"I knew a man who believed that his every thought was tapped by the government."

Oh, so you've met my former brother in law. My condolences.

But seriously... I'd be interested in knowing, Knute, how you would compare the insanity you credit the political right with today with the insanity of the political left in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It wasn't all bong hits and drum circles, after all.

I've heard a lot of talk about the Tea Party movement and talk radio in relation to this rampage, but the guy's two favorite books seemed to be "The Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kampf." Those seem to be decidedly big government screeds, and from what I've read, that's not the agenda of the Tea Party protesters. It's easy to blame political movements that one finds distasteful for the ills of the world, but everything I've learned about this murderer is that he's a classic paranoid schizophrenic and politics doesn't enter into his world except in a very bizarre, irrational and twisted way.

While it's too early to focus the discussion on what exactly motivated this shooter that caused him to commit this terrible crime, there is a glaring fact that cannot be ignored.

Representative Gifford is the first elected representative, from Arizona, that is Jewish. And while she is struggling for her life, 6 people are dead including her chief of staff, Mr. Zimmerman, who was also Jewish.

As the investigation continues and more data is brought forward, Anti-semitism will, again, rear it's ugly head.

It's hair-splitting to attempt to determine the killer's poltiical agenda if he even had one. The role of the Tea Party in this tragedy stems more from their freqent use of violent imagery in speeches and advertising...added to that the constant repetition of it in the media and on the Internet...all contributes to the poisonous atmosphere which makes a sick person more likley to act on this sick fantasies. The fact that the Palin people are now trying to claim that the famous "cross-hairs" were not gun related indicates that they themselves realize the role they played.

@TaylorB1--I agree (and am fascinated to hear that there's a non-gun-related meaning of crosshairs. I can't wait to learn what that might be.) As a mental health professional, let me add that one thing to keep in mind is that people in a psychotic state are often acutely sensitive to tone, which they can interpret accurately even while the meaning of the words may be garbled. I remember talking with a schizophrenic man once who was deeply puzzled and upset by radio commercials. "The voice is saying she's excited about the one-day white sale, but she doesn't really sound excited. Why is she saying that?" He could tell very clearly that the actress in the ad didn't feel the excitement--she sounded incongruent to him, and he couldn't make sense of it.

Those of us who are lucky enough not to have to struggle with psychosis should keep in mind that not everyone can easily tell rhetoric from reality. I don't mean to pick on conservatives, since the left has produced its share of bad ideas and violent discourse. But these days in this country it is so-called conservatives like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Pailin who are pushing the envelope on a mode of public discourse that is edgy, filled with contempt and fear and scapegoating and violent metaphors. If you disagree with them, you are vile and should be killed. Even if the only thing you disagree on is health-care policy. And when anyone fills the airwaves with that kind of tone, which unlike the white-sale ad is unmistakably sincere in its emotional intensity, it's inevitable that some of the psychotics among us will act on it.

well said!
psb

Self proclaimed "mental health professional" Yarrow writes: "But these days in this country it is so-called conservatives like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Pailin [sic] who are pushing the envelope on a mode of public discourse that is edgy, filled with contempt and fear and scapegoating and violent metaphors. If you disagree with them, you are vile and should be killed."

Not being a conservative, I don't carry water for these people (I only reply because I find it fascinating how the left is so shamelessly using this opportunity to discredit their enemies). I only rarely listen to what people like Limbaugh and Beck have to say, but if you truly believe this, I doubt you have listened to any of these conservatives at all. So why condemn something you know nothing about? If I was a smart-alek, I'd say something cute like "Mental health professional, mentally heal thyself", but I'm not, so I won't. :-)

@dbrenemen--Hm. I don't think I'm proclaiming anything. I mentioned that I work in the mental health field because that offered some background for my comment about psychotic thought processes.

I have listened to these folks. I don't consider them my enemies, and I did clearly say I see the left as just as guilty as the right, historically speaking. But in recent years the noise has been louder coming from people who identify as "conservative." (Personally I don't think they represent the best of conservatism, by a long mile.) If you think that people like me are just faking concern about the mode of discourse , I don't think you're hearing us. Or Palin, or Beck, or Ann Coulter. Or Gabby Giffords--who said in an interview a few months ago that threats of violence against members of Congress were at an all-time high, and she called on Sarah Palin then to take responsibility for inflammatory tricks like the crosshairs on her website.

Maybe people get immured to the tone of hostility, paranoia and contempt, so that we forget how to disagree with respect.

In a short piece for the BBC, Adam Curtis once declared that now we are all Richard Nixon. Nixon ultimately engineered his downfall because of his paranoid worldview: he saw conspiracies against him everywhere and acted on those beliefs. The Watergate scandal woke the press up to its new true calling: ferreting out corruption and wrongdoing at all levels of society. This extended beyond the world of politics and led to investigations into the ills of the business world, science, and even the public itself. The resulting images were those of a dangerous world, one full of killer bee invasions and Halloween candy with razor blades. It was a worldview as paranoid as Nixon's.

Another aspect of this is the fragmentation of the press. For better or worse, in the immediate postwar era, a handful of media empires served as the gatekeepers of the mainstream. They kept such notions as that communists were brainwashing America through fluoridated water from being considered respectable. Now, there no longer appears to be such a thing as the "mainstream".

Yarrow, I don't believe that you are one of the opportunists. But there seem to be a lot of them out there. Maybe you have heard more from the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, et al, than I have. But I've never heard any of them say that the people who disagree with them should be killed, and that was what set me off. You can't lament harsh political discourse while at the same time engaging in it. Unfortunately, I did exactly the same thing. Sorry for being so snide.

As for the infamous crosshairs, I did a google search on that map and what I saw looked rather innocuous. Targeting people for defeat, taking aim at your opponents and reloading for another skirmish are all common metaphors in the political lexicon of both parties. The alarm at Palin's map strikes me as disingenuous and entirely manufactured. If she'd used bull's eyes on her map, would we be expecting a rash of murders with bows and arrows?

@dbrenemen--good point. I haven't often heard any of those commenters calling for killing people in so many words. Though Ann Coulter pretty much says that liberals are traitors and traitors should be shot. I guess I'm talking about the jeering, contemptuous tone and the paranoid characterization of people who disagree as the enemy. Which I guess I lapsed into there--it is a little paranoid to say that Glenn Beck et al. call for people to be killed. thanks for pointing that out.

I think the issue here is not between left and right, it's between paranoid and more reasoned kinds of discourse. Instead of, "You're wrong about this because..." it's "You're a _______."

But I think the crosshairs are an issue because Gabby Giffords herself pointed out--mildly and reasonably--that she thought they were having an impact. It's not just the one schizophrenic man who's acted violently toward this one Congresswoman in particular. Her office was broken into earlier this year, the glass door smashed, by someone who was upset about "Obamacare." Giffords said that others in Congress too were experiencing an all-time high in threats of violence.

I don't think there's much danger of people using bows and arrows, but on the other hand I don't think anyone (so far) would be so tasteless as to use a little noose icon, so if nooses are out, why should crosshairs be in?

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.

Interesting thread, but I have to go design a tinfoil hat. As a project manager, I need to spec this out in terms of dimensions, guage, and degree of crinkle for stealth. Oh, I forgot the most important variable: Fox or MSNBC.

I sit and read with amusement the responses yarrow gets to a well written peice and what do you think the responses are (

(EX)

{As for the infamous crosshairs, I did a google search on that map and what I saw looked rather innocuous. Targeting people for defeat}

(EX)

If I was a smart-alek, I'd say something cute like "Mental health professional, mentally heal thyself",

(EX)

(nice straw-man argument)And quote from the sixties and seventies and well into the eighties, tell me how many hippies went on killing spree's?
Or course the obvious is Manson but he was a conservative and manipulative.
Hinkley, John Lennon, Kent State, mass hysteria by a government, Abortion doctors with cross hairs on their lives,hmmmm care to argue that one?
they are called conservatives, FAUX phony news is good place to start researching all of the so called cross hair incident's, And more mass hysteria caused by irrational spook em up, beat up conservatives and or kill them because the govt is coming to take you away from my control.
James Town, David Koresh WHACKO Texas, and no I'm not forgetting the frenzy that was Ruby Ridge either, that should never have ended that way. trigger happy people don't belong possessing guns, more when there is no clear and present danger.

We with the insanity of the political left in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It wasn't all bong hits and drum circles, after all.

Ok I rambled just a tad, so I'll dash out to the garage and grab my old tin hat and put some Aluminum Foil all around it like a viel, punch hole in it for ventilation. and seeing where I'm going, in addition I'll add some reindeer like appendages so the radar thinks I'm a loose deer or something, and celebrate viewing nuts with guns going wild,sic and sit here and amuse myself reading folks defend by proxy the conduct of the murder in Arizona with whatever handy strawman they can contrive, and generaly speaking they are all from the right even though they add disclaimers that they aren't.
Nightslider-

Strange, I don't recall the virulent anti-Reagan rhetoric of the Left being blamed for John Hinckley shooting Reagan.

It's sad the far left and far right screamers are too busy trying to assign blame in their own way. "HE WAS A LEFTIST! NO, HE WAS A RIGHTIE!"

Yet, no one is talking about the most obvious thing here. This was, by definition, a TERRORIST attack. That is, an attack on our political system. Yet, because of the racism in our country (and media), it wasn't covered as a terrorist attack since the guy was white. Apparently terrorist attacks by whites are ok. Just think if his name was Mohammad Loughner.

Eric Cantor hit it right on the head in this floor speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAbaKxFcr7M

"Saturday's cowardly crime was more than just an attack on dozens of innocent Americans at a grocery store. It was an attack on the very essence of democracy and representative government. It was an assault on the open exchange of ideas between legislators and the people to whom they are accountable."

He described it perfectly. Yet, he didn't call it a terrorist attack either. It's too bad Knute couldn't have penned something a bit more thoughtful than a tinfoil hat story. The racism and terrorism angle is a whole lot more relevant and thought provoking.

I didn't care for the speeches reviling an ill person whose search for meaning found tomes written by others who attempted to define and manage society.

As a society, this country has peculiar habits; for example, note the highly paid stellar mud slinging blamers mentioned throughout comments on this thread. Why do we give them money? For entertainment? If we didn't, would they find something useful to do, or is that their purpose on earth?

I haven't heard the merit or fault of health care reform from these mouthpieces (Slurs about this government intending to break the back of America--it might be big business, not the government). The first phase seemed to be 100% for the insurance companies: my tax dollars goes straight to them to buy coverage for those without insurance. Who are these people? I don't know--why isn't that on the news? I've heard from supporters that 'Obamacare' makes sense, given that young families are paying on average, $6,328 annually for health insurance. That is more than health care (fully covered) in some countries.

I have a mentally disabled sibling, whose care is managed by private individuals who are certified by the state and regulated by the RCW/WACs...would you pay a $280 annual fee to the bank to "manage" your $2000 savings account? That sure don't seem like fair and reasonable recovery of costs.

Starting this month, next phase of health care reform, there's no longer an upper limit for things covered by insurance. So let me paraphrase what I've heard on several occasions. "I couldn't afford a XXXX, but now, I only want TOP OF THE LINE!" You can get a $4,000 crutch. This attitude is precisely what drove the Soviet Union into bankruptcy, created the "zero down mortgage" market that padded 6 figure Wall Street incomes with 6 figure bonuses. And when it collapsed, the taxpayer fills the shortfall to prop up the country. Those who lived through the USSR demise and have made it to the USA are against health reform because they were on the wrong end of greed, and it colors their thinking, their acting. They came here.

For me, hearing aids are not covered by insurance, but it would really help me do my job better. For a colleague, lap band and abdominoplasty is covered--by the VA. I'm doubly crossed; this person never left the state, remains an avid vending machine connosieur (bad news if you have lap band), needs counseling. Costs me money (my tax dollars). And I'm left to ponder: what kind of nest egg has Congress set aside for those returning from overseas tours?

I'm not liking the implementation of health reform so far. From my view, the arms reaching out to the relief truck are pharmaceutical and insurance corporations, military spending, and those who rely on section 8 housing. Who stands to gain the most money from...me. What would it really cost to care for one another?

At 19, I was faced with the morality of Vietnam. I was an ROTC candidate. And a Christian. The raging tumult. Kent State. The truth was very difficult to eke out. I was confused. I never understood or liked the movie Apocalypse Now; it was senseless--I couldn't even figure out what I was looking at. But it might sum up that era and the truth: Lyndon's wife had a daddy that owned a helicopter company....cowardly crime attack on dozens of innocent...I'm thinkin Iraq, Laos, Kent State, helicopters, and Agent Orange.

It really saddens me. Gabrielle and the families of the other 18. How Jared, in a bad place socially as well as mentally gained some kind of solace in "social sites" that influenced his identity. I reflect on the forum for Hitler's ideas and his encouragers. What sort of encouragment did Jared glean from a social "wall"? Who are these people? There is crime and cowardice in his encouragers.