Sunday, January 09, 2011
Facebook status of the day
James Taranto, on Facebook a few minutes ago:
"Maps don't kill people, people kill people."
Talk amongst yourselves.
9 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Jan 09, 03:40:00 PM:
True enough, although through no-one's fault but my own, I once got almost done in by a stand-alone globe.
Knocked some sense into me, I think.
By , at
Sun Jan 09, 03:51:00 PM:
Well, now that we know Mr. Taranto has a firm grasp of the obvious, let's hear what Comgresswoman Gifford has to say about the use of violent metaphors in politics, and in particular the former Governor's crosshair target map.
Oh, in case there's any doubt, health care reform bills don't vandalize politician's offices, people do.
By 
JPMcT, at
Sun Jan 09, 06:59:00 PM:
Ah, yes, Anon...you are right on time with your left wing outrage.
We shall ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of 22 year old political lunatics are far left moonbats.
...and ignore the fact that this guy was not even a political lunatic...just a garden variety lunatic.
But you don't want to miss out on the political opportunities of a a "crisis", do you?
Good Luck for you that he was not a Muslim...then you would have been forced to shut ap and not "jump to conclusions".
God...what CRAP!!!
By , at
Sun Jan 09, 07:51:00 PM:
We know Loughner wasn't a tea partier, because if he was a tea partier, he would have picked up all the litter in the area after he finished shooting.
By Stack Trace, at
Mon Jan 10, 11:56:00 AM:
The shooter deserves the blame and consequences for his actions. We could haggle over his motivations forever, but it's not terribly productive -- the harm has already been done.
However, no matter what sick, poisonous mythology was running through this guy's brain, I don't think it's good to have gun sights on people as part of our political dialog. I don't care whether it's Palin's targets or someone else's targets. I'm glad TH posted the link to Malkin's gallery of liberal hate-mongering and butchery -- it shows what a common, vile thing this kind of propaganda and rhetoric is. It also makes Palin's gun sights seem rather tame by comparison, but it also shows that Palin's gun sights are part of the same phenomenon.
I don't want this kind of "kill your enemy" political propaganda anywhere in my world. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I should move to Mars.) If unchecked, it leads to purges, ethnic cleansing, real violence. (I wasn't around for the Weathermen and such, but I do know it can happen here.) I think the Left is far, far more likely to want that violence, and to openly and actively campaign for it, since they usually identify with the economic lower classes, which (by definition) are far less invested in the status quo.
By , at
Mon Jan 10, 01:40:00 PM:
This feels like the start of an assault on core First Amendment rights.
The Tuscon shooter was a nut -- pure and simple -- and had been stalking the Congresswoman since 2007 -- it had nothing to do with ObamaCare.
But he has hit a nerve -- especially among Democratic Congresscritters, most of whom I'm sure have been getting an increasing earful from consituents over the last two years. Many are saying fearfully to themselves "that coulda been me."
But this should not turn into an assault on our core First Amendment rights.
Ironically during last weeks tag team reading of the Constitution it was Congresswoman Giffords who read the First Amendment.
I used to joke that if Mark David Chapman had aimed a little to the left he'd have been hailed a hero.
By JPMcT, at
Mon Jan 10, 08:40:00 PM:
Lest we forget, one of the first official acts of the Lenin regime in the USSR was to assemble the Tsar and his family in a basement room and kill them in cold blood.
If we want to compare the body counts between the extreme left and the extreme right, I would venture that Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler managed to accumulate quite a pile...WITHOUT a lot of rhetoric and jpg files of gunsights and targets.
What is it about tragedy that brings out such hypocrisy?
By Stack Trace, at
Tue Jan 11, 09:08:00 AM:
Lenin and Hitler were successful precisely because of their propaganda and rhetoric, not "without" it. Lenin sold people the vision of a worker's paradise. Hitler sold people a vision of racial purity and revenge.
The real power of these men was their ability to convince people to do evil things for them. That is precisely the function of propaganda -- to convince and control. So I think JPMcT has it backwards.
By JPMcT, at
Tue Jan 11, 08:22:00 PM:
@ Stack Trace
Remember the context of the argument.
Enforcing limitations on political speech, as has been proposed by a few Democrats in the senate, would not have prevented the atrocites that occurred in Germany and Russia under socialists. Indeed, political speech was already tightly controlled under the Tsars in Russia before Lennin took power. His own brother was hanged as a result of his activities in that reagard.
My point: You cannot control criminal political behaviour by whitewashing speeches.
The despots I mentioned all sounded great behind a lecturn..but they were monsters nonetheless.
