Coincidentally, Giffords name was placed on a political "hit list" drafted by Sarah Palin sometime early last year. At the time, people criticized Palin, claiming she was inciting violence.
So do you think Palin's political life, all 15 minutes of it, flashed before her eyes the moment she heard one of the people on that list was just shot and killed (as was first reported)? I suspect it did.
As more details unfold about the shooter, Jared Loughner, it seems he might be a leftist nut job and probably wasn't influenced by Palin's list at all. (But then there's the mysterious missing suspect, the one behind the grassy knoll, who may be the right-wing mastermind of the shooting... we'll save that for another day.)
Regardless of whether or not he was influenced by Palin, Glenn Beck, or Keith Olberman, the fact that the connection with Palin was and could be made is the problem. It clearly demonstrates the hatred and anger between political groups that has spread throughout the country.
This tragedy should be used as a catalyst for change to more civil and peaceful political discourse.
It should be, but do you think it will be?
ReplyDeleteWhy do you lefties get to have all the fun playing Sen McCarthy, fireboming those you hate with reckless accusations? I want a turn too! I think it's the atheists' fault. Jared Loughner, like the greatest mass murderers of all time (in ascending order) Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, was an avowed atheist. Jared Loughner shot 19 people, killing six. Therefore atheists are murderers. We must therefore pass a law making it illegal to profess atheism while speaking about a member of the U.S. Congress. And it should be illegal to allow an atheist within 100 feet of a congressman, too. Those atheists, a chilling, vicious, and hateful bunch.
ReplyDeleteYeah it is kinda fun making reckless accusations but I don't think either side of the political debate has the market cornered there. It's all depends on perspective.
ReplyDeleteBut to say atheists are murderers? Hitler never killed anyone in the name of atheism. Neither did Stalin or Mao. They may have rejected religion for various reasons but they killed people to stay power, not in the name of atheism.
Christianity, Islam, on the other hand, has been killing people in the name of their respective religion since their very beginnings. Crusades? Inquisitions? Even then, however, the real reason behind the killing mostly involved acquiring/maintaining power.
Ah, a predictably selective impugning of religion, those dastardly Christians and their Crusades (arguably a justifiable reaction/counterattack following 500 years of non-stop Islamic military conquest/plunder of formerly Christian lands) and the Inquisition (yes agreed, nasty business. I'm sure the Almighty was ticked off about that and those sadistic friars are frying in hell now).
ReplyDeleteIf one's keen on bashing religion, it would appear irresistable to bloviate about current Islamic extremist lunacy, Aztec mass human sacrifice/tearing hearts out of living people, African animist cannibalism, those damn hari krishnas making all that racket, etc. How about a little more sensitivity to diversity and multiculturalism?
I mentioned Islam too, just to be fair. I'm sure the Aztecs and the Africans equally used religion to justify killing and such. My point was only that you can't brand atheists as killers and claim they are responsible for the greatest atrocities when every religion has been used/abused in some way to justify killing. That's the problem with religion in general. Each has their own absolutes, and when opposing absolutes collide...
ReplyDelete