After the Tucson shooting, Sarah Palin was being blamed for the shooters motives. The Tea Party was being blamed for inciting violence. The Republicans were blamed for vitriolic rhetoric meant to fire up the base and extremist. While all of these events may be harmful to civility, they did not cause Jared Loughner to shoot 20 people, killing six of them.
Loughner showed troubling signs of in college. He had at least five interactions with the campus police at Pima Community College. Classmates said he would act inappropriately during classes. Former classmate Lydian Ali said, "A girl had written a poem about an abortion. It was very emotional and she was teary eyed and he said something about strapping a bomb to the fetus and making a baby bomber."
He created disturbing videos detailing his hatred of the government. He thinks the government is applying mind-controlling techniques through the use of grammar. He does not trust the U.S. currency because it is not backed by gold or silver. He had a previous interaction with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ at one of her Congressional events. Loughner held an intense dislike for Giffords because, in his mind, she had not sufficiently answered a question he posed to her. The question he asked? “What is government if words have no meaning?”
Sarah Palin and the Tea Party use political rhetoric to incite their base to action. Her poster with crosshair’s identifying target seats in Congress was a bad idea and, if she had hindsight, probably would not do it again. Leaving the poster on her website after the election was a mistake. Her twitter message,  “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: “Don’t Retreat, Instead- RELOAD!” was probably not the best message to convey.
All of the things Sarah Palin and the Tea Party said and did, in hindsight, give weight to the idea that this is what caused Loughner to take action. But they did not cause him to obsess over Giffords. They did not cause him to act in the strange manner described. And most important, they did not cause Jared Loughner to walk into that parking lot, pull out a Glock 9mm, and pull the trigger. No one can be blamed for that but the shooter himself.
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Comments: 26
Now members of Congress who has received threats and vandalism, those can be attributed to political rhetoric.
Rude, can you answer the question up above.. If they bring a knife, then bring a gun? Is this talking about play toys, such as water guns? Since, you always seem to know so much about the other sides intentions... It must be nice to have a crystal ball and can read from it... Do you charge for these special services?
Just don't bring any weapon, it's that simple!!!
Oh well, to your detriment in 2010 and 2012 will be, excuse my 'violent' metaphor, a bloodbath.
Common sense and a propensity for objectivity dictate that the analogy Palin used was no more than figurative speech comparing the sport of hunting to political strategies. To suggest she should've foreseen some lunatic, years later, taking that figure of speech to a perverted level of tragedy is no more than a self-serving excuse to push what that person wants for themselves.
Worse yet, they do so now at the expense of innocents who've suffered a deadly tragedy. So do tell, why didn't any of these almighty liberals foresee this tragedy coming and hop-on that cross-hairs bandwagon long before such a tragedy could occur? What? The same foresight cannot be expected of them, those who do the accusing now? And that would be ... why?
Liberals pointing an accusing finger at conservatives for "inciting" ethics need to take a long hard look at themselves. Liberal incitement couldn't be better demonstrated than in this very incident. What they're doing with this tragedy is not only incitement, they are openly and without shame using the real life agony of others as stepping stones to get themselves there. Shame on them.
Your blog is an excellent one. I appreciated the finer details I didn't know until now; and your well-drawn opening and closing conclusions.
DOUG R.'s reply was right on point!
Gawd, from the group who uses 9/11 over and over....