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As sensible as Son of Sam

By: Curt Levey (Diary)  |  January 9th, 2011 at 10:13 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Claiming that Arizona gunman Jared Loughner was motivated to kill by heated political rhetoric is about as sensible as believing the Son of Sam’s assertion that he was motivated to kill by the barking of his neighbor Sam’s dog.  Son of Sam and Keith Olbermann see a link – perhaps even Loughner sees a link – but consider the source.  The truth is people like Loughner kill because they are too mentally unbalanced and angry at society to be influenced by even normal considerations of self-preservation, no less by the tone of civil discourse. 

Keith Olbermann, Sheriff Dupnik and the others trying to score political points by blaming political rhetoric are going down a very dangerous road both because it absolves violent killers of full responsibility for their actions and because it aims to silence the passions that are an important part of public debate.  Martin Luther King and his fellow civil rights activists used passionate and heated rhetoric to rouse the nation against white segregationists.  But, surely, that does not make Dr. King and his colleagues partly responsible for the violent crimes of the Black Panthers and James Earl Ray. 

Ultimately, the passionate rhetoric of conservatives like Glen Beck may be vindicated by history or condemned by it.  But that is for the American people to decide as the debate plays out in the coming years, not for Keith Olbermann and Sheriff Dupnik to decide by cutting off debate.

Cross-posted at Politico.

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  • keven

    I think someone somewhere mentioned that he had an alcohol overdose in high school and was never the same. I wonder if he had some brain damage do to a lack of oxygen to the brain. In other words, he may not have had schizophrenia. However, may have been messed up in the head because of the brain damage. And since he may not have had a clear case of schizophrenia, it may have made for a tougher diagnosis and been more difficult to treat.

  • http://web.mac.com/anastasidesigns/anastasidesigns/ anastas

    Some people are afraid of lieing on the record because it may ruin their reputations. But it seems as if it’s getting worse and there are no consequences to the ones who are lieing. Sure, the Dems lost big and they will continue to do so unless they go back to their old ways but nobody seems to pay the fiddler and the fiddler is probably in foreclosure.

    What if Sarah Palin’s site used an “X”? Don’t you think that the leftists would say that the “X” meant she wanted them dead too? What if she used the same arrow from the mouse cursor on your computer. Does she want someone to shoot them with a arrow? It never ends. It’s just ridiculous. I just don’t see how you can blame someone for marking a location on a map. Do you know how many people you can implicate with this kind of standard? Is everyone blameless for their own actions? The worst thing about it, there is absolutely no proof and the New York Times, MSNBC, FOX and CBS are playing it up because controversy is good for ratings. And news is a product that they are selling so don’t think for a second that they don’t know this will generate huge ratings. And now everyone wants to ban metaphors because Olbermann wants to be the hero of anti-hate movement but I’m sure that’s after he names the worst person in the world. He thinks that people are too stupid to figure out what a metaphor is? What about shopping at Target? Should we close that corporation down because it incites violence? After all, it is something you aim to shoot. They are nothing but a bunch of con artist who want us to play the “lets pretend my imagination is reality” game. Well, I’m not playing!

    After looking at that map, those aren’t crosshairs, they look more like Print registration marks that a designer or printer would use. When designers lay out a piece, Which I’m sure that Sarah Palin did not, they use these registration marks to line up all colors when printing separations for Pantone colors. So maybe we should be accusing her of being a Designer too? I’m sure that Sarah Palin didn’t make this graphic and they hired a designer to create this piece and it served it’s purpose, marked the areas that they were fighting for and it was approved. They probably used registration marks and now Sarah Palin becomes “responsible” for some nut.

    google “print registration marks” and tell me what the marks on the Sarah Palin Map look like. This is all laughable. I’ve had people on facebook tell me that this is her fault for creating so much anger. WTF? What anger did she create? When she was first announced, she was busy giving her opening speech and by the time she was done, there were 70 frickin rumors about her. This subject gets me so angry, sorry for the rant.

    • FranklinMews

      Everyone knows you “lock and load” your Print registration marks!

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    Although tragic in its origins it is an absolute Godsend to the country as a whole to see how crass and insensitive to the humanity of the moment the left can be. After the last two years being eye opening for many who used to be democrats this over the top exploitation is political suicide for the left beyond the damage they’ve done to themselves and the rest of us.

    The left has lost it’s credibility with a lot of people who didn’t know better two years ago. They are making a huge mistake just doing what they can’t but help themselves over doing. Let them continue to blather themselves into irrelevance.

    Lenin once said something to the effect of “the capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with”… what he did not factor in is that given enough rope evil people eventually hang themselves so to speak. The left has been given plenty of rope and think they cannot do any wrong. Let them keep blatantly screwing up because 2012 is on the way.

    • FranklinMews

      “Although tragic in its origins it is an absolute Godsend to the country as a whole to see how crass and insensitive to the humanity of the moment the left can be”

  • spainishirish

    And Keith Olbermann, of all people, compllaining about “overheated rhetoric?” I enjoy irony as much as the next man, but that actually can be over the top.

    Take note of the people trying to shut down free speech. These are the types who let the terrorists like this insane punk win.

    • dudette

      with email and other protestng his insulting behavior the other day. He is such a maroon. Hillbuzz folk are on it.

  • 1stRichard

    This was more then a random act of violence, it was profound moral evil, and thus where a place where piety, religion and morality do not exist. It is declared by law in our State Constitution as a ?duty of all? ?to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe.? That the ?order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality.? President George Washington, ?No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States?. His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.? Yet we have a daily coercion to push God aside, vitriol rhetoric against Christianity and more, that our founding values mean nothing and they are too outdated, thus part of the overall attack on conservatism. I am thinking of the old saying, you reap what you sow, and wonder if there is any connection in all this.

    • olsmithie

      in elementary school.
      What part of “Thou shalt not kill” or “Thou shall not steal” is bad for a kid?!
      The folks screaming the loudest about this sad incident are the same ones that won’t tolerate God in schools… Go figure.

      Regards

  • wannabeanncoulter

    Heated political rhetoric has no immediate or cumulative effect on people? Then why is it available in endless supplies? Heated political rhetoric must have some cost-benefit or it would have been discarded long ago.

  • atillathehun

    The disgusting rhetoric from Oberman as it related to the shooting should be kept and immortalized for all to see to what lengths the leftist media will use a tragedy to bash the 2nd Amendment.
    It really is symbolic of the convoluted reasoning that the left seem to be able to wrap themselves in and to deny the reality of deranged people on the streets instead of in controlled invironments.
    Closing the asylums and allowing insane people to roam about seems like a conterproductive and non compassionate excersise to me.

  • scottb

    Probably has the smallest following of any TV anchor so who cares what he says.
    But the Sheriff Dupnik has a lot to lose and maybe he should heed a Quote by Suzan Wiener;
    “Often the best thing about not saying anything is
    that it can’t be repeated.”
    — Suzan Wiener

  • steve010

    3 Pima County Sheriff?s deputies and one officer from the Tucson police department, right. Well, no….

    There wasn?t a police officer in sight. No actually, it was an older gentleman grazed by a shot, a middle aged woman who grabbed the clip from the shooter?s hand and two other citizens. They actually had to sit on the guy for four minutes before ?police? could come to take the shooter away.

    The Sheriff of Pima County goes on to say that he wasn?t surprised at the actions of the shooter even though he never assigned any of his deputies to protect a sitting member of Congress and a dead Federal Judge. Probably didn’t have it on his calendar.

  • doubledok

    There is nothing justified about this insane person shooting anyone. Representative Giffords’ shooting will remain a grave reminder of the need for everyone to remain cautious.There is nothing to celebrate.

    I despise the main-stream media, Tucson area law enforcement, and brainless twits like Hanoi Jane for attempting to tattoo sincere political opposition with motivating the insane. It is patently absurd and remains part of their eternal strategy of”never waste a crisis”, which is equally despicable.

    I doubt the number of victims would have been so high if this had happened at a venue in Cheyenne or Amarillo. What if those laudable staff members or bystanders had been an armed citizen with adequate skill and training?

    Thus lies the legitimate question.

  • cam1

    says that he wasn’t surprised at the actions of the shooter, then why wasn’t he there with his posse guarding the congresswoman from ravages of the gun totin’, Palin lovin’ Tea Partyin’, radical right.

  • mspector

    wrapped up in one single event. The senseless deaths (nobody can make any political sense out of a shooting that included a liberal congresswoman, a conservative jurist and a 9-year-old girl), the MSM hypocrisy, the crass efforts to use this to attack Sarah, Glenn and the rest (a rush to judgment to be sure, given what was learned about Loughner not 8 hours after the attack). We can note Obama’s placatory call for “a moment of silence” and also his failure to speak to the Fort Hood shooting for three days. All of that serves some purpose, I guess.

    We are, should and must be passionate about our beliefs. That’s what elections, rallies and bulletin boards are for. But we must also always remember that sometimes it’s just about people. This tragedy was engineered by a deranged man and he killed people. Period.

    • doubledok

      some might make her out. She was a moderate in Liberal terms. She reportedly voted against Pelosi as House minority leader, and that makes her a lot less liberal than 99% of the residual Democrat party.

      Let’s keep our First and Second Amendment guard up in the absence of logical moderation. The move to require an Internet ID, FCC micro-monitoring of on-line activity, and the coming surge in gun control rhetoric being obvious.

      • aesthete

        Most of those were moves on her part to keep her somewhat conservative/moderate district. Even so, she didn’t deserve what happened.

  • doubledok

    and I totally agree that this miserable act of cowardice must be shunned by all. God, I hope she does miraculously well in recovery.