Busy, busy
I’ve had an unusually busy day and run out of time. So your ordinarily-intrepid blogger is going to have a light day of posting today.
You can talk among yourselves about whatever you want. I also recommend watching this video as well as this, about two of the heroes who sprung to action on the day of the Giffords shooting.
Back tomorrow.
FROM POLITICO: “It” is the culprit.
According to Politico’s Jonathon Martin, “With a long list of enemies, a taste for incendiary rhetoric and responsibility for a campaign website graphic that placed gun-sight logos on a map of targeted congressional districts, IT didn’t take long for Sarah Palin to get pulled into the orbit of Saturday’s massacre in Tucson, Ariz.”
So. Something called “it” is responsible. “It” pulled Sarah Palin in. Wasn’t anything like slander from the smear merchants. Wasn’t the left’s hypocritically attributing to others what they do themselves. Wasn’t Dupnik. Wasn’t Krugman. IT did it. Watch out for next time. IT may be you.
From John Green, father of murdered nine-year-old Christina, was interviewed (HT: Radley Balko):
This shouldn’t happen in this country, or anywhere else, but in a free society, we’re going to be subject to people like this. I prefer this to the alternative
I have always disagreed with the Left, socialists, and progressives (whatever they call themselves these days). It was not until the last couple of days after the Giffords shooting that I came to realize what terrible people they are.
I will continue to believe that a Democrat just has a difference of opinion as to the best solutions for society’s betterment. But the Left is not out for anything other than its own power, will do anything to retain it, and it was not readily apparent to me until now.
And what I really liked, this little girl said we all should learn the National Anthem.
I’m so mad at that stupid pig sheriff and the whole stinking lot of them. I do believe that as they step into the light, their ugliness is revealed; and there is still a majority who can see their ugliness. This . . . this is America’s night of the long knives. If there is too little of a response of outrage then the darker forces behind the mouthpieces will be emboldened to do more. for their every step forward, ours will be a bigger price to pay.
“”a taste for incendiary rhetoric””
Ever notice how the more ignorant and irrational the person, the more rhetoric he hears qualifies as incendiary? To a rational person there is no incendiary rhetoric. Only incendiary actions.
The liberal is irrational and thus works from a premise exactly opposite. Whereas demonstrably destroying the world’s best health care system is no big thing. But telling someone health care will be destroyed by liberals is the horrible crime of incendiary rhetoric.
From Atlasshrugs:
“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.”
If (and it is still and if) there is any blame and abrogation of responsibility, that blame needs to be correctly identified and paid for. Dupnik’s office needs to be investigated for whether or not it properly handled Loughner when he came to their attention.
Thanks for your voice, Holmes. Please state that opinion often because I’m sure you are well regarded and respected. We need exactly your kind of voice because new speakers will startle and shock the leftists.
From “the grio.” Posted 1/10/11 at 8:15 am
“Rep. Giffords, who was Loughner’s target, was shot in the head at point blank range. Loughner’s YouTube rants resemble the anti-government, militaristic rhetoric of the Tea Party. Further, according to the Department of Homeland Security, Loughner has possible ties to an anti-Semitic, anti-immigration hate group called American Renaissance. Giffords is Arizona’s first Jewish congresswoman.
This was not the act of a lone crazy gunman, as some might suggest. And it is impossible to leave politics out of this incident, as some on the right would like us to do. This was a politically-motivated shooting in a politically-charged climate. Nor can we say after this incident that there are just as many nuts on the right and the left, and that today’s political climate is no different than when President Bush was in office. Most of the politically-motivated violence these days is coming from the right, and the heated rhetoric coming from conservative politicians and talk show hosts has created a climate resulting in acts of violence.”
Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?
What Sharron Angle said:
“You know, 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 in fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.
I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”
How the left interprets it:
From Daily Kos, posted at 1/10/11 at 8:26
“Angle’s comments came to light in in June — five months before the election. Needless to say, she never once backed off them, even though by any reasonable standard her words were shocking and outrageous. And, tellingly, not a single leader of the national GOP repudiated her candidacy. Instead, they looked the other way, ignoring her endorsement of political violence, and offering their full support for her campaign to “take Harry Reid out.”
The point here isn’t to equate what Sharron Angle said with what Jared Lee Loughner did on Saturday. But whether or not they shared the exact same political philosophy, they both embraced political violence. The obvious difference is that Sharron Angle did so with her rhetoric and ideology, and Loughner did so with his actions and brutality.”
This is probably the best the left can come up with because there is a connection between “Second Amendment Remedies” and “taking Harry Reid out.” But did any rational person interpret that as a call to assassinate Reid? No. The statement is ambiguous (open to two or more interpretations). Angle was speaking on a radio show, not from a prepared script. She later clarified she meant “take him out of office.” Now, if indeed, she purposefully was promoting political violence, why did she refudiate her initial statement and provide a clarification. Has Jeremiah Wright or Al Sharpton clarified their rhetoric. Indeed, if there is a misrepresentation, it belongs to the Daily Kos attributing to all the Republicans their support to Angle to “take Harry Reid out,” and that Angle and Loughner have exactly the same political philosophy.
So this is about the sum of what the left has. There are a couple more, but across a nation of speakers and conservatives, this is all?
Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?
I just left the following comment at the Market Ticker:
I wish people knew the whole anthem…
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Christina-Taylor Green was the granddaughter of former Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green, who led the team to their first-ever World Series win in 1980. (The team has been in existence since 1883.) Phillies fans have an extra reason to be shocked and saddened by this.
On the Giffords shooting: I keep reading that the alleged perp’s favorite books are “a hodge podge” and show no strong tendencies. But I see a common link between Peter Pan and the Communist Manifesto: both are utopian in nature. And there are dystopian, or mildly dystopian, works in there as well.
There is a link between dystopian and utopian thinking; it is the link between a perceived problem and an imagined solution.
It seems quite clear that the shooter is a flaming paranoid schizophrenic. He’s crazy, not to be reasoned with, that is impossible.
Schizophrenia is a truly terrible affliction, takes people in their teens and twenties, and never lets them go. Jared truly thinks he’s done a great good thing.
It was American liberals who banked on the efficacy of the then-new antipsychotic phenothiazines and in the 1970s moved us to shut down the mental hospitals and turn the psychotics loose, gave them the “right” to refuse to take their meds, and eventually started up a thriving support industry for the homeless, most of whom are deranged if not frankly psychotic.
The phenothiazines, how well do they work? They sometimes slow down the pressure of delusional thinking, give folks the nods, but that’s all.