Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in critical condition, 6 others killed in Arizona

[Insula Dei]

Oh God, I'm shocked.

I really am.

What the hell? Seriously, what the hell?

[Insula Dei]

You can infract me, but who is stupid enough to not have seen this coming?
Oh wow, our rhetoric about nazism/stalinism and death panels has been misinterpreted by some,..., Gosh, but well, who could have seen this coming?

[Insula Dei]

A child dead? Oh God.

[Insula Dei]

'Let's not make this political' really is Conservatalk for 'Uh, this is really going to damage us unless we make it about the other guys'.  Disgusting that anyone could think about that at a time like this.

[Insula Dei]

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Michael Tomasky

[Insula Dei]

Seriously, if there is a doctor in here I'd love him to explain how could the bullet go through Giffords's head and she to survive.
Wouldn't she be at least seriously incapacitated after such an incident?

It's fairly common, surprisingly enough. Reason no.1 to never shoot yourself trough the head, as consequences of surviving a bullet to the head tend to be messy:(

[Insula Dei]

I don't want to bring politics into this very sad, very serious event, but I found a person on twitter named Caitie Parker who went to school with this nut who said he was very left wing.  I'm not allowed to post links yet but her handle is caitieparker.

She says she hasn't seen him since '07. In terms of politics that sort of guy could be anywhere on the political spectrum by now.

[Insula Dei]

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Giffords herself this summer.

[Insula Dei]

When a troubled kid killed a 2 year old and her African babysit in Antwerp 3 or 4 years ago, everyone knew whose rhetoric had made immigrants the target of violence (in Antwerp the Vlaams Belang was the largest party at the time). Nobody had the guts to pretend that rhetoric had nothing to do with it. You know schizophrenic/troubled/whatever doesn't equal murderer. Before someone kills there ALWAYS is a direct cause, no matter how insignificant it might seem. The people targeted here really reveal a lot about what was goin on in the gunman's head. At the very least he hated the government.

[Insula Dei]

I'm serious. It's one thing to have very different opinions. It's another to use this as a poltics as usual type of thing. Let's just pray/ hope for recovery.

The only reason why such a horrible action was made possible is because of the utter partisanship and the hatred campaign led by the insane right. Those who are trying to make as if there were no correlation are just burying their heads in the sand.

Look, hateful rhetoric (although I'm not sure very many truly hateful things have really been said) might encourage some nut to act in the way he did in this case...but someone as mentally disturbed as this person is basically a bomb waiting to explode at some point. It's really not a politically motivated killing in the sense that Giffords was shot because of certain votes she cast. Indeed, if the maniac lived in a different district...say a district represented by a Republican or even a Tea Party member..I see no reason to believe the attack would not have happened.

This guy hated government...authority...etc, and saw his chance to stick it to the man by shooting a member of Congress. I don't believe Gifford's party or ideology played a very big part in this.

You're really going to deny that? You're really going to deny that? You're really going to...

[Insula Dei]

From what I've heard about Gifford, she was not a flaming liberal

I guess she didn't deserve it then.

Sorry, J.J., but it sounded like "if she were a flaming liberal then..."

No, but if the guy was acting on a political basis, as has been suggested by some of the left leaning folks here, Gifford would not be good target.

Well, she'd make a more logical target than a liberal congressman in a liberal district because the killer could have felt she was a 'traitor'. Also, the guy just seems to have gone with whoever he had acces to, so the mere fact of being a democrat could have been sufficient.

[Insula Dei]

From what I've heard about Gifford, she was not a flaming liberal

I guess she didn't deserve it then.

Sorry, J.J., but it sounded like "if she were a flaming liberal then..."

No, but if the guy was acting on a political basis, as has been suggested by some of the left leaning folks here, Gifford would not be good target.

Well, she'd make a more logical target than a liberal congressman in a liberal district because the killer could have felt she was a 'traitor'. Also, the guy just seems to have gone with whoever he had acces to, so the mere fact of being a democrat could have been sufficient.

How, sanely, could she have been a 'traitor' from a right wing standpoint.  She's more likely to vote with the right.  

Further, he's been described as "left wing" by people who knew him.  He met Giffords earlier and described her as "stupid and unintelligent."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09shooter.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

I wouldn't put too much into his reading list.

She could probably be typecast as a 'traitor' of her constituents who were forced to undergo the evil Obamacare despite being opposed to it. And the 'left wing' tag dates from 2007, people who are that extreme and that young as a rule make huge political swings in ridiculously little time, so that doesn't really help us in determining his motives (, beyond the obvious: troubled kid with some serious anti-government posturing.)

[Insula Dei]

Well, the swing could be an indication of a psychological disorder.  The answer could be, he's just nuts.

Radical politics at that age usually indicate soem sort of attempt to determine oneself, hence the relatively small difference for a lot of these kids between being a trotskyist or a libertarian. You don't have to look beyond the forum to see examples of such behaviour and none have thus far killed anyone,... So no, wild political swings have to do nothing with being 'a nut' but a lot with immaturity and feeling superior.

[Insula Dei]

From 2 months ago:

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201011080039

Well, from the reaction of some of the loony leftist posters here, Beck was right.

...


Lost for words now.

[Insula Dei]

Also you have to love the way Beck has covered himself in advance. The bastard bloody well knew a day like this would come when you keep up the revolutionary rhetoric.

[Insula Dei]

While some on the left did jump to conclusions too fast, it is troubling to see that those on the right are still hesitant to condemn language like "don't retreat, reload" or "second amendment remedies".

Yes, this guy was insane. Most people who commit violence for political reasons usually are insane, unless it is a mass movement. But his Schizophrenia (that is what is seems like he has) can be trigerred by many things. I don't know if sweet Sarah's map targetting individuals (not districts, but individuals) was misinterpreted by the voices within this guy's head. Most probably that is not the case. But the potential is there. That is why politically influential people should watch what they say. Hopefully this will be a teaching moment for these people. Probably not for similarly insane individuals like Beck, but hopefully Sarah will thing twice before getting all cute with language about guns.

And I would say the same of leftists if they were doing this sort of sh**t. But are they? Are their prominent liberals advocating for "second amendment remedies" if they lose elections? There were definitely a few crazies around when Bush was President, but they were always marginalized. They did not have primetime coverage on America's most popular "news" station.

If you disagree with any of this, you have lost all capacity of critical thought.

[Insula Dei]

It's not just about the Tea Party. If you (Antonio and Lewis) can't detect how disgustingly biased in favor of Obama the European press is. Just think about the reporting surrounding the 2008 or 2010 elections...

Normal news sources say stuff like..."Republicans won the House because Obama wasn't able to deliver on his promises fast enough (and only because of Republican opposition of course).

You can't honestly claim the reporting here isn't designed to create an Obama fan chorus.

When the Republicans spend all these years ridiculing and demonizing everything that has to do with France and Europe in general, you can't seriously expect them to be treated neutrally.

And during the Bush years the US was seen here as more of a threat against world peace than any other nation or organization in the world. 

Bush's "axis of evil" was universallly received as too camp and childish to be even remotely unironical. If I could count the number of people saying to me that the US itself belonged in the 'Axis of Evil', I'd be very good at counting. And at the time I lived in one of the more conservative cities in one of Western Europe's most conservative regions. The Rumsfeld qoute about 'the Old Europe' also didn't go down well. I think there still is a clearcut majority for trying Bush as a war criminal here in Flanders.

[Insula Dei]

Two more victims.....sadly many won't view them as that.

It's always miserable to see what these kinds of incidents do to the parents of the kid gone crazy. It gets even worse when the family is explicitly attacked after the incident like happened with the father of the shooter in that Bavaria school some years back.

[Insula Dei]

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Post from an academic's blog about the infamous Palin map. The picture of the map's absent but it's clear where it should have been and I am to lazy to load it up an edit it in.