…and the politics of blood libel.
If you really want to elevate civility in public discourse, you could start by not falsely accusing your political opponents of being accomplices to murder. But that’s not really their goal. Their goal is to quash any opposition to their agenda.
[Update a few minutes later]
Violence in American politics tends to bubble up from a world that’s far stranger than any Glenn Beck monologue — a murky landscape where worldviews get cobbled together from a host of baroque conspiracy theories, and where the line between ideological extremism and mental illness gets blurry fast.
This is the world that gave us Oswald and Bremer. More recently, it’s given us figures like James W. von Brunn, the neo-Nazi who opened fire at the Holocaust Museum in 2009, and James Lee, who took hostages at the Discovery Channel last summer to express his displeasure over population growth. These are figures better analyzed by novelists than pundits: as Walter Kirn put it Saturday, they’re “self-anointed knights templar of the collective shadow realm, not secular political actors in extremis.”
This won’t stop partisans from making hay out of Saturday’s tragedy, of course. The Democratic operative who was quoted in Politico saying that his party needs “to deftly pin this on the Tea Partiers” was just stating the obvious: after a political season rife with overheated rhetoric from conservative “revolutionaries,” the attempted murder of a Democratic congresswoman is a potential gift to liberalism.
But if overheated rhetoric and martial imagery really led inexorably to murder, then both parties would belong in the dock. (It took conservative bloggers about five minutes to come up with Democratic campaign materials that employed targets and crosshairs against Republican politicians.) When our politicians and media loudmouths act like fools and zealots, they should be held responsible for being fools and zealots. They shouldn’t be held responsible for the darkness that always waits to swallow up the unstable and the lost.
But expect the liars and demagogues to continue to do it for perceived political gain.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The “Progressive” climate of hate. A ten-year retrospective.
Chris Gerrib said:
Then Speaker Boehner is a wimp and needs to be replaced. Someone with balls of steel should be on there and identify this “blood libel” (ie. equating outspokeness against the Left as tantamount to being accomplices of murder) as an obvious Alinsky tactic and fight fire with fire.
“Simple human decency”, huh? No such thing exists. You even deny the predatory nature of Homo sapiens. Your Lysenko Creationism is pathetic. Even now you bring lie to this “civil discourse” nonsense by equating outspokeness to a murder conspiracy.
When Obama starts putting bullseyes on people, call me.
When Palin starts putting bullseyes on people, call me. From what I’ve seen the bulleyes were on a map, not a person. But if you want, I can find Democrat ads with crosshairs on their challenger.
When stained with blood libel, the accused has three options: retreat, whine, or escalate.
+1000 to all of Carl Pham’s comments on this thread.
You know, I try to read the comments of Chris Gerrib that you’re all responding to, but all I can see is: “Brains! Braaainsss! Braaaaaaaiinnss…..!” Where did you guys learn to understand Zombie?
A Democrat politician is shot.
Many of her opponents, some with very large audiences, have been calling for “second amendment solutions” and putting her in the cross-hairs.
It was a reasonable assumption. If you’re given to making assumptions before any evidence is in. It was also totally incorrect from what we know now.
Had a Republican politician been shot, there’s quite enough militaristic language from the left to have made the same kind of assumption. It would be premature, but not irrational.
Well, actually I think making that assumption would be irrational. Maybe if he were part of a religious group that was incited by their leaders to kill opponents on a daily basis, but I don’t buy this particular argument any more than I buy the “videogames made me do it” defense.
Leftists who see no problem with a terrorist writing curricula for select Chicago schools are in no position to lecture anyone on keeping politics genteel.
Since when has the political climate not been highly-charged?
Good link Alan,
One problem is that incitement to violence is often a judgement call. Regarding crosshairs on maps which all political parties do…
Sarah 2010: “And ya know, hearing the news reports lately, kinda this ginned up controversy about us, common sense conservatives, inciting violence because we happen to oppose some of the things in the Obama administration.”
Interrupted from audience: “We do it with our vote!”
“Amen, brother! That’s what you do it with, with your vote! You got it right. We know violence isn’t the answer. When we take up our arms, we’re talking about our vote. We’re talking about being involved in a contested primary like this, and picking the right candidate too.”
According to the leftards, she then went into the barracks and specifically ordered the code red.
“I found the part about Sarah Palin being the second shooter on the grassy knoll quite compelling.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/112861/
West LA
A Democrat politician is shot.
Many of her opponents, some with very large audiences, have been calling for “second amendment solutions” and putting her in the cross-hairs.
Please, find the picture of Congresswoman Giffords in cross-hairs. I want to see evidence that it does exist. What I’ve seen to date is at best, hyperbole.
In the meantime, I going to pay attention to Patterico, who is looking into the reports made to Sheriff Dupnik’s office of other death threats made by Jared Loughner to other individuals. Perhaps someone can find where Sarah Palin put crosshairs/bulleyes on one of Jared’s professors? Maybe an audio clip of Rush Limbaugh suggesting violence to the local Tuscon radio show hosts?
I think many Democrats/Progressives are fabricating theories that are not surviving the facts and evidence. Note, I don’t call these people Liberal/liberal, because they are using the failed theories to advocate abridging freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights. A Congressman Brady wants to make it illegal to use symbology that may be considered violent against lawmakers. Another Congresswoman wants to enact new gun control laws.
The latest thing this morning is a claim that repealing Healthcare Reform would prevent people like Jared Loughner from getting the psychiatric mental care he needs. But, if the news that Patterico is investigating bares out; then it seems that the Pima County Sheriff claimed the shooter was already receiving state provided care.
Is it reasonable that Democrats/Progressives would use such tactics to push their agenda? Perhaps from a strategic standpoint, it is. However, it is equally responsible for others to call it dishonest and disgusting.
I see that everyone, the Media and the punditry, is forgetting that a Republican Judge was killed during the shootings. Remembering this fact tends to render the ‘rats grasping arguments rether moot…
Since nobody knew the judge was going to be there, including Giffords, and he wasn’t wearing an “I am a judge” T-shirt, reasonable people assume that he was just shot like any other bystander.
Since nobody knew the judge was going to be there, including Giffords, and he wasn’t wearing an “I am a judge” T-shirt, reasonable people assume that he was just shot like any other bystander.
Since there is no evidence Jared Loughner ever saw Palin’s map, why did you bring it up?
Tammy Bruce commenters are blaming “Firing Line” and “Crossfire.”
http://tammybruce.com/2011/01/tonights-3rd-hour-of-tammy-radio-has-posted-18.html#comments
That’s going to leave a mark, Leland. Ouch.
what about “Kill Bush” T-shirts
So how come the number of actual threats to the life of the president has gone up 400% in the last 2 years according to the secret service…
Just wondering…
Seriously though, it’s not hard. No Palin didn’t influence this clown – does that make the idiocy she, and others, including on the left spout in what passes for sane discourse in this country right? No.
You guys should take a long hard look at how you respond to people daring to disagree with your viewpoints here.
Oh yeah, but I’m an idiot with a lack of comprehension who’s only here to prove how lame and stupid “lefties” are…
Whadda I know…
Sheesh. If it was so contemptible, I’d find it amusing.
And for idiotic… “Please, find the picture of Congresswoman Giffords in cross-hairs”
Head. Desk. THUD.
FFS.
I guess that she was indulging in her own hyperbole on TV where she didn’t think showing her seat in cross-hairs was a problem. Stupid her.
Well no wonder you’re writing such nonsense. Head injuries have a debilitating effect on cognition. Have a doctor see that skull of yours and get back to us when the brain damage has healed.
You guys should take a long hard look at how you respond to people daring to disagree with your viewpoints here.
I think you have a point. I try to add a healthy dollop of humor to my scathing rapier-like wit, so the people I crush under the weighty wheels of my logic know it isn’t personal — it’s the ideas I fight, not the person.
But print is a poor medium for communication subtleties. Chris and Bob, in particular, if I have allowed my — complete! and obviously 100% justified! — contempt for some of your ideas to be construed as contempt for your person (and I admire your willingness to argue the case in an unfriendly setting) I apologize. I should be more careful.