Dave I hear you and I'm not on the attack, but you didn't address my point... the bases on each side are not operating in the same way, and are not comparable.

Any two sides on an issue you wanna look at... if one side stakes out a position a little on their side of "the middle" and the other side stakes out a spot waaaaay the fuck out in Crazytown, we're all supposed to re-level the field and call the place between those two points "the new middle"...? That's the part I don't get. If we conceed this, if we let Tea Partiers define the new middle, then the debate loses all perspective. I know it's always a fuzzy line if you focus in too tightly, as far as what's over-the-top-offensive and what isn't, but zoom out a little, and there IS a line. When national-stage politicians and candidates cross that line ("second ammendment rememdies, if not with ballots then with bullets, etc) and we DON'T get pissed off and call them on it, then... what the fuck are we doing? Do we just then conceed all control to whomever yells the loudest? I don't want to live in a place like that and I hope you don't either.

Did Steward pledge to practice this himself? No more calling Tucker Carlson a dick?

In this way I understand Dave. Everyone it quick to say the other guy is a douche. No one comes on and says, "look, I let this get out of hand. I got lost in the heat of passion because I care. But I want to say I'm sorry and I pledge to act with civility from here on out."

Tucker Carlson IS a dick, though.

He's a comedian, you know.

This alway reminds me of Rick Reilly's piece in Sports Illustrated on "Your Team My Team."

C'mon. Yeah, the Daily Show is just a comedy show. Nothing more. I think we're all smart enough to realize the lines between Crossfire, Glenn Beck, etc. and the Daily Show have been blurred past recognition.

The reason he called Tucker Carlson a dick was Carlson asked him why he threw so many softballs to John Kerry. Stewart made the same argument you're positing - "I'm just a comedian."

Fast forward a couple of years. Stewart fails to "nail" John Woo on the show. You could say Woo bested him. Fans of the Daily Show, presumably just fans of comedy, are outraged that Stewart didn't get blood. In response, did Stewart say, "I'm just a comedian folks." No, he APOLOGIZED for not asking harder questions.

That's not to say that I necessarily agree with Gar. I think Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin have been so reckless and irresponsible that to lump them with John Stewart is not fair. I just think if you're going to take the moral high ground, I hope you'd be prepared to walk it yourself. Otherwise, it will just add to the polarized sick climate that already exists.

to be fair and for what it's worth, keith olbermann said this very thing in one of his special comment things.

Sorry Kingfish, but that is just bullshit. The Daily Show, whether you like it or not, is about comedy. Crossfire and Glenn Beck may be "entertainment", but they're certainly not comedy.

I understand what your saying. But more people turn on the Daily Show to get their politics than they turn on Crossfire. John Stewart's support just got that responder health bill passed in Congress. And Stewart was on Crossfire, not doing a comedy bit, when he called Tucker a dick.

If Stewart is going to poke fun of politics on his show, I think he should have cart blanche in the name of comedy. But there is a point where he stops making jokes and enters the political arena earnestly. He's as accountable in those instances as Carlson is. Maybe more so, as I'm not sure what Carlson's following is.

Ironically, of the shows we're talking about the only one I watch is the Daily Show.

Sometimes the heart needs to be broken to let the light in.

Perhaps there is good reflection and dialogue happening nationally out of this shooting. Maybe not. I suppose time will tell.

Warning: the following does NOT intend to connect Mrs. Palin for direct responsibility to the Tucson event.

It's illustrative and disturbing to see how Palin and her camp are spinning this now. She says that there is "blood libel" happening, and that the "liberal" (whatever that is, other than the "other" and those who disagree with us) pundits and speakers want to dismiss the shooter of individual responsibility, and, like typical liberals, want to blame "society" and conditions on what is really individual responsibility. What dizzying (and probably very resonant to her supporters) spin. So, the cry to hold individuals accountable for speech that creates tensions and hatreds in the village square that might lead the unblanced to act violently... is really positional libel from those who have no belief in individual responsibility.

Yeah that is pretty fucked up logic.

I'm as a big an individual responsibility person as you will find. But I'm not sure you can hold anyone with an obvious mental health issue responsible for the decision he made. That's sort of crazy. I say that realizing pages back, I advocated killing all child killers.

After more reflection on the issue, I think we need to look as a society about what we can do to recognize mental health problems and get them fixed before they result in a mass killing. Because it is undisputed by all that knew him that he suffered from long-standing mental health issues.

Absolutely.

And in my ideal dreamworld, there would be some fool-proof way to ascess mental health before selling someone a gun. I'd be willing to horse trade away some of the current restrictions if that magical option were on the table... I know people who are incredibly responsible with their guns, always lock them up, etc, and I have no real issue with them owning. But it does suck that this kid could go get one, and that pretty much any fucked up kid like him can make that awful decision (take things into their own hands), go file the paperwork, and in a week or so walk out with the means to take a lot of innocent lives. I have to think the attack would've been a little less severe with a sword or a kitchen knife.

by the way, Blood Libel kicked major ass at Ozzfest.

Huffpost had a good editorial about Christians and the shooting:

The Death Penalty and Why the Arizona Murders Should Trouble Christians
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-osler/why-the-arizona-murders-s_b_806628.html

Damn, that's good.

Well, Jesus did curse some as a "generation of vipers"... he excoriated pompous religious officials while being kind to prostitutes and criminals. We need to be Christ-like and save our strong language for those who deserve it.

Didn't we all say this same thing after the Virginia Tech shootings? Instead we got the Heller Decision.

One problem I see with this is practical. Look how drug-addicts doctor shop until they find someone who will prescribe them whatever they want. I tend to think that someone with a large case of the crazies can find some doctor to give them the a-okay to buy a howlitizer.

Gun control isn't about stopping 100% of the crazies. It can't be. It's about stopping [some other % less than 100] of them at what is deemed to be a reasonable relative cost to personal liberty.

Look man, there's no need to get personal.

And the 1 or two that get through do not mean it was a bad idea to stop the ones who didn't get through. The trick is to get people to accept some sort of limits on what they can buy and how fast they can buy it... ANY limits.

I didn't really pick up on this thread until a couple pages ago. It all kind of came down over the weekend whilst I was out and about and preparing for Snowpocalypse 2011.

I haven't read the whole thing with a fine tooth comb but in general I find Gar and harry to be both correct.

Using this tragedy to serve one's agenda is shameful and does a disservice to the memory of those who were killed. The morality of this stance is undisputed I would think but it also depends on who the messenger is delivering it.

Also, every tragedy this country has ever seen or faced has led to some discussion on some issue. 9/11, Columbine, Katrina, and on and on. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. In this case, if it does tone down the level of vitriol and rhetoric, if only for a short time, it would be a positive thing.

This whole line of the argument proves your larger point - THEY do it, we don't. We're good they're not. Colgate/Crest, Pepsi/Coke. We don't see eye to eye because not only do we not respect the other sides' opinions, we think they are either liberal, America hating, Sharia implementing surrender monkeys, or paleo-conservo fails who are too stupid to grasp concepts like global warming, vegan diets, and the importance of subsisting only on organic farms fertilized with your own poop.

And we're back to arguing the semantics.

Absolutely. But also remember that the strong language should always be done in love. The death penalty has been something I've been against for awhile. Wish Maryland would repeal it. There is definitely support being thrown towards it, and if O'Malley wasn't worried about angering one side (or the other), I believe he would repeal it.

On the topic of gun control, how odd was it that the sale of glocks went through the roof the day after the shootings?