RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) Shot At Speaking Event

I can think for myself. Always have, but in the last few years I sought out different viewpoints and have matured.

Wow. The attempts to quash opposing viewpoints didn't take long.

Given the left's very broad definitions of "hate" and "racism" I can easily envision something as simple as urging "removal" of a politician from office will constitute a threat.

So simply because I choose to keep the same viewpoint I've always had, that means I haven't "matured."

But because you underwent a token change of perspective, that makes you more enlightened....

Wow. You've really gone full retard.

What's worse here is that you probably don't agree with MEM about a great deal of stuff, but you hold back your criticism for whatever he has to say so as to not make it look like you're actually more in alignment with G-man's and Bsams' positions.

So simply because I choose to keep the same viewpoint I've always had, that means I haven't "matured."

But because you underwent a token change of perspective, that makes you more enlightened....

Wow. You've really gone full retard.

What's worse here is that you probably don't agree with MEM about a great deal of stuff, but you hold back your criticism for whatever he has to say so as to not make it look like you're actually more in alignment with G-man's and Bsams' positions.

never go full Pariah.

yeah. that was brilliant. you're easier than MEM.

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night. “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”

You certainly decided to "choose" alright.

At least you're honest about being stubborn and not budging.

Kind of like reading a script online, and making the judgment that a movie must suck, despite never seeing it, or however that foolishness went.

So if I disagree with left-wing MEM, that means I am "more in alignment" with the right-wing G-shills?

You really don't get it at all, do you?

This group sounds far right to me.

Go back and reread, I mention the group on page 6 or 7 of this thread. Is your accusation of slander based on anything I actually posted? The few people that said they knew him at all say they fell out of touch with him and that he had drastically changed. Your second point is purely your very own biased opinion.

The only way to properly state your opinion about an issue is to copy and paste the words of someone else.

CLIMATE OF HATE
By Paul Krugman
January 9, 2011


When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?

Put me in the latter category. I’ve had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the final stages of the 2008 campaign. I remembered the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 — an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again.
The Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion: in April 2009 an internal report warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence.

Conservatives denounced that report. But there has, in fact, been a rising tide of threats and vandalism aimed at elected officials, including both Judge John Roll, who was killed Saturday, and Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
One of these days, someone was bound to take it to the next level. And now someone has.

It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.

Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent.

A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness — but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence.

And there’s not much question what has changed. As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, it’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.

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.

Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized [ The Democrat in West Virginia who ran a commercial in 2010 about "setting [his] sights on Cap and Trade" (packing hunting rifle in commercial?) --WB] ; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post
[ Gee, I remember a lot of pundits from the W. Bush years forward wishing Republicans were dead, just for their political views. And Nena Totenberg of NPR hoping that Dick Cheney and/or members of his family would die of AIDS for not wanting more money for AIDS research. Or that actress at the White House Press Dinner wishing Rush Limbaugh would die of colon cancer. Or... --WB].
Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will. [ I watch both regularly and have never heard that done, except when each is twisted out of context. --WB]

Of course, the likes of Mr. Beck and Mr. O’Reilly are responding to popular demand. Citizens of other democracies may marvel at the American psyche, at the way efforts by mildly liberal presidents to expand health coverage are met with cries of tyranny and talk of armed resistance. Still, that’s what happens whenever a Democrat occupies the White House, and there’s a market for anyone willing to stoke that anger. [Uhhh... William Ayers, Jeff Jones, Squeaky Fromme, Hinckley, several attempts in the Bush years... damn Krugman's got a short --and selective-- memory. --WB]

But even if hate is what many want to hear, that doesn’t excuse those who pander to that desire. They should be shunned by all decent people. [Unless of course it's vitriolic hate from the Left. In which case... hey, it's just free speech! Even if it's movies, plays, and comic books portraying the assassination of George W. Bush, claiming he's a war criminal and a babykiller, and that he orchestrated the 9-11 terrorism. Because he's an idiot. AND an evil genius! Or less elaborately, just wishing W. and Cheney were dead. Not just grassroots crazies, but mainstream beltway reporters. --WB]

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been happening: the purveyors of hate have been treated with respect, even deference, by the G.O.P. establishment. As David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, has put it, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.” [One guy. And the notion is absurd. No one else in the GOP or Fox News believes this. --WB]

So will the Arizona massacre make our discourse less toxic? It’s really up to G.O.P. leaders. Will they accept the reality of what’s happening to America, and take a stand against eliminationist rhetoric? Or will they try to dismiss the massacre as the mere act of a deranged individual, and go on as before? [Before you try to remove the splinter from Republican eyes, Mr Krugman, first remove the plank from your own eye. It is Republicans, not Democrats, who cannot appear at a bookstore or university speaking appearance without being threatened or shouted off the stage. --WB]

If Arizona promotes some real soul-searching, it could prove a turning point. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s atrocity will be just the beginning.
[Would that Krugman believed his condescending advice applied to him and his liberal brethren as well. --WB]

____________________________

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 10, 2011, on page A21 of the New York edition.

This is the report that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been dreading since the tragic event on Saturday January 8.

The sheriff has been editorializing and politicizing the event since he took the podium to report on the incident. His blaming of radio personalities and bloggers is a pre-emptive strike because Mr. Dupnik knows this tragedy lays at his feet and his office. Six people died on his watch and he could have prevented it. He needs to step up and start apologizing to the families of the victims instead of spinning this event to serve his own political agenda.

Jared Loughner, pronounced by the Sheriff as Lock-ner, saying it was the Polish pronunciation. Of course he meant Scott or Irish but that isn’t the point. The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name.

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation. My sympathies and my heart goes out to her and the rest of Mr. Loughner’s family. This tragedy must be tearing them up inside wondering if they had done the right things in trying to manage Jared’s obvious mental instability.

Every victim of his threats previously must also be wondering if this tragedy could have been prevented if they had been more aggressive in pursuing charges against Mr. Loughner. Perhaps with a felony conviction he would never have been able to lawfully by the Glock 9mm Model 19 that he used to strike down the lives of six people and decimate 14 more.

Counting down the minutes until the partisan left blames Sarah Palin and/or the Tea Party in three...two...

You say that as if the partisan left is the only side that does this sort of thing.

Y'know, if liberals citing Glenn Beck as "toxic rhetoric that inspires violence" ever actually watched his show, they'd see Beck saying at every turn of Obama and the Dems ramming through their agenda: "I know you're angry and feel powerless to stop this power-grab, but don't do anything violent. That's what they WANT you to do, they're deliberately provoking you. If you do it, you're just playing into their hands and giving them even more power..."
Beck promotes peaceful protest and overturning Obama/Reid/Pelosi's power grab through the rule of law. (And that overturn largely happened in Nov 2010.)

Clinton did more than just speak movingly after Oklahoma City and pull the country together as griever-in-chief. He was able to use the event to discredit the militia movement and tamp down hate speech on talk radio enough that it wasn't much of a factor in his 1996 reelection. The Oklahoma City bombings were later seen by historians and Clinton-era officials as the turning point in his political comeback. Of course the viciousness of the attacks eventually resumed (especially after the Lewinsky scandal) but they weren’t as fierce again until the Obama years.

Looking back last spring on the 15th anniversary of the bombings, Clinton offered useful perspective. “The words we use really do matter,” he said. “There’s this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike.” That’s the critical point in assigning indirect blame for Tucson. We can never know exactly what hate speech produces, but why risk its interaction with underlying mental illness?

Whether or not he attends the funerals for the Tucson victims, Obama’s big chance to lead will come in his State of the Union address on January 25. He can both to speak to the moment thematically and confront the substantive concerns raised by the tragedy.

Conservatives like to argue that these are isolated incidents carried out by lunatics and therefore carry no big lessons (unless the perpetrator is Muslim, in which case it’s terrorism); liberals view them as opportunities to address various social ills. Obama is in the latter category and should act accordingly. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel famously said in 2008. The same goes for a shooting spree that gravely wounds a beloved congresswoman. Congress won’t enact gun control, as it did in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, but perhaps something positive can come from this.

Eventually the president will pivot away from the tragedy to the main sections of his speech, which, as usual, will include a description of national problems and a list of legislative priorities. While the focus will be on economic growth, other issues will get airtime. Even here the Tucson shootings can be relevant.

Judge Roll, an appointee of George H.W. Bush, spoke out publicly about the 100 unfilled vacancies on the federal bench, the result mostly of a dysfunctional Senate confirmation process. He felt that drug and immigration cases weren’t being heard because there aren’t enough judges. Obama should use Roll’s own words to prod the Senate to action.

Any hard look at the Tucson case suggests that the real cause of the tragedy was untreated mental illness. When Loughner was thrown out of Pima Community College, officials there told his parents he needed mental evaluation. But state and federal mental health budgets are on the chopping block. Obama should ask whether that makes sense and seek more funding.

Finally, the president should speak out forthrightly for better enforcement of existing gun control laws, which the gun lobby is always fighting to undermine. He should re-state his support of Andrew Traver to be head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (ATF). The NRA is currently blocking the nomination because Traver once had the temerity to serve as an adviser to a police association on its gun violence reduction program. Obama can reiterate his (and Giffords’) support for the 2nd Amendment while using this chance to make a case for common sense gun control.

Even if he makes a good speech, the president may find that the memory of the Tucson tragedy fades quickly. Sad to say, if Giffords had died, she would have been mourned and soon the conversation would have moved on. But Giffords lives, thank God, which offers other possibilities. We won’t know for weeks or months whether she can function in public. If she can, she will prove a powerful referee of the boundaries of public discourse—more influential, perhaps, than the president himself.

This week Mr. Kanjorski told The Times-Tribune editorial board about how large companies don't want the government changing the way it does business because they make big money off the government, and about how he's getting closer to supporting a single-payer health care system "because the health insurance industry is about as corrupt as you can ask for as an industry."

"They're blood suckers," he said.

This was followed by a reference to Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Florida governor, who was ousted in 1997 as head of the giant health care company Columbia/HCA, amid the nation's largest Medicare and Medicaid fraud scandal. The company paid $1.7 billion in fines and civil settlements.

"That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida," Mr. Kanjorski said. "Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him."

Wondy, all you've done is quote other people about the "politics" of the attack. Do you even know what happened or do you only care about protecting the cry baby and the reality show attention whores "reputation"?

Wondy, all you've done is quote other people about the "politics" of the attack. Do you even know what happened or do you only care about protecting the cry baby and the reality show attention whores "reputation"?

You say that as if the partisan left is the only side that does this sort of thing.

WB is WB. Of course he's going to quote Beck, etc.

But nothwithstanding that, rex, you have to admit that the attempts to use this to censor free speech are pretty chilling.

The way to deal with Beck is to not watch him. It isn't to start demanding he and his allies be censored or regulated.

I never said you were being a partisan. I simply conceded that you cite Beck a lot and then tried to steer the conversation to the issue and away from your running lovers' quarrel with sockboy.

All I know is I always call things right down the middle. I don't believe in partisanship. I'm proud of my record on this.