President Obama plans on traveling to and speaking at a memorial service in Tuscon tomorrow. Does that seem like a good idea? I mean, I know there’s the Secret Service and all that, but still. As long as Joe from Tempe is still on the loose, I think I’d stay away from Arizona – especially if I was black, Mexican, or a mythical liberal. Of course, I don’t like the heat, so I’d stay away from there anyway. Unless it would get me out of going back to work today.
Down there in Atlanta, though, I reckon they wouldn’t mind some of the Arizona desert weather. It’s difficult not to chuckle when I read something like this
Heavy snow is expected to begin falling in the Atlanta area tonight, possibly reaching three to five inches….
But of course they just don’t have the equipment or expertise to deal with snow and ice down there. For one thing, it takes money – in the form of tax dollars. And we know how much people hate taxes.
Here, after getting, oh, I dunno, maybe five inches or so through noon yesterday, the snow stopped, and I was able to scrape the driveway down. More snow this afternoon, though, and it’s supposed to snow all week long. Nothing major. A few inches here, a few inches there. More where I live, I’m sure. If things stay true to form, it should be kind of shitty tonight, because it’s garbage night. And the weather always sucks on garbage night.
I guess I didn’t want to post Psycho Killer.
good morning )
My friend posted this on FB. How should I respond?
The problem isn’t radicals. The problem is the promotion of violence. I think many conservatives feel they are to blame because although they themselves have not advocated violence they have not repudiated those who do and in many cases have defended and promoted them.
What’s an example?
A radical is someone with ideas out of the mainstream. Of course that’s in the eye of the beholder. People on the right who want to go back to the gold standard, or on the left who believe that there should be a single payer heealthcare system might be considered radical. But neither of these positions imply that if such a law in not enacted, or if a legislator disagrees, the proponents should pick up guns and shoot the people with whom they disagree. These are ideas that are part of a political discussion.
The promotion of violence is quite another matter. Someone who does that says that people with whom he has a disagreement should be injured, their property damaged, or shot.
So, when Sharon Angle the senate candidate from Nevada says that if people don’t get what they want by voting they need to turn to second amendment remedies, she is promoting violence. (Shooting)
Here are some examples from DailyKos:
Robert Lowry, a Republican challenger to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL), stopped by a local Republican event in October. The event was at a gun range, and Lowry shot at a human-shaped target that had Wasserman Schulz’s initials written next to it. He later said it was a “mistake.”
Giffords’ own opponent, Republican Jesse Kelly, had a gun-themed fund-raiser in June in which supporters could come and shoot an M-16 rifle with Kelly. It was promoted thusly: Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”
About a year ago, Richard Behney, a tea partier from Indiana running for former Sen. Evan Bayh’s seat, told a group of Second Amendment activists that they didn’t have to resort to armed insurrection — “yet.”
The Tea Partiers who took guns to town hall meetings, the blogger who successfully encouraged people to break the windows of legislators who voted for healthcare, the people who screamed and threatened legislators at town hall meetings and the ones who encouraged them to do so, encouraged violence.
Can you think of anyone on the left who has advocated violence?
I think I need to add that the Right has painted Obama as a Kenyan who is illegally occupying the Whitehouse, a racist who hates white people, wanting to enslave them and put them in concentrations camps run by Fema, and that he and the Democrats want to bankrupt the country, control their healthcare costs by denying them treatment and of course killing granny as soon as she gets too expensive.
But, this is all made up and promoted to provoke people to revolt. I assume most people just want to provoke people to vote for Republicans, but some people feel very threatened and then they hear the talk of taking people out and they act on it.
We are so doomed as a society
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/arizonans-flock-up-the-bl_n_807517.html
CBS poll taken after the killings in Arizona:
Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to take violent action against the government, or is it never justified?
Republican 28% yes, 64% no
Democrat 11% yes, 81% no
Independent 11% yes, 81% no
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/11/935493/-CBS-poll:-Over-a-quarter-of-Republicans-think-violence-against-government-justified
In the past year alone, Pima County, Arizona, the site of the tragic shooting of 20 individuals including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) has forced more than 45 percent of mental health service recipients off the government rolls, a service advocate tells the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/jared-loughner-family-statement_n_807703.html
Talk about promoting violence:
Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-S.C.) health care-era “you lie” interruption of President Obama is now reportedly being commemorated with a place on a new, limited edition line of assault rifle components.
The Columbia Free Times reports that the words are being engraved on a series of lower receivers manufactured for popular AR-15 assault rifles. Lower receivers are one of the primary pieces of the firearms.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/joe-wilson-you-lie-assault-rifle_n_807644.html
So in art and arch. history class today the instructor, who has a Ph.D and cannot spell pilgrimage and has admitted that he left his first wife after spell checker was invented, asked the class how to say Avignon in French. Not because he didn’t know how to say it, but because he wanted to test the class. You know, so he could see how idiotic we all are. A guy that was sitting a seat behind mine blurted the French word, or place rather, out correctly. Then the instructor asked, How’d you know that?” Before the guy behind me had time to breathe in to speak I yelled, “Picasso!” The instructor looked at me and said, ” You remember all the hookers you’ve been with, don’t you?’ I didn’t say a word.