I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with what I'm saying. It would be something where I thought everyone would be, and should be unified without a doubt. 1. I'm not saying right wing extremism was responsible for the shooting. (I think most of us on both sides of the political spectrum would agree with that.) 2. I'm saying let's use this incident of a politician being shot to examine the tone of rhetoric by extremists involved in politics. (that doesn't seem like a bad thing) 3. I'm saying that we should condemn political speech that advocates using violence when elections go differently than some people wanted. (of all the things I've talked about this is the one that I would have thought everyone on both sides of the political spectrum would have agreed to. But for some reason you, da whopper, basso, and commodore seem unwilling to do this, and instead want to claim that the other side is just as bad. Why? I don't understand why everyone can't denounce lunatics like Joyce Kaufman, and Sharon Angle. That should be unanimous. Why not agree that Beck making jokes about poisoning politicians, and Palin putting cross-hairs may not help the tone of political debate in the country? Why is talking about that seen as objectionable to anyone. I truly don't understand. I would have thought that nobody on this bbs would in any way defend Sharon Angle saying that there are second amendment remedies to elections that go contrary to what people like. I would have thought everyone could have said it was bad for Joyce Kaufman to say that if ballots don't work that bullets will. That shouldn't matter what side of the political fence anyone is on. Why does it bother you that I bring that up?)
True, he is probably trolling but by saying that both sides do it he is clearly trying to deflect blame. Also I said other posters and I will point to this post earlier. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=5866005&postcount=63 So I wasn't singling him out.
Whopper is not using those examples to show the left is mutually to blame, he's using them to show the left is not mutually to blame, no more than the right is. That no one complained when those other things were said discredits those raising a cry now. If he's deflecting blame, it's on to the perpetrator, where it solely belongs. It's absurd this is even being discussed, given there is zero evidence of such rhetoric affecting him.
except not one of things he mentioned is the same as the far right advocating second amendment remedies to elections that go contrary to what some people may have wanted. Not one of the things mentioned is the equivalent of suggesting that if ballots don't work bullets will. That belongs to only one side of the political spectrum at this time.
Several people did, or hinted at it. If you want specific: Despite clear facts on the table that the Fort Hood shooter was religiously motivated, PointForward tries to dispute those proven facts. At the same time, without any evidence, he says he would not be surprised to hear that this guy is a Sarah Palin fanboy. As GlenRice very correctly pointed out: Hypocrisy at its finest.
To be fair to Whopper that may be his intention but continuous and repeated emphasis to the point of using giant font strikes me as trying to shift blame by trying to change emphasis. Also there have been several posters who have said that we shouldn't jump to conclusions regarding his political leanings including myself. True, we don't know that for sure but at the same time the facts that we know of are that: Giffords' office had been vandalized, she had received threats that she herself had said were because of her health care position, and that while Loughner's views are rambling one thing was for sure he was anti-government. I don't think such rhetoric cannot be ruled out yet as not having an influence on a clearly troubled person. Just the same as if Lieberman or Sarah Palin had been the target, two people who have had extreme rhetoric from the left directed at them, would rule out extremist rhetoric playing a role.
I disagree. PointForward wrote "we should wait for more information" just preceding that, did he not? One doesn't need evidence to point out what would or would not surprise him.
Are you joking? What he says is as if my first post in this thread had been "we should wait for more information, but it would not surprise me if that guy had been a muslim". Can you imagine the outrage? Come on now. The qualifier doesn't cut it.
I think we need to be careful about talking about this only belongs to one side of the political spectrum.
It may hypocrisy, though I hesitate to call anyone a hypocrite on the basis of my imagination in a hypothetical scenario. I would not be outraged if you made such a comment after the murder of a politician who was known for being anti-Muslim. I still don't think evidence is required to make such a remark, and it still falls short of him labeling the killer a Tea Party member.
I think there is extreme talk on both sides of the political spectrum and I gave an example of extreme talk from the left. I think that kind of talk should be checked. But it is only side of the political spectrum that has carried the talk to the extreme. It's the far right with Sharon Angle, and Joyce Kaufman. We don't need to be careful about being truthful, we should look honestly at the level and types of political discourse that is out there. And again, the mainstream of both sides of the political spectrum shouldn't have a problem coming out against the speech like Kaufman's which said "if Ballots don't work, bullets will" Because whether or not the shooter was politically aligned with Kaufman, her prescription for what to do when elections go against someone's wishes is what was carried out. When Sharon Angle talked about 2nd amendment remedies if the elections don't work is what played out in Gifford's case. Those are extremists on one side of the political spectrum. Extremists on the left haven't specifically and literally advocated using bullets if the election didn't go the way they wanted. If they did I would be in favor both sides of the spectrum speaking out against them too. But we don't need to pretend like both sides are equally guilty when one side has gone further and more extreme with their rhetoric.
Maybe, finally, the true colors of liberals were exposed to themselves. Conservatives push back against liberal attacks By: David Mark and Keach Hagey January 9, 2011 09:13 PM EST http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47344.html On the day of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting, liberals went on the offensive, suggesting that overheated conservative rhetoric contributed to the Arizona attack. On Sunday, conservatives pushed back – arguing that attempts to politicize the event were unfair, crass and therefore likely to backfire. “It should not be, but the media, under the guise of ‘a full exposition’ of the evil in Arizona, is back to subtly and not so subtly pinning the blame for the attempted assassination of the congresswoman and the related shootings on the tea party movement, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, me, you, and everyone right of center,” wrote Erick Erickson, managing editor of RedState.com. “Let’s be crystal clear: this is the supposedly objective news media doing this, not the openly, partisan left, though it is fueling the media witch hunt. And from what we now know, it is not just media malpractice, but a lie.” Other conservatives said the criticism reeks of hypocrisy. “Keith Olbermann rants regularly about ‘fascists’ taking over the country, and each day for years has named one or more conservatives ‘the worst person in the world.’ Other liberal talk hosts are scarcely more restrained,” said law professor Brad Smith, a former FEC chairman, in POLITICO’s Arena. “The comments sections of the Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and other lefty sites are full of the most vile comments and death wishes for Republicans on a regular basis,” Smith added. New Jersey Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R) also voiced anger at Olbermann’s Saturday night comments, which laid at least some blame for the Arizona carnage on Palin, Beck and other prominent conservatives. “Olbermann does more to coarsen the political rhetoric than virtually anyone else,” Carroll said. “For him, of all people, to urge a toning down of political rhetoric represents the very definition of chutzpah.” Within hours of the Tucson shooting, prominent liberals had begun tying the event to the violent rhetoric bandied about by conservative media figures like Beck and Limbaugh. And in part because Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat, made similar criticisms about the “vitriol” on radio and TV in his discussion of the attack, the mainstream media also was filled with questions about the role that the tone of the day’s political discourse played in possibly motivating the alleged killer. The anti-government language of the YouTube clips that the suspected shooter, Jared Loughner, had uploaded had drawn early connections to the tea party, but no evidence surfaced suggesting that Loughner was a fan or supporter of the tea party, Palin, Beck or any of the other media figures named in some liberal critiques. The lack of any known connection between Loughner and Palin or the tea party prompted The Washington Examiner’s Byron York to accuse CNN and other media organizations of jumping to conclusions after congressional reporter Jessica Yellin told Wolf Blitzer that “clearly this is a moment to talk about our political rhetoric.” Yellin pointed out that Palin had released a statement of condolence for Giffords and the other victims of the shooting and their families, but York objected to the notion that a discussion about political vitriol was fair game at that time, when the mainstream media went to great lengths to avoid jumping to conclusions about the reasons behind the Ft. Hood shooting in November 2009. “Indeed, there is no ‘overt’ or any other sort of connection between Loughner and Palin,” York wrote. “If such evidence came to light, it would certainly be news. But without that evidence, and after a brief caveat, the CNN group went back to discussing the theory that Loughner acted out of rage inspired by Palin and other Republicans. Conclusions were jumped to all around.” The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg criticized “those who immediately shoe-horned these awful crimes into their ideological prism,” and added: “There have been some truly disgusting displays of opportunism out there.” Olbermann, New York Times’ columnist Paul Krugman and Joe Klein all pointed to Glenn Beck as a purveyor of the kind of violent rhetoric and conspiracy theories that might push a disturbed person over the edge. Beck was silent Sunday, but his website, The Blaze, was filled with examples of liberals politicizing the shooting. The site links to Olbermann’s special comment, in which he said Beck “obsesses, nearly as strangely as this Mr. Loughner did, about gold and debt;” and to Krugman’s blog post in which he cites Beck and says “violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate.” Taken together, these clips form the foundation of what could be a strong counterpunch from Beck on his radio and television shows on Monday. Beck has been accused before of inciting people to violence, a charge that he has always denied. Last month, to illustrate the absurdity of these claims, he discussed the Florida school board shooting, noting with mock glee that the shooter had links to Media Matters, a frequent Beck critic, on his Facebook page. “Let me make this very clear,” Beck said. “Media Matters did not try to go in and shoot the school board. It was the crazy nut job that did it. Period. Nobody’s responsible for making anybody go do anything violent except crazy people who decide that violence is the answer.” Conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart has already begun to throw the left’s attempts to tie the shooting to the right back at them. “Not since fake N-Word hurled at Reps Carson/Lewis has an anti-Tea Party strategy blown up in left’s face so Yosemite Sam-like,” tweeted Breitbart, referring to Rep. Andre Carson and Rep. John Lewis’s claims that racial slurs were hurled at them during a tea party event. Although the episode was widely reported, no video or audio evidence ever surfaced to prove the claims, and the lack of evidence has remained one of the right’s favorite examples of the left’s attempts to smear them as racist. In a post titled “Breaking: Democrats Plotted to Blame Tea Party for Slaughter,” Jim Hoft, a blogger on Breitbart’s Big Government website, picks up a quote that an anonymous Democratic operative gave to POLITICO as evidence of what he believes is a similarly orchestrated smear. “They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.” Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, suggested the left has a “sad” history of politicizing violence. “When John F. Kennedy was killed by a supporter of the Soviet Union and Cuba – Lee Harvey Oswald – the establishment left announced that conservatism in Dallas was to blame. A communist kills, conservative America is to blame,” Norquist said. “Now we have a 22-year-old with no discernible politics (one hint, the “Communist Manifesto” cited approvingly on his website)….and Keith Olbermann is joined by the Democrat Sheriff Clarence Dupnik from Southern Arizona who both blame conservatives. Violence is bad. Liberal Democrats blaming violence on conservatives is so old and anticipated it is now a cliche.” And Fran Wendelboe, a Republican New Hampshire state representative until December 2010, knocked the idea put forward among liberal commentators that stricter gun control measures would have prevented the Arizona tragedy. “I hope that this act of a deranged individual does not open the door to finger-pointing against imagined causes,” Wendelboe said. “As a thirty-plus year concealed carry license holder, I accept a deep responsibility to be always ready and vigilant when armed to protect the public from such attacks. As the saying goes, firearms don’t kill people, it is the person pulling the trigger who kill people. Using acts such as these to try to limit the possession/use of firearms of honest citizens will make America a much LESS safe place to live.”
What a horribly stupid article. Again why does it have to be liberals or conservatives that come out against Statements like "if ballots don't work, bullets will"? Can't we all agree that is irresponsible, and speak out against it? There is no rule that says because it was a tea party candidate's choice for campaign manager that says it, no conservatives can admit that kind of rhetoric is dangerous. The article then goes on to blame one divisive commentator (Olbermann) for suggesting the rhetoric be toned down, and apologizing if anything he said was taken as a call to violence. It seems the authors of the article are taking the exact wrong message from what happened. What a shame.
^^^^^ Let's get real. If we had psychological tests be given as part of the process of getting a gun, this fool would not have gotten one. Our gun laws allow lunies to get guns. The guy was rejected by the military and even kicked out of school, but he's allowed to get a gun. That is how Palin and the other right-wing nuts contributed to this tragedy. But being NRA brown nosers and protecting the right for the criminally insane to walk around with semi-automatic concealed weapons. And their defense? Why, it's Giffords fault for not carrying a gun???!! As for the connection to this guy and the Tea Party, there probably isn't any. But that doesn't matter. It looks bad. It looks really bad. You don't need the freakin media to make the connection - I guarantee you 80% of America has made that connection on it's own. That's all that matters. Is that people now realize that words can influence action...violent action. Whether or not this guy was influenced isn't the point, it's the connection people made in their minds. Most people in America aren't familiar with political assassinations. Anyone 40 or under was a little kid when Reagan got shot. And anyone under 60 was likewise a kid when all the Kennedy assassinations went down. That's pretty much the entire electorate. This is going to have reverberations and in hopefully a positive way. It's not about blaming the Tea Party or right-wingers, it's about people needing to wake up and realize that the solution to problems isn't by demonizing the other side, but instead scorning the radicals on their own side.
A Bronx native with a fondness for steel-toed cowboy boots (the better to kick Republicans with, he jokes), Mr. Grayson rose to prominence as a lawyer by successfully suing wayward military contractors who profited from the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Link
