Merged Rep. Giffords Shot In Tucson

Puppycow said:
Also, the part about him thinking she was a "fake" sounds familiar. Haven't other mentally unstable assassins used that word about their targets in the past? A Google search on "kill the fakes" also turns up a lot of hits.
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isn't there a group of people who think our president is fake?
 
WildCat said:
Has anyone explained why Gifford subscribed to Loughner's youtube channel?
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Just a shot in the dark, but I get endless requests to subscribe from people I've never heard of. It's possible someone in her office had him on a list from a previous event, he invited them to the channel, they thought they could beg for money through his YouTube account...etc.
 
TraneWreck said:
Why would that make one side, but not the other, defensive in Arizona? In other words, if you knew nothing about the Sherrif's political affiliation, what about his statements would indicate that he was a democrat?
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Because one side knows they do it write a bit more than the other,.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
2001 "while still in college"? Try again. He's 22 years old. In 2001 he would have been 11 or 12 years old!

:rolleyes:
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Oops bad math. Was hoping something would finally get you to respond. Maybe you'll respond to my question now:

How are you able to tell Jared Loughner's rhetoric about the constitution is tea party rhetoric, or is the result of tea party influence, specifically, when schizophrenics in America frequently rant about the constitution and other general political concepts?
 
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ProbeX said:
Anything you can think of related to the gov't (as well as religion) can be thematic with schizophrenics. Talk of the constitution isn't especially unusual or esoteric in my experience working w/mentally ill clients.

People are leaping to conclusions here.
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The main erroneous conclusions being leaped to here are the straw men.

It's misunderstood what the nature of the relationship between the right wing vitriol and the shooter is. For example, showing the example of Palin's crosshairs map is not saying Palin is personally and uniquely responsible for these homicides.

It's misunderstood how the vitriol can be a trigger for this kind of mentally ill person vs a trigger for a zealot like Tiller's murderer.

And finally and most importantly, it is misunderstood that each and every individual reference to a gun or target metaphor is NOT what this is about.


The issue here is not about every single use of any one symbol or word. The issue is the total picture and the responsible people are the Repub leaders who put the themes and talking points out there for the right wing echo machine to repeat.

The right wing has been stoking fear in fringe groups because that gets votes. The emergence of the Tea Party, IMO, is a direct result of this campaign rhetoric tactic. During Bush's campaign and administration, the Repub leadership courted the extreme Evangelical right. Rove discussed this tactic many times saying things like there were a lot of single issue voters that could be stirred into activism over issues like abortion and gay marriage. That's the whole reason those issues have been so overwhelmingly adopted by the Repub Party, not because all Repups are anti-choice homophobes and all Democrats are pro-choice and supporters of gay marriage.

With the Obama win, the Repub leadership has shifted gears and the more recent incessant campaign centers around calling Obama dangerous, a Socialist, and not 'one of us'. The campaign also involves stoking racism against immigrants, and fear that government is going to take over and ration health care. The campaign also includes stoking fear that Obama and a Democratically controlled Congress is dangerous and will dramatically change the government, yadda yadda.

In promoting these campaign lies, what better way to stoke fear than to include over the top rhetoric claiming it is so bad that if it doesn't change, armed revolution could be necessary. That theme is also encouraged by stoking the pro-gun extremists who are already convinced the government wants to take their guns away. The last time I saw anyone making a big deal of carrying assault rifles around in public was when the Black PantherWP movement started doing it back in the 60s.


It's the Repub leadership promoting the theme of the lie that Progressives or the Democratic Party are trying to radically change the US government and they are dangerous that is the rhetoric of concern here. The issue is not the straw man that the of simply using words like, target, or symbols that look like a target or gun crosshairs on a map.
 
ProbeX said:
Oops bad math. Was hoping something would finally get you to respond. Maybe you'll respond to my question now:

How are you able to tell Jared Loughner's rhetoric about the constitution is tea party rhetoric, or is the result of tea party influence, specifically, when schizophrenics in America frequently rant about the constitution and other general political concepts?
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It's not that I won't respond. It's that I haven't had time to read every page of the thread. I've tried to find replies to my comments but I'm sure I've missed many of them.

It's not true that schizophrenics frequently rant about the Constitution and currency especially together. They frequently incorporate religion and government themes in their delusions. With paranoia of some schizophrenics, symbols of power and control are almost always seen in their delusions.

The Constitution has been a very recent media theme pushed by the Tea Party, as well as some coverage of Ron Pauls' currency, Federal Reserve and gold standard focus. You didn't hear that much in the way of claims about unconstitutional laws during Bush's campaigns. The Repub theme was that the Democratic candidates were weak on defense. The Repub leadership also courted the Evangelical extremists and if you look at the "Faith Based Initiatives" Bush implemented, you can find million dollar grants given congregations that encouraged their followers to vote anti-abortion or even to vote directly for Bush who was 'one of them'.

I bring this up to show the fact that campaign theme shifted when Obama was elected to the fear theme I discussed in my post above. And if you take fear of Obama and the Democratic Party to its natural consequence, you arrive at "Second Amendment remedies".

This whole stunt that somehow the laws passed by the Obama administration and the Democratically controlled legislature are unconstitutional or exceed the power the founders intended is all part of that campaign tactic. And I call it a lie because we have a Judiciary Branch of government that is conveniently left out of the rhetoric, or, called an "activist" judiciary when they are included. Fear the government, elect the Tea Party, they'll save you.



But the real issue here isn't necessarily that Loughner incorporated X or Y into his delusions, the issue is his delusions are consistent with the current right wing rhetoric which has been incessantly stoking fear of the government that reaches the level "needing Second Amendment remedies". Do schizophrenics become homicidal without such encouragement? Of course. But can the incessant "fear the government" campaign tactic also increase the likelihood such an unstable person will act out their paranoia? Yes.
 
deepatrax said:
didn't we cover this already?

People who knew him said he was a pot smoking Liberal.
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Accidental Martyr said:
Tea party group emails members urging them to describe shooter as "liberal lunatic."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x153766
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Not that it matters much in the grand scheme of things, but...

republican.jpg


He didn't seem liberal, he seemed like a crazy paranoid person with an extreme anti-government view. There's rumblings that he may have been associated with an anti-Jewish group, but I guess we'll see how that shakes out.
 
bynmdsue said:
Too bad she hasn't died yet. Maybe she still will so that President Jugears can really use it to his advantage.
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Saying what I'd like to say to you violates my MA. I like it here, so I won't do that.

I would hand you a shovel if I could, though, so you could more quickly dig your hole deeply enough that you disappear into it.
 
Some more info is coming out about Jared. The more we learn the more I see a desperate young man with some sort of mental block that prevented him from connecting well with other people. Here is a run down of some of his beliefs.

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/10/jared-lee-loughners-worldview-a-conspiracy-theory-laundry-list/

This block probably lead him to the far reaches of the internet where his apparent paranoia and other issues were stoked.

I very much want to hear from his parents. I am hearing rumors around town (mostly in my coffee shop) that the father is going to be an interesting character in all of this. Might be a bit of a truther and CTer himself. One report is from a former neighbor that moved because of the father's behavior. Again these are just rumors.
 
BenBurch said:
Many see the freedom to own any weapon they desire as a limit to the power of government.

Trouble is, you get things just like this.

What was this guy doing except trying to limit the power of government?

What was McVeigh trying to do?

We can keep on as we have, but when such things happen, we should not be surprised at all.
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Freedom is scary and dangerous. The ONLY way to take away the danger is to take away the freedom. Of course, some would like to redefine the terms, a la 1984, so that "safety is freedom." :boggled:
 
willhaven said:
Not that it matters much in the grand scheme of things, but...

[qimg]http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/265/republican.jpg[/qimg]

He didn't seem liberal, he seemed like a crazy paranoid person with an extreme anti-government view. There's rumblings that he may have been associated with an anti-Jewish group, but I guess we'll see how that shakes out.
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Wow, card carrying republican. That clears a lot up in terms of political viewpoint. Time to put down the "he's a liberal" political football and smell the coffee.
 
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