House of Reps. member Giffords shot in Arizona today

So, now, was that a threat by me to David?

I didn't type it as a lesson, but it's worth looking at - how people talk, chiding.

David and I are ok.

0 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

It's a made up word - that is my way.

I would never poison dessert.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

Is she the one who is always defending NASA?

Why would anyone target her of all people?? My God.

It is random chance that a lunatic got a grudge against her; pure mental chaos.
Its been an occupational hazzard of politicians for 1000s of years.

As the former Mayor of NY put it:
"Who knows Y crazy people do things ?"

David

0 Replies

@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

It's a made up word - that is my way.

I would never poison dessert.

THAT's a relief.

David

0 Replies

@snood,

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't know why I bothered trying to answer your tangential and pointless question in the first place and wouldn't have bothered if I'd known you were just going to be a jerk if I couldn't produce a satisfactory answer.

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

I agree with a lot of what she has said.

Did you get an invite to a Palin forum? Om Sig agreed with what Sarah has said.

Sarah has never said anything but I can certainly see that a man of your intellect would like it.

0 Replies

@djjd62,

djjd62 wrote:

interesting response, care to provide a list of politicians
who should be targeted (the Italian government not withstanding )

I have none for NOW,
but in retrospect, a few of the 1800s and 1900s come to mind as good candidates.

(Karl Marx was not a politician, but he also comes to mind.)

David

0 Replies

@blueveinedthrobber,

Setanta wrote:

Sarah Palin's political action committee--SarahPAC--has published a list of Democratic politicians to be "put in gun sights" for the next election. Miss Gifford was on her list.

Palin's gun sight list, at the Huffington Post.

I'm not for a moment suggsting that Miss Palin is behind this. Certainly, though, no one would ever accuse Miss Palin of good taste, or good sense. This will be a very unfortunate coincidence for Miss Palin.

blueveinedthrobber wrote:

I suggest, as you know, that people who publish this kind of rabble rousing bullshit... including Ms. Palin , who has voluntarily taken on the mantle of leadership of the far right...IS partially responsible.

So, according to the Throbber,
if Sarah had kept her mouth shut,
then the killer 'd have stayed home and slept
OR that he 'd only have killed 4 of the 6??????

and if Sam 's Dog had not barked as much,
then David Berkowtiz woud not have killed as many girls ?????
Its the DOG's fault, right ?????

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

Quote:

At least 10 other people, including members of her staff...

gungasnake wrote:

I think you can rule out political differences as a motive.

He asked her Y words don 't mean anything.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't know why I bothered trying to answer your tangential and pointless question in the first place and wouldn't have bothered if I'd known you were just going to be a jerk if I couldn't produce a satisfactory answer.

I guess the jerk is in the eye of the beholder, 'cause from where I sit, you performed here like a great big one.

0 Replies

@snood,

snood wrote:

I'm beginning to think you're one of those nerds who just doesn't have much common sense; has to discuss the craft of watchmaking to someone who simply asks him the time of day. Seriously, are you dense, or just acting like it? I've said at least 4 times that I'm not referring to this guy and this particular shooting, and I've stipulated that his motives probably have nothing to do with anyone's speech or politics. I've also said that both sides - left and right - have vitriolic speech, and tried to make it plain to you that my question refers to vitriolic speech in general, and not just that of the right.

Yet you keep coming back to this shooting and the accusations against the right. No Robert, I'm not asking you a question that's tantamount to 'how many angels can dance on a pinhead' like you suggest, or anything nearly that obscure. What I asked is perfectly reasonable. You just don't want to engage on that level for you own reasons. But there is nothing wrong with the question "What would constitute proof of correlation between vitriolic speech and violent acts?" - especially when its being asked of someone who acts like all extant suggestions of such a connection are patently ridiculous.

You're patently ridiculous, because the only conclusion that, by elimination, you suggest is sensible is that all such violent acts against political figures occur in a vacuum, unaffected by the constant 24/7 rants of rabble rousing radio and tv hacks - or anything else.

Your argument is illogical. First you acknowledge the lack of any evidence or plausible connection between political speech, "vitriolic" or not to the murders in Tucson, and the complete absence on your part of any suggestion otherwise.

Then you say that, by eliminating that possibility, the only remaining explanation for violent attacks against political figures is that "they occur in a vacuum unaffected by the same "24/7 rants of rabble rousing TV hacks...", and clearly stating that you consider that possibility to be patently ridiculous.

This is a rather gross non sequitor, and one that flies in the face of the known motives of most of the political assassins (or would be assassins)of history from Brutus, to Guy Fawkes, Charlotte Corday (Marat) , John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau (Pres. Garfield), Gavrilo Princep (Archduke Franz Joseph), Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, Arthur Bremmer (Gov. Wallace), Sarah Jane Moore (Pres. Ford), and of course Dan White of San Francisco. With a little research I could go on. The common element in all of these events were obsessive and unrealistically motivated people, in most cases involving some degree of serious mental instability or derangement.

In view of all the real evidence, it appears to me that you don't have a point at all -- except, perhaps, that you don't like Rush Limbaugh and Fox news.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

snood wrote:

I'm beginning to think you're one of those nerds who just doesn't have much common sense; has to discuss the craft of watchmaking to someone who simply asks him the time of day. Seriously, are you dense, or just acting like it? I've said at least 4 times that I'm not referring to this guy and this particular shooting, and I've stipulated that his motives probably have nothing to do with anyone's speech or politics. I've also said that both sides - left and right - have vitriolic speech, and tried to make it plain to you that my question refers to vitriolic speech in general, and not just that of the right.

Yet you keep coming back to this shooting and the accusations against the right. No Robert, I'm not asking you a question that's tantamount to 'how many angels can dance on a pinhead' like you suggest, or anything nearly that obscure. What I asked is perfectly reasonable. You just don't want to engage on that level for you own reasons. But there is nothing wrong with the question "What would constitute proof of correlation between vitriolic speech and violent acts?" - especially when its being asked of someone who acts like all extant suggestions of such a connection are patently ridiculous.

You're patently ridiculous, because the only conclusion that, by elimination, you suggest is sensible is that all such violent acts against political figures occur in a vacuum, unaffected by the constant 24/7 rants of rabble rousing radio and tv hacks - or anything else.

Your argument is illogical. First you acknowledge the lack of any evidence or plausible connection between political speech, "vitriolic" or not to the murders in Tucson, and the complete absence on your part of any suggestion otherwise.

Then you say that, by eliminating that possibility, the only remaining explanation for violent attacks against political figures is that "they occur in a vacuum unaffected by the same "24/7 rants of rabble rousing TV hacks...", and clearly stating that you consider that possibility to be patently ridiculous.

This is a rather gross non sequitor, and one that flies in the face of the known motives of most of the political assassins (or would be assassins)of history from Brutus, to Guy Fawkes, Charlotte Corday (Marat) , John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau (Pres. Garfield), Gavrilo Princep (Archduke Franz Joseph), Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, Arthur Bremmer (Gov. Wallace), Sarah Jane Moore (Pres. Ford), and of course Dan White of San Francisco. With a little research I could go on. The common element in all of these events were obsessive and unrealistically motivated people, in most cases involving some degree of serious mental instability or derangement.

In view of all the real evidence, it appears to me that you don't have a point at all -- except, perhaps, that you don't like Rush Limbaugh and Fox news.

If I was trying to make a "point" at all, it was only that it is counterintuitive to take the stance that political vitriolic speech doesn't at all influence violence toward political figures. You are of course free to differ, but spare me your haughty judgments about the "logic" of my "argument". And you mispelled non sequitur.

1 Reply

@snood,

snood wrote:

If I was trying to make a "point" at all, it was only that it is counterintuitive to take the stance that political vitriolic speech doesn't at all influence violence toward political figures. You are of course free to differ, but spare me your haughty judgments about the "logic" of my "argument". And you mispelled non sequitur.

Except that your intuitive supposition is counter to most of the real evidence.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

I'm sure you understand that by its very definition intuition does not require evidence. Well, at least I hope you do.

2 Replies

@snood,

All our main news broadcasts, and CBS and Fox, are giving a lot of time to discussing the violence of political rhetoric in the US in relation to this event in Tuscon. I must have seen Mrs Palin's crazy map 50 times and seen her saying "reload" just as often.

It seems to me that violence and cunning are the constant sub-text of every NFL game. It amazes me that there are not more incidents of this nature. Some of the language I have had to put up with on the evolution threads is astounding. The argument from assertion does rest ultimately on ten paces at high noon.

Geoffrey Gorer went so far as to say that From Here to Eternity could not have been written by a European. And an American journalist who works in London said last night that he was astonished on a recent visit to the US at the violence of language in everyday use.

0 Replies

@snood,

But intuition is kind of a slim base on which to be slinging accusations, isn't it?

Simple thought experiment here. I'm not making an argument that the following is the case -- just that it's a thought experiment.

Say that his girlfriend was killed in a botched robbery, shot to death. He already had some serious issues and this sent him over the edge. He fixated on Gabrielle Giffords, someone he'd contacted before, because of her opposition to gun control. This festered until he decided to assassinate her with a gun + extender that would've been illegal before 2004.

In addition to the gun control thing, it turns out that he is largely left politically, and thought that Gabrielle Giffords was a moderate sell-out.

To repeat, I'm not arguing that this is the case.

But imagine that all happened. Then Rush and Glenn and a slew of Republican commentators jump on violent radicals, and all of a sudden we're seeing a bunch of footage of bombings in the Vietnam era (the one at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for example), and Keith Olbermann's greatest hits.

If someone said to you that the Left was to blame for this, and it was just intuition and didn't require evidence, how'd you take that?

I think that ultimately, the very real criticisms of overheated, violent rhetoric are weakened by creating a causation where one is not yet apparent.

3 Replies

@Rockhead,

Rockhead wrote:

I think she should be the spokesperson for Walmart.

really...

given her supporters, she pretty much is

1 Reply

@sozobe,

I keep mentioning this. Justice O'Connor actually did attempt to define when political speech becomes a "true threat":

Quote:

True threats encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats protect individuals from the fear of violence and from the disruption that fear engenders, in addition to protecting people from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.
-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Virginia v. Black, Docket# 01-1107 (2003)

1 Reply

@djjd62,

djjd62 wrote:

Rockhead wrote:
I think she should be the spokesperson for Walmart.

really...

given her supporters, she pretty much is

So u mean that obama's supporters don't go there ??

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

sure they do, but that wasn't the statement, i'll take any opportunity to put down a politician and their supporters, regardless of race, creed or affiliation

i shop at walmart, i get a great price on jeans, i do however hate the fact that the canadian store have switched to the George line of shirts, i used to like the wrangler cotton short sleeved shirts (button, not t shirts), they were very comfortable and reasonably priced

0 Replies

House of Reps. member Giffords shot in Arizona today

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know