There are numerous sites debating whether it was a left or right attack on a US federal politician this morning. The cowardly attack involved a semi-automatic weapon fired into a crowd standing and talking peacefully outside a grocery store. The main target, Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head from about four feet away. The bullet penetrated her brain; after neurosurgery she now fights for her life. Six so far are reported dead, including a young girl and a US federal judge.
Perhaps the best way we can look upon this event is not in terms of left or right persuasion but rather moderate to extreme. I realize this puts me in NRA support territory, as they often say criminals are the problem not guns. However, I can not help but ponder that the targeted politician is against gun regulation. She also is married to a NASA astronaut. This is not the sort of person that is consistently right or left but rather a moderate who has stood for genuine care towards the welfare of all others. That is why I suggest the attack is a symptom of radicalization and fear — an attack on moderation and reasoned thought.
The right to free speech
Take the Cleveland Leader report, for example. It highlights a disgusting campaign tactic by extremists who opposed her:
Palin endorsed Jesse Kelly, who ran against Giffords, who used the tagline:
“Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”
It might sound trivial but I noted a lack of punctuation in the actual ad that is highly disturbing.
Likewise Sarah Palin’s facebook page notoriously promoted the use of gun-sight imagery to indicate federal politicians she labelled “the problem”. Note the three placed near Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ area in the State of Arizona :
Here is another version from Sarah Palin’s Facebook and PAC page:
When is a joke or satire not a joke? When is a command not a command? Language is imprecise, and motives are almost never known. With that in mind I suggest again, irregardless of the right or left issues, extremists who advocate violent imagery and harm should be condemned for careless use of high-risk language that has been known historically to incite violence.
The right to bear arms
This reminds me of a recent visit to Colorado that brought some worrying sights to me first hand. As I rode a mountain bike up a large mountain past signs that regulated the use of fire-arms, we suddenly heard gunfire and bullets whizzing through the trees nearby. We pulled off the trail and crouched down; two men and two women stood in a gully no more than 50 feet from the trail and fired towards the trees to knock off branches near the trail, in clear violation of Colorado gun use laws.
We very quickly exited the area by fast descent. As we reached the bottom and entrance to the trail a thin young man in camouflage with his young girlfriend came upwards towards us, both holding large semi-automatic or automatic rifles (AR-15). The woman complained “I can’t do it” as she handed her rifle to the man, at which point he held it with the barrel pointed directly up the trail at me to pound in a large (30+) magazine.
At that moment my thoughts were not on politics. I wondered about this young couples’ upbringing — their obvious lack of common sense and awareness and inability to properly gauge risk. Were they so unaware of history they would not realize when they are moving backwards, repeating past mistakes?
My riding partner, who only had recently retired from the armed forces, had nothing kind to say about the use of guns we saw that day. The moment reminded me of Pakistani and Egyptian students I knew at Macalester College who boasted to me of the weekends spent in the hills at the school Vice-President’s cabin firing AK-47s. What was the point, I asked them; why did they shoot automatic weapons as a hobby? They laughed and told me the freedoms in America were nice but insufficient — they missed their home countries, where they could force a marriage or perform executions without fear of the law. I did not laugh with them.
Speech about armed response
We allow extremism as a form of freedom but as a good friend of mine used to say “your right to punch ends at my nose”. What controls are in place to stop a fist when those who called for its use have set it in motion? Who is responsible to regulate among those who oppose regulations?
I do not believe in GC but I also see the right like Limbaugh and Hannity inflaming people. Yes this guy was crazy but if you walk in to an asylum and day after day keep pointing at one person and yelling they are evil, destroying the country and our way of life. How long before one of the nuts goes off and attacks that person or someone else? Is that responsible? I think putting cross hairs on districts and people and saying the nation is being torn apart and that we need Second Amendment remedies to name a few, is incitement to nuts. Taking guns and wearing them to political rally’s just to get a rise out of the left is not responsible and those in the tea movement who advocate it are more of a threat to my rights then anyone antigun group. People like this only feed the fire and then dare others to put it out. BTW I own a Glock 19 and have owned one for over 15 years and also have a 17/19 30rd mag I bought many years ago just before the crime bill came in. It is one of 8 9mm I own.
@ edteach, thanks for your thoughtful comments.
I agree with most of what you say but do not think the accused will be able to get an insanity plea. He is more likely to be found unstable and full of rage/fear based on ignorance. He became directed, as you point out, by the words of others. He may have been extremely confused and angry, but reports so far say he is not crazy. I also suspect his source was the kind of shock radio and anti-globalization material from AGAN (Anti-Globalization Action Network) that tends to be xenophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-federalist. That could help explain why a Jewish Congresswoman was his target.
What source do you have to prove any AGAN connection? Anti-globalization is not nazis.
The anti-globalization movement is just one example of a group that tends to vilify both left/right and mix everything up to justify a call-to-arms and other extreme methods. They can accuse a single person of being both Stalin and Hitler because their point is not to make any sense historically or ethically but to foment fear and gestate violence. If you show a distaste for apples, they will tell you they have proof that Democrats and Republicans are a bunch of apple lovers. They say things like “It’s Democrat and Republican Party traitors versus the rest of us” and anyone who tones down their rhetoric is a pawn of big government. They value thuggery over discourse. Anti-semitism is just one of many threads that helps them sow hatred and convince any willing audience to commit violent acts.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/11/a_very_american_conspiracy_theory?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full
“By the 1990s, conspiracy theories about the government transcended race and ideology. Suspicions about long-hidden government plots appealed to black separatists and white supremacists, to left-wing activists and right-wing militias, to anarchists and neofascists. Conspiracism bent the political spectrum and fused its extremes into an endless circle of paranoia. “
People are responsible for their actions. And denouncing the use violent rhetoric to incite the overthrow of the U.S. Gov. and it’s elected officials is not only unpatriotic, it is EXACTLY the same as saying Jews use the blood of gentile children in their rituals. I mean WE know (wink, wink) “anti-semetic” rhetoric never REALLY caused anybody to do anything… That’s a historical fact. Right?
If anyone where to read about Hitler, they’d find that he was anti-socialist, and entered that party as a spy.
He liked the nationalistic bent of the Nazi party and became seriously involved with them. Over a short period of time Hitler takes it over, remakes it in his image, and kicks all the real socialists and communists out.
But no one knows that. All they know is what they hear on TV. As a result, they think like this:
Obama’s a socialist. Hitler was the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The Nazi Party is Socialist.
Therefore, Obama is a Nazi.
The logic sounds familiar doesn’t it? It’s shit like this that results in political assassinations. But most people are non the wiser.
In fact, if you were to refute this misinformation due to it being… well… wrong, you’d be accused of being a socialist liberl intellectual. As though the word intellectual is bad all of a sudden.
Which it is. Intellectual is a bad word now. Goes right along with Social Justice, and all the other new-speak redefinitions.
All we’re missing now are purges and witch-hunts and we’d have the full package necessary for a descent into upheaval.
And to think… all of this could be avoided with good education.
It is worth noting that the argument is logically consistent. The underlying premises are wrong, of course, but for those who have deluded themselves into believing all that it is a cogent argument.
Allow me to present a similarly consistent-but-flawed argument
1. All white things are chairs
2. Oprah is white.
3. Therefore, Oprah is a chair.
This meme that Hitler was a leftist is bizarre and depressing. It’s proof that if you repeat a statement enough times, a significant number of people will start accepting it despite all evidence being to the contrary.
Hrmm, that reminds me of an infamous head of state from 1930s Europe who repeatedly blamed the Jews for all his nations problems until the society believed it so much they acted upon it. I can’t seem to recall his name though.
“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own,†Palin said. “They begin and end with the criminals who commit them.â€
So … Charles Manson should not be in jail for the murders his followers committed.
He didn’t order anyone to murder those people. He just made suggestions and they took them to extremes.
Poor Charlie. After all these years finally he has a champion in Sarah Palin.
Palin has given a litmus for restricting speech. She wants to ban things that she thinks are raw, real, an unnecessary provocation and heart stab:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/07/arsarah_palin_weighs_in_on_gro.html
“Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real, Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.”
Palin quoted President Reagan that a criminal alone is responsible for the crime.
Then she said “journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn.â€
So she says first that words do not make a criminal and then she says, in fact, they do?