Well... looks like the guy was a bad shot...
Violence on the right usually is self defense from the left, and violence on the left is exclusively against the right; to protect America against 'fascism', like as many Antifa say 'bash a fash'. People like that cowardly crazed liberal professor within Antifa hitting the 'fascist' with a bike lock over their heads.
The very powerful liberal intelligentsia status quo in America used to be run by old school New York liberals, back when we got news from newspapers, and the legacy media (CNN, NBS, ABC etc). Now we are in the social media age, and very leftist Silicon Valley (the Zuckerbergs of the world) is running American media (FB, twitter, etc). Current California liberals are much more whacked out than the old school more even keeled NY liberals of yesteryear.
Now everything is about victimology, 'woke' racial injustices, infantilization, overly promoting LGBT issues like they are an endangered species, wealth redistribution (particularly from the middle class to the poor, many which are able bodies that will not work) leftist political violence, turning a blind eye to despicable acts with a certain continuous violent religious ideology (accept the very rare Halley's Comet Christian incident of course) and further degradation and confusion in America with double downed corrosive communist, socialist and SJW politics.
IMO antibullying campaigns of 2010s (pre BLM) started alot of this victimhood stuff' a liberal slippery slope from flat to steep.
I thought this was the title of Bill O'Reillys new book in his "Killing" series?
It's impossible to think of this event as anything but disgusting and horrible. It should provoke a period of soul searching for all of us.
I 10 East, your comments are incredibly stupid.
Please stop the horse manure.
Or ask Gabby Giffords about violence from the right. You may have forgotten, but VP Candidate Sara Palin put gun sights on liberal districts
she wanted to "take out" during her short lived rise to infamy. Then lo and behold a right wing nut job shows up at a GG rally and shoots her point blank in the head.
While common sense Americans have supported common sense gun control for years, the right wing of the Republican Party has fought them tooth and nail, proposing that more guns and access to them will make us all safer. It's a fallacy. A very lethal one.
Quote from: I-10east on June 14, 2017, 06:54:11 PM
Violence on the right usually is self defense from the left, and violence on the left is exclusively against the right
? Hannity, is that you?
Quote from: MusicMan on June 14, 2017, 09:18:09 PM
I 10 East, your comments are incredibly stupid.
Please stop the horse manure.
Or ask Gabby Giffords about violence from the right. You may have forgotten, but VP Candidate Sara Palin put gun sights on liberal districts
she wanted to "take out" during her short lived rise to infamy. Then lo and behold a right wing nut job shows up at a GG rally and shoots her point blank in the head.
While common sense Americans have supported common sense gun control for years, the right wing of the Republican Party has fought them tooth and nail, proposing that more guns and access to them will make us all safer. It's a fallacy. A very lethal one.
How would Alexandria turned out in a gun "safe" zone without the armed cops?
A guy shot someone. Why does this have to be turned into some sort of anti "left" screed? By all accounts, the guy was unhinged. And those sorts of people exist all over the political spectrum.
And I-10 - Hitler sent millions of Jews, Communists, Socialists, Jehova's Witnesses, Lesbians, Gays, disabled people, etc to death camps. Are you arguing that this was self-defence?
Timothy McVeigh was a right winger who blew up a Federal building. I guess he was just defending himself against all those kids in the daycare...
Quote from: bill on June 14, 2017, 10:49:23 PM
How would Alexandria turned out in a gun "safe" zone without the armed cops?
I've never heard of a "gun safe zone" where cops aren't allowed to be armed.
The fact of the matter is that a) an armed citizen decided to try to kill some politicians and b) armed police stopped him.
I don't see the value in hypotheticals.
Quote from: bill on June 14, 2017, 10:49:23 PM
Quote from: MusicMan on June 14, 2017, 09:18:09 PM
I 10 East, your comments are incredibly stupid.
Please stop the horse manure.
Or ask Gabby Giffords about violence from the right. You may have forgotten, but VP Candidate Sara Palin put gun sights on liberal districts
she wanted to "take out" during her short lived rise to infamy. Then lo and behold a right wing nut job shows up at a GG rally and shoots her point blank in the head.
While common sense Americans have supported common sense gun control for years, the right wing of the Republican Party has fought them tooth and nail, proposing that more guns and access to them will make us all safer. It's a fallacy. A very lethal one.
How would Alexandria turned out in a gun "safe" zone without the armed cops?
Since when are the United States Capital Police ever barred from carrying their service weapons while on congressional protection detail?
Further, how are any police officers barred from carrying their service weapons in a "gun free zone"? That applies to civilians, not police.
Quote from: Jim on June 15, 2017, 09:43:07 AM
Quote from: bill on June 14, 2017, 10:49:23 PM
Quote from: MusicMan on June 14, 2017, 09:18:09 PM
I 10 East, your comments are incredibly stupid.
Please stop the horse manure.
Or ask Gabby Giffords about violence from the right. You may have forgotten, but VP Candidate Sara Palin put gun sights on liberal districts
she wanted to "take out" during her short lived rise to infamy. Then lo and behold a right wing nut job shows up at a GG rally and shoots her point blank in the head.
While common sense Americans have supported common sense gun control for years, the right wing of the Republican Party has fought them tooth and nail, proposing that more guns and access to them will make us all safer. It's a fallacy. A very lethal one.
How would Alexandria turned out in a gun "safe" zone without the armed cops?
Since when are the United States Capital Police ever barred from carrying their service weapons while on congressional protection detail?
Further, how are any police officers barred from carrying their service weapons in a "gun free zone"? That applies to civilians, not police.
Obtuse. The cops just happened to be there bc of Scalise otherwise the one "civilian" with a gun would have slaughtered everyone.
Quote from: bill on June 15, 2017, 10:12:23 AM
Quote from: Jim on June 15, 2017, 09:43:07 AM
Quote from: bill on June 14, 2017, 10:49:23 PM
Quote from: MusicMan on June 14, 2017, 09:18:09 PM
I 10 East, your comments are incredibly stupid.
Please stop the horse manure.
Or ask Gabby Giffords about violence from the right. You may have forgotten, but VP Candidate Sara Palin put gun sights on liberal districts
she wanted to "take out" during her short lived rise to infamy. Then lo and behold a right wing nut job shows up at a GG rally and shoots her point blank in the head.
While common sense Americans have supported common sense gun control for years, the right wing of the Republican Party has fought them tooth and nail, proposing that more guns and access to them will make us all safer. It's a fallacy. A very lethal one.
How would Alexandria turned out in a gun "safe" zone without the armed cops?
Since when are the United States Capital Police ever barred from carrying their service weapons while on congressional protection detail?
Further, how are any police officers barred from carrying their service weapons in a "gun free zone"? That applies to civilians, not police.
Obtuse. The cops just happened to be there bc of Scalise otherwise the one "civilian" with a gun would have slaughtered everyone.
Yes - but it wasn't a gun "safe" zone and yet no one else had guns. Why not? Because they chose not to. And the one citizen who chose to arm himself happened to be the "bad guy".
^ DC is basically a "gun free zone" (for law abiding anyway) though so people in northern VA/southern MA rarely carry since they'll likely be travelling to/from DC all the time thus breaking the law.
Quote from: peestandingup on June 15, 2017, 11:05:40 AM
^ DC is basically a "gun free zone" (for law abiding anyway) though so people in northern VA/southern MA rarely carry since they'll likely be travelling to/from DC all the time thus breaking the law.
The shooting happened in Virginia. Surely there must be gun owners in northern VA.
When I see someone reference commonsense gun laws I think of laws that prohibit someone who has committed violent acts (such as the shooter
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/14/the_alexandria_shooter_had_a_history_of_domestic_abuse_like_most_mass_shooters.html
(http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/14/the_alexandria_shooter_had_a_history_of_domestic_abuse_like_most_mass_shooters.html) not disarming the police as a troll on this thread would have you believe about we libs.
Quote from: JeffreyS on June 15, 2017, 11:30:11 AM
When I see someone reference commonsense gun laws I think of laws that prohibit someone who has committed violent acts (such as the shooter
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/14/the_alexandria_shooter_had_a_history_of_domestic_abuse_like_most_mass_shooters.html
(http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/14/the_alexandria_shooter_had_a_history_of_domestic_abuse_like_most_mass_shooters.html) not disarming the police as a troll on this thread would have you believe about we libs.
According to the articles Federal law already prohibits domestic abusers from purchasing and owning firearms. The states need to get off their butts and enact laws on how those convicted need to dispose of their guns.
Edit: Also prosecutors need to stop hanging out misdemeanor plea deals for true domestic violence incidents.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/incitement-violence-15267.html
QuoteIncitement to Violence
The Left has raised America's political temperature to the boiling point.
Seth Barron June 14, 2017
Democrats may be horrified by today's attempted massacre of the GOP House baseball team by an avowed progressive, but their incendiary demands for "massive resistance" since November have been an open plea for the escalation of words into violent action. The daily repetition that President Trump is an illegitimate usurper who stole the election through collusion with foreign powers has been a hypnotic incantation in search of an Oswald: a siren call for an assassin.
We don't have to look too hard to find extremist rhetoric from influential people whose appeals for violence are only partially veiled. In March, former attorney general Loretta Lynch made a brief video in which she called for people "who see our rights being assailed, being trampled on and even being rolled back" to follow the example of freedom fighters of the past. "They've marched, they've bled and yes, some of them died. This is hard. Every good thing is. We have done this before. We can do this again." The Senate Democrats shared Lynch's call for street action leading to bloody sacrifice on their Facebook page.
At the Women's March on Washington the day after Trump's inauguration, Angela Davis's appeal for militancy was met with cheers. "Over the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our demands for social justice to become more militant in our defense of vulnerable populations," announced Davis, who in 1970 bought the shotgun used two days later to murder a judge. "Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out," she concluded. At the same event, pop legend Madonna spoke about her fantasies of "blowing up the White House."
Liberals frequently complain that conservatives disseminate propaganda to their secretly racist supporters via "dog whistle" tactics, which send the desired message in coded language or gestures. The same liberals have dispensed with high-frequency whistles in favor of a simpler message: "Treason!" Following the now-debunked February 14 New York Times report that Trump's campaign had been in direct contact with Russian agents before the election, a late-night host commented, "It's funny because it's treason." Comedian Rosie O'Donnell led an anti-Trump rally outside the White House, declaring, "He is going down and so will all of his administration. The charge is treason."
Joy Behar, host of The View, has claimed that the president's allegiance to the Kremlin is treasonous, but she is also concerned about his work on behalf of Islamic State caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. "Do you think," mused Behar, "that because he is the recruiter-in-chief, and by his words he's getting more people to go on the side of ISIS, that he could be considered treasonous? I mean, that is against the Constitution, that is against America. That's a treasonous act in my opinion." Treason, of course, is a capital crime; the constant reiteration of the charge that Trump is a traitor has supplied the groundwork of justification for political violence.
Reputable figures in the media have normalized radical, violent discourse. Popular television writer/producer David Simon tweeted this week, "If Donald Trump fires Robert Mueller and is allowed to do so, pick up a goddamn brick. That's all that's left to you." Writing in The Nation, Natasha Lennard praised street violence as "kinetic beauty," and Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, exhorted, "Don't play footsie with proto-fascism. Fucking smash it." A protestor at a rally in New York City's Tompkins Square Park held a sign reading, "Hug a refugee (with permission); Punch a Nazi (with precision.)"
Every policy difference, no matter how trivial, has been cast as a matter of life and death. Proposed changes in federal Medicaid reimbursement practices will consign "tens of thousands of people" to early death, according to Senator Bernie Sanders, while rolling back federal guidelines on transgender bathroom signage will cause more teenagers to kill themselves, according to ThinkProgress. Abandonment of the non-enforceable and voluntary Paris Accord on Climate Change will doom the world to "catastrophe" and imminent mass extinction, according to Jill Stein.
In the last few weeks, the violent rhetoric crossed a fever line. CNN personality Kathy Griffin posed deadpan holding a severed and bloody head resembling Donald Trump; on television the next day, she tearfully denounced the many "old white men" who have supposedly bullied her. New York's venerable Shakespeare in the Park is currently performing a modern-dress version of Julius Caesar, in which a Trump-qua-Caesar character is murdered every night in a particularly bloody and graphic staging.
Following the shooting, liberal Twitter erupted in cynical snark. Op-ed writer Malcolm Harris wondered if the shooter could plead self-defense, in the event he had a pre-existing condition. Sonia Gupta, a Louisiana former prosecutor, counseled her followers not to be too sad about the wounding of Representative Steve Scalise, because "he's a racist piece of shit and hateful bigot." David Frum, though not a liberal, reminded us that "the president is the country's noisiest inciter of political violence," though the violence he has supposedly incited appears to be mostly from the other side.
Trump's opponents in the media, academia, and politics can pretend that their calls for radical action were meant metaphorically or in a nonviolent sense. But they are the ones who opened this box of fear, panic, and rage. Let them take responsibility for the climate that now exists.
Quote from: MusicMan on June 14, 2017, 09:18:09 PM
I 10 East, your comments are incredibly stupid.
Please stop the horse manure.
Or ask Gabby Giffords about violence from the right. You may have forgotten, but VP Candidate Sara Palin put gun sights on liberal districts
she wanted to "take out" during her short lived rise to infamy. Then lo and behold a right wing nut job shows up at a GG rally and shoots her point blank in the head.
While common sense Americans have supported common sense gun control for years, the right wing of the Republican Party has fought them tooth and nail, proposing that more guns and access to them will make us all safer. It's a fallacy. A very lethal one.
That's really not what happened with gabby gifford, here is a good synopsis and a debunking of today NYT editoral (prior to its correction). Mother Jones has some good articles about the nutjob as well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/06/15/the-bogus-claim-that-a-map-of-crosshairs-by-sarah-palins-pac-incited-rep-gabby-giffordss-shooting/?utm_term=.a9002396dd63
Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 15, 2017, 12:55:50 PM
https://www.city-journal.org/html/incitement-violence-15267.html
QuoteIncitement to Violence
The Left has raised America's political temperature to the boiling point.
Seth Barron June 14, 2017
Democrats may be horrified by today's attempted massacre of the GOP House baseball team by an avowed progressive, but their incendiary demands for "massive resistance" since November have been an open plea for the escalation of words into violent action. The daily repetition that President Trump is an illegitimate usurper who stole the election through collusion with foreign powers has been a hypnotic incantation in search of an Oswald: a siren call for an assassin.
We don't have to look too hard to find extremist rhetoric from influential people whose appeals for violence are only partially veiled. In March, former attorney general Loretta Lynch made a brief video in which she called for people "who see our rights being assailed, being trampled on and even being rolled back" to follow the example of freedom fighters of the past. "They've marched, they've bled and yes, some of them died. This is hard. Every good thing is. We have done this before. We can do this again." The Senate Democrats shared Lynch's call for street action leading to bloody sacrifice on their Facebook page.
At the Women's March on Washington the day after Trump's inauguration, Angela Davis's appeal for militancy was met with cheers. "Over the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our demands for social justice to become more militant in our defense of vulnerable populations," announced Davis, who in 1970 bought the shotgun used two days later to murder a judge. "Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out," she concluded. At the same event, pop legend Madonna spoke about her fantasies of "blowing up the White House."
Liberals frequently complain that conservatives disseminate propaganda to their secretly racist supporters via "dog whistle" tactics, which send the desired message in coded language or gestures. The same liberals have dispensed with high-frequency whistles in favor of a simpler message: "Treason!" Following the now-debunked February 14 New York Times report that Trump's campaign had been in direct contact with Russian agents before the election, a late-night host commented, "It's funny because it's treason." Comedian Rosie O'Donnell led an anti-Trump rally outside the White House, declaring, "He is going down and so will all of his administration. The charge is treason."
Joy Behar, host of The View, has claimed that the president's allegiance to the Kremlin is treasonous, but she is also concerned about his work on behalf of Islamic State caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. "Do you think," mused Behar, "that because he is the recruiter-in-chief, and by his words he's getting more people to go on the side of ISIS, that he could be considered treasonous? I mean, that is against the Constitution, that is against America. That's a treasonous act in my opinion." Treason, of course, is a capital crime; the constant reiteration of the charge that Trump is a traitor has supplied the groundwork of justification for political violence.
Reputable figures in the media have normalized radical, violent discourse. Popular television writer/producer David Simon tweeted this week, "If Donald Trump fires Robert Mueller and is allowed to do so, pick up a goddamn brick. That's all that's left to you." Writing in The Nation, Natasha Lennard praised street violence as "kinetic beauty," and Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, exhorted, "Don't play footsie with proto-fascism. Fucking smash it." A protestor at a rally in New York City's Tompkins Square Park held a sign reading, "Hug a refugee (with permission); Punch a Nazi (with precision.)"
Every policy difference, no matter how trivial, has been cast as a matter of life and death. Proposed changes in federal Medicaid reimbursement practices will consign "tens of thousands of people" to early death, according to Senator Bernie Sanders, while rolling back federal guidelines on transgender bathroom signage will cause more teenagers to kill themselves, according to ThinkProgress. Abandonment of the non-enforceable and voluntary Paris Accord on Climate Change will doom the world to "catastrophe" and imminent mass extinction, according to Jill Stein.
In the last few weeks, the violent rhetoric crossed a fever line. CNN personality Kathy Griffin posed deadpan holding a severed and bloody head resembling Donald Trump; on television the next day, she tearfully denounced the many "old white men" who have supposedly bullied her. New York's venerable Shakespeare in the Park is currently performing a modern-dress version of Julius Caesar, in which a Trump-qua-Caesar character is murdered every night in a particularly bloody and graphic staging.
Following the shooting, liberal Twitter erupted in cynical snark. Op-ed writer Malcolm Harris wondered if the shooter could plead self-defense, in the event he had a pre-existing condition. Sonia Gupta, a Louisiana former prosecutor, counseled her followers not to be too sad about the wounding of Representative Steve Scalise, because "he's a racist piece of shit and hateful bigot." David Frum, though not a liberal, reminded us that "the president is the country's noisiest inciter of political violence," though the violence he has supposedly incited appears to be mostly from the other side.
Trump's opponents in the media, academia, and politics can pretend that their calls for radical action were meant metaphorically or in a nonviolent sense. But they are the ones who opened this box of fear, panic, and rage. Let them take responsibility for the climate that now exists.
I think there is some truth to this but to dump the entire climate escalation on one side or the other(as the article does in the end) is laughable. How many 2nd amendment bumper stickers have you seen that end in "pry it from my cold dead hands", Ted Nuegent calling for Obama and Hilliary's assassination(earning him a visit to Trumps White House, or the right and the left picking their most incendiary candidates out of the primary process. When the right votes for the guy whose solution to a problem is telling his supporters to literally "punch them in the face" it is going to be hard to divorce themselves from the political culture of violence.
I'm try to remember Trumps Second Amendment comments at his rally that were left 'open to interpretation':
Donald Trump's comments Tuesday suggesting that "2nd Amendment people" could stop Hillary Clinton from making judicial nominations sparked outrage from opponents — but the campaign defended the remarks by arguing that Trump was referring to the group's considerable political power.
"Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment," Trump said during a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday.
"By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know."
He is directly referring to violence against her. He refers specifically to "the second amendment people" and implying their use of firearms to stop her. It's not veiled, it's Trump.
Yeah, It's all on the left....................
I remember this one from a Rick Santorum campaign appearance in 2008. He is at a firing range in Louisiana, and as he takes aim at the target, a woman in the background can clearly be heard saying, "Pretend it's Obama." Followed by some chuckling. That's vintage Southern right wing hate for ya.
Roll Tape: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/as-santorum-fires-gun-woman-shouts-pretend-its-obama/
Presumably the people who are blaming "leftist" rhetoric for this are the same people who blame gun violence on video games. And women in short skirts for rape.
Is it laughable? The difference between the climate now... and the climate then... is the tacit approval of these statements by highly visible media members. There is no criticism of the comments posted in the article by Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon etc not to mention our "news" comedians late at night
Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 15, 2017, 12:55:50 PM
https://www.city-journal.org/html/incitement-violence-15267.html
QuoteIncitement to Violence
The Left has raised America's political temperature to the boiling point.
Seth Barron June 14, 2017
But they are the ones who opened this box of fear, panic, and rage. Let them take responsibility for the climate that now exists.
Here is the beginning and end of the opinion piece I commented on yes it is laughable to pretend this is one sided that it was opened strictly by those on the left.
I offer no defense of the examples on the left Kathy Griffen, Shakespeare in the park ect... they certainly contribute to people feeling violence is legitimate. The right certainly would be justified to say "it isn't just us" right now but not justified to say "it is just them."
But WHY is it one sided Jeffrey... I will answer... it is one sided because of the unspoken or wink and nod approval of the left and media. Obama was the target of hateful racist and violent words also... BUT THEY WERE DENOUNCED as such by virtually everyone... media and republicans included. The climate has changed for the worse I'm afraid...
http://nypost.com/2017/06/14/political-death-threats-becoming-new-unsettling-normal/
here are some excerpts...
QuoteThink Kathy Griffin's severed head. Think Madonna telling a rally she thinks about blowing up the White House. Think Shakespeare in the Park using a Trump stand-in for Julius Caesar — and the audience loving the blood lust.
Did a single leading Democrat denounce any of these outrages as dangerous incitement? How about celebrated cultural figures or religious leaders or historians —
QuoteConservatives invited to speak on college campuses are so routinely greeted with violent protests that it is no longer a big news story.
QuoteThis is not to suggest that hatred for political figures is limited to the left. President Barack Obama, as a black man, was many times the target of racial prejudice from people on the right.
Yet a major difference was that all major American institutions, and virtually the entire political establishment, denounced that despicable animus when it surfaced. A united front against open expressions of racism held its ground.
QuoteThe rage over his election, instead of waning, continues to gather steam. The fervent desire to be rid of him and anyone who supports him is expanding into dangerous dimensions.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 15, 2017, 03:32:59 PM
The climate has changed for the worse I'm afraid...
It's always nice to see a conservative acknowledge climate change.
Quote from: Adam White on June 15, 2017, 03:42:54 PM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 15, 2017, 03:32:59 PM
The climate has changed for the worse I'm afraid...
It's always nice to see a conservative acknowledge climate change.
Oh I did that long ago...
Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 15, 2017, 03:45:33 PM
Quote from: Adam White on June 15, 2017, 03:42:54 PM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 15, 2017, 03:32:59 PM
The climate has changed for the worse I'm afraid...
It's always nice to see a conservative acknowledge climate change.
Oh I did that long ago...
I actually figured you weren't a denier. But you made it too easy for me...
Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 15, 2017, 03:32:59 PM
But WHY is it one sided Jeffrey... I will answer... it is one sided because of the unspoken or wink and nod approval of the left and media. Obama was the target of hateful racist and violent words also... BUT THEY WERE DENOUNCED as such by virtually everyone... media and republicans included. The climate has changed for the worse I'm afraid...
The two big examples here recently Kathy Griffen and SITP have both garnered lots of coverage as inappropriate. In fact the big bad liberal media cut ties with Kathy Griffen over her behavior. Your right to point out that much of the anger on the left's side has been expressed in an unacceptable fashion. IMO trying to change the argument from look at the results of the left's bad behavior to the left is solely (or mostly) responsible for the bad climate. Is taking a winning position to a losing one for no good reason. However that is just an opinion and I am often about 50% on the prognostication scoreboard.
The right claims they would have saved lives if more people had guns.
Let me get this straight. Several dozen untrained civilians wearing baseball uniforms are somehow going to both carry a gun on them while playing short stop and catcher and protect each other better than the trained Capital Hill Police that were on site for their protection?
Quote from: Murder_me_Rachel on June 16, 2017, 09:28:32 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 15, 2017, 03:32:59 PM
But WHY is it one sided Jeffrey... I will answer... it is one sided because of the unspoken or wink and nod approval of the left and media. Obama was the target of hateful racist and violent words also... BUT THEY WERE DENOUNCED as such by virtually everyone... media and republicans included. The climate has changed for the worse I'm afraid...
Um, guy, you do realize our current president made his political bona fides by saying his predecessor was born in Kenya, right? And that when that was easily proven wrong, he not only doubled down and said he faked his law degree, but then said HRC started those rumors. And you do know that he just invited the fucking Nuge to the damn White House, when that dude shot arrows at an effigy of HRC and also said violent and racist shit about Obama.
Seriously, what you just wrote makes me think maybe you were in a coma for the past 9 years...?
Wide awake bro... and eyes wide open...
This crap goes both ways. If this guy had shot at a bunch of democrats you can believe the left would be blowing up with "Trump supporter goes on mass shooting rampage with automatic assault weapon" type of headlines.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rage-is-all-the-rage-and-its-dangerous-1497571401
QuoteRage Is All the Rage, and It's Dangerous
A generation of media figures are cratering under the historical pressure of Donald Trump.
By Peggy Noonan
June 15, 2017 8:03 p.m. ET
What we are living through in America is not only a division but a great estrangement. It is between those who support Donald Trump and those who despise him, between left and right, between the two parties, and even to some degree between the bases of those parties and their leaders in Washington. It is between the religious and those who laugh at Your Make Believe Friend, between cultural progressives and those who wish not to have progressive ways imposed upon them. It is between the coasts and the center, between those in flyover country and those who decide what flyover will watch on television next season. It is between "I accept the court's decision" and "Bake my cake." We look down on each other, fear each other, increasingly hate each other.
Oh, to have a unifying figure, program or party.
But we don't, nor is there any immediate prospect. So, as Ben Franklin said, we'll have to hang together or we'll surely hang separately. To hang together—to continue as a country—at the very least we have to lower the political temperature. It's on all of us more than ever to assume good faith, put our views forward with respect, even charity, and refuse to incite.
We've been failing. Here is a reason the failure is so dangerous.
In the early 1990s Roger Ailes had a talk show on the America's Talking network and invited me to talk about a concern I'd been writing about, which was old-fashioned even then: violence on TV and in the movies. Grim and graphic images, repeated depictions of murder and beatings, are bad for our kids and our culture, I argued. Depictions of violence unknowingly encourage it.
But look, Roger said, there's comedy all over TV and I don't see people running through the streets breaking into laughter. True, I said, but the problem is that, for a confluence of reasons, our country is increasingly populated by the not fully stable. They aren't excited by wit, they're excited by violence—especially unstable young men. They don't have the built-in barriers and prohibitions that those more firmly planted in the world do. That's what makes violent images dangerous and destructive. Art is art and censorship is an admission of defeat. Good judgment and a sense of responsibility are the answer.
That's what we're doing now, exciting the unstable—not only with images but with words, and on every platform. It's all too hot and revved up. This week we had a tragedy. If we don't cool things down, we'll have more.
And was anyone surprised? Tuesday I talked with an old friend, a figure in journalism who's a pretty cool character, about the political anger all around us. He spoke of "horrible polarization." He said there's "too much hate in D.C." He mentioned "the beheading, the play in the park" and described them as "dog whistles to any nut who wants to take action."
"Someone is going to get killed," he said.
That was 20 hours before the shootings in Alexandria, Va.
The gunman did the crime, he is responsible, it's fatuous to put the blame on anyone or anything else.
But we all operate within a climate and a culture. The media climate now, in both news and entertainment, is too often of a goading, insinuating resentment, a grinding, agitating antipathy. You don't need another recitation of the events of just the past month or so. A comic posed with a gruesome bloody facsimile of President Trump's head. New York's rightly revered Shakespeare in the Park put on a "Julius Caesar" in which the assassinated leader is made to look like the president. A CNN host—amazingly, of a show on religion—sent out a tweet calling the president a "piece of s—" who is "a stain on the presidency." An MSNBC anchor wondered, on the air, whether the president wishes to "provoke" a terrorist attack for political gain. Earlier Stephen Colbert, well known as a good man, a gentleman, said of the president, in a rant: "The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's c— holster." Those are but five dots in a larger, darker pointillist painting. You can think of more.
Too many in the mainstream media—not all, but too many—don't even bother to fake fairness and lack of bias anymore, which is bad: Even faked balance is better than none.
Yes, they have reasons. They find Mr. Trump to be a unique danger to the republic, an incipient fascist; they believe it is their patriotic duty to show opposition. They don't like his policies. A friend suggested recently that they hate him also because he's in their business, show business. Who is he to be president? He's not more talented. And yet as soon as his presidency is over he'll get another reality show.
And there's something else. Here I want to note the words spoken by Kathy Griffin, the holder of the severed head. In a tearful news conference she said of the president, "He broke me." She was roundly mocked for this. Oh, the big bad president's supporters were mean to you after you held up his bloody effigy. But she was exactly right. He did break her. He robbed her of her sense of restraint and limits, of her judgment. He broke her, but not in the way she thinks, and he is breaking more than her.
We have been seeing a generation of media figures cratering under the historical pressure of Donald Trump. He really is powerful.
They're losing their heads. Now would be a good time to regain them.
They have been making the whole political scene lower, grubbier. They are showing the young what otherwise estimable adults do under pressure, which is lose their equilibrium, their knowledge of themselves as public figures, as therefore examples—tone setters. They're paid a lot of money and have famous faces and get the best seat, and the big thing they're supposed to do in return is not be a slob. Not make it worse.
By indulging their and their audience's rage, they spread the rage. They celebrate themselves as brave for this. They stood up to the man, they spoke truth to power. But what courage, really, does that take? Their audiences love it. Their base loves it, their demo loves it, their bosses love it. Their numbers go up. They get a better contract. This isn't brave.
If these were only one-offs, they'd hardly be worth comment, but these things build on each other. Rage and sanctimony always spread like a virus, and become stronger with each iteration.
And it's no good, no excuse, to say Trump did it first, he lowered the tone, it's his fault. Your response to his low character is to lower your own character? He talks bad so you do? You let him destabilize you like this? You are making a testimony to his power.
So many of our media figures need at this point to be reminded: You belong to something. It's called: us.
Do your part, take it down some notches, cool it. We have responsibilities to each other.