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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

The Blame Game and my Tirade

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 12th, 2011 at 03:04 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

So Cornell Belcher, as I mentioned earlier, wanted to accuse the tea party movement and the right of being much more vitriolic than the left.

That kind of set me on a tirade. With great demand from many of you, CNN was kind enough to get the video into an embeddable file. Here now is my tirade:

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COMMENTS

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  • fpete13527
  • sharonmcp

    So Mr. Belcher accuses the the tea party movement and the right of of being much more vitriolic than the left does he?

    Wonder what he has to say about this.

    WARNING: vulgar language portrayed, but then what else would you expect from a bunch of leftist minions?

  • izoneguy

    Arizona Gunman Was Not Motivated By Politics

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/12/report-alleged-arizona-gunman-did-watch-news-television/

    Osler said Loughner began to spiral downward after a high school girlfriend broke up with him. Osler also said Loughner then began abusing alcohol and drugs, including salvia, a legal hallucinogen.
    ?He would say he was using it,? Osler told ABC. ?And he would talk about it and say what it would do to him.?

    Salvia-The Legal Hallucinogen?http://www.salviadragon.com/salvia-the-legal-hallucinogen/

    And this was on CNN a few years ago. Please have CNN follow up on this.

  • Read Chesterton

    He struggled to change the subject and appear reasonable, unsuccessfully, as he faded out stammering.

    Excellent work.

  • azaeroprof
  • chihank

    The Left doesn’t want the truth. The Left doesn’t want any sort of spiritual healing. They only want to smear conservatives. I don’t want the GOP Congress to make any deals with Pelosi, Reid, and Obama. The AZ shootings reveal that the Left is not be dealt with in good faith.

  • sharonmcp

    is that Olser said this in that interview

    “He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn?t listen to political radio. He didn?t take sides. He wasn?t on the left. He wasn?t on the right.”

    …Osler said he instead suspects that Loughner was motivated by a documentary called, “Zeitgeist: The Movie,” which slams currency-based economics.

    I’m sure a mea culpa is forthcoming from all those who blamed Rush, Beck, Palin, the Tea Party and Republicans.

    Yeah, right.

  • bcochran1981

    …and it’s supporters are an American Disgrace.

  • izoneguy

    Why would he have such an evil smile in his mug shot.

    I went to college in the late 70′s and saw many people on LSD trips.

    I wonder if they did a drug screen on him in jail. I think the Pima country Sheriff is in full CYA mode at this point.

    Rush and the right and nothing to do with this.

    The left will pay a heavy price come 2012 over this.

  • proudmarinemom

    thanks in advance

  • msctex

    That wasn’t a tirade, Erick. I was kind of looking forward to a tirade.

    That was a calm, well-reasoned explication of fact, and is exactly what our side MUST offer from this point forth, every time a Democratic Talking
    Point du jour is presented as fact.

    They either have or soon will hit rock bottom, and will realize outright shameless distortion is the only tool left at their disposal. Reality has simply overtaken them at last. This period in history marks the collapse of an entire system of thought — Collectivist Philosophy — and those taught to believe it represents all that is Good in the world will fight as rabidly as any zealot from any religion.

    We are living through very, very interesting times.

  • gekster

    where can I go to see it.

  • Return to Revolution

    the left can adapt to new stimuli but never in a good or productive way. Thus, the next time this happens, someone will be sure to manufacture physical evidence that indicates the suspect is a card carrying teaparty member. Because what they have now is miserable, epic failure.

  • proudmarinemom

    log out and then log back in using a browser other than IE.

    Worked for me w Firefox.

  • swami7774

    Rather it was a reasoned, calm response to lunatic charges.
    Note how the left refuses to blame actual perpetrators of crime; it’s ALWAYS someone, or something, else’s fault.

  • proudmarinemom

    He seems unable to stick to the facts or to stay on point.

    Erick, you came across as calm, intelligent and well-informed. Great segment.

  • gekster
  • grandma

    Thank you for posting it. Awesome how you took this segment and had Belcher having no choice but to find something to agree with you on. Am getting a good chuckle out of it.

  • gazill

    in all of 20 seconds you (Erick) calmly and eloquently provided examples of the blatant hypocrisy on view today. The only flaw in your explanation (if I may be so bold, and opinionated) was, by introducing the need to discuss mental health, you opened the gate for Belcher (whom I have never heard of) to transition to instead of having to directly respond to the facts you presented. I would have liked to see him try to explain why, after at least 30 years of threats and “heightened rhetoric,” the media are intent on now opening this discussion.

    Well done!!!

  • http://www.flaliberty.org scorpio0679

    That was pretty funny to see whats-his-handle backtrack like a madman.

  • philipjames

    I notice this liberal idiot shut up pretty fast when you listed a number of true facts that blew away his lies. The one thing I notice about liberals is that they have no shame. I guarantee that this liberal idiot would sit there and think nothing of spewing lie after lie after lie to advance his attack on the right.
    Good work Eric. Do not back down one inch from these lying liberal thugs.

  • hoosierteacher

    I think Erick did an outstanding job, as he always does. But if there is one thing I’d nitpick, it is this:

    Everyone keeps bringing up the congresswoman and the judge. While those are tragedies for obvious reasons, let’s not forget that a nine year old girl lost her life too. And when we get that far, we ought to realize that there were several other people killed too that we hear nothing about. Those people don’t seem to merit much if any mention in the press accouns or the discussions. I agree with Erick that we should focus on the mental health angle, not the Tea Party or Marx. But in our media driven culture, is the death of a congresswoman and a judge any more heinous than the death of a child or a group of “regular” citizens trying to be civic minded and attending this event?

    Perhaps I’m being politicaly correct in feeling that several of the victims aren’t being counted when we just say “The congresswoman and the federal judge”. Still, being the father of a young daughter myself, I find myself wondering about the girl as well as the others who have had even less mention than her.

    On 9/11 the country united because of the deaths of thousands of Americans (at least for awhile). The media didn’t seem to focus on the few celebrities that were killed that day, but seemed to focus on the totality of the tragedy.

    Again, I’m reasonably sure it might just be me. I know it is “news” when a high profile person(s) gets gunned down. But so many people were killed and injured at that event, and it seems to get little play in the news.

  • belcatar

    Her name was Christina Taylor Green. She was nine years old, and went to the meeting because with her neighbor because she was interested in government.

    The other five were Judge John Roll, Gabe Zimmerman, Dorwin Stoddard, Phyllis Schneck, and Dorothy Morris. Eyewitnesses reported that Dorwin Stoddard stepped in front of the gunfire to prevent his wife from being hit.

    It’s good to know their names, because names have power. In Erick’s defense, the subject was political speech, and the two people he mentioned were political figures.

    What amazes me most about the poor schmuck Erick embarrassed in that video was the way he presented his points. To him they were foregone conclusions, so obviously self-evident that they required no proof. He spoke as if he were describing the effects of gravity on an egg dropped from waist height. When his views were challenged by cold, hard facts, he melted into a stammering, talking-head puddle. That small exchange, between Erick and a babbling leftist shill, perfectly encapsulates the differences between conservatives and liberals. If all conservatives had such amazingly cool, fact based “tirades”, I think the left would eventually just disappear in a nice, fragrant puff of logic.

  • mbauer

    Go to dailykos right now (or actually don’t, my soul dies a little every time I visit that hate infested group think dominated propaganda driven website).

    The front page format is very similar to redstates: rec diaries, other diaries, and front page posts. Want to gauge how much Palin makes them froth out of their collective mouths? They majority of the current front page posts talk about “the half term governor” who is “irrelevant”. A dozen of the diaries on side panel have Palin’s name in the title, including 3 of the top 5 most recommended. Tell me which side is obsessing over politicizing not just these events, but these events in connection with enemy number one.

  • izoneguy

    I am not making this up…….

    Loughner’s ramblings appear rooted in far right

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-extremism-20110112,0,7697607.story

    By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times

    kim.murphy@latimes.com

    Kim needs to take a look at this:

  • lucky364

    I thought about all the other victims as well. They seem to have been passed off as not important to the story. The typical report was “19 victims, six fatal”.

    Those people’s names may not matter to some, but they certainly matter to their friends and families.

    To be fair, very few but the families will remember them in a short period of time. I couldn’t tell you the names of Major Hassan’s victims, but it seemed odd to me that they were swept aside in the media’s haste because they weren’t ‘Somebody”.

  • gjohnson

    Please continue to voice your opinion! You are a great person with an excellent understanding of what it means to be a conservative. Thanks and God Bless you for all you do.

    Greg Johnson
    Scientist
    Cocoa Beach, FL

  • marshmom

    Hilarious how he wanted to forget that he said that the “right” was more violent than the left after Erick gave numerous examples of how FALSE that claim was!
    Great job Erick! You were calm, cool, and had the right response to his lunacy. I have yet to see anyone of the left list specific examples of the so-called “hate” that they purport the right claims to spout, yet can think of more than a dozen examples of their violent, hateful speech.

  • Jack_Savage

    …point out that the ACLU has consistently sued in order to PREVENT people like Loughner from getting the help they so desperately need. The ACLU’s lawsuits have turned tens of thousands of mentally ill out into the streets, and the ACLU has not only sued to have Kendra’s Law overturned, the one time they won it was considered a “great victory”.

  • Jack_Savage

    http://www.redstate.com/jack_savage/2011/01/09/is-the-aclu-directly-responsible-for-the-massacre-in-arizona/

  • IJB
  • aesthete

    on Mother Jones, Loughner had actually stopped using substances (drinking, pot, salvia) months before, and his condition had deteriorated.

  • JSobieski

    Doesn’t pot enhance paranoia?

    I must say that the interview was very interesting. Probably the best Mother Jones article I have ever read. Still, the source makes me a bit skeptical.

  • aesthete

    The research regarding marijuana’s effects on schizophrenics is currently inconclusive, and anecdotal evidence I’ve seen is similarly split.

    My cop friends have never heard of violent potheads (with mental problems or otherwise). Other drugs appear to aggravate mental conditions, though.

    I’ll also note that it was the interviewee saying it, not Mother Jones: according to him, Laughner’s condition deteriorated after he stopped using drugs and drinking booze. Take from that what you will.

    Just remarking on it since I saw a completely idiotic post from “moderate” D Frum on the matter, and I wouldn’t want that post’s noxious stupidity to become a meme on the right.

  • JSobieski

    The interview was interesting and I believe it has insights to offer. That being said, Pravda, the New Duranty Times, and sources like Mother Jones aren’t exactly honest brokers of truth.

    I have never heard of violent pot heads either. However, for pot heads who upgrade to acid, its a different story.

    Of course, this guy was sick to begin with so who knows what would have happened purely based on the drug use parameters.

  • aesthete

    I imagine that they would have lied on something of more import to progressives (say, tying it to Republicans/Sarah Palin/Tea Parties) than on a trifling issue that most progressives don’t care about.

  • izoneguy

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2d5_1292018885

    Once you start doing that stuff it will mess you up.
    Even if Loughner stopped using it,
    the damage is done.

  • Icythus

    then you have got to be one of the most mellow people on the planet.

    My hat is off to you, sir, for remaining cool as a cucumber in the face of all…THAT!

  • Mike Ferguson

    I just makes it sweeter when it is done in such a professional and calm manner that is the total opposite of what the left would like to believe conservatives are really like.

  • Doc Holliday

    the guy wanted to fight, then after receiving a flurry of jabs, he just quit. You don’t see that too much, they guy just quit lol.

  • taxmaiden

    I loved the way he started back peddling after you spoke. And the look on his face like “uh oh, what do I say now?” was priceless. I agree with the others; I don’t know if I could have responded in the calm manner you did.