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Mannahnin wrote:What exactly does Byrd have to do with anything? Other than being a crazy relic of the days when the Dems were the party most of the racists were in, as opposed the last fifty years, in which most of them have moved over to the R ticket?

Mannahnin wrote:It's much more akin to the kind of intimidation tactics the KKK the KKK the KKK

Is it obvious yet?

Hanging a chair in a tree, when a chair has just been used publicly as a stand-in for a prominent black public figure, has a different significance than hanging just any politician in effigy. Not to mention that an effigy is normally burned, not just hanged. People being aware of lynching and its racial dimension is not "screwing their eyes shut". Pretending there's no racial dimension in a lot of the more hateful stuff spewed toward Obama does smack of sticking one's head in the sand.

Yes Obama is a special swan and anything that was ok for other politicians is racist.

The Cantor incident might have been seen differently if he had voted for one of those bills unpopular with the whackjobs waving guns around at political rallies, and getting all paranoid about the ACA/Obamacare. As he's a Republican, and as no crowds of Dems had been protesting outside his office, no one (AFAICR) thought it was an attempt at intimidation based on his political views. The context wasn't there to make that a likely possibility.

There were crowds of Republicans outside the Denver office? Were they spontaneous crowds based on the youtube release of the Innocence of the Tea Party?

Auston, are you drunk? Posting that "Bob is a racist" crap discredits your argument even more thoroughly than pretending that symbolic lynching has no meaning. Cantor's office being shot was in the context of a situation where Dems were being decried and screamed at in public, and crowds and anti-healthcare reform politicians (Palin among the worst offenders that year) were using some extreme rhetoric. Given that he wasn't one of the folks being screamed at, a shot into his office wouldn't as easily be assumed to be an attempt at intimidating him. Obviously it would be looked into, though, given his position.

Right now we're in the middle of an intense and acrimonious Presidential campaign, and a shot into a campaign office for EITHER candidate would naturally be assumed to be an attempt at intimdating that campaign's workers. At least if it happened in a big city, like Denver, as opposed to a rural area where a hunting accident was a plausible idea.

Seb, my perception is that most violent incidents toward political figures (in the last couple of decades, anyway; obviously not talking about the Kennedy or King assassinations) have been perpetrated by mostly apolitical whackos. Jared Lee Laughner and John Hinckly Jr., for two examples. Am I missing some? On that score, Seaward has a point.

That said, violence being directed at more ordinary people based on politics/ideology does have a more significant history of use by right-wing extremists in this country in recent decades. Such as abortion clinic attacks and shootings, and the Oklahoma City bombing.

 sebster wrote:

But you're not "looking into it". You just went out looking for one or two counter-cases and then started pretending they were more common. That's the exact, 100% opposite of "looking into it".

You're more than welcome to start naming some events in recent history that support your claim, if you like.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Auston, are you drunk?

Nope.

Posting that "Bob is a racist" crap discredits your argument even more thoroughly than pretending that symbolic lynching has no meaning.

I'm giving your constant assertion of racist intent the response it deserves.

I don't know why you've changed the subject to racism. Is it a demonstration of oversensitivity, all because I mentioned the KKK? They did like to scare people by shooting into their homes. That was the basis of the comparison. The whole thread derailing onto the subject of race is coming from you, buddy.

If you hang a chair that is a symbolical black man from a tree, than the majority of reasonable people will see it for the racist action that it is. Nothing really crazy about it.

Nobody is saying that attacks against Obama are racist, just that racially motivated attacks using historical racist insults and tactics are.

 Mannahnin wrote:
I don't know why you've changed the subject to racism. Is it a demonstration of oversensitivity, all because I mentioned the KKK? They did like to scare people by shooting into their homes. That was the basis of the comparison. The whole thread derailing onto the subject of race is coming from you, buddy.

Whatever you say buddy.


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 d-usa wrote:
If you hang a chair that is a symbolical black man from a tree, than the majority of reasonable people will see it for the racist action that it is. Nothing really crazy about it.

Nobody is saying that attacks against Obama are racist, just that racially motivated attacks using historical racist insults and tactics are.

RACISTS RACISTS EVERYWHERE!

Oh, did someone put one of those on a national stage as a stand-in for a black man? I must have missed it.

"Bob is a racist" uses the pretense that the protagonist's arguments are being dismissed unfairly, to dismiss other people's arguments unfairly. It's terribly ironic.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Seb, my perception is that most violent incidents toward political figures (in the last couple of decades, anyway; obviously not talking about the Kennedy or King assassinations) have been perpetrated by mostly apolitical whackos. Jared Lee Laughner and John Hinckly Jr., for two examples. Am I missing some? On that score, Seaward has a point.

Most of the attacks on high profile politicians, I'd agree. Looking at the Giffords shooting, for instance, and it'd be a stretch to think of that guy as anything other than a nut with some vague anti-government stuff in amidst a sea of crazy.

So there's a pretty good case when a prominent politician is attacked that the default assumption should be that the attacker was just a random nut (and in the wake of the Gifford attack maybe that should extend to less prominent politicians). Maybe a lot of the JFK conspiracy nonsense would go away if people accepted that when people go nuts they often attack high profile people.

But this attack wasn't anything like that. Focusing not on any prominent person but on the nuts and bolts machinery of the party is very different, and far more like an act of arson against an abortion clinic. I just think it's silly to run about in the wake of an attack on an abortion clinic saying 'now now everyone, no need to assume this was the work of someone opposed to abortion, the attacker could have been anyone.'

That said, violence being directed at more ordinary people based on politics/ideology does have a more significant history of use by right-wing extremists in this country in recent decades. Such as abortion clinic attacks and shootings, and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Yeah, that's it exactly. And this attack was on more ordinary people, or well, the glass on the building in front of the ordinary people.

 sebster wrote:
But this attack wasn't anything like that. Focusing not on any prominent person but on the nuts and bolts machinery of the party is very different, and far more like an act of arson against an abortion clinic. I just think it's silly to run about in the wake of an attack on an abortion clinic saying 'now now everyone, no need to assume this was the work of someone opposed to abortion, the attacker could have been anyone.

Australian media must have a lot more on this story than American journalists do, because all we really know over here is that a single shot hit the glass and the police are investigating. Could've been an ND, for all we know.

 Seaward wrote:
You're more than welcome to start naming some events in recent history that support your claim, if you like.

There's been, what, a half dozen to a dozen murders of people working at abortion clinics, and another 2,000 odd attacks on clinics ranging from arson to vandalism. In every case the perpetrator has been... you guessed it, opposed to abortion.

Of the 3,500 hundred lynchings of black people, how many do you think were done by people in favour of black rights, trying to make the racists look bad?

More recently, Byron Williams was charged with an attempted attack on the Tides Foundation and the ACLU (he was stopped after a shootout with police). This attack on a left wing organisation was inspired by Glenn Beck's references to the organisation.

The September 11 attacks were undertaken by not by people who were secretly working against Islam to make it look bad, but by Islamic supremacists trying to destroy the West.


I mean, how many of these things do you want? This whole thing is just silly. When a person gets worked up enough by politics to commit violence, the default is an attack on their political enemies, not on their own. That doesn't mean it happens all the time, but it's so much more common that it is only common sense and the most practical thing to start with 'well the other side probably did it'.


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 Seaward wrote:
Australian media must have a lot more on this story than American journalists do, because all we really know over here is that a single shot hit the glass and the police are investigating. Could've been an ND, for all we know.

Okay, now you're just being silly.

We have an attack on Democratic campaign office, in which no prominent Democratic politicians were present. And you think stating 'this was an attack on a Democratic campaign office in which no prominent politicians were present' is some kind of in-depth reading of the event.

Yes, verily, the September 11th attacks do indeed prove that the majority of attacks on Democratic candidates and/or political apparatuses come from far-right Republicans.

 sebster wrote:

We have an attack on Democratic campaign office, in which no prominent Democratic politicians were present. And you think stating 'this was an attack on a Democratic campaign office in which no prominent politicians were present' is some kind of in-depth reading of the event.

You know for sure it was an attack? You should probably get in touch with the cops out yonder.

I think most cops don't respond to a shooting and start their investigation wiht assuming that anything that happened was accidental.

But what do I know.

 Seaward wrote:
Yes, verily, the September 11th attacks do indeed prove that the majority of attacks on Democratic candidates and/or political apparatuses come from far-right Republicans.

Why are you being silly?

The 9/11 attacks, and everything else I mentioned, were examples in which a politically motivated attack came from people attacking their political opponents. Which is, like, fething obvious from what I wrote.

As this was an attack on a Democratic campaign office, the most likely attackers would be political opponents, ie the right wing.

You know for sure it was an attack? You should probably get in touch with the cops out yonder.

Oh, is that what you were getting at? Then, yeah, it's possible this was a misfire/missed shot/whatever else that just happened to hit that window.

But when you see something hit by a bullet, the most common assumption is that the thing that was hit was probably the target. While it isn't always the case, it'd be a very stupid world where everytime we found a man shot dead in his driveway the police start by saying 'I wonder who the intended target was?'

So let's all just accept probability exists, and that the thing most commonly hit by a bullet is the target, and the most common target of political violence are the perp's political opponents. This might not be the case, but it is the most likely.

 sebster wrote:
Why are you being silly?

Because you're moving the goalposts when you realize you can't back up your assertions. Here's what I said that started you on this bizarre kick:

Seaward wrote:Until you actually look at the recent history of violence targeted at political figures in this country, anyway. Then you start to realize that very little to none of it was conducted by "the opposition."

But let's not allow facts to get in the way of a good narrative, I suppose.

In order to prove that violence recently targeted at political figures in this country is, in fact, perpetrated by the opposition, you've used 9/11, lynchings in the South during the Civil Rights era, and conflagrations at abortion clinics. Why not Pearl Harbor? The Japanese, after all, were politically opposed to the US.

I'm looking for what I said I was looking for, and what you assured me was readily available: proof that attacks on Democratic politicians or their campaigns come most frequently from the far right.

Or, you know, you can feel nice and profound by pointing out that the sacking of Rome happened because the Vandals had divergent political goals from the Romans, and that this continues to add proof to your ironclad assertion that it was a right-wing attack on Obama's campaign office.

Oh, is that what you were getting at? Then, yeah, it's possible this was a misfire/missed shot/whatever else that just happened to hit that window.

But when you see something hit by a bullet, the most common assumption is that the thing that was hit was probably the target. While it isn't always the case, it'd be a very stupid world where everytime we found a man shot dead in his driveway the police start by saying 'I wonder who the intended target was?'

So let's all just accept probability exists, and that the thing most commonly hit by a bullet is the target, and the most common target of political violence are the perp's political opponents. This might not be the case, but it is the most likely.

I'll say it one last time: given the recent history of violence targeted at political campaigns in this country, it's actually pretty unlikely that it was "the perp's political opponents."

And people stealing campaign signs are no politically motivated, they are just stopping litter and selling scrap metal.

 Seaward wrote:
In order to prove that violence recently targeted at political figures in this country is, in fact, perpetrated by the opposition, you've used 9/11, lynchings in the South during the Civil Rights era, and conflagrations at abortion clinics. Why not Pearl Harbor? The Japanese, after all, were politically opposed to the US.

I'm looking for what I said I was looking for, and what you assured me was readily available: proof that attacks on Democratic politicians or their campaigns come most frequently from the far right.

Oh, okay, so we're picking out the political attacks you deem equivalent, and only the political attacks you deem equivalent, and if we don't do that then we're shifting the goal posts.

So, then;

Charles Habermann was arrested for violent threats against Democrat Congressman Jim McDermott on 30th November 2011. He was earlier investigated for threats against Democrat Chellie Pingree. Habermann, to your great surprise and that of no-one else on Earth, stated he was worked up over Democrat positions on healthcare reform and immigration.

There was a rash of attacks and threats against Democrats a little while ago, with windows in Democratic offices in three states, an envelope posted to then congressman Weiner's office, and a gas line cut at the home of a Democrat senator's brother (after that address was wrongly posted on-line). Ten congressmen received direct threats by phone. One congressman was spat on. Once again to your great surprise but to no-one else on earth, the messages attached to these attacks were right wing in nature, in direct response to the healthcare reform moving through congress at that time. No-one suggested these attacks were from anyone but the right wing fringe, because that would be crazy.

With a week to go in the 2008 presidential election, the Secret Service reported a significant rise in threats to Obama. Once again, surprising no-one but you, these threats came from the right wing fringe, most notably white supremacist groups.


Now stop claiming stupid bs.

 sebster wrote:
Oh, okay, so we're picking out the political attacks you deem equivalent, and only the political attacks you deem equivalent, and if we don't do that then we're shifting the goal posts.

I don't think most people would deem 9/11 equivalent to a window getting shot at a campaign office in Denver.

So, then;

Charles Habermann was arrested for violent threats against Democrat Congressman Jim McDermott on 30th November 2011. He was earlier investigated for threats against Democrat Chellie Pingree. Habermann, to your great surprise and that of no-one else on Earth, stated he was worked up over Democrat positions on healthcare reform and immigration.

There was a rash of attacks and threats against Democrats a little while ago, with windows in Democratic offices in three states, an envelope posted to then congressman Weiner's office, and a gas line cut at the home of a Democrat senator's brother (after that address was wrongly posted on-line). Ten congressmen received direct threats by phone. One congressman was spat on. Once again to your great surprise but to no-one else on earth, the messages attached to these attacks were right wing in nature, in direct response to the healthcare reform moving through congress at that time. No-one suggested these attacks were from anyone but the right wing fringe, because that would be crazy.

With a week to go in the 2008 presidential election, the Secret Service reported a significant rise in threats to Obama. Once again, surprising no-one but you, these threats came from the right wing fringe, most notably white supremacist groups.

Now stop claiming stupid bs.

Habermann you've actually managed to be partially correct about, he got drunk and left voicemails. It was practically the next 9/11, just like the Denver thing. As far as the rest goes? No, you're going to have to provide some actual evidence, because your track record with summary is...bleak.

Actual, targeted attacks? They've rarely been about ideology, and have largely been the work of nutters. The guy who tried to kamikaze Clinton, the Giffords thing, Reagan getting shot by Hinckley. Joseph Stack...now, I'll grant you, none of these are anywhere near as serious as a Congressman getting spat on, but they all show the lone nut pattern rather than the guy striking out from the right to get something done. Everyone gets threats, which is why the Secret Service still comes into work when a Republican's in the White House. Actual attacks? Those are considerably different.

 Seaward wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Everyone thought that about the Giffords shooting, too.

Yeah, and?

When someone blows themselves up in a crowded market, odds are they were a Muslim extremist. Other options are possible, but we shouldn't pretend the most likely outcome isn't the most likely.

This sounds a bit like those smokers who ignore the numbers of people who die every year, and instead point out the one guy who didn't. Yeah, odd things happen, but probability remains meaningful.


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 Seaward wrote:
Due to statistical evidence, yes. If spouses were routinely found to have nothing to do with the murder of their partner, that assumption would fade.

And we know from the history of political violence that attacks are far more likely to come from the opposition, than from some strange conspiracy to make one's self out as the victim, or anything else like that.

And so the assumption hasn't faded, and the calls to not consider this to most likely be the work of right wing nut continue to be weak.

Until you actually look at the recent history of violence targeted at political figures in this country, anyway. Then you start to realize that very little to none of it was conducted by "the opposition."

But let's not allow facts to get in the way of a good narrative, I suppose.

Exactly.


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 Mannahnin wrote:
That's terribly ironic. Auston, I was starting to think you were more reasonable than that, too.

While the observation about violence toward political figures in recent years mostly coming from lone nuts is a valid one, it's also changing the subject.

An anonymous act of violence/intimidation toward a campaign office is a very different thing than a nutjob taking a shot at a politician. It's much more akin to the kind of intimidation tactics the KKK used to use, like putting bullets through windows, painting threatening slogans on people's houses, and the like.

Thats a yankee version of how the KKK intimidated people. The way the KKK would intimidate you was burn your church, with you in it.

 Seaward wrote:
I'll say it one last time: given the recent history of violence targeted at political campaigns in this country, it's actually pretty unlikely that it was "the perp's political opponents."

That's not true at all. Violence targeted directly at politicians (assassination attempts) in this country has mostly come from random nutjobs. Sebster and I provided quite a few examples of violence and threats directed at people to whom the attacker was politically opposed.


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 Frazzled wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
While the observation about violence toward political figures in recent years mostly coming from lone nuts is a valid one, it's also changing the subject.

An anonymous act of violence/intimidation toward a campaign office is a very different thing than a nutjob taking a shot at a politician. It's much more akin to the kind of intimidation tactics the KKK used to use, like putting bullets through windows, painting threatening slogans on people's houses, and the like.

Thats a yankee version of how the KKK intimidated people. The way the KKK would intimidate you was burn your church, with you in it.

No, that's one of the (many) ways they would murder people, though it certainly intimidated others. Ways they would intimidate people included riding up in the night in hoods and masks and threatening them personally, writing slurs on their homes, burning crosses on their lawns, and shooting at their houses.

What was this about right wing nutjobs again?
http://www.infowars.com/threats-to-assassinate-romney-explode-after-debate/

First threats of riots, now assassinations. Classy no?

I have promised that, should I not be elected President, I shall be forced to eat Mexican food, preferably a nice carne asade at Lupe Tortillas.

 Frazzled wrote:
What was this about right wing nutjobs again?
http://www.infowars.com/threats-to-assassinate-romney-explode-after-debate/

Oh infowars...
I watched the debate and I think Obama has a nicer voice than Romney. I bet that's one reason why Obama won last time. I'd have a tighter voice if I had to put up with everything he puts up with. Speaking of the debate, I wonder how many women Romney can fit into a binder?

 Seaward wrote:
Yes, verily, the September 11th attacks do indeed prove that the majority of attacks on Democratic candidates and/or political apparatuses come from far-right Republicans.

 sebster wrote:

We have an attack on Democratic campaign office, in which no prominent Democratic politicians were present. And you think stating 'this was an attack on a Democratic campaign office in which no prominent politicians were present' is some kind of in-depth reading of the event.

You know for sure it was an attack? You should probably get in touch with the cops out yonder.

Unless people are hunting for dogs/cats in Denver or there just happens to be some absurd confluence of events that resulted in a gun being fired at a Democratic campaign office, it was intentional.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Unless people are hunting for dogs/cats in Denver or there just happens to be some absurd confluence of events that resulted in a gun being fired at a Democratic campaign office, it was intentional.

More likely than not. A single shot is pretty weird, though, which leaves the window open for an ND.

The only confluence of events that result in a single gunshot being fired at a Democratic campaign office in Denver that even remotely makes sense if you're not a card-carrying, tinfoil hat wearing Republican who believes that this was an "inside job" by the Democrats to garner sympathy is that it was an intentional act done by an individual who has bought into the hardcore rhetoric that "now is the time!" for another American revolution and that the Republicans are that "true patriots".

So yeah. If you think this is some kind of conspiracy, please speak up so I can just plop you on Ignore and save myself reading paranoid shenanigans.

 Kanluwen wrote:
The only confluence of events that result in a single gunshot being fired at a Democratic campaign office in Denver that even remotely makes sense if you're not a card-carrying, tinfoil hat wearing Republican who believes that this was an "inside job" by the Democrats to garner sympathy is that it was an intentional act done by an individual who has bought into the hardcore rhetoric that "now is the time!" for another American revolution and that the Republicans are that "true patriots".

So yeah. If you think this is some kind of conspiracy, please speak up so I can just plop you on Ignore and save myself reading paranoid shenanigans.

Or alternatively just punks being punks and go heh heh watch this...

 Kanluwen wrote:
The only confluence of events that result in a single gunshot being fired at a Democratic campaign office in Denver that even remotely makes sense if you're not a card-carrying, tinfoil hat wearing Republican who believes that this was an "inside job" by the Democrats to garner sympathy is that it was an intentional act done by an individual who has bought into the hardcore rhetoric that "now is the time!" for another American revolution and that the Republicans are that "true patriots".

So yeah. If you think this is some kind of conspiracy, please speak up so I can just plop you on Ignore and save myself reading paranoid shenanigans.

So what do we get to see you do if it turns out it was a mentally unbalanced individual with no political motive, or just some guy trying to scare/kill his ex-wife who happened to work there?

Do you have any hats that seem particularly tasty?

You'll get to see me say "Well isn't that just a one in a million coincidence".

Because that's what it will be.

If this was done to a Republican office, there would be no shortage of outrage from you I'm sure.

But face facts here. The likelihood of it being some completely unrelated to intimidation of the office workers for a political motive is so small that you might as well postulate that it was done by an individual who fired at the office to convince NASA to disclose their records of contact with extraterrestrial life.