Both Sides
Dave Burris:
At the end of the day, none of us are innocent. We’ve all either spoken inflamed rhetoric or stood silent as someone else did, particularly those on our own side.
But each of us has it in our power to improve the situation. We could start right now, if we wanted to. I’m certainly going to try.
Unstable Isotope:
I’ve yet to see a former Democratic VP candidate put out a map with rifle targets. Or a U.S. senate candidate talk about “2nd amendment” remedies. Quit the lazy “both sides do it” bullshit.
Everyone single statement above is true. Yes, both sides engage in violent rhetoric. The difference is, per UI’s point, is that violent rhetoric was espoused by the leading Presidential frontrunner of the Republican Party and by all the leading Republican commentators like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, rather than lowly self important small state bloggers like myself.
The way to start improving the situation is to have Sarah Palin offer an unqualified apology for her violent rhetoric, as I offered back in September 2008.
Sarah Palin wants to be President of the United States. Now is the time for her to follow my lead. When you are wrong, when you have engaged in violent rhetoric, you apologize. Without qualification or excuse.
If a small state blogger can do it, so can Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.
Until the apologies are made, we cannot improve the situation. It will only deteriorate from here.
Via Wikipedia:
“Appeal to motive is a pattern of argument which consists in challenging a thesis by calling into question the motives of its proposer. It can be considered as a special case of the ad hominem circumstantial argument. As such, this type of argument may be a logical fallacy.”
“A common feature of appeals to motive is that only the possibility of a motive (however small) is shown, without showing the motive actually existed or, if the motive did exist, that the motive played a role in forming the argument and its conclusion. Indeed, it is often assumed that the mere possibility of motive is evidence enough.”
I suppose you are questioning my motives by that post, Polemical. My motives are clear. If I was wrong, and I was, than so is Sarah Palin.
It is simple logic.
Also via Wikipedia:
“An association fallacy is an inductive informal fallacy of the type hasty generalization or red herring which asserts that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association. The two types are sometimes referred to as guilt by association and honor by association. Association fallacies are a special case of red herring, and can be based on an appeal to emotion.”
Per your logic: Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin make statements regarding the ‘second amendment.’
22-year-old Jared Loughner makes lots of controversial statements regarding the federal government, the constitution and its citizens.
JL shoots Rep. Giffords and seventeen other persons, including killing a 9-year-old girl and an Arizona federal judge.
Therefore: Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin are guilty of this crime (not to mention Tea Party people, Fox News, Republicans, Sharron Angle and any other person or persons with whom you disagree with).
This is simply a very tragic event. Those who like to assign blame, point the finger or appeal to past tragic events as ‘evidence’ of a Republican conspiracy or cabal are insidious characters.
This dynamic will play out during the next week or so on all of the cable news channels (Those with ‘real’ character and clarity of thought will emerge). The others will try to appeal to emotion, guilt by association and simple hypocrisy.
Like the days, weeks and months after 9/11, I hope those in Washington D.C., and Congress especially, ratchet down their rhetoric and move America forward through non-partisan game-playing.
Ah. I see. So Beck, Palin et al. are blameless. Their violent rhetoric, which created a violent political climate, has no consequences.
“They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.”
Good luck with niceties.
Polemic, lucky you’re too old to be considered a threat.
Rep. Michele Bachmann says her tears are flowing at the news today. No acknowledgment that she might have been wrong calling for her supporters to be “armed and dangerous.” But she can take comfort in Polemical’s ruling that no one can ever be held to account for what they say.
Did Boehner cry?
News conference right now on MSNBC: Sheriff says they have reason to believe others are involved.
Sheriff: Vitriolic campaign is responsible in his view.
Sheriff: Giffords was the target.
Sheriff “arizona has become the mecca of prejudice and bigotry” wow
This Sheriff is making some rather striking statements. He says Arizona has become the capital of bigotry and vitriolic attacks, which allow disturbed individuals the cover to act out.
Which is PRECISELY my point.
Take that Polemical.
Sheriff says that no one shot back, contrary to other reports.
he is going RIGHT after glen beck.
“it MAY be free speech. but it is NOT without consequences”
and I rised the alarm about Murphy and Garcia and SCCOR 20 months ago – the 9/12ers are not patriots, they are traitors – and signing the Articles of Federation and attending the Continental Congress 2009 makes them such.
Murphy is part of this violent and dangerous group – riled up by the likes 0f coward Colley and his violent rhetoric and “2nd ammendment remedies”
there is no room in this country for this type of behavior – They should go the way of the other “patriots” like Timothy McVeigh – and when will “patriotic Americans” realize this?
the nut jobs at DP will not doubt have their apologists – the violent rhetoric there is enough to make a sane person puke – all espoused by Anderson and Ayotte et al
hopefully in time folks will see what this is really all about – racism, hate and bigotry
Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, speaking about Arizona:
“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.
“It’s not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. And that’s the sad thing of what’s going on in America. Pretty soon, we’re not going to be able to find reasonable, decent people who are willing to subject themselves to serve in public office.”
He later added:
“Let me just say one thing, because people tend to poo-poo this business about all the vitriole that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech. But it’s not without consequences.”
The 9/12 Traitors and the tea party are both hate groups in DE. And that moron comes here and acts like he has no clue why I, or anyone else, would have a problem with them and that he has nothing to do with it.
Note that I am a conservative republican in Sussex county, and look where I spend my time talk politics.
Those idiots down here are a hate group and they attack anyone who even suggest they might be wrong about a position.
I am the one they called a traitor.
Don’t worry rep dave. next election I will be there with you to destroy the rep party. It is going to be a blast.
Im with you paratrooper18
Im done with the Sussex County nuts…..and now we have a new sheriff that is one of them….”
GRRREEAT
Keith Olbermann is plagiarizing me tonight. Will post the video shortly.
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253055&kaid=127&subid=171
That DLC link has a rather interesting graphic with targets on it. And it was in 2004.
Dana, those images on the map are dart board targets, not gun scope images. I guess they can look like target posters at target ranges, too. But the point Keith Olbermann made tonight is correct. All sides need to stop with the violent imagery.
I thought it was archery targets. Did you notice the language on the graphic? “Behind enemy lines.” Enemy is awfully strong. What does one normally do with enemies? Wound if not kill them.
Of course, it is also possible that one can make too much of what is intended to only be a metaphor.
And the point is violence should not be a metaphor. If politics needs metaphors, lets use sports metaphors from now on.
That DLC link has a rather interesting graphic with targets on it. And it was in 2004.
Interesting? In what way? Tell us more. Follow your interest and think it through:
The DLC map portrays electoral votes to win in that state, not incumbents to knock out.
Palin’s crosshairs are drawn on districts and have names associated with them. But the DLC bullseyes cannot be connected with an individual.
It is a festival of false equivalencies!
They just can’t help themselves:
Tucson rampage casts light on toxic political tone
The first and the second sentence BOTH have the “both sides” tagline, just to make sure we don’t miss the real point of the story.
And then after establishing the guilt of both sides, he makes the pivot:
I bet you hardly even noticed the pivot from talking about “both sides” to “some candidates and activists.” Who just happen to be Republicans.
The reporter is a certified Villager:
No, it’s a festival of incendiary mass recriminations advanced by grotesque political opportunists willing to repeat and bolster totally unsubstantiated connections purely imagined from their cherrypicking piecemeal fragments of information about the suspect that, even preliminarily, indicate utter incoherence of thought and motive, beyond psychopathy.
It is beyond rational explanation how any of you can leap from a loner lunatic murderer apparently obsessed with literacy, “conscience dreaming” and BC/AD (or whatever) designations to your spasmodic accusations and bizarre conclusions that this fulfills your previous conniptions of prophesy that some website graphic from Sarah Palin would surely yield blood someday (!).
Good grief.
Sorry, anon. The language “Behind enemy lines” speaks for itself. We know who the enemies are: Repubs. And we know what you do to enemies: you commit violence against them. Unless you are willing to stop treating metaphors literally, you are not going to be able to whitewash this DLC article. What’s fair for the goose is fair for the gander. Besides, consistency is evidence of genuine liberality.