Coincidence or Not?

apparently whoever you copied the dubious email chain from.

 

Giddyup gets an email from one of his Amway friends... time to start a thread!

 

1. It's wrong because asking in this way is an accusation.

2. Who said they were NRA Republican cheerleaders? Why does that matter?

You haven't established anything except that you will make veiled accusations based on no evidence, and then try and weasel your out of what you were doing.

Just like all the other times you've tried it, this has blown up in your face.

 

I can't decide which I find more tiresome. Is it giddy's attempting to make some point that is profoundly stupid and demonstrably wrong, getting owned and then arguing it to death? Or is it basso's delivering a dog turd in a paper bag to the porch, ringing the doorbell and then hiding in the bushes, giggling?

Tough call.

 

The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps.

 

Here's what I think of your thread

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jbNuryhZzgg#t=24s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

I'm in D&D frequently, I haven't seen anyone make this assertion, ever. Nor have I seen it in any media.

The entire OP was to put up a big straw man and beat it. Congrats, you hit that straw man with a stick. Whoop di doo.

 

The second paragraph where you try to dodge any responsibility for saying what you are actually saying is sickening. Be a man.

Vilifying the NRA and Republicans (which isn't even necessarily true) is not the same as saying that any murderer or mass shooter and killer is part of the NRA and a Republican and that's part of why they committed their crime.

People don't like the opinion expressed is because it's based on junk, and irrelevant. It's not the usual crew. I see people in here lambasting this thread that don't normally even bother. You started a thread based on garbage, and it's gotten the response it deserves. Sorry, you seem like a nice guy, but that's what this thread is.

 

I don't see any effort what so ever to overturn the second amendment. I see an effort to restrict who can get guns, with a less popular effort to restrict what kind of magazines they can use for their guns and a few of the guns they can use.

There is no effort to overturn the second amendment. There is no effort to vilify the NRA or Republicans. There is reporting on the NRA's position and tactics, and positions that some Republicans may have on some issues. The fact that you see that as vilifying speaks to a possible victim complex from you, but also to what kind of positions these groups take that merely talking about those positions is seen as vilifying.

 

Poor, giddy, you've been had again by your trusted sources.

Still holding out for wmd in Iraq, proof Obama cheated his way to reelection or perhaps proof the birthers were correct?

 

so you believed the chain email/viral facebook post without researching it yourself, then demand others prove it wrong?

 

Of Madmen, Mass Killers, and Politics
by Bill Otis

Charles Cooke of NRO observes today:

Bill Clinton didn't just blame Timothy McVeigh's actions on Rush Limbaugh and others at the time, but came back 15 years later for a another shot at the apple, libeling the Tea Party in the process. In 2010, both Dana Milbank and the Daily Kos went so far as to write pieces about a shooting that never happened, blaming the attempt on Glenn Beck. Piers Morgan happily asked Gabby Giffords's husband whether he had received an apology from Sarah Palin, and was astonished when the answer was "no."

The attempt to blame conservatives and/or Second Amendment advocates for mass murder by deranged people has an unfortunately long history. That's the bad part. The good part is people of normal intelligence don't buy it. The even better part, in a sick sort of way, is that it can be turned on its purveryors.

This is brought home by the story, currently in the news, of Christoper Dorner, the former Los Angeles policeman who went on a murder rampage, evidently as "revenge" for his having been fired from the force.

Many readers will remember that, when Jared Loughner shot then-Representative Giffords and numerous other people in a Tucson shopping center, there were immediate rumblings that he was somehow affiliated with, or at the minimum inspired by, right-wing groups. Indeed, the New York Times itself joined the party.

The party was admittedly short-lived. It soon became clear that Loughner was a schizophrenic with no political motivation.

What makes this relevant today, as the NRO story points out, is the fact that Dorner was very much interested in politics -- but not the right-wing kind. Dorner put up on his Facebook page his "killer's manifesto," which the mainstream media know all about. As Cooke observes:

In the combined 3,240 words of the lead stories from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press, there is no mention whatsoever of the political contents of Dorner's screed. Even the BBC ignores the inconvenient bits. They all mention the manifesto, of course -- just not what's in it, even in New York Times' specific post about the document.

There's no mention of the extensive sections praising gun control, nor of the author's appreciation for Piers Morgan, Dianne Feinstein, and President Obama. There's nothing on his hatred for the NRA and Wayne LaPierre, whom Dorner calls a "a vile and inhumane piece of s***" whose defense of the right to bear arms justifies his "immediate and distant family" to "die horrific deaths in front of" him. There's no reference to Dorner's commendations of the "great work" of "Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera, Tavis Smiley, and Anderson Cooper."

Cooke continues:

None of the people that Dorner mentions are guilty of anything whatsoever. But let me ask an earnest question: Had the killer instead praised Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, President George W. Bush, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA, and Proposition 8, and slammed the collection of journalists that he praised, perhaps singling out Piers Morgan for particular attention on the basis of his gun-control advocacy, what do you think the media's reaction would have been...?

I'm almost certain that there would have been discussions of the "far right," of "talk radio," and of the dangers inherent in "conservative media." I'm almost certain that, as the New York Times reported after the Giffords shooting, "Democrats" would have "denounced the fierce partisan atmosphere." I'm almost certain that the shootings would have been used to tie defenders of the Second Amendment to violence -- however tendentiously. I'm almost certain that the manifesto would have been grafted onto everyone to the right of Arlen Specter and taken as a tacit list of their views.

My friend Paul Mirengoff of Powerline is, once again, the adult in the room:

This sort of opportunism is, among other things, an effort to undermine robust speech by one's political opponent. Everyone -- Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Piers Morgan, whomever -- should feel free strongly to advocate their positions without worrying about being blamed if a madman distorts them into some sort of justification for their deranged framework. Only if the speaker advocates violence is the speaker to blame if his speech inspires violence.

Unfortunately, the MSM plays by these rules only when doing so suits its ideological purposes.

 

Family Research Council shooter used SPLC hate map, media silent

 

it raises interesting possibilities that people can be easily duped into believing something that fits into their mindframe regardless of fact on either side of the argument.

so your whole take now is, it COULD still be possible that the Aurora shooter COULD be a Democrat even though he was NOT an Obama staff worker?

ABC news incorrectly reported that Holmes was a Tea Party member based on inaccurate information.

Breitbart blogger Joel B. Pollack incorrectly reported that Holmes was a registered Democrat based on other inaccurate info.

readers/viewers of both will believe what they first read based on confirmation bias no matter what factual evidence is actually presented.

 

This is one of the worst threads in the history of the D&D, maybe even the entire BBS.

Wow.