Congresswoman and 17 others shot in Arizona

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by evman150

The apologists in this thread are embarrassing.

Apologists? Who?

[nik-]

Originally Posted by evman150

The apologists in this thread are embarrassing.

did you post this in the wrong thread?

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by evman150

The apologists in this thread are embarrassing.

What?

Seriously? Who is apologizing?

[Reggie Dunlop]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

The graphic was from the election campaign that ended November 4th. I think if someone was going to be inspired to kill by it they would have back when it was on the front page.

The Congresswomen was calling for a crackdown on illegal immigration. Perhaps someone thought she was betraying her party.

LOL. A lot of American political discourse is framed in firearm and war analogies.

[Acey]

9 year old girl is confirmed dead.

[BigBrodieFan]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Yeah, if you browse other forums that are mainly populated by Americans, none of them are making the same type of comments about this incident as you see in this thread. No sir, not at all. It's only us Canadians who have a very warped sense of the American reality who are thinking that the shooting of a congresswoman might be politically motivated.

If the shooter was 'politically motivated' to kill congress people- it doesn't take away the fact that he's a crazy nutcase. I don't like the phrase 'politically motivated' because it implicates other people. This guy's youtube talks about literacy and people in District 8 being illiterate- and 'conscience dreaming.' Nutcase. No one's fault but his own.

If he wanted to kill someone, he should have shot himself.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Acey

I preach to people the reliability of Twitter for breaking news vs conventional media, but today Twitter has been entirely unreliable.

Any medium is only as reliable as its sources. As the media was not able to make up its mind on the facts, every site from Twitter to Wikipedia has suffered the same confusion.

As far as the motivations go, when a political figure is targeted, the first thought is always going to be that the shooting was politically motivated. I can't think of any other time an assassination attempt was carried out by spree shooting, however. It will be interesting to find out from the gunman what his motivations were.

[evman150]

Calgarybornagain is predictably trying to pass the buck from a crazed right-wingnut to anybody else.

"Apologist" is obviously an exaggeration, but gimme a break - this is a crazy ex-army moron who decided to go off on a liberal Arizona representative and her staff - coincidence? Left-wingers angry at her immigration stance did it? It was a random killing by an army idiot at a publicized political event led by a liberal representative? Random?

Calling it anything less than at least personally politically motivated is ridiculous.

[MRCboicgy]

So IF that's the shooter's youtube channel, then he's one crazy dude. I just watched (read?) all of his videos and yeah, tinfoil hat.

My guess is life in prison on a mental grounds.

[Calgaryborn]

It is amazing that this fellow wasn't shot before he got that many rounds off.

[GirlySports]

A congressman in the states must be one of the most thankless politician jobs out there.
Only a 2-year term, flying back and forth from DC, solving problems and putting up with all sorts of crap.

MP in Canada is much easier.

[J pold]

Paul Krugman's take:

You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...NytimesKrugman

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by evman150

Calling it anything less than at least personally politically motivated is ridiculous.

Jumping to conclusions is probably more ridiculous.

Calling the Anthrax attacks anything but Islamo-fascist terrorism used to be ridiculous too. Same with the DC sniper attacks.

I don't agree with everything calgaryborn said (or says) but I do think those that are jumping to the conclusion that this guy tried to kill Congresswoman Giffords because of political differences are being a little hasty. Not saying they're wrong.

[RougeUnderoos]

Watching FOX -- that adorable Shep Smith is reading some sort of note from this guy. He's crazy alright. Sounds like a combination of "late night talk radio" crazy and "right wing gun nut" crazy, with a little sprinkling of all that "the currency isn't backed by gold and is a sham" crazy.

The crazy hat-trick.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by J pold

Paul Krugman's take:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...NytimesKrugman

How about both parties take a stand against it.

The rhetoric and hatred lobbed at Bush, to this day, is disgusting.

I know the GOP has a bigger voice with talk radio, but BOTH parties need to tone it down and come together. This is the whole reason I voted for Obama, I thought he had the best chance to make that happen of all the candidates. I was obvioulsy wrong.

[Acey]

From his now deleted myspace

[evman150]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

Jumping to conclusions is probably more ridiculous.

Calling the Anthrax attacks anything but Islamo-fascist terrorism used to be ridiculous too. Same with the DC sniper attacks.

I understand this, and to some extent I agree. But I feel this scenario is very different.

If Obama's shot in the head, should we still avoid "jumping to conclusions" about the shooter's motives?

This woman represents all that is Obama in Arizona. Could it be random? Of course. What are the chances of it being random? <1% IMO.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

How about both parties take a stand against it.

The rhetoric and hatred lobbed at Bush, to this day, is disgusting.

I know the GOP has a bigger voice with talk radio, but BOTH parties need to tone it down and come together. This is the whole reason I voted for Obama, I thought he had the best chance to make that happen of all the candidates. I was obvioulsy wrong.

It's hard to come together when the political campaign for the next presidential election basically starts the day after the last one. Everything done today is about looking ahead to who will win 2012, not about what's best for the country.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Watching FOX -- that adorable Shep Smith is reading some sort of note from this guy. He's crazy alright. Sounds like a combination of "late night talk radio" crazy and "right wing gun nut" crazy, with a little sprinkling of all that "the currency isn't backed by gold and is a sham" crazy.

The crazy hat-trick.

Awesome crazy.

But just crazy. I know a few people who think like that. They don't go around shooting people though.

[MarchHare]

I don't agree with everything calgaryborn said (or says) but I do think those that are jumping to the conclusion that this guy tried to kill Congresswoman Giffords because of political differences are being a little hasty. Not saying they're wrong.

I don't think anyone in this thread has said with certainty that the shootings were politically motivated, only that it's a possible cause. In particular, it's not much of a stretch to think that someone who was already mentally unhinged might have been influenced by extremist right-wing rhetoric from the likes of Sarah Palin calling on "American patriots" to "reload" and "take aim" at Rep. Giffords and other Democrats.

Now obviously Palin was not calling for political assassinations, and no reasonable person would think that. Unfortunately, people who go on shooting sprees are not reasonable people, so there's a chance they may take her words literally. Is that what happened here? We don't know yet. Is it conceivable and worthy of discussion that this could potentially be the motive for the muders? Absolutely.