Originally Posted by Galen

I have learned from personal experience that the sort of people who infest governments are those who can be least trusted with any sort of power.

By some estimates there have been as many as 150 million people killed by governments, often their own, during wars or genocides in the twentieth century. You know, the sort of things that make people Stalin, Mao and Hitler infamous. I expect that many of those people thought the same thing: It can't happen here.

None of that has the slightest bearing on guns. Individuals with guns cannot stop a tyranny, although yes people seem to think so. It's not so.

Talk about "contempt." "Governments" is a broad term, and our government with its many serious flaws is not that of a Hitler, Stalin or Mao. People who "infest" governments are also people. Most are interested in public service. The most untrustworthy folks in our society are those who have lots of money. They are the ones with power, and who buy power. They are the ones who can't be trusted. People in our government answer to us. It's up to us to keep them working for us (well, I guess that means they can't be "trusted" either, in a sense; or you could say, "trust, but verify" to quote your hero).

Libertarians or whatever you call yourselves, you are extremely gullible to think that people with lots of money can be trusted.

Originally Posted by playwrite

maybe your concern for jizzing is a deep psychological projection?

PW, I have to agree with you. Why a couple here are so determined to connect the girl with "jizzing" is disturbing. I imagine it is not what you meant, and it is certainly not what I meant by commenting with the pics. For good or ill the girl is now a symbol. In my specific case a symbol of what an incredible shame this all is.

Sarah Palin is also a symbol. I think she is detestable in most ways, but as symbol I must admit she is easy on the eyes.

And that map she created is quite the symbol. Some can deny its implications all they want -- its a free country -- but to dimiss it as utterly harmless fun seems unreasonable to me.

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

And that map she created is quite the symbol. Some can deny its implications all they want -- its a free country -- but to dimiss it as utterly harmless fun seems unreasonable to me.

Oh but they were "surveyor's symbols". Haven't you heard?

Originally Posted by Tone70

Oh but they were "surveyor's symbols". Haven't you heard?

Yes. Disingenuousness at its finest. But far be it from me to repudiate it.

I found this reasonable, and even comforting.

http://www.gettysburg.edu/news_event...dot?id=2864657

**FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY**


Arizona Shootings: "Civil War can teach us about political restraint"


Gettysburg College Civil War Era Prof. Allen Guelzo authored the following opinion piece that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on Jan. 10.


The past year in U.S. politics has been full of more alienation and polarization than at any time since 1861, all of it now capped off in the Arizona shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. As in 1861, today's divide has opened up over a single deep question. But this fundamental collision of values doesn't mean violence is inevitable.

One hundred and fifty years ago, American passions over politics blew off the lids we usually keep in place on our political debates and turned a war of words into a war of arms. By its end, the US Civil War had taken the lives of 620,000 Americans - the population equivalent of 6 million today. And despite the emancipation of more than 3 million slaves, the war ended up replacing slavery with a century's worth of racist Jim Crow laws.


The reasons for war were many and complicated, but the fundamental issue was how to define liberty. "We all declare for liberty," Abraham Lincoln said in 1864, but after that, all similarity evaporated. "With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor," Lincoln said.


Four years of war finally settled that question.


I have the uneasy sensation, however, that the lids are rattling again. The past year in US politics has been full of more alienation and polarization than at any time since 1861, all of it now capped off hellishly in the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona. And just as in 1861, that divide has opened up over a single deep question. Then, the question was "What makes for liberty?" In 2011, it is "What makes for justice?"


A fundamental collision of values
This is why the political battles over specific policies have become so intense - because they are all linked to a fundamental collision of values about justice. The new health-care law, for example, is not merely another entitlement; it springs from a new way of understanding what justice is, and thus it ends up entirely rewriting the relationship of citizens to the state. Likewise with "don't ask, don't tell" and gay marriage. These are not merely variations on sexuality and marriage; because they represent an entirely new way of thinking about human nature, they bring into question our understanding of what Jefferson called "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." Today's passions are not merely the irritations of marginalized people with too much religion, too much talk radio, or too many guns. They are the sign of political pots ready to blow the lids off democracy.


Still, if it's the fundamental clash over justice that really is making the lids rattle, there is nothing that makes their blowing off inevitable. Even allowing for that vast gulf in understanding of a fundamental concept like liberty, Northerners and Southerners discovered in the Civil War how alike they still were. The Confederacy adopted a Constitution that was a virtual replica of the US Constitution. Southerners fought to defend a slave system, but privately nursed terrifying doubts about its rightness. Billy Yank and Johnny Reb fraternized across the battle lines. After General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, General Grant introduced Lee to his military secretary, Col. Ely S. Parker, a full-blooded Seneca sachem. "I am glad at last to meet a real American," Lee remarked. "General Lee," Parker said softly, "we are all Americans."

Remembering that likeness in 1861 could have pulled us back from the abyss that our great struggle over liberty was moving us toward.
If Southerners could have admitted their own doubts about slavery more freely; if Northerners could have recognized that ending slavery was not as easy as throwing a switch and that some process was needed (as Lincoln said) "by which the two races could gradually live themselves out of their old relation to each other, and both come out better prepared for the new"; if we had remembered that we were warring over liberty in front of a hostile world audience that hoped both sides would lose - then we might not have been so eager to poke sticks into one another's eyes, and slavery could have been dismantled without walking across the broken glass of Reconstruction.


The need for prudence
Such prudence would serve us well today - and all the more because we know in 2011 how very much it cost us in 1861. Lincoln's injunction from his first inaugural address comes back to us: "My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject."


He appealed to the "mystic chords of memory" that bound us together, and he pleaded for "a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people." Even in 1865, he avoided provocation by locating the causes of the war, not in a failure of democracy or on the shoulders of the Southerners, but in the will of God.


Think before we push the envelope one more time, before we stoke one more fire for partisan gain, before we invent one more ideological sneer whose outcome merely feeds our self-righteousness. See the beam in your own eye before demanding a court order to remove the splinter in your brother's. Realize that the slowness of our constitutional system is not a cause for impatience, but a wise and de¬liberate way to induce self-restraint and reflection.


Democracy lives by reason and persuasion, not by statute or decree. Its purpose is not to give us what we want, but to free us to do what we should. In 1861, we learned those lessons in a singularly hard way. Today, "from every battle field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land," our Civil War sesquicentennial should teach them to us again.

Originally Posted by wiki
Nazism (Nationalsozialismus, National Socialism; alternatively spelled Naziism[1]) was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] It was a unique variety of fascism that involved biological racism and antisemitism.[10] Nazism presented itself as politically syncretic, incorporating policies, tactics and philosophies from right- and left-wing ideologies; in practice, Nazism was a far right form of politics.[11]

Originally Posted by wiki
[11]^ Fritzsche, Peter. 1998. Germans into Nazis. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; Eatwell, Roger, Fascism, A History, Viking/Penguin, 1996, pp. xvii-xxiv, 21, 26–31, 114–140, 352. Griffin, Roger. 2000. "Revolution from the Right: Fascism," chapter in David Parker (ed.) Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition in the West 1560-1991, Routledge, London.

Originally Posted by Tone70

I know it's just the first paragraph of a wiki, but I'm a lazy leftist reader.

You guys were arguing about Nazi's (Nazi's!) being right wing, right? They were also opportunistic corporatists. Saying otherwise is silly. No counter-factuals allowed either! Yes, as winners, the Nazi's would have ultimately shot everybody, even the businessmen. But in our timeline they were totally in cahoots with German industry. Were they committed capitalists? Of course not. But then again they weren't committed to much of anything other then control and extermination. All else was a matter of convienence.

Oh, and stop baiting Odin.

I didn't have time earlier but, I still wanted to address this.

The point I was trying to make before I was so "rudely" interrupted ("blocked") was that the Right/Left Paradigm is irrelevant in some of these instances.

Just as Tone so rightly pointed-out, some Govts use the Private Sector as a Means to their own Ends. Is that what defines them as "Right/Left"?

I was focusing on Odin's "Capitalism" definition, but again, does a Govt that uses the Private Sector as a Means to their own Ends defined correctly as "Pro/Anti-Capitalism"?

The definitions that One are using matter in an intellectual debate, otherwise it's just more talking past one another and thus problematic.

PoC67

PS: Please don't misconstue this as me saying that:
"Language equals Currency" to which Loghner was alluding.

I'd normally insert a quip here, but unfortunately, I find it currently(and most likely permenantly) "in-appropriate" i/r/t this Topic.

The reasons for war were many and complicated, but the fundamental issue was how to define liberty. "We all declare for liberty," Abraham Lincoln said in 1864, but after that, all similarity evaporated. "With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor," Lincoln said.

Four years of war finally settled that question.

I have the uneasy sensation, however, that the lids are rattling again. The past year in US politics has been full of more alienation and polarization than at any time since 1861, all of it now capped off hellishly in the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona. And just as in 1861, that divide has opened up over a single deep question. Then, the question was "What makes for liberty?" In 2011, it is "What makes for justice?"

I suggest that, again, the question is what makes for liberty, and Lincoln's definition is precisely appropriate for today. Free market economics is topic A. Some people think freedom means "for some men to do as they please with other men" (except we would also say women today). That's what the free marketers mean by freedom. Let businessmen do as they wish with other men. Do not regulate or tax "free enterprise." Let them take advantage of their customers, workers and environment; no questions asked. Let them have as much wealth and power as they can exploit from others. Define reasonable obligations to contribute to social needs as infringement of my freedom to keep all of my wealth, which is my primary goal in life. That is the Tea Party, and trickle-down economics, and that is the primary issue that divides us.

I suggest the issue may come down to this: why not go our separate ways? Why try to force two peoples to live together who don't want to? No need to shoot each other. If countries in Eastern Europe or even Africa can separate, mostly peacefully, why can't we?

For me it depends on how long the right-wing wants to hold onto its obstructionist insistence on its extreme agenda, and how long something like half or more of the people who vote, keep voting for it. A lower level of vitriol would be nice, and it would be nice if people would be willing to listen and work out mutual solutions to our disagreements. If both sides are willing, I think it can be done. It is clear Americans are ever more distrustful of the 2 political parties; party-line allegiance is waning.

Personally I don't see how those of us on the left cannot describe the situation as it is. We can't paper over the divide. If we can't heal it, we should be allowed to separate. Some of us want to go forward, and others want to go backward, in accord with these 2 definitions of freedom. The recent trend of people moving into blue and red regions according to their values should continue and accelerate, in that case.

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

I found this reasonable, and even comforting.
*
http://www.gettysburg.edu/news_event...dot?id=2864657
*
**FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY**
*
*
Arizona Shootings: "Civil War can teach us about political restraint"

*
Gettysburg College Civil War Era Prof. Allen Guelzo authored the following opinion piece that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on Jan. 10.
*
*
The past year in U.S. politics has been full of more alienation and polarization than at any time since 1861, all of it now capped off in the Arizona shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. As in 1861, today's divide has opened up over a single deep question. But this fundamental collision of values doesn't mean violence is inevitable.
*
One hundred and fifty years ago, American passions over politics blew off the lids we usually keep in place on our political debates and turned a war of words into a war of arms. By its end, the US Civil War had taken the lives of 620,000 Americans - the population equivalent of 6 million today. And despite the emancipation of more than 3 million slaves, the war ended up replacing slavery with a century's worth of racist Jim Crow laws.

*
The reasons for war were many and complicated, but the fundamental issue was how to define liberty. "We all declare for liberty," Abraham Lincoln said in 1864, but after that, all similarity evaporated. "With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor," Lincoln said.

*
Four years of war finally settled that question.

*
I have the uneasy sensation, however, that the lids are rattling again. The past year in US politics has been full of more alienation and polarization than at any time since 1861, all of it now capped off hellishly in the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona. And just as in 1861, that divide has opened up over a single deep question. Then, the question was "What makes for liberty?" In 2011, it is "What makes for justice?"

*
A fundamental collision of values
This is why the political battles over specific policies have become so intense - because they are all linked to a fundamental collision of values about justice. The new health-care law, for example, is not merely another entitlement; it springs from a new way of understanding what justice is, and thus it ends up entirely rewriting the relationship of citizens to the state. Likewise with "don't ask, don't tell" and gay marriage. These are not merely variations on sexuality and marriage; because they represent an entirely new way of thinking about human nature, they bring into question our understanding of what Jefferson called "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." Today's passions are not merely the irritations of marginalized people with too much religion, too much talk radio, or too many guns. They are the sign of political pots ready to blow the lids off democracy.

*
Still, if it's the fundamental clash over justice that really is making the lids rattle, there is nothing that makes their blowing off inevitable. Even allowing for that vast gulf in understanding of a fundamental concept like liberty, Northerners and Southerners discovered in the Civil War how alike they still were. The Confederacy adopted a Constitution that was a virtual replica of the US Constitution. Southerners fought to defend a slave system, but privately nursed terrifying doubts about its rightness. Billy Yank and Johnny Reb fraternized across the battle lines. After General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, General Grant introduced Lee to his military secretary, Col. Ely S. Parker, a full-blooded Seneca sachem. "I am glad at last to meet a real American," Lee remarked. "General Lee," Parker said softly, "we are all Americans."
*
Remembering that likeness in 1861 could have pulled us back from the abyss that our great struggle over liberty was moving us toward.
If Southerners could have admitted their own doubts about slavery more freely; if Northerners could have recognized that ending slavery was not as easy as throwing a switch and that some process was needed (as Lincoln said) "by which the two races could gradually live themselves out of their old relation to each other, and both come out better prepared for the new"; if we had remembered that we were warring over liberty in front of a hostile world audience that hoped both sides would lose - then we might not have been so eager to poke sticks into one another's eyes, and slavery could have been dismantled without walking across the broken glass of Reconstruction.

*
The need for prudence
Such prudence would serve us well today - and all the more because we know in 2011 how very much it cost us in 1861. Lincoln's injunction from his first inaugural address comes back to us: "My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject."

*
He appealed to the "mystic chords of memory" that bound us together, and he pleaded for "a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people." Even in 1865, he avoided provocation by locating the causes of the war, not in a failure of democracy or on the shoulders of the Southerners, but in the will of God.

*
Think before we push the envelope one more time, before we stoke one more fire for partisan gain, before we invent one more ideological sneer whose outcome merely feeds our self-righteousness. See the beam in your own eye before demanding a court order to remove the splinter in your brother's. Realize that the slowness of our constitutional system is not a cause for impatience, but a wise and de¬liberate way to induce self-restraint and reflection.

*
Democracy lives by reason and persuasion, not by statute or decree. Its purpose is not to give us what we want, but to free us to do what we should. In 1861, we learned those lessons in a singularly hard way. Today, "from every battle field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land," our Civil War sesquicentennial should teach them to us again.

Interesting that we are looking to the Civil War for lessons. *But I find his take on that war strange. *IMO it had nothing to do with liberty or justice. *It had to do with power and progress. *It was the agrarian age vs the industrial age, agrarian value systems used to justify economic necessities of that system vs industrial values used to justify their economic necessities.*

The south NEEDED serfs (ignorant and powerless to pick their cotton), and the north NEEDED factory workers (slightly educated, and paid barely enough to afford their products). *It was about power and progress, with a dash of democratic ideology used by both sides to justify their reality.

And as for northerners and southerners discovering how alike they were ... srsly?? *Is that why the north eviscerated the south and left it (and blacks) to lie in squalor, oppression and ignorance for 100 years. *We are going thru all this now because the Civil War made such a mess of things. *The only good this about this miserable rehash of the Civil War is that both blacks and southerners have come into their own, and the north lies in waste as it has lost it's industrial base. *

Unfortunately that's a good thing only because it redressed a wrong. *The "south" and "blacks" are still being portrayed as cartoonish plebs. *At least they were. *While blacks are still oppressed, I think they are starting to overcome the stereotypes. *And I will give Obama some props for that. *He personifies so many mighty white values (education, calm, conservative, cooperative, proper) that he makes the " south" (read white plebs) look like lunatic boobs. *It was not always so. *In the 60's it was blacks that were mad as hell and burning up the cities, terrifying everybody. *They have moved on.

But, thanks to Lee Atwaters southern strategy, southern values (traditional family, religion, independence, hatred of an american government that defeated them, and a gun culture machismo born of oppression) have been corrupted and used by the oligarchs to manipulate their votes and support an aristocratic agenda. *Reduce federal taxes on the super rich so that the fading middle class can pay higher city taxes, while the states go broke, education is supported by the lottery, and we throw everyone in jail so that our privatized prisons can make a profit??? *

Do you seriously think the aristos give a rats a** about creationism? *You think the aristos are teaching that to their children? *Do you think they give two hoots about abortion...well, yes to that one. *They'd rather female workers were all sterilized and have caused quite a ruckus in such third world areas as northern Mexico where the machinadoras are accused of forcing women to undergo sterilization so that they don't miss work. *But do they tell the plebs that, hell no. *It's all Jesus and guns they promote for our plebs. *And don't let's forget that mythical "Free Market" that has shipped our jobs away, monopolized the markets, and gambled away the worlds financial system. *Yeah, let's hear it for Ayn Rand.

It would be funny if I were rich. *Instead I am stuck here, reliving not only the civil war, but the 1930's depression, and some kind of weird Nazi revival ... And yeah I said Nazi. *Call it what is.**

All that being said, this awful tragedy in Tucson is strangely inspiring. *The Real American People there that day were wonderful. *The elderly teacher that took a little girl to see the American government in action, shot 4 times and worried for the little girl who dies before her eyes. *The judge (who I am reminded was a republican) who leaves church to meet with a colleague and is murdered. *The retired colonel who, already grazed in the head by a bullet, reaches out to subdue the gunman. *The elderly lady who reaches for his gun and takes away his magazine. *The 20 year old Mexican college intern, who you never see out of a suit, telling how the tried to help his boss survive, sounding more like a 40 year old veteran army medic retelling a battle story with utter sang froid. *And the three elderly citizens (at least 2 of whom were republicans) who were murdered trying to participate in the system of government everyone seems to hate so much. *The young social worker, Jewish like his boss, trying to make a difference, murdered before his wedding day.

It is so utterly sad it literally makes one weep. *I have given up on America, on the American people, on this stupid tired political system that is entirely manipulated. *And then I see something like this. *So sad. *So sad. Those poor people still believed in their government. **

And, no I am not blaming the right wing for that wild eyed, probably schizophrenic boy who has not a clue why his brain is so scrambled. *But I do see the dangerous, constant, ranting, hatred, full of violent imagery they have wallowed in for 50 years. *50 years! *Since 1968. *Give it a rest. Give it a rest. *For heavens sake, give it a rest.
***
Sent from my iPad

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Just... wow.

via balko
If it were me and my kid, I can't imagine that I'd be anything but berserk. In any case, far too gone to deliver such an eloquent "fuck you" to all the types who want to use her death to score political points.


So... wow.

I think those who wanted to score points, would have his son in protective state custody for being a sane father. I don't have a kid; but if anything happened to my nephews and niece. Hell, has no bounds.

Originally Posted by Odin

You just proved my point. This RW revisionist lie about Fascism is complete nonsense. The Nazis were the Authoritarian Right.

It's not "RW revisionism", it's your own bias and/or ignorance. Although it could also be an issue of semantics. What is "right wing"? If favoring free market, laissez-faire economic policies is "right wing", then Fascism and Nazism were absolutely not right wing. Fascism was described by Mussolini as a "third way" between communism and free market capitalism (what he called "hyper-capitalism"). He believed liberal democracy and uncontrolled markets were destructive and degenerative forces on a society and a people, and Fascism was the solution.

The official name of the Nazi Party was accurate. It was not a misnomer or a lie: National Socialist German Workers Party. They were socialists, and they were also nationalists. They were "progressives" who believed that modern society required social engineering from the top down by a powerful government. They believed in central planning. They acted upon the ideas of Darwin and Nietzsche in carrying out their ethnic cleansing, medical experiments, and wars. Where they differed from communists was in their dedication to German nationalism, which included their Darwinian goal of producing the "Master Race" through genetic selection.

In other words, they were arguably "right wing" because of their fanatical nationalism. But when it comes to economics, they were extremely left wing by current standards. Their secularism (whereby religion may be tolerated, but only in subservience to the state, as long as it does not interfere) also places them on the left.

I have been thinking hard about the question of the day.

On the one hand, Loughner appears to be a paranoid schizophrenic. He was likely to go off somewhere sooner or later.

On the other, Giffords had just been through one of the nastiest campaigns in the nation. Her office had been vandalized when she voted for the health care bill. Arizona has one of the bitterest political climates in the nation--maybe the bitterest--right now. She is a Democrat, and, as such, the target of a sustained 24/7 hate campaign in much of the media. She was one of those "targeted" by Palin. She had had a lot of contentious town hall meetings and some one showed up with a gun in at least one of them. Arizona has some of the loosest gun laws in the country--anyone can carry a gun almost anywhere--and even she herself had bragged about owning a Glock.

So it's just a coincidence that Loughner picked her rally to shoot all the leading people there--her, and those around her?

No. I don't believe that it is.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

It's not "RW revisionism", it's your own bias and/or ignorance. Although it could also be an issue of semantics. What is "right wing"? If favoring free market, laissez-faire economic policies is "right wing", then Fascism and Nazism were absolutely not right wing. Fascism was described by Mussolini as a "third way" between communism and free market capitalism (what he called "hyper-capitalism"). He believed liberal democracy and uncontrolled markets were destructive and degenerative forces on a society and a people, and Fascism was the solution.

The official name of the Nazi Party was accurate. It was not a misnomer or a lie: National Socialist German Workers Party. They were socialists, and they were also nationalists. They were "progressives" who believed that modern society required social engineering from the top down by a powerful government. They believed in central planning. They acted upon the ideas of Darwin and Nietzsche in carrying out their ethnic cleansing, medical experiments, and wars. Where they differed from communists was in their dedication to German nationalism, which included their Darwinian goal of producing the "Master Race" through genetic selection.

In other words, they were arguably "right wing" because of their fanatical nationalism. But when it comes to economics, they were extremely left wing by current standards. Their secularism (whereby religion may be tolerated, but only in subservience to the state, as long as it does not interfere) also places them on the left.

That is why they were RW AUTHORITARIANS. the Authoritarian Right is perfectly OK with government intervention in the economy if it helps the established Capitalist elites via cartelization.

Several of Justin's posts have been really bothering me lately, namely those claiming that condemnations of political killings is letting the elites walk all over us.

I cannot condone political killings. Once you start killing people for merely their beliefs it is only a short path from that to the gulags and the gas chambers.

Originally Posted by Odin

That is why they were RW AUTHORITARIANS. the Authoritarian Right is perfectly OK with government intervention in the economy if it helps the established Capitalist elites via cartelization.

I encourage you to seek out and read original sources regarding the economic views of the Nazis and Fascists. You need to educate yourself on this subject if you're interested in being accurate.

Why not start asking the Real Questions?

What Speech is acceptable/unacceptable? Should new Legislation be enacted? That's what the editorializing and rhetoric is leading towards, correct?

PoC67

PS: Or is this Issue really just another opportunity to try to gain Political Points?

FWIW, From my Xer POV, I'm perceiving that I'm losing my Ability in communicating with others on the MB that are Boomers. What troubles me though is that I'm losing my Interest in doing so. I'm posing a serious question, not being rhetorical.

Originally Posted by Odin

I was thinking more of something like the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the now disproven notion that the structure of a language is a straight-jacket on thought.

Whorf? The Klingon Language Institute?

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

Why not start asking the Real Questions?

What Speech is acceptable/unacceptable? Should new Legislation be enacted? That's what the editorializing and rhetoric is leading towards, correct?

What strikes me, after being reminded of the statements by family members of 9/11 victims, is that when people perceive of their government as totalitarian, they're willing to suffer great personal loss while calling for that government to not take extreme action. Others, who (perhaps) approve of their government, welcome extreme action.

There were many who wanted to go to war after 9/11, and many who now want to limit free speech and the right to own guns after Tucson. Green's father is urging that this not be done, despite his great loss.

I have a niece who's the age of little Christina. I would be devastated if she were murdered like this. But I would not call for the government to limit access to our elected officials, or limit our ability to speak our minds, or restrict our right to own weapons (or other self-protection). But then I think our government is treading too close to the line, when it comes to removing freedoms granted in our Constitution. Only slaves accept what they're told without questioning it.

I watched some of the news coverage on this yesterday. Basically, the theme yesterday was all these politicians coming out and saying, "We are going to be nice now." Sounds good, but why don't I believe them? It's kind of like the old saying, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

I predict two weeks from now we won't even be talking about this any more. We will be on to the next story and this will be mostly be forgotten.

Remember the earthquake in Haiti a year ago? There was constant coverage on it for 2 weeks. How much have you seen about Haiti since February of last year. I guess Anderson Cooper from CNN is going to go back there this week to do a show about it. And what will find? I think he will find that conditions are pretty much the same. People are still dying, they are still living in tents, and life hasn't really improved much since a year ago. A year ago we cared, but we all pretty much stopped caring and paying attention months and months ago. I guess we got bored with the whole thing.

Or how about the oil spill in Gulf? That was news for several months. We were told as the story went on that millions of sea life would be killed, the region would become economically devastated and millions of lives would be destroyed. They talked about how 20 years later we are still seeing effects from Valdez oil spill and this going to much worse than that. But as soon as they stopped oil spill so did the coverage. What about all that marine life? What about the fisherman and all the lives of the people down there that were going to be affected? Did this not happen or did they just stop covering it? Here again, I guess we got bored with it all.

My prediction is that over the next week or so, we will see coverage of the memorial services for the victims that were killed. We will wait to see exactly what the condition is of Congresswoman Gifford and what the long term affects are of her injury. Once we know that, our curiosity will be satisfied and we will go to the next story. In a year or so, there will be the trial of the shooter. There will be coverage of that, but our interest will only be slightly peaked. By that time, the pundits and the politicians will be back to name calling, slamming each other and trying to score points where they can.

Does anyone really believe the candidates in the 2012 elections are going to be nice? Like I said, "You can't teach an old new tricks."

Originally Posted by Xer H

What strikes me, after being reminded of the statements by family members of 9/11 victims, is that when people perceive of their government as totalitarian, they're willing to suffer great personal loss while calling for that government to not take extreme action. Others, who (perhaps) approve of their government, welcome extreme action.

There were many who wanted to go to war after 9/11, and many who now want to limit free speech and the right to own guns after Tucson. Green's father is urging that this not be done, despite his great loss.

I have a niece who's the age of little Christina. I would be devastated if she were murdered like this. But I would not call for the government to limit access to our elected officials, or limit our ability to speak our minds, or restrict our right to own weapons (or other self-protection). But then I think our government is treading too close to the line, when it comes to removing freedoms granted in our Constitution. Only slaves accept what they're told without questioning it.

I agree 100%. You know why? Because I believe that We are only on the planet for a certain amount of Time and that the Individual Rights that our Fore-Fathers so wisely recognized as NOT coming from another Human Being, transcend our Individual Temporal Experience. That Liberty that so many ridicule is bigger than any Individual and greater than an Individul Moment in Time.

PoC67

PS: Little Christina's father is such an inspiration IMO! I'd like to believe that I hold that Inner Strength i/r/t my love of Freedom. Tragically Inspiring.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

I believe that We are only on the planet for a certain amount of Time and that the Individual Rights that our Fore-Fathers so wisely recognized as NOT coming from another Human Being, transcend our Individual Temporal Experience. That Liberty that so many ridicule is bigger than any Individual and greater than an Individual Moment in Time.

Very eloquently stated.

Originally Posted by Poodle

Whorf? The Klingon Language Institute?

Benjamin Whorf, a very mediocre American linguist that got a following because he was a student of the great linguist of Amerindian languages Edward Sapir and because he pushed the right ideological buttons.

Originally Posted by Xer H

Very eloquently stated.

Oh Yeah? Not too bad for a $$$-grubbing, un-educated, un-washed, foul-mouthed, little Imp, huh?

PoC67

PS: Of course you also being an Xer should know!

Originally Posted by Odin

Several of Justin's posts have been really bothering me lately, namely those claiming that condemnations of political killings is letting the elites walk all over us.

I cannot condone political killings. Once you start killing people for merely their beliefs it is only a short path from that to the gulags and the gas chambers.

Odin,

There is a world of difference between killing a politician and killing someone "for their beliefs". Politicians actually do things that actually hurt real people. Their beliefs are irrelevant. It's what they do that has consequences.

In fact, in the case of a wielder-of-power, I should think the default assumption, whenever they are targeted, is that it happened because of what they did with that power, not what they thought.

Here's a short story you might find apt:

Gabrielle Giffords repeatedly used her considerable political power to support killing people. Then someone tried to kill her.

In any case, it's not condemnation of killings that is problematic -- far from it. Rather, it is the constant weight given to the killing of a parasite over the killing of a genuine innocent, by virtue of the fact that the parasite was a member of the ruling class.
It's an overt declaration that people -- far less mere subjects -- are of lesser importance than is the sanctity of the ruling class as a ruling class. That's pretty bad.

THE BIG IDEA
The Tea Party and the Tucson Tragedy
How anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic populism made the Giffords shooting more likely.
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Monday, Jan. 10, 2011, at 6:30 PM ET
There's something offensive, as well as pointless, about the politically charged inquiry into what might have been swirling inside the head of Jared Loughner. We hear that the accused shooter read The Communist Manifesto and liked flag-burning videos—good news for the right. Wait—he was a devotee of Ayn Rand and favored the gold standard, so he was a right-winger after all. Some assassinations embody an ideology, however twisted. Based on what we know so far, the Tucson killings look like more like politically tinged schizophrenia.

It is appropriate, however, to consider what was swirling outside Loughner's head. To call his crime an attempted assassination is to acknowledge that it appears to have had a political and not merely a personal context. That context wasn't Islamic radicalism, Puerto Rican independence, or anarcho-syndicalism. It was the anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic populism that flourishes in the dry and angry climate of Arizona. Extremist shouters didn't program Loughner, in some mechanistic way, to shoot Gabrielle Giffords. But the Tea Party movement did make it appreciably more likely that a disturbed person like Loughner would react, would be able to react, and would not be prevented from reacting, in the crazy way he did.

At the core of the far right's culpability is its ongoing attack on the legitimacy of U.S. government—a venomous campaign not so different from the backdrop to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Then it was focused on "government bureaucrats" and the ATF. This time it has been more about Obama's birth certificate and health care reform. In either case, it expresses the dangerous idea that the federal government lacks valid authority. It is this, rather than violent rhetoric per se, that is the most dangerous aspect of right-wing extremism.

Often the two issues are blurred together, because if government is illegitimate, rebellion is an appropriate response (hence the Colonial costumes). Conservative entertainers like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin like to titillate their audiences with hints of justified violence, including frequent reminders that they are armed and dangerous. Palin went so far as to put a target on someone who subsequently got shot. Whether or not the man who fired the gun was inspired by Palin isn't the point. The point is that you shouldn't paint targets on people, even in metaphor, or jest.

Guns are also at the heart of how the right's ideology enabled Loughner. Tea Partiers often frame the right to bear arms as a necessary check on federal despotism. "You know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies," said Sharron Angle of Nevada, who nearly defeated the majority leader of the U.S. Senate in neighboring Nevada. In practical terms, easy access to firearms empowers extremists and crazies to challenge government authority at whim. The National Rifle Association position that any attempt to regulate the ownership of firearms is a violation of the Constitution has prevailed both politically and through the courts. That means that there are few things simpler than for someone to walk into a sporting goods store, as Loughner apparently did, buy a dangerous weapon, and carry it concealed to political meetings. How should politicians protect themselves from nuts with guns? By arming themselves, of course. Absent permissive firearm laws, nowhere more lax than in Arizona, Loughner might still have been able to get a gun. But he couldn't have done it quite so easily.

First you rile up psychotics with inflammatory language about tyranny, betrayal, and taking back the country. Then you make easy for them to get guns. But if you really want trouble, you should also make it hard for them to get treatment for mental illness. I don't know if Loughner had health insurance, but he falls into a pool of people who often go uninsured—not young enough to be covered by parents (until the health-care bill's coverage of twentysomethings kicked in a few months ago), not old enough for Medicare, not poor enough for Medicaid. If such a person happens to have a history of mental illness, he will be effectively uninsurable. To get treatment, he actually has to commit a crime. If Republicans succeed in repealing the Obama health care bill, that's how it will remain.

Again, none of this says that Tea Party caused the Tucson tragedy, only that its politics increased the odds of something like it happening. It was in criticizing writers on his own side for their naivete about communism that George Orwell wrote, "So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot." Today it is the right that amuses itself with violent chat and proclaims an injured innocence when its flammable words blow up.

jadams, thanks for the thoughtful commentary you brought to our attention. I believe there are a lot valid points in the above post.

But I do not think it is quite fair to just blame the right-wing side. There is plenty of anger on the left too. I recall a thread on this forum "Would you support a left wing revolution?". Violence generally does go hand and hand with a revolution.

And this has been the fear of many of us all along on this forum. Not that a perfectly sane person would go out and commit an act of violence because they were pushed over the edge by some type of legislation they didn't like or that they would hear a Limbaugh or Beck type shouting propaganda and be moved to shoot someone. It was the fear that the already mentally unstable people of the world would pick up on this anger and commit an act of violence. As I've said before, this man could have just as easily gone after a store clerk that pissed him off as he did a political figure under different circumstances. But because of the environment he is living in with all the political anger down there, he zeroed in on a political figure. Any number of things can set off a paranoid schizophrenic. If he was merely trying to make a political point or his anger was only directly at Congreswoman Gifford, he wouldn't have shot all those other folks too. From what has been said of him, it really doesn't sound like he is either right or left wing. He is mainly just crazy. I think if the Republican governor had been the person at the meet and greet, it could have just as easily been her that was shot. This man was paranoid of government, period. And can't that same thing be said for many of us? The difference is that, most of us aren't paranoid schizophrenics.

As long as we live in a world where there is this strong partisan divide that we have going on today, I don't expect this to be the last incident. There are lots of crazy people walking our country. It is my belief that all the assassins who shot political figures through the years were crazy too. I wouldn't exactly have wanted Lee Harvey Oswald living next door to my kids either.