Gabrielle Giffords attack

[David Johnson]

Hi
Sarah Palin puts up a map in the US including various Democratic congressmen and women with rifle crosshairs pointing at places like Arizona where the Democrat Gabrielle Giffords is a Congress woman. Palin had a slogan "Aim....reload" And calls Giffords a communist for supporting the healthcare bill.

A few months later, a mass murder takes place at a public meeting in Arizona including an assassination attempt on Giffords.

If it had been a Muslim guy in Tucson who had put up the same inflammatory stuff, I wonder what would have happened to them?

Just a thought.

Cheers
D

[Flat_Eric]

I don't think that Palin actually called for Giffords (or anyone else for that matter) to actually be shot though did she David?

The cross-hairs on the map that I believe you're alluding to were symbols of the congressional SEATS being **electoral** "targets".

In the light of subsequent events, yes you can argue about whether such symbolism was "appropriate" or not. But surely you can understand that?

- Eric

[David Johnson]

Agreed.

She didnt say "shoot that person" but the debate going on in the States is about Tea Party members and Sarah Palin using violent language and imagery and accusing politicians of being communists, ant-American, anti-constitution for passing measures she disagrees with. Gifford's herself commented on the Dont retreat - reload" slogan with

"When people do that, they?ve got to realise there are consequences to that action.?

Such violent language and imagery in a country where the accused got turned down from the army for mental instability and was banned from college for the same reason, yet was a legal gun owner, is asking for trouble.

I repeat if it had been a group of Muslims running events where you can offload the contents of a rifle into a cardboard cutout of a politician I doubt if they would be left to just get on with it.

Cheers
D

[Flat_Eric]

David Johnson wrote:

>>


But it wasn't a cardboard cutout of a politician was it? At least not that I'm aware of. It was just crosshairs symbols superimposed on a map. Not the same thing at all.

Bit of a straw man argument there, David.

- Eric

[David Johnson]

"Bit of a straw man argument there, David."

You misunderstand. The event I allude to was at a Tea Party get-together. I am not suggesting that it was on Sarah Palins website.

If you compare the violent language and imagery used by the Tea party and their supporters such as Sarah Palin and consider that this is in a country which locks Muslims up in Guatanamo Bay for year after year without due process of law, it is hardly equal treatment is it?

Secondly I am not familiar with US law but in the UK there is an offence of inciting violence and I would have thought the violent language and imagery of the Tea Partyers is bordering on that.

Cheers
D

[Flat_Eric]

David, I'm not familiar with all the utterances of the Tea Party so it's possible I may have missed something key.

But as far as I'm aware, neither Palin nor anyone else in her crowd has actually called for anyone to be killed, or even advocated violent acts.

That's quite unlike your "death to the Infidels" extremist Muslim types, who often openly call for the violent demise of anyone they don't like (which seems to be most people apart from themselves).

- Eric

[David Johnson]

You keep going on about something I have not said. I repeat I am not stating that Palin said "Shoot Giffords"

However, to use violent imagery and words accusing people of being anti-American, anti-constitutional, communist, Nazi, attacking the American way of life etc etc together with phrases like "Dont Retreat, Reload" etc etc is creating an atmosphere in which actual violence is more likely to occur particularly in a country such as the US which has such lax gun laws.

Cheers
D

[David Johnson]

If a Muslim group had posted the same inflammatory comments and images and then two months later one of the Congress women included in their comments was shot, I would expect at the very least that members of the group would be arrested for questioning in relation to the shooting even though they themselves did not say shoot Giffords.

Cheers
D

[Robches]

I find the attempts of the left to smear Sarah Palin and the Tea Party for this attack highly distasteful. They are actually using the sort of inflammatory language they claim to oppose, implying that their opponents support violence and incite murder. In fact the killer seems to have been a mentally ill man with no rational views at all, but the left has succeeded in getting their lies across, with the help of the media of course. As they say, a lie can cross the world while the truth is putting its shoes on.

[David Johnson]

How's this for inflammatory language. Nobody as far as I am aware has said Palin tweeted "Shoot Giffords" but as Giffords herself said a few weeks ago, comments like those below have consequences. This wasnt the first attack on Giffords. Bullets had been fired through her office windows and various threats made. When you have the stuff below coming at you 24/7 it is hardly surprising that an environment is created where political violence can almost be viewed as acceptable.

Cheers
D

"In November last year, Giffords was narrowly re-elected against a Tea Party Republican named Jesse Kelly, who, as a 6ft 8in former sergeant in the US Marine Corps, found it natural to conduct his political campaign in the language of warfare. Kelly called Palin "too moderate", and one can catch the flavour of his candidacy in this unpunctuated announcement of an event held on 12 June 2010: "Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automated M-16 with Jesse Kelly."

Or, as Sarah Palin put it in a Tweet last year: "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't retreat ? instead RELOAD!'

Glenn Beck, a tea party supporter and commentator for Fox News
"This is a presenter who's said that liberals want to set up internment camps for patriots and that President Obama is a racist. He regularly warns that violence and revolution are coming to America. In September, he claimed on his show: "I believe these are the most dangerous two years of our republic. Because in the end, in revolutions, the real dangerous killers show up when things start to fall apart.

A year ago, Sharron Angle, the right-wing Tea Party favourite and Nevada's Republican Senate nominee, warned that "if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies". This was a reference to the right of US citizens to bear arms.