Arizona shooting

[Cc_Hairy]

[zwsaz1]

So... uh, I was in the building next to the store when the shooting happened. It was scary as fuck...

[joe]

thats pretty crazy

you should sell the rights to your story

[zwsaz1]

I'll get right on that.

[Sk1n]

Describing someone as a "racist reactionary homophobe" is HARDLY the same as saying your political opponents should be "taken out." You can't compare Olbermann or Maddow as being as crazy/outlandish as Glenn Beck or Bill O'reilly. Often times, Olbermann's insults spew out of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, or Beck acting like idiots. That's even worse than comparing the Black Panthers to the KKK. You should really stop saying that.

Bill Maher makes some really good points.
-If a crazy person like Loughner can pick up a gun, that's a problem.
-If you look at the guys youtube channel, you can see his distrust with big government and the whole gold thing. That does SOUND like Glenn Back.
-Olbermann's Worst Person in the World =/= Putting crosshairs on political opponents, threatening with bodily harm, the ad that had "removing Gifford from office " immediately followed by an invitation to shoot M16s.
-It may be too soon to place DIRECT blame and Loughner may not have been inspired directly by Glenn Beck, but there is definitely some correlation between the republican's recent rhetoric and the events that have taken place.

What exactly should I stop saying? Please show me where someone on the right is saying that someone on the left should be taken out in the sense of doing physical harm. I would LOVE to see what you can produce to prove your point. You do what taken out means right? Departed, removed, retreated. Oh what's that? No right wing politician has advocated physical violence against someone on the other side. Therefore what Keith Olbermann says is just as bad, plus you left out the part how he referred to Scott Brown also as an advocate for violence against women. That is pretty fucking bad, but apparently you think that is acceptable behavior. Inflammatory and slanderous comments come from BOTH sides and neither side has a right to point a finger. Nice job making an ignorant statement by comparing political points of view to groups like Black Panthers and the KKK.

As far as Bill Maher's points:
1. he had no criminal record and no long history of documented mental illness that would prevent him from buying a gun. If he wouldn't have gotten it from a licensed store, he would have found another way. This isn't a gun control issue.
2. It's stupid and immature of you to keep finding ways to try and link him with the right. Everyone that knew him in both high school and college says he belonged to no political affiliation. His former best friend is quoted as saying "He did not watch TV. He hated the news and political radio. He didn't take sides. He wasn't on the left. He wasn't on the right."
3. Again stop grasping at straws. Show me where republican candidates are threatening their opponents with physical violence instead of you just twisting the words "remove Gifford from office" to sound like a death threat instead of what a democratic campaign actually does. You know, by voting for one candidate and denying their opponent the position.
4. Again stop being a child and blaming the right where there is absolutely no evidence to support it. It's been said over and over again on every news station how there is no correlation. Just like every left winger out there who wants another reason to hate the right, you're making shit up to support your belief that they are to blame for a horrible tragedy.

[stickbeast]

I guess I wasn't clear but, you should really stop comparing people like O'Reilly and Olbermann together. This isn't the first time you've compared them and its getting annoying. The main difference is Olbermann apologizes when he overreacts, O'Reilly tells you to shut up and erases transcripts to hide his blunders.

People who knew him new he was crazy. Doesn't matter if he was diagnosed or not. If someone can buy a gun without a halfway decent background check that's a problem. It doesn't matter if Loughner COULD have gotten his guns illegally through some other means. What matters is how easily he got them legally.

I'm not trying to find ways to link him with people on the right. Just observing the obvious similarities between him and Beck. Not saying he is a secret sleeper agent from the Tea Party, just saying he's similar to Beck. He could have been Glenn Beck's number 1 fan, it doesn't mean I think he is to blame or should be taken off the air. The dude was crazy.

Way to take what I referenced out of context. Putting crosshairs on a political opponent and saying you want them removed from office (this is the important part) IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED by an invitation to shoot m16's is pretty suggestive. The "don't tread on me" rhetoric from the Tea Party, people like Dale Peterson threateningly wielding a rifle in his campaign commercial, etc. No one on the left does this. Maybe Loughner never went to these websites or never listened or even liked Beck...but this is a real wake up call to this kind of behavior exhibited by those crazy tea party representatives. Like Maher said, these aren't just famous people expressing their opinion, these are people IN politics. People that are supposed to be responsible. What happened should be treated as a wake-up call, not a "now look what you gone and did" thing.

I'm not placing any direct blame on the right, I'm just observing obvious correlations. I'm not some political pundit trying to put the blame on the "other side" to absolve "my side" of guilt, trying to boost ratings by exploiting a tragedy to make a political point. Why do I care about crazy people being able to get guns? Because I don't want to get fucking shot that's why. I could care less about guns/anti-gun lobbyists.

If someone is fucked up enough to want to kill a bunch of people, that itself is a problem. People were scared of him, people didn't like him, people thought maybe he might go out and bring a rifle to school, but no one did ANYTHING. If people actually did something, reached out and tried to talk to him or something, this whole thing would have never happened. Him being able to easily buy a gun is also a problem, but like you said, he could have gotten it another way. Keeping him from getting the gun is just a common sense, practical prevention, not really a solution. Kind of like locking your doors at night, if someone really wanted to break in, they'd just do it.

[Cc_Hairy]

The right isn't at fault for this. Saying the attack was political is correct. Saying the attack occurred against these specific people as opposed to another group because of politics is also correct. Saying that the shooter would have not harmed people if it weren't for politics is incorrect. It is not Sarah Palins fault that this person killed people. Saying that she or other political figures helped a murderous armed person to identify these targets is plausible.

This kid was crazy and was going to hurt someone. But given the media saturation of fear mongering by the right to motivate their base is it any surprise this kid fixated on politics as his rationalization for his murderous thoughts? It is always appropriate to slam them for fear mongering but no blame should be cast.

There is also fear mongering on the left but is is not as amplified because of the left's media deficit. It benefits the ruling elite, the politicians, the media and the activist leaders. The fear mongering is very irresponsible, selfish and is destructive to the average middle class worker. It keeps us from seeing how much we have in common and how much the hidden elite is in control.

[Bogey]

1. he had no criminal record and no long history of documented mental illness that would prevent him from buying a gun. If he wouldn't have gotten it from a licensed store, he would have found another way. This isn't a gun control issue.

It should be.
If someone like that can buy a gun so easily, then there is a big fucking problem.

[CaptainTripps]

Skin - Since when do news organizations draw our conclusions for us? If we see and hear what's being said and feel that it's lent itself to a more disruptive and violent environment, why should the opinion of some talking head change that? They don't even mention half of what's been said by these jack offs, or call the obvious paranoia and not at all subtle racism and bigotry of the Rights message lately.

I mean they hate gays, they hate immigrants, they have a really obvious problem with our black President (and I'm not talking the legitimate gripes I'm talking the petty and made up crap that gets spewed), they seem to consider the poor useless chattel, believe our foreign relations start at the end of a gun, think Evolution, Climate Change and other non-Biblically supported science are some plan of the Beast, etc etc


How the fuck are we not supposed to be disgusted with these people?

[Mad_Dugan]

Actually, there are psychology research studies that suggest that if you hear something you disagree with, when asked about it six months later, you are more agreeable with it.

[shawnolson]

I shared this in another thread... but I feel it fits in here too. This is the kind of "American" that makes America a scary place sometimes. I took this for some public event (can't even remember what it was now) when I worked as a photographer and reporter:



Can you smell the crazy sauce? I can see this kind of person shooting people for a retarded belief. Way too many of us take ourselves way too seriously... in the end there are actually very few important things to argue about... but we must have a gene that says go fight about stupid shit!

PS. I would like to game with some of you crazy people sometime... but it appears that your CS server is offline... will it come back anytime? Sorry that is so off topic... but...

[NIPPER]

I figured out who we can blame this on: ted nugent

[shawnolson]

You may be onto something... I ran Mr. Ted Nugent's name through a super computer (actually... an online anagram generator but I have to make it sound cool) and here are some of his permutations:

Netted Gun
Dung Tenet
End Get Nut

Interesting...

[Sk1n]

So much for death threats and crazy outbursts being a right wing thing. I'm sure it will be rationalized somehow though.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110116/ap_ ... n_shot_264

[shawnolson]

the 60 Minutes bit on the shooting was pretty good. They concluded there was no political beef... more about personal slight and madness.