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I'd be pretty happy if both sides just cooled out with the whole "gun/violence-oriented political rhetoric" thing.

It seems harmless, and I'd probably not have had much of a problem with it until recently, but when something like this happens it makes the people using that sort of language look like a bunch of idiots. I guess pandering does have a downside.

So are we blaming Cybil Shepard or Jodie Foster? How does Harvey Kietel fit into all this?

I'm just glad J.D. Salinger didn't live to see it.

Monster Rain wrote:I'm just glad J.D. Salinger didn't live to see it.

Ummm... why? (I dont know who he/ she is)

Happygrunt wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I'm just glad J.D. Salinger didn't live to see it.

Ummm... why? (I dont know who he/ she is)

J.D. Salinger was the author of "Catcher in the Rye", and some crazy people believed that his book told them to go kill people.

Update Police looking into American Renaissance. An official familiar with the Arizona shooting investigation said Sunday that local authorities are looking at a possible connection between Loughner and an online group known for white supremacist, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Stormrider wrote:One caveat, none of the Western European nations that have Socialized Medicine count premature births as live births, and don't consider a new born child a living being until 6 months of age. We report everyting.

This is nonsense, and has been told to you by liars. Stop listening to people who are lying to you.


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Amaya wrote:There's a portion of the country that is for some socialist program. There's a portion that is adamantly against it. The two view points are extreme opposites and can not be resolved with words. There will be blood, it is only a matter of when and how much.

The issues being debated are fairly benign, and the positions between the two sides is not great, and compromise is not only possible it is reasonably simple and actually going on over a number of bills. It is only in the rhetoric and political theatre that there exists any great difference between the two factions.

The issues of the day aren't slavery or the draft, it's healthcare, and the final bill passed was a fairly minor set of reforms. Yet people are a freaking out to the point where a guy shot a congresswoman, and there's people here claiming that kind of thing is inevitable, and that there's going to be more of the same.

You all need to settle down, and start demanding some sanity in your political dialogue.


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Gen. Lee Losing wrote:Just wanted to thank everyone on this thread that said, and I am paraphrasing here... "Dur-Hur! Republicans are dumb and evil! LOL Teabaggers!"

That is the kind of compassionate and intelligent conversation that I come to Dakka to read!

On the grounds that a democrat was shot, we "obviously know" Sara Pailn and GW Bush are behind it!

No, no-one claimed Bush and Palin were behind it, stop being silly.


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Amaya wrote:There will always be factions that do not want to talk. It's sad, but you have to be realistic about it. America is not going to make a major change in any direction without growing pains. Right now we're in limbo. Once one side gains a significant upperhand words will be replaced with weapons.

No, that's lunacy. The factions are arbitrary, and the differences marginal. No-one is going to break out the guns over whether Tim over the road thinks taxes should be 3 or 4% more than they are, while you think they could be a few points lower than they are now.

The clash of ideologies is entirely theatrical, to build identity politics and drive voting on election day. Unfortunately it affects some people enough they go and do something really stupid like shoot some poor lady and kill a bunch of people standing near to her at the time. It's a pointless, stupid waste, and not reflective of the realities of US politics at all.


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Amaya wrote:What started it was Lincon unlawfully invading a sovereign nation.

How does Fort Sumter being attacked by the South relate to Lincoln invading a sovereign nation?


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dogma wrote:The supporters, of both the left and the right, on the other hand, have been almost tragically ridiculous. The left has largely been guilty of misplacing blame for the attack on the right, and the right has largely been guilty of reading speculation as accusation; which is all the more tragic in my mind, because there are just so many liberal commentators that aren't speculating, but accusing.

I think the biggest tragedy is the number of people commenting that this represents some kind of inevitable product of the US political debate. As if violence was the only way to resolve a debate over tax levels and healthcare.

Aye I'm not seeing how political debate in the US is different to political debate anywhere else. It's not like the conservatives and the labour party get along mega well in the UK.

The only difference is US citizens have easy access to automatic weapons.

Not legally (well, it's more complicated than that, being a legal issue).

Stormrider wrote:One caveat, none of the Western European nations that have Socialized Medicine count premature births as live births, and don't consider a new born child a living being until 6 months of age. We report everyting.

Fair and balanced perchance?

Oh Glen...

The Glue.
Stop sniffing it.



Where the hell did you hear that nonsense?!?

Better dead than red is what I imagine the motive was.

This is a warning to all posters on this thread. In light of the subject matter, Dakka Rule #1 is going to be strictly enforced. This thread is being reviewed and warnings and suspensions as approporiate are being handed out.




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At point of writing, three posters have now received ten+ day suspensions and one poster warned. I am staying out of this thread and might advise other mods to do so, so that we can moderate this.

I'll tread carefully then in writing this...

It would appear that this shooter is grade A nuts and was not immediately politically motivated.

I'd ask this to be considered however, why was it that the immediate reaction was that someone had finally reacted to the tone and insinuated language that elements of the right, particularly those within the Tea Party, have been putting forward.

People like Sharron Angle were put forward by that element as viable political candidates and then use language like this:

"I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out." —Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle, floating the possibility of armed insurrection in a radio interview, Jan. 2010

This, along with rumours and suggestions from those elements that President Obama is a nazi or a communist or some bizarre hybrid of the two (whilst inferring his religion is muslim at the same time, ignoring his regular church attendance and his own father's conversion to Christianity from Islam).

Surely the Republicans and the politically rightwing need to purge themselves and clearly be shown to distance themselves from these extremist elements and the bizarre stories and fiction taking place in the more bias media at the moment. This snowballing of hysteria must be halted and some form of rational political dignity returned to the opposition party?

That this shooting was immediately assumed (on both sides, from people I spoke with) to be someone who'd followed the suggested and alluded 'uprising' rhetoric found in some tea party and right wing media must be a telling indicator to more moderate right wing elements?

My first post on this thread and probably the last:

The greatest problem with this thread's subject matter is that it was:

A. Highly political and politicized from the start due to the victims involved.

B. A fresh event that has had little time for others to formulate better opinions than kneejerk reactions at the beginning.

C. Political, which is the bane of Dakka-ites here as it means subject matter that can get very touchy real quick.

D. Post on the internet, where opinion and feelings don't often get along.

That being said, I find that the whole situation is very tragic.

As to the rammifications of this event, hard to say. It didn't strike deeply into our American psyche, as we still had sports events make national headlines(football was a big one), the Republicans still plodded through their session of the House, and over a dozen people in a Mexican resort town were brutally murdered.

I fear for my nation if such a nationally important event as this is passed on quickly. The fact that a politician was gunned down and nearly killed by simply going to a street corner to listen to any constituents (regardless of the security concerns) that passed by tells me America may have a brewing problem here.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/10/national/main7229463.shtml?tag=strip

@Meangreen: You are correct, he was insane, after all. Just read the above CBS news story.Why am I not surprised?

@WarOne: Sadly, it seems that in America, sports take precedence over atrocities like this.

_Tim?

@MGS: I'm with you, mate. Here's the thing about the crazy people out there: some of them just talk crazy, sure, but there are other crazies listening. (See, e.g., 2010 congressional election results.) When George Tiller was murdered while at church, how many people rethought the "culture war" against "baby killers"? But I haven't seen any backing down in the rhetoric -- which suggests to me that, deep down, the people who spout it are pleased with the results.

This blight on public life is spreading to every level of our culture -- even here on Dakka, a forum about toy soldiers, people have been advocating and condoning this violence. (If it wasn't already clear, by the way, that is completely inappropriate and will result in suspensions.) I'm not saynig that freedom of speech is not worth its risks -- but it is also a right for which people need to take responsibility. Anyone who uses violent rhetoric should fess up to what they're truly up to: advocating real violence against real people.

While MGS raises many valid points, I will simply say that I think the problem could be most swiftly tackled by using two words.

Gun control.

In the UK we recently had a politician attacked during a meeting with the public. He got stabbed.

No big deal.

In the USA people can rock up at a store and buy a glock. He bought the weapon in the last couple weeks didnt he? At a sportsmans warehouse?

The USA has ridiculous gun controls, thanks to trigger happy idiots living in the 1700s.

And im no hippy, gak, i like guns, I even like shooting them at people that deserve it. But that people can easily obtain weapons like that, just doesnt make any sense at all.

Hunting is fine, I wouldnt even think that automatic long barrelled weapons are that sizeable an issue as they are not easy to conceal, but a glock is an easily concealable, quick to reload firearm that has only one purpose, and that is to kill people. You dont go shooting deer with a semi automatic hand gun.

And then people whine "well criminals can still get guns" but your average weirdo cannot, and these are the people who do gak like this, what interest has a arms dealing coke pusher got in shooting a politician?

Seriously, no other first world democracy has such ridiculous gun laws, and it needs sorting out. Obama said these idiots cling to their bibles and their guns, and the man is dead on.

Its not 1776. Everyone doesnt need a gun.

Far for me to derail this thread into a flame war on gun ownership but I wondered what our American friends felt what effect the proliferation and ease of obtaining a weapon had on this shooting (if any)?

I would humbly suggest we have a similar proportion of crazy per head of population here in the UK, and our political discourse is no less fiery - the only difference seems to be the crazies throw eggs or paint rather than open up with pistols.

Do you think that such a event (tragic though it is) could have an impact on the pro/anti gun ownership stance?

Edit: Matty just asked a similar thing! Curse my fat fingers!

@mattyrm: It's not 1984, either -- at least not in the States. The solution to society's problems isn't always to demand less and less from the populace in terms of responsibility and judgment.

Isn't it fairly easy to own a wide variety of guns in many other countries like Canada and yet they have a great deal less firearms related violence?

I'd also remind you Matt about a certain taxi driver in the UK not more than a few months back. He killed 12 people with licensed guns.

Manchu wrote:@mattyrm: It's not 1984, either -- at least not in the States. The solution to society's problems isn't always to demand less and less from the populace in terms of responsibility and judgment.

Gah...I hate breaking 1 post only promises for threads.

While it may sound silly to say that guns are not the problem, America does have a poisonous atmosphere of political bitterness, desperate people who have nothing left to lose, and rhetoric spewing instigators who say change must occur (obviously not expousing revolution, but connect the dots there).

Guns become an easy way to express that frustration that people have.

People have been killing other people since forever. They can use sticks, rocks, bombs, poison, whatever. If someone wants to kill somebody they will find a way.

This isn't a firearms issue, this is an issue surrounding a political culture that has become so brazen in it's use of dangerous rhetoric regardless of any impact that it might have on it's followers (boarding on thinly disguised hate-speech and veiled calls for violent action in some cases).

Too bad a nine year old girl has to pay the ultimate price for this disgusting claim of "free speech".

What I've found interesting is that, based on my reading across various Tea Party websites, there has been a marked refusal to back down on the overall vitriol of the rhetoric being employed. The stated reason varies to a degree, but its almost always some variation of "censorship is always bad". I find this problematic for two reasons.

The first, and most obvious, is that it seems to make the common mistake of asserting that freedom of speech protects one's ability to speak as he wishes in all possible venues. Obviously this is untrue, as the freedom of speech applies only to the ability of the state to restrict the speech of its people.

The second is that such a response implies that self-censorship is bad, which in turn seems to indicate that the rhetoric is not metaphorical, but a direct expression of the sentiment that some of these groups seem to be tapping into.

Don't forget, Mexico has very strict gun control laws. We still see gun violence in Mexico weekly.

Manchu wrote:@mattyrm: It's not 1984, either -- at least not in the States. The solution to society's problems isn't always to demand less and less from the populace in terms of responsibility and judgment.

True enough mate, but im not saying we should change America into an Orwellian dystopia, I am merely saying that perhaps more gun control would be a good idea?

No other nation has such a gun crazy mentality. I am not saying it will stop ALL gun related mayhem, Im simply saying it will help.

What else can it possibly be?! There is no clear difference in language or culture or leisure activity or behaviour between your average British citizen and your average American citizen. Seriously, ive spent a good two years of my life in the states, we are almost the exact same in every single way, sure there are tiny little differences (you lot talk funny ) but there are no fundamental differences other than it is easier to get guns in the states.

And to MGS, i see your point entirely, but Derek killed 12 people with a sucky bolt action rifle and a shotgun. I am pretty certain that if it wasnt for the fat auld coppers policing the area he would have gotten half that. Two of them actually saw him but made no move to apprehend him because he was armed. If I was in that situation i would have buckled up and kamikazed my car into the bastard at 60mph.

But, me acting like supercop is beside the point, the major point I would make is that he had a bolt action single shot rifle and a shotgun and as a result he killed 12 people. If he was an American gun nut he may well have been armed with an AR-15 and a MAC-10 that can fire 1100 rounds a minute.

I seriously am of the view that America needs to get with the programme. It is 2011 and i really cannot see a good argument for the law not being more in line with what we have in every other first world democracy. In my view you simply cannot make a good case for every single Tom Dick and Harry being able to pack heat like in the USA. What is wrong with Western Europe? What is so wrong with Norway and Sweden and Demark and France and the UK that the USA will not adopt the same gun law model? Nothing other than clinging to an ancient outdated tradition that kills people. There are no more frigging red coats, what the hell is the big deal with the second amendment?

Obama is a pragmatic man, so he would need to meet them in the middle ground, so how about you keep your assault rifles, the machine guns and long barreled weapons, and just ban semi-automatic handguns that can easily be carried over to your local senators house without a cop seeing?

inquisitor_bob wrote:Don't forget, Mexico has very strict gun control laws. We still see gun violence in Mexico weekly.

And we all know how strict border control between mexico and any bordering country's where guns are easily avalible is

And how many full automatic weapons come from the US?

inquisitor_bob wrote:And how many full automatic weapons come from the US?

no idea

@dogma: That leads to a good illustration of how useful ambiguity can be. If criticized, the demagogues can retort: "Well, I surely don't support this kind of violence but is the people's right to rise up against an unjust government." The quotation MGS posted is a great example. But he's also right to point out how counterproductive it can be (in that case, pointedly making a connection to 2nd amendment rights).


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@mattyrm: From an American standpoint (or at least one of many American standpoints) we have quite a lot of gun laws as it is. They vary by state, of course. I still think this story doesn't really have to do with gun control so much as irresponsible speech.

inquisitor_bob wrote:Don't forget, Mexico has very strict gun control laws. We still see gun violence in Mexico weekly.

When I went to Mexico there were selling AKs in a stand next to oranges. For 20 bucks more the guy offered to change the spring and make it fully automatic. Dunno how it is now, but yeah... that was bad.