Tucson And The Political Debate

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That really gets to the heart of the matter. The paranioa is already there; it's latent in our society. These people have tapped into it and use it, exploit it, to futher themselves and their careers. They didn't create it, but they continue to promote it so they can use it to their advantage.

Much like you, DR, I have little time, nor patience for their apologists. I can see them for what they are, regardless of how much their apologists bleat and whine about it. And I'm in no way referring to you, LKD, with that statement.

 

I missed it last night, but just finished watching it. I'm a puddle right now after watching that. It's moments like this that remind us Americans, in spite of our many differences, that we will unite and support each other in the face of tragedy. Makes me proud to be a US citizen.

Thanks for the link Aldeth.

 

Thank you, Chandos. It's a matter of frequency and legitimacy. The left has it's loons and conspiracy peddlers, God knows - but they are by and large treated as such. There is simply no liberal equivalent to Glenn Beck, in tone, popularity, degree of inaccuracy or fearmongering. Rachel Maddow just doesn't compare in any of those categories. I'm not unreceptive to conservative complaints about her, as long as they're accurate. And she's no Beck.

I'm uncomfortable labeling people 'apologists,' and respect and appreciate reasonable disagreement - but the passage you highlighted is key to my point. Thanks.

 

I also have no way of knowing that the universe didn't spawn when a 7-year-old girl smashed her piggie bank open for ice-cream money in another universe. Since when did you believe things simply because you couldn't absolutely prove them wrong? Especially before there had even been any investigation of the facts?

Here, we agree.

And again, you're wrong. What I said there was that the difference between a private citizen hanging a politician in effigy and a politician shooting a comercial where he shoots his gun at imaginary enemies (as an example) is that the politician is expected to go overboard. The citizen isn't. I never said that either was Ok, just that you had it backwards in thinking the private citizen's action is less alarming than the politician's.

Excuse me, you're right. I should have said 'trying to understand', because that's where you consistently fail. You make gross assumptions about what I post, inserting positions I don't hold, and then try to debate me with them.

And you're right that Chandos started this thread with the intent of this discussion. I'm sorry I criticized that. I think it's in terrible taste, but I should be the one starting a thread if I want a different discussion, not you. I'm just so disgusted by the way the left has hijacked this tragedy for politics.

 

And again, you miss the point, and it's you who has it completely backwards. It is inappropriate and tasteless in either case, on that we agree. But one is obviously more relevant and alarming than another.

I am a private citizen. No one is going to vote for me. I hold no office. I have no duty, obligation or responsibility to tell the truth, answer to constituents or temper my words so that they don't incite panic, hatred or violence (or even be construed as a call to either). In fact, I am protected by the 1st amendment to do all those things to my heart's content (with the exception of inciting violence). Politicians have power. They have influence. They are figures of authority. They are sworn to uphold the public trust. They go on TV. They go on the radio. They effect our nation's laws. They have a say when we go to war. They are the public's representatives and therefore command the public's trust and attention when they run their mouth. In short, when I say "Obama is a tyrannical socialist," it carries little to no weight, and few will care. But when an elected U. S. Congressman does, it carries a LOT of weight, and what's more, people will listen.

It is the politician, then, who is not only expected but has a duty NOT to go overboard. They are, after all, supposed to be leaders. The adults in the room. Which is why we despise them so much when they aren't.

Honestly surprised that I had to explain that.

 

People should certainly be allowed to express an opinion.



Even if some don't agree.

 

While opinionated Maddow is rather sober in the presentations of her case; she largely gets her facts right. Olbermann is partisan, hyperbolic and pompous, but he is not delusional.

In sharp contrast, Beck is as if he is on coke, speed and LSD at the same time. And who else do we have? Rush Limbaugh? Anne Coulter? Sean Hannity? Bill O'Reilly? Michelle Malkin? Pam Geller? Need I continue? There simply is no equivalent to these folks.

 

I only bleat on special occasions, Chandos!

No argument from me that on a moral basis the rhetoric and wild accusations need to be turned down. That crap helps no one.

 

And my point is that the people who listen aren't the problem. You or I, if we hear that Obama is a terrorist, won't do anything. Because we are rational, thinking people who can take that claim and disect it. The risk is the fringe people, who typically don't make it to office, and often have issues with those who do. Let me ask you this: historically, how many assassinations have been prompted by rhetoric like this? I don't mean how many assassins have been hired by groups that spoke like that, I mean the lone gunman, or small organization, acting on it's own, that is inspired by this kind of talk. Now, at the same time, how many assassins have put out their own extremist rhetoric? Given that ratio, which do you think is the behavior to watch?

This is where you and I disagree. Ideally, sure, they should, but I think we're so far from elected officials acting like mature adults (and have been at least since a president diddled his aid in the oval office, though I think we were well down hill before that), that actually applying that standard to the real world is guaranteed to cause a train wreck.

From what I've seen, Beck also generally get's his facts right. He just selects very carefully what facts he wants to use to base his opinions on and what he wants to ignore. So does Maddow.

 

If I recall Beck's pathetic and extremely sleazy smear job on George Soros, he does not get his facts right. And when Beck takes real dates and real facts and uses them to concoct a noxious stew of delusion and paranoia out of it, it doesn't matter that before they went into the stew the ingredients were 'factually correct' - because the stew certainly isn't.

That is something Maddow does not do. Maddow is definitely opinionated, but she is not manipulative and deceptive - much unlike Beck - the two cannot reasonably be considered "two sides of the same coin', not by a long, long shot. Come to think of it, she isn't petty and histrionic (I could go on but won't) either.

 

NOG, I won't quote your last responses because my answer is pretty much the same for each. Essentially, you may see things that way, and that's your right. But as is often the case, that isn't the reality. Not about the rhetoric, or the role of politicians, and especially about Glenn Beck (his biggest and most frequent complaint is not that he's conservative or bombastic, but that, in fact, he routinely misinforms his viewers, particularly on matters of American history, demonstrably so, and NEVER corrects himself - which is why so many historians hate his guts). The reality is damn-near the opposite of how you see it, in fact. I'll leave it to someone else to explain in detail if they so feel inclined, but I'm tired of having to go to such excruciating effort just to get simple points across to you that you eventually end up conceding anyway.

Where is Drew when you need him...

 

I'd say that O'reilly and Maddow (or perhaps Olberman) could be said to be two sides of the same coin but Beck? No frigging way. I've watched some clips of him (on foxnews btw so they were surely not out of context) and he's downright crazy. The apocalyptic bs he spews is unlike anything I've seen anywhere before besides some crazy doomsday prophets on the street. How the guy has any place in mainstream media is beyond me.

 

He's a showman. The more outlandish he becomes, the more his followers admire and watch him. When he was on CNN a few years back he was not nearly as bad, but FOX is a different story.

The real difference between O'Reilly and Maddow is in style; Rachel is a sweetheart, while O'Reilly is a bully. Maddow treats guests on her program, even those who disagree with her, pretty well, while those on O'Reilly who disagree can expect to be called a "pinhead" and expect a pretty rough time. But that's his style. Note that O'Reilly isn't quite that way with Jon Stewart when they appear on each other's programs together. He knows that Stewart knows how to fight back, and at the same level, if he needs to.

 

I admit I don't watch much Maddow, but her coverage of the Tea Party movement clearly was just as skewed and willfully distorting of facts. A slim statistical difference became a mass uprising of armed old religious white men that, the way she described them, were basically the KKK reinvented. The few interviews of hers I've watched have always ended up with her talking over the interviewee and basically forcing her opinion to be the only discussion, with no room for correction or explanation.

---------- Added 16 hours, 17 minutes and 6 seconds later... ----------

DR, I realize now that I haven't spelled this out for you clearly, and it may be impacting the discussion and your beliefs concerning this guy. The more we know about this guy the more it looks like he has schizophrenia. Again, that's not a formal diagnosis (though I imagine there will be a formal diagnosis of something at some point), but it's looking stronger and stronger. What I've been basing much of my arguement on is this: schizophrenia is primarily a genetic disorder. If you have the gene, you will be schizophrenic. We don't know exactly what makes the difference between the different types of schizophrenia, but there's no particular evidence that environment plays a factor. Environment may guide your delusions, i.e. whether he targeted a representative or the next door neighbor, and stress in your personal environment can speed onset and make things worse, but even having someone constantly tell you that people are after you and trying to kill you can't make you schizophrenic. Schizophrenics don't 'snap'.

 

And this is why debating you is so frustrating. No one - especially me - has made the argument that the environment or rhetoric MADE this guy a schizo. You complain that I "consistently fail" to understand your arguments but evidently you can't be bothered to read or understand mine before running your mouth off. He already was a schizo, obviously. When someone "snaps" it doesn't mean they suddenly go from sane to crazy. It means they are driven to act. Like Richard Poplosky, the man who killed 3 cops in Pittsburg last year because he sincerely believed Obama had sent them to his house to take his guns away. Remember him? The story made national headlines. Armed to the teeth, prone to conspiracy theories, highly influenced by Glenn Beck, snapped, killed 3 innocent people. Do you get it? The reason I am so concerned that rhetoric like Beck's may lead unstable people to commit acts of violence is because it has already f*cking happened. And the evidence that this kind of nutty, apocalyptic rhetoric is convincing even non-crazy people to over-react in extremely troubling ways is simply overwhelming. This is not merely my opinion, or the way I see it. Reality. And as I said before, on most subjects the way you "see it" and the reality rarely match up.

 

Absolutely off-topic, but why put someone on an ignore list? Why not just not respond (which I have done recently, other than to make more off-topic (and smart-ass) remarks).?

 

It actually works pretty well. Once things get to point that they become too personal, it's best for everyone. I can only speak for myself and not DR's situation, but there are some people I chose not to have contact with. It's not so much about point of view but personal preference and choice.

 

You argued that the rhetoric 'contributed to an atmosphere in which violence becomes more likely' in a discussion about a violent event. I take that to mean that you think this rhetoric 'contribute to an atmosphere in which this violence becomes more likely'. Your whole 'where there's smoke, there's fire' argument is saying that 'rhetoric like this makes people like that snap' (I admit I'm paraphrasing that last bit). And even if you don't directly blame the right, there are sitting congressmen who do. So don't tell me that 'no one', or even 'no one that matters', is blaming the right.

And this is why I say you don't understand the situation. I have seen nothing to indicate that Poplowski was schizophrenic. He was paranoid, yes, but he seems to have come by it by the honest, neo-NAZI white-supremecist road (and I see only a glancing connection with Beck in the reports), not schizophrenia. Yes, he could snap. My whole point is that schizophrenics don't suddenly act without warning. They gradually build up, and then roll into action. Loughner didn't wake up Saturday morning and decide to kill Rep. Giffords. He had been planning it for months at least.

IF you are only trying to say that violent rhetoric may inspire some extremists to action that wouldn't have acted anyway, I'll agree. They're rare, but I'll agree. Your 'timeline' link isn't much help, though. It seems just about every person who actually acted in violence in there was a neo-NAZI white supremecist. I've got news for you: they would be on edge whether anyone on the right told them to or not.

What really irks me, though, is your apparent continued insistance that those who are insane are just a step further along the same spectrum as those who are extremists. They aren't. They're not even apples and oranges. They're cyanide and sulphur dioxide. They're both bad, but beyond that there's little in common. Loughner didn't act (99.999% sure) because of some target on a map. He didn't act (99.999% sure) because Beck told him Obama would take his guns away. I don't know what exactly his motives were, but I can all but assure you it involved his madness, which probably means a secret second US Constitution, illegal schools controlling children's minds, and the like. I can also tell you that, whatever his reasoning, it started at least in 2007, if not earlier. From that point on, he was set on a path that would lead to him trying to kill Rep. Giffords. That means Palin at the least is entirely out of the picture, as she didn't even come on the scene until late 2008. And I doubt Beck was talking about Giffords back in 2007. And that's even assuming Loughner listened to Beck, which I highly doubt.

It seems it's not me who's having trouble with reality.


Splunge,
I just don't pay them any attention, but I can understand some people prefering just not to see it at all. I'm assuming that's how it works.

 

It seems to me there's a lot of hair splitting going on. Pretty much by definition a person who would murder another is insane. I've alway thought the "insanity defense" was ... well ... insane.

 

That may be your definition, but it's not the legal one. Psychologists don't actually have a definition of insane, but a few mental disorders mimic the legal definition at times.

Greed, jealousy, hate, all these things and more can lead a 'sane' man to kill another, and we don't let them get off for it. Thinking the man being murdered is, in fact, a demon from the underworld who eats children is another matter. Or worse, thinking he's a block of wood that you're carving into a little horsey.