza at 8:35 AM on January 13, 2011

That's why Republicans are screwed long-term. Their best hope was to win over conservative immigrants (many of whom are religious, some of whom may be of the Religion That Worships Saints or The Religion That Shall Not Be Named).

I don't remember whether I saw this comment in here or on another board, but -- you've reminded me of someone's observation that the identity struggle the Republican party was having now was so crazy that they expected Abraham Lincoln to rise from the grave, and then start staggering around, all zombified in a stovepipe hat, shouting, "With malice towards none and charity towards all, you idiots! REMEMBER???"

...Eh, made me giggle.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:40 AM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

lodurr: It's also a problem that a lot of evangelicals are eliminationist in practice, either without really understanding that they're doing it or without really understanding how corrosive it is to the fabric of a culturally diverse civil society.

QF(horrifying)T. If you aren't reading the Slacktivist blog (frequently referenced here on MeFi), you need to stop what you're doing and go there now. He's the most insightful and compassionate writer on topics relating to the theological, psychological and ethical ramifications of conservative Evangelical involvement in American politics, and he's been blogging up a blue storm in the last couple days, to boot.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:40 AM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

tivalasvegas, "a lot" is a sloppy term, so if it sounded like I was saying there aren't socially conscious & civically responsible evangelicals, that wasn't my intent. (African-American evangelicals are a great place to start if you're trying to get some social change rolling.) My eldest brother & his wife are such ones (used to spend a couple weeks a year in Haiti building hospitals and was active for years with Habitat). But there are eliminationist elements even to what they do: I'm damned, to them, though they try to 'love the sinner.'

i've glanced @ slactivist a bunch of times, but will try to look at it more thoroughly in future.
posted by lodurr at 8:52 AM on January 13, 2011

Used the blood libel quote for Tea Party Jesus today. I have to say, this is one of my favorite pictures I've ever found for the comic.
posted by EarBucket at 9:22 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, on the plus side my sister and her family got to meet some cool people.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:50 AM on January 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

you've reminded me of someone's observation that the identity struggle the Republican party was having now was so crazy that they expected Abraham Lincoln to rise from the grave, and then start staggering around, all zombified in a stovepipe hat, shouting, "With malice towards none and charity towards all, you idiots! REMEMBER???"

Obama's speech reminded me of another Lincoln quote: "Do not I also destroy my enemy if I make him my friend?"
posted by vibrotronica at 10:01 AM on January 13, 2011 [9 favorites]

Furiousx, that is cool. I am not sure why but it's also pretty profound to me.
posted by goalyeehah at 10:03 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Do you really believe that Sarah Palin is a Nazi?

No, but she is definitely a fascist. I'm coming from the perspective that one can be a fascist without deathcamps and other Nazi accouterments. In my opinion Palin, and the tea party movement in general, should be a wake up call to anyone who thinks fascism is not alive and well in this world.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:16 AM on January 13, 2011 [7 favorites]

lodurr, I was clarifying my own remarks, not criticising yours -- I'm pretty sure we're on the same page.

Jahaza, I am not arguing that there are no more neo-conservatives. But can you honestly say that you think the Krauthammer / NR / neo-con stream of thought has anywhere near the sway that it had during the height of the Bush II years? Of course, the Republicans don't seem to be backing away from the pro-torture, permawar positions of that clique -- but I don't see how you can argue that we're paying as much attention to David Brooks (who anyway is sort of a blue-dog-in-all-but-name (see also: Andrew Sullivan)). Not that I'm criticising either Brooks or Sully for that... the Blue Dogs are just the rump of the sensible-conservative party these days. But they definitely don't pull much sway in the Republican caucus anymore. It's not like this is a 500+ comment thread which has been discussing Krauthammer's or Coulter's latest op-ed. Nope, we're talking about Sarah, because she is now the queen of the Right.

The Republican Party under Reagan and even Bush II was a big tent. It was a party of the right, certainly: but it was able to accomodate within itself the Log Cabin Republicans, the neo-cons, the (to be anachronistic) Palinites, the moderate New England and Midwestern Republicans. As it's lurched inward, it has jettisoned first the moderates, and now the secularists. It's down to a weird pseudo-libertarian yet deeply sectarian core. The only persons with the standing to lead this party will be ones who are thoroughly native Evangelicals, with all the baggage that involves. I hope that I am wrong. i think someone like Romney or Pawlenty would be much preferable to a Palin or Huckabee, though I can't imagine a plausible scenario under which I would vote for one of them over the President in '12. But I think they're highly unlikely to make any headway in the current Republican field. If they do, there will almost certainly be a breakaway candidate from the Christian Right.

Sorry I've got to cut this short -- I'm late for work.
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:18 AM on January 13, 2011

Yes on elimination elements of Black evangelicals. Realized Proposition 8 initiative did not have a chance of being defeated when I began receiving flyers from churches from the black community telling people to vote yes. I was naive to think that groups who had a history of oppression and persecution would stand together.
posted by goalyeehah at 10:18 AM on January 13, 2011

Used the blood libel quote for Tea Party Jesus today. I have to say, this is one of my favorite pictures I've ever found for the comic.

EarBucket, am I parsing that correctly, in that you are the person who makes Tea Party Jesus?

If so, good job with it.
posted by Flunkie at 10:30 AM on January 13, 2011

Do you really believe that Sarah Palin is a Nazi?

If Republicans are leaving their positions because they are afraid of getting shot by Tea Party members, then that's one more piece in a body of evidence that the Tea Party — and one of its figureheads, Sarah Palin — espouses fascist ideals and behaves in manners analogous with how Nazis conducted their business in early 1930s Germany.

If you want to get hung up on a word, go for it. But these people behave in a manner that is worth paying close attention to and comparing with historical movements that ended with the deaths of millions.

Maybe we shouldn't need to wait needlessly for another massacre just to finally admit that we're dealing with dangerous people who think the violent overthrow of democratically-elected leaders is just okie-dokie.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:32 AM on January 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

Thanks, Flunkie.
posted by EarBucket at 10:33 AM on January 13, 2011

It's not like this is a 500+ comment thread which has been discussing Krauthammer's or Coulter's latest op-ed. Nope, we're talking about Sarah, because she is now the queen of the Right.

She may not know what the Bush Doctrine is, but she supports it. A Palin presidency would be neo-con on foreign policy.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:38 AM on January 13, 2011

If the US were to be taken over by a fascist leader, would you support the use of violence to resist that leader?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:42 AM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

If you want to get hung up on a word, go for it.

That seems to be pretty nonchalantly dismissing entirely the national conversation of the past week.

I do actually want to get hung up on a word. I wish more people thought getting hung up on words was important. I think we can criticize others without calling them Nazis. I mean, it's not hard.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:45 AM on January 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

If the US were to be taken over by a fascist leader, would you support the use of violence to resist that leader?

Bit of a derail, but in that event, you'd actually be much better-served by a nonviolent campaign of sabotage--pulling down cell phone towers and power lines, blowing up oil pipelines, even doing mass sit-downs on interstates, if you could get the crowds you'd need for it. You'll never win a shooting war against the US army with hunting rifles and shotguns. They can't be everywhere at once, though, and you'd accomplish a lot more by grinding infrastructure to a crawl and making life inconvenient for the general public.

That's the kind of thing that turns public opinion sour on a strongman; a dictator who can't even make the trains run on time is worse than useless.
posted by EarBucket at 10:51 AM on January 13, 2011

I do actually want to get hung up on a word. I wish more people thought getting hung up on words was important.

I wish more people would not get hung up on the word Nazi and actually reflect on what the word means. With respect, I don't think this is what you are doing, necessarily, when historical comparisons of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party with fascist movements of the 1930s get dismissed out of hand. I would actually encourage you to read something about the Nazis, specifically how they came about through violent intimidation of people who were not Nazis.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:54 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anyway, I'm not going to get into this derail. Right-wing violence is as real as the consequences of that violence, and we shouldn't need to wait until It Happens Here, just because some people think It Can't Happen Here.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:56 AM on January 13, 2011

Sadly, I've probably read too much about the rise of Nazism in Germany. If you think that Sarah Palin shares some things in common with the mindset that brought into power Hitler and his associates, that's fine. If you think that Sarah Palin is dangerously close to being a Nazi, and that to compare her to a Nazi is a fine and acceptable way of describing her, then you're ridiculous. In addition, if the intent of your rhetoric, in this forum or elsewhere, is to convince others that Sarah Palin is a person either unqualified or too dangerous to be President, then calling her a Nazi is not going to further your cause. Think about how out of the realm of real life we are right now. We're having a conversation about whether or not Sarah Palin is a Nazi. Just take a step back. It's preposterous. It's not serious.

On preview: you're not going to be derailed by your derail?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:04 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I agree: Nazi is the incorrect term. Fascist is a much more accurate word.

The far-right has been issuing threats of mortal violence in an effort to control the outcome of democratic elections.

It does no one any favors to use weasel language in describing the situation. "Fascist" is, IMO , an appropriate descriptor for SP's rhetoric.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:05 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sadly, I've probably read too much about the rise of Nazism in Germany

As have I. And your dismissal of comparisons of Palin and the Tea Party with the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany is not only ridiculous, but dangerously short-sighted.

In addition, if the intent of your rhetoric, in this forum or elsewhere, is to convince others that Sarah Palin is a person either unqualified or too dangerous to be President, then calling her a Nazi is not going to further your cause.

My only goal is to put the idea out there that It Can Happen Here, whether Palin is the figurehead, or some other nut just like her, no matter what a few tiresome Godwin zealots might say otherwise.

On preview: you're not going to be derailed by your derail?

Okay, you're just playing silly games. I'm really sorry I wasted my time.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:11 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not that it makes him a Nazi, but I feel like it's worth pointing out that John Boehner spent the Saturday before the election at a rally for a guy who likes to play Nazi dress-up. Why's the Speaker of the House "palling around" with a Nazi sympathizer?
posted by EarBucket at 11:11 AM on January 13, 2011

She may not know what the Bush Doctrine is, but she supports it. A Palin presidency would be neo-con on foreign policy.

This would be in line with how Straussian neo-Conservatism imagines itself to function: Using convenient dupes and convenient lies to unite the public toward a desirable goal. (See "noble lie".)

The problem is that the dupes so often end up running the asylum when you're done.

All realpolitik bullshit like that is so horribly, horribly dangerous and destructive when you're done with it for just that reason: It assumes a level & degree of control that nobody has, especially when playing with dark forces like fascist ideology & the human emotions it deploys to accomplish its ends.
posted by lodurr at 11:27 AM on January 13, 2011

Do you really believe that Sarah Palin is a Nazi?

A fascist, absolutely. Underestimate her at your peril, in my opinion.

When she stops, I'll stop.
posted by spitbull at 11:31 AM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Andrew Sullivan passes this on from a commenter on Towleroad:

Does anyone else see the irony in this tragedy? In Arizona, the state that has been the de facto "face" of recent political gay bashing (DADT-McCain) and racism (their highly controversial immigration law), a white straight man shoots a female Jewish member of congress who then has her life saved by a gay Hispanic American. It's poetic.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:31 AM on January 13, 2011 [16 favorites]

In the interest of fairness, Boehner really skipped the memorial to attend a vigil at the Capitol.

(Then he spent a few minutes at Nazi dress-up guy's fundraiser)
posted by dirigibleman at 11:35 AM on January 13, 2011

I wish Brewer would stop using Hernandez as her little political toy and I really hope he speaks out against her and the toxic ugly environment she fostered and encouraged there so she could win the governorship.

I hope Hernandez will not be silent.
posted by Skygazer at 11:40 AM on January 13, 2011

I wish more people would not get hung up on the word Nazi and actually reflect on what the word means.

National Socialist German Workers' Party.
posted by clavdivs at 11:47 AM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

(Then he spent a few minutes at Nazi dress-up guy's fundraiser)

Actually, that's not the case, dirigibleman, at least according to the link you provided. According to TPM:

[Boehner] attended an organizing event for Maria Cino, whom he's supporting to chair the RNC. But though that may have entailed chatting up donors over cocktails, [Michael] Steel says he spoke for three minutes and left the event in time to watch Obama's speech on television.

The Nazi dress-up guy thing was back before the election.
posted by shiu mai baby at 11:52 AM on January 13, 2011

clavdivs: I don't think he meant what the specific acronym means. Weren't there like three or four different political parties around at the time the NAZIs came to power, all of them with similar names? My understanding of the history is that it was one of these preexisting, nominally socialist parties that Hitler's movement essentially infiltrated and took over--and then immediately began persecuting and railing against actual socialists once they assumed control.

We can discuss the name of the party all day and night, but Hitler's own actions and public statements clearly show a ferocious antipathy toward communism and socialism. And historians have never classified the Nazi's we know as socialists, because they weren't--neither in sympathies nor practice. They were fascist. In practice, the German economy was dominated by private corporations (including many American corporations).

So the "National Socialist Worker Party" served Hitler as a kind of political Trojan horse, helping legitimize a movement that was neither labor friendly nor socialist. Kind of how the current-day Republicans call themselves "Republicans"--originally the party meant to champion the role of the federal government--while devoting nearly all their energies to pushing policies designed to weaken (or "shrink") the federal government.

That said, Palin, Limbaugh, etc, might not literally be Nazis, but from personal experience, it's absolutely true that most actual, self-identified Nazis (Aryan brotherhood types) left in this country count themselves among that movement's supporters, and Palin's internal polling must have shown her that by now, so presumably, she knows that.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:11 PM on January 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

I may be missing something here, but isn't calling referring to Palin and the Tea Partiers as fascists (or Nazis if you want to go Godwin on it) just falling into the same trap?

Calling a group Fascists, which is a very strong and probably not well understood term, seems just dehumanising as the Tea Party's claims of Tyranny and Socialism.

People know that Fascism is bad and should be fought, but applying that label you're saying an awful lot.

I think the Tea Party and associated people (Palin, Beck, et al) are moderately delusional and very manipulative, but I don't think their actions and intent equate to fascism.
posted by sycophant at 12:24 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually, that's not the case, dirigibleman, at least according to the link you provided. According to TPM:

OK, wow. I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
posted by dirigibleman at 12:25 PM on January 13, 2011

I actually heard a radio interview with a history professor from Gonzaga (a local college) just a couple of days ago, and he was talking about fascism, and he got into a bit where he was talking about the difference between fascism and communism.

And the way he outlined it was thus:

Yes, they historically have used a lot of the same mechanisms to gain and maintain power, but you can tell them apart very easily.

Communists seek to create a level playing field for everyone through their policies.

Fascists seek to create a level playing field for everyone on their team and exclude everyone else as "other", somehow not "real" or not "worthy" or not "qualified" as citizens of their movement.

Now, I don't claim to be any expert in the matter, and don't necessarily espouse either approach, but I certainly know which of those Palin has been using the language of for the past 2 years or so.
posted by hippybear at 12:38 PM on January 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Belligerent nationalism" is the phrase that stuck in my mind when I looked up a definition of Fascism.
posted by Trochanter at 12:46 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Having had a longtime layman's interest in this amazing thing called the human brain I've had a good idea from day one all the serious problems/ deficits Rep. Giffords could still be facing.

But da-yum people, she is sitting up at the edge of her bed, lifting her legs on command, looking around the room, communicating with her family with her hands, etc. Six effin days after being shot in the head at point-blank range with a Glock.
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-arizona-shooting-medical-20110114,0,3042305.story
posted by NorthernLite at 12:48 PM on January 13, 2011 [5 favorites]

Calling a group Fascists, which is a very strong and probably not well understood term, seems just dehumanising as the Tea Party's claims of Tyranny and Socialism.

People know that Fascism is bad and should be fought, but applying that label you're saying an awful lot.

I think the Tea Party and associated people (Palin, Beck, et al) are moderately delusional and very manipulative, but I don't think their actions and intent equate to fascism.

Unfortunately the term fascist, is as you have pointed out, a very contentious term which has numerous scholarly definitions in the academic literature. That being said I think that if any movement in recent American history deserves the label fascist it is the tea party. The difference between the tea party calling Obama a socialist and me calling the tea party fascist is that I can actually go to several well accepted definitions of fascism and see that their movement fits the bill. They can not do the same with President Obama. He is by no definition of the word a socialist.

Now would I go up to my tea party friends and family and tell them that I think they are part of a fascist movement? Of course not. Instead I would try to educate and engage them as best I can. As far as violent resistance to a fascist regime here in the America.....no comment.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:50 PM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Well ymmv but I don't think it's a totally unfair characterization.
posted by chaff at 12:54 PM on January 13, 2011

hippybear, the good professor's distinction totally breaks down in practice, because just about every macro-scale communist regime ends up being fascist by that definition.

Where it makes sense is when you look at what the two philosophies say about themselves: Fascist ideologies translate pretty directly into 'creating a level playing field for everyone on their team and excluding everyone else as "other".' The language of a specific movement's ideology is often prettied-up, but I'd warrant it more or less always translates to include that as a prime component.

If you accept that distinction, you will find that many communist regimes have fascist ideology. What else is the dictatorship of the proletariat, after all?

My point isn't that communism & fascism are the same thing -- it's that the Gonzaga prof's method of divining the difference is insufficient. (I'd also argue that they're not necessarily opposites.)
posted by lodurr at 12:54 PM on January 13, 2011

I'll just leave this here.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:57 PM on January 13, 2011

> i understand perfectly why obama spoke as he did and i don't think he would have been smart to do otherwise at a memorial service
> - but the extremists on the right are not going to stop - i wonder if some of them will even bother to tone it down
> posted by pyramid termite at 1:33 AM on January 13 [+] [!]

I expect probably not - either not at all or not for long. I was thinking more of the folks I encounter here, and wondering (hopefully) whether they might not react well to such an example of refusing to get down in the gutter with the people who are already there and apparently like it there.
posted by jfuller at 1:07 PM on January 13, 2011

My point isn't that communism & fascism are the same thing -- it's that the Gonzaga prof's method of divining the difference is insufficient.

Well, admittedly it was one small part of a longer interview.

I managed to actually find it for online listening, for those interested in listening at their leisure. The professor was Rod Stackelberg, Professor Emeritus of History , and the mp3 runs for about 30 minutes.
posted by hippybear at 1:12 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I prefer this definition.
Fascism:
Palingenetic
UltraNationalist
Populism.

This.
posted by hortense at 1:16 PM on January 13, 2011

a guy who likes to play Nazi dress-up ... a Nazi sympathizer

If you have any understanding of war-gaming and re-enactment culture, the first is silly and the second is a big stretch. If you're a Nazi sympathizer, you don't spend your weekends obsessively reenacting a war they lost -- you leaflet or whatever and talk about the ZOG. This is hardly more damning than noting that someone obsessively watches WWII documentaries on the History Channel. Anyway, Iott lost his race.

I am not certain that fascism is the best word to describe Palinism. She is certainly a nationalist (nakedly winking at "our exceptional nation" in her latest video), but an excess of patriotism has long been an American trait. I believe she would have a neo-conservative foreign policy. I don't see her enacting a bullet-pointed evangelical domestic slate, though, either -- an evangelical she is, but she isn't hooked into that discourse or political structure. It's more likely that she would imbue traditional Republican positions with absurd cultural divisions, as with the "Drill, Baby, Drill!" stuff. The demon they would first attack, I imagine, would be illegal immigrants, but this isn't a very out-there position to take (using international perspective), and doesn't by itself invoke a Niemoller-esque progression.

(I'm writing from Wisconsin, watching the TP-energized GOP take over state government. Their first order of business is Voter ID.)

At the same time, I think what people say about others is a useful mirror to how they see the world. For instance, there isn't yet an actual brownshirt corollary amidst the Tea Party, but they frequently invoke the spectre of one on the left by referring to a handful of New Black Panthers or SEIU sign-distributors as "[union] thugs". Yet there has been very little overt violence to date, mostly protesters vs. counter-protesters getting ugly. We would need to see a broad attack on an innocent cohort -- yes, perhaps immigrants or Muslims would fill that role -- and while the resentment is there and the rhetoric leans that way, it hasn't transferred into direct action.

If the US were to be taken over by a fascist leader, would you support the use of violence to resist that leader?

It's worth thinking about the fact that the ANC was a non-violent resistance organization until the Sharpeville Massacre. In other words, arguably the most legitimate anti-fascist group in recent history did not escalate the conflict until necessary.
posted by dhartung at 1:26 PM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'd suggest that there are two strains of totalitarianism - that which sees those outside the movement as unclean and needing to be destroyed, and that which sees them as other and needing to be assimilated.

(Daleks and Cybermen).

Nazi totalitarianism is very much of the Dalek strain; Soviet totalitarianism is more of the Cyberman.

Where Tea Party madness lies, I don't know - the rhetoric contains suggestions that the other should be destroyed, and also that they should be converted - but the Daleks seem to be gaining the upper hand.
posted by Grangousier at 1:33 PM on January 13, 2011 [6 favorites]

Frankly, I think the difference between the Tea Party and other fascists is right now one of action vs. talk. There is much symmetry between some of the Tea Party philosophy and Fascist thought right now, but right now, they simply haven't gotten the muscle behind the talk that other historic Fascist movements have had. And I think it's important to acknowledge that. Not that this isn't a reason to keep an eye on the situation, mind.

But I feel this goes a long way towards explaining why we are currently finding ourselves in this kind of "they're Fascists/no they're not" tussle. Some are emphasizing their thought, others their ability to act.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:37 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you have any understanding of war-gaming and re-enactment culture, the first is silly and the second is a big stretch.

I'm familiar with re-enactment culture. Iott describes Nazi Germany thus:

"I've always been fascinated by the fact that here was a relatively small country that from a strictly military point of view accomplished incredible things. I mean, they took over most of Europe and Russia, and it really took the combined effort of the free world to defeat them. From a purely historical military point of view, that's incredible."

His re-enactment group's website describes the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking this way:

Nazi Germany had no problem in recruiting the multitudes of volunteers willing to lay down their lives to ensure a "New and Free Europe", free of the threat of Communism. National Socialism was seen by many in Holland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and other eastern European and Balkan countries as the protector of personal freedom and their very way of life, despite the true underlying totalitarian (and quite twisted, in most cases) nature of the movement. Regardless, thousands upon thousands of valiant men died defending their respective countries in the name of a better tomorrow. We salute these idealists; no matter how unsavory the Nazi government was, the front-line soldiers of the Waffen-SS (in particular the foreign volunteers) gave their lives for their loved ones and a basic desire to be free.

They devote their time to recreating the exploits of an SS unit tasked with rounding up, torturing, and executing Jews, while engaging in revisionist history that whitewashes the group's documented war crimes. That's not a group that's purely interested in military history; that's a group that's sympathetic to their subject. And for whatever reason, Speaker Boehner had nowhere better to be the weekend before the election than trying to get this guy elected to Congress. I think that's pretty repulsive, but your mileage may vary, obviously.
posted by EarBucket at 1:47 PM on January 13, 2011 [5 favorites]

the Tea Party's claims of Tyranny and Socialism

One of these is an evil to be fought, possibly with armed resistance. The other characterizes some of our most cherished government programs. Equating them as you, Matt Bai, and the Tea Party have done is doing violence to the language as well as to rational discussion of politics. Please stop.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:49 PM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Speaking of Godwin, "You wouldn't have much fun in Stalingrad, would you?"
posted by philip-random at 1:59 PM on January 13, 2011

The other characterizes some of our most cherished government programs.

No, it doesn't.

Socialism, at its heart, is collective ownership of the means of production and allocation of resources.

There are zero of our cherished government programs which have anything to do with means of production.

We may try to do a bit of resource allocation through taxes and social programs, but there is nothing truly "socialist" about Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, or even the newly passed PPACA.

None of them involve the government seizing an industry and then distributing the products of that industry to the citizens in order to help boost their productivity.

All of them are public/private partnerships which benefit capitalist enterprise as much as they do the individual.
posted by hippybear at 2:04 PM on January 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

palin's breath
posted by crunchland at 2:12 PM on January 13, 2011 [10 favorites]

In Steins’ “The Waffen SS“, The Idea to form these “Germanics” into the 'Wiking' was Hitlers’ idea which Himmler strongly opposed as he would have to fold in other “people” not deemed fit for the SS criteria of “pure blood” Croats, Spaniards , and French were folded into the Wehrmacht. The Finns and Danes in the ‘Wiking’ were deserting by 1942 because of the treatment internally and externally received by other German SS divisions. I could go , but even racism, class conflict and ideology was a factor in making the ‘Wiking’ not combat effective in terms of success for the resources allocated to them.
though there were some Croat SS units, the 13th mountain i believe.
posted by clavdivs at 2:22 PM on January 13, 2011

palin's breath

I find this creepy on so many levels; the execution, the net effect, that it just keeps going and going, as well as the fact that someone watched that speech and thought "Chronicling her breathing... this should be a thing."
posted by quin at 2:25 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Socialism, at its heart, is collective ownership of the means of production and allocation of resources.

Se if I can upack this here. You may be reading some of the terms a little narrowly. I'm pretty sure the means of production doesn't just refer to manufacturing facilities. For example, airports are part of the "means of production" for air travel. And who owns them, in general? Government. Likewise, the moving of postal material around the country is owned by the Feds, notwithstanding the fig leaf put on it (as in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for mortgage creation).

And allocation of resources? That's a big basket and certainly includes things like Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention agricultural and fuel subsidies.

But going beyond the narrow definition you provide, it is clear that government programs like Social Security fall well within the canonical bounds of what is today called socialism. Ownership of all means of production by the govenment doesn't exist (and never has) any more than a government has ever allocated all resources. I really, really, really object to this boxing of the word "socialism" driven by the hard right that apparently is being accepted even by those left of center. Every government in the world today uses some elements of classical socialism. It isn't a dirty word.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:29 PM on January 13, 2011 [6 favorites]

And yet, we have private enterprise airlines, no national ones owned by the US Government.

Oh, and last I checked, the USPS was not a government agency, or at least not one in the classic sense of the world. Plus, there are at least two competing agencies which also move material around the country in much the same manner, so there is capitalist competition in that industry. It's a far cry from being socialized.

And I am not sure that link from wikipedia actually says what you think it says. As the text there itself shows that the meaning of socialism changed when Marx's theories became popular, so while social security may have at one time been considered socialism, that isn't really how the term is used today.

There is an exclusivity assumed in socialism, as I understand it, where competition is discouraged because the workers / citizens themselves own the means of production, and its products are distributed to the masses as part of their right as participants within the social structure.

And yes, Social Security has a lot to do with redistribution, but not a lot to do with production.

I don't see socialism as a dirty word. I've lived in shared housing nearly all my life and even participated in what some might call small communes, so I don't have a problem with the concept. I only have a problem with people using the terms as extremist rhetoric without having any real knowledge of what the term means.
posted by hippybear at 2:48 PM on January 13, 2011

Wait, there are serious people who don't think that, given unfettered access to state power, the Tea Party crowd would incline immediately and sharply to fascism?

It's what they are. Any discourse on policy they produce is a pure cover for a politics of brute force, authoritarianism, and theocratic nationalism.

They *are* fascists. It is not uncivil to call people what they are. It's honest. They are the ones who get all into dishonesty -- it's the core of their lack of civility, their ability to come up with things like "death panels" and "Kenyan birth certificates."

Insulting someone is always uncivil. But to my way of thinking, and I think this is the freedom of speech thing, it's OK if it's true. If President Obama really were a socialist Kenyan Muslim preparing to take over the US's vital industries and put conservatives into camps and kill their grandmas, I'd damn well hope someone would have the balls to say it, uncivil or not.

But he's not. What those people are doing is projecting their own fantasies onto others. Like I think I said above, it's the equivalent of Ted Haggard or Mark Foley inveighing against gay rights.

Dishonesty is the worst kind of incivility.
posted by spitbull at 3:11 PM on January 13, 2011 [9 favorites]

" . . . let’s remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud."
posted by spitbull at 3:45 PM on January 13, 2011

Which actions did Palin take as governor of Alaska that you considered most fascist?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:54 PM on January 13, 2011

One of these is an evil to be fought, possibly with armed resistance. The other characterizes some of our most cherished government programs. Equating them as you, Matt Bai, and the Tea Party have done is doing violence to the language as well as to rational discussion of politics. Please stop.

What Socialism really means is not the issue, I live in a far more socialist country than the USA and have a fair idea of what socialism is in a practical context. But that's not how it's sold, as a buzzword, to the American people by media. Regardless of their actual meanings and how right or wrong they might be, socialism and communism are shorthand in many American's minds for "evil despotic leadership".

Which was essentially my point in the post you replied to - regardless of what fascism might mean or how accurate the definition might be it's an emotive term that essentially paints those you apply it to as enemies and, in the case of a growing political movement, as an imminent threat.

What's to say some moderately unhinged slightly left-leaning guy with guns isn't reading this and thinking "shit, Palin represents a fascist threat to my country, I know how I can fix that".

These words, whether accurate or not, have very strong and visceral associations for many people. Beck calling Obama's administration a tyranny is more than just alluding to his sense of isolation from it's policies, it's implying (deliberately I think) that it is a threat to freedom. In calling Palin and the Tea Party fascists you are doing exactly the same thing in the minds of many.
posted by sycophant at 4:28 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hate when people redefine "liberal" to "socialist", both because it makes discussing socialism impossible and because it feeds the paranoid fantasies of the right. If you're not in favor of labor seizing the means of production , but instead want capitalism with strong regulations and social programs, just call yourself a liberal. When you are against what is historically understood to be socialism (and I mean understood by socialists and people not living in the US, where right-wing rhetoric is so powerful and pervasive that even many liberals think they're communists), don't call yourself a socialist just because your "team" is traditionally slandered as such by the people you hate who are trying to smear you as the heirs of Lenin and Stalin and Mao. I'm serious: when liberals call themselves socialists, they're simultaneously surrendering to the Right and appropriating words they don't have any claim to.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:31 PM on January 13, 2011 [9 favorites]

Which actions did Palin take as governor of Alaska that you considered most fascist?

Use of the powers of her office to persecute that state trooper was a good example. Suppression of FOIL requests for email through bogus fees would be another good one. Could probably dig up some others.

There's cronyism, too -- on it's own, obviously that's not fascism, but her reactions when challenged about the cronyism are so fiercely defensive that they bring fascists to mind.
posted by lodurr at 5:22 PM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Pretty weak example compared to the hyperbole above.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 5:51 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure what examples you're pointing out; I'm not sure there are any real examples, though yes there's certainly a lot of supposition.

When people talk about Palin and fascism, they talk about her language and the policies she appears to support. It's useful to look at what she's actually done, and if you do that, her entire public life shows you someone who is devoted to the abuse of power: to get someone fired; to get a new sports center built that benefits her family and her image (but the town, not so much); to protect her secrets; to enrich herself (remember the expense account nonsense?). So, these may seem like "weak" examples to you, but to me they're very telling.

Couple that with her habitual lying, and the idea of Sarah Palin with actual political power is utterly terrifying.

(Seriously, I don't think it would ever happen. But I believe that it could, which makes it worth taking some minimal steps to defend against.)
posted by lodurr at 6:14 PM on January 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm serious: when liberals call themselves socialists, they're simultaneously surrendering to the Right and appropriating words they don't have any claim to.

I think understand what you, sycophant and hippybear are reacting to, and I think it is driven by the shift in connotation over the last few decades that the massive spending by conservatives have engendered. If we can't recover the neutral and accurate meanings of words like "capitalism" and "socialism", they will continue to be tools by which the reactionary forces in the US will prevent actual solutions to many of our problems. We basically have two tools: we either encourage the free market to do things or we empower the government to do things. Giving the government power to do things beyond military defense, enforcement of criminal laws and adjudicating business disputes is, broadly speaking, using socialism. Because I advocate some of these, it doesn't make me a "Socialist" any more than if I advocate using a market solution makes me a "Capitalist". Reversing some of this emotionally burdened ideological labeling is, I believe, a necessary step to having rational conversations. We need to make so that merely calling something "socialism" does not mean it is bad, any more than calling it "capitalism" is. Your reaction to my use of the word perfectly illustrates how bad the situation is. Matt Bai, in the NYTimes, explicitly said that tyranny and socialism were both legitimate reasons for Americans to take up arms. That's absurd. Sycophant's use of that pairing echoes Bai's careless imputation. That's what I'm arguing. I don't think I ever called myself or any other progressive or liberal (another label they've managed to taint) a "socialist".
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:30 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't know that this is fascism as much as just good old fashioned abuse of power, but this has always stuck in my mind when I think about Palin:

In a new interview with ABC News, Sarah Palin left the door open to running for national political office in the future. She said that the “frivolous ethics violations” that plagued her during her time in Alaska wouldn’t be as much as a problem if she were in the White House because of the all-powerful “Department of Law” that the President has at his disposal:

"I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we’ve been charged with and automatically throw them out."

This line illustrates three things:

1) Palin really isn't up to speed on basic civics, at least on a federal level. There's no such thing as a "Department of Law."
2) Palin really doesn't understand law, either. She thinks that if there were a Department of Law, that it would be able to get legal charges against her just thrown out without much hassle. Presumably, she wasn't paying any attention at all to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, or she would know that even bright presidents who are good legal minds themselves can get bogged down having to deal with some pretty frivolous accusations.
3) Palin has a fundamentally authoritarian mindset. Not only does she think that the non-existent Department of Law can automatically throw out charges against her, she thinks that that is a good thing. One of the nifty perks of the Presidency, in her view, is being above the law, and not having to be held accountable for your actions.

Any one of those three should disqualify her from holding high office, but especially the third. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I think the recent "blood libel" statement is similar. She basically wants to be beyond rebuke. It's not a healthy mindset for anyone, much less a public servant.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:38 PM on January 13, 2011 [48 favorites]

"If the President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal" - Nixon, R M

Not true, but it can be a bitch to bring it home to him or her and indeed likely won't happen. See Bush, G W
posted by jfuller at 7:53 PM on January 13, 2011

she is so goning to need that book money.
posted by clavdivs at 9:13 PM on January 13, 2011

Which actions did Palin take as governor of Alaska that you considered most fascist?

I can't decide between harassing and firing various government officials who did not agree with her, during her time in office, or asking the public library for books to be banned, and then firing the librarian who said that book banning is not really what libraries do.

You might find those weak examples. I guess I would call them cautionary.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:37 PM on January 13, 2011 [6 favorites]

i found the following gems on yahoo's comment board, without even looking

1 - I dont know why the Liberal Atheist left is so outraged about this shooting. The left supports a woman's right to kill her unborn child (sorry, I mean bundle of cells) the left justifies this murder just because the child happens to be in the mothers tummy. In other words, someone else gets to decide if someone else lives or dies. I dont see how this guy shooting people and the Senator is that much morally different. The shooter just exercised his right to decide who gets to live and who dosen't. I hate what he did of course, but I also hate abortion, neither is right, but one can't be right while the other isn't. Angie, my 3D Toshiba Laptop worth $1599 just arrived. Only paid $198.47 for it, I thought that was a good deal till my neighbor told me he's getting a massive 42 inch 3DTV for $192.74 being delivered to his apartment tomorrow. It's a really amazing feeling not paying full jacked up prices like the public have-to. I even started selling products to staff at work and I'm making a killing. Take a look here, go to nowayamigoingtoreproduceyourlinkspammer.com

i mean what the hell, people are using rightwing vitriol as an advertising tool? does that work?

2 Palin, Beck, Limbaugh= TEA-RRORISTS!!!

well, see, the left has idiots, too

3 Wait till the Liberals drag Giffords onto the Congress floor. You ain't seen nothin' yet from these people.....

imagine that - an elected congresswoman taking her place in congress - isn't that an outrage?

4 - Do you people get the demented implication in this report? The alleged writer is trying to make you believe Obama visted his communist pal in the hospital and now she's making a miraculous recovery. Get it.......Obama is the modern Jesus.....according to liars at the Associated Press. The Obama act is sick and getting sicker.

words fail me

that's 4 comments right in a row - i don't think i can look thorugh all 1510 comments without tearing my eyes out

folks, we have a fucking problem here, don't we? - does anyone want to tell me that no 4 wouldn't gladly cooperate in a fascist system? - what about no 1?

and if it gave her some money and power, don't you think sarah palin would go along with them?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:01 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can't decide between harassing and firing various government officials who did not agree with her, during her time in office, or asking the public library for books to be banned, and then firing the librarian who said that book banning is not really what libraries do.

Sarah Palin gave her friends tons of lucrative jobs.

From the NYTimes:

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.
posted by anniecat at 10:46 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Earbucket, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. The first statement is literally true, and in fact, "from a strictly military standpoint", the German successes in WWII are widely admired and studied by strategists. Their quick takeover of Europe had more to do with various political vacuums on the Allied side (before there was an alliance, really), but it's still impressive and there's nothing in that statement that is sympathetic to Nazism itself. As to the second, they do seem to take a rather poorly considered approach to ignoring the war crimes aspect, but it's more a desire to see their reenactment models in the best light. Politically dumb, historically naive, but not ideologically supportive. I mean, I could say similar stuff about the Red Army and that wouldn't make me a supporter of Stalinism.

and if it gave her some money and power, don't you think sarah palin would go along with them?

In a sense, this is actually why my estimation of her threat is weakening. She has no true compass of her own. She would only be a puppet of her mass movement. She's a Chauncey Gardiner, elevated by accident. What worries me about the Tea Party, though, is if it should spawn a truly charismatic demagogue with inherent political skills. So far it's only proven really fruitful for demagogues with media skills like Beck. But that's a guy who seems just smart enough to understand that his influence only goes so far -- that he couldn't win an election, because he would have to emasculate what makes him attractive to his viewers.
posted by dhartung at 11:55 PM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Earbucket, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.

That's cool. It's not like I think Boehner and Iott were going over blueprints for concentration camps or anything. I do think, though, that it demonstrates a level of comfort with Nazi imagery that makes me a little nervous. I wore a Nazi uniform in a play once, and it made my skin crawl every night. Dressing up as one of them for fun and lionizing their deeds in the service of the Third Reich is, at a minimum, the kind of thing party leaders ought to stay far, far away from, in my opinion.
posted by EarBucket at 6:00 AM on January 14, 2011

"If every person in the world was like Sarah Palin, there probably wouldn’t even be need for government because no one would be in danger of any kind. If every person were like Sarah Palin, this world would be a peaceful, beautiful world to live in."

--Trent Franks (R-AZ)

"Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."

--Captain Bennett Marco, U.S. Army
posted by EarBucket at 6:21 AM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

I guess to clarify on the Nazi point: When I say "sympathizer," I don't mean Iott wants to put Jews into ovens. I mean that he looks at Nazi Germany, at their fascist aesthetic, and says "Wow! They may have done some bad stuff, but they were cool! Badass!" That's his right, certainly, but it makes him someone I don't want near the levers of power. And if John Boehner had an ounce of sense in his head, neither would he. He chose to invest some of his political capital in getting Iott elected. Again, that's his right, but I think it tells us something really important about his character.
posted by EarBucket at 6:26 AM on January 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

(It's also disappointing because I don't think Boehner's quite as dumb as the Tea Partiers he's playing to. He's crooked, certainly, but I think he could be an okay Speaker who'd at least pretend to give a shit about governance. Unfortunately, like every other Republican who's been in Congress for a long time, he's terrified of the Tea Partiers and has decided he's got to act crazy enough to blend in. That doesn't bode well for the next two years.)
posted by EarBucket at 6:31 AM on January 14, 2011

3) Palin has a fundamentally authoritarian mindset. Not only does she think that the non-existent Department of Law can automatically throw out charges against her, she thinks that that is a good thing. One of the nifty perks of the Presidency, in her view, is being above the law, and not having to be held accountable for your actions.

To be fair, the way I read her statement about the 'Department of Law' was that she either believes or wants to pretend to believe that the charges brought against her were frivolous and non-substantive, just a bunch of legal gobbledygook with no there there, so if she had with her the Department of Law, the Department of Law Experts of Law would look at those charges and dismiss them because they are dismissable, not because of corruption.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:36 AM on January 14, 2011

shakespherian: Sure, but she always thinks that about everything. Nothing she does is ever wrong. Taking someone who thinks like that and giving them power is usually a bad idea.
posted by lodurr at 6:57 AM on January 14, 2011

Well of course not, and I'm not suggesting anything in Palin's favor-- just that I read her statement differently than did Pater Aletheias, who saw it as a naked confession of belief that the president is and should be above the law.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:59 AM on January 14, 2011

Your examples of fascism do not raise above the relatively common abuses and corruptions you see on any government level. Are city Democratic machine politicians fascist?

Maybe you can say so, sure they do some things fascists do. Okay, but if we are describing nearly everyone as fascist you have robbed the word of meaning which is a really dangerous thing to do.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:08 AM on January 14, 2011

None of the charges against her really stuck, either. I'm not sure I can jump on the FASCIST! bandwagon for never proved ethics violations when people like Charles Rangel are among the "good guys."
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:12 AM on January 14, 2011

Charles Rangel is also a bad guy.
posted by EarBucket at 7:28 AM on January 14, 2011

(Not that it has any bearing on Sarah Palin or whether she's a fascist or proto-fascist or whatever. She's a bad person who wants to do bad things with the government, and that's enough for me. But Rangel's a crook, and I'm glad that asshole got dragged out into the sunlight.)
posted by EarBucket at 7:30 AM on January 14, 2011

On what planet is Rangel not a crook?

For a guy who says Palins behaviors are unimportant piffle indicating nothing, you certainly have an interesting perspective on people's thoughts on Rangel.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:52 AM on January 14, 2011

if we are describing nearly everyone as fascist you have robbed the word of meaning which is a really dangerous thing to do.

Dude, that ship has sailed, that bird has flown, that barn door is blah blah.

On the subject, though, here's John leCarré with a definition:

"Mussolini, I think, defined fascism as the moment when you couldn’t put a cigarette paper between political and corporate power. He assumed, when he offered that definition, that media power was already his."

Which makes you wonder what all other ships have already sailed...
posted by Trochanter at 7:57 AM on January 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

he looks at Nazi Germany, at their fascist aesthetic, and says "Wow! They may have done some bad stuff, but they were cool! Badass!" That's his right, certainly, but it makes him someone I don't want near the levers of power.

As it is, there are too many people like that who already influence the levers of power: The Family, aka The Fellowship.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 7:57 AM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'll go with proto-fascist, then. Her record of statements is littered with examples like that "Dept. of Law" nonsense. Obviously as a first-term governor of an American state with fewer than a million people and an already gun-crazy culture (it makes more sense up there, however), she didn't have much chance to exercise her fascist tendencies other than in the minor, bullying ways that give insight mostly into her character rather than her beliefs.

However, she supported Joe Miller, who had off-duty military guards (thugs) beat up and handcuff a reporter for asking a critical question. How's that? She also never refudiated him.

Joe Miller's ilk are Palinites through and through. They think it's perfectly OK to use force to intimidate your opponents, to ignore the rule of law when it's inconvenient, and to align nationalism, racial identity, and religion as a tool of exclusion and a foundation for a politics of scapegoating and hatred. That's what this thread is about. Palin need not be anything -- she probably is an empty vessel -- for us to see that the people who support her have fascist beliefs which are of longstanding historical significance in American culture -- they didn't just come from Germany.

If she doesn't scare you, you aren't paying enough attention, I sincerely believe that.
posted by spitbull at 8:00 AM on January 14, 2011 [6 favorites]

if we are describing nearly everyone as fascist you have robbed the word of meaning which is a really dangerous thing to do.

Also, speaking of barn doors having sailed the gate, the right has been throwing around "fascist" at the Obama administration, the Democrats, and the "liberal elite" with regularity for the past two years, often in a list of other dehumanizing analogies that make little if any historical, logical, or factual sense. I didn't rob the word of its meaning. I'm interested in recovering the specific sense of an intertwining of racial/religious nationalism and a belief that might makes right in every instance. To me, that's fascism.
posted by spitbull at 8:03 AM on January 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Yet there has been very little overt violence to date, mostly protesters vs. counter-protesters getting ugly. " And a gas line being cut. And all those bricks thrown through windows and doors in an attempt at political intimidation.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 8:05 AM on January 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

furiousxgeorge: Your examples of fascism do not raise above the relatively common abuses and corruptions you see on any government level.

Well, that's where she's operated. So naturally that's where the examples will be from. If that's how she operated on that level (and unapologetically so), and if she's done analogous things in private life since then (and she has, witness The Video, her incessant demonization of anyone who reports anythng about her that she doesn't like, etc.), then we have reason to believe that if she had the chance, she'd be a fascist.

As I've said, I don't think she will get the chance. But the reason for that will be people stopping her, and part of stopping her is being aware of what she'd do if she did.

As far as degrading the meaning of the term "fascist", the discussion at this point in the thread is not contributing to that, rather it's trying to address it. We're using the term a lot because one has to if you're trying to figure out what it means. At this point, it's a discussion, about meaning, not careless usage. (See also spitbull, above.)
posted by lodurr at 8:16 AM on January 14, 2011

Are city Democratic machine politicians fascist?

I haven't seen any city Democratic machine politicians call for banning books, no.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:32 AM on January 14, 2011

I haven't seen any city Democratic machine politicians call for banning books, no.

Banning guns, though? Unconstitutionally?

On what planet is Rangel not a crook?

For a guy who says Palins behaviors are unimportant piffle indicating nothing, you certainly have an interesting perspective on people's thoughts on Rangel.

Interesting. I am surely willing to admit her behavior indicates she is corrupt, but not fascist. Rangel was brought up to implicitly ask the question, is his behavior an example of "built a hockey rink" style fascism as well?

Also, speaking of barn doors having sailed the gate, the right has been throwing around "fascist" at the Obama administration, the Democrats, and the "liberal elite" with regularity for the past two years, often in a list of other dehumanizing analogies that make little if any historical, logical, or factual sense.

It's probably best not to repeat that mistake in order to correct it.

However, she supported Joe Miller, who had off-duty military guards (thugs) beat up and handcuff a reporter for asking a critical question. How's that?

Is the Bob Etheridge incident also an example of fascism?

Is Palin's support for socializing Alaskan oil profits fascist?

This is getting a bit too take on all comers so I'll let you guys have the last word on this debate.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:55 AM on January 14, 2011

I find Umberto Eco's "Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt" helpful when the "but what is fascism" discussion comes up, as it inevitably does. link pdf (longer)

Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians is pretty crucial to my understanding of What Is Going On, as well. Even if you don't care about US politics* it will enhance your understanding of MetaFilter :) previously

* and if not, why are you in this thread?
posted by jtron at 8:56 AM on January 14, 2011 [9 favorites]

I'm only posting here so I can say I was a part of MeFi history. Proceed as normal.
posted by grubi at 9:19 AM on January 14, 2011

furiousxgeorge, I agree with you that the term fascism is used loosely and too often. Has been for a generation. In my mind it's been done so much that the battle is lost. The word means "bad". (Fascist pig cops took my dope!) I wasn't meaning to pile on.

jtron, I was going to post the Eco piece, too. It's a good 'un.

There are also some good links and discussion of the term in this TheophileEscargot thread: What's that sound?

I will say that when I saw the thuggery at the Miller and Rand Paul events, images of brown shirts came to my mind, honestly and unbidden.
posted by Trochanter at 9:22 AM on January 14, 2011

If she doesn't scare you, you aren't paying enough attention, I sincerely believe that.

I agree. I also agree that the "F" word's been bandied about so much (often by opposite sides in the same argument) that it's fast becoming meaningless (hence, Godwin). So yeah, focus on the specifics (even the reasoned historical analogues) as to why I should be scared shitless of Ms Palin and the crowd of misfits/loony-tunes/squalid-criminals who support her. But don't be lazy and just randomly toss the "F" word. I might confuse you for one of THEM and open fire. You know, heat of battle and all that.
posted by philip-random at 9:31 AM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

hence, Godwin

One of these days, I'm going to lose my temper over this. Godwin doesn't say USING NAZIS IN A DEBATE IS UNCOOL. It's about the probability of Nazis being mentioned in a discussion.

COME ON PEOPLE
posted by grubi at 9:39 AM on January 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

Banning guns, though? Unconstitutionally?

If you can cite cases of a municipal executive or mayor banning guns unilaterally, with no approval from a legislature, then I'll stipulate that the action was fascist.

But if such an action is taken after a genuine debate in a democratically elected legislature, it's not fascist. That's regardless of the constitutionality question.

And let's not conflate unconstitutionality with fascism. They're more or less totally unrelated, and furthermore, "unconsitutional" is a post facto judgement in most cases. Whether banning handguns anywhere is constitutional or not has been a continuously moving target for decades; recently the SCOTUS has ruled in a couple of cases that it was, but the municipalities in question wouldn't have voted for bans if they knew the bans would be overturned, so they clearly didn't think they were unconstitutional when they did it. The charge of doing something "unconstitutionally" loses a little of its force when the person doing the thing you presume to be unconstitutional doesn't think what they're doing is unconstitutional.
posted by lodurr at 10:00 AM on January 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

One of these days, I'm going to lose my temper over this. Godwin doesn't say USING NAZIS IN A DEBATE IS UNCOOL. It's about the probability of Nazis being mentioned in a discussion.

Well, yeah, but I think that most of the time vernacular usage has changed Godwin's meaning to 'Whoever first brings up Nazis in an argument loses.'
posted by shakespeherian at 10:22 AM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Argh, sorry, really didn't want to post on this again.

If you can cite cases of a municipal executive or mayor banning guns unilaterally, with no approval from a legislature, then I'll stipulate that the action was fascist.

Right, it's never as simple as "banning guns." I get that. Now let's look at Palin. She had a hypothetical discussion about no specific titles with government employees and the city council. She fired a librarian and quickly rehired her the next day at the behest of her constituents with no presented evidence that hypothetical book banning had anything to do with it. If we apply the same critical thinking we give to Democratic politicians taking guns, it becomes pretty clear there is no fascism here.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:32 AM on January 14, 2011

I think that most of the time vernacular usage has changed Godwin's meaning to 'Whoever first brings up Nazis in an argument loses.'

Yeah, but that vernacular meaning is false. Heaven forbid someone makes a valid comparison to the Nazis in a debate! Lawdy, no! Especially in a debate when we're talking about abuse of power! My, oh, my! </vapors>
posted by grubi at 10:42 AM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

What's clear is that the town council and citizens of Wasilla didn't allow there to be fascism.
posted by lodurr at 10:44 AM on January 14, 2011

I think the issue is that if you can't make the case against something without a comparison to Nazis, your case isn't very strong, and you're needlessly comparing something or someone to what is often considered the worst thing ever. I don't necessarily agree with this argument, since I don't think the Nazis were magic evil demons or anything, but that's the issue.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:48 AM on January 14, 2011

Heaven forbid someone makes a valid comparison to the Nazis in a debate! Lawdy, no! Especially in a debate when we're talking about abuse of power! My, oh, my!

grubi - I share your frustration but that doesn't change the fact that the Nazi comparison is so badly over-used of late (often as not by the neo-Fascists in the crowd) that it's become dysfunctional. Does this mean, don't reference the history of Nazi Germany ever? No. But it does mean, don't just lazily throw it out in a moment of frustration. Make it work for you, not against you.

And yes, in my humble opinion, just calling Ms Palin a fascist is lazy. Because in spite of all of her sins against decency, truth, intelligence, she's yet to get seriously behind a bunch of thugs in brown-shirts who are out on a mission to beat their political opponents to death.
posted by philip-random at 11:10 AM on January 14, 2011

A Washington Times editorial defends Sarah Palin's use of the phrase "blood libel" in the wake of the Tucson shootings, by calling media criticism of Palin "the latest round of an ongoing pogrom against conservative thinkers."
posted by EarBucket at 11:12 AM on January 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

What's clear is that the town council and citizens of Wasilla didn't allow there to be fascism.
But if such an action is taken after a genuine debate in a democratically elected legislature, it's not fascist.
post facto judgement in most cases.

You are excusing behavior of the side you support with excuses you are not granting to the other side. You are making assumptions about the behavior of the other side to cast it in the worst possible light. Book banning is not necessarily fascist, but can be. Disarming a population is not necessarily fascist, but can be. It entirely depends on the context.

Palin argues that she was simply attempting to understand the procedure for dealing with complaints about offensive books. There is not ample evidence to decide if she was really doing it to be fascist or was just posing a question all small town governments have to understand. Absent strong evidence, it is unwise to make the charge of fascism.

Was the Gore
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:12 AM on January 14, 2011

...campaign to force warning labels on music fascist? Clearly unconstitutional I would say, but fascist?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:14 AM on January 14, 2011

"the latest round of an ongoing pogrom against conservative thinkers."

oxymoronic histrionics.
posted by clavdivs at 11:21 AM on January 14, 2011 [4 favorites]

Clearly unconstitutional I would say, but fascist?

worse. It is unconstitutional.
posted by clavdivs at 11:26 AM on January 14, 2011

I think there's this weird assumption floating around that to have fascist leanings means that you have to behave as a fully-formed fascist from the start -- so that since Sarah Palin didn't orchestrate some equivalent of Wasilla's Kristalnacht and will never march around with a swastika armband, she can never be considered a fascist.

What this doesn't take into account is that such movements grow and gain support over time, sometimes in fits and starts, sometimes gradually, sometimes dramatically. I mean, it's not like everyone who was ever a member of the Nazi party was there at the Beer Hall Putsch. People joined the party and the movement as it grew(and particularly after it took power) -- some out of sheer opportunism or careerism, some out of deep sympathy with fascist ideals, some because they were murderous, sadistic thugs and psychopaths. Hess was with Hitler from 1920; Eichmann didn't join the party till 1932. Local and regional leaders in Germany joined the party at different points throughout the period.

Now, by no means do I literally believe Sarah Palin is an actul Nazi or admierer of Hitler, nor did she take actions as governor of Alaska that are specifically aligned with a neo-Nazi political platform, nor that most of the Tea Party supporters are actual Nazis. I do, however, absolutely believe that both Palin and the Tea Party have espoused ideas, used language, and made demands that are in line with hard line nativist and fascistic tendencies. I also believe we are seeing the emergence of a new American fascist movement among growing sectors of our population beyond the fringe -- a movement that Palin has not hesitated to align herself with and attempt to manipulate for her own aims of achieving power, fame, and income. I am confident in saying that if that movement continues to grow and gain sway, she will continue to be a part of it.
posted by scody at 11:34 AM on January 14, 2011 [13 favorites]

A Washington Times editorial defends Sarah Palin's use of the phrase "blood libel" in the wake of the Tucson shootings, by calling media criticism of Palin "the latest round of an ongoing pogrom against conservative thinkers."

Good grief...talk about doubling down! They really will start calling it a "conservative holocaust" next. (Not to mention the fact that Palin isn't a thinker, nor is she conservative in any legitimate sense.)
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:35 AM on January 14, 2011 [4 favorites]

Until we decide to amend the constitution. It seems to me there's something a lot more fundamentally wrong with fascist ideologies than simplistic analysis in terms of constitutionality could possibly hope to shed light on.

It was once constitutional, after all, to consider blacks 3/5th's of a person. Was the "unconstitutional" political opposition and ultimately the elimination of those laws fascist? Of course not.

Whether or not laws or actions are fascistic has nothing whatsoever to do with questions of constitutionality, it seems to me.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:39 AM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

In other words, the idea expressed above:

"worse. It is unconstitutional."

...is dangerous.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:41 AM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Gary Wills on the blood libel speech:

"...Palin timed her morning statement on the Tucson tragedy to play against the president’s anticipated speech later that day. The setting and solemnity of her presentation were manipulated to show who could be more “presidential,” she or Obama. That is a measure of her aspirations and arrogance."
posted by AwkwardPause at 11:55 AM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Argh -- Garry.
posted by AwkwardPause at 11:56 AM on January 14, 2011

The setting and solemnity of her presentation were manipulated to show who could be more “presidential,” she or Obama. That is a measure of her aspirations and arrogance.

Interestingly, it's also a good measure of the limitations of her (often excellent) instincts for stagecraft and appearances. She thinks a flag and furrowed brow and firm tone will, by themselves, make her appear presidential, regardless of the actual content of her statement and its appropriateness for the occasion.
posted by scody at 12:17 PM on January 14, 2011

Exactly. Because there's actually a more fundamental set of issues--issues grounded in the abstract principles underpinning all law, rather than the specific letter of the law.

Perfectly fair, as long as you apply such analysis equally on all sides.

Okay then. America began life as a fascist nation and only became a non-fascist nation when Gerald Ford issued his executive order banning political assassinations in 1975.

Wait--what?
posted by saulgoodman at 12:22 PM on January 14, 2011

Sorry. That was in response to furiousxgeorge here.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:22 PM on January 14, 2011

furiousxgeorge: lots and lots of civil libertarians -- some of them, oddly enough, capital-L Libertarians -- have been 'applying that analysis on all sides' for years, now. You'll find plenty of "liberals" happy to call Obama a 'fascist' on exactly the basis you outline -- just as they would have done for G. W. Bush, Clinton, G. H. W. Bush, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, Hoover, etc.

In other words, what you're describing is not a problem of the executive per se (though some have been a little better or much worse about it than others), but of the office and of national policy that a President can't change without a lot of fallout.

You are excusing behavior of the side you support with excuses you are not granting to the other side.

I actually don't understand what you're talking about. I've said that the citizens of Wasilla stopped her from behaving in fascistic ways, or checked her when she tried to. What's your problem with that, exactly? What fascistic behavior am I excusing -- that of the town council?

As for Palin's argument that she was just exploring the options, it doesn't square with the facts of the case: She tried to fire the librarian without cause, right after being told she didn't have the authority to get a book removed. Based on Palin's personal history -- knowing how deeply and how long she holds grudges, for example -- it's a pretty reasonable connection. If you don't want to make it, that's cool -- I'm making it, it's good enough for me from where I'm sitting.
posted by lodurr at 12:28 PM on January 14, 2011

So, as these memorial services and funerals roll out, I simply have not been able to get Pearl Jam's "Light Years" out of my head. So I thought maybe I'd share it here, since it seems to be haunting me. (lyrics in the extended description on the YouTube page)
posted by hippybear at 12:37 PM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's also important to note (though it shouldn't be, because it's pretty damned obvious) that a person 'being a fascist' or 'behaving fascistically' is not the same as them being the leader of a fascist state.
posted by lodurr at 1:06 PM on January 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

ok, i can't highlight text anymore. bizarrely enough, this thread might be the reason I upgrade to FF4. heaven forbid i stop posting!
posted by lodurr at 1:10 PM on January 14, 2011

For instance, if an executive you support asserts the power to assassinate citizens without a trial you might investigate the implications of that along with things like hockey rinks and hypothetical book banning.

I'm not quite clear what you're saying here. You seem to be A) assuming that I'm an unconditional Obama supporter (when in fact I'm not), and B) implying that I don't find his continuation of G. W. Bush's worst policies to be exceedingly dangerous and alarming (when in fact I do). Please clarify.
posted by scody at 1:36 PM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ok. I think this pretty much clinches that the gunman was prompted to action by Sarah Palin.

Police say Jared Loughner, the suspect in the Arizona shooting rampage ... posed in photos with a Glock 9mm while wearing a red g-string, according to a report. ... according to police, in some photos Loughner is holding the weapon by his crotch; in others, apparently taken in a mirror, he is holding it near his buttocks.

posted by crunchland at 1:41 PM on January 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

She fired a librarian and quickly rehired her the next day at the behest of her constituents with no presented evidence that hypothetical book banning had anything to do with it.

Come on. Now you're mischaracterizing what happened, to make it sound like nothing happened, and nothing would happen, if she were given the chance to do this again. That's just ridiculous.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:41 PM on January 14, 2011

Being an apologist for Sarah Palin and the worst of the tea party is a thankless, unending job.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:03 PM on January 14, 2011 [4 favorites]

Perhaps, but at least you have job security.
posted by crunchland at 2:07 PM on January 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

Ok. I think this pretty much clinches that the gunman was prompted to action by Sarah Palin.

No, this definitively PROVES he WAS NOT influenced in the LEAST by Sarah Payoff. If he was, the g-string would have been red and white striped with stars on a blue background. Clearly he was a commie.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:17 PM on January 14, 2011

For instance, if an executive you support asserts the power to assassinate citizens without a trial you might investigate the implications of that along with things like hockey rinks and hypothetical book banning.

Which is exactly why it is such a frightening idea that someone of Demi-Governor Palin's dimness and cracked worldview would ever be considered worthy of the Whitehouse. Presidents assume powers that are not expressly forbidden to them and it is up to the other branches of government to limit the office. Nothing in Obama's past would suggest he would have a tendency to use those powers to aggrandize himself or his party. Palin's whole worldview is based on telling those that disagree with her how to live, how to be a "real American," unlike, presumably our president and the majority of voters who supported him.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:24 PM on January 14, 2011

It's probably best not to repeat that mistake in order to correct it.

No, once again, I disagree that that is the "message" of this damn event.

If the Obama administration *was* a fascist regime, I would expect people to call it such even at the risk of civility being threatened.

The tea-party far right in the US *is* a fascist movement. Its leaders -- Palin especially -- have shown sympathies and tendencies at least toward conduct that is fairly called "fascist."

I will not let it go. I will not indulge the false-equivalence escape clause. Speaking truth to power is necessary and required under our system of governance in the US, and should be protected and encouraged even when it is harsh and angry in tone. I don't care how mad you are or how impolite you are. But speaking *lies* to power is another thing entirely, it is uncivil even when your tones are dulcet and serene.

There is no equivalence between the right calling President Obama a "fascist" for passing a major piece of legislation through an elected congress and my calling people who bring guns to political rallies and meetings or have reporters beaten up by off-duty military thugs "fascists."

They. Are. Not. The. Same. Thing. To accept the false equivalence argument is to value civility over truth.
posted by spitbull at 2:32 PM on January 14, 2011 [25 favorites]

Article 1 - The Legislative Branch
Section 8 - Powers of Congress

'To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;...

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;...

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

'To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.'
posted by clavdivs at 3:21 PM on January 14, 2011

Police say Jared Loughner, the suspect in the Arizona shooting rampage ... posed in photos with a Glock 9mm while wearing a red g-string, according to a report. ... according to police, in some photos Loughner is holding the weapon by his crotch; in others, apparently taken in a mirror, he is holding it near his buttocks.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 5:49 PM on January 14, 2011

*heh* Bill Maher on these weeks events:

You know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a pit bull?

At some point, the pit bull stops whining.
posted by hippybear at 7:05 PM on January 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

bill maher is an idiot. The mom still has a hockey stick.
posted by clavdivs at 7:37 PM on January 14, 2011

uncanny hengeman: is that the link you meant to include with that comment? Because I don't see an article showing that quote, neither do I see Loughner holding a glock in a red g-string.
posted by hippybear at 7:47 PM on January 14, 2011

Hippybear, it's here in the New York Times.
posted by Jahaza at 7:54 PM on January 14, 2011

Perfectly fair, as long as you apply such analysis equally on all sides.

Okay then. America began life as a fascist nation and only became a non-fascist nation when Gerald Ford issued his executive order banning political assassinations in 1975.

Wait--what?

We are talking about American citizens.

I actually don't understand what you're talking about. I've said that the citizens of Wasilla stopped her from behaving in fascistic ways, or checked her when she tried to. What's your problem with that, exactly? What fascistic behavior am I excusing -- that of the town council?

She tried to fire the librarian without cause, right after being told she didn't have the authority to get a book removed.

You:

A. Lack the evidence that she ever wanted to ban books.
B. Previously pointed out doing things unconstitutionally is not as bad when passed through a legislature like the town council.
C. Define immediately as several months later in the next year to support your thesis.

I'm not quite clear what you're saying here. You seem to be A) assuming that I'm an unconditional Obama supporter (when in fact I'm not), and B) implying that I don't find his continuation of G. W. Bush's worst policies to be exceedingly dangerous and alarming (when in fact I do). Please clarify.

I shall clarify my point. Are you willing to post in this thread that Obama asserting the authority to assassinate US citizens without trial is a fascist act? If so, I will feel more comfortable that Wasilla fascism examinations are just part of being fair and not a slight sign of bias.

Come on. Now you're mischaracterizing what happened, to make it sound like nothing happened, and nothing would happen, if she were given the chance to do this again. That's just ridiculous.

I have linked a well trusted source in Snopes, you have not. You are making an accusation, FUCKING PROVE IT. Hey BP, I know you don't support extra-judicial assassinations of US citizens. Would such an assassination be a fascist act?

Being an apologist for Sarah Palin and the worst of the tea party is a thankless, unending job.

I wouldn't know, as my posting history surely makes clear, but I imagine intense irrational demonization of the opposition must be tough too. I've had this exact same conversation about calling the other side fascists with some conservatards in another discussion forum, it plays out EXACTLY AS THIS DOES. They list their examples, I list examples on the right, they make pathetic excuses and move the goalposts and explain how the left is really an entirely fascist movement...I want to go jump off a bridge.

There is no equivalence between the right calling President Obama a "fascist" for passing a major piece of legislation through an elected congress and my calling people who bring guns to political rallies and meetings or have reporters beaten up by off-duty military thugs "fascists."

To value the truth one might try answering my question above about the Bob Etheridge incident.

I am not trying to say either side is fascist, I am saying that the examples you people are using are fucking ridiculous and absurd and it is not hard to find counter-examples at all. It is YOUR responsibility to explain why when the left does the exact same things it isn't fascism if you want to make these accusations against the other side.

Instead, you ignore the examples or move the goal posts. Sorry, if you want to be taken seriously when you rant about your opponents being fascists, you have a responsibility to take the debate seriously instead of acting like a raving partisan.

For real this time, I'm not posting about this again and I expect the debate to wind down pretty soon. Call them fascists all you want, get the two minute hate out of your system, I shouldn't have interrupted it.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:57 PM on January 14, 2011

Call them fascists all you want

Why, thank you. I will indeed do that.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:07 PM on January 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

uncanny hengeman: is that the link you meant to include with that comment? Because I don't see an article showing that quote, neither do I see Loughner holding a glock in a red g-string.

Yes it is. It's a still of mentally unhinged killer, Jame Gumb, dressing up as a woman. I didn't think I was being that obscure. Certainly the first thing I thought of when I read crunchland's quote.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 8:27 PM on January 14, 2011

I didn't think I was being that obscure.

Count me among the people not intimately familiar with the likeness (or the name, or the story) of every mentally unhinged killer. For me it was totally obscure. My guess was that it was a still from a rock music video.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:38 PM on January 14, 2011

Are you willing to post in this thread that Obama asserting the authority to assassinate US citizens without trial is a fascist act? If so, I will feel more comfortable that Wasilla fascism examinations are just part of being fair and not a slight sign of bias.

First off, just to clarify: you do know I'm not the one who characterized anything she did as mayor as A Fascist Act, right? (In fact, I'm not quite sure that anyone did; my sense is that you seem eager to try to get someone to equate "has expressed quasi- or neo-fascistic ideas" with "has committed 'a fascist act' as an elected official." Sincere question: do you truly not perceive a difference between those two things?)

Tangent alert: I don't think she's automatically and necessarily a fascist for firing the librarian any more than I think anyone is automatically and necessarily a fascist for firing a librarian or banning a book or whatever. I think it's possible to fire a librarian or ban a book and merely be an anti-intellectual who is threatened by critical thinking or opposing viewpoints. But I also think while it is true that not all anti-intellectuals who are threatened by critical thinking or opposing viewpoints are fascists, it is also true that pretty much most and possibly all fascists are anti-intellectuals who are threatened by critical thinking or opposing viewpoints. Or even more simply: not everyone who wants to ban a book is a fascist, but all fascists want to ban books.

Anyway, per Obama's assertion of the authority to assassinate US citizens: my position is basically Glenn Greenwald's -- essentially, that it is an unconscionable and illegal authoritarian position. It is also (and I get the feeling you will push back against contextualizing it, because I get the sense that you equate contextualization or historicization of such things with minimizing or apologizing for them -- please correct me if I'm wrong) a continuation (and even amplification) of the previous administration's policy, which I mention NOT in the spirit of "OMG Bush did it first!!!!!" but rather as an example of the structural significance of the lurch rightward (and in fact extremely rightward on anything remotely associated with questions of national security) that our entire political system has taken over the past decade.

This rightward/authoritarian shift on questions of national security post 9/11, which the Obama administration has done nothing to ameliorate, is part and parcel of what has made the general American political/cultural atmosphere so ripe for a burgeoning neo-fascist movement to move from the margins toward the mainstream for the first time in over 40 years. However, authoritarianism on the question of national security exists as a feature of fascism; in and of itself it is not the same as fascism.

I will state plainly: neither Obama nor Bush are actually fascists, as much as I disagree in the strongest possible terms with their positions on national security, etc. I will also state plainly that the Tea Party movement, however, does contain strongly fascist elements (in terms of general ideology based on Britt's 14 Points and in terms of the political makeup of some of their membership/supporters), and that Sarah Palin has been eager to further and exploit that ideology and those supporters for her own political and personal gain, and that this would still hold true whether or not she fired a librarian or hired 10 librarians during her tenure in Wasilla.
posted by scody at 9:29 PM on January 14, 2011 [10 favorites]

Jame Gumb is a fictional character from The Silence of the Lambs, and not a useful referent in this context.
posted by anigbrowl at 10:17 PM on January 14, 2011

Jame Gumb is a fictional character from The Silence of the Lambs, and not a useful referent in this context.

Apart from being a joke comment responding to a joke comment claiming they've "clinched" a Sarah Palin link to the shooting.

Apart from being a joke reference about a killer poncing around in questionable attire performing questionable poses responding to a joke reference about a killer poncing around in questionable attire performing questionable poses.

Jeez you peckerheads will argue about anything.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 11:30 PM on January 14, 2011

Count me among the people not intimately familiar with the likeness (or the name, or the story) of every mentally unhinged killer. For me it was totally obscure.

Doesn't that make life more exciting for you? I've become an Arrested Development fan due to a number of "totally obscure" comments that I decided to decipher. Just about to start season 3 tonight.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 11:39 PM on January 14, 2011

Doesn't that make life more exciting for you? I've become an Arrested Development fan due to a number of "totally obscure" comments that I decided to decipher.

That's great, hengeman, I'm real happy for you. Don't know exactly how I would've gone about "deciphering" a single image, with no other information or context offered with it, outside of a newspaper quote referring to an entirely different person and an entirely different story, but, hey, whatever. It was very kind of you to step into the thread later and explain just what that image was. I'm sure there were many of us who had no idea.

But man, you know, it's bad form to call people "peckerheads". That shit's just stupid, no matter how you look at it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:00 AM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

In keeping with the right wing's completely peaceful and not-at-all incendiary rhetoric, back in October the GOP's new chairman, Reince Priebus, called for the execution of Barack Obama three times in a single interview. He was "really" referring, of course, to Osama Bin Laden.

Because, you know, it's so very easy for Reince Priebus to confuse the funny-sounding name of our President with a horrific terrorist. Accidentally.
posted by dirigibleman at 12:01 AM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

How many fascists can dance on the head of a plate of beans? I think this discussion has reached "Is!" "Is not!" stage.
posted by dhartung at 12:02 AM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

That's great, hengeman, I'm real happy for you. Don't know exactly how I would've gone about "deciphering" a single image, with no other information or context offered with it, outside of a newspaper quote referring to an entirely different person and an entirely different story, but, hey, whatever. It was very kind of you to step into the thread later and explain just what that image was. I'm sure there were many of us who had no idea.

That's great. Happy for you. But see that "s" I typed after I typed the word "comment." Unlike you I wasn't squealing "too obscure!" from the get go. I kept quiet.

"Keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, rather than open it and......."

After a period of time and a number of references I successfully cracked the code. For the win.

But man, you know, it's bad form to call people "peckerheads". That shit's just stupid, no matter how you look at it.

Gold! You can't be serious? Please re read the words I said before "peckerhead" about wanting to argue about anything.

I bet you a Brazilian dollars I can find DOZENS of uses of the vernacular in this thread - similarly not directed at you - where you haven't acted as white knight and complained about it being poor form.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 12:26 AM on January 15, 2011

I believe that the tea party can be identified as being incipiently fascist. I will present two passages for your reading pleasure. The first is a warning and the second is a working definition of authoritarian populism; which is what I believe Sarah Palin and the tea party represent. Both exceprts are coming from a Marxist analysis of fascism so take that for what it's work. If anyone is really interested in understanding the history of scholarship on fascism I suggest reading Daniel Woodley's excellent book Fascism and Political Theory: Critical perspectives on fascist ideology. Not exactly a page turner, but if you are seriously interested in the topic it is well worth your time.

In the United States, however, there is a large and varied right-wing milieu, ranging from the Holocaust revisionists of the Liberty Lobby and the Institute for Historical Research, through the home-grown racists of the Ku Klux Klan, the biological racists of the Mankind Quarterly, the conspiracy theorists that make up the dominant figures within the militia movement and the unadulterated Nazis of the Aryan Nations. Although some of the individuals within this milieu identify themselves with political traditions that predate fascism, there is a fascist core to their beliefs. The size of US clearly fascist movement can be seen in the circulation of the Liberty Lobby’s paper, Spotlight, which sells around 150,000 copies each issue. Many of America’s home-grown fascists have attempted to permeate the Republican Party. Their success can be seen in former leading Klansman David Duke’s 1991 campaign to become Governor of Louisiana. Despite his well-documented Nazi background, and his continuing racism, Duke was nominated as the official Republican Party candidate, and nearly won a majority of the vote in the final election contest. Other US fascists have adopted the terrorist tactics of ‘leaderless resistance’, and one of their disciples, Timothy McVeigh, was convicted for the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombings. The US example points to an important process: the various fascist organisations are building layers of experienced support, cadres rooted in the fascist tradition, themselves able to win over and develop new supporters. (Renton, D., Fascism: Theory and Practive, 1999, pg. 9)

It is dangerous to argue that contemporary fascist parties are not in fact fascist, and it is also misguided to accept the liberal idea that the world is now secured from an era of crisis. [...] Capitalism, as a system, remains prone to economic crisis, and if crisis can return, then so can fascism.

Fascism, which was a small, unpopular and isolated tradition just twenty years ago, has been reborn. Fascism has returned and will again, because fascism is a recurrent feature of modern capitalism. Fascism thrives on bitterness and alienation, both of which capitalism nourishes with regular doses of unemployment and crisis. This fuels despair, which further stimulates fascism to grow. Fascism lives off racism, sexism and elitism, while capitalism promotes its own prejudices, guised as common-sense beliefs, which seem to fit people’s experiences, while effectively holding them back from challenging the system. Capitalism generates the myths of racism and elitism, which fascists use for themselves. (Renton, D. Fascism: Theory and Practive, 1999, pg. 15-16)

Authoritarian populism as incipient fascism

Before proceeding, what is meant by authoritarian populism should be clarified. In earlier research, I developed what proved to be a useful concept of populism, which included the following criteria: an emphasis in the ideology on the common people and their virtue; a stress on a direct relationship between leader and mass base of the movement; the direction of hostility against an out-group during a period of crisis; and a social policy, which, in a capitalist social context, was reformist rather than revolutionary. The question of a direct relationship between leader and mass arises because existing institutions are thought to subvert the true interests of the people.

Because the people are treated as a homogeneous category, the organization may take the form of a plebiscitarian democracy, in which the leader is thought to reflect the general will and is accorded authoritarian powers on the basis of a belief in his special capacity to achieve the goals of the people. In these cases, one can speak of an authoritarian populism. (Populism can also take a democratic form in which a direct relationship is sought by creating institutional controls over organizational leaders.) (Sinclair, P., Fascism and Crisis in Capitalist Society, 1976, pg. 102)
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:43 AM on January 15, 2011 [7 favorites]

...I meant take that for what it's worth not take that for what it's work... :( ... something something Marxism, something something Freudian slip...
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:47 AM on January 15, 2011

On a lighter note I wonder if at academic conferences with fascism as a topic they ever hold a competition to see who can go the longest without godwinning the conference? Loser has to buy everyone at the conference a beer?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 1:00 AM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

And yes, in my humble opinion, just calling Ms Palin a fascist is lazy. Because in spite of all of her sins against decency, truth, intelligence, she's yet to get seriously behind a bunch of thugs in brown-shirts who are out on a mission to beat their political opponents to death.

Well, yeah, it is lazy, but more because leaders don't pick movements, movements pick leaders. And the form of the movement is similar to the SA.

There's a very ad hoc feel to the Tea Party and variations of it have been used in the past by authoritarian elements. (They mostly get away with this by continually rebirthing (yeah, bad grammar on purpose, yeah) and rebranding.)

Cheney and the 'shadow government' thing - having party offices/appointments that paralleled government functions. The whole Yoo philosophy and the concept of placing 'detainees' out of the jurisdiction of any court, yeah, that was cute.

The general idea there being something that functions as government leadership but doesn't have the responsibility to citizens as a government does.

Pretty much Palin in a nutshell - or did she not become more influential when she quit being a governor to ... well, what exactly is it she's doing? Because it looks to me like leadership.
Whether it's masquerading her self-interests or not.

Everyone brings up Hitler; there should be a Godwin-type law for Alfred Hugenberg.

Here's a guy who ran newspapers and the film industry in pre-war Germany, rode herd on Hitler, convinced Hindenburg (who's name isn't associated with any other catastrophic failures) to appoint Hitler chancellor, and was looking to control the Nazis political future (which turned out about as well as any plan involving heavily financing violent uncompromising fanatics).

Fascist is an outmoded term for how subtle that kind of power has become. And I think people do need to rely on symbols, shorthands, for their bundles of concepts.
On mefi we have the luxury of clarification and elucidation.
But I think we all have misgivings over the kind of abuse of authority the, apparently 'big two', elements are willing to engage in to further their ends.
(In part the ease with which any detail even tangentially related becomes politicized, and in part the demands for more authority/influence/attention from politicians/talking heads)

I've heard a bunch of theory bandied about in the media by folks mostly fishing for the right way to castigate whomever their political targets are.
I'm not real big on limiting free speech.
But there are patterns in terrorist rhetoric that revisit a symbolic transformation and create an identification with a concept. Even transformation itself. And it can be self-initiating.

So this guy - Loughner (and as an aside 'cos he worked at one - is it me or do Quiznos have the "Chestnut Tree Cafe" air to them? I've gone into them to use the lavatory and the whole place seems to stop and stare when I walk in. I mean like 30-40 people. Staff, customers, cops, anyone who happens to be in there just stares. It's weird. Are they all mob fronts or CIA stations or something? I've waded through sewers with centipedes the size of polish sausages on top of me and that place just freaks me out)
- anyway, Loughner - he's looking for his place in the world and a new identity, he's got a scapegoat or bad guy and he's got a purpose that can be achieved only through violence.

Now what the exact empowering myth he's hooked on doesn't exactly matter. I mean it matters in terms of if we want to blame Joe Talk Show host, but that specific aside - more and more the rhetoric in the U.S. has become a contest over the first two characteristics (new identity and the villain) and allusions to the third (can only be solved through violence) have been increasing.

In part I do have Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" in mind (and it's really worth reading if you haven't). What's crucial though is that the form of the rhetoric can have the same effect regardless of content.

This is not to dispute specific arguments regarding Glenn Beck or the usual gang of idiots, but rather the effect that kind of rhetoric, and the attention we give to it, has for inspiring political violence that resembles 'lone wolf' terrorism.

In any case symbolic violence needs a theater as a matter of course (town hall meeting, beer hall, whatever). We've been socially primed by the masturbation over terrorism and security theater to understand the language as an audience.
The stage is set.
What's galling is the rush to be players instead of pulling the bill.
And too the hell of it is it's so much self-fulfilling prophecy/feedback loop.

is it possible that all St. Alia and dejah420 meant by saying that not everyone could speak out was, "I can't fire without becoming a target myself? posted by EmpressCallipygos

I suspect so.

That's not a wimp-out. That's a request for backup...

I'm not taking the position you apparently think I am.

It's precisely my point that they shouldn't have to request backup. It should come as a matter of course.
And I thought I was fairly explicit in that the onus is not on the speaker to risk themselves, but on everyone else seeing that injustice to aid them regardless of the subject at hand.

We can't demand an individual have some sort of enlightened position and take the entire burden of risk upon themselves to change society or an aspect of society without giving them any support at all (or 'minding our own business' or the sort of selfishness I mentioned above) and treating the latter as some sort of virtue of our own.

It is not enough, IMHO, to speak or to defend one's convictions, as Twain said.
It's great. And I think people should do it. But I don't hand them any feces if they can't or won't.
Plenty of things require different kinds of courage and at times everyone's lives are subject to different responsibilities. (Too many of my own shortcomings come to mind (like they're friggin' spring loaded) to broach. So I'd hope folks would cut me the same slack where I fail to do what I should do.)

If someone can speak out despite taking fire, good for them. But it's not their duty.

It is all our duty rather - not, for purposes of this argument that their right to speak is protected, as that is another issue - that they are not bullied, that they know they are not alone, whether they intend to exercise that right or not.
As a matter of course.

The proper response to someone being shot like this is outrage. But it should be as socially ingrained as revulsion to cannibalism that we do not persecute people in the first place for having a different perspective.

Or, as I mention, as natural a response as calling the fire department for a house fire or laying down suppressive fire for a comrade when someone is persecuted.
Because standing up and firing back yourself when you're under direct fire is suicide. The only real defense possible is from suppressive fire from someone else. We all need someone else to shield us if we are going to act. It's what made the phalanx strong.
It's what makes societies strong.
Any attempt to gain some recognition in acting that fails to acknowledge that largess - that recognition that it is the willingness to shield another, act on behalf of another that makes society (and the action itself) possible - is ignorant self-aggrandizement and phony tough.

I've defended this general set of principles in a number of iterations, so to me it sounds like I'm endlessly repeating myself. So it's easy, in its expression, to take things for granted. I'll try to be more clear.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:02 AM on January 15, 2011 [6 favorites]

uncanny hengeman: Unlike you I wasn't squealing "too obscure!" from the get go. I kept quiet.

So inspiring. You are truly an advanced human being. I am humbled.

uncanny hengeman: I bet you a Brazilian dollars I can find DOZENS of uses of the vernacular in this thread - similarly not directed at you - where you haven't acted as white knight and complained about it being poor form.

I doubt that you could find one, let alone "DOZENS" (nice caps, dude, you're really getting your point across!) of examples in this thread of a Mefier calling multiple people (in your case, "you guys") "peckerheads" or any similar schoolyard-level epithet. But you're welcome to comb the thread and present them, if you'd like. Given that you've (as you explained) gone to great lengths in the past to decipher multiple inscrutable comments, in order to arrive (like some 18th century explorer finally in the innermost chamber of the Great Pyramid!) at the prize of Understanding and Enlightenment (in your case, um, Arrested Development), it would appear that you have plenty of time for such endeavors.

I, on the other hand, have devoted entirely too much time to this silly exchange as it is, and will be excusing myself from any further conversation with you. So, you now have the chance to "get the last word in"! Go for it, man!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:34 AM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

furiousxgeorge, I still don't know what you're talking about. You seem to be conflating several people and in the process attributing to us ideas that we do not have and have not expressed. I'm with scody in that I never asserted that Palin had a fascist mayorship or a fascist governorship, and since you don't give any detailed refutation of what you claim to be my argument, I don't know what disconnected events you claim I'm juxtaposing or to what end.
posted by lodurr at 4:54 AM on January 15, 2011

I'm going to complicate things a little more by pointing out that 'fascism' is not equal to 'totalitarianism', and that neither is equal to 'ordering assassination of foreign nationals without international legal sanction.' Those are all bad things and they should all be condemned, and they can all be found sometimes (often, actually) in the same act. But they are not the same.

Totalitarianism is simply the exercise of authority to a fine grain, and sometimes in an arbitrary or seemingly random way. The guy who micromanages his company to a very fine degree is behaving like a totalitarian.

As just about anyone here who's tried to give a considered definition of fascism has pointed out, it requires more than just totalitarian control. In addition, it requires that there be some degree of subordination of the will or good of the people to the will or good of a real or imagined national entity or essence (the volk, the nation, the essential leader, the Party, etc.). So they guy who requires that all his employees sing the company song every morning and vote the way he demands, and disciplines people for saying stuff that he thinks defames his company, is behaving like a fascist. There's a good likelihood he's also a behaving like a totalitarian, because that kind of enforcement tends to be totalitarian in nature.

Let's look at the ordering of assassination of foreign nationals. It can be a pretty straightforward (and yet wrong) act, seen to be in defense of national interest. If it's informed and motivated by a nationalist or statist ideology, it could also be fascistic. Is it fascistic in the case of the US? I struggle with this. I know that someone like Noam Chomsky would say 'yes, absolutely.' And the degree of jingoism around our assassination regime (and we do have one, though I don't really want to go into that here) has been pretty high over the past 11 years, which argues for it coming from a fascist place if not being fascist. But even if George Bush had ordered the assassination of a foreign national where there was clear national interest involved, I would argue it's not necessarily a fascistic act. I'm going to be "to the right" of a big chunk of MeFi on that, I'm sure.
posted by lodurr at 5:15 AM on January 15, 2011 [4 favorites]

I've only found it to be illustrative on the most basic of levels. It's the sort of thing you throw out at a cocktail party, or a dorm-room and people, on some vague, get what you mean. It also traps you in someone else's debate.

Reading Ta-Nehisi Coates yesterday reminded me of the fascism/Nazi debate that always rears its ugly head.
posted by charred husk at 8:24 AM on January 15, 2011

Tucson Survivor Blames Tragedy On Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck & Sharron Angle.
posted by ericb at 9:05 AM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

palin's breath

Palin: 'Awesome'! [video | 04:46].
posted by ericb at 9:09 AM on January 15, 2011

I'll set for "lying, nationalist, authoritarian, racist, theocratic, and violence-promoting" instead of "fascists" if it will end the debate. Because that's the tea party and the American right in a nutshell, however you want to name it.

There is no equivalent movement on the left. Isolated incidents and gestures cannot be traced to a powerful central leadership. Violence-celebrating American leftists -- all 19 of them -- do not have representation in congress or majority control in any statehouses. They are not treated as "a side" in the spectacle of "balanced" debate in the media. Their assertions are not treated as facts a priori by the same media.

scody you really nailed it beautifully above.
posted by spitbull at 9:47 AM on January 15, 2011 [4 favorites]

What the Aelf and Smedleyman said, if you take the pain to read carefully and thoughtfully, is what I believe/say/opine, too.

The media in general and particularly the false news industry of today, is used for political purposes. Hundreds of millions of dollars—but then in a world of billionaires that's actually not much—are spent on false news and opinion engaging in plain political messaging.

And by no coincidence, the worst of it targets the people most likely to make a poorly-informed, fear-based fight-or-flight (flee to where? you can't afford to move! buy ammo!) decisions.

The facts are all evident. Power desires power and wealth desires wealth: given the facts and cynicism, I'm always surprised that there seem to be those that think it's all coincidence and accident that things are they way they are.

History will repeat itself. The same sorts of things were happening last time.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:24 PM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Last time"?
posted by dersins at 12:57 PM on January 15, 2011

"Last time"?

"Take your pick"?
posted by lodurr at 12:59 PM on January 15, 2011

No, lodurr, it sounded to me as though fff was referring to some specific "last time" this happened, and was hoping he could clarify so that I could better understand his view.

Thanks for your super-helpful, snark, though-- it really added a lot to my understanding!
posted by dersins at 1:07 PM on January 15, 2011

It wasn't intended as snark, though I suppose I can see why you read it that way.

OTOH, you could pretty much take your pick.
posted by lodurr at 1:11 PM on January 15, 2011

The Tucson Witch Hunt by Charles Blow (NY Times)

Now we’ve settled into the by-any-means-necessary argument: anything that gets us to focus on the rhetoric and tamp it down is a good thing. But a wrong in the service of righteousness is no less wrong, no less corrosive, no less a menace to the very righteousness it’s meant to support.

You can’t claim the higher ground in a pit of quicksand.

Concocting connections to advance an argument actually weakens it. The argument for tonal moderation has been done a tremendous disservice by those who sought to score political points in the absence of proof.

posted by BobbyVan at 2:31 PM on January 15, 2011

Reefer Madness 2.0. I hate it when the right uses a tragedy to hypocritically demonize their political enemies in the worst possible ways.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:16 PM on January 15, 2011

Tucson shooting victim Eric Fuller threatens Arizona Tea Party spokesman: "You're dead."

Baseless bloody shirt waving has consequences.
posted by BobbyVan at 3:33 PM on January 15, 2011

dersins, I am by no means a great student of history, but even I know the the rise of the various fascists were greatly assisted by complicit media used to promote the fear of Other in the civilian population.

A lot of the shit we see going down today eerily mirrors the shit that happens during the creation of fascist states.

Lodurr's right: take your pick.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:22 PM on January 15, 2011

Tucson shooting victim Eric Fuller threatens Arizona Tea Party spokesman: "You're dead."

It occurs to me that Eric Fuller--a guy who was recently nearly killed in an assault by a would be political/apolitical (take your pick, though I think you'd be mistaken to pick the latter) assassin on a Democratic congressperson--might all by himself, for reasons independent of popular opinion, feel that his life has been threatened by the tenor of the political rhetoric of a "movement" that has, among other things, exhorted its followers to appear heavily armed with firearms at town hall meetings to "send a message."

Or have we already forgotten about all that bizarre, third-world shit the health care debate stirred up just a few months back?

Now, I'm not saying Mr. Fuller was right to threaten anyone with death, but as a man literally in the line of fire, it doesn't surprise me one bit to see him lashing out at those he sees as threatening him. To characterize any of the genuine emotional responses of a recent victim of a deadly assault as "partisan"--regardless of how irrational those responses might seem to someone lucky enough not to have been in that position--and to use that as a basis for making more general arguments about how "both sides" resort to partisanship (if that's the intended implication of this comment) strikes me as a particularly pernicious and dishonest form of partisanship in its own right.
posted by saulgoodman at 5:38 PM on January 15, 2011 [13 favorites]

After the shootings, Obama reminds the nation of the golden rule.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:57 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

by John McCain
posted by clavdivs at 8:32 PM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

To operate as a massage therapist in Arizona, you must, by state law, have had a minimum of 500 hours of instruction from a school recognized by the secretary of the Department of Education.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:21 PM on January 15, 2011

"In Arizona, in order to cut toenails and fingernails, and to shampoo another person's hair for profit, you must first undergo a background check and obtain a license from the State Board of Cosmetology."

-creators.com link
posted by clavdivs at 11:27 PM on January 15, 2011

There is a federal background check mandated, IIRC. The Tucson shooter definitely passed one. Just imagine putting him in a classroom for a few weeks with a gun safety teacher who has a mandate to sniff out crazies though, he never would have made it.

Meanwhile, 500 hours for massage therapy...
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:37 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

So how is it that no one has yet pointed out the irony of a Tea Party activist reporting that he's been threatened by a person performing a metaphorical act?
posted by lodurr at 6:54 AM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

so, furiousxgeorge, what you're really suggesting is that people going through these gun safety classes would have to satisfy the highly subjective, nonstandardized and potentially personalized/politicized 'smell test' administered by a gun safety instructor.

Otherwise, the 'sniffing out crazies' does no good.

IOW, some part-time de facto bureaucrat would get to make unilateral, difficult-to-appeal decisions about who could and couldn't own a gun.
posted by lodurr at 6:58 AM on January 16, 2011

How is it a crime to point a camera at someone and say "you're dead?" There is no threat in that construction. If so, Sarah Palin needs to be charged for her "target" map. This is the stupid side of the debate. Free speech is free speech.

Anyway, Frank Rich makes the point I've been trying to defend in the latter part of this thread, in today's NY Times, and quite eloquently:

As the president said in Tucson, we lack not just civil discourse, but honest discourse. Much of last week’s televised bloviation was dishonest, dedicated to the pious, feel-good sentiment that both sides are equally culpable for the rage of the past two years. To construct this false equivalency, every left-leaning Web site and Democratic politician’s record was dutifully culled for incendiary invective. If that’s the standard, then both sides are equally at fault — rhetoric can indeed be as violent on the left as on the right.

But that sidesteps the issue. This isn’t about angry blog posts or verbal fisticuffs. Since Obama’s ascension, we’ve seen repeated incidents of political violence. Just a short list would include the 2009 killing of three Pittsburgh police officers by a neo-Nazi Obama-hater; last year’s murder-suicide kamikaze attack on an I.R.S. office in Austin, Tex.; and the California police shootout with an assailant plotting to attack an obscure liberal foundation obsessively vilified by Beck.

Obama said, correctly, on Wednesday that “a simple lack of civility” didn’t cause the Tucson tragedy. It didn’t cause these other incidents either. What did inform the earlier violence — including the vandalism at Giffords’s office — was an antigovernment radicalism as rabid on the right now as it was on the left in the late 1960s. That Loughner was likely insane, with no coherent ideological agenda, does not mean that a climate of antigovernment hysteria has no effect on him or other crazed loners out there. Nor does Loughner’s insanity mitigate the surge in unhinged political zealots acting out over the last two years. That’s why so many — on both the finger-pointing left and the hyper-defensive right — automatically assumed he must be another of them.

posted by spitbull at 7:34 AM on January 16, 2011 [6 favorites]

so, furiousxgeorge, what you're really suggesting is that people going through these gun safety classes would have to satisfy the highly subjective, nonstandardized and potentially personalized/politicized 'smell test' administered by a gun safety instructor.

How about, as part of the gun safety test, they go through the standard psych evaluation given to potential cops and soldiers? And not with some gun instructor, but with a licensed mental health professional accountable to a review board that could hear appeals.

I love guns. I've done plenty of shooting in my life. I'm not a knee-jerk anti-gun person but enough is fucking enough.
posted by spitbull at 7:38 AM on January 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

spitbull, i think that's a decent idea, but what I was actually trying to get at is that the idea that people could fail a gun safety test based on whether some random guy thought they were "crazy" (or passed because s/he thought they weren't) has civil liberties pitfalls: namely, that it introduces a non-random and non-transparent factor into the process.

It's anti-democratic, to put it succinctly. It's rife with potential for abuse in any direction you can imagine.

That should make it a non-starter for honest advocates of personal freedom. But since the person doing the testing would be a "gun person", I would bet most gun rights advocates wouldn't have a problem with it.
posted by lodurr at 8:46 AM on January 16, 2011

We consider the opinions of mental health professionals objective enough to help us choose our soldiers and cops, who gets committed and who gets an insanity defense, so I think we're well down that slippery slope already.
posted by spitbull at 11:13 AM on January 16, 2011

My idea would not be for gun safety teachers to be psychiatrists, just refer anyone like the Tucson shooter that can't even behave in a classroom setting to a mental health professional for an evaluation before they can be armed.

I've talked about this with gun rights advocates and trust me, they have a huge problem with it. Wanna see a conservative NRA member suddenly consider the plight of the poor to be the absolute most crucial issue ever in this country? Tell them this idea and watch them complain that poor, black, single mothers can't possibly find the time or money to get away for a class once a week just to be able to defend themselves.

I honestly care about my freedom to walk down the street without a crazy person shooting at me than the rights of potential owners of deadly weapons not to be tested before they can own one. I also dislike blind people driving.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:16 AM on January 16, 2011

The same guy Ericb linked to upthread who was shot by loughner and blamed the violent rhetoric of plain and angle has just been arrested for threatening a Tea Partier. So much for the new era of civility.
posted by orville sash at 12:53 PM on January 16, 2011

The guy was shot at, he deserves a pass.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:07 PM on January 16, 2011

He was shot, not just shot at.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 1:19 PM on January 16, 2011

He "threatened" him by taking a cell phone picture and saying "bang, your dead."

In short, he did the equivalent of what he's seen being done around the country for the past 2 and a half years, mostly by members & fellow-travelers of the Tea Party.

I'm not sure whether this illustrates that the standards for menacing have slipped (I'm pretty sure that could get you busted for Menacing here in NY), or that we have separate standards for menacing when the subject of the threatening rhetoric is a public figure.
posted by lodurr at 1:21 PM on January 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

As long as the new standards for curbing threats are applied widely and equally, I'm OK with them. Not deliriously happy, but OK. It's an expensive time out at the very least. First the guy gets shot, then he gets provoked, loses it and now he's the problem. And the bullies get to claim they've been victimized.

I suspect that only a little time will pass and things will be back to usual, which is to say steadily deteriorating. But that seems to be the lesson to draw from recent history.

We had this debate after Oklahoma City, right down to a lot of the details. And now we have a larger percentage of the population sounding just like Timothy McVeigh's tee shirt. And instead of just a few bloviators like Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy (remember him?) spouting off on the fringes of the media, the hate talk that they pioneered has now become the dominant model for news and commentary.

Shoutiness is the in thing.

One obvious problem with how the media has evolved is the utter absence on any touchstone for the veracity. Colbert mocks this with truthiness, but the ability to pass off self-serving fabrications as the foundation of political positions is intensely corrosive to political participation.

Do it often enough and long enough and it becomes impossible to conduct public policy. Couple that with irredentist determination to prevent consensus, add a heaping portion of blatant eliminationism and things may not be able to repair themselves.

Politics doesn't always swing back and forth like a pendulum. Sometimes it loops right over the bar. Modes of governments do fail. It's rare, but it happens. Not all republics are eternal.
posted by warbaby at 2:01 PM on January 16, 2011

to be clear, that wasn't an attempt at a "THE LEFT DOES IT TOO!!!" style equivalence. But it's disheartening that someone so convinced of the connection between this kind of talk and violence, and someone so intimately connected to this tragic shooting can't put this kind of stuff up on the shelf. To say nothing of the fact that it gives plenty of fodder to the aforementioned "THE LEFT DOES IT TOO!!!" crowd.
posted by orville sash at 2:22 PM on January 16, 2011

He's a Vietnam vet. I'm going to guess being a victim of a mass shooting might have triggered some PTSD, you know?

The right better watch out if they want to make this guy the false-equivalency poster-child of the hour. Of course, they always salute the *idea* of military service, but generally aren't very big on supporting actual veterans in need.
posted by spitbull at 3:41 PM on January 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Giffords upgraded from critical to serious condition. Fantastic. Another update/press conference comes in 2 hours.
posted by cashman at 7:51 AM on January 17, 2011

IOW, some part-time de facto bureaucrat would get to make unilateral, difficult-to-appeal decisions about who could and couldn't own a gun.

That's always been the catch-22 for both sides of the gun argument. The anti-gun folks assume that the government would somehow be immune to bias when the politicians have always been grabby for power, particularly where the monopoly on force is concerned.

The pro-gun folks tend to think the above, or that it's impossible to create a system where local bias is excluded.

I tend to be sympathetic to the latter view. As a matter of practice, it's arbitrarily difficult to get/renew a firearms owner ID card regardless of the individual's standing, experience, etc.

I recognize there has to be some standard, and I tend to favor those because it distinguishes folks like me who actually use firearms from fantasists.

But I think the greater concern is the social obsession people in the U.S. seem to have with firearms, handguns in particular.
There are tons of films with people on the cover brandishing firearms. The duel pistol, two 'guns akimbo' thing seems to be the standard of cool. Why I don't know. Firing two pistols is about the dumbest thing one can do in a firefight (unless it's purely for suppressive fire - even then - why not have a submachine gun or rifle with a higher rate of fire/capacity? - but it's a movie/comic book/t.v. show/whatever).
And it seems to have leeched into our consciousness that firearms, pistols in particular, are some sort of universal problem solvers without consequences.
That idea is corrosive and far more dangerous than any weapon(s). Once you have decided that violence is the solution, doesn't much matter what's in your hand (as mentioned above, you can do a lot of damage with just machetes).

I agree with warbaby. But I'd take the point a bit further to say that it's not just the shoutiness. It's the willingness to take the rhetoric/solutions outside the system.

So, similarly, as far the gun control argument is concerned, I don't much like the idea of exclusivity on the monopoly of force, but too you have to have some system. And it's been amply demonstrated you can't have groups police themselves without the very same form excesses occurring (albeit in the opposite way).

Once we accept that we are not going to work within, or at least on behalf of, a system (even with changing it in mind) - voting, sure, but at heart negotiation - then there aren't a whole lot of other tools available.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:31 AM on January 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

The duel pistol, two 'guns akimbo' thing seems to be the standard of cool. Why I don't know.

Now you know :)
posted by jtron at 1:54 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I feel a similar cognitive dissonance in two aspects of this story, Americans’ attitude towards gun control and news reports of Rep. Giffords status.

Re: the former, well, there’s the statistics, the commonsense statistics: Fewer guns, less violence. It’s a “Doh” to me. But vast numbers of people in the US cling to false security - the more guns they have the safer they’ll be. It’s willful ignorance that all of us must pay for.

In the same way, so much news coverage of the congresswoman’s condition is filled with childlike references to miracles rather than substantive reporting of what really is/ could be.

I’ve had a longtime layman’s interest in how the brain works. And my own fears about losing higher cognitive abilities (Alzheimers in the family) and overly relating to this young woman has led to obsessively following each tidbit of news.

But I feel a disconnect between what’s being reported - and how it’s perceived - and what the actual medical reality is at this point. I pray my fervent agnostic prayers that we will see high-level cognitive abilities from her. But I don’t know that we have yet. However, the news media is either ignorant or deliberately crafting a different narrative.

(And BTW if the bullet went straight through the left hemisphere how was there more damage to the right orbital socket?)
posted by NorthernLite at 2:07 PM on January 17, 2011 [3 favorites]

Re: the former, well, there’s the statistics, the commonsense statistics: Fewer guns, less violence.

This is not how the statistics pan out, though. See here and here -- worldwide as well as between US states, there seems to be no strong correlation between gun ownership and overall rates of violent crime. There's a correlation between gun ownership and gun violence, obviously, but the goal of gun control would seem to be to reduce things like homicide and assault overall, not just cause people to attack and kill each other using other methods.
posted by vorfeed at 3:25 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is not how the statistics pan out, though.

Oh, please, don't peddle your cherry-picked arguments here. We've already seen them too many times to be fooled any more. Just sit down, go to Medline, and read the hundreds-of-papers-strong scientific literature on guns and violence. Skip the unreferreed publications sponsored by the NRA and its fellow travelers, and dispassionately consider all that evidence. Then come back here and tell us you still believe there is no association.
posted by Mental Wimp at 5:10 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, please, don't peddle your cherry-picked arguments here. [...] Skip the unreferreed publications sponsored by the NRA and its fellow travelers, and dispassionately consider all that evidence.

"Cherry-picked"? Much of what I linked to was raw data, data which obviously does not support the idea that gun ownership and violent crime are strongly linked. The studies I linked to are not just "publications sponsored by the NRA and its fellow travelers", either... unless, of course, you wish to claim that the Canadian Journal of Criminology is such. Note that Martin Killias is a Swiss researcher who has claimed a correlation between gun ownership and violence among members of the Army in Switzerland, so it seems ridiculous to call him a "fellow traveler of the NRA"... yet his study of 21 countries found this: "The results show strong correlations between the presence of guns in the home and suicide committed with a gun, rates of gun-related homicide that involved female victims, and gun-related assault. The profile is different for male homicides, total rates of assault, and generally, for robbery (committed with or without a gun). With the exception of robbery, most correlations were similar or stronger when all types of guns were considered, rather than handguns alone. No significant correlations with total suicide or homicide rates were found, leaving open the issue of possible substitution effects".

For what it's worth, Medline does not actually seem to return anything apropos when I search for "guns and violence" or "gun ownership". But I'm sure you can cite some of the "hundreds-of-papers-strong scientific literature" which demonstrates a strong correlation between gun ownership and violence worldwide, right?
posted by vorfeed at 5:48 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also: I am not a member of the NRA or similar groups, I am not particularly political with regards to guns (I tend to vote D, not R), and I am not here to spread propaganda.

I'm coming at this from the same direction effugas is: I was formerly in favor of strong gun control, did some research in order to debate the issue, and found very little evidence that gun control laws do what they're intended to do. Like it or not, the data is all over the map, and while you can find individual studies that seem to support one side or the other, there is no definitive evidence that gun ownership has a significant positive or negative effect on non-gun-related variables, with the possible exception of suicide... and perhaps not as much as altitude, anyway.

That goes for both the pro-gun rah-rah-guns-make-you-safer crowd and the anti-gun boo-boo-guns-make-you-less-safe crowd: in and of itself, gun ownership does not actually seem to do either of these things, at least not on a statistical basis.
posted by vorfeed at 6:46 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

vorfeed: try searching PubMed for "gun control" AND "crime" AND "violence". That pulls up just under 500 pubs, and about 50 reviews. Of course, there's a lot of emergency medicine coming up in there.

So then try the search "firearms/*lj" AND united states (which searches legislation and jurisprudence aspects of firearms).

That pulls up about 450 articles which are probably pretty directly relevant to the discussion.

Anyway, yeah, there isn't strong evidence that gun control laws in the United states are directly related to gun violence. Systematic reviews point out that that's because most of the studies are flawed, so there isn't high-quality evidence. It's a failure of data acquisition. So I don't think one can make strong statements one way or the other.
posted by gaspode at 7:30 AM on January 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anyway, yeah, there isn't strong evidence that gun control laws in the United states are directly related to gun violence.

The main problem in the US is that our gun control is very, very, very weak. It's a patchwork or laws that truly have no teeth, as we have seen time and again. The NRA has successfully thwarted any rationale attempt to keep handguns in the hands of only law-abiding, well trained citizens who actually need them (hunting rifles and such are not the problem), so, of course, there's no evidence these "gun control" laws control anything. They're not designed to.

What the literature does show is that possession of handguns in the home leads to higher rates of violence in the home, usually against other family members and friends. In fact, the owner of a gun is more likely to use it against them than against an intruder or would-be assailant.
posted by Mental Wimp at 8:09 AM on January 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Previously (above):

It occurs to me that Eric Fuller--a guy who was recently nearly killed in an assault by a would be political/apolitical (take your pick, though I think you'd be mistaken to pick the latter) assassin on a Democratic congressperson--might all by himself, for reasons independent of popular opinion, feel that his life has been threatened by the tenor of the political rhetoric of a "movement" that has, among other things, exhorted its followers to appear heavily armed with firearms at town hall meetings to "send a message."

CNN: Shooting victim apologizes for 'misplaced outrage' at Tea Party leader

"I would like to tender my sincerest apologies to Mr. (Trent) Humphries for my misplaced outrage on Saturday at the St. Odelia's town meeting," Fuller said in the statement. "It was not in the spirit of our allegiance and warm feelings to each other as citizens of our great country."

posted by BobbyVan at 8:44 AM on January 18, 2011

"I would like to tender my sincerest apologies to Mr. (Trent) Humphries for my misplaced outrage on Saturday at the St. Odelia's town meeting," Fuller said in the statement. "It was not in the spirit of our allegiance and warm feelings to each other as citizens of our great country."

No, no, no! You're doing it wrong. First deny that your outburst was in anyway uncalled for, then accuse everyone who criticized you of a choose(witchhunt, lynching, pogrom, blood libel, genocide, bullying rampage, hurtful statement, terroristic threat). That's the way it's done.
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:58 AM on January 18, 2011 [9 favorites]

The main problem in the US is that our gun control is very, very, very weak. It's a patchwork or laws that truly have no teeth, as we have seen time and again. The NRA has successfully thwarted any rationale attempt to keep handguns in the hands of only law-abiding, well trained citizens who actually need them (hunting rifles and such are not the problem), so, of course, there's no evidence these "gun control" laws control anything. They're not designed to.

I find this line of argument unconvincing. There are many places in the US (New York City comes to mind, as does Chicago and California) where strict handgun control laws do exist, making it difficult and expensive to legally own and/or carry a handgun. People are still carrying, though, legal or not, and they're still buying guns which are banned or unregistered.

That's not surprising, because these laws follow the same line of thought that's behind the Drug War: people are doing something we don't want them to do, therefore we'll ban the things they're doing it with, and when that doesn't work to change the behavior, we'll conclude that we need to ban them even harder, all the while complaining about how everyone would stop [buying drugs/buying guns] if only those [pinkos/nazis] at the [ACLU/NRA] weren't making us Soft On Crime.

Well, I don't buy it. People in America want to use drugs, and they want to have handguns, assault rifles, hi-cap magazines, etc. In fact, they're willing to pay big money for these things, even at the risk of felony charges. The idea that More Laws can "keep handguns in the hands of only law-abiding, well trained citizens who actually need them" is unrealistic; it hasn't happened for drugs despite decades of extremely vigorous enforcement, it hasn't happened for guns despite years of the same in places like NYC, and it won't happen if we manage to apply NYC-style laws to the rest of the country, either (after all, we've got 80+ million handguns which would suddenly become much more valuable... and there's always Mexico). And in doing so, we're likely to end up with something that'll make the War on Drugs look like triple-A ball.

What we need to be addressing is crime and violence, not handguns, and the elephant in the room with regards to crime and violence is poverty and environment, not the law.

Or, I suppose we could keep believing that inanimate objects somehow "lead to" higher rates of violence, just like marijuana use "leads to" heroin and heroin use "leads to" crime... it's all so much simpler that way.
posted by vorfeed at 11:25 AM on January 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

No, no, no! You're doing it wrong. First deny that your outburst was in anyway uncalled for, then accuse everyone who criticized you of a choose(witchhunt, lynching, pogrom, blood libel, genocide, bullying rampage, hurtful statement, terroristic threat). That's the way it's done.

I'm confused. When do I get to blame Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck?
posted by BobbyVan at 12:38 PM on January 18, 2011

Blog post prompts police to seize weapons from Arlington businessman. —That businessman would be HeavyInk’s Travis “one down 534 to go” Corcoran.
posted by kipmanley at 6:20 PM on January 18, 2011

Laura Hudson’s comments on the above.
posted by kipmanley at 6:27 PM on January 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Mental Wimp writes "The NRA has successfully thwarted any rationale attempt to keep handguns in the hands of only law-abiding, well trained citizens who actually need them "

Really the problem with gun control law is that the ultimate law of the land in the US discourages prohibition on the theory of "don't really need them" when applied to guns in the same way it protects freedom of speech. The only way to actually change this would be to pass an amendment to the constitution.

And of course the US's problem isn't with gun ownership it's with violence. The Swiss manage to have very low rates of gun violence despite the Swiss government handing practically every able bodied male citizen an actual, no fooling, assault rifle when they turn 20, a supply of ammunition, and training in it's use. The Swiss government even subsidizes the sale of ammunition for the issued assault rifles so that militia members (males between the ages of 20 and 30(34)) can keep in regular practice.
posted by Mitheral at 7:02 PM on January 18, 2011

"You know, I've been a cop for three decades and I've seen some pretty traumatic and disturbing things, and this was very, very upsetting to watch this," Kastigar said of the video."

Official: Video shows congresswoman shot in face

"The sheriff's office turned the video over to the FBI, which has declined to release it."
posted by cashman at 1:08 PM on January 19, 2011

I wouldn't normally say this, but I think Travis Corcoran should probably go with the circle beard. On him, it works.

Mitheral Has the Swiss government decided whether to let people keep their SIG SG 550s when they leave military service? I know that you could keep your SIG SG 510, although it would be sent back to the factory and converted to semi-automatic firin, but the last time I checked the 550 was still considered a government loan - you kept it in your home, and you were responsible for it's upkeep, but it went back to the military after you left service.
posted by DNye at 1:14 PM on January 19, 2011

The only way to actually change this would be to pass an amendment to the constitution.

I propose we add a clause to the beginning of the amendment that said something akin to "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State,.." This would show people that the right is limited, so that restricting it to certain types of weapons and requiring training adequate for a well regulated militia would seem to be perfectly constitutional. What do you think?
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:52 PM on January 19, 2011 [5 favorites]

FBI: Backpack bomb stashed at MLK rally
posted by anthill at 2:21 PM on January 19, 2011

DNye writes "Has the Swiss government decided whether to let people keep their SIG SG 550s when they leave military service?"

Wikipedia says they can keep it if they choose but the full auto function is removed.
posted by Mitheral at 5:07 PM on January 19, 2011

Giffords stands on her feet.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was able to stand on her own two feet today, with assistance, and UMC Dr. Peter Rhee confirms that "aggressive rehab" has already begun for the congresswoman recovering from a traumatic brain injury.

Earlier today, Giffords also sat in a chair and looked out at the Catalina Mountains from her hospital room, Dr. Rhee says.

posted by maudlin at 11:44 PM on January 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

And via Andrew Sullivan: -emphasis mine, it struck me as such a neighborly thing to do , to bring a child on an outing to meet a congress person.

On Friday, Giffords is expected to leave the hospital for a rehabilitation center. Amy Davidson surveys the remaining physical and emotional wreckage:

Bill Hileman told the Los Angeles Times that his wife, Susan, who was shot that day, has been torturing herself with the idea that “She took a friend’s kid away and didn’t bring her back." Susan had taken Christina to meet her congresswoman because she wanted to encourage her interest in politics. (Bill said that he and Susan, who have two grown children, were “aspiring grandparents.”) She left her hospital bed briefly to see the flowers and notes for the victims that had piled up out front. Another sort of memorial might be for people to take girls to meet their congresswomen and to other political events—both because it’s helpful and to remind Hileman that she did the right thing. For now, though, her husband said, Hileman has been waking up in the hospital screaming Christina’s name, and stray sentences like, “hold my hand—keep your eyes on me, baby.”
posted by readery at 8:49 AM on January 20, 2011 [6 favorites]

Mark Shields on PBS NewsHour:

There was one observation that was made this week I just have to pass on to you by a friend of mine, Allen Ginsberg, who is an historian up in Maine.

And he said, "This week we saw a white, Catholic, Republican federal judge murdered on his way to greet a Democratic woman member of Congress, who was his friend and who was Jewish. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year-old Mexican-American college student, who saved her, and, eventually, by a Korean-American combat surgeon... and then it was all eulogized and explained by our African-American president."

And, in a tragic event, that's a remarkable statement about the country.

posted by Rhaomi at 12:43 PM on January 20, 2011 [19 favorites]

Her life was saved initially by a 20-year-old Mexican-American college student...

Who also happens to be a proud and openly gay man!
posted by ericb at 7:46 PM on January 20, 2011 [4 favorites]

They took Giffords outside today on a balcony, where she was able to lay on her hospital bed in the sun with a wonderful view of the Catalina Mountains. Anyone who has been in Tucson on a day like what we've had today understands just how perfect this is. The Catalinas are gorgeous, and it's 70 degrees and sunny.
posted by azpenguin at 11:16 PM on January 20, 2011

This is refreshing:
The American College Counseling Association Statementin the Wake of the Tucson Shooting
posted by MrVisible at 12:04 PM on January 21, 2011

From MrVisible's link:

It is essential to understand that those with mental health concerns are much more likely to be the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators of it.

Some struggle to understand this given the recent, well-publicized attacks at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois and now Tucson, Arizona. While it can be argued that each shooter had clear signs of mental illness, this does not imply a causal relationship between the shooting and their mental illness, no more than a person being Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent makes them a terrorist. Our nation needs to be careful to avoid making assumptions about those with mental illness. This approach toward the issue does not make us safer.

Absolutely.
posted by ocherdraco at 12:46 PM on January 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was able to stand on her own two feet today

So now she can see, touch, hear, breathe on her own, stand up, look out the window. Great progress, but damn, I want her to be able to talk already... should we be concerned it hasn't happened yet?
posted by jeremy b at 9:35 PM on January 21, 2011

From what I recall, she still has a (forgive me as I mess up the terminology) tracheostomy, and she cannot speak because air can't get (because of it) to her vocal chords. Her husband said he believes that she has tried to talk several times. He also said she knows the tracheostomy is there. His demeanor when he answered the question during the press conference seemed to suggest he was hopeful that she would speak, but not at all positive that she actually could. However, he may just be playing things close to the vest, as him and her loved ones have been doing - not wanting to get people's hopes up or have rushed recovery timetables based on incorrect information.

I read an article on how she teared up hearing the cheers for her caravan as they moved her from UMC to TIRR Memorial Hermann in TX. All I know is, if she ever makes a public appearance that I can get to or that is televised, I will give her a five minute standing ovation.

Apparently she's got some paralysis on one side and some weakness - there's some good info in this a.p. report.
posted by cashman at 11:19 PM on January 21, 2011

... this does not imply a causal relationship between the shooting and their mental illness, no more than a person being Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent makes them a terrorist.

Dear lord, that's some sloppy shit. I'm sure what this person wanted to express was that being mentally ill doesn't make someone violent and dangerous by defitinion; however, what they actually said and said in very clear language was that we should not draw any connection between the mental illness of these killers and the fact that they killed people.

That's just fucking dumb.
posted by lodurr at 6:51 AM on January 22, 2011

jeremy b they are being ultra careful and protecting her airway until they can tell if she can breathe properly & swallow on her own. Any problems with either, even intermittent, could put her into respiratory &/or cardiac arrest. The last thing you want to do on a patient like this is aggressive resuscitation, it could undo all the good work so far and even create more damage.

When you see those lovely arrests on TV, you never hear the ribs crack or the grunting or sweating of the team, it is very physical. Helmet or no, this would not be good for her in any way.

I'm sure they've removed it a few times as it has been reported that she can breathe on her own but no one will chance it full-time until there has been an incredibly full evaluation done in the rehab unit.
Right now it's a balancing act between walking on eggshells & as aggressive rehab techniques as will be safe.
My first comments above still stand. It's hugely encouraging but she will most definitely be cognitively impaired in some way. My hope is that she has real quality of life at the end of this and peace & happiness. Complex forward planning functions are around the damaged area. Generally these cannot be "compensated" for as much as other functions like moving her right arm & leg in a way that will allow her to move independently.
posted by Wilder at 8:09 AM on January 22, 2011

Still mourning the shooting spree that claimed a 9-year-old girl’s life, Arizona is bracing for the trial of another accused child-killer: a female Minuteman.
posted by homunculus at 9:12 AM on January 23, 2011

Still mourning the shooting spree that claimed a 9-year-old girl’s life, Arizona is bracing for the trial of another accused child-killer: a female Minuteman.

Yes, but surely (don't call me Shirley) there are equivalent left-wing nuts who are as violent and deranged. Right?
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:56 AM on January 23, 2011

"Gabrielle Giffords remains in a critical condition but no longer needs a vibrator"
posted by uncanny hengeman at 1:24 AM on January 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes, but surely (don't call me Shirley) there are equivalent left-wing nuts who are as violent and deranged. Right?

I wouldn't be so sure of that. I can't discern any genuine "left wing" in America, period.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:46 AM on January 24, 2011

I was being facetious, flapjax at midnite.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:35 AM on January 24, 2011

Loughner has pled Not Guilty. As far as I can tell that's straight Not-Guilty, no "by reason of insanity". Not that I think he would be successful at the latter, but going straight Not Guilty? He was tackled with the gun. He left notes talking about planning the assassination.

All I can figure is he wants to use the trial to grandstand or something. Good luck with that.
posted by Justinian at 1:06 PM on January 24, 2011

Looks like they got the wrong guy, I apologize for jumping to conclusions.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:14 PM on January 24, 2011

Is he required to plead "by reason of insanity" at this point, though? (i.e., does only pleading "not guilty" at this point actually preclude an insanity defense?) I have a family member who was on the federal defense team for Buford Furrow; Furrow initially entered a not guilty plea (with no qualification regarding his sanity) even as the defense was planning on mounting an insanity defense (I seem to recall that he had a medical history pointing to schizophrenia), then he changed his plea to guilty in order to avoid the death penalty.
posted by scody at 1:25 PM on January 24, 2011

Maybe he can change it later, I don't know. He's toast either way.
posted by Justinian at 1:37 PM on January 24, 2011

Don't insanity defenses have about the same success rate as the Chicago Cubs?
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:14 PM on January 24, 2011

I was being facetious, flapjax at midnite.

Aha. Noted.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:16 PM on January 24, 2011

Don't insanity defenses have about the same success rate as the Chicago Cubs?

"According to an eight-state study the insanity defense is used in less than 1% of all court cases and, when used, has only a 26% success rate."

So much better than the Cubs, evidently.
/White Sox fan
posted by scody at 3:28 PM on January 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

One small detail in this story strikes me as a perfect example of how the gun culture in the US frequently overrides any type of common sense:

Loughner can get photos developed of himself wearing a 'g' string and brandishing a gun - no problem.

But if parents (coincidentally also in Arizona) try to get photos developed of their naked children playing in the bathtub, the police will be there to greet the parents when they go to pick up the photos. The parents will be suspended from their jobs, put on a sex offender registry AND spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting the charges.
posted by Jaybo at 10:11 PM on January 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also frightening - if Sarah Palin is Hitler, that would make "America By Heart" her "Mein Kampf". Yikes!
posted by Jaybo at 10:15 PM on January 24, 2011

On NPR yesterday, their expert said that anything besides a 'not guilty' plea would probably have been over-ridden by the court at this point, because Loughner wouldn't have had time to weigh the consequences of his decision.* A legal reporter on News Hour also said that Loughner's atty has the leeway to ask for a mental competency eval at any time prior to trial, and that would potentially delay the proceeding for months. Apparently the Court sometimes orders those itself, and as his behavior was notably odd, there's some speculation that it might, regardless of what Loughner's atty wants or doesn't.

--
*which does make one wonder about plea-bargains.
posted by lodurr at 10:08 AM on January 25, 2011

so, let me get this straight, jaybo -- are you saying that she, sir, is less-literate than Hitler?

so sue me.
posted by lodurr at 10:09 AM on January 25, 2011

Peace, Love, Gabby. "The bracelets are turquoise, Giffords' favorite color, and feature a peace sign, a heart and the word "Gabby." The designed was inspired by a sign drawn by a child and left at the memorial at Giffords' Tucson office.

As Carissa Planalp explains, proceeds will benefit a scholarship fund in memory of Gabe Zimmerman, the community outreach director for Giffords who was killed in the Jan. 8 shooting."
posted by cashman at 9:20 PM on January 31, 2011

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