Good Old Neon
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Posts posted by Good Old Neon
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I get the sense that the service was it intended to be more than just a memorial, but also a celebration of the lives of the deceased - so in that sense, I feel the crowds reaction, though boisterous at times, was not inappropriate.
I've attended several memorial services ranging from depressingly somber to downright funny and celebratory, all in all, I prefer the latter.
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One might argue that we've always been a culture of violence, for thousands of years - since the beginning of man? That we no longer have a direct need for violence on an individual level, and now see it as a form of entertainment or information, is probably more detrimental to our psyches than when we had to protect ourselves against actual threats. Huh.
Great post.
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Who exactly are you quoting there? Not one of 25 the people in that list that is for sure.
Agreed - good point. Most, if not all of the people on that list have pretty much stated that they wouldn't do away with religion even if it was within their power to do so. I've read most of E.O Wilson's books, followed his career, etc - I cannot think of a single instance in which he's ever expressed the belief that religion should be abolished.
As a list of brilliant thinkers, scholars and philosphers it's not bad, otherwise, it's a pretty shitty list.
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Seriously? WTF?
Joe Wilson 'You Lie' Slogan Etched Onto Line Of Assault Rifle Components
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.
"Palmetto State Armory would like to honor our esteemed congressman Joe Wilson with the release of our new 'You Lie' AR-15 lower receiver," the weapon manufacturer's site writes in the product description. "Only 999 of these will be produced, get yours before they are gone!"
Wilson caused a commotion in September of 2009 when he disrupted a key health care speech by Obama in which the president claimed that the impending health care reform legislation wouldn't provide coverage for undocumented immigrants.
The South Carolina Republican later apologized.
Also check out South Carolina blog Fits News for more on the commemorative gun units, as well as how they could play into Obama's planned visit to the Palmetto State later this year.
Link - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/joe-wilson-you-lie-assault-rifle_n_807644.html
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Is Andrew Sullivan black or white?
He's neither, he's whack.
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I did, and my conclusion is pretty much the same.
Fine, I'll post only the part that contradicts your conclusion:
The MSM would have been blatantly irresponsible not to make the connection - if only to note the irony and tragedy, if not to assert an empirical, causal link.
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So it was actually responsible to immediately link the shooting to political rhetoric, because Skygod forbid the media actually wait until they have any solid information to report? They've gotta fill the airwaves with speculation and play the blame game immediately. And the whole "I'm just asking questions" while making unfounded accusations sounds eerily similar to how Glenn Beck excuses his crazier rhetoric.
That’s not what he’s saying at all. Here’s the link to the article in its entirety – should you read it, I think you’ll come to a different conclusion.
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...but some on the left thought it was a good thing to attempt to make political hay and that to me says alot
Andrew Sullivan makes a good point with respect to the media's initial reaction:
But how could they not when Giffords herself had noted the map at the time and worried about what it might portend? The MSM would have been blatantly irresponsible not to make the connection - if only to note the irony and tragedy, if not to assert an empirical, causal link. David is right to call out those who flatly and crudely drew a direct link without any substantive information. But to raise the question and explore it? How could we not?
To inquire into such a hideously violent culture, where you are put in cross-hairs, endure countless threats, have an opponent posing with an M-16, and a brick thrown through your campaign office window ... and then end up shot at close range? Well, it's a no-brainer. Brooks' own paper today has an enlightening story about the particularly fetid and violent atmosphere in Giffords' district. It's good journalism.
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Glen Beck:
BECK: “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus — band — Do, and I’ve lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, “Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore,” and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d realize, “Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn’t choke him to death.” And you know, well, I’m not sure.”
Rush Limbaugh:
Limbaugh: “It could well be, ladies and gentlemen, that we’re fighting the wrong enemy in the Middle East. Maybe the real terrorists that we face are on Capitol Hill. I mean, really, who’s doing as good a job to undermine what this country stands for as the terrorists? ‘Dingy’ Harry, Nancy Pelosi. I mean, look, if they call us ‘hostage takers’ and ‘gangsters,’ then why can’t we call them what they are? They are terrorists. They certainly seem suicidal. Look at what they’re doing. Look at what they did. They knew they were going to get shellacked in this election and they did it! They knew they were gonna lose. And they want to take us with them.”
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George Packer:
Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.
link - http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/01/only-one-side.html
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Stephen Budiansky:
For as long as I can remember, I have heard conservatives blaming everything that is wrong in the universe, from violent crime to declining test scores to teen pregnancy to rude children to declining patriotism to probably athlete's foot . . . upon Dr. Spock, Hollywood liberals, the abolition of prayer in school, Bill Clinton, the "liberal 1960s," the teaching of evolution — in other words, upon symbols, rhetoric, cultural norms, and the values expressed by political and media leaders. Yet from the moment when someone gets a gun in their hands, apparently, society ceases to have any influence whatsoever on the outcome and individual responsibility takes hold 100%. Something is driving the tripling of death threats against congressmen (and the concomitant rise in threats against Federal judges and other villains of the right, from Forest Service rangers to climate scientists) and it isn't the sunspot cycle.
link - http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/01/riding-that-tiger-iv.html
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From Andrew Sullivan:
Palin responds via beck with what appears to me to be a renewed threat of violence:
I hate violence. I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence.
It's barely literate, but what can it mean that children "will not have peace" if people are held morally responsible for consequences of their violent rhetoric? How can asking people to turn the volume down lead to an absence of peace? Then this:
According to Beck he wrote to her saying:
“Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer. I know you are feeling the same heat, if not much more on this. I want you to know you have my full support."
He then encouraged her to get some protection because an "attempt on you could bring the Republic down."
Way to calm things down - by presaging a civil war based on an assassination attempt on Palin. It takes projection to an entirely new level.
link - http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/01/palin-responds-via-beck.html
And to prove he's just the world's biggest douchebag, whatever the outcome of this whole mess, Rush makes a list:
WASHINGTON -- Rush Limbaugh lashed out Monday at critics who linked the Tucson shootings to the confrontational, gun-themed rhetoric of conservatives such as Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.
Limbaugh's talking points are a guide to the ways in which the political right -- from establishment Republicans in Washington to the Tea Party at the grassroots level -- will fight back against attempts to tie them to Jared Lee Loughner.
The political coverage of the Loughner story is "childish and immature," Limbaugh said, but apparently threatening enough for the top-rated talk show host to spend his entire show undermining it as best he could.
His very long list of points:
LOUGHNER IS A LONE NUT. Even "the Obama government" -- the FBI -- calls Loughner a "deranged, insular irrational kid" who acted alone, Limbaugh said. "The kid was evil. He was into the occult. He had an altar with a skull in his yard. Was God in his life? He was stalking the congresswoman."
HEAVY METAL. "The guy listened to heavy metal, and some of that anarchist stuff. We're dealing with an insane individual."
DIDN'T WATCH FOX. "There is no evidence that he listened to talk radio. There is no evidence he listened to Fox News. There is no evidence that he saw Sarah Palin's Facebook page. No evidence he saw her lame website with the crosshairs."
BLAME THE PARENTS. "Where are the parents? Are they derelicts? He was so devoted to marijuana he wanted to make it the new U.S. currency. Did anyone try to institutionalize him?"
SHERIFF COVERING HIS OWN BUTT. "This kid sounds like he was very well known as a dangerous element around town. If there is a file somewhere about this kid in the sheriff's office," said Rush, and the sheriff had failed to act, then he would be partly responsible for the tragedy in Arizona on Saturday. "If he was so concerned about the Tea Party, where was security for this congresswoman's event on Saturday?"
DUPNIK IS A DEMOCRAT. "This Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, is an anti-conservative."
WHERE'S THE SAFETY NET? "Loughner is obviously deranged, so where's the left's safety net? Haven't we spent trillions of dollars to build a system to catch these disturbed people? Where is the evidence that their compassion works?"
THE OKLAHOMA CITY TEMPLATE. "Sad tragedies, where people die, are seen first as political opportunities by these people," Rush said. "The Republicans had nothing to do with the bombing at Oklahoma City, but it was seen as a political opportunity for Bill Clinton. This is now the same template."
CRIMINALIZING SPEECH. "They're shutting down any opposition and criminalizing it. They've had a plan filed away in a drawer to take away as many of our political freedoms as they can. The Democrats just lost an election, and now the only other thing they can try to do is silence the opposition."
HYPOCRITES ON VIOLENCE. It's not the right, Limbaugh said, but the left that glorifies criminal behavior and violent imagery. "'No, no,' they say, 'that's art!' Rap music? 'That's art!'"
DEMOCRATS ARE GHOULS. They privately are thankful for Tucson because "they think it advances their sick and perverted purposes." Mark Penn, who was Bill Clinton's polltaker, said -- before Tucson -- that "Obama needs his own Oklahoma City."
DEMOCRATS v. THE MAJORITY. By linking Loughner to the right, Limbaugh warned, Democrats are "taking aim at a majority of the people in the country. This is not 1988, or 1993, when the drive-by media had total control. I am not going to be silenced," he said, but now he has too many allies. "They're accusing a majority of Americans of being accomplices to murder."
A DIRECT DENIAL. "At no time has anybody ever called for violence," Limbaugh said. "We've never subtly promoted it." And, by the way, the Democrats' language is and was worse.
Link - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/rush-bails-water-arizona_n_806912.html
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Examples? (This with the idea that we will not agree ultimately, but see that one of us is more quick to apply the label of healthy, right or wrong, sooner than the other.)
(Speaking dispassionately here) Must one be unhealthy (by “unhealthy” I’m assuming you mean, not of sound mind) to shoot a spouse, for say, a large insurance payoff, an act of infidelity? What about folks in the military who open fire on innocent civilians – a fairly common occurrence by military standards. Or, someone so convinced that certain government officials are hell bent on destroying the country, that they feel it is their duty to stop them by taking the “second amendment remedy" as suggested by Nevada Tea Party candidate, Sharon Angle.
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Healthy people don't shoot other innocent people.
Sure they do.
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Well yes, but it seems you are pointing to the legal definition and I'm pointing to the one where, regardless of whether you know it's right or wrong, you shoot a gun into a crowd of innocent people.
True, as I thought the actual definition of insane was what we were discussing. Not what you and I define as crazy. A psychotic break, which, keeping in mind I’m not a lawyer, is one criteria by which someone can be found to be legally insane. So, if he’s not truly insane, can tell right from wrong, isn’t (or wasn’t) suffering from some form of psychosis, organic or inorganic, we have to start looking for other contributing factors – such as, say, his environment.
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I never said he was insane - truly, legally insane - did I? But he ain't right in the head.
The use of “out of his gourd” to describe his mental state, suggests, to me, the inference that he is insane.
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He carried out a mass shooting on innocent individuals = he was out of his gourd. There is no better proof than that.
We both know that doesn’t prove he is insane. Sane people are fully capable of performing insane acts.
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So this is the thread in which we discuss apples and oranges.
Someone who does something like that is out of their gourd. Normal people - even normal mentally ill people, as Dreamin' aptly pointed out - don't do things like that. The television doesn't make them do things, and the political rhetoric in this country has gone to pot, and I'm not wearing any shoes. Those three things aren't related.
Again – you have zero proof of this. I won’t pretend to know what his true motives were, but for someone who keeps going out of the way to dismiss anyone who proposes to know, well, you seem pretty damn convinced this is all a result of some sort of mental illness – which, amounts to little more than speculation. For all we know, the dude is hyper-sane and his odd behavior and writings were little more than an act, so that, assuming he survived, he could plead insanity.
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So since we don't know for sure that he was mentally ill, we should assume it was Glen Beck and Sarah Palin's fault in the meantime?
In a word, no.
Though, I find it interesting that Palin acted awfully quickly to pull down from her websites any reference to the now infamous crosshairs map. I guess she and her camp feel that in light of the shootings, maybe it’s a little inappropriate. Though, that she now all of a sudden finds her own rhetoric insensitive and inappropriate strikes me as funny, as if it wasn’t before, the shit that comes out of her mouth on a pretty much daily basis.
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Calling this man a Republican or a conservative and blaming it on that would be like saying he did this because he had 'x' color eyes. He was mentally ill; regardless of what his supposed accomplice did or did not do, this kid carried out these acts as a sick individual, and not anything else.
This could, of course, be true. But at the same time, unless you have evidence to prove otherwise, we don't know if he is truly mentally ill, and if so, the severity of his illness, his level of competence, etc. It has been reported that he used drugs, they too could be responisble for his erratic behaviour. He certainly proved that he was lucid enough to purchase a gun, and plan his assination attempt in advance - by perhaps as many as three years.
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Yeah and Marilyn Manson was responsible for the Columbine massacre.
See, that analogy doesn't work for me. Though his songs cover dark subject matter, to my knowledge, Marilyn Manson never went out of his way to single out jocks, the popular crowd, etc, for punishment. Whereas, Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, et al compare liberals to traitors, insist they are willfully attempting to bring this country down, subvert it, etc. I read Cullen's Columbine, and I get where you're coming from, but I feel there is a distincition to be made between this event, and the circus environment that quickly descended on Columbine.
From Andrew Sullivan's site:
3.31 pm A reader writes:
I am standing in the aisle at Costco when I found out my Congresswomen, Gabrielle Giffords, has been shot dead up on the north side.
While I’m scrambling with my phone, two couples in front of me are talking about it and suddenly I hear one of the women say, “Well, that’s to be expected when you’re so liberal.”
And the other woman says, “Ohh, so we get to appoint a Republican?”
I did not trust myself to speak. I’m a Soldier. Please remind me what country I am fighting for? At least seven people are dead. She happens to be the only member of Congress married to an active duty military — he’s a Navy officer serving as an astronaut.
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Loving this so far.
I read it last year and enjoyed every page.
Currently reading:
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These are the four books I got for Christmas. Not sure which one I want to start with yet.
I loved loved loved Skippy Dies and was completely underwhelmed by The Imperfectionists.
Arizona mass shooting
in Tongue-Tied Lightning
Posted
PANTHER?