Jared Loughner Is a Muslim FanaticThe ridiculousness of the left’s accusations against Sarah Palin with regards to the Giffords shooting has been already covered by the right’s top bloggers. Glenn Reynolds has been all over the case, just go to Instapundit and keep scrolling, or read his summary in today’s Wall Street Journal. See also William Jacobson. What I wish to do is connect a few dots here and see if I can uncover what exactly is going on inside the head of someone who willingly jumps to conclusions that aren’t supported by the facts; namely that a kid who has apparently had a long obsession with Giffords, an obsession that predates any map created by Palin, a kid who is recounted by his classmates as likely mentally ill, a kid who regards Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto as being among his favorite books, a kid who believes the government engages in mind control schemes, and a kid described by former classmates as being “left wing, and quite liberal“, that kid was a Tea Partier or at least Sarah Palin/Tea Party influenced, and shot Giffords because Sarah Palin and right wing talk radio in effect instructed him to do it. Well then. If that’s fair play I may as well call Loughner a Muslim fanatic while we’re at it. Sure, I suppose some of this is wishful thinking on the left. There have been no shortage of open fantasies on the left about an Oklahoma City type disaster to bolster Obama’s approval ratings, and in this shooting they see what they have been wishing for. But I think that there’s something else going on as well. Consider the following three events: The Giffords shooting, the Fort Hood Shooting, and those “I am an American” ads that the left ran just after 9-11. In the case of the Giffords shooting, the left immediately tried to pin the blame for it on America’s right of center politicians and commentators. With the Fort Hood shooting, there was long attempts to calm everybody down, and tell them not to “Jump to conclusions” about the perpetrator being a Muslim or being motivated by Muslim fanaticism. But it was the “I am an American” ads that were worst. In the face of one of the most bloody acts of hate ever perpetrated by one group against another, the American left sought not to lecture those who perpetrated those acts against us for their hate, but to lecture those who had been violated not to judge. It was an astonishing moment of moral perversity. But one that illuminates their shaded worldview. Taken together, the left’s reaction to these three events tells us that the left believes that Americans (if not the West in general) are hair-trigger crazies ready to explode into violence at any moment. This accusation creates an intentional catch-22 for the right. When violence occurs, terrorism especially, one cannot react lest one plays into the stereotype, thus reinforcing the narrative. One cannot respond forcefully or angrily without reinforcing the narrative, that you’re ready to explode into violence at a moment’s notice. The purpose is to render the right impotent. The planned catch-22 doesn’t surprise me. It’s the classic purpose of any loaded question (“So Socrates, are you still beating your wife?”) What I learned by the rapid fire reaction to it, from seemingly all quarters of the left, the organized left and just random lefties around me, is that for many it’s not an intentional loaded insult. Many on the left actually believe it. It’s one thing when you spread false rumors for a specific purpose, but its quite another when you believe your own lies. And I’ve come to believe that they really do. One twitterer retweeted by Andrew Brietbart wrote, “That’s why an equal number of conservatives and liberals have been assassinated I suppose. JFK, RFK, MLK, Moscone, Milk etc”. Except that JFK was a conservative Democrat assassinated by an avowed communist. And RFK was assassinated by a Palestinian national. And MLK was assassinated by a racist, not a Republican. And Moscone and Milk were assassinated by a guy who felt like he’d been slighted for a political job. But they maintain a myth in their heads that these were all right wing guys out to get them. It’s a flattering self-delusion, but a delusion nonetheless. It’s also an insult to us on the right, those of us who work to put forward thinking arguments to advance a cause, who would like to be met with arguments back. But instead, we’re taking a weekend and probably the better part of the week if not longer, pointing out the obvious, that we’re not behind Giffords’ shooting. So I guess if I have any message to the left, it’s “Get over yourselves”. You’re not important enough to anyone on the right to want to shoot. Your arguments are full of holes, which is precisely why we don’t have to or want to put holes in you. Good day. |
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4 Responses to “Jared Loughner Is a Muslim Fanatic”
January 11th, 2011 at 12:11 am
It is amazing the power one man can yield because of the media.
This disturbed man will be the focus of our attention and conversation for a very long time and possibly the rest of our lives. If he did not survive at least we would be able to grieve and move on. Because he is alive and young, until the state puts him to death we will never hear the end of it. You better believe this case will be as big as it gets and last even longer.
The question I have is will the Republicans alter their strategy?
They are already signaling they might by delaying the vote on the repeal of the healthcare bill.
January 11th, 2011 at 12:53 am
The left was so desperate for an opportunity to say “I told you so” that they latched on to the idea that this guy was inspired by the right wing’s overheated rhetoric.
I wouldn’t jump to conclusions either way as to what motivated this guy or not. For all we know he may have been a leftist insane enough to sacrifice himself to prove the left’s point about the right.
More than the left though, it’s the media that has latched onto the potential association. It makes for such scandalous, gripping, controversial fodder. There are plenty of reasonable folk on the left who have not said there is necessarily a connection.
Lost in the backlash from the right and all the subsequent kerfuffle, is the possibility notion that the left’s original complaint from the elections, is actually valid. The setup for political points is complete. The guy will be shown to have been a leftist loony and totally in the dark about Palin’s crosshairs or other imperatives to lock and load or vote now, shoot later. And that will all somehow be trotted out to show how everyone overreacted the media will do it’s apologetic self-instrospection thing for 3 or 4 days and everyone but the left will forget that maybe it actually was a really bad idea to use crosshairs and gun references.
Because regardless of what just happened, the fact remains that the right mouthpieces actively egg on revolutionary behavior and make references to all sorts of violent recourse to combat the Liberal plague. No matter how guilty both sides are of twisting truth or raising taxes or spending special interest money or whatever you want to say… at the end of the day, only the right has live, constant, high profile media mouthpieces that do egg on insane behavior. The left mouthpieces may be shrill, but they are largely not motivating people to revolt by force. They are not dropping quaint hints or poetic sideways suggestions about assassination or exercising the 2nd amendment to take the country back. That is all the province of the right wing media and tea party figureheads like Palin.
So my feeling is that this is all a sad waste of time and discussion. The culture wars are going to get worse. And yes, I place the blame for this mostly on the right. Limbaugh, Palin, Hannity, Engle, Beck… I’m looking at you.
Rob, I love you like a brother, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter if the left is wrong about Loughner. There’s no justification for the crazy rhetoric and take no prisoners politics being bandied about by the right over the past few years. And it’s largely the reason I no longer can relate to the conservative movement.
May the future bring us reason and peace.
January 13th, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Do you consider Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, etc. included in “those of us who work to put forward thinking arguments to advance a cause, who would like to be met with arguments back”? This matters, since they are perceived as the public face of “the right” at present, regardless if they actually are or not.
January 13th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
Also, it will be interesting to see, if Palin makes progress in 2012, if the Dems will use Loughner they way the Republicans used Willie Horton in 1988.
Lastly, it hasn’t been reported much, but Loughner was a Chinese gold-farmer (http://asteroid.divnull.com/2007/04/the-real-threat/).
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