The 9-year old victim has been in my thoughts all weekend. Truly tragic.

I hope the silver lining in this is we tone down the political discourse in America and see each other as friends who disagree rather than enemies to destroy.

wow.

Yeah. It's totally shocking that these consistently nutty nutjobs have made yet another nutjobby statement.

In years past, and before 24 hour everything, and the constant need for informational stimulus, you did not have to scream as loud, resort to the same histrionics, or up the ante on comments just to get noticed.

That said, hatred, vitriol and violence is as much a part of the foundation of America as The Horatio Alger style American Dream.

And while I think this does not apply to you in particular, as I've read your political comments over the years we've been here, if this were a Republican Congressman, I don't think the outcry for civility would be nearly what it is currently.

I think this is true, with the huge caveat that it is the right who most publicly and loudly utilizes such violent rhetoric in their political discourse. I mean, sure, you can argue that you hear lefties slinging shit with the best of them in personal conversations, but I really don't see much in the way of violent imagery and rhetoric being bandied about by serious figureheads on the left. So you know...of course you're not gonna see as many cries for civility if the side you're railing at is already mostly civil.

I've caught a whiff of this from you here and FB, and I can see both sides of it -- it's a tradegy period, AND it's in some way related to irresponsible right wing gun metaphor ads. It's not more sad because she's a democrat, but are you saying you don't see ANY link between Sarah Palin's crosshairs on her state with her name attached, her opponent's rally held at a shooting range, etc..? If we can't talk about how this shit's gone too far now, when can we? The fucking sherrif there in AZ said as much... shit's gone too far. All those signs at Tea Party rallies, "Unarmed... THIS TIME" shit like that, why is it not ok to unpack that issue and see if maybe there's any correlation between that sentiment and impressionable nutjobs? Why are you so keen to jump out and pull back on the reigns, lest anyone maybe, sorta, kinda associate people threatening to shoot their opponents if they don't win ("If not by ballots, then with bullets") with one of those opponents actually getting fucking shot? This dude's rantings were all about GOVGERNMENK = BAD.

Genuinely curious what you think - not out to make a point.

Almost verbatim what I said to the wife, watching the sunday morning coverage of all this. "Democrats don't buy guns - shit they have to hire someone to squash a fucking spider in the kitchen."

Here's the main thing I took away from this - if you think someone is a psycho who might shoot up the school, so to speak, report them to the proper authorities - someone messed this part up because the main sentiments espoused by his friends and acquaintances was like the SNL when John David Stutts shot Buckwheat: "Oh yes, that's all he talked about." His theories or beliefs seem to be much more in the line of paranoid schizophrenia than anything to do with Sarah Palin.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it is very hard to get any message heard by anyone, and that media junkies like us follow this stuff much more closely than any normal sane people, much less insane people - I hate to harp on this, but I make a living getting people to pay attention to this shit - and I just don't really believe this guy was paying attention to gun scopes on congressional districts or anything else. When you think words have no meaning, and therefore government has no meaning, how is it possible you are effected by what pols or really any other sentient beings say, do or think.

In times of senseless violence, there's a human need to try and make sense out of it, even though it's really not possible.

I think the killer was without a doubt a nut job, and his homicidal fantasies would have manifested somewhere. Blaming Palin, is akin to blaming the Catcher in the Rye.

That said, there is a political climate in this country that the killer did in fact attach to. And this notion that the government is the bogeyman, which is propounded by the right, was clearly part of his psychosis. Palin and the Tea Party have been irresponsible with their rhetoric far beyond their liberal use of metaphors of violence. To me, the tea party seems one step to the left of nutjobs spouting conspiracy theories. The trend of Republicans to move towards the tea party scares me. So even if they're completely not related, I still wish they'd tone it down.

And I accept that vitrol has always been a part of the American political discourse. But I'm not one to concede "that's the way it's always been" as a reason or an excuse.

While I'm actually against the death penalty, I have no compassion for child killers and child molestors. I hope they kill him slowly. And I know how I'm perceived here. But I've voted for Barry, Sangisetty, and Landrieu with my last votes. I'm pro-immigration, pro-gay rights, Keyesian when it comes to economic emergencies, and undecided on abortion.

Oh, and fuck westboro baptist church.

Man, perfectly put. This is what I meant.

Can we bomb the Westboro baptist Church claiming it was an Al Queda hideout?

This guy looks he was dropped on his head, a lot.

Of the more disheartening phenomena generated from the Tucson shootings in the last few days has been the immediate and virulent blowback from the Right. “He was a lone shooter (or even a Leftist… the Communist Manifesto!!) not politically motivated; how dare you connect him to Palin and the Tea Party how irresponsible… goddamn liberal MSM; if this were a Republican congress member shot do you think there’d be this kind of response??”

The congresswoman’s name was on a political “hit list” with gunsight crosshairs over her district, Palin advised supporters “don’t retreat, reload!” when talking about the list, the congresswoman’s office windows were smashed after the health care vote, there was a gun left in one of her Town Halls, her opponent holds anti-incumbent rallies and gunshots … one state away the candidate for Senate speaks about Second Amendment remedies…
But somehow we are not supposed to ask common sense questions about this. Rather in the rightwing echochamber we are asked to consider the hypothetical situation of a Republican being shot and how much less commotion there would be…. Let’s think hypothetically: a Republican white congressperson gunned down by a black communist… or muslim. Hypothetically… yeah, there’d be less news.

So this “oh yeah well what about you guys” mentality is indicative of our problem, yes? It blinds us, it unbalances us.

Actually, Harry, the thing we can agree on is that both sides attempted to use this for political gaink and they are both wrong.

There's something deeply wrong with this guy, and he has apparently been obsessed with Giffords since 2007. I am actually deeply curious about what the final straw was. I have been reading William Manchester's book on Oswald, and his wife's final rejection of him is what caused him to finally retrieve his mail order rifle from a paper bag in the garage.

My main problem with all analysis of this incident is the need to jump to an immediate conclusion that backs up one's political convictions. And I guess I am guilty, too because I am contending that both sides' interpretations are wrong (a common theme in Loogar land)

I'm no Palin defender, but I'm pretty sure the "don't retreat…reload" thing originated with the Dr. Laura "nigger nigger nigger" flap, not the crosshairs survey symbols.

The "final straw" you're looking for is beside the point. With a psychotic dumbfuck like this that final straw was probably something as mundane as a color-coded message in his Fruit Loops that morning.

The fact is he has existed in an environment with only two sides, and one side crows loudly and constantly about the other side being a totalitarian, socialist, nazi, communist regime coming to take away your guns, jobs, and freedom with the intent of turning America into a Muslim country as part of some New Order government conspiracy (all of which falls directly in line with Loughner's illiterate on-line rantings). This kind of violence has been intentionally fermented. The fear that drives it has been obviously used for political gain - and now that the worst has happened there's a desire to split hairs over the exact reasoning of the unreasonable in order to pin it down to something that nobody has to feel guilty about.

So yeah, that poor dear Sarah Palin can't be blamed. Nor can Glenn Beck. Nor Republican strategy or Democratic agendas nor anything else.

It was the Fruit Loops. No need to question further.

It's not a one-time trope that she's used.... it gets the gun-cracker pussy wet so she uses it every so often.

Yup.

So what's the answer guys? You don't take away the right to say things, no matter how insidious and vitriolic they are. Shout them down when they've shown to be pretty impervious to logic and common sense and will push it even farther into the red when confronted?

I'm legitimately in no-man's land on this. I get Dave's side that you can't specifically ascribe blame for Loughner and other nutbats' actions on political rhetoric, but it's naive and myopic to pretend there's no connection to leaders stopping a few steps short of calling for blood baths outside the election booth. I get that Loughner is an outlier and no matter what you do there's forever going to be something unavoidable that sets an unbalanced person off.

But maybe he's the canary in the coalmine to make us consider whether the political climate we find ourselves with is doing as much good as we're used to thinking it does. Sure government runs, people get elected, power changes hands, yada yada yada... but how many people are anywhere close to satisfied with what's actually happening in higher levels of elected office? The good thing is that none of us save for that jackass decide that a couple dozen bullets are the way to fix what's seen as broken. The bad thing is that it takes senseless shit like this to temporarily shake us out of our stupor.

It really is a tricky thing because I would not want restrictions on speech. And really, enforcing such things would be difficult anyway. The problem lies in the nature of our society as a whole where this sort of rhetoric succeeds in motivating the masses. Frankly, as long as large chunks of our population remain uninformed and angry, this shit will continue to be an effective strategy. Maybe events like this over time will motivate enough people out to vote their opposition to the bullshit. Once the rhetoric ceases to be effective, they will stop. I guess basically I'm saying that as a people, we get what we deserve. "They" won't change until we do because they are only catering to our whims.