Political & Elections

Cardinal,,
Who here is urging anyone to settle our disputes with guns and machetes? Who in national politics or media?

Certainly, President Obama was not urging mad-men to acts of murder when he analogized by urging people to bring a gun to a knife fight...neither did Sarah when she said not to retreat but to reload. Only a fool could think otherwise. And if it is true for one it is true for the other.

1. Things are far more rhetorically civil now than at any time in our history.
2. The lastest political rhetoric had nothing to do with the mass-murder in Arizona.
3. According to the FBI, none of the assassination attempts, that they investigated over the last 30 years, were the result of politics, angry or otherwise.
4. Many politicians (mostly Democrats) and talking heads (mostly Democrats) falsely claimed that the latest mass murder was brought about by the rhetoric of the politicians they never liked anyway. Nasty.


Our political rhetoric is far more stupid than it is violent as evidenced in this latest round of stupidity and willful ignorance. This is indisputable.

Here's an interesting quote:

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it.


Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Cooper Union

The proposition that there is never any connection between speech and violence is patently absurd.  The proposition that heated political rhetoric does not appear to have cause this assasination attempt is undisputed. 
I couldn't agree more.  There is often a connection between speech and violence, so we all have to be very careful about what we say.  Many years ago I worked with a client of my firm very closely who was one of the most famous men in America and in a context of a scandal for his family, he told me how important he believes it to be to moderate his words.  Now, this was decades ago, before the Internet and so forth, but it was still good advice.

There is very heated rhetoric and it's dangerous.  I was one who worried that someone would take up the cause and kill President Bush or that someone still might engage in an act of violence against him or even a member of the Palin family.  That would be awful, as would someone on the left being injured or worse due to words from the right.

The problem I have with this whole discussion is this presumption that hot political rhetoric leads to violence.

Gabrielle Giffords' office was vandalized right after the health care vote, as were the offices of some other Democrats who voted for the bill. Is this not an example of hot political rhetoric leading to violence?

How about the murder of abortion providers? Abortion foes repeatedly call these doctors "babykillers." Some abortion foes put up lists of abortion providers, with their addresses and with strikethroughs on the ones who have already been murdered. When George Tiller was murdered in his church last year, he was still recovering from a previous gunshot wound. Is THIS an example of political rhetoric leading to violence?

OK, let's get obvious here. Hutus & Tutsis in Rwanda. Surely everyone can agree that was political rhetoric that led to violence.

Any discussion of what Sarah Palin said, how she said it, the words she used, the timing of her speech, or that she made a speech at all misses the most important point of the entire climate of hate discussion by the widest possible margin.

There is no connection whatsoever between Sara Palin, conservatives, conservatism, or politics of any kind and the tragedy in Tuscon. This is a mental health issue, and that's all. Any connection to anything political is purely incidental, certainly can't be connect to the right or the left. As Jon Stewart said, "you cannot outsmart crazy. You don't know what a troubled mind will get caught on."

Any suggestion that there is such a connection is shamefully, disgustingly, reprehensibly irresponsible and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

The most important point, in terms of the climate of hate discussion, is that the tragedy in Tucson has shined the light of day on the sick, twisted, logic (sic) of the left that resulted in its inexplicable rush to judgment and condemnation of the right in the total and absolute absence of any evidence whatsoever. Speaking of mental health, there's something wrong with a mentality that would do that.

If any apologies are owed, they are owed by anyone who made such a connection; and those people are all on the left.

The problem I have with this whole discussion is this presumption that hot political rhetoric leads to violence. It may lead to bad grammar and incoherent expressions of the common will; it may lead to high blood pressure in those that have an opposing ideology; it may lead to community organizing or political protests for those that have extra time on their hands; but there is absolutely no evidence that it leads to physical violence.

Just as I do not believe that the Koran, the communist manifesto or the bible lead to the violent acts committed by violent or unbalanced people that lay claim to those ethical standards, I do not believe that political rhetoric in a democratic society leads to acts of mass murder. Bad conscience and sociopathic adaptations lead to these acts...in every case.

This morning, NPR (now having to walk-back their early reportage after Obama stepped on their conspiracy theories and not even the most tenuous facts could bear them out) did a report on the FBI's long term investigation of assassination attempts. Their findings: not one was caused by the politics or even ideology of the perp. Just as in this most recent mass-murder/assassination attempt the perp has no discernable ideology. There are reports that he held both right and left wing political views. He's a psychological mess looking for notoriety. Nothing more... as many of us said right from the beginning. It should have been everyone's default position. Instead, the default position is to heighten the political rhetoric when protesting heightened political rhetoric, but even that is normal and understandable and no-one is likely to comitt and act of violence because of it. It's all talk.

It's rare I find myself agreeing with Jon Stewart, but I did throughout his extended commentary on the subject on his show.

Jon Stewart got it right on The Daily Show:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/290333-jon-stewart-i-wouldnt-blame-our-political-rhetoric-for-the-tucson-shooting-any-more-than-i-would-blame-heavy-metal-music-for-columbine/

You know, we live in a complex ecosystem of influences and motivations, and I wouldn't blame our political rhetoric any more than I would blame heavy metal music for Columbine. And by the way, that is coming from somebody who truly hates our political environment. It is toxic, it is unproductive, but to say that that is what has caused this, or that the people in that are responsible for this, I just don't think you can do it.

Boy, would that be nice. Boy, would it be nice to be able to draw a straight line of causation from this horror to something tangible, because then we could convince ourselves that if we just stop this, the horrors will end. You know, to have the feeling, however fleeting, that this type of event can be prevented forever. But it's hard not to feel like it can't. You know, you cannot outsmart crazy. You don't know what a troubled mind will get caught on. Crazy always seems to find a way. It always has.

^got it Bogney...you don't blame Palin, but you do. Is it a left brain/right brain thing that most libs can't just give a straight answer and love to talk in circles?

Cardinal Fang wrote:

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It's not so much that Palin used the term "blood libel." That was an unforced error-- her staff should have known that using such a loaded term would draw attention away from her message. But the real problem was the message itself. Reading the transcript of the speech, my son remarked, "She's incapable of not picking a fight." This was not the time to pick a fight.On a day set aside for mourning the victims of a horrible massacre, it's not all about her. The entire speech seemed a petty response to such an atrocity.

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I assume you will, very quickly, renounce the actions of the left wing media that is shown in winchester's post?

 

Sarah Palin can't not pick a fight?
Sarah Palin is petty?

The audacity (or the stupidity, take your pick) of those sentiments is stunningly beyond belief.

The most blindingly obvious message that comes from Sarah Palin's statement is the fact that the sick twisted minds on the left put her into the position of having to defend herself at all. Any criticism of her words is little more than a "deck chairs on the Titanic" style disctraction from the reprehensible behavior of the left. 

If there is a climate of hate in America then one need look no further for its origins than the left's almost instantaneous, thoughtless, knee-jerk vilification of the right in response to the the tragedy in Tuscon, for which there is no possible credible defense.

Within hours of the shooting, and with no evidence whatsoever to support their claims, the left began pointing fingers at the right in general and Sara Palin in particular:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703667904576072840602094576.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

At 2:28 p.m. ET Saturday, from David Fitzsimmons at the Arizona Daily Star:

the right in Arizona, and I'm speaking very broadly, has been stoking the fire of heated anger and rage successfully in this state. And, you know, it's just stunning when you consider Congresswoman Giffords's positions on the issues. She is a centrist. She is a moderate. And I don't know who the shooter is--have no idea who the shooter is--but what could possibly motivate an individual to be enraged against, or to take down, a moderate centrist? To me that just paints a picture of how off the mark the politics of this state have grown.

At 3:22 p.m. Saturday, Paula Krugmann in the New York Times:

We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She's been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she's a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist.

By 4:23 on Saturdy, less than three hours after news of the shooting broke, Keith Olberman and Daily Koz founder Markos Moulitsas had both pointed the finger at Sarah Palin:

“If Sarah Palin … does not repudiate her own part, however tangential, in amplifying violence and violent imagery in American politics, she must be dismissed from politics, she must be repudiated by the members of her party,” MSNBC’s liberal commentator Keith Olbermann said Saturday on a special edition of his program, who went on to target comments by Fox News’ Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.

“If they fail to do so, each one of them must be judged to have silently defended this tactic that today proves so awfully foretelling, and they in turn must be dismissed by the responsible members of their own party,” Olbermann said.

The Palin criticism started shortly after the shooting, when liberal blogger and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas fired off a series of tweets citing the Palin website that targeted Giffords’ health reform vote.
“Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin,” Kos tweeted of the website soon after word of the shooting broke.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47252.html

Note the dates and times. This is just sick:




-- Edited by winchester on Thursday 13th of January 2011 03:45:07 PM

Well she didn't ask to be put into the whole situation, did she?

Alan Dershowitz Defends Sara Palin's Use of Term 'Blood Libel'


The term “blood libel” has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse. Although its historical origins were in theologically based false accusations against the Jews and the Jewish People,its current usage is far broader. I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report. There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of using this widely used term.



http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/01/12/exclusive-alan-dershowitz-defends-sarah-palins-use-of-term-blood-libel/

They're already doing physical therapy on Giffords! This is amazing.

I was thinking the same thing, zoosermom. I don't know how anyone could have done that without tears. Seems impossible.

I think he was struggling.  I really do.  How could he not?  Whatever I may agree with or disagree with the Obamas, there is no doubt that they adore their children.

Woody, I lost my sister when I was almost eight.  I didn't understand a lot of what went on at the time, but the core of my personality is the soul-deep knowledge that people go out of the house and don't always come back, that the loss of a child isn't necessarily a rare or impossible thing, and that after the loss of a child life doesn't ever really go on.  This is why I am the worrier that I am and why I don't ever take allusions to murder or death lightly.  The events of my childhood have left me to live my life with the belief that there is a force in the world waiting every day to take my children and the only thing protecting them is my vigilance.  Of course, my rational mind knows that's not true, but what you learn in trauma and tragedy in your childhood tends to stay with you in the primal part of your mind.  So now you all know why I am so horrified by connecting an unconnected individual to the murder of other people.  In addition to the unfairness and unseemliness, I'm superstitious and believe that you don't want to call attention to yourself in a time like that because heaven only knows what might come back to you.  My mother always said that every ugly you do will come back to your children in some fashion.  So my objection isn't political, it's purely personal.

-- Edited by zoosermom on Thursday 13th of January 2011 07:29:30 AM

I was thinking the same thing, zoosermom. I don't know how anyone could have done that without tears. Seems impossible.

It was just an objective nonpartisan parsing of your very clear intent!  "Palin free day" indeed.

-- Edited by Bogney on Wednesday 12th of January 2011 10:21:03 PM

Really busdriver, advocating temporary kidnapping goes to far!  Have you learned nothing this week? 

That is what both parties say when they want the other side to stop talking about something.  If they really thought it would help them in the next election, they would encourage the conversation, not try to stop it. 

No problem.

I don't disagree with you that she may not have known what it meant (I'm not so sure about her speechwriter), but maybe she or her speechwriter should have taken the two minutes it would have taken to find out what an unfamiliar phrase actually means, just to avoid this kind of thing?

And it really isn't my fault, or the fault of anyone else who was upset about this, that her speech and that phrase became the focus of attention today before President Obama's speech.  It was her fault that she chose to put all the attention on herself by playing victim in that way.

You just don't get it.  All you're doing is displaying *your* proud ignorance of what the term means, not demonstrating that it doesn't have one accepted meaning that's been used for the last 1000 years.  Sure, it "could" have different meanings, but only to people who don't know what it means! What's next, saying it's AOK for her to compare herself to a Holocaust victim?   And have at least some respect for my integrity even if you're incapable of understanding what I'm saying.  If I knew anyone was using the term the way she did it I'd criticize them for exactly the same reason; stop assuming that everyone is so mendacious that they're willing to change their fundamental viewpoint on something as significant as this depending on what party the speaker belongs to. 


-- Edited by DonnaL on Wednesday 12th of January 2011 09:01:43 PM

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-- Edited by DonnaL on Wednesday 12th of January 2011 09:03:54 PM

-- Edited by DonnaL on Wednesday 12th of January 2011 09:04:36 PM

busdriver11 wrote:

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Yeah, let's just assume that Sarah Palin useage of the blood libel phrase meant the, "famous example of blood libel is the allegation that Jews kill Christian and Muslim children and use their blood to make Passover matzohs." Sure, right. Certainly more likely than using it to mean someone whom is falsely accused.

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Well, I'm tired of your silliness.  That's not an *example* of a blood libel, it *is* the blood libel.  It *doesn't* just mean "someone falsely accused."  She doesn't get to appropriate it and trivialize it  to turn herself into a victim.  Disgusting nonsense.

 

-- Edited by DonnaL on Wednesday 12th of January 2011 08:32:10 PM

I don't hold Sarah Palin responsible for the Tucson tragedy, but I do hold her accountable for her own words.  Same with Glenn Beck.  They, and all people with leadership roles, are accountable for their words and their actions.  Why did Beck make a big deal about the government taking away his children if he didn't give them flu shots?  (His solution was "meet Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson")  Where are the thousands of opponents to President Obama supposedly imprisoned in FEMA trailers?  Anyone missing any family members?  Anyone on medicare ever denied care because a government death panel wanted their family member to die?

These people posit a world in which the President's speech to little children at school is really some crazed attempt to brainwash them.  Or, as Limbaugh said the other day, a world where liberals were thrilled that all those poor victims were murdered in Arizona because it gave us a reason to blame Palin for something. 

I don't hold them accountable for Tucson absent any evidence at all; but I hold them accountable for painting a world that doesn't exist, but is so scary, and full of such imminent doom, that some insane individual in the future might feel it needs rectifying.  And yes, I do hold them accountable for constantly talking about guns as if that was the only way to keep your family safe from this enemy government.   Don't retreat, reload.  As so many of the signs read in an Arizon rally several months ago, "We didn't come armed. . . . this time". 

Woodwork, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that you weren't familiar with the term, because a number of commenters on a blog where I sometimes post acknowledged similar unfamilarity.  This was my comment there:

"I'm honestly surprised that so many people weren't familiar with that term. I've known about it since childhood, when I first started reading about Jewish history. As ---- says, I suppose the lack of familiarity is probably a product of not being Jewish, and of never learning anything about the history of anti-Semitism (largely because of the complete omission of Jews from most European history courses given in high school), and, very simply, the fact that so many people in the U.S. grow up in places where there are almost no Jewish people and they have no particular reason to know or learn anything about Jewish history.

If anything, I think the linked articles understate the persistence of the blood libel over the centuries (the lynching of Leo Frank in Marietta, Georgia in 1915 for allegedly murdering a Christian child [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...] can, I think, be deemed a modern manifestation of the blood libel myth), and the number of Jewish people who were killed because of it. Don't think the Nazis didn't propagate the myth too; the most notorious issue of Der Stürmer (Julius Streicher's grotesquely anti-Jewish rag, published in Germany from 1923-1945, which reached a circulation of almost half a million copies by the mid-1930's) was the one from 1934 that depicted "Ritual Murder" on the cover. The cover is reproduced at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... (warning for grotesque visual anti-Semitism), and depicts 8 blonde Aryan maidens hanging upside down with blood spurting from them, and two repulsively caricatured Jews standing beneath them, one wielding a large bloodstained knife and the other catching the sprays of blood in a large tray drawn to look like some kind of ritual object.

I think there's one implication of Palin's use of the phrase (if it's parsed out) that I'm not sure has been mentioned specifically here. While the "blood libel" itself was a horrendous manifestation of anti-Semitism, the actual *term* "blood libel" is not anti-Semitic, because, by referring to it as a "libel," it necessarily implies that the myth is false. Therefore, I think what's really being done by whoever wrote that speech, and by other people on the right who've recently used the term, is to imply that Christian conservatives are the innocent Jewish victims of today, being persecuted by means of the propagation of falsehood by evil liberals and the media.  (And, ahem, we all know who controls the media, right? There's at least arguably a "dog whistle" in that direction.) 

Whether one calls the use of the phrase in that sense anti-Semitic or not, it's undoubtedly an appropriation of victim status and a despicable trivialization of the real "blood libel," an attempt to draw a parallel between two things that aren't even in the same universe (even assuming for the sake of argument that she's correct that right-wing rhetoric didn't contribute to the creation or exacerbation of a culture of violent imagery that may have influenced what happened). As such, it's reprehensible in effect if not in intent. (Not that her personal intent really matters so very much here, but I highly doubt that Ms. Palin has any idea what the term "blood libel" signifies; her speechwriter probably did lift it from that article by that law professor in Tennessee, whose use of the term was equally reprehensible.  But if she didn't know what it meant and was the least bit curious, how long would it have taken her, or someone on her behalf, to look it up?) 

It's all disgusting, and quite upsetting to me as the child of a Holocaust survivor who grew up in Berlin and was 10 years old when Hitler came to power; my mother was all too familiar with Der Stürmer, because, in addition to its paid circulation, every issue was on public display in thousands of specially-built wood and glass kiosks all over Germany. When I was young and she would see an anti-Semitic image, she almost always said something like "ugh, it reminds me of Der Stürmer."

And I think the fact that Rep. Giffords herself is Jewish makes Palin's reference even more inappropriate.  Effectively, it places Ms. Palin, instead of Rep. Giffords and the other people who were shot, at the center of the story as the "real" victim.

Also, did anyone notice the blatant contradiction in her words, namely the statement "journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn"?  So,  Palin's (and so many of her compatriots') violent political rhetoric about guns and bullseyes and reloading -- the kind of rhetoric which Rep. Giffords herself said she found disturbing -- couldn't possibly incite or influence hatred and violent acts? But the very act of criticising such rhetoric does incite hatred and violence? Hunh?? Talk about upside-down logic!"









-- Edited by DonnaL on Wednesday 12th of January 2011 04:13:24 PM

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-- Edited by DonnaL on Wednesday 12th of January 2011 04:16:01 PM