Some loon just shot a Congresswoman

From Reuters article -

POLITICO.

"We have a lot of people outside who appear to be fragile emotionally. So we don't know when one will walk up and shoot us down. We're vulnerable, and there's no real way to protect us."

Giffords had warned previously that the heated political rhetoric had prompted violent threats against her and vandalism at her office.

In an interview last year with the MSNBC television network, Giffords cited a map of electoral targets put out by former Alaska Republican Governor and prominent conservative Sarah Palin, each marked by the cross hairs of a rifle sight.

"When people do that, they've got to realize that there's consequences to that action," Giffords told MSNBC.

Saturday, Palin had removed the graphic from her website and offered her condolences on a posting on Facebook.

"We all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice," Palin said, speaking of Saturday's shooting.

Dude, listen to yourself, you sound supremely bitter/pissed. You're throwing out pure vitriol. Calm down, take a breath, and stop despising ~30% of your fellow Americans. Okay? BTW, just because you can find some folks on the other side willing to descend to some pathetic level, doesn't mean that you should.... Your last quote:

"The degree of the liberals' stupidity and hysteria is shining through clearly this thread. They simply assume that the crime was motivated by Sarah Palin without having any evidence whatsoever that the shooter had even seen one of these images (I'm a Tea Partier and I haven't seen them). I think on some level the liberals actually enjoy horrible events like this because it gives them an opportunity to fulfill their main goal in life, which is to point fingers and cast blame. You guys are a bunch of stupid, gossiping LOSERS."

I was hoping posters would quit making my point.

jjjjjjjjjjj wrote:

Sagarin wrote:

The US is a sinking ship. It's only just beginning. We need a new Mayflower.

Blah, blah, blah. I thought that you had at least a degree of sanity. Blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum, literally...

My sanity is not in question. This entire thread advances my argument. I would comment further upon the state of America the beautiful, but what would be the point?

Ms. Giffords was apparently quite concerned about being on Bullseye Barbie's hit list.

The New UncleB wrote:

Ms. Giffords was apparently quite concerned about being on Bullseye Barbie's hit list.

She was also in one on the Daily Kos.

It's plain, ordinary, journalistic stupidity, but that's often redundant.

The New UncleB wrote:

Ms. Giffords was apparently quite concerned about being on Bullseye Barbie's hit list.

Actually, so am I. My boyfriend wants to carrot me for a late Xmas gift.

Republicans have gone too far with their rhetoric. The combination of Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News, Coulter, Palin, The Tea Party and many other right wing extremists have whipped impressionable minds into a paranoia that 'the other side' is out to get them and that "the others" must be silenced by any means necessary. A sad situation and hopefully all will learn that words do matter.

IllinoisMaster wrote:

[quote]The New UncleB wrote:

Ms. Giffords was apparently quite concerned about being on Bullseye Barbie's hit list.

She was also in one on the Daily Kos.

I am not sure what you are on about.

Let me ask you this. Which side (right or left) generally advocates solving a problem with a gun, with violence? For example, om letsrun right now, which side is screaming for the death of the shooter?

Take your effin head out of the sand. This was the inevitable consequence of the irresponsible actions of heros like Bullseye Barbie.

Let's just stipulate for argument's sake that this nutjob really WAS motivated by a perverse understanding of Tea Party/Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck rhetoric. How is it that we can hold the non-violent mainstream of conservative populism responsible for a violent act committed by one of its heretics, but we cannot apply the same standard to mainstream Islam when jihadists take the words of the Koran and commit violence? Nah... wouldn't want to be intellectually consistent.

fool 4 the ages wrote:

I think ANY politician should be careful of how they phrase things. Ms. Palin made her bulls-eye map as a joke. The joke backfired, literally.

She is not responsible, but if she doesn't feel horrible that this guy may have been motivated by her map, then she would be truly heartless. It's obvious she wasn't thinking clearly enough before putting out her target map. Shame on her.

Great post F4the ages,

It is quite obvious that Sarah Palin put that map with cross hairs on certain politicians and that someone later acted literally in a copy cat fashion.

Was/is there a correlation. OF course.

Is the correlation a direct response to Sarah Palin's action? Nobody knows.

Perhaps the shooter never even saw Sarah Palin's map. We just don't know.

That said, the fact that Sarah Palin would do that, not forgetting that we have some unstable people around us, as well as the charged political atmosphere that has existed for the last few years just makes one look at Sarah Palin's actions more closely. I think her actions were just unfortunate ill advised. She should have used something else.

It is also interesting that Sarah Palin pulled down her map MINUTES after teh incident.

Of course there is a reason as to why she did it. It's existed on her face book page for months but she only pulled it down after someone literally did what she tried to depict-may be symbolically.

I believe that she is disturbed by her own action hence the decision to pull it (map) down and even offer her heartfelt condolences.

I believe that deep down in her heart, she probably never meant any harm ot anybody but the result is that someone has acted in a fashion that echoes what she had advocated-perhaps unconciously or even symbolically.

I also believe that she must be ruing her actions of putting up the map but at this stage, the horse has left the stable. Someone-one of her targets, HAS BEEN TARGETTED WITH A GUN IN THE HEAD! Talk of a bad coincidence!

There are things we do in life that we regret and in my opinion, SArah Palin must be regretting.

Until the investigations are complete, we cannot argue one way or another that the shooter acted as a direct result of Sarah Palins actions-or that he was inspired by them to shoot.

All we can say is that let's hope that people just tone down the abrassive rhetoric and images. We can afford the luxury of doing without such heated imagery as well as verbal tirade.

The downside of this is that it could spiral out of control with people taking revenge.

In my own country of KEnya, we had a civil war of sorts in 2007/2008 and as much as it was a direct result of the election that we had just had, for a period of fifteen years starting in 1990, politicians had acted in a very careless fashion by calling for the eviction of some people from certian areas of the Rift Valley.

These politicians had stoked the fires for a long time and their WAR CRIES and war atturances just reached A SATURATION POINT after the elections. We know the rest.

These things do happen. THat said, they can be avoided. It's not too late.

I am not saying we should hold them responsible for what happened. I am saying that these right wingers often go over the top with their rhetoric(i.e. the liberals are Anti American and are clandestinely working to strip America of its freedoms) and seem to not care that a large section of their audience are highly impressionable. It is not sufficient for them to present their arguments as here is our point of view and the other side has a very different perspective and that intelligent people can and do often disagree. It is always presented as the other side is not only wrong, but evil, Anti American, and perhaps even on the side of the terrorists. When you whip into a frenzy the minds of the impressionable and those who are down on their luck their is a good chance that a few will cross the line and take things one step further.

The New UncleB wrote:

IllinoisMaster wrote:

[quote]The New UncleB wrote:

Ms. Giffords was apparently quite concerned about being on Bullseye Barbie's hit list.

She was also in one on the Daily Kos.

I am not sure what you are on about.

Let me ask you this. Which side (right or left) generally advocates solving a problem with a gun, with violence? For example, om letsrun right now, which side is screaming for the death of the shooter?

Take your effin head out of the sand. This was the inevitable consequence of the irresponsible actions of heros like Bullseye Barbie.

Thank you for so eloquently proving my point.

gamecock wrote:

Let's just stipulate for argument's sake that this nutjob really WAS motivated by a perverse understanding of Tea Party/Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck rhetoric. How is it that we can hold the non-violent mainstream of conservative populism responsible for a violent act committed by one of its heretics, but we cannot apply the same standard to mainstream Islam when jihadists take the words of the Koran and commit violence? Nah... wouldn't want to be intellectually consistent.

We can and we should hold the non-violent mainstream of any movement responsible for the impact and ultimately enablement that they provide to their violent fringe. This holds for populist Islam and it holds for populist conservatism.

It could be wrote:

gamecock wrote:

Let's just stipulate for argument's sake that this nutjob really WAS motivated by a perverse understanding of Tea Party/Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck rhetoric. How is it that we can hold the non-violent mainstream of conservative populism responsible for a violent act committed by one of its heretics, but we cannot apply the same standard to mainstream Islam when jihadists take the words of the Koran and commit violence? Nah... wouldn't want to be intellectually consistent.

We can and we should hold the non-violent mainstream of any movement responsible for the impact and ultimately enablement that they provide to their violent fringe. This holds for populist Islam and it holds for populist conservatism.

Does it hold for populist environmentalism? Populist liberalism? Populist unionism? etc., etc., etc.

Grow up.

Moved to kill by algebra.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/01/loughners-college-instructor-i.html?wprss=44

this needs to be read by everyone commenting in the thread. very well put.

IllinoisMaster wrote:

Does it hold for populist environmentalism? Populist liberalism? Populist unionism? etc., etc., etc.

Grow up.

Yes.

Oh, and I'm already grown up. But thank you for your concern.

Surfing TV channels in the early hours in England, I picked up Sheriff Dupnik’s press conference.

Without knowing much about the background of the shootings, it was obvious that Dupnik was making some sort of political capital out of the situation - and that before he had any idea as to the motivations of the suspect in custody.

Despite all the talk of hatred, vitriol and Arizona becoming a mecca for prejudice and bigotry, my instincts are that the people of Tucson must be very law-abiding.

Had Gabrielle Giffords been making a speech in many other areas of the USA, like some parts of Los Angeles for instance, as soon as the shooter had pulled his gun, a dozen other guns would have appeared and he’d have been holed full of bullets before he’d have had the time to create mayhem.

So much for the myth of American ‘gun culture.’

Incidentally, taking Dupnik’s comments on face value, it seems reprehensible that there wasn’t a single security person discreetly in attendance at such events