Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Shot In Arizona

[Eel O'Brian]

i've seen people on this very board post comments about violent revolution, public lynchings, etc, and the reaction was usually chuckles instead of condemnation

i've heard with my very own ears a person ask when someone was going to kill a dude who made some ill-informed conservative documentaries (i forget the doc guy's name, i don't keep up with stuff like that)

...but them's just jokes!

got news for you - if you say it or write it down, the feeling is in you somewhere, whether you pass it off as a joke or not

both sides are guilty of this kind of bullshit, but i guess it's just casual conversation or joking when it's targeted at certain groups of people

some of you wallow in your own hypocrisy like a dog rolls around in its own shit

[Phoenix Dark]

Yeah, give me a break Feelbad, no more of this "both sides are guilty" bullshit. That was true in the 70s when you had far right and left nuts carrying out violent acts, but since the 90s we've seen a clear pattern of far right extremism and far left pacifism.

If you don't see the difference between jokes on the internets and political incitement, smh. Is Prole a raging homophobe/racist for his posts, or is Cajole gay? well nm  :'(

[Yoritomo]

Yeah, give me a break Feelbad, no more of this "both sides are guilty" bullshit. That was true in the 70s when you had far right and left nuts carrying out violent acts, but since the 90s we've seen a clear pattern of far right extremism and far left pacifism.

If you don't see the difference between jokes on the internets and political incitement, smh. Is Prole a raging homophobe/racist for his posts, or is Cajole gay? well nm  :'(

Pacifism in the modern US is largely a libertarian movement.  I'm being serious here unlike the gaf thread where I'm trolling like a motherfucker.

[Beardo]

[youtube=560,345]Rj47lB1a-0Y[/youtube]

This gentleman is more of a man than any of you shit holes.

[Himu]

Anyways, poor girl.

[Eel O'Brian]

Yeah, give me a break Feelbad, no more of this "both sides are guilty" bullshit. That was true in the 70s when you had far right and left nuts carrying out violent acts, but since the 90s we've seen a clear pattern of far right extremism and far left pacifism.

this is clearly bullshit, but you're gonna believe what you want no matter what i say or examples i point out

and now you're trying to fuzz things by questioning my ability to discern the internet from real life and casually dismissing your own rhetoric, so fuck you for that

again - joke or not, if you're making these kinds of statements on the internet, you're probably making similar jokes/statements in real life around people, and some of these people might have brains as fucked as this kid and interpret them the "wrong" way, so to me there isn't much difference at the base of it

you wouldn't even think of saying, writing, or spreading it around if the spark wasn't in you somewhere

[Stoney Mason]

I don't know. You seem to be lumping all speech together and saying there is no difference between comedy (whether its funny or not), satire, political speech, hate speech, etc and saying they all the have the same effect and intent.

If someone makes a genuinely mean spirited post I generally say something. If somebody says a "joke", whether I think its funny or not, I tend to leave them alone. Because the intent is different. Now there are a lot of "jokes" on this board that I may not find funny and things generally have a wider acceptance here simply because this board is a reaction to the lack of freedom of speech over at GAF, but if somebody seriously says something I find offensive, I almost always comment on it whether on here or on GAF before I was banned. In fact I've been banned for it before over at GAF relating to a post made by a poster in this very thread. (Not trying to stir up old shit for what its worth)

The caveat being that I don't read every thread or every post over here so obviously I could be missing all these offensive posts, but I honestly don't see much of it.

Also my comment is more directed at extreme viewpoints in either direction. I think you can criticize anybody or anything but once it becomes veiled threats about violence and guns then you've probably crossed a line that most reasonable people find a bit scary. Which is why I posted that specific video I posted. If people on the left are talking about taking up arms in a non-satirical manner and somebody posts a video of that then I'm going to condemn or talk about that also. Hell I mocked cindy sheehan once she sort of went over the edge to me although I don't think she ever advocated actual violence. 

 

[Phoenix Dark]

Feelbad that's a more idiotic argument than anything Beardo has said in this thread. Your assumption that people who make ignorant/violent statements online on a joke messageboard probably make them around people irl is suspect. As is your dismissal of the fact that over the last 20 years we've seen far more far right extremism in this country than any other non-religious extremism.

Triumph has made multiple comments about lynching banksters. Tell me, is it likely he wants to see that done irl, or is it extreme language on a dumb message board? Give me a fucking break.

[Eel O'Brian]

I'm smart enough to know the difference, thanks.  But on this board and in real life I have read/heard several variations on the following:

"We should drag (group of people) out in the streets to be shot."

"When the revolution comes (group of people) will be the first against the wall."

"When is someone gonna kill (person)?"

Joke or no joke, all of these statements have at least the germ of genuine emotion behind them.  And now people want to act shocked and point fingers at the other guy when someone takes those kinds of latent feelings to the extreme and acts on them.  How many people watched that kid's videos and thought "lol internet trolls" and how many drew inspiration from it?  A troubled mind isn't going to know whether you're joking or not when you say some fat-cat politician ought to be stripped naked and flayed alive.

I wouldn't ever call for censorship (although I am quite sure there are others who would have no problem with it as long as their right to say whatever the hell they want isn't encroached upon).  I wish people would practice a little more self-censorship, though.  Not going to happen, though.  People are going to go right on saying these types of things and then acting shocked when the "other side" does it, and when tragedies like this happen they're going to feign outrage and call for some type of law or regulation against that " other side" while forgetting all about their own indiscretions.  That's how you win, right?

[Beardo]

Stoney with the real talk.  Internet forum shenanigans and major political/media figures making implicit references to violent political upheaval aren't nearly the same.  Sorry Eel, you're way off base on this.

Why do you guys keep going back to the argument that this guy was just some crazy right-wing nut job.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh yeah, because you are so desperate for it to be true.

[close]

[ferrarimanf355]

I'm wondering, could this be the end of the Tea Party movement?

[Phoenix Dark]

nope

[Beardo]

I'm wondering, could this be the end of the Tea Party movement?

What does it have to do with the tea party movement?

[Yoritomo]

Nah, it will cause some hand-wringing for a few weeks and then it's back to socialist conspiracies/birth certificates/shariah law for them.

They'll just use it as an opportunity to play the victim, while using the shooter as an example of the results of extreme athiesm.

[Barry Egan]

.

So not only the national discourse, but the content of everyday chatter should be limited to what won't send a borderline personality into a violent tailspin?  Is that really a good pretense for daily conversation?

[drew]

there was just some english bitch on NPR talking about how we should be compassionate to the shooter because he was mentally ill and that the twelfth step is to accept our enemy and fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[Mupepe]

I'm smart enough to know the difference, thanks.  But on this board and in real life I have read/heard several variations on the following:

"We should drag (group of people) out in the streets to be shot."

"When the revolution comes (group of people) will be the first against the wall."

"When is someone gonna kill (person)?"

Joke or no joke, all of these statements have at least the germ of genuine emotion behind them.  And now people want to act shocked and point fingers at the other guy when someone takes those kinds of latent feelings to the extreme and acts on them.  How many people watched that kid's videos and thought "lol internet trolls" and how many drew inspiration from it?  A troubled mind isn't going to know whether you're joking or not when you say some fat-cat politician ought to be stripped naked and flayed alive.

I wouldn't ever call for censorship (although I am quite sure there are others who would have no problem with it as long as their right to say whatever the hell they want isn't encroached upon).  I wish people would practice a little more self-censorship, though.  Not going to happen, though.  People are going to go right on saying these types of things and then acting shocked when the "other side" does it, and when tragedies like this happen they're going to feign outrage and call for some type of law or regulation against that " other side" while forgetting all about their own indiscretions.  That's how you win, right?

while I can see where you're coming from (if you check the political thread, I avoided saying I wanted Fred Phelps dead because I felt like a hypocrite), I do feel like there's a big difference between insinuating it on a national platform (Palin) and saying it in passing in private with friends and family or even anonymously on the internet.

[drew]

oh stop being so fucking pc

[Human Snorenado]

i've seen people on this very board post comments about violent revolution, public lynchings, etc, and the reaction was usually chuckles instead of condemnation

i've heard with my very own ears a person ask when someone was going to kill a dude who made some ill-informed conservative documentaries (i forget the doc guy's name, i don't keep up with stuff like that)

...but them's just jokes!

got news for you - if you say it or write it down, the feeling is in you somewhere, whether you pass it off as a joke or not

both sides are guilty of this kind of bullshit, but i guess it's just casual conversation or joking when it's targeted at certain groups of people

some of you wallow in your own hypocrisy like a dog rolls around in its own shit

Yes, because me with my audience of maybe a dozen saying that investment bankers should be sent to the guillotine is easily comparable with a radio host with an audience of millions or tens of millions.  False equivalence ftw!

Here's the deal:  if I had any sort of audience, I wouldn't speak like that.  Even a blog where I had a few hundred followers.  Why?  Because I realize that there are unstable nutbars out there and that talk like that is inappropriate; I also realize that despite my advertised distaste for the gilded class ruling us these days, that investment banker or Republican Senator might be someone's father, son, favorite uncle or whatever, and I would have a hard time living with myself if someone actually killed someone I said something about and it turned out that they listened to my show/read my blog/whatever. 

[Human Snorenado]

If she lives, I think she might have a great shot at the Presidency.  She'll be a political celebrity, a woman, she's married to an astronaut, she's attractive, educated, and survived an assassination attempt where she was shot in the head.  Not even JFK or Lincoln can say that.

She'll be lucky to eat on her own, much less speak again.  A bullet went through her fucking brain.

[Human Snorenado]

Also, what John Cole said.

No shit. You have to be crazy to walk into a crowd of people and start spraying bullets, killing a bunch of elderly people and a little kid. That is crazy.

The point we have been trying to make for the last couple of years is that Republicans need to stop whipping up crazy people with violent political rhetoric. This is really not a hard concept to follow. There are crazy people out there. Stop egging them on.

[Great Rumbler]

If she lives, I think she might have a great shot at the Presidency.  She'll be a political celebrity, a woman, she's married to an astronaut, she's attractive, educated, and survived an assassination attempt where she was shot in the head.  Not even JFK or Lincoln can say that.

She'll be lucky to eat on her own, much less speak again.  A bullet went through her fucking brain.

Yeah, it's really sad to think this way, but I really doubt she'd ever going to be right again. 

[brawndolicious]

I think the left side controls the right side of the body and that if you have brain damage to that side, it's similar to having a stroke so you may have half your body paralyzed but it is possible (although rare) to make a full recovery.  I think the way it happens is that the nervous system makes new connections to the healthy half of the brain and essentially the healthy half takes over the whole body.

Media, politics, and this guy's mental state doesn't matter at all to me.  This type of incident just shows to people how normal violent criminals, like psychopaths that kill for money and not for fringe political beliefs, can get these weapons and magazines and THAT is what should motivate people to want a ban on semiautomatic handguns and large magazines imo.

Licensing would be good.  Make the basic license to own a private firearm the same as the CCW qualifications that require range qualification.  Violent crime has been going down for the last 15 years or more, that includes after the sunset of the specified weapon and high capacity magazine ban.   

Violent crime may have been going down but even if it was increasing, it would be hard to say how much of an impact pistols and high capacity magazines have.  My point is that they have a net negative effect if anything based on how much they are used in crimes versus justified self-defense.  Their use in mass shootings does not concern me since those are so rare.

The reason that I believe this shooting may garner support for gun control is that shows that a paranoid schizophrenic can get concealed firepower like this which makes any shooting tests or background checks seem pointless, making any solution other than an outright ban seem hopeless.  I'm not saying that people who already own handguns or large magazines should get them taken away but banning the future sale of concealable guns would hopefully lead to them being too expensive and rare for normal criminals in a few decades.

It seems unlikely that something that broad could happen but hopefully we could at least get private sales that have no paper trail and conceal carry permits revoked.  If you have to openly carry a gun that can be traced back to you then you're probably not as likely to do something that you shouldn't do.  Hopefully the politician with a new hole in head can articulate that argument better than I can.

[duckman2000]

What never seems to fail these days is that everything turns into mass death. What could very well have been an assassination attempt turned into a mass shooting, and a fucking kid died. I mean, WTF? How do you possibly justify that?

[Yoritomo]

Violent crime may have been going down but even if it was increasing, it would be hard to say how much of an impact pistols and high capacity magazines have.  My point is that they have a net negative effect if anything based on how much they are used in crimes versus justified self-defense.  Their use in mass shootings does not concern me since those are so rare.

The reason that I believe this shooting may garner support for gun control is that shows that a paranoid schizophrenic can get concealed firepower like this which makes any shooting tests or background checks seem pointless, making any solution other than an outright ban seem hopeless.  I'm not saying that people who already own handguns or large magazines should get them taken away but banning the future sale of concealable guns would hopefully lead to them being too expensive and rare for normal criminals in a few decades.

It seems unlikely that something that broad could happen but hopefully we could at least get private sales that have no paper trail and conceal carry permits revoked.  If you have to openly carry a gun that can be traced back to you then you're probably not as likely to do something that you shouldn't do.  Hopefully the politician with a new hole in head can articulate that argument better than I can.

He didn't have a CCW license of any sort.

CCW/CHL holders are far less statistically likely to commit violent crimes than the general public.  Hell they're less likely than law enforcement to commit violent crimes.  Rather than addressing the weapon it would be better to address the circumstances that lead to violent behavior.  Address the factors of disenfranchisement that affects some demographics more than others and you'd do far more to address our "homicide" problem than if you were to ban a certain class of weapons.  The fact that a young black man is 6 times as likely to die as a victim of homicide in the US as his white counterparts is fucking revolting.  We have a self reinforcing prison system and distinguished mentally-challenged laws that are asymmetrically applied to  the most disenfranchised in the US.  We need to fix the core of the problem first, not pass showboating laws that do little to reduce actual homicides and primarily affect law abiding citizens.

[Yoritomo]

What never seems to fail these days is that everything turns into mass death. What could very well have been an assassination attempt turned into a mass shooting, and a fucking kid died. I mean, WTF? How do you possibly justify that?

 

Nice hyperbole.  Mass shootings aren't the norm.

Modern CHL law in Texas partly originated out of one such massacre.  A lot of people wouldn't be able to legally obtain a CCW had a certain gunman not shot up a luby's 2 decades ago, and one of the survivors then run for the Texas House of Representatives.

[duckman2000]

What never seems to fail these days is that everything turns into mass death. What could very well have been an assassination attempt turned into a mass shooting, and a fucking kid died. I mean, WTF? How do you possibly justify that?

 

Nice hyperbole.  Mass shootings aren't the norm.

Modern CHL law in Texas partly originated out of one such massacre.  A lot of people wouldn't be able to legally obtain a CCW had a certain gunman not shot up a luby's 2 decades ago, and one of the survivors then run for the Texas House of Representatives.

The norm for what, typical human behavior? I'd agree there. Norm for personal outrage manifesting itself through armed violence? Sure starting to seem that way. Some jackass was mad the gubmint and took down a federal building. Oh, and a fucking daycare. McDreamer here blasts a politician, a bunch of other characters and a kid. There seems to be no fucking direction here, and that's a real problem. And much like your common violent act of terrorism, it can't possibly be good for whatever cause it is that drives the perpetrators. That would be the only positive, but it doesn't seem to affect the mindset of those actually carrying out the acts.

[Yoritomo]

The norm for what, typical human behavior? I'd agree there. Norm for personal outrage manifesting itself through armed violence? Sure starting to seem that way. Some jackass was mad the gubmint and took down a federal building. Oh, and a fucking daycare. McDreamer here blasts a politician, a bunch of other characters and a kid. There seems to be no fucking direction here, and that's a real problem. And much like your common violent act of terrorism, it can't possibly be good for whatever cause it is that drives the perpetrators. That would be the only positive, but it doesn't seem to affect the mindset of those actually carrying out the acts.

I apologize.  I thought you were addressing his use of a high capacity magazine and advocating the ban of such items because their existence has led to every murder becoming a mass killing.

I was wrong and I agree with your post here completely.

[brawndolicious]

He didn't have a CCW license of any sort.

CCW/CHL holders are far less statistically likely to commit violent crimes than the general public.  Hell they're less likely than law enforcement to commit violent crimes.  Rather than addressing the weapon it would be better to address the circumstances that lead to violent behavior.  Address the factors of disenfranchisement that affects some demographics more than others and you'd do far more to address our "homicide" problem than if you were to ban a certain class of weapons.  The fact that a young black man is 6 times as likely to die as a victim of homicide in the US as his white counterparts is fucking revolting.  We have a self reinforcing prison system and distinguished mentally-challenged laws that are asymmetrically applied to  the most disenfranchised in the US.  We need to fix the core of the problem first, not pass showboating laws that do little to reduce actual homicides and primarily affect law abiding citizens.

He didn't have the license since you are allowed to carry a concealed weapon in Arizona without a permit, I think Arizona doesn't even require a permit to buy a handgun like that glock actually.  As far as carrying a gun with you for protection, what's the benefit in concealing the gun or in not having a paper trail identifying the current owner?

As far as demographics of the victims go, I don't doubt that there's a lot of inequality built into the system but I don't see a 6 times difference (in this chart anyways):

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_02.html
edit: ^forgot there's a 6X white:black ratio in the US so you're right.


I can't think of any real solution to the revolving door of the criminal justice system and I wouldn't try to think of one since I don't know nearly enough about that subject and how viable different solutions would be.  But the fact is that 2/3 of our homicides are done with a gun and about 70-75% of the time the gun that is used is a handgun.  That's a trend that would probably continue even if the homicide rate was much higher or lower.

[Mandark]

Also, what John Cole said.

No shit. You have to be crazy to walk into a crowd of people and start spraying bullets, killing a bunch of elderly people and a little kid. That is crazy.

The point we have been trying to make for the last couple of years is that Republicans need to stop whipping up crazy people with violent political rhetoric. This is really not a hard concept to follow. There are crazy people out there. Stop egging them on.

I dunno how far I can agree with this.  It's hard enough to anticipate the reactions of one mentally ill person whom you know personally.  Tailoring your speech to avoid setting off any random crazy person who might hear you would be somewhere between exhausting and impossible.

But there are larger effects of this kind of constant, hyper-tribal fearmongering.  Millions of people really seem to believe in ACORN election-stealing, NBPP voter intimidation, MEChA reconquista, the NAFTA superhighway, the CRA-caused housing collapse, and a secertly Muslim, Kenyan president.  Putting aside whatever temporary political gain somebody might get from pushing those memes, they all add up to erosion of social trust, and division along cultural and ethnic lines.

"Look at the dirty poors and the scary dark people looking to take what's your" runs all through those.  It's hard to imagine those memes affecting only the way people vote, without influencing their general attitudes.

So I think all the nasty shit that comes out of certain pundits and politicians is irresponsible and has unintended (at least I hope they are) consequences, but I'm really really leery of drawing any lessons from this sort of incident.

some of you wallow in your own hypocrisy like a dog rolls around in its own shit

You might want to ease up a little, man.

[Yoritomo]

He didn't have the license since you are allowed to carry a concealed weapon in Arizona without a permit, I think Arizona doesn't even require a permit to buy a handgun like that glock actually.  As far as carrying a gun with you for protection, what's the benefit in concealing the gun or in not having a paper trail identifying the current owner?

As far as demographics of the victims go, I don't doubt that there's a lot of inequality built into the system but I don't see a 6 times difference (in this chart anyways):

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_02.html
edit: ^forgot there's a 6X white:black ratio in the US so you're right.


I can't think of any real solution to the revolving door of the criminal justice system and I wouldn't try to think of one since I don't know nearly enough about that subject and how viable different solutions would be.  But the fact is that 2/3 of our homicides are done with a gun and about 70-75% of the time the gun that is used is a handgun.  That's a trend that would probably continue even if the homicide rate was much higher or lower.

I forgot that Arizona was nuts.  Concealed is preferable for me primarily because some people are afraid of guns.  I wouldn't want to alter my day to day interactions with people who might be intimidated by its presence.  As far as the no paper trail thing?  I have no clue.  Probably just paranoia that the gubmint will round up their guns if they know where to look.  You already have to get a tax stamp for a lot of the fun stuff out there.

[ManaByte]

[AdmiralViscen]

If we're going by the abstract stats, your homicide rate is 4x that of ours.....but keep thinking that your gun culture has nothing to do with that.  I'll be laughing at you for it, as a law enforcement official who doesn't feel naked wandering around unarmed off duty.

Good for you, you get to be an authoritarian shitheel with your precious monopoly on force and make other people afraid.

Must be nice, Do-Right, but it's a shame this case has nothing to do with the bullshit you're spewing.  

Never waste an opportunity to push an agenda, though, right?

 

[Beardo]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/house/jared-lee-loughner-was-a-regis.html

Jared Lee Loughner was a registered independent, didn't vote in 2010 election

Does anyone think it's very bizarre that a local sherif is placing blame on the right? Why is he even commenting on this aspect. He might as well blame video games or "that darn rap music." Clearly this guy is pushing his own personal opinion in the wake of a terrible tragedy.

[Brehvolution]

Sounds eerily similar to someone

[ManaByte]

(Image removed from quote.)
Sounds eerily similar to someone

Again:

[Himu]

I mean, WTF? How do you possibly justify that?

seen several variations of "that 9 year old was going to grow up to be a librul anyways, so no loss" including on Sarah Palin's facebook.

Some UK woman tracked the mods on Palin's facebook site and, whilst some negative right wing stuff was removed, any critism of Palin was getting taken down in under a minute. However, the variation of the above shocking sentiment remained whilst responses to that statement were removed.

#sadface

oh come on.

you don't post shit like this without a link.

[Beardo]

I love that liberals are eating crow over all this.

[Himu]

I love that liberals are eating crow over all this.

[AdmiralViscen]

(Image removed from quote.)
Sounds eerily similar to someone

Again:
(Image removed from quote.)

I didn't know those people were dead from a bow and arrow

[Mupepe]

Not even that, but putting it over states and not names is totally the same thing.  And we're missing the reload rhetoric

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I can't believe liberals threatened to shoot, uh, Nevada?

[brawndolicious]

I love that liberals are eating crow over all this.

It's at least kind of logical for people to have initially thought that this was a politically motivated attack since it happened at a public event to a pro-immigration democrat and all that.

Now I doubt you agree/eat crow everytime a tea partier or a right-leaning media figure says something stupid so it's kind of makes you look stupid to jump on this.

The logical response to this shooting is that the dude is crazy and should not have been given a gun.  I can't think of any reason to focus on anything else.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Does it taste good?

[close]

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I can't believe liberals threatened to shoot, uh, Nevada?

We liberals in SF regularly drive over and shoot arrows at Nevada.

Which of Nevada's vital organs did you target? Also:

So Palin & crew are feeling unjustly blamed for the actions of an extremist...

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Phoenix Dark]

tweet of the year?

Also we know he was influenced by a far right Alex Jones type. And on Palin/Fox/etc, you know she done goofed when she scrubbed her PAC site before even offering condolences.

[Beardo]

Alex Jones? Really? Thats the strongest link you guys can make between him and "the right".

That's pretty pathetic and quite a reach.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

http://shaenon.livejournal.com/136200.html

If Charles Guiteau is remembered at all, it's as the crazy guy who assassinated a president because he wanted to be Ambassador to France. He thought President Garfield had promised him an ambassadorship, and he also thought God had told him to kill Garfield. He was delusional, no doubt about it. A lone nut. Just a crazy, crazy guy, is all.

What's less remembered, probably because it's too complicated, is that Guiteau's delusions were distorted and amplified by the overheated political battle between factions of Garfield's and Guiteau's own Republican Party. To boil things down so I don't have to write an entire essay explaining a forgotten old-timey political squabble fought by guys in giant muttonchops (if you want that, Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation is a fantastic read), Garfield was trying to dismantle the enormously powerful, enormously corrupt political machine in New York. The people running this system wanted to keep it going, because it made them what today would be billions of dollars--really, billions--so they formed a Republican faction called the Stalwarts to attack Garfield.

They really went at him. Accused him of treason, of disloyalty to his party and his country. Predicted the end of the republic if his reforms went through. Declared that he had to be stopped at any cost. Observed pointedly that Garfield's vice president, Chester A. Arthur, was a Stalwart in good standing. There was no TV or radio, of course, so they put out a lot of fliers and got a lot of editorials into newspapers. Blanketed the old-timey equivalent of the airwaves with ginned-up fear and politically convenient hate.

And so Charles Guiteau, who heard voices, who hallucinated that the President had promised him France, who would later, from prison, write a bizarre hymn to his own execution and wish aloud that he could have paid a little extra for a handgun with a mother-of-pearl handle because it would look prettier in a museum someday... so this lone nut, who undoubtedly had no understanding of or interest in the actual issues behind the Republican infighting, shouted to the horrified crowd as he was dragged away, "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts... Arthur is President now!"

And that's why we don't do that.

(If it makes you feel any better, the new President Arthur immediately turned on the Stalwarts and dismantled the old patronage system, which is why it's no longer common for large chunks of the nation's GDP to just vanish at the New York Port Authority, shortly after which all the government bureaucrats working in that neighborhood suddenly and mysteriously become multimillionaires.)

[Beardo]

[youtube=560,345] lwGf17ISzaI[/youtube]

Even Anderson Cooper isn't jumping on that bandwagon.

[Van Cruncheon]

Alex Jones? Really? Thats the strongest link you guys can make between him and "the right".

That's pretty pathetic and quite a reach.

that and his obsession with the paultard gold/silver standard, his anti-government paranoia and rhetoric, and his obsession with patriotism/militarism -- i mean, these are regular tea party memes

like i said originally, the duder is far out in crazy land where current cultural appellations of left/right get a bit ridonkulous, but there's no denying that a fair bit of the tea party right wing set has a lot of values in common with him. all this tells me is that the tea party is fucking CRAZY, and i already knew that!

about the most he has in common with the modern left and classic libertarianism/liberalism is the atheism

[Mr. Gundam]

I can't believe liberals threatened to shoot, uh, Nevada?

We liberals in SF regularly drive over and shoot arrows at Nevada.

I've been known to do that with Idaho.

[Beardo]

Uhh there is denying it because it's not true.

You're making conclusions that aren't based in reality.


The nutjob was a registered independent and didn't vote in the last election. you know the election that was highlighted by a very strong tea party showing.

[Phoenix Dark]

I said Alex Jones type, not Alex Jones. He's a David Wynn Miller acolyte

[Stoney Mason]

STEWART: So here we are again, stunned by a tragedy. We've been visited by this demon before. Our hearts go out to those injured or killed and their loved ones. How do you make sense of these types of senseless situations is really the question that seems to be on everybody's mind. I don't know that there's a way to make sense of this sort of thing. As I watched 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. 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.
Despite the fact that Stewart had previously held out Washington politicians and the media that lavishes attention upon them as chief drivers of society's ills, he mostly pulled his punches tonight, saying, "I wouldn't blame our political rhetoric any more than I would blame heavy metal music for Columbine...and that is coming from somebody who truly hates our political environment."

"It is toxic," Stewart averred. "It is unproductive. But to say that that is what has caused this or that the people in that are responsible for this...I don't think you could do it...you cannot outsmart crazy. You don't know what a troubled mind will get caught on."

Nevertheless, Stewart said:

I do think it's important to watch our rhetoric. I 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. 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 teevee.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/stewart-colbert-tucson_n_807164.html

[Dickie Dee]

[Mandark]

I love that liberals are eating crow over all this.

Even if it takes a few deaths and some brain trauma, it's sure worth it!

[CajoleJuice]

Glenn Beck

[Oblivion]

STEWART: So here we are again, stunned by a tragedy. We've been visited by this demon before. Our hearts go out to those injured or killed and their loved ones. How do you make sense of these types of senseless situations is really the question that seems to be on everybody's mind. I don't know that there's a way to make sense of this sort of thing. As I watched 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. 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.
Despite the fact that Stewart had previously held out Washington politicians and the media that lavishes attention upon them as chief drivers of society's ills, he mostly pulled his punches tonight, saying, "I wouldn't blame our political rhetoric any more than I would blame heavy metal music for Columbine...and that is coming from somebody who truly hates our political environment."

"It is toxic," Stewart averred. "It is unproductive. But to say that that is what has caused this or that the people in that are responsible for this...I don't think you could do it...you cannot outsmart crazy. You don't know what a troubled mind will get caught on."

Nevertheless, Stewart said:

I do think it's important to watch our rhetoric. I 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. 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 teevee.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/stewart-colbert-tucson_n_807164.html

smh

[Yoritomo]

This is clearly Cleon Skousen's fault.

[Human Snorenado]

Yeah man, remember how after the 2006 elections liberals went ass crazy and shot up Nevada and other WHOLE FUCKING STATES because of crazy rhetoric OH SHIT WAIT

Needless to say, ManaByte as always made a completely stellar contribution to a thread and Beardo is a genius.  OH SHIT WAIT

[drew]

im listening to stern right now and so far hes the only person to correctly call the palin crosshairs scope sights instead of gun sights

(Image removed from quote.)

fucking noob

KEEP YOUR FUCKING FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER AND OUT OF THE TRIGGER GUARD UNTIL YOU ARE ON TARGET AND READY TO SHOOT