Arizona Congresswoman Shot

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
221

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
A video of President Obama suggesting that his supporters address the issue of healthcare with people they know… “get up in their face and argue if you have to…”

That’s what you’ve got??

Oh, right… you also have a single statement made by a poster on Daily Kos… not even someone on their staff, but a poster who said that Gifford was “dead to him.” Never mind that this poster pulled the post off voluntarily in the wake of the incident, perceiving it as inappropriate, and nobody at Daily Kos touched it.

You’re seriously a bunch of delusional motherfuckers.

Nobody here has attempted to link the shooter with any party. What HAS been said is that the political climate has become so hostile that it provides a venue for maniacs like Laughtner.

Equivocate away all you want, but it’s just plainly obvious that there is nothing like the punditry of the right on the left… nobody with the same audience or reach… nobody anywhere near the mainstream.

What’s really pathetic is that these asshats won’t even own their rhetoric. They shield themselves behind obfuscation and never have to take responsibility for their behavior.

Radio Rwanda anyone?[/quote]

You are the one with the hateful point of view.

222

[quote]Racer377 wrote:
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/[/quote]

Very good link.

223

I’ve seen a great amount of hate directed at George Bush and especially Sarah Palin through the media and also on this site. People like FightingIrish have actually wished physical harm on Palin.

When I read it I was at the same time amazed and dumbfounded as to how someone can have so much hate for a public figure that they’ve never met. And of course this echo’s the left’s general attitude toward both Palin and Bush. I wonder why the mainstream media never attaches any harm to this? Could it be that they’re L I B E R A L?

224

[quote]ZEB wrote:
I’ve seen a great amount of hate directed at George Bush and especially Sarah Palin through the median and also on this site. People like FightingIrish have actually wished physical harm on Palin. When I read it I was at the same time amazed and dumbfounded as to how someone can have so much hate for a public figure that they’ve never met. And of course this echo’s the left’s general attitude toward both Palin and Bush. I wonder why the mainstream media never attaches any harm to this? Could it be that they’re L I B E R A L? [/quote]

Liberals tend to be better at convincing the mainstream that it’s a fringe element of their movement, because “liberals are anti-war, anti-gun and anti-violence”. The Democratic party has tried portray itself the embodiment of those ideas since 1970s as a way to separate itself from the leftest militants of the 1950s-1970s. On the other hand it’s ‘confusing’ for some people (gonna generalize here, but say mostly affluent urabanites and suburbanites from the mid-Atlantic and Northeast) that you could pro-gun rights without being pro-violence.

Right, so when some left-winger rants about putting a bullet in Bush’s head, the “mainstream” goes, “Oh, silly angry progressive: probably doesn’t even own a gun.” Where when someone on the right says the same thing, visions a nut-job in pre-digital fatigues at his militia’s secret weapon stockpiling bunker come to mind.

225

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

Moral degradation. And a lack of empathy, despicable.

Look at the reaction by both sides, now, compared to when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The ‘Right’ and ‘Left’ were morally outraged, and instead everyone is pointing fucking fingers.[/quote]

This. But it really speaks to a mindset where individuals are not responsible for their actions, and something larger or broader must always be blamed. How anyone could blame anyone beyond the shooter (assuming he wasn’t legally banned from obtaining a fire-arm, and was sold one anyway) is beyond me.

Our justice system, for example, doesn’t accept the “I was just following orders.” excuse for breaking the law, and certainly not murder. Yet, it seems the popular attitude of today would have seem a very different result of the post-WWII era Nazi trails for example, where only a handful of top leaders would have been found guilty of anything.

226

[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:
for anyone blaming Palin, the left, the right, whatever…You are being ludicrous. Nearly everyone is trying to gain political leverage. A NINE YEAR OLD GIRL WAS MURDERED. I get the feeling she wasn’t a registered Democrat or Republican.

Does Sarah Palin rile up people that like guns? Yup. Is she responsible for this tragedy? Nope. How about people on both sides learn a lesson and STOP the partisan bullcrap.

Stop regurgitating the horse shit that the shooter was a Marxist. Lefty liberals see Mein Kampf as a conservative hard liner book so how is it this moron’s favorite book if he’s a liberal? Or why was he spouting liberal horse shit for years if he was a conservative? Maybe you people need some sort of paradigm shift before you go mouthing off on an issue.

This is not a time for finger pointing or placing blame. Because there are 100s of things wrong with America. Some are the fault of government, some are the fault of business, some are the fault of left, and some are the fault of the right. The reason this crap happens is that everyone wants to blame everything on the other guy. We behave as unaccountable self-righteous teenagers and then we wonder why a dystopian mental case shoots people. You wanna solve this problem and make this mean something? Look int he damn mirror, stop watching your political news and reading your political websites for a month and have a simple discussion with people who don’t think like you. Otherwise you’re just part of a continuing problem.

America is a country that has NO political majority. 37% are registered Democrats (half of which are progressives. 34% are Republicans, half of them tea partiers. That’s less than 40% of the electorate who argue one side or the other very fervently.

And God bless you all for the love for this country. But 60% or more of this country doesn’t think Obama is the problem, they don’t think Rush or Beck are the problem, they think WE are the problem.

A month ago a rally 3 times the size of any tea party or progressive rally occurred in DC. It was run by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and was attended by 200,000 people who want the partisanship and bickering to stop. And it’s obvious that most of us haven’t listened.

The divide between us all is so tiny. We’re made to believe it’s wider so candidates can distinguish themselves from the competition, but it’s all overblown salesmanship, not fact.

So get a grip. The rest of the country and most of the world is tired of the sensationalist horse shit. [/quote]

Bingo.

I don’t think we should turn this into an excuse to sensor political speech, or increase gun control laws (even though I personally feel that there is no good reason why a civilian needs to own a gun with a 30 round clip, but that’s just opinion), etc…

But, I do think that we the people should not tolerate hateful or incendiary political speech from pundits/politicians (regardless of their political orientation).

We can express our dislike of this practice through written letters, discontinuing giving these individuals our attention (stop watching/listening to pundits who engage in such practices), or even calling their offices (in the case of elected polititians) and expressing our dislike. After all, they say only what they think will draw our attention/motivate us, and if it becomes clear that this type of speech is not that, it will likely quickly fall out of favor.

Let us never forget that it is we the people who truly hold the power in our political system (at least as it still stands) and therefore we have the power to change things that we deem unacceptable. Don’t let our minor disagreements completely divide us (weaken us), turn us against each other, and blind us to this fact.

227

[quote]therajraj wrote:
Mugshot released[/quote]

Looks like Fester Adams’ ever scarier brother.

228

500×564 49.1 KB

[quote]debraD wrote:

lol! Well if I’m the best example you can find, a Canadian’s silly post on a muscle board of all place of the hypocrisy of American liberal politicians then I hate to tell you but you’re reaching just a leeeetle bit.

It’s quite a ridiculous comparison.

At lease therajraj shares my sick sense of humour. And Tom Flanagan. Must be a Canadian thing.
[/quote]

No, it’s a liberal thing to wish death upon a mother of young children, even in jest, is funny.

What makes your comment interesting is the the sheer pervasiveness of liberals desiring death on conservatives for political purposes. Your “humorous” death wish is hardly unique among liberals.

The day before the shooting, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., said this about Florida’s new Republican Governor Rick Scott: “That Scott down, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him.” (All because he disagrees with his policies.)

The liberal death wish is so presuasive it shows up on a fitness board.

Indeed, killing persons with contrary political beliefs is a frequent desire among liberals, an aspiration that only a few liberals manage to pull off: Castro, Che, Mao, Stalin, and Hitler being some of the more successful socialists of varying kinds. I think the left has a body count in the billion range now.

229

The left thinks nothing of such speech against Palin. Where is the outrage from the MSLM? Is it okay because it’s Palin? Are we once again being treated to the old liberal double standard?

230

Can we just admit that a sociopath does not need a political ideology to prompt him to commit or endorse murder?

After all, our politicians do it everyday but they are the sanctified class and so the rules do not apply to them. These schmucks set the example for deranged individuals to follow.

231

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
A video of President Obama suggesting that his supporters address the issue of healthcare with people they know… “get up in their face and argue if you have to…”

That’s what you’ve got??

Oh, right… you also have a single statement made by a poster on Daily Kos… not even someone on their staff, but a poster who said that Gifford was “dead to him.” Never mind that this poster pulled the post off voluntarily in the wake of the incident, perceiving it as inappropriate, and nobody at Daily Kos touched it.

You’re seriously a bunch of delusional motherfuckers.

Nobody here has attempted to link the shooter with any party. What HAS been said is that the political climate has become so hostile that it provides a venue for maniacs like Laughtner.

Equivocate away all you want, but it’s just plainly obvious that there is nothing like the punditry of the right on the left… nobody with the same audience or reach… nobody anywhere near the mainstream.

What’s really pathetic is that these asshats won’t even own their rhetoric. They shield themselves behind obfuscation and never have to take responsibility for their behavior.

Radio Rwanda anyone?[/quote]

I was about to rip you a new ass, until you finally got what I was getting at by posting that video.

How can he sit there and say, “Stop the rhetoric” when he is guilty of it himself? That goes for the rest of the worthless politicians too. People have used harsh language against Palin, Obama, Pelosi, Bush, pretty much any outpsoken person in the White House.

How about we get pissed at the unhinged people who are off their rocker and decide to do stupid shit in the first place?

232

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

How about we get pissed at the unhinged people who are off their rocker and decide to do stupid shit in the first place?

[/quote]

Because that’s scary. Because we don’t know when someone will become unhinged, or who it will be. And then afterward, we only have one person (or maybe a couple people) to blame.

We want to point to systemic causes that confirm our world view, and give us an “enemy” to fight. We want to pretend that we rid ourselves of the 1% of the population with the capacity and motivation to take arbitrary violent action through changing the ‘tone’ of the discussion, or even making some topics off limits.

233

[quote]Spartiates wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

How about we get pissed at the unhinged people who are off their rocker and decide to do stupid shit in the first place?

[/quote]

Because that’s scary. Because we don’t know when someone will become unhinged, or who it will be. And then afterward, we only have one person (or maybe a couple people) to blame.

We want to point to systemic causes that confirm our world view, and give us an “enemy” to fight. We want to pretend that we rid ourselves of the 1% of the population with the capacity and motivation to take arbitrary violent action through changing the ‘tone’ of the discussion, or even making some topics off limits.[/quote]
Better yet, how about we start caring about everybody, so that we can help them when they start to slip out of reality.

234

Doctors are reporting that she is breathing on her own and responding to simple commands. That’s HUGE! Only 10% of people that suffer gunshot wounds to the head survive. One of my best friends was shot in the head when we were 17. He lived on life support for a month and one day, but developed an aneurysm and passed. he never regained consciousness or breathed on his own. She’s not out of the woods, but there is hope.
The 9 year olds funeral is scheduled for Thursday.

Check this out:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/01/11/westboro-baptist-church-to-picket-funeral-of-9-year-old-arizona/
There are truly some sickos out there. It says in the article that the founder of the church has a video online thanking God for the shootings.

Thanks to the few on this board that have spoken out againt the finger pointing that took place on the first 8 pages. You can’t blame rhetoric from either side for an event such as this. Any sane person knows what crosshairs on a map or “bring a gun to a knife fight” means. This guy made some crazy videos because he saw a bird for crying out loud.

He is obviously mentally troubled and the only one to blame is him. I refuse to watch his videos as I guarantee he is getting off on the number of views. Blaming rhetoric is an attempt to quell government opposition by us common folk. “Don’t speak out against your government or things like this happen” Really? ASININE!!!

235

[quote]jakerz96 wrote:
Better yet, how about we start caring about everybody, so that we can help them when they start to slip out of reality.[/quote]

Because you can’t care about everyone. Not in any meaningful way.

What you’re talking about isn’t caring, it’s a government imposed mental-health system, where people who haven’t committed crimes will end up held against their will “for their own good”.

I’m sorry, but in a country of over 300 million, in the grand scheme of things, the risk of this type of incident happening one in a blue moon while preserving our freedoms is far better than the types of systemic, draconian system that would have to be in place to prevent the tiny fraction of a percent of the population from doing this stuff.

236

I found this seriously disturbing, on top of what has already happened…

The Westboro Baptist Church plans on protesting the funerals of those killed from Saturday’s shootout.

The church founder, Fred Phelps, posted a video in which he said: “Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson. However many are dead, Westboro Baptist church will picket their funerals. We will remind the living you can still repent and obey.”

Fucking disgusting, how about we send some of these protesters to their maker.

237

[quote]Spartiates wrote:

[quote]jakerz96 wrote:
Better yet, how about we start caring about everybody, so that we can help them when they start to slip out of reality.[/quote]

Because you can’t care about everyone. Not in any meaningful way.

What you’re talking about isn’t caring, it’s a government imposed mental-health system, where people who haven’t committed crimes will end up held against their will “for their own good”.

I’m sorry, but in a country of over 300 million, in the grand scheme of things, the risk of this type of incident happening one in a blue moon while preserving our freedoms is far better than the types of systemic, draconian system that would have to be in place to prevent the tiny fraction of a percent of the population from doing this stuff.[/quote]

Agreed, as sad as it is, these types of incidents will most likely happen once in awhile.

238

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
I found this seriously disturbing, on top of what has already happened…

The Westboro Baptist Church plans on protesting the funerals of those killed from Saturday’s shootout.

The church founder, Fred Phelps, posted a video in which he said: “Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson. However many are dead, Westboro Baptist church will picket their funerals. We will remind the living you can still repent and obey.”

Fucking disgusting, how about we send some of these protesters to their maker. [/quote]

Westboro Baptist = Occult? I didn’t know.

239

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
I found this seriously disturbing, on top of what has already happened…

The Westboro Baptist Church plans on protesting the funerals of those killed from Saturday’s shootout.

The church founder, Fred Phelps, posted a video in which he said: “Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson. However many are dead, Westboro Baptist church will picket their funerals. We will remind the living you can still repent and obey.”

Fucking disgusting, how about we send some of these protesters to their maker. [/quote]

Well, at least we can agree on this… I’ve stood arm-in-arm with others to provide a human shield against these fucks.

240

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
A video of President Obama suggesting that his supporters address the issue of healthcare with people they know… “get up in their face and argue if you have to…”

That’s what you’ve got??

Oh, right… you also have a single statement made by a poster on Daily Kos… not even someone on their staff, but a poster who said that Gifford was “dead to him.” Never mind that this poster pulled the post off voluntarily in the wake of the incident, perceiving it as inappropriate, and nobody at Daily Kos touched it.

You’re seriously a bunch of delusional motherfuckers.

Nobody here has attempted to link the shooter with any party. What HAS been said is that the political climate has become so hostile that it provides a venue for maniacs like Laughtner.

Equivocate away all you want, but it’s just plainly obvious that there is nothing like the punditry of the right on the left… nobody with the same audience or reach… nobody anywhere near the mainstream.

What’s really pathetic is that these asshats won’t even own their rhetoric. They shield themselves behind obfuscation and never have to take responsibility for their behavior.

Radio Rwanda anyone?[/quote]

I was about to rip you a new ass, until you finally got what I was getting at by posting that video.

How can he sit there and say, “Stop the rhetoric” when he is guilty of it himself? That goes for the rest of the worthless politicians too. People have used harsh language against Palin, Obama, Pelosi, Bush, pretty much any outpsoken person in the White House.

How about we get pissed at the unhinged people who are off their rocker and decide to do stupid shit in the first place?

[/quote]

Sorry. You’re wrong.

You can’t even come close to comparing “get in their faces” with “lock and load.”