First thing's first:

I DO find it even MORE despicable that some are using this to play the political blame game STILL!

PEOPLE HAVE DIED, FOR GOD'S SAKE!

Isn't that enough for these assholes--and I'm talking about those who have done it on the Left AND Right, paly this game--to take a break from their sniping when someone REALLY just got sniped for being a politician and holding an opinion?

America is no longer a democracy--it is a Mob Rule state, and perhaps you'll see now, some of you, who know my opinions on equality and "greatness," why I DON'T believe that all lives are equal or deserve to implicitly be treated as such.

If "equal treatment" means treating a congresswoman who uses words to make her point the same as some loony who uses bullets and blood and horror to make his, then I'm sorry--but I WON'T agree with that.



The bottom line is that our political climate is toxic, and I for one believe it is so because of extremist positions on both ends of the political scale, and THESE are fuled by just what I abhore--treating the Joe Shoot-Em-Up the same as someone who actually knows that taxes are necessary for any state to survive and the government isn't setting up death panels or, to be fair to the other end, to stop viewing all who believe in older ways and, yes, in religions to be foolish. They're not foolish. I see this a lot, its all over the Internet now, all over the streets...if you're not with me you're agaisnt me, if you don't believe in God you're going to hell, if you do believe in God you're a subject for ridicule and you're attacked as being so backward just for expressing yourself and holding different ideas.



Religion and Politics--you're not to discuss either in public, but BOTH have played a part in souring our atmosphere, our climate...the war of the Blues and Reds that leads to those in the middle being left with a nation that's falling behind and is being torn apart and now SHOT apart, and the Jesus Camp-types antagonizing the Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens-types adn their followers until both sides are just attacking each other.

That's just it, what I LOATHE--there's no political discussion anymore, just political attacks.

And there are no philosophical or theological discussions anymore, just attacks.

And verbal attacks are one thing, ugly as they are--but when they start to become REAL attacks, and people start to die...

It's time to stop.

You all know I don't mind, when I don my "Philosophy Weekly" posts, WHAT you all believe or have to say. I agree with some of you, and I disagree with nearly everything some of you say. I know quite a few poeple disagree with me. And that's fine, in fact, that's GREAT--it gives us something to actually TALK about rationally!

I just wish that more people could be like you who here disagree me and are ABLE to disagree with me or with others without taking up a gun and resorting to using THAT to make your point.



Guns may be used to punctuate ideas.

But whatever the idea behind this shooting is, I think we can all agree--it needs to stop here, and so must this political and contemplative climate.

Don't blame an atmosphere of hatred, blame the corner gun store.

He had a semi-automatic pistol with TWO double sized magazines! What other use can there be for such a weapon except *exactly* what he used it for?

Draug...read what I wrote, and then tell me I'm a troll.

I just said that I hate the climate as a WHOLE.



If you like this climate where political strife leads to loons like this--lunacy doesn't just come out of nowhere--then I'll have to disagree.

All I'm saying that this sort of climate needs to stop, as clearly this man, even if he was nbalanced, got a start from something, whatever it was.

What it was doesn't MATTER--what does is that the climate was and has been ready for something like this to happen for a while now...remember those town hall debates over health care, with people fighting each other? O'Reilly and Olbermann, both talking head imbiciles, leading their partisan war of words and creating even more strife? Nancy Pelosi leading the Far, FAR Left against the Tea Party and Palin? Villainizing REAL PEOPLE?

THAT'S what has to stop.

This shooting is jsut one more proof of that. Someoene was going to die because of this posioned climate eventually, and here it is.

I just want the poison to stop and for the leaders to start leading the UNITED States of America once more, not US vs. THEM.

@SpeakerToAliens:

Well, I WOULD also blame that...I DO think we need more gun control--though not total gun control, mind you--in America.

But there are so many more crowded places to put that thing to use...the fact he fired on a Congresswoman and her group?

I somehow can't fathom THAT being a total coincidence.

I don't know enough about this man to say that he was politically motivated, but the congresswoman was obviously his target imo.

obi, I agree with everything you've said. The political atmosphere is completely poisoned in this nation. I consider myself a conservative, and even though I don't agree with the tax cuts Congress passed, I am aware of and appreciate the fact that Obama was willing to do something that republicans wanted, to reach across the aisle. And I agree with you with everything you said about the media. I really don't believe anything that comes out of their mouths anymore. I just take what I see in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and assume something in the middle is the truth

@Obi - This loon didn't come out of the "poltical climate" anymore than a campus shooter or "postal" postal worker came out of the respective environments. In both cases there is an unstable individual and the environment was just the excuse for them to go off the deep end.

And considering he randomly shot people before getting to her, how can anybody say his target was the congresswoman?

"In both cases there is an unstable individual and the environment was just the excuse for them to go off the deep end. "

Draug...doesn't that, by definition, seem to imply that the environment DID contribute to the violence?

Even if it was just an "excuse" for the shooter...doesn't it being an "excuse" make it culpable?

To put it another way, it's certainly a fool's game to try and say that violent video games have lead to all of the major shootings in American schools over the last twenty or so years.

But even so, it seems just as foolish to say that someone who plays those games endlessly--and I mean the type who'd paly Halo for 72 hours straight and never move--was not AT ALL influenced by those games.



The oxygen in the room doesn't MEAN that tank of gasoline will explode...but oxygen in the room, a tub of gasoline with the lid off and a careless person with matches...

ALL of it contributes to the crisis.

The environment ALLOWED for this to happen, even if it didn't directly cause it.

And for me, that's enough for me to say it's time for a change.

If the political climate doesn't actively allow people to die, but people diue nevertheless as an indirect result, does that not still mean that the climate is toxic, cupable in some manner, and must change?

Draug, I only say that because I believe she was making a public address when the shooting occurred?

So cars cause people to die... That is what you are essentially saying.

Yes, it was a public event. She was there to hear from her constituents. By most people's account, this is a positive thing. This wasn't a political rally. It was a town hall meeting so the representative of the people could learn what the people wanted.

Hey, kids.

http://www.9wsyr.com/mostpopular/story/Suspect-in-Arizona-shooting-held-without-bail/Bhz427GsjU6v5TdxDyq3BQ.cspx

"Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said Loughner was not cooperating and told ABC News the suspect had said "not a word" to investigators."

So, how do all of you magically know this was politically motivated? The target was a human being. "Politician" is one of the many descriptors for Rep. Giffords... so is "mother," "Jew," "wife," and "volunteer." What if he were some crazy personal enemy of Giffords's? Stop compartmentalizing, especially given that all of us literally know jack shit about the suspect's motivation.

@Draug:

Where did CARS enter into this?

I said the political climate, namely the hostility within it, allowed for this event to occur even if it itself didn't directly cause it...how does "cars kill people" fit that statement?

Do you mean that the existence of cars allows for death in the same way I mean? Because that's not the same--a car does not IMPLICITLY cause death, it must be mishandled in some way or someone or something must cause it to cause death...a car is an ainanimate object, whereas a political climate IS alive in the sense that it is made up of living beings, not merely controlled by living beings, as is the case with the car.

Out of curiosity, even if you don't believe this instance to be an example of it, DO you believe our political climate is toxic, Draugnar?

@President Eden:

Again, with the many people in the area AND there being far more areas where a loony could kill more people if he simply wanted to kill for a sheer amout of people, it just seems to me that his target being a US Congresswoman is too much of a coincidence fo ignore is all I'm saying...

After all, its not like there's a Congresswoman on every block, like a gas station or something.

I'm not saying this man was a John Wilkes Booth, killing with a political agenda in mind, but I'm also saying that the political climate is toxic, it certainly DOES seem so hostile that it would not be too far of a leap to see a loony coming out of the climate, and that it seems too much of a coincidence for a very specific type of person to be shot when there were so many other, larger, more numerous targets.

Gathering from interviews of former classmates this guy had severe problems for a long time, and his contact with the real world was tenious at best. He would have shot those people because simple because he was against spaying and neutering pets. The real question is why we aren't getting people like him help before they go off the deep end and hurt others or their self.

The guy shot over a dozen people. Six died. And he hasn't uttered a word to investigators. Who are you to decree his target was the Congresswoman?

And why *wouldn't* he choose that spot? Tell me. You're planning a mass murder. You hear there's a town hall meeting on the day you intended to go on your shooting spree. Why wouldn't you go there? Lots of people are there. Plenty of victims.

Just like I said with violent video games:

They're not the 1-0%, total cause of any of the major US school shootings...

But by that same token they and other factors can combine to create a climate that can allow for one sad, sorry individual to become warped and decide, as the Columbine kids did, to turn their school day into their won personal session of DOOM (I'm not being literal here and saying that they LITERALLY thought they were playing a real-life version of DOOM, just that the Columbine kids DID play an excess of violent video games and were also social rejects, so just like a game, regardless of intent, in the wrong hands can create a warped individual, so too, I think, can we make the not-to-far leap to viewing the current political climate, which is INCREDIBLY partisan and hostile and vERY fond of demonizing the other side and has just seen town hall fights and so HAS proven that it can allow for violence, as allowing for this tragedy to occur, even indirectly, just like DOOM and the social status of those warped shooters indirectly allowed for them to do what they did...or, on a broader scale, an impoverished state and laying excessive blame on the German people for WWI didn't DIRECTLY cause Germany to become Nazi Germany and allow Hitler and the Third Reich to rise to power--it just allowed for it, and it DEFINITELY didn't help...)

Again, I might be totally wrong, perhaps he didn't go on a spree because of any political leanings.

I just thing 1. It's a bit too much of a coincidence to rule it out at this point and 2. In any case, all the strife in the US couldn't have helped, its not like there was a climate that would ahve HELPED STOP this, I think we can all agree that we have a very poisoned, very partisan political climate, and whether or not that was a factor here, I just don't think, in any case, tht's helping any, and certainly won't help deter "real" political assasinations, if this wasn't an attempt.

He had contacted and even briefly talked to her, so I say he did target her. But even at those times he was not making much sense when he was talking. I think he could have fixated any noteable person of any political strip or even a none political person.

"Ruling it out" has never been my position. My position has been "this shooter shot a bunch of people besides the Congresswoman and hasn't told investigators a word about his motive; therefore, your logical leap is invalid."

And it is. "someone REALLY just got sniped for being a politician and holding an opinion" is not at all claiming it COULD happen; that statement claims it DID happen.

And if you backtrack on that claim, and say instead that someone COULD have been sniped for being a politician and holding an opinion... I say that the political climate is irrelevant to this issue until it is demonstrated that the attack was political.

As of now, you've got six dead, a dozen wounded (apologies, I got the numbers wrong earlier), and your argument is that because one of them was a Congresswoman that it must have been political? I say that is not only illogical but an insult to the other seventeen victims of this attack. Are their lives not important too? Why do you choose to ignore seventeen other victims to make some obscure point about a political climate that is no more partisan than it has been any other point in the past ten years based on one of many titles of the eighteenth victim?

You did see earlier Pres Eden (lol President) that obiwan doesn't think that all lives are equal or should be treated equally.

Well, nothing against Madame Giffords, but I don't believe she classifies as a Mozart.

obiwan Someone as far gone as he was don't need outside stimulation to send them off, the imbalanced chemistry in their brain will do it sooner or later.

It's not the political system being sick that causes this type of event - it's the horrific state of a society that creates alienated maniacs and at the same time allows them to walk into a shop and buy this type of weapon.

How many of these killings will it take before America wakes up to the fact that the gun laws reflect the fact that too many Americans still appear (to me, on the other side of the Altlantic) to think they live in the 'Wild West'?

Or is it that the strength of the 'gun lobby' is based as much on the economic value of the sale of these killing devices than the 'constitutional right' to carry guns? Those with the political will to do something about it have to confront 2 major obstacles.

The number of guns owned for hunting and sport is (to me) scary enough but (and I am agreeing with Speaker here) I can see no reason why weapons like that used in this case should be openly available for sale.

Firstly, I believe the idiom is "disillusioned with." Don't you want to be a writer?

This guy was deeply disturbed and shot at the Congresswoman, hitting her and killing others. That's all we know. We don't know his sick motivations, though the evidence I've seen (both from reading quite a few articles and suffering through is dreadful Youtube videos) would lead me to believe that far from being a frustrated political activist he was a moonbatty conspiracy theorist with a nihilistic hatred for the United States government. To make any assumptions about why he shot those people is absurd. For all we know he just hates Jews and wanted to kill her because of that. That has as much evidence going for it as saying the voice of Sarah Palin told him to do it, or other such nonsense.

So who's to blame? Him. Only him. Not society, not the gun, and certainly not any of the usual post-modern psychobabble and shallow philosophy of obiwanobiwan. He's the one who made the decision to kill, and the grave consequences will fall solely on him (assuming there were no actual accomplices).

And far from making you despair at democracy, obiwanobiwan, this should give you more hope than anything. The universal condemnation of the attack shows that political violence has no place in American governance. You can never stop the potential actions of lone nutcases or committed conspirators, but you can de-legitimize the use of actions like this as an even remotely acceptable policy tool. Plus, this scumbag is still going to get a fair trial with a high-power attorney representing him. Not because he deserves it, since he obviously doesn't, but because we follow the Rule of Law in this country to a truly laudable degree, and that too strengthens democracy. You might not like the outcomes or the people running things, but the response to this reprehensible attack has shown some of the great pillars of strength in American democracy of which we can be proud, and thank goodness for it.

Thank goodness for the underlying strength of our democracy, not the attack. Poorly worded.

it is a terrible shame that people choose to go out and shoot each other.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/america-one-step-closer-to-realising-life-is-not-a-film-201101103410/

If some of the people there were packing heat, then some of those people who died would've had a fighting chance. You can't make legislation on gun control from one idiot who decided to commit murder. He could've driven his car through the same crowd of people like that idiot who drove his car into the "bowl" in chapel hill a few years back. People are going to kill regardless of what laws you put in place. It's a moral issue, not a gun issue.
A proud gun owner.

I don't think video games are responsible for the Columbine tragedy.
The only way to deal with product inflation in a typical western society is destruction.
Those youngsters had their lifes inflated with school programs and leisure and consuming activities.
Destruction as a way of protest against that kind of inflation is a common idea (from jame's ballard novels to fight club).
I would also grant those kids another reason for what they did.
In a world where their life was computer like programmed to the last detail, where there is no discovery, no surprise, that was a way to create something unexpected.
Humans are not used to live in monotony and repetition.
How can you react when everything, from work to personal life and even social relationships is so damn expected?