As I write this, the motivation behind the shooting of my friend Gabby Giffords and eleven others isn't clear. We don't know what prompted the shooter to show up at Gabby's Congress on Your Corner at a Tucson grocery store with a semiautomatic pistol and the motivation to kill innocent people. We don't know if it was unmitigated hatred and misdirected rage or paranoid delusion. We don't know if was politics -- aimed at Gabby's courageous stands on health care and immigration. I suspect in the end, we'll learn it was a combination of factors that led this young man to go on the rampage that shook the nation.
In a way, though, it doesn't really matter what prompted this act of senseless violence. What really matters is that we do everything we can to prevent it from happening again. And the first thing we can do is to crank down the rhetoric a few notches....
A good place to start a more civil dialog would be for my Republican colleagues in the House to change the name of the bill they have introduced to repeal health care reform. The bill, titled the "Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act," was set to come up for a vote this week, but in the wake of Gabby's shooting, it has been postponed at least until next week.This is so far beyond ridiculous, I really don't want to argue over it. Just ponder how far Democrats are going to gain political advantage from the carnage in Arizona.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not suggesting that the name of that one piece of legislation somehow led to the horror of this weekend -- but is it really necessary to put the word "killing" in the title of a major piece of legislation? I don't think that word is in there by accident -- my Republican friends know as well as anyone the power of words to send a message. But in this environment and at this moment in our nation's history, it's not the message we should be sending.
Update: Apparently this is the Dem meme du jour, Idiocracy: Conservatives who say “job-killing” are spreading hate.
--------------------------------------------
Related Posts:
The Palin "Target Map" Lie Has Traveled Far
Does Sheriff Clarence Dupnik Have No Shame?
Two Sicknesses On Display in Arizona
Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube
Visit the Legal Insurrection Shop on CafePress!
Professor, are you sure this isn't something from the Onion?
ReplyDeleteThis may be quite possibly the stupidest thing I've heard out of the Left in days. And given this weekend, that's a hell of an accomplishment.
Professor, I have held my tongue for 2+ days. My observation is the left got their ass handed to them on a platter in November, and they will again in 2012, and they are sore losers. Their disdain for this country has been evident for some time now, but, this ratcheted up, fabricated so-called journalism about the "hate" of the right may well be the death knell of liberals for a generation, if not forever.
ReplyDeleteShe might be right - I'm starting to think about shooting myself! Geesh!
ReplyDeleteOK - now that they are so concerned - bring on the Congressional hearings on violence in music - particularly rap music, video games, Hollywood movies and tv and advertising.
ReplyDeleteIf we must all understand the power of words to send a message let's not restrict this to politics.
How many acts of violence do you think this 22 year old suspect viewed on tv, movies, video games, etc?
Is it only Sarah Palins and conservative "grammar" that can drive an unstable person to commit mass murder?
Shameless. Liberals.
ReplyDeleteYou posted a poll a bit back on your performance last year. I voted "national treasure"
ReplyDeleteTimes like these is why.
Thanks.
If you folks here are concerned about this, get out and get motivated. Support Conservative candidates. Write letters of support to your Conservative reps and let them know you're behind them.
ReplyDeleteFinally, TURN OFF YOUR MEDIA. Many of the big Liberal media are going out of business soon anyway. The NYT is in its death throes, Time and Newsweek are in trouble, WaPo is losing advertisers and subscribers, CNN is spiraling down the toilet with last place ratings, MSNBC can't get a handful of people to watch their shows...
I think you get the picture.
Just what we need, more political correctness.
ReplyDeleteI'd cut them a deal -- Cantor will change the name of the bill if Louise Slaughter changes hers.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you decided to humour them:
ReplyDeletemaybe choose "job-destroying", "job-vaporizing", "job-pulverizing", or "job-expunging".
Any of those could work perfectly well as a substitute...
How America's elite hijacked a massacre to take revenge on Sarah Palin
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1345952/Arizona-shootings-How-Americas-elite-hijacked-massacre-revenge-Sarah-Palin.html#ixzz1AiIDWpR0
Okay, so let's think this through. Imagine if we hold them to their own standards (that fun Alinsky trick). And imagine if Sarah actually got the GOP nom for 2012.
ReplyDeleteOMG, I can't even write more about it, I'm laughing so hard. Honestly, what on earth would they SAY? hee!
Somebody tell the Labor Dept., because according to John Crudele at the NY Post, they're getting ready to "kill" 640,000 jobs on Feb. 4th:
ReplyDeleteSo even if there have been 1.3 million jobs created in the past year, that's next to nothing, especially since -- as I said -- it takes at least 150,000 a month just to absorb new people seeking employment.
But the president also needs to understand that the 1.3 million figure is wrong -- as the Labor Dept. will admit on Feb. 4, when the January employment number is announced.
On that date, Labor will also issue its annual benchmark revision to past reports. And right now it looks as if the department will admit that it mistakenly counted at least 640,000 jobs that don't really exist.
I just read the title of that legislation, and I am overcome with a powerful urge to kill Steve Jobs.
ReplyDelete"Economy-pillaging"
ReplyDeletePray the Senate nuclear option is never invoked again, else (white supremacist, please, certainly not Muslim) terrorists will be incited to set off tactical nukes at a Superbowl or something.
ReplyDelete