Jared Lee Loughner Was A Moderate!

Some nut named Jared shot twelve people including congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Perhaps unsurprisingly, people went looking for someone to blame.

The first question everybody wants to know is: is this guy a lefty or a righty? Despite some who claim him to be a lefty, my impression is that he’s just crazy – which I know to some is synonymous with the left, but I don’t mean that kind of crazy. According to this article his favorite books included Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. Communists are considered far left and Nazis far right, so I suppose this guy Jared must be pretty well balanced out. In other words, he’s a moderate.

Note: Many on the right would characterize both Nazism and Communism to be ideologies of the far left. See my previous entry on the subject of how different people see the political spectra here. In fact, I write often on the subject; it will probably come up again.

There are many across the blogosphere who would try to place blame on the rhetoric of the tea parties for creating a climate of violence – but who is really more violent? The tea party protesters? Or the government, which backs up its enacted laws with the threat of force? To a member of the tea party, they see themselves as merely reacting to the violence (or the threat of it) perpetuated against them. In fact, it is anti-tea-party people that often have the harshest rhetoric. Some characterize them as hateful, self-indulgent racists. Isn’t anybody worried about inciting violence against tea party members?

I heard on the radio on Sunday someone suggest that the intrusion into our lives of the government by the threat of force has created “a culture of violence” where violence is accepted as almost normal. I’m very skeptical of that theory, but at least in that case we’re talking about actual violence and not mere rhetoric.

In years past, I have heard some blame our tolerance for abortion for creating a tolerance for all kinds of violence and the cheapening of human life.

In years past, I have heard some blame violent movies and entertainment for desensitizing us to violence, and making us more likely to use it.

In years past, I blamed everything on my sister.

Others would try to say that use of the term “second-amendment solutions” promotes violence, but one has to ask, isn’t the second amendment part of the same document that gives the federal government the authority to do things? In a nation such as ours, whose founding was based on the perceived right to “alter or abolish,” how can one avoid such rhetoric? It permeates every political discussion we have, and last time I checked, I didn’t see the Queen on US money.

It seems everyone has an axe to grind – hold on, I’d better not use that phrase. I might be inciting axe-based violence….

It seems that everyone is blaming the usual suspects (there, that’s better), but I see nobody suggesting that maybe it’s just Jared. In any case, blaming each other for everything isn’t very helpful. In fact, blaming Palin or Bachmann (or Obama or Pelosi, for that matter) for the actions of one disturbed man with an odd name does as much to harm civil dialogue as anything that they might have said.

Sheesh…Next people will be blaming harsh rhetoric for those poor dead birds.