Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot in head

[Soxbadger]

Being worried is entirely different than having an enemy to unite people.

 

Being worried about money, etc, creates partisanship.

 

Being worried about the USSR nuking the US off the face of the earth, creates unity.

 

In the first example I can get more money by screwing the other party.

 

In the second example screwing the other party wont get me anywhere.

 

So America has nothing to fear, which creates partisanship.

[iamshack]

Being worried is entirely different than having an enemy to unite people.

 

Being worried about money, etc, creates partisanship.

 

Being worried about the USSR nuking the US off the face of the earth, creates unity.

 

In the first example I can get more money by screwing the other party.

 

In the second example screwing the other party wont get me anywhere.

 

So America has nothing to fear, which creates partisanship.

I understand the point you are trying to make, but I am not buying it.

 

To say that unless we fear annihilation is the only way anything is ever going to get accomplished...well, I don't really buy that.

[bmags]

I understand the point you are trying to make, but I am not buying it.

 

To say that unless we fear annihilation is the only way anything is ever going to get accomplished...well, I don't really buy that.

 

you know what helped get things accomplished? Bizarre party lines created by the civil war. Those are gone.

[southsider2k5]

Being worried is entirely different than having an enemy to unite people.

 

Being worried about money, etc, creates partisanship.

 

Being worried about the USSR nuking the US off the face of the earth, creates unity.

 

In the first example I can get more money by screwing the other party.

 

In the second example screwing the other party wont get me anywhere.

 

So America has nothing to fear, which creates partisanship.

 

Wait so we didn't have partisanship while guys like Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan etc were Presidents? That is just flat out not true.

 

[StrangeSox]

McCain and Kyl propose naming courthouse after slain judge

[iamshack]

you know what helped get things accomplished? Bizarre party lines created by the civil war. Those are gone.

Do you honestly think this is providing any substance to the conversation?

 

I am a history major, and I am aware of events in the past that were just as bad if not worse than they are now.

 

Should we not know better at this point? Given how much more well-educated people are today?

 

[Soxbadger]

Wait so we didn't have partisanship while guys like Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan etc were Presidents? That is just flat out not true.

 

Not for nearly as long and not nearly as bad.

 

Look at Reagan's reelection, almost every state votes for him. In today's climate can you imagine any candidate getting 49 out of 50 states?

 

Nixon won by landslide as well.

 

LBJ won 61% of the popular vote.

 

So no, the political climate was far different back then.

 

In the last 10 years the Presidential votes have been by a margin of:

 

2000- 47.9%- 48.4%

2004- 50%- 48%

2008- 52%-45%

 

In comparison, 3 of the Presidents you mentioned gained over 60% of the popular vote.

 

60% is a lot more unified than 50-50.

[bmags]

Do you honestly think this is providing any substance to the conversation?

 

I am a history major, and I am aware of events in the past that were just as bad if not worse than they are now.

 

Should we not know better at this point? Given how much more well-educated people are today?

 

I think it is. And if you are a history major I don't get your weird sentimentality toward a previous time. You want to know why parties could work more easily in the past? Because they had more ideological similiarities than those in their own party. Democrats were democrats in the south because republicans had governed them against their will after the civil war and this lasted a long time. Republicans were republicans in the NE for the same reasons. Now that is gone and people are democrats because they are more liberal and republicans because they are more conservative. There were no 2 people that could've disagreed more in the US political debate in 1963 than the two i mentioned, and they were in the same party.

[caulfield12]

<!--quoteo(post=2314060:date=Jan 14, 2011 -> 12:06 PM:name=NorthSideSox72)-->

<!--quotec-->Yeah that helps the discussion.

 

I don't agree with BS here, but he's at least trying to make a salient point and defend it.

 

 

He said it's human nature. It's not. It is a political map from 9+ months ago, targeting Democrats in vulnerable districts who voted for ObamaCare. That's it. That's all. On the map it says, "Let's take back the 20 together! Join me today" On the page with the map it says: We’re paying particular attention to those House members who voted in favor of Obamacare and represent districts that Senator John McCain and I carried during the 2008 election. Three of these House members are retiring…The others are running for re-election, and we’re going to hold them accountable for this disastrous Obamacare vote. We’ll aim for these races and many others. This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington. Please go to sarahpac.com and join me in the fight.

 

It's not a call to arms. It is all about targeting districts. All politicians use that term. I don't care if the pictures are bulls eyes, targets or cross hairs. To turn around and say that political map, is linked with somebody buying a gun and murdering all these innocent people, is not human nature. To even equate the two is not human nature…it is 100% ludicrous!!

 

It's even worse to place blood on anothers hands without a shred of evidence, but let's be honest here…some people wanted this to be about Palin and the right so bad, it doesn't f***in matter. Just look at how repulsive some of headlines below are. Sick and demented! Deep down in the depths of their black f***in souls, they'd be ok with a few deaths if they could have pinned this on Palin or Beck or Rush or the Tea Party. That's why they're so quick to go there, instead of sorrow. "It was just a matter of time" has been the new battle cry of the left. I saw it on countless, now deleted, tweets, posts and facebook statuses this week. The left just can't wait to lay blame...damn the evidence or consequences. Damn the apologies after proven wrong time and time again.

 

3 Pittsburgh cops gunned down. - "It was just a matter of time"

13 murdered at immigration center. - "It was just a matter of time"

Security guard gunned down at Holocaust museum. - "It was just a matter of time"

Democratic headquarters in Denver windows smashed - "It was just a matter of time"

Census worker found dead - "It was just a matter of time"

Professor guns down three of her colleagues at University of Alabama-Huntsville - "It was just a matter of time"

Pilot flys small plane into IRS building - "It was just a matter of time"

Firebombing at a democratic congressman’s St. Louis office - "It was just a matter of time"

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot. - "It was just a matter of time"

 

Truly sad!

 

http://www.therightscoop.com/wp-content/up...ffordsdeath.jpg

 

http://www.therightscoop.com/wp-content/up...dsarahpalin.jpg

 

http://www.therightscoop.com/wp-content/up...pazshooting.jpg

 

http://www.therightscoop.com/wp-content/up...fondatweets.jpg

 

http://www.therightscoop.com/wp-content/up...ordshooting.jpg

 

http://www.therightscoop.com/wp-content/up...1/joanwalsh.jpg

 

http://www.therightscoop.com/wp-content/up...ichealdaly1.jpg

 

 

 

Go to Yahoo News sometime and read ANY article about Obama. I don't know if people are pretending or not, but the level of hate/bigotry/racism recorded in those threads is 100X scarier than anything you'll see here.

 

No matter what he does, 10-15% of America (not necessarily the same group who would STILL vote for Palin for POTUS if she ran today) will hate him, with at least half of that group or more using words like Hitler, Anti-Christ, Stalin, Mao, Marxist/Socialist/Communist to "hide" their true feelings.

 

The fact is, that Palin's camp DID remove the crosshairs after the weekend? Why? Wouldn't they know that's basically an admission of guilty feelings? If she had real political courage, she would have left it up, then she's have at least ONE reason I would/could admire her. But no, she had a spokesperson actually throwing out lines like "they're actually surveyor's symbols" like anyone could POSSIBLY believe that one.

 

Sharon Angle is also taking hits for using the "might have to resort to second Amendment remedies" line in one of her speeches. Many politicians used "relock/reload" analogies about taking down the Congress and Health Care law...

 

As Paul Krugman wrote yesterday or the day before in the NY Times, both sides are too entrenched here...the two different philosophies about government. There are many more people who hate Obama viscerally who simply believe taxation is wrong, that any government program like Medicaid or the health care program is pure evil, to redistribute income in any way from someone with more money to less is pure, unadulterated evil, even though there are numerous billionaires like Gates and Buffett who repeatedly say they don't pay enough in taxes.

 

The sad thing is there's not even a WHISPER of momentum to get rid of reloadable magazines with more than 10+ bullets (I think it was 28) like the Glock. What founding father could ever have imagined automatic weapons when they wrote an amendment having more to do with regional militias and protection against Native American populations? It's telling that Congress with their huge majority of D's in 2009/10 didn't even dare to touch this mythical 3rd rail due to the dreaded NRA. Why would a hunter OR someone defending their home need to fire 28 shots? Has that ever happened in the history of home invasions/burglaries?

 

I just hope the GOP does what they did under Reagan, Gingrich and "W" and they go after Medicare and Social Security.

Edited January 14, 2011 by caulfield12

[iamshack]

I think it is. And if you are a history major I don't get your weird sentimentality toward a previous time. You want to know why parties could work more easily in the past? Because they had more ideological similiarities than those in their own party. Democrats were democrats in the south because republicans had governed them against their will after the civil war and this lasted a long time. Republicans were republicans in the NE for the same reasons. Now that is gone and people are democrats because they are more liberal and republicans because they are more conservative. There were no 2 people that could've disagreed more in the US political debate in 1963 than the two i mentioned, and they were in the same party.

Well I certainly understand that no time ever trumps the moment, but I suppose I was just under the completely false impression that politicians, by and large, are failing more often to address bigger problems right now than at most times in the past. I understand there has been a civil war, horrible fighting about civil rights, politicians beating one another with blunt objects or challenging one another to duels, etc. But it appears that things have reached a point at which they know better and still don't care to try and fix much of anything, they'd rather spend their time fighting against the other party.

[bmags]

I guess I don't agree at all. I think we had a pretty ambitious 110th congress, and have a pretty ambitious 111th as well.

[caulfield12]

And just imagine if the Democratic Party asked for a lot of the state and Federal monies that have been cut to pay for mental health care and counseling to be reinstated...?

 

Very few people have even mentioned the main cause of the shooting, an individual who was clearly troubled, was identified as such by everyone from classmates to the person who THOUGHT he had to sell him that gun because he'd passed a background check (patently incorrect), to teachers to neighbors to staff at the school....heck, he even had a prior run-in with Giffords in 2007 that put him on the radar screen.

 

And yet it's a very slippery slope to incarcerate someone against their will until they've actually done something heinous/murderous. Obviously, that's the trickiest discussion. Let's say I am a teacher and I meet a parent and think they MIGHT abuse their child...I can't report them until I actually see bruises, and, if I do, I might be wrong and I might end up the victim of a violent crime instead.

[Soxbadger]

What does ambition have to do with partisanship>

 

Most of the time you are seeing the votes align right down party lines. That is partisanship.

 

Iamshack is saying that there used to be times where Democrats and Republicans would vote on things and not just follow party lines. (I think that is where he is going).

 

We may disagree on why this is happening, but I think we both agree that right now each side is more willing to draw the line in the sand on anything. (Look at filibusters by both Democrats and Republicans, not approving judges etc.)

 

[bmags]

What does ambition have to do with partisanship>

 

Most of the time you are seeing the votes align right down party lines. That is partisanship.

 

Iamshack is saying that there used to be times where Democrats and Republicans would vote on things and not just follow party lines. (I think that is where he is going).

 

We may disagree on why this is happening, but I think we both agree that right now each side is more willing to draw the line in the sand on anything. (Look at filibusters by both Democrats and Republicans, not approving judges etc.)

 

I've already said this is due to the two parties being much more ideologically aligned than in the past. The republicans have decided that it's good political strategy to not participate in congress when they are out of power and obstruct (as you see in parliamentary systems), and they were rewarded politically. You can make our system more able to run like a parliament with rule changes.

[Soxbadger]

I've already said this is due to the two parties being much more ideologically aligned than in the past.

 

But that just isnt really true.

 

You have fiscal conservatives and social conservatives, as well as fiscal liberals and social liberals.

 

Many times their ideology should be in absolute opposition, but they stick to the party line.

 

In fact I would say that if anything part of the problem is that there is no ideological view that can be attached to either party. Both parties mean entirely different things depending on the candidate.

 

Yet the candidates stick together, regardless of their ideology.

[bmags]

But that just isnt really true.

 

You have fiscal conservatives and social conservatives, as well as fiscal liberals and social liberals.

 

Many times their ideology should be in absolute opposition, but they stick to the party line.

 

In fact I would say that if anything part of the problem is that there is no ideological view that can be attached to either party. Both parties mean entirely different things depending on the candidate.

 

Yet the candidates stick together, regardless of their ideology.

Sorry, but this is nonsense.

[Soxbadger]

Well I guess if you say so. At least give the courtesy to explain your position (because if you look historically at what the terms "conservative" and "liberal" mean as well as their ideology combined with the US development of a 2 party system from the Federalists- AntiFederalists through todays Democrat/Republican you will clearly see that the ideology of both Republicans and Democrats has changed drastically to the point where the ideology is so encompassing you can make it fit anything.)

Edited January 15, 2011 by Soxbadger

[knightni]

I haven't seen many posts here about the congresswoman's actual condition:

 

http://www.aolhealth.com/2011/01/10/gabrie...fords-recovery/

[Balta1701]

Its not been some continuing curve, or a single new trend. Levels of anger and bulls*** are always there to an extent, and then ebb and flow at different times. Things are angrier now than they have been in a while, but they've also been much angrier at other times. Also, the interwebs amplifies this stuff.

I long for the good old days, when I could run a campaign based entirely on how Jackson's wife is a pipe-smoking woman of ill repute.

[Balta1701]

The night before the rampage, authorities say, Mr. Loughner, 22, dropped off at a drugstore a roll of 35-millimeter film containing images he had shot of himself posing with a Glock semiautomatic pistol while wearing a red G-string. The authorities said he picked up the film early on the day of the shooting at a Walgreens in the same strip mall where he would later open fire at a citizens’ forum held by Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona.

 

In some of the photos Mr. Loughner is holding the gun near his crotch, and in others, presumably taken in a mirror, he is holding the gun next to his buttocks, investigators said. It was not clear when the photos were taken.

Link

 

"Alright, so here's what we're doing," says the man behind the camera as he navigates through a dark parking lot. "We're examining the torture of students. We're looking at students who have been tortured. Their low income pay in two wars. The war that we are in right now is currently illegal under the Constitution. What makes it illegal is the currency. The date is also wrong. It's impossible for it to be that date, it's mind control."

 

That's how a video Jared Lee Loughner posted on YouTube in September titled "Pima Community College School - Genocide/Scam - Free Education - Broken United States Constitution," begins. It's the video that ultimately got Loughner, the gunman allegedly behind the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and the murder of six others, suspended from the school.

 

About a minute in the video, Loughner encounters a figure walking in the distance who is likely one of the alleged gunman's former teachers. "How's it going?" Loughner asked in a cheery tone. "Thanks for the 'B' I'm pissed off," he says in the same pitch. He then walks away, laughing to himself.

 

The video was obtained by the Los Angeles Times through a public records request and posted to their website late Friday.

 

"This is my genocide school. Where I'm going to be homeless because of this school," Loughner says. "I haven't forgotten the teacher that gave me a B for freedom of speech."

 

"This is Pima Community College, one of the biggest scams in America," Loughner says in the video. "If the student is unable to locate the external universe, the student is unable to locate the internal universe."

 

Loughner posted the video under the name under the username "2PLOY," as TPM reported this week. Shortly after the video was posted, the community college delivered a notice of suspension to Loughner's home. An officer wrote that Loughner "held a constant trance" and told the officers "I realize now this is all a scam."

Link

[Texsox]

I believe we have now reached a point in our society that we will not advocate change unless it can be 100% proven someone died. Wow.

 

Why can't we look at the rhetoric in America and say, this is not helping and should be changed? That's right, for some reason that would be exploiting for political gains. Which seems to mean that one party is the shooter of all that crap and the party that wants to make it stop is the target. Yet we found that both parties have used that technique. So how the hell is it partisan politics to advocate for stopping the crap?

[BigSqwert]

Agreed Tex.

 

And I will admit that this Loughner guy is totally f***ed in the head.

[lostfan]

So I guess what I am saying is that coming from someone who is not really on either side here, I find the immediate finger pointing by the Dems to be insensitive and almost sickening, but the dramatic "how could you possibly say such a thing" by the Republicans to be disingenuous and pathetic.

qft

[lostfan]

If the burden of proof is really that low, why didn't anyone latch onto someone like Al Gore as responsible for causing the Discovery Channel shootings? Why wasn't there the same indictment of left wing environmentalism going too far as to cause someone to kill people for not sounding big enough warnings? In case involving far left wing nutjobs, that leap was never made. Why is now the appropriate one to make here? There was never anyone made to apologize for the suggestions that set this guy off. What is the difference here? If the burden is really that one side uses violence and scary words and images, you can pick lots of stuff out of Gore's movie, and say that maybe, just maybe, if Al doesn't make his movie, this idiot doesn't shoot up the Discovery Channel, so therefore Al Gore should apologize and be quiet. I mean after all he is talking about things like massive human extinctions right? What is more hateful than causing massive die-offs?

 

Do you see how absurd that is now? This is all political witch hunt. The fact that it is being justified as needing to be done tells me more than anything.

Yeah, you should go find some Fox News articles on that event, read the comments, and get back to me... that's not where the media went with it, but bloggers and whoever else were definitely coming right out and saying that.

[lostfan]

Wait so we didn't have partisanship while guys like Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan etc were Presidents? That is just flat out not true.

lol, it's really not. Liberals and conservatives were both confrontational towards the USSR but they had completely and totally different ways of going about it, and there was plenty of name-calling and labeling and smearing of anyone who disagreed (Joseph Mccarthy anyone?)