Assassination in Tucson

hishadow said:

You'll all just have to wait for the police investigation to uncover what triggered him to do the shooting. He's obviously going to be declared mentally insane, so his reasons may just be based on something imagined. But he used computers and that might give some hints to his reasoning.

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Well, since he has the right to not say anything to the police (I never understood that right) about his motives that might take quite a while, unless he was stupid enough to actually write it somewhere or talk to someone else about it beforehand.

Übereil

dteowner said:

Simply put, you're complaining about tea party activists and calling them a bunch of brainwashed rubes (your words, in case your memory is short): As that really doesn't line up well with reality, I can only chalk such silliness up to fear of things you're not comfortable with. The only other option would be painful ignorance, and you've never really come across as that sort of person. Thus, the fear.

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While I would not (and did not) say brainwashed rubes exactly, the tea party fits the paranoid description rather well. Just look at some of those people holding up posters comparing Obama to Hitler because of health reform. I mean, come on! That's too stupid not to raise an eyebrow! I am not saying that they are all like this, but I do think that they are exploited by people like Sarah Palin for their own agendas, and they are kept in a state of "evil government" paranoia by manipulative weirdos like Glenn Beck. It's just a little disappointing to observe, because as a kid, I used to idolize the US a little (I was born in Eastern Germany and my family fled before reunification because they were not happy at all with actual real-life socialism, if you must know).

dteowner said:

If you can supply a comment of yours regarding the rioting Greeks or the striking Frenchies that implies they are a bunch of brainwashed rubes, that would certainly put my accusation to bed. I don't think such a post exists. In fact, I don't think you've weighed in on those topics at all, which implies apathy at best and tacit approval at worst.

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Actually, I remember making a few comments in regard to the shooting of a kid in Greece by a policemen, but I also have a rather nice, busy life, and don't always want to commit time to comment on socio-political issues on RPGWatch when there are other, more important things to do. That does not mean that I do not care.

dteowner said:

At the very least, you're moved to complain about US conservatives where you've not been similarly motivated to complain about Euro lefties. Thus, the eyebrow.

Does that evidence clear it up for you any? Or shall we just fall back to your nice, unsubstantiated "cuz I say so" and move along? I encourage you to spell out your position if I'm misrepresenting your words somehow.

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Hope I cleared it up some.

In regard to the shooter, the last news I read seemed to indicate that he was surprisingly lucid for a madman. Currently, my thoughts are mostly with Gabrielle Giffords, though. I hope there is some chance of recovery for her.

I heard that she can respond to commands and can breathe on her own (but they are keeping her on a breathing tube to prevent aspiration). Her autonomic functions appear to be OK, but the bullet went through her upper left brain - higher functions may be impaired. Her Dr. is fairly sure she will survive since the swelling hasn't been too bad. Creepy that they had to remove her scalp and some of her skull to allow room for potential swelling. The scalp is in a refrigerator. Gruesome….

"He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right."

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser...ect-did-not-watch-tv-disliked-the-news_b48040

Human nature never ceases to amaze me.
13,000+ homicides occur annually in the USA.
Are some lives valued more than others?
I do not recall moments of silence or nonstop media attention in 2009 for the 13,000+ when each was killed.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/homicide.html

I really bothers me that politicians think they should now have bodyguards, rather than trying to remove the cause.

@Thrasher: thank you for the update. I also just read about some of the neurology involved and her chances do not seem to be too bad, as doctors reacted quickly in opening her skull to allow the brain to swell, and the artificial coma will allow the cells to regenerate without additional stress. Let's hope.

Completely off-topic, but to ramble a bit in an attempt to 'answer' Michael Ellis:

Naturally, every life should be precious, but obviously our emotions are stirred more by personal experiences than statistical data, by events we can relate to, and we do not relate to events apart from our lives and out of the daily news. The homicide statistic is a good example. The following I just looked up on Wikipedia: "On the average, 1 child dies every 5 seconds as a result, either directly or indirectly, of hunger"

On the other side of the spectrum, pure fiction might succeed in moving us at our core when we read about the protagonists' tragic deaths in a novel, and make us think how events might have played out differently for hours. Something I would not even consider a waste of time, if we learn something about human nature that way.

This inequality sounds paradox and unfair, but in human evolution, what pertained to the survival of oneself, ones family and ones tribe was always more immediately relevant for the continuation of ones kind than the fate of strangers. We survived, Neanderthals did not. Also on evolutionary scales, we have been able to hear about far-off events only very recently, and influence politics, economy and apparently now also the weather globally only in the last few generations. Human nature just did not have the time to adjust, but we probably have to learn soon, if not with our emotions than with our mind, that no one is alone on this planet any more, and does not exist independently from those on the other side of the Earth, or those outside of our social stratum. We have to learn to think globally.

Anyway, these are my naive assumptions, but I am not a social scientist, so we probably have more competent people to talk about this here ;-)

Thrasher said:

Creepy that they had to remove her scalp and some of her skull to allow room for potential swelling. The scalp is in a refrigerator. Gruesome….

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A cousin of mine fell quite far and hit his head. They removed about 1/3 of his skull to prevent the swelling of his brain from killing him. To make a long story short he's doing great now and has a titanium (I think) skull replacement for the piece they removed. His biggest problems are forgetting some words. I talked to him a few weeks ago and if I hadn't known about his injury I wouldn't have been able to tell.

"The tea party" are funny guys yet they represent a movement in Usan society that is to the right direction. You need to evolve politically , even if you start by doing everything wrong. Your culture is highly individualistic and orgs that bring people together are a good start.
I know that in the states the whole debate is between the left and the right (although most Euans laugh with your definition of what the "left" is ) but it is just a phase and i am sure that soon you will realise that there are many paths and you don't really need labels.

*I read Palin's statement on the assassination , i am surprised by her writing level ( almost as good as Bioware's ) since i didn't believe that she had graduated elementary school .

*I dont get how "rioting Greeks" got into the debate , this is a good article on this issue

Isn't it interesting that, as more and more facts about this nutjob come to light, nobody in the mainstream media has the integrity to step up and say, "We were wrong to blame the Tea Party for this. We allowed our personal bias to influence our reporting of the facts, and that is wrong." The silence is deafening. I guess, when the media draws false conclusions that benefit lefties, that's OK.

Why is the right so completely desperate to display him as a nutjob before the facts are in? One would think they are playing CYA.

And at the same time they are decrying any "insanity defense" stuff which I find humorous given the other "he's nuts!" stuff.

I'd say there's enough documented facts available at this point to declare the guy a nutjob. Unlike before his name was even announced and the mainstream media was blindly linking him to the Tea Party. But this was slander by liberals, so it's completely different, right?

If you can't fathom the difference between insanity (he's nuts) and the "get out of jail free" card that is the insanity defense, I don't know that I can really help you, BS.

Well there is obviously *something* wrong with a person who indiscrimitely guns down 20 people, including a child.

dteowner said:

If you can't fathom the difference between insanity (he's nuts) and the "get out of jail free" card that is the insanity defense, I don't know that I can really help you, BS.

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If you think that an "insanity defense" is a "get out of jail free card" then there's no help for you. Seriously.

For every person that legitimately has mental problems, there's a dozen shysters that try (and far too often manage) to dodge their much-deserved punishment by aiming for a few quiet years in the happy home. Consider the reality of our legal system before you rush to toss a pointless insult. Seriously.

dteowner said:

For every person that legitimately has mental problems, there's a dozen shysters that try (and far too often manage) to dodge their much-deserved punishment...

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Now, what you (or anyone else) has never managed to explain to me is why the "fact" that they "deserve" punishment matters. What's the point of punishment for punishment's sake?

Übereil

You seem to be forgetting the little matter of the crime they commit prompting said punishment. You know, those pesky little precursors like cold blooded murder. If y'all had half the compassion for the victims you continually display for the perpetrators, we'd have some real progress toward that utopia y'all dream about.

dteowner said:

You seem to be forgetting the little matter of the crime they commit prompting said punishment. You know, those pesky little precursors like cold blooded murder. If y'all had half the compassion for the victims you continually display for the perpetrators, we'd have some real progress toward that utopia y'all dream about.

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Yeah, you are not the first one to think so! I found this link to crime and punishment in the middle ages for you, in case you are interested:

http://lcjb.cjsonline.gov.uk/Cambridgeshire/1534.html

To quote a few lines: The punishment for theft in the Middle Ages was very severe. Anyone convicted of stealing a shilling or more could be hanged. People found guilty of minor theft could have their hands or ears cut off, be branded with hot irons, shamed in the stocks or whipped through the streets.
This did not appear to deter people from stealing.
According to figures obtained from eight counties between 1300 and 1348, theft made up 73.5% of all recorded offences, followed by murder, which accounted for 18.2% of crime.

Sounds like the utopia you dream about? Personally, my dreams are a bit different

But just to be fair, there really seems very little evidence neither for nor against harsh sentences as a deterrent: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4457402.stm

dteowner said:

You seem to be forgetting the little matter of the crime they commit prompting said punishment. You know, those pesky little precursors like cold blooded murder. If y'all had half the compassion for the victims you continually display for the perpetrators, we'd have some real progress toward that utopia y'all dream about.

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Well, it didn't you rightwings long to cease the opportunity once you were in the clear. You are just as bad as the leftwing media you're attacking.

http://www.scotsman.com/news-analys...red-Democrats-don39t.6692025.jp?articlepage=1

h/t sheek@RPGCodex

dteowner said:

You seem to be forgetting the little matter of the crime they commit prompting said punishment.

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Please explain to me how that crime will be uncomitted just because we punish the wrongdoer. Will a victim of murder start to live because we punish the murderer? Or will the victim be dead no matter how hard we punish the murderer?

Übereil