The attempted assassination of Congresswoman GABRIEL GIFFORD has ignited a huge debate about the TONE AND SUBSTANCE OF POLITICS IN AMERICA. The people on the left want to blame this horrific attack on the likes of Glenn Beck, talk radio, the TEA Party, and the lack of civil discourse by their opponents. They seem to feel this has become a problem since 2008 and the election of Barack Obama.
Nonsense. This has been going on since the founding of our Republic. IT IS AN OFFSHOOT OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH. The ironic part is Blue Dog Democrat Congresswoman Gifford took part in reading the Constitution this past week and read the First Amendment.
IN MOST DICTATORSHIPS FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS TO GO and generally it is justified by a similar argument, that is, the DISCOURSE IS DANGEROUS AND CAN INCITE CRAZY PEOPLE TO DO CRAZY THINGS. And taking away freedom of speech along with clamping down on any dissent normally will have the effect of eliminating “crazy things” from happening at least as far as the dictator is concerned.
What happened on Saturday was a tragedy. But the instigator appears to be not a right wing nut, but simply a nut. LIMITING FREEDOM OF SPEECH BECAUSE SOMEONE MIGHT BE CRAZY ENOUGH TO ACT IRRESPONSIBLY IS THE FAR MORE DANGEROUS PATH TO TAKE.
As people on the left like to quote Benjamin Franklin when the President was G.W. Bush and the issue was wireless warrants, “THOSE WHO WOULD GIVE UP ESSENTIAL LIBERTY TO PURCHASE A LITTLE TEMPORARY SAFETY DESERVE NEITHER LIBERTY NOR SAFETY.”
To answer the question in the title of today's blog, Jared Loughner is the responsible party in the shooting.
Freedom of speech: RIP
How is this happening and when did it first begin? WHEN DID THE FIRST AMENDMENT WIND UP UNDER THE BOOT OF FASCISM? When did "politically correct" become synonymous with censorship? When did the label "hate crime" become our new censoring device? When did "critic" become synonymous with "terrorist?" When did the ruling elite remove the word "free" from "free speech?"
http://www.rense.com/general67/FRED.HTM
What makes this interesting is the person writing this is not a right winger addressing what the left is talking about right now. Rather just two paragraphs down you find this. “"Either you're with us, or you are with the terrorists." George Bush struggles to string his words into a coherent sentence. But is it coherent? Since when are questions and criticism verboten? Since when is honest dialogue and discussion a crime? “
Loughner: Left or right? Or just nuts
A woman who claims to know Jared Loughner claims he was very left wing.
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/01/jared_loughner_alleged_shooter.php
Here’s more on Loughner.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/01/10/2011-01-10_chilling_shrine_in_madmans_yard.html
And then there is this.
Who knows what evidence will come forward in coming days, but based on what we know now, THE ATTEMPT TO BLAME PALIN AND OPPONENTS OF OBAMA FOR THE SHOOTING IS EVERY BIT AS DELUSIONAL AS LOUGHNER'S ATTEMPT TO BLAME GOVERNMENT MIND CONTROL.http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/01/two-sicknesses-on-display-in-arizona.html
Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have seen this type of reaction. The meme that OPPONENTS OF OBAMA ARE CRAZY AND DANGEROUS has been AN EXPLICIT DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAMPAIGN STRATEGY FOR OVER TWO YEARS. Here is just a partial list of events in which the left-wing and Democratic Party media operation has immediately blamed right-wing rhetoric, only to be proven wrong when the facts finally came out: Bill Sparkman, Amy Bishop, The Fort Hood Shooter, The IRS Plane Crasher, The Cabbie Stabbing, and The Pentagon Shooter.
As I said in my editorial, Loughner was not a right wing nut.
Let's not make this something it isn't
But it should also be noted that what we have learned so far about Loughner DEFIES IDEOLOGICAL BRANDING. Based on his MySpace page and series of YouTube videos he apparently made, Loughner is fixated on his area’s literacy rate, government "mind control methods," and ... something having to do with America’s currency. A high school classmate describes him as "left-wing." He also is APPARENTLY FOND OF "MEIN KAMPF" AND KARL MARX AND MAY BE SOMEHOW CONNECTED TO A FRINGE ANTI-IMMIGRATION GROUP. And he despised Giffords. Make what you will of all of that. MY HUNCH IS THAT LOUGNHER IS JUST BASICALLY CRAZY, AND THAT HIS POLITICAL THINKING ISN’T PARTICULARLY COHERENT OR ORGANIZED…..http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/01/09/loughner_not_though/index.html
This seems unfair. At best, the connection between Palin’s behavior and Saturday’s tragedy is abstract. If anything, THE SHOOTING REINFORCES A POINT THAT JAMES FALLOWS HAS MADE: THE MOTIVES OF POLITICAL ASSASSINS RARELY HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH MAINSTREAM POLITICAL DEBATE AND RHETORIC. For now, at least, this seems to be the case with Loughner. This doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable to criticize Palin and others who push the envelope with their rhetoric. But when liberals use this moment to highlight every provocative statement Palin has made, it’s also not unreasonable if she says that her opponents are trying just a little too hard to make her the villain.
Time Magazine speculated that Obama needed something like Saturday’s tragedy
WHAT OBAMA REALLY NEEDS, HALPERIN SAYS, IS A STROKE OF GOOD LUCK. "Busy as he's been, he has not yet experienced a single major moment that has benefited him politically," Halperin writes. Events like the Gulf oil spill have been harmful, rather than helpful. So what would brighten Obama's political prospects? Here's Halperin:http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/12/time-mag-maybe-horrendous-act-violence-will-kill-hundreds-even-th
No one wants the country to suffer another catastrophe. But when a struggling BILL CLINTON WAS FACED WITH THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING AND A FLOUNDERING GEORGE W. BUSH WAS CONFRONTED BY 9/11, THEY FOUND THEIR VOICES AND A ROUTE TO POLITICAL REVIVAL.
So if we are going to blame the right or the left, doesn’t this seem to indicate the left is just as responsible as the right?
Obama speaks out against refighting past battles
US PRESIDENT Barack Obama urged his political opponents in Congress not to 'refight' the battles of the past two years, showcasing a recent bipartisan tax deal as a way to move forward.http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_622010.html
'What we can't do is refight the battles of the past two years that distract us from the hard work of moving our economy forward,' Mr Obama said in his weekly radio address.
Evidently, President Obama is becoming a Conservative and the Republicans are the ones looking for change.
ObamaCare Would Reduce Net Spending by $540 Billion
The Congressional Budget Office, in an email to Capitol Hill staffers obtained by the Spectator, has said that REPEALING THE NATIONAL HEALTH CARE LAW WOULD REDUCE NET SPENDING BY $540 BILLION IN THE TEN YEAR PERIOD FROM 2012 THROUGH 2021. That number represents the cost of the new provisions, minus Medicare cuts. Repealing the bill would also eliminate $770 billion in taxes. It's the tax hikes in the health care law (along with the Medicare cuts) which accounts for the $230 billion in deficit reduction.
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/01/07/breaking-cbo-says-repealing-ob
So the decrease the CBO was talking about was due to the increase of almost a trillion in taxes with the repeal. We need to eliminate excess spending.
Sibling spacing may be tied to autism risk: study
A new study suggests that kids who are born only a year or two after an older sibling might be more likely to be diagnosed with autism than those with a bigger age gap.http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7091HQ20110110
Of all second siblings whose mothers became pregnant with them less than a year after giving birth to the older sibling, about 7.5 in every 1,000 were diagnosed with autism. When mothers became pregnant three years or more after giving birth, about 2.5 out of every 1,000 younger siblings were diagnosed with autism.
Rates were somewhere in the middle for mothers who became pregnant between one and three years after giving birth to their first kid.
I thought this was interesting especially since the study that blamed autism on vaccinations has been found to be fraudulent.
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