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Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is in intensive care, fighting for her life. Swirling around her is a political brawl of seemingly epic proportions.
The fight is not about who did what to whom. It does not address why Jared Loughner took aim at Rep. Giffords in front of that Safeway on Saturday.
It seems that Loughner had a personal grievance against Rep. Giffords. She had failed to answer a question he asked her at a similar meeting over three years ago.
In the throes of a psychotic delusion, he chose to act out violently, in order to redress his personal grievance. His action belongs in the world of disease, not political theatre.
When John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan three decades ago no one thought that his was a political act. It had something to do with a delusion that Hinckley had about Jodie Foster, but it did not really have anything to do with politics.
To the best of everyone’s knowledge, Hinckley was a lone gunman, pushed by his own demons.
If memory serves, no one at the time suggested that anyone but Hinckley was responsible. No one tried to blame it all on the political left or on Ronald Reagan’s enemies.
No one, in other words, sought to take political advantage of the tragedy. And no one rushed out to propound a narrative version of events that would discredit a political movement.
In that the reaction differed starkly from the mythmaking that surrounded the assassination of John Kennedy. Clearly, those who spin narratives for a living are far more prone to use the murder of a liberal politician to advance their agenda.
Since Saturday, many liberals have been rushing out to provide narrative explanations for what happened in Tucson last Saturday.
Some of them do not even pretend that these narratives have anything to do with reality. It was the ambiance, the atmosphere, the very air that we breathe that propelled a maniac in Arizona to shoot a congresswoman.
As James Taranto wrote today, these stories are myths, fictions, or fantasies. They do not propose to shed any light on the event or even to console those who were affected by the event.
They are trying to manipulate emotion and to override reason. For a political movement that pretends to favor rational deliberation and free public debate as a means to arriving at political decisions, this crowd is awfully quick to use any means necessary to appeal to our worst.
Whether it is Paul Krugman or George Packer or Markos Moulitsas, the most shrill voices of the establishment left are doing their darndest to turn the event into political theatre, and to gain therefrom a political advantage.
Even a sane and sensible Democrat, former Sen. Bob Kerrey, declared that Loughner opened fire because he was angry about the repeal of Obamacare.
Does a former senator consider that that is a persuasive argument for not repealing the health care law?
Of course, there’s method to the madness. Liberals believe that they are right and that conservatives are wrong. If they lose an election, liberals cannot accept that their arguments or reasoning were inadequate, or even that they were mistaken. They assume that their opponents have hypnotized the electorate by exercising a form of mind control.
If conservatives have been whipping up emotion, then liberals must do the same. They have been forced into it, and thus, are not responsible for their actions.
It’s an old story: the devil made me do it.
Once again, bad character is afoot in the Republic. It is a sad day, indeed.
Monday, January 10, 2011
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6 comments:
I had a realization during this whole thing:
It's not so much that the Democrats and elected Democrats think that Loughner was a Republican. It's that they think all Republicans are like Loughner.
If you don't support the Obama agenda and all the fashionable leftie things, you are a crazed, gun-toting murderer.
This is a Blood Libel....
Remember when Bloomberg declared the Times Square Bomber to be: "probably someone upset about healthcare reform."?
--Gray
wv: "agingamp" That's the device the old lefties are using to amplify this Blood Libel against the Tea Party.
TO: Dr. Schneiderman, et al.
RE: I'm Going with....
As James Taranto wrote today, these stories are myths, fictions, or fantasies. -- Stuart Schneiderman
....'fantasies'. Or worse....
How so?
The 'progressives' are desperate and the only think they have to argue with is calling the other side 'names'. It's the application of the third option of The Lawyers Rule....
[1] If the Law is against you, argue the facts.
[2] If the facts are against you, argue the Law.
[3] If the Law and the facts are against you, call the other side names. -- The Official Rules: A Compendium of Truths and Laws for Living
And don't expect it to improve. As I see it as projection, of the classic form.
Look at the running history of the 'progressives' in politics. And that dates back to the time of Lenin and Stalin, who are their principals. And, as has been stated elsewhere, along with their associates in Mao and Che and Pol Pot, responsible for more mass murder than all of the religious wars combined. And all that in one century alone.
Look for more trouble.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[If you're not getting paranoid, it's because you aren't paying attention.]
I listen to talk radio and watch FOX News a lot. Limbaugh, Medved, Levin, Hannity, Ingraham, Greta, and the bunch of them. It is mostly policy discussions. I have no recollection of any of them targeting any individual for violence or otherwise, except for purposes of reelection to office. Of course, they often speak of shameful conduct and point out who is responsible. The current discussion of how the liberals responded to the Tucson shootings being the latest example. In fact, I take most of this stuff as constituting spirited public debate that is issues oriented. Anyone can tune in or tune out, as they wish.
So, why do the MSM and liberal pundits, such as Krugman, the NYT editorial writers, and their ilk, look at the substance of this issues debate and conclude it represents hate speech. That conclusion leads them to tar their opponents, especially Palin, as hate mongers and worthy of death, or worse. But, to any reasonable observer, just where is Palin's hate demonstrated? In her reference to "death panels"? Her having a son with Down's Syndrome? Her acceptance of her daughter's pregnancy without public condemnation, as was expected of such a conservative?
As I am not a health professional my opinion is based on my own observations and conclusions and, I guess, not worth that much. But, for the little that it is worth it seems to me that liberals hold themselves out as the "good" people. After all, they cite one anecdote after another to demonstrate how much they care for the little guy. (My opinion here is that they could care less about the little guy and are just going through the motions of putting one over on the rest of us.) In fact, a guy like Harry Reid and another like Dick Durbin seem to have been born with the "I care for you" tone of voice that Bill Clinton is so much the master. Three phoneys, but not to much of the electorate. But to listen to them is to bring on revulsion at their todiness.
Because we conservatives do not swallow liberal prescriptions intended for our well being we must be "evil". Nothing else will explain our lack of concern. Thus, anything we say to advance our agenda, such as facts or analysis that demonstrate that one liberal program after another is just too expensive and/or unduly intrusive, by definition, constitutes hate speech and the speaker vile and deranged. This grants to the liberal the right to take up any communications weapon in retaliation. Thus, tarring conservatives as haters when this is nothing more than a reversal of the truth.
In a way, liberals and conservatives share the same mother tongue, English, but derive different and wholly irreconcilable meanings from its everyday usage. Not only do we not communicate with each other, no matter how much we try we will never be able to make the other side "understand". I think a lot of the discussion regarding the cause of the Tucson shootings overlooks the language barriers, or at the least the ways liberals use or misuse language to effect their good intentions. Would it be fruitful to redirect the debate in this direction to try and get at the heart of the differences between liberals and conservatives, or is this something that is just taken for granted and not worth exploring?
Steve G
lgoodman1ATcomcast.net
Because we conservatives do not swallow liberal prescriptions intended for our well being we must be "evil". Nothing else will explain our lack of concern. Thus, anything we say to advance our agenda, such as facts or analysis that demonstrate that one liberal program after another is just too expensive and/or unduly intrusive, by definition, constitutes hate speech and the speaker vile and deranged. This grants to the liberal the right to take up any communications weapon in retaliation. Thus, tarring conservatives as haters when this is nothing more than a reversal of the truth.
In a way, liberals and conservatives share the same mother tongue, English, but derive different and wholly irreconcilable meanings from its everyday usage. Not only do we not communicate with each other, no matter how much we try we will never be able to make the other side "understand". I think a lot of the discussion regarding the cause of the Tucson shootings overlooks the language barriers, or at the least the ways liberals use or misuse language to effect their good intentions. Would it be fruitful to redirect the debate in this direction to try and get at the heart of the differences between liberals and conservatives, or is this something that is just taken for granted and not worth exploring?
Steve G
lgoodman1ATcomcast.net
Sorry for the double (sort of) post but I was told it was too large and attempted to send it in two sections. I see it was not necessary. Sorry.
Steve G
You would have to assume that if left-thinking people wanted to have a rational and deliberative debate they would engage in one. If they do not, that suggests to me that they care much more for manipulating people's emotions than for debating the issues and risking the possibility that they might lose the debate. Perhaps they think that the common people are too ignorant to really understand the issues. Or they cannot accept the possibility that they might be wrong.
At the very least, as you suggest, watching the mud slinging from the left and the effort to tar the Tea Party and all Republicans for what Loughner did, one can only conclude that these people cannot tolerate dissent and can surely not tolerate the fact that they no longer have a monopoly over the marketplace of ideas.
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