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Worst voting record in the house, this is heinous

The sad part is that Loughner nearly achieved his goal of killing her and did achieve the goal of silencing her as politician.
 
varwoche said:
Truly hilarious, particularly on a skeptical forum. But I'm glad you posted it. Had you said the odds were merely infinitesimal, it would be less optimal of a setup for me to make the following observations:

When people make absolute statements concerning topics where it's impossible to possess absolute knowledge, it's a bright red indicator of irrationality. People, even self-styled skeptics, don't always deal well with ambiguity. They prefer to get out a straight edge and draw little boxes around things, insisting on pat answers, when that's just not how things work, especially when we get into the area of the human mind.

If true, it reduces the odds that Berkowitz was influenced by a demonic dog from .000000000000001% to .0000000000000000001%. (Sorry to be anal, but having just lectured Sam about 0%... :) )
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When you take something out of context (also known as cherry picking) to make your point then you have lost the debate.

I said:

Based simply upon known facts the Odds are 100% that Berkowitz thought that a dog told him to kill people simply because there is supporting evidence and the odds are 0% that Loughner was influenced by right wing rhetoric simply because there is no supporting evidence to show that he heard any of it.
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See there. I said based upon known facts. That means evidence and not speculation. I find it funny that you attempt to criticize me for sticking with facts over speculation on a skeptics forum.

The facts are simple:

Loughner has not said that he had heard any of the speech that you ascribe to his motive.

Loghners friends and family have said that he didn't listen to or read the type of media where that type of speech might be heard.

When Loghners belongings were searched there was no physical evidence that he paid any attention to the right wing rhetoric. Not even casually.

That means that the odds are exactly 0% of you showing that Loughner was influenced by right wing rhetoric because, other than your unfounded speculation and assumptions, there is no evidence to support it.
 
So sad. I was hoping she would hang on and come back. :(

I sure hope her public career isn't over.
 
Sam.I.Am said:
The facts are simple:

Loughner has not said that he had heard any of the speech that you ascribe to his motive.

Loghners friends and family have said that he didn't listen to or read the type of media where that type of speech might be heard.

When Loghners belongings were searched there was no physical evidence that he paid any attention to the right wing rhetoric. Not even casually.

That means that the odds are exactly 0% of you showing that Loughner was influenced by right wing rhetoric because, other than your unfounded speculation and assumptions, there is no evidence to support it.
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I don't think most of these facts matter either. There is 0% chance that a reasonable person would take the rhetoric in question as making it OK to shoot Giffords.

Just as there is a 0% chance that it's reasonable to take the sounds Rice Krispies make as making it OK to commit murder, and just as there is a 0% chance that it's reasonable to take the neighbor's dog as the vessel for a demon somehow making it necessary to commit serial murder.

If there is some connection between Jesse Kelly's rhetoric and Loughner's actions it is in no way a connection that makes it reasonable to hold Kelly in any way whatsoever responsible for Loughner's actions.

Again, I criticize Kelly's rhetoric for being bad for political discourse and unnecessarily divisive, but not for having any reasonable connection to acts of violence.

Calling Kelly's rhetoric "irresponsible" in the context of a discussion of Loughner's shooting implies a responsibility for that act. I reject that there is any such responsibility. I do believe the principle is reflected in case law on freedom of speech/ incitement to violence cases. There is a clear distinction between criminal acts and protected (though odious) speech acts.
 
thaiboxerken said:
But you admit there there was plenty of violent, Right Wing rhetoric. Thanks for that honesty.
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I don't know about plenty. I really didn't hear much about it personally until after the shooting but I've never denied that it wasn't there.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Yes, it is. Compassion is weaknesses, to them.
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Here are my two assumptions about events that affect the legislative branch.

1) Personal compassion for a representative stops at the boundary where representative duties begins.

2) A representative cannot transcend the basic duties of the position.

It is tragic and wrong what happened to her. However, after it happened, neither her interests, nor the interests of the district were served by her staying in office. Now, she gets to focus on her recovery and the majority elects someone to cast votes representing their views. This is an improvement.
 
thaiboxerken said:
But you admit there there was plenty of violent, Right Wing rhetoric. Thanks for that honesty.
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There's plenty of violent imagery and language in political campaigns in general.

I've already pointed out that the word "campaign" itself comes from military lingo. Even mainstream, moderate speech includes violent campaign language: battleground state; trouncing, beating, crushing, killing an opponent; killing a bill; etc.

Some of the speech in question goes beyond what is generally adopted in mainstream moderate speech, but it's still just figurative language. No reasonable person would take what any of these people said as actual instructions to shoot Giffords.

And even if they did--and I stress, they don't--there's still a jump from understanding someone to be advocating violence to believing that performing those violent acts is OK. A reasonable person could hear someone giving instructions to commit violence, and that speech act still wouldn't be incitement if it's unlikely that anyone would act on it (and the case law I cited even adds, imminently).

I once heard a (probably apocryphal) story that a folksinger was singing the song, "If I Had My Way (I would tear this building down)" in front of a bank, and was arrested for inciting violence. That's unreasonable. No reasonable person would think that singing that song in that location would lead to someone actually tearing down the bank building. Even if someone subsequently bombed the building, you couldn't attribute any culpability at all to the folksinger.
 
BobTheCoward said:
Here are my two assumptions about events that affect the legislative branch.

1) Personal compassion for a representative stops at the boundary where representative duties begins.

2) A representative cannot transcend the basic duties of the position.
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I challenge both of these (which are really the same thing expressed two different ways) since there is a history of exactly that sort of thing being done. Giffords got no special treatment.

As has been pointed out, part of the "duty" of a representative is just holding the seat for their party. There are plenty examples of members of Congress retaining their seat even when they are mostly incapacitated and can only rarely actually cast a vote at times when the one vote might really matter.
 
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