Merged Rep. Giffords Shot In Tucson

Slayhamlet said:
The second video is a dramatization. The guy is an actor and not an actual schizophrenic, but the dialogue is taken directly from an interview with a genuine schizophrenic.
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I tried to leave dramatizations out. If I missed that one, I'm sorry. YouTube is not the best place to find the examples of behavior I was looking for, but written depictions just don't give the picture one gets actually talking to delusional people. I've seen many schizophrenics in person. It seemed from the comments here that lots of people really didn't have an idea what they were like.

I've seen several paranoid schizophrenics who really were convincing when they described being followed or spied on by the FBI or the CIA, or when they described the particular persecution delusion they believed. So the fact Loughner looked rational in one 30 second court appearance doesn't mean he isn't seriously irrational.
 
babycondor said:
I missed the connection between your linked videos and this:

I Ratant said:
"I've watched the bit 3 times now, and that [Jon Stewart on The Daily Show] is the pinnacle of rational thought."

Could you clarify your point here please? Thanks.
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My bad. I was referring to Stilicho's post:
stilicho said:
His pattern of thoughts are pretty orderly. Pleading the Fifth? Come on. What exactly is so disordered about retaining a lawyer and pleading the Fifth?...
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And for some erroneous reason on my part, I thought I read I Ratant echoing Stilicho's comment that Loughner appeared rational.
 
Originally Posted by Travis
I can imagine what a Tea Party provided defense attorney would trawl out as a "defense."

"My client cannot be guilty of attempted murder of a Federal Representative because Democrats are not really human."

They might not have such a good argument when it comes to the Judge.


But this is what it has come to. The right no longer even sees Liberals as human. They see them as a vile disease that needs to be exterminated not reasoned with or worked with.
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applecorped said:
Even with your "many" qualifer which you posted after getting called on it, this is nice example of the rhetoric that so many here are talking about. Way to stoke the fire.
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In my opinion posting things like this is more dangerous than any of the maps.
Most politcal forums are full of hateful rhetoric pointed at Democrats, Republicans, rich people, tea party supporters, etc.
While you cannot control the hate coming out from others you can control your own posts and not encourage those who post hateful items.
And I think (strickly opinion) that people like this shooter are more likely to be influenced by message boards , myspace and youtube. It is in places like that that the irrational hatred can fester and grow.
 
i just checked my own myspace profile for the first time in a couple years. The entire social network made me feel schitzo.
 
Pardalis said:
What the hell does that even mean?

Schizos are by definition disconnected from reality.
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Adding to my previous comment: Pard, why don't you find out a bit more about the mental illness, schizophrenia, before you post any more inaccuracies about the disease?

These people's delusions are full of real things they experience in the real world.
 
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eeyore1954 said:
Originally Posted by Travis



In my opinion posting things like this is more dangerous than any of the maps.
Most politcal forums are full of hateful rhetoric pointed at Democrats, Republicans, rich people, tea party supporters, etc.
While you cannot control the hate coming out from others you can control your own posts and not encourage those who post hateful items.
And I think (strickly opinion) that people like this shooter are more likely to be influenced by message boards , myspace and youtube. It is in places like that that the irrational hatred can fester and grow.
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Go read freep and wonder how a man like Loughner would react to it (I agree with you).
 
Newtons Bit said:
So was this country.
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.
The current Tea Party political activity has taken the mistaken idea that the first Tea Party was conducted in response to the raising of the tax on tea, as we've been taught.
The actual event was to destroy the legal tea, for which the tax had been.... lowered... making the smuggled tea more expensive than the legal tea, and thereby forcing the purchase of the more expensive smuggled tea.
It was an act of vandalism and greed.
Conflated by the participants, such as John Hancock, into a reason to rebel, by glossing the fact of the criminal action.
Politics as usual.
 
fuelair said:
The APA has messed up quite enough to void that ...
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This is a naive statement. Whether its the APA, AMA (medical association ... ), or any other like academic organization, of course mistakes have been made. Doesn't change the validity or significance of much of the research approved by / collected by those agencies.

Skeptic Ginger claimed that "fear the government' campaign tactics also increases the likelihood that such an unstable person will act out their paranoia." That claim requires substantial evidence in the form of human behavior studies.
 
I Ratant said:
.
The current Tea Party political activity has taken the mistaken idea that the first Tea Party was conducted in response to the raising of the tax on tea, as we've been taught.
The actual event was to destroy the legal tea, for which the tax had been.... lowered... making the smuggled tea more expensive than the legal tea, and thereby forcing the purchase of the more expensive smuggled tea.
It was an act of vandalism and greed.
Conflated by the participants, such as John Hancock, into a reason to rebel, by glossing the fact of the criminal action.
Politics as usual.
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Entirely true.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You also don't hear Ron Paul suggesting the remedy if one loses at the ballot box is armed rebellion. That is not the case with many members of the Tea party.
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You've moved the goal post. You couldn't make a connection between Ron Paul's "currency" and Loughner's use of the word, so now you're back to generalizing tea party rhetoric. And you still have no evidence he was influenced by the tea party. None. Nada. Ziltch.

I know the right is trying really hard to push this tu quoque false equivalency. But it's just that, a false equivalency.
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I personally don't care about Left and Right in all this. I'm a Moderate and both sides can be real ****** annoying. I don't care what side is being zinged for logical fallacies. It has nothing to do with a guy being a nutbag who tragically killed people because of his mental illness.

Tell you what: prove a tea party sign or a rally or Ted Nugent made Loughner do it and we'll start removing all the Marylyn Manson"s" from society too. We'll start there and then start burning books.

Or if we can put the tea party on trial for this, we'll go back to 911 and show that all the anti-gov't rhetoric on the American Left incited Muslim foreigners to total the towers.


Why? Because that is the only convincing evidence you think applies? :rolleyes:
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Instead of attacking the APA and avoiding taking responsibility for your claim, why not provide whatever evidence you feel will reflect the alleged reality of your claim? The APA sounded like a logical starting point, considering this is a human behavioral matter and there are a plethora of psychiatric studies collected by the APA.
 
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TellyKNeasuss said:
I guess that I should give up waiting for an explanation of why it is obvious to everyone but me that Loughner is a schizophrenic.
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Nope. I stated he was almost certainly a paranoid schizophrenic many, many pages ago. Then I repeated it several times more. Are we perusing the same thread :confused:
 
I Am The Scum said:
You're on the right track, but I'm gonna have to agree with applecorped, here. To say that it's "many" people (not all) still makes the issue personal in nature. I think the heart of the matter is that the trend in American politics is to ignore the merits of ideas and to instead focus on the individuals who hold those ideas. Modern political discourse is one big ad hominem fallacy.

I think we would be better suited by not wasting our time focusing on what the right or the left is doing, in what quantity, and to what degree. Rather, focus on what is proper and improper behavior. For example:

Yes, you should explain why your opponents' ideas are wrong.
No, you should not accuse your opponents of hating America, or pretend that it's even relevant to the truth of their ideas.
No, you should not make light of opposing politicians or laws with violence.

When you start sweeping ideological labels into the accusation of specific actions, you end up offending those who are innocent of such behavior. To say "Liberals do X," one will inevitably garner the reaction of, "I'm a liberal and I've never done X. You're just saying that because you're a conservative who believes in Y." That gets us nowhere. Instead, it would be superior to explain why X and Y are wrong, and let the the individuals throughout our audience decide whether or not we are correct.

But I'm probably being too idealistic.
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Well don't apologize for idealism. It's just frustrating going into small businesses these days and hearing rant after rant after rant about how all the Democrats are traitors to America and how good patriots must vote for conservatives. Which leaves you sitting there wondering 1) why isn't there competition so I can take my registered Democrat business elsewhere and 2) when did this become a war where there is no inkling of even contemplating cooperation and only the complete destruction of the other side will suffice?

That's what's frustrating. I know that there many Democrats such as myself that would love to work with everyone so it's dispiriting to see that everyone you encounter from the "other side" wants nothing to do with you outside of your complete political neutering. That's what makes it look like they don't even think you are human anymore. They want nothing to do with you outside of defeating you. It's like merely winning the races, showing the Democrats up, is the endgame.
 
For those who care, I made a blog post about this topic:

The Shooting of Congresswoman Giffords & Skepticism When It’s Needed Most

Here's my favorite part:
... What this shows is, in my view, the fact that there is nothing inherently special about those who label themselves as “skeptics”. We are irrational & emotional creatures just like the rest of humanity, and in times of great stress we also feel the sometimes overwhelming pressure to dismiss our better, more rational natures in a desperate attempt to grab onto something, anything which seems like it might provide us with some measure of comfort. But, as we skeptics are wont to say, simply because something feels right doesn’t mean it’s real. And thus, simply because there are those who view the world through an overly-political lens doesn’t mean that reality conforms to that view. ...
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For what it's worth.

Cheers - MM
 
ProbeX said:
"Indeed, one piece of evidence collected so far is a 2007 letter from Giffords's office to Mr. Loughner, thanking him for attending a meet-and-greet event. On it is scrawled a death threat to Giffords. In 2007, Sarah Palin was a little-known Alaska governor and the tea party movement did not exist."

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0112/As-portrait-of-Jared-Loughner-sharpens-vitriol-blame-fades
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Right but he didn't act on it until afterwards, and the vitriolic rhetoric filled the airwaves, and where he was is called the mecca (ground zero) of it all.

That doesn't mean Palin specifically inflamed what was lying dormant in him. But he was clearly a political activist. I can't believe he wasn't plugged into the vitriolic political rhetoric all around him.
 
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