"And could someone explain this to me, please: when exactly is a good time to try to score political points? When your politics don't happen to be in the news that day looking guilty as sin? When there isn't a deluge of information to point to about how fucked up your approach to political disagreements is? This sort of thinking is like a guy in court telling the prosecutor it's not fair to try to score a conviction with all his fancy evidence. Be awful nice if people could wait till the heat blows over, right?"
Using a tragedy like the shooting in Arizona to score cheap political points is pretty despicable. That's what we're being told anyway. It's mostly coming from right-leaning pundits and bloggers, you will not be in any way surprised to hear, like this fellow .
"First, it is sad to see folks immediately politicize such a tragedy. If your first response to such an event is to think of Sarah Palin, something is wrong," writes Matt Lewis, from something called Politics Daily." I don't want to be right, then, I reckon.
Using a tragedy like this to make valid political points, however, is necessary. Even on dick joke blogs.
Maybe not, says John Guardiano, from the Daily Caller. "The reprehensible Matthew Yglesias of the Center for American Progress has rushed forward to try and politicize this event in a despicable attempt to score cheap political points for the far Left," he writes. "Disgustingly, Yglesias blames Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann for creating a political climate in which 'violent rhetoric and imagery' apparently incite people to murder."
Maybe Sarah Palin didn't have anything to do with this. But "Sarah Palin" sure did.
And could someone explain this to me, please: when exactly is a good time to try to score political points? When your politics don't happen to be in the news that day looking guilty as sin? When there isn't a deluge of information to point to about how fucked up your approach to political disagreements is? This sort of thinking is like a guy in court telling the prosecutor it's not fair to try to score a conviction with all his fancy evidence. Be awful nice if people could wait till the heat blows over, right?
You know what was a pretty good instance of using a tragedy to score political points I've just been reminded of recently?
There are obviously a thousand better places to read about the political assassination in Arizona than this site right now, but there's a couple things I wanted to mention before I get back to detailing the petty social grievances that are annoying me today....
Among those killed yesterday was Christina Green, a nine year old born in September 11, 2001.
Christina, who was born when the family was living in West Grove, Pennsylvania, was one of the 50 “Faces of Hope” representing babies from 50 states who were born on 9/11. Their images were printed in a book, with some of the proceeds used to raise money for a 9/11 charity. NYT
What a depressing coincidence. Speaking of depressing coincidences, here's a video via Crooks and Liars of Fox News abruptly smashing to a commercial as soon as someone at a vigil in Arizona mentions Sarah Palin's name. Probably just a technical glitch though, so don't read too much into it.
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16 comments:
Sarah Palin is code for "go to commercial" on every other channel, so the mistake is innocent. No one ever wants to see or hear about her under any circumstance.
Oh weird, I feel like I should've known that.
Disregard this post. Probably safe to just disregard the entire blog too come to think of it.
sarah palin is a fucking pig.
I seem to remember a certain cheerleader in chief using something else to score cheap political points. But, you know, muslin communists gubmint medicaid illegal aliens jeezis! At least, that's what I hear when i turn on fox...
Remember, guns don't kill people. People with guns and a list of targets provided by a former vice-presidential candidate kill people.
good point anonymous. i am going to add that in.
An important point to counter right wing trolls using that quote from the FBI terrorism report about left wing terrorism being more prevalent is this from the same report:
The majority of domestic terrorism incidents from 1993 to 2001 were attributable to the left-wing special interest movements the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Right-wing extremism, however, primarily in the form of domestic militias and conservative special interest causes, began to overtake left-wing extremism as the most dangerous, if not the most prolific, domestic terrorist threat to the country during the 1990s. In contrast to the ALF and the ELF, which have pursued a philosophy that avoids physical violence in favor of acts of property damage that cause their victims economic harm, right-wing extremists pursued a qualitatively different method of operation by targeting people.
I wish you weren't such a goddamn hippie.
I do too sometimes.
I just wish people into guns would be a bit more honest about the whole thing. They really enjoy shooting and hunting and stuff, and they think the occasional massacre of innocent people is a price worth paying for being able to do their cool hobbies.
I personally couldn't see myself wanting to own a gun (expect if The Apocalypse happens). You guys make it sound like banning them would be an off switch though.
They've had about 5 or 10 of these kinds of shootings up in Montreal, and guns have always been illegal there.
5 or 10, Bud? Yeah, you know, like 2 to 30 massacres, somewhere in there, give or take, whatever.
Also, since when are guns illegal in Canada?
http://canadaonline.about.com/od/guncontrol/a/gun-control-canada.htm
There are some additional restrictions on certain types of guns, compared to the US, but there still plenty of licensed firearms.
I'm not a massacre enthusiast so I don't know the exact number. There was an incident as recent as this year, and they've been an almost regular occurrence in that town for over two decades.
Regarding guns being "illegal" in Canada, you know what I mean. My point was I think these people will just find other ways to do the same thing.
No idea how you people don't understand the difference between killing people by pressing a button from across the room and getting up close and smashing their heads in or stabbing and stabbing and stabbing. It's really not that easy, all things considered, to kill a single person with a knife or a club or so on, never mind multiple people.
Someone who wants to kill will kill, or try to, sure, so let's just make it easy as fucking possible for them to inflict as much damage as they can? How is that even an argument? It's not, is how.
That wasn't my argument/I don't understand why assault rifles are bought and sold for recreational use.
I'm just wondering what you're suggesting with all this, a ban on hunting?
OK, that's a pretty good place to start, I think a lot of people agree.
Hunting is a hobby at best. Gopnik explained how I feel about that
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/newtown-and-the-madness-of-guns.html
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