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Congresswoman shot.

Sirkickyass said:
Quick answer, in the last 2 years which side of the aisle has emphasized:

1) The gold standard;
2) Embracing "government control" style conspiracy theories (those expressed by Loughner);
3) The Primacy of the Constitution as a document with defined and specific meanings that are universally ascertainable?
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Quit pretending you understand things that you clearly don't.

Can I introduce you to Lyndon LaRouche (founder of US Labor Party), European socialists, George Bush-Haliburton-Cheney conspiracy gone wild, Oil conspiracy galore, endless JFK, fake moon landing, and libertarians in general? Good grief Captain Stretch.
 
Sirkickyass said:
...To that extent, part of the reason I'm totally unmoved by arguments relating to individuals saying "kill Bush" on a sign or whatever is because I simply do not recall feeling as if political violence was inevitable in 04-07 when the anti-Bush stuff was at its peak. In that sense I do not think the threats are same thing only because there is a total credibility difference in the sense about what feels both possible and inevitable....
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Maybe I'm still too influenced by the image of the anti-war, pacifist rhetoric of the Democratic party in the late 60's and early 70's, but I think a big difference is that the right-wing does not envision the left as the types that would do anything as "radical" as take up arms or resort to violent means. Even removing any sort of violent action from the picture entirely, I think the perception that the "right" tends to have of the "left" is that they're a bunch of blow-hards who may "talk the talk" but aren't going to "walk the walk." And even if they do, they'll end up tripping over their own feet somehow.

So while folks may have been offended by some of the anti-Bush protests, they really didn't (or don't) see them as any sort of a threat. At least that's what the somewhat rational ones think. The problem is that there's a faction that's less rational and thus still feel threatened.

And I think many were completely shocked that the "left" managed to pass any sort of health care reform whatsoever.

Sirkickyass said:
...I think the root cause here is that there is a certain branch of this country that believes truly crazy things; for whom any liberal government is illegitimate regardless of the method by which it came to power. What is unfortunate is that I think one party has decided to actively court and, in some instances, pander to that crowd for political gain. At some point in time they've become a virus that infected to the party to the point that Presidential candidates have to actively pander to them. The dangerous part is to the extent that virus threatens to undo one of the social compacts of the way we relate to one another politically: that people who win the election legitimately hold the office they obtain through the electoral process.
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Again, going back to the 1960's, when the SDS/Weathermen and the Black Panthers started to become increasingly radicalized, and began advocating violence as a means to foment what they felt was a necessary revolution in our society, mainstream Democratic party and the NAACP & SCLC distanced themselves from those radicalized groups. I don't know, maybe I was too young at the time to be fully aware of what was going on, but from what I remember and what I've studied over the years, it doesn't seem to me that the Democratic party of the 1960's and 1970's was pandering to these extremist groups the way the Republican party of today seems to be pandering to its more radical and extreme elements.

Sirkickyass said:
....We literally live in a world where a Democratic Congresswoman got shot in the head and a sizable segment of the media and the country has decided Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are the victims. Excuse me if I withhold my outrage at the liberal media and the predictable responses of the left.
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I agree. But EVERYONE always has to paint themselves as the victim, or so it seems. This is where I truly think talk radio and bloggers have parlayed their influence. I listen to and read very little of it, but when I do, it always seems that the conversation is directed towards "my side's" victimization by the other guys.
 
I hate to be Mr. Cycnical. I like to think of it as Mr. Pragmatic.

By trying to link Palin and the bombastic right wing to this incident, what is their goal? Sorry for you idealists and young folks, but it ain't to soften the rhetoric and it ain't to have a more measured discussion of the issues to reach workable compromises. If you want to live in fantasy land, paying attention and being active in politics might not be for you.



The goal of the left is to put a fork in Palin and make her irrelevant. Same with Limbaugh and his Minyans. Palin is the right's Hilliary. A worst nightmare. The left would like nothing more than to pull the plug on Limbaugh. The right would like nothing more than every University look like Hillsdale College. The Dems just took a pounding in the mid-terms, their agenda took a serious step back and Obama's reelection bid at this point in time is up in the air. It is always about politics, winning, and power. This is the same tactic the right uses when they venture into the inner city, find the dumbest black folk possible and try to show the world that these are the idiots that will put or put Obama in office, search for stains on a dress, or scream that Bush is going starve the poor and throw old people out in the street. American's aren't going to put serious study into the issues. We are too busy watching Netflix and posting on Facebook. We are collective intellectual stooges and the politicians know it. They have more disdain for you than you can imagine. It is easier to push your buttons with "ban the Federal Reserve" and "little 3 yr old Sara is starving to death so pay more taxes" than explain Keynes or Friedman to you. You simply don't have the time between downloading apps.

They must simply discredit the most immediate threat. The examples are endless. Reid calling Petraus a liar, the demonizing of Obamacare, exaggerating the terrorism threat, diminishing the terrorism threat. Obama going after the Wall St. bankers.

It is all designed for your benefit. To get you agitated in one direction or the other. It is sales and marketing at the highest level with the greatest stakes. For those on the far right/far left, they take you right where you want to willingly go. The other 1/3 or 1/2 of the voters hugging the center simply stand in the middle swaying back and forth depending on the mood of the current election.
 
"That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida," Mr. Kanjorski said. "Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him. He stole billions of dollars from the United States government and he's running for governor of Florida. He's a millionaire and a billionaire. He's no hero. He's a damn crook. It's just we don't prosecute big crooks."
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Ex-Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., October 23rd, 2010
 
franklin said:
Quit pretending you understand things that you clearly don't.

Can I introduce you to Lyndon LaRouche (founder of US Labor Party), European socialists, George Bush-Haliburton-Cheney conspiracy gone wild, Oil conspiracy galore, endless JFK, fake moon landing, and libertarians in general? Good grief Captain Stretch.
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Franklin: You're going down a rabbit hole.

What links do any of those things have to statements in Loughner's videos? The three things I picked aren't totally random. Watch his videos.

Or you can keep making the unfounded assumption that I'm ignorant, but there's a lot lower hanging fruit on this board if that's the kind of targeting game you want to play.
 
moevillini said:
also, what's interesting when you compare the SDS and the Black Panthers and their own rhetoric of violence from the 60's & 70's, and the violent actions they initiated across the country, and you look at those who were involved in those movements and where they ended up, many of them eventually found their way into the mainstream and worked in more "acceptable" ways to reform society (ie, Tom Hayden, Bobby Seal, Bernadette Dohrn, Bill Ayers etc) - - yet somehow I can't see any of the current crop of "radicals" ever becoming willing to "work within the system"

But who knows.
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What current crop of radicals? This was one guy. He will likely be in prison for the rest of his life for his actions, unlike the Weather Underground who get "punished" for their crimes with influential places in academia.
 
The Pearl said:
This is the same tactic the right uses when they venture into the inner city, find the dumbest black folk possible and try to show the world that these are the idiots that will put or put Obama in office, search for stains on a dress, or scream that Bush is going starve the poor and throw old people out in the street.
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Overall your post was excellent, but I think you went off track on this sentence:

The RIGHT goes into the inner city to find dumb black folks?
The RIGHT searched for stains on a dress?
The RIGHT screams that Bush is going to starve the poor and throw people out in the street?
 
Sirkickyass said:
To be honest Pearl, I would love it if she ran.

Although I don't think your post was really aimed at me.
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OK, not aimed at you. My off the cuff, no special knowledge, gut reaction is she will not run, nor did she ever have any intention, nor does the party want her to. The worst thing that could happen to the party is if she gets steam rolled against Obama, and if she runs, she will get defeated big time and the intelligent facet of the party, if there is one, knows it.
 
Millsapa said:
Overall your post was excellent, but I think you went off track on this sentence:

The RIGHT goes into the inner city to find dumb black folks?
The RIGHT searched for stains on a dress?
The RIGHT screams that Bush is going to starve the poor and throw people out in the street?
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Ok got you. The last one is wrong, I should have said the left, bad edit there by me. The right searched for the stained dress, OK, I see your point there. How does the right makes a big deal about it?
 
Marcus said:
Ex-Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., October 23rd, 2010
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Because calling for capital punishment for someone Kanjorski thinks of as a felon is *exactly* like calling for a "second-amendment solution" if an election is lost legally.

I can certainly understand why an avowed opponent of capital punishment would equate these two statements. Of course, someone who supported capital punishment would look like a moron for saying these are the same thing.
 
The Pearl said:
OK, not aimed at you. My off the cuff, no special knowledge, gut reaction is she will not run, nor did she ever have any intention, nor does the party want her to. The worst thing that could happen to the party is if she gets steam rolled against Obama, and if she runs, she will get defeated big time and the intelligent facet of the party, if there is one, knows it.
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Here, here.

****in A Pearl. Let me buy you a virtual beer.
 
The Pearl said:
OK, not aimed at you. My off the cuff, no special knowledge, gut reaction is she will not run, nor did she ever have any intention, nor does the party want her to. The worst thing that could happen to the party is if she gets steam rolled against Obama, and if she runs, she will get defeated big time and the intelligent facet of the party, if there is one, knows it.
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Why does the left treat sarah Palin like a threat if the conventional wisdom is that she wouldn't win?
 
Millsapa said:
Why does the left treat sarah Palin like a threat if the conventional wisdom is that she wouldn't win?
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I think you're a little off here. I don't think they treat her as a "threat" so much as they treat her as an individual who embodies most the things they don't like about the other side.

I know personally I perceive her as one of the prime examples of people who engage in rhetorical exercises designed to link left politicians to a fundamentally illegitimate form of government.
 
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