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

[exopolitician]

This doesn't help:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/westboro-baptist-church-arizona_n_806319.html

[Sam Spade]

(sigh)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

[Storebought]

I hardly agree that what Palin tweets can "incite a riot," or encourages non-psychotics to participate in one.

My biggest fear is that the Left will allow make use of the antics of a psychotic to suppress through government (eg. some injunction or executive order) the speech of people who already believe that the left uses government to infringe on their rights of association and expression. The Justice department hacking Palin's tweets, for ex., would undoubtedly instigate popular violence.

The fact you 'fear' this will happen says a lot about your state of mind.

Which would be? Please, inform me, since I can't seem to figure it out.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

May the dead RIP and rest recover.......

[J. J.]

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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't want to get political, but I feel I have to because i'm angry over the Tea Party's treatment of gun violence. Sarah Palin must feel guilty. She deleted her websites containing any incriminating quotes. She ran from this. Considering how cynical and pretentious she is, I doubt it was even out of bad taste - her first thought was probably how much it'd harm her 2012 chances. She obviously sees that she's in the wrong, or she wouldn't be scrubbing the evidence and I doubt she'll be encouraging gun violence again, any time soon. If this had been a school shooting, the kid who posted something like that on their Facebook - even if they didn't do it - would be in custody by now.

I'm glad i'm British. If we had a politician who was telling the public to not "retreat", but "reload" or a British equivalent, they'd probably have broken the law under the Serious Crime Act in quite a big way. They'd have been stripped of the party whip, at the very least (unless, of course, this is some BNP psycho, but that's another story). I doubt David Cameron's 2015 constituency target list would have crosshairs plastered over Wirral South and Bolton West.

I support free speech in almost every respect, but when it comes to telling people to go out and hurt another person (giving them a convenient online hit list and everything), it crosses a line. Even if this incitement is in jest, just to rile up your base... i'd find another political base to be honest, if that's what it takes for them to get excited about political discourse.

Couldn't bee more true.

[You kip if you want to...]

Stop trying to paint him as left or right to try and discredit your opposite. He seems like the type to be neither - just a psycho. Yes, I just posted about Palin, but I was just pointing out that it wasn't exactly Pelosi and Reid telling people do whack their guns out against GOP candidates. It wasn't DNC chairman candidates bragging about how many guns they own, the other day.

I posted some crap last night after it happened, yeah, but it's sunk in a bit now and after the fact I realise that it's insane to try and make this a left/right issue. How the hell can a country be so polarized that the news is talking about not the 6 people who were murdered yesterday, but who the murderer loved more - Sarah Palin or President Obama? Marx or Hitler?

6 people died yesterday, including a 9-year-old girl. I'm sure the families are all to bothered about Sarah Palin today... of course.

[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.)

[Landslide Lyndon]

"In that third year of the Kennedy Presidency a kind of fever lay over Dallas County. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed “Impeach Earl Warren.” Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas. Fanatical young matrons swayed in public to the chant, “Stevenson’s going to die–his heart will stop, stop, stop and he will burn, burn burn!” Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; junior executives were required to attend radical seminars. Dallas had become the mecca for medicine-show evangelists of the National Indignation Convention, the Christian Crusaders, the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry societies . . .

In Dallas a retired major general flew the American flag upside down in front of his house, and when, on Labor Day of 1963, the Stars and Stripes were hoisted right side up outside his own home by County Treasurer Warren G. Harding–named by Democratic parents for a Republican President in an era when all Texas children were taught to respect the Presidency, regardless of party–Harding was accosted by a physician’s son, who remarked bitterly, “That’s the Democrat flag. Why not just run up the hammer and sickle while you’re at it?"

- William Manchester, Death of a President.

[Storebought]

"In that third year of the Kennedy Presidency a kind of fever lay over Dallas County. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed “Impeach Earl Warren.” Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas. Fanatical young matrons swayed in public to the chant, “Stevenson’s going to die–his heart will stop, stop, stop and he will burn, burn burn!” Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; junior executives were required to attend radical seminars. Dallas had become the mecca for medicine-show evangelists of the National Indignation Convention, the Christian Crusaders, the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry societies . . .

In Dallas a retired major general flew the American flag upside down in front of his house, and when, on Labor Day of 1963, the Stars and Stripes were hoisted right side up outside his own home by County Treasurer Warren G. Harding–named by Democratic parents for a Republican President in an era when all Texas children were taught to respect the Presidency, regardless of party–Harding was accosted by a physician’s son, who remarked bitterly, “That’s the Democrat flag. Why not just run up the hammer and sickle while you’re at it?"

- William Manchester, Death of a President.

You can stop trolling any moment now.

[J. J.]

Stop trying to paint him as left or right to try and discredit your opposite. He seems like the type to be neither - just a psycho. Yes, I just posted about Palin, but I was just pointing out that it wasn't exactly Pelosi and Reid telling people do whack their guns out. It wasn't DNC chairman candidates bragging about how many guns they own, the other day.

Yes, but those comments help.  And it was the junior Democratic Senator from WV who ran commercials showing him shooting the health care bill.

John Hinckley was not opposed to Reagan's economic policies or Reagan himself; he wanted to marry Jodie Foster.  This is very probably something similar.  You can couple with the fact that Giffords isn't an extremist and would be unlikely to generate huge hatred from either the left or the right.

[You kip if you want to...]

Stop trying to paint him as left or right to try and discredit your opposite. He seems like the type to be neither - just a psycho. Yes, I just posted about Palin, but I was just pointing out that it wasn't exactly Pelosi and Reid telling people do whack their guns out. It wasn't DNC chairman candidates bragging about how many guns they own, the other day.

And it was the junior Democratic Senator from WV who ran commercials showing him shooting the health care bill.

Fair enough. That's also the height of irresponsibility. Manchin, trying to appeal to his conservative base as I said, is an idiot.

And again, murder doesn't make you left-wing. Murder doesn't make you right-wing either.

[J. J.]

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.)

That wouldn't make her a 'traitor' unless she was a Republican or campaigned that she would oppose it.  The only 'traitor' part would be if she was not "liberal enough."

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

[J. J.]

Stop trying to paint him as left or right to try and discredit your opposite. He seems like the type to be neither - just a psycho. Yes, I just posted about Palin, but I was just pointing out that it wasn't exactly Pelosi and Reid telling people do whack their guns out. It wasn't DNC chairman candidates bragging about how many guns they own, the other day.

And it was the junior Democratic Senator from WV who ran commercials showing him shooting the health care bill.

Fair enough. That's also the height of irresponsibility. Manchin, trying to appeal to his conservative base as I said, is an idiot.

And again, murder doesn't make you left-wing. Murder doesn't make you right-wing either.

But it has been advertised as such by some of the leftists here.  It's like saying, all leftist are John Hinkley.

[You kip if you want to...]

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.)

That wouldn't make her a 'traitor' unless she was a Republican or campaigned that she would oppose it.  The only 'traitor' part would be if she was not "liberal enough."

Well, the swing could be an indication of a psychological disorder.  

Not really. That'd mean a good few posters on here have psychological disorders. Although yes, his Youtube does imply that he has a screw loose.

[You kip if you want to...]

Stop trying to paint him as left or right to try and discredit your opposite. He seems like the type to be neither - just a psycho. Yes, I just posted about Palin, but I was just pointing out that it wasn't exactly Pelosi and Reid telling people do whack their guns out. It wasn't DNC chairman candidates bragging about how many guns they own, the other day.

And it was the junior Democratic Senator from WV who ran commercials showing him shooting the health care bill.

Fair enough. That's also the height of irresponsibility. Manchin, trying to appeal to his conservative base as I said, is an idiot.

And again, murder doesn't make you left-wing. Murder doesn't make you right-wing either.

But it has been advertised as such by some of the leftists here.  It's like saying, all leftist are John Hinkley.

I'm not responsible for what other people post. I can understand why people would blame an authority figure like Palin, or a figure like Pelosi if had been a Republican who had been shot. You don't just go out and shoot a Congresswoman on a whim.

[Franzl]

I don't want to get political, but I feel I have to because i'm angry over the Tea Party's treatment of gun violence. Sarah Palin must feel guilty. She deleted her websites containing any incriminating quotes. She ran from this. Considering how cynical and pretentious she is, I doubt it was even out of bad taste - her first thought was probably how much it'd harm her 2012 chances. She obviously sees that she's in the wrong, or she wouldn't be scrubbing the evidence and I doubt she'll be encouraging gun violence again, any time soon. If this had been a school shooting, the kid who posted something like that on their Facebook - even if they didn't do it - would be in custody by now.

I'm glad i'm British. If we had a politician who was telling the public to not "retreat", but "reload" or a British equivalent, they'd probably have broken the law under the Serious Crime Act in quite a big way. They'd have been stripped of the party whip, at the very least (unless, of course, this is some BNP psycho, but that's another story). I doubt David Cameron's 2015 constituency target list would have crosshairs plastered over Wirral South and Bolton West.

I support free speech in almost every respect, but when it comes to telling people to go out and hurt another person (giving them a convenient online hit list and everything), it crosses a line. Even if this incitement is in jest, just to rile up your base... i'd find another political base to be honest, if that's what it takes for them to get excited about political discourse.

Nobody ever went even close to actually calling for violence against any member of Congress (or anyone, for that matter).

I don't know how Britain would deal with that type of language, I tend to believe you that they'd find a way to prosecute Palin or whoever for it (but that has more to do with the UK having very strict restrictions on freedom of speech, for Western standards). No I'm not saying the UK is authoritarian or undemocratic or anything....just that the UK does tend to take things very far in that respect.

In addition, there is no "party leader" in the British sense in the U.S. that anyone could throw out. Let's take Sarah Palin as an example. Sure, she's being treated as a possible 2012 Presidential candidate, but she has literally nothing to do with the Republican Party in any formal way. She's just an individual person.

Yes, in practice, she does have a good deal of responsibility, because lots and lots of people do listen to what the woman says....and she should think about avoiding anything that could be interpreted as violent in the future, but I think the Left is really really taking things too far with their crusade here.

[The Mikado]

"Are you literate, listener?" is totally my new catchphrase.

[You kip if you want to...]

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.

Exactly.

Surely you guys are kidding. 

Conservatives never break the law. Ask former President Bush.

[Storebought]

"In that third year of the Kennedy Presidency a kind of fever lay over Dallas County. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed “Impeach Earl Warren.” Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas. Fanatical young matrons swayed in public to the chant, “Stevenson’s going to die–his heart will stop, stop, stop and he will burn, burn burn!” Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; junior executives were required to attend radical seminars. Dallas had become the mecca for medicine-show evangelists of the National Indignation Convention, the Christian Crusaders, the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry societies . . .

In Dallas a retired major general flew the American flag upside down in front of his house, and when, on Labor Day of 1963, the Stars and Stripes were hoisted right side up outside his own home by County Treasurer Warren G. Harding–named by Democratic parents for a Republican President in an era when all Texas children were taught to respect the Presidency, regardless of party–Harding was accosted by a physician’s son, who remarked bitterly, “That’s the Democrat flag. Why not just run up the hammer and sickle while you’re at it?"

- William Manchester, Death of a President.

You can stop trolling any moment now.

The 'trolling' is to deny what is happening.

Associating a political philosophy of your opponents with murder (as you routinely do), in order to stifle their speech, is exactly that.

[Хahar 🤔]

The political persuasions of the gunman (or gunmen) are irrelevant. What is important here is the cult of violence that has come to exist.

[J. J.]

Stop trying to paint him as left or right to try and discredit your opposite. He seems like the type to be neither - just a psycho. Yes, I just posted about Palin, but I was just pointing out that it wasn't exactly Pelosi and Reid telling people do whack their guns out. It wasn't DNC chairman candidates bragging about how many guns they own, the other day.

And it was the junior Democratic Senator from WV who ran commercials showing him shooting the health care bill.

Fair enough. That's also the height of irresponsibility. Manchin, trying to appeal to his conservative base as I said, is an idiot.

And again, murder doesn't make you left-wing. Murder doesn't make you right-wing either.

But it has been advertised as such by some of the leftists here.  It's like saying, all leftist are John Hinkley.

I'm not responsible for what other people post. I can understand why people would blame an authority figure like Palin, or a figure like Pelosi if had been a Republican who had been shot. You don't just go out and shoot a Congresswoman on a whim.

Hold it, I think you did contribute to it.  

Having lived through the Reagan assassination attempt, I heard very little of this type of rhetoric.  I was more conservative than I am now, just slightly.  I wasn't running around blaming Tip O'Neil.

The shooter posted a video of him burning a flag.  Now, I could very easily point how liberal that is, and that these liberals are "inspiring" this attack.  The guy however is obviously a nut.  Even if he has a Che Guevara tee shirt, I'm not going to draw the analogy.

[J. J.]

But the point is that it would never, ever be a GOP congressman.  That's just not how it works.

No, it would be GOP President, Ronald Reagan.

[You kip if you want to...]

Stop trying to paint him as left or right to try and discredit your opposite. He seems like the type to be neither - just a psycho. Yes, I just posted about Palin, but I was just pointing out that it wasn't exactly Pelosi and Reid telling people do whack their guns out. It wasn't DNC chairman candidates bragging about how many guns they own, the other day.

And it was the junior Democratic Senator from WV who ran commercials showing him shooting the health care bill.

Fair enough. That's also the height of irresponsibility. Manchin, trying to appeal to his conservative base as I said, is an idiot.

And again, murder doesn't make you left-wing. Murder doesn't make you right-wing either.

But it has been advertised as such by some of the leftists here.  It's like saying, all leftist are John Hinkley.

I'm not responsible for what other people post. I can understand why people would blame an authority figure like Palin, or a figure like Pelosi if had been a Republican who had been shot. You don't just go out and shoot a Congresswoman on a whim.

Hold it, I think you did contribute to it.  

Having lived through the Reagan assassination attempt, I heard very little of this type of rhetoric.  I was more conservative than I am now, just slightly.  I wasn't running around blaming Tip O'Neil.

The shooter posted a video of him burning a flag.  Now, I could very easily point how liberal that is, and that these liberals are "inspiring" this attack.  The guy however is obviously a nut.  Even if he has a Che Guevara tee shirt, I'm not going to draw the analogy.

A President being the target of an extremist of his idealogical opposite? I'd never believe it.

[You kip if you want to...]

But the point is that it would never, ever be a GOP congressman.  That's just not how it works.

No, it would be GOP President, Ronald Reagan.

I think the key term there was "at this point". America is more polarized that it was in the 80s. Ronald Reagan didn't have to stand and give his victory speech in November 1980 behind bullet proof glass.