Mere minutes after news broke of the shooting of Rep. Giffords and others in Tuscon the media war was launched to assign blame. The left blamed the right, and the right blamed the left. As more and more facts come to light on suspected shooter 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, the only clear picture emerging is that he was mentally unbalanced.
The shooter's particular lunacy embodied elements of crazy right-wing, crazy left-wing, Libertarian, Communist, and Nazi fixations. This was mixed with a heavy paranoia about mind control, and an obsession with literacy. It would be difficult to ascribe Loughner's behavior to his allegiance to any political movement or his influence by any particular pundit or politician.
Loughner was a disturbed and frightened man looking to blame someone for everything. And that is maybe the whole point. When Sarah Palin says to "reload" in an effort to take back the 20, or Sharon Angle suggests the need for "Second Amendment solutions" to take back the government, sane people don't hear that as an explicit call for armed insurrection. They recognize it as charged political rhetoric intended to engage and polarize an audience. But if your mind is a little less balanced... if your predisposition is toward paranoid fear... if you are basically a walking bomb in search of a detonator, then such messages resonate somewhat differently than mere rhetoric.
The political right has a particular penchant for militant and violent political rhetoric. Their opponents are often positioned as evil and bent on destruction of the country. Labels of communists and fascists, political regimes the country has previously been at war against, are thrown about. Guns are frequently brandished at political events. Even terms such as "death panels" position those with different policy opinions as an existential threat.
As an exercise, try searching the web for the terms "right wing militia" and "left wing militia". Alternatively, try "right wing violence" and "left wing violence", or choose whatever terms you may like. In all the cases, note the discrepancy of article types and images returned. It's not that the left is less fervent or politically active, but the results suggest a significantly lower affinity on the left for militarism, guns, and violence.
We may never know exactly what set Loughner on the tragic path that led him to shoot Giffords and kill six others, including a federal judge and a 9-year old girl. As Glenn Beck has reminded us before, these happenings are each the act of a "nutjob". Granted. But it would be naive to assume that nutjobs are immune to the influence of violent rhetoric. On the contrary, they are likely the most gullible, malleable, and primed to be incited to violent action.
Perhaps your words don't make you criminally negligent... but they still matter. Choose them wisely.
Comments
Well done. Great article.
@Ryan,
I followed your coverage closely. I believed that this was the message you were trying to communicate without getting bogged down in the details.
This article manages the daunting task of the writers by striking a balance with sensitivity and recognition of the problems before us.
I agree - Well done. Great Article.
Thanks Ryan. That means a lot coming from you!
Yup well said , Palin did not pull the trigger but she probably led the rat through the maze
and for those who do not want to see a murderous rampage as politically motivated - then your just as ignorant as Palin
Another great article Tim. This is why I can't listen to national talk radio anymore, because it's always so predictable and boring, a la "[party A] sucks and we, [party B] are wonderful".
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I will go a half step further and make the case that media outlets like FOX News -- which has not only supported GOP and TeaParty positions but raised funds on the air for those candidates -- is also culpable. When, as you state, an unbalanced mind hears all these lies repeated as facts, along with a constant subtext of violence toward women, gays, immigrants, blacks, muslims, etc. -- oh yes, FOX News has blood on its collective hands!
Yes they do.
In fact, Foxnews has a huge culpability in this.
It seems you couldn't get on Foxnews unless you had violent rhetoric in your campaign. (or you were a democrat and they wanted a chance to tear you apart)
Is this article trying to sound ignorant? Or is it doing it on purpose? Sorry about the insulting language, but I can't see any other option. It starts off well enough, and then degenerates into another partisan jab. The problem with your google searches is the terms you are using.
Try this search "threat against President Bush" = 16.5 million matches. "threat against President Obama" = 18 million (virtually identical, which is telling, since the more recent President should get more hits anyway).
Or you could simply look here for a telling compilation of left wing threats, in pictures:
http://www.binscorner.com/pages/d/death-threats-against-bush-at-protests...
Oh, I'm sorry, what was your point again?
give me a couple of days and I can photoshop all those to say something else...what was YOUR point again?
It is certainly true that the left has people on the fringe acting every bit as militant and violent as their counterparts on the right. But I stand by the statement that the right has the preponderance of violent rhetoric. Further, the the pundits and politicians on the right are also using violent language and imagery. Again, the left has people like Ed Schultz who've been known to talk like that as well. But the volume leans heavily to the right.
So you're comparing 16.5 million matches for Bushes 8 years, to 18 million to Obama's 2 years. Exactly how are they about equal?
Reminds me of the film Fisher King.
Ahh yes, words *do* matter don't they..........
Like these from our *leader* -
1 Obama: “If they Bring a Knife, We Bring a *Gun*” (Uh oh, yikes!)
2 Obama: “Argue with neighbors, Get in Their Faces!”
3 Obama: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!”
4 Obama’s White House Deputy Chief: “If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,”
5 Obama: “We talk to these folks…so I know whose A** to kick.“
6 Obama to voters: Republican victory would mean, “hand to hand combat”
7 Obama to Latino supporters: “Punish your enemies.”
8 Obama to democrats: “I’m itching for a fight"
Can you say "hypocrites*?
'nut job' Really how old are you. Do you talk of cancer patients so dismissively. Get a clue, the guy just needed help dont insult all people with mental issues. You know the people that use to call them 'nut jobs' chained them to walls and sold tickets to the hospital as attractions, they stuck instruments in their brain poking and scraping away until they were a simple vegetable. My boyfriend became a psychiatric physician for the very reason of giving mentally unstable people some hope in a very confusing and terrible time.
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